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DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 8 страница

"What do you want me to do?"

"If something has truly changed within the darkspawn, the threat of a Blight occurring is great indeed. If we cannot stop them from taking that information from Bregan, my job will be to assess the likelihood of them using it. At that point, your job will be to get King Maric back to the surface."

"By myself?"

She nodded."You're stealthy. The King far less so, but you know better than any of us how to move unseen. I'm counting on you to take him."

"Don't you mean Kell? He's a hunter, he could-"

"I'm counting on you," she reiterated.

He gulped. Tall order, that.

"His nation will need him," she continued. Genevieve picked up her blade and balanced it lightly on her knee. She ran an admiring finger down its length, seemingly fascinated by the details etched into its steel. "They will need a leader who has seen the threat of the Blight firsthand, who believes in it. King Maric could help alert all of Thedas and bring the Grey Wardens great credibility in whatever follows."

"But what if...?" Duncan let his question hang, feeling guilty even for thinking it.

"There is also the possibility that I'm wrong," Genevieve stated evenly, finishing his thought without any sense of accusation. She glanced up at Duncan, her eyes dangerous. "That Bregan is dead, and I've made a terrible error in bringing us here. Or something worse."

"Worse?"

"If what King Maric learns could harm the Grey Wardens, could make us look like fools and prevent us from carrying our tour duty, then you must make certain he never reaches the surface at all."

Duncan gasped in disbelief. "You mean...?"

She held her chin thoughtfully, her thoughts distant. "He may try to escape. Whatever his reasons for joining us, however, the die is cast. If he must disappear down here in order for us to claim whatever story we wish on the surface, then that is what we must do." Noticing Duncan's wide-eyed look, she affixed him with a steely stare. "Consider the situation: There is a danger here, but I do not know what that danger encompasses, or what someone like Maric might learn in the process. We have a higher duty, Duncan. The Grey Wardens protect the entire world, not just one small nation."

He nodded slowly, his heart racing inside his chest. "I... I understand."

Genevieve smiled compassionately, if sadly. She reached out and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I know you can do this. I am counting on you to see it through, if it comes to that."

He nodded again, uncertain what he should say, if anything.

She let her hand drop. "Go. Get some sleep. Tomorrow we will have more immediate matters to think about, yes?"

Tomorrow they headed into the lion's den.

Nodding breathlessly to the Commander, Duncan turned and left before she could say anything else. She trusted him, him, to watch the King in more senses than just the one. She wanted him to do it, and not Kell or Fiona or anyone else.

Probably because he was capable of murder, and she knew that. The thought settled coldly onto his heart. It didn't repel him, however. He knew the Grey Wardens weren't out to do anything more than defeat the darkspawn, no matter what it took. Sometimes that meant doing terrible things.

If it came to it, he would murder King Maric. He wondered if even Fiona, who expressed such dislike for the man, was capable of that. Probably not. For all her anger, she was a good person.

While he was not.

Maker, my enemies are abundant.

Many are those who rise up against me.

But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion,

Should they set themselves against me.

-Canticle of Trials 1:1

Bregan couldn't be sure how much time passed in his cell. His mind was often clouded by a haze of pain, and he would drift in and out of sleep without any reference to mark whether a day had passed or a night. The hours had become fluid, lost to the darkness and despair he found himself submerged within.

Often when he awoke from his restless sleep, there would be a moment of confusion when he thought he might actually still be at the Grey Warden fortress in Montsimmard, that the ordeal of his captivity had all been but an unpleasant nightmare. A part of him waited for the familiar smells of the cypress and linen, searched for the faint moonlight coming through the shutters in his chambers, even though the rest of him knew better. Perhaps it was his mind hoping beyond hope, refusing to accept his circumstances.

It was strange to him, for if he had been asked he would have said he associated no fond memories with the fortress, despite it having been his home for so many years. Being part of the Grey Wardens was not something that had brought him joy. It had not been a misery, precisely, but rather a life he had endured. He had had not resisted the pull that had brought him down that path, but neither had he walked it willingly.

The idea that now his mind yearned to send him back there seemed to him almost like a sick joke. Genevieve would have argued with him. She had always believed their position within the Grey Wardens to be a great honor. The day he had been made Commander of the Grey, her eyes had shone with quiet pride while he had somehow felt smothered, trapped. Still he had done it, assumed the command and the responsibilities that came with it while his sister shook her head at what she perceived as his obstinacy.

