Rite of the Maleficarum

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Hawke was not prepared for what she found inside that cave. None of them were. After nervously winding their way through narrow passageways, having to backtrack after finding dead ends multiple times, they finally found themselves face to face with a rather large wooden doorway. On the doorway a symbol was painted, with paint, Hawke begged the Maker that it be paint, made of simple lines, much resembling the family crests of the nobility of Kirkwall. This symbol however appeared to be a depiction of a person, a mage's staff gripped in one hand, her feet raised off the ground, arms stretched out, bleeding from both wrists.

Hawke looked to Fenris, whose look of caution had reset to one of brooding anger. Somehow this reassured her. She pushed the door open slowly, a surprisingly quiet action considering how aged the wood and hinges appeared. It was nothing, however, compared to the silence that befell the group upon seeing what lay beyond the doorway.

Hawke didn't want to continue looking. If her eyes described the scene to her brain, and her mind processed it, certainly it would poison her soul. But it was too late, the process happened in an instant, her gut reaction not fast enough to save face. She heard Sebastian make some kind of noise, maybe a gasp or a whimper. She wanted to turn and show concern for her friends, but she couldn't. Facing them, having memories of them associated with memories of this place, would make it real, not a horrible nightmare she would certainly wake up from any moment.

Hawke steeled her resolve, and gave herself a brief moment of objectivity. She needed the facts of the place, to ignore what she could, but gain any information possible about the people behind this. Because however this started, regardless of Ansor Restin, this just became about hunting maleficarum.

Bunks, rows and rows of them. Two, sometimes three high each. Enough to sleep thirty or forty. Could there be that many? And the blood. Barrels of it, buckets of it, any type of container that could hold a liquid held it, stacked and placed on almost every surface of the place. Except, it seemed, for the surface reserved for the stacking of corpses. Bled dry, apparently, neatly stacked along the back wall. From the look of it, mostly elves. She did not allow herself to count them. It was also in this moment she saw him, crouched in a fetal position, hugging his own legs, not three meters from them by the nearest set of bunks.

"Ansor?" Hawke managed, though the word came out cracked and breathy. The templar convulsed slightly, apparently not having heard the group enter. The spitting image of a young Lord Restin looked up at her, eyes weary. He looked defeated, harmless, so she went to him, offering a hand to help him stand, which he accepted.

"You're Lady Hawke, aren't you? The Champion?" he asked, wiping an errant tear as it ran down his cheek.

"Yes, Ansor. Your father sent me to find you, he's very worried," Hawke said.

"Rightfully so," Ansor mentioned, staring off into the distance.

"Do you know what happened here?" Hawke asked. Ansor didn't make any kind of motion to reply, he seemed lost in thought.

"Maybe we should speak with him outside," Fenris suggested. His warm, deep voice almost startled Hawke, she had half forgotten about her friends. She turned to agree, but only saw Fenris standing there, his sword sheathed.

"Sebastian and Anders… will meet us outside," Fenris said. Hawke nodded, sheathed her sword and gestured to Ansor to follow Fenris out.

Hawke felt that such a short time period had never felt so long in her life as they wound their way through the narrow chasms back to the mouth of the cave. She tried to find things to focus on: Fenris's swinging white hair, the templar crest emblazoned on the shield strapped to Ansor's back, but when the latter two proved dangerous she decided it best to try and focus on the uneven, rocky soil beneath her feet. It was night by the time they reached the salty air outside the cave, the glow of the sun still barely visible on the horizon. Hawke took a moment to notice the stars through the haze. What were they? Had the Maker created them? Were they very small and close, or very large and far away? She thought they would have to be impossibly bright if they were so far away. This made her feel very small, which at this moment also made her feel very safe.