The Nevarran Mummy Incident

in which Nathaniel learns that Jane is a terrifying woman

Part 3

"Nathaniel!"

Jane is against the wall, fingers scrabbling at seemingly endless carvings. A nail breaks, but she barely marks it, instead stretching up against the stone. This side is as decorated as the other, and painted too. This is what was meant to face out into the hall.

But it has to open. It opened once, it will do it again.

"Miss-" Cowardice says, voice trembling as always, and Jane barely spares it a glance.

"Not. Now," she hisses.

"But-"

"Silence!"

She is not a woman of presence, of grand commands (even if some would like to believe so), but her voice is harsh and ragged and it lends a certain angry desperation. Her palms skim over stone, then press hard. He had leaned against it, hadn't he?

The stone doesn't move. Jane bites hard at her lip, then backs up. Right. So if she can't find the switch, the button, then she can bring all her own talents to bear.

"Miss-"

Her hands are up and wreathed in glowing power before he can continue, pulses of energy falling from her like water. They ripple out until she directs them forward, and they coalesce into a brilliant stream, slamming into the stone and splashing back to be reincorporated in the assault. Fire has no purpose here, unless she chose to melt the stone itself, and to make the earth tremble would bring all the tomb down upon their heads. Ice might crack, but it's too far a chance.

So she forces her control against the stone ungirdled by any purpose except push.

The hall is filled with roaring noise, and anything that Cowardice might have said is drowned out. So to is the clink of glass as she pulls a vial of lyrium from her pack, the shift of her robe as she rises once more. The cool, liquid ecstasy flows down her throat until it meets the terror and panic within, redoubles, and emerges in a still more brilliant push.

The wall does not move.

Jane lets her hands fall and only barely keeps from dropping towards the floor herself.

Her ears ring with the sudden silence, buzzing and throbbing, and her head swims from the rush of power and lyrium. Her head falls forward and she closes her eyes, focusing on her breathing. Simple breaths, one two three and out-

There are footsteps behind her. "Miss," Cowardice says, and this time she doesn't fight his approach. "Miss, if that's a passage, maybe it goes deeper? Maybe if we continue down..."

I can't lose him. Alistair had gone, Anders had gone, Justice had gone, so many had gone into a darkness she couldn't follow into. Nathaniel will not be the same. Her hands lift to drift over the stone once more before she turns to the small child's body.

"You're right," she says, voice now as soft and trembling as her thoughts. "We continue on."

Please let this be the right choice.

The woman approaches slowly. If he were a braver man, he would have more than enough time to nock an arrow, to draw, to shoot. He has more than enough time to aim. Instead, he stands still, swallowing down his fluttering heart and keeping his gaze trained on her.

"Husband," she says again, with that same small smile. She does not beckon, or ask what has been keeping him. She is no addled ghost.

"Stay back," he says.

She laughs and climbs the first step. The second. He can see the plaits that her thin, brittle hair is pulled into, looping curls secured with jeweled pins. There is no paint left upon her face, but sometimes, when the shadows fall just right, she seems a woman and not a corpse. Her eyes remain focused on him.

"Put the torch down," she says, and he catches a glimpse of movement by her hand. Something small bounces to the floor. He tries to track the muffled sound, but it fades too quickly. His vision blurs. His arm begins to drop as he feels something tugging at his thoughts.

The torch drops and gutters out, and he tries to reach for his knife. His fingers twitch, but otherwise don't obey.

"Sleep," the woman whispers into his ear, and he begins to sway on his feet.

Blood mage.

"What's down there?" Jane demands as they move down endless staircases.

"I don't know."

"There will be a central burial chamber. Nicodème will be down there. And whoever was buried here alive. I need to know the layout, in case they, too, walk."

Images dance in her minds' eye. She is no commander, but she has picked up more than a few things about strategy, about assault. She will not rush in unprepared, not with Nathaniel's life hanging in the balance. She will bring every inch of her power to bear.

