Journey to the Water Chapter XXXIII: The Temple of the Elders

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.

Two guardsmen in polished armor escorted us into the city. I could not tell from their demeanor if they would have allowed me to leave Fenin and flee, and I decided not to test them. They stared at me, thinking I wouldn’t notice, glancing away whenever our eyes met. I was taller than they were, though not by much, and my clothing covered my tattoos—I was no stranger a sight than any other traveler in the desert. I suspected Svilsara did not receive many travelers.

I could not say why. It was remote, yes, but so was every other waystation. Blue and white walls cast off the desert’s heat, and well-watered flowers bloomed from every window. A clothesline cast across the thoroughfare held tunics of bright, patterned silk dyed blazing orange and verdant green, floating gently in a cool breeze. Our small procession passed by a woman and her three children, all dressed in silk, gold baubles dangling from their ears and hanging around their necks. They, too, stared at me.

I put on a confident swagger, pretending that I had planned to return their sacrificed priestess all along, and that I knew exactly why the serpent had not devoured her as planned. Of course, none of this was true, but I hoped that I could mask my uncertainty and deter the guards watching me from attempting to do me harm.

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Journey to the Water Chapter XXXII: Svilsara

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Confined by this new stranger’s grasp, his wicked knife inches from the pale veins of her emaciated arms, Fenin was surprisingly calm. Her eyes closed, and she knelt without struggling, her hands stretched upward above her captor’s curled fist, as if in supplication.

“I’m not from Svilsara,” I said, a needless clarification that I nonetheless felt compelled to make. Whatever devilry Fenin’s city had concocted and inflicted upon its citizens, I wanted no part of it. “I am a warrior of the North. Unhand the girl, and I’ll let you depart from here in peace.”

His smile only stretched wider. “I might have known.”

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Two, Chapter Twenty-Three

Walking Dead

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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“You should have predicted this, Sentinel,” Geray muses. He hovers two feet above the floor, as though to emphasize his relative safety and removal from the horde of undead at the door. “Hundreds of thousands of wandering spirits with nowhere to go, and the god of the dead absent. If they were a living mob, they’d have torches and pitchforks. I dare say you’d fare better were that the case.”

Isabel doesn’t have the will to stop herself from putting her hands over her ears. The pressure makes a dull roar that drowns out Geray and the wet, solid blows the walking dead are doing to the whitewashed wooden door. The lock is good iron, and the door itself a single, heavy oak panel, but it won’t hold forever.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Two, Chapter Twenty-Two

Locked

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“The geography of the nether world is complicated,” Isabel explains. “It’s governed not by distance and space but by the spiritual and conceptual relationship of one place to another.”

Not one of the words in her second sentence makes any sense to Berend. It must be evident on his face, because she looks at him and continues, “My point is that there are a lot of places in the world beyond that haven’t been discovered, and no one knows what might be lurking there.”

“Like the place with the eyes,” Berend says. He still can’t shake the feeling that the next time he looks out a window, they’ll be there again, filling the sky and staring down at him with malevolent, predatory intentions. “Or was that a thing? A creature as big as the world?”

Isabel shrugs. “There isn’t much of a useful distinction. Ondir is the gate, and the gate is Ondir. He is the realm of the dead and its lord.”

There’s a reason Berend never even entertained the thought of joining the clergy as a young man. He rubs at his own eyes, hoping they don’t look as dry and crusty as they feel. His borrowed coffee is wearing off. “Right. So you’re saying that there’s a place, or a person, or a…thing that eats souls like a fire eats wood. Nobody’s heard of it before, because it just appeared out of nowhere, but that happens sometimes.” He blinks, willing himself to stay awake and coherent a little longer. “Do I have that right?”

He looks at Warder, who glances expectantly up at Isabel.

She holds up two empty hands. “It’s more complicated than that, but yes. More or less.”

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Two, Chapter Twenty-One

Trade Secret

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Berend retreats to a stiff wooden chair, the upholstered seat little more than a suggestion of padding, placed in the hallway. Isabel slumps heavily into its companion a few feet away and on the opposite wall and stares, her expression blank and her eyes hollow, at nothing. He’s going to have to find a place for her to sleep, and soon, before she falls off the chair and knocks her head against either the wall or the floor.

For himself, he figures he has about two hours before the coffee he borrowed from Emryn Marner wears off. The young man was too soundly asleep to be asked, so it might be more accurate to say that Berend stole the coffee, but either way, it was a justifiable acquisition. He should have stolen some for Isabel.

