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DRAGON AGE: THE CALLING 17 страница

"I came to bed after you were asleep. I hope I didn't wake you."

"No, I mean, what about Rowan?"

Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Rowan is in Gwaren with Loghain, as she should be. We do not expect them to arrive in Denerim until tomorrow. Have you lost track of the day?"

"Expect them?" He rubbed his head, confused. "But... Rowan is dead."

Katriel sat up in the bed now, the sheets falling away and revealing her nubile body and pale skin as he remembered them. She hugged him close, sighing sadly. "Is that the dream you had? Oh, Maric. Don't you remember? She was very sick, yes, and we were so frightened, but Loghain pulled her through it."

"Loghain pulled her through it," he repeated. An empty place in his heart ached, making its presence felt. He remembered it only too well.

"You know what he's like." She frowned, brushing his hair aside again. "There she was, wasting away and hovering near death, and the bastard was yelling at her, shouting that he would storm the Fade itself to retrieve her if she died. You were so angry at him."

He couldn't respond. He gulped, and his throat felt tight and dry. She cupped his cheek in her hand and looking at him warmly. Once he could have drowned in those emerald eyes. "I was proud of you. I never liked that bastard, and I don't know why you put up with him. Still, he held Rowan's hand for days, refusing to sleep or eat. They say his will was so strong she could not refuse it, and she survived."

"Is that all it took?" he croaked quietly.

"Shhhhh," she purred, leaning in close and planting a soft kiss on his lips. He felt numb and didn't respond. "Don't let it bother you so. Your queen is here, my love. Will you not let me help you forget that terrible dream?"

Maric allowed himself to be pulled down on top of her. She kissed him again, and this time he responded, slowly at first but then with more vigor. The feeling was so real, so potent, he couldn't deny it.

How often had he wished for just this very thing? The opportunity to go back and undo what had been done, to make it right. This was as it should have been. It would be so simple just to allow it to happen. Deep down he knew that here it would be possible to forget that he had ever murdered this woman, that he had ever married Rowan and then watched her die while his best friend became colder and colder with each passing year. Here, being a king would not be a chore, and as he looked into Katriel's eyes beneath him and saw her crooked grin, he found it so very tempting.

But there was another elf. Almost unbidden, the memory surfaced of Fiona, taken over by the demon and transformed into an abomination. Her agonized screams still rang in his ears, and even though that other lifetime slipped through his fingers like a half-remembered dream, that part tugged insistently at his conscience.

He had made Fiona a promise.

"I can't," he whispered, disengaging from Katriel. He moved over to his side of the bed and got out as she stared at him in confusion, clutching the sheets to her chest.

"But why? What is wrong?"

"This isn't real." He refused to look at her, refused to look into those green eyes. He remembered looking into them when he had run his sword through her chest, not quite believing he'd done it even as he watched her life slip away. In those eyes he had seen such utter disappointment. She had hoped to reach him, to appeal to his mercy even though she knew it was hopeless, and he had met her expectations completely. Yet even though this life felt completely real and enticing, he couldn't stand the thought of Fiona out there suffering. He had to act.

"Maric," she said softly behind him.

He refused to turn around, clenching his fists from the effort it took.

"Maric," she said more firmly. "Look at me." Reluctantly he turned. Katriel stared at him sadly, as if she knew they were about to part. "We could have a life here," she said. "You don't need to go back to that other world. You can stay here."

"Stay here and pretend, you mean."

"Is it pretend?" She smiled wanly. "What is reality, Maric? What is it, really? You could be happy. Why do you believe so strongly that you must do what makes you unhappy? Have you not earned a little joy?"

Katriel reached out a hand, waiting for Maric to take it so she could draw him back into bed. Her eyes pleaded with him. He hung his head, his heart breaking, and her hand slowly dropped.

