by J. F. Penn
Mila tuned into the flow of the water, using her magic to lower them gently toward the river below. The cliff beside them was hung with ferns, and wild purple orchids poked out from the greenery. She picked one as they passed by, its colors a reminder of beauty in the moments before they had to get moving again.
Further down, a graveyard of coffins hung from the rock face supported by woven liana. Each was painted with symbols of the sky and birds and Mila wondered what happened when the wood rotted away. Would the bodies fall to the river beneath or did the eagles come and take their share? Sky burial was part of Buddhist and Zoroastrian tradition on Earthside, so it made sense for it to be practiced here in the eyrie.
When they reached the bottom of the cliff, Mila used the water to deposit them carefully on the bank before returning the liquid to the rushing river. She dipped her hand back in, watching as her skin turned translucent. She sensed that this tributary flowed to the sea and some part of her wanted to dive in and just go with the current. Perhaps she would find her way back to Ekon again.
“I can’t see the main gate, or anything that looks like the tomb of an ancestor.”
Finn’s words broke through Mila’s reverie and she pulled her hand from the water, remembering Sienna and the map. She shook her head to clear the thoughts, exhaustion creeping up on her as the adrenalin of magic dissipated.
“We can walk around the base of the pinnacle. We’re bound to hit it at some point.” Mila looked over at Perry. He stared glassy eyed at the rock face, his body slumped. She frowned. He looked like a broken man. The Borderlands could do that, but she needed him to find his strength again, or they would be in trouble.
As Jari walked inside the chapel, Sienna turned back to the sarcophagus and touched its rough surface. It was pitted with age, discolored by years of the faithful running their hands over it, perhaps seeking a blessing, perhaps calling down a curse. Which would she find here?
“Help me lift the lid off.” Jari positioned herself next to Sienna and together they heaved, thrusting the heavy stone away. It opened a few inches before they had to drop it.
“Let’s wait for the others,” Sienna said with a sigh, rolling her shoulders, trying to loosen the tight muscles. She could still feel residual tiredness from her mapwalking.
“No,” Jari snapped back. “Try again.”
Jari seemed on edge so Sienna tried again and this time, they managed to open it a few more inches. The gap was wide enough for an arm to fit through. Jari didn’t wait, she stuck her hand down into the darkness and felt around. The sound of scraping nails over stone, the rustle of some kind of material as Jari grimaced with disgust at what she raked through.
Then she smiled with satisfaction and pulled out a small lead box with a hinged lid.
Sienna held out her hand. “Let me look at it.”
Jari held it close to her chest, eyes flashing a warning as she clutched the box tightly.
Sienna shrugged. “We can wait until Finn comes if you like. But I need to verify the piece of the map against the others at some point before we leave this place.”
“You have the other two pieces here?”
Sienna nodded. “Of course.” She pulled the waterproof packet from her inner pocket, fingers brushing against the hilt of the ritual knife. While it was reassuring to have a weapon of sorts, she knew she was no match for the warrior woman, trained and experienced in warfare of all kinds. She could only hope that the fragile bond of their ramshackle team held just a little longer and that Finn, Mila and Perry made it here soon.
“Lay them out on the lid.” Jari pointed to the top of the sarcophagus.
Sienna opened the packet and gently eased the two other fragments out, unfolding them and smoothing them down onto the stone.
Jari jiggled the lid of the box, tugging the two edges apart until they began to separate. She pulled it completely open to reveal a folded piece of patchwork skin inside.
“It looks like a match,” Sienna said, barely able to contain her excitement.
Jari tipped the box so the piece of the map lay with the others. Sienna carefully opened it out, eyes widening as she saw the detail upon the skin. An island infested with giant rats feasting on its human prey as bulbous sores erupted from their skin.
Jari reached out and edged the piece closer to the others. It was clearly part of the whole and the map was only missing one final fragment now, which lay in the hands of the Shadow Cartographers.
