David Gaider - The Calling

It wasn’t simply that she had taken the daggers. She had taken them away from him, the only weapons in the entire pile that she had confiscated. She had taken them away to punish him for refusing.

“No,” he growled at her.

Her eyes went wide with surprise. “No?”

“That’s right. No. I won’t help you.”

She stared at him in disbelief, and then her face hardened into sudden anger. “You won’t help me? You owe me.”

“I owe you? I owe you ?” Duncan felt his rage only increasing. He shook as he glared at Genevieve. “I think I know why Guy was so relieved when I killed him. It wasn’t because he wanted to get away from the Grey Wardens. He was happy to finally get away from you .”

She jumped up, her hand on her sword hilt. “You dare!”

He looked at her defiantly. “Go ahead. Kill me. Prove what a powerful warrior you are. The fact will remain that I’ve only been a Grey Warden for six months and I’m a better Grey Warden than you’ll ever be.”

It felt good to say it. It felt freeing. Duncan’s heart pounded in his chest, but he knew he was right. He was willing to die being right. Better than dying being wrong. Genevieve glared at him in outrage, her hand tightening on the hilt of her sword.

Bregan stepped forward, putting his hand on her shoulder again. “Leave him. He’s made his decision. He is just as foolish as the elf; what did you expect?”

She didn’t take her eyes off Duncan. Her lips formed into a snarl, her whole body shaking with rage. “I want to kill him,” she gritted between her teeth.

“Then kill him.”

For a moment Duncan thought she would. He felt the sweat beading and dribbling down his forehead as he watched her tense. And then she spun on her heel, storming away from her brother. “No,” she stated with quiet finality. And he knew that they were done. Bregan watched Genevieve walk away and wondered if he should just kill the boy now. Both him and the elf, in fact, and spare them any further trouble of trying to convert them. Kell might have been a possibility, and of some use, but these two were little more than spoiled children. The King, however, was quite a different matter.

Noticing his scrutiny, Maric arched a brow at him. “And where do I fit in here, then?” he asked. “Am I just along for the ride?”

“No, you are my prize,” the First Enchanter said, stepping closer to the King. Bregan fought to keep from reaching out and crushing the mage’s tiny neck. Why the Architect insisted on allying itself with such a treacherous slug, he couldn’t say. He supposed that the emissary needed to take what it could, but had Bregan known originally that this man would be part of the plan, he might have considered differently. Well, it was too late now.

“Out of all of this,” the mage continued, “you are what pleases me most. When I brought the Grey Wardens to make their request at the palace, I had hoped to snare the famous Loghain, the Hero of River Dane! Ah, to take that arrogant fool before the Emperor …” He paused and regarded the King with a wide grin, almost luxuriating in his victory. “But you, the great Maric the Savior, you will please the Emperor more than anything I could possibly have hoped for.”

The King spat, suddenly furious. “Is that all this is, then? Some Orlesian trick?”

“Oh, it’s much more than that, Your Majesty.”

“That’s enough,” Bregan scolded the First Enchanter. “Why you bother with this is pointless, when you well know that there won’t be enough left of Orlais, or any nation, to make such things matter when this is done.”

The mage turned toward him, his eyes flashing in annoyance. “We have the enchantments to preserve those who are most important, those who have helped facilitate the Architect’s plan, and that will include the Emperor. The Orlesian Empire will live on!”

“What do you mean,” King Maric said, his voice low and suspicious. “What does this have to do with stopping the Blight?”

“That is an excellent question.” Genevieve strode back toward them, frowning at Bregan. “What does this have to do with the Blight? What are you speaking of?”

Bregan cursed himself for an idiot. He hadn’t wanted to tell his sister about this part of the plan, not yet. It had been enough to tell her that the Blights could be ended. That was what a Grey Warden would want to do, and her most of all. She had known that. The true scope of the necessary sacrifice could have been told to her in time.

First Enchanter Remille laughed heartily. “You haven’t told her?”

Genevieve didn’t look away from Bregan, her expression brittle and suspicious. “It seems that Fiona is correct. I haven’t been told a great many things.”

He sighed heavily. “This is not how I wanted to tell you.”

“Perhaps you should have told me before.”

“I told you exactly what you needed to know,” he snapped. “That the Blights could be ended! That has not changed!”

“Then what are you speaking of? What would destroy Orlais and every other nation, if not a terrible Blight?”

“I can answer that.” The Architect calmly strode into the beam of sunshine that radiated from the window high overhead. Bregan watched it with amazement. The Grey Wardens had thought that the darkspawn could not survive in the sun, that this was why they brought darkness with them when they rose to the surface, why they hid in the Deep Roads in the first place. Yet here this emissary was, unafraid to step into the light. Its very existence challenged all of their assumptions about darkspawn, things that the order had taken as givens for centuries.

“We should speak elsewhere,” Bregan growled. “In private.”

Genevieve turned toward the Architect, her expression steel. “No. I want to know now.”

The darkspawn spread its withered hands and nodded cautiously. “I had wished to speak to you on this, but your brother said you would not understand. I defer to his judgment, for my knowledge of humans and their ways is lacking.”

“Then speak to me now,” she insisted.

“Ending the Blights is not enough.” The Architect put its hands together in front of it, looking almost meditative. “Freed of their compulsions, the darkspawn would tear each other apart. It would be a vast bloodletting. But in time they would regain their numbers, and then the threat of the taint we carry would once again bring us into conflict with your kind.”

“And? What is your alternative?”

“You are,” it said, watching her with appreciative eyes. “The Grey Wardens possess a resistance that allows them to survive even if their bodies eventually become tainted. You are living proof that a middle path exists, a way for our peoples to exist in harmony.”

She frowned in confusion. “But in order for that to …” Then her eyes went wide with shock.

“There, she gets it now,” the First Enchanter said smugly.

Bregan wanted to kill the mage. Kill him and the Grey Wardens and even the King, too. Kill all the Orlesians in the tower and all the mages they were keeping imprisoned. Let their blood cool on the ground and have the Architect find another way to complete its plan. It would be simpler that way. He felt the blood pumping in his chest, dark and heavy from the taint. It moved through him like sludge. It felt right.

“Genevieve,” he said sharply, and his sister turned back toward him. She still seemed stunned, not yet pro cessing the entire implication of the Architect’s words. Utha watched him, too, from nearby. She seemed to be considering the matter calmly. Good. She had always been a worthy warrior, one who knew the true depth of the darkspawn threat. “There is a vision here that you must understand. What the Architect speaks of is not simply ending the Blights. It is peace with the darkspawn, real peace. The kind that can last.”