He would have to let Elisa die.

  With a desperate cry, he thrust the blade deep into his own chest, little caring if he sustained more damage. He was dead anyway if this didn’t work, and he had neither the time nor the strength to make a careful application.

  The thin, round blade pierced his heart.

  Time stood still for a long moment.

  The manna in the heartblade flashed into his body. Immediately the manna took hold of his body, wrapping around him in a warming embrace and beginning to knit the flesh that had been horribly wounded by the spider’s attack. He only hoped that it would work quickly enough before his mind died of air starvation.

  Black sparks began to flash in front of his eyes and he felt himself slipping away, the pull of the manna on his soul getting stronger with every second that ticked by. His heart beat weaker, and weaker. He struggled to draw a breath even as he felt the uncomfortable itch and burn of the flesh repairing itself thanks to the burst of manna. Fear gripped him; fear that it wouldn’t be enough, that it was already too late for him, that his failure would cost the world dearly.

  His lungs inflated.

  Desperately, he gasped for air, reveling in the taste of the sweet dawn. The pull of death faded from him, and he found the sudden strength to pull the heartblade free of his chest.

  As he held it up in the light of the rising sun, it suddenly illuminated with a brilliant flash of azure manna energy. He stared at it as it pulsed in his hand to the rhythm of a heartbeat not his own, uncomprehending. He had just expended what little energy it had held contained within it, and yet here it was, glowing as though it had just been recharged.

  A low, weak moan snapped him out of his daze. He scrambled to his feet, doing his best to ignore the sharp flashes of pain that he felt as new flesh that had not completely healed tore and blood flowed again. He rushed to the side of the fallen girl and knelt beside her.

  Elisa’s skin already had a dusky grey tint to it, and her face was ashen. Her green eyes were a strange, almost surreal splash of color against her otherwise colorless form. They stared at him, not quite vacantly, but with so little recognition that he feared it was already too late. The blood had stopped flowing from the deep wound in her shoulder, but it mattered little. The venom had obviously spread like wildfire, and even though he had no idea how long he’d been semi-conscious, Elisa was nearing death.

  He held up the glowing heartblade in front of her eyes. Her glassy gaze focused on it with a vaguely puzzled look. “This is the only thing that stands a chance of saving your life,” he told her, though he knew that she likely could not understand him. “The chance is very slim. I have never heard of such a thing working before. It is probable that you will die.”

  She nodded, weakly, once.

  “Do you want that chance?” he asked her.

  Again, weakly, she nodded.

  Needing little more of an answer than that, he unbuckled her breastplate and pulled down her shirt, just enough so that he could get access to the area above her heart and not enough to expose her to the chilled morning air. He took the pulsing heartblade and slid it carefully between her ribs.

  She gasped, and the blade thrummed in his hand as it released its charge of power into her. He removed the heartblade quickly from her, leaving a trail of blood and tiny blue flames behind.

  Her entire body buckled as she screamed, the sound echoing throughout the broken-down buildings that surrounded them. He gave a soft thanks to the land for the daylight that would keep the demons from pursuing them, even though it would now be clear to their entire population exactly where they were. The pure manna was coursing through her bloodstream, obliterating the corruption that had been forced into her by the spider’s bite.

  Now was the moment of truth. If she survived the initial purification, she might still stand a chance. He waited, more nervously than he would have expected for a life he’d come in contact with so recently.

  As her scream finally died away, her body went completely limp. Her eyes stared blankly out across the dry riverbed.

  He bowed his head.

  After a few long moments, he reached out and grasped her wrist. There was no pulse, no indication of life. He’d lost her to the purification.

  D’Arden breathed a heavy sigh. He’d known the risks when he offered it to her, and even if she hadn’t understood them fully, she had some idea of what it might have done. It could have been much worse, he thought – she suffered none of the transformational effects that normally accompanied a direct exposure to manna energy. The regret that she hadn’t survived, though, weighed heavily on him. He’d hoped that no matter how slim the chances were, that this young girl might have survived where the young boy Mikel had fallen, that he might have had the chance to make amends for the boy’s senseless death.

  The sun continued to rise over the horizon.

  **

  He carried her body through the labyrinthine rubble that made up Old Calessa. She was light in his arms, less weight than he would have imagined, even without her soldier’s armor. He would not leave her corpse there to be ravaged by the demons, though he left most of her possessions behind. She was dressed now only in a thin white shift, as he’d left behind most of the padded under-armor as well, deeming it unnecessary for a simple burial.

  At last he passed under the gate that led him back into the low quarter, having kept careful tabs on his direction this time so that it would be possible for him to find his way back again. He had little desire to carry her all the way out to the recently purified graveyard outside of town, as it was nearly a mile back to the trade gate and then another hour’s walk from there. He decided that he would simply offer her to the purified manna font in the low quarter, and allow her body to be dissolved and returned to the land, just as had happened to Mikel.

