Queer Fantasy and Weird Tales for the People
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 III: Banwa Province”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 II: The Road South”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 “Journey to the Water Chapter I: The Dragon Temple”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.
Continue reading “Journey to the Water Prologue: The Citadel”Closing out the week with my most recent project!
Berend was once a Son of Galaser, a member of the most prestigious mercenary company on the continent. Now, the Sons are no more, and only a handful of his former companions remain–one of whom was dismembered last night in what appears to be a demon-summoning ritual out of an old legend.
Isabel is a Sentinel of Ondir, the god of death. Armed with bell, book, and candle, her duty is to send restless spirits to the afterlife. Asking the ghost of an ex-mercenary if he saw his killer before he died is a routine task, but she soon finds that things will not be so easy: though everything Isabel knows says it must be impossible, it appears the soul has been damaged, torn asunder with magic that should not, cannot exist.
Together, they must hunt down a murderer with powers beyond imagination and discover terrible secrets of both magic and science in a city that is desperately trying to find a balance between the two.
Part One is now complete, and you can find it starting here.
A city in the desert, held in thrall by seven all-powerful tyrants.
A contest to win a sword that can kill a god.
A gentle healer whose dreams foretell the apocalypse.
A rider from the steppe, pursuing those who slew her people and scattered their remnants to the winds.
And a lonely wanderer from the North, running from his past and toward an uncertain future, caught in the middle of it all.
You can read Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea starting here!
With Part One of The Book of the New Moon Door finished, it’s time for me to start a new project, and I want to know what my readers think. Do you want to know what happens next, or is it time for something new? The poll will stay open for a couple weeks or until I get around to closing it. ETA: The poll will close Sunday, September 19, or most likely early Monday morning.
Thank you for voting! Feel free to leave me a comment if you have any thoughts or opinions.
The Gate
“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.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Twenty-Nine”Brace
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.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Twenty-Eight”Vortex
Berend said that he saw only darkness when he broke their connection, and now Isabel knows he was telling the truth. She can feel her breath condensing in the frigid air, but she cannot see it. There is nothing but black.
The illusion is a powerful one. In the ordinary darkness after sunset, it wouldn’t be too complex to cast, especially if one prepared ahead of time, but she is impressed with Geray’s skill. If he had stayed with the church of Alcos, or even with the university, he could have been the most powerful magic user in Gallia, if not the world. Maybe he wouldn’t have become wealthy from the research opportunities, but at least he and Warder would not have to be begging Lady Breckenridge for an investment. Instead, he was doing…this.
What’s the point of all of this? The murders, the summonings. It would be so much easier to do anything else.
She’s distracting herself, Isabel realizes. Panic is setting in, tugging at the periphery of her thoughts like a ringing in her ears, and she is just barely keeping it at bay with these mundanities.
Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Twenty-Seven”
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