He’d left his horse happily munching away in the stable. The crypt lay only a short way out of town, and there was no point in dragging the great beast into a graveyard full of the wakened dead.
Dawn had come as he made his way to the crypt, creeping over the horizon with its tendrils of light but bringing no warmth to the frozen landscape. If the Deadmoon had caused the land to look sparse and unfriendly in the darkness of the night, the sun’s light did little to help it. Dead trees stood like stark skeletons against the slowly lightening sky, with no hint of leaves remaining in their branches. The stench of decay was strong, and it was easy to tell when he passed by the trees that they were rotting from the core. The corruption here was strong, and it would take a long time for the region to recover once the evil here was stamped out completely.
Men are ridiculous, he mused. If that idiot captain had simply allowed me to access the font, I could have been on the trail of the demon by now. If I’d slain the demon, the graveyard would have ceased to be a problem.
There was a low, cold mist hanging over the graveyard as he approached. The stones stood stiffly from the ground, most unmarked. Only the richest could buy a grave alone, and those were clearly separated in a gated area a few hundred feet from the common graves. The rising sun cast long shadows across the mounds and gave the entire scene a reddish cast.
He stopped and listened for a moment. There were no sounds here. No birds sat in the dead trees – they would have fled long ago. The fel beasts would be hiding, keeping out of the sunlight that was deadly to them.
Across the low rising field was a small stone chapel, and beside it sat a massive mausoleum. He fixed his eyes on the chapel and began striding toward it.
When he reached the great wooden door, he noticed that it had fallen slightly ajar. The hinges were rusted and failing. He shook his head disdainfully. The power contained inside each and every one of these chapels was both precious and extremely dangerous. It was likely that the demon had something to do with the shape that this door was in. Blue light was leaking out all around the edges of the door.
It was dangerous to not have the font contained fully. It was no wonder that the dead were walking in this graveyard. The mere amount of light that seeped out from behind this door would have released enough manna into the ground that could easily have wakened the dead.
Fitting his fingers into one of the cracks around the doorway, he grasped tightly and pulled hard. With less effort than he had imagined, the door came away in his hands, letting the blue energy of the manna within wash over him.
A normal person would have begun screaming immediately from the pain of the horrific mutations that would have started taking over his flesh. Pure manna energy was dangerous, deadly in fact, to naked flesh and those who were not properly attuned.
D’Arden simply felt warm.
Stepping past the ruined threshold, he gazed at the crystalline formation that jutted up sharply from the broken ground. Clear and glowing with blue light, the crystal's energy fountained forth from the center, falling down like mist and light and rolling across the ground. Most would be blinded by now, unable to truly see and appreciate the patterns. He turned to watch the flow as it went across the ground slowly, leisurely, and disappeared into the crypt.
Something was actively funneling the manna. This was more dangerous than he’d realized.
He knelt down near the bubbling energy and thrust his hands into the glow so that they disappeared. He stiffened, never quite used to the feeling of being flooded with the land’s life force. Thoughts, feelings, words flowed through his mind in a muddled mess, faster than he could think, faster than he could process. He felt himself being pulled into an infinite blue sea, and he resisted that call, resisted the urge to let himself be swallowed completely by the world.
He clamped his jaw down to keep from screaming as his consciousness touched the corruption. This was small, nothing in comparison to what he knew he would feel when searching the manna in the city, but still it was pure, unbridled agony. It was everything he could do to keep from being absorbed into the stream as the pain weakened his resolve.
The corruption was centered in the crypt. There were no walking dead in the graveyard because there was a catacomb beneath the mausoleum that housed all of them during the day, so that they would not be dissolved by the light of the rising sun.
There was some kind of malevolent intelligence at work here, but it was not the demon from the city, not the prey he’d been sent after.
With a cry, he pulled his hands from the font. Gasping for air, he slowly rose to his feet. The corruption was not strong here, but he could understand why the captain was concerned. Gazing out over the rows of graves, he noticed that there was no recently disturbed earth, no fresh burial mounds anywhere in sight. He wondered for a moment just what the city had been doing with their dead.
