“Um, you want us to move your statue?” Jasper choked back the laugh that threatened to escape him as he gazed up at the figure towering over him. The statue of Marat-As?nugallu was a hundred feet if it was inch - it was hardly going to fit into his back pocket.

  She didn’t appear to hear him, and her eyes glazed over as she muttered to herself. “But how can we find out?”

  He cleared his throat, and repeated the question. “I’m sorry, Bele?t…Imtu,” he stumbled over the unfamiliar name, “I know I agreed to help you, but I don’t think we can move a statue this big.”

  She glanced down at him distractedly, and waggled her hand. “That won’t be an issue,” she replied dismissively. “That will be easily resolved once we have found the ritual site that binds me.”

  “You don’t know where the ritual site is?” Jasper could feel his spirits sinking as the realization dawned that there was yet another wrinkle in the quest. All I wanted was a good night’s sleep, and somehow I got roped into freeing a goddess, or a shard of one, at least.

  “I have a general idea,” she replied defensively. “It’s definitely in the catacombs below us, but I haven’t been able to divine the precise location. If only my Children were still here, I could ask them, but-” Her face brightened.

  “Of course, why didn’t I think of it before. With you here, I can ask them now. Go,” she said, turning her attention back on him. “Return to the forum quickly and retrieve all the bones resting on the thrones. One of them will surely know the answer.”

  Is she a necromancer? He wondered again what the goddess’ domain was, but nodded his head in acquiescence. “Alright, I can do that, but…” He hesitated before voicing his objections. “I’m a little concerned we’re running out of time. One of my party,” he jerked his head toward Samsadur, “has a skill that lets him sense the mind of others. He says there’s a large group headed toward us, something unfriendly. Know anything about them?”

  Her face twisted with anger, and she spat out her words. “Abominations. Foul, twisted mockeries of my Children, wearing their form but not their minds. But you need not fear,” she added, regaining her composure, “You cannot succumb to the madness that inflicts them. That curse only affects the kin.”

  While it was nice to know they weren’t in any danger of becoming zombies, or whatever the hell these creatures were, Jasper knew they still had to fight them. “That’s good,” he pressed, “but they can still hurt us other ways, can’t they? There’s only six of us and thousands of them. We can’t fight them all.”

  The statue’s marble face rippled with irritation, and she slammed the butt of her spear into the ground, causing a shock wave strong enough to nearly blow him off his feet. “Then stop wasting time with foolish questions! Go - retrieve the bones. I will hold them at the gate as long as I can, but I will not let you leave without me.”

  “But I-” As Jasper looked up, still prepared to argue, he saw the statue had frozen in place.

  “But I- what?” Ihra asked, nudging his shoulder.

  “She froze you all again,” Jasper sighed.

  “She?”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll fill you in later, but we need to get moving. Now.” Jasper reached over and pressed his hand against Ihra’s shoulder, casting Spectral Wings, as he kept talking. “Ihra and I will retrieve the bones from the forum. You stay here. Keep an eye out, just in case, but I think you’re safe for now.”

  “Bones? What do you need with them?”

  Jasper ignored Nissila?t’s question as he cast the spell on himself and rose into the air. “Come on,” he called to Ihra. “The enemy is approaching and the goddess doesn’t think she can hold them off.”

  They reached the sinkhole in a matter of minutes, and flitting over it, quickly came up on the forum. “So what do we need bones for?” Ihra called out as they angled toward the crescent thrones.

  “Not sure,” he admitted. “Ever heard of a goddess named Marat-As?nu…gal? Something like that,” he added, a bit uncertainly.

  “No - should I have?”

  “Thought you might have,” Jasper replied as he touched down beside one of the gilded thrones. “She said she was the daughter of Aya?llu.”

  “The gods have a lot of children, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard of this one.” Ihra frowned as she looked down at the pile of toxic bones. “Did she tell you how she wanted us to move these bones? Nissila?t acted like they were pretty dangerous.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Jasper jerked his hand away from the femur he’d been about to scoop up. “Crap, that totally slipped my mind,” he admitted. “But no, she didn’t. She really didn’t say much at all, except she wants us to lift some sort of ritual binding in her place.” As he spoke, he pulled a spare robe out of his bag and carefully wrapped it around the pile of bones on the throne in front of him, before bundling it up in a ball. “I guess that works.”

  “You sure she’s actually a goddess,” Ihra asked as she worked on gathering her own set of bones.

  “Well I did ask her if she was an evil lich, and she said 'no,' so..." Jasper laughed. "Honestly, I can't be certain, but there's something about her that reminds me of Kas?dael and Selene. I don’t know, it's like she oozes divine energy or something.”

  “But not Yas?gah?”

  “Nah,” he scooped up a second bundle of bones and set it beside the first. “Yas?gah was powerful, but she didn’t have that otherworldly aura that they have. I think this Bele?t-Imtu is the real deal."

  “If you say so,” Ihra replied dubiously. “She still kind of screwed us over, though.”

