The Calling

2

The powerful stench in the air reminded Bregan of rancid meat. There was a strange humming off in the distance, a sound he could just barely hear but which filled him with dread. He moved his hand carefully and found he was lying on stone. It felt oddly grimy, however, as if covered in a layer of soot and grease.

He was still in the Deep Roads. The sense of the miles of rock above him was strong, as if there were an invisible weight pressing down on his body. He took a deep, ragged breath and immediately gagged as the smell of decay overpowered him. He rolled over and retched uncontrollably, his empty guts roiling, but nothing came out but ugly gasps. Sharp pain stabbed through him, reminding him of the injuries he had suffered.

As Bregan brought his agonizing heaving under control, shaking and sweating as he did so, he felt blindly for those injuries. His armor was gone, as were his sword and shield, but they had left him his robe and his tunic, encrusted with blood and filth as those were. His injuries, meanwhile, had been dressed. In the utter darkness he couldn’t quite tell what they had been dressed with. Some sort of poultice, it seemed, bound with a rough cloth that felt similar to burlap.

But who had brought him here? Who had tended to his injuries? He remembered reaching a ruined thaig. He remembered being swarmed by darkspawn in the Deep Roads, overwhelmed by their numbers from all sides, and then … ? Nothing. He recalled the feeling of their black blades slicing into his flesh, remembered their talons puncturing his armor and digging into his shoulders and legs. By all rights he should be dead. Darkspawn showed no mercy; they didn’t take prisoners.

Bregan closed his eyes and carefully reached out with his senses. There were darkspawn all around him. Not in the same room, perhaps, but nearby. He could feel them tickling at the edge of his mind. As always, the sensation came with a feeling of foulness, as if a poison had seeped under his skin.

He closed his eyes and attempted to force the awareness of their presence back out. How he had always despised it. Every Grey Warden gained the ability to touch the darkspawn from afar, and most considered it a gift. He had always thought it a curse.

The humming continued. Behind that sound, however, he could hear other things. There was movement, things slithering against rock. The sound of sloshing water. All of these things were muted and faint, but they were there. From time to time the quality of the smell would change, as well; it would become something burnt and charred. He would feel a strange pressure against his mental senses, as if something were … pushing against his mind. And then it would pass.

Apprehension tugged at him, and his heart began to beat more rapidly. Moving awkwardly, Bregan got up off the ground and onto his hands and knees. He felt around blindly to discern the limits of his environment. He felt some kind of fur pelt, dirty enough that he was glad his captors hadn’t decided to toss him onto that instead of the bare floor. He felt smooth walls, definitely a place that was built and not a natural cave.

His hands came across something soft and sticky, like a putrescent growth that spiderwebbed its way across the rock. The darkspawn corruption. He forced down his revulsion. Best not to think too hard about it.

Then a new sound began. Footsteps, boots on stone and not far away. Bregan turned to face the source, the first hint of direction he’d had since he awoke, and sensed a darkspawn approaching. He crawled away from it, his alarm giving way to terror. Was there a door there? Would he even see what ever was approaching him? His inability to adjust to the utter blackness around him was maddening.

The steps grew louder, echoing until they were ringing in his head. And then came the grinding sound of a metal door being opened, and suddenly there was light so bright it seared his eyes. He shouted in pain and recoiled, covering his face as he did so.

“My apologies,” came a male voice. It was soft and oddly resonant, with an unearthly timbre, yet not unpleasant. The words seemed clipped, as if the speaker was unaccustomed to using them.

Bregan sat back up, blinking hard and holding up a hand to block out the worst of the light. It was difficult to make out anything, and his eyes watered from the painful effort. He could make out a vague shadow within the light, carry ing what appeared to be some manner of glowing rock. The shadow moved into the room but maintained a respectful distance.

“The light is necessary,” the cultured voice continued. “I suspect coming in the darkness would have been unpleasant for you. I am correct in assuming that you cannot see in the darkness, yes?”

Was this a darkspawn? The emissaries were capable of speech, but he didn’t recall any record of a Grey Warden having actually spoken to one. They were the spellcasters of the darkspawn, and he had heard one on occasion taunting the front lines, or crying out in anger as the Grey Wardens pressed the attack. He had even heard of them delivering ultimatums from across the battlefield, but never anything like this. He felt with his mental senses, and yes, this was indeed a darkspawn before him. The very same sense of foulness touched his mind.

“I shall wait,” the voice said. “Your sight shall return in time.”

It took only a few moments of rubbing for Bregan’s vision to finally begin to clear. What he saw in the light of the creature’s glowstone did nothing to assuage his confusion. It was an emissary, a darkspawn who might have been mistaken for a human were it not for its corrupted flesh and wide, fishlike eyes. It had no hair, and its lips were peeled back from its sharp fangs to reveal a permanent, hideous grin. Instead of the usual assortment of decayed leathers and pieces of armor that the darkspawn wore, however, this one had a simple, soot-covered brown robe. It carried a gnarled black staff in one hand and the glowstone in the other.

