A Mapwalker Trilogy

by J. F. Penn

  “Voodoo,” Perry said, his voice stronger now. “It’s the state religion in Benin and I imagine that’s continued over here in the Borderlands. Pythons are revered. There’s even a python temple in Ouidah on Earthside. Other kinds of snakes are used in ceremonies.”

  Finn nodded. “I’ve heard of these minor sacrifices. They are nothing compared to those performed in the name of Moloch.” He glanced over at Jari who had gone still at his words. “But I’d rather not stay in here longer than we need to. Where do we go next?”

  Sienna took a deep breath and pulled herself upright using the wall as support. “Let’s see if we can pick up the trail of where the knight went next.”

  Mila’s heart pounded as she put her hand against the door of the hut. She wanted to be out there first, barely able to contain the excitement that had been building since Perry mentioned the Venice of Africa. She had grown up in a London tower-block, a mixed-race foster kid with little knowledge of her birth parents except that her father had been a student from war-torn Sierra Leone. It was further west in Africa than Benin but this was much closer than she had ever been to her possible ancestors.

  Waterwalkers, those who could become one with the waterways, were born rarely and many of them disappeared without trace, choosing to remain beneath the waves rather than return to the air. Mila understood that choice. Even now as she looked down between the slats of the hut, she wanted to be in the water below. The channels around the stilts were the real roads and she craved the freedom of traveling at her own speed, darting alongside the sea creatures below.

  As she gazed down into the water, Mila suddenly saw movement. Not the shimmer of schooling fish, but something larger, its edges blurred by the ripples of the seabed. Mila frowned. It looked like the outline of a person — could there be Waterwalkers here?

  “What are you waiting for?” Sienna’s words interrupted her reverie.

  Mila shook her head. “I saw something under the— It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

  She pushed open the door, barely catching a glimpse of the city on the water before a shout of challenge rang out, deep voices blending together as a group of Ganvié tribesmen thrust sharp spears toward her, their scarified faces fixed in a challenge.

  Mila reeled back into the hut, knocking into the others as the tribesmen advanced.

  “Wait,” Finn said, backing away, his hands held out in surrender. “We’re on a mission from the Warlord of Aleppo. We have safe passage.” He pointed at Jari’s facial tattoo of the half-moon. “See, his emissary is with us.”

  Mila wondered what he was talking about and noted Sienna’s look of puzzlement too. That was more than Finn had told them so far and the idea that he might be working with his father was troubling. But there was no time to find out more as the tribesmen quickly bound their hands behind their backs.

  The sound of heavy footsteps came from outside on the boardwalk and an obese man waddled into the room. He wiped the sweat from his bald head with a corner of his tunic. It was tied around his waist with a rope from which hung dried pieces of sea creatures interspersed with shark’s teeth, pervading the room with a rank smell. The tribesmen deferred to him, shrinking away as if he wielded cruel power over them. Mila supposed he was a priest of some kind.

  He squinted at Jari in the semi-darkness of the hut. “You’re Aleppo filth. You die first.” He looked around at the others. “The rest will be a grand offering to Requin Géant.”

  Sienna stepped forward. “Please, we don’t want trouble. We’re here to find traces of a medieval knight, a man in armor who might have come here a long time ago with a piece of a map. It’s a danger to us all. Please let us go. We mean no harm.”

  Mila was sure that a flicker of recognition crossed the man’s face at the mention of the knight, and she definitely recognized the name of their god. Requin Géant. French for giant shark.

  11

  Xander sat sketching on the edge of the castle wall, looking out at carrion birds as they swooped low over the burial pits. He could look at them now without flinching, ignoring the women who wept below, an unceasing roll-call of death. But the birds … well, the birds were life and Xander could bring life to the beasts he illustrated. If he could only get a skin to draw on. For now, he had to make do with his sketchbook and as his hand moved across the page, he brought the birds to life on the wing, their feathers ruffled by the wind, their beaks open to snatch insects from the air.

