Alan crawled slowly towards the corner. He held on tightly to the copy of Die Tür Des Bösen with his good hand and angled the wrist of his wounded hand to keep from putting too much pressure on it. It had swollen up in an ugly way, the fingers grown to twice their size. Luckily the intense pain had faded into a dull throb. Small favors, he thought. In short hobbled movements, he slithered towards the corner.
From what Alan could see in the dim light, most of circle that Tim had created was still intact. One of the piles closest to him had been knocked over when Tim rushed from the circle. The books had not scattered but merely lay down like a sliced loaf of bread. They could easily be stacked again in their original positions. He would need them to be as exact as possible to attune the energies so that he might close the gate Tim had opened, if he could close it at all. He clung to that hope as he crawled, eying the shapes that moved beneath the skin of the walls.