We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Salt King by Natasha Pulley, an apocalyptic fantasy novel about perception, faith, and the ability of fantasy, out from Bloomsbury on August 18th.
Jesuit priest Avelyn Brocken was born right into a mining household in Hreodwater, a small, completely remoted salt city within the Fens of England. At age 16, he fled, abandoning his religion within the god of the mine—the Salt King—and the mythology that killed his entire household.
When a fellow priest is miraculously healed solely to then be turned to salt after a go to to Hreodwater, Avelyn is distributed by the Vatican to research. However in Hreodwater, the city’s mild physician, Jericho, tells him that the priest isn’t the one one experiencing unusual cures—and might not be the one one in peril from a substance within the mine that the locals name “salt mild.”
Avelyn and Jericho staff as much as defend the world from the salt mild—however they could already be too late: unusual happenings are occurring at mines all all over the world. At an archaeological dig on the Lifeless Sea, electrical gadgets froth salt; at one other salt mine in Russia, a KGB officer finds the our bodies of 5 vacationers who appear to have turned to salt; and on the enormous salt works at Wieliczska in Poland, all communication is misplaced, and rumors flow into of whole annihilation.
As salt mild spreads, devastating cities all over the world, Avelyn should resolve what and who to consider—and whether or not his religion is robust sufficient to resist an apocalypse.
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By the customs home was a steady. The steady grasp had gone residence, however there was an honesty field. Avelyn needed to stand below the lamp wanting down at his handful of crystal Hreod cash for an embarrassing few seconds earlier than he had any sense of the worth. Six pence in a shilling, twelve shillings was a crown, six crowns was a guinea—had he used to earn a guinea a month within the mine? What was affordable for a borrowed horse? He peered into the field to see what different folks had left. It was primarily the little amethyst tokens that had been pence. Proper.
On the again of the coin, the antler-crowned picture of the Salt King flashed because it fell. It landed, as all of the cash had, with the King dealing with upwards.
He went out to the paddock to see if he may entice anyone over with an apple, boots creaking on the stiff marsh grass that loved the briny earth right here. All of the horses had been clustered on the far finish: they had been licking a standing stone of purple halite as if they had been hoping to tidy it up for an necessary event.
It was the salt form from the video.
The footage had made it appear like a lump of rock, however when you had been strolling, catching the sunshine on it at totally different angles, you might see that it had as soon as been an individual. The strains of elbows and shoulders had been nonetheless there, and a dip that was the inward curve of a backbone.
One thing else hadn’t proven up on the digicam both.
Avelyn knew what was coming, and he thought he was prepared for it—he had even given himself a talking-to on the practice about it—however when his sight adjusted, it was nonetheless a deep-down shock.
The halite glowed. It was not mild that any movie footage had ever recorded.
Avelyn didn’t know what salt mild was. He’d by no means thought twice about it when he lived right here. When he left, he had questioned for some time if Hreoda noticed barely additional up the spectrum and he’d been seeing ultraviolet mild, however that didn’t clarify why he stopped seeing it when he left. He had tried to analysis it, however as a result of Outsiders couldn’t see it, the few students who had braved Hreodwater appeared to suppose it was only a metaphor.
However he was really seeing.
Threaded by the purple stone was mild. That mild floated outward in an uneven halo, tinting the air for ten or twelve toes in each route. It had its personal color, one Avelyn hadn’t seen for twelve years: an eerie amber-violet. Wisps of it hung within the air.
The nearer to the mine you went, the brighter it will be.
The horses had been pleased. They liked rock salt virtually as a lot as sugar. If there was nothing else, they’d nibble the salt that shaped on the fence, however the discerning horse would all the time go for halite.
Avelyn eased between the horses and chipped some salt from the pillar with the nook of his cellphone. Every ruby shard smouldered, ember-glowing, because it fell into his palm.
Then he jumped, as a result of the salt was scorching. Not simply heat as a result of a horse had leaned towards it, however—scorching, prefer it had simply come out of an oven.
What?
