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A wave of crushing loneliness washed over him anew each time Anders woke on the floor of his cell with the cold bite of gritty stone against his cheek; a wave that sparked a seemingly endless cycle of unrelenting isolation each time he rose and choked on a breath of foul prison air, only to heave it out again with a deep, enduring sigh. His world was a void of darkness and silence; a barrier of solitude seldom broken, save by the occasional heavy slam of a rusty cell door somewhere deep in the distance; a sharp, piercing cacophony that bounced back and forth against the walls of a long, dark underground tunnel. More seldom, still, was it pierced by a soft, plaintive cry; a wordless moan filled with pain and despair; an entreaty reduced to a whisper so faint and feeble by the time it reached his ears that he was never quite sure it actually existed beyond the confines of his own imagination.
When they had sentenced him to ‘solitary,’ they had very clearly meant it.
The conditions weren’t exactly new to him; he’d been locked up before—but never in solitary, and never for this long. In the past, it had only been a day or two of ordered ‘quiet contemplation’ in a cell to make an example of him and he was out again; herded back amongst his peers; set adrift in a sea of hopeless puppets; surrounded by those who accepted their lot without question or resistance, those for whom the idea of freedom was a far-off, foreign thing—an idyllic fantasy banished into obscurity by relentless Chantry dogma, constant fear, and endless guilt. Anders, however, remained undaunted despite his surroundings, spent each day feigning just enough compliance to get by while ceaselessly looking for another opportunity to cut himself free from the Circle’s chains, heedless of the punishment he would ultimately suffer when caught.
Recapture was inevitable, he knew full well. They had his phylactery. They had everything on their side: The law, the templars, the lyrium, the Maker... and all the power and influence they needed to ensure that they kept it all. Anders had nothing, save for his own life and whatever fragments of his heart and soul remained after the Chantry and the Circle had taken their share—a share that was growing larger, leaving him with less of himself to cling to after every subsequent capture and return.
Even so, the temporary taste of freedom afforded him with each escape had been worth all the consequences—until now. Anders tried to recall just how long he’d been languishing in his cell this time, but trying to pin down an estimate was maddeningly difficult. It had been weeks, at least—perhaps months—with no foreseeable end in sight. A stoic, stone-faced templar brought bread and water once a day, more or less—not that time really even meant anything anymore—but Anders yearned for human contact more than he hungered for food, and the tight-lipped templar offered none. Even so, it was probably a mixed blessing that his jailers never spoke, he thought, wondering if his tongue might hasten to put forth insincere excuses and apologies at the promise of a word or two, no matter how unkind. After so much silence, even a contemptuously-snarled, “Filthy apostate,” flung his way might sound like music to his ears, but it seemed even that was too much to hope for, that even disdain and disgust were too good to be wasted on the likes of him. The templar's cold, hard gaze had directly met his own only once, and in that moment Anders saw less compassion in his eyes than one might have for a trapped, feral animal; saw nothing but an ugly mix of fear and loathing and contempt in that look; saw the templar focus on him the way one might regard an abomination or some other wretched creature that was decidedly less than human.
Sometimes, in a deep and desperate moment of despair, he felt inclined to agree—he knew he looked the part, if nothing else. His hair lay ragged, unkempt, and dirty; a disheveled mop of dull, greasy strands lay plastered against his forehead in thick, damp clumps; the rest fell limp, matted, tangled, and heavy against his neck. He’d had a bath and change of clothes some time ago—'bath' being a rather grandiose description for what amounted to having a bucket of lukewarm water dumped roughly over his head and a relatively less filthy shirt tossed coldly at his feet—but it didn’t take long for him to feel dirty right down to the marrow of his bones again in this place, this prison cell. It was musty and damp and there were always, always rats… but errant thoughts of other mages imprisoned here over the years made him feel dirtier than the ancient debris on the floor, or the slime-covered moss growing in the cracks on the walls, or the mass of dried rat droppings piled up in the corner.
Certainly there had been others here before him. What were their crimes, that they were banished here to rot and ‘repent’ rather than sent off to face execution? Dissent? Conspiracy? Blood magic? Or were they, like Anders, desperately clinging to the idea of freedom? Had they talked back to the wrong templar, or failed in an attempt to escape?
Well, he hadn’t actually been punished for running away, not officially. Existing outside the Circle’s walls had marked him an apostate, and that was his crime. Existing. He had been a criminal since before his birth, from the first quickening of his mother’s womb. The blood that pulsed through his veins bore the curse of magic, and there was no rehabilitation for such a crime—only punishment and penance.
In the eyes of the Chantry, at least.
As far as Anders was concerned, he had broken no rules. An accident of birth was not a crime; carrying magic in one’s blood was not a criminal act. The Chantry taught otherwise, as though each new mage child born carried the compounded sin of every crime committed by magic over the last thousand years, as though their very blood was corrupted with the taint of it. True, an era of unchecked disaster at the hands of mages had created the need for a Circle, ages ago, and there was no denying that an entity like the Circle was necessary, at least, the way that the concept had been initially conceived. But hundreds of years of fear in the hearts of men without magic had twisted that need, had corrupted the original concept into something far more sinister and broken and terrible, something that had become focused on punishment and penance rather than protection.
It didn't help that even now, even among those sympathetic to the mages’ plight, there remained a secret, shadowy fear; one of the Fade, of Spirits… and of Demons.
Of course, Anders had thought about it—submitting to the call of demonic temptation. Its dangers and ills were burned into the mind of every mage as soon as they set foot in the Circle, so how could he not? What immense, otherworldly power demons must grant, to be so greatly feared. From time to time Anders pondered what he might do with such power, but aside from the obvious appeal of raining fire and lightning down on every cursed templar in creation… there really was little else there to tempt him. That sort of power seemed best-suited to men who wished to hold dominion over others, and despite all he’d been through, the only man Anders wished for dominion over was himself.
And even that wish had landed him half-naked and alone in a templar jail, where the only thing he held sway over was on which side of the cell he chose to sleep. Even that wasn’t much of a choice; there was only one option, unless he really wanted to lie nearer to the rusted metal pail in the corner that afforded him the luxury of not having to piss on the floor.
He wondered just how many men had been broken here, in this cold, lonely prison. How many strong, proud wills had been reduced to begging and pleading at the unyielding bars for a scrap of forgiveness from the templars, for anything at all that would make the pain of solitude end; how many wishes and dreams had been shattered here; how many bright, shining hopes of freedom had been snuffed out in the maddening darkness; how much faith had been abandoned in the void of endless silence?
Anders sat defiant in his cell, refusing to share his predecessors’ dismal fate; he remained unbroken, despite the overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere; he held tightly to humanity, despite the utter absence of anything that made him feel human.
His heart remained whole, though stricken sharply with a deep, implacable ache; an ache for life, for love, for liberty. He fought hard to find strength in that ache, fought harder to overcome its weakness. Anything less was giving in, and he had not come so far and struggled so long to let the templars win, now. They had left him here to break him. They had tried to take his humanity, his sanity, his spirit—they had taken everything else—but his heart would not give way.
Alone behind bars in a templar jail, locked in the depths of Kinloch Hold, Anders held fast to his hope for freedom, as he paid for his life in minutes by the hour.
His world was a void of darkness and silence, closing in around him. The darkness pined for light; the silence ached for sound.
Anders longed for both and wept, and laughed, and waited, determined not to bend.