A Mapwalker Trilogy

by J. F. Penn

  Grief jolted through Sienna as she remembered those terrifying last moments as Elf sucked the life from Xander and his lion, Asada, using it to power the infection and transformation of the mutant plague rats. Sienna had no direct evidence that the girl was here, but she sensed the presence of a powerful Shadow Cartographer, one who commanded the camp and directed the metamorphosis of the creatures within.

  An old woman peered out from behind a ragged curtain, her features etched with deep lines betraying her years of suffering. She looked at them with bleary eyes, a flicker of interest quickly dying as they passed by.

  The team walked in silence, alert for any sign of danger, but the streets seemed oddly deserted as they skirted a path leading downhill toward the lakeside.

  The sounds of a crowd soon came from up ahead. There was a sense of excitement and festivity in the air, incongruous in a place that seemed so full of desperation.

  A slow drumbeat began, booming out across the valley.

  Perry shook his head and sighed. “Nothing good happens when the drum starts.”

  Sienna knew what he meant. They had heard the drums at the Tophet, the Warlord’s place of child sacrifice, and again at the eyrie where Perry almost had his liver devoured by giant eagles.

  The drum was the sound of death.

  They ran toward it.

  The drumbeat startled Finn, a sudden interruption to his concentrated study of the valley below.

  Workers in the fields stopped pruning the plants and stood up to rub their backs and ease aches and pains. The guards gestured down the hill, giving permission to stop working. Groups of laborers set off toward the plaza, laughing together with a sudden sense of celebration.

  Finn followed the lines of the paths as they walked down the slopes to the barracks at the bottom, neatly organized in ranks with dirt tracks between.

  In the center of the camp, an open plaza lay in front of a lake with a sunken church at its heart. Finn could just make out black shadows undulating within the depths and he shuddered to think what monsters lay below the surface.

  A sizeable building — a temple of some kind — stood in front of the lake and behind it, by the water’s edge, sat deep vats of inky blue liquid. Finn narrowed his eyes as he focused on the unusual feature. Then he realized what they must be.

  A great deal of water would be needed to turn the plant extract into liquid doses of Liberation that could be bottled and distributed. Someone needed to add the twisted magic to the belladonna before it was shipped and it made sense to store it centrally.

  Finn pointed to the pools of blue. “We destroy those and it will disrupt the entire supply chain, at least for a time. Then we bring others from the Resistance to help finish the place.”

  Titus nodded and pointed at a roughly hewn hut on the edge of the plaza with more guards than the rest. “I’d say that’s where they keep weapons, maybe explosives. We should duck in there on the way down.”

  The drum beat faster, its rhythm steadily increasing.

  Finn stood up. “Come on. This is our chance. We’ll join the workers and mingle with the crowd.” He set off at a run down the hill between rows of deadly plants, Titus right behind. They tagged along at the back of a group of farmhands, laughing and joking as if they had come from plantations higher up the mountain.

  “Good day for a sacrifice,” one man said. “Helps the crops grow faster, see. Goddess be praised.”

  Finn nodded, the words bringing back memories of his father’s sacrifices at the Tophet. Blood always drew a crowd. He pitied the victim, but the distraction would be perfect. He and Titus could proceed with their plan unseen.

  As the crowd streamed into the plaza, they peeled off, skirting the edge of the barracks and circling around to the back of the guard’s hut. Constructed of wood and raised on stilts, the hut had a 360 degree walkway around the perimeter and a central staircase up the middle. One way in, one way out.

  Heavily armed guards walked the perimeter, but as the drum beat faster, those at the back edged forward so they could see the action.

  Finn and Titus ducked underneath the walkway and ran to the staircase. The boom of the drum grew louder and faster, the resonance so deep it made Finn’s heart beat in time. A neat trick to fire up the crowd and make the soldiers above want to join the party. He could only hope they stayed distracted.

  Finn pulled his sword and ran up the stairs on light feet, eyes darting around for any guards. No one in sight. He beckoned Titus up and stood watch while the explosives expert ducked inside the building, leaving the door ajar as he searched for something they could use.

  Seconds passed, and Finn counted his breaths. He stood motionless, listening for footsteps under the drum beat, but the soldiers stayed riveted to the scene in the plaza.

  Then the drumbeat stopped.

  A rustle inside and then silence as Titus must have frozen in his search, aware that the soldiers were only meters away.

  The crowd erupted into a cheer, their shouts and applause a deafening roar.

  Titus ducked out the hut, bag in hand, triumphant grin on his face. He ran down the steps and Finn dashed after him with no fear of being heard under the sound of celebration. They kept moving until they were well away from the guard’s hut.

  Behind one of the barracks, Titus stopped and opened his bag. Sticks of dynamite used for mining rock and a long roll of detonator cord lay inside. “I only wish I could have taken more.”

  Finn looked back at the raucous crowd. Working Borderlanders, some mutated, but most here as slaves.

  “We should try to minimize the damage and only blow the Liberation vats. Maybe bring down that temple on whatever dark power is inside.” He pointed at the building. “We just need to get around the back. We’ll rig explosives while the crowd is fixated on whatever the hell is happening out there.”

  They ran on, skirting the edge of the crowd as a carnival atmosphere took hold. Couples reveled in the shadows, so engaged with each other that Finn and Titus passed unnoticed.

  Four huge vats stood on the edge of the lake, giant wooden structures made from aged oak on tall stilts with lines of taps underneath for the bottling process. A ladder up one side led to a series of walkways between them.

  Titus pointed up. “Take the detonator cord and wind it between the vats, then drop it down. I’ll set the explosives underneath and then connect it together. Hurry now, we’re running out of time.”

  17

  Mila pulled ahead of Perry and Sienna as the path narrowed on the hill, switch-backing between the shanty town structures to emerge between military style barracks. People thronged the street, heading down toward the central area. Street vendors hawked their wares in a carnival atmosphere, the smell of roasted nuts mingling with hops as revelers drank ale from barrels. Mila slowed down to walk next to a buxom young woman, who swayed a little as she swigged from a pewter mug.

  “This should be exciting,” Mila said, smiling in welcome.

  “Oh yes,” the woman said. “We haven’t had such as these for a while. Some say they’re true aberrations, powerful enough to make it through the challenge.” She gave a sly grin. “But it will go better for me if they’re ravaged or devoured.”

  Her words startled Mila with their violent intent, but she kept a smile plastered on her face. “Why’s that?”

  The woman thrust her ample figure forward. “Good for business. The soldiers spend more coin after savagery.” She laughed and took another swig.

  Mila fell back to walk alongside Sienna and Perry. “There’s some kind of competition or tournament and it might not end well for whoever’s involved.”

  “Do you think it’s Zoe?” Perry asked with a frown of concern.

  “Perhaps, but the woman mentioned ‘they’ as if there are multiple contenders. We have to get closer.”

  Mila wiggled through the crowd, flowing with the stream of people until she reached a low wall at the water’s edge with a clear view. A ceremonial temple made from thick
wooden pillars carved with magical symbols stood pride of place and before it, a wide open plaza. The sense of excitement was palpable, a thrum of energy from the gathered masses, eager for blood.

  A flash of blue light came from out on the lake, then the buzz and snap of electrical force as something twisted toward the shore. It darted below the wall and Mila recognized its shape. An enormous electric eel, its body as thick as the wheel of a car, crackling with its own current. From the flashes of light further out, there were more of them waiting to be fed.

  Sienna and Perry joined her by the wall as a hush fell over the crowd.

  Two figures walked out from the wooden temple doorway, a silver-haired young girl with a willowy figure next to a tall man wrapped in a cloak of shadow, his face obscured by a hood. He stayed out of the sunlight, shielded by one of the pillars.

  “Elf,” Sienna whispered, and Mila remembered what her friend had told of Xander’s death. The girl’s power was not to be underestimated.

