Things That Are Invisible - Chapter 1: The Haunted Library
[You can also find the story on AO3.]
It hadn’t been long after the Inquisition’s arrival at Skyhold that the rumour that the library was haunted began to spread. At first, Cullen had assumed that it was the trauma of the events at Haven making people see things that weren't actually there (and didn't he know about seeing things that weren’t actually there), but the rumours about the library stubbornly persisted even after they had settled in more or less comfortably.
The most obvious answer would have been that strange young man – what was his name again – Cole? The one who had the disconcerting ability to make people forget him. But Adaar had taken Cole to the side and questioned him about the library, and all she'd gotten out of him was a rather mysterious “I cannot help,” and the eventual conclusion that whatever was going on in the library, it wasn't Cole's doing.
That was in a way confirmed when Adaar took Cole with her on her next mission to the Emerald Graves, and a few books fell out of one of the many shelves in the library while Cole was gone. All the librarians and mages studying in the library swore up and down that no one had touched the books, and that they had been carefully shelved and shouldn't have been able to fall.
After staring at the shelves in question for a while and not finding any possible solution for the problem, the advisors had turned to Solas for help. (The fact that Solas also resided in the library had probably facilitated this decision.) Unfortunately, a short discussion made it clear that Solas wasn't much help, either. He assured Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine that the Veil wasn't particularly thin anywhere in Skyhold, and that there was absolutely no danger of demons or spirits slipping through by accident. But even he wasn't able to explain the strange incidents surrounding the library.
“I will keep an eye on it and will let you know if I notice something,” he promised. “Although I doubt that the cause is anything dangerous.”
During their short acquaintance, Cullen had gotten the impression that they had vastly different definitions of what should be considered dangerous, so the assurance wasn't as comforting as Solas probably hoped it to be. (Sera, for once, completely and vocally agreed with Cullen. Not that she was likely to ever set foot into the library, anyway. But the strange rumours assured that she would definitely not, now.)
Leliana and Josephine, however, eventually decided that this was good enough, and that they should leave the matter in Solas' hands for the time being, at least until they had taken care of more pressing matters. Cullen reluctantly agreed, mostly because he knew that his dissent would be overruled anyway.
Despite that, he had a hard time letting the matter rest. His experience told him that strange occurrences usually led to terrible incidents, and sometimes, when work was wearing him down, he found himself opening the middle door in his office, standing in the door frame and staring at the grey walls of the library.
The library was a rather unusual piece of architecture, especially compared to the rest of Skyhold. The round shape both outside and inside was strange enough, but the oddest part was probably the single window on the middle of the three floors. The window had a good view of most of the courtyard, and a direct view on the tower that contained Cullen's rooms. But why only one single window? He couldn't help but think it odd.
The window seemed to magically draw his eye whenever he looked up at the library, and sometimes, he was almost sure that he saw shadows moving behind it. It was foolish, really, because it was probably nothing more than one of the mages looking for a book, and Cullen was, once again, seeing demons where there were none. It was hard getting rid of the tendency to expect something dark and sinister lurking behind every innocent gesture, but his nightmares were still too vivid and real, even after all these years, not to give him pause now and then.
He was trying to leave these things behind, he really was. And still, he found his eyes glued to the lonely window more often than not, his mind occupied by a vague sense of worry.
It eventually happened one night when he was tormented by a particularly disconcerting kind of nightmare. He awoke in his bed, pulse racing madly, with the smell of rotting flesh in his nose and the taste of blood magic on his tongue. His body shivered both with cold and with terror, while sweat was running down his back. It took him a long time to fully arrive back in reality, and even longer for the shaking to finally stop.
He knew what had caused the nightmares. The day before, he had received another report about Red Templar activities, and he still felt the physical repulsion that had viciously gripped him while reading it, the overwhelming desire to deny what was written there, to defend the Templars. Some of the people mentioned had been acquaintances once, comrades, even friends. He couldn't, didn't want to believe that they really were capable of... these deeds. Cullen himself had not always made the best choices either, but that? That was the work of beasts, not men. As Templars, they had sworn an oath to protect and serve the people, and they had broken it in ways that Cullen wasn't able to comprehend. He had thought Meredith had been the exception. He had never been more dismayed to find out that he had been wrong.
With a frustrated groan, Cullen climbed out of his bed. He wouldn't be able to return back to sleep, the terrible reports and his usual nightmares scrambling his brain until he wasn't sure what he actually remembered happening and what was purely a figment of his imagination. For a moment, he stood in the middle of his bedroom, breathing deeply and letting his eyes adjust to the starlight filtering through the holes in the ceiling. He listened to the sounds of the night, but apart from a few guards who were on their patrols, everything was peacefully quiet.
After a few moments of consideration, Cullen picked a thick, woollen coat out of his chest and threw it over his shoulders before he carefully climbed down the ladder. The night guards were already used to his frequent presence on the battlements, and some of them seemed to genuinely appreciate the Commander checking in with them from time to time.
For a while, Cullen wandered back and forth on the battlements, but despite feeling tired, sleepiness refused to set in. He didn’t want to return to his bed, only to be haunted by his nightmares. Almost involuntarily, his eyes once again found the lone window of the library. It was dark behind the glass now, and the library was deserted in the middle of the night, but Cullen was sure he saw movement behind that window for one moment.