He had a maddening have to try to take a photograph. His cellphone would nonetheless work for a few minutes this near the border, however it wouldn’t choose up salt mild, which was enraging as a result of… how was he supposed to clarify this to the Vatican?
A horse harrumphed and nudged him.
When he gave her an apple, she huffed approvingly and let him loop a bridle over her nostril so they might go inside. The scent of hay and horses picked him up and dropped him twelve years into the previous, and he was sixteen once more.
Rome was a dream. He wasn’t a priest. That was foolish. He was the grandson of Girl Brocken, and betrothed to Girl Hringen. He was the apprentice of a well-regarded witch and solely a stroll within the deep tunnels away from incomes his masks.
He needed to stand there and collect up the years once more. He wasn’t sixteen: he had taken his vows, he had held two ministries, he had a grasp’s diploma in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian College, he lived on the Jesuit Curia together with everybody else who labored for Radio Vaticano, the place he taken care of the pointless Latin part of the information service two days per week, and for the opposite three… he nonetheless had a yr left educating Latin to demonic youngsters at an inner-city secondary faculty earlier than his coaching was lastly accomplished.1
The horse put her nostril on his shoulder to remind him that she can be requiring extra apples if he was going to hold round irritatingly.
Lifting down a saddle from the hooks, he was shocked on the weight of the tack. You forgot issues like that in case your regular commute concerned a motorcycle in Rome.
He had a wierd rush of peace. Rome was good, and motorbikes had been good, and actually, so had been taxis that might meet you by the station and wouldn’t kick you right into a hedge when you startled them. However it was good to do issues correctly once more. Life in a metropolis was tiring with out being effortful; Hreodwater was effortful with out being tiring.
He seen immediately he was doing all of it with none regular mild. The salt mild was vibrant sufficient. He wasn’t positive he’d ever seen it like this earlier than so removed from the mine. It was as clear as moonlight, glowing from the salt on the bottom and in a superb haze within the air.
He frowned into it, hating it.
Seeing in a different way meant pondering in a different way, and if a spot may change your eyes, then it will change your thoughts quickly after.
* * *
Not a lot additional on, drawn straight throughout the trail, there was a transparent line. On Avelyn’s facet, there was salt glittering within the gravel, and thick mud. On the opposite facet, as if it had been simply past the invisible wall of a snow globe, there was a blizzard.
The snow was falling in unbelievable loops, the flakes magnificent and inches thick on the bottom. Avelyn practically laughed, as a result of he had forgotten simply how excessive the bizarre microclimates right here might be. The horse snorted as snow fell onto her nostril, however she was used to it and plodded on with none pause, leaving heavy shoe prints behind. Regardless of every little thing, Avelyn cheered up. He had a principle that your response to snow was an ideal measure of your psychological well being. Should you seemed exterior and noticed snow and thought, Yay, snowman time! then you definately had been all proper. Should you thought, Ugh, what a ache in the arse, then in all probability you wanted some antidepressants. The Jesuit motto was that God was in all issues, and though Avelyn struggled with that, he was stable about God being within the snow.
Snow at Xmas, whispered Hreodwater Avelyn from by his fireplace within the rubble, is not our snow.
“Shut up,” Avelyn mentioned aloud.
To both facet of the street was nothing however the reed-waving fen. Forward, as all the time when you had been shut, fog. Then salt water washed throughout the street, the salt mild in it simply sufficient for him to see the silhouettes of the eels. No boat waited, so he took out the matches he’d solely simply remembered to carry, slipped down from the horse, and climbed the ladder as much as the stone beacon. He balanced on the second-to-last rung to hunch over the kindling.
Anticipating that it will be a short time, he settled down on the wharf together with his flask of espresso and apple quantity three, and handed apple quantity 4 to the horse. They weren’t good apples, however for a very long time now, he hadn’t been capable of style a lot. He had seen it when he first arrived in Rome and thought he’d simply received some sort of quiet chilly, however it had by no means gone away.
The horse made an interrogatory sound at him and seemed on the floor, which was transferring.