"I don't know!" Cowardice protests, and she stops, rounding on him.

"You will tell me now, or I will destroy you."

He stares up at her.

"If you don't know," she continues, voice shaking with barely controlled fear and anger, "I have no use for you. You're a dead weight, Cowardice. Tell me."

Cowardice's hand flutters to his slashed throat and he toes the ground, that same boyish gesture that now only makes her want to set him alight. "I... you're right, there is a central chamber. One side room, not very large. No traps. But I don't know more than that. I promise."

"And did you know about that door?"

"No!"

She stares him down until he flinches and turns away, arms curling around himself.

"Then if that is all you can give me," she says, "I will raise an army myself."

Nathaniel wakes on a long stone slab swathed with decaying fabrics, his wrists and ankles bound by chains. His head aches and spins, and he can make out little in the dark. He tests the bonds; they hold strong. Grimacing, he whispers a swear.

If he can reach his belt, he can get one of his smaller lockpicks, loose these by feel alone-

"You're awake."

It's the same woman with the same thin, whispering voice. He flinches as a bony hand traces over his forehead, along his jaw, down his throat.

"I never expected him to bring me a new body for Nicodème," the woman - Aiglante - continued, voice a rattling purr. "He deserves an even greater reward. Ah, but you look just like him..."

Nathaniel swallows. "Let me go."

"No, darling." Her fingers tweak the skin over his collarbone, then slip lower to begin undoing the fasteners of his shirt. "Have you ever loved? You would understand if you had. I've been down here alone for ages with only his bones to keep me company." Her fingers claw into his ribs. "It has been a very, very long winter for me, and I will have my summer still."

"They left you down here to die," he hisses.

"So they did." She circles around the table, skirts slithering over the floor. "And were they still alive, they would pay dearly. But they're not; I am."

"By making deals with demons." Cowardice. Maker take him, he'd been right. It has to be the little whimpering child. Nathaniel grits his teeth and tugs hard at his bonds.

Aiglante laughs, a rasping, hollow sound. "By leashing a demon."

"That doesn't work, you know," he snaps with another yank. Aiglante doesn't pause, hands beginning to drift down the plane of his stomach. His gut roils and tenses in disgust. "It will turn on you. Destroy you."

"And what else do I have to look forward to?" Her hands begin to drift up again, but only with the clatter of his lockpicks on the floor. "Tell me- did you come with a mageling?" He can smell the dust of her skin as she leans close to his face. "Did you bring me a glorious new body of my own?"

He says nothing.

"Is she very beautiful?" Aiglante murmurs, letting her lips drift over his. He closes his eyes and wills away the sensation.

"He won't let her leave, you know. He will lead her down here. Will she come to rescue you?"

"What makes you think," he grinds out, "that the demon won't just possess her and leave you here?" The thought makes his heart freeze; Jane's flesh, warped and deformed, her power flooding out uncontrollably, her body - what remained of it - put down by a templar sword. No. She won't allow it to happen. But Aiglante hardly needs to know.

"Because we have a deal. With a little power, I know how to open the tomb again. If the demon wants out, he cooperates. Otherwise, we both rot."

"That demon could leave whenever he wants to."

"No," she says, "he can't. Don't you think I would have made sure nothing could possess my dear Nicodème? He needs me. And so I have him leashed." Pride fills her voice. "A beautiful body of my own, power once more, and you, my husband reborn. Ah- this is more perfect than I could have imagined. Don't you understand? You are a part of something magnificent."

"The templars will hunt you down," he breathes.

"The templars will bow before me," she returns, and seals her lips over his.

His stomach revolts; he can taste bile in the back of his throat and rot at the tip of his tongue. He thrashes, trying to strike her with his forehead, his jaw, but she is quick for an animated, dried-out corpse. Her power slams him down flat to the table, and he feels the tugging tickle of blood magic in his limbs again, relaxing him and forcing him to respond. Aiglante plants one long-fingered hand on his bare chest, the other in his hair to keep his head tilted back.

