“Do you like my kingdom, young one?” Khaine’s voice boomed in the chamber, echoing and reverberating several times off of the walls. “Soon all of Calessa will be under my control, and then my power will spread farther yet. No more will the Arbiters bow a knee in fealty to the broken throne at Hartsknell. We shall rule with an iron fist, and the manna shall transform all who resist into our servants – or else they shall die. I have discovered true purity, my student – true purity lies in absolute power.”
“So that wolf I slew in the low quarter truly was your servant,” D’Arden sneered, finding no trace of the man he once respected and loved as a father in the apparition that sat before him. “It too spoke of power as purity. You are lost, Khaine. I may once have been your student, but this student has become more than his master obviously could ever have become. I have surpassed you. My dedication is to the land, and your ‘purity of power’ is killing this land and its inhabitants. What is power if there is no one left alive to rule over?”
Khaine laughed, a terrible sound that at once reminded D’Arden of the kindly laughter of his mentor and the screeching sound made by a demon all too amused by its prey. “Power is in the hand of those who hold it, Tal. You would not dare to stand against the power that I wield now. It is only with power that we can truly be free. You ask me what is power? I say that it is the ultimate goal of life, that which can only be attained through the death of those who stand in your way. Tell me, Tal, do you stand in my way?”
“I do,” D’Arden said, his voice proudly defiant.
Khaine clucked his tongue reproachfully. “I thought that you had much potential, D’Arden, when you were my student. I see now that I taught you the lessons of the Arbiters all too well. You cling to their false ideals like a child clings to its mother’s teat. You were not fit to be my apprentice.”
The figure rose from its seat atop the dais and slowly began to descend the staircase. As it came into view more closely, D’Arden could see that it was in fact the image of the man he’d loved so dearly. The same red hair, though it was graying around the temples. The same kind eyes, though they had been hardened and carried many more wrinkles now than they had the last time D’Arden had seen the man. Once an apprenticeship ended, an Arbiter was not likely to see their mentor again unless there were some kind of extenuating circumstances.
D’Arden wished they’d met again under different ones.
“What about your little acolyte there, Tal?” Khaine asked him. “Does she see the world the same way you do? How long has she been an Arbiter? Does she know that the Arbiter’s Tower has sent her to her certain death?”
“I’ve never been to the Arbiter’s Tower,” Elisa said before D’Arden could stop her. D’Arden mentally smacked his own forehead. There was no way that Elisa had been properly prepared for an encounter of this magnitude.
Khaine’s head tilted in an approximation of surprise. “You hold a manna blade. You wear the robes of an acolyte. Tell me, child, how is it that you have never before been to the Arbiter’s Tower?”
Elisa looked toward D’Arden for some sort of help, having realized that she’d said something wrong. He gave her a shrug in return; there was no helping it now. The truth might as well come out.
“I’ve been an Arbiter for less than a day,” she said, somewhat bitterly. D’Arden ached for her, having to face a confrontation like this so soon after her ordainment. Acolytes needed training; he’d been a fool to bring her here.
Khaine’s eyes blazed with interest and amusement. “How is that possible?”
“I have no idea, Khaine,” D’Arden said, echoing the bitter tone of Elisa’s statement. “She’d been bitten by a manna spinner. I gave her a dose from the heartblade to try and save her life. When I offered her body to the font, it revived her instead of dissolving her.”
"Interesting," Khaine mused, stroking his chin. As he approached closer, D'Arden could see that the cool blue eyes that had once belonged to his mentor were gone entirely – instead there blazed bright red light that usurped the entirety of his eyes. He was built more powerfully than D'Arden remembered, his arms bulging with muscles and blazing with strange red tattoos that appeared to be some sort of ancient language, all alive and burning with the power of the corrupted manna that had overtaken him.
"What say you, little one? Do you still stand beside him now that you have seen the power that I wield?" Khaine finally reached the bottom of the staircase and reached out one hand towards Elisa. She stiffened, but wisely she did not move as the disproportionately large hand stroked her cheek almost tenderly. "You have none of the training that my misguided former apprentice carries, none of the values of 'purity' and 'light' that would keep him from attaining all of his goals in life in a matter of moments. What say you?"
D'Arden felt himself tensing with rage also, his knuckles turning white as they gripped the handle of his manna blade. How dare he touch her with his corrupted fingertips, allowing the corrupted manna to flow through her? D'Arden knew though that Khaine well understood what he was doing; Elisa was not properly exposed to the pure manna yet – she'd only had two doses from the heartblade and would barely be considered an infant by the standards of the Arbiters. She was much more susceptible to his corrupted touch.
"Get away from her!" D'Arden shouted, swinging his blade at Khaine. The older man stepped backward quickly, and the blade sliced through the air only inches from Elisa's face. She flinched backwards and stumbled a step or two away as the manna blade cut through the air before her.
Khaine laughed again at his ineffectual attack. "You see, dear child," he said to Elisa, "This is what those values achieve and attain: nothing more than a blind attack that could have just as easily taken off your head as mine."
D'Arden found rage welling up inside him. This man had been everything to him once, and now he was openly mocking the very ideals he'd taught D'Arden to believe in. He struggled to fight back the anger, knowing that it would only blind him to Khaine's next illusion, whatever it might be.
"I knew they'd send an Arbiter," Khaine said, studying one hand dispassionately. "Of course they would, once they felt my power growing here. I never expected, though, that they would send you, Tal. Did the Grand Master even tell you that I was the one who'd been sent here five years ago? Did they even begin to hint at what you might find here in Calessa?"
"Of course they told me," D'Arden lied boldly. "I knew exactly what was going on here, and so did they. In fact, I volunteered to come here just so that I could be the one to put you down."
Khaine laughed again, and the sound boomed off the walls. "Such a brave boy, lying to your Master like that. The manna tells me more than you would ever imagine, Tal. Did you know that once you learn to see the manna clearly, you can see how it changes in a person? Even the poorest, most miserable of peasants has manna within them, and that manna can be changed or it can be manipulated, and those people can be utilized in ways that you would never imagine."
"That's ridiculous," D'Arden spat. "Only the Arbiters have enough manna within them to be read. The amount of manna in the normal person is miniscule, undetectable even by the most well-trained eye."
Khaine wagged a finger at D'Arden reproachfully. "Oh, how little you know. The manna itself is within everything, within everyone in the same amount. Arbiters have no more manna inside of them than anyone else."
"You're not making sense, Khaine," D'Arden said, narrowing his eyes. "Of course an Arbiter has more manna within them. That's why the heartblade exists, that's why regular exposure to the fonts is so necessary. That's how we survive, by tipping the balance of our bodies and our souls toward the manna."