  He completed one bird and on the opposite page, he began to draw again, using the template of its shape to extend the wings, add talons to its feet and make the beak more like a scythe, the feathers more like blades. Sir Douglas had tasked him with creating weapons from the creatures he could illustrate and with nothing else to occupy his time, Xander filled his sketchbooks with creatures of the imagination.

  From his perch this high up, he could see into the walled garden behind the double doors of the children’s wing, a quadrangle of green flanked by trees and bushes with colorful flowers to brighten it. A movement caught his eye and Xander watched as a slight young woman with cropped, almost silver hair ran on tiptoes over the grass, her arms raised high as she spun around, her red dress billowing out around her. She turned her face to the sun and smiled. Xander couldn’t help smiling with her, the simple joy of a sunny morning. He wished life could always be so simple.

  The young woman pulled something from her pocket and bent to the ground, digging a little hole and placing whatever it was within. Xander strained to focus, a frown on his face as he tried to see what she was burying.

  She covered the hole with earth, patted it down, then placed her right palm upon it and stretched out her left toward one of the other trees, an apple tree with white blossoms. She closed her eyes and lifted her face again, her mouth set in determination.

  A few blossoms fell from the tree as if a gust of wind had caught it.

  Then they rained down in a thick cloud, leaving the boughs of the apple tree empty. It began to wither even as the girl lifted her hand from the earth, revealing a tiny sapling underneath that stretched toward the sky, growing at an incredible rate.

  The young woman stood, both arms stretched out toward the trees, one growing and reaching for the sky, the other shriveling and fading, its life force drained as the other bloomed. Xander watched wide-eyed at the speed of her creation. He knew that they bred Halbrasse here, raising children with forms of magic unseen on Earthside but this girl was truly incredible.

  “They call her Elf.” A gruff voice came from the walkway behind him.

  Xander looked around to see a soldier, the half-moon tattoo covering a web of burn scars.

  “You should see what she can do with insects.” The soldier shuddered. “Sir Douglas wants you in the library. Now.”

  The soldier didn’t wait for an answer, just turned and stalked off, his message forgotten already.

  Xander sat for a moment, his mind racing. At last, the chance he’d been waiting for. In a place where magic like Elf’s was fostered and encouraged, his own talents would surely not be wasted. He couldn’t help the grin that dawned on his face as he imagined what he’d find in the library, maybe even the secret books rumored to lie within.

  He packed up his sketchbooks into the satchel by his side and jumped down from the wall, jogging into the cold shadows of the castle and winding his way through the corridors toward the library. It lay in the heart of the central tower, protected on all sides by thick walls and magical seals.

  Xander stopped at the door to take a breath. This is what he had been promised. This is why he’d given up the Ministry.

  He stepped inside and looked up at the soaring shelves around him, stacks of books of all sizes mingled with rolled parchment scrolls and carved stone blocks, metal plates and other forms of ancient knowledge. The border prevented modern technology from crossing over so books were the real treasure. As they were forgotten and discarded on Earthside, they ended up here, abandoned wisdom come to life again.
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  “Don’t just stand there. Come in.” Sir Douglas looked up from the armchair he sat in and Xander bit back the gasp that rose in his throat at the man’s appearance.

  Sir Douglas had been the epitome of English aristocracy, with a military bearing, salt and pepper hair swept back from an angular face, and three-piece tailored tweed suits that made him look as if he’d stepped out of a nineteenth-century painting. The vertical scar that ran down from his right eye to his short beard only served to hint at his rakish past.

  But now Sir Douglas looked like a shell of his former self, his skin paper thin and dry as if all the moisture had been sucked from him. His hair and beard were entirely white and the scar looked like it had deepened, sinking into his skull. He still wore tweed but the suit was ill-fitting now, his skeletal limbs barely filling the sleeves. As Sir Douglas waved him in, Xander noticed the dark lines on his hands and wrists, the black marks that crept up his neck — and the tendrils of shadow that seemed to weave around him, obscuring his features before shifting again.