He stood up quick, as a result of it wasn’t the bottom transferring. It was rats. Lots of of rats: they had been swimming out of the water, scrambling ashore, and darting away onto the fen as if there was a fireplace behind them. There was nothing behind them, although. Solely a flare of salt mild within the fog, brighter than he’d ever seen it, from the minehead.
The ferryman had been the identical particular person since Avelyn may bear in mind. She was known as Redspear—Avelyn had by no means been positive if that was a primary or final identify—and when she wasn’t steering the ferry, she was a farmer, which was why there have been all the time seven or eight pigs aboard. Redspear believed in ensuring they received in an excellent night constitutional. As Avelyn tied the horse’s bridle to the rail, all of them got here to say hi there. For her half, the horse appeared to not thoughts the ferry, though that may have been as a result of she was distracted by a piglet, who had sat down subsequent to her, clearly attempting to work out what kind of pig she was.
“That’s by no means Avelyn Brocken come residence once more,” Redspear mentioned immediately in Hreod.
Avelyn hadn’t heard a phrase of Hreod since he’d left. It was a language from one other life. “It’s, grandmother.”
It was coming again as simply as slipping down a muddy hill.
Redspear broke right into a gradual grin. “I believed the King would wake sooner.”
She didn’t imply the King of England.
“Similar,” Avelyn admitted, watching the water and attempting desperately to broadcast preoccupation so he wouldn’t have to speak anymore.
The water was so salty that nothing grew in it. It was quartz-clear all the way in which down. That was about twenty toes presently of yr. Down there have been the choices of millennia sinking into the silt. By the motes of salt mild dissolved into the water, he may see all of it glinting. Cash, knives, typically armour—and as soon as, a crown.
“What’s it like within the Outdoors?” Redspear requested.
Avelyn considered it, not together with his regular pondering, which Redspear would discover at finest irrelevant and at worst insane, however his Hreod pondering. He had hoped it was useless and cremated way back, however no: there it was, waking with the deepening chilly and the brightening salt, identical to his eyes.
“There’s nothing there,” he mentioned ultimately.
Redspear seemed happy. “Thought so.”
* * *
And there was Hreodwater. At first, it was a group of sharp, tall angles within the fog: a rock that stood within the Flood, despite the fact that there was by no means rocky floor within the fens. It was as a result of it wasn’t actual rock. It was halite, arduous as granite, by no means dissolving regardless of the water and the vaporous air. The homes had been excessive and slender, following the rock up proper to the highest, their lights a lot dimmer than something within the Outdoors. They glittered within the salt-rimed thatch and above the uneven doorways, alongside the slim flights of steps that led up and up, and across the spiral of the one street.
He had a horrible swell of homecoming.
If, after years wandering, Eve’s lodestone had misplaced its magnetism and the celebrities had tricked her again the way in which she had come, and she or he discovered herself standing exterior the gate of Eden, the masonry tumbled by unhealthy climate so she may see inside to the spices and the flowers, as much as the nice tree on its hill the place the snake had mentioned, It’s higher to know than not know: he thought perhaps he understood how she’d really feel.
The boat bumped the jetty. Avelyn climbed out, his palms shaking as he lifted his bag and paid Redspear. He was not afraid of this place, however he was afraid of who he was when he was right here. Rome Avelyn appeared stable in Rome. However right here, within the salt…
“Know the place you’re going?” Redspear requested him, taking the horse’s bridle. There was a steady on the dock.
Avelyn pointed to the subsequent island on, solely simply sketched out within the mist, the place a surprisingly proportioned tower loomed. “North to An El,” he mentioned. Hreod required you to know the compass instructions of anyplace you talked about, and even any object you needed to stress. You couldn’t say, Go me that factor in your left. That was nonsense in Hreod. You needed to say, That factor within the northwest. He had no concept why. There was just one different language on the earth that did it, someplace in Australia, and so they didn’t know why both. It all the time sounded as if everybody anticipated every little thing, even buildings, to not be the place you’d left them.
On the point out of the abbey, Redspear’s cheer dulled, and she or he made the antler signal of the Salt King.
Excerpted from The Salt King: A Novel. Used with the permission of the writer, Bloomsbury. Copyright © 2026 by Natasha Pulley
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