by David Gaider
“Try eleven,” Loghain corrected. “The three Katriel killed.”
Rowan rolled her eyes. “Ah, yes. Let’s not forget her.”
“I thought I was just seeing double.” Maric smiled. Then he looked at Rowan queerly. “You slapped me.”
“Would you like me to do it again?”
“Why did you slap me?”
Loghain cleared his throat to get their attention. “We were deciding what to do,” he reminded them. “I think the only thing we can do is try to find a route through the Brecilian Forest. If we can reach it, that is.”
Maric nodded glumly. “Do we have any other choice?”
“Actually you do,” came Katriel’s quiet voice as she returned to the camp. She carried the rabbits, freshly skinned, as well as a small bundle of wood and sticks under one arm. Maric stood to help relieve her burden, and she immediately crouched down to restore the fire.
Loghain waited patiently, watching her work, until finally he couldn’t wait any longer. “We have another choice? You heard us speaking, I take it?”
“Half the countryside could hear the three of you, ser. I was not trying to, but I heard most of it from the stream.” She dug around with the new wood, and the flames roared back to life, the moist bark hissing and popping violently as it began to blacken. “And yes, you have another option.”
“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Rowan sighed.
Katriel nodded, frowning. “I know, my lady. I am merely . . . hesitant to mention it.” Satisfied with the fire, she took the carcasses from Maric and began skewering them on a pair of branches. “Have you heard of the Deep Roads?”
Loghain nodded slowly. “The underground roads that once belonged to the dwarven kingdoms. But they no longer exist.”
“Oh, they exist. The dwarves closed off the Deep Roads when they fell to the darkspawn long ago. The entrance into the Deep Roads from Orzammar is sealed, normally.” She looked at Loghain pointedly. “You can, however, enter them from the surface . . . if you know where to look.”
Maric blinked. “And you . . . know where to look?”
Katriel nodded. “I do, Your Highness. Or, rather, I believe I do.”
“And one of these . . . Deep Roads goes to Gwaren?”
“Believe it or not, Your Highness, Gwaren was built on top of a dwarven outpost. The humans came later, to use the port that the dwarves had built and abandoned. They even took the outpost’s name, though they doubtless no longer remember it.”
“And just how do you remember it?” Rowan asked. “How do you know this?”
Katriel’s smile was enigmatic. “I know many things, my lady. History is full of lessons to be learned if one cares to listen.”
Loghain glanced at Rowan, and she saw he shared her suspicions. Maric, however, was more concerned about the idea Katriel proposed. “But aren’t these Deep Roads full of darkspawn?” he asked. “I mean, wasn’t that the idea behind closing them off?”
The elf nodded slowly. “No one knows how many darkspawn are below now. It has been centuries since they invaded the surface lands and were defeated. The Deep Roads could be teeming with them . . . or empty.”
“But . . . we could use the Deep Roads? To travel? Theoretically?”
“Theoretically,” she agreed. “If they are clear, Your Highness, we could travel very swiftly indeed.”
“Or be slain and eaten as soon as we enter,” Rowan snapped.
“Or the path could be blocked.” Katriel nodded. “Hence my hesitation.”
The thoughts were whirling in Maric’s head; Rowan could see them. Her heart sank as she saw his hopes rise. “If we go through the Brecilian Forest, it’s guaranteed to take a long time,” he said to Loghain, his voice excited.
Loghain seemed dubious. “Several weeks, perhaps, though I can find the way.”
“At least with these Deep Roads we have a chance.” Maric grinned.
“Maric!” Rowan chided him. “Do you even know anything about the darkspawn? They are horrible, tainted creatures! An unthinkable fate could await us down there, assuming that Katriel even knows where the entrance is.”
“We passed it, my lady,” Katriel said. “A great stone column in the hills. I saw it from afar. It is the reason I thought of this at all.” She looked at Maric with concern. “Though . . . there is a seal. I am not sure we could even open it, Your Highness, I would have to see it to be certain.”
Maric looked at Loghain. “What do you think?”
“I think it is a lot to rest on this story.” He arched a brow at Katriel. “Are you certain? These Deep Roads go straight to Gwaren? And we would be able to navigate down there?”
“I remember the tale,” she replied cautiously. “But . . .”
“Then we go,” Maric said firmly. “Let us find this seal. If we cannot open it, or we see any hint of creatures below, then we go through the forest instead.” He paused as he realized what he was saying, but then nodded again, more certain. “I say we take the risk.”
“Or die trying,” Loghain said grimly.
“Or die trying,” Maric agreed.
Rowan looked at them both incredulously. Finally, she sighed in exasperation. “Or die trying,” she said without much enthusiasm. Men were such fools.
“I will do my best to get you back to your people,” Katriel swore, looking at Maric as she did so. “I promise you that, Your Highness.”
He rolled his eyes mockingly. “You keep calling me that.”
“That is what you are.”
“You helped save my life and now you’re going to lead us into the Deep Roads, and you want to stand on ceremony?” He chuckled lightly. “Besides, you’re the only one doing it, now. It’s weird.”
She shook her head, bewildered. “You are a very strange man.”
