Paul Kemp - Shadow witness

"Burn me!" Caught in the fountain of blood, the little man cursed and tried to slide aside. His abrupt movement only tore open more holes in the wall. Streams of blood ran down to the floor, drained into the gate, and quickly turned its swirls crimson.

"Gale!" Jak peered over his shoulder, spattered with gore, "Help." His fearful eyes fell to the churning gate below. "Help," he said again.

Gale heard the beginnings of panic creeping into Jak's voice.

"Hold still." Without another word, Gale backed off, sprinted forward, and leaped the gate. He hit the spongy floor in a ready crouch.

"Don't move," he again said to Jak.

"I'm not moving." Jak clung desperately to the warped wall, kept his face down to shield his eyes and mouth from the crimson fall. Gore-soaked, his cloak hung heavily from his small body.

"Don't look into the gate" Gale said. He set down the glow wand, shook free of his pack, and pulled out a coil of silk rope.

"Godsdammit, Gale," Jak snapped, "I'm not moving and I'm not looking! Hurry up. This is disgusting."

Gale smiled despite himself-the having kept his sense of humor even when terrified.

Deftly, Gale tied a slipknot into one end of the thin but strong line. He opened some play ia the loop; gathered it in, and prepared to toss it to Jak.

"Catch this."

"Catch it!" Jak eyed him incredulously over his shoulder. "How?"

*Let go with one of your hands."

"But-Dark and empty!" he said, and nodded in resignation. "All right." He gingerly pulled his left hand free of the wall. Despite his care, the wall's skin stuck to his hand and tore loose. Blood spurted from the rip. He hung on the wall with only two sticky feet and a sticky hand.

"Throw itf

Gale stood at the edge of the gate, let eight or so feet of line play out, and swung itup toward Jak. The little man caught it on the first try. He stuck his arm through the loop, draped it over his neck, and tried again to get a grip on the wall. Slippery with gore, his hand no longer stuck.

"Blast," he oathed. "It won't stick." Before Cale could say anything, the little man reared back and slammed his fist into the wall, wrist deep. "Ugh," he exclaimed in disgust.

Quick thinking, Cale thought. "Get the rope around your torso," he said. "IH give it a jerk at the same time you jump toward me. Ifs only about eight feet. You'll make it."

"I know what the plan is," Jak muttered irritably. "Easier said than done, though. I don't know if this hand," he indicated with his head the hand buried in the wall, "will hold me if I let go with the other."

Cale made no reply. He waited for Jak to come to terms. They had nothing else, and Jak had to know it. The fleshy, bloody wall offered no handgrips. Jak was stuck, and if he tried to move farther, he would certainly fall into the gate.

"Let's do it now. With the rope tike this."

Cale shook his head. "Can't. I think it'll slip right over your head and off when I pull. Won't work"

"Dark," Jak sighed. "All right, let's do it. But if my hand won't hold and I start to fall, you pull right away. Try to, at least." He glanced down into the bloody gate. "I don't want to go wherever that leads."

Cale nodded, braced himself, and pulled the rope as taut as he dared. He had to leave some play so Jak could get his other arm through, yet he had to be ready to give it a sharp pull if the little man started to fall.

"Ready," he said.

"Here goes." Jak jerked his hand free. Blood spurted from the wall and poured past him into the gate. Cale tensed. Jak dangled dangerously but didn't fall. His

•I,a other hand held! Quickly, the little man threaded his free arm through the loop. He turned and shot Cale a grin.

"All right, Cale-" The little man's green eyes fell on the gate and went wide. "Pull, Cale! Now! Now!"

Cale jerked at the same moment that Jak jumped free of the wall.

The snap of the rope pulled the breath from the little man in a whoosh. He flew through the air, just cleared the edge of the gate, and landed in a heap on the spongy floor beside Cale. He leaped to his feet.

"The shadow demon! I saw it looking out at me from the gate!"

Cale dropped the rope and had his blade out in an instant. Without hesitation, he stepped to the edge of the gate and looked down. From deep within the void, two hate-filled yellow sparks looked out at him and narrowed balefully. The eyes of the demon that had nearly killed Thazienne.j; =

"Bastard!" He reversed his grip on the long sword, dropped to one knee, and drove the blade hilt-deep into the void, directly between those demonic ye^ew eyes. The stuff of the gate gave way before the iron Eke water. A distortion rippled across its bloody surface. When it cleared, the eyes had disappeared. Cale snarled and pulled the weapon free. He didn't know if he had hit the demon or not.

Jak approached and stood beside him, blades bare.

"It's gone?" he asked.

"Itfsgone."

"Good," Jak said. "Close one, Cale. I wouldn't have wanted to fall in there with that thing, at least not without you." The little man stripped off his bloody cloak and threw it into the gate. "Here," he said to the gate, "you get this instead."

The bloody cloak swirled into oblivion and vanished.

Jak took an extra cloak from his pack and wiped himself as dean as he could. "Disgusting," he muttered as he worked. He threw the newly soiled cloak into the gate as well. "That's better," he said afterward. "I feel like a new man. We moving?"

Gale nodded and turned reluctantly from the gate. "We're moving," he affirmed.

"What's in your hand?" Jak asked.

"Huh?"

Surprised, Gale realized that he held the felt mask in his hand, H amp;must have pulled it out of his pocket after jerking his blade out of the gate. Or had he done it before?

"What is that?" Jak asked again, and gently gripped Gale's hand by the wrist.

"It's a mask," Gale said. He shook free of Jak's grip and stuffed it back into his pocket. "I picked it up in the armory. You overlooked it in the strongbox."

Jak looked skeptical at that. "I didn't overlook it," he said thoughtfully. "A mask? Gale…"

"I know."

Jak smiled and patted Gale's forearm. "Seems the Shadowlord wants an answer sooner rather than later."

Gale dared not reply to that. He thought some part of him might have already given his answer. Without another word, he knelt and retrieved the glow wand. "Let's keep moving. The stairs to the basement are just ahead."

With Gale holding the glow wand high to best illuminate the darkness and Jak keeping a watchful eye behind for the shadow demon, they moved warily through the narrow halls. The floor solidified as they distanced themselves from the gate, the warping seemingly localized around the void. Still, the whole guildhouse fairly reeked of wrongness.

With only the dim glow wand for light, Gale relied more on his hearing than his vision to warn him of danger. He was alert to any sound, but heard nothing-nothing but the dull, thudding pulses emitted from the gates as they grew larger and ate away at the world.

He wondered briefly whether proximity to the gates would somehow change he and Jak, warp them into unspeakable horrors tike the ghouls. Uncomfortable with the thought, he dismissed it as useless speculation. He reached into his pocket and felt the comforting touch of the felt mask.

I'm already changed, he admitted to himself. He was finding comfort in a god. Only time would tell if he also had been warped.

Doors dotted the hallway as they moved. The gates had warped some into saggy slabs of wood with the consistency of candle wax, while others seemed normal. Where the doors stood closed and solid, Gale left them closed. Where ajar, he kicked them open and stalked into the room, blade ready. Always the rooms beyond stood empty but for the occasional gate, broken furnishings, torn paintings, and of course, the smell. They moved forward, cautiously alert.