by J. F. Penn
Map Of The Impossible
A Mapwalker Novel #3
J. F. Penn
Contents
Quotes
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Enjoyed Map of the Impossible?
Author’s Note
More Books by J.F.Penn
About J.F.Penn
Acknowledgments
“Pulvis et umbra sumus.
We are but dust and shadow.”
Horace, The Odes
* * *
“There is nothing impossible to him who will try.”
Alexander the Great
Prologue
Fongafale, Tuvalu, South Pacific
The earth shook once more, a tremor more powerful than the last. A deep rumble sounded from beneath the ground as if the gods wakened in anger, and Meihani clutched a nearby palm tree with gnarled fingers to hold herself steady. The rough bark scraped against her skin as she tried to stay upright. She was old but a lifetime of walking the island had strengthened her limbs and as she braced herself, the shudder passed beneath her.
It would not be the last.
Something had changed in recent weeks, a shift in the cycles she had seen in her long life. The earth was broken — and they would all pay the price.
Meihani looked out over the waves to the horizon across the tiny cove. She stood just around the bay from where fishermen launched their boats, hoping that today would bring enough food for their families and maybe even some to sell at the market. She walked here each morning as first light struck the water and every day, she thanked the gods she was still alive. At her age, there was no guarantee she would greet the dawn once more.
Meihani breathed in the salty air, relishing every inhale and exhale. She had witnessed the final moments of so many as an elder of the village. The wracking coughs of the old, the tiny sighs of the too-early born and too soon to pass. So many souls ahead of her on the ancient path and still each day she rose once more to greet the dawn. She said a prayer to the god of the ocean, her lips moving as she whispered words of thanks and supplication.
The waves were grey green, reflecting the thick clouds gathering above, and the sun hid behind a storm front, its light and power dimmed by a force that would sweep over the island before midday. Meihani could read the signs as easily as others read the newspapers that came over from the mainland. She understood the moods of the ocean and from this vantage point each morning, she could judge her daily walk.
On soft days, when the waves were gentle, she shuffled off her shoes and paddled in the water, sinking into the sand and wiggling her toes like she had done since she was a girl, delighting in the pleasure of sensation. On wild days, she would stand here by the thick palm, both of them grown strong over the years they dwelled on the coast. The wind could howl and the waves pound down, but she was safe up here as rain pelted the green leaves above her. On those days, she would remember how wild she had once been, surfing on a hand-carved board, diving amongst the rocks, almost made of seawater. The ocean was in her veins and Meihani knew it more intimately than any lover.
Today, something was very wrong.
The ground shook again with a deep rumbling under the earth. A horde of tiny crabs emerged from the sand, shaken loose from the golden grains. They scuttled for shelter under the palms up the beach, their skittering legs leaving tiny marks in the sand that were quickly shuffled away by movement from the depths beneath.
Meihani frowned. That was odd. The creatures should have run for the waterline and sunk beneath the wet sand once more. Out in the open, they would be easy prey for the gulls, flipped over, legs wriggling while sharp beaks tore the soft flesh from their undersides as they were eaten alive.
She looked up, expecting to see eager birds wheeling toward the ready feast. But the flocks overhead flew inland to the hills, calling to one another with shrill notes on the edge of a scream. When birds and beasts fled inland away from the water, the danger was out to sea. This ancient wisdom had never failed her ancestors and Meihani knew she should hurry back to the village, tell them all to run for higher ground. She looked again to the horizon. Perhaps it was only a storm and besides, warnings from the old were rarely heeded unless danger was imminent. She would wait a little longer.
The tremors had been coming for days, some sharp blows that knocked her off her feet like the fist of her husband on nights when he had drunk his weight in beer. Others had been soft and gentle, like the arms of her loving mama. Both dead many years now, but neither forgotten. Meihani could still remember everything from back then, even though these days she often forgot where she put her glasses, or the names of her various grandchildren when they came so infrequently to visit from Fiji, a world away from her quiet life. Her body may be stooped and wrinkled, folded by time, but this physical frame would not cage her mind — and on this beach every day, she was briefly free. A spirit of the ocean once more.
Another rumbling deep below the earth.
A jolt. A dip as the ground seemed to fall away.
Meihani’s stomach dropped, and she gasped as a terrible realization rose within. She looked back at the path to the village, knowing that her legs could not carry her fast enough now. It was too late.
The water receded with a wet sucking sound, leaving sea creatures in its wake, like the ebb of the tide but so much faster. Parrotfish flopped on the sand and arched their spines in desperation for water, mouths gaping open. Jellyfish pulsed their last as they lay stranded next to coral-tinted cowrie shells. A turtle clawed at the sand, head poked out, eyes wide as it stared around in confusion.
