**
The storm was indeed finally passing by. The lightning and thunder retreated to the east as D'Arden and Khaine made their way farther west, along the road that continued past the lifeless village.
Khaine was right, as he usually was – they rode for less than an hour before entering a large, open, low-lying area. In the flashes of lightning from the storm behind them, they could easily make out the rising stone walls of a keep. There did not appear to be any fortifications; no outer walls, no portcullis, nothing defensive at all. Just a long central keep with lanterns burning along its edges.
"Can you feel it now?" Khaine asked him.
D'Arden nodded. "I can." With each step their horses took, the diseased feeling of corrupted manna grew stronger. The keep ahead glowed orange in spots, from the dim light of the lanterns, but his spiritual sight also revealed a malevolent crimson glow emanating from the very heart of the castle.
"Be on your guard," Khaine warned him. "There's no telling just how deep this monarch's insanity runs." He drew his manna sword from his back, blue light springing forth in a brilliant glow, enough to light the ground before him. D'Arden focused on it as though it were a beacon, took a deep breath, and drew his own.
Near the large and delicately-ornamented wooden doors was a horse tie, though there were no horses attached to it. D'Arden looked about for the bones of horses which might have been left here to rot, but found none. Their two animals seemed only mildly skittish, which was to be expected with the thunder still rolling in the distance. D'Arden dismounted and attached his mount's tack to the tie, and did the same for Khaine's horse a moment later.
The doors of the castle were open slightly, showing a thin line of shadow running straight down through the center. Rainwater was running in between them, forming a small river from the spongy dirt outside, trickling into the castle. Khaine and D'Arden exchanged a glance.
"Nothing for it, looks like," Khaine said, sliding his manna blade back into its sheath. He stretched out his powerful arms, placed his hands firmly on the doors, and shoved with all of his strength.
At first, the large wooden doors refused to move, but D'Arden watched as Khaine summoned pure manna energy to himself, infusing his muscles with it to provide him strength. He did not change the amount of exertion in his arms, just the amount of force behind them. D'Arden's spiritual sight picked up a faint blue radiance around Khaine's hands as that intensified as the elder man focused his will. The doors creaked, groaned, slipped an inch, and then finally gave way, swinging open and crashing into the walls on their side with a sound that echoed all the way down the throat of the long hallway that opened up before them.
Khaine stepped back and dusted off his hands, glancing at D'Arden with a wry expression. "So much for the element of surprise."
The long, shadowed hallway was sparsely lit by flickering torches, set every twenty feet or so along the walls, in stone sconces. As D'Arden gazed down along its length, he saw the bones of scattered corpses lying like discarded children's toys, flung out in every direction. He grimaced at the sight, and the rank smell of death and decay that followed only the briefest of moments afterward only worsened his mood.
Khaine wrinkled his nose. "Even if he wasn't crazy, I'd probably still name this lunatic the 'Corpse King'," he muttered. "Come, D'Arden. We'd best see what's waiting for us inside."
The elder Arbiter drew his sword from his back scabbard once more, and advanced at a leisurely but long stride into the castle. D'Arden hurried to keep pace with him. The slackening rainstorm continued to funnel a river of filthy water into the corridor behind them, which certainly wasn't helping the smell.
A soft white light appeared at the far end of the hallway, and slowly began to grow as it glided towards them. It was several shades dimmer than the light emitted by the manna blades, bobbing up and down as though carried by someone. As it reached the edges of the swords' blue light, though, it became obvious that it was simply floating there, hanging in midair as it drifted toward them.
Khaine came to a halt, and D'Arden stopped immediately behind him, casting a glance over his shoulder. Lightning flashed outside, but there was no similar light – nor anything else – creeping up behind them.
The white light stopped just inside the edges of the radiance of the manna blades. It flashed, and slowly coalesced into a translucent representation of a man, well-dressed in highly contrasted clothing, with short clipped hair. He held one arm up before him, the other firmly at his side.
"Greetings, Arbiters," the spirit said, with only the slightest echo belying the fact that he was not fully human. "My master the King has been expecting you. Please accompany me to the royal audience chamber, if you will. May I have your names, please?"
D'Arden looked at Khaine, who did not return the glance. Instead, Khaine continued to stare at the spirit, sizing it up with a hard glare, assessing the situation with his keen eyes.
After a long, tense moment, Khaine's expression relaxed, and he actually smiled. "Of course. I am Havox Khaine, and this is my apprentice, D'Arden Tal. Lead on, good sir."
D'Arden opened his mouth to speak; whether in protest or confusion, he wasn't certain. He was silenced by a firm look from his mentor, and immediately closed it again.
"Of course. You are expected. If you would please follow me," the ghostly white form said, smoothly rotating in midair and proceeding down the long hallway.