  He walked the streets of the low quarter in the early morning’s light with a grim face and a solemn demeanor. D’Arden had little love for death, though he encountered it on a frighteningly regular basis. His least favorite death of all was that of the innocent, of the talented, and of those with the greatest potential, for it felt as though it was those who were truly wasted. It was one thing for the farmer who’d toiled all of his long life to finally return to the stream of life, but it was quite another for a violent and unexpected end to come to a young life.

  At last, he approached the door of the font chapel.

  Something was wrong.

  He felt it spreading outward from behind the door, a sickening, twisted feeling that struck him to the core. Someone, or something, had undone all of his work. The corruption radiating from behind the door was even stronger than before. He’d lost his foothold, he’d lost the boy, and now he’d lost a swordswoman with incredible potential that he’d expected would grow into something great.

  Everything was lost.

  What was he to do? He could not comprehend who or what could have corrupted this purified font so quickly, in just one night. Something horrible must have come past here and attempted to induce corruption into the font purposefully, otherwise it would have resisted simply something passing by.

  He had an enemy here, and one that was smarter and more dangerous than he’d imagined. The guard captain, Mor, had mentioned that there had been an Arbiter here who’d succumbed to the corruption several years previous. D’Arden doubted that even the demon himself couldn’t have poisoned a font so quickly. The corruption that was carried by true demons was insidious and deadly, but it was slow to work and only the most powerful of demons could wield it so directly.

  The mysterious Arbiter, whoever he had been, was a far more likely culprit for this sudden corruption. What had Mor said? “When he was finished clearing out the old fort, he descended into the catacombs beneath it, and never came out.”

  He needed to discover if there was anything left of the Arbiter who had visited Calessa those years ago. A corrupted Arbiter was dangerous, but if there was indeed one who had turned so fully and given so completely into the siren song of the corruption, and had wallowed in it for so very long, the danger would be astronomically high. He almost envied the girl who lay peacefully in his arms, for she would never have to see what horrors might lie below that old, abandoned fort.

  The girl needed a burial, or at least for her body to be dissolved by manna energy, so that her energy could return to the land from whence it came. He had expended much of his during the night, and what little had remained in the heartblade had purified the corruption from her. He had not enough within him to purify her body completely so that it might rejoin the manna stream.

  D’Arden felt as though he may as well simply throw himself into the corrupted manna font and die, dissolved and destroyed by that which he fought. He had no desire to carry the girl’s body through the trade quarter during the day, where it would be seen by all, and he had no way to give her the proper respect here, which he truly felt as though she deserved.

  He set down Elisa’s body on the cobblestones – gently, of course – and clicked the heartblade free of its specialized scabbard at his belt. He drew it forth and examined it, looking for any sign that it had regained some of its power. The light deep within the rounded crystal thrummed faintly, but there was so little that it would not even guide him into his trance state, much less fully dissolve a human body.

  The Arbiter strained his mind, searching through it for some historical footnote that might give him some indication. His heart still yearned to save Elisa from the fate that had befallen her, and so he hoped that he might find something in his memory that might still help her. Unfortunately, he found no such idea anywhere in his mind, to his deep regret.

  There was nothing to be done for it, he decided at last. He would have to take her body to the graveyard outside of town, and utilize the manna font there to send her properly on her way.

  Resolute at last, he picked her body back up into his arms and began to walk.

  **

  He was forced to stare straight ahead as he passed back through the trade quarter, carrying the limp and ashen form of the young girl who'd died only a few hours before. It was still the early morning, and D'Arden hadn't slept the entire night previous. His arms ached from carrying her the last mile through the streets of Calessa, and now the stares of the townsfolk burned into him as though flames shot from their eyes.

  He was carrying the body of one of their own – that much was obvious by the shock of blond hair that tumbled from her head. Her green eyes were closed, but he knew that behind those soft eyelids and dark lashes, those eyes stared blankly outward, dead to the world.

  D'Arden passed through the gate without a word to the guards who stood there, those who obviously recognized Elisa as one of their own and stood in silent mourning and acknowledgement. They were soldiers, not citizens – they realized that the price of freedom was vigilance, and that vigilance sometimes required sacrifice. They bowed their heads as he passed, and the gate was opened for him as silently as possible. It closed again behind him as he cleared it.

  The Arbiter began the long trek to the graveyard where he'd encountered the risen corpses of Calessa's dead. It was there that stood a manna font, one mostly untouched by the corruption now that he had purified the area, and where he might offer the girl's body properly to the land that it might return to the flow as normal, and not become twisted or reanimated again by the evil that permeated the city.

