Shadow's Witness

by Paul S. Kemp

  He passed what had once been the training room for pickpocketing and climbing and saw that portions of the wall and floor seemed absent. Not hewn out or dug up, but absent, as though reality had been slashed open to reveal nothingness beneath. Again he thought he saw a pair of yellow eyes staring at him from the emptiness in the wall, but when he blinked, the eyes disappeared. Disconcerted, he turned away and focused his gaze forward on the open double doors of the shrine.

  This is utter madness, he thought, and struggled to keep a tight grip on his sanity. The wrongness of the guildhouse made him dizzy and nauseated. A man could lose himself quickly. The living do not belong here, he thought. He now knew for certain that the Righteous Man had gone mad—summoning demons, turning guildsmen into ghouls, transforming the guildhouse into a seething den of vileness. There could be no other explanation. He no longer cared for the why of the Righteous Man’s behavior—how could he hope to understand the reasons of the man who had done this—he only cared about stopping him.

  That resolution brought him an odd, detached calm. He reached for his throat and felt the reassuring coolness of the necklace of missiles, rolled the last explosive globe between his fingers. He would kill the Righteous Man with his steel, then start a blaze with his globe that would incinerate the entire guildhouse and everything in it.

  Resolved, he picked up his pace and strode unafraid for the shrine. The crowd of ghouls behind him loped to keep up.

  He walked through the ornate doorway, turned to glare at the ghouls, then slammed the doors shut in their faces. He held the doors fast for a moment, expecting the ghouls to push them open and pile in behind him, but they made no effort to follow. They waited just outside. Cale could hear their low growling through the doors. They were only the escort, it seemed. He turned to survey the shrine.

  “Erevis Cale come at last,” said the Righteous Man, the contempt evident in his voice. The guildmaster stood near the front of the large shrine room, atop a raised dais, behind the block of basalt that served as an altar. Black candles burned in tall bronze candelabra but shed only dim light. Shadows filled every corner. Cale quickly glanced through them for the yellow eyes of the shadow demon but saw nothing.

  Wooden pews lined the room from the back wall up to the altar. Ghouls filled those in the rear. Rocking gently and growling low, they held their hands clasped as though in prayer, a macabre mockery of piety. They watched him sidelong out of slitted eyes. They licked their fangs hungrily but kept their seats.

  Already holding his long sword at the ready, he filled his other hand with a dagger. At that, the ghouls began to growl and rock faster but still remained seated. He walked straight down the center aisle, through and past the ghouls, halfway to the altar. He kept his eyes locked on the masked face of the Righteous Man.

  “That’s right, I’ve come,” he said. “What in the name of the gods have you done here?”

  The Righteous Man stepped out from behind the altar and spoke in a soft, menacing tone. “You’ve come to do Mask’s bidding, perhaps?”

  “Maaasssk,” the ghouls in the pews echoed. “Masssk.” They rocked and rocked.

  The guildmaster’s voice sounded different, Cale noted, but he attributed it to the guildmaster’s obvious insanity. Only then did the Righteous Man’s question strike him—Mask’s bidding? What does that mean?

  He shook his head and forced himself to stay focused.

  “I’ve come to do my bidding, not a god’s. I’m here for you, old man. It ends tonight, all of it. You hear me?”

  Still rocking in their pews, the ghouls gave a soft, prolonged hiss. Cale attuned his hearing behind him but kept his eyes locked on the Righteous Man. Casually, he pulled the explosive globe from his necklace and cupped it in his dagger hand. If bad went to worse, he’d blow the whole place immediately.

  Favoring his leg, the Righteous Man stepped down from the dais. He stood only a dagger toss away. Cale could feel the intensity of his stare even through the black felt of the mask. He looked normal beneath his velvet robes—tall, thin, slightly stooped—but something about his mannerisms struck Cale as odd. He moved stiffly, herky-jerky, like a marionette. Palpably radiating contempt, he seemed to have more … presence. His ominous silence made Cale uncomfortable.

  “I asked you a question, old man!” He gripped the dagger and globe in his now sweaty hand.