“Well, don’t you start slapping me, too. I’ve had enough of that for today.”
And with that, their decision was set. Rowan and Loghain shared another quiet glance as Katriel and Maric continued their banter. She hoped halfheartedly that the elf wouldn’t be able to find the seal, or would not be able to open it, despite the supposed speed it might offer them in reaching Gwaren. Somehow she suspected that Katriel’s information would prove to be good.
Katriel’s information was always good, evidently.
Thunder finally clamored off in the distance. It appeared their camp was about to get a great deal colder.
13
It took most of the next day to backtrack to the column Katriel had mentioned, and they found what she called the seal there. It was open. The four of them stood in the rain, staring at what would have easily been mistaken for a cave opening in the rocky hillside from a distance, and yet up close it contained the remains of what had once been an impressive pair of octagonal steel doors.
They were decorated with geometric patterns; thick, solid grooves carved into the steel that might once have formed words or pictures. Now they were too covered in brown lichen and thick piles of rust to be decipherable as anything. One of the doors hung off its great hinges, the elements literally eating away at it. The way inside was clear save for a mound of rocks and dirt at the entrance, looking as if the debris had been spewed from the great orifice.
It wasn’t until they got closer, stepping carefully among the wet and uneven rocks, that they realized the mound was mostly made of bones. Old bones, encrusted in earth and mud and mostly buried.
“Hard to say what they were,” Maric observed, picking among the bone pieces with faint disgust. “Might be human.”
“More important, they’re not new,” Loghain pointed out. “That’s a good sign.”
Katriel poked her head warily into the cave. “I agree. If any creature other than bats has used this cave recently, they haven’t left a trace. All I see is guano.”
“Charming.” Rowan rolled her eyes.
Katriel glanced at Rowan. “There are many legends of travelers going missing in these hills. We should still be careful, as such legends often have some truth in th
em.”
“Duly noted,” Loghain commented, ushering everyone inside.
They set up camp just inside the cave opening, the four of them going to work on making as many torches as they could by tearing up strips of the tent fabric. Katriel mentioned that she had no idea how long they would be down there. There would be no hunting for food, she cautioned, and no way to know if there was fresh water.
Loghain had them fill up as many bottles and flasks as they could. He then took stock of their meager food supplies, laying out dried strips of meat on the rock as he listened to the rhythm of rain pounding on the rocks outside. Rowan sat beside him, wearing her full set of gleaming armor again.
“This is a foolish thing you agreed to, you know that,” she whispered grimly.
“Perhaps.”
“Do you actually believe we should trust her?”
“No.” Loghain glanced farther down the cave, where Katriel and Maric were clearing rocks. “But that does not mean she is lying about this.” Rowan seemed unconvinced, and Loghain attempted a reassuring smile. “We will go in as far as we can. If it proves unsuitable, then we return.”
“And what if we can’t? Return, I mean.”
He went back to his count, his face grim. “Then we die.”
It was not long before they managed to find a way down. Parts of the cavern were nearly blocked, as if there had been an effort long ago to seal it up with rocks. Whether that had been to keep something below from getting out or something above from getting in was impossible to tell. Either way, it was possible to squeeze by most of these piles with only a little effort.
Otherwise the passages were largely regular and flat, having long ago been smoothed by dwarven craftsmen. They might even have been beautiful once, but now they were coated in thick dust, moss, and a great deal of bat guano. There was evidence of graffiti near the beginning, crude drawings left by those who had inhabited the early section of the cave and left a reminder of their presence, but these disappeared as the passage dropped off sharply.
They traveled in silence, the tension growing as the faint light vanished completely to be replaced by a stuffy gloom. Dust floated in the still air, giving a faint corona to their torches, and Loghain expressed concern that air might become limited. Katriel explained that dwarves used ingenious ducts to keep the Deep Roads supplied, but who knew if such things were even working still?
It would certainly explain why no one had seen darkspawn on the surface in so many centuries, if they had all suffocated down there in the still shadows. That idea brought little cheer with it.
After several hours, they reached what might have been some kind of way station or checkpoint built into the passage. Perhaps it was intended as a fort, and certainly the building would have been defensible had its walls still been intact. Katriel pointed out where a gateway might once have closed off the passage entirely to traffic, but whatever had been there had been demolished. Littering the halls were a great number of rusted mining carts, loose sacks near faded away to nothing . . . and ancient bones. Old webs clotted with dust hung from the ceiling and gave them the feeling that they were walking into a graveyard. Nothing moved here. No bats were this deep, and though it seemed as if someone had looted the remains of the way station long ago, there was nobody there now.
“Was there a battle here?” Rowan asked, examining the bones. No one could answer her. Most of the bones were barely distinguishable as belonging to humans or dwarves or even elves. A few of them were very definitely none of those things.
After that came the steps—wide steps that seemed to lead down forever into darkness. They had to be careful, as many of the steps were cracked and brittle and likely to give way under their weight. . . . Indeed, many had already done so. Occasionally they needed to use the steel rails that lay in the middle of the hall for purchase, rails that once must have been used to carry the metal carts.