  “You’ve never seen the transition to pure shadow, have you, Xander?”

  “I’m … sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to stare.”

  Sir Douglas shook his head. “It’s fine, it’s not something many witness, but it is your future if you remain here with us, if you help us.” He smiled. “To go from the physical body to the realm of pure shadow is the only way to make your power endless.”

  Xander couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move. Sir Douglas spoke as if this transformation was something to be desired but all he could see was the bitter and ugly end to a life.

  Sir Douglas pushed himself up from the chair. “But you have much to prove and little time. Come with me.”

  He stalked over to a bookshelf filled with thick tomes with leather bindings and gold etching. The titles were obscure, arcane grimoires and ancient philosophies mingling alongside natural history and principles of engineering. There seemed no order to the chaos of books and Xander found himself leaning closer, trying to work out how they all related to each other.

  Sir Douglas pressed against the spines of two volumes and something clicked behind the wall before part of it swung open, revealing a smaller room within.

  The hidden library. At last.

  “Can I go in?”

  “Of course, this is what I promised you.” Sir Douglas smiled but his eyes remained dark, the spark within them a black diamond that seemed to suck the life out of the surrounding air.

  Xander stepped inside, his feet sinking into a plush carpet embroidered with scenes like a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Demons tortured sinners, their bodies torn on racks while others were burned alive or eaten by hideous misshapen creatures.

  There were fewer shelves in here and only one desk in the center. A wooden box sat on one end.

  Sir Douglas pointed to the books. “You will find much to occupy you here, many wonders to fill your sketchbook. It is yours to explore. But we have one task for you to accomplish first.”

  He walked to one of the shelves and pulled down a medieval book inscribed with two interlocking triangles on the leather cover. Sir Douglas opened it carefully revealing a diary of sorts within, handwritten words on fragile ivory paper turning yellow at the edges. He turned the pages until he reached one filled with images.

  Rats. So many rats.

  But not just any kind of rat. These were giant creatures gnawing on the bodies of the dead. One gazed out of the page, its beady eyes looking out from across the centuries.

  Xander shuddered and then bent closer. There were fleas on the page, jumping from the bodies of the rats to gnaw at those who ran from the infestation. There were swollen lumps on the dead and suddenly, he knew what the images portrayed.

  Sir Douglas turned the pages slowly, filling Xander’s vision with drawings of death and suffering. Of mass annihilation.

  “There was once a map that came with this book, but it was hidden, split apart so the island of the plague could never be found. But we will have it soon and these flea-infested rats will be our agents of change on Earthside.”

  Xander’s heart pounded as the scale of possibility sank into his mind. He could only imagine the suffering, the millions who would die if a plague like this was released into the hyper-connected world he had left behind.

  Sir Douglas reached over and opened the wooden box, lifting out a pile of skins, each perfectly prepared for the Illustrator’s work.

  “We need more of the creatures. You will illustrate them on these skins and we will bring them to life in the camps in readiness for the plague.” He placed a hand on Xander’s shoulder, pushing him down onto the seat. “You wanted to use your magic to create without limits. Well, here’s your chance.”

  It seemed to Xander as if the chill of the shadow sank through his clothes and into his skin. Even as Sir Douglas turned to leave, tendrils of darkness snaked back to hover around the desk. Xander bit his lip and reached for his illustrating instruments with a shaking hand.

  Something watched him, something began to insinuate into his brain and it seemed as if the first strokes of the pen were not even his own.

  The rats that began to appear on the skins were more grotesque as his mind considered what would make them even more effective. They must run fast and spread wide, carrying the plague faster than ever before. He drew them with snake-like bodies so they could writhe through cracks, carrying their cargo of death into homes. He made them fierce with sharper teeth so predators would not be able to kill them off.

