She cocked her head to the side, her long, honey-brown hair falling across her eyes, which she brushed away impatiently. “What?”

He didn’t respond, not trusting himself to speak as the memories came flooding back to him. This was the day - the day she died.

He lurched to his feet, taking a shaky step forward.“Jenny, you can’t go to the party.There’s going to be an accident.”

Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

He babbled on, the words spilling out of his mouth incoherently, as he took a step closer to her. “You can’t go. You’re going to be going too fast around a curve, and a combine is going to be crossing the road, and-“ His voice broke off, as the scene of the ruined car, its top sheared off by the combine flashed again through his mind.

Jenny raised her hands in defeat. “Alright, alright - we don’t have to go to the party if you don’t want to. We can stay home tonight.” Her tone softened. “Are you alright, Jay? You’re acting kind of strange.”

He couldn’t stop the tears that begin to stream down his cheeks as he took another step forward.“I never thought I’d see you again.”

Worry crossed her face. “You saw me fifteen minutes ago, Jasper.” She leaned back into the hall. “Mom?" Her voice echoed down the empty corridor, dampened by the plush beige carpet. "Mom, can you come here? I think something’s wrong with Jay.”

He took another step forward. Cold blossomed through his arm, the bitter frostbite spreading throughout his entire body with a cold so fierce that even the fires within could not vanquish it.

Jenny turned back to him, the concern evident in her dark, chestnut eyes.“Jasper-“

At that moment, something changed. Her warm brown eyes suddenly widened, her body jerking as a look of confusion and fear crossed her face. “Stop!” Her voice was sharp and scared. “Stop walking right now, Jay!” The room around him flickered as Jenny straightened up, looking around her in bewilderment.

He reached out a shaking hand toward her. But she shook her head. “No, stay back.” She looked around the room, her eyes seeing what he did not. “You’re going to step off a bridge into a chasm.” Her gaze swept upward, utter shock reflected in her face as she spied the ancient temple on the cliff above them. “What the hell-? Where are we? We’ve got to get to the party-“ her words trailed off. "The party," she muttered.

Her eyes turned to him, searching for an answer she did not want to hear. “Jay? What happened at that party? Am I-"

He forced out the words, the tears still flowing, as the vision of the room melted away, leaving nothing but the empty chasm. She floated above it, her body now thin and ethereal, her face troubled.

“It’s been fifteen years, Jenny…fifteen years.”

Her lips parted, no words coming out. He teetered on the edge of the bridge - just one more step and he would have fallen.

Finally, she found her voice. It was shaky, trembling, but it was hers. “I don’t know what’s going on, Jay, but you have to get off this bridge. Just ten more steps and you’ll be safe.”

Jasper shook his head. “But it’s you - somehow, it’s really you - isn’t it? The others were just facsimiles, but you’re really here.” His gaze turned down to the bridge, her spirit floating just beyond his reach. Just one touch. His foot lifted up, his hand reaching out to grasp hers.

“No - stay back!” Her ghost darted away, out of his reach, her voice shrill. Jasper hesitated, his mind slowly clearing. With a muffled sob, he put his foot back down.

His voice choked up. “I never got to say goodbye, you know. We hit the combine and, well, you were dead and I was almost dead. I was in the hospital for weeks after it. They had the funeral without me, Jenny. I didn't even get to go.”

Her face fell. “I’m sorry, Jay, I really am." She hugged her ethereal arms close to her chest, her eyes once again flickering up to the temple above. "But you can’t step off the bridge.”

Pushing the pain down, he squared his shoulders. “I know. Will you walk with me?”

Together the two walked the last few steps of the bridge, Jenny floating just beyond his reach. Stopping on the last step, he turned to face her. “I wish it had been me, Jenny.” He didn't wait to hear her reply, stepping off the bridge while he still had the strength to do so. As his foot left the rickety wood, Jenny faded away, her eyes brimming with tears that could never be shed. The emptiness of the dark, abandoned city once again consumed him.

Jasper sat by the edge of the cliff for quite some time before he was finally able to move on. Wiping away the tears from his eyes, he surveyed the plateau he had reached. It towered above the lost city, connected only by the bridge. The only building was the massive temple in front of him, whose domes touched the sky, but the rest of the plateau wasn’t empty, the land around him clearly having once been an opulent garden.

The entrance to the temple surprisingly did not face the bridge that he had crossed. Instead, he was forced to wind his way around the exterior. He wandered through the frozen ruins, past empty fountains and abandoned benches, through long-fallow beds. The temple loomed above him, its size so large that it was hard to wrap his mind around it, the scale something that simply did not fit in the world of men.

Stolen story; please report.

The entrance finally came into view; three massive arches were cut out of the facade, their space filled with wrought metal gates that glowed faintly in the darkness. As he drew closer, he was relieved to see that one of the gates was slightly ajar. He slipped inside, wincing in pain as his scorched hand brushed against the shining metal.

One of the domes of the great temple soared above him, so high that he had no doubt that a Boeing could have flown through the temple with no problems. The floor was paved with intricate mosaics - marble, gold, and gems all woven together to tell tales he’d never heard. He studied their forms for a while, unable to follow the story they were trying to tell, no doubt the mythology of a long-dead race.

Eventually, he moved on, drawn towards the center of the dome. The middle of the temple, the place where the tower should have been, was occupied by a deep pool, somehow still filled with water, from whose depths rose a colossal statue. It was Kas̆dael. A veil covered her eyes, a dice sitting in her outstretched hand, a black robe falling from her milky shoulders like a waterfall of shadow and smoke.

