"That's it?" Alistair asked, somehow managing to sound both relieved and trepidatious at the same time. Nike, dismounting, felt an echo of the sentiment deep in her chest.
It was just getting near to lunchtime, on the day after they'd left Redcliffe and entered the foothills of the Frostback mountains. Before them, nestled in a small valley between two of the hills, was a little village.
It did not look as if it had been lived in for a decade, at least.
Most of the houses were in ruins, their thatched tops fallen in and their stone-sides lousy with lichen. A lonely little road, little more than a wide path, wended its weedy way through them in the remains of tumbledown rock walls. A few lean and feral looking chickens that had been pecking through the dirt, scooted off into the underbrush with alarmed little clucks.
"It's got to be. It's at the right spot on the map."
"Well at least we won't have to explain to any villagers why we're stealing their town statue," he said as Nike loosely tied Angry Horse's reins to a small sapling at the roadside, slinging Far Song over her shoulder.
"Anyone here at all, Hol?" Nike asked. The mabari snuffed, then sneezed. "Make sure."
The hound trotted into town without concern as the others dismounted. Morrigan, who had been circling the small valley, fluttered down to a landing at Nike's side and became her human self.
"I saw no one from the air," she said. "But I did see our golem. This way."
The town 'square' was so small it hardly deserved the title. What grass there was had long since grown to seed, and was almost waist-high as Nike waded into it. Holly, who had apparently satisfied herself that the town was, indeed, empty, left a looping path through it as she hunted for a place to relieve herself.
The golem stood in the center of these weeds, fists raised toward the sky. Nike regarded it with curiosity.
"It looks rather small," she said. "I always thought golems were much bigger?"
"They are," Wynne told her, and gently traced a hand over the side of the creature. "You see here? Chisel-marks. Someone's whittled away at it. From the weathering I'd say it was several decades ago, if not more."
Alistair, who had put the control rod and the little slip of paper with the password on it in his pouch with the warden treaties, now handed them to Nike.
"Now now," he said to Wynne with a light, airy tone. "It's not the size that matters."
When Nike smirked at him, he winked. Wynne laughed.
"That is true," Leliana said, an amused glint in her eyes as well.
"Tis true, indeed. But only for golems," Morrigan said, with a pointed look at Alistair. He feigned being wounded.
Nike looked down at the password in her hand, then held up the rod. "Well, here goes nothing," she said.
There was a long pause. Holly rustled in the grass, and somewhere a bird tittered out a few notes, but that was it.
"Are you going to read the password?" Alistair asked hesitantly after a moment, and Nike looked at him.
"You didn't look at the parchment, did you?" she said. "That was the password."
"'Well, here goes nothing?'" He asked with a blink, then took it from her and looked at it. "What do you know? That's what it says all right."
"I think someone was playing with your merchant friend," Wynne said.
"Lovely. A day's ride into the mountains for someone's joke," Morrigan said.
"Maybe it's a riddle?" Leliana said, taking the password from Alistair and looking at it.
"I don't see how it can be a riddle," Alistair said to her. "Riddles usually have clever little clues, don't they? Something like 'what goes on three legs at night'?"
"The good ones, sure, but whose to say that whomever set this control phrase was particularly clever?" Leliana asked him.
"Leliana," Nike said slowly. She was looking at the golem thoughtfully. "What language is the Chant written in?"
"Every language," Leliana told her, looking up from the parchment scrap. "It was meant to be spread to all the world, after all."
"Originally?"
"Originally? Well, the first Chant was officially put together by the followers of Andraste after her death, and ratified in Orlais. The Chantry in Val Royeaux still has the first copy kept safely under lock and key. So I suppose the first version would have been written in Orlesian."
Nike looked back at the golem. "Eh bien, ici ne va rien."
"You speak Orlesian?" Alistair asked, startled. She gave him a dry look.
"Daughter of a Teyrn," she said. "I also speak Antivan. I even know a little Rivaini, though it's mostly just the impolite words that proper young women shouldn't-."
"If it doesn't mind, I would appreciate it if it didn't let its hound mark me like a common tree stump. I shall be forced to kick it."
The voice startled them all, and Nike took a step back in surprise. The golem had lowered its arms and was regarding them all with a slightly put out expression. Holly, who had been sniffing around its feet, darted back with a woof.
"I'm sorry," Nike said, the words popping out more due to her surprise than anything else. "She wasn't going to mark you, she was simply curious."
