He knelt down beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes fluttered open, and slowly she turned herself to look at him. The fear had mostly gone from her now, but still she looked uncertain, a small amount of the previous panic still remaining in her gaze.

  "I was… I was trapped in there!" she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I could hear, I could feel, but I couldn't see once you… once you closed my eyes! I heard everything that the townsfolk said to you, but it was like I was frozen, and I couldn't move or tell them that I was okay…"

  His brow creased in a slight frown. "How do you feel now?"

  "Warm…" was all she answered.

  D'Arden looked to the blue light from the font that radiated down upon them, and he felt the same. He felt the warmth that the land offered to its servant, the light that infused him and made him feel both loved and as though he belonged perfectly, as though nothing could ever be wrong or separate him from that power.

  Had he unintentionally created an Arbiter?

  "Elisa," he said softly, brushing the hair from her eyes. "I need you to do something for me. Can you stand?"

  She slowly nodded, and began to push herself to her feet. A few seconds later she stood facing away from the font, looking only slightly unstable, and quickly adjusted her awkward stance so that she was standing more comfortably upon the uneven ground. She looked down at herself, noting that a majority of her clothes and her armor was gone, and immediately flushed with shame and embarrassment.

  "Elisa," he said again. She looked at him, and there was still a bit of the wild uncertainty in her gaze. "I need you to turn around."

  "I'm afraid to," she whispered.

  "Turn around," he urged.

  He could see her tense, unwilling to move for a moment, and then she turned, the blue light of the manna font illuminating her face fully. She stood there, and D'Arden waited expectantly, still with the thought that this could all end in a moment, and she would be gone again as quickly as she'd returned.

  Nothing happened.

  "It's so… warm," she said, staring into the light.

  He stepped up and placed a hand around her shoulders, guiding her forward. She gave some resistance at first, but then she relaxed and allowed herself to be pushed closer to the almost blindingly-bright light. With one hand he grasped her right wrist, and as they approached the font he reached out her arm to touch the crystalline structure. He wrapped her fingers around it, and she gasped.

  A piece of the crystal broke off in her hand as though it was little more than dirt. It came free, a long, slender piece drawn from the ground to exactly the proper length, and though it cut her hand and blood flowed and she cried out, the blood that dripped forth burned with tiny flecks of blue flame.

  He had created an Arbiter.

  This event invalidated many of the things that he'd been told about the creation of an Arbiter from the masters. He'd always been told that the exposure had to begin at a young age so that the human form could become accustomed to the energy, and that it took a period of several years before they could Draw their first manna blade from the earth. Here it was, it had been merely hours since her first heart exposure and she had already Drawn.

  It was incredible, it was beyond comprehension, but the truth stood before him in a radiant white shift, glowing with all of the power of the manna. There were things about his profession that had been lost to history, and this was apparently one of the more dangerous – and also potentially useful – that had been found once again.

  And for all of that, he thought bitterly, the Elders will almost certainly have us both executed for blasphemy and heresy.

  He pulled his manna blade free from its confines with its rasping sound, and gently guided her to face him. Still her blood ran in rivulets down the crystalline shard that she held in her right hand, and it burned and infused the crystal with her essence just as it had done for him all those years ago. He grasped his own blade with his free hand, slicing deep into the flesh, and then placed it over hers so that their blood ran together down her new sword. There was a bond between the student and the master that ordained them that, according to teachings, could not be invalidated by any means.

  But now, he was forced to think, Can I really trust any of those teachings?

  "You are ordained an Arbiter," D'Arden whispered, his voice still incredulous. He repeated the words of the creed with little intervention of his own mind. "Search out evil and corruption. Strike it down with the power of purity. Keep your mind and your body free of corruption, walk the path of the righteous, and forever strong you shall be in the light of the manna."

  She stared at him with her green eyes that now also glowed blue with the light of the manna. The words that had been stated by every ordained Arbiter since the beginning of their order, the words urged by the manna and by the flow of the land tumbled almost unwittingly from her lips. "In the light of the manna I serve."

  D'Arden couldn't help it – he smiled. In the face of everything, the corruption that permeated this city and the danger that still lurked within it, he smiled. He had found a light here, a light that would go on and would not be extinguished. A new Arbiter, accidentally discovered and added to their order by the virtue of simply trying to save the life of a talented sword-slinger. Now there was another voice, another sword of light to battle the darkness that was ahead. She was untrained, she was still rough with the sword and she was young, but she would learn, and the power that they shared would stand against any darkness that might impede their path.

  The smile faded. He could not share with her the lurking dread he felt about their return to the Arbiter’s Tower; it would have to remain silent and hidden for now. Perhaps his fears would not come to pass.

  With concentrated effort, D’Arden shook off the gloom that threatened to overwhelm him, and forced the smile back to his lips.

  "Come, Elisa. We have much to do here." He held out his free hand.

  She grasped it with hers.

