The group slowed down after the gates closed behind them. While the pile of bodies outside suggested that the undead had failed to breach the upper city, Jasper knew it would be foolish to count on that. There had to be other ways into the acropolis, and even if there weren’t, there was no guarantee that the citizens who had closed themselves off in the upper city hadn’t eventually succumbed to the same fate.

  “Is there anyone ahead of us, S?ams?a?dur?”

  “Not that I can sense, not that that’s saying much,” the durgu added with a mutter. “Could be a hundred more of those blasted mummies just around the corner and I wouldn’t know.”

  And that’s if we’re lucky. Jasper was no census taker, but if he had to guess, the city had once hosted millions, perhaps even tens of millions. Hopefully, most of the population had fled before the city’s destruction, but even if only two or three percent of its people had been transformed into those creatures, the undead would likely number in the tens of thousands. It’s a miracle we didn’t run into them before, and Jasper grinned wryly as the thought occurred to him that it was entirely possible it actually was a miracle. He was never sure how much the gods could put their thumbs on the scale here, but there was no denying they sometimes did.

  “At least we know no other enemies are waiting for us,” Jasper pointed out, assuaging the prince's pride, “and we’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled for the undead. If we run into more of them, let me handle them.”

  “Sshh,” Ihra batted his arm, and pointed up the road. The path they were on continued to the top of the cliff where a second gate, twin to the one below, served as the final barrier to the acropolis. “It looks like there’s a couple bodies ahead.”

  “More mummies?” he asked, unable to even see what she was pointing to.

  “Can’t tell from here.”

  Heeding Ihra’s warning, they approached the gate with weapons drawn and spells held already, but Jasper relaxed as they drew close enough to get a good view of the bodies. These were no mummies.

  Their flesh had long rotted away, leaving a motley pile of bones, rotting fabric, and rusted metal that suggested these had once been guards. It was odd, though, to find the bodies sitting outside of an unbroken gate, and strange, too, Jasper noted that there was no sign that they had been disturbed. It was impossible to guess how long it had been since they had died - decades, if not longer - but he would have expected animals and the weather to have long since destroyed their remains. Why would they die at their posts if there was no fight? And why has nothing disturbed them?

  As he pondered the scene, Nissila?t bent down beside one of the bodies and, using the hem of her sleeve, picked up one of the bones. Holding it a few inches in front of her face, she sniffed deeply, and set it down with a grimace. “As I thought. Don’t touch them,” she warned as she took a knife from her belt and cut off the portion of the tunic she’d used to lift the bone.

  “Why? Do you know what killed them,” Ihra questioned.

  “They killed themselves,” the woman replied as she stood up and emptied her flask of water over her hands, flinging them dry.

  “Poison?” Jasper guessed, and she nodded.

  “The sap of the kurs?iptu tree. A favorite in nobles’ gardens due to its propensity to attract butterflies, and a favorite amongst alchemists as its roots form a key part of most healing potion recipes. But a single drop of its sap is enough to make a grown man sick, and a tablespoon would be enough to kill most below level 100.”

  “But these men?” Her lips twisted wryly. “They took so much of it that it’s lingering in their bones, and it’s not a pleasant death,” she added with a frown. “These men were either forced to take the poison, or they were very scared of something.”

  Jasper glanced over his shoulder at the gate behind them; as far as he could tell, it hadn’t fallen, which meant whatever the men were scared of was inside with them. But was it an enemy or something more insidious, like a plague?

  “We ought to keep moving,” S?ams?a?dur piped up, interrupting his musings. “They're still headed in our direction,” he added, referring to the minds filled with madness he had sensed below.

  Spurred into action, they left the bones behind and passed through the second gate, pausing long enough to close the silver doors, before surveying the acropolis. The road they’d been following exited into a colonnaded forum roughly oval in shape, with long, curved pews that radiated around a central stage.

  A half-moon of gilded thrones occupied the center of the stage, six on each side with a thirteenth in the middle. Seven of the thrones were empty, but in the remainder sat piles of bones and fabric similar to the guards outside, and hundreds more bodies filled the surrounding pews.

  “Same cause of death,” Jasper asked Nissila?t, who approached the nearest row and, sniffing deeply, promptly recoiled.

  “They took the poison too.”

  Guess they drank the Kool-Aid. He tore his eyes away from the grisly scene with difficulty to scan the rest of their surroundings. A wide avenue split off from either side of the forum, lined with dense rows of shops and homes that reminded him of the old cities of Europe - if they’d been drenched in gold and gemstones. The sheer magnitude of the wealth that surrounded him was stunning; hell, he was half-surprised that the streets themselves weren’t lined with gold, but, then again, the luminous pale rock they were paved with was probably more useful.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Yet, he was no longer in the mood for exploring. The horde of enemies approaching weighed heavy on his mind, and he searched the skies for a glimpse of the blue orb, but couldn’t spot it. “Anyone remember what building it was hovering over?”

  “It was in the North,” Ihra reminded him, and pointed to their left. “It should be that way.” With no better directions to follow, the group turned and headed down the wide avenue, leaving the forum behind.