"I have been around too many hounds, and too many birds, to believe that," the golem told her.
"So the password really was 'Well, here goes nothing?' Just in Orleisian?" Alistair said. He was saying it as an offhand remark, but the golem looked at him.
"My former master thought it was funny. I must say, I fail to see the humor," the golem looked back at Nike, then narrowed its eyes. "I see that it has the control rod."
"I'm not an 'it'," Nike told it coolly.
"She prefers 'she' and 'her'," Sten said helpfully, and Nike gave him a tired look.
"Thank you, Sten."
"It tells me so, and I see the control rod in its hand, yet I feel no compulsion to…how curious. I wonder- would it give me an order?"
"What would you like me to order you to do?" Nike asked, confused.
"Anything at all it wishes," the golem said.
"Very well, then I order you to stop calling me an 'it'. I'm-"
"It orders, but I feel no directive to obey," it replied. "Very curious. It would seem the control rod no longer works."
And with that, the golem turned and began to stride out of the thick grass of the square, away from them.
Nike heard a chuckle behind her and looked around at Morrigan, who only shrugged back with a smirk. Thrusting the control rod at Alistair, Nike started after the golem.
"Would you please wait just a moment?" she said, and the golem paused and then looked around at her.
"I see no reason I should wait," the golem told her. "Though it is polite for a fleshy creature."
"We need some information you might have. About one of your previous masters," Nike said. "I honestly don't care what you do with yourself afterward, but we need that information."
"Its needs are of no concern to me." It began to walk again, then jolted to a halt as a sheen of white encircled it.
Morrigan, her hand outstretched, was no longer laughing. "The control rod may not work, creature, however I have no reservations about freezing you into place for another century or two. You will apologize to my friend here."
Nike stepped around the golem so she was facing it again. "I think we got off on the wrong foot," she said to it. "My name is Nike Cousland. I am a Grey Warden, and we are searching for the Urn of Sacred Ashes to save the life of a man who was poisoned. We need his help to stop a Blight. We only need to know what you know regarding the Urn, and then you can be on your way, as free as a bird. Would you please stay a moment and talk to me?"
The glowing blue eyes of the stone creature glared down at Nike. It may have been chiseled down in size, but it still stood a good head taller than she, and she had no doubt that it could crush her with little thought or effort.
"I will make it a deal," the golem finally said.
"I am happy to hear your terms."
"I will talk with it, but it will never again liken me to a such an evil creature."
Nike lifted her eyebrows, and looked over at the others. They looked just as baffled, Alistair shrugging again.
"An evil creature?" Nike asked. "I don't-"
"A…bird." The golem actually grimaced and looked as if it might spit for a moment. Nike wondered, then, if golems even could spit. "I would have called them 'foul' but I detest puns almost as much as I detest birds."
"I can certainly do that," Nike said slowly.
"Then release me, and I will talk with it."
Nike nodded at Morrigan, who lowered her hand. The white frost riming the golem's joints faded away. To test, it lifted its arms a little, then dropped them again.
"Very well. What does it wish to know?"
"Firstly, what is your name? Do you have a name?"
"I am called Shale," the golem told her.
"Shale. I am Nike, as I said. I am pleased to meet you."
"I have spent decades longer than I would have liked standing here in this putrid cesspit of a village. I would rather not spend another decade while it indulges in useless pleasantries."
"Then I shall cut…" She broke off. She was about to say 'I shall cut right to the chase' but was unsure if the golem would consider that a pun, and what it would do to her if it did. "Then I shall get right to the point. We were told that one of your previous masters was named Genitivi. Is that correct?"
"It shall have to be more specific," Shale said. "I have been standing, as I said, for several decades. Before that, I had numerous masters. The last one was a simpering little mage who thought nothing of chipping me down to size so I could better fit through its doorways and serve it tea. I care nothing for fleshy names."
"It would be the master before the mage, I believe," Nike said. "He would have been a scholar, part of the Chantry."
"The one with the funny haircut," Shale said thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Tell me, why do you creatures not simply remove the hair from your heads entirely? It is ridiculous to look upon, and the upkeep seems abysmally pointless."
"That is a very good question," Wynne said, moving over toward them. "But one to ask at another time, I think."
"How delightful, yet another mage," Shale said, eyeing her before looking back at Nike. "What would you know?"
"He was researching the Urn of Sacred Ashes," Nike told it. "We need to find his research in order to find the Urn. Do you know where it is? Or how close he got to finding it? Any information or clue to its whereabouts would be much appreciated."
