Category: Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea

Journey to the Water Chapter XLIV: Beside the Water

Journey to the Water cover image: three evergreen trees stand on a hillside, shrouded in bluish fog. Subtitle reads: the sequel to Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea.

Table of Contents

I spent three days before Deinaros the All-knowing summoned me. The three floors of the tower to which I had been confined soon lost their novelty, and I wandered the city instead, taking in the sights and sounds of the sprawling metropolis. The markets beckoned me with the scents of fresh fish and warm bread, and the taverns promised strong drink—with some effort, I avoided them, to keep my wits about me. Wherever I went, the steepled temple looked down on me from above, its seven carved pillars a constant reminder of Phyreios. What relation the Ascended had to these tall, faceless gods of the West, I could not deduce. These seven stayed confined to their temple and the small carved icons in the windows lining each winding street, and for that I could only be grateful. 

Cricket left each morning to sell her trinkets at the harbor. I went with her, on the first day, curious as to why her teacher sent her alone to the market. At best, I feared she would be robbed, weighed down as she was by such a quantity of silver; at worst, I had just recently learned of the flesh-markets of Nyssodes. A clever kidnapper needed only to coincide with a waiting ship, and Cricket would never have returned to the tower. 

She bade me keep my distance, though, when we reached the docks. She had charms to sell, and my looming presence frightened away her customers. I asked if she was afraid, and if she had the means to defend herself. 

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New Patreon Post/ Journey to the Water Chapter XLV

“If I return?” I echoed. I could not help but smile at her utter lack of faith in me. “You think I won’t?”

Chapter XLV: The Summer Sea

Eske is off again, this time to recover an artifact for the wizard who claims to be able to help with Eske’s quest. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon, or wait until next week for it to be posted here on the blog.

Journey to the Water Chapter XLIII: The Book-Collector

Journey to the Water cover image: three evergreen trees stand on a hillside, shrouded in bluish fog. Subtitle reads: the sequel to Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea.

Table of Contents

With the book removed from my care at last, a weight lifted from my shoulders. The relief came with a flare of panic—had I handed my one and only lead to the realms beyond death to a charlatan? Deinaros turned the pages, his brows furrowed in concentration and a pleased smile playing upon his lips. I had already faded from his awareness. 

If nothing else, Deinaros knew this book. On the word of his young attendant, he had expected it, like an old friend returned at last from a journey of decades. He greeted each horrifying diagram with a nod, each twisting line of text with a tap of one long finger. 

“Well done,” he said, more to the book than to me. “This copy is nearly complete. The only things missing are the long, rambling musings of my former master. Everything useful is here.”

“Your master wrote it?” I asked. “He must have traveled nearly as far as I. I retrieved this book many months ago, from an island in the southern sea.”

Deinaros glanced up for the briefest moment before his eyes returned to the page. “No, he only penned the original, centuries ago. He never left the city of his birth. His followers, myself among them, made copies, and those who found those copies made more still.”

My heart sank. How many ambitious rulers became like the king of Salmacha, their souls clinging to their bodies even as their flesh rotted and fell from their bones? A second, selfish question followed the first: how many ill-starred lovers, grieving parents, and lonely widows had taken the book and attempted the same task I had undertaken? Had the gods already taken up arms against a sea of sorrowful humanity, chasing away any chance I had of breaching their ordained defenses? 

“Very few now,” Deinaros said. “It was purged from the kingdoms of the West. So many were burned that the pyres reached the heavens. I have not seen a word or line from this book in many years.”

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New Patreon Post/ Journey to the Water Chapter XLIV

I lay awake, watching the stars move across my window, and contemplated setting out on my own once more with no guidance from the all-knowing one.

Chapter XLIV: Beside the Water

Eske finally gets some rest before he sets out on the next quest. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon. Right now I have only one tier, which is $3 a month. If you can’t spare $3, this chapter will be available to read here on the blog next week.

Journey to the Water Chapter XLII: The Sorcerer’s Tower

Journey to the Water cover image: three evergreen trees stand on a hillside, shrouded in bluish fog. Subtitle reads: the sequel to Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea.

Table of Contents

The girl led me through the market, her trinkets ringing like tiny bells and catching the afternoon sunlight. She glittered from shoulder to wrist. She wore straw sandals with fraying edges, and her steps on the stone pavement whispered like wind through a stand of reeds, disappearing under the din of the market and the roar of the surf below the cliff. The smell of salt and fresh fish filled the air.

I had missed the sea. My persistent melancholy lightened, like a small weight removed from the heavy pack on my back, as the white sails bloomed like flowers on the far horizon and the sun touched the waves with gold. Perhaps I should not have gone to Nagara, and instead stayed with my companions on the Lady of Osona, making my way here by means of the trade winds. There was no guarantee that Captain Hamilcar would have brought me here any faster; he followed his own maps, and went where the call of treasure and adventure led him. 

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New Patreon Post/ Journey to the Water Chapter XLIII

“The books are so old, their spines are weak, and things try to escape.”

Chapter XLIII: The Book-Collector

Eske has enlisted the help of a strange wizard and his stranger apprentice. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon.

Journey to the Water Chapter XLI: The City on the Cliffs

Journey to the Water cover image: three evergreen trees stand on a hillside, shrouded in bluish fog. Subtitle reads: the sequel to Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea.

Table of Contents

I left the tiny commune around Isra’s well, and I left the serene face of the goddess, and I wandered across the desert to the lands of the West. Somewhere beyond the northern horizon lay the lands of my people, where our gods walked the plains of endless ice in pursuit of the great beasts that ever eluded them, and my dragon-headed ship lay beneath water cold and dark as death. My journey would not lead me back there. I had to press forward. 

Once, my friend Aysulu had told me of the gods of the West. There were seven of them, she had said, like the seven Ascended of Phyreios, though they moved between faith and legend and metaphor and not in the streets of their cities. Isra was one of them. Like her, the others had wind-scarred faces and the faded implements of their stations held in their stone hands: a shepherd’s crook, a set of balancing scales, a scepter, a smith’s hammer. They towered over the dunes, their eyes long since etched away, the human hands who carved their figures buried beneath centuries of sand. At their feet, the remains of their temples crumbled into dust. 

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New Patreon Post/ Journey to the Water Chapter XLII

“When can I see the all-knowing one? Is he above?” I frowned and studied the small, brown face again. “Or are you the all-knowing one, and this is but a test I must pass?”

Chapter XLII: The Sorcerer’s Tower

Eske meets a wizard, but there’s more going on here than meets the eye. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon.

Journey to the Water Chapter XL: Isra’s Well

Journey to the Water cover image: three evergreen trees stand on a hillside, shrouded in bluish fog. Subtitle reads: the sequel to Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea.

Table of Contents

This small community of green-robed women had been constructed around a deep well. The underground spring, they told me, belonged to the goddess Isra herself, and it was her will that the water be given to any who asked for it. It also irrigated an expansive garden of small, hardy vegetables and a date palm on either side of the chapel. No matter how much I stared at the garden, it stubbornly remained, its thin yellow-green leaves trembling in the harsh desert wind. This was no illusion. Already this goddess stood higher in my esteem than the serpent god of Svilsara. 

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New Patreon Post/ Journey to the Water Chapter XLI

“Does this Deinaros know how to read?” I asked.
The girl’s face turned to disdain. “Of course he does. He’s all-knowing.”

Chapter XLI: The City on the Cliffs

Eske arrives in the first city of the West, perched on the cliffs looking out to sea. He may have found a lead, but the answers he seeks won’t be so easy to achieve. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon.