Now that Fhiad has taken the form of a demon boar, Agnes rides him through the mountain forest on the way to Erdbhein. They make quick progress, stopping only for Agnes to rest. As they approach Erdbhein Castle, Fhiad leads Agnes to an overlook from which she can see the overgrown ruins of the city in the valley.
At the cliffside castle’s back entrance, severely decayed husks emerge from what used to be a village that housed the castle staff. Fhiad is frightened, so Agnes dismounts and comforts him as she leads him across a bridge and into the castle’s rear courtyard. More husks emerge, and Fhiad is paralyzed with fear. Agnes forcibly reverts him to his human form, and they escape into the castle keep.
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Based on the synopsis, you might think there’s fighting in this chapter, but the truth is that I dislike writing action. As much as I enjoy the choreography of cinematic fight scenes, I find prose descriptions of battles to be tedious. I always skim through action sequences as a reader. Why subject myself to this sort of thing as a writer?
In my defense, neither Fhiad nor Agnes is an action hero. Fhiad is an extremely cowardly demon, and Agnes wields a sword the way I imagine most people would, which is to panic and swing it around wildly. When she actually hits something, she’s horrified and disgusted.
Instead of a thrilling adventure, this chapter is more of an extended meditation on death and decay. In particular, I really enjoyed writing about the slow creep of the husks. My personal take on zombies is that they’re scariest when they take the “persistence predator” aspects of human physicality to an extreme. Fast zombies are a lot of fun! But slow zombies that just keep coming? That’s what really creeps me out.
On a more serious note, zombies are an indirect way to think through the indignity of certain types of death. An Unfound Door isn’t a political novel by any means, but I can’t deny that I wrote this story while watching a genocide unfold. It’s important to bear witness, I think. Still, I’m disturbed by the media spectacle of destruction, in which the victims of war are reduced to nothing more than their blunt physicality in order to sell an enticing narrative to a public that passively consumes death on television or online. As my academic work has (hopefully) demonstrated, I care deeply about these issues, and fiction is another way to explore the complications and consequences of an empire lashing out at imagined enemies as it crumbles from the inside. Let it suffice to say that I have a great deal of sympathy for zombies.
In any case, Agnes isn’t particularly afraid of husks, which she sees as pathetic but harmless. There are a whole lot of husks in this ruined castle, however, and Agnes has a difficult time shepherding Fhiad inside the keep while doing her best to keep both of them safe. Consequently, the main narrative breakthrough that occurs in this chapter is a demonstration that Agnes has become much more sensitive to Fhiad’s emotional state. I guess riding a man through the forest like a horse will do that.
The illustration of Agnes in the chapter preview graphic was created by Loustica Lucia, a bright and shining fantasy artist who posts colorful battle scenes and character portraits on Instagram (here), on Tumblr (here), and on Bluesky (here).
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