The Calling

12

Sunshine poured through an open window, the yellow silk curtains ruffling gently in the breeze. It took Maric a moment to realize he was in the palace at Denerim. He inhaled deeply, amazed at how wonderful that air smelled, how warm the feeling of sun on his bare skin was. It was so easy to forget about these simple pleasures when you were miles underground in the Deep Roads… .

The Deep Roads. The thought rankled, and suddenly he wondered why he was at the palace at all. Shouldn’t he be with the Grey Wardens? The memory slipped away like quicksilver the more he tried to focus on it. Had he been dreaming?

He was in his own bed in the royal chambers, wearing only crisp linen sheets and not heavy silverite plate armor. The mahogany vanity that had been a gift from the Antivan royal family dominated the wall. His grandfather’s dwarven-made spectacles sat on the small desk, retrieved at great expense from an Orlesian nobleman in Nevarra, and next to them was the cumbersome tome on King Calenhad that he had been slowly making his way through for the last year. He had no talent for reading, and the scholar’s language was dense enough to make the effort difficult. Maric was stubborn, however.

He was where he was supposed to be. Why did he think he had traveled off on some adventure, chasing after an ancient order that didn’t even exist in Ferelden any longer? The entire idea was ludicrous.

Someone shifted in the bed next to him and he froze. Rowan was dead. There shouldn’t be anyone—

“Maric?” came a muffled, sleepy voice.

Panic gripped him, and his heart began beating rapidly. He stared with wide eyes as the woman lifted her head from her pillows. The honeyed curls were just as he remembered them, tousled and not quite covering her elven ears. Wide emerald eyes blinked at him as she smiled. “You’re a strange one to look at me so,” she chuckled. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Katriel. It was Katriel, the elven spy he had killed eight years before.

“I … don’t know,” he choked. “Maybe I did.”

She made a moue and reached up with one hand, brushing his hair away from his eyes. The gesture was like something out of his distant memory, and yet so strikingly familiar. He took her hand and held it firmly against his cheek. She even smelled the same. How had he forgotten that? Tears welled up in his eyes.

“Oh, Maric,” she said, her concern suddenly real. “You did have a bad dream! Oh, my darling man. Always the sensitive one, tsk.”

He held her hand to his face a moment longer, frightened that if he let it go she would slip away. But finally he fought down his tears and looked at her. “How did you get here? I don’t understand.”

“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. What ever 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 par tic u lar 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 your son, of course. Maybe eigh teen 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 snowcapped 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.

“They are Avvars. Hill folk. They’re not apt to like us much.”

“Should we fight?”

“No, let’s wait to see what they do.”

It didn’t take long for three men to stream out of the gates, tall warriors with stern frowns commanding vicious-looking warhounds that barked and growled and strained against their leashes. That they didn’t simply unleash the hounds on them must mean they were willing to talk, he hoped.

The trio stopped just short of Maric and Duncan, staring at them suspiciously as they held back their dogs. The leader was an older man with grey hair well past his shoulders, but even so, he was powerfully built. He had the air of authority, as well.

“Lowlander,” he growled.

It wasn’t exactly a question, but Maric nodded. He thought it best to remain polite. The Avvars had a long history of warfare with the “lowlanders” in the Fereldan valley, and had stubbornly refused to join the kingdom when King Calenhad had united the teyrns centuries ago. The years since had just made them more determined to remain apart.

“Why have you come?” the man demanded.

“We are looking for a man by the name of Kell,” Maric said. The looks the men exchanged told him they knew exactly who he was talking about. This wasn’t surprising. So far it seemed like each of these dreams had been centered completely around the person doing the dreaming.

Did people have different sorts of dreams? Ones where they were innocent bystanders to events, irrelevant to the larger scheme of things?

“You seek Kell ap Morgan? Why?”

“That’s something I’d need to speak with Kell about.” It wasn’t an answer that these hillsmen liked, and he saw them bristle at his temerity. Duncan raised his eyebrows at Maric, clearly thinking that they were about to get into a fight and not altogether opposed to the notion. Luckily, the grey-haired leader spat at his fellows and halted their rage before it got out of hand.