"It has been so long," she murmurs against his slackened lips, dragging a nail down his chest. "And now all that I need is your girl in chains. It won't be long. Ah..."

She kisses at his throat and his pulse jumps. His head spins between horror and pleasure. Where has the blood come from? The living haven't trod in these halls for ages. He remembers the distant, muffled bounce of something on the steps.

A vial?

He lifts his hand as if to stroke her hip and she smiles against his skin. Fumbling, he runs his hand over her side, over fabric that disintegrates beneath his tough. There, on a sash- a small bottle, uncorked, something slick along the open neck-

What sounds like grand doors at the end of a great hall crash inwards, once, twice, against whatever binds them closed. Aiglante jerks up and he closes his fingers around the vial, tipping it out over the floor. She screams as the blood soaks into her dress, whirling away, and in another instant torches and braziers throughout the room blaze to life. Nathaniel gasps as she pulls power from the dripping blood and begins to choke the air from his lungs.

And then the doors - great doors, grand doors, doors carved of stone and decorated with so many gems he can barely make out their outlines - swing open with a grinding screech.

The very dead pour forth, armed with broken detritus and ancient weapons. They glow with a sickly blue aura and they howl as they surge forward, a raging torrent. He can make out the skittering forms of monstrosities, giants built of ten individuals, a groaning panoply of every horror he could imagine.

And at their rear is Jane, hands outstretched and eyes blazing.

He stares down the length of his body as her army rushes forward into battle, Aiglante retreating fast before them. Her own skeletal hands flash in the flickering, jumping light, and statues groan to life, bones assemble at her feet. The flames spiral up towards the ceiling, then cascade back down in a searing rain. Skeletons fall to pieces. Horrors hiss and spit and charge.

Jane remains untouched, the fire giving her a wide, loving berth.

She brings it up in circles around her and sends it flaring back out toward the ancient mage. He feels the crash of it overhead as it's met with another wave of power, feels the sparks rain down on him. He grits his teeth against the pinpoint burns and rotates his hands in his shackles, searching for a way out.

She needs his help. Jane needs his help. And Cowardice-

Cowardice is in the room. He slinks along one of the outer walls, half in shadows, and as Nathaniel watches he begins to lengthen, his boyish body shifting and deforming. There are claws and blades and winding smoke. Demon, he thinks, then struggles for his voice. Has Aiglante stolen it? Has-

"Jane!" he bellows, arching up against his bonds. "He's a demon! He's-"

Heat rushes over him, followed by a heavy blanket of smoke, and he coughs, trying to hack his lungs free. It smothers him, a creature of its own, and he tries to gasp for breath. None comes. His head spins, and dimly he can make out the sounds of screaming, crying, swearing. Glass breaks. Bone snaps. Something hits rock, a dull thud, and all he can think of is Jane's eyes glazing over, the demon beginning to warp her, and then his own consciousness departing-

The smoke thins, lifting from him just long enough that he can suck in fresh air. His head pounds, but he twists to find her. Jane is a litany in his head, repeating with uneven cadence, until he finds her. Her eyes are wild, her hands clawed, and he can see the glowing sheen of lyrium on her lips.

Aiglante is beneath her, teeth bared in her unholy skull.

And where is Cowardice? His eyes search frantically as the smoke begins to descend once more and Aiglante rolls free of Jane's hold. There. Stalking forward fast, low to the ground, skeletons disintegrating as its shaded feet roil.

"Behind you!" he yells, voice hoarse and cracking. His eyes and lungs burn, and he thrashes on the table again. The smoke is burning him alive. Andraste preserve me. "Jane! Jane!"

Through the haze he sees Jane whirl, headscarf coming free in a blaze of color. Her staff comes up just in time to block Cowardice- the demon's downward strike. Aiglante takes the opportunity to rise to her full height again. "Now!" she yells in her hollow voice. "Now, do it now! Give me her form!"

The demon ducks around Jane, and he stares through the pain, transfixed. He waits for the blade to come piercing through Jane's stomach, for her eyes to widen in realization of the end. He waits for her eyes to narrow with a new mind behind them. She's gone, she's gone, he thinks, body tensing and beginning to shake. I need to be with her. I need-

Aiglante screams, and he looks to her just in time to see the demon slowly begin to pull her ribcage apart.

"I have a new plan," it hisses, and its mouth unhinges wide.

"Hunger," Jane growls, then launches herself forward. He can see the tremble in her step, though, the exhaustion creeping in. Her army has fallen, dropped to bone shards and disordered piles, and she's worked too much magic to keep everything going, to keep flames off of her and him.

The hunger demon lifts its head, then dances back as it takes on Nathaniel's form. It bows with a twisting grin, then winks. "Just let it go, love," he says, in a reasonable imitation of Nathaniel's voice, and Nathaniel wants to shout again. But his head aches, his throat burns, and he lays against the stone, helpless, as the smoke finally settles and leaves him exhausted.

"Don't think that a costume will stop me," Jane says, but he can see her falter.

"It's not just a costume," Hunger murmurs, moving a few steps closer. The crackle of power in the air dies down to a faint murmur. "It's a bargain. An arrangement."

"What, like your bargain with her?"

Hunger shakes its head. "Oh, no. A better one. I want out of this place. You'll let me. And then you'll stand by while I eat my fill - I've been so hungry down here. Only the dead and a mage I thought I needed to get me out.

"But I've saved your life," he purrs. "Don't you think you owe me this?"

"Stand by- do you mean stand by while you take my body?"

Hunger smirks and leans in, almost close enough to kiss her. "Depends on how you mean that, love."

Jane's lip twitches, curls, and then she slams her hand forward, ice crackling from her palm into a spike.

Hunger howls, losing its form and swinging a clawed hand at her. Jane ducks and rolls away, then skitters back away from his stone slab, hurling blasts at Hunger's head as she moves. But Hunger doesn't follow, instead turning and falling into a loping run.

Towards him.

Nathaniel closes his eyes and prays.

He hears Jane's shout, and then the rattle of arrows sliding free of a quiver. His quiver? He can hear the fletching cut through the air, faster than he could ever shoot, and then the punch of the steel head through a body. Somebody stumbles, falls towards the ground. He can't bring himself to look, can't see Jane pinned to the floor and his death approaching.

And then something cold and sickly drifts down over his throat and chest, and his eyes snap open. Hunger dissolves above him, and he's left only with Jane, panting and clutching a small knife where the demon's heart would have been.

The knife clatters to the floor and she tries with shaking fingers to unlock Nathaniel's shackles. Her hands slip and she swears. "Just a moment," she mumbles, "just a moment. I have this. I- I-"

But her fingers aren't fine enough to slip into locks, and she doesn't have picks or the skill to use them. She's exhausted, barely able to stand, let alone cast, and she sags against the table.

"Just a moment," she breathes.

Beneath her, Nathaniel is silent.

His breathing is ragged and uneven, wheezing through his lips, and he reeks of smoke. The memories come back - flames descending on him, smoke curling around and into him. She was almost too slow. No, she has to get him free and to a healer, somebody more skilled than she.

"Go get help," Nathaniel rasps at last.

"No," she says, quickly. "No. No, I'm not leaving you alone. I'm going to get you out of here. Just... just a moment..."

She swallows thickly, then pushes what little of herself she has left into snapping the lock open. It clicks and the metal falls from Nathaniel's wrist. She lets out a sigh of relief and bow her head.

"Give me my picks, Jane."

