Their march was halted when they reached the base of the acropolis. The small mountain that rose above the city was oddly out of place in the landscape. The sides were nearly sheer, not perfectly vertical, but rising at an angle steep enough that no buildings could possibly be supported. Yet, the top was perfectly flat, an enormous plateau that hosted an entire second city.

  The only problem was figuring out how to get up there.

  “Should we just fly it?” Craning his head up, Jasper tried to guess how high the cliffs rose. Five hundred feet? Six hundred feet? While the bluffs weren’t as high as skyscrapers, the sheer size of the plateau made for an even bigger impression. But, from where they stood, there was no obvious path up.

  “Maybe there’s an internal path?” Ihra suggested. She pointed to the upper half of the cliffs where hundreds of small windows had been hollowed out of the rock. “Looks like they carved out a big chunk of the mountain.”

  “Yeah, but where do we access it?” With a sigh, Jasper tore his eyes away from the cliff, and he froze as something darted across the corner of his vision. What the hell? He clamped down on his instincts and remained standing still, nudging his head just a few inches to the right lest he spook whatever he saw. But there was nothing there. Did I imagine it?

  “S?ams?a?dur, are you sure we’re still alone?”

  “I told you I’d tell you if they approached,” the prince responded grumpily, and Jasper sighed. Maybe I was imagining it, he told himself - yet he knew he didn’t believe it. “If we can’t find another way up, then I’ll fly us up, but I think it would be better if we stick together. Let’s look around - there has to be a normal way to get up there. The Children of St. Martin we met didn’t fly,” he pointed out.

  So the group began their trek again, skirting around the base of the acropolis until they reached the western edge, where they found what they were looking for.

  A narrow road, carved into the rocky bluffs, led to the top, but its entrance was guarded by a monumental gate. The arch was crafted from a single piece of pure white marble and a pair of towering silver doors, covered in a shimmering sheen that Jasper guessed was a ward, barred the way.

  He barely glanced at the gate, though, as his eyes were glued instead on the sea of bodies clustered in front of it. Hundreds of mummies encircled the gates, on their hands and knees before the shimmering ward, a mass of bodies so thick that it was impossible to even approach the silver doors.

  “Selene’s grace - what happened here?” Ihra gasped.

  “Whatever happened to this city wasn’t immediate,” Jasper guessed. “The elite must have locked themselves up on the acropolis, leaving these ones behind - but why the hell did they stay here? And why are they mummified?”

  “Uh, Jasper?” Something flitted across the edge of Jasper’s vision and he whirled around, not really listening to Samsadur. “Jasper?”

  A misshapen mockery of a man stood in the alley behind them. Little more than skin and bones, the creature’s pale jade tint suggested it had once been one of the Children, but no longer. It stepped into the light, revealing hollowed-out eyes and a face marred by dozens of scars. What the hell?

  “Jasper!” Samsadur’s panicked voice broke through his horror. “They’re waking up! They’re waking up!”

  Hardly daring to take his eyes off the creature, he spared a glance behind them, blanching as he saw the mummified bodies surrounding the gate begin to stir. Perhaps he’d been wrong; perhaps the elite hadn’t abandoned these folks after all - they’d been running from them.

  As the thought crossed his mind, another figure staggered out of the alley, and then another. They were surrounded - but this wasn’t his first rodeo. “Form a circle!”

  Thrusting his back against Ihra’s, Jasper reached for a spell. Shooting Star. A stream of fiery orbs leaped from his hand and ripped through the approaching mummies with satisfying effect. All that were hit directly by the percussive blast went down immediately, while those caught in the halo of flames were rapidly transformed into living torches - torches that, unfortunately, felt no need to stop, drop, and roll.

  With a sudden burst of speed, the creatures charged forward, flames following in their wake, and Jasper abandoned the second cast of Shooting Star he’d been about to use - for while the flames wouldn’t hurt him, his allies didn’t share his immunity.

  He snatched the glaive out of his bag a second before they arrived and swept it across their path. Their wizened bodies offered little resistance, crumbling beneath the blow despite his lack of strength, but a dozen more surged behind them. He slashed frantically again, buying himself more time, and cast a different spell. Punishing Hand.

  The embalmed hand blossomed from the cobblestones, dancing and writhing as the burning corpses closed in on him, but its charm had no effect. Unhindered, they crowded around him, their burning hands grasping at his arms and throat. “Get off.”

  Their rib cages shattered as he punched the glaive forward, and buying himself a little space, tried again. Fiery Shackles. This spell they couldn’t shrug off. With a twist of his wrist, he liberated their heads and, using the frozen bodies as a shielding wall, cast Scourge of Despair. The whip tore through the mummies like kindling paper, but what it didn’t do was draw blood. No howls of hungry specters rose to greet the silent foes and no sooner had the bodies crumpled to the pavement than another stepped up to take its place. Damn it.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  He used Fiery Shackles to buy himself more time and risked a glance over his shoulder. “You need to get out of here,” he yelled. “I think I can fend them off with my flames, but not if I’m worried about burning y’all alive. Here.”

  His hand brushed against Ihra’s shoulder as he cast Spectral Wings. “Grab Erin and get out of here,” he yelled and reached for Nissilat.

  “I’m not leaving you here,” Ihra shouted back, as she released an arrow that shattered into a score of caltrops.