The sea withdrew further, revealing sand and rocks that had never been uncovered before in Meihani’s lifetime. Then the skeletal hull of a wooden boat, barnacles clustered on its spars, rainbow anemones dying as they met the air, colors fading quickly.
Still the water sucked back, further and further.
Words came on the wind, whispering to Meihani in her Mama’s voice, spoken from her deathbed as she took her last breath. “If there is danger, child, cross over. The Borderlands will always welcome you.”
Some thought the Borderlands were a myth, but Meihani knew there was a place off the edge of the map where displaced people could find a home. When she looked to the sea some days, she glimpsed what might be a shimmer of a veil between the worlds.
Many in her village could sense some kind of border out there, perhaps descendants of those who had crossed long ago, leaving some latent gift in generations to come. But in recent weeks, they had spoken in whispers of it closing, a sense that the barrier in the sky and in the ocean had become blocked. Some dismissed their words, others stored up provisions in case of disaster. But none had seen this coming.
Meihani gazed at the track toward the village. Her footprints still lingered in the dust, marks made every day for the span of a life. Times had changed, but the ocean remained her constant — and now she knew it would be her end. She turned away from the village, putting the past behind her, and looked out to the waves as they pulled back still further.
Their island was low-lying, one of
many threatened by the rise of oceans and vulnerable to natural disaster. They had been encouraged to leave, but this was their home. There was nowhere else to go. Meihani had hoped to die before the end of the island, but it seemed like fate would entwine them in a lover’s embrace.
She pushed away from the palm and walked slowly down the beach, kicking off her shoes and wriggling her toes in the wet sand. A smile transformed her features into those of a young girl once more. She relished each footstep, an imprint on the ocean floor that disappeared even as she walked on. Manoko fish died around her, flopping their last, as she picked a path through the arms of death.
She reached the ruins of the fishing boat and touched its spars. Her father had once sailed something like it, his face ever set to the sea. Sometimes he would let her go out with him and she would sit curled up in the bow and watch for dolphins, shouting with joy when they swam ahead, leaping before the wave. He always told her that the sea was their life and their death, and that was as it should be for an island people.
Meihani looked past the boat to where the water towered high against the horizon, sucked back into a giant wave the size of the American skyscrapers she saw on TV shows. Such a thing was incredible to behold, but those who saw it this close would never tell their tale. That was certain.
Part of her wanted to keep walking toward that wall of water, to welcome it with open arms like the wild teenager she had once been, screaming her fury into the storm. But the little girl inside was afraid.
Meihani reached up into the boat and pulled herself toward the bow. Her arms were weak but her old body was frail and light so it wasn’t too difficult. The wood was wet and cold but she had spent much of her life that way, so it wasn’t a hardship to curl up in the corner of the bow, her face toward the island that held so many memories.
The smell of salt and kelp filled the air as the roar of the ocean grew to a deafening sound. A rush of oncoming horses charging into battle, a hail of rain and thunder. The first drops of the tsunami fell upon her face. As it towered above, Meihani closed her eyes, her palms against the wooden hull beneath her as she waited for its final embrace.
BBC News Report
A tsunami struck the low-lying island of Fongafale in Tuvalu today in the aftermath of a deep-sea earthquake off the coast. The entire island remains underwater with several villages and a resort submerged by the flood. Casualties are reported to be in the thousands and no survivors have been found.
Military vessels from Australia and New Zealand converged on the area to help the Tuvaluan police recover bodies from the waves, but the operation has been hampered by ongoing tremors in the region and stormy weather conditions.
Geologists cannot explain why there has been such an increase in earthquakes and natural disasters in the last month.
“After the San Francisco Bay Area evacuation and now this South Pacific disaster, plans are underway to move people out of possible danger zones,” Dr Willow Mackenzie said, speaking from James Cook University in Australia. “It’s a daunting task on a global scale. Tectonic plates all over the globe seem to be rubbing up against a new barrier, shifting in ways we’ve never seen before. It’s unprecedented, but we have a multi-disciplinary team working on mapping scenarios. We can say that this will not be the last natural disaster.”
1
Sienna Farren closed heavy curtains over the tall Georgian windows, blocking out the light. It was raining and the buildings opposite were empty, but she didn’t want any witnesses to what she was about to do.
The open-plan apartment above the map shop in Bath had been her grandfather’s, handed down to her on his death, a casualty of the ongoing war between those who protected Earthside and the Shadow Cartographers of the Borderlands. Sienna hadn’t been in the place long enough to make it her own, or perhaps she wanted to keep it intact in memory of the man she hadn’t known well in life. She felt his presence in the bookshelves filled with his journals and art on the walls that reflected his passion for cartography. And of course, downstairs, in the collection of antique maps and globes, each a portal to those who could travel through. But the toll of magic tainted their promise, the stain of shadow in exchange for the gift of mapwalking — and that price concerned her now.