“We’ve done it.” Sienna smiled. “Now we can just wait for the others and get out of here.”
“Is that them now?” Jari looked toward the door, head cocked as if she had heard something.
Sienna looked in the same direction, confused at first and then aware in that last millisecond that Jari reached for her sword.
The warrior woman swung the pommel of the weapon at the back of Sienna’s head. A dark pain exploded.
As she sank into blackness, Sienna heard Jari whisper, “You’re just as much of a prize as those plague pieces, Mapwalker.”
Mila jogged into the clearing. Dark clouds scudded overhead and the entwined limbs of the trees above made it a realm of shadow with the ancient chapel at its center. An oak door lay open a few inches.
“Sienna!” Mila called out as she ran to the door, aware that Finn and Perry were only a few steps behind.
She pushed it open but even as she entered, Mila knew that it was empty. The atmosphere was charged, like the aftermath of a thunderstorm, but there was only dust and old bones here now.
A dark scowl marred Finn’s handsome features as he walked carefully around the stone sarcophagus, noting patterns in the dust on the floor. Drag marks. A few specks of blood. His expression changed to something like recognition.
“What is it?” Mila tried to push down the fear rising inside. “Where are they?”
“I’m so sorry.” Finn shook his head. “I thought she would wait for me, that I’d be able to—”
“To what?” Perry grabbed Finn’s arm, knuckles white with tension. “You knew she was going to take the map pieces?”
Finn shook him off, strode to the other side of the room and turned to face both of them. “I offered to trade the map pieces for my niece, born in the Castle of the Shadow. You remember that hellhole?”
Mila took a deep breath. Of course, how could any of them forget that place of blood and suffering?
Finn continued. “I promised to get the map pieces but I also made my help conditional on you all being safe, crossing back over to Earthside with no harm.”
Mila kicked at the door, slamming it into the stone with a shudder. “Now that bitch has all the map pieces and Sienna, a powerful Mapwalker whose blood they’ll harvest and use to reshape the border. Nice one, Romeo.”
Finn sank to the ground and knelt in the dirt, his face a mask of despair. “I know where Jari is taking her.”
The sound of rushing water dragged Sienna out of a nightmare of screaming eagles with bloody talons. Her head thumped with pain. She opened her eyes to see the river running clear beside the hull of a little wooden boat. In the center, Jari paddled with her good arm, first one side, then the other, keeping the vessel in the middle of the stream. The air smelled sweet and pink cherry blossom rained down in a gentle breeze. It should have been idyllic.
Then Sienna remembered.
She lunged for the warrior woman, rage driving her forward. But ropes pulled her up tight and Sienna slumped back into the curve of the hull.
Jari turned her head, her expression closed and cold. “I never understood what Finn saw in you.”
“Where are you taking me?”
Jari nodded toward a bend in the river ahead. “You’ll see soon enough. We’re almost there.”
The water swept them on and as they rounded the end of the gorge, the river opened out into a wider channel, slowing its pace to a lazy stream. Women gathered on the northern bank, slapping clothes on rocks as they hunkered down in groups, chatting as they worked.
Children played in the shallows, the sun dappling their skin, droplets of water sparkling as they splashed each other. It could have been the Ganges in India or the Yangtze in China, or anywhere across either world where people lived near the banks of a river.
But as the water swept them on, the sound grew louder from the bank — the noise of a huge population gathered in one place. The smell of burning rubbish and human waste overpowered the scent of blossom and as Jari paddled the boat toward the shallows, Sienna caught a glimpse of what lay beyond.
Rows of tents laid out in a grid system stretched as far as she could see. Hundreds of thousands of refugees crammed into a makeshift city. They escaped danger in their homelands only to be rejected by the countries they thought were safe haven. So they ended up here in the Borderlands.
Sienna frowned. The Shadow Cartographers and the Warlord’s men were no kind-hearted saviors happy to provide refuge. So what were these people doing here?
