'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.
'Khaine!' he shouted, his own voice echoing in the chamber, though not so much as his opponent's manna- assisted bellows did. 'You coward! You would never be fighting me if you weren't in your own, self-appointed kingdom! You know that my power is stronger than yours, and that's why you fight here, on this uneven and biased ground! You're not fit to be any sort of king – you're nothing but a wretch who can't stand the thought of being beaten!'
'Fool!' Khaine roared, pressing his attack even harder. D'Arden felt his arms weakening – if he could not get his opponent to stop this assault he would be dead in seconds, not minutes. 'You think that since you cannot best me with the sword, that you will best me with words! Ridiculous!'
“Come on, Khaine,” D’Arden sneered, trying not to let the weakness in his voice show through. “It’s not even a contest, here in your palace. You know you’re going to win. Wouldn’t you rather prove your power in a place where I actually stand a chance?”
Abruptly, the relentless assault simply stopped. Khaine took a step backward, lowering his blade and staring into D’Arden’s manna-blue eyes. “Ridiculous as it sounds, Tal, you’re right. It is pointless to fight you here. Perhaps if you see the truth of my power, I will not have to kill you. Perhaps once you see the truth, you’ll join me instead of fighting me.”
We’ll see about that, D’Arden thought, but said nothing aloud.
“You propose an Ether battle, then?” Khaine asked.
D’Arden nodded. “There’s no other way to truly prove it. On the ground we’re either firmly in your territory or mine. If you really believe that your Red is stronger, then prove it in the only place where neither one of us has an advantage.”
“You’re going to die, Tal,” Khaine said, once again sporting that terrifying grin. “Once you die, or decide that the proper place is with me, the Arbiters won’t be able to stand against my power any longer.”
“Then so be it,” D’Arden shrugged, acting disimpassioned. “If that’s the will of the land, then that is what is shall be.”
“The land knows nothing but what it is told,” Khaine said angrily.
“We shall see,” D’Arden answered.
They stepped back from each other, and for a moment, simply regarded the other, as if expecting some sort of treachery. At last, they each sheathed their respective weapons. D’Arden glanced at Elisa, and she met his eyes with less fear now, and nodded, still holding her manna blade. It was clear that Khaine regarded her as no kind of a threat, and had simply ignored her so far in the battle.
Despite what Khaine had said previously, D’Arden did not believe that their power was simply two sides of the same coin. He had seen the death and the destruction that the corrupted manna had caused. The angry red glow did not speak simply of a different kind of purity. The madness that seemed to engulf all that the corruption touched – the living corpses, the rising dead, the insane fel creatures that walked the world – did not speak of purity of any kind, but only of evil and of danger. Though he was saddened by the loss of his mentor to this terrible power, he knew that he could not waver in his resolve simply because he now fought against someone that he had once known.
Havox Khaine was gone. In his place was a monster, nothing more than a fel beast.
D’Arden hoped that he could continue to believe that.
They lifted out their arms together. The Ether battle was an ancient tradition, a duel between Arbiters who could not settle their differences. Battling in the Ether meant that neither side had direct access to the power that drove them; they had to summon it, to draw it to themselves and wield it. Their physical bodies would be left behind; there would be no blades, no strength – only energy. It was the final rite of passage to be fully ordained as a Master Arbiter. D’Arden thought that he must be the first Arbiter in many centuries, and possibly in time, to fight the Ether battle against a corrupted Arbiter.
The world began to fade around him as his spirit rushed towards the Ether. He felt Khaine’s presence following him, only a second behind. They would meet in the Ether, and D’Arden would wield the power of the pure manna against his foe. If he could not win here, then the world was truly lost.
They arrived in the Ether; a nebulous place that appeared as though they existed in a cloud. It was grey, ever-shifting and never the same for more than a moment. Looking into it was like looking into a thick fog; one could see a short distance and then everything simply faded to gray.
D’Arden saw himself in the Ether as an azure beacon of light and purity, and this is how he appeared. Every movement left a trail behind him, and he appeared like a shining star, blazing as brightly as the sun.
Khaine appeared in the Ether a moment later, and appeared to D’Arden as a bright red fireball, full of anger and hatred. He burned even brighter, blindingly white at the center and fading to orange and red flames toward the outside.
There were no words in the Ether, no taunts could be exchanged, no strategies revealed. There were only feelings and flashes of light exchanged between the two parties, and somehow there always seemed to be a kind of