Sienna walked over to the full-length mirror in the corner of the room and pulled up her long-sleeved t-shirt to reveal her slim torso. She had inherited her grandfather’s pale skin and titian hair and usually her stomach was lightly freckled, but now those subtle hues were lost in tendrils of black that formed patterns under her skin like tattoos of some ancient tribe.
The marks didn’t follow the lines of her veins, but curled into beautiful shapes, almost like ink swirling in water, shifting with the movement of her body and even her mood. Some days they were faint, like the last days of a bruise. She could even make them disappear if she concentrated hard enough. But after a night of restless dreams, the marks had etched themselves deeper into her skin and begun their journey along her arms toward her neckline. These t-shirts would not hide the stain for long and Sienna feared what would happen when Bridget or her father or one of the other Mapwalkers noticed. She didn’t want to face the possibility of what it might mean.
But the dreams were becoming more vivid.
Last night, she had dreamed of soaring amongst the clouds above the Borderlands, darting like a bird into the blue. She heard her name called from the Tower of the Winds in a voice of a thousand thousand souls.
Sienna.
The pull was almost irresistible, a longing inside her that echoed some elemental need. But as she drew closer, the tattooed lines of the city of Bath on her arms burned, a reminder of her promise to safeguard Earthside. She shifted in the air, tried to dive down toward the land below, tried to escape from the voice, but mist gathered about her and skeletal shapes of winged creatures with razor talons swooped close to ward her away from safety, herding her back to the Tower of the Winds. Closer, closer, until she could almost see what lay inside. She had woken with a gasp, heart pounding, sheets damp with sweat, and the marks on her skin had spread.
Sienna traced one of the dark whorls with a fingertip, touching her own skin as if it was a stranger’s body. The marks were beautiful and yet, if anyone knew how deeply she was entwined with the Shadow, she would be sent to the medical wing of the Ministry. There were rumors of it, whispers of a ward filled with Mapwalkers in shadow coma, their bodies etched in black ink. Some recovered, others were lost.
It was the price of Mapwalker magic, a drop of shadow for every use. Those with too much could turn and become a Shadow Cartographer, powerful on the other side of the border but a sworn enemy to those on Earthside.
Or they must remain here, banished from ever crossing again, denied the place that brought them alive, denied the use of their magic for fear of what they might become. Like her father, a broken man, bled of his magic, afraid of the Shadow turning him, scared of it taking what was left of his life, and yet, still, he craved its touch.
But perhaps she was different, perhaps she could remain on the knife edge — but only if she kept the marks hidden. At least long enough to get back over to the Borderlands.
Sienna thought of Finn’s dark eyes, the soft touch of his lips as he woke her from the shadow weave when she had last seen him. What was he doing now? She didn’t know if he was alive, safe but on the run with the Resistance, or dead at the hands of his father, the Warlord, Kosai. She had to go back to find out whether they might have a future together — and to face the voice that kept calling in her dreams.
She pulled down her t-shirt and turned away from the mirror, reaching up to the bookcase for one of her grandfather’s journals. He had traveled widely in the Borderlands, with years of experience as a roaming Mapwalker. His skin had been tattooed with the lines of Bath, as her own was now, but perhaps he had never heard the call from the Tower of the Winds. Or things had changed somehow. The balance undone by the shifting wheel of time and circumstance.
Every day, she scoured the pages of his journals for some clue as to how they could undo what had been done. She kept coming back to journal 24. It mentioned the Map of the Impossible, a way through the space between the worlds. Her grandfather had learned of it during one of his sojourns in the Library of Alexandria, perhaps from the lips of his lost love, the Librarian, but there were no specifics as to what it was or where it might be.
Sienna turned another page of the journal, sensing the throb of shadow beneath her skin. Perhaps today she would find the way back.
Mila Wendell put another log into her tiny wood-burning stove, pushed it deeper into the flames with a poker, and then shut the grate once more. Rain hammered on the roof of the canal boat, making it a snug haven down here below. The smell of cedar wood hung in the air, mingled with the scent of freshly roasted coffee. Everything was as it should be — but Mila couldn’t deny the sense of unease that curled in her stomach.
When Bridget closed the border, there had been a moment of rest, a beat of silence, almost a numb realization amongst the Mapwalkers. They had stopped the invasion, saved Earthside from a devastating plague — but the sense of loss took her breath away, as if they had chopped off a limb. Mila wanted to fling open the gates again and consequences be damned. She had an inkling she wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