The boat bumped up against the shoreline. Jari jumped out and dragged it further up the pebbled beach. She pulled a knife from her belt and bent to Sienna, holding the blade close to her throat.
“Don’t try to run. There’s no one to help you here.” She slowly eased the knife down until it rested on the ropes that held Sienna. Jari cut through them and stepped back.
Sienna stood on wobbly legs and clambered from the boat. She reached back to touch the side of her head where pain still throbbed. Her hand came back red with blood from the open wound.
“You’ll be fine.” Jari nodded up the beach and slowly they walked up the bank.
A group of soldiers spotted them as they crested the top of the embankment, two of them with the half-moon tattoo of the Warlord. Jari raised a hand in the air as she came to stand next to Sienna, her own tattoo now their passport into the tent city.
As the soldiers approached, Jari pulled a coin from her pocket, a wolf’s head imprinted on the side. The lead soldier looked surprised and his face shifted to one of respect, even a touch of fear.
Jari spun the coin between her fingers. “He’s expecting me. Take us to him — now.”
19
Sienna followed Jari through the refugee camp flanked by soldiers on either side. There was no point trying to run, and even if she did manage to get away she’d soon be lost in this labyrinth. She glanced to either side as they walked. Groups of people sat around small fires, the scent of herbs mingling with smoke in the air as they brewed tea and cooked meager rations. The sound of coughing and crying came from inside the tents as they passed — children in distress or those who couldn’t hold onto hope any longer. It was a desperate place filled with people on the edge of the abyss.
They turned into a causeway that ran the length of the camp with makeshift stalls and food vendors either side. People exchanged what little they had for a bowl of soup or another blanket. The refugees were thin, malnourished, and Sienna still couldn’t work out why the Shadow Cartographers had herded them here. She knew of the mines on the edge of the Uncharted, a place where those who entered never returned, worked to death as they dug resources from the ground even as it shifted. But why were these people not taken there to work when they arrived over the border?
At the end of the causeway, a large tent stood in pride of place marked by the half-moon of the Warlord, surrounded by flaming torches. The soldiers marched toward it and despite the foreboding in her heart, Sienna went with them.
The flap of the tent opened as they approached and while several of the soldiers waited outside, two escorted her and Jari inside.
The tent was warm with braziers giving off heat and light around a large wooden table in the center. Platters of meat, fruit and fresh bread sat next to cups and a flagon of wine, the abundance all the more shocking next to the privations of the refugee camp. A man stood in front of the table, his back to them, wearing a cloak of wolf pelts around his broad shoulders.
Jari fell to her knees, head bent in respect. “I have the pieces of the map, my Lord.”
The man turned, his rugged features criss-crossed with scars, his muscled frame taut and always ready for battle.
Kosai. Warlord of Old Aleppo. High Priest of Moloch, devourer of children — and Finn’s father.
His piercing blue eyes met Sienna’s as she stood, chin raised high. She would not kneel, not to him.
Sienna remembered Finn’s words about his father’s love of books, his staunch leadership in battle, his devotion to his soldiers. But all she could see was a man who had sent his daughter to the Fertility Halls to die in a bloody dungeon, her child cut from her belly.
Kosai laughed, his smile transforming his face into that of a handsome man. Sienna saw then where Finn had inherited his grace and perhaps even his charm.
He bent and lifted Jari’s chin, raising her up to stand before him. “You bring me more than the map, I see.” He nodded at Sienna. “Is she the one?”
“She can walk through maps, my Lord. I’ve even traveled with her.” Jari pulled the pieces of the map from inside her jacket pocket and handed them to Kosai. “These are the fragments we found at the library, in the under-sea pyramid, and in the city of the air.”
Kosai took them, his powerful hands holding them with the gentlest touch. He laid the three pieces on the wooden table, arranging them until it was clear where the final piece would fit.
“Finally, they are together once more.” The cut-glass British accent came from behind her and Sienna turned to see Sir Douglas Mercator step into the tent.