It also seemed quite calm, studying Bregan with its eerie eyes. He shuddered, not sure how to react at first. His instinct was to rush it, to snap its neck and get away. An emissary had command over magic, but like any mage it needed time to summon its power. If he moved quickly enough, even its staff would do it no good.

“Have your injuries healed?” it asked quite suddenly. “I understand humans have the power to heal magically, but alas, that is not something I am capable of. Even our knowledge of your medicines is … limited.”

“I don’t understand,” Bregan stammered.

The creature nodded, seemingly sympathetic to his plight. Bregan was having difficulty resolving the fact that civilized behavior was coming from such a monstrous being. All the lore of the Grey Wardens, centuries upon centuries of knowledge painstakingly gained throughout the Blights … nothing suggested that the darkspawn ever did anything but mindlessly attack and infect any living creature they came across.

“What is it you do not understand?” it asked patiently.

“Are you … a darkspawn?”

It did not seem surprised in the slightest by his question. “Are you a human?” The strange timbre of its voice seemed to roll around the word human as if it were a foreign word. Bregan supposed that, to a darkspawn, it probably was. “I think you are not,” it continued. “I think you are a Grey Warden.”

“I … I am both of those things.”

It blinked at him, but Bregan couldn’t tell if that indicated surprise or disbelief or something else entirely. Were darkspawn capable of emotions? They were capable of coordinated action. They were known to make repairs to their armor, even build crude weapons and structures from the remnants of dwarven supplies they found in the Deep Roads. There had just never been any evidence of actual motivation behind what they did, beyond the dark forces that drove them. Perhaps the Grey Wardens were wrong. Or perhaps they had known all along, and it was yet another of the secrets they kept, even from someone as high ranking as himself.

It wouldn’t be the first time, he thought bitterly. Slowly Bregan sat back, keeping a wary eye on the emissary—assuming that was what it was. If it had meant to kill him, it would already have done so. What Bregan couldn’t be sure of was whether that boded something far worse for him.

The darkspawn shifted in its dirty robes, leaning on its staff in a manner that Bregan found disturbingly human. “Our kind can sense a Grey Warden, just as a Grey Warden can sense us. And you know why this is.” It looked pointedly at him, but he declined to say anything.

“There is a taint that is within the darkspawn,” it supplied its own answer. “A darkness that pervades us, compels us, drives us to rail against the light. It is in our blood and corrupts the very world around us.” The creature gestured toward Bregan with a withered, taloned hand. “It is also within your blood. It is what makes you what you are, what you sense in us and we in you.”

Bregan felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. He said nothing, and avoided meeting the darkspawn’s alien gaze.

“You take that darkness into you,” it continued. “You use it to fight against us. Your immunity to its effects are not complete, however. When the corruption takes its inevitable toll, you come into the Deep Roads. Alone. To fight against us one last time. This is why you came, is it not?”

The question hung in the air. Bregan still didn’t look up at the creature, a powerful foreboding making him wary. The idea that the darkspawn could communicate in such a fashion was one thing. That they were capable of knowing such things … that was quite something else.

He waited, considering if he shouldn’t try to get out while he still could. Did it matter if they killed him? He had come into the Deep Roads to die, after all. What was the worst they could do, other than knock him out again and put him back in this cell?

The idea weighed down on him, made him hang his head low. The strange humming seemed to be everywhere. He could feel the greasy slickness of the taint inside him now; it permeated every membrane and filled every orifice. He wanted to scratch at his face, peel off the flesh from his bones. He wanted it out of him.

“Yes,” he slowly admitted. “The Calling. That’s what we call it when it’s our time to come, to make an end to it.”

“The Calling,” it repeated, nodding as if in approval. “You wish a glorious end rather than succumbing to the taint? Is that what happens?”

“I don’t know!” Bregan snapped. He looked up at the creature and was taken aback to find that it was staring at him with a strange clinical curiosity.

“No? Has it never happened before?”

Bregan lurched to his feet, ignoring the dull jabs of pain from his wounds and the nauseated rumbling of his stomach. The humming got even louder, and for a moment he swayed on his feet as light-headedness overtook him. “What are you?” he cried. He stormed toward the creature, got close enough that he could smell its carrion flesh, see its pale pupils watching his every movement. It didn’t retreat. “Why have you brought me here? Maker’s breath! I should be dead!”

“Is that truly why you came? To die?”

“Yes!” Bregan screamed. He grabbed the emissary by its robes, pulling it toward him as he reared his fist to strike. It didn’t fight him. Bregan’s fist shook as he gritted his teeth and stared the darkspawn in the face. He should hit it. He should kill it. He had no reason not to; why was he hesitating?