She didn't cry. He turned and walked out of the room quickly, before he changed his mind. The hollowness in his heart felt like it had become a bottomless pit that nothing could ever fill. He shut it, closed it off, and forced himself to become numb. It was something he had done for so long it almost came easily to him now. Numbness had become second nature.

As soon as he stepped out the door, the world changed. He was on a twisted landscape dotted with disconnected walls and doors, as if someone had spread out the pieces of a building without any knowledge of their relation to one another. More incredible by far was the sky, a vast sea of blackness with swirling ribbons of white crossing it. Islands floated above him, some large and seemingly an arm's length away, and others distant.

Everything had a strangely unnatural sheen, the corner of his vision fuzzing as if none of this were distinct enough to be real. He watched as the patchwork walls slowly moved, forming different configurations in front of him and then slowly reassembling themselves. One wall quietly disintegrated into the ground, disappearing entirely. Small floating lights caught his attention, bright wisps speeding across the landscape not far from where he stood.

This was the Fade. Men came here to dream, and supposedly only mages were able to cross it while awake, but here he was. Had he fallen asleep? Had the demon trapped him here somehow, and that was why he remained even though he was awake? What was happening to his body in the real world?

None of his questions had answers. He stood there on that plain, feeling a dry breeze brush across his face. At least his proper armor and clothing had reappeared upon leaving his chambers. That was something. His chambers, and the rest of the palace with it, had simply disappeared. As had Katriel. He looked around but saw no trace that any of it had ever existed, and felt a pang of regret for what he had lost.

But it hadn't been real, had it? She had been a dream conjured up for his benefit, intended to hold him here. He had to hope that meant there was a way out. But how does one leave the Fade? Looking around, he realized he didn't have the faintest clue where to go. There were no pathways that led beyond the terrain on which he stood. He saw no structures, no glowing portals or anything of the kind. Just the doorways that led... where, exactly? Beyond what Fiona had spoken of that night outside the Deep Roads, he knew nothing of the dream realm.

"Lost already, I see," murmured a voice behind him.

He spun around and froze as he realized it was Katriel. She looked as he remembered her best, in the sturdy leathers she had worn during their travels in the Deep Roads. A dagger sat in her belt sheath and her blond curls fluttered in the breeze that swept across the field. Katriel regarded him now with an amused look, but appeared content to wait for him to speak.

"You... you're not here," he stammered.

"Apparently I am."

"But you're not Katriel."

"So sure of that, are you?" She walked toward him, her amusement dissolving into an annoyed frown."I know you well enough, Maric, and you're no scholar. You know as much about the Fade as you do about winemaking. You need my help."

"Your help," he repeated dumbly.

She arched a brow at him. "Do you think you can make it through the Fade on your own? I led you through the Deep Roads, once. I can lead you through here. If that's what you really want."

Maric retreated several steps. This looked like Katriel and sounded like Katriel, but this wasn't some dream of his any longer. She had to be some kind of demon, something that had followed him out of his dream once it failed its mission. Now it was trying to lure him back. His heart beat rapidly in his chest as he drew his sword, brandishing it at her warily. "Get back," he growled. "You are trying to trap me again. But I won't stay; I need to get out of here!"

Katriel seemed unimpressed, glancing at his blade with barely concealed contempt. "That's not truly your sword, Maric. You must realize that."

"I'm willing to take my chances it'll still cut you."

She nodded, smirking ever so slightly. "Maybe so. What do you intend to do, then? Run about aimlessly? Pinch yourself until you wake up? Loghain is not here to save you, love. You need my help."

"I'll not be led anywhere by a demon!"

"Oh, yes." She glared at him pointedly."Good idea. You wouldn't want to run headlong into someone's sword, after all."

Maric staggered back. The way she looked at him so knowingly with those green eyes cut him to the quick. Yet it couldn't be possible, any more than it was in the dream."I left you in that dream," he insisted. "I had to! I made a promise...."