  At his harsh tone, a cacophony of hisses sounded from the ghouls. Cale heard their leathery skin rasping against the wood of the pews as they rocked faster and faster. “Mask,” they whispered, “Mask.”

  “I heard you, Erevis Cale,” said the Righteous Man, and again Cale noticed the odd inflection and cadence. The guildmaster limped forward a step. Involuntarily, Cale found himself backing up. The hissing of the ghouls grew louder. The rasping of their skin on the pews sounded like a carpenter’s plane on wood.

  “You enter my guild and utter bold words. Bold words indeed for but a pre-incarnate Champion of Mask.” He fairly spat the name of the Shadowlord, and when he did the ghouls hissed their echo.

  “Maaasssk.”

  Pre-what? Cale took another step back as the Righteous Man approached. Seized with an inexplicable fear, Cale struggled to keep it out of his voice.

  “You’re the servant of Mask, priest, not me. And he can’t save you from me. It’s over.” He held forth his blades to demonstrate a defiance he didn’t feel.

  When the Righteous Man replied, his voice sounded oddly distant, and Cale realized that he was speaking to someone who existed only within the realm of his madness.

  “No, he isn’t going to save you now, is he Krollir?” the Righteous Man whispered to himself, and began to laugh. The sound was so thick with evil that it sent shudders along Cale’s spine. After a moment, the guildmaster returned his attention from wherever it had gone and refocused on Cale. “Nor will he save you. I sent servants to seek you out, Erevis Cale, to draw you forth and bring you here, you and the other. He knew that one of you would become the chosen of Mask, if not him. He feared and hated you accordingly.” The guildmaster took another step toward Cale.

  With difficulty, Cale held his ground.

  “I do not share his concern. You cannot stop me. You or the other, paltry servants of a paltry god.” The Righteous Man raised his hands to the ceiling. “I will feed!”

  Cale stood stupefied. Who is he? he wondered. Me and the other? The Righteous Man had admitted to the attack on Stormweather. But to draw Cale out? What was going on here?

  Even as he wondered, the answer began to crystallize—the shadow demon, the ghouls, the corpses, the warping of reality. No man could have done this, not even a priest with the power of the Righteous Man. No human could live in this pit.

  He suddenly realized that the real Righteous Man was dead and the thing that now looked upon him was not human, couldn’t be human. The realization multiplied his growing fear. His resolve to avenge the attack on Stormweather melted. He wanted nothing else but to get out of here, and get out of here now.

  The … thing apparently sensed Cale’s fear, for it inhaled deeply, sniffed the air as though searching for spoor. “Ah, you know now, don’t you?” It inhaled again. “You do—I smell your fear.”

  The ghouls fell silent. Cale heard only his own breathing and the voice in his head screaming for him to run! The thing took a step closer and the ghouls rose as one. Cale tried to fight off a wave of supernatural fear that rooted him to the floor.

  “What are you?” he managed to mouth, but wasn’t sure if he said it or merely thought it.

  “Not what,” the thing responded. “Who. I am Yrsillar, master of Belistor, keeper of the Void, Lord of the Nothing. Now the avatar of Mask as well. Would you see his face and mine?”

  His face and mine. A demon had possessed the Righteous Man. Cale’s knees went weak. His tongue felt too dry to form an answer.

  The thing reached up and peeled off the black felt mask. Cale recoiled in anticipation of a nightmare, but the face was merely the
drawn, wrinkled visage of an old man. Except for the eyes. The sockets looked empty. Not merely without eyeballs, but empty, a pair of holes that opened onto nothingness. Their gaze hit Cale like an ogre’s club. Gasping for breath, he staggered backward, suddenly free from the paralyzing fear that the demon projected.

  Yrsillar began to laugh, and behind the thin body of the old man Cale sensed a towering, awful shadow—the demon Yrsillar, lord of the nothing.

  “His soul for me and his flesh for you,” Yrsillar said to the ghouls. “Mask commands you.” He began to laugh, loud and long.

  “Massk,” the ghouls snarled through drooling fangs, and leaped over the pews to reach him. At that exact instant, the doors to the shrine burst open and the ghouls from the hallway streamed in.