“I think,” it whispered, “that you came because you felt you had no other choice.”

Bregan let it go, shoving it away from him. The darkspawn stumbled back, almost falling to the ground, but righted itself with its staff. It seemed unconcerned. He turned away from it, shaking with fury. “I’m not going to give you what ever it is you want,” he growled. “So you may as well go ahead and kill me.”

For a long minute he heard simple rustling, the darkspawn smoothing its robes and regaining its composure. The humming thrummed in the distance, and behind it he could sense the other darkspawn. He could faintly make out the sounds they made, the unnatural rattling and the dry hiss that had haunted his dreams ever since the Joining, when he had taken their dark essence inside himself. He could feel them pressing in on the wall of his mind. Relentless. He broke out in a sweat and closed his eyes, trying to focus on the mad rhythm of his heart.

He had known. When the ceremonies for the Calling were done and the dwarves had all finished paying their solemn respects, they had opened the great seal on the outskirts of Orzammar. He had looked out into the Deep Roads and known it couldn’t possibly be this easy. Better to fall on one’s sword, end it quickly and cleanly no matter what the Maker might think of it. Better that than to walk slowly out into a sea of darkness and be drowned in it.

Yet he had gone. It didn’t matter what he wanted. His entire life it hadn’t mattered what he wanted; why should it be different now?

“The answer to your first question,” the emissary intoned, “is that I am the Architect.”

“Is that your name?”

“We do not have names. That is simply what I am. The others of my kind do not have even that much. They are simply darkspawn, and nothing more.”

He turned slowly back, puzzled. “But you are? Something more?”

The darkspawn held up a finger. “What if I told you that there could be peace between our kind and yours? That such a thing is possible?”

Bregan wasn’t sure what to think of the question. “Is that something that we would even want? I mean, peace with the darkspawn? It’s … hard to imagine.”

“The Grey Wardens have never been successful in wiping out our kind. Four times we have found one of the ancient dragons slumbering in their prisons beneath the earth, the beings you call the Old Gods.” The Architect looked off into the distance, its demeanor melancholy. “They call to us, a siren song we cannot resist. We seek them out, and when they rise up to the surface, we follow. We cannot resist. And when your kind drive us back down, the cycle begins anew.”

Bregan frowned. “Then the only way there can be peace is if the darkspawn are destroyed.”

The Architect stared at him with sudden intensity in its pale eyes. “That isn’t the only way,” it said, the resonance in its unearthly voice making him shiver.

And then Bregan realized what the darkspawn sought from him.

In a flash he ran forward, shoving the startled creature out of his way as he snatched the glowstone from its hand. The Architect stumbled against the wall of the cell, its staff clattering loudly to the ground. Not waiting for it to start casting a spell, Bregan darted out into the hall. He slammed the metal door behind him and it closed with a resounding thoom.

The hall was worse than the cell, overgrown with what looked like organic tendrils and sacs of black mucus. There were other doors, some rusted shut or all but covered in strange, barnacle-like growths. He ignored them and started running, holding the glowstone before him.

Already he heard the hue and cry beginning around him, angry hissing and the sound of creatures running in all directions. The darkspawn were connected to each other by the same dark force that the Grey Wardens used to sense them—the Architect had been completely correct about that much, though Bregan didn’t want to know how it knew.

His attention was focused on expanding his senses, trying to discern where the darkspawn were moving. It was difficult. Their taint was all around him here, and every time he tried to push outward with his mind, the infernal humming noise just became stronger. Homing in on individuals when he was surrounded by such filth, it was as if every breath of it flooded him.

As he rounded a corner, he almost ran into a small group of darkspawn—real warriors, tall hurlocks with mismatched heavy armor and wicked-looking blades. They bared their fangs, hissing as they reared back in surprise.

Bregan didn’t give them a chance to act. He charged the nearest, grabbing hold of its curved sword and kicking it in the chest. The creature was startled enough to let go, issuing a shout of dismay. He then spun around, slashing the blade across the neck of a second darkspawn. It fell, clutching at the black ichor that fountained from the wound.

The third darkspawn let out an ululating cry, bringing its blade swinging down on him hard. Bregan dodged to the side at the last moment, letting the creature overbalance, and then knocked it on the head with his sword’s pommel. Tossing the sword up, he reversed his grip on the hilt and then stabbed down into its back. It let out a gurgling cry as he wrenched the blade about in the wound.

The darkspawn he had kicked was already recovering. It barreled into him with a roar, knocking him away from his sword, and bit hard into his arm. The fangs sank deep into his flesh, and he could feel the dark corruption oozing into his blood. If he were anything other than a Grey Warden, that would be the end of him right there. He would contract a wasting illness, bringing madness and delirium and eventually an agonizing death.

