Borderlands

by Skye Melki-Wegner

  And then I’m at the door. I feel the ebb and flow of night; it puckers around its edges, sinking around the cracks in the metal. I pour myself to one side and the world twists sideways – everything is dark and metal and cold and I’m stuck halfway between iron and stone. The wall presses in behind me, the door crushes me from the front, and for a terrible moment I panic. I have to turn back! I have to be myself again, or I’ll be lost. But if I change back now, my body will be crushed, a mess of flesh and gore . . .

  No! I force myself to focus. I am me. I am darkness. I am both.

  And finally, I’m through. It’s like squeezing the last dregs of toothpaste from a tube. I pour into a black tunnel. Here the night is so thick, and I’m so alone, that I almost forget myself again. There’s a sudden drum inside my head – the pulse of the night, calling me, curling inside my belly, urging me to dissolve even further into darkness . . .

  I am Danika. I am me.

  The drumbeat fades. And with a gasp, I force myself back into human form.

  I stand there, heaving. Everything is shadow, and I can’t see any better with my eyes open than shut. I slap my thighs, my calves, my elbows, afraid that I won’t all be here. But my body seems to be intact. I’ve done it. I’ve ridden my proclivity, and I didn’t lose myself.

  Clementine shouts from the far side of the door. ‘Danika, hurry!’ Hands pound on the iron. A few more shouts, and then the terrible sound of final gasps. ‘Hurry!’

  Frantic splashing, then silence.

  My heart freezes. How long was I out for? Has the water reached the ceiling? I focus on the star charm and jerk its alchemy back into life. It flares, and a glow begins to paint the tunnel around me. It’s still faint, but enough to spot the lever: a twisted metal handle on the wall. I grab the lever, then pull.

  For a terrible moment, I think I don’t have the strength to do it. My limbs are weak and shaky – the result of my float through the darkness. But I grit my teeth and give another heave. Come on, come on . . .

  The door moves, just a little. Water spills through the gap: a tiny cascade in the dark. I heave again, pushing against the lever with all my body weight. The iron creaks. It groans. Machinery clanks. The door crawls a little further upwards. I see feet below it now – kicking, flailing.

  I squeeze and push so hard that tears leak from my eyes, and I feel as if my arms are on fire. But I’m rewarded with another creak, and the door cranks up a little higher. I see Maisy now, scrabbling to squeeze through the gap . . .

  And with one more heave, the door is open.

  Water washes out – a wave of cold and froth that snatches my legs from under me – and my friends spill out onto the tunnel floor, coughing and spluttering. I crash down and bang my head on something; pain sears across the back of my skull. I can taste blood in the water. Everything flashes dark, then light, as I fight to raise my charm bracelet above the foam.

  I take a deep breath, and struggle to my feet. My friends look dizzy and distressed. Clementine’s eyes bulge a little, and she takes desperate, haggard breaths.

  ‘You did it.’ Lukas leans against the wall. ‘Danika, you did it!’

  But there’s no time for congratulations, or even to check that everyone is okay. The water is rising around us, faster than ever. We scramble up the slope, puffing and exhausted. A few of my friends are hyperventilating, their lungs so distressed that they’re louder than the gurgle of water.

  There’s only room to crawl in single file, and I’m at the back of the group. The water surges up around my ankles, then my calves, and I urge the others onwards.

  ‘Hurry!’

  I don’t know where we pull the strength from, but we find it somewhere. We push, we pull, we crawl. We wriggle upwards on our bellies, and claw the dirt with desperate fingers to keep us moving forward.

  The others crumble dirt and pebbles as they crawl. Debris scatters across my face, and I spit it out from gasping lips. The water reaches my waist, then my shoulders, but I shout out a warning and the others push onwards.

  Finally, moonlight. Just a glimpse. It’s oddly framed, between jagged gaps of my friends’ limbs ahead. But I know it’s there, and I know we’re going to make it.

  Above five metres back from the tunnel’s end, the water finally closes over my head and rushes up towards Clementine’s ankles. There’s a final surge and we’re all swimming, tumbling, desperate bodies surging up towards the open sky. Someone kicks my face, and dirt churns through the water, and my body rolls over and over in a torrent of scrabbling fingers . . .