And somehow it had translated into popularity among the men he had commanded. Bregan had never seen himself as being particularly more worthy than any of them. They had all made the same sacrifice as he, all taken that foulness into themselves just as he had, to fight against a threat that most of humanity thought was long past. He sought out no distinction for himself, and readily passed on the accolades offered by his superiors to those men who were actually deserving of them, and for that the Grey Wardens had loved him.

Genevieve had never understood that, either. His sister was all stiffness and duty, and she erected a barrier between herself and those she commanded. Bregan was the only one she let past that, and there were times he knew she resented his popularity. She thought he sought it out, that he deliberately cultivated their loyalty, and refused to believe him when he said that wasn't true.

Perhaps it was because that was what she would have done?

Perhaps his sister had always craved popularity among the other Wardens, and would have gone to great lengths to get it if she thought it was possible to achieve. They both knew that would never be, however. People were like weapons to her, a means to an end. She preferred them to be equally hard, unyielding, and predictable, and was always surprised when they were anything but.

Knowing that she would need to carry on as Commander after him had been almost more difficult than any other reality visited upon him by the Calling. It would have killed Genevieve to see the men mourn, and to know that when her time came in the near future they would never mourn her in the same way.

The thought of his sister jarred him into the present. He'd dreamed of Genevieve as he slept, a haze full of pain and delirium, but even through it all he imagined she was out there calling his name and desperately searching for him in the utter darkness that had swallowed them all. A strange dream to be sure, but he knew well enough to consider the possibility that it might have been something more.

Had she followed him into the Deep Roads? Was she thinking to rescue him?

A panic gripped him. He opened his eyes and sat up sharply, fully expecting to find the darkness of his cell. Instead, however, he was greeted by light. A diffuse yellow glow permeated the chamber, almost smothered by the shadows but still enough to keep it from absolute darkness. The stench of corruption filled his nostrils once again, as if he were surrounded by meat on the verge of turning, but somehow it did not seem as potent as he remembered.

The humming sound, however, was stronger even than before. It was no longer something muted and distant; it was everywhere. It was behind the walls and under the floor; it filled the shadows and caressed his skin. There was a terrible beauty to it now, an awful yearning that pulsated within the sound, a tugging that pulled at the edge of his consciousness and yet frightened and nauseated him at the same time.

The humming had eclipsed any sense he had of the darkspawn. Any attempt he made to reach out with his mind to sense where the creatures were found only a wall of beautiful sound instead.

Like a weed, it had insinuated itself into his consciousness, blocking out anything useful.

He was seized by the irrational impulse to scratch his hands across his face, to gouge away the flesh and bone and drag the humming out of his mind physically. The notion made him laugh, a mad giggle born of hysteria that was defeated almost before it made its way out of him.

"You hear it, do you not?" came the calm voice of the Architect, seated not five feet away from him on a rocky outcropping next to the wall.

Bregan was startled by the darkspawn's presence, and uncertain how he could have missed it even in the dim light. Had it crept into the cell while his mind wandered? Had he slept, and not even been aware that he slept?

A single glowstone hung next to the creature, the source of the illumination, and its gnarled staff lay across its robed lap. He had the impression that the creature had been waiting there for sometime. Watching him, perhaps? Or probing into his thoughts with its magic? There were spells that could do that, forbidden magic that he didn't doubt in the slightest a darkspawn emissary might possess.

But if that were so, there was also probably nothing he could do. His thoughts would already have been violated, and his secrets stripped from him. He had already tried to escape, only to end up back where he began.

He shuddered, belatedly remembering that he was now mostly unclothed and yet covered in makeshift bandages over much of his chest and legs. He did not recall what had happened after he had been taken down by the rush of darkspawn attackers, had felt their teeth biting into his flesh. He was not even sure how he had survived.

His skin itched terribly underneath those bandages, but he resisted the urge to peel them off. A single tattered fur blanket had been provided to cover him, and he collected it around himself as he slowly sat up fully. The pain throughout his body was dull but insistent, as if his body protested against this unfamiliar movement. The sluggishness made him wary. There was a thickness to his blood, a deliberateness to his heartbeat that made him feel like something alien was crawling inside of him and sapping his strength. Just what had the darkspawn done to him?

"You may as well use whatever magic you have to pry open my mind, if you haven't done so already," Bregan growled."I'm not going to tell you what you want to know."

The Architect blinked slowly, registering surprise in those milky-white eyes that continued to stare so incessantly. "Even if I could do such a thing," it said politely, its words clipped and even, "what makes you think that is the goal I seek?"

"Because that's what you darkspawn do, isn't it?" The words came out of Bregan as a croak, and his vision swam. He felt dizzy and groggy. The beautiful humming reached a crescendo, an orchestra of insistent sound that threatened to tear his mind apart.

