"There Dane dwelled,

And fifty swords were worn to rusted ruin

Before at last he found the cave of the Fenshal,

Ancient keeper of the mountains, bane of the wolves

Dane sought a way in which the dragon might be felled."

—from The Saga of Dane and the Werewolf, 4:50 Black

Chapter 37

Malcolm

"There's that noise," Malcolm said to Alistair as they walked through the tunnel under the mountain.

"What—" Alistair fell silent and tilted his head. "Oh, that noise. Sort of like gurgling? Gurgling and moaning from some deep, dark, giant creature waiting in the dark?"

Malcolm's eyes moved over the walls of the tunnel, searching for hints of construction and dressed stones instead of a crude tunnel carved through bare rock. Flecks of mica reflected the light from the three mages' staffs, drawing Malcolm's attention for no reason other than being shiny. Líadan walked between him and Alistair, while Velanna walked up front with Nathaniel, leaving Anders in the back with the dwarf. "I hate that noise," Malcolm continued. "I heard it below the Tower of Ishal and in the Deep Roads. And—"

"The Proving Grounds," Oghren added from the rear of the group. "You know, I always assumed it was my innards."

"I'm not sure which would be worse," said Nathaniel. "Your innards or some gruesome creature of the deep."

"I'm not so sure they're different things," Alistair said.

Oghren chuckled, and then grinned. "Heh. Hey, Velanna, want to see my gruesome creature of the deep?"

"Not if you wish to keep it, dwarf," she called back.

"She reminds me too much of another witch I know," Oghren grumbled.

Malcolm frowned in his friend's direction. "They are nothing alike."

"Oh, I know, I know. One's blonde, the other brunette, one's an elf, the other's human, one's a witch, the other's a—"

"Dwarf, just because two women happen to share the similarity of not wanting to bed you does not mean they are entirely alike," said Velanna.

"Who said anything about bedding?" Oghren managed to sound almost convincingly indignant. "Maybe I had a painting or something to show you. Heh. Or something. Get it?" He waited through their rolled eyes and grumbles for replies. "Anyway, now that I think about it, you and the witch are nothing alike. I mean, sure, she was bitchy like you, but at least she was sporting about it. You take the fun out of everything and make trees come alive and eat people. That's just wrong."

"This from the man who enjoys pickled nug?" said Alistair.

Malcolm gave his brother a grateful look, as he knew he should say something to make Oghren stop, but was having a hard time doing so when he kind of agreed with the dwarf. At least about the taking the fun out of everything part. Well, maybe not so much any more. Velanna wasn't nearly as bad as she had been. After all, it'd been days since she'd killed a human. Practically a record for her. That fact that she hadn't yet killed—or even maimed—Oghren spoke volumes on how far she'd come since they'd met her in the Wending Wood.

"You've no idea what you're missing," Oghren said to Alistair.

Alistair grimaced. "I've got a vague idea, I think. And I'd like to keep it vague."

"The walls change up here," Nathaniel said from the front, coming to a stop. The rest of the group crowded around him, studying the transitional area between plain tunnel and Deep Roads an hour's walk from where they'd entered through the surface. Debris that looked like it once might have been a sealing door littered the ground, with niches set into the tunnel's walls that might once have held the door. They stepped through the first to find the remains of a second, and then a third door, the locking mechanisms in pieces and all but gone. Beyond the third door, paving stones shined dully in the light from Velanna's staff. They had found the Deep Roads.

Oghren picked up a chunk of one of the locks, studied it for a moment, scoffed, and dropped it back to the ground. His message was clear: there was no salvaging any of the locks, much less the doors. When the entire party had passed through the third door, they found that the Deep Roads entrance started at a split, one passage angling to the northeast, and the other, northwest. An ancient sign stood at the intersection, possibly an explanation of the location or where this particular section led to. Closer inspection revealed that the dwarven runes had long since been worn almost entirely smooth. Oghren stood and stared at it, eyes squinting as he tried to read it. They had left the grumbling sound behind in the outer tunnel.