  “And my father,” Perry said, his voice hardening. “Or what’s left of him.”

  Mila narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on the shape of Sir Douglas, but he was more a cloud of particles than a solid body now.

  The transition to pure shadow was by all accounts a painful one, undertaken by only the most powerful Cartographers. It was unclear how much of the original man lay beneath that dusky blur, but while his physicality diminished, his magic grew.

  These two were the central force powering the dark transformation of the Borderlands, and as the crowd cheered, raising their hands in salute, Mila wondered whether anyone could stop them.

  Elf’s sweet girlish voice rang out. “You are all welcome here tonight to witness the challenge. The reward for survival is great, but the risk is only undertaken by a chosen few.” She pointed out to the lake. “Tonight, the challenge is something we have never seen before. A magic once thought lost has been reborn. If the challenge is won, we will have a new force to add to the army of the Borderlands.”

  She turned and beckoned to the side of the dais.

  Two slight figures walked onto the stage, their steps hesitant as they emerged in front of the crowd.

  Mila gasped at the sight of them. Twins with skin as black as Ekon’s, limbs as long and slender as her own. A boy and a girl, twins, around eight or nine years old.

  “Waterwalkers,” Elf announced in triumph. “The first in a generation. They will face the challenge together.” She pointed to the sunken church, its spire jutting out toward the night sky with a half-moon pennant flying from its peak. “Retrieve the flag and I will grant you the highest honor.”

  “They’re only children,” Sienna said softly. “How will they survive alone?”

  Mila couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe. She had thought for so long that she was the only one of her kind until she had met Ekon at Ganvié and seen evidence of their once great people. Now two more stood before her — about to go to their deaths.

  Even if the children survived the electric eels, she didn’t like the sound of the ‘highest honor.’ The challenge was clearly a way to find those who had the strongest magic, but what was their fate if they proved themselves?

  The crowd parted before them as the children walked down the steps. There was no hesitation in their stride, their expressions determined as they faced the water. Waves lapped up on the shore, a surge generated by the powerful tails of the creatures below, their thick bodies undulating through the liquid, their blue light arcing out around them. The air hummed with anticipation as the twins reached the edge of the lake.

  They stood for a moment on the shore, then dived in, bodies shimmering as they shifted into their magical form. The crowd gasped at the sight, unseen for so long.

  Mila didn’t hesitate.

  She dived over the side of the wall into the water below, disappearing into the depths as she followed the Waterwalker twins.

  Finn wound the explosive cord tightly around the barrels and then dropped it down through the center to Titus waiting below. As he emerged onto the walkway between the vats, he had an unobstructed view over the lake and the crowd beyond.

  A splash caught his eye from the other side of the plaza where people gathered around a low wall.

  Someone had dived in after the children.

  Behind the wall, Finn saw the sun catch on bright titian hair before the figure ducked away into the crowd. Could it be Sienna? Was Mila the unknown swimmer?

  His mind raced with the possibility of what it might mean. He had to find her and there was only one place they would all be heading for. He turned to peer around the vat to the temple. Surely, the Mapwalker team would head there next.

  18

  As Mila sank into the lake, her body changed and she moved as one with the water, scanning around her for the Waterwalker children and keeping an eye out for the electric eels.

  Other strange creatures moved in the gloom, the pulsating mass of globular jellyfish, their insides glowing with a bilious light, disfigured tentacles hanging down to catch passing prey. Shoals of silver-sided fish darted past with misshapen heads and tumors bulging from their spines. Even the rocks on the lake bed were contorted, as if twisted by some primeval force into submission. Whatever they did in this camp, it affected the environment as well as the people.

  A flash in the black water ahead.

  As her vision adjusted, Mila could just make out the thick body of one creature as it darted after the twins. These were no ordinary beasts, but mutants created by the Shadow. They were gigantic, hunting with high-voltage pulses like a radar to locate their quarry before crushing it in their coils and activating the electric charge.

