Paul Kemp - Shadow witness

"Gale?" The tip of Jak's blade already stuck through the gate.

"I feel it," Gale acknowledged with a grimace..

"Put me down. Hurry," Jak ordered.

Nodding, Gale set the little man down and tried to get his bearings.

A charge ran through his body. The hair of his arms rose and stood on end. His breath left him. A wave of nausea washed over him and he retched.

"Gale…"

Abruptly and without warning, the sensation vanished.

Jak bent over and held his stomach. His breath came hard. "What was that?" he asked.

"Don't know," Gale replied. Intuitively though, he did know. Another gate had been opened, opened by something more powerful than the shadow demon.

He felt a presence manifest. A palpable wave of malice radiated out from behind the closed shrine doors. Hate rained down on him like a sleet storm.

"Gal-" The sheer power of the presence lurking behind the shrine doors choked off Jak's words. Breathing hard, the little man turned to face the shrine. Gale placed a hand on Jak's shoulder and did the same. The doors began to pulse like a heart.

"YrsiUar," Gale hissed through gritted teeth. The demon's hate seemed so substantial as to be a physical thing, the only physical thing on this plane of emptiness. Gale answered the demon's hate with a rage equally substantial. Here was the cause. Vengeance was at hand. He took a step toward the doors.

Jak clutched his hand, pulled him to a stop, and fairly jumped into his arms. "Lift me through, Gale," he said urgently. "Lift me through!"'

Eyes on the pulsing doors of the shrine, Gale made no response. Anger consumed him. He felt no fear. Yrsillar was waiting for him.

Jak gripped Gale's hand in both of his own, "Erevis!

Gale! Dammit, you can't fight him here. He's strongest here." Jak shook his arm as though to bring him to his senses. "Let's go through the gate and fight him on our own plane. Erevis! Don't."

"You go, little man," he said, and lifted Jak toward the gate. Gale wanted to fight Yrsillar here.

"What? Waitvwait." Jak squirmed in his grip like a fish. Gale turned the little man around so they could look into each other's eyes. Gale's resolve must have been evident from his expression, for Jak's protests fell silent. The little man visibly wilted.

"Why, Gale?" he softly asked.

"Because when I kill him here, he's dead for good." Nothing less could satisfy him now.

Jak said nothing for a moment, merely hung in the air between Gale and the gate home.

"Put me down," he said at last.

"You don't need to-"

"Put me down, godsdammit," Jak ordered. "This is our fight, Gale, not just yours. Those bastards hurt me too." Jak looked at him meaningfully. Fear had given way to resolve, or resignation. "I said I'm with you and I am. Put me down."

Gale did. Both drew blades and turned to the pulsing doors of the shrine.

"He's waiting for us," Jak observed. "He thinks it'll make us more afraid."

Gale started for the doors.

V›ale strode boldly for the pulsing double doors. The wooden slabs beat faster as he neared, as though in anticipation of his touch. Prom behind the doors he heard only silence, but he could feel Yrsillar's brooding presence. The demon was waiting.

Beside him, Jak's breathing came in fearful gasps.

"Easy," he said, and reached down-to-pat Jak on the shoulder.

The hpHHng nodded, struggled to get himself under control. "I'm all right," he said, though his breathing still came hard.

Cale saw that Jak had sheathed his dagger. He now held his magical short sword in one hand and his holy symbol in the other.

Frightened, the little man had fallen bade on his god for strength. Jak had sheathed a weapon of steel to draw a weapon of faith. Gale envied him.

The felt mask in his pocket brought him small comfort. Perhaps someday faith could be a weapon for him, but for today he would rely only on his steel.

Standing before the doors, he took a breath and kicked them in.

The moment the doors flew open, a wave of terror blew from the shrine like a black wind. Gale's throat constricted and fear threatened to overwhelm him. With great effort of will, he fought down the supernatural terror and stood his ground. It's not real, he told himself, it's only magic.

Beside him, Jak let out a soft moan.

"It's magical, Jak," Gale said, and shook him by the shoulder. "Resist it."

"I know," Jak replied through bared teeth. He clutched his holy symbol in his fist so tightly that it must have cut into his palm. Gale saw blood squeezing from between Jak's white knuckles, but the little man held his ground.

"Well provide you no amusement, YrsillarP Gale shouted into the gloomy shrine.

"Damn right," Jak echoed with as much bravado as he could muster.

No response came from within.

They shared a solemn glance and walked through the open doors.

The shrine here looked much the same as the actual shrine back on their home plane. They saw rows of pews that led up to a raised dais and an altar.

From the opposite side of the room, Trailer's voice boomed, the deep bass of distant thunder. "You've grown some since last we met, Champion." His voice dropped so that each syllable dripped with enough malice to make Gale wince. "Some, but not enough."

Gale scanned the room toward the altar. He saw nothing but shadows and darkness.

"There," Jak softly said, and pointed to the left of the altar.

The shadows and gloom suddenly unfolded, vomited forth the titanic form of Yrsillar. Gale's breath caught in his throat.

The demon lord looked majestic. Where the lesser shadow demons had been lean and wiry, Yrsillar was a mountain of bluish-gray flesh. Powerfully muscled, the demon lord's mammoth chest and rippling torso sat squarely atop a pair of tree-trunk-sized legs. He towered over Gale. Naked, but seemingly sexless, a nauseating spiderweb of purple veins pulsed visibly beneath the hairless, leathery skin of his body, each beat keeping time with the pulsing of the shrine doors, each beat no doubt keeping time with the pulsing of the gates back in the real guildhouae.

Overlong, powerful arms ended in bony, three-fingered hands, each digit capped with a black claw as long as Gale's hand. Membranous wings sprouted from his back and spanned the room. He stood still as a statue, a nightmare carved of stone. The voids of his eye sockets, each as large as a Sembian fivestar, stared holes into Gale's soul.

From the darkness around him emerged the shadow demon that Gale had wounded earlier, a miniature version of its master flitting about Yrsillar like a moth flitting about a flame.

Silently, majestically, Yrsillar stepped to the altar and regarded them coldly.

"Not enough," he said again. From behind the demon lord's shoulder, the shadow demon hissed.

This is just how Yrsillar chooses to appear to us," Jak whispered through the side of his mouth. To heighten our fear, but he's made of nothingness, Gale, nothingness. Remember that."

Gale nodded grimly, his eyes on the demons. "We give him nothing," he whispered in reply.

"Damn right," Jak said, and sounded as though he meant it.

They stepped forward into the main aisle, blades ready, and walked halfway to the raised dais and altar. Yrsillar regarded them in unconcerned silence, hate embodied. Gale felt the demon lord's hunger for them as an itching between his shoulders. He ignored it and spat on the floor in defiance.

At that, the shadow demon hissed, pawed at the air, and flitted about in agitation. Yrsillar said nothing, did nothing, simply stood before them and let their fear build."

Silent seconds passed. They seemed an eternity. Though his heart pounded, Gale braved the buzzard of hate and held unflinchingly Yrsillar's baleful gaze. He refused to bow to his fear.