Malcolm walked around the small area of the intersection, noting scuff marks on the dusty ground and fresh score marks on the stones of the walls that could only be caused by a bladed weapon. "A lot of darkspawn came through here somewhat recently," he said. "There's... whiffs of the taint, for lack of a better explanation. I can't feel a horde or even an especially large group, but... I don't know. It feels off, somehow." He looked over at Alistair for input, as Alistair was slightly better at sensing darkspawn than he was. Part of him wished they'd brought Fiona, as she would've known pretty much instantly and exactly where and how many darkspawn there were. However, one problem with Fiona having been cured of the ill-effects of the taint was that they didn't know if she kept the immunity to the taint. Best not test it in the Deep Roads, Malcolm thought. Or ever, really, if it could be helped. It was strange to think that she'd end up outliving probably both him and Alistair. Elves, even though they'd lost the immortality of their ancestors, still tended to live longer lifespans than humans. It wasn't that far out of the question for an elf, city or Dalish, to live to be over a hundred years old. Then Malcolm realized that he had no idea how old his natural mother was. It was hard to tell, at times, with elves, and Fiona was no exception. Even Líadan looked younger than her years, looking around Malcolm's age, though she was twenty-three—or was she twenty-four now?—to his twenty. Nearly twenty-one, he realized. His birthday was just a few months from now.

He almost stopped short. Twenty? Was he really only twenty when he felt far older than that? Maker's mercy, he technically wasn't even old enough to inherit yet. You had to be twenty-one for that, unless the Landsmeet granted an exception. Alistair had scraped by that one being a couple years older than Malcolm. He would have to ask Fiona, if he could find a polite way to do it, how old she was. How old had she been when she'd gone in that expedition to the Deep Roads with Duncan and Maric and the others? Then Malcolm had to hold in a giggle, because he remembered that most likely, his brother Alistair had been somehow conceived in the Deep Roads and there was just something horribly, horribly wrong and extraordinarily funny about that. Mostly wrong. But yes, a little funny. Especially when standing here in the Deep Roads. Líadan heard the choked noise he made and looked curiously in his direction. He gave her a short shake of his head, telling her that he wouldn't explain. But she would have nothing of it and walked over to stand next to him as the rest of the Wardens puzzled over the dwarven runes.

"What are you laughing about?" she whispered when she got close. Her shoulder pressed against his arm, and her head leaned in close to his to keep the conversation between just the two of them. But he didn't care what the reason for it was and, instead, reveled in the closeness. Because that was obviously something he should be thinking about in the Deep Roads. He decided he'd have to blame his natural parents for that.

"Remember back at Weisshaupt, when they told us about when the Wardens first encountered the Architect?" At this angle, her head was tucked just under his chin, and he barely stopped himself from leaning further over and doing something entirely inappropriate to the situation, seeing as they were in the Deep Roads. Andraste save him, was he possessed or something?

She pursed her lips in a delightful way as she tried to figure out what he was going on about. "Yes, but I don't recall it being this amusing. Or amusing at all, really."

"I wasn't laughing at the Architect. I was laughing at... other things that may have happened." He glanced pointedly in Alistair's direction.

Líadan followed his look, and then raised her eyebrows when she caught on. "You're thinking about that now?"

"If you want me to explain the entire thought process that got me to that point, I can," he replied, "but somehow I don't think you want to hear it. Besides, imagine how Alistair would react if he knew. That's what I'm laughing at."

She attempted to frown up at Malcolm, but failed when her mouth rebelled and twitched into a smile. Covering the smile with her hand, she looked at Alistair again. The king, feeling the two looks on him, slowly turned around and faced them. "What? What is it?" he asked. "Have I got something on my face?"

"No, you're fine," Malcolm answered.

Alistair narrowed his eyes. "Then what are you two up to?"

Malcolm and Líadan exchanged amused looks, neither of them willing to admit to Alistair exactly what they had been discussing. Malcolm valiantly fought the laugh threatening to burst out, eventually giving up on trying to maintain innocent eye contact with his brother and instead taking up an intensive study of the ceiling. He couldn't exactly tell Alistair what they were laughing about right now, anyway, not in this company. Maybe later, further into the Deep Roads, he could whisper it to him just to see his reaction. It was either focus on the amusing or collapse into a blubbering mess while mired in the horrors of this particular place.

"That innocent act? I'm not buying it. I'm on to you, now," Alistair said, pointing at each of them.

"It's nothing," Líadan said. "Really."

"I don't believe you," Alistair replied. "Really."

Before Líadan could answer, Oghren kicked the bottom of the signpost, making everyone jump. "Bleeding weathering, I can't read any of the runes. Nothing. The sign is useless." He turned to look at Malcolm. "So what do you want to do? We've got an entrance to the Deep Roads, but I can't sense any darkspawn, not quite, and Stone knows what these roads link up to. Any dwarves, surfacers or not, are going to want to know where the nearest darkspawn nest is before they do any work, especially anything extended like the sealing doors."