The old webs covered everything now. Mostly they were clotted with dust, nearly unrecognizable lumps of gray hanging like sacks from the walls and ceiling, but occasionally Loghain would point out new webs and even little spiders that scuttled away from the torchlight. He was reassured by the sight, he said. Spiders meant insects. They meant life.
By the time they reached the bottom of the steps, they had been traveling for many hours. Rowan expressed nervousness that they seemed mostly to be going down rather than heading in any particular direction. Maric, however, was just glad that they had seen no darkspawn. They cleared away a section of the road in order to make a camp, though Loghain insisted they keep the fire small. There was no telling how much air was down in the tunnels, or what might be attracted to the light if they kept a blaze going for too long.
It was a discomforting thought, and that first night, none of them truly slept. They took turns keeping watch with a single lit torch, staring into the shadows that danced around the camp. In truth, anyone could have crept up on them. With the dust in the air and the dim light, anyone keeping watch couldn’t see more than ten feet. But having someone on guard made them feel better, and it let the others close their eyes while trying to pretend that many miles of rock weren’t pressing down on them overhead.
If anything, the silence was the worst. It lay heavy, like a shroud, broken only by the sound of labored breathing and the faint scratching sounds of feet moving on stone. When the group stood still, sometimes they could hear the faintest clicking sounds off in the blackness. The clicks came and went, and none of them could identify what the sounds might be. They kept their weapons out after that, but no attack manifested.
For two days, they traveled in this way, heading farther and farther underground. They stopped regularly to rest and get their bearings, and this allowed Katriel the opportunity to attend to Maric’s bandages. She worried about infection, particularly with his head wound, but after a time declared that the poultices were working. He was healing nicely. Maric declared that it was about time something good happened.
The fact that they were traveling on a road became more evident. Even with the general sense of decay, they could see the regular stone columns along the walls and statues of grim dwarven figures barely discernible for all the wear. There were deep grooves along the bottom of the walls, which Katriel claimed would once have channeled lava. That same lava would have been collected in pools along the walls for light. Loghain asked where the lava came from, but she didn’t know. It might have been magic, though the dwarves didn’t use any. Wherever it might have come from, there was none now. There was only the dust and the quiet gloom.
The first intersection of passages they reached had great runes carved into the walls, and after clearing away as much dust and debris as they could, they waited while Katriel studied them closely with torch in hand.
“It’s definitely dwarven,” she muttered. She tapped on one rune that was repeated several times. “See this one? It has two parts: gwah and ren. ‘Salt’ and ‘pool.’ ”
“Gwaren?” Maric leaned forward, his head close over Katriel’s shoulder as he studied the rune for himself. She blinked nervously, but he didn’t notice. “That must be it, right? The dwarven outpost has the same name.”
“I believe it’s pointing down the right-hand passage.” Katriel looked up at Maric with a frown. “But I can’t be certain.”
“Better your guess than mine.” Maric grinned.
Rowan and Loghain traded leery glances, but they could do little but trust the elven woman’s knowledge. Loghain had long ago given up on his sense of direction.
Less than a day later—though their estimate of how much time was passing was becoming increasingly inaccurate the longer they were surrounded by constant darkness—they encountered a thaig, a cavern where the dwarves had built a settlement. There was a large amount of debris and rocks at its entrance, perhaps due to some kind of cave-in, and it required hours of labor to clear a passage. Once through, they stood at the edges of a place no dwarf had likely touched in living memory.
Th
e flickering light of their torches didn’t reach very far into the thaig, but what they did see evoked a memory of grand stone buildings rising high up toward the upper reaches of the cavern. The walkways between these buildings had once been lined with giant columns carved with lines upon lines of runes. Now most of these things were collapsed and in ruin, jagged stone skeletons covered in massive webs.
Here the webs were everywhere. They hung from building to wall like gentle gauze, and as the cavern rose, the webs seemed to get thicker and thicker until the torchlight couldn’t penetrate them any longer. It was as if the webs kept this place cocooned, suspended out of time in darkness and quiet.
“Careful,” Loghain warned softly, moving his torch so as not to light the webs. Such a blaze would have spread quickly into the upper reaches of the thaig, and likely brought all of it raining down upon their heads.
“Do you feel it?” Rowan asked, stepping uncertainly forward amid the uneven debris. She touched her cheek and looked around with concern. The others opened up their eyes wide, feeling the same thing she did: a gentle brush on their cheeks, the slightest sense of movement in the dust-choked air.
“It’s air,” Maric breathed. “There’s air flowing here.”
He was right. Air was coming from somewhere high up, and if they looked carefully, they could see the faint glowing webs waving ever so slightly overhead. Perhaps there was a sort of hole leading up to the surface. The dwarves must have had chimneys of some kind, or perhaps these were the ducts that Katriel had mentioned.
There were also sounds. As the four of them stood there, the distant clicking became more prominent. It started and stopped, but it was definitely there. After hearing little else but their own movement, such alien sounds were very easy to notice.
Katriel blanched, her fear made noticeable by her agitated glances up into the darkness despite her effort to conceal it. “What . . . what are those sounds? Rocks?”
Nobody answered her. Even she didn’t really believe it.
“Should we go back?” Rowan whispered.