Part 2 of 2
“Midnight!!”
Her voice echoed out into the cold night.
“Come on this is hardly fair!”
Midnight giggled. It was so difficult to stay quiet, but they wanted to win so badly. This was their favourite game. They were ever so good at it. Midnight and Maisie would always play Sparkle Hide when they finished a hunting route. Midnight would hide and Maisie would try to catch them in the sparks of glowing glitter they could throw. But she only got three tries and if she couldn’t catch them, Midnight won. And Midnight always won.
They slinked through the darkness and sat patiently behind the young woman blindly stalking her. She fired off her final set of sparks and huffed when it revealed nothing. Midnight meowed. Maisie jumped and cursed.
“Gods dammit,’ she crossed her arms, ‘I’m just never going to win am I?”
“Meow,” Midnight said proudly, puffing out their chest and leaping onto their friends shoulder.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Let’s get back to the village.”
They walked for twenty minutes, past the forked tree and the strawberry rock and the hollowbird nest. Midnight's ears twitched as they listened to the sounds of the forest, golden crown beset with Jasper, bobbing above their head. Their fur was long and graceful now, Maisie took the time to carefully braid it and thread it with little beads that tinkled in the wind. The air of the forest grew crisper as the trees thinned and the canopy started to part.
Maisie hummed and Midnight purred a harmony and all was lovely, till on the shifting breeze they caught the sound of screams in the night. They looked to each other and as Midnight leapt from Maisie’s shoulder, they sprinted towards their home.
As the village grew in the distance they saw sparks of yellow and blue crackle around the outskirts of the town, and nearing, saw the silhouette of giant spiders enveloping the pods. They ran. Maisie pulled a long bow from her back and fired three arrows at the nearest spiders, striking each with a solid thunk and sending them crashing to the forest floor. Midnight, claws bared, darted up a tree, along a branch and leapt at a spider towering over a young man. They hit their mark and sunk claws and teeth in deep. Rearing back the spider tried to shake the ferocious cat off its back but Midnight slashed at its soft abdomen until it screeched and fell from the tree. Maisie released another flurry of arrows and Midnight leapt and tore at another spider. They raged, but in a slip a spider managed to throw Midnight from its back and into the trunk of a sturdy tree. They hit with a sickening crunch and fell thirty feet to the forest floor.
Midnight felt the ground turn to mist and the world spin in a dull haze. They lay for longer than dignity would allow and only broke from their daze at the piercing scream of Maisie. Midnight looked from her crater to see her friend pinned beneath a spider the size of a bear.
Midnight swayed and collapsed when they tried to stand. They felt as though their body had been run through a sieve. Midnight heaved out a shuddering cry and tried to return to their feet, only to fall with a thud to the mud again. They whimpered in the cold night air.
“Oh my dear Jasper, what has become of you?” Midnight lifted a weak head to locate the source of the melodic voice that spoke their forgotten name. They saw a face, carved into the bark of the tree they had fallen from. It smiled softly and Jasper recognised it instantly. There was no build up. Tears streamed down their face in an instant, and tears turned to sobs and they lifted their weak body onto its four legs and dragged themself over to the roots of the tree. The tree produced and reached out a delicate humanoid hand and pealed itself from the trunk, embracing the shivering cat.
“My sweet Jasper, you are so brave. I am so very proud of you.” Jasper could do nothing but cry and hang limply in the arms of the tree. “I will always help you, my love, if only you are to ask it of me”
Jasper looked up into her eyes and let out a shaky breath.
“Help me.”
She smiled softly and looked down with unconditional adoration.
“Of course.” The tree leant forward and kissed Jasper on the forehead. Jasper pressed their eyes closed tight, hoping so desperately to stay right here forever. But they opened their eyes and they sat alone again at the base of the faceless tree.
Jasper breathed out. They got to their feet. They flexed their tail. They brushed off their blue coat and ran a hand through their bright orange fur, still braided and beaded. They stretched clawed hands and at the sound of Maisie’s screams, leapt up the tree and into battle.
***
Jasper retched their spear from the spider’s heart and let it die. They reached down a hand and helped Maisie to her feet. She took a step back and seemed confused for a moment, before noticing the small golden crown, beset with Jasper, hovering above the Tabaxi’s head.
“Midnight?” asked Maisie, shivering from adrenaline.
“I’m sorry Maisie, I had no way of telling you” Maisie hesitated, then raised a hand and smoothed back the fur on Jasper's cheek. She smiled.
“I always thought there was something special about you.” Jasper hesitated, they were expecting her to be upset.
“You’re not angry with me?” Maisie sighed.
“I don’t think I am. I mean, I’ve always wished we could talk to each other” She laughed and Jasper sighed and smiled with her.
All at once they heard a cry from below them.
“MAISIE!” It was Rashna’s voice.
They hurried down the stairs and saw what they dreaded. Many of their own had been injured fighting the spiders, and those who were still bleeding but not yet dead were walking, stumbling, crawling to the west.
“They won’t stop,’ Rashna explained with anguish, ‘It’s just like Tome and Sarly.” Jasper moved to the closest person, dragging herself through the mud.