"I figured we'd have to go exploring beyond the entrance once we found it," Malcolm said, stepping over to the sign and tracing over the faint, useless impressions of runes. Then he looked to the right split and the left. "Thing is... which way do we go?"

"Flip a coin?" Alistair suggested.

"Or flip a dwarf," said Anders.

"Hey, I said no dwarf-tossing!"

Anders spun his stave in place and grinned over at Oghren. "But this wouldn't be tossing, it'd be flipping."

The dwarf crossed his arms. "Bah. You can't fool Oghren. It's called a coin toss for a reason."

"Huh," said Nathaniel. "You must be more sober than usual to have caught on that quickly."

"Pacing myself," said the dwarf.

Malcolm looked back and forth between the two passages again, reaching out to see if he could sense any darkspawn. But nothing new came back. It was almost like if there were any here, they were deliberately staying at the very edges of where they could be sensed by the Grey Wardens. Scowling, Malcolm picked a coin out of his purse. "Heads, right, tails, left." He tossed the coin into the air, glittering in the light cast by the staves as it slowly spun in midair. It fell to the ground and clinked on the paving stones before coming to a rest.

"Tails," Oghren declared, and then picked up the coin and pocketed it.

Though he rolled his eyes a bit, Malcolm didn't bother arguing. He'd win it back from the dwarf at some point or another. "Left it is." Nathaniel and Velanna once again took the lead, the rest of the Wardens following in a clump behind them. As they continued on a proper Deep Road, Malcolm wished they were back in the plain tunnel from before. There was something about the Deep Roads that was ultimately disturbing to him and every time he descended into the dwarven byways, he immediately wanted to go running and screaming back out of them. His eyes roved over the smoothly carved walls and finely cut paving stones and it struck him why he felt so deeply troubled in this place—he was walking in his own grave. This place was where he'd meet his end, as every Grey Warden who didn't die in battle would. Each time they visited outside of their Calling, they were paying respects to the place of their death. He shivered. The sooner they were out of there, the better, and the better to never return. Except they still had Kal'Hirol to investigate and Maker knew what else afterward. It seemed the Grey Wardens and the Deep Roads were inextricably entwined, even before death. Funny how they never mentioned that bit while recruiting. He decided that if they didn't find any darkspawn after a couple more hours, they'd return to the surface. If need be, they could send soldiers and Wardens with the surface dwarves when they went to repair the doors. They probably should, anyway, if they could spare the Wardens. Depended on what they had planned for when they explored Kal'Hirol.

"Cave-in ahead," said Nathaniel. "Tunnel next to it though, a rather large one."

The short, wide tunnel connected to a cavernous room hollowed out deep within the mountain. Judging by the amount of footprints left in the dirt, it'd been used as some sort of staging area for a large amount of troops not long ago. The taint was stronger here. Still not indicative of darkspawn presence, but like on the surface where a large amount of darkspawn had been, it was ever-present. The floor of the room was far below where the tunnel ended, and rickety stairs had been built from crudely cut wood. The construction was familiar, as they'd seen similar handiwork when they'd returned to Ostagar.

"Did you hear that?" Velanna asked.

"No," said Nathaniel.

"Maybe," Líadan said, moving up to stand next to the other elf. "Like a scratching sound."

Frowning, Malcolm walked up to stand with them as well, Anders and Oghren not far behind. He still didn't hear anything, but he knew well enough that elves had better hearing.

Velanna squinted into the darkness that the light hadn't been able to reach. "I think I saw something move over there."

"I don't sense any darkspawn," said Alistair, peering where Velanna was.

She raised her staff and bolted down the stairs. Alarmed, the others drew weapons and followed. Nathaniel skidded to a stop just before reaching the middle of the cavern. "Stop! Nobody move. Everyone just—"

"Why should I listen to you?" Velanna asked, crossing the middle of the room as she advanced towards a doorway revealed by the light from her staff.

"Because you're going to—" Nathaniel's warning fell short as a snick sounded through the cavern, followed by a hiss and an acrid smell. "...trigger a trap," he finished.

"Run!" Malcolm shouted, but even as he turned to do so, he knew it wouldn't be happening for any of them. He pitched forward, barely able to bring up his arms in time to break his fall to the stone floor. Muttered curses to the Maker and Creators followed by thuds and clanging of weapons on stone told him the others had suffered the same fate. His vision clouded as darkness wormed its way in and the sounds around him became muffled. Somewhere beyond the edge of his sight he heard the guttural laughter of darkspawn. Then the taint tugged within him, the tug of hundreds and how had he not felt them before?

