The argument was already in progress. She stood in the hall and listened for a moment. The First Enchanter’s voice, then the Knight-Commander’s. It was the kind of disagreement that had been running long enough to develop a familiar shape. Multiple Senior Enchanters were mentioned.
She stepped inside.
Irving’s study was constantly engaged in a similar textual argument: books cross-referencing other books, surfaces buried in parchment, the ongoing entropy of a man who was always in the middle of three things.
One of the desks had a skull floating two inches above it. It reminded her of a play. But this was no metaphor. Just a skull.
A stranger stood between the two men, someone who’d come from outside. And an outsider always stood out immediately. Not just the unfamiliar armor: matte-polished, well-oiled but patched. He was in a kit that had lived through several adventures. He had brown skin and dark hair neatly pulled back, greying around the ears.
Templars were people waiting to be needed. This man had the stillness of someone who was tired. His eyes bounced from man to man as the argument developed. His posture was broad and still. But his eyes were fast.
Irving leaned on one of his desks. The one with the floating skull. She recognized the calm inquiry of the First-Enchanter’s spite.
“Since when do you feel such kinship with the mages, Greagoir? Or is it that you’d rather keep them here where the Chantry can watch them not use their Maker-given powers?”
Geagoir: “How dare you suggest—”
She parked her staff in the doorway with a wooden knock. They kept arguing.
The stranger looked at her.
“Irving,” he said, without raising his voice. He spoke with gravelly diplomacy that cut through the argument without volume. “Someone is here.”
Both men turned. She gave each one their courtesy:
“First Enchanter,” she nodded. “Knight-Commander.” And greeting the stranger simply, “Hello.”
“Ah.” Irving reorganized into a warmer presentation, the administrator becoming the headmaster, the version she’d known since a single-digit age. “If it isn’t our new sister in the Circle. Come, child.”
She crossed the room. The stranger watched her with total, professional attention.
“This is…?” he said.
“Emma,” she said, staring back.
“Yes,” Irving said. “This is she.”
Greagoir’s gaze moved between them with a sour expression.
“You’re obviously busy, Irving. We’ll discuss this later.”
“Of course.” Irving watched him go, looking satisfied with pausing his argument in a winning position. Then, smooth as a page turning: “Where was I. Yes. Emma, this is Duncan. Of the Grey Wardens.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she said with polite interest.
“You’ll have heard about the situation to the south,” Irving continued. Emma nodded. “Duncan is recruiting for the king’s army at Ostagar.”
“Has our contingent not yet arrived?” asked Emma. The Circle had sent at least 50 mages to Ostagar already.
“They have by now,” said Duncan. “The darkspawn threat is worse than it looks from here,” he continued, as if most things were. “We need mages. Your spells are effective against large numbers of mindless darkspawn. If we don’t push them back, we may be looking at a Blight.”
“Duncan.” Irving’s tone, patient. “You’ll alarm the poor girl.”
She was not alarmed by that. She was concerned by this is she, and how eager Duncan was to notice her, by the close attention he paid.
“Do not worry about armies and darkspawn. This is a happy day,” Irving insisted. “The Harrowing is behind you. Your phylactery has been sent to Denerim. You are officially a mage of the Circle.”
“My phylactery,” she said. It was not a question, but Irving responded as if it were.
“You may not remember. Blood was taken from you when you first came to us. It’s preserved in a phylactery.”
“So they can be hunted,” Duncan said, with bluntness, “if they turn apostate.” He sounded like a libertarian. As if he were appealing to a mage who hoped to leave this Circle.
Irving: “We have few choices. The gift of magic is met with suspicion. We prove ourselves through responsibility.” He was already moving to the side table to fetch a set of the Circle’s standard robes of yellow brocade, a staff, and a silver ring. “You have done this. Wear them proudly. You’ve earned them.”
She put the ring on immediately. It was heavier than it looked.
“I’m glad to be a part of the Circle.” She meant it, in spite of the strangeness of only now becoming an official part of the thing she’d been inside for over a decade.
Irving smiled at her with his particular smile for students who surprised him. Then he said: “It goes without saying that the Harrowing is not to be discussed with apprentices.”
