“I am sorry,” the Architect said, and for once Bregan believed it. It withdrew its offered hand and simply stared at him uncomfortably as he sobbed. The tears came explosively, in gasps, and they shook his whole body. He burned with shame to be crying in front of the enemy, but he just couldn’t help himself. The grief that welled up inside of him was overwhelming, compounded by the grogginess he felt and the maddening song that continued to tickle at the corners of his mind.
He had been called here by the Old Gods, too, he realized. It was their song that had lured him into the Dark Roads, that had told him his time was up. He was just the same as any of these darkspawn.
“I … only began to hear the humming recently,” he finally explained. His voice was almost a croak, barely audible, but the Architect listened with intent fascination. “Once a Grey Warden hears it, that’s when we go on the Calling. That’s when we go to our deaths.”
“An appropriate name, if an unjust end.”
“There’s never been anything just about it,” Bregan blurted out. “I never wanted this. I never wanted to become a Grey Warden at all.”
“No?”
“No.” He spat out the word, avoiding looking the darkspawn in the face. It was stupid of him to say such things to this creature. Did he think it would have sympathy for him? Was he looking for sympathy? Because if he was, down here in the Deep Roads wasn’t a good place to find it.
Almost belligerently, he found himself not caring. “I joined the Grey Wardens because I didn’t have a choice. The one who recruited me … he wouldn’t have taken my sister unless I went, too. He said I was the one he really wanted, despite the fact that it was her dream.” He felt ashamed at this strange need of his to explain, but he continued anyway. “I told him that she would push herself harder than any other recruit he could hope for, that she would be the greatest Grey Warden they’d ever known. But he didn’t care. He thought I would do better.”
The emissary tilted its head. It was a look Bregan had seen on insects, or even dogs that were bewildered by some odd activity of their master’s. He found it somehow pleasing that not everything the Architect did made him seem human. “That was a compliment, surely,” it offered.
“It was a cruel fate. Either I joined the order or my sister would have ended up a soldier somewhere. A member of some city watch, or perhaps a guardsman’s wife. And she would have been miserable, because becoming a Grey Warden was the only thing she’d ever wanted. I couldn’t do that to her.”
The confession left Bregan breathless, and he almost doubled over, shaking and weak. It was not as if his sister had never known this. They had been close their entire lives, and he had seen that knowledge deep in her eyes. If anything, it had made her more driven. They had never acknowledged that fact openly. It was never spoken of, never even alluded to despite the fact that they both knew the truth.
Some things, however, are easier to say in the shadows. Spoken here, they would never hurt Genevieve, and while it shamed him to admit, still it felt good. While every other part of him crawled with the taint, like he was some dirty and infested thing, a part of him deep down felt oddly liberated.
“You humans do strange things.”
He laughed bitterly at the darkspawn’s confusion, as honest as it appeared to be. “Yes, I suppose we do. I don’t suppose you have brothers and sisters?”
“We are brethren.” It blinked, its answer hesitant. “All of us, the same.”
“But you’re not the same.” Bregan fought back a surge of the distant humming once again, clenching his jaw from the effort. “You said yourself the Old Gods can’t compel you. You talk. You’re not like any darkspawn I’ve ever seen.”
The creature nodded, again hesitant, but said nothing.
“Why is that?” he insisted.
“I have asked myself this same question,” the Architect said. It paced away again, its tone becoming troubled. “Do you think I have not? The darkspawn have been born in these depths, one generation after countless others before it, and each of my brethren is no different than any that have come before. And then came I.” It drummed its long fingers along the staff, studying its own movement as if some kind of answer could be found therein. “Perhaps humans are similar? Perhaps from time to time one of you is born that is an aberration, different for no other reason than its pieces did not all fall neatly into place as they should?”
“Some would say it is the Maker’s will, but yes. We are the same way.”
The Architect did not immediately respond. Eventually it nodded, pleased. “Perhaps it is also similar among your kind that such aberrations rarely prosper. They are weak. Unfit. They are cursed by that which makes them different, and difference cannot be tolerated.”
Bregan sighed. “Yes. Sadly, that is also true.”
“But sometimes it is not a curse.” The Architect walked toward the cell’s door. Bregan couldn’t be certain, but he thought he detected a hint of steel coming into the creature’s normally cultured voice. “Standing on the outside allows one to see things from a new perspective, a perspective that the rest of its brethren lack.”
“You have that perspective, do you?”
“I do.” It opened up the cell door, which groaned in protest but appeared to be neither closed nor actually locked. “Would you come with me, Grey Warden?” it asked politely, turning back to regard Bregan where he sat against the wall.
“You aren’t worried I’ll try to get away?”
“I am worried for your sake. My ability to intervene when it comes to my brethren is limited, and regeneration will only do so much.”
“Meaning I could still die.”
There was a bitterness to Bregan’s tone that the darkspawn detected. He could see it in the way it looked at him guardedly. “Is that why you fled the first time?” Its tone was pointed. He supposed it wasn’t really asking a question so much as making an observation.
He sat there for a long minute, staring off into the shadows. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his skin felt clammy and all too warm. The faint humming call in the distance prickled against his thoughts, and he absently noted just how hungry he felt. His stomach groaned with its emptiness, and yet he couldn’t stand the idea of eating anything. The very thought of it made him want to retch.
The Architect continued to watch him, apparently having nothing better to do. He supposed there was really no point in avoiding such questions. “I had hoped I would be killed, yes,” he admitted. “That is why I went on the Calling in the first place, after all.”
“There are easier ways to die, human.”
His grimace deepened. He stood, reluctantly allowing the soiled furs to fall away from him and down to the floor, and looked down at his body. All he wore were his bloodstained and filthy smallclothes, and every part of his skin that wasn’t covered by the greyed cloth bandages was corrupted. It was like a network of black mold working its way across his entire body, and everywhere it touched he could feel a hot buzzing underneath the flesh. It was difficult to look at.
So instead he strode toward where the Architect waited, picking up the glowstone as he went. “I’ll try not to run away this time, then,” he grumbled. “But I’m not promising anything.” He felt exposed and too vulnerable, but tried not to let it show. Though the taint might have made its mark upon his flesh, he was far from weak.
The darkspawn said nothing and instead turned and went out into the hall. [Bregan followed. As he watched the back of the creature’s robes, its bald and scarred head, he wondered faintly if he shouldn’t simply try to kill it. He might not be able to escape, that was true, but perhaps he could take out this thing and what ever threat it represented. The fact that it was an emissary and thus commanded great magical power was one thing … the fact that it was also uniquely intelligent among the darkspawn, that was quite something else. It might even be his duty as a Grey Warden to kill it, just to be safe.