부름에 관하여

많은 이들이 그것에 대해 말하려 하지 않지만, 말을 하지 않으면 어떻게 알 수 있으며 어떻게 구분할 수 있겠는가? 부름은 부끄러운 것이 아니다. 내 마음 한구석에서 속삭이는 노래는 내 영혼의 악함이 아니라, 대의를 위해 몸 바친 삶의 흔적이다. 만약 모든 것이 창조주의 작품이라면, 이것 역시 창조주의 계획의 일부가 아닐까? 우리의 마음을 열고 내세로 보내기 위한, 최후의 잊히지 않는 선율이 아닐까? 이 노래는 그분의 노래가 아닐까?

그 목소리와도 같은 음악은 내 정신을 할퀸다. 그것은 섬뜩한 동시에 아름답다. 며칠 전, 나도 모르게 그 노래를 큰 소리로 흥얼거리고 있었다. 그것이 침범한 나의 마음 한구석은 이제 자연스러운 나의 일부처럼 느껴진다. 그것은 내가 소중히 간직하고 있는 기억들—예를 들면 켈러 경과의 훈련, 달빛 아래에서 말을 탔던 기억, 어머니의 마지막 얼굴에 휘감기고 그 속에 섞여들어 그 음악, 나를 부르는 그 존재가 항상 내 기억 속에 있던 것이라고 믿게 만든다.

감시단 선배들이 우리에게 경고했던 것이 바로 이런 것이다. 이것이 아름답다고 생각해서는 안 된다. 나는 타락을 기억해야 하고, 이 세상의 것들과 이 세상을 파괴하려는 것을 구분하는 나의 판단력이 점점 흐려지고 있다는 것을 계속 인지하고 있어야 한다. 반드시 그래야 한다. 나는 할 수 있다.

내일 감시자들에게 말할 것이다. 난 이미 그들의 눈빛을 보았다. 아마 다들 이미 알고 있을 것이다. 나는 부름에 응답하여 지하 가도로 들어가 드워프들과 함께 목숨을 바칠 것이다. 감시자가 마땅히 그래야 하듯이, 마지막의 마지막까지 싸우면서.

하지만 나의 끝이 어차피 죽음뿐이라면, 여태까지 열심히 달려온 나에 대한 보상으로 아주 잠깐이라도 그 노래의 아름다움을 누리면 안 되는 걸까?

—마조리 베란 경이 쓴 나의 동료 감시자들에게의 마지막 페이지

 

So many refuse to speak of it, but how can we know it, how can we identify it, if we do not share it? The Calling is not a source of shame. The song that whispers in the back of my mind is no evil upon my soul, but the mark of a life well lived in service of a greater good. If all things come from the Maker, then is this too not part of His plan? Could it not be a gift, a final haunting melody to send us into the afterlife with hearts opened? Could this not be His song?

 

It scratches at my thoughts, the music almost a voice, at once unearthly and beautiful. I found myself humming it aloud a few days past. Where once it intruded, it now feels a natural part of my mind's course. It coils around memories I hold dear—

 

raining with Ser Keller, riding in the moonlight, my mother's face the last time I saw her—and inserts itself into them, so that I could almost swear that music, that sense of a presence watching and calling, had always been a part of what I remember.

 

This is what the senior Wardens warned us of, I imagine. I should not find it beautiful. I must remember the corruption and recognize that my mind is slowly losing the wit to differentiate between this world, and that which would consume and destroy it. I must. I can.

 

I will tell the Wardens tomorrow. I have seen their looks. They already know, I suspect. I will heed the Calling and go to the Deep Roads to die with the dwarves, fighting as a Grey Warden should.

 

But if I am to die, after all I have given, can I not at least allow myself the pleasure of the song's beauty?

 

—The final pages of To My Fellow Wardens, by Ser Marjorie Berran