Khaine strode down the passage behind the ghost, his shoulders out and his head held high, blazing blue sword resting easily on one shoulder as though he were indeed an honored guest or knight being conducted to an audience with a great lord or king, instead of a mystical enforcer intending to bring judgment on a foul, evil creature masquerading as a monarch. D'Arden did his best to follow his mentor's example, but couldn't help casting furtive glances at the shadows, expecting a horde of living dead to rush out from every corner at any moment.
More of the dead lay piled up against the walls of the corridor, some strewn about as though they had exploded, others lying peacefully, as if they had simply lay down to rest for a moment and forgotten to ever get up. As they proceeded on, the rank stench of recent death was slowly replaced by the stale musk of old death, and the corpses became less rotten and more skeletal. The sour pit in D'Arden's stomach grew deeper as they went, the cold fingers of anticipation playing up and down his spine.
At last they drew up outside two large doors, arched to a point at the top, with gold-colored hinges and accents in strange symbols on the outside. D'Arden recognized it neither as a language nor a pattern – they seemed to be random shapes in unfathomable, unpleasant patterns, though there was a vaguely geometric feel to them all as a whole. The symbols themselves, though colored in gold to his physical eyes, glowed the hot crimson of a smith's forge in his spiritual sight.
The ghost lifted one hand and made as if to knock on the door. The concept was so starkly humorous that D'Arden found himself trying to smother laughter in a sudden coughing fit. Khaine turned a baleful glare on him. The laughter died, though, when the translucent fist struck the door with a loud, deep rapping sound which could only have been rivaled by a burly knight with a mailed fist, pounding with all his strength.
The doors swung inward to reveal the most ghastly sight D'Arden had ever seen in his life.
What lay before them was clearly an audience chamber or a throne room. It was brightly lit inside with the glow of torches and lanterns, which seemed to burn an angry reddish color, and emitted no smoke or smell whatsoever. Long, low benches with wooden backs, like the pews in a temple, were arranged in rows before them. Crowded on all those benches were motionless corpses in various states of decay. They were all facing the far end of the room, and despite a surge of disgust, D'Arden was faintly thankful that he could not see their faces. The stench of death was overpowering, and D'Arden could not suppress a gag reflex that choked him nearly to the point of being unable to breathe.
"This way, please," the
ghost said, politely ignoring D'Arden's gagging.
Khaine, for his part, seemed unmoved by the grotesque, macabre image before them. He nodded to the ghostly attendant, and crossed the threshold only two steps behind it. D'Arden hurried to follow, though every instinct in him screamed for him to run, to fly this place and never look back… to run now, before it was too late.
As they walked between the rows of benches, D'Arden moved his gaze around the room, flicking his eyes from one place to the next, never resting too long on any one grisly scene. There must have been hundreds of them, some with their flesh sagging or even mostly missing, and others which appeared to have been dead no more than a day, all with their blankly staring eyes riveted toward the far end of the chamber. There were no visible marks on them, and D'Arden realized that he had not seen any obvious death wounds on any of the corpses they had seen so far, save for those who had been scattered like meat. Some of them were dressed in finery, others wore simple peasant's garb. There were no distinctions made in class and rank here in this audience of the dead – women dressed like nobles leaned their rotting heads on the shoulders of men dressed in smith's aprons or shopkeeper's robes. They ranged in ages from the very old to the very young, and D'Arden even spotted a few dead mothers, still clutching their decaying babes-in-arms.
At the far end of the room was a dais, raised off the ground by several wide, thin steps. It was covered in a carpet which had clearly seen better days; it was coated with grime and dust which seemed an inch thick. It might have once been red, or perhaps a rich violet – it was impossible to tell. At the top of the dais were several ornate chairs, all arranged in a row, and in each chair sat another body, that same sightless gaze staring toward them with nightmarish intensity.
They were all dead, D'Arden realized, except for the one in the center. In the largest chair sat a young man, no older than twenty. His youth was apparent even despite the stringy blond hair that fell around his shoulders, the sunken eyes in an emaciated frame, and the bruised circles beneath those eyes that suggested a man who hadn't slept in weeks, perhaps months. The eyes, though, burning crimson with corrupted manna, were most definitely alive, and not animated by the twisted life force alone. He bore a thin circlet upon his brow, wrought of exquisitely-intricate golden patterns.
"Your majesty," intoned the ghost. "I bring before you two Arbiters, Master Havox Khaine and his apprentice, D'Arden Tal, who were brought in from the rain and cold under your hospitality. Arbiters, you find yourselves honored to be in the presence of King Thormund the Younger, third of his illustrious name and ruler of our fair kingdom."
"Thank you, Haras," said the king, waving one hand dismissively. The ghost vanished without a sound, as though it had never been there to begin with.
Slowly, the young monarch lifted himself from his chair. It obviously took an effort for him to do so; even lifting his meager weight with his arms and legs seemed to take a toll on the fragile-looking man. Once he straightened his back, D'Arden gaped. The king must have stood seven feet tall, and atop the dais he appeared to be a giant. Though his body was thin and appeared half-starved, his kingly vestments ragged and filthy, he was still surprisingly imposing simply because of his monstrously-large frame.'
