"Keep moving," Magadon said, backing deeper into the crypts while still holding his aim at the cloud of wraiths.
Riven and Cale followed the guide, with Jak bringing up the rear.
The moment Jak moved, the dark creatures moved with him, pressed against the power he was channeling. The strain of resisting the will of so many undead was wearing on him. He felt as if he was trying to hold a door shut against a hill giant. The glow from his holy symbol had diminished. He knew he could not last much longer.
"Cale!" he called in desperation, then remembered that Cale did not have his holy symbol. Without it, Cale could not affect undead.
But then Cale was beside him, with him, wearing a silken black mask.
"Right here, little man," Cale said, then he called out to the Shadowlord for power.
Jak had no time to consider how or when his friend had obtained a new holy symbol. Cale held Weaveshear before him like a talisman and the dark blade flared with ochre light.
"Back to your rest, dead of Elgrin Fau!" Cale commanded, in a voice not devoid of sympathy.
Again, the wraiths moaned, a few dissipated into nothingness, and another handful fled back to their crypts. But the bulk of them continued to advance. Still, Cale and Jak together managed at least to hold them at bay.
"Too many!" Cale called over his shoulder. "We can only slow them. Move. Move!"
Magadon fired an arrow into the mass of wraiths, then another. Jak couldn't tell if the shots had any effect on the incorporeal undead.
"Where to?" the guide asked.
"The gate," Jak said, looking over his shoulder. "There!"
He nodded in the direction of the center of the necropolis, where a flash of golden light temporarily blazed through the darkness.
Abruptly, Jak's light spell and Magadon's mental manifestation ended. Except for the dim light of Jak's bluelight wand, darkness again descended. Jak could see clearly only a few paces. The glowing coals of the wraiths' eyes behind them looked like the campfires of an army. They moaned and surged forward.
"Go now!" Cale shouted.
Magadon and Riven ran full out for the center of the cemetery, pushing their way through the fog that still resisted them. Cale and Jak followed as best they could while backstepping, continuing to slow the advance of the wraiths by channeling the power of their respective deities.
Through gritted teeth, Cale said to Jak, "They could break us if they pushed all at once."
Sweating and gasping, Jak replied, "But they aren't. Maybe they can't."
"Maybe," Cale said. Over his shoulder, he shouted to Magadon and Riven, "If they wanted to attack, they could have already. We're being herded. Stand ready."
"Are you certain?" Magadon said as he turned and fired an arrow, then another and another.
Cale could only nod, and Jak could only agree. The wraiths were holding back, waiting for a more opportune moment to attack.
Jak heard Riven spit, and heard the tell-tale whistle of the assassin's sabers whirling through the air.
"Something else wants the first bite, eh?" Riven chuckled darkly then added, "Whatever it is, it damned well better be hungry."
CHAPTER 7
EPIPHANY OF THE SELF
They sped through the overgrown cemetery toward an unknown danger, trailed by a cloud of wraiths.
Another wraith emerged from each crypt they passed, as if their very presence summoned the creature from its tomb. Cale continued to hold forth Weaveshear. He managed to channel waves of the Shadowlord's power to keep the wraiths at bay even though he had pulled the mask from his face. Cale couldn't breathe easily with it on. Sweat soaked his tunic. He was exhausted. Beside Cale, Jak held his holy symbol before him. The halfling frequently stumbled, and Cale could see that he was wilting.
"I'm getting thin, Cale," Jak said, in a voice gone hoarse.
"Hold on, little man," Cale said. Over his shoulder, he shouted, "Get us to the gate, Magadon! Hurry!"
Despite the rush of "memories" flooding Cale's consciousness, he no idea what to expect at the gate.
The guide nodded and picked up the pace. Cale and Jak struggled to keep up while backstepping. Together, they set up an invisible wall of resistance that prevented the wraiths from closing. But they could not hold it forever. Though the wraiths had not yet made a determined push, with each step they increased the pressure. More and more the creatures tested the limits of Cale and Jak's collective strength.