An unfamiliar voice spoke in a smooth, yet strange rhythm and called off the darkspawn. Then it was closer, almost overhead, but Malcolm couldn't see anything or move and the voice was telling him to sleep. He thought of the sloth demon they'd come across in the Circle Tower during the Blight and hoped it wasn't another. The first had been hard enough to break free of and he didn't think they could get that lucky a second time. Especially without Wynne, as she had been the one to break them out of it before.

He slept uneasily, waking up—or so it seemed—when his body was rolled, and then picked up and carried. Harsh breathing rattled in chests near his ears and a fetid aroma wafted into his nose. The taint's burn was almost overwhelming, as if he were surrounded by the darkspawn. But if he was, he'd be dead by now. His eyes refused to open every time he tried to find out where he was and what carried him. Ghouls, maybe? Had they stumbled into some strange colony of ghouls? He tried to open his eyes again and was rewarded with long blinks, allowing him to see dark shapes, shadows on stone walls—

"Sleep," the voice told him again.

His mind refused, but his body obeyed, the taint practically singing within him. And he slept.

It was the same voice that woke him up an indeterminate amount of time later. "So you are Malcolm, second in command of the Grey Wardens." Malcolm's eyes fluttered between open and shut and he could see the shadow of a distorted face above him. The head turned to address someone else in the room. "Yes, Utha, I know he looks familiar." Then the face was studying Malcolm once again and he wished he could see clearly instead of the haze of shadows. "Do not be frightened. I apologize for what I must do. I do not wish to be your enemy. But now is not the time for this. Rest." Cold hands worked at his left arm and Malcolm barely had time realize that his gauntlet was gone before he was out once more.

When he came to again, the first thing he heard was dripping water. Malcolm felt something foreign wrapped around his wrists, heavy and cold. He slowly forced his eyes open, his head groggy and vision fuzzy. His arms were stretched out in front of him and iron bands wrapped around his wrists. Shackles. A twitch of his legs told him that it was the same for them. More iron shackles. Right now, shackles seem to be overkill, because he could barely move his head, much less anything else. Just beyond his arms, he saw the dripping water that had woken him. It seeped in from a crack on the ceiling to land in a shallow puddle on the stone floor. He stared at it, watching each drop land, as if it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.

It took him a while to realize that if he thought the dripping water was that entertaining, that he must be drugged. By that time, some of his strength had returned, the effects of whatever spell or drug or potion the creature had used on him was fading. It still took him three tries and several curses to push himself to his feet. The chains between the shackles weren't short, but were just short enough to make walking difficult, and he found he could do little more than shuffle.

He was in some sort of study or laboratory, judging by the desk and table having various papers and flasks spread out on them. But finding this sort of thing in the Deep Roads? Not to mention that the taint crawled over everything, including what looked like a bed in the far corner of the room, was markedly strange. Did darkspawn even need sleep? If they did sleep, did they go to the Fade? He suspected the archdemon did, when there was one, since the Wardens all dreamed of him pretty much whenever they slept during a Blight. Near the desk was a statue he recognized as a depiction of one of the ancient elven gods. He'd seen it, or one like it, before in the ruins near where they'd found Líadan. Right next to that was a small, wooden toy horse. Malcolm stared at it, at how very out of place it was, vastly more so than even the elven god statue. A darkspawn playing with a toy? It was an even more absurd image than of a darkspawn tucked safely into bed for a comfortable night's rest. He went to comment on the thought out loud, and then remembered that he was alone.

Panic flared though him. He wondered where the others were, if they were dead or a prisoner like he was. Alistair, he'd stupidly agreed to letting Alistair accompany them when he should've forced him to go back to Highever or at the very least wait at the camp in the foothills. Instead, he'd let him come along on this trip and now he could've lost the king of Ferelden. And stuck here in these shackles there was nothing he could do to go and find him, much less try to rescue him or the others. Maker, the others. Were they locked up like him? Or were they already dead? Or in the case of Velanna and Líadan were they... if they were truly prisoners of the darkspawn, what would be done to them, as women?

Malcolm looked around the room again, fighting the tightening panic, searching for a way to break the chains between the shackles. He had to get his brother out and the other Wardens and he couldn't let Líadan... "First day, they come and catch everyone." Hespith's little chant, the one that had haunted them as they trooped toward the broodmother in the Deep Roads. The promise he'd once given to Morrigan, and then later to Líadan and Leliana and Wynne about not letting that fate befall them. He had to escape, that much was stupidly obvious and he really needed to stop standing around and staring at dripping water that ultimately meant nothing. There had to be something that could help him break these stupid chains. Or maybe there was a key laying about because darkspawn weren't supposed to be smart.