"Yes, I know," she said sadly. Katriel sighed and walked up to him, patting him softly on the cheek. "I couldn't offer you happiness. Not before and not now. So instead I will help you do this, if this is what you really want."

He felt torn. "What I want," he said resolutely, "is to get out of here."

"Out of the Fade." She nodded. The elf turned and gestured toward the terrain around them, and Maric realized she was indicating the various doorways that dotted the landscape."There are ways out all over the place, Maric. Unfortunately they won't help you much. You're being kept here unnaturally."

"By the demon."

Katriel began striding purposefully toward one of the disembodied doorways. Uncertain what to do, Maric followed behind her. He glanced at the barren field around him. Whatever Katriel really was, she was right about one thing. At best he would have wandered the Fade, hoping to stumble across something useful.

She reached the door and stood beside it, facing him. He stopped, wondering what it was she planned. He kept his sword out, just in case.

"Let me make this simple," she said. She twisted the door's handle and opened it. There was nothing. It was an empty doorway, and Katriel even stuck her hand through it to emphasize that fact. "This doesn't lead anywhere. Unless you want it to." She closed the door again and then opened it... and this time Maric fell back as the doorway led to a verdant forest. He could see blue sky, sunshine, even hear the birds. It was a portal carved into thin air.

Katriel closed the door again. "It's not a door," she stated, getting his attention with her hand. "It's a transition, a symbol. It could be a transition to the real world, where you would suddenly wake up and start to forget all about this, but you can't go there. Not while the demon holds you."

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked.

She sighed, and smiled at him, but ignored his question. "You need to confront the demon. Only a part of it crosses the Veil into the real world, just as only a part of you is here." She waved at the door. "You can reach the demon, if you want to badly enough."

"Is it asleep?"

"No. This is its realm. It still has power, enough to kill you." At Maric's questioning look, her gaze hardened. "This was your plan, Maric. I didn't say it was a good one. I'm simply helping you however I can."

"By sending me to my death."

"Isn't that what I do?" Katriel's tone was bitter, and she looked away from him, staring off into the distance. For a moment she looked vulnerable, broken. This was as Maric remembered her, and his heart ached. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and comfort her. When she glanced back at him, however, the hardness returned. "You can locate your companions the same way," she offered. "They are trapped in a dream, as you were."

"Won't they break out of it?"

"Not everyone is as willing to deny themselves what they want as you are, Maric." There was pity in her green eyes, he saw, and suddenly he doubted. He didn't know everything that could be; nobody did. A part of him wanted desperately for her to leave him, to return back to the dream that he had left behind. But an even larger part wanted her to stay. Perhaps he hadn't truly left her behind at all.

"I'll try," he muttered.

It might have been a foolish thing to do. If Katriel was deceiving him, if she was really some spirit trying to send him back into the demon's clutches or even to his death, then so be it. He couldn't stand there and call Katriel a liar. Not after what he had done to her. He would rather be nowhere at all.

He turned the handle.

The street was much like any busy street in the poorer quarters of Denerim, Maric thought, though he was certain this was nowhere in Ferelden. Orlais, he suspected, from the snippets of conversation he picked up from the passing crowds. The shops were packed closely together here, the plaster over the brick cracked and fading, and the signs of poverty were everywhere. The rain came down lightly from the grey skies overhead, enough to stir up the dust in the cobbled streets and bring with it a wet, musty odor that assaulted his nostrils.

Was he still in the Fade? It seemed that he was, even though the change had been abrupt. This was a place just like his palace chambers had been, a figment or even a dream.

He nodded at several old washerwomen busily collecting rumpled linens from their lines. They stared at his armor, scandalized that he would go about so openly armed and obviously considering calling for the city watch. Maric had no idea what that would entail in this dream world and he didn't want to find out, so he quickly hurried on.

There was one shop in particular that seemed somehow more present than the others. Its plaster was less faded, and there was color there whereas every other part of the street seemed muddy and grey. He noticed a box of carefully tended herbs in the windowsill, and light blue curtains that fluttered in the breeze. The door to the building was painted a sharp red, and closed, but a pair of barn-style doors stood wide open to a workman's shop within.

He could hear the sound of hammering, and surmised that the place belonged to a carpenter. It was easy enough to see with all the sawdust on the ground, and saw horses standing next to a pair of unvarnished chairs. They were well-made, too, sturdy and thick. More furniture lay just inside the doors, including an upended table and a half- painted dresser. This was a busy place.

The hammering stopped."Duncan! Bring in everything before it gets rained on, for Andraste's sake!"The voice was deep and strong, the sort Maric associated with a large man. It also had no trace of the Orlesian accent. In fact, if he didn't know better he would have said it was Fereldan.

"Blast it, boy!" the voice thundered again. "Where have you gone off to?" As Maric approached the shop, the source of the voice suddenly appeared at the entrance. It was a giant of a man, pale-skinned with a thick beard and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. He wore a large smock covered in sawdust and old streaks of paint. Grimacing, the man snatched up a chair in each hand before he noticed Maric.

"Oh! Sorry, my lord," he said, eyeing Maric uncertainly. "Were you looking to buy something? I was just bringing this in out of the rain."

"It looks like fine furniture. You're a master of your craft."

The man bobbed his head, smiling a bit bashfully. "Thank you, my lord. You're from home, I see. We don't get many Fereldans here, especially not in this part of the city."

"You're from Ferelden?"

"From Highever, in fact. My son still misses it a great deal, as do I."The man then noticed the slowly increasing rate of rainfall and suddenly looked abashed. "And here I am keeping you out in the rain! Please, my lord! Come in!" He retreated into the shop, carrying the large chairs with him as if they weighed little more than feathers, and Maric followed. He suspected a man that big could probably have hefted a half dozen more, perhaps on one shoulder.

The shop was small, with more chairs and other assorted bits of furniture piled up around the wall than it could feasibly contain. There was space enough for a workbench, covered with bits of wood and shavings and a wide assortment of metal tools, as well as a large table turned upside down on a pair of saw horses. It would be a fine piece, the legs curved and gently inlaid with the fine floral carvings Maric had seen on similar Orlesian pieces. It was the sort of table that would be welcome in any noble estate.

The carpenter noticed where Maric was looking and his grin broadened. It was a grin that Maric had seen on Duncan, come to think of it. "For the Marquise," he said proudly. "Special commission."

"You seem very busy."

"My son and I work hard. We've done well, I think."

A door that led from the shop to the interior opened, and a dark-skinned woman walked through. She had a mop of frizzy black hair on her head and kind, almond-shaped eyes. Care had worn lines on her face and brought wisps of grey at her temples, but she was still pretty, he thought. From the bump he saw under her dress, it was obvious that she was pregnant. "Oh!" she said, startled to see Maric. "I thought you were closing the shop, Arryn." Her Rivaini accent was strong, but her command of the King's Tongue was perfect.

"This man is from Ferelden, Tayana."

She nodded at Maric politely, though her eyes held a slight suspicion. She did not believe he was here actually to shop for furniture.

"How do you do, ser," she said.

"I'm actually looking for your son." At the startled looks from both of them, he quickly added, "Provided that Duncan is you rson, of course. Maybe eighteen years? Black hair?"

The man's smile evaporated. "What has he done?"

"Arryn?" the woman asked uncertainly.

"Go inside, love," he told her. She glanced at Maric fearfully but then nodded and retreated inside the house. The man looked at him sternly. "What has my boy done? He gets into trouble from time to time, my lord, but he is a good boy. We do the best by him that we know how."

"I'm sure that you do." Maric felt guilty deceiving the man, and letting him think he was someone important. Not that it was a deception, entirely. And he's a dream father, too, let's not forget that.