  Their progress down the street was slow and methodical. The two party members with the highest perception, Ihra and Nissila?t took the front and the back. Ihra, accompanied by Erin, scouted ahead, looking for traps or lurking undead, while Nissila?t hung back, hiding in the shadows as she kept an eye out for the approaching enemy.

  The rest clustered together, keeping a spell held ready lest a fight broke out. But it was not a fight that stalled their progress.

  They’d gone about half a mile when the road vanished into a yawning chasm. Destabilized by the network of tunnels and chambers honeycombing the bluffs, a sinkhole had swallowed up the road and dozens of buildings around it, dropping to a depth of at least a hundred and fifty feet. The most surprising part, though, was that a path forward remained, a wobbly rope bridge that was stretched across the sinkhole and anchored to an old wooden post on the opposite side.

  Ihra placed a tentative foot on the rope, but a shower of dust and fibers flew into the air as it sagged beneath her weight. She pulled back quickly, shaking her head as she turned to the group. “If it can't hold me, there's no way it will hold you two,” she said, looking at Jasper and S?ams?a?dur. "Either we fly over, or look for a detour through those houses."

  “I’ll fly us over,” Jasper offered and, though the durgu looked like he’d swallowed a lemon, he agreed begrudgingly..

  “Aye, there’s no telling if those houses are stable.”

  This time, Jasper chose not to wait for the spell to recharge. Casting Spectral Wings on himself and Ihra, the two took turns ferrying the others across the sinkhole in their arms, before continuing toward the north of the acropolis. It was another thirty minutes before they spotted the light of the blue orb up ahead, shimming above a fractured cupola, made of solid crystal laced with streaks of silver and gold.

  The building beneath it was no less impressive. The bottom half of the structure was shaped like a pyramid with its top cut off, and a massive temple occupied the place where the pyramid’s peak should have been. The temple's pillars were as broad and tall as sequoias, supporting an upper story capped by the broken crystal cupola they’d first spied.

  Despite the lack of any evidence that the upper city had been breached, they were forced to scale a hasty row of barricades that had been erected around the temple’s entrance, and on the other side they found more poisoned corpses. “What the hell were these guys scared of?” Jasper questioned, to no response.

  They picked their way through the toxic bones carefully and progressed up the stairs in a tight formation. A second row of barricades barred the landing, and after clambering over them, they caught their first glimpse of the temple’s interior.

  The floor, which was made of the same pure crystal as the cupola, glowed with an unearthly light that illuminated the entire temple in a perpetual dusk. The temple had a spartan aesthetic that clashed with the opulence of the city beyond; there were no elaborate frescoes, no murals, no gilded decorations, yet the sheer size of the enormous pillars, the radiance of its crystalline floor, and the monolithic idol that presided over its court made it one of the most impressive buildings he had ever seen.

  Jasper was transfixed by the idol, a statue so realistic looking he could almost believe it was a living person, if it wasn't for the fact that people weren't a hundred feet tall. Her dark, mediterranean color and brilliant green eyes suggested she had some connection with the Fey, but Jasper didn’t recognize her iconography. Unexpectedly, given the opulence of the city, the goddess stood in full war array, with a spear held in one hand and a shield resting against her knee. Her left hand was raised in benediction and covered in elaborate green tattoos, while her long, raven locks were held back by a tiara of writhing snakes.

  Creepy, but also kind of hot, he thought, noting the generous cleavage the idol sported. “Anyone recognize her?”

  Silence greeted his question, and they approached the idol, looking for the source of the blue orb that fluttered overhead. “Kind of need your help here,” Jasper called out. “We came as promised, but I'm not sure what we're supposed to do now."

  “release. me.”

  The voice was so weak and soft that Jasper almost missed it. He paused, glancing at the others with a furrowed brow. “Did you hear something?”

  His friends didn’t reply and, after a brief moment of irritation, he realized they had ceased moving. “Guys?” He stepped forward, and touched Ihra’s shoulder, but she didn’t budge. “Damn it,” he sighed and looked up at the orb. “Okay, you want me to release you. But how do I know that I should release you? You could be an evil undead lich for all I know.”

  The orb drifted down from the cupola toward the statue of the goddess and, picking up speed, passed through its open lips.

  “Don’t tell me you’re the goddess-” Jasper started to ask, skeptically, and he fell on his ass as the massive sculpture moved.

  “I am Marat-As?nugallu, daughter of Aya?llu, granddaughter of Tsia?hu.” Despite its size, the statue’s voice was still weak.

  “So, what, the people of this city bound you here,” he questioned.

  “Silly child - do you not know what an hypostatization is?”

  The term rang a bell, but he couldn’t remember its meaning. “No?”

  “I am but a fragment of Marat-As?nugallu,” the idol amended itself, “Bele?t-Imtu, a guardian crafted to watch over the people of Iltabri?t. But when the city fell, its people did not take me with them, and those that remained are no more.”

  Jasper blinked away tears as an overwhelming sadness, one not his own, engulfed him. “So what exactly do you want me to do,” he asked.

  “None live in this city now, save for the dead and the damned,” Bele?t-Imtu replied. “And I grow weary of being alone. Break the ritual that ties me here, deliver my statue to a temple of Tsiahu, and I shall reward you greatly.”