Cale 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. Cale 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, Cale braved the blizzard of hate and held unflinchingly Yrsillar’s baleful gaze. He refused to bow to his fear.
The stress became too much for Jak, however, and he began to lose composure. His breathing sounded like a bellows and he shifted anxiously from foot to foot.
“Dark,” he oathed under his breath, “Dark and empty.”
Cale placed a hand on Jak’s shoulder and shouted at Yrsillar. “You’ll get no fear to feed on from us, ecthain.” Defiantly, he held forth his enchanted blade. At that, Yrsillar’s wings beat once—and he began to laugh in a booming, mocking chuckle.
“Once more you face me, Champion of Mask, and once more I smell the fear you try to hide. You stink of terror.” He shifted his gaze to Jak. “As do you.”
The little man let out an alarmed peep. “Trickster’s toes,” he muttered like a chant, “Trickster’s hairy toes.”
Cale grabbed a fistful of the little man’s cloak and gave him a single shake. “We give him nothing,” he hissed. “He wants you to be frightened. Give him nothing.”
At that, Jak started to rally. He slid a step closer to Cale so that his shoulder bumped Cale’s thigh. The touch apparently gave him strength.
“We give him nothing,” Jak softly agreed, and his voice sounded steady. Shaking only slightly, he returned Yrsillar’s stare. The shadow demon hissed in rage. Yrsillar beat his great wings in anger and looked sharply at Cale. His mocking tone turned deeper, heavy with hate and dripping with hunger.
“I’ll savor your soul, Erevis Cale. As I will that of the other Champion.”
Jak’s breath caught at that, but Yrsillar did not so much as glance at the little man. “Both of you will live out the rest of your lives in pain. I will hold your souls in thrall, feasting at my leisure.” He stepped from behind the altar and down the dais, graceful despite his size. Muscle rippled with every move he made.
As though by prearranged plan, the shadow demon darted like an arrow for the ceiling.
“I will force you to watch impotently as I swallow the souls of the ones you love.”
Cale thought of Thazienne defiled by this creature and his rage doubled. Guilt, self-loathing, and hate for Yrsillar fueled his anger. He gripped the enchanted long sword with both hands, knuckles white with anger.
“Leave him to me,” he said to Jak through gritted teeth. “You keep an eye on that thing,” he indicated the shadow demon, “and watch my back.”
Jak nodded once, vigorously. “We’ll watch your back,” he replied, and held up his holy symbol in a bloody hand. His gaze went to Cale’s pocket and he added meaningfully, “You’re not alone, Cale. Remember that. If you accept the call, you are his Champion.”
Cale nodded and gripped his shoulder. Jak smiled and looked up to watch the shadow demon.
If you accept the call …
Tentatively, Cale reached for his pocket, for the symbol of Mask, but stopped halfway.
I won’t do it this way, he thought to the Shadowlord. Staring death in the face, most everyone turned to the gods. Cale had never consciously acted out of fear. To turn to Mask now would be to surrender too much of himself. He wouldn’t.
You make the first concession, he thought to Mask.
He received no reply, no stroke of divine lightning.
Unsurprised, Cale looked down the aisle and regarded the demon lord.
Yrsillar stood at the end of the center aisle, near the base of the dais. Briefly, Cale wondered what happened to the body of the Righteous Man while Yrsillar manifested here. Was he in stasis? Dissipated? Nothing? He didn’t know, and had no time to consider the matter further.
He stared into the voids of the demon’s eyes and held his gaze. Yrsillar said nothing but the veins beneath his leathery skin began to pulse faster. His wings fluttered intermittently, filling the room with gusts of fetid wind. He held the slit of his mouth partly open, a half-moon carved in the face of a nightmare. His claws glistened despite the gloom. Cale sensed his hunger, sensed his growing anticipation.
Cale took a step toward him—
Inexplicably, Thamalon’s words suddenly rang in Cale’s brain—Unbridled aggression can sometimes be an enemy—but he pushed it aside. Unbridled aggression was all he had.