The shadow fog grew so tangibly thick around them that Cale felt like he was moving through water; or perhaps he was just exhausted. The wan glow of Jak's bluelight and the blazing eyes of the wraiths provided the only light.
"Here!" Magadon shouted.
"Dark!" Riven oathed.
Cale and Jak turned to see a wide declivity before them, swathed in a churning cloud of darkness. In the center of that cloud hulked a horror, the originator of the fog, the master of the wraiths. From the misshapen spheres of its huge body and head sprouted masses of black, rubbery tentacles, each as thick around as Jak's waist, and fifteen paces long. The tentacles reminded Cale of the tendrils that had transformed him into a shade back in the Fane.
A cluster of eight spiderlike eyes, as black and unforgiving as flecks of obsidian, looked out from over the creature's clacking, insectoid mandibles. The monster was spinning a pinwheel of shadow strands from its body into the fog the way a black widow spun her webs. Somehow Cale knew that the creature was a darkweaver-the gatekeeper left behind by Kesson Rel. The wraiths-the dead of Elgrin Fau-were its thralls, and the shadowstuff was its tools.
The darkweaver sprawled atop a wide, oval platform of black-veined marble that sat in the center of the declivity.
Once a place for solemn ceremony, the platform had come to serve as the darkweaver's roost. Immediately behind the creature, two rune-encrusted obelisks rose from the platform, each as tall as a hill giant and as big around as the trunk of a mature elm. A curtain of translucent golden energy hung between the magical posts, sparking and sizzling like lightning. Occasionally, the energy coalesced into a bright gold wall and shot a flash of light into the dark sky-the source of the light they had seen from the city's outskirts.
This was the gate of Kesson Rel, Cale knew. The shadow sorcerer's final jest; the Chosen of Mask's final betrayal. Cale had no idea where it led-perhaps back to the world of Elgrin Fau, but perhaps not. Still, he knew it was a way out, and that was enough.
Cale needed to get out. Desperately. The longer he stayed on the Plane of Shadow, the more of its darkness sank into his skin and polluted his soul, further transforming him, filling his mind with memories that could not possibly be his own. He felt as if something was pushing around the edges of his mind, probing for weakness, trying to worm its way into his consciousness and overwhelm his identity. He held it back only by the dam of his will. And he couldn't hold it back forever, anymore than he could hold back the wraiths forever.
A cloud of shadows roiled around the darkweaver. It appeared as though the creature were swimming in waters of pitch. Its alien eyes fixed on them and its front tentacles squirmed in agitation, reminding Cale of a nest of giant snakes. It keened through its mandibles, the sound alien and menacing.
The wraiths responded as if that keen was a war horn summoning them to battle. As one they uttered a moan and threw themselves against the divine force channeled by Cale and Jak.
The two friends held for only an instant before their wall of resistance shattered with an audible crackle of energy. They staggered, pushed backward by the power backlash, while the dead of Elgrin Fau swarmed forward like a cloud of bats, red eyes seething.
Behind them, the darkweaver's mandibles began to churn. Its tentacles squirmed obscenely, but it didn't leave its position directly in front of the gate. It was Kesson Rel's guardian and it would not leave its charge.
"We make a stand here, then," said Riven above the rain, eerily calm. His sabers whirled as he watched the approaching wraiths. "Back to back. Nothing gets close and lives."
Magadon took a knee and set his bow to singing. Cale marveled at his rapidity. Arrow after arrow flew into the cloud of wraiths as they streaked forward. The head of each missile glowed white, charged by the power of Magadon's mind. Some flew harmlessly through the wraiths' insubstantial bodies, but others struck home, eliciting agonized moans from the undead. Jak, his face wan from the psychic war with the undead, drew his short sword and dagger and took a step nearer to Cale.
Cale spared a glance behind, at the gate behind the darkweaver. He knew that golden glow was their only hope. He hesitated, made up his mind, then grabbed Magadon and Riven by the cloaks.
"Not here!" he said. "We make for the gate. Mags, keep firing."