Perhaps it was best that he’d been sent here first. An intelligent guiding of the manna meant one of two things: either the corruption had grown so strong that it had embodied a corpse with a mockery of intelligence, or there was a lesser demon here, orchestrating its own tiny kingdom beneath the soil of sanctified ground.
Which it was, he would have to find out.
He stepped out of the tiny stone chapel and turned to face the doorway once more. With this amount of manna leaking out it could wreak havoc as far away as the city proper. He would have to do something to seal the chapel until he could have it fixed properly.
D’Arden took a few steps backward and closed his eyes. Holding up his arms, he summoned the manna to his fists. The energy diverted from its slow path to the crypt to gather around him, to focus on the two points to which he directed his mind. He felt it building, and he made a few slow movements of his arms, gathering in more of the manna and building it in his center, enhancing his own power in a way that normal men could only dream of doing.
As he felt the energy reach a peak, he thrust his arms forward, propelling the energy away from his body and towards the open doorway of the chapel. With his mind, he constructed a solid wall of energy where the door had stood, shaping it and hewing it from the rawness of the manna.
When once more he opened his eyes, there was a wall of solid blackness between him and the energy of the font that allowed no ray of light, no drop of energy to escape. The manna still flowed across the ground towards the crypt – there was no way that he could cut off a directed flow – but at least no more of the unsuspecting dead would be rousted from their eternal sleep.
That would do for now.
He drew the crystalline blade from his back, and it came free from its specially-designed scabbard with a low rasp. He turned towards the crypt and began a slow stride across the dead, packed earth.
The door of the mausoleum was tightly sealed. No wonder, he thought, with so many creatures which would be instantly returned to their state of death if they were caught in the sunlight.
He could only hope that some would be so destroyed when he forced the door open.
Tactics similar to those that had removed the obstacles at the blocked entrance to the font chapel proved useless. He was unable to pry the door open by physical means, no matter how much strength he put behind it. He simply could not get enough leverage on the door in order to wrench it free from its holdings.
D’Arden sighed.
A few moments later, the door to the mausoleum exploded inward, followed by licks of the azure force that had driven it forward.
Nothing stood directly in the doorway. It was a pity.
He stepped over shards of shattered stone as he crossed the threshold. He could feel the corruption here, now – it washed over him as it was freed from the confines of the crypt, red and cold and dangerous and twisted, causing his spirit to recoil in horror. Something was very wrong here.
Cautiously he moved into the darkness, the soft blue light that dripped from his sword illuminating the path before him. There was no movement in the narrow stone passageway before him.
He took another step forward.
Something lurched at him out of the darkness, releasing a dried, decaying moan. A corpse stumbled towards him as he stepped backward, its arms outstretched. He could see it in the cobalt light of the manna blade, its skin parchment-dry and cracking, barely covering the bone in some places, no eyes left in the sockets, staring at him with a long-empty gaze. Red points of light glowed angrily within those deep empty holes, the life gone forever from this empty shell which was animated only by the twisted, perverted manna that dwelled within.
He swung his blade in a perfect arc at the walking corpse, severing it in two at the waist. The blue fire licked forth from the blade as it cut through dried flesh and shattered decaying bone, engulfing the rotted flesh as it consumed and purified the manna within.
The abomination collapsed into dust and bones, and then those too were quickly returned to the land as the manna consumed it all.
Corrupted manna took many forms; there were natural snarls in it that would cause beasts and men to change their form and become hideous monsters, like the fel dogs in the forest. Demons could manipulate the manna to create whatever horrific images they could imagine. D’Arden had battled against many different foes, even through one demon’s image of inferno itself, but still he could not stop himself from being unsettled by the sight of walking corpses.
It was not going to get any better in the foreseeable future.
He suppressed a shudder.
The small corridor that made up the entry gave way into a large inner chamber, with several stones reading different names upon each one. This was obviously not the mausoleum for just one family, but perhaps for all of the gentry of Calessa, marking the burial places of the rich and the decadent, who now likely once again walked the catacombs beneath him as a shadow of their lives, a mockery of life and everything precious and dear within it.
