The fog quickly surrounded them, the dense cloud so thick that even the lights of the palace and capital were blotted from existence. A single light pierced through the veil, the gentle glow of Selene high on her celestial throne.

Thus it was that once the tour was done, the five found themselves on the top deck, staring up at the moon. A waiter was already there to greet them, bearing a tray with five goblets brimming with a dark, rich wine. Surprisingly, the crew were also served drinks at the same time, albeit in significantly less fancy cups.

Jasper accepted the drink gratefully, sipping at it thoughtfully as he stared into the fog. The wine tasted odd - not bad, but definitely unusual. He was hardly a sommelier, but there was a certain grassy, bitter undertone to it that reminded him of dandelions, not that he had seen any of the cheerful little flowers since leaving Earth. The conversation lulled as the group drank their wine, and Jasper noticed the three Djinn in particular scarfed it down eagerly.

Feeling awkward in the silence, he finally decided to broach the question that had been eating away at him since the dinner. “So, uh, what’s this ritual about? Is there somewhere in particular we are going?”

To his surprise, it was S̆anukkat who answered him. His cousin’s previous sullenness seem to have been left behind on the dock, and her eyes sparkled with an enthusiasm that matched her mother’s. “Why we’re going to the stars, of course!”

“To the what?” Jasper cocked his head to the side. Surely I misheard that. His eyes darted around the paneled wooden deck of the vessel. This definitely isn’t a spaceship.

His uncle grunted. “He doesn’t know what that means, S̆ani. Remember, he has not been in our world for long.”

The girl rolled her eyes. She drained the last dregs of wine from her cup, before continuing. “Fine, father, I’ll explain. Are you familiar, Yas̆peh, with the Anzuzu ritual? You know, the one for the Spectral Spiders?”

He shook his head reluctantly, trying to smother the irritation that arose in him as she openly smirked. “Well, you’re going to be soon. Drink up.”

He paused with the glass on his lips, as a newfound suspicion arose in him. “Why?”

His aunt cut in then, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “It’s for the ritual. Don’t worry about it - nothing bad will happen. Just finish your wine.”

He wasn't entirely convinced, but he decided to extend them a measure of trust. Thus far, they had shown no ill will toward him; besides, if they really wanted to stop him, he doubted could escape S̆arrābī and Kaṣîtūma at the same time. Lifting the cup to his lips, he finished it off with a final massive gulp.

Nothing happened at first but, within a matter of minutes, the first effects of the wine begin to make themselves known. An almost unassailable giddiness rose within him. He wasn't sure if it was really happening or not, but he could have sworn that the mist that surrounded the ship begin to swirl and dance around them, plunging its tendrils into their bodies.

The fog closed in around them, blotting out all light, but Jasper just laughed and laughed, the whole deck ringing with merriment as the others convulsed with the same laughter. Unable to stop laughing even to breathe, he was soon gasping for air, his entire body shaking as his lungs screamed for the oxygen of which they were deprived. Some small part of Jasper knew he should be concerned, but the laughter washed all other thoughts away until his body slumped unconscious on the wooden deck.

----------------------------------------

He awoke on the ground, sprawled out on his stomach. Cold, hard stone pressed against his cheek, and he quickly pushed himself up onto his knees. But Jasper froze when he saw his hands. The floor beneath his hands appeared to be fashioned from a single, enormous crystal that glowed with a subtle lavender light. But that wasn’t what caught his attention. He was seeing the floor through his hands.

With a startled cry, he stumbled to his feet. The world swayed and swirled around him as he stood up, and he could have sworn the floor rippled beneath his movements. Strange sounds swelled all around him, as if an unseen symphony was playing some distorted parody of classical music, but for the moment his eyes were glued to his hands. They looked as if they were crafted from a clear amber-colored crystal. When he held them up before his face, they glowed in the light, revealing a thick webbing of blueish veins that moved in rhythm to his pulse.

What the hell? Did they poison me? Am I dead? His heart racing, Jasper quickly yanked up his sleeves. The strange flesh continued unbroken up his arm until it disappeared beneath his shirt with no sign of change. A moment of panic set in, as he clawed at his clothes, trying to pull them free and reveal the hidden flesh. But his scaled tunic resisted his attempts to tear it. Still, his thoughts began to calm as another realization sunk. Despite the semi-translucent appearance of his body, he was perfectly capable of interacting with his environment. So, I’m not a ghost. Curious, he gently ran a finger over his translucent palm and was surprised to discover that the crystalline substance was every bit as soft and supple as flesh. Weird.