  **

  Their return to Calessa was nothing short of triumphant. Where hours before there had been curses muttered in low tones and looks of anger and rage and betrayal, now there was reverence, something that could be almost described as worship. One of their own had died in the line of service and had returned to them, a feat which was beyond the impossible. The light from her manna shard radiated outward onto the faces of those who clamored to see the dead returned to life in radiance, instead of onto expressions of mixed awe and fear.

  He had guided her through her first trance, and she'd shown remarkable ability. Once they returned to Calessa, he retrieved an extra blade wrapping from his saddlebags, and they'd clothed her at a tailor's shop in a manner which was appropriate for a fledgling Arbiter – flowing, unrestricting clothes of white and grey. The white symbolized the purity of the newly pledged, and the grey showed the long road ahead. He also gave her his spare sheath, and within an hour upon their return to the city, she looked all the part of an Initiate.

  Once they were done, D'Arden looked over his new protégé with an eye for detail. "It's not the right cloth, but it will do. At least the look is appropriate. We will have to fetch you proper clothing once we return to the Arbiter's Tower. I'm afraid you won't be going to Hartsknell after all."

  "I'd rather stay with you," she said softly.

  "And so you will," he replied. "There will be time for formal training in the future. Right now, there is an evil that threatens Calessa and all of its citizens, and though you are no longer one of them, you bear the same responsibility to them as you always did. We must find the evil that is corrupting this city and raising the toll of dead with every passing day."

  "Where do we look?" she asked him.

  "Right now, we look beneath the old Calessan fort, in the north part of the city. There was an Arbiter who visited this city five years ago, according to your guard captain, and he told me that the Arbiter disappeared beneath that fort into the catacombs beneath. Though we strive for purity in all things, some of our number do fall victim to the corruption. Those who do need to be destroyed at all costs, for one who falls to the corruption wielding such power as we do are a dangerous foe indeed," D'Arden told her.

  "Do we stand a chance against an enemy like that?" she asked.

  He nodded. "We are two, and he is one. Though you are new to your power, still our combined energy will be stronger than his corruption. We will find him, and we will purify this place so that life may return to normal before we leave here."

  She fingered the wrapped handle of her new manna blade gingerly. "The blade is so light – will I know how to use it?"

  "You will find it more comfortable than the heavy steel you swung about previously. It is lighter, it is faster, and it is several times more deadly, especially to those who fight from the side of corruption. We must be careful, though, exposing you to such danger so young. If I had a choice, I would leave you to await my return, but I cannot. I will need your strength as surely as I will need my own."

  Elisa nodded, though it was somewhat tentative.

  “Come, child,” D’Arden said with a slight smile, a warm expression that he had not used in several years – the approving glance of a teacher to a student. She responded to it immediately, by looking shyly away with a broad smile. “We go to the old Calessan fort to discover the source of this evil.”

  **

  They approached the broken ruin that had once been a proudly standing fort many years previous. D’Arden remembered from that time that there was talk about sending an Arbiter to Calessa to destroy an evil that had inhabited this old place, but he had been on mission at the time, and was not informed about who had finally been sent.

  It would have had to be someone powerful, he thought as he gazed upward at the ruined spires. The place was impressive and awe-inspiring even in its broken and run-down condition. The manna currents curled around and flowed through it, turning red and raw as they touched the building and passed along its side. He heard Elisa draw in a breath beside him.

  “I’ve lived in the shadow of this place my whole life, but I’ve never seen it this way before,” she said softly.

  “The currents tell us many things that the normal eye cannot see,” D’Arden said, following her gaze as it traveled up the dark towers that reached toward the cold blue sky. It was incongruous, the vision before them, of a silhouette which was not a silhouette, black stone against the clear and cloudless blue that caused a sharp contrast, with the blue and reddened manna flowing within and without, ebbing and flowing all around them in its desire to permeate and find the shortest path for complete immersion. “This place has much corruption within its walls. It will be dangerous within; there may be many demons, many dangers lurking inside. I realize that your skills are lacking, Elisa, and this will be both frightening and harrowing for you. The corruption may tease and tempt your conscience and your soul, daring you to step out of my protective circle so that you might embrace a long-lost loved one, but you simply must ignore these visions. They are as unreal as a dream, and a thousand times more dangerous.”

  “Will it try to tempt you as well?” she asked him innocently.

  D’Arden clenched his jaw firmly for a long moment, his eyes looking through the fortress as though at something far in the distance, and then answered, “Yes.”

  Without another word, they proceeded forward up the black stone stairway that led to the desiccated door which would take them inside. His instincts screamed at him to leave this place, to run and hide. Crossing this threshold would be like crossing into the land of the dead itself, and he did not relish that thought.

  For a few moments, they simply stared at the open doorway, leading inward into what looked like a very normal stone reception room or cloakroom. D’Arden held out one hand cautiously, and lifted the other to draw his manna blade from the sheath on his back, which came free with a low rasp. Only a few seconds later, there was another, slightly higher rasp as Elisa drew her own manna blade free from her back. The pure energy that radiated outward from their blades helped to keep back some of the corrupted manna that flowed around them, making him feel ill. She was still young enough that the feeling of the corrupted manna would feel like power to her, instead of noxious.