He held up his crystalline sword like a torch, using it to read the names of those etched forever in stone. Some were so faded that he could not read them at all, others seemed fairly fresh, bodies of the dead inhumed so recently as the past year or two. The names were long, flowing, and reminiscent of poetry, a reflection of the upper class that the bodies had once belonged to.
In the dim azure light, he spotted the stairwell that descended to the catacombs, where would be resting the bodies of the richest of the rich, the patrons and matrons of great familial dynasties, each likely entombed in their own gold-plated sarcophagus, with scripted lines of expensive writing etched on plaques attached to each. Rest in peace indeed… rest forever in the same decadence that they lived their entire lives.
Cautiously, he approached the staircase. If the manna could be sensed by smell, this place would be stinking of corruption. Instead, there was only the sickly sweet scent of death permeating the air.
A soft light came up the stairs from below. It was almost undetectable from the top of the steps, but he could see it if he focused his eyes clearly. There was someone – or something – down there.
Slowly, carefully, he began to descend the steps. He knew not what might await him at the bottom; he could be mobbed with the reanimated flesh of the long-dead and wasted away… or perhaps something even worse.
His foot touched down on what his mind told him was the final step. He stooped slightly and held his sword at the ground, letting the soft blue light confirm his suspicions – he had reached the bottom.
D’Arden looked around sharply. Nothing came flying at him from the darkness, nor any unexpected attacks from the rotting flesh of the undead.
This, of course, only served to make him more suspicious.
He stood in what seemed to be a great hall of some kind. The stairs had descended further than he had realized. The ceiling was high, raised up so far that the light from the manna blade could not illuminate the stone that lay above him. To the left of him and to the right there were no walls to be found within easy reach. He wondered just how large this catacomb might be, just how far in each direction that it might stretch. There was no telling from his limited sight.
It seemed to him that the dim glow he’d seen from the top of the stairs must have been an illusion of some kind, a trick to lure him down into the depths of danger. In fact, though, when he placed the sword behind his back to dim the light that shone in front of him, he could almost make it out – a soft, warm light somewhere ahead of him, in what appeared to be the distance.
He took a cautious step forward, and then another. There was no sound, no inkling that anything living had set foot down here in many years. Not even a rat scurried, so silent was the tomb that he found himself in.
At that thought, he couldn’t help but swallow hard. He’d not intended for this mausoleum to become his tomb.
The only sounds that he could hear were the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears and his shallow, rapid breathing. He took another step forward, and another, feeling as though he were following a path into oblivion with only the dim light of the manna in his blade to guide him. The light shone no truth, no revelations on this darkness that enveloped him and seemed to consume the very light from his soul.
He dared not speak aloud, lest it give those who dwelt this far beneath the soil some advantage over him. If they were not already aware of his presence from the disturbance he’d wreaked on the manna above him, then they were preoccupied at least. He’d have hoped for a more stealthy approach to entering the crypt, but he knew that anything which would purposely manipulate the manna in this way would have sensed him coming when he’d first set foot on the graveyard.
He reached a point in the darkness where he could no longer tell whether he was still standing in the same chamber. The wall behind him had vanished into the black, and on all sides of him there was nothing. He felt as though he were an island of existence, as if all of creation had simply been washed away around him, leaving him standing perfectly alone in the remaining oblivion.
Something brushed his right shoulder.
He spun around sharply, bringing the crystalline blade around in a flashing downward arc. He felt the blade meet flesh, then bone, and something moaned and stumbled away from him. In the flash of azure light as the manna fire caught the corrupted and dusty flesh aflame, he saw them.
They seemed to be almost innumerable, the number of animated dead that surrounded him. He only caught glimpses of their horrid faces in the light of the fire – they’d been quiet, oh, so quiet – the empty eyes, the desiccated faces, the yawning gulfs where once had been facial features. His breath came in a short gasp.
Then they came.