"I am so pleased that you answered my invitation!" the king beamed down at them, his deaths-head visage split in a wide grin. "Speak, Arbiters. What brings you to my realm?"
Khaine's brow knitted in confusion. "I would have thought that to be obvious, Your Majesty." He swept his hand to indicate the room around them.
"Why do my subjects concern you?" The grin faded, to be replaced by a slow, uncomprehending frown.
D'Arden looked at Khaine, who blinked a few times, as though gathering his thoughts. "Well," began the elder man, "You do know that they're, ah… dead, yes?"
"Dead?" the surprise and confusion in Thormund's voice was echoed in the bewildered stare that D'Arden focused on him. "Dead? What do you mean, dead? They are all here to pay homage to me. I am their king!"
D'Arden slowly turned his incredulous stare to his master, who briefly widened his eyes in response. Khaine looked at the king once more. "Do you mean to say that these hundreds of people in this room are not dead?"
"Of course not!" the young man exclaimed, his voice thinning, becoming almost reedy in its intensity. He turned suddenly, snapping over his shoulder, "Oh, do be quiet, uncle! Your constant blathering annoys me to no end!"
Khaine pursed his lips for a brief moment. "Your subjects must be quite loyal, to attend to you so."
"Oh, they are, they are," Thormund said, turning back to them, his mouth widening briefly in the most hideous of smiles. "The best subjects any king could ask for, I believe."
"This is madness, master," D'Arden hissed. "We should just kill him and end this insanity before it spreads."
Khaine held up one hand in a placating gesture; whether it was directed at him or the king, D'Arden wasn't really sure. "Your Grace," he said. "Just how long have your subjects been here paying homage to you?"
"They have been coming from all over the kingdom for the past two weeks, and I have given them every comfort," the mad king said, with another of those hideous smiles. "I do love them dearly."
"If I might ask," Khaine continued, "How long has Your Grace held the throne?"
"Ten years, since my father, rest his soul, died of the plague when I was eleven."
"You asked why we have come, Your Grace, and I believe I now know the answer to that question," Khaine said. "We are here because Your Grace's castle is inhabited by a demonic presence."
Thormund's eyes widened in horror and shock. "A demon? My castle… my home? How… how is such a thing possible?"
"Demons are quite insidious beasts, Your Majesty. They can take many forms and appear as many things; sometimes they do not appear at all, but simply wait, growing their power over a long time. I believe that is what has happened here." Khaine's voice was calm, patient, like a parent explaining something to a child. Which, D'Arden realized, in a way he was. "Fear not, though. My apprentice and I will find this demon and expunge it from your castle. May we have your leave to explore and locate the foul thing?"
"Of course!" The mad king's eyes lighted with relief. "Of course you may, Master Khaine. Please, you have my royal leave to do whatever is necessary to banish this… this creature from my home!"
"Thank you," Khaine said, making a sweeping bow. D'Arden followed suit, though somewhat more awkwardly. "We shall return to Your Grace's audience as soon as we have determined its hiding place."
The elder Arbiter turned on his heel and strode back down the aisle between the benches, heading toward the doors which had admitted them to this chamber. D'Arden turned to follow, and was caught for a moment, paralyzed in the sightless, milky gaze of hundreds of dead men, women and children.
"D'Arden," Khaine said, and the sound of his name was enough to snap him out of his stunned paralysis. He hurried to catch up.
As he took his place, matching Khaine's stride but a single pace behind, the elder man whispered, "Look behind you, at him. Look at him, D'Arden."
Slowly, D'Arden rotated his head to glance over his shoulder at the king's dais, and willed his spiritual sight to its fullest.
He immediately wished he hadn't.
Corrupted manna energy hung over the entire room like a thick fog. The angry crimson glow pervaded everything. At first, it appeared to D'Arden as though the King himself were the center of it, as he glowed brighter than anything else, but as the young Arbiter stretched his sight and his will, he began to see the truth. It was like trying to focus on a single snowflake in a blizzard, or to pick out single threads from a vast tapestry, but slowly he began to see the patterns.
Tendrils of corrupted manna reached out from the king's fingers, hundreds of them, threads connecting the king himself to every rotten corpse in that room. From his heart, head and eyes, thicker, brighter tentacles of angry russet light stretched backward, behind him, into th
e stone wall. As D'Arden realized it and adjusted the focus of his sight to look past the king, orienting on the wall behind him, he saw what Khaine had seen, the truth of just what was happening in that audience chamber and in the castle.
The vision he saw was so indescribable, so incredibly horrifying that it touched the very center of his spirit. His legs ceased moving, his eyes widened as he was transfixed by the image of the creature lurking within the castle. His breath ceased – he found that he could not draw another.
He saw the tendrils brighten for a moment, as though alerted to something.
D'Arden thought he was going to die.
Then Khaine was there, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him along. D'Arden's gaze was broken from the maddening vision, and he found his breath returning.
They passed through the doors, and closed the massive wooden structures behind them.