“Carla, stop Carla, where are you going?” The woman gave them no reply, with an empty face she continued to crawl, clothes sticking to the thick mud, blood ebbing from a deep slash on her abdomen.
“We can’t just leave them this time,” Jasper said standing and returning to Maisie.
“But we have so many injured here, and if we leave the corpses of the spiders as they are, surely more will come.” Jasper frowned and rubbed their chin.
“I will go then,’ Maisie made to protest, ‘I’m an adventurer, Maisie. This is what I’m supposed to do, and everything in me is telling me to follow them.” Maisie looked up at them with big eyes and released her tense shoulders.
“I understand. Promise you’ll come back to me one day.”
“I promise.” Jasper squeezed her hand, and turned to follow the mass of near dead.
***
They walked for days. Slowly, trudging through the forest, passing caverns of upside down trees, lakes of clear spiders, and numerous stone circles. Jasper followed the trail of people, clinging to life, dragging themselves through the forest. After a while it became apparent that they were pulling themselves towards, and up, the mountain. For the five years Jasper had lived in this place, they had observed the mountain but never ventured up it. The sky around its peak had grown darker and darker until it seemed it reached into space itself. And it seemed the gasping masses saw something of import up there.
As they walked more joined them. There were the young, holding together wounds; claw marks, punctures, and gashes. One man now walked with the red grip of a rope etched into his throat. He struggled to breathe, wheezing and coughing as he went, but still he walked. They were joined by the elderly, hobbling along their way, by children, young and dark eyed, coughing up blood and hunching their shoulders. Animals and beasts also walked. All clinging to life.
“Where are you going?” Jasper asked them.
“That’s a very good question.” Jasper spun and saw beside her a young man, draped in red, who she had not noticed before.
“You are not one of the others.” Jasper had tried many many times to speak with them, but none had acknowledged they were even there. They didn’t seem to even notice they were a part of a crowd, or the world around them, or that they were moving at all.
“You are not one of them either.” The young man smirked and held his hands behind his back. He was exuberantly dressed, bright tail coat and hat a beacon against the gloom of the forest.
“No, I am not. Are you curious as to where they’re going, too?” Jasper asked, keeping pace with the man who seem unfazed by the living corpses around them.
“I already know where they are going, but yes I am curious.”
“You know? What is it they’re going to then?”
“You would not prefer to find out for yourself?” He paused awaiting their response.
“Well, there’s no harm in being prepared, is there?” He nodded and seemed to ponder.
“No that is absolutely correct. It is always good to be ready. Very well then. They are going to their deaths.” Jasper hesitated.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Their deaths, isn’t it obvious. Look at them.” He gestured wide. The people surrounding them, drenched in blood, and age, and illness. “Where else would they be going?”
“But, death isn’t a place.”
“You seem very certain of that.” Jasper frowned and touched their chin with their paw.
“I suppose I wouldn’t know”
The man chuckled softly. He looked back at Jasper.
“That’s a very interesting crown you have there,’ he tilted his head, observing it. ‘Where did you get it?”
“I found it, locked in a chest in a cupboard in a bedroom of the house of the Burgomaster of Valaki. Do you know it?”
“Not directly, but it seems awfully familiar.” He squinted and slowly raised a hand. “Do you mind if I touch it?” Jasper hesitated.
“Well, I suppose not. Go ahead.” They tilted their head down so he could reach it. He lifted his hand and as he drew it closer it started to pulse, faint but dark waves of energy hummed off it, echoing through the air in physical beats. He drew back, tensing and releasing his hand. And then lowering.
“Hmm, perhaps not.” Jasper raised their head and looked at him. But he was gone, red glittering smoke twisting in a silhouette where he stood.
***
Jasper trekked the mountain for two weeks. Slowly the dark forest parted, sparse dying trees scattered along the slopes. And slowly the scant trees gave way to swamp land, where bodies sank beneath the ravenous mud. They followed the half living corpses through the haze, the stink seeping into their fur and stinging their eyes.
The marsh gave way to snow. Particles of ice clung to their braided fur and drained the feeling from their limbs. The bodies crawling around them continued, despite ice stiffening their joints, crushing their limbs, and stopping their breaths. Jasper found each step laborious. Each time they breathed in it became more difficult to reinflate their lungs. The tundra grew steeper and smoother, and Jasper slid and tripped and their knees became so weak they resorted to crawling, digging their claws into the frozen slopes, beyond numb.
They grew so tired there were moments when the world turned black and they felt themselves start to fall. They collapsed in the ice again and again, eyes hanging limply, blurring the world around them. They even started to forget where they were, why they were here, where they were going. They remembered the snow and the cold, the lack of pain when a claw or finger dropped off. They couldn’t look around them, the corners of their eyes freezing and fixing their gaze ahead. Their fur fell out in patches, revealing swollen split skin.
The sun began to set, illuminating the peak of the mountain ahead, and Jasper saw before them a cavern opening, large and enveloping. They stumbled into the darkness, following the trail of living dead. They had grown steadily in number, and now at the mouth of the cave there were hundreds of them, stumbling, dragging, into the cave.