“How did you get here?”

For a moment, Jasper thought the statue had spoken, stepping toward it with a growing sense of awe.

“Jasper?”

He realized the voice was behind him and turned. Kas̆dael stood perhaps a hundred feet, dressed the same as the statue. Shadows pooled at her feet, moving and stirring with a mind of their own, but the veil across her eyes did not hide the smile on her lips. Jasper breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her. Thank God - I was afraid I was stuck here.

Her lips quirked up. “No need to thank me, Jasper,” she said, responding to his thoughts.

She walked forward slowly, her footsteps echoing in the silent cathedral. “Did you cross the bridge?”

He nodded, the pain clutching at his heart again. “Yes. What was that?”

The goddess sighed. “You should have not come here. That bridge was not meant for the incarnate to cross. It is a miracle you survived it.”

“Is it real?” he demanded. “Most of them seemed to just be illusions, but Jenny-“ his voice shook - “it seemed like she was really there; she even tried to save me.”

Kas̆dael frowned. “The spirits summoned should not be the real thing but…stranger things have happened." She leaned closer to him, her eyes searching. "There is a trace of unusual energy on you. Perhaps, as you were summoned from another realm, so too was she. You say she tried to help you?"

He nodded. "I would have died if not for her."

She patted his hand gently. "Then perhaps you truly have seen a miracle." He winced as her fingers touched the scorched mark on his palm, and her eyes widened as she saw the wounds on his hand. “What happened here?”

He held his palm out to her gingerly. “I, uh, touched one of your dice back at the bonfire.”

Kas̆dael stared at him incredulously. “What possibly possessed you to make you think that picking up a god’s possessions was a good idea? You’re lucky to be alive.”

Jasper smiled weakly. “I was worried. You were nowhere to be seen, and I was afraid I was going to be trapped in the void. I just wanted to find you.” He held his hand out. “Can you heal it?”

With an exaggerated sigh, Kas̆dael took his hand. A pulse of essence flowed into him, a bitter, unending cold before which his fires quailed. But the wound on his hand healed up, the scorched flesh sloughing off, revealing fresh, new skin below.

“Do you even know what those dice really are?” She asked.

He shook his head.

“They were forged for me long ago, crafted from the eyes of a Spectral Spider I slew in combat." She fixed her eyes on him. "They are the very flesh of a god, Jasper, objects not meant to be wielded by a mortal.” She let go of his hand, and he wrung it out, the pain finally dissipating. “Don’t touch my things, Jasper. You might not survive the next time. I would be very disappointed if you damaged your soul so badly that I can't resurrect you. Now, follow me.”

She swept past him, her long black dress trailing on the floor behind her. He followed behind her, struggling to keep up with her quick pace. His eyes roamed the magnificent temple, soaking in the elaborate mosaics and enormous statuary. “What is this place? I mean, I know it’s a temple to you, but the city in general. Did people use to live in the void?”

A weary smile graced her lips. “Do you think I always sit beside a fire, with nothing but a bench to my name?”

“I guess I never really thought about it,” he admitted. “You were just always there.”

“This is my home, S̆uhruru, and its city, Āl-Dārû, the city of eternity. Many have been the days when its streets rang with song and laughter and many have been the days of deathly quiet.” She smiled sadly. “The eternal cycle, you know.”

“When I am young, I dwell out in the void, but as the world grows old, I am drawn back to my city.” Her eyes grew distant, staring sightlessly past him. “I should not be here, Jasper - not now. It is too soon. A great disaster has befallen the Us̆umgallī.”

He trailed behind her, intrigued.“The Us̆umgallī?Who are they?”

She shook her head. “There are limits to what I can tell you without angering some of the other gods. Personally, I prefer to stay out of such petty feuds if I can help it. Suffice it to say that there are lands far beyond the empire, far across the eastern sea, that the empire has not even heard of. The catastrophe that occurred in those lands pushed the universe even closer to its end, and has reawakened Āl-Dārû, pulling me out of the void.”

Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. "It's ironic, really. The Zalancthians only fled into the west, invading the empire, because of the Us̆umgallī, entirely unaware that their enemies have been all but destroyed."

They passed beneath an arch that soared far above his head, supported on pillars far too thin and ornate to hold its weight. A large room stretched before him, dominated by a throne fit for a giant. A hundred steps lead up to the massive throne, whose sides were flanked by the same four-eyed dogs that guarded the bridge. Kas̆dael approached her throne, growing with each step she took as she ascended the stairs. When she finally sat down, she was a match for the great statue in the central hall.

“Now tell me, Jasper of Earth, how are things going in the Harei Miqlat?”

For the next hour, he filled her in on the details of his time there. She showed little interest in the lyre of Damqa or the Moon-kissed, but Sellâ and the Brotherhood of Yas̆gah were another matter altogether.

“I have never received prayers under the name of Yas̆gah,” she finally stated.“My fears must be correct - another god has infiltrated my cult.”She drummed her fingers against her throne.“But the name is not familiar to me.Yas̆gah?The goddess of maddening darkness?”Kas̆dael shook her head.“I know of no such goddess. Another enemy must lurk beneath her mask.”

She stood up from her throne and slowly walked down the stairs, shrinking as she approached him. Kas̆dael held her hand out to him. “Are you ready?”