  Some part of Xander watched his own hand with horror, a last vestige of his old self despairing at what he’d become. But as the shadow entwined itself around his drawing hand, he couldn’t help but revel in his power of creation.

  12

  The priest shuffled back to the door, his belt of sea creatures rustling as he walked. “Bring them,” he said, leaving without a backward glance.

  “Wait, we’re—”

  One of the tribesmen cuffed Sienna around the head as she blurted out the words. She fell to the floor.

  Finn surged forward but two other men held him back. The tribesmen laughed, talking to one another in a language Mila couldn’t understand. But she got the gist of it. There was no way these people were letting them go.

  The tribesmen pushed the Mapwalker team out onto the boardwalk in front of the hut. Dusk had fallen and the sound of bullfrogs echoed over the lake in the balmy evening. Clouds of insects hovered above the water and fish jumped to catch them from below while swifts darted down to pluck them from the air. Boardwalks stretched into the distance, a labyrinth of walkways between the islands of huts. Some had red or blue tin roofs, others were thatched with straw and mud.

  Villagers paddled canoes through the channels, some glanced in their direction, others deliberately avoided a look as they headed home with vegetables and freshly caught fish.

  A little boy poked his head out one of the windows, gazing at the newcomers with curiosity as they passed. Mila smiled at him and he ducked back inside, shy or perhaps afraid of the priest who walked by with such authority toward the rocky shore.

  “The topography is strange here,” Perry whispered from behind. “Ganvié on Earthside is on a lake but it looks like this place is within a protected bay on the edge of an ocean drop-off. Check out the waves beyond the break-water.”

  Mila looked past the village huts to the shades of blue fading into the horizon. White-caps dusted the waves out there and her water aspect sensed the resonance of the deep. It called to her and she almost gasped as the need rose inside her.

  The priest led the procession all the way across the village to a final walkway that led to a cave entrance where the rising tide lapped against the lip of a platform tethered to the rock. It had shackles embedded within, each pair rusty with age. Crabs scuttled around the edge, some with huge bodies as big as watermelons with long legs that probed the rocks as they passed. These were carrion eaters with sharp pincers that ripped and devoured fle
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  “This is where the children of Requin Géant feed. Perhaps your offering will bring the god himself.” The priest clutched the shark’s teeth in his belt, crushing his meaty hand against sharp edges until blood dripped down into the water, staining it red. He smiled. “Sharks can smell blood from across the bay, so they will be waiting when the tide floods the cave. But they will need something special to send them into the feeding frenzy that pleases our god the most.” He pointed at Jari. “Bring that one.”

  Two of the tribesmen hauled Jari to the front of the cave where a single pair of shackles lay against a prominent rock. She struggled against them. “The Warlord of Aleppo will have your skin for this.”

  The priest laughed. “He owes me much for the slaves we have sent to the Shadow mines and it is Requin Géant that I must appease now. He has not fed of human flesh for too long so you are all a welcome respite before I must offer from my own tribe again.”

  Finn frowned. “I’ve heard of this offering, my father does the same at the Tophet, offering children to a god who can never have enough blood. It does no good. It keeps us all in the dark.”

  The priest shook his head. “The balance must be kept. As Earthside pushes out those who honor human sacrifice, they end up here. We have no choice. If I do not offer, they will take whoever they choose and the village suffers.”

  Two tribesmen shackled Jari to the rocks at the entrance to the cave, right on the edge of a deeper drop-off while the others shackled the rest of the Mapwalker team to the platform beyond.

  The priest took a shark tooth from his belt, chanted a prayer, then slashed Jari’s arm. The deep cut began to bleed immediately, scarlet drops pooling in the water around her. The warrior woman already had to crane her neck to keep her face out of the surf. She was panting and gasping for breath in fear and pain and Mila knew it wouldn’t be long until she went under. The only question was whether she would drown before the sharks ripped her flesh apart.