“We shall see,” he grunted. Nodding for the others to follow, he turned and began to walk up the path back to the holding. The others ran after him, yanking hard on the warhounds to get them to come. Maric and Duncan were left either to follow or remain behind. It wasn’t much of a choice.

“They smell like urine,” Duncan complained, though without force.

“You can stay here, if you like.”

They went inside the holding, and were greeted immediately by a crowd of curious hill folk. The children were filthy and feral, staring with wide eyes as they chewed on their fingers. The adults were little better. These were people who lived from day to day, clinging to this mountain like stubborn weeds and subject to a wide assortment of disasters, from disease to poor hunting years to violent feuds with neighboring holdings. The Avvars were born to harsh misfortune, as well as inured to it.

The buildings outside the caves were low but remarkably well-built. These were not primitives, Maric reminded himself. They knew of masonry and mining and traded with the dwarves to acquire fine weaponry and other supplies. Each of the doors had a hide stretched over it, which was then decorated with brightly painted runes.

The totems in front of most of the buildings were also typically Avvarian. Stone idols built to honor their gods, if Maric remembered correctly. The only one he knew of was the Father of the Skies, to whom the Avvars returned their dead, leaving their bodies out on the rocks to be picked clean by the birds. He supposed that was no stranger than burning one’s dead, though he was curious what they did with the bones.

The men led Maric and Duncan across a dirty courtyard littered with dog dung and hanging furs, toward a larger stone building. It was little more than a hut, really, but it was wider than most of the others and had an impressive carved eagle head over the door. Someone important lived there.

The grey-haired man went directly inside, and when Maric went to follow him the other two Avvars interjected themselves, crossing their arms and glaring at him firmly. No access just yet, then.

They waited in the courtyard, a group of dogs coming up and snuffling at their legs curiously. These were not well-kept animals like Hafter; they were almost wolves, and covered in matted fur that reeked of wet. Duncan gagged and covered his mouth, but Maric just smiled. Being Fereldan, he had been around dogs since he was a child.

Nearby, a group of children looked around a corner at them with fearful expressions. One brashly threw a stone at Maric, missing by a wide margin, and then the whole group of them ran off giggling in terror. The pair of guards at the door took no notice of any of it.

When the grey-haired warrior reappeared, he had beside him another: This was a younger warrior, wearing a reddish fur cloak and with long brown hair and a short beard. As Maric saw the intense, pale eyes, he realized that this was Kell. A Kell with hair, and sporting tribal tattoos up and down the length of his bare arms, but there was no mistaking the man’s taciturn demeanor.

“Kell?” Duncan asked, gasping.

The hunter’s eyebrows shot up. The grey-haired warrior glanced at him, frowning heavily. “The lowlanders say they have come to speak with you, Jarl. Do you know of them? We can feed them to the dogs.”

Kell studied Maric and Duncan closely, those pale eyes traveling over them carefully. Maric saw no hint of recognition, but that meant little when it came to the inscrutable hunter. Duncan put up his hand as if to speak, but the grey-haired warrior growled him down. What happened if Kell decided that he wasn’t going to speak with them? They were surrounded by a holding full of seasoned hillsmen that could cut them down instantly.

“Let them come inside,” Kell finally said. He seemed hesitant, but stepped aside and gestured for Duncan and Maric to enter the stone hut. The other men present appeared startled, but deferred to Kell’s wishes and gave way.

The hut’s interior was uncluttered, with thick furs covering the floor and a large, high-backed chair made of logs. This was an audience chamber of some kind. Maric knew the sort. Several longbows and animal heads were displayed prominently on the wall. One of the heads was from a giant bear, its roaring mouth wide enough to engulf a man’s head. An impressive trophy.

Maric could see little past a curtain that hung in an interior doorway, but saw the hints of another room beyond. He also heard the distinctive cooing of an infant, as well as the sounds of a young woman’s soft humming. She quieted, and Maric got the impression of someone peeking curiously through the curtain, but could make out no details.

Kell sat down in the chair, resting his chin on his fist as he studied them again. “I saw you both in a dream,” he murmured, “and now you are here. How can this be?”

“That wasn’t a dream,” Duncan snapped. “This is.”