Shaking his head, Jasper finally looked up, letting out an audible gasp as he saw his surroundings. The gasp, though, was instantly swallowed up by the sheer vastness of the space.

He stood beside a pillar. The dark, amethyst-colored pillar, so large that it would have made a sequoia look like a sapling, erupted from the crystalline floor with no trace of a seam. It towered into the heavens, soaring up until the enormous column looked no wider than a toothpick. Hundreds if not thousands more of the pillars surrounded him on every side. But though their shafts soared into the darkness of the nighttime sky, the pillars were not supporting any roof. With unfettered access to the heavens, the pillars gleamed brightly in the light of an enormous silver moon.

The moon must have been at least fifty times the size of Earth’s, and its face was bent so low over the horizon that it nearly kissed the tops of the pillars. But the pillars were not all that Selene illuminated.

Thick silvery webs stretched back and forth between the pillars, as dense as the canopies of the Amazon, and suspended on them were some of the most hideous creatures Jasper had ever seen. Despite the fact that the pillars that rose beside him could have rivaled skyscrapers, the spiders skittering across the webs still managed to look enormous. They’d give King Kong a run for his money. Their black carapaces swirled with the light of stars and galaxies, supported on legs as white as freshly-fallen snow. Each fang was the size of a school bus, and above them sat row upon row of eyes that glittered in the moonlight with a terrifying beauty - far more eyes than any spider should have.

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“Oh my god.” Jasper didn’t even realize he was speaking out loud, but as soon as the words left his lips, one of the spiders turned its gaze on him. When its eyes latched onto him, it felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head. Stumbling backward, a shudder ran down his spine as something pressed against his mind. Hard. A gibbering, shrieking static filled his thoughts, and he fell to his knees, his hands pressed uselessly against his ears as the spider probed his thoughts.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the pressure vanished. Apparently finding him uninteresting, the spider turned away, skittering further up the web without so much as a second glance in his direction. He lay there, shaking, until gentle hands wrapped around his shoulders, lifting him to his feet.

"Who-" Jasper turned around to find a most unexpected savior. His cousin, S̆anukkat, was the one who had lifted him up. There was no trace of her former sullenness as she nodded at the enormous beast above them, her voice barely above a whisper. “They’re kind of terrifying, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” he managed to croak out, his voice cracking as he discovered his mouth and throat were as dry as the Sahara. “So these are the Spectral Spiders?”

She nodded. “Yes, the Anzuzu. If you believe my mother’s kin, it is their webs that hold the sun and moon and stars in their places, their webs that chart the course of Selene’s ship across the cosmic seas, their webs that bind the dark gods in silent slumber.”

“Huh,” he said, suddenly reevaluating his opinion of his cousin. “That was surprisingly poetic.”

A smile crossed her lips. “Thanks, but I'm just repeating my mother's words. She has always been deeply devoted to them. Something to do with her family back in Yammaqom.”

She started to walk forward, ambling across the luminous earth, and Jasper stumbled after her. His limbs were still slow a bit slower to respond than normal after the spider’s piercing mind probe, but she kept up a leisurely place, not leaving him behind. They walked in companionable silence for some time, past one colossal pillar after another, like they were lost in a crystalline forest.

“You should be grateful, you know,” S̆anukkat suddenly piped up. “The herbs needed for this vision are hard to come by in our province. My mother has to import them all the way from Yammaqom, and from what I've gathered, it's very expensive. I’ve only gotten to experience this twice myself.”

He nodded, surprised his aunt had gone to such great expense for him. I wonder why. “I’ll be sure to thank her, then. But why me?” He spun around as he walked, his arms spread wide as he gestured at the horde of Anzuzu above. “I mean, what the hell even is this place?”

“Really?” The half-Djinn stared at him incredulously. “You don’t know where you are?”

He shrugged. “You know, where I came from, this was all just a game. Well,” he corrected himself, “given what I know now, maybe it was never just a game, but we didn't know that. I’m sure there were all sorts of religious texts available to read if I had been interested, but aside from a little online research to make sure I picked a patron that would benefit my class, I never really paid much attention to all that religious stuff.” He grinned. “There were way more entertaining ways to spend my time - you know, murder, mayhem, loot.”

She shook her head, bemused. “You visited our world in a game? How?”

“They weren't games like yours, that's for sure," he admitted. "We didn’t have magic, or maybe we did and it was just really well hidden, but some of our technology might as well have been magic. It was like being able to step into a completely different life, a better life, free of all the petty concerns and work and sorrow that weigh you down. A world where all your desires could be accomplished.” He sighed as an unexpected wave of homesickness washed over him.