  He would need to keep a close eye on his new protégé.

  “Come, Elisa. There is nothing to be gained by standing here on the landing,” D’Arden said, as much for his own benefit as for hers.

  Together, they stepped through the doorway.

  Immediately a feeling of claustrophobia set in on them. It was dark, and the light from the cold sun outside had vanished entirely as if it had never existed. It felt as though the walls were pressing in on them, though he could feel nothing. The light from their blades was reduced merely to a dim glow, barely visible even for their brightness in normal conditions. It reminded D’Arden uncomfortably of the darkness in the cellar of the low quarter, but far more constricting.

  He felt Elisa beside him struggling to breathe. He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder as he tried to regulate his own air intake, and she seemed to breathe a little easier when she felt his hand on her.

  They took a step forward, and then another. D’Arden tried to remember what the room had looked like from outside, but the utter inky darkness erased all memory of the place from his mind. It was only when he found his outstretched hand pressed up against a cool stone wall that he could even remember that he had a hand.

  The darkness seemed to be pressing in further, weighing on his mind in such a way that might make him forget who he was, if he stayed within it long enough. The corruption in this place was unthinkably bad, and if he’d been able to read any of the fonts in the city at all, if the whole city hadn’t just blended into one horrid puddle of twisted manna, he would have known to come here first. That thought made him dread even worse, for if there was indeed an Arbiter down here who’d embraced such terrible power, this battle was going to be more difficult than everything he’d been through over the past few days combined.

  Finally, his groping hand found the doorway, and he pulled Elisa through it along with him. When they reached the other side of the threshold, the pressing darkness vanished, leaving them standing, panting desperately for air, in a circle of radiant blue light. He looked over at Elisa, who returned his gaze with a nod.

  He believed that she might be beginning to understand what was in store for them.

  D’Arden looked around this next room, wondering what could possibly lie ahead of that deep, despairing darkness, and how much they would have to endure to reach the self-appointed master of this dismal fortress. He dared not voice these thoughts aloud to Elisa, for her own fear was great enough without knowing exactly what sort of horrors might lie ahead for them.

  “Elisa,” he murmured softly, his voice echoing unnaturally in the room. “Be on your guard. We don’t know what might be next.” She deserved at least that much of a warning. He saw her nod with acknowledgement.

  Without warning, the room suddenly filled with a chattering sound that was so loud, it drowned out all hope of communicating verbally with each other. They stood back-to-back like two surrounded wolves, each guarding the flank of the other and holding out their blades protectively as the volume of the sound reached near-unbearable levels. It at first sounded intelligible, then began to blend into a sound like a thousand voices speaking in ancient, forgotten tongues all at once, and then became a sort of strange insectoid buzzing that filled their ears. Elisa might have cried out, but D’Arden could hear nothing over the horrendous noise.

  Then, from out of the darkness, they came. Demons of all shapes and sizes, at least a dozen of them, as this sound echoed all around them in the room. The demons approached slowly, with lopsided, slavering grins on their faces. These were minions, not deadly, but certainly dangerous to his acolyte. The cacophony was not just distracting, it would cause one to make a fatal mistake if they were not careful.

  He shouted an order to Elisa, but it was lost amongst the sound of tens of thousands of buzzing insect wings in their ears. Making sure to stay where he could feel her presence or see the glow from her blade, he struck outward at one of the slowly approaching demons, who easily rolled aside, out of the way of his attempted attack. They closed in ever closer in a deadly ring. Though it would be dangerous for her, he could not help but silently thank the land for providing him with a second blade that could fight against the corruption. It would make all the difference, he knew, in this encounter and every encounter going forward into this awful place.

  That was, of course, assuming that she didn’t get killed.

  It became more difficult even to hear himself think as the sound seemed, impossibly enough, to grow louder. The sound was supplemented by the thick smell of rotting flesh and decaying bone, most likely whatever it was that these demons had eaten last. One of them approached too closely, and D’Arden struck outward, catching the demon squarely in the shoulder with a passing cut. The demon shrieked – at least, he imagined that it did – as the blade cut through the flesh of the arm and ignited a purifying fire there. These were no mundane demons, these were creatures spawned wholly from the corrupted manna that permeated this place, and they had little to no resistance against the azure flames from his manna blade. They took root in the wound immediately, consuming outward in a rapid blaze that flared up brightly as they dug into the demon’s body, wriggling into every gap in its armor in an attempt to purify all of the evil within.

  It staggered backwards, its mouth hanging open, exposing a deep black throat and ragged yellow teeth. The cobalt fire leapt down the demon’s throat as it left that entryway open and exposed, devouring the beast from the inside out. It collapsed to the ground as the manna fire ate at it from within, its face still frozen in what appeared to D’Arden to be a silent mask of agony.