“You look like hell,” Captain Mor observed.
D’Arden had returned from the graveyard looking somewhat the worse for wear. Angry red burns festered on his wrists and his neck and, he supposed, his ankles, where the beast’s corrupted manna had held him fast. He bore them proudly, though not without pain. He suspected the one around his neck might leave a ringed scar that could stay, possibly forever.
“A most astute observation, Captain,” D’Arden said dryly. “Now, about our arrangement? Your cemetery has been cleansed… the beast that dwelt within the depths of the crypt no longer walks.”
“Of course, of course,” the Captain said. “I’d take you there myself, but I’ve got a watch to attend to. I’ll summon one of the soldiers on duty now in the area to take you to the chapel. Just make sure that he doesn’t get any of that stuff on him… I can’t have my men turning into fel beasts.”
“I believe we can manage that,” the Arbiter said.
“Mikel!” the Captain thundered. Another soldier, one D’Arden did not recognize, quickly entered the room. He was young, fresh-faced, barely into his facial hair – D’Arden guessed he was no more than sixteen winters old. “Take the Arbiter to the font chapel nearby. Make sure you’re standing clear out of the way, boy… I don’t want to be the one to put you down if you turn into some ravening, flesh-eating lunatic.”
The boy swallowed visibly. “Y…yes, sir.”
D’Arden exchanged an amused look with the captain. He found himself liking the man, despite his initial impressions. Mor seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, and a sense of humor to boot.
“F…follow me, if you will, master Arbiter,” Mikel said.
D’Arden suppressed a chuckle as he followed the lad out of the barracks and onto the street. It was light out, now, and the merchants were on the streets in force. The sun was casting everything in a warm light, but there was nothing warm about the day. A bitter chill ran through the air and he guessed that the temperatures would have frozen standing water inside of a few moments. Still, there was little water to be seen – there were no clouds in the sky and no chance of rain or snow. He wondered how these people had survived for so long with no falling water.
“The font chapel is this way,” the lad said, pointing down one of the streets.
D’Arden could see the front of it now, nestled amongst the other buildings. Font chapels had to be built wherever the font sprang up – they had to be contained immediately, lest they begin wreaking havoc amongst the populace. If that meant destroying wings of ancient buildings and relocating housing and storefronts, then that’s what was done. There was never any question or protests when a manna font sprung up – it was just the way of life.
The streets were empty here, and the buildings all deserted for a block around the chapel. No one wanted to be near the thing.
Mikel stopped several yards from the front door of the chapel and held out the small silver key that would unlock the door. “Here you are, master Arbiter. I’ve been instructed to wait for you out here, but I won’t get any closer than this if you’re going to be opening that door.”
D’Arden grimaced. “I’ve no choice, lad.”
“I know,” the boy said simply.
With a small sigh, D’Arden approached the wooden door that was barred and locked from the outside. No one would ever dare lock a manna font chapel from the inside – it would be the last thing they ever did before they were swallowed by the earth.
Checking over both shoulders, D’Arden unlocked the door and swung out the hinged metal bar that provided the primary method of holding it shut. The thing was so heavily fortified that it seemed as though it would take an army to break in without the blessing of the city’s guard captain.
Opening the door no more than a crack, he slipped inside and closed it shut behind him.
The manna within blinded him. It was so twisted, so foul that he could almost smell it, taste it, hear the screaming of the tortured earth. It filled all of his senses with hatred and rage and pain and enduring torment that he nearly let out a cry of his own to match. There was no calming blue light of purity here, only the crimson of corruption and anger and evil.
Barely able to bite back the pain he suddenly found himself in, he took the three short steps to the center of the chapel and thrust his hands into the crystalline font. If what had been before was unbearable, this was simply impossible. He was almost shredded alive by that which lay within.
There was corruption everywhere here. There was perhaps not a square inch of the city which was not completely confounded by evil. He was awestruck for a moment that there were not manna fonts littering every street corner of this god-forsaken place with the amount of twisted life-force that was buried beneath the frozen soil. It was immediately apparent to him why there was no life here – no plants, no living trees, and no snow on the ground or clouds in the sky. It was all being absorbed into the earth and twisted by something that was far more powerful than anything he had ever encountered in his twenty-seven winters as a living being, and far more dangerous than anything he’d ever imagined in his worst nightmares.