It crashed against him in multiple waves before finally receding. It took all his effort just to remain seated, sweat pouring down his forehead as his heart slowly thumped within his chest. "You dig... you search, for where they're kept...."

"The Old Gods," the Architect offered.

Bregan nodded. The humming had withdrawn into the shadows again, but its power still made him shiver. The whispers inside that sound... if he paused, he was sure he could almost make out what they were saying. He was determined not to try. He covered his face with a hand, steadying himself. "You can't fool me," he gritted. "I know that's what you want. What other reason could you even have to keep me here?"

The Architect peered at him closely. It reached up with a scarred, puckered hand and ran a finger thoughtfully along its chin. Bregan continued to sweat under this scrutiny, shaky and exhausted while simultaneously trying not to let the darkspawn see just how weakened he was. He had no idea if he was successful. Probably not very.

Slowly the emissary got up, its brown robes rustling softly. It used the blackened staff for support as it leaned in to study Bregan even more closely. He shuddered, revolted by the creature's deadeyes. His flesh crawled and he wanted to pull away, but he couldn't even summon the strength for that much.

"You did not answer my first question," it said softly.

He cleared his throat and glanced at it, perplexed. "I don't..."

The Architect straightened, rubbing its chin again in an oddly human gesture. Bregan noticed the number of pouches and odd devices hanging from the loose hemp rope tied around its waist. One of them looked like a petrified skull formed into some kind of amulet, the skull having once belonged to something vaguely reptilian. "I suggested that you heard the call. You do, do you not?"

It seemed more intrigued now even than before. "In fact, I will wager that you hear it more clearly now than ever."

"You mean the humming, the music."

"The Old Gods beckon, as they always have." The Architect turned and paced to the other side of the cell. The shadows cast on the walls by the glowstone danced ominously. "That is what you hear. To my people, it is a call that we cannot ignore. It whispers to our blood and compels us to seek the Old Gods out. We search and search for their prisons, and when we find one, we touch the face of perfection and thus desecrate it forever."

The darkspawn hung its head. Because it was facing away from Bregan, he couldn't see its expression properly, but he got the impression that the creature was filled with sadness, or perhaps regret.

Could that be possible? The darkspawn had attacked all other life in relentless wave after wave, without mercy or quarter sought, for centuries beyond counting. Were they capable of regret? He had to admit that prior to meeting this particular one, he had assumed a large number of things about them that seemed to not be true.

Just how not true remained to be seen.

"The face of perfection?" Bregan asked. "The Old Gods are dragons."

The Architect chucked with amusement."Is that all they are, human? Is that such a small thing, then? Are there so many such creatures in the surface lands that they are not something of wonder?"

It was, in fact, quite the opposite. Dragons had been hunted nearly to extinction, and in truth had only begun to reappear in recent years. Even then, the Old Gods were things of legend, ancient creatures that predated even the Tevinter Imperium and might have been considered myths if the fact that a great, corrupted dragon led the hordes during each of the Blights had not provided compelling evidence of their existence.

"I do not know what an Old God truly is," the Architect admitted.

The creature's milky eyes stared far off into the distance, and Bregan realized it was listening to the humming. The sound rose as if in response, a song of beautiful whispers that caressed against Bregan's mind and made him shiver. He clenched his teeth to keep it at bay and was only partially successful. "I have never seen such a creature in my lifetime. Nor do I know if doing so would be a good thing. All I know is that the call of the Old Gods is a thing of perfection." It turned to look at Bregan again, its expression indiscernible but its tone soft and sad."We are things of darkness, human. You know this better than any other might. To us, the call is the only light we shall ever know."

He stared at the darkspawn, this creature with its diseased flesh and its razor-sharp teeth, its dead eyes and the black talons on the end of its spindly fingers, and he didn't know how to respond. For along minute they remained in silence, Bregan sitting and watching the emissary as it seemed lost in thought. He wondered if it wasn't all too easy to start ascribing human motivations to it. It looked roughly humanoid, after all. To imagine that it might have feelings similar to those of a human would be a mistake. He had to remember that.

"Didn't you say it compelled you?" he asked.

The Architect nodded sharply. "That it does. Most of my kin dare helpless before the call. They search because they must."

"Most of your kind," Bregan repeated. "But not you?"

"Nor, I suspect, you."

"I am not a darkspawn."

The creature stepped forward again, its interest renewed. "The same taint runs in your blood as in ours, Grey Warden, yet in you its effects are diminished. The question that comes to my mind is whether you have always heard the call of the Old Gods, or has that only happened since the corruption's advancement?"

"Advancement?" Bregan blinked in confusion.

