Totally felt like a vacation, especially when we stopped just to have sex.
We'd also pass by towns and farms, and while we didn't seek out people, they often came looking for us. Farmers would catch sight of our griffin, or hunters in the forest, and we'd encounter the locals. They were always shocked and delighted to see Kassam, and he enjoyed the brief meetings. I think it made him feel good when they would recognize him on sight. As we've traveled, we've seen a lot of farms where Kassam said there used to be woodlands. He remembers this world from a thousand years ago, with different cities and different roads. It was all new for him, and in this, we're equal, because it's all new to me, too. I know the disappearing forests distress him, but hearing words of praise from woodland hunters helps ease his fear.
As we journey on, the cities and small towns and farms grow sparse and we head into the mountains. Here, it's unblemished and just as remote as the place we first arrived, and I can sense Kassam's happiness. I think he might be crushed if his entire world looked like mine when he'd awoken. He was able to handle the strangeness of modern Earth well, able to cope with finding the wild in downtown Chicago. I'm not sure he'd be able to cope with it on his doorstep.
Even if this world isn't quite as wild as it used to be, there's still plenty of room for a wild god.
This end of the world might be a little too extreme for me, though. I eye Kassam. "Is it supposed to look like this?"
He inhales deeply, that pleased look remaining on his face. "Indeed. Can you not smell it?"
"I don't smell anything."
"Exactly!" Kassam's eyes glitter with delight. "No farms, no mortals, no crops, no cities. It is untouched by humanity."
It's also untouched by a single blade of grass, but I don't point that out. Kassam looks thrilled, and so I try to appreciate our surroundings through his eyes. The mountains are nothing but bare rock on this side, and the slopes are pebbled with loose shale and other equally gray rocks. There's a tiny path winding its way through the mountains toward the water's edge, but the water itself looks hellishly oppressive. It doesn't even look like real water, despite the fact that the lake covers the entire horizon. It's so flat and gray it looks like just one gigantic puddle. Most bodies of water seem to have some sort of life to them—they ripple when the wind touches the surface. They shimmer when the sunlight hits the water. This is just…a void. A big, gray, unpleasant-looking void in the middle of the craggy, equally gray mountains.
Away in the distance, at the far side of the lake, a thin, lone needle points at the sky. Our destination. "That's the Tower of the Spidae?" I ask Kassam, even though we've talked about it a hundred times. It's the only building on this side of the Godspine Mountains. Nothing and no one lives here except the Spidae, who dwell upon the edge of the world. Even our steady griffin who's been with us since the beginning of this journey is unsettled. He prances in place, looking as if he'd like nothing more than to fly away and leave us behind.
Only Kassam looks thrilled to be here. But then again, it never takes much to thrill Kassam—a firefly, a blow job, a full moon, it all works for him. I love that about him. I watch his smile as he breathes in the crisp mountain air, and my heart aches.
I don't have much longer in this world, I think. I haven't seen Death again, but with every day that passes, I feel a little more floaty and disconnected from my body. At some point, I know I won't be able to stay in it any longer. It's just a hunch I have. Whatever life-force tethers me to my flesh has been severed, and I remember what Death said about my thread becoming frayed. I suspect that thread has come completely undone, and it's sheer will alone that keeps me at Kassam's side instead of heading to the afterlife.
I'm trying not to think about it. I certainly haven't told Kassam about how I feel. He'll blame himself, and I don't want him to lose that happy sense of purpose that has been enveloping him since we left Seth's side. He's seeing his world again, he's seeing people rejoice at his return, and I want him to feel nothing but relief and happiness.
Either the Spidae will be able to fix this, or they won't. I absently touch the stitches on my chest, just below the collar of my tunic. Whichever way it heads, I want Kassam to know that I love him and that I did this for him. I don't want him to feel guilt. I just want him to think of our time together with happiness. So I smile affectionately at him and ignore the floaty, drifting feeling in my head. "You think they're expecting you?"
Kassam laughs with delight. "If they are not, we have bigger problems."
"I guess that was a silly question, huh?" Fate should absolutely know what's going on. I think of Lachesis, her world-weary attitude and constant cigarette smoking, and try to picture that in a spider god. Nope. Try as I might, I mentally can't make the pieces fit together.
Kassam looks over at me. "Are you ready to do this, little light?"
Am I? Part of me thinks I won't ever be ready. I move over to take his hand in mine. His fingers are warm compared to my cold ones, and his palm callused and raspy, but pleasant. I lean against his arm and gaze out at the unsettling gray water and that sliver of a tower far on the horizon. Even though this landscape is hideous, I wouldn't mind staying here forever, with Kassam right next to me.
But that's what I want, selfishly. I want to turn around and run, to forget we ever saw this place. Kassam wants to go home to his plane, to his Great Endless Forest. He wants to free the conmac from the duty he forced them into a millennium ago. He wants to return to his rightful place in the heavens and take up the mantle of the wild god once more.
And that seems far, far more important than what some crappy bartender wants. So I nod, putting on a determined expression, and memorize his handsome face, just like I have every day for the last two weeks, because I know this won't last. "Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"
51
The tower is even more intimidating up close. It looks to be made of stone…and something very, very much other. It gleams a pearly white against the gray backdrop of water and mountains, with an equally colorless beach lapping at the edges of the shore near the base of it. It's several stories tall, with windows and balconies dotted all up the length of it in no particular fashion, like a drunken architect waved a hand and decided to throw in some ventilation at the last moment. It's unnerving because nothing lines up. It's fluid and without straight lines in the slightest, and like nothing I've ever seen before. The outside wall actually almost looks a porous stone, but when I get closer, I see that every inch is covered in spiderwebs.
That's reassuring.
A long ramp leads up from the beach to the tower itself, and as we approach, I could swear the tower grows taller. The griffin lands on the beach itself and then sits down, as if refusing to go any further, and I can't blame him in the slightest. Kassam turns to him and rubs his feathers one last time, then presses his face to the dangerous, sharp beak of the creature in a caress. "Thank you, my friend. You need serve no longer."
For some reason that surprises me. I watch as the griffin rubs its head against Kassam and then takes a few steps back and launches himself into the air, flying back over the dead waters of the lake. It's on the tip of my tongue to ask why we don't need a ride back, and then it hits me. There is no “back.” Kassam expects the Fates to help him ascend back to his home, and me…