Maric wouldn’t have leaped right into it like that, but perhaps it was just as well. The hunter looked at each of them in turn, no doubt wondering if they were joking with him. Seeing that they weren’t, he frowned. “This is no dream. You are standing here before me, in my hall and in my holding. This is reality.”

Before Duncan could respond, Maric held up his hand. He stepped forward and touched Kell’s shoulder, looking into the man’s eyes. There was confusion there. He wasn’t certain that what they were saying was the truth, and perhaps that was enough. “Do you remember that dream?” Maric asked him. “You were a Grey Warden, just like Duncan here. We encountered a demon that trapped us in the Fade.” He waved at the room around them. “That’s what this is. This is your dream.”

A dark cloud passed over Kell’s face and he jumped up from his chair, pulling his shoulder from Maric’s grasp. Disturbed, he walked over to the curtain leading into the other room, but stopped short of opening it. He bowed his head and listened for a moment to the crying of the child next door. “How did you get here, then?”

“You can end the dream,” Maric told him. “That’s what I did, when I realized what it was. And I came looking for you. We can’t stay here, and Fiona needs us.”

“Fiona,” Kell tested the name out. “The mage.”

Maric nodded. “We’re asleep, I think.”

“We could be dead. This could be the Beyond.” Kell seemed almost hopeful. “You could both be demons sent to tempt me from my final rest.”

“Is that what you think?” Duncan asked him.

The hunter thought about it, and then closed his eyes. “No,” he said grimly. “I know what happened to this place, to its people.” His eyes were bright as he opened them and took one final look around. “I will not accept a lie.”

The infant in the other room suddenly began to wail, and Kell flinched as if struck. He stood there, his face ashen as he listened. None of them moved. “Do you need to say good-bye?” Maric asked him cautiously.

He shook his head. “No,” he rasped. “I did that long ago.”

The man was replaced by the figure Maric knew: clean-shaven and bald, with the hooded cloak and the hunter’s leathers. His eyes shone from beneath his hood with grim intensity. A moment later the hut vanished, replaced by the empty landscape of the Fade. The three of them walked through a door into a dwarven home. The ceiling was low, and the air filled with the smell of coal smoke and meaty dishes. A large family lived here; solid dwarven chairs were mixed in with children’s toys and rolled-up furs and a table covered in vellum scrolls. Maps adorned the walls, at least one of them a map of Ferelden that Maric recognized. A large brazier filled with coals lent a warm orange glow to the chamber.

A dwarven child ran in, perhaps ten years of age with a mop of unruly coppery hair on his head. He skidded to a halt, clearly having expected someone other than a trio of three humans to be at the entrance, his expression turning from excitement to horror. “Mam! Pap!” he squealed. “There’s cloudheads come!”

“Humans?” A matronly dwarven woman walked into the chamber from a dimly lit kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. Maric could hear something bubbling in a large pot, and noticed several other children behind the woman looking past her skirt. The woman’s black hair was streaked with grey and pulled back into a bun, and she wore spectacles. Much the same as Maric’s grandfather had, he remembered. “By the Ancestors! It is humans!”

Several more people entered the room. An older man walked in, a fat dwarf almost as wide as he was tall, with a bald head and a bright coppery beard going halfway down his chest. He walked with a cane and possessed the air of a distinguished gentleman, perhaps a scholar. A fit young man walked beside him, his own coppery beard short but lovingly cultivated with braids.

The young man looked outraged at the presence of intruders and rushed forward, his fists out. The older dwarf grabbed his shirt and hauled him back forcefully. “Wait, Tam! Don’t be stupid.”

“Why are you here?” the young man demanded angrily.

The woman stepped forward, waving the children behind her back. They retreated into the kitchen but didn’t go very far. The tension in the room made them terrified, however, and the woman wasn’t far from it herself. She nodded cautiously at Maric. “We don’t have anything someone like you would want, human. There’s no reason for you to hurt anyone.”

Maric put his hands up. “Please calm down. We don’t mean any harm.” He looked back at Kell and Duncan, who nodded. None of them wanted to start any trouble with these people.

“Then answer the boy,” the man grunted. “Why are you here?”

