The Fisherman Mage

Life hadn't turned out quite the way he thought it would when he was twelve.

The cell was near pitch black, with just a sliver of light coming from the slit of a high window.  Anson had been lying in his bed, wide awake, for several hours.  He was waiting for the door to open...when he would either be led to freedom or "made tranquil."

The plight of mages in Kirkwall had always been tenuous, but over the last few years --since the Qunari killed the Viscount-- Knight-Commander Meredith had become even more harsh.  Anson had been stuck in Kirkwall since the Blight, as the Knight-Commander had repeatedly refused his request to return to his home: the Circle of Magi in Ferelden.

Anson had of course heard the whispers about the Mage Underground.  It was a group of mages and Templars working in Kirkwall to sneak mages out of the Gallows.  But he had his doubts.  Were they really leading to freedom, or was this merely a ploy to kill mages who try to leave the Circle?  He had to take the chance.

Something big was about to happen.  What it was he didn't know...but if he had to guess, it would be a confrontation between the Knight-Commander and "the Champion of Kirkwall", who was also a mage.  She might have been an Apostate, but only because she saved the city three years ago from the Qunari... and no doubt her raw power had kept Meredith at bay.  Anson knew that such a delicate balance could not last long, which is why he had no choice but to take a chance on the Mage Underground.

So he waited, fear gnawing at his belly like some terrible animal.  His mind refusing to calm, Anson looked back at the events that had led him here.


Anson's family were fishermen out of Redcliffe Village and as far back as anyone knew they had always been fishermen.  While he was the youngest and smallest of six boys, no one had ever thought that he would be anything other than a fisherman.  Practically since he could walk Anson was learning everything about fishing, from mending nets to deftly wielding a knife to clean them.  But things changed when Anson taught himself a new trick.  He could snap his fingers and produce a small spark... just barely enough to start small fires.  It didn't take long for the Templars to show up and cart the boy to the other side of Lake Calenhad and into the Circle of Magi.

While Anson was sad to be taken from his family he was always taught not to lament things you can't change.  Anson did have one problem: no matter how much he studied or practiced, the effects of his spells were very small.  While other children were learning how to control the elements to freeze things or throw balls of fire, Anson was lucky if he could light the hearth or chill his drink.  If power and ability were a scale, he was definitely at the bottom.  This of course meant that, for any magic-based games, he was lucky to even be picked last.  As often, he wasn't picked at all.  This didn't bother Anson much, as he would just go down to the lake's edge and fish.

When he reached adulthood Anson took his Harrowing.  When he passed he was told not to tell anyone what had transpired in the Fade.  Truth to be told, he felt a bit let down by the experience, because he really had nothing to tell.  Anson had entered the Fade, walked around for a bit, and then woke up.  The Demons of the Fade ignored him.  For Anson, the Fade was little more than a dream.  He guessed it came back to the fact that he was barely a Mage at all...which was just fine with Anson.

Anson had always been diligent, but not very scholarly...and as he would not get winded climbing up and down the stairs of the tower, he was given the job as a messenger.  Which is how he found himself travelling with several other mages to Ostagar.  There was much talk of a new Blight coming.  The Dark Spawn had been coming up in the Kocari Wilds and the Grey Wardens, with King Calenhad, were now gathering an army to stop them!  Anson got to see much of the preparations going on as he ran messages about the camp.  He also got to see a bit too much of what the clashes with the Dark Spawn did to men.  Anson wished he were back in the mage's tower.

His stay at Ostagar was made a bit better as he ran into someone he had not seen since childhood.  His boyhood friend Alistair, to Anson's surprise, was one of the Grey Wardens!  The two caught up and Alistair told him how he had been sent off to the Chantry to become a Templar, but then was recruited by the Grey Wardens.  They laughed at how close Alistair came to being one of the Templars guarding Anson.  Alistair confessed that he would have made a poor Templar, at which Anson replied that he wasn't a particularly dangerous mage.

Anson did get his wish, though, as he was sent back to the Circle of Magi with a message from the King to First Enchanter Irving.  As he left Ostagar he saw a young mage just arriving with an older Grey Warden.  Anson recognized the mage as Alim, an elf from Denerim who --unlike Anson-- was very talented in magic.  There had been much speculation amongst the younger mages that Alim might one day be First Enchanter.  Anson was curious about one thing: why was Alim with a Grey Warden?  But Anson had no time to get answers that day as he had an urgent message to deliver.


Anson was not sent back to Ostagar...as a few days after his arrival at the tower they received word that the forces as Ostagar had been obliterated!  The Grey Wardens had betrayed King Calenhad, and Loghain had quit the field --marching back to Denerim and declaring himself Regent!  None of that made any sense to Anson, so all he could do was mourn for those whom he had gotten to know.

Over the next few weeks Anson was very busy at the mage tower, running messages about as they prepared for the coming Blight.  He rarely got to sit quietly by the lake and fish, though on one of those occasions he was walking back into the tower with a few fish that he had caught when Templars guarding the entrance pulled their swords on him!

"Sir Carroll, what is wrong?  Surely you see that it is just me, Anson."

"What are you doing outside the tower?" Carroll growled.

Holding up the freshly caught fish, Anson raised an eyebrow.

Carroll turned to the other Templar and said, "Go get Knight-Commander Greagoir."
The second Templar stepped through the doors to the tower and returned shortly with the Knight-Commander.

Greagoir demanded, "How did you leave the tower??"

"Sir Cullen authorized me to be out here so I could get in a little fishing.  What has happened?"

"The Tower had been over-run by Abominations and Demons and I've sealed the main doors!"

"How did this happen??  What are you going to do?"