As it turns out, Lucian Warder is alive. Berend had worried that wouldn’t be the case by the time they got here, though he didn’t breathe a word of his fears to Isabel. Warder’s alive, and that means that his entire plan hasn’t gone to hell. Yet.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Two, Chapter Twenty

Departure

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It’s nothing, Isabel tells herself. It’s a traveler’s tale, embellished with every telling until it’s unrecognizable as the original story. An entire village did not turn to metal overnight.

She’ll believe that anyone who chanced to be awake last night saw the red star fall. It had been bright as a jewel, burning like a distant bonfire through the sky of this world and of the next. But the rest? It would require a ritual from the old legends, a coven of mages made immortal by their own power, the sacrifice of dozens of innocents. The next part of the story would involve a holy warrior of the church of Alcos, in enchanted armor that shone like the sun and a sword that could cut through both flesh and lies, riding a winged steed into the place of their power.

Emryn Marner himself doesn’t seem to believe it. He eats his pie like a starving man—all men his age are starving—and doesn’t bring it up again. He and Berend take the tub down to the gutter and dump out the dirty water, and then he retreats to his room with his books. “There’s an exam next week,” he explains. “Though if the world’s ending, maybe I’ll get to miss it.”

“When I was a boy, my teacher said that one of the hells was just endless written exams, over and over, for all eternity,” says Berend.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Two, Chapter Nineteen

Isolation

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Berend takes the desk chair from Emryn’s bedroom and places it against the wall between the sitting room and the kitchen, facing away from the kitchen door. Its slats dig into his back. He’s reasonably sure he won’t fall asleep in it, but he wouldn’t be willing to wager any actual coin.

Water splashes as Isabel wedges the huge kettle sideways into the first bucket and takes it back to the stove. The hiss of steam follows.

When she asked him to stay by the door, Berend had assumed there would be some sort of conversation. He’s starting to doubt that the uncomfortable chair will be enough to keep him awake.

“I wasn’t ever going to take you to the temple of Isra,” he says. “You know that, right?”

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Two, Chapter Seventeen

Warning

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The young man stands slowly, rolling his shoulders, as though the somber temple of Ondir is a country park and he’s contemplating concluding his picnic and heading home. He walks unhurried to the end of the row and starts up the center aisle, his hands in the pockets of his fine trousers and his polished riding boots sending a slow rhythm to echo against the dome.

Berend stands, dragging Isabel up with him. His free hand goes first to his pistol—it’s empty, Isabel remembers, because he shot the animated corpse in the morgue and hasn’t had a chance to reload—and then to the hilt of his sword. His cloak hangs over his elbow, hiding the weapons from view.

She twists her wrist out of Berend’s grasp. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she whispers.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Two, Chapter Sixteen

Friends

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Berend marches Isabel out of Father Pereth’s office. His grip on her arm is immovable as a rusted iron hinge. Isabel struggles, twisting her elbow and pulling against him, but it’s no use. Fear restricts her vision to the end of the hall, where the dome allows in a few thin beams of sunlight. She expects the chapel will be filled with constables, but she might still be able to get away, to disappear into the back corridors and out into the graveyard—if she could only get herself free of Berend.

She trusted him. She’d thought he cared enough about the state of the world, about protecting the people of Mondirra, that he would help her. He saw the same terrible vision in the nether that she did. She’d even thought he supported her against the high priest’s accusations, until he’d smiled and acquiesced and grabbed her by the elbow.

“I’m not going to the temple of Isra,” she snarls through her teeth. She doesn’t want to hurt him, but if she has to, she’ll drive the heel of her boot straight into the soft leather instep of his. It’ll have to be quick, and then she’ll have to run. He’s still injured. That will slow him down.

Instead, Berend lets go. He holds both hands out, spreading his fingers to show they’re empty. “I know.”

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Two, Chapter Fifteen

Affliction

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The body breathes in dry, rattling sobs, forcing air through collapsed lungs and a desiccated throat. It lurches forward blindly, rather like a garden slug, the sheet tangling its legs and covering its sightless face. The one free arm gropes its way forward, long, bruised fingers grasping at nothing.

Berend draws his pistol, levels the barrel at where he’s pretty sure the back of the corpse’s skull pushes against its shroud, pulls back the hammer, and fires.

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