  And with lungs like fire, I tumble out into the night.

  I cough. I splutter. I can do nothing but focus on the rawness of my lungs. They’re demanding little flesh-sacks, when it comes down to it. They yell at my brain to breathe, breathe, breathe and mindlessly I obey. In, out. In, out. Every breath is a sting. Every breath is a cold rush of pleasure. And right now, all that matters in the world is to keep those lungs inflating.

  After a minute, I start to get a grip on myself. The moon is bright, nestled in an empty patch of sky. Down here, though, the camp is dark. No sign of lanterns. No sign of camp fires.

  Then I realise why. Water seeps up from the tunnel entrances, spilling across the camp around our ankles. The earth quivers beneath me. A couple of holes collapse away to my left, as though the tunnels beneath are crumbling.

  There’s no sign of the soldiers – they must have fled to higher ground as soon as the engine room exploded. They’ve taken most of the tents and supplies, although a few forgotten packs and chunks of rubbish float by in the churn.

  ‘We can’t stay down here,’ Teddy says. ‘The bloody ground’s caving in!’

  ‘The ridge.’ My voice is raw. ‘Up on the ridge . . .’

  We stumble towards the lake’s shore, where the stony ridge rises like a shield for the camp. As we crest the top, I glance at my friends, but they’re all staring skywards, expressions of utter awe upon their faces. I follow their gazes towards the dam and my heart almost stops beating.

  The kindred runes are crumbling. It’s a gradual process: holes and cracks appear, spreading like a slow infection across the wall. In the moonlight, I can see where large chunks of stone have already fallen. The symbols crack and shiver. The earth shakes again. Crumbs of falling stone and mortar rain upon the lake.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Clementine says.

  Lukas is pale. ‘The runes are breaking.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that! I meant why are they breaking? You didn’t just kill yourself when we weren’t looking, did you?’

  Lukas shakes his head, bewildered.

  I stare at the runes as they crumble. Morrigan family runes. They just needed a self-sacrifice – someone of the royal bloodline to kill themselves in an area close enough to the dam wall to . . .

  It hits me and Lukas at the same time. The reflected bullet. The falling body. ‘Sharr.’

  ‘What?’ Teddy looks about wildly. ‘Where?’

  ‘No, not here,’ I say. ‘Down in the tunnels. She shot a bullet close to a magnetic seam. It bounced back.’ I hesitate. ‘It was an accident, but I guess she sort of killed herself.’

  We all turn back to the wall.

  ‘Self-sacrifice,’ Maisy whispers. ‘She carried the Morrigan bloodline. Oh . . .’ She swallows hard. ‘The wall is coming down.’

  A huge crack splinters along the wall. It runs ­horizontally, just above the waterline. The higher section teeters, torn between gravity and the broken magic of the runes.

  And then it happens.

  After the slow crumbling of the runes, I don’t expect the actual break to be so sudden. It’s a rush, a roar, a smash of stone and a collapse of brick. The whole night seems to scream with the sound of it . . . and then there’s just water, water, water rushing away to refill the Valley in an enormous wave of sound and motion.

&
nbsp; The air is thick with mist and spray. My skin tingles, like the time I slept in a restaurant bin and clogged my clothes with chilli powder. I almost forget how to breathe. There is just the night, and the wave, and the stars.

  I remember our boatman’s words when he rowed us across to the camp. ‘Bloody big lake, this one. My sergeant reckons it’s as deep as a sea.’

  And now, that sea is returning home.

  Water rushes into the Valley like an estranged child returning for an embrace. It smashes through the remains of the wall, refilling a channel that has lain dry and deserted for centuries. My fingers slip into Lukas’s hand. He squeezes gently. I take a deep breath as the roar begins to die away. Then I stare through the space where the wall once stood. I can see only a thin slice from this angle, but it’s enough to glimpse what lies beyond.

  The Magnetic Valley.

  And my first thought is: beautiful.