Snarling, he gripped the hilt of his blade in both hands and strode toward the monster that had murdered so many.
The gray-skinned shadow demon eyed Jak evilly as it flitted about the ceiling rafters. Willing to take his eye from it for only a moment, Jak spared a quick glance over his shoulder to shout encouragement to his friend.
“Cale! Remember that you’re not alone! Mask is with you if you ask!” Cale showed no sign of having heard him.
Jak looked back just in time to see the demon streaking down for him.
“Dark!” He dived to the side and used the back of a pew for cover. The shadow demon’s claws screeched across the wood and tore his cloak, but did not reach flesh. He regained his feet in an instant. The demon had already darted back into the air. It hovered near the ceiling, willing to wait for another opportunity.
“Feeeeed,” it hissed at him.
Cale’s fury propelled him forward. Feeling nothing but hate, he walked resolutely toward Yrsillar. He felt apart from himself, numb, as though he were watching the scene unfold from above. With each row of pews that he passed, his anger increased. Yrsillar’s veins pulsed faster, his claws opening and closing in reflexive anticipation.
Undeterred, Cale’s hate demanded that he advance. His walk turned to a run, his run to a charge. Yrsillar crouched on his powerful legs and held his claws out wide.
As Cale closed the last few strides, he held his blade high and shouted years of pent-up rage into the rafters, sent a lifetime of self-loathing careening into the nothingness of the Abyss. Yrsillar answered with a terrible roar so full of malice that it would have blown Cale to his knees but for his forward momentum.
Only then, in that final moment, did it occur to Cale that Mask had long ago made the first concession, had made two, in fact—the darkness back in the real shrine, and the golden aura that protected him now.
Too late, he realized, as he bent against the demon lord’s roar like a man in a snowstorm. He would have to stand or fall on his own.
Yrsillar made no move to retreat, he merely crouched and held his claws at the ready, a giant predator awaiting its prey. His veins bulged beneath his skin, tracks of livid, sickening purple.
Cale lunged forward and swung his blade toward Yrsillar’s chest in a vicious upward arc, the stroke so powerful that it cut through the air with a whistle.
As fast as a hunting cat, the huge demon bounded back a step and hopped atop the dais. Cale pursued, reversed his stroke, and chopped downward. Impossibly fast, Yrsillar jerked back. Cale’s long sword rang sparking off the altar block.
Little more than a gray blur, a claw streaked for Cale’s throat. Using the altar as cover, he dropped beneath the blow and slashed upward with his long sword. The blade cut a swath through empty air. Yrsillar’s arm had arced before Cale ever got his blade into position. He jumped back to his feet, held the long sword before him like a pike and lunged over the altar for the demon lord’s chest.
Yrsillar swooped up and under with one of his claws. Caught in mid-lunge, Cale’s momentum prevented a dodge. Golden
light flashed brightly as his protective spell flared out of existence. The power of the spell seared Yrsillar’s flesh but the demon lord did not recoil. Cale whiffed the meaty odor of charred skin. The powerful, dagger-length claws tore through Cale’s cloak and split his leather armor from abdomen to throat. A shallow gash opened along his entire torso. The blow stunned him. Warm blood coursed from the wound. Without the protective spell, his soul began to seep from his body. Unable to defend himself, he reeled on the altar, an ironic offering to Mask awaiting the sacrificial knife.
Yrsillar roared, balled his hand, and drove his fist into Cale’s chest.
The blow crashed down on Cale with the force of a maul.
Cale careened backward off the altar and flew through the air, arms flailing. Only the remnant of his enchanted leather armor kept his ribs from shattering.
He crashed four rows deep among the pews and collapsed in an awkward heap of bones and wood. His sword flew from his grasp and clattered away.
Battered and gasping for breath, he knew then that he was a dead man. He had failed Thazienne, had failed Mask, had failed himself. Yrsillar would finish him before he drew another breath.