The emissary gestured languidly toward him, and Bregan abruptly realized that it was pointing at his arms under the blanket.

His throat became parch-dry as he brought them out and examined them more closely in the glowstone's yellow light. They were half covered in dark blotches. At first, he wondered if that was some kind of injury, or perhaps a bloodstain. But then he noticed the texture of the skin within those discolored areas: rough and withered, just as darkspawn flesh was.

"We regenerate quickly," the Architect explained in a neutral voice. "It is why we have never developed healing arts as your people have, I suppose. It seems that while the effects of the taint are slowed within you, they have advanced to the point where you have experienced this one benefit, at least."

"Benefit," Bregan exclaimed in horror. He dropped his arm out of the light, feeling his flesh crawl and bile rise up in his throat. He fought against the sudden urge to start ripping his own skin from his body.

The Architect reached out with a hand to comfort him, but he pulled away from it reflexively. He slammed up against the wall behind him, his breath coming in short and panicked starts. He wondered what the rest of his body under the blanket looked like. The itchiness he felt in his skin under those poultices, the thickness in his blood - was he covered in those blotches now? Was he slowly transforming into some kind of monster?

Is that what happened to Grey Wardens when they lived too long? When their resistance to the taint finally gave out once and for all? Had the very first Grey Wardens long ago discovered this horrible truth and devised the Calling so that future generations could avoid seeing it for themselves?

"I am sorry," the Architect said, and for once Bregan believed it.

It withdrew its offered hand and simply stared at him uncomfortably as he sobbed. The tears came explosively, in gasps, and they shook his whole body. He burned with shame to be crying in front of the enemy, but he just couldn't help himself. The grief that welled up inside of him was overwhelming, compounded by the grogginess he felt and the maddening song that continued to tickle at the corners of his mind.

He had been called here by the Old Gods, too, he realized. It was their song that had lured him into the Dark Roads, that had told him his time was up. He was just the same as any of these darkspawn.

"I... only began to hear the humming recently," he finally explained.

His voice was almost a croak, barely audible, but the Architect listened with intent fascination. "Once a Grey Warden hears it, that's when we go on the Calling. That's when we go to our deaths."

"An appropriate name, if an unjust end."

"There's never been anything just about it," Bregan blurted out.

"I never wanted this. I never wanted to become a Grey Warden at all."

"No?"

"No." He spat out the word, avoiding looking the darkspawn in the face. It was stupid of him to say such things to this creature. Did he think it would have sympathy for him? Was he looking for sympathy? Because if he was, down here in the Deep Roads wasn't a good place to find it.

Almost belligerently, he found himself not caring. "I joined the Grey Wardens because I didn't have a choice. The one who recruited me... he wouldn't have taken my sister unless I went, too. He said I was the one he really wanted, despite the fact that it was her dream." He felt ashamed at this strange need of his to explain, but he continued anyway. "I told him that she would push herself harder than any other recruit he could hope for, that she would be the greatest Grey Warden they'd ever known. But he didn't care. He thought I would do better."

The emissary tilted its head. It was a look Bregan had seen on insects, or even dogs that were bewildered by some odd activity of their master's. He found it somehow pleasing that not everything the Architect did made him seem human. "That was a compliment, surely," it offered.

"It was a cruel fate. Either I joined the order or my sister would have ended up a soldier somewhere. A member of some city watch, or perhaps a guardsman's wife. And she would have been miserable, because becoming a Grey Warden was the only thing she'd ever wanted. I couldn't do that to her."

The confession left Bregan breathless, and he almost doubled over, shaking and weak. It was not as if his sister had never known this. They had been close their entire lives, and he had seen that knowledge deep in her eyes. If anything, it had made her more driven. They had never acknowledged that fact openly. It was never spoken of, never even alluded to despite the fact that they both knew the truth.

Some things, however, are easier to say in the shadows. Spoken here, they would never hurt Genevieve, and while it shamed him to admit, still it felt good. While every other part of him crawled with the taint, like he was some dirty and infested thing, a part of him deep down felt oddly liberated.

"You humans do strange things."

He laughed bitterly at the darkspawn's confusion, as honest as it appeared to be. "Yes, I suppose we do. I don't suppose you have brothers and sisters?"

"We are brethren." It blinked, its answer hesitant. "All of us, the same."

"But you're not the same." Bregan fought back a surge of the distant humming once again, clenching his jaw from the effort. "You said yourself the Old Gods can't compel you. You talk. You're not like any darkspawn I've ever seen."

The creature nodded, again hesitant, but said nothing.

"Why is that?" he insisted.