With a soft cry, he pulled his hands free of the pool. He staggered backwards and sagged heavily against the inside of the door, but only for a moment. As quickly as he could find the strength, he pushed the door open and stumbled out, slamming it behind him and hauling the metal bars back across it, thrusting the key back into the lock and twisting it closed. He sagged against the wooden door, sliding downward until he was sitting upon the ground, exhausted.
“Master Arbiter!” the boy called, clearly unsure whether it was safe to approach.
“Not yet!” he gasped. “Not yet! The manna has not yet faded! Do not come near me until I say otherwise!”
Although pure manna was dangerous to men, corrupted manna was worse. It could immediately enslave a normal man to the will of whatever was controlling it – it could transform a man into something beyond fathoming, or it could simply annihilate his soul and leave him an empty vessel for something much worse to come along and inhabit the empty shell the soul left behind. He would not allow any such thing to happen to anyone here.
Of course, it was likely that there were already some to which it had happened.
He sighed heavily as he felt the last of the energy fade away. There was no way that he could read the manna in order to determine the location of the demon. The land was already too far gone here, and it could be of little help to him now. He would have to rely on his own intuition and investigating skills to determine where it could be hiding.
The difficult thing with demons was that they were extremely intelligent, cunning and often had powers of illusion.
Exhausted, he waved over the young soldier who had escorted him here. “It’s all right, lad. It’s fine now.”
The boy took a few hesitant steps, and then his strides became more purposeful as he closed the gap between them. The lad knelt down beside him. “Are you all right, master Arbiter?”
“I’ll be fine,” D’Arden said, the last word turning into a choking cough.
After he had recovered, D’Arden looked the boy in the eye. “I may need your help, lad. There’s a lot going on in this city, and I’m sure it’s more than you’d ever care to know. Let me tell you what I know right now; the corruption in this place is simply beyond fathoming. The demon that’s caused this has been here for months, or perhaps even years, living somewhere in the city and causing all of the manna to twist and become unbearable complicated. I could have an army of Arbiters and we might not be able to purify this place on our own without finding and destroying the demon.
“Tell me, boy… from where have the worst reports of those affected come?”
The soldier named Mikel hesitated for a moment, clearly unsure whether he should be sharing that information with a total stranger without the captain’s prior approval. After a moment, though, he brightened and said, “From the high quarter, m’lord. That’s where the worst of it’s been, though the folk up there don’t like to talk about it.”
D’Arden nodded. The young soldier could certainly prove to be useful in his investigation. Bright, obviously brave, and willing to give him information that the captain might not be so forthcoming with. “Thank you, lad.”
“Please, m’lord… call me Mikel.”
“Of course, Mikel. Will you escort me to the high quarter? I will need to have a look around if we’re to have any hope of finding this beast and bringing life back to Calessa.” D’Arden gestured around at the city.
“It’s been this way for years, m’lord,” Mikel said. “To be honest, hardly any of us are ever expecting it to go back to the way it used to be. We’re used to it now.”
“Much longer and there won’t be anyone left to be used to anything,” D’Arden muttered. “Where does your family live, Mikel?”
“They all live down in the low quarter, master Arbiter,” he replied. “I became a soldier, joined in with the captain to give them all a better life. Not much of a life we have here anyways, but at least we can afford to buy food.”
“You’re doing right by them, lad,” D’Arden said, his words carefully calculated to endear himself to the boy. “I’m always glad to see a boy become a soldier and protect his family. It’s a hard choice to make, but it’s the right one if you have it.”
Mikel nodded. “It’s hard being a soldier, but it’s good for them, and it makes my father happy.”
“Have there been many problems with the corruption in the low quarter, where your family lives?” D’Arden asked.
The boy shook his head. “Not many. There’s a few that we’ve had to…” the boy swallowed hard, “…put down, but not too many. One was a neighbor of my family… he just turned one day, started howling about how he was going to eat their flesh off their bones.” He shuddered. “It was horrible, but the captain, he sent some soldiers down and they took care of things.”
“They didn’t hurt your family?”
“No.”
D’Arden nodded. “That’s good.”
“Up in the high quarter, though, they all got their windows and doors boarded up. They hardly ever come out anymore. They got animals up there gone feral, and men and women locked up in their houses, scrabbling at the insides, trying to get out so they can go out and start killing. It’s a madhouse up there – the captain keeps saying we should just board up and quarantine the whole quarter, but there’s still men alive up there who won’t leave. We can’t just leave them up there.”
It would probably be better for everyone if you did, D’Arden thought, but did not say it aloud. Instead, he said, “It could be dangerous. Are you sure you want to come along with me?”
Steadfastly, the boy nodded.
Good then. Perhaps he could earn the boy’s loyalty yet.
“Come then, Mikel. Lead the way to the high quarter. We’ll go see what we can do. Perhaps we’ll find the demon this morning.”
Somehow, that didn’t appear to reassure the boy.
They ventured through the city streets. D’Arden had expected throngs of people to fill them, but instead he found them mostly desolate and empty. There was some noise coming from the trade quarter, the section of the city they’d left behind, but there was little noise as they passed by street after street in the central city. Storefronts lay abandoned, homes were despondent-looking and empty, and there was a pervasive feeling of fear and anxiety looming in the air. Even in the warm light of the sun everything seemed cold, lonely and lifeless. A few faces peered out at them from windows, and though while they did not seem to be the ravening beasts that might have been created from the corruption, they were clearly afraid of both what was happening to their home, and of him.
“How can you touch the manna?” the boy asked idly as they walked along the deserted streets. “If it kills everyone else it touches, how is it that it doesn’t kill you?”
D’Arden sighed, trying to determine the best way to answer that deceptively complex question. “Do you know much about the Arbiters?”
“Not much,” the boy said. “Only a little, that there used to be a lot more of them, and they were the enforcers of the law back in the old days.”
“That’s almost right,” D’Arden said. “The Arbiters were created by the Last King in the days of the empire to serve his will. They were an organization then, a group of those dedicated to protect the manna from turning evil. There are so many ways that it can happen. So, the best and the brightest sorcerers were given the chance to become Arbiters, to protect the world against the corruption.
“When they realized that even though they were great sorcerers, they were still just men and subject to the power of the manna just like everyone else, they knew that something would have to be done. There would have to be someone who could touch the manna, not just see it.
“So, in order to do that, there were great experiments done to determine how men could be immunized against the power of the manna. A great many men, women and children died in the search of that end, until they discovered the way.”
He recited the formula from memory, the same words that had been told to him all those years ago. When he had heard them the first time, they had affixed themselves to his memory in a way that he knew would never fade, not even if he were to live one hundred winters. “To create an Arbiter, a person must be exposed to the manna over a period of several years, in extremely small doses. These must be administered directly to the heart of the person who is being ordained, via a small, rounded blade – known as the heartblade – that is slipped between the ribs and used to touch the heart. Over time, the dosage grows, and eventually a resistance is attained.” They sounded as cold, as clinical to him now as they had the first time he’d heard them. “This process never ends; we must be regularly exposed directly to the manna via the heartblade.” The ritual, though at first painful and terrifying, was now little more than drinking a glass of water to him, although slightly more painful.
Mikel’ eyes were wide as he listened to the story. “So… you have to stab yourself in the heart over and over again?”
“That’s exactly right,” D’Arden said.
“Why would you do something like that?”
“There are many reasons, lad. One is because the world is a dangerous place, and it needs people who are willing to sacrifice themselves to protect it. Another is because my life would be meaningless without this purpose to drive it forward. Mostly, it is because there are those out there who would seek to corrupt the world, and I do not intend to let something like that happen. My pain and my strength are my sacrifice to help keep the land a little safer from those who would seek to do it harm.”
“That’s awful,” Mikel said.
“Perhaps, but it is the truth,” D’Arden said. “Sometimes the truth is horrifying.”
“I don’t think I could ever do something like that,” Mikel said.
“You likely could not,” D’Arden replied. “The reason that most Arbiters are started at a very young age is because it is so that the manna begins its effects on them while they are still malleable, while their souls are still able to be touched by the power without it destroying them. Starting when one is older is far more difficult, and not in the least because the heartblade is excruciatingly painful at first. Some Arbiters, when they go too long without being exposed to the heartblade as they are supposed to, go quite mad.”