He was a shade of the man who had entered her map shop not so long ago wanting to purchase her grandfather’s legacy. His flesh hugged tight against his skull, his limbs were wasted, he looked as inconsequential as … a shadow.
Suddenly, Sienna realized the word was exactly right. This was what a Shadow Cartographer eventually became. Soon he would be only ethereal mist, magic with no physicality to hold it together, magic that became one with the Shadow itself.
“After more than six hundred years, the fragments of the map remain intact. And I have the final piece.” Sir Douglas strode forward and it seemed to Sienna as if tendrils of shade writhed around his limbs as he moved.
He pulled a folded fragment from his pocket, and laid it on the desk with the others, unraveling and turning it until the edges matched up.
As he smoothed out the corners, Sienna sensed a tug from the map. A pulse ran through her veins, a quickening, an energy that drew her in. She took a step forward.
Sir Douglas beckoned her closer. “I know you’re curious, Sienna. It calls to you, doesn’t it? As every map calls to those with cartography in their blood.”
Sienna couldn’t speak, she could hardly breathe as she bent over the ancient skin reaching out for the lines etched upon it with gentle fingers. It depicted an island jungle ringed by jagged mountains to the coast, then hidden by miles of ocean, accessible only through this map. Trails criss-crossed the jungle centering on a habitation of sorts, perhaps a village, perhaps a city, it was unclear from the scale of the drawing how big it might be. The knights must have opened a portal and taken the worst of the infected through all those years ago. Perhaps the survivors lived on.
She noted a strange symbol on the side of the piece that Sir Douglas had retrieved, like an hourglass resting on its side. “What’s that?”
“Time shifts in the Borderlands and even slows in parts of the Uncharted. This symbol indicates a place where time has slowed to almost nothing. It may have only been weeks since the knights left the island if there is anyone left to remember.”
“How can that be?” Sienna shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. The knights would have wanted the plague to disappear completely, so why would they stop time when time itself could destroy it?”
“How do you know the knights wanted it gone for good?” Sir Douglas traced the symbol with one finger. “They were as much of the Shadow as they were of Earthside. Why do you think three of them ended up staying here, hiding their pieces of
the map in the Borderlands? Perhaps they always knew it would be needed later.”
“Needed for what?”
Sir Douglas shrugged. “What knights have always fought for. Kingdoms, justice … borders.” He looked at her. “And now you will help me resurrect what they left behind.”
Sienna shook her head. “I won’t do it. You can kill me, sacrifice me to your bloodthirsty god. I don’t care. But I won’t travel through that map. I won’t bring back the plague.”
Sir Douglas arched one perfect eyebrow. “Not even to save your precious friends?”
“What do you mean?” Sienna stammered. “You know where Mila and Perry are?” Her eyes darted to Kosai. “And Finn?”
The Warlord laughed. “My errant son comes for you, despite knowing the fate that awaits him. His die is cast, but the other two.” He shrugged. “They’re on the river heading here right now. My scouts along the bank follow their every move. You can still save them.”
Sir Douglas put his hand on Sienna’s arm, his bony fingers a freezing imprint on her skin. “Give in to your curiosity. Be the Mapwalker I know you are. Go to the island, see what is left of the plague and bring us back something that will save your friends.”
“But what if I get attacked, what if I die of the plague?”
“Oh, don’t worry. You won’t be going alone.” Sir Douglas beckoned to the entrance of the tent.
Sienna turned, her eyes widening as she saw who it was.
Mila and Perry stood with Finn looking down at the refugee camp. Rows of tents stretched into the distance, the glow of tiny fires interspersing the darkness as cries of children mingled with the barking of dogs and the sound of a fiddle. Music brought hope no matter how dark the night and somewhere down there, someone still believed in a future.
They had traveled by day on the river, propelled by the current and Mila’s magic pushing them ever faster but now it looked as if finding Sienna in this labyrinth would be almost impossible.