  Without thinking, Cale threw the explosive globe at their feet. The room exploded in a ball of fire and scorching heat. Ghouls shrieked. Flesh and wood blew apart and sprayed the room. Too close to fully avoid the blast himself, the explosion blew Cale backward into the pews and painfully charred his exposed skin. Throughout, Yrsillar’s laughter boomed loudly in his ears.

  Though wounded, Cale regained his feet in an instant. He refused to go down easily. The blast had caused his vision to go gray and blurry, as though he peered through light fog. Corpses, fire, and rampaging ghouls tore about the room. Screams, growls, moans, and Yrsillar’s haunting laughter resounded off the walls. The ghouls ran about and clawed wildly at the air, growling and snarling confusedly, as though blind. Some walked right into the blazing fires and leaped back with a scream. Cale did not understand it, but then he did not understand most of what had happened already tonight.

  A ghoul prowled forward in a crouch and stood beside him, probing the area before it with its claws, but unable to see him. Without a thought, he used his dagger to gut it. The chaos in the room drowned out its dying screams.

  Drawn by Yrsillar’s voice, Cale turned to see the demon now standing atop the altar.

  “His flesh for you, my servants! His flesh for you!” The demon’s empty eyes passed over and beyond Cale. Realization dawned on him. Yrsillar could not see! Neither could the ghouls! Cale had to staunch the fit of hysterical laughter that threatened to burst from his lips.

  Seeing Yrsillar vulnerable, his desire for revenge fought a war with his better sense. Better sense quickly won out. He took advantage of the blindness of his enemies, picked a clear path, and ran from the shrine.

  When he crossed the doorway, the grayness in his vision instantly cleared. The hallway was vacant. All the ghouls were searching for him within the shrine. He spared a glance back and saw that the shrine stood cloaked in blackness as thick as pitch. The torchlight from the hallway simply ceased at the shrine doors, swallowed by darkness.

  I saw through that!

  He didn’t have time to consider it further. The ghouls could burst from the darkness at any moment. Without looking to the warped rooms on either side, he grabbed a torch from a wall sconce and sprinted down the hall for the storeroom. It, too, stood empty. He jerked open the trapdoor in the floor and slid down the ladder into the stink of the sewers.

  He avoided looking at the pile of corpses at the base of the ladder and raced back through the tunnel. When he reached the well opening on Winding Way, he pulled himself up into the shaft and climbed back toward the surface.

  CHAPTER 7

  REUNION

  When he reached the top of the well, Cale climbed over the side and sprinted as fast as he could down Winding Way, away from the vileness of the guildhouse, away from the evil of Yrsillar. Minutes or hours later, he finally stopped, exhausted. The cold air stung the tender skin of his charred face. His heart raced and his gasping breath formed great clouds of frost before his face.

  Get yourself under control, he ordered himself. If they were coming, they’d already be here. With an effort, he calmed himself. He had to use his right hand to peel his left fist from the hilt of his sheathed long sword. Only then did he remember that he had no cloak. Adrenaline had warmed him, but now he began to feel winter’s chill. His armor and clothing held off much of the cold, but he would have to buy a cloak when Selgaunt’s shops opened.

  They’re not coming, he assured himself again, and crossed his arms against the cold. At least not yet.

  Back in control of himself, he bent against the wind and sloshed through Selgaunt’s empty streets. He looked about with mild surprise—the towering brick buildings of the Warehouse District loomed on all sides. He had run halfway across the city—and it was no coincidence he had run in the direction of Stormweather. The Uskevren manse stood only blocks north of him, on Sarn Street.

  At that moment, the fact that he could no longer return to the familiar comfort of his room hit him hard. He could not return to the welcoming warmth of Thazienne’s smile. He had nowhere to go.

  I can’t go back, he reminded himself again, reaffirming his decision. At least not yet, and especially not now. The risk to the family was too great.

  While Cale did not yet fully understand everything that had happened at the guildhouse, he understood enough to know that Yrsillar had targeted him personally. The demon’s words rattled around in his head like a pair of knucklebones—Champion of Mask. You and the other.

  What did that mean? If anyone, the Righteous Man was Mask’s Champion, or had been. He was the priest, not Cale. Cale invoked the gods only to oath by their names. He had never even prayed to one, had been in a church only twice in his lifetime. He consciously kept gods and temples at a distance. He stayed out of their business and they stayed out of his.

