“I came here to find you. I’m alive, and I wanted to make sure you were, too. I’m fine, by the way, thank you for asking.”
The Book of the New Moon Door
In the wake of a zombie apocalypse, Berend makes his way across the empty city to find Isabel and ask her what’s going on. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon.
Also, brief update: I’ll be hitting my word count goal of 30k for the month of May tomorrow, but I’ll have about a chapter and a half left before the end of the book. The draft will definitely be done this week, and then the real work begins.
Father Pereth is, in fact, still alive. The novice with the smudged face escorts Isabel through the sanctum, where the priests in prayer don’t look up to acknowledge her, and down the narrow hallway to the high priest’s office. The door is closed, and someone has carved the sigils of the seven gods into the wood with a pocketknife, in an attempt to ward the room against the dead, should they have breached the outer doors. There had only been one body in the morgue, and the rest seem to have been repelled by other means. It’s fortunate that this warding wasn’t put to the test. Isabel doesn’t know what might have happened.
The novice knocks, and the sound of furniture being moved and the lock disengaging follows. The door swings open to reveal Father Pereth, his cassock dusty and his hair disheveled, but otherwise unhurt.
Pereth’s bloodless mouth draws itself into a tighter, paler line. “Heresy,” is all he says. He reaches for the door.
The Book of the New Moon Door
As the world crumbles around her, Isabel tries to seek guidance. Spoiler: it doesn’t go well. You can read this chapter right now on Patreon, or wait until next week to read it for free here.
At the head of a column of ghosts, with Risoven and the dead priests of Ondir at her side, Isabel approaches the crumbling wall. It buckles outward, looming toward her, holding back the weight of the thing behind it by faith and force of will. The many eyes, clustered together like sprouting fungus, roll in unseen sockets to appraise her, pupils contracting to pinpricks.
It’s foolish, what she’s doing. At best, it will stave off the destruction of the world for only a little while longer. She hopes it will be enough time for someone wiser than she to find a more permanent solution.
Another step, and an ear-splitting whine shakes the shattered sky. Isabel puts her hands over her ears, but it doesn’t help—neither the sound nor her hands have a physical presence here in the world beyond. Ripples form in the mud beneath her feet as the high-pitched note goes on and on, stabbing through her spirit form like a hot knife. Stones fall loose from the wall and dissipate upon hitting the ground.
There is triumph in this horrible song, and a warning, and something else Isabel can’t name, a sort of mad, painful delight at causing the world itself to tear apart at the seams, as it screams with both love and hate of the task. If ever this thing possessed the power of reason, the ability is long gone. It is a creature—a structure, an all-pervasive thought—of pure chaos.
“I need help,” she says to the empty city, the impossible forest, the gods, and Brother Risoven’s lifeless body. Her voice is hoarse, and it cracks. No one will hear her. No one is here, not even the gods.
The Book of the New Moon Door
I have a brand-new chapter for you on Patreon, where you can find out what happened to Isabel after the end of Part Two. Read it now by subscribing, or wait until next week when it will be up here on the blog!
One by one, the dead fall still and drop to the tiled floor. Silence falls over the hospital wing.
Berend stands on legs shaky with exhaustion, adrenaline the only thing keeping him upright, his empty pistol gripped in one hand as stiff as a corpse’s. A slow fire that reeks of disinfectant and rotting flesh eats at what’s left of his barricade.
Isabel gets to her knees and grips the back of the driver’s seat. It’s empty, and the carriage jerks and bumps over the fog-shrouded terrain with no apparent guidance. Ghostly figures part like water before it, barely lifting their heads to acknowledge it. Their attention is focused on the crumbling wall, and the seething mass of eyes behind it.
Where are we going? Either the carriage is compelled by a base, inanimate desire to move despite its lack of horses, or it has some destination it seeks out mindlessly like a compass needle finding north. Isabel can’t wait to find out when it will stop. Her body, and Brother Risoven’s, are still sitting on the carriage’s physical counterpart, less than an arm’s length from the horde of undead filling the streets of Mondirra. When the angry corpses pull the wheels off the carriage, which won’t be long given their numbers, both she and Risoven will be torn to bloody shreds in no time at all.
Risoven’s spirit crouches behind her, one arm over his eyes and the other hand gripping the edge of the open window below him. He prays in a breathless, whispered litany: “Watcher on the wall, master of the gate, guardian of the bridge, shepherd of all souls, deliver us, please.”
Ondir isn’t listening, wherever he might be now. Isabel reaches out and shakes Risoven by the shoulder. “We have to hurry.”
“Some of us are still alive,” says Isabel, “for the moment.”
“We’ll see how long that lasts.”
The Book of the New Moon Door
It’s the last chapter of Part Two, now available on Patreon! If you’re not a subscriber, worry not, it will be here next week. In the meantime, make sure you’re caught up by checking the Stories tab above (under the Menu if you’re on mobile).
Part Three of The Book of the New Moon Door is about to start! I hope to have it finished in a couple of months, after which I will begin the editing process to publish the whole thing later this year. The book will be published one way or another, because no one can stop me, but the question remains whether to maintain the current chapter-by-chapter posting schedule. It is quite possible that, at the rate we’re going, the book will be ready for publication before all the chapters have been posted.
So, I’d like your thoughts! Here’s a poll:
This poll will close on April 1, so let me know your thoughts! ETA: I think it needs to stay up a little longer, so let’s say the 7th.
Space Whales Press 