Journey to the Water Chapter VI: The Isle of the Priestesses

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.

The girl led me through a forest unlike any I had ever seen. Bright golden fruit peered out between leaves of deepest emerald green, and birds with cerulean feathers called out to each other from the tops of tall trees. A scarlet lizard, a tiny cousin of the fire-breathing salamander I had fought in the arena of Phyreios, skittered across the narrow footpath.

I asked the girl her name, and between bites of the pastry with which the captain had bribed her, she told me it was Kala. She was handmaiden to the grandmothers—a position of great honor, I inferred, especially for one so young.

Our path sloped upward, toward the mountain at the island’s center. The only clouds on that bright blue morning ringed the black peak like a crown. Though the earth did not tremble and the mountain was still, it was a volcano, no less mighty than the ones that sprang forth in fire and steam from the sea in my homeland.

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Journey to the Water Interlude One: Citadel Gate

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“I’ve remembered my name,” Khalim said. “Will you help me?”

The moon-faced owl preened the crook of one wing with its beak. “And why should I do that, little one?”

Khalim walked to the base of the arch on which the owl perched, beside the stair that led to the temple he could never open. “Why do you call me that? I’m larger than you.”

“Is that what you see?”

He nodded. He was half as tall as the arch, and though the owl’s wings were broad, he guessed he could hold its body in his arms.

The owl lowered its wing and studied him with one eye. “Interesting. And what do you look like?”

It was a strange question, seeing as the owl was looking him in the face, but Khalim would play along. The last thing he wished to do was offend the only being he had seen in such a long time—perhaps forever. He wasn’t sure. He looked down at his hands.

For a brief flash, he saw what he expected to see—brown skin, calluses, the frayed hem of a sleeve. Then his flesh turned to white marble, with two black veins twining up each of his wrists. His clothing became ridges of stone, exquisitely carved of the same material that formed the walls of the citadel.

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Journey to the Water Chapter V: The Emerald Sea

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I was a day out of Banwa town, and I had yet to see another soul on the muddy road beside the river. It likely would not have made a difference—Bran was a steppe horse, an exceedingly rare sight this far south. Any other traveler would have been just as much at a loss as I.

I took him down the riverbank and into the snow-fed water, letting it cool his legs and his belly. He rallied after a few minutes, and we continued on our way, but after an hour he slowed again, panting.

Aysulu would have known what to do. But she was half a world away, and I had not seen her in more than a year, since I had left Phyreios. Bran had been her last gift to me. I considered, briefly, leaving him, or selling him in the hopes that he would find his way into the hands of someone who could better care for him, but as soon as the thought came to me, I pushed it aside. He deserved better, as did Aysulu’s friendship, and I feared he was the only thing keeping me from the madness of solitude as I traveled alone in this strange land.

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Journey to the Water Chapter IV: The Hills of Maagay

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A single lantern flared to life atop the fort wall, and I could just make out a quiet conversation of alarm above the whispering of the wind in the trees. Dark shapes of men moved about on the battlements.

I approached, my axe on my shoulder and my other hand free and held up in what I hoped was a gesture of peace. “My name is Eske,” I shouted in the tongue of the Dragon Temple. Some of the men in the town could understand me, and if I was right, some of these men would, as well. “I want to speak to your leader.”

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Journey to the Water Chapter III: Banwa Province

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My axe came down on the first guard’s head. His helmet caved in over his face and he stumbled backward with a curse I could not understand. The others pressed in around me, fencing me in with their spears. A flash to my left caught my eye, and I stepped back, fearing a deadly point.

It was only the shaft of a spear darting toward me. It glanced harmlessly off my shoulder. They still intended to bring me in alive.

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Journey to the Water Chapter II: The Road South

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The dragon sent me south, to the Isles of Ashinya. There, I was to speak with the elders, who kept an artifact they called the Dreaming Eye in a temple on the largest island. With their help, I might be able to use it, and it would open the way to the other world that I sought. I was unsure exactly how it worked, but I trusted the word of the dragon.

“You cannot travel as I do,” she said. “You are human, and you will require human guidance. Pay your obeisance to the wise women of Ashinya, and they will help you.”

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Journey to the Water Chapter I: The Dragon Temple

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Phyreios was in ruins. A gaping black maw lay open at the base of the mountain, where the worm had gone back from whence it came, into the bowels of the earth. Under the clear autumn sky, a miasma of smoke and dust hovered over the rubble. The survivors were few, and they had nothing but what they were able to carry, but they lived, and they would rebuild. A god walked among them, and he would lead them to a golden age of peace and prosperity—a god who wore the face of my beloved.

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Journey to the Water Prologue: The Citadel

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He had been in the citadel for so long that he could not remember being anywhere else. Surely, he thought, there was a world beyond the city’s borders, past where the streets faded into fog and the marble walls turned blank and white, but no matter how far he walked, he always found himself back at the center square. Here, there was a temple he could not enter, with crystal archways that shone fiery red in the perpetual twilight and windows of many-colored glass. The stone door was far too heavy for him to move on his own, and he had been alone here for an eternity. Or, perhaps, it had only been an hour—the sun had never moved, after all, and the city stones did not change with the seasons as a forest would, or a field.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Twenty-Nine

The Gate

The Book of the New Moon Door cover image: A book with yellowing, wrinkled pages lies open on an old wooden desk, with a sprig of lavender lying in the center.

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“Wait,” Berend says as they reach the bottom of the stairs. The house is still dark, but it’s an ordinary darkness, and the streetlights are visible from the front windows. An intermittent dark stain leads from the front door toward the back of the house.

Isabel takes an instinctive step back. Is it blood? It was too dark, before, even with her candle, and she hadn’t noticed it. There are no other signs of violence that she can see, though the holy symbol of Alcos on the mantel remains corroded and black.

“We should keep moving,” she says. She doesn’t want to give Geray a chance to begin another ritual. She had sent the ghosts away, but a powerful enough draw could bring them back, and others besides.

Gods. For the briefest moment, she had held their tethers, felt them straining against her will. It was nothing like the gentle touch of the bell and her own ritual circles. The ghosts were in terrible, agonizing pain, crying out with a sound that Isabel could feel rather than hear. She had released them as soon as she had the awareness—she should have taken the time to guide them across the veil properly, but she could barely think. Still, the sensation of it lingered.

If that is what necromancy feels like, she cannot think of a reason why anyone would willingly perform it.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Twenty-Eight

Brace

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Just like Berend suspected, Isabel’s sword proves far more effective against the ghosts. It’s light and springy in his hand, lacking the weight and authority of his own two-handed saber, but when it cuts through the misty forms, the spirits recoil and visibly dim. Their figures remain intact; they’re not like Mikhail, broken and screaming.

Out of reach of the blade, the ghosts rally their energy, brightening and pressing forward again. Something—Geray, the house, or some mystical nonsense Berend won’t even try to understand—is giving them strength. Unfortunately for him, he is made of flesh, and can’t do the same. He’s not as young as he once was, and it’s so very cold in this hallway. The candle hisses and gutters, but for now, it stays lit.

A hand of fog rakes at him with talons like a hawk’s. He brings the sword up, but it’s no use—the ghostly arm passes right through it, and its fingers reach his chest. He feels as though he has swallowed ice, the cold moving down the inside of his body. There is no pain, no sensation of being cut, but the ghost tears through his clothing and skin, leaving bloody marks from his shoulder down to his belly. The wounds ooze, and frost collects at their edges.

They aren’t deep. Eventually, Berend guesses, the spirits will draw enough blood to kill him, or he’ll freeze to death in the aura that surrounds them, but for the moment, he is still able to fight. He’ll keep them off of Isabel until she finishes whatever she’s doing.

It is that moment when she slumps over, hat askew, her body curled around the chalk circle inscribed on the wooden floor.

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