But Grey Wardens paid a heavy price to become what they were. And for good reason.

Bregan fought hard against the hurlock, gritting his teeth as it emitted a rattling screech right over his face. He could smell its fetid breath, see the glistening black tongue rolling behind its long fangs. Already the cries of other darkspawn were drawing near. They struggled on the stone, and then he got a hand free and jutted it hard under the creature’s chin. It squealed in rage as he pushed its head away from him, harder and harder until it was stretched back, struggling to maintain its leverage.

Finally, when it let go of him, he shoved. It hit its head against the passage wall, hard enough for there to be a muted cracking sound. Before it could re orient itself, he snatched up the sword and jumped to his feet in one smooth motion. As the darkspawn attempted to rise, he hacked down. Once. Twice. And it was done.

He paused, gasping for breath, and leaned against the wall. A wave of weakness came over him, and he let the sword drop to the ground. The smell of the flowing ichor was pungent, overwhelming even the stink that surrounded him. The humming grew more strident, more insistent. It threatened to block off all other sounds. For just a moment he pressed his forehead against cool stone and closed his eyes.

He heard a reverberating hiss nearby, and as Bregan opened his eyes and turned, he saw another heavily armored darkspawn running at him with a spear. Barely pausing to consider, he grabbed the shaft of the spear behind the tip and pulled it hard into the wall. The darkspawn stumbled toward him, and he lifted his elbow to connect with its face. There was a sickening crunch of teeth and bone, and as the creature recoiled, he snatched the spear away. He spun the weapon around and thrust the point through its abdomen.

Not waiting for the creature to fall, he let go of the shaft and turned to leave. He had to get out. Quickly. Scooping up the fallen sword, he ran into a large open chamber. It was filled with many pillars, some half crumbled, others reaching to a distant ceiling. All of them were covered in black fungus and corruption. The glowstone sent shadows dancing everywhere.

As he raced through the room, he saw more darkspawn run in ahead of him. Some of them were short genlocks, with their pointed ears and toothy grins. When they spotted him, they raised their bows and began firing arrows. Two whistled by him. One struck his shoulder, but he ignored it and began charging toward them. With a loud cry, Bregan raised the sword and slashed it down hard as he mowed through the darkspawn line. He wasn’t even paying attention to individual targets, just slashing hard and then spinning and slashing again as he ran past them. Ichor sprayed across his face, and for a moment the dizziness threatened to overwhelm him, but he bit down hard and fought it back.

The genlocks tried to rally their numbers, but there was nothing they could do. Some of them were falling back, trying to reorganize, but he was already through. He turned a corner into another passage, and as a larger hurlock roared and raced toward him, he cut it down without another thought and kept running.

There had to be a way out. There had to be. This was some kind of fortress, long abandoned by the dwarves when their ancient kingdoms were overrun by these creatures. If he could just find a way out, get back into the Deep Roads, he could …

He stopped midway down a flight of cracked stairs. He could hear the darkspawn not far behind him, as well as more ahead of him. It was like an anthill stirring to life. His shoulders sagged and he dropped his head low, breathing heavy. He tried to ignore the sweat pouring into his eyes.

Even if he got out of here, where was he supposed to go? He was supposed to be dead. Rightfully, he should let the darkspawn kill him, if they even would.

He stared at the sword in his hands. The blade was tinged with soot, irregularly shaped, with a sharp and curved point at its end, not unlike a large saber. The hilt was crude, wrapped in a leather that Bregan didn’t really want to know the origin of. Poorly made, to be sure, but effective. That point could tear his throat out easily; just put it up to his neck and with one swift jerk it would be done.

There would be no way they could get the location of the Old Gods from him then. No way that he would be responsible for the beginning of another Blight, another invasion of the surface lands by these monsters. He had to assume they couldn’t just read his mind somehow, or they would have already done so, but who knew what tricks the Architect had? Best that the knowledge died with him here.

Gritting his teeth, he raised the sword, the curve of the point covering his throat almost perfectly. Heading out into the Deep Roads to die fighting hadn’t been his idea. It was centuries of Grey Warden tradition that had been forced on him, and he had reluctantly agreed, as he had agreed to everything in his life. It was better this way.

The blade wavered. A despairing wail escaped him and he began to shake. He let the blade drop to his side, closing his eyes as the sobs racked his body.

Darkspawn began to pour toward him from both ends of the passage, but he barely noticed. He stood numbly on the stairs and waited, the blackness closing in on his mind. The humming sound reached a crescendo, an urgency that tugged on the edges of his consciousness and stretched it thin.

It was inside him.

All at once, the darkspawn swarmed over Bregan and pulled him to the ground. They bit into his flesh, and several sharp objects poked him painfully. He didn’t cry out and didn’t resist. The glowstone was borne away, and as the darkness became total something struck him on the back of the head.

It was better this way.