Without giving it a second thought, his steps turned towards the closest door that would lead him to the library.
Opening the door leading to Solas’ floor, he was greeted by darkness and only very little light coming from the skylight at the top of the building. The light was low enough that Cullen had to carefully shuffle towards the stairs leading to the upper floors. On his way over there, however, he banged his leg on some kind of furniture, and through his quiet “Maker’s breath,” he could hear the soft shuffling of feathers coming from the top floor, accompanied by the sleepy croaking of Leliana’s ravens.
Once he had finally climbed the stairs, finding the window was easy. He was greeted by the sight of a quiet alcove, the light shining through the window, illuminating an empty armchair and rows and rows of dusty tomes. Nothing here seemed to point towards anything out of the ordinary.
He turned back around and let his eyes wander along the many bookshelves lining the walls. There was nothing that was out of place, nothing lying around that didn’t belong here, and there was absolutely no movement on this floor. Whatever it had been that Cullen had seen, it must have been either a trick of his mind, or it was long gone now.
Weary and a little embarrassed of himself, Cullen stepped over to the armchair that looked rather inviting (much more than the chair in his own office that was constantly abused as shelf space, anyway) and sat down. It was very comfortable. Maybe he should see if he couldn’t get one of those, himself.
Before he knew it, Cullen had already fallen asleep.
“No!” Cullen screamed. “NO!”
The abomination laughed a terrifying laugh that made Cullen feel as if fingernails scraped against the inside of his skull, and effortlessly lifted the Templar it held choking in its claw high into the air. The Templar gurgled and struggled in desperation for a moment, but then he went limp.
Without thinking, Cullen lunged towards the abomination, to help his friend, to do anything, but he only crashed right into the purple force field he had been caught in. And just as before, the field gave him an electric shock that took his breath away for a moment, before he was thrown back and crashed onto the floor heavily.
He didn’t want to turn back to look at his dead friend, but he did it anyway, as if controlled by a foreign force.
The Templar (the name, what was his name) lay dead on the floor, and Cullen, sobbing, crawled as close to the force field as he dared.
“No,” he whispered, “no.”
The abomination laughed again, and then… something odd happened. The Templar began to glow, to twist and turn. Slowly, as if pulled by invisible strings, the Templar stood up once more, and there, right in front of Cullen’s eyes, red lyrium started to sprout out of his skin, consuming him until he was turned into a Behemoth.
Cullen shook in terror.
This was not right. No. This was not right. There had been no red lyrium in Kinloch Hold.
“And I thought my dreams were unpleasant,” came a voice behind Cullen.
Cullen whipped around. While he moved, the illusion of Kinloch Hold around him crumbled, and he found himself in a bare, empty room, facing a new intruder.
Another dream?
“Get away from me, demon!” he shouted, grasping for his sword. In vain, because it wasn’t there. He had no weapon to defend himself other than his own two hands. “I won’t fall prey to your whims!”
The demon tut-tutted. “First of all, I am not a demon. Much too pretty to be one, if you ask me. Have you even looked at me? This face deserves better than that, honestly.”
The strange, unexpected talk gave Cullen pause, and he actually looked at the demon. And now that he was looking, he noticed that said demon did look remarkably human, although the dark hair and skin, as well as the frankly ridiculous mustache and clothing, definitely didn’t fit into Ferelden. And the bright, almost silvery eyes had an intense, cutting quality that did nothing to put Cullen at ease.
“What are you?” Cullen growled. “And what are you- what are you doing in my dream?”
“Honestly?” the demon asked breezily. “I’m not exactly sure. I didn’t even know I could do that. One moment I’m wandering around, the next - ta-dah! - I’m here. And since I have no idea how long this is going to stay that way, let me get this over quickly: The thing haunting Skyhold’s library? That’s me. I guess I should apologise for the whole haunting thing, but… I need your help. You see, I’m in a bit of a predicament. I am the unfortunate and very much involuntary victim of a botched blood magic ritual, caught somewhere between the real world and the Fade, and I would appreciate it so much if I got my former body back. I’m very fond of it, you see. There’s something about physicality that even the ability to walk through walls can’t replace. And it’s terrible when people look right through you, I mean really, I deserve better than that. I deserve admiration and veneration and many, many paintings of my beautiful face. And that’s why I’m asking you, honoured Commander of the Inquisition, to help me. Please.”
Cullen snorted. “You can’t fool me, demon. I won’t fall for your tricks.”
The demon made an annoyed noise. “I am not a demon. My name is Dorian Pavus, and I am from Tevinter, and yes, for you I might just as well be a demon, I know. But I beg you to help me. You are the only person that has seen or heard me ever since this happened. You are the only person who might be able to help me. Please help me. Please.”
With a start, Cullen realised that there were actual tears in the demon’s eyes. Could demons cry? He didn’t know. He didn’t actually care. It was a very elaborate ruse, but he was sure that it was simply that: a ruse.
Cullen chuckled without humour. “Whatever you’re trying to do, it won’t work,” he said coldly.
The demon’s eyes widened. “No, please-” he called out.
Cullen woke with a gasp, still sitting in the large overstuffed armchair, surrounded by the quiet darkness of Skyhold’s library.
