Elisa was merely standing back, a few steps away, watching the two of them. There was fear in her eyes, and she seemed to be regarding both D'Arden and Khaine with the same amount of fear. That only enraged him more. He was supposed to help this girl, now that he'd inadvertently cursed her with the heartblade. This was supposed to be her chance for a better life. He'd be lucky if she would ever let him near her again after an experience like this.
"You're wrong, Tal." Khaine said this in such a way that brooked no argument; it was not a counter to D'Arden's statement, but simply a statement of fact. "The heartblade is a special enchantment. It does not contain manna, but instead an agent that at once both lends resistance to the deadly energy of raw manna and forms an instant addiction that cannot be broken. It draws you back to it with its own energy, requiring you to take sustenance from it. The manna from those fonts is killing you as surely as time is killing you. It dissolves your being, a tiny mote at a time, relieving you of your humanity until one day your soul is swept away in the font, and you are gone forever from this place.
"Don't you see, Tal? The manna is not pure or corrupted. All of it is deadly. Every exposed font in this gods-forsaken world is deadly. All of it is corruption, and we are all a part of that corruption. Humans are not meant to live in a world like this, we are not meant to exist in a place with this kind of energy. The Arbiters simply fight to keep the balance tipped towards the side that they have chosen, so that they can more easily control the power of the land to their own ends. Once my power spreads and all of your 'pure' manna is driven from it, new things will grow in the shadow of the Red.
"Men will adapt, just as they always have."
D'Arden fell back a step, thunderstruck. He could not believe the words that were flowing from the mouth of the visage of his old mentor, and yet somehow, everything seemed true. His head was reeling. If any of this were true, it would invalidate his entire existence. Everything he had fought for, bled for, nearly died for would be completely gone.
"What about Calessa Heights?" D'Arden demanded. "That is not adaptation! That's nothing but madness!"
"An unfortunate side effect of a cleansing fire is that some things get burned," Khaine replied patiently. "There were some there who did not respond to the power of the Red, and it spread like a sickness. The good Captain Mor was good enough to board up the place to keep it from spreading further – after, of course, he spoke with me."
Damn it! D'Arden cursed himself inwardly. Even Mor is in the pocket of this monster! How did I not see it?
A broad smile spread over Khaine's face, revealing wickedly sharpened teeth. "I see you realize the depths of your plight now, Tal. Yes, I have been watching you since the moment you stepped foot in my city. At first I was amazed that they had sent you, so naive and so unwitting into this place. Then, as you began to realize just what was going on here, I began to get angry. I had Mor plant that boy with you, all the while intending that he would die, to see if I could break your resolve." The smile darkened into a dangerous frown. "I see now that it was pointless. Instead, somehow, you found one of the few who my power had not touched at all, and somehow cast her dice in your favor, though it is supposed to be impossible."
So even Khaine hadn't known about the heartblade's secret; that it could even change someone later in their life and give them the power of the Arbiter. That helped D'Arden to feel slightly better, and he was able to pull back his blinding rage from the edge of a foolhardy attack on his enemy. He stole a glance at Elisa, who was still watching the both of them fearfully, and shook his head.
"Words are words, Khaine," D'Arden said at last. "You stand here before me and speak of things of which you have no way of proving. It matters little how much your words ring of truth. Even if they were lies but you believed them fully it would change the manna in your favor, and the both of us know it."
"Would you then like a taste of my power, Tal?" Khaine grinned wickedly once more. "I would be happy to demonstrate it for you."
D'Arden lowered himself into a combat crouch, gripping the handle of his manna blade tightly in both fists. "Show me."
Khaine reached to his back and pulled free a sword that was unlike any manna weapon D'Arden had even seen. The blade was twice as wide as his own, and curved wickedly near the end, glowing brightly with the red light of the corruption. It shone on both himself and on Elisa, and he did his best not to flinch as he felt the twisted power rain down upon him. Instead he focused his own energy into his manna blade, brightening the glow of the pure blue power that he wielded in order to fend it off, and took a step closer to Elisa so that she might benefit from its protective shield as well.
"Not so fast," Khaine said with a smirk, throwing out one hand. A burst of crimson light shot forth from his fingertips, rocketing toward Elisa with incredible speed. She let out a shriek that was cut short as the light surrounded her.
D'Arden whirled around, but she appeared unharmed – simply immobilized in a glowing cage of red power. "What have you done, Khaine?"
"Simply removed an element from the equation," said the monster which had replaced the man he'd once known. "Her soul now hangs in the balance, Tal. Do you have the strength to save her?"
"My power is stronger than yours," D'Arden said evenly.
"I will show you my power!" Khaine bellowed. His strange blade shone brightly, almost white-hot at the center, and his eyes did the same. He drew back with both hands and struck forth at D'Arden wielding that strange and terrible blade. It was a slow and clumsy attack, and D'Arden knew that his opponent was capable of better. He brought up an almost disinterested parry to easily deflect the oncoming stroke.
When the blades met, D'Arden felt a shock run through his bones that he'd never felt before. The two sides of the manna were warring within him. He nearly cried out in agony as pain filled him like never before. He wondered if his opponent felt the same, but when he looked upon the face of his former mentor, twisted and changed by the corrupted manna, he saw there only malice and no signs of weakness in the unnaturally-stretched grin.
D'Arden shoved the other blade away from him, and as they disengaged, the feeling of the war inside him dimmed but did not vanish. He had no time to recover, though, as Khaine began to press the attack in earnest. No longer were the strokes slow and cumbersome – that had obviously been a ploy to show D'Arden the exact extent of the power that he was up against. Now they were rapid, blows flying in quick succession, and it was all D'Arden could do to get his blade up in time to defend each one. He tried to take the moment of defense to analyze his opponent, to find some sort of weakness in his defense, but the pain that lanced through him every time he parried a strike made it difficult to concentrate on anything but each successive attack and counter.
Khaine's attacks were each a deadly stroke, and there were some that D'Arden only parried just in time to save from his chest being pierced or his neck from being severed. He managed to get in a few counterattacks, but they were weak and Khaine easily batted them away. D'Arden quickly realized that no matter what his prowess with the blade was, Khaine's corrupted energy was assisting him in a way that the pure manna never could. D'Arden did everything he could to draw on his reserves, but the corruption that filled the very air around him prevented him from drawing any more from anywhere. Khaine had a limitless supply of his own power, and D'Arden had to carefully manage his own so as not to expend too much of it, lest he be left completely powerless before this madman.
With each step backward he took, a realization became more and more clear to him. He was losing this fight, and he stood no chance on this uneven ground where his opponent wielded so much more power than he.