She glances up to see him watching her steadily, despite how his eyes are red and watering. He looks pointedly to one side of the table, and she follows his gaze. There. The little leather roll he always carries. She nods and moves to that side, dropping to one knee to lift it and hand it up.

"I'm sorry," she says as he takes his tools, their shaking fingers touching. Nathaniel pauses, gaze focused on her, and gently runs one finger along hers.

"I came as fast as I could," she continues, ducking and resting her forehead against the cool stone. Her heart beats double-time again. "Maker, I should have let you shoot the little bastard. I should have let you rip him to shreds. You were right. What if he led you to that door? What if..."

"Be quiet," Nathaniel says, soft and reassuring, and she falls silent.

The locks click open, one after another, and soon Nathaniel pushes himself up and fumbles with the fasteners of his shirt. "Let's get out of this wretched place," he says as he tests his legs.

"I can't open the doors," she says, coming to lean on him and let him do the same in turn. "Not right now. Not like this."

"Then how long have we been down here?"

"I don't know." She sighs as they begin to limp towards her staff. "I don't know. We can make camp, though. By the door. I went back and left my pack there, when I was raising my army."

He snorts. "Did you know," he says as she bends to scoop up the scarred and pitted wood, "that you are a singularly terrifying woman?"

"You weren't there at Ostagar," she returns with a small shake of her head, the two of them stumbling off again in the direction of the doors. "My first time away from the Tower, and all of a sudden I'm making people explode and not knowing how I'm doing it. Sucking the residual energy out of the dead..."

"Didn't know you could do that."

"I don't talk about it much. Fire makes you fewer enemies." She smiles thinly, then helps him up the first step. "Now stop talking," she says as they take the second one. "Your throat must hurt so much- and there are a lot of stairs."

They make their bed at the entrance to the tomb. Jane insists on letting Nathaniel take both bedrolls, in order to be more comfortable, and she sits up the whole of the night taking watch. He knows the tomb is empty; she's told him more than once. But none of his pleas or tugs at her robes make her join him, and eventually, exhausted true sleep does pull him down.

When he wakes, Jane is sitting a few feet away, staring off into what is now almost total darkness. She's built a tiny fire. There is no light sphere bobbing before her, and when he sits up and she glances back, she looks wholly normal. No magic, no walking dead, no darkspawn taint. Her hair is curling and wild, her eyes tired, and her smile- relieved.

"I was a little afraid," she murmured, "that you wouldn't wake up. What did she do to you, down there?"

He reaches for a waterskin and drinks deeply. It burns going down, his throat still raw. If it weren't for how bone-weary he is, he would have never been able to sleep.

"Very little," he says at last. "She... spoke a lot."

"And undressed you."

"Mm." He rolls his shoulders, then scoots off the bedrolls. "You should sleep."

She shakes her head. "The lyrium won't let me."

He frowns. "I didn't know it kept mages awake."

"It doesn't." She sighs and her smile grows thin, then fades to a frown with her eyes downcast. "If I let my guard down... if I let myself relax, I'll give in. I want more."

"Then let yourself have it. You'll be able to open the doors-"

"No." The strength in that little word stills him, and he watches quietly as she rises to her feet and begins to pace, one hand tangling in her hair. "No. It's not that simple. Please, just- I'll keep watch. Trust me."

"Is that an order?" he asks, rising to his own feet.

She pauses. "... No. It's a request."

"You're a horrible commander," he says as he approaches with a faint smile.

"Good thing I don't want to command at all, then," she says, gaze still focused on the floor. "I-"

He touches her shoulder, quieting her, then carefully pulls her into his arm, settling his cheek against hers. "Thank you," he says, voice low and rasping from emotion more than injury. "Thank you, for coming for me."

"I couldn't lose you," she mumbles, dropping her head to his shoulder. "Not like all the others."

Nathaniel finds himself stroking a line down between her shoulder blades, parting her hair. "And you didn't."