“It went without saying,” she agreed.
“Take the day,” Irving said. “Rest. Study. The library is yours.”
She nodded, picking up her new staff. It was the right weight.
“Would you escort Duncan back to his room? Guest quarters, east side of this floor, near the library. If you’ll both excuse me.”
Emma was proud to show the library to someone worldly, who may have never seen it.
She knew this room the way she knew her own hands. It had been accumulating purpose for several centuries and never apologized for it. The shelves towered over them, attended by a scattering of ladders. Light streaked through windows narrowly, rarely landing conveniently, in her experience.
It smelled like glue. Not her favorite feature of the library, but she was used to new apprentices and visitors sniffing appreciatively. This one didn’t. He walked through it with attentive quiet.
“Thank you for walking with me,” he said. “I’m glad for the company.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” she said, as a matter of fact.
He glanced at her.
“Then let us continue on. I would hate to prolong your agony.”
“I meant no insult,” she said, quickly. It was just ironic to be given the day to herself and then immediately also assigned a task.
“I see.”
“Tell me about the Grey Wardens,” she said.
He accepted the redirect without comment, which she noted. “We battle darkspawn. Wherever they appear. We are elves, humans, dwarves, united by that purpose.”
“You said elves first.”
He looked at her for a moment. “I had no particular reason. Though some of our most honored Wardens have been elves. Garahel, the last Warden to slay an archdemon, was such a one.” He paused. “The darkspawn threaten everyone. They don’t distinguish between races. Neither should we.”
“That’s fair,” she said. “Is it a position you have to defend often?”
“Unfortunately.” Said without self-pity. “If someone has always seen elves as less than human, it’s hard to make them imagine otherwise. I have tried to reason with many people. I have failed with most of them.”
Somehow, she thought that probably applied to more than just the elves. They passed through the library’s far door into the corridor beyond, a cool hall between heated rooms.
“Have there been many darkspawn attacks?” she said.
“A horde has formed in the Korcari Wilds. If they’re not stopped they’ll push north into the valley.” He said it with the even delivery of someone who expected this to be bad news. “We Grey Wardens believe an archdemon is leading them.”
She looked at him. “An archdemon.”
“An archdemon rallies them. It turns a nuisance into an army.” He paused with the stern, austere drama of a priest. “It is dire.”
She thought about the mage neighboring her new space, from the gallery, who wanted to be sent with the King’s army. The news that something significant was happening had apparently preceded Duncan by some distance.
“I thought they’d been driven back,” she said.
“They come back,” Duncan said. “We can’t seem to eradicate them completely. They always come back.”
They passed the stockroom. Through the half-open door she caught a glimpse of Owain’s reducing everything he touched into correct categories.
“Why were Irving and Greagoir arguing about the incursion?” she said.
“It’s not my place to comment.”
She looked at him. He looked ahead.
“I’d like to know.”
He considered this for a moment.
“Greagoir serves the Chantry. The relationship between the Chantry and mages has always been—” he chose the word carefully “—strained. You’ve realised by now that the Chantry tolerates magic rather than endorses it.”
“I’ve had some time to form that impression, yes.”
“Mages who join the king’s army use their full power on the darkspawn. In fact, I’m counting on it. Greagoir may be concerned about what that demonstrates. Mages operating outside Circle supervision, effective, autonomous. What if they decide, at the end of it, that they no longer want to come back?”
Is that what he was so reluctant to share? He went from the libertarian position of ‘phylacteries are for hunting’ to the quite moderate ‘what ifs?’ as soon as they left the study.
“And your opinion?” she said.
“I believe the darkspawn need to be defeated.” It was a firm border of a territory he had clearly marked and maintained. “My opinions end there.”
They had reached the guest quarters. She stopped. He stopped.
“The king is mustering an army, then,” she said. “To push them back.”
“Yes. Perhaps it will be enough. If we play our cards right.”
She considered the phrasing. The modesty of perhaps and if, from the Warden who had walked into a Circle tower and asked for more mages.
“Good luck with that,” she said.
“Hope, and pray.”
He looked at her for the last time with that same measuring attention, apparently ongoing.
“Thank you for the company.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, which was true.
He went in.