"And if I tell it, it promises that I can go?" Shale asked.
"Yes, that is the deal."
"Very well. It shall follow me."
And the golem turned and began walking away again. Nike exchanged looks with the others, and they started to follow, Alistair stepping in beside her.
"It's no surprise why it doesn't like birds," he said. "I mean, if I was a statue I probably wouldn't much like birds either. But hair?"
"Who knows? I'm just hoping it can show us something useful regarding the Urn."
"And then we just let it wander off?"
Nike regarded the stone back moving a dozen yards ahead of them. "It's not exactly as I expected it to be," she said. "I thought that golems were just piles of rock, dirt, or metal that were animated by magic, but Shale seems to have a mind. A will. Bodahn said that using the control rod on it was a bit too close to slavery in his book and I have to agree. And if it's got enough of a mind and a personality to make the control rod akin to 'slavery', then-"
"Then killing it would be a bit too close to murder," Alistair nodded thoughtfully.
"Yes. And freezing it again too close to wrongful imprisonment. I don't know. It seems to have been at least somewhat aware while it was stuck standing there. I can't even imagine- being frozen in place, unable to move or talk or anything, but completely aware the whole time. Could we really in good conscience do that to it again?"
"Why is nothing ever just simple?" he asked wistfully.
"I've been asking myself that since Duncan showed up in Highever," Nike said.
Nike imagined they cut an interesting picture- their ragtag little group of following a golem through an abandoned village. She was lost in thought when Morrigan suddenly touched her arm, bringing her back to reality.
"Where is it leading us?" the mage asked, and Nike looked around, realizing that they were on their way out of the village completely. Ahead of them lay only the valley meadow, and then the mountains again.
"That is a very good question," Nike said. "Shale? Where is it we are going?"
The golem stopped and looked at her. "It wished to know where the Urn was," it said, and Nike stared at it.
"Are you- you're not actually taking us to the Urn, are you?"
"No," Shale said dryly. "I am taking you to the place where my silly little master died."
"We're going to need a bit more information," Leliana said to it. "Where did Brother Genitivi die? Is his research there?"
"It died in a village deeper in the mountains," Shale said. "It was certain the Urn was near this village, but when it asked the creatures who lived there they set upon him."
"What? They killed him?" Alistair asked, aghast. "Were you there? Didn't you try and stop them?"
"I was compelled to protect it, yes," Shale said. "However there were several mages, and they were able to halt me. Later they sold my control rod to another of their number who eventually moved here, and brought me with it. After I killed it-"
"You killed your last master?" Alistair gaped. "Uh, I'm feeling less good about this idea every moment."
Shale looked affronted, then sighed and looked at Nike again. "Does it want to know or not?"
"We do want to know, Shale," she said. "But how far away is this village?"
"I do not know fleshy distances," it said in exasperation.
"How long would we have to walk to get there?" Wynne asked diplomatically.
"Well, if it keeps on stopping, it will never get there," Shale said. "Otherwise, it will be two days."
"Ok, hold that thought," Nike said. "We need our horses."
If Shale had eyes beyond the two glowing pits in its head, Nike was certain it would be rolling them. It folded its arms with a heavy sigh and looked away from them. It said nothing, but the implication was clear.
"I'll stay here," she said to the others. "Make sure it doesn't get out of sight."
The others, save Morrigan and Holly, went back to get the horses.
"It is extremely helpful, isn't it?" Morrigan said, the moment the others were out of earshot. There was a note of amusement to her sarcasm, and Nike smiled.
"Well, if this 'village' truly was near the Urn then at least it's a step closer," Nike said.
"A village where, supposedly, a man was set upon and murdered simply for asking about it," Morrigan pointed out. "As well, I have a disquiet suspicion that when all is said and done, we will have picked up yet another strange member for our increasingly eclectic little band."
Nike looked past her to where Shale was still standing and waiting. "At this point I don't think I'd be surprised if Loghain himself ends up joining us. So long as we get this bloody Blight stopped, Empress Celene could tag along if she wanted, as far as I'm concerned."
"Riding the archdemon?" Morrigan added, then smiled. "Now that is a sight I would much like to see."
Nike grinned. "With the Divine on a jeweled leash to feed her grapes?"
"My dear, you do have such interesting fantasies," Morrigan teased, and Nike laughed loud enough the golem turned its head back to her and looked at her. Somehow, that only made her laugh harder.