  “She did,” he agreed, “But I guess I can’t blame her too much. Imagine being the only intelligent being stuck in an abandoned and rotting city, with nothing but a bunch of undead and whatever those other creatures are to keep you company. You might get a little desperate too. She did promise to reward us,” he added, smiling as Ihra’s ears perked up.

  “Really? What?”

  “She didn’t say, but if she’s really a goddess, it ought to be good.” With a grunt, he tied up his third bundle, and glancing over at Ihra, saw that she had matched his number.

  “Got ‘em all?”

  “Yep. She only asked for the bones on thrones,” he confirmed and, hoisting his bundles over his shoulder, he shot up into the air.

  He half-expected to find the others locked in a desperate survival when he touched down in the temple but his fears were unfounded. Tsia rose in the air to meet them, wobbling unsteadily as she snatched a bundle out of his hand. “What’s this?”

  “Careful - it's toxic,” he warned hastily. “The goddess wanted us to retrieve some of the bones from the forum for some reason.”

  His spectral wings beat lethargically as he descended before the statue and dropped the bundles. “Alright, we got them,” he spoke out impatiently. “What now?”

  “Now?” Jasper jumped as the voice whispered in his ear, spinning around to find nothing but empty air and, much to his annoyance, a circle of frozen friends.

  “Why do you keep doing that,” he complained. “Is there some reason you’ll only talk to me?”

  The statue came to life again, bending down to look at him with a smirk. “I thought you were in a hurry - do you have time now to chat about silly questions?”

  “If you want me to succeed,” he replied, ignoring her provocation, “I’ll need their help.”

  “Your friends are not actually frozen - you are. My time trapped down here has severely weakened me and I do not have the energy to waste on performing Divine Revelation to a half-dozen mortals,” she finally explained. “Now, place the bones before me.”

  Though still a bit irritated by the way in which she’d roped them into helping her, Bele?t-Imtu's explanation made enough sense that he didn't object, but began to follow her directions, arranging the bones at her feet. “Is there something in particular you’re looking for?” he asked. “There were some scraps of cloth still left, but I didn’t see any weapons or relics.”

  “Someone, not something,” the statue corrected him as the massive monolith crouched down to examine the bones. “Ah, here they are.” She reached and grabbed the second bundle, cradling the toxic bones in her massive palm without a care in the world. “I believe these are the bones of Lady Tahana?tu. She was a priestess of this temple, and the keeper of the library. If anyone from that time knew where the ritual had been held, it would be her.”

  Jasper watched impatiently as she continued sorting through the bones, clearly looking for someone else. “So are you a…necromancer?” He asked cautiously, hoping it wasn’t obvious he had no idea who the goddess was, or what her domain was.

  “You don’t know who I am, do you,” she asked bluntly, shattering his hopes that he had fooled her.

  “Well…I’ve heard of your father, Lord Aya?llu, but I’m afraid I’m not familiar with your domain. The Djinn are mostly devoted to S?ams?a,” he added hastily, hoping the Djinn’s well-known isolation was a good-enough excuse.

  “But you aren’t,” she replied matter-of-factly, as her eyes locked onto the fifth set of bones. “I can sense my grandmother’s hand on you - her and her sister’s. A curious story there, I imagine, but it will have to wait. Here,” she pulled the set of bones to her and set it beside the others. “Lord Qas?pu?l, I believe. Come,” she waved him forward. “If we had more time - and I had more energy - we’d enliven each of these bones, but this will have to do. I shall send you back into the mind of Lord Qas?pu?l - pick one of your friends for Lady Tahana?tu.”

  “Huh? How are you going to send me into his mind?”

  “Despite what you thought, I am no necromancer. I cannot make those bones talk, but what I can do is bind your spirit to theirs for a short time. You will wake in their bodies, in the days shortly before the fall. Find the information we need, and find it fast,” she commanded. “An hour there is an hour here, so you cannot afford to linger. Do whatever you must to find the ritual site - there is nothing you can do that will change what happened here. Now, choose one of your friends to accompany you,” she repeated.

  It was an easy decision. “Ihra. The blonde,” he added hastily, as he realized the goddess probably didn't know their names.

  “Ah, the one who has my father’s scent on her,” the statue cocked its head. “You keep strange company, Djinn, but very well.” She raised the spear high, and hammered its shaft into the ground at her feet, shattering the bones she had set aside. “Aliku? ana maha?ri.”

  Jasper’s knees cracked as he dropped to the crystal floor, but the sharp pain of a broken patella was nothing compared to the searing agony that flooded that rapidly spread from his eyes and down his spine. He writhed on the ground, barely cognizant of Ihra flopping beside him as the pain spread to encompass his old body, a river of molten hot lava that filled every vein. The goddess’ face swam above him, a touch of sympathy in her eyes as she looked down on him. “Aliku? u et?eru?nni,” she spoke again, and the pain finally ceased as darkness consumed him.