“It sounds wonderful.”

“It was, but dangerous too. All too often, the real world sucks, and the temptation to just escape into another world was…too much for some,” he admitted. He shook his head, trying to clear the melancholy thoughts away. “Anyways, what I was trying to say is that I have no idea where we are or why.”

“Well,” she pursed her lips thoughtfully. “The elves call this place the Ḫalab-S̆amîm, the ‘forest of the heavens.’ It’s one of the outer reaches of the Celestial Court, where the third rank of gods dwell.”

“Third rank?” He said, crinkling his nose.

She sighed. “You don’t even know this? There are three ranks of gods. At the top are the great gods, the offspring of the Progenitor himself - Shamsha, Selene, Tsiāhu, Ummaddamah, and so on. Below them are the gods of the second rank. The category is a bit more porous, and some priests would argue that there is no second tier, only higher and lesser lords but most acknowledge some sort of in-between.”

“What sort of gods are they?”

“Direct offspring of the great gods, like Selene's son Ayyālu, gods whose parentage is unknown, local hypostatizations of the great gods - like the Mistress of the Tides, the Blood Moon, and Lord Nūr - or individual members of the third rank who have gained a sizable following.”

“I met two Mwyranni in the north who were being worshipped. Would they be second-rank gods?” he asked.

She spun around to face him. “You met two Mwryani - actually met?” she questioned. “Or do you just mean you encountered them in a vision?”

He shrugged. “I’m pretty sure it was in person.”

S̆anukkat shook her head in disbelief. “Wow, I guess my mother was right. You’re more interesting than you look.”

“Hey,” he objected, half-offended.

A teasing light entertained her eyes. “No offense, Yas̆peh, but without a nice pair of horns, most Djinn women are going to find you a bit…lacking.”

He snorted. “I’m perfectly happy not having horns. This damned skin is bad enough.”

“But that’s literally your best trait,” she protested. “Everyone who sees you knows at a glance you're a reasonably talented member of the Royal House.”

“But you don’t have red skin.” He winced as soon as the words left his mouth, suddenly afraid he had pointed out a sore point but fortunately she didn’t appear to be offended.

“Amongst our clan, elven women are deemed the pinnacle of feminine beauty; a tradition of intermarriage dates back all the way to the third heir of Nūradīn. Daughters, like myself,” she said with a smug smile, “who take after their elven mothers are considered highly blessed.” Her smile slipped into a frown. “Unfortunately, male offspring who grow up to favor their mother’s appearance tend to have a much harder go of things. There are few noble women who would willingly choose a hornless mate,” she explained. “Usually, they end up being sent north to find a bride amongst the Moon-kissed.”

Jasper frowned, a bit disheartened to realize he wasn’t exactly considered attractive for a Djinn. I still don’t want horns, though.

“Anyways,” she continued, “It’s really unusual to get to meet a Mwyrani in person.” Her eyes grew distant. “Before the War of the Dragons, they lived ruled over men, living side-by-side with them. But after the Sidhe slaughtered them, those who survived fled. Many crossed to other worlds, some hide, and a few even bound themselves to the land, sacrificing a portion of their power to Ummaddamah for their safety. But few these days get to meet one face to face.”

“Huh,” Jasper grunted, noncommittally, unsure how to respond. He hadn’t realized his encounters with Lord Arutû and Lady Tirra had been so rare. “And the third tier of deities?” He asked, remembering what they had been discussing before they’d gotten off track.

“The veritable swarm of lesser gods more distantly descended from the progenitor. The Mwyrani, the Anzuzu, the Victorious Dead,” she rattled off a short list of names quickly.

Jasper’s mind flashed back to the Sidhe Tsia was apparently descended from. “And how did the Sidhe fit into the picture?”

S̆anukkat shrugged. “The priests would put them in the third rank, but no one really knows. Many believe that the Sidhe are not descended from the Progenitor at all, that they are gods from another world whom the Mwyrani somehow pissed off.”

“Then why stay here?”

“Maybe, once they came, they couldn’t return? Maybe the great gods intervened?” She rolled her shoulder indifferently. “The Djinn care little about the Sidhe.”

Jasper had been content to let his previously silent cousin talk, finding the discussion more interesting than he’d expected, but he hadn’t failed to notice that she still hadn’t answered his second question. “And why are we here?”

The humor dropped from her eyes. “If we're lucky? To catch a glimpse of the future.”