  By the time he reached the cemetery at last, his eyes burned in the morning sun, and the muscles in his arms were on fire. Each step was a staggering lurch as his strength began to give way, all of his special augmentation having been burned away in the combat of the previous night. He was now little more than a man, a man with a task, a man with a mission. Sweat dripped from his forehead in rivulets only to freeze moments later in the frigid air. Each forward movement was a blinding agony, and once the graveyard finally came into view over a small rise, he gave a soft cry of relief and joy. The journey was nearly done, and he would need some time to rest before he would be strong enough to hunt down those responsible for the corruption in Calessa, for he now had a clear idea of where the next part of his investigation would take him. His desperate mind had cursed him soundly for undertaking this extra leg of the journey out of respect for a dead girl that he had met only hours before, and cursed him for wasting time when the corruption still spread, but a deeper, more instinctual part of his mind drove him onward, driven by the hunger, the need for something right and true to happen in this awful place.

  When finally he reached the manna font that stood in the graveyard, complete with the wall of force that he'd erected to keep unwitting passerby from passing through the deadly light of the energy, he collapsed to the ground with a cry. The girl's body struck with force that he'd not intended, but he no longer had the strength to keep himself upright, much less her dead weight as well. He weakly lifted one hand towards the font and dropped the energy he'd been silently expending to keep the protecting wall in place, and it vanished.

  Refreshing, warm azure light spilled forth from the entrance almost joyfully, suddenly released from its prison. It fell across both of them, and instantly D'Arden felt his strength begin to return to him. His aching body was soothed by the warm, regenerative light of the font, and the exhaustion that ran through the very core of his being began to abate as the manna fed him, replenished him and once more lent strength to its servant. He breathed in deeply, taking in as much of the energy as he could muster in a single breath, feeling the warming relief flood through his veins and his body. Sanity began to slowly return to him, and his gasps for air slowly became instead sighs of relief.

  Once his breathing had returned to normal, D'Arden dared to force his body into a sitting position. There was pain, to be sure, and it was sharp, but it was nothing like he'd imagined it could be. Already the exhaustion was fleeing him as he was buoyed once again by the power of the land that he'd been trained to accept in place of his own energy. His body no longer would regenerate on his own; wounds would not heal and fatigue would not leave, not since the balance of power in his body had tipped from his soul to the manna itself. The miles-long walk had been terrifying to him, knowing that if he had not reached the font in time, he would have been powerless to stop his own death.

  Strength returned to him more rapidly as he was able to control his breathing, taking in the energy from the manna and centering himself, beginning to replenish his stores so that he might once again have the strength to fight evil. He would need to trance for several hours to make sure he was properly strengthened to go back in and face whatever waited for him beneath the old Calessan fort, but he no longer felt that it was an impossible task.

  He lurched to his feet once again, after only a few minutes had passed. Once more he took up Elisa's body and approached the font. With the greatest of care, he laid her form across the crystalline structure of the land's energy vent, all the while feeling more and more of his strength return to him. Once he was satisfied with how she was situated there and ensured that her body would not fall to the ground, he turned away and stepped outside the font, letting the radiance warm his back and allowing the manna to take its time returning the girl's body to the land.

  A piercing shriek from behind him caused him to spin around rapidly. His eyes fell upon her just in time to see her leap up from the font and back away towards him, breathing desperately and in a full-blown panic. He was stunned; how could a pure font have raised this child's body from the dead and reanimated it. His hand immediately went to his sword, ready to strike the creature down where it stood, no matter how much it might pain him to do so.

  She turned around rapidly, and just as D'Arden was about to draw the sword and cleave her head from her shoulders, he got a full look into her frightened green eyes. No pinpoint of corruption lay there, no hint that she was nothing but a reanimated corpse. Full emotion – fear – was present on her face and she looked at him as a wild, cornered animal looks at its aggressor, her blond locks plastered against her face and her skin pale, but no longer the white of death.

  Elisa screamed again before collapsing on the ground before him, unconscious but clearly breathing.

  D’Arden could do nothing but stare.

  *****

  Part V: Confrontation

  The Arbiter's mind spun uncontrollably. How could something like this have happened? Elisa had been dead for hours, he had felt her body stiffen as the soul had fled after the heartblade had failed to save her…

  The heartblade. Could its power have had something to do with this?

  The artifact that was the very continuation of an Arbiter's existence, that piece of utmost importance had been created centuries ago by the greatest sorcerers of the time. It was the key to the creation of an Arbiter, and it was the key to their survival. They could bathe in manna to replenish their strength, but in order to continue living and continue their resistance to the power of the manna's energy, the heart itself needed to be regularly exposed to the power of the energy, something that was impossible from the outside. The tapered pinpoint blade was the only way to do that without risking severe injury to the flesh and stopping the heart cold.

  Despite this knowledge, however, the true power of the heartblade remained something of a mystery. The design specifications, the method of creation were all known by the Arbiters and they could be created at the Arbiter's Tower, but exactly what the depths of the concentrated power could achieve was beyond comprehension. The heartblade was not to be used on any except a fully ordained Arbiter, and yet he had broken that rule, and achieved… what?

  Could this now have brought the girl back from the dead?

  Still the light from the manna font fell upon her unconscious form, and yet still she lay there, unmoving but breathing steadily, unchanged by the power of the radiant energy that should have been twisting her form to suit what lay within, and robbing her of any life that remained in it.