The shadow demon swooped for Jak. Ready, and still clutching his holy symbol, Jak spat the magical words to a spell, “Inre luxos,” and pointed at the diving demon.
Instantly, a glaring light flared in the demon’s eyes, turned the milky-white orbs into glowing opals. Blinded in the middle of its headlong descent, it clawed wildly at its face and tried to pull up.
Nimbly leaping pews, Jak dived to the side as the enraged creature crashed to the floor and sent pews flying. Still hissing in anger, it climbed to its feet and flailed about with its claws in a mad effort to locate him.
“Feed on you,” it hissed, enraged. “Feed.”
It swept wide arcs with its claws. Jak scrambled over and under the pews to avoid its reach, but it pressed him relentlessly. His spell would last for hours, but he would run out of room to run long before that.
The shadow demon sniffed at the air as it lashed about, like a vile hound searching for the scent trail. Jak knew that despite its blindness it could somehow sense him. He had been invisible in the Soargyl bedroom and still one had sniffed him out. He kept moving, dodging over and under pews.
It stayed on him, always one step behind, but never giving him time to plan a course of action. Jak could sense its hunger for him. It hissed and beat its wings in angry frustration. Purple veins pulsed beneath leathery skin. Its rancid-meat smell made Jak want to gag, but he dared not make a sound. He hid behind a pew, gasping, mind racing, and tried to think.
He dared not close to attack, even from the rear. An inadvertent strike by one of the enraged demon’s claws would dispel his protective aura. He could cast the same spell again, of course, but that would take time. Time that he wouldn’t have if he were in hand-to-hand combat with the demon. If he went too long without the protective spell, the plane would kill him.
“Feed. Feeeed.”
It closed on him. He readied himself and pulled two of his throwing daggers free.
Might as well see if plain steel can hurt it in this form, he thought. He touched each blade to his luckstone, raised his arm, threw, and darted away.
When the demon erupted in a pained squeal, Jak smiled. Thank you, Lady, he thought to Tymora. The blades had struck home.
Feed on that, wretch, he thought with a grin.
“Feeed on you, little creature. Feeeed.”
Leaping behind another pew, Jak placed his holy symbol in his belt pouch and jerked another dagger free of its sheath. Pumped full of adrenaline, and focused only on the demon, he suddenly felt no fear. The realization changed him. He had been frightened only moments before and he remembered being utterly terrified back at the Soargyls the last time he had faced one of these creatures.
I’m getting more like Cale every da—
Abruptly, the demon’s hissing ceased and gave way to a series of softly muttered words. Jak didn’t recognize the language, but he recognized the intonation and cadence of spellcasting.
By the gods, spells?
He peeked over the pew.
The opalescent glow had vanished from the demon’s eyes. The creature had dispelled Jak’s cantrip, and now it could see him. Its milky white eyes instantly discovered him.
It stalked forward, wings beating.
“Dark,” Jak oathed.
He rose from behind the pew, dagger and short sword ready. The demon’s hunger hit him like a bitter wind, but he vowed not to give in to fear, vowed to give this demonic bastard the fight of its life. The last time he had faced one of these creatures, he’d frozen up, humiliated himself by wetting his pants.
“Not this time,” he promised himself.
“Come on,” he said through gritted teeth, and beckoned it forward with his blades—
At that moment, a victorious roar from the front of the shrine jerked his head around. He watched as Yrsillar swiped a claw through Cale’s midsection, followed by a crushing blow to the chest that sent his friend flailing through the air to crash among the front rows of pews.
“Cale!”
The shadow demon took advantage of Jak’s lapse and leaped forward, quick as an adder to strike the little man.
Though the strength behind the claw nearly knocked the blade from his fist, Jak managed a parry with his dagger. A second claw rake followed. Jak leaped backward out of range then immediately lunged forward with his short sword. He was too slow. The demon backed off in a crouch and hissed, its claws weaving hypnotically through the air.
Jak saw his death in those claws. The demon was too fast, and when it hit him, his protective aura would flare out—
“Burn me,” he said, an idea dawning.