“They have come for me, Father,” came a new voice. Maric turned, and was shocked to see Utha enter the chamber from a short hallway. Her long braid had been undone to reveal a luxurious mane of coppery hair, and she wore a simple dwarven dress with a fine leather mantle. Her expression was forlorn. “There’s no reason for you to be frightened. These are friends.”

“Friends?” the older woman interjected, confused. “Since when do you know humans, Utha? What strange business is this?”

“I’m sorry, Mother, it would be difficult to explain.” Utha turned toward Maric and the others and nodded. “I trust you are all well?”

“You can talk!” Duncan exclaimed.

“It seems that here I can, yes.”

“And you remember us? You know who we are?” Maric asked her carefully.

“You are the King of Ferelden,” she stated, reciting the fact with a sad sigh. “The men with you are Grey Wardens, as am I. Yes, I remember.”

The dwarves in the room looked fearful and confused. The older man stepped forward, glancing at Maric as if he were a snake ready to bite, but walking up to Utha in order to take her hand in his own. “Utha, what are you speaking of? This is madness!”

She looked at her father, tears welling up in her eyes, and she reached up to fondly stroke his cheek. “I know it is, Father. It’s time for me to go.”

“Go? Go where?”

Her mother marched toward them, the woman’s concern overriding her fear of Maric and the others. The rest of the family piled in behind her, babbling confused questions. “What do you mean you’re going?” she asked. “Why would you leave with these people?”

Utha pressed her lips into a thin line, controlling the tears that clearly threatened to overwhelm her. “I must,” she whispered, her voice thick. She hugged her father and then her mother, each of them returning her gesture warmly even if they didn’t understand what she was doing. The children gathered around Utha, hugging her legs and shedding panicked tears as they realized what was happening.

“You won’t stay for dinner, even? You and your friends?” her mother asked with faint hope, tears streaming down her face.

Utha kissed her mother tenderly on the cheek, saying nothing, and did the same to her stammering father. Then she turned to face the young man who stood grimly nearby. She began to speak to him, but a wave of grief held her tongue. She paused, collecting herself even as the young man stared at her, not comprehending.

“You fought well, Tam,” she finally forced out. She made herself look him directly in the eyes, though it was clearly difficult for her. “I was very proud of you. Very proud.”

“You … were?”

“Oh, yes,” she said fervently. “I swore an oath to avenge you.” She turned and looked at the others, new tears welling. “I swore an oath to avenge you all. And I shall.” Her tone was resolute, and with that the chamber vanished. They were back in the Fade, standing in a field of impossibly tall rock pillars, and Utha stared off into the distance. She looked as she did before, dressed in simple brown robes with her hair braided down her back.

She turned back to the others, her eyes red from tears. She made several emphatic gestures, ending with her fist clutched over her heart. Her expression was so desperately sad that Maric didn’t know what to say.

Kell walked up to her. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then she hugged him tightly around his waist. He stroked her hair fondly. “We do not blame you, Utha,” he said. “You stayed as long as you could.”

Duncan hung his head sadly. Maric looked at him and wondered if he thought of his own family. He saw Katriel standing not far away, watching the group but unwilling to join them. He wondered how terrible it would have been just to stay with her for a time, to enjoy that lie just a little bit longer. He longed to talk to her, to make her understand… .

But these were thoughts he needed to banish. He had made a promise. Their lives hung in the balance.

They needed to move on. A cabin made of logs stood at the top of a hill, amid a verdant forest that appeared to stretch on forever under a clear blue sky. The trees here were enormous pines shooting straight up into the sky, rows upon rows of towering sentinels that made the cabin look like a tiny thing in comparison. It wasn’t, of course. As they drew closer, they could see that the building was significant, with a large pile of chopped wood outside and a warm trail of smoke leading up from a chimney. A furry hide stretched over a drum next to the doorway, and a large fire pit still smoldered from recent use, a spit over it stained from what ever carcass had been roasted there.

“We are in the Arbor Wilds,” Kell surmised, studying the terrain. “In the south of Orlais. Dangerous country. A difficult place to live, to be certain.”

Duncan looked up, interested. “Dangerous? Because of the animals?”

“Because of the dryads.”

