David Gaider - The Calling

“Err … yes. Yes, we do, in fact.”

She beamed with plea sure. “I hope I am not being too forward. My bed is in the dormitory, but most everyone else is in the assembly hall. We will be alone, at least for a little while.”

Duncan glanced askance at her to see if she was actually being serious. She was. The expectant look she gave him left no question as to what she intended. He’d heard that mages largely dispensed with social customs among themselves, but he hadn’t imagined it to go quite this far. Most Orlesian girls he’d known, even the rough-and-tumble ones in the streets, would have guffawed at this sort of display.

Not that he didn’t like it, necessarily. For a mage, she was rather attractive in her way. And clean, too. That alone would be a step up from the few experiences he’d had, furtively groping girls in filthy back rooms at the flop house, the act all sweat and desperation and over almost as soon as it’d begun. If this mage was looking for some kind of virtuoso performance on that front from a Grey Warden … well, he’d just have to give it his best shot, wouldn’t he?

Flashing his most charming smile at her, Duncan leaned casually against the wall. It was the sort of pose he’d seen Kell perform, and from the mage’s excited blush it seemed to have exactly the effect he was hoping for. “Vivian,” he crooned, “you have just made this trip more worthwhile than you could possibly imagine.”

Letting out something between a squeal and a giggle, she grabbed his leather and yanked him in for a kiss. He was taken by surprise and almost stumbled, but kept enough presence of mind to keep the dagger hidden in his shirt from showing itself. And then he was quickly lost in the moment.

She tasted like strawberries. Was that a mage thing? Duncan’s mind flashed to Fiona and he thought that, no, it probably wasn’t.

Evidently the sneaking-away bit didn’t always end in disaster.

Maric shivered as the wind blew a flurry of snow across the rocky hills. They had been traveling most of the day, making their way on foot into the hills northeast of the tower. There did not ride horses this time, not for where they were heading. As the evening had approached, it truly seemed as if the heavens opened up above them. A blizzard had been unleashed, the wind howling amid the crags as they slowly plodded through icy paths.

He remembered these hills. If they pressed far enough north to reach the coast, they would find themselves near the fortress of West Hill. There he had suffered the worst defeat of the war, one that had very nearly cost him the rebellion entirely. Hundreds of men who had followed him lost their lives there, all because he had been a trusting fool. It had been a sobering lesson to learn.

None of them had spoken a word for hours, now. Genevieve wanted to make up for lost time, and so each of them buried their faces into their cloaks and endured the weather as silently as they could. The roads and peaceful farming hamlets now covered by a blanket of snow slowly gave way to rocky crags, a skyline dotted with tall trees and sharp cliffs that were all but uninhabited.

Poor Duncan walked beside him, more miserable than ever. Maric wasn’t certain what the lad’s exact heritage was, but perhaps a lack of resistance to the cold was simply in his blood. Clearly he would have gladly stayed behind at Kinloch Hold if that were an option, which was saying a lot considering how most people felt about mages.

Genevieve had been quite eager to get him out of there, however. Something had passed between her and Duncan, and Maric wasn’t certain what. The Grey Warden’s commander had finally grown impatient after enduring the First Enchanter’s ceremony for much of the afternoon, cutting the man off in midsentence as she spun about to go in search of her missing young thief.

To tell the truth, Maric hadn’t been aware up to that point that Duncan was even absent. Eventually, Genevieve had returned with him in tow. Rather than being furious, however, the woman’s expression had been more awkward mortification. She refused to comment on what the lad had been up to when Maric asked her, clamping her jaw shut and actually blushing. Duncan stood behind her, ashen faced and looking like he wanted to do nothing more than crawl under a rock somewhere and die.

So the lad’s misery was due to far more than the weather. Since they’d left the tower, the white-haired Commander had barely spoken to him. Whenever she did, she stared at him incredulously with those hard eyes of hers, and Duncan withered under the disapproval. Maric would have stood up for him, but for all he knew the lad had done something completely reprehensible.

For his own part, Maric didn’t feel truly cold even in the blizzard, not until they spotted the doorway, a great slab of dark granite easily twice a man’s height set into the side of a ridge and almost covered in a drift of snow. It would have been simple to miss, had he not known exactly where it was. It came into sight slowly amid the wind and the snow, and they approached cautiously. The closer they got, the larger it loomed and the more the chill seeped into Maric’s heart.

This was the entrance into the Deep Roads that he had used eight years earlier, a desperate gamble to reach Gwaren without encountering the Orlesian usurper’s army on the surface. It had only been through sheer luck that he had survived. In fact, he survived by luck on a number of occasions back then. The people of Ferelden who worshipped him now wouldn’t believe the truth even if he told them, that their heroic king had managed to free them more through fortune than through skill or good decisions.

They would simply tell him that the Maker had watched over him, that through the Maker’s grace Ferelden had been freed. And perhaps that was so. Still, his mind inevitably was drawn to the two women who had accompanied him into those dark depths. One had become his wife and the mother of his son, while the other …

He grimaced. He didn’t want to think of Katriel.

It was she who had led them to this remote location the first time, calling on her mastery of history and lore. Once upon a time this doorway had been a way for the dwarves to ascend to the surface, no doubt to collect the resources that they needed, but since the darkspawn had overtaken the dwarven kingdoms it had become little more than an open sore long forgotten. Forgotten by anyone but people like Katriel, he amended silently.

Back then, they had found the entrance lying open, its great doors ravaged by time. When he visited Orzammar years later, he had asked the dwarves to repair the entrance and seal it. Loghain had worried that the darkspawn might use it to raid the surface, even though they clearly had not done so in centuries. Still, one could never be too careful.

It had never occurred to Maric that he would one day be returning here.

Another powerful gust picked up a pile of snow from the rocks and blew it in their faces. Genevieve shrugged it off and marched ahead to the entrance. Her thick white cape fluttered madly as she reached out with a hand to touch the dark stone, running her fingers along its surface. It seemed like she was feeling around for something.

“What is she doing?” Maric asked Duncan quietly.

The lad shrugged, not even willing to raise his face from the furs.

Finally Genevieve turned back and walked directly toward Maric. “You are able to open it, yes?”