  The mountains arch up skywards on either side, cupping the Valley into its V-shaped horizon. Even in the moonlight, I see a slice of rolling slopes: trees and foliage, grass and boulders. A meadow from a storybook. ‘Chasing those distant deserts of green . . .’

  But the Valley isn’t a desert. Not any more. Its base rolls and churns with the onslaught of water: a vast lake pouring down between the mountains. Starlight glints off the surface, winking in the dark.

  And below that lake, I know, lie the flooded ­catacombs.

  The king’s Plan B.

  ‘We did it,’ I whisper. ‘We stopped him.’

  My other hand finds Maisy’s, and I feel her body shift as she grabs Clementine. There’s a pause as Clementine and Teddy look at each other, hesitant. Then Teddy shrugs, grins, and grabs Clementine’s hand to complete the line.

  So we stand there, silent. Below us, the water rolls on. The moment is surreal, as though I’m half-­dreaming. But I feel my crewmates’ hands in my own, and their flesh is solid. Warm. Real. We are five figures, fingers joined. Five fugitives, still on the run.

  Five members of a refugee crew, and we stand with the Valley at our feet.

  In the end, we decide to take a boat.

  The lake is shallower now, having spilled most of its contents. Its remaining water has merged with the Valley, forming one enormous channel into the east.

  But its old shoreline remains intact, like a high-lipped crater, and the rowboats are still moored on its western shore – an obsolete means to ferry new recruits to the army camp. To reach the boats, we will have to walk. So we pilfer supply packs from the wreckage of the camp, and set off into the dark.

  We have to sneak past a few patrols, but most of the army has dispersed. They must have seen the destruction from a distance, up on the highest peaks of the foothills. It’s obvious that their plan can’t be salvaged – there’s no point going back down into the tunnels. With the catacombs destroyed and half their supplies washed away, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re marching back to the nearest city to seek new instructions from the king.

  Even so, we travel carefully. We wring the water from our clothes, and rub warmth back into our limbs. It’s lucky that the borderlands are warmer than the Knife, or we’d be at serious risk of hypothermia. Our army cloaks dry quickly, at least, so I guess they’re designed to survive a drenching.

  It takes hours to walk around the remains of the lake. Our bodies ache and our bellies burn. When I try to eat some of our stolen rations, I feel too nauseous to keep them down. My mind is a terrible whirl of images, but I don’t let myself focus on anything that’s happened. I can’t let myself remember. Not yet. Just the idea makes my breath stick like rocks in my throat. I play silent games with myself, or try to trick my friends into small talk.

  We stop for a rest, and sleep for several hours in a thorny thicket. No sign of soldiers, but we’re still on edge. Teddy produces the magnets that he saved from Radnor’s bonfire – but in my frazzled state, it takes me four attempts to cast even a weak illusion. Teddy drags a pile of broken undergrowth across the clearing, to better conceal our hiding place.

  ‘Better safe than sorry, I reckon,’ he says.

  I don’t expect to sleep, but sleep I do. My body aches with exhaustion. And I dream. I run through a field of quiet starlight, four other figures at my heels. I’m chasing something – a boat, perhaps – but it keeps soaring out of reach. It flies up, up . . . a bird of fire, wings among the stars. And suddenly it’s not a boat, it’s an old woman, and her smile melts like silver in the dark.

  When I wake, the world is still dark. I panic for a moment, searching for Lukas. The last time I slept beside him was the night he left me.

  But there he is, asleep and silent. His eyelashes flitter a little, as though he’s dreaming. I fight the urge to reach out and run my fingers through his hair. Instead, I just close my eyes and wait until the others stir.

  We walk on. My legs ache. My head throbs. By the time we find the army’s rowboats, my stomach gnaws like it’s made of teeth.

  The boats still sit on what was once the shoreline – although thanks to the drop in water level, it’s now the edge of a crater. The water itself lies far below. When I peer over the edge, I see it gleam beneath the moon.

  Rivers spill over the edge of the crater, tumbling down to the fallen lake. In the wake of this destruction, it’s hard to remember the lake’s sheer enormity before it was drained. The rippling water. The dam wall. Rivers pouring in from the borderlands, turning the lake into a drainage bowl . . .