They came at him in a wave, a gasping, breathless wave of angry dead, roused from their eternal sleep in the most horrific way possible. He lay about him with his blade, hacking through the ranks of the corpses that came at him from all sides, lighting them afire as the pure manna that flowed within him and his sword sought desperately to purify the incredible corruption around them. They clawed at his eyes with shrunken fingers, pawed at his cloak and sought to drag him down beneath a sea of rotted flesh.
His breathing heightened even more as he ducked, weaved and tore himself from the grasp of the horrid things. In their grasping claws they took bits of cloth, leather and flesh as he cut them down, one by one. In some cases the manna fire leapt from one standing corpse to another, or a group of several would be devoured by the purifying cobalt flames.
Then, they were gone.
He stood alone once more, his only fleeting companions the wisps of manna fire that quickly vanished once more into the darkness as the dust and bones clattered to the ground and disappeared forever, returned to the flow of life from the earth. There was a swelling of manna here now – when a man died and the flesh slowly rotted, the life force would be returned to the earth slowly, in time, so as not to cause a buildup of manna too great which could cause a new font to spring up spontaneously… or worse, create a snarl that would create some sort of hideous new creature.
Panting, he fell to one knee. He could feel blood trickling from several minor wounds, but he could not identify a mortal wound anywhere on his body, or even a dangerous one. The swarm of corpses had nearly driven him to the ground, and he would have had no recourse left in the dark… if they’d gotten his sword away from him too, all could have been lost.
The sound of slow applause drew his attention. It was a dry sound, with none of the moisture of the applause of men. He shuddered at the sound, a twisted mockery of the appreciative sound made by the living.
“I am truly humbled by that display,” said a thin, rough voice from the darkness.
A figure stepped forward, ringed in a dull red light that illuminated a visage not unlike the other corpses which he had just fought. In the pinpoints of light within the empty skull though, D’Arden could see not only the angry red light of corruption, but a firey light that told a story all too clear.
The corrupted manna had created life – life out of death.
“Your existence is a lie,” D’Arden snarled, regaining his feet. “You are nothing but a construct of evil, of darkness.”
“The manna is both good and evil, light and dark, Arbiter,” the corpse rasped. “It created you, and it created me. Even that which you worship as pure will cause men to scream and die unless properly treated.” A horrific image stretched across its face that might have once been a grin. “Unless they are created… like you.”
“I will return you to oblivion,” D’Arden said calmly, leveling his blade at the creature. “You have no right to walk this land.”
“Admittedly, you have verily decimated my army of the undead, Arbiter,” it said, with what might have been a hint of humor in its centuries-old voice. “But no matter. There are still corpses here that remain yet cold, bodies of those which might still be put to good use, once you are destroyed. Perhaps… even yours.”
With a snarl of rage, D’Arden leapt forward, swinging his blade out in a deadly arc. The corpse jerked like a puppet whose master had pulled too hard on its strings and moved aside too quickly for his strike to make a connection.
It laughed, a sound that resembled tearing parchment. “Strike a nerve, did I, Arbiter? You do not wish to join my army of the everlasting?”
Without answering, he brought the blade around in an upward arc, slashing viciously. As he did, he released one hand off of the hilt of the crystal blade and thrust it outward sharply, delivering a blast of azure force that very nearly connected with the corpse and would have consumed it there and then, but missed narrowly and splashed harmlessly against the stone floor a few feet away, instantly vanishing.
“Your skills are lacking,” the corpse taunted. “How many beasts have you slain, Arbiter, and yet you cannot defeat me?”
“I shall defeat you!” D’Arden said, driving his crystal blade forward in a powerful thrust.
The creature almost seemed to vanish before his very eyes before reappearing a few arm’s lengths away. “Too slow, Arbiter. Come, destroy me! Send my corruption back to the earth! Purify this place, if you can!”
D’Arden made another cutting attack, but once again, his strike fell short. The creature shook its head – a motion that threatened to dislodge the skull from its perilous perch atop the decayed shoulders – and sighed heavily.
“Very well,” it gasped. “If you cannot defeat me, then I will defeat you!”
