ch 24 - In the Fade

     Duncan watched the strange dull-orange color of the sky; in the distance a group of clouds was moving in the opposite direction to that of the wind, taking grotesque forms in their clumsy attempt to imitate the illusory chaos ruling the earthly world. Yes, it was a dream.

     He stood in the middle of a grassy clearing, surrounded by a deafening silence that gave him a feeling of total solitude, but he knew that, sooner or later, they would find him. He felt as if he had been walking for hours, yet he couldn't reach the pine woods which stood little ahead of him. He knew running would be useless, in that weird dimension called Fade, the thick of the forest would suddenly be on the other side of the clearing never to be reached.

     He realized he was unarmed, but it was not a problem: for long time now the monsters haunting his dreams no longer wanted his death, they wanted talk to him, get inside his head and instill twisted thoughts in order to involve him in their plans.

     Duncan felt them approach, a stench of death announcing their arrival, the sensation of many maggots crawling under his skin and a brief shortness of breath like a drowning sensation. He sighed, resigned to face yet another nightmare. He knew that waiting for him was a strictly mental struggle against the voices, the visions, and the thoughts; he knew he had to withstand up to its natural evolution in the usual, abrupt awakening.

     He closed his eyes, ready to fight, but this time he felt something different: a greater and broader awareness, and a clearer understanding of his own being.

     Suddenly he felt lighter than air and experienced the unusual sensation of floating in space. He relaxed, closed his eyes, and let himself be carried away from the clearing and from those beings, away from his own body.

     Duncan was surrounded by silence. He opened his eyes seeing the immensity of the stars, from up there he could see the whole Thedas and the Fade was nothing more than a thin wrapper enfolding it like a fog. He thought that if a Beyond actually existed, surely it would not be that weird dimension, less dense than the material one but closely linked to it. From that perspective it was glaringly obvious that the Fade was just a trap for souls who remained in some way connected with the earthly dimension, a web whose mesh also captured the dreams of the living, thus preventing their conscience from reaching greater heights and leaving them at the mercy of the many demons that populated it.

     Empty words echoed in his mind, verses of the Chant of Light he had absentmindedly heard many times while walking through the streets of Denerim. He could not recall the lines by heart, but he remembered the substance: since the time the Golden City was violated and corrupted by the Magisters of Tevinter, there was no longer a Beyond to welcome the souls of the dead, or at least that was what the Chantry kept teaching. Anyway, the understanding of how there could ever have existed a Golden City inside that thin layer of the muddling parody of reality called the Fade eluded him now more than ever.

     Suddenly he saw them: expression exuding pride, the Magisters of Tevinter tore the velvets of their robes to perform the blood magic that would allow them breach the Veil and thus have access to divine power.

     But Dumat had deceived them all, and they had just fallen into the trap through which the Archdemons could cross the boundaries of exile and return to Thedas, giving birth to what mankind called Blights. Also the Magisters returned from the Fade, but in the form of darkspawn: slaves dependent on a single dominant mind, no longer men but not even empty shells, not darkness which is mere absence of light, but creatures whose divine spark was replaced by the Corruption, an essence darker than night, denser than pitch, Duncan saw it penetrate them like the poison of a snake, devouring everything divine that was there in those men, turning them into aberrations animated by a blind, uncontrolled, chaotic lust for destruction.

     How could the Chantry have faith in its belief that mere puppets with no self-will who, left alone, gave vent to their blood-thirst by devouring their own flesh, could ever have had the power to corrupt the Ancients Gods?

     He just had a clear vision of how the two essences, dark and light, could not coexist. The Corruption, which crept inside the Magisters, had destroyed their Divine Spark so why and how could a Grey Warden hold them both, though for no longer than thirty years?

     It surely had to do with the Joining Ritual: the mages who lived during the First Blight had found the way to taint some men with the Corruption without killing them, thus giving rise to the first Grey Wardens. The recipe was kept secret and handed down from a mage warden to the other and only to those who had proven trusted members of the Order.

     
Duncan thought this new level of awareness was more than he could handle for now and decided to return to the clearing.

     He closed his eyes, cool air lashed his cheeks, and when he felt he was close he looked down, realizing the place where his dream had begun was just one of many platforms floating in the void of the Fade. On them, a multitude of tormented souls wandered aimlessly, and he could hear their moans. Unable to return among the living, left without a body those souls were still unable to break away from earthly things, thus remaining trapped in that limbo. From up there he could also attend secret meetings between lovers, and here and there he could see some mages consciously penetrating the Veil at their own risk. Above all, he saw a multitude of dreamers, confused and frightened, haunted by demons of various nature who attempted to seduce them, or who were chasing them like predators, all united by the same goal: owning their bodies to gain access to the material world.

     In the middle of what earlier in that dream looked like a simple clearing, stood a solitary human figure, which appeared to be made of light. Moving closer, he realized it was surrounded by a swarming multitude of blurred shadows from which thin coils of darkness unraveled, snaking on the ground to reach it and wrap it like ivy around a tree trunk. Suddenly he sensed their voices, a piercing hum that crept into his head, slowly transforming into a hypnotic song. They were calling him, and in the very moment his mind was caught in the icy grip of that calling, the luminous figure was overwhelmed by a swarming mass of slithering dark tentacles. Its light dimmed abruptly, flickering like a flame struck by a sudden gust of wind.