  “Did you see how flammable these guys are? Just do it,” he roared back as he pressed his hand against Nissilat’s shoulders. “Take the durgu,” he ordered, “You too, Tsia.”

  “I can help,” the princess called back as she cast a blade of wind that chopped a dozen of the creatures off at the knee.

  He was distracted temporarily as the creatures broke free of Fiery Shackles and latched onto him with angry howls. Despite their fragile condition, their teeth and nails punched through his flesh with ease, and Jasper roared in pain. But rather than try to rid himself from their grasp, he lurched away from his friends and cast Flame Charge. “Go!” he screamed out. “Go now!”

  The mummies ignited the instant the white flames touched them, but they did not recognize their doom. They piled onto him, driving him to his knees as the flames rapidly spread through their ranks. Jasper’s friends finally listened to him, passing overhead in a series of blurs, as the pavilion was transformed into an inferno burning so hot that, despite his immunity, Jasper found it almost suffocating. “Get off.”

  With a surge of effort, Jasper rose to his feet, sloughing their disintegrating bodies off of him with frenzied blows. Shooting Star. Shooting Star. Shooting Star. Limbs went flying as the explosions rocked the streets, and Jasper charged forward. He swept his glaive in several wild, frenzied arcs before they piled on him again.

  He was smashed against the cobblestones, his blood flowing freely from the dozens of wounds they’d torn in his body, but their withered flesh could not withstand the flames pouring off his body. Seraph’s Burst. He tore through their ranks in a blur of fire and metal, destruction in his wake, and landed deftly. A second cast of the spell leaped to his fingers, but as he turned to face the mob behind him, he found something unexpected.

  They were fleeing.

  He held the spell in check as the mummies turned and ran, the fire still spreading through the ranks as they streamed down the streets and alleys that led away from the acropolis. It seemed too good to be true, and his eyes searched the shadows anxiously, expecting something, something worse to emerge from the shadows. They don’t have Balrogs here, right? But there was nothing.

  Silence reigned over the plaza as the last of the mummies disappeared into the streets, leaving him alone with hundreds of burning corpses.

  “Jasper?” Worry laced Ihra’s voice as she dropped down beside him. “Are you alright?”

  With a grunt, he pulled his eyes away from the alleys and, releasing Seraph’s Burst, cast Circle of Forgiveness instead. “Yeah. I’m good.”

  The lines around her eyes eased as his wounds began to close up, and a smirk replaced them. “You forget something?”

  “Huh?”

  A shadow flickered over his head as Nissila?t touched down beside her, dropping S?ams?a?dur unceremoniously on the ground. “Who says he forgot,” she asked, amusement sparkling in her eyes. “Perhaps he enjoys putting on a show,” she added.

  Following her gaze, Jasper glanced downward, and a second late, his glaive clattered against the ground. “Damn it - again?!”

  The party kept watch as he replaced the clothes that had been burnt to a cinder, but the withered corpses did not reappear. “Any idea what those things were,” he asked as he rejoined the group.

  “The knockers?” S?ams?a?dur offered half-heartedly, but no one looked convinced.

  “They seem too weak to have destroyed a city like this,” Ihra pointed out, and Jasper nodded his agreement.

  “I know the Fey don’t generally have fire magic, but it’s hard to believe they couldn’t beat an enemy with such an obvious weakness. I mean, look at this place,” awe flickered across his face as he spun around, gesturing at the massive, opulent buildings that surrounded them. “There’s no way they couldn’t come up with an enchantment that would do the trick.”

  “Then that means there could be another foe out there,” Nissilat added, casting a piercing glance at the durgu. “Speaking of which, why didn’t you warn us aobut them?”

  The prince rustled. “I told you my skills didn’t work on the undead," he protested. "And those were the first bodies we'd seen. How was I supposed to predict that we were surrounded by undead."

  "You couldn't," Jasper stepped in, soothing the durgu's irritation. "But it does mean your mental skill is dangerously blind here."

  "About that," S?ams?a?dur butted in. "I might not be able to sense the undead, but you know those minds I was sensing? They're headed our way now. They're still a few miles off, but I think the fight might have gotten their attention.”

  “Of course,” Jasper chuckled ruefully. “When it rains it pours. Have you been able to glean anything useful about them?”

  “Nope,” the prince replied glumly. “Their minds are nothing but chaos and madness. But there’s a lot of them.”

  “Then we should hurry,” Ihra cut in.

  “Yeah, but we’ve gotta get through the gates first. I guess I can fly us up there, though I hate to split up the group,” Jasper sighed.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Ihra cut in. “Our little blue friend has returned.” It took him a second to locate the orb, which drifted down from the cliffs above and began hovering above the gate. His eyes were seared as it pulsed as bright as a second sun, and when his vision cleared, Jasper saw that the shimmering veil covering the gate dissipated. The orb pulsed again, less brightly this time, and the doors shuddered before creaking forward, scratching against the broken street with a metallic screech loud enough to wake the dead.

  They didn’t wait for an engraved invitation. Jasper broke into a run, the others quickly passing him, as they headed through the silver doors. And once they had all passed through, the orb pulsed a final time. Another shriek filled the air as the gates slammed shut, leaving them alone in the upper city and, hopefully, buying them some time before the enemies Samsadur had sensed converged on them. Just need to find the orb and get out of here.