They waded through the sea of people, eyes adjusting to the black. They swayed through the tunnels going down down, into the belly of the mountain, till eventually it opened out into a great room, balls of white light illuminating the expansive space. In the center a platform naturally formed from the grey rock pulled up like a stalagmite from the caverns floor, a silver throne perched at its peak.
They hobbled through the darkness, bodies grasping at the base of the column, too steep to climb. Jasper craned their stiff neck, skin breaking in their effort, and saw upon the throne the silhouette of a woman, tall and regal, gazing down at the mass of dead. And she seemed to spot Jasper, as she stood slowly. She lifted a hand and waved it over the sea of bodies. Slowly they parted making room for Jasper to approach a thin staircase that appeared, tracing up to the platform. Jasper walked, slowly and painfully forward and up the narrow stair. It rose fifty feet into the air.
Jasper approached and looked up at the woman. She towered over them, twice their height at least. Her waist flowed down into a long trailing black dress, which fell over the side of the platform. Her hands were black, as if she wore opera gloves that melted into her skin. The fingers were thin and spider-like. Her chest was made of warped glass, her lungs rising and falling inside, heart thudding slowly and silently. Her hair was obsidian and fell out from a veil that hid her pale face. Stars sat at the base of her skirts, winking in the dull cavern light.
She looked down.
“Jasper, I’m impressed you made it this far.” Jasper held their arms tight around their body, shivering in the mountain air. They tried to open their mouth to speak, but their jaw was held shut tight, stiff and grinding from the winter touch.
“You struggle. Here.” She lowered a hand and with her needle fingers, stroked the fur on Jaspers head. As her nails passed over them, the cold melted away. The stiffness and pain subsided and warmth flowed into their veins. Gasping and shaking they rubbed their hands together, cradling their missing fingers.
“How do you know me?” Jasper gazed high at the woman.
“I know everyone who walks this world, everyone in the kingdoms beyond this mountain, all in the cavern below you.’ She leaned closer to them. ‘I see you received your crown.”
“The crown? Did you give it to me?” She straightened and look out into the dark.
“No, but I made it. An acquaintance of mine asked it of me as a favour. They wanted to give you something as a gift, to tell you that you are not alone.” Jasper touched the crown lightly with their remaining fingertips.
“May I ask who it was?”
“You may, but I will not tell you. Just know that you have a friend who is watching over you, and they will help you if you ask it of them.” She knelt and lowered herself to the floor, and reached out a hand to beckon Jasper closer. They took her hand and sat with her.
“Not many people come to visit me Jasper. I would quite enjoy your company. Do you have anything you wish to ask me?” Jasper pondered.
“Who are all those people,’ they asked craning their neck to see the mass of wounded, ill, aging people down below, ‘why did they come here?” She smiled softly.
“They are dying, the near dead. It is only natural they would try to find me. I carry the souls of the dead to their next life, but I do not often walk the earth in person. When I step foot on this plane the near dead seem to hold on a little longer, they try to find me, as if their pilgrimage will save their souls. They don’t even know they’re doing it. It’s instinctual. Trying to hold onto life even in death.”
Jasper frowned and nestled into the woman’s slender arms.
“Where are we? I don’t really remember coming to this world, but I know I haven’t always been here.”
She tilted her head as if in thought.
“This world is one of many, just another plane. You fell from one to another like stepping from grass to sand. The plane you left was dark and cursed, I’m not surprised you left.
You wished to leave so desperately the world ripped you away.”
Jasper sat quietly, trying so hard to remember the life they left there. They saw friends, people they cared about and a purpose, but so much fear as well.
“Could you show me Maisie?” The woman was still for a minute and Jasper got the impression she had not expected this.
“I can.” She breathed in softly and blew a cold breath onto an empty space on their stone platform. A hollow reflection of Maisie appeared, clad in leather armour, a sorrowful look cast upon her face.
“She misses you terribly”
“I really want to see her again. I promised her I would come back.’ Jasper looked up at the woman. “But I’m not going to, am I?”
“It is unlikely, but if you wish, as a token of my admiration I will grant you a wish. Whatever you want, within reason of course.” Jasper's heart beat fast and they squeezed tight their hands, excited with the prospect of seeing Maisie again.
“I miss her so much, but…’ Jasper stopped and thought, ‘I made another promise.” They closed their eyes and hugged their arms tightly to their stomach. They breathed out a shaky breath.
“I know what I want.” The woman lowered her head and Jasper whispered in her ear. She blinked.
“You never fail to surprise me.’ She straightened her back and sat up straight.
“Very well, it will be done.”
Five years and two weeks in the past, in a small clearing near the edge of a vast forest, a rumbling echoed through the muddy ground. With a snap like thunder a deep crack appeared in the earth, clean clear water bubbling from it depths and flowing to form a stream. It trickled then ran then poured till it was a river. It wound and carved its path through the trees, bubbling and laughing as it moved through the underbrush. Emerging from the rocky outcroppings surrounding the clearing, a small donkey appeared, tired and sick. It drew itself to the water’s edge and drank deeply. It called to its mother who joined it. They drank.
And Jasper fell asleep in the arms of the Goddess of Death.
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