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.