Paul Kemp - Shadow witness

Jak could only shrug.

Snarls suddenly erupted from somewhere behind. Jak gasped and-whirled, blades ready. Cale leaped before him in a fighting crouch.

As suddenly as they had begun, the snarls died out and vanished.

Cale held the wand aloft and walked a few steps back the way they had come. Nothing. Inspired, he knelt and placed his ear to the floor. From below, the distant sound of snarls carried through the floorboards.

"Came through the floorboards," he said, and stood. "They must have been right below us."

Jak let his weapons sag and visibly relaxed. "Dark," he oathed. "Startled me."

"Me too."

"They coming up?" Jak asked.

"I don't know." He walked past Jak, faced the emptiness of the gate, and estimated its width-five feet, maybe six. "Can you jump over this?"

TSasy." Without another word, Jak sheathed his weapons, backed up a few steps, raced forward, and leaped over the gate. He cleared it easily and landed in a crouch. In a flash, he had his blades redrawn and stood at the ready, waiting for Cale.

Cale quickly jumped the gate as well. Dodging debris, they continued forward. Two more gates- empty holes in reality-blocked their path, one in the floor, easily jumped, and one in the wall, easily sidestepped. They reached the short flight of stairs that descended to the lower level of the guildhouse.

"Down here," Cale said.

Jak nodded. "I don't smell it anymore," he observed softly. "The rot, I mean."

Cale nodded. He didn't smell it either. The smell of decay had become so commonplace to him that he no longer noticed it.

That's why I don't feel afraid, he realized. Fear, too, had become so commonplace for him over the last two days that he noticed it only rarely.

A soft growling from down the twisting stairs interrupted his reverie. He looked questioningly at Jak. The little man nodded grimly. He had heard it too. Cale covered the cool tip of the wand with his palm so that only a little light trickled out between his fingers. In hand cant, he signaled to Jak, I lead. Be cautious.

Jak nodded and they silently descended the twisting stone stairs. When they reached the landing at the bottom, they discovered the source of the growls.,

A ghoul dressed in green tatters sat at the base of the wall and stared dazedly into the emptiness of a gate. A slowly swirling mix of gray and black, the gate pulsed periodically, and with each beat of the unholy heart the spider web tracery of purple veins beneath the ghoul's translucent gray skin beat in time. The dazed horror rocked back and forth, rhythmically growling softly into the emptiness. Its yellow eyes looked as vacant as the hole into which it stared. The ghoul, oblivious to the pain and purple blood that coursed down its arms, mindlessly dug its claws into its own rotted flesh.

Jak gave a slight gasp and Cale signaled him to stop and stand still. Cautiously, blade before him, he walked toward the ghoul.

Enthralled by whatever it saw in the gate, the creature showed no sign of noticing him. It simply kept rocking and gouging itself. Cale moved directly behind it. It continued to mutter and stare, oblivious to all but the void.

Up close now, Cale could make out muttered words interspersed with its bestial growls. "He is among us, among us."

Cale swallowed his disgust. Though twisted and warped, he recognized the skinny body and short brown hair of Willen Trostyn, a boy the Righteous Man had recruited no more than a month ago. Willen couldn't have been more than twenty, and now Cale had to kill him.

Without further thought, he raised his long sword high to strike. He stopped in mid-stroke and looked at Jak. Eyes filled with horror and disgust, the little man met his gaze and gave him a short nod of approval. Willen showed no sign of noticing anything. He rocked, dug his claws deeper into his arms, and muttered mindlessly.

"Among us. Among us-"

With an overhand chop, Gale laid open Willen's head. Purple gore sprayed the wall and soaked, the floor. Willen died instantly, collapsing into a stinking heapat the base of the gate.

Seemingly of its own accord, the gore flowed toward the void. Like the mouth of some unimaginable beast, the emptiness drew Willen's blood within and devoured it. Swirls of purple intermixed with the black and gray of the gate and spun toward nothingness. Cale turned away to find Jak. The little man's face had turned white.

"Dark," mouthed the halfling soundlessly, as he stared at the wall. He looked as though he might lose Matilda's fish stew at any moment.

Cale stepped forward and gripped him by the shoulders. "Don't look into the gates, Jak. Don't look."

The little man peeled his eyes away and stared at

Cale with eyes full of horror. It's hungry, Erevis. The gate. It's hungry."

"I know," Cale replied. "It's empty. Emptiness is always hungry." He gave the little man a slight shake. "Jak! The demons are the same way. You see? They're always hungry and they'll never stop. That*s why we have to stop them. You see? Jak!"

The little man gave a nod, seemed to come back to himself some. "I see," he said, and clutched for his holy symbol.

He's close to losing it, Cale realized. He placed a gentle hand on Jak's shoulder. "Go back, my friend. Right now. Go back and get out. Get Brelgin and-"

Jak shook his head and pushed Gale's hand away. "I'm not going back, Erevis. I just…" He waved his blades to indicate the guildhouse. "Trickster's toes, it just takes a moment to digest all of this." His eyes fell on Willen's corpse, then returned to Cale. "I'm not going back. I'm here until this is over."

Cale accepted that. '"Then let's get to the armory," Growling suddenly erupted behind them and died away. The scratching of clawed feet on the hardwood planks of the floor was loud to Gate's ears.

"They must have come up from the basement," Jak calmly observed.

Pleased to see Jak in possession of his faculties, Cale nodded agreement. Trsillar must know we're here. Let's move."

With Cale leading, they sped down the debris-strewn hallway until they reached the armory. The open door hung crookedly, having been torn loose from its upper hinge.

"Here," Cale said, and ducked in. Jak followed.

Weapons lay east about the floor, many broken or chipped, but some intact. Comically, a few broken swords had been replaced on their wall mounts after being destroyed. All the wooden tables and weapon racks had been turned over and the legs broken off Loose sling bullets covered the floor. Of the six suits of leather armor and three suits of studded leather that hung by their straps from the wall, all had been torn into uselessness by ghoul claw. A stack of broken crossbows lay piled in the near corner. Against the right hand wall, the: large wooden chests and barrels that had once held the crossbow ammunition had been broken open and the quarrels scattered. Shanks of silk rope, crowbars, and lock picking tools had been tossed about randomly.

Gale's heart sank when he saw the thorough destruction. They had to have enchanted weapons! He scanned the wreckage for the pair of long, thin, iron strongboxes that once had held the guild's small store of magical weapons-Growls again sounded from the hallway behind them. It rose to a crescendo and then devolved into wet gibbering. Gale shared an alarmed glance with Jak. From the sound, many ghouls had come up from the basement,

"Probably feeding on the body of the one we killed," Gale softly observed. "Let's get this door closed. Quietly."

Ashen faced, Jak gave a nod. "Right."

With Gale reaching over him to hold the heavy oak door in position near its broken upper hinge, Jak carefully pushed it closed.

"We're looking for two iron strongboxes," Gale whispered to Jak, and started to kick through the debris. "Hurry. They'll finish with that body soon."