Christopher Kellen - Elegy

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 protege.

“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.