  Still, Cale could not deny the magical darkness that had suddenly appeared in Mask’s shrine. Only he had been able to see through it. That certainly seemed a divine blessing of sorts.

  Perhaps it was, he reluctantly acknowledged. But how can I be the servant of a god? Much less a god’s Champion?

  He found the idea so improbable as to be laughable, and yet thinking of it brought him a strange exhilaration and a peculiar fear. He had no desire to surrender himself to the whims of a god. Still …

  Would it be so improbable? He had been the servant of someone or other most of his adult life—the Night Masks, the Righteous Man, Thamalon. The difference, of course, was that with all of those masters he had maintained a certain amount of independence. Could he serve a god and still be his own man?

  Doesn’t matter, he thought grimly. Tonight’s not the night for taking rites. Rather, tonight was a night for retribution. He knew now that the paralyzing fear he had felt back in the guildhouse—the fear that had stolen his resolve and frozen him into inaction—had been supernatural in origin, a function of Yrsillar’s demonic nature. Cale would be ready for it next time.

  He also knew that it had been Yrsillar, and not the Righteous Man, who had ordered the attack on Stormweather. The attack that had nearly killed Thazienne. For that, Yrsillar would pay, demon or no. Cale only had to figure out how.

  He could go to the authorities—after the carnage at Stormweather, even Selgaunt’s ruler, the idiotic Hulorn, would not be able to laugh off Cale’s claims. Even as he considered it, he dismissed it. It would take the Scepters days to act. It always did. Cale did not want to wait that long.

  This is personal now, you bastard, he thought to Yrsillar. Cale’s nature did not allow him to turn the problem over to the city authorities. This is between you and me, he mentally reiterated. If Mask wanted to protect his interest in this, he could come along for the ride, but Cale would owe the god nothing.

  To the east, the slate sky began to lighten. Dawn was breaking. He had been walking the streets for over an hour. As though awakened by the winter sun, Selgaunt’s shops began slowly to come back to life. Lights burned in the occasional window as a shopkeeper went about preparing his wares for the day. Cale ducked into the nearest clothier, dug a few fivestars from his pocket, handed them to the startled shopkeeper, and grabbed a blue cloak from among the wares. Too short, as usual, but far warmer than noth
ing at all.

  He emerged onto the street and decided to take a room at the first inn he found. He had nowhere else to go.

  Jak. The halfling’s name popped into his head as though by divine inspiration. Jak! Of course! Though he hadn’t seen the little man since their run-in with Riven and the Zhentarim a month ago, Jak had always stood with him. Jak had also made it clear that he always would. He—

  Cale’s assuredness melted like the snow in the street when he remembered that the little man belonged to the Harpers. Cale had learned that during their escape from the Zhentarim. The Harpers, a secretive organization that ostensibly strived for the good, might frown on Cale hunting a demon alone.

  Demons, he corrected himself, plural, Ecthaini. He now knew there to be at least two demons in the guildhouse—Yrsillar, and the shadow demon that had attacked Stormweather.

  Still, he had to consider the possibility that the Harpers might offer help in the form of intelligence, magic items, or protective spells. If they wouldn’t, Cale knew that Jak would help him anyway. The little man had bucked Harper orders before to help him, and would no doubt do so again. He didn’t relish the idea of getting Jak into trouble, but the little man was his best friend. Cale’s only friend outside of Stormweather. He had nowhere else to turn, and probably only a little time. No doubt Yrsillar and his minions would be searching for him by tomorrow night. He had to find Jak now.

  You and the other.

  Yrsillar’s words floated up from the depths of his mind. Is Jak the other? he wondered. The little man was a priest, after all, but of Brandobaris, not Mask. From what little Cale knew of organized religion, the relationship between the halfling god of thieves and Mask the Shadowlord was not an especially friendly one. Could a priest of one god serve the interests of another?

  He shook his head in frustration. He was allowing himself to get distracted. It doesn’t matter, he thought. Whether Jak had some special divine role to play or not, Cale needed his help, and he thought he knew where to find the little man.