The tall Knight-Commander glared down at Anson for a few minutes and then said, "I need to send a message to the Grand Cleric in Denerim and you'll take it there.  I'll of course send an escort of Templars with you.  With the Dark Spawn about we cannot be too careful."

With that Anson was on the Imperial Highway to Denerim.  As their group turned north, away from the docks, he saw a group of travelers coming from the south.  Amongst them he swore he saw both Alim and his old friend Alistair!  As curious as Anson was, the Templars surrounding him were not inclined to delay their journey for any reason.


The trek to Denerim was uneventful and Anson soon found himself sequestered at the Chantry.  Denerim straddled the Drakon River which emptied into the great Amaranthine Ocean.  Anson would have loved to go down to the docks and talk to the local fishermen, not to mention do a little fishing himself.  For some reason they did not allow him to return to the Circle, although they never told him why.  They had no trust for mages.  Perhaps it was because of the stories he was hearing about a mage Grey Warden who had survived Ostagar and how the Circle of Magi was now allied with him.  Anson remembered a couple of mage Grey Wardens at Ostagar and wondered which of them it was.  He had not gotten to know any of the Grey Wardens accept Alistair.

The stories of this mage grew grander with each telling, how he was saying that Loghain was the one who betrayed the King.  They also told of how he was uniting all of Ferelden to fight against the Dark Spawn  --even the Dwarves and the Dalish Elves.  If the stories were to be believed, this Grey Warden Mage was more powerful than the old Tevinter Magisters!

The Blight continued to send more refugees pouring into Denerim.  Loghain continued to play politics while the Dark Spawn tore more of Ferelden away from him.  That is until the Landsmeet was called and Anson finally found out who this great and powerful Grey Warden mage was.  It was Alim: the elf from the Alienage of Denerim.  It turns out that he had been recruited by the Grey Wardens while Anson was at Ostagar, and that Alim and Alistair were the only Grey Wardens to survive.  And even more shocking was that Alistair was King Merik's illegitimate son and heir to the throne!  


Anson dearly wished that he could have been there at the Landsmeet.  Loghain died at the hands of Alistair and Anora, Loghain's daughter and King Calenhad's widow became the new queen.  At which point they all marched for Redcliffe to confront the Dark Spawn and end the Blight.  Anson knew he would be of little use in any fight, but he was getting desperate to do something other than just sit in the Chantry.  Because of that, when the Grand Cleric wanted to send him to Kirkwall with a message, he jumped at the chance.

Anson enjoyed the trip as he traveled by ship.  Granted, the Waking Sea was rougher than Lake Calenhad, but it didn't take long for him to get his sea legs and do a little fishing.  His happiness soon ended when they reached Kirkwall's docks.  After delivering his message, Knight-Commander Meredith wouldn't let him return to Ferelden!

Anson soon found himself sequestered as he had been at the Chantry in Denerim --only it was a lot less friendly.  Stuck in a foreign city under the power of a very anti-mage Knight-Commander, Anson hoped that if he could just keep his head down and write to First Enchanter Irving and Knight-Commander Greagoir, he'd be released back to the Ferelden Circle.


Six years later...and Anson was now willing to risk his life in a desperate bid to gain his freedom from Meredith!  He thought that he must have levitated an inch above his bed when a small scratching noise came from his door.  Silently he grabbed the duffle from under his bed and crept to the door.  When he opened the door he found one of the Templars standing with a mostly shuttered lamp in hand.  The Templar indicated that Anson needed to be silent and waved for him to follow.

The next few hours were both terrifying and extremely boring as they crept down endless corridors and stairs that brought them to the very bowels of the Gallows.  The dark stone corridors eventually gave way to even darker caves.  With moss underfoot and endless dripping echoed about them the two silent figures finally came to a large cavern where two other Templars had led two other mages.

One of the other mages whispered, "Now what?"

"It's almost daylight.  So you three need to wait here and we'll be back once it starts to get dark."  With that the three Templars left the mages in the dark.

After a few minutes of sitting in the dark Anson snapped his fingers and a small flame appeared between them.  "I don't know about you two but I really can't take a day of just waiting for them to come back.  We really don't know IF they are coming back."

A middle aged woman looked at him with scornful eyes and said, "And just what do you suggest we do?  I know I've never been down here before."

"Back in Ferelden I used to deliver a lot of messages, so to make things easier I was able to come up with a spell that showed me where I needed to go.   I altered a detection spell to do it."  Weaving his hands in a little dance Anson soon had a small orange glowing arrow in front of him pointing back the way they had come."

"Aye , that was useful.  I don't know about you but I have no intention of going back to the Gallows."

"Hmm.  Let me try that again."  Anson's hands spun once again and the arrow changed color and direction.  It was now a faint blue color and pointed off to his left.  Smiling he said, "Here we go."

They followed the arrow for several hours, up and down dilapidated wooden stairs that threatened to disintegrate under their feet.  Several times they had to hide from various monsters that made these caves their home.  Eventually they began to hear surf echoing off the walls.  Creeping to the mouth of the cave they looked out over the cloud covered coast.

"We should wait until nightfall to go any farther", said the now less scornful woman.

The plan at that point was to follow the coast until they found a small fishing village, at which point they could hire a boat to take them well away from Kirkwall.  As they began their journey they heard a great clap of thunder coming from behind them.   Looking back toward Kirkwall they saw a giant pillar of flame rising above the city.

"By Andraste, what was that??"

"I guess we left just in time."

As the trio continued into the growing darkness Anson thought to himself, "With my phylactery destroyed years ago, I really have no tie to a Circle.  ENOUGH confusing, power-mad politics!  ENOUGH endless wars and shifting allegiances!"  

"I can go back to doing what I REALLY want to do    ...fish."