Mikel nodded. “The Captain said I should wait for you. He didn’t want me to go off on a patrol and not be ready to go with you when you awakened.”
D’Arden frowned slightly. He’d hoped that the Captain would at least send the boy back to the Heights, to ensure that the soldiers were blocking off the gates as he’d instructed. No matter, though – the fact that the boy was already here would save him a time-consuming search. He needed Mikel’s expertise, since the boy had been born and raised in the low quarter.
“We should go,” D’Arden said after a moment. “The longer we wait, the more the corruption will spread. If we are to have any hope of purifying the manna font in the low quarter, we must go there immediately.”
“I’ll lead the way,” Mikel said. “We’ll pass by my home on the way to the font chapel.”
That would be fortuitous, D’Arden thought. The boy could visit his family while he attempted to purify the font. He suspected that there might be something there, a smaller danger that would be drawing the power of the font into itself, like there had been in the graveyard. That would prevent the corruption from becoming too concentrated there among the people, because something would be absorbing all of the power, similar to how he absorbed the pure manna from the earth.
It could not be the demon, he reasoned, for if the demon had taken up residence there the corruption would surely be stronger. The boy would have noticed at least some of his friends and neighbors acting strangely at least, and murderously mad at worst. If none of that had happened, perhaps there was a smaller presence, something that could be more easily dealt with. His only hope of saving Calessa lay with purifying one of the fonts in the city so that he could work outward from there, have a place to recharge, and also to have a way to locate where the demon was hiding.
He nodded to the boy, and together they left the inn. As he exited through the front door, D’Arden looked to the counter where the publican stood. As before, the publican merely gave him a curt wave with his grizzled hand, and D’Arden returned the gesture with an acknowledging nod.
The streets were lively in the afternoon in the trade quarter. Many people milled around, what must have been fully half of the remaining population of the city. They seemed remarkably unaffected by what lay beyond the gate into Calessa Heights; perhaps it was simply easier for them to put it out of their minds.
He followed Mikel among the merchant carts and through the crowds of people. The shouting, the yelling, the calling out of names and wares and prices was nearly deafening compared to the grisly silence he had experienced only hours earlier, and to the pleasant repose that had taken his attention since. In fact, he was quite surprised that his room in the inn had been so well insulated against the inundation of sound that lay outside.
They meandered their way along the streets and slowly the crowds of the trade quarter began to thin out. The streets began to look more desolate as the people began to be less and less frequent, and they passed through several neighborhoods which had obviously not been inhabited in some time.
“People are all congregating close to the trade quarter,” Mikel said, as though he had read the Arbiter’s mind. “The captain’s got special provisions that allow folk to buy houses for people who died or had to be…” he swallowed hard, “…put down. They can buy ‘em cheap, and it brings them in closer to where the rest of the people are, so they don’t feel so lonesome. Sometimes the captain even lets them live there for free. Not like the owners care anymore, and people are so desperate to be a part of civilization that they don’t mind living in the house of dead folk.”
“A sad state of affairs indeed,” D’Arden said.
“It’s really only the trade folks who can afford the program, though,” Mikel said. “You’ll start to see more people again once we get close to the low quarter. There’s all sorts of people in there who can’t afford to move.”
Mikel was right. As they wound their way through the streets and the buildings became less and less decorated, more worn and older-looking, D’Arden began to see the population pick up again. These were very different people than were found in the trade quarter. These people wore rags, many of them, and he began to feel conspicuous and out of place very rapidly. His road-worn travel clothes were like princely robes to these poor folk. It seemed that since the corruption had come to Calessa that their fortunes were growing more and more dire. They seemed happy enough, and D’Arden could not sense any large increase in corruption as they approached. Of course, the city was so thick with it that it was hard to distinguish one from the other, but this place did not have the oppressive ominous feeling that had pervaded the Heights. For all that they had little wealth, these people actually seemed to be genuinely happy.
“The font chapel is down this way,” Mikel said, and D’Arden followed only a few steps behind him. It seemed strange to him what a sense of joy these people seemed to have in their lives, unaware that within the walls of their own city there lurked a danger which threatened to devour all of them: men, women and children alike.
D’Arden felt buoyed by the pure energy that he’d absorbed from the earth during his trance. Despite his knowledge of just how dire the situation was in this city, he could almost feel the genuine, warm joy that these people felt. It seemed to him as though purifying the manna font here in the low quarter would be little more effort than walking up to it. He felt invincible, alive, and ready to take on anything that would come his way.
If only that feeling could have lasted.
They approached the font chapel with some trepidation. D’Arden feared that it would be as badly corrupted as the one in the trade quarter, and that might well render his mission pointless. Mikel, of course, was simply worried about being exposed to the radiant power that lay within.
The font chapel was the nicest and most highly decorated building in the surrounding area. It was made of the cool white stone that all of the font chapels in this area were made from, while the rest of the buildings seemed to be made of rotting wood and thatch. It stood out like a red-tailed hart in an open green meadow.
As they stood before the door, D’Arden looked at the boy. “You should take this time to visit your family. They will have missed you, and you cannot enter the chapel with me. Go, now, and come find me in an hour. This may take some time as I do battle with the corruption on its own ground.”
Mikel nodded and disappeared down one of the side streets, but not before handing D’Arden the key to the chapel’s door. With a glance over each shoulder to ensure that there was no one within range of the energy’s lethal light, he unlocked the door, pulled it open quickly, and stepped inside.
The corruption assaulted him immediately, but it was not as strong as the time before. There was some purity still left in the energy here, and it was enough, he thought, that he might be able to gain a foothold. As soon as he had closed the door behind him, he plunged his hands into the radiant light and stiffened with a cry of pain.
It was different here. Calessa was a huge city, and the high quarter was as far away from where he was currently as it could possibly be while still remaining within the walls of the city. While there was still corruption, and it was undeniable that it was growing and spreading, it did not seem to be wholly owned by the evil presence that made its home somewhere in the city. Instead, he could clearly feel that the manna was being drawn to a specific place, though he could not immediately tell where that place might be. This was more like the graveyard, then – some sort of lesser evil was directing the flow of the energy for its own gain. Control of this place had been relinquished by the demon to some minion, something dangerous in its own right, but perhaps not as deadly as facing down the evil that controlled this city.
This was something he could do. Despite the pain that the corrupted manna caused him, he felt elation at the thought. If he could locate this lesser evil and extinguish it, purify the spark of its evil and erase its very existence, he would have a foothold in the city. He could establish a base of operations here, in the low quarter, and branch outward in order to cleanse the whole city of its evil.
Withdrawing his hands from the pool of light he gave a quiet sigh. Now the question was only about locating whatever beast, whatever creature it was that was drawing the power from this font and corrupting it. He could find it.
Carefully, he secured the door to the font chapel behind him as he exited, to ensure that no one would accidentally let free the power that lay within. On the street, he paused to take a few deep breaths, to draw the manna out from inside himself. He closed his eyes and focused, trying to bring the trail of manna that would lead him to the danger to the forefront of his mind, to give his eyes the ability to see the flow of the manna as though it were an animal trail.
When once more he opened his eyes, it was there before him, clear as daylight. The trail wound through the streets, but it was a definite flow away from the chapel, going deeper into the low quarter. If Mikel were here, he could have been a better guide, but D’Arden did not want the boy involved in this any more than he needed to be.
