"Only the Grey Wardens can fight the darkspawn effectively. The Archdemon, too, must be slain by a Warden, else it returns within a year to continue its rampage across the land." She shook her head. "Many people will die in a Blight. There is no escaping it. A village can be overcome within a day. Sometimes, the darkspawn do not even surface, but they come close to it...and so the land withers and dies above them, but no villager will ever see a single one of them."

Elissa sat forward and traced a circle on the table. "An Archdemon lies underneath the earth. The darkspawn dig and claw their way down until they find it...and then they infect it with their taint. The Archdemon can speak, in a sense, to them; it can command them, like the central of a hive mind." But a summoning? She frowned. "An Old God would never submit to any one human, or even a group, in a summoning." But what about Flemeth and Morrigan? What about the child?

She suddenly felt ill, though she sat back and kept her expression neutral. Oh, Elissa, what have you done?