  ‘Almost wish I could be there,’ I say, ‘when the royals find out what we’ve done.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Teddy says. ‘I like keeping my head on my shoulders.’

  We drag a rowboat down the crater. The slope is steep, but not vertical. Luckily the ground is damp sand, so we can slide the boat down towards the water without damaging its hull. The twins guide the front of it, while the rest of us push and pull at the back. Whenever we hit a steeper patch, it takes a bit of grunting and arm-straining to stop the boat sliding away from us altogether.

  ‘You’d think it wanted to run away,’ Teddy gasps, as we hold it back. ‘Bloody thing’s more stubborn than a foxary.’

  ‘You just say that because you can’t talk to it.’ I dig in my heels, saving the boat from the slip of its own momentum. ‘If your proclivity was Wood, I bet you’d be whispering sweet nothings into its boaty little ears . . .’

  ‘Its boaty little oars,’ Teddy says. ‘Get it?’

  It’s not much of a pun, but I’m so exhausted that I can’t hold back a laugh. Even Clementine looks amused, although she makes an effort to hide it. ‘You’re hopeless, Teddy Nort.’

  ‘I know.’ Teddy flashes her a smile. ‘That’s part of my charm.’

  Clementine snorts, but I can’t help noticing her cheeks are a little red.

  At the bottom, we stop for a rest.

  We sit on the water’s edge, exhausted, and try to hide the trembling in our limbs. I’m almost afraid to stop – to be alone with my thoughts in the silence. While we were walking I had something else to focus on. But now there’s just the darkness, and the whisper of the breeze. I want to tell the others to move, to keep going, but the words get stuck in my throat.

  I run a finger across our rowboat. Is this the same boat we rode across the lake, dressed as newbie soldiers? It seems like years ago. I think of Radnor sitting in the dark beside me. His chocolate eyes. His mangled face.

  I remember, suddenly, the first time I met him – down in the sewers of Rourton. I remember the nights we shared on guard duty. The way he trusted me, accepted me onto his crew. The way I let his body slip, let him tumble over that waterfall. And then we’re back in the forest, and he’s stepping towards me, and I’m leaning away . . .

  And I can’t hold it back any longer. I’m on my knees, hands pressed into the dirt, chest heaving and constricting like the air is made of fire. A hand
touches my shoulder. Lukas leans in beside me, his face against my neck. ‘It’s all right, Danika,’ he whispers. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  I wrench up my gaze, ashamed of myself. I’ve got no right to have a breakdown. My crew needs me. I’ve got to pull myself together . . .

  But then I see the others. Teddy rests one hand upon the boat, his eyes glinting. The twins have turned their faces away, but I can see the shake in their shoulders. What are they thinking of – the storm, the boats? Maisy’s injury? Silver dying, Laverna’s betrayal? Or maybe Radnor screaming in the engine room: the flames, the smoke, the stink of burning flesh . . .

  It’s too much. It’s all too much.

  So we just sit there, and we hold each other, and we finally let the memories flow. Time fades. Moonlight floats on the remains of the lake.

  And slowly, the knots in my chest disentangle.

  It’s almost dawn when we hit the water. Our rowboat slides from sand to liquid. It’s one of those moments when the world feels still. Not night, but not dawn. Just a strange sense of lingering on the air.

  Teddy volunteers to row first, and I’m not about to argue. He adopts the voice and posture of the guard who first rowed us across the lake.

  ‘Bloody big lake,’ he mimics. ‘Sergeant reckons it’s as deep as the sea.’

  Then he thrusts his oar into the water, and promptly gets it stuck in the muddy silt of the lakebed.

  As the sun rises, we float across the lake. Lukas sits beside me, one hand resting on my knee. I still don’t know what the situation is between us, but this isn’t the time to worry. I don’t need to know, or stick a label on it. He’s here. And for now, at least, that’s enough.

  ‘It will be strange, won’t it?’ Clementine says. ‘To leave Taladia.’

  Teddy keeps rowing, and our boat slides forward. ‘Strange in a good way, I reckon.’