"I should have been faster-"

He pulls back, taking her by the shoulders. "Look at me," he says.

She looks up.

"Four years ago, what did I tell you?"

Jane winces, and he fights the urge to smooth the little furrow in her brow. She's a grown woman, after all, and a stronger one than he thinks she knows.

"No sulking."

"And not to get caught up in past mistakes," he adds, firmly.

Her lips twitch towards a smile. "We move ever forwards."

He squeezes her shoulders with a quick, pleased smile. "Exactly. So, thank you."

She lifts her chin. "Glad to help."

Nathaniel spends a week in the infirmary, not because of his injuries but because of her insistence. She cannot apologize to him in words, but she can make right what she was not fast enough to stop. She buries herself in work, in organizing the clean up of the tomb and the beginning of the documentation, and at night rests with Shibboleth at her feet, often counting stars on the compound roof.

She avoids him. It's not because she doesn't want to see him, Maker knows. As the fear and exhaustion both fade, she remembers far more clearly his body close to hers, cradling her, leaning on her. When she's in her office, she remembers peach wine kisses. No, she avoids him because he will leave soon, and even if he were to stay, he's not the sort- they're not the type- it won't happen.

It is the same romance as her and Alistair, her and Anders. Danger and excitement and stolen kisses.

And look at how both of those had ended up.

"I thought I'd gotten used to the idea of ending up an old maid," she sighs, leaning back against Shibboleth's bulk. The mabari shifts, letting out a quiet woof as she disturbs his nap. "Books and darkspawn and magic, that's me. And you, of course."

Shibboleth kicks at the tiled floor of the balcony they sit on, looking out at the slow sunset over the necropolis.

Somebody clears their voice behind her, and she turns, expecting to see Phineas. Instead, Nathaniel stands there in Grey Warden undress, loose dark trousers and a vibrant blue shirt open at the throat. Nevarran style fits him quite well.

"Hello, Jane."

"I- they released you? I thought they would keep you another day at least." His voice is still rough, and likely always will be, but they saved his lungs. He can run and fight as before. It's only a small cosmetic change, and one that makes her shiver and wince at the same time. I did that.

But Nathaniel had been clear on the subject - she has to move forward.

"I overheard the healers talking, wondering why they still had to keep me in a bed when I was better two days ago," he says, wryly. "It wasn't hard to convince them."

"Oh," she says, flushing a little.

"Jane."

"I'm sorry. I'll owe you a drink in apology?"

Nathaniel approaches, settling down cross-legged beside her. "I have another request," he says, shifting. "If you'll entertain it." His gaze flicks away from her, and she suddenly realizes that he isn't annoyed - he's nervous.

"Go ahead," she says, watching him curiously.

Nathaniel clears his throat. "If you'll let me, I'd like to court you. Properly."

Oh. The breath goes out of her, and she reflexively curls one hand into her skirt to still its trembling. "Court?"

He lifts his chin and straightens his shoulders, not quite looking in her direction. "I am an arl's son."

Her lips curl and she leans into his line of sight, quirking a brow. "And would an arl's son court a mage?"

"I-" He swallows, throat bobbing, but he can't turn away without it being too obvious.

Her smile grows.

"I just mean," he starts, then falters. He's turning pink. "That is to say... I want to do this right."

She grins in full. "You sound like Alistair."

He blinks, then shakes his head, looking down with a lopsided smile. "Not what I was going for. Please don't remind me that I'm competing with my King?"

"Of course not," she says with a small laugh, half-giddy. Nathaniel Howe. Maker, but she'd almost hated him back in Amaranthine - his seeming stoicism, his disapproval, his sharp words. But four years had a way of changing people. She recognizes the man before her, but only through the change in him. "And if I drag you into certain danger again?"

He shrugs, lifting his gaze to hers. "I'll always follow where you lead, Commander. Even if it's straight into a wall."

Her nose crinkles a moment before she leans in and kisses him.