“Whoever lives here seems to be doing fine,” Maric noted. “And there’s someone now.” He pointed off in the distance toward the side of the cabin, where a shirtless man with short dark hair and a beard was busily chopping wood on a tree stump. They walked up the dirt path, the rhythmic sound of the chopping echoing over the countryside. A flock of crows burst into flight from one of the nearby trees, cawing loudly as they vanished into the sky.

The chopping sounds halted.

As the group came around the side of the cabin, they encountered the dark-haired warrior facing them warily with axe in hand, still sweating and heaving from his exertions. He looked on them as one might regard a pack of wild dogs, uncertain whether they were actually going to attack or slink away. What ever he thought, he said nothing. It took Maric a moment to realize that he knew who this was.

“Julien!” Duncan cried in amazement.

The man narrowed his eyes. “Do I know you?”

“Of course you do!” Duncan replied. “We’re—”

“Friends of Nicolas,” Kell interrupted, placing a hand on Duncan’s chest to hold him back. The lad looked confused for a moment before he realized why. This wasn’t Julien. It couldn’t be. Julien was dead.

“I find that hard to believe,” he responded, holding up his axe a little higher. “Nobody knows we’re out here, not even my relatives. You don’t look like the normal sorts of bandits we get, but I’ll tell you the same as I told the last: Leave now, or face the consequences.”

“We’re not bandits, I assure you,” Maric told him.

“Then what are you?”

“If we could speak to Nicolas, that would be easier to explain.”

Julien assessed them carefully. His gaze went from one to the next before he finally lowered his axe. It was done only reluctantly, and likely only because all of them kept their weapons sheathed. “We will see” was all he said as he swung the axe hard into the tree stump, lodging it there. He walked back toward the cabin, snatching up a damp linen shirt from on top of the woodpile and throwing it over his shoulder.

The inside of the cabin was a single chamber, filled with evidence that it had been occupied for a long time. A stone hearth dominated the room, two worn chairs in front of it surrounded by several wine bottles askew on the floor. A bookshelf overflowed with dusty tomes, and a desk sat next to it covered with reams of papers, many of them crumpled into wads, and an elaborate quill-and-ink set made of gold. The kitchen was a mess of iron pots and dishes scattered about the stove, and beyond it lay a single sizable bed in the corner covered by several thick bear furs.

Nicolas sat inside in front of the hearth, the fire roaring and filling the room with warm light and a smoky smell. He wore a long black shirt and leather trousers, and stared into the fire with the air of a man weighing a heavy burden. He barely glanced up as Julien and the others crowded in through the door.

“You heard?” Julien asked him.

Nicolas continued to stare into the fire, his face haggard and worn. “I did.”

“And do you know these people?”

Maric stepped forward. “Nicolas, I know this may be hard to believe, but—”

The blond warrior stood up, interrupting him with the heavy scrape of his chair as it was pushed back. He looked at Julien solemnly. “You need to leave me alone with them, Julien.”

“What? You’re mad! Tell me who they are first.”

Nicolas walked toward him. Ignoring the presence of the others nearby, he took Julien’s chin in his hand and kissed him tenderly on the lips. Julien seemed chagrined at first, and then accepted the gesture. It was sweet, and had the air of a couple that had been together for a great long time.

Maric glanced away, embarrassed by the intimacy, not to mention the fact that he hadn’t quite realized the nature of the two warriors’ relationship earlier. Not just comrades, then, and far more than close friends. The other Grey Wardens seemed unsurprised.

“I’m not mad,” Nicolas whispered. “But you need to trust me.”

Julien was clearly confused, but he reluctantly nodded. Giving one final suspicious glare at Maric, he said, “I’ll be right outside, then.” Marching across the room, he opened a large wardrobe next to the bed and removed his greatsword. It was dull and looked as if it had not been used in some time. The man hefted it onto his shoulder and walked back outside, still glaring the entire way.

Nicolas watched him go, frowning sadly. As soon as Julien was out the door, he sighed. “He doesn’t know.”

“But you do?” Maric asked him. “You know this is a dream?”

“I know this is the Fade. I knew it instantly. To see Julien alive, I knew it couldn’t be true. I held his body in my arms. You don’t forget that.”

