“You may as well use what ever magic you have to pry open my mind, if you haven’t done so already,” Bregan growled. “I’m not going to tell you what you want to know.”
The Architect blinked slowly, registering surprise in those milky-white eyes that continued to stare so incessantly. “Even if I could do such a thing,” it said politely, its words clipped and even, “what makes you think that is the goal I seek?”
“Because that’s what you darkspawn do, isn’t it?” The words came out of Bregan as a croak, and his vision swam. He felt dizzy and groggy. The beautiful humming reached a crescendo, an orchestra of insistent sound that threatened to tear his mind apart. It crashed against him in multiple waves before finally receding. It took all his effort just to remain seated, sweat pouring down his forehead as his heart slowly thumped within his chest. “You dig … you search, for where they’re kept… .”
“The Old Gods,” the Architect offered.
Bregan nodded. The humming had withdrawn into the shadows again, but its power still made him shiver. The whispers inside that sound … if he paused, he was sure he could almost make out what they were saying. He was determined not to try. He covered his face with a hand, steadying himself. “You can’t fool me,” he gritted. “I know that’s what you want. What other reason could you even have to keep me here?”
The Architect peered at him closely. It reached up with a scarred, puckered hand and ran a finger thoughtfully along its chin. Bregan continued to sweat under this scrutiny, shaky and exhausted while simultaneously trying not to let the darkspawn see just how weakened he was. He had no idea if he was successful. Probably not very.
Slowly the emissary got up, its brown robes rustling softly. It used the blackened staff for support as it leaned in to study Bregan even more closely. He shuddered, revolted by the creature’s dead eyes. His flesh crawled and he wanted to pull away, but he couldn’t even summon the strength for that much.
“You did not answer my first question,” it said softly.
He cleared his throat and glanced at it, perplexed. “I don’t …”
The Architect straightened, rubbing its chin again in an oddly human gesture. Bregan noticed the number of pouches and odd devices hanging from the loose hemp rope tied around its waist. One of them looked like a petrified skull formed into some kind of amulet, the skull having once belonged to something vaguely reptilian. “I suggested that you heard the call. You do, do you not?” It seemed more intrigued now even than before. “In fact, I will wager that you hear it more clearly now than ever.”
“You mean the humming, the music.”
“The Old Gods beckon, as they always have.” The Architect turned and paced to the other side of the cell. The shadows cast on the walls by the glowstone danced ominously. “That is what you hear. To my people, it is a call that we cannot ignore. It whispers to our blood and compels us to seek the Old Gods out. We search and search for their prisons, and when we find one, we touch the face of perfection and thus desecrate it forever.”
The darkspawn hung its head. Because it was facing away from Bregan, he couldn’t see its expression properly, but he got the impression that the creature was filled with sadness, or perhaps regret. Could that be possible? The darkspawn had attacked all other life in relentless wave after wave, without mercy or quarter sought, for centuries beyond counting. Were they capable of regret? He had to admit that prior to meeting this par tic u lar one, he had assumed a large number of things about them that seemed to not be true. Just how not true remained to be seen.
“The face of perfection?” Bregan asked. “The Old Gods are dragons.”
The Architect chucked with amusement. “Is that all they are, human? Is that such a small thing, then? Are there so many such creatures in the surface lands that they are not something of wonder?”
It was, in fact, quite the opposite. Dragons had been hunted nearly to extinction, and in truth had only begun to reappear in recent years. Even then, the Old Gods were things of legend, ancient creatures that predated even the Tevinter Imperium and might have been considered myths if the fact that a great, corrupted dragon led the hordes during each of the Blights had not provided compelling evidence of their existence.
“I do not know what an Old God truly is,” the Architect admitted. The creature’s milky eyes stared far off into the distance, and Bregan realized it was listening to the humming. The sound rose as if in response, a song of beautiful whispers that caressed against Bregan’s mind and made him shiver. He clenched his teeth to keep it at bay and was only partially successful. “I have never seen such a creature in my lifetime. Nor do I know if doing so would be a good thing. All I know is that the call of the Old Gods is a thing of perfection.” It turned to look at Bregan again, its expression indiscernible but its tone soft and sad. “We are things of darkness, human. You know this better than any other might. To us, the call is the only light we shall ever know.”
He stared at the darkspawn, this creature with its diseased flesh and its razor-sharp teeth, its dead eyes and the black talons on the end of its spindly fingers, and he didn’t know how to respond. For a long minute they remained in silence, Bregan sitting and watching the emissary as it seemed lost in thought. He wondered if it wasn’t all too easy to start ascribing human motivations to it. It looked roughly humanoid, after all. To imagine that it might have feelings similar to those of a human would be a mistake. He had to remember that.
“Didn’t you say it compelled you?” he asked.
The Architect nodded sharply. “That it does. Most of my kind are helpless before the call. They search because they must.”
“Most of your kind,” Bregan repeated. “But not you?”
“Nor, I suspect, you.”
“I am not a darkspawn.”
The creature stepped forward again, its interest renewed. “The same taint runs in your blood as in ours, Grey Warden, yet in you its effects are diminished. The question that comes to my mind is whether you have always heard the call of the Old Gods, or has that only happened since the corruption’s advancement?”
“Advancement?” Bregan blinked in confusion.
The emissary gestured languidly toward him, and Bregan abruptly realized that it was pointing at his arms under the blanket. His throat became parch-dry as he brought them out and examined them more closely in the glowstone’s yellow light. They were half covered in dark blotches. At first, he wondered if that was some kind of injury, or perhaps a bloodstain. But then he noticed the texture of the skin within those discolored areas: rough and withered, just as darkspawn flesh was.
“We regenerate quickly,” the Architect explained in a neutral voice. “It is why we have never developed healing arts as your people have, I suppose. It seems that while the effects of the taint are slowed within you, they have advanced to the point where you have experienced this one benefit, at least.”
“Benefit,” Bregan exclaimed in horror. He dropped his arm out of the light, feeling his flesh crawl and bile rise up in his throat. He fought against the sudden urge to start ripping his own skin from his body.
The Architect reached out with a hand to comfort him, but he pulled away from it reflexively. He slammed up against the wall behind him, his breath coming in short and panicked starts. He wondered what the rest of his body under the blanket looked like. The itchiness he felt in his skin under those poultices, the thickness in his blood—was he covered in those blotches now? Was he slowly transforming into some kind of monster?
Is that what happened to Grey Wardens when they lived too long? When their resistance to the taint finally gave out once and for all? Had the very first Grey Wardens long ago discovered this horrible truth and devised the Calling so that future generations could avoid seeing it for themselves?