"I need to speak to your son. I'm afraid it's important."

The man nodded slowly. "Let me find him, then." He went inside, and Maric waited. Rain pelted the roof above. Several carriages thundered by on the cobblestones outside, and he faintly heard a woman calling for her children to come inside. A flash of lightning was followed by the first peal of thunder.

In time, the door opened again and the burly man reappeared, this time accompanied by a sullen- looking Duncan. The young man looked drenched, as if he had just come in out of the rain, wearing a set of black trousers and a white shirt soaked right through.

Duncan stared at Maric in surprise, and then looked up at his father. "I don't know this man. I didn't do anything to him!" he said defensively.

"That's enough!" His father pushed him into the shop.

Maric cleared his throat. "Actually, I would like to speak to him alone."

"Alone?" The man looked angrily at Duncan, who rolled his eyes and sighed. Finally the man nodded at Maric. "As you wish."

With a warning glare at his son, the man turned and went back inside, closing the door firmly behind him. Duncan folded his arms and stared challengingly at Maric, but said nothing. There was no sense in his eyes that he knew who he was looking at, not even a little. Maric cleared his throat. This might not be very easy. "I suppose you don't remember me?"

The lad squinted his eyes. "Should I?"

"We haven't known each other long."

"You have me mistaken, I think."

"No, I don't." Maric gestured to the shop around him. "I know this may be a bit hard to believe, but I don't know how else to explain it to you. This isn't real."

"What? Of course it is!" Duncan stepped back, looking at him like he was insane. Maric wondered if maybe that wasn't true. The whole idea of the Fade was incredible. How do you explain to someone that they were in a dream? What if someone had come up to him a year ago and suggested such a thing?

Sadly, a part of Maric wondered if he wouldn't have simply felt relieved.

"No. This is a dream. This isn't real."

Duncan turned toward the door, but Maric caught his shoulder and spun him back. The lad was furious now, but there was also something else in his expression. Was it doubt? Maric seized upon that. "You know what I'm talking about," he insisted. "You are a Grey Warden, Duncan. We are in the Fade, in a dream, sent here by the demon we encountered in the dwarven palace. Don't you remember?"

Duncan pulled himself out of Maric's grip, and backed up sharply enough to bang against one of the shop's wooden walls. A nearby pile of chairs rattled loudly. "No!" he snarled, suddenly enraged. "That never happened! That... that was a dream!"

"This is the dream, Duncan."

"No!" he shouted. He charged at Maric, fists flying, but Maric caught his wrists and together they fell onto the Marquise's table in the center of the shop. The table went flying off the saw horses, crashing to the ground with an enormous racket as two of the legs broke off. Duncan was on top of Maric, struggling to free his fists as his face contorted into fury, and Maric barely fended him off. Finally he threw him back.

"Don't be stupid!" Maric snapped. "You know it's true! I can see it!"

Duncan fell back onto the floor, hitting his head against another chair and sending it flying outside into the rain. He sat there, stunned.

The door into the house flew open and Duncan's father charged out with a carpenter's hammer in one hand, his face filled with concern and fury. "What is going on here?" When he saw Maric lying on the damaged table, and Duncan not a foot away, he immediately charged at Maric. Those strong hands grabbed the neck of Maric's breastplate, lifting him off the table as if he weighed nothing at all. That powerful face was just inches away from his own, red with rage. "Why have you brought trouble to my home? Get out of here!"

"Father, wait," came Duncan's quiet plea.

It was enough to make his father pause. Still holding Maric aloft, he turned and scowled at his son. "Did you cause this, then? Duncan, I thought I taught you better than that."

The look that Duncan suddenly gave his father was at once so hopeless and so sad that Maric knew the lad realized the truth. "You did," he said quietly. "You did teach me better."

"And what is your excuse, then?"

"You died," Duncan whispered. His eyes glistened brightly, and he wiped at them, turning away. His father's fury dissolved instantly, and he lowered Maric back to the table on the floor as if he were little more than an afterthought.