Red light began to build up around the corpse as it drew the corrupted manna inward. D’Arden fell a step backward – it had been many months since he’d faced down a construct so powerful, and he found himself almost in awe of the horrible sight before his eyes.
“Now die!” the corpse breathed.
The corrupted manna shot forth from the skeletal fingers in long, sinewy ropes. One looped itself around his sword arm, the other attaching itself to his left ankle. Immediately he pulled taut against them, trying to pull the corpse off balance and within reach of a fatal strike, but his efforts proved in vain.
“Do not take me for such a weakling,” the beast said, sending out two more tendrils that wrapped around his other arm and neck. They tightened, and suddenly D’Arden found it difficult to breathe. “You’ve lost, Arbiter. I’m going to snap your puny, fragile neck and use your corpse to eat the citizens of that city alive!”
D’Arden pulled hard against the magical bonds, and then rolled himself over his shoulder directly at the corpse, bringing up his sword in a sharp arc as there was suddenly slack available. The thing shrieked and pulled backwards, cackling dryly as it pulled the bonds tightly around him once again.
“Good try, but not enough!” it laughed.
He closed his eyes as the bonds tightened around them. He was beginning to feel dizzy from lack of air, and the agony of the pressure on his windpipe was making him desperately want to cough. He could feel the strength being sapped out of him as he struggled in vain against them.
There was no way to breathe and draw the manna inward. His sword hand was immobilized.
Expelling what little remained of his breath, he focused all of the manna remaining within him on his right hand – his all-important sword hand. If only he could get that free, he might escape this grisly demise. Power collected around his wrist, and he focused the entirety of his will on that single spot.
For an instant, the bonds loosened.
An instant was all he needed.
Immediately he yanked his hand free and cut through the glowing rope holding his neck in a single stroke. It separated at the point of contact and the blue flames leapt forth from the sword, traveling quickly down the severed connection towards the living corpse. It shrieked and dropped the connection immediately, loosening the rest of the bonds attached to him.
He drew in a breath, the death-scented air tasting sweeter than any other.
“It’s time for this to end,” D’Arden gasped, charging forward.
The corpse seemed stunned by the fact that he’d escaped the deathtrap that he’d fallen into, and barely moved as he brought the sword up, separating the desiccated skull from the shoulders. The skull flew through the air and hit the ground some feet away – D’Arden could hear the powdery crack as it struck the stone floor with enough force to shatter it.
The manna fire leapt from the point of contact and began devouring the dry and dusty corpse. There was no shriek, no sound of protest as the blue fire burned almost brightly enough to illuminate what appeared to be a truly massive chamber.
When the corpse was gone, the fire leapt outward still, through the air with nothing to keep it afloat, purifying the corrupted lines of manna that flowed through here and were caught in the corpse’s web. D’Arden breathed slowly and smoothly as much of it flowed through him as a vessel for purification, passing through his spirit and his body in its search for purity. It was a blissful agony, one he always endured.
The fire popped and crackled in the air around him just as it burned in his veins. His muscles strained against the misery inflicted by the massive amount of corruption that needed purifying, and worse, the knowledge that it would only remain pure for so long, unless he was able to find the demon in the city and destroy it once and for all.
He let out a long, low cry of pain.
When finally the pain subsided, he fell to his knees. The crystal sword dropped from his hand, and immediately its light was extinguished as the contact from his flesh was broken. It clattered to the floor, forgotten as he struggled to draw breath through his damaged throat.
All was dark.
His mind slowly returned to normal as he felt the collection of manna begin ebbing into the earth. The twist that had caused the corruption had been unraveled, and now the manna would begin flowing back in its usual patterns. The lasting effect still might drive up a font here, but if that were the case he’d simply have the citizens of Calessa board up the mausoleum and build a new one so that there would be no chance of anyone being harmed by accidentally venturing down here.
He picked up the manna blade, and it immediately lit up once more, buoyed again by the life force flowing through his veins. It was his torch as he made his way back across the stone floor and up the steep stairway, back towards the light of outside and the haven of civilization.
It was time the guard captain gave him what he wanted.