by J. F. Penn
To be honest, Finn had never wanted to climb a mountain and after this experience, he never wanted to climb one again. Titus kept up a grueling pace from years of experience on this kind of terrain, but Finn felt every single step of the hard ground, his leg muscles screaming in pain as they wound their way up toward the peak.
The weather held, sun baking down on them with no shelter from the heat even as the wind whipped their faces. But each step took them closer to the camp, so Finn gritted his teeth and kept walking.
Just another ten paces.
And another ten.
Finally, they skirted the summit in a haze of clouds, the valley before them obscured in mist. But Finn felt a change in the air and sensed a kind of shimmer in the gloom beyond. The way down was even harder on his leg muscles and his knees ached with every jolt on the rocky ground.
As they descended, the mist cleared, and the sun came out again. Suddenly, they saw the camp laid out below them.
A wide lake lay in the center with organized barracks, and before it, a central plaza with some kind of temple. Further out, a patchwork of crops in shades of green and fields of blue.
“All different stages of growth,” Titus said. “They’ve got a year-round crop here. Enough to dose the whole of the Borderlands.”
Finn marveled at the scope of the Liberation project, the drug an effective route to the ultimate goal of creating a superhuman army to take back Earthside. His father, the Warlord, Kosai, was a man of great cruelty with no love for Earthsiders, but Finn doubted that even he would countenance dosing his own people with such a drug. This was masterminded by those closely aligned with the Shadow.
Resolve hardened within him as they descended into the valley. Finn would not leave this place without burning those crops down.
As they approached the fields, they stopped behind a rocky outcrop to plan the next step. Workers tended the plants, immigrant slaves amongst the crops, while Shadow Guards patrolled the perimeter. The balmy evening made the guards relaxed and lazy, and at some command posts, they played cards and joked with each other. Clearly, tending fields was not a high-stress position, and they were not concerned about possible attack.
Piles of fertilizer lay at specific points amongst the fields and workers occasionally went into huts, so perhaps more lay within. It was peaceful, a deadly beauty with a malignant harvest. But as Finn watched the pastoral scene play out down below, he knew they couldn’t possibly destroy this entire crop. They didn’t have enough people to start fires at the same time, and both he and Titus would likely be caught trying to set the fields alight alone.
It was an impossible mission.
15
Zoe smelled the camp before she saw it, a stench of too many people, cooking fires and the faint metallic scent left after an electrical storm, the residue of spent magic. Hashim had carried her for several hours, Callen on his back, never slowing, never stopping until they reached the end of the tangle of paths through the rocky chasm and emerged at the edge of a valley.
A river ran down from the mountains into a vast lake with a church submerged in the middle, perhaps drowned on Earthside and pushed through here by lack of belief. There were fields of some kind of crop with blue flowers in vast terraces up the slope, workers moving in channels between them.
Around the lake, the camp was divided into clear sections, more like military barracks than the ramshackle place Zoe had imagined. There were permanent structures built at strategic positions around the edge and open training grounds where groups of soldiers marched in formation. The sound of laughter echoed up from children out at play in a schoolyard. It looked just like any other small town—
A flash of blue light above a temple by the side of the lake.
The soldiers stopped marching. The children fell silent. Even the birds muted their song. Hashim and Callen froze, eyes fixed on the scene.
The light rose like a mushroom cloud from the vaulted roof and then dissipated into haze.
Zoe felt the tension drain from her captors as all evidence of the light disappeared.
“Let’s go,” Callen said. “It’s a good time to trade.” The girl’s voice trembled a little, as if she had to convince herself to go on.
Hashim walked into the valley. He stepped more carefully now, covering the ground a little slower as he dodged the boulders on the way down.
“Why is it a good time to trade?” Zoe asked. “What was that light?”
Callen was silent a moment and then spoke softly. “They always need more resources after they use someone up.” She looked down at the ground, her young face haunted. “They say it doesn’t hurt when they take your magic. They say it’s quick …” Her words trailed off, her gaze fixed on the camp ahead.
They soon reached the perimeter where two guards with the half-moon tattoo of the Warlord waved them through, clearly recognizing Callen and her strange partner. But as they moved into the camp itself, Zoe saw that Hashim was not so strange after all.
The path led directly toward the temple cut across by concentric circular routes that linked each area. Hashim or his kind were clearly unremarkable as no one gave him a second glance as they walked through, although Zoe noted a few people looked up at her with interest. A pair of twins, long-limbed with black skin and curious eyes, ran past and circled back for a second look. But no one challenged or even spoke to them. Guards on patrol walked by at regular intervals, keeping a tight grip on security.
Hashim strode down through the camp until they reached the back of the temple where two guards stood either side of a staircase that led up to a finely carved wooden door. As they approached, one guard ran up the stairs and knocked twice, then once again.
The door opened an inch and Zoe glimpsed a swirl of shadow inside and a hand with bony fingers. She felt eyes upon her, a chill creeping up her spine as if she had been plunged under ice, drowning in the depths under a thick layer of impenetrable blue.
The figure dropped back into darkness; the door left ajar.
The guard stepped forward to meet Hashim. Callen jumped down, her demeanor one of a trader far beyond her years.
