'Cale,' Jak cried. He frantically waved tfie short sword as the demon feinted an attack. The swing unbalanced him and his hold slipped. Desperately, he twisted back to the wall and tried to save himself with his blade hand. The short sword clanged into the stone, fell from his fingers as he clutched the wall, and dropped into the oblivion of the gate.
Dark,' Cale heard Jak mutter into the wall.
The demon hissed in triumph, an otherworldly sound that Cale felt more than heard, a shriek of pure hate that sounded as though it had originated from deep within the earth.
Jak dung to the wall, helpless and trembling. 'Gale, help,' he cried.
It tore Gale up inside to do nothing, but if he moved, he would surely lose his balance and fall into the gate.
With Jak defenseless and terrified, Gale sensed the demon's hunger rise until it reached a crescendo, felt its desire to feed radiate in palpable waves from its being.
Jak, desperate now, reached into his pocket and searched for his holy symbol-whether for comfort or for spellcasting, Gale could not tell. The little man released one hand from the wall and twisted his head so that he could see the demon. The black horror reared back with one of its claws, slowly, teasingly, prolonging the inevitable. Jak's eyes looked past it and met Gale's.
'I can't go like the Soargyls, Erevis,' he announced. 'I can't.'
With those words, he let go his hold on the wall. Staring at Gale the while, he fell soundlessly into the emptiness of the gate and vanished into the void.
'No!' Gale shouted, and nearly leaped in after him. 'No! Jak!' The dizziness gave way-before a wave of grief and anger. 'No, godsdammit!''
With its meal now gone the demon howled in frustration. It faced down toward the void and began to dart into the gate after the little man but it stopped cold in mid-air, seeming suddenly to remember Gale. Its head turned slowly upward and its baleful yellow eyes narrowed to sparks.
Gale looked down over his shoulder and met that gaze unflinchingly. Anger fed his courage. He no longer feared this demon.
'Do you remember me, you black son of a whore?' he snarled. Though he nearly fell as a result, he freed one- of his hands to awkwardly draw his long sword. 'I'm the one that cut you before, remember?1'
'' Its eyes widened and it cocked its head thoughtfully.
*Tfou do remember, don't you?' He waved the enchanted blade in challenge, tried to find a way to plant his feet so that he could somehow fight, somehow avenge Jak. He realized immediately that it was impossible. His gaze fell to the void below him to the emptiness that had swallowed his best friend.
A voice in his mind screamed accusations. Jak was only here because of me. He was only here because of me!
Though the little man's final glance had held no blame, Gale couldn't help but berate himself. Once again his selfishness had led someone he loved to be harmed. First Thazienne and now Jak.
All because of me…
The demon drifted nearer, a mere armslength away. Gale ignored the cold that radiated from it. His rage lent him warmth, his self-loathing insulated him and made the demon's malice for him seem paltry by comparison. He sensed its hungry anticipation but gave it no terror to feed upon. It flapped its wings once and screamed hate into his face.
He stared back into its malice filled yellow eyes and made the only decision he could. He had to go after Jak. The little man had always stood with him, come what may. Gate could not desert him now, not if there was any chance he still lived.
'But first you, you bastard,' he angrily muttered.
The demon hovered directly behind him. It flitted.about him and tried to make him afraid. Gale no longer felt fear, only hate. Hate for what had happened to his friend Jak.
Without another thought, he summoned his strength and leaped backwards off the wall. Spinning around in mid-air, he dexterously reversed his grip on the long sword and held it before him in a two-fisted grip, a unicorn horn of enchanted steel.
Startled, the demon's eyes flashed with surprise. Gale sensed it hiss. Lightning quick, it lashed out with a claw. Cale didn't know if it hit him. He flew into the demon and lashed out with a terrible strength fueled by rage. Even as he Yell toward the void, he drove the enchanted iron between the demon's eyes and pierced its head. The long sword bit deep into the demon's shadowstuff. Black mist exploded from the wound. Its scream resounded in Gale's ears like the cries of slaughtered cattle. He kept his grip on the long sword's hilt as he plummeted toward the gate. The enchanted iron split the demon from head to groin, the tension similar to cutting a bed sheet in twain. A cloud of shadowstuff exploded around Gale, the stench overwhelming. The demon's scream of agony sounded loud in his ears-a death scream for certain.
He felt satisfaction for only a fraction of a heartbeat before he and the remains of the demon fell into the gate. When he hit the surface, he felt a brief tension followed by sudden give, as though he had jumped through the skin of one of Brilla's day-old soups. A charge raced through his body and he felt like he was swimming in syrup. A weight pressed against his chest. He gasped for breath but his constricted throat could draw in only the reeking stink of the dead demon's shadowstuff. His body went numb and he passed out.
CHAPTER TEN
Jak regained consciousness. Apart from the soft rush of an uncomfortably warm wind, Jak heard only silence. He lay on his back and remained perfectly still, afraid to move* afraid, to dispel the illusion that he was still ah've.
Still alive? How can that be? he wondered;
He had expected to awaken in whatever happy afterlife awaited servants of the Trickster. Brandobaris's teachings were frustrat-ingly, and Jak suspected, deliberately, vague on this point-but he knew from the aches in his body that he was still composed of flesh and bone, not spirit.
Surprising, he thought. He knew the gates in the guildhouse to be voids, empty pits in reality that ate away at his home plane like pools of acid. He had assumed that flesh-and-blood beings could not withstand contact with them, and had figured physical death in the gate a better fate than the death of his soul at the hands of the shadow demon. But he hadn't died, and here he was.
Wherever here was.
He dared not open his eyes, at least not yet. He knew from the smell in the air and the coarse earth beneath his body that here had to be some demonic wasteland of the sort he had heard of in adventurers' tales. He was not yet ready to face that.
He took mental stock of his body and realized with alarm that breathing came only with difficulty. His muscles, his body, and his very soul felt dulled, like a once-colorful painting faded by time and sunlight to drabness. His brain felt sluggish, his thoughts thick and muddy. A side effect of passing through the gate, he assumed. Yet he was alive! His hand fumbled ineptly for the luckstone at his waist.
The Lady still favors us, CaleHis happiness at finding himself alive vanished. Jak had left Cale back in the guildhouse, left him alone with the shadow demon helpless on the wall, left him alone to feed the demon with his soul.
I'm sorry, Erevis, he thought, and tears trickled out from under his closed eyelids. I couldn't die like the Soargyls. I couldn't be drained by the demon into dried hunks of soulless flesh. I just couldn't.
But I left Cale to die that way, he accused. He hadn't planned it that way, he just hadn't wanted to die that way himself. He realized now what he had done and the realization pained him beyond measure. Cale could not have survived on that wall.
More tears leaked out, ran along his hairline, and pooled in his ears. They did nothing to quiet the accusatory voice he heard in his head. He didn't try to fight the grief and the guilt. He couldn't fight it. He had abandoned his
