David Gaider - The Calling

She had begun to hear it weeks ago, before they even arrived in Ferelden. The faintest whispers at first, an odd humming that she assumed was a residue of the powerful dreams. And then she realized what it was. Her time had come, just as it had come for Bregan.

They had taken their Joining together, so she had known that it would not be long in coming, but somehow she had assumed she would have more time. The Grey Wardens had elevated her to her brother’s rank knowing that it was a temporary mea sure, something sure to last less than a year or two at best, yet still she had been determined to prove them wrong. All those years of living in her brother’s shadow and finally her time had come, and then the whispers had come and ended even that.

She hadn’t told anyone. The Grey Wardens had ignored her warnings about Bregan, at best suggesting that the order would need to prepare itself if what she said proved to be true. The possibility of preventing the calamity didn’t even enter into their minds. Such fools. If she had told them of the whispers, then they would have leaped upon it as an excuse to send her into the Deep Roads—alone, and to die.

Genevieve wiped the sweat from her brow. She stared at her steel gauntlet and watched it shake. She felt weaker than she had in ages, like there was a thick poison loose in her blood. It made her skin itch and she wanted nothing more than to strip off her armor and scratch until she stripped the flesh from her bones.

There was no stopping now, however.

Banishing the fear that curled like a serpent in the pit of her stomach, she pushed herself away from the wall and began to walk. Her balance wavered, but by pure force of concentration she made herself place one foot in front of the other. I have come this far , she thought. I will not be denied now. I will stop the Blight.

For what seemed like endless hours she trudged through corruption and the mire, the dim greenish light of the lichen sometimes becoming a glare that sickened her and at other times becoming so faint that she was tempted to relight her torch. She moved through the shadows, stopping at every junction of the tunnels to listen and see if the feeling of Bregan would return again. She pressed her mind outward, feeling for anything, and yet all she heard now was that alluring song off in the distance.

Where were the darkspawn? At one point the creatures had been hounding their every step, and her Grey Warden senses could tell they lay in every direction even when they weren’t actively on top of them. Then they lost them in the lower caverns and, what? They had simply vanished.

She found it difficult to believe. No matter how effective the brooches given to them by the First Enchanter were, that shouldn’t change how darkspawn behaved. As soon as the creatures got a hint of their intrusion, the activity should have built until the Deep Roads were buzzing like an angry beehive. Losing their prey should have only increased their exertions. The idea that the darkspawn might be looking in completely the wrong direction, and only there, was too bizarre.

Something was not as it should be. She felt frustration as she realized she was missing an important piece of the puzzle. What was making the darkspawn act so strangely? Assuming Bregan had indeed been taken captive, why do that now when they had never once done so in all the centuries the Grey Wardens had sent elder members of their order to the Calling?

Unless they had. Those who went to their Calling were never heard from again. What if they had been sent into the darkspawn’s arms, and not to their deaths at all? Yet the order claimed it knew, and she had to believe.

The rocky passage opened up slowly, and she noticed smoother walls now. Architecture. Dwarven handiwork. The tunnels had circled around to an older part of the Deep Roads, then. Here the statues seemed to be absent, the craftsmanship less precise, the lava flows missing. What was it, then? The Deeper Roads? She had never heard of such a thing.

Almost without warning, she received a sense of darkspawn approaching. She tightened her grip on her greatsword and waited. Why hadn’t she detected them sooner? Had they found some way to mask themselves from Grey Warden senses, just as the brooches masked the group from them? A sobering thought, to be certain.

As she inched forward, sweat beading down her forehead, and her eyes trying vainly to pierce the shadows as she watched for an attack, she realized that there was only a single creature coming. A lone stray, then? A forager, perhaps, unable to sense her through the brooch’s cloaking?

She had to kill it quickly. Slay it before it became aware of her and she might be able to avoid alerting the horde that inevitably lay in wait.

Genevieve moved to the side of the tunnel, pressing against the wall behind a stone support pillar. It was hardly large enough truly to hide her, but the darkness shrouded her here. These creatures could see far better in the dark than humans could, but they were not immune to it.

Her heart thundered in her chest as she waited. She peered around the pillar, waiting for the darkspawn to show itself. The minutes passed. Sweat dripped off her forehead and ran into her eyes, but she ignored it.

Soon her patience paid off. A figure appeared in the distance, just barely discernible against the green haze of the lichen. It shuffled toward her, its raspy breathing clear in the vast and empty silence. A hurlock, then, she noted from its size. She readied her sword. Even a hurlock could be killed in a single blow if she was quick.

She pressed as flat against the wall as she could, stifling her own breathing and listening for the faint sounds of the creature’s steps. It came closer … and closer. The crunch of a piece of nearby stone underneath its foot signaled the moment to attack. She stepped out from behind the pillar, preparing for the silent swing—

“Genevieve.”

It was Bregan. He stood there in front of her, and she knew it was him even though he wore a black suit of darkspawn armor and was so covered with diseased flesh he could very well have passed for one of the creatures. His white hair was gone, and his eyes had reddened until they were the color of blood, but it was him.

She stopped in midswing, howling in dismay. Andraste’s mercy, what had happened to him?

“Bregan?” she asked, disbelieving.

He nodded. He seemed calm, and those bloodred eyes flicked to her sword with interest. Genevieve lowered the blade and then dropped it to the ground. It landed with a dull clatter. Should she kill him? The knowledge he possessed needed to die with him, but what if he had already given it away? What if there was something he could tell her?

Looking at what he had become, part of her wondered if she should kill him even so. Her brother had sacrificed everything for her, even a semblance of a life. Could she do any less for him?

“We have kept the darkspawn away, for a time,” he said. “I knew you would come, and I wanted you to arrive safely.”

“Who is ‘we’? Bregan, what has happened to you?”

He stepped toward her and took her arms gently in his hands. Both enthralled and horrified by those eyes, she was unable to look away. Of all the things she had imagined upon reaching Bregan, the idea that he wasn’t some unwilling captive was not one of them. The idea that he might have turned into some … monster … was even worse.

“This is what we become,” he said. “If you wait long enough, the taint spreads within you and becomes this.”

“That’s horrible!”

“No, this is freedom!” Bregan shook her emphatically. “We have a chance, Genevieve. A chance to do what no Grey Warden has ever done. We can end the Blights forever !”