“He’ll take this one.” The guard pulled a leather pouch of coins from his belt and handed it to Callen. She opened it, her eyes widening in appreciation. “And he’ll take any more like her you can find.”
Callen wouldn’t meet Zoe’s eyes as Hashim placed her gently on the ground. The giant patted her head in a friendly manner. He clearly did not understand what part he played in the demise of so many who carried magic in their veins.
Callen clambered up onto his shoulders and without even looking back, they began the long climb out of the camp.
The guard grabbed Zoe’s arm and thrust her up the stairs toward the door.
“Please,” she begged. “Don’t do this.”
The guard didn’t acknowledge her words and as the door opened wider; he pushed her forward and darted away down the stairs without even a glance back.
Zoe stumbled inside the darkened room and blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. It was starkly beautiful, like a forest transformed into architecture. Thick pillars of cedar wood stretched from the floor carved with vines and the faces of mutated woodland creatures, twisted into visages of horror. The delicate smell of cedar pervaded the space, refreshing and cool after the hot exterior. Oak beams stretched up into a coffered ceiling painted in shades of midnight and on the side facing the lake, an arched window stood covered by thick drapes. A sliver of light lanced across the wooden floor, empty except for a single chair — and the man who stood in the shadows behind it.
“You’re a Weaver.” His voice held the kind of interest that a predator has in a particularly tasty prey.
He walked toward her, avoiding the ray of light on the ground, and it seemed as if he merely skimmed the earth. Zoe blinked once more to try to focus on his figure, but his outline constantly shifted, as if smoke wreathed his flesh. She caught her breath as she realized this man was almost
a creature of pure shadow. She had read of these powerful Mapwalkers who turned, but she had never wished to meet one.
He came closer, distinguished features betraying his nobility on Earthside and an old facial scar evidence of past battles.
“I’m Sir Douglas Mercator. What’s your name?”
“Zoe.” She blurted it out quickly, then clapped a hand over her mouth. It had been a reflex, a polite response to an unremarkable question, but she had totally failed interrogation 101.
Sir Douglas laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. You’re safe with me.” He glanced toward the door to the lakeside. “At least for now. Come. Sit. You have nowhere else to be.” He pointed at the chair.
Zoe’s heart beat faster as she walked across the floor and sat, straight-backed. She needed to stall for time because there was no easy way out of here. Guards stood outside the doors and in here, a Shadow Cartographer who could wrap her in shadow weave or crush her lungs with a wave of his hand.
“How did you get here?”
“The bounty-hunter girl, Callen, and her giant friend, found me lost in the forest.”
Sir Douglas took a step forward. “Try again. How did you get into the Borderlands? The border is closed and none have passed through it since the Ministry slammed it shut, damning us all.” His features contorted with rage as he spat the final words.
He bent down until his angular nose almost touched hers and gripped her chin hard, turning her face up toward him. His grey eyes were the color of a wolf pelt, an old alpha male with sharp teeth covered in the blood of its prey.
“Tell me.”
Zoe thought of her desk back at the Ministry, the calm, quiet atmosphere of the Antiquities department. She should have just stayed down there and told no one of what she had seen. Bridget had not prepared her for any of this. She was just a Weaver, after all, but she had to tell him something.
“We came through a path of the dead, one of the ancient Egyptian tombs full of creatures and traps and—”
“We?” Sir Douglas snarled as he cut off her words.
Zoe bit her lip as she realized her mistake, but she wouldn’t give her friends up. Whatever he did to her.
Sir Douglas turned away, his robes a swirl of smoke. He strode across the floor, shaking his head as if deeply troubled. “The way has only been used in rare times,” he muttered. “It cannot be crossed without …” He spun around. “A powerful Blood Mapwalker. You came with Sienna Farren. Perhaps he is with her …” Sir Douglas’s voice trailed off and Zoe thought she saw something wistful in his gaze, an edge of vulnerability.
The door from the front of the temple banged open and his eyes turned cold once more, like a graveyard as storm clouds gathered overhead. The sound of a growing crowd came from outside, cheers of excitement mingling with the anticipation of carnival pleasure.
A young woman with pixie features entered, her silver hair reflecting the sun from outside, a white dress swirling around her slight figure. This must be Elf, but even though Sienna had described her, somehow, the girl was smaller than she expected.
“Oh, wonderful. You found me a fresh one. We just have time before the challenge.” Elf reached out a hand.
Zoe felt a jerk inside, as if the girl reached inside her chest to tug on her heart. Her ribcage contracted and suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. Something — her magic — seeped from her in tiny pulses. Like the death of a thousand cuts, Elf would drain her dry.
Zoe gasped for breath, tears running down her cheeks as she doubled over, clutching her hands to her aching chest.
Sir Douglas stepped in between them and the pain stopped. “Not yet,” he said sharply. “She came with others more powerful. We need to know more.”
Elf spun on her heel, her face like thunder as she marched to the window and threw back the drapes, letting light flood into the temple. Sir Douglas shrank back into the shadows, but not before Zoe saw the smoke at the edge of his robes disappearing in the sun, evaporating like clouds on a summer day.