     Duncan understood that unless he fought with all his strength, that dark mass would soon have stifled him in its deadly stranglehold.

     Realizing that most likely someone was giving him a gift, grateful for the clear vision of what he was and what was awaiting him, of what he was fighting against and what were the weapons at his disposal, he decided to take the opportunity to experiment. He closed his eyes and focused his mind on two huge, bright sapphires which finally, after an endless agony, were staring at him smiling and defiant: Liv had passed the Joining, she was alive, and she had never been so his.

     As his heart intoxicated with joy and gratitude, the coils of shadow faded and the light came back to shine.

     Duncan desired that time could stop in the perfection of that moment, but unfortunately it kept flowing, along with his thoughts. The sudden fear of losing her in the upcoming battle took his breath away, then it vanished, but only to make way for a wave of pure cynicism. Life, so far, had always taken away from him everything and everyone he loved, why was it supposed to be different this time? What could ever prevent his fate from mocking him again, what could keep him away from the belief that Liv had survived the Joining only to have her taken away from him soon after?

     A bitter expression came over his face. Before Liv messed up his life like a hurricane, his path looked so clear ... and then it's so damn easier to face death when you're tired of living... Too bad after that sudden, unexpected taste of happiness, after having reveled in the illusion that his life could be at a turning point, he had started to desire again, to love life and dream of a future, however brief it might be.

     Now as never before it was clear to him that it was up to him, and only him, to prevent the Corruption from stifling his light, but now like never before it was also clear to him how and why only a Grey Warden had the power to defeat the Archdemon.

     The Archdemon may be slain as any other darkspawn, but should any other than a Grey Warden do it, it would not be enough. The essence of the Beast will pass through the Taint to the nearest darkspawn and will reborn anew in that body. The Dragon is thus all but immortal, but if it's slain by a Grey Warden, its essence travels into the Grey Warden instead. The darkspawn is an empty soulless vessel, but a Grey Warden is not. The essence of the Archdemon is destroyed, and so is the Grey Warden.

     Destroyed not in the body but in soul: he would cease to exist, there wasn't going to be an afterlife in the Beyond for him, not even in the Fade.

     Duncan was seized with a shudder of horror at the thought and dark coils seized him again in their deadly embrace. Nipping in the bud a profound feeling of injustice for his fate, he tried to focus on the smile Liv would give him when they would meet again after he woke up and was lost in the thought of the kiss he yearned to give her once they were safe from prying eyes.

     He had so long demanded for the Archdemon to appear at Ostagar, thinking it was the perfect opportunity to depart dying as a hero, and he was so irritatingly sure that right now things had radically changed, someone would have finally listened to his prayers.

     He heard his own laugh, it was harsh, full of resentment, and he did not recognize himself in it. He forced himself to fight those thoughts, of which he too well guessed the source, but that brief moment of clarity was overtaken by a sudden wave of tiredness.

     No longer able to fight, he slowly sank into an abyss of confusion in which disillusionment and suffering were his only certainties.

     Since the Maker had abandoned humanity, it had known nothing but war, oppression, slavery, hatred, fear... What was the point in protecting such mankind from what they themselves called, mistakenly, Blights? The Old Gods were not a plague but the only solution; they would have brought a new order out of chaos, putting an end to any kind of conflict. He was a Grey Warden, he harbored in him both the Divine Light and the Corruption, to bring a new era of peace depended on him and the few who, like him, embodied the essence of two worlds otherwise in conflict with one another.

     Why fight Corruption? Why oppose the transformation that would make him the very embodiment of the evolution towards a new humanity? It was all so clear now that he was choked by a burning regret for wasting his whole life fighting a desirable event, yet inevitable, and got angry with himself for not having understood it before.

     Fortunately, just as always, a voice called to him from the depths of his soul, telling him those thoughts, although in his head, were not his own. He tried to regain control of his mind, focusing his gaze on what now stood in front of him: a grotesque figure covered with dark outgrowths, the misshapen body bent under the weight of a slimy, rotten mass. That creature reminded him too much of his mentor after the Corruption had completed its work upon her, and Duncan's mind was crossed by the thought that looking like Geneviève was the last thing he wanted ... To begin with, he would lose his hair and Liv would never forgive him for this, and he was also fairly certain that when she confided to be curious to see him without beard, she did not mean exactly that. He laughed, finding the necessary lightness of spirit that helped him re-emerge to the surface.

     He awoke to the sound of many excited voices and the smell of roasted game.

     
Judging by the way the sunlight filtered through the canvas of his tent, it must have been past midday, which meant he had slept a good number of hours, and actually he felt refreshed like he hadn't felt for a long time.

     He jumped up at the thought of the many things he had to do during the rest of the day, but first of all he wanted to go rescue poor Ash from the kennels, as he could easily foresee the outraged glance she would throw him for having been treated like an ordinary mabari.

     He wore his armor and walked out the tent hoping to meet Liv in his way to the kennels.

     He took a deep breath. The air was warm and scented with hope.