“Then we don’t need to explain,” Duncan said, relieved.

An awkward silence ensued as Nicolas turned back toward the hearth. He walked to the wooden mantel and ran his hand along its length, as if testing its smoothness. His eyes looked haunted, Maric thought, and for a long moment they all watched as he stood there. The only sound was the crackling of the flames.

“We’d talked about this,” the blond man murmured. He didn’t look at them. “Leaving the Grey Wardens, and coming out here on our own. We’d have a few years left before the taint caught up to us, and we could spend it with each other. We could truly be together.” He gently ran his hand along the mantel again. “It was a fine plan, down to every detail… .” His voice trailed off and he became silent again, staring into the fire.

“You mean to stay,” Kell said. It wasn’t a question. The hunter and Utha exchanged a sad, knowing glance.

Nicolas nodded. “I mean to stay.”

“You can’t!” Duncan objected, his dawning horror evident as he realized what was being suggested. “You can’t do that! You know that isn’t him, right? It’s a lie!”

“It’s not a lie.”

The warrior seemed resolute. Maric walked toward him and tentatively put his hand on the man’s shoulder, looking at his eyes to get his attention. “But it is a dream. Your body is back in the real world, just like ours. If you stay here …”

“Then I die?” Nicolas smiled, abashed. “We knew it was possible one of us could fall in battle. I thought I was prepared, but I wasn’t.” He turned back to the mantel, unable to meet Maric’s gaze. “I love him. Tell me I should return to a life where I can’t be with him. Tell me this isn’t better.”

Maric couldn’t tell him that. He let him go and stepped back.

“But—” Duncan looked around, his confusion only mounting as he saw both Kell and Utha accepting Nicolas’s words just as Maric did. “You can’t be serious! You have to come back. This is suicide!”

“I can think of worse ways to die.”

“No! It’s wrong.” He ran up to Nicolas, making as if to push him back against the hearth. The warrior warily caught at the lad’s leathers and held him with a strong hand, though Duncan didn’t struggle much. He seemed more astonished than outraged. “How can you let the demon defeat you like this?”

Nicolas nodded slowly, closing his eyes as if the idea pained him. “Julien saved you,” he sighed. “He did the right thing, I know that. I wish I’d died with him.” Then he paused, opening his eyes and looking directly at Duncan. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “I did die with him. This has nothing to do with the demon.”

“But—”

“Let me have my dream,” he pleaded, his voice heavy. It was as much to Maric and the others as to Duncan. “Please, just let me have this one last thing.”

Duncan looked like he was about to continue arguing, but seeing the expression on Nicolas’s face, he visibly deflated. Finally he nodded. He didn’t agree, even Maric could see that, but he couldn’t argue in the face of that pain. He gave Maric a troubled glance and then turned and stormed out the door without another word.

Kell walked up to Nicolas, extending his hand. “You served well,” he said. “You did your duty. Let it end here.” Nicolas shook his hand heartily, the tears coming more quickly. He fought to control a sob.

Utha went to the warrior, looking up at him with compassionate tears of her own. She made no gestures, but simply took both his hands in hers.

“Thank you,” he croaked, his voice near breaking.

Maric nodded at the man. Part of him felt disquiet at the idea of leaving Nicolas behind, a warrior who could still be of great help to them. But would it be better to demand that he follow them, fighting until he died some grueling death alone in the Deep Roads? Or worse, survived and carried on alone? It didn’t seem as if Grey Wardens met happy ends even at the best of times. Perhaps it was better to choose your own.

The idea settled over Maric like a dark cloud as they left Nicolas behind in the cabin. Outside, Duncan waited with his arms crossed. The lad looked distressed rather than belligerent. It must be difficult to understand when death seemed like a thing very far away. Perhaps it was better that he didn’t.

Julien solemnly watched them leave, and then returned inside the cabin to his love. This dream wouldn’t end, and somehow that brought Maric a small amount of comfort.

“We need to find Genevieve,” Duncan avowed.

Maric agreed, and together the group swiftly walked down the hill and out of the wilderness in search of the Grey Warden’s commander.

Time was running short.