**Note: I don't know if some people are going to find this chapter disappointing, but please bear with it. It's the penultimate chapter and I feel that the last chapter makes it worthwhile. I'll put the last one up some time next week, I hope. I've already written the first draft, I just need to give it another look over before I put it up here.**

Chapter 8

Rude slipped backwards into the water and came up spluttering. He couldn't see anything but he knew that the thing with the nightmare face was there somewhere, lurking just out of sight. He tried to cast Fire 3 but rather than blasting from his palm it coughed out like a geriatric on twenty cigarettes a day. It was a weak spark, but it was strong enough for the bald man to confirm what he had been afraid of.

Cloud was gone. And the silhouette of the ceiling-walker was plainly visible, standing over him and, presumably, staring straight at him with those empty eye-holes and gaping mouth.

The Turk had watched as the light from Cloud's spell died, helpless as the thing lunged at his companion and waved its crimson cloak over him. That was all it took, one dramatic flourish and the swordsman was gone as if he had dropped through a well-conceiled trap door.

The water began to shine softly, or rather some of the stones on the lake bed began to shine softly, and suddenly Rude could see the figure clearly. By most people's standards it would have been tall but it wasn't by Rude's. Rude stood up wearily, all the time wondering, 'is it just a man in a mask?'

It was definitely a man in a mask. The proportions were unmistakeable. But that didn't reduce Rude's dread. This man in a mask had walked on ceilings effortlessly and had made Cloud, the world's saviour, vanish with a flick of the wrist. And it had been walking around down here for who knew how long, in perfect darkness. He couldn't bring himself to think of it as a man. Just a thing in a man-suit.

It took a step towards him, leering from just beyond the rim of the lake. It stared him down for a very long moment and if Rude had had hair on his head it would've stood on end. He wriggled his fingers beneath the water line in case he had to punch something quickly. Eventually, it reached out a hand to the Turk and beckoned him to come closer.

Rude frowned and ground his teeth. What to do? He had no chance if he was to fight it whilst he was in the water, it was too fast and it could jump to far. It could leap from one side of the lake to the other, right over his head. Possibly taking his head with it. But he didn't want to get any closer to it. He realised suddenly that he had no MP, something was draining him silently. But he had an ether... If he could just take it perhaps he would stand a chance...

The thing in the mask took a step back, standing on the balls of its feet. Then it took another and Rude could see the altar in the light of the shining lake. There was a figure lying there and the Turk could see a face in profile. The thing beckoned him forwards, with the grace and formality of a courtier or a waiter at the most high-end restaurant in the universe. Rude stepped out of the water wearily, everything below his waist numb, and eyed the masked figure and then the figure on the altar.

It was Reno. He was exactly how Rude had last seen him, wearing the same arctic gear with his red hair sticking out of his hat at odd angles, but he looked slightly happier. There was a slightly less grim set to the corners of his mouth, as if the burden of command had been lifted from him. Rude watched closer and realised it wasn't just the burden of command that had been lifted; it was the burden of life. His best friend's chest was immobile, his face pale. But he looked happier than he had seen him in years. He may be happier dead, reasoned Rude, but he'd be happier still if he was avenged...

'Drama.'

Rude almost jumped out of his skin. The numbness in his legs had been slowly vanishing but now, at the sound of that dead voice, it leapt up his back and into his scalp. The thing in the mask was talking at him.

'What?' asked Rude, turning slowly to face it.

'Do you think this is very dramatic?' The voice didn't come from the creature but seemed to vibrate in the air around him. If there was a mouth under that mask it didn't need to move for its owner to speak.

'Killing my friend? Yeah, very dramatic.' The Turk clenched and unclenched his gloved hands. He gave up on the idea of the ether. He was just about close enough that, if he leapt, he could get his hands around the thing's neck and squeeze its head off like toothpaste from an old tube.

'Killing is just killing. It is the manner of the killing that is important.' The voice was somewhere between fingernails on a blackboard and a glacier carving a path through a cold, dead valley. Rude watched its hands flutter like butterflies as it spoke, as if they didn't belong to a strange subterranean killer at all, but the greatest stage magician of them all. 'Look at the surroundings. Look. The bones of monsters, the altar of an alien god. And in this cavern of all caverns, a cavern of such history. It is... Auspicious.'

Rude edged closer, watching the ceiling-walker with his peripheral vision. 'Dead is dead.' As his dad had always said.

'No. No, it is not. Not here. Not now.'

There was a flicker of movement on the altar as Reno's hands began to twitch. Rude froze. His friend's eyes shot open like reversed bear traps and he coughed and spluttered, his hands clawing at his throat. Rude held his shoulders, half to reassure his boss in his hour of need and half to reassure himself that it was really happening.

'He's alive?!' the bald Turk gasped and turned to look at the creature.

'He is, now. But he was very dead a moment ago. Life can be just dramatic as death, you see, even though it is as simple as turning an hour-glass on its head. And I am all for drama.'

'I don't understand,' said Rude, propping Reno's head with his bag of supplies.

'Your friend means nothing to me. And if it isn't personal then... it isn't drama. No matter how well the scenario is set, no matter how good its lighting and its build up.'

Rude was tense, suddenly unsure if this whole conversation was some prelude to some even more dramatic death. Bring Reno back to life and kill them both as they hold each other? It seemed capable of it. 'It felt pretty personal.'

The thing laughed as if the conversation was over. 'Where would you like to go? This cavern is linked by ancient magic to several other sites. It is not a problem.'

'Then why? Why lead us here? Why kill Reno? Why bring him back?'

'Why make the swordsman vanish?' The creature suggested.

'Yes.'

The ceiling-walker gave a graceful gesture devoid of meaning, flicking his wrist at the empty cavern beyond their small aura of light. 'Drama, my friend. There can be drama in death, drama in life... But some deaths, and lives, are far more dramatic than others.'

'So Cloud's death will be...' Rude hesitated, '...dramatic?'

'Cloud's death is a long way off... But I'm sure it will be. He is not the victim today. I have something far more personal in mind.'

Light filled the cavern and the ceiling-walker laughed.