Christopher Kellen - Elegy

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.