"Son," he said, his voice thick, "it doesn't have to be like this."

"It already is."

The lad turned back to his father, his eyes bleary with tears, and the two of them stared at each other quietly for a moment. His father sighed sadly, and Duncan closed his eyes. And just like that the entire shop vanished. It was simply gone, replaced by an open plain and the island-filled sky of the Fade above.

Duncan barely seemed to notice. He was in his black leathers and his Grey Warden tunic once again, the twin daggers at his sides. He stared at the spot where his father had been, tears rolling down his cheeks. "I really thought-" His voice caught, and he swallowed hard. "I really thought it was them; I thought it had all been some nightmare."

"I know."

"I was so relieved. That I hadn't been stuck, alone..."

"I know."

Maric tensed as he saw Katriel approach from nearby. He had half assumed that she would simply be gone, that maybe her appearance had just been another dream. Yet there she was, striding toward them and regarding Duncan with an amused expression.

The lad frowned and followed his gaze, turning to spot her with a degree of surprise. He backed away warily, going for his daggers, but she held a hand to show she was unarmed. "A little young, aren't you?" she asked with a slight grin. Duncan turned and looked incredulously at Maric.

"This is Katriel," Maric told him with a sigh.

"You mean...?"

"Yes, that Katriel."

"But isn't she...?"

"Dead?" she answered for him, giving Maric a wary look. "That's the rumor. I've come to help. If you prefer to think of me as something unpleasant, that's fine. It would be no worse than what I was in life."

Duncan seemed confused. "We can't trust her!"

"She led me to you," Maric told him. Then he turned to Katriel, trying not to meet her gaze. It was a torment to see her like this, to have memories dredged up that he had thought long-buried. "We need to find the others," he told her.

She nodded, and gestured down a desolate path lined with tall statues. "There is another doorway in this direction. It will take you where you need to go."

Maric and Duncan stood in the Frostback Mountains. A wind rushed past them, cold and brisk. Maric looked up at the impressive snow-capped peaks looming high overhead. The snow on the ground was thick, almost coming to the top of their boots, and from the dark clouds it looked likely that a storm was to come.

"Oh, great," Duncan mumbled. "More snow."

Maric glanced at the lad but said nothing. He had left Katriel behind, as before. Either she couldn't follow them or chose not to; Maric wasn't certain. He found that his thoughts kept returning to her. If she was a product of his dream, how did she leave it? Why was she helping him against the demon that created her? Perhaps she was another demon, an enemy of the first? Or was he simply being misled? So far her information had been useful.

A part of him wondered if it was possible that she was actually Katriel. They said the dead passed through the Fade on their way to the Maker's side, and sometimes lost their way. Perhaps she was a ghost. It was a dangerous and frightening thought, and he tried to push it out of his mind.

A steep path led up the side of the mountain and they followed it, shivering in the wind. The trees here were thick evergreens, crowding the path and forcing them to push many low-hanging branches out of their way.

When the path turned a corner, a vista opened up before them. These were the Frostbacks at their most breathtaking: great mountains reaching almost up to the sky, a vast forest in the valley below leading to a frozen lake that he could see with crystal clarity. Had the lake not been ice and snow, it would almost have been possible to leap into the water, so long as one didn't mind bouncing on the crags a few times. And provided hitting the water from such a height didn't simply kill one outright. Still, it was impressive.

"What is that?" Duncan murmured.

Maric turned to see what he was looking at, and realized the path continued along the cliff around the mountainside and ended at a walled holding. It was a grey, somber-looking fortified settlement, perched on the edge of the cliff and seemingly built half into the mountain. There were men on the walls, he saw, with long hair and beards and thick fur cloaks, already pointing at the two strangers on the path. Dogs began to bark as an alarm was raised.

"They don't seem that friendly," Duncan remarked dryly.

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