The window had a view out over the vast lake and the ruined church at its center. Four huge vats of a deep blue liquid sat directly in front on the shore.
“She is enough for this batch of Liberation. You can’t stop me.” Elf turned around again and raised her hand. Zoe shrank back, waiting for the pain once more. They were both in sunlight now and Sir Douglas could not stop her again.
“Sienna came over the border,” he said from the shadows.
Elf frowned and dropped her hand. “How? The border is closed.” She shook her head, eyes narrowing in concern. “No matter. Her blood is the key. If I can siphon it at the Tower of the Winds, I can amplify my power and smash down the border for good. Earthside will be ours for the taking.” She smiled triumphantly. “Where is she?”
Sir Douglas circled the edge of the temple, staying out of the light. “I was just about to find out. But your magic is of no use for — persuasion. Give me more time. I will find her.”
Elf smiled in anticipation. “Then I will take whatever you leave behind of this one when you’re finished.” A cheer rose up from outside. “But hurry, the challenge begins soon.”
She pulled the drapes closed, leaving the room in semi-darkness again, and swept out the door. Zoe watched her go, icy fear creeping through her veins as Sir Douglas circled behind her.
Chill fingers touched her neck, gently brushing her hair to one side.
“Tell me where they are,” he whispered, the threat clear as his grip tightened, bone digging into flesh as if he might burrow within her.
16
Forbidding shards of rock loomed above the Mapwalker team as they wound through the labyrinth of paths below the jagged peaks. Sienna no longer knew how she chose the forks ahead, only trusting that the pulse of shadow inside drew her on to her fate. It felt symbiotic now, a separate presence inside her, but one that belonged there. She couldn’t talk about it with the others and she wondered whether all those who ended up in a shadow coma felt this way before succumbing to the darkness. Whatever it was, it pulled her on.
They reached the end of the path in the balmy early evening. A gentle breeze wafted over the valley before them as they crouched in the lee of a pile of boulders and looked out over the camp.
“It’s huge,” Perry said. “More like a small city. How will we find her?”
“And get out of there alive,” Mila added. She tilted her head to one side as she stared down at the lake. “What is that?”
Within the blue waters, an electric storm churned, crackles of energy radiating out from thick serpentine bodies. They writhed together, then raced around the sunken church at the center.
“They look like electric eels but they must be gigantic.”
Mila sounded both fascinated and appalled at the same time, and Sienna wondered if her friend longed to sink into those cool waters. Perhaps she understood the dichotomy of both longing for the Shadow and fighting against it? She remembered Mila’s face in the caves under Ganvié as she left Ekon behind to finish the mission. Perhaps they both had regrets about what — and who — they had left behind.
A cry rang out overhead, a sound of desperate loss with a distinctly human quality. Sienna looked up to see the silhouette of a giant creature against the clouds, its body some kind of hybrid bird, its wings like monstrous sails criss-crossed with bones of human anatomy, talons like razor blades hanging below. She shuddered and looked away. She didn’t want to see its face, didn’t want to imagine how they could have created such a beast. It cried out again and winged its way across the valley, heading out over the lake.
“We need to get moving. We can’t leave Zoe here any longer.” Sienna tamped down the rising fear as she watched the creature fly away.
On Earthside, the theory of eugenics involved breeding the best of a species to create superior beings. But the dark side of the practice involved killing those considered inferior by the ruling class, no matter their true worth. Here in the Borderlands, they had taken the philosophy to ext
remes, breeding whatever they could in terms of magical ability and physical deformity with the aim of creating an overwhelming force that could take back the land they believed was rightfully theirs. If they were too late, Zoe would be the latest victim in an endless bloody war.
They walked down the side of the valley as quickly as they could over the rocky ground, approaching the camp from an oblique angle and staying away from the main entrance which bristled with guards. A rubbish tip spilled out from the side of the camp toward the cliff face, a deep crevice scarring the rock face behind.
Sienna pointed up to it as they approached. “If anything happens, if we get separated, we meet there. Wait one sunset and one sunrise.” She hesitated a moment. “Then leave.”
Perry and Mila both nodded and Sienna could only hope that they would all walk out of the camp together with Zoe by their side.
The stench of waste greeted them as they reached the edge of the tip, rotting produce underpinned by a copper tang of butchered flesh and spilled blood. Perry pulled up his t-shirt, holding it against his mouth and nose. Sienna tried to breathe shallowly through her mouth, but nothing kept the awful stink from them. At least it kept the guards away from this area and only a few scrawny children sifting through the rubbish at the edge of the tip witnessed their arrival, skeletal frames on the edge of survival unheeding of the passers-by.
Mila clambered up the pile of rubbish to where it spilled over a wall into the camp, Sienna and Perry close behind her. They dropped down into a warren of ramshackle shelters and weather-worn tents fortified by sheets of metal and planks of wood.
Like all shanty towns, this one was filled with desperate people, working however they could to feed their children. With no magic, they were worthless to the Shadow Cartographers, used only for manual labor in the mines and camps. Were they also used as pure life energy, transformed into darkness by the silver-haired Elf?
