David Gaider - The Calling

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.”