"I have asked myself this same question," the Architect said. It paced away again, its tone becoming troubled. "Do you think I have not? The darkspawn have been born in these depths, one generation after countless others before it, and each of my brethren is no different than any that have come before. And then came I." It drummed its long fingers along the staff, studying its own movement as if some kind of answer could be found therein. "Perhaps humans are similar? Perhaps from time to time one of you is born that is an aberration, different for no other reason than its pieces did not all fall neatly into place as they should?"

"Some would say it is the Maker's will, but yes. We are the same way."

The Architect did not immediately respond. Eventually it nodded, pleased. "Perhaps it is also similar among your kind that such aberrations rarely prosper. They are weak. Unfit. They are cursed by that which makes them different, and difference cannot be tolerated."

Bregan sighed. "Yes. Sadly, that is also true."

"But sometimes it is not a curse."The Architect walked toward the cell's door. Bregan couldn't be certain, but he thought he detected a hint of steel coming into the creature's normally cultured voice."Standing on the outside allows one to see things from a new perspective, a perspective that the rest of its brethren lack."

"You have that perspective, do you?"

"I do." It opened up the cell door, which groaned in protest but appeared to be neither closed nor actually locked. "Would you come with me, Grey Warden?" it asked politely, turning back to regard Bregan where he sat against the wall.

"You aren't worried I'll try to get away?"

"I am worried for your sake. My ability to intervene when it comes to my brethren is limited, and regeneration will only do so much."

"Meaning I could still die."

There was a bitterness to Bregan's tone that the darkspawn detected. He could see it in the way it looked at him guardedly. "Is that why you fled the first time?" Its tone was pointed. He supposed it wasn't really asking a question so much as making an observation.

He sat there for a long minute, staring off into the shadows. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his skin felt clammy and all too warm. The faint humming call in the distance prickled against his thoughts, and he absently noted just how hungry he felt. His stomach groaned with its emptiness, and yet he couldn't stand the idea of eating anything. The very thought of it made him want to retch.

The Architect continued to watch him, apparently having nothing better to do. He supposed there was really no point in avoiding such questions. "I had hoped I would be killed, yes," he admitted.

"That is why I went on the Calling in the first place, after all."

"There are easier ways to die, human."

His grimace deepened. He stood, reluctantly allowing the soiled furs to fall away from him and down to the floor, and looked down at his body. All he wore were his bloodstained and filthy smallclothes, and every part of his skin that wasn't covered by the greyed cloth bandages was corrupted. It was like a network of black mold working its way across his entire body, and everywhere it touched he could feel a hot buzzing underneath the flesh. It was difficult to look at.

So instead he strode toward where the Architect waited, picking up the glowstone as he went."I'll try not to run away this time, then," he grumbled. "But I'm not promising anything." He felt exposed and too vulnerable, but tried not to let it show. Though the taint might have made its mark upon his flesh, he was far from weak.

The darkspawn said nothing and instead turned and went out into the hall. Bregan followed. As he watched the back of the creature's robes, its bald and scarred head, he wondered faintly if he shouldn't simply try to kill it. He might not be able to escape, that was true, but perhaps he could take out this thing and whatever threat it represented. The fact that it was an emissary and thus commanded great magical power was one thing... the fact that it was also uniquely intelligent among the darkspawn, that was quite something else. It might even be his duty as a Grey Warden to kill it, just to be safe.

Yet he didn't. He remained close behind the Architect, holding the glowstone out before him and watching the alien light it cast on the ancient dwarven halls. He wondered why the emissary wasn't more concerned about its safety. Perhaps it had some sort of magical protection, something that would strike at Bregan if he so much as laid a finger upon it?

Or perhaps it simply knew better than he did that he wasn't going to do that.

They walked for a short time through the ruins, all of it tainted almost to the point of being unrecognizable for the structure it once had been. Now it was a darkspawn nest, a thing full of black tendrils and sacs of corrupted flesh. The fact that he could no longer reach out with his mind and detect the creatures he knew to be out there disturbed him greatly. The humming surrounded him now, presenting a blank wall that his mind slammed up against.

It wasn't long before the halls opened up into a vast chamber of some kind, the limits of which extended far beyond the reach of the glowstone. It was a point at which the dwarven stone carvings ended, that much he could see. The floors and walls were broken here, as if some force had simply torn the rest of it off and left it open to the underground beyond. Bregan could see natural rock, and the light gave it a sense of wetness, a great mass of something black and moist that filled up the shadows, with many things moving all around. In fact, the great mass of noise made him think of an insect hive. The smell of it was acrid and overwhelming. He couldn't place what any of it might be, and wasn't sure he wanted to.

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