Or have toy horses. For some reason, that toy was the creepiest thing out of everything in the room.

But, at least he was still dressed. Even his gauntlet was back on after whatever it was they'd done to his arm. Though he wondered what it was, he didn't have time to investigate. He could stand, he could think, and he needed to figure his way out of here. Except he could barely walk because of the stupid chains and every time he tried to take a step, he almost tripped, and within minutes he'd worked himself into a temper. Not very conducive to critical thinking, but it did make him more alert.

The single locked door scraped open and he spun to face it. A dwarven ghoul clad in earthen-colored robes of some sort walked in, looking, of all things, slightly amused. He saw the difference in her immediately—she was a ghoul as Seranni had been, and not like the addled Ruck from the Deep Roads. This woman was in possession of most of her faculties if that faintly wry expression on her face was any indication. "Who are you?" he asked.

Her hands made several fluttering signals toward him, but he didn't know how to interpret them. He'd read about languages like it, and how dwarves who became Silent Sisters used that language since they cut their tongues out. Perhaps this woman had been one before she became whatever it was that she was now. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying," he said. "You aren't going to let me go, are you?"

She shook her head slowly. No.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. Right. Ghouls who had most of their intellect still available to them, and yet wouldn't help non-ghouls escape from whoever it was holding them. Malcolm had a strong suspicion that it was the Architect holding them. From what they'd been told at Weisshaupt, the Architect was really the only darkspawn that bothered to take prisoners in the first place, aside from the only reason darkspawn took female prisoners. And if they were truly in the clutches of the Architect, that meant this dwarf was... "Utha?"

A nod, a twitch of a smile, seemingly even more disturbing on a face so corrupted by the taint. And yet, weirdly reassuring. Somewhere in there was an actual dwarf. An actual dwarf who'd been a Grey Warden and still sided with the Architect and the darkspawn. Anger surged upward and he forced it down. He couldn't just start yelling at her for the side she'd chosen even as much as he wanted to. It didn't seem fair, though, that Utha was still be alive while Duncan and almost every other person who'd gone into the Deep Roads with their original party was now dead. Aside from Utha—and he wasn't even sure she quite qualified as 'alive'—only Fiona remained living from that original expedition to the Deep Roads. He fought a rueful smile and wondered if Utha even knew who he was. "Where are the others?"

Another flurry of signs, followed by a shrug of an apology.

Malcolm realized he needed to use more direct questions if he was going to understand anything this dwarf was trying to tell him. "Is my brother alive? He's the one that looks like... well, you can tell that we're brothers." Probably wouldn't be the best idea to tell her who they were. She'd be able to tell they were Grey Wardens, though.

A nod.

He let go a sigh of relief.

"They are all still alive," said another voice, the one Malcolm had heard when he'd been barely conscious. "They are safe, for now." Then the owner of the voice appeared in the doorway, a tall, lanky creature. A darkspawn emissary, the magic rolling off him in waves, possessing a face more human than any hurlock Malcolm had ever seen. For some reason, the darkspawn had taken to wearing a mask over his eyes, as if covering some sort of deformity. The creature passed Utha and came to a stop. "I am the Architect."

Malcolm had no idea what to say. It wasn't like he could just use good manners and spout off something like 'nice to meet you' or anything like that. The creature already seemed to know his name and position in the Grey Warden ranks. So, instead of replying, he simply stared.

"I am afraid that I must ask for your help," said the Architect.

In his shock, he found his voice. "You what?"

The Architect continued to regard Malcolm with his eerily impassive look. "Your help. You see, one of my most flawed creations is gathering an army, one that I cannot combat at this time. I need you and the Grey Wardens to stop it."

The chains binding the two shackles together on Malcolm's wrists rattled as he went to rub his forehead. He stopped short and scowled at the chains. "If it's Grey Warden help you want, you really suck at asking. Knocking us out," he said, and looked pointedly at his arm, "experimenting on us, and keeping us prisoner really isn't going to put you in our good graces. And why would we want to help you clean up a mess you made?"

"I have come to understand you seek the same goal as I do in stopping the Mother."

