It was an intriguing thought. But what were the odds?
With a deep sigh, he began to walk back to the Grey Warden camp.
5
And down they fled into darkness and despair.
With the first light of dawn, a bloom of pink and orange, barely peeking over the horizon, the Grey Wardens arrayed themselves in front of the Deep Roads entrance with weapons drawn. Duncan tensed as King Maric approached the door. Without fanfare, he produced a stone medallion shaped like an octagon and inserted it into a similarly shaped depression in the center of the door. A loud crack shattered the quiet, startling a small flock of ravens nearby into sudden flight.
He watched as a line formed in the middle of the door. It became a crack, and then widened as the door split. The King stepped back cautiously. Slowly, with the sound of stone grinding heavily against stone, it opened up to reveal the gaping maw of the tunnel beyond it. A faint stench of decay belched forth from the shadows.
They waited. Duncan almost expected a horde of monsters to come rushing out at them, but none materialized. There was only silence.
The group began to step into the cave, but paused as Julien spoke. “Wait,” he said softly. The dark-haired warrior crossed his hands in front of his chest and bowed his head, and several of the other Wardens followed suit. Duncan lowered his head and coughed. Prayer always made him nervous.
“Though all before me is shadow,” Julien intoned, “yet shall the Maker be my guide. I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond, for there is no darkness in the Maker’s Light and nothing He has wrought shall be lost.”
“Amen,” Maric whispered, and the others nodded.
Then they entered the Deep Roads.
There was a wide stairway that began not far within, and Duncan suppressed a shudder as they descended. It was warmer inside, he was thankful for that much, but the cold had been replaced by an unease that he just couldn’t shake. It was like slowly walking into a pool of filth, the stink of it filling your nostrils and turning your stomach so that you had to will yourself to take another step.
The other Grey Wardens could feel it, too. He could see it in their grave expressions and in the way their hands tightened on their weapons. All of them possessed the ability to sense the darkspawn, yet it seemed impossible that the creatures would stand out amid all the background corruption he sensed here. Genevieve reassured them quietly that it was still so, but Duncan remained unconvinced. Probably she was just trying to ensure they didn’t lose their nerve.
Only Maric couldn’t sense anything, yet he seemed more affected by their descent than anyone else. He became withdrawn, his eyes darting to every dark corner and his skin ashen in the flickering torchlight. Duncan was tempted to ask the man what had happened to him in the Deep Roads so long ago, but decided against it. Clearly it was nothing pleasant.
They followed the stairway for what seemed like hours when the first signs of corruption became visible along the stone walls of the passage: spidery tendrils of black rot, along with a shiny film that covered everything like oil. Duncan touched it, curious, and found that the film wasn’t actually wet. It was dry, with a texture like snakeskin.
Genevieve snatched his hand away with a harsh look and warned him not to touch anything again. That confused him a little. Were they not immune to the darkspawn taint? Was that not one of the few benefits they received for being Grey Wardens?
“We didn’t see it this early,” Maric said, examining the walls more closely. “Last time we were down here, I don’t think we saw anything like this until after Ortan thaig.”
“Then it has spread,” Genevieve pronounced.
Kell glanced around the passage with his unnaturally pale eyes. Duncan knew he was even more sensitive to the darkspawn than the rest of them. To him this must be like walking into sewage, and yet he gave no indication that it bothered him. “Almost to the surface?” he asked. “What does that mean?”
“It means we should be careful.” With that, she drew her sword and continued down the stairs. The others shared uncomfortable looks but followed after.
It seemed to take forever before they hit the bottom, or at least what Duncan assumed to be the bottom. The feel of the weight pressing down from above and the oppressive darkness pressing in from all sides made him want to gasp for air. He felt trapped under fetid water, desperately clawing for the surface.
Fiona, walking next to him, regarded him with a concerned look. “Are you going to be all right? You look a bit sickly,” she whispered.
He gulped a few times and forced himself to breathe. It wasn’t exactly pleasant. “I feel like I’m going to vomit.”
“Well, there’s a pleasant thought.”
“I’m serious! Can’t you feel that?”
“We can all feel it. Well, most of us can.” Her tone hinted at annoyance, and Duncan realized that she was talking about Maric. The man was walking up ahead next to Utha, oblivious to the scathing glare he was receiving from behind.
He smirked. “I heard you had it out with the King last night at the camp.”
“I asked him a simple question.”
“It didn’t sound simple from what Genevieve said,” he chuckled. “I’m just glad she was mad at somebody other than me for once.”
Fiona sighed irritably. Raising her staff, she closed her eyes and murmured something under her breath. Duncan could feel the prickle of power surging through the air, and immediately the small globe on top of the staff began to glow. The light was strong and warm, stretching throughout the corridor and driving back the shadows just a little.
The others turned and looked at the mage curiously. “Don’t waste your power,” Genevieve said, but her words lacked her usual crispness. Even she was probably relieved to have the shadows driven back a little farther, he imagined.
“There.” Fiona smiled at Duncan, pleased with herself. “Better?”
“Sure, except for the blinding light in my eyes.”
“Now you’re just being a child.”
With the added light from Fiona’s staff, Duncan could make out impressions in the wall behind the rot and decay. Runes, he suspected. Dwarven runes, though to what purpose he couldn’t really guess. He’d been told once that the dwarves held a reverence for stone. Perhaps the words they carved into the walls of the Deep Roads were prayers? Prayers now tainted by filth; it had a certain symmetry, didn’t it?
He could feel the darkspawn out there now. Genevieve was right. It just took some time to become acclimated. They were at the edge of his consciousness, lurking in the shadows far out of sight. It was that same feeling when someone was standing behind you, and you didn’t hear them or sense them in any way; you just knew.
Could they feel the Grey Wardens in return? According to the First Enchanter, the onyx brooches they’d been given would render them invisible to the darkspawn senses, but Duncan wasn’t so certain. His was pinned to his leather jerkin, and he turned it about to examine it more closely in the light. There were iridescent colors that slowly flowed just beneath the surface like a liquid. It was also cold, like touching a frosty lamppost in the dead of winter. He let it go, rubbing warmth back into his fingers absently.
“So did Genevieve make you apologize?” he asked Fiona.
The mage looked at him, puzzled. Her mind had clearly been elsewhere, but when she realized he was referring to King Maric, she rolled her eyes in annoyance. She had pretty eyes for an elf, he thought. Most elves Duncan had known always possessed such eerie eyes—light greens and purples, impossible hues that somehow made them seem alien. Fiona’s eyes were dark and expressive. Soulful, his mother might have said. She’d always had a way with words.