“Do you think that’s what happened to the one that came here a few years ago?” the boy asked.
D’Arden frowned. He didn’t know how to answer that question. He wasn’t certain how he could tell the boy that no matter what he’d told the captain, there was a chance that it was that very Arbiter that was either the force responsible for this entire miserable catastrophe here in the city, or that he could be very well working with the demon. There were too many unknowns here, some of which he hoped to resolve with this trip to the most dangerous part of the city.
It wasn't long before D'Arden and the boy stood before the gate. The boy stopped a few steps before they passed under the arch, clearly hesitant to proceed any further. D'Arden slowed to a halt only a few steps ahead of Mikel and stared up at the great stone structure.
CALESSA HEIGHTS, read the spindly, gothic lettering that adorned the front of the city gate. It was similar the one he'd passed through upon entering the city, but for the lack of the heavy wooden doors that kept out intruders from the outside. The gate itself appeared normal enough, but it was when his eyes ventured out into the city beyond the portal that he felt a chill run down his spine.
Clearly it was not long ago that this area was the richest part of the city. There was still a feeling of wealth that pervaded the design and decorations on the buildings, and yet everything had fallen into ruin. Despite the cheerful and bright adornments around windows and doorways, all of them were faded and tattered. The place looked little better than a slum. D'Arden guessed that the slums might, in fact, look nicer than this place.
"It's a horrid place," Mikel said with a shudder. "Not many go in and out of here anymore. Even the soldiers avoid it. For some reason, most of the beasts stay inside… none of us are quite sure why. When one does get out, it's always at night – and we always have guards posted outside at night to keep them in."
D'Arden knew exactly why the fel beasts stayed inside the gate.
There was already plenty to feed on.
"They won't stay in there forever," D'Arden said solemnly. "Once the food supply runs out in there, they'll be coming out, searching for sustenance."
"The food supply?" Mikel said. "There hasn't been any supplies going into there in months."
D'Arden simply looked at the boy, his manna-blue eyes searching for the light of understanding. After a moment, it seemed to dawn on Mikel, and he looked horrified. "You… you can't mean…"
"I'm afraid I do," the Arbiter said.
"We have to do something! You mean there are still people in there?"
"Most likely," D'Arden said grimly. "Although I would imagine that not many are left, if this has been going on for months. It's likely that any we were to rescue now would be long lost from the reaches of sanity."
Mikel’s complexion had taken on a bit of a green tint, but D'Arden found that he had little sympathy for the boy. They lived in a horrid place, in terrible times, and it confounded him how this young soldier could have clung to his innocence for so long. D'Arden had no choice but to give the parents some credit… to raise a child so naive in a place like this would have taken devoted parenting.
"What did you expect, boy?" D'Arden asked, finding his voice harsher than he'd intended. "That we would simply ride in there and save the day? That it would be simple, straightforward, that we could enter this living hell and rescue those who might be left alive, and they would be perfectly fine and grateful for our help?" He shook his head. "Those are tales for children. Things don't happen like that in this world. We'll be lucky if we find anyone beyond this gate who isn't dead or already turned into one of those horrid beasts, but if we do, it's a near certainty that they'll be stark raving mad at best."
"Then… why do we want to go in there at all?" Mikel said. "If there's no one left to rescue…"
"We go in there not to rescue, not to save the lives that are already lost," D'Arden said. "We proceed beyond this gate only because a concentration of fel beasts so high likely means that this will be either the demon's hiding place, or his source of energy. Either way, we stand to discover valuable clues regarding its whereabouts, and that is the most important task right now."
Mikel swallowed hard and drew his sword. The steel rung loudly in the still air as the shining blade came forth from its resting place. He held it a bit unsteadily, as though he were well trained but only in drills. D'Arden doubted if he'd even taken a life before in his short time.
"Have you ever used that blade?" the Arbiter asked.
"Only in drills," the boy answered, confirming his suspicions.
"Are you ready to use it today?"
Only for a moment did Mikel hesitate. "I am."
"Good," D'Arden said. "Because you're going to need it."
Together, they took the first step across the threshold into Calessa Heights.