Malcolm's forthcoming reply that he really should just be trying to kill the Architect out of hand slipped from his mind as a memory slid in to replace it. That strange talking darkspawn outside of Highever Castle, asking about Morrigan on behalf of the Mother. The Architect standing in front of him now, quietly waiting for his response, had also been wondering about Morrigan, as his own emissary had asked the same. At least that explained the Father bit, if that's what the Mother—whatever she was—saw this darkspawn as. "What is this Mother, exactly?" He'd get to Morrigan in a bit, once he figured out the rest, if it could even be figured out.

The Architect flinched slightly at the question, the first outward reaction he'd had since Malcolm had met him. "My most flawed creation. Freedom drove her mad—"

"Freedom?"

"Freedom from the call of the Old Gods. Once I have freed them, the darkspawn think for themselves. They speak, they act. Some, however, have reacted poorly. They are flawed and they rage against me. The Mother gathers them to stop me and to search for herself."

"You mean searching for Morrigan."

"The witch, yes. The one who holds Urthemiel's soul that will soon be reborn. That he escaped was my mistake. I found him some time ago, you see, but I did not wish another Blight. I attempted to free him as I had my brethren. My hope was that this would free all darkspawn, unravel the curse from its source. Alas, I was unlucky."

"You were unlucky?" Malcolm stood absolutely still, astonished at what the Architect had really just told him. That he had started the Blight. That it was his fault for everything that'd happened in the past year and a half, that it was his fault all those people had died, that all that land had been ravaged, all those lives ruined. "You started a sodding Blight!" Then Malcolm lunged forward, heedless of being unarmed and chained, intent on doing whatever damage he could to this creature, this thing that had started the Fifth Blight. Colorful curses he'd learned from keeping company with Oghren poured from his mouth as he tried to wrap his fingers around the emissary's throat. Something heavy landed on his back, followed by something colliding with the back of his head, and Malcolm dropped to the floor.

"Yes, she did have much the same temper," the Architect said to Utha. Then a sigh. "Perhaps I should have killed Urthemiel as it slept. Yes. Yes, I know I had to try. But now we risk yet another Blight if we cannot reach the witch first. No, we will not attempt that another time. We will try something else. We must not give up."

Malcolm blearily looked around for the dwarf. She must've been the one to knock him down and somehow had paralyzed him, because he couldn't move anything but his head. He hadn't felt any magic being used, so it couldn't be a paralysis spell. Idly, he wondered if there was anyone in Orzammar that could possibly teach outsiders how Utha fought like that with only her bare hands. The woman's fists were like stone in themselves, as deadly and useful a weapon as any blade.

"I also need something else from you and your companions," the Architect said, turning to gaze at Malcolm once more. "To free my brethren of their compulsion to find the Old Gods, I need Grey Warden blood."

Before Malcolm could object, the Architect moved a hand and magic snapped in the air, settling a paralysis spell on him. All Malcolm could do now was lay there and listen. He was helpless to defend himself or his friends.

"Please excuse the precautions I am taking with you now. I do not wish for you to hurt yourself and you have proven to be volatile." The Architect's eyes shifted away again. "Yes, Utha, like his mother. I know." As Malcolm tried to comprehend that the Architect and the ghoul knew about his parentage, the emissary returned his look to him again. "In order to become what you are, you drink the blood of my kind. To transform. Similarly, we must transform. I have created a version of your Joining that uses the blood of the Grey Wardens. You take the taint into yourself. What we take is your resistance. That is how my brethren are freed. In your blood lies the key to their immunity against the call of the Old Gods." The Architect sighed almost regretfully. "It is unfortunate that I require so much Grey Warden blood. It may end in the deaths of some of your companions. For this, I apologize."

A strangled noise came out of Malcolm's throat.

"I hope this will not cause you to decide against helping me against the Mother," the Architect continued, ignoring Malcolm's attempts at protest. "But you must understand, it would only be a few of your own brethren that will die. Hundreds of thousands of my kind are killed before each Blight is ended. It is a plague on our race. We do not begin a Blight because we crave power or destruction. We obey the call of the Old Gods—without choice. And we must stop the Mother from getting to the witch and Urthemiel. If they reach her and the Old God, they will taint them, and a Blight will start anew, and many more will die. Both your brethren and mine."

Malcolm's body went rigid as he struggled against the paralysis and tried to obey the overwhelming urge to escape. This thing was going to kill his fellow Wardens. His friends. His brother. Líadan. He couldn't let that happen.

The Architect paid no heed to Malcolm's plight. "But you need not make that choice now. There are things I must study about you before we hunt the Mother. You must rest now." Another flutter of magic. "Rest."

He heard nothing more.