The demon’s touch would probably dispel the aura, but in the process its energy would hurt the creature, the original intent behind Jak’s spell.
The beginnings of a plan took shape in his mind, a desperate gambit. He would probably die, but if he did, he hoped to take the demon with him.
Cale righted himself and scrambled to all fours, expecting Yrsillar to thunder toward him at any moment. His lungs ached and his head throbbed. Dazed, he crawled for his sword. When he closed his fist over the hilt, he saw the white vapor of his soul bleeding from the skin on his hand. It billowed back toward the altar, back toward Yrsillar. Already he was beginning to feel the effect it had on him. He was growing weaker by the instant. In minutes he would be dead. He lifted his increasingly heavy head and looked out over the pew.
Surprisingly, Yrsillar remained on the dais. The voids of his eyes focused on Cale and he began to laugh. Cale quailed before that terrible sound and ducked back behind the pew, breathing hard.
“I can taste your despair, Erevis Cale,” Yrsillar said. “Only now, at the very last, do you realize your folly.”
Summoning his courage, Cale again looked over the top of the pew. Yrsillar made no move to come finish the fight. Instead, he seemed content to let Cale die slowly. With the protective aura dispelled, the gray vapor of Cale’s soul flowed into Yrsillar.
While he watched, the great demon sucked in the streams of his life-force. The demon’s great body shuddered in ecstasy with each mouthful. Cale wanted to vomit. He was watching his soul be devoured piecemeal.
Yrsillar laughed as he feasted. “Your weakness is apparent to you now, is it not, Erevis Cale?” He gobbled in still more. “So fares the so-called Champion of Mask. So fare any who rely on gods for salvation.”
Or course, Cale had not relied on Mask for salvation, had not relied on Mask for anything. He did now. Prayer came hard to him, but he quelled his pride and did it.
Lend me strength, Shadowlord, he thought. If I’m to be your Champion, lend me strength.
His body suddenly grew less sluggish. Shielded from Yrsillar by the pews and invigorated by the prayer, he crawled along the row until he reached the center aisle.
“I will not give up,” he vo
wed, the words hollow in the face of his weakness. “I will not!”
Yrsillar’s laughter mocked his resolve. The demon lord continued to devour his soul, piece by piece.
Cale knew he had to retrieve Jak and get the Nine Hells out of here. The little man had been right all along—they should not have fought Yrsillar on his home plane. They needed to get back to their own plane fast or they would both die here.
I let my anger and pride blind me. He should have heeded Thamalon’s advice—unbridled aggression had been his enemy. His fear of losing himself had been his enemy.
The sudden understanding brought him to reach into his pocket and pull out the felt mask. Its touch brought him comfort. He realized now that espousing a faith did not mean surrendering himself; it meant the possibility of bettering himself. In a flash of inspiration, he realized that his lifelong derision of religion had its true origin not in his fear of losing himself but in his own self-hatred. He had pretended to despise religion because he had deemed himself unworthy of it. But his own standards had been too high, Mask had called him, and Mask knew Cale’s flaws.
He thought of Jak and Ansril Ammhaddan, both of them priests, and both of them flawed men, but both good men, too. For the first time in his life, Cale realized that the one did not exclude the other—he could be both flawed and good. With that, he took the final step toward faith.
I accept, godsdammit, he thought to Mask. He only wished he had done so sooner. He had become Mask’s Champion only to die at Yrsillar’s hands. The irony almost drew a smile.
Still, he’d be damned if he’d die without a fight. He jumped to his feet.
Yrsillar’s laughter immediately ceased. “You are going nowhere!”
Cale didn’t dare turn around. He ran back toward the double doors as fast as his weakened legs would carry him.
From the corner of his eye, Jak saw Cale sprinting toward him. His protective spell was gone! He trailed the mist of his soul behind him like smoke from a flickering candle.
With Jak momentarily distracted, the shadow demon raised a claw.