  A scream echoed through the water. “Daniel!”

  The cry for help galvanized Mila into action and she darted through the water, accelerating past the eel. It lunged, snapping its jaws, sending a pulse of electricity through her.

  A searing jolt of pain and her limbs softened. For a moment, Mila thought she would sink to the bottom of the lake, a broken thing ready to be devoured.

  The eel twisted its coils, whipping its tail at her.

  Mila summoned her strength and rolled, corkscrewing down and away before it could catch her — then hurtled toward where the sound had come from.

  The sunken church emerged from the gloom, its once majestic windows covered with green algae, its graveyard now home to crawling, creeping things with poisonous spines and probing tentacles.

  An eel lay wrapped around one of the Waterwalkers, the girl, her face flitting between water and skin as the creature pulsed with electricity. Her crumpled body was limp, her eyes closed.

  Her brother tried in vain to pull the coils of the beast away, screaming as he tried to help her. “Dawn, wake up! You need to get out of there. Please!”

  Their language was a different dialect to the one Ekon had spoken with her in the ruined world under Ganvié, but Mila understood his desperation.

  As the eel pulsed once more, she dived down, remembering Ekon’s words when she lay trapped under the boulder in the ancient pyramid.

  You are water. You cannot be pinned down. No rock can trap you.

  And no eel either. These children had no one to teach them the ways of their people. But she could show them now.

  Mila swept past Daniel, surprise flashing over his face as she eased herself between the coils next to Dawn. She wrapped her arms around the girl, whispering to her. “You are water. Nothing can trap you.”

  Dawn shifted a little, her eyes flickering as she registered the strange presence. Then the little girl wrapped her arms around Mila, clutching her as a child needing protection. Mila felt the frail body turn into pure liquid and made herself the same, dissolving out from under the coils of the eel.

  She darted into the nave of the church, Daniel following close behind.

  The eel swam after them, crashing into the stone doorway, its body too thick to enter. They were safe — for now.

  “Who are you?” the
boy demanded as Mila laid his sister down on one pew.

  “A friend,” Mila said. “A Waterwalker.”

  Daniel crossed his arms, a frown on his face. “They told us there are no others. We’re special, our magic is unique.”

  Mila smiled. “You’re definitely special, more than you know, but there are more of us. I have a friend, Ekon. He lives where our people have always lived.” She smoothed a hand over Dawn’s forehead as the girl stirred. “I hope you can meet him.”

  “But we live here,” Daniel said. “Elf is our friend. She said there’ll be a party if we can bring back the flag.”

  I bet she did, Mila thought. But she didn’t want to frighten the children.

  “Have any of your other friends had parties with Elf?”

  Daniel’s frown deepened. “Some said they were having one, but they didn’t come back to school, so maybe they didn’t pass their challenge …” His voice faded away.

  Dawn opened her eyes and tried to sit up. Daniel rushed to her side as Mila helped the girl and together, they sat side by side on the pew in the church. Water eddied around them from the circling of the eels beyond the stone walls. The faint sound of carnival from the shore echoed through the water. Bread and circuses indeed. The masses kept at bay with alcohol and sacrifice. But Mila would not see these children suffer the same fate as Xander.

  “Did you come from Atlantis to save us?” Dawn asked hesitantly, the words unfamiliar in her mouth. “They told us you were all dead.”

  Mila shook her head, wondering what else the children had been told of their heritage. “I’m not from Atlantis, at least not that I know of. But I am here to help you.”

  Dawn curled inward, pulling her legs up to her chest as she looked at the door of the church, illuminated by flashes of light outside. The eels battered the surrounding stone, seeking a way in. “I don’t want to go back out there.”

  Mila put her arm around the girl and Dawn leaned in, snuggling up as if desperate for the contact. Daniel sat up straight a little way off, still wary. Mila’s heart ached for them both, knowing full well that they couldn’t stay in this sanctuary for long. They had to leave this place — but they did not have to return to the camp.