Queer Fantasy and Weird Tales for the People
“I’m sorry,” she says to the ghosts, stopping at the edge where the iron grass gives way to greenery. “I wish you had someone better.”
The Book of the New Moon Door
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and it’s full of ghosts? You can read this new chapter on Patreon right now!
Bridges
Berend wanders back the way he came, down the hill past the temple of Ondir. The doors are shut, and the low dome sits like the carcass of an enormous beetle, hollow and still. Presumably, there are still people inside, but they don’t show their faces.
Maybe all of Ondir’s holy men are hiding. The ghosts lingering around the Temple District followed Isabel when she left, but Berend is sure there are more—there certainly will be, if the world shifts again and the district falls into a chasm, or if either of the walls holding back the many-eyed thing (or is it a place? Berend can’t keep it straight) finally fall.
He’d feel better if there were four walls, but at this point, he’s taking what he can get. It probably doesn’t matter, either way, because the walls are just ideas. Or something.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Ten”Of course the end of the world has to come around now,when he’s a little over a year shy of forty, and not when he was twenty-two, had both eyes, and had never had so much as a hangover to slow him down.
The Book of the New Moon Door
The apocalypse happens on no one’s schedule. You can read this latest chapter on Patreon.
Transformation
The grass beneath Isabel’s feet is metal wire, brittle and sharp. As she enters the silent village, the crowd of ghosts at her heels, she checks her hands and the hems of her sleeves for any sign that she’s undergoing the same transformation. Her fingers remain flesh; her coat is still wool. Whatever happened here is over now. All that remains is a village made of iron.
What had Emryn Marner said? Something about the red star, and a town half a day away—and the story a traveler had told about it, passed from alehouse to inn until it reached the University District. Isabel had dismissed it then. She’d had more pressing concerns.
A scraping, rattling sound that makes Isabel’s teeth hurt sweeps through the village as the wind rustles the grass underfoot and the thatching on the roofs. Flat surfaces—walls, fence posts, and the sides of the unfortunate cattle—shine dully in the midmorning light. She avoids looking in any more windows, but that doesn’t spare her the sight of a stablehand, no older than ten, cowering by the fence with iron arms covering his head. His hair is fine wire, coiled tightly, and the ends crumble as the wind passes through it. Iron dust falls to the iron earth.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Nine”He has a warm coat and enough bread to last him the day, which is about how long he can be sure he’ll live, so he’s content. If he sees tomorrow, he’ll worry about providing for it then.
The Book of the New Moon Door
Berend struggles to traverse the shattered landscape and get his sword back. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon.
Landscapes
Isabel figures she must be a sight, wearing too-large borrowed clothes and an even larger coat, but she’s warm and her belly is full, so she decides not to worry about it. She’s not much more strange in appearance than anyone else on the road from the Temple District to the university, bypassing the barricaded route through the city’s center. Most of her fellow travelers are ghosts, dressed in the echoes of whatever they were wearing in life, bearing the wounds of their encounter with the reanimated dead—the wrath of their ghostly predecessors.
So many spirits had followed Isabel to the wall, and yet there are more. When she looks over her shoulder, they’re following her, four or five abreast and a dozen deep. Most wear watchmen’s uniforms, the patches on their vests indistinct. One just behind Isabel is a nun, her green habit turned gray, a broken piece of wood clutched in one hand as a weapon.
“Why are you following me?” she asks aloud. Even if she had her magic, if Ondir wasn’t beyond her reach, she doesn’t know a single one of these ghosts’ names. Can they tell she is—she was—a Sentinel, despite the lack of all inward and outward markers?
They don’t give her an answer. The darkened hollows of their eyes gaze straight ahead, unseeing, as they trudge after her.
I can’t help them. If ever there was need of a Sentinel, it would be now, but she can do nothing.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Eight”Her fingers remain flesh; her coat is still wool. Whatever happened here is over now. All that remains is a village made of iron.
The Book of the New Moon Door
In case you missed yesterday’s update, Journey to the Water is on a brief hiatus, and I’ll be posting new chapters of The Book of the New Moon Door every week for the next month or so. You can enjoy the latest chapter on Patreon.
As she approaches the forest, the pines whisper back to the ghosts. It sounds like she’s caught in a storm. It sounds like a warning.
The Book of the New Moon Door
Isabel crosses the apocalyptic landscape and finds something unexpected in the latest chapter of The Book of the New Moon Door, now available on Patreon.
Screams
Berend props himself up, his back against the dais and his head resting at the base of Isra’s altar. A smiling goddess, her arms cradling sheaves of wheat balanced on her wide hips like a pair of infants, gazes down at him beatifically. He’s always liked Isra; her green-clad nuns have gentle hands and a collection of excellent painkilling drugs, and they listen to his war stories, even pretending to be interested. The goddess herself hasn’t done much of anything, in his experience, but that’s how these things go. You pray to the gods, and maybe some people show up to do what needs to be done, and everyone gives the gods all the credit and moves on with their lives.
That is, until Berend learned that Galaser had given up his whole godly person to hold back the thing with all the eyes. He still doesn’t quite believe it. Maybe he didn’t really believe in the gods, not really. They were more like concepts than divine beings, weren’t they? Maybe someone like Isabel believed in Ondir as a person, the keeper of the gates or what have you, but most people didn’t.
Isabel would tell him that it doesn’t matter. Ondir is the gate, and also the idea of death. And so Galaser, the idea of a warrior, can stand on the idea of a fortress wall and give his life defending it. Berend might ask her for clarification, but she’s asleep, or close enough that he doesn’t want to disturb her.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Seven”Berend knows this is Arden Geray, despite the absence of his face, because of the bullet hole in his chest. The tattered remains of a starched shirt help, but Berend put that hole there. He’d recognize it anywhere.
The Book of the New Moon Door
After zombies, it’s time for more ghosts. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon, or wait a week until it’s available free here. My Patreon is only $3 a month!
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