Journey to the Water Chapter VII: The Slope of Ewandar

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.

My first tasks were menial ones: mending a roof, hauling water from a spring in the forest, and helping Kala reset her fish traps. The work was no great effort, though my eyes wandered every moment to the stone edifice behind the huts. I assumed, with no stretch of the imagination, that this was the temple, and when my work was done, I would enter it, and perhaps catch a glimpse of my beloved for the first time since he was stolen from me.

His god had promised me he would be safe. I would only believe it once I saw him—I had lost my faith in gods. I hoped that the god of this island, to whom the grandmothers paid homage, would prove more worthy of trust.

Continue reading →

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

Table of Contents

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.

Continue reading →

Journey to the Water Interlude One: Citadel Gate

Table of Contents

“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.

Continue reading →

Journey to the Water Chapter V: The Emerald Sea

Table of Contents

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.

Continue reading →

Journey to the Water Chapter IV: The Hills of Maagay

Table of Contents

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.”

Continue reading →

Journey to the Water Chapter III: Banwa Province

Table of Contents

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.

Continue reading →

Journey to the Water Chapter II: The Road South

Table of Contents

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.”

Continue reading →

Journey to the Water Chapter I: The Dragon Temple

Table of Contents

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.

Continue reading →

Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea: Chapter XXVII

Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea cover image: a wide, still river with forested mountain peaks rising on either side, underneath a clouded sky. — In which the journey continues.

Table of Contents

We made our way back to the gate, a grim procession through the rain and the rubble. Phyreios had truly and utterly fallen. There was nothing left of the temple at the foot of the mountain, once the city’s most magnificent structure. Of the arena, all that remained was a few broken pillars of soot-stained white marble, standing half-buried in a bed of broken stone. Over the husk of the city lay a miasma of smoke, and the rain brought up a thick fog. I could not see much farther than the reach of my arm. The Sword of Heaven hung heavy from my hand.

Continue reading →

Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea: Chapter XXVI

Table of Contents

Weight bore down upon me. The broken earth cut into my flesh. Were it not for the pain, I would have thought I had perished, crushed beneath the rock. Absolute, impenetrable darkness pressed in all around.

Continue reading →

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: