A Mapwalker Trilogy

by J. F. Penn

  Thoughts of Finn intruded. She had promised to help him bring down the dark regime of the Shadow Cartographers, to free the children and enslaved women. That world seemed so far away from this perfection of a city where life was easy and free.

  Sienna walked down through the busy streets, past the independent shops, packed restaurants, and the faces of happy families with no idea of that other place.

  She turned into the paved square of the Abbey Churchyard and looked up at the facade of the great church, the vaulted stained glass windows flanked by Jacob’s ladder carved in stone on which angels climbed heavenwards. Her eyes were drawn to the sinister angel that crawled down, its contorted body more like a demon. Most never noticed the anomaly, but then most didn’t know of what lay below this ancient place. The winding halls of the Ministry of Maps lay buffered up against Roman ruins, wound amongst the remains of an ancient city, powered by the ley lines that the Druids of old had known so well.

  Sienna walked around the back of the Abbey to the doorway she had run from the first time she had been confronted with the truth of the Mapwalkers. Now she entered again willingly, hoping that this was her way back to Finn.

  “Wait for me!”

  Sienna turned to see Mila in the alley, walking toward her with confident strides. Her dark curls were tied back with a red scarf patterned with grinning sugar skulls that matched her goth t-shirt, pulled tight over lithe curves and the web of tattoos on her arms.

  Sienna smiled. “I’m so glad you’re back. I’ve been going nuts here without you. How was your escape?”

  Mila shook her head. “Not long enough. What’s going on?”

  Sienna shrugged. “Not sure. But Bridget said it was urgent.”

  Together they walked down the steps and entered the corridors of the Ministry. They passed doorways for the main departments: Antiquities, Restoration, Misinformation, Illustration. The Blood Gallery.

  Sienna clenched her fists as they passed, a cord of emotion pulling her toward what would one day be her own resting place. As a Blood Mapwalker, the most powerful magic flowed through her family line, and one day she would have to pay the ultimate sacrifice.

  By the time they reached the War Room, it was busy with Mapwalker staff talking in smaller groups, gathered around a framed image of giant rats devouring a corpse.

  Bridget raised her arms and calm descended on the room. She nodded to the screen behind her. “Last night, a tomb was uncovered behind a plague pit in London.” The screen flicked to images of a sarcophagus, the stone lid broken next to it, then a group of men, one wearing a plague doctor’s mask, four with half-moon tattoos.

  “These men broke in and we believe they found something, something we thought lost many generations ago.”

  The image on the screen changed to a woodblock carving, hard black lines revealing a grim tableau. A man lay dying, his face contorted with pain, bulbous black growths under his arms. Rats gathered under his bed, his family gathered behind him, and beyond them, a hooded figure stood with a scythe.

  Bridget closed her eyes for a second, as if gathering strength, then opened them again, the brilliant blue as hard as sapphires. “We don’t have any pictures of the Map of Plagues, but we think a part of it was found last night by these men.”

  Questions came thick and fast across the room, the noise growing louder until Bridget held up her hand for quiet. “I’ll tell you all we know from the histories. As the Black Plague ravaged Europe, a group of Mapwalker knights tried to save what was left by opening a portal and pushing the badly infected onto a forgotten island in the Borderlands, effectively quarantining them from Earthside.”

  Perry frowned. “And damning those on the other side. They’re people too, you know.”

  Bridget nodded. “We can’t escape the sins of the past, but regardless of what was right, that’s what they did. After they pushed the final plague villages into the Borderlands, they used the skin of victims to create a map marking the resting place of the cursed island. The Map of Plagues.”

  As Bridget spoke, Sienna touched the scars on her arm, her own skin an evolving map of Bath. Had those men been distant relations of her own blood? She felt her father’s eyes upon her, and she turned to smile at him. His face was old beyond his years now, marked by the passage of time he had spent as a tortured prisoner of the Shadow Cartographers. She had barely recognized him when they found his carved up body shackled to a table and Sienna knew his scars ran deeper than the wounds that scarred his flesh.

  Her father’s blue eyes were filled with concern, his knuckles white around his cane with worry, but he wouldn’t hold her back from this mission. He had spent years protecting her from the secret of their bloodline but now she was here, now she had taken her place on the Mapwalker team, she knew he was proud of her.

  Mila pointed at the woodcut of the plague victim on the screen. “Can a medieval plague really have an impact on the world these days?”

  Bridget tapped on her tablet computer to bring up recent news reports of a plague outbreak. Health workers in white plastic clothing and face masks tended to living victims while the dead lay in body bags in neat rows waiting for cremation.

  “It’s not medieval. The plague still emerges every year in Madagascar, and has been present in Congo, and even the western states of America.”

  Perry stepped forward. “Don’t we have vaccines or ways to stop it?”

  “There is no vaccine for bubonic plague but it can be treated with antibiotics, so it’s controllable. The problem comes when the plague goes pneumonic and becomes airborne, spreading through coughing and contact.” She paused, her frown deepening. “We think the Shadow Cartographers will use the Map of Plagues to find the most virulent strain, the one that the knights banished over the border, and then somehow send it back over to Earthside. Coordinated attacks have been increasing. They’re testing our defenses.”

  Bridget pointed at the map again as the red dots of plague overran the stricken continent, leaving millions dead. “This is what the Shadow Cartographers mean to bring back. We can’t let it happen. We have to find the Map of Plagues before they do and destroy it.”

  “Where do we start?” Mila asked. “Are there any clues in the archives?”

  Bridget shook her head. “The knights didn’t trust anyone, even their own kind. They split the map into four pieces and separated them. There have been fragments supposedly sighted over the years, notes in the annals but nothing concrete.” She hesitated. “There is someone who might know more but she is deep in the Uncharted.”

  John stepped forward, shaking his head. “You can’t send them there, Bridget. It’s too dangerous. The Librarian hasn’t been seen since …” His voice trailed off.

  “Since the last time we sought her out,” Bridget finished for him, and a moment of understanding passed between them. “Time passes differently out there. She may yet help us again.”

  Perry walked up to the screen and examined the plague doctor. He zoomed in and tapped on the man’s face. “I can’t be sure but I think this is my father’s work. He won’t stop until Earthside is destroyed and the Borderlanders retake what they think is theirs.” He spun around, face set in determination. “When do we leave?”

  Bridget frowned. “You need a guide to the outer Borderlands and possibly even into the Uncharted. The trader town on its northern edge is the best option. We’ve found many guides there over the years, people willing to risk traveling with us. It has no name so it cannot be found easily and its position shifts, of course, but there is one way you can get there quickly. Follow me.”

  Sienna’s heart beat faster at the mention of the trader town. Could it be the same place Finn had run to? As she followed the others toward the door, her father stopped her with a gentle hand.

  “Be careful,” he said softly. “I know how the shadow feels.” His eyes were haunted, like an addict remembering the early days before magic ravaged his body. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I should have prepared you�
�”

  “It’s okay, Dad. I’ll be fine. We can talk when I come home again.”

  He nodded and waved her on with a smile. “Go then. Be safe with your friends.”

  The others were way up the corridor now, waiting outside a locked door, one of the many hidden beneath the ancient city. Sienna hadn’t noticed this one before. It was nothing special, just a wooden door, stained and varnished to enhance the natural grain. But as she drew closer, Sienna noted the intricate locking mechanism that held it shut. Carved runes surrounded a silver keyhole and she could sense magic wound within, as if it would only open to those chosen for a purpose.

  Bridget pulled a silver key from her pocket and placed it within the lock, whispering words under her breath as she turned it. She pushed open the door, her blue eyes sparkling with a love for adventure. “Welcome to the Gallery of Geographical Maps.”

  Sienna couldn’t help but gasp as Bridget turned the lights on overhead. The gallery stretched ahead of her, the length of a football field, with bright colors of earth and sea on either side and above her, a vaulted ceiling of gold extravagance.

  Each painted map was as big as the wall, a bird’s-eye view of a region of the world, shaded with detail of the land. Olive groves and mountains, white-capped sea and calm turquoise lakes. Walled cities of grandeur, rural villages and sea ports with ships that headed out into the blue. A tingling in her fingers made Sienna lean in more closely to one of the cities. She sensed that she could use these to travel through, a shorthand version of the more detailed maps held within the vaults, or those she could make herself. This was some kind of Mapwalker portal room, with access to places the team had traveled to in the past — and perhaps had still to visit.

  Bridget led them down the gallery and stopped in front of a fresco of Italy. “The way that leads to the trader town is hidden in the map of Rome itself.” She traced the lines of the city with a gentle fingertip. “See, this quarter is not of the ancient city on Earthside. You can enter through here.”

  Sienna reached out a hand and caressed the lines as she imagined diving down into those streets. Would Finn be there?

  Bridget stepped back to allow Mila and Perry to stand close to Sienna. “Be careful out there, but remember, we need those pieces of the Map of Plagues, whatever it takes.”

  Sienna sensed the pull of the Borderlands and as it pulsed through her, she closed her eyes. She held out her other hand to Perry and Mila and as they touched her palm, she led them through the map.

  The energy in the room shifted as the team passed through. The wall of maps seemed to ripple in their wake and Bridget put out a hand to catch the air that passed through. Was that the salt of the ocean she could smell? The smoke from cooking fires?

  She remembered traveling to the trader town years ago, the thrill of being on the edge of adventure as her team passed through on their way to the Uncharted. Bridget sighed. She could never walk there again. She could never swim in the forgotten lakes of sparkling emerald or walk in the hanging gardens. She could never again visit the lost cities of legend. She could not feel the dark thrill of shadow in her veins, the intensity of the rush that came from crossing over.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, clutching her body tightly, holding herself back. Because of course, she could travel again. She was a Blood Mapwalker, all she had to do was walk through the map.

  But Bridget could barely contain the throb of shadow as it called to its home. Every time she had used her magic, the darkness burrowed deeper within her, its tendrils wrapped round her heart. She could cross over again but one more drop might be enough to tip her over. She thought of Sir Douglas Mercator, Perry’s father, once her colleague — once her friend — fighting alongside the Mapwalker team to maintain the border in times gone by.

  Until the drops of shadow grew too strong in him, and he turned.

  Bridget took a step closer to the detailed map, her fingers tracing the lines that represented the border. Would this desire remain in her for the rest of her life? Would she have to resist it every single day?

  She rested her forehead against the wall, closed her eyes, allowed the need to rise up within her. She could leave, forget all that held her here, forget John and her responsibilities, forget the fight over the border. It would be simpler to just let go. The tug of shadow throbbed within her and Bridget let it rise …

  She stepped back from the wall quickly, heart hammering as she realized how close she had come.

  She took a deep breath.

  She could not give in. She could never use her blood magic ever again, for it would cost her everything.

  4

  The castle smelled of damp and decay and Xander could never quite get his clothes completely dry. He huddled on his bed, pulled the blankets tighter about his shoulders and leaned back against the wooden headboard, carved with intricate designs of poisonous plants. Mold grew in the corners of his room and despite covering the flagstones with thick rugs, it was always cold. There was a fireplace surrounded by fancy metal scrollwork but nothing to burn and no way to start the flame anyway.

  Xander sighed. This was not what he had signed up for.

  His access to the hidden libraries had been refused until he could prove himself a true follower of the Shadow. He didn’t have any friends because the castle was full of guards below his station and feral children with no control over their magic. He had tried to get into their hall but the little freaks had driven him away with fireballs and cruel laughter. He was allowed — even encouraged — to visit the Fertility Halls but the place made his skin crawl. He was truly an outsider here.

  When Sir Douglas Mercator had first talked of the glories of the shadow side, he had spoken of unlimited magic, of a forbidden library full of books of beasts that Xander could illustrate and skin maps he could use to conjure them into being. He promised a fulfilling life in the Borderlands, the life of a prince, no longer subject to the demands of the Ministry, no need to restrict his magic. All he had to do was deliver the daughter of John Farren, so her skin alongside her father’s would complete the Map of Shadows, and Xander would have his new life.

  He had fulfilled his promise and brought Sienna to the castle but somehow, the Mapwalker team had made it out. Xander still remembered her face as he had revealed his true allegiance, how Perry had lost his father that day and how he had lost his friends.

  He’d also lost his prize and so Xander found himself consigned to the castle, living not the princely life he’d been promised, but a limbo existence unwanted by all. Sir Douglas hadn’t mentioned the bleak living conditions here in the castle or that the forbidden library would still be forbidden, or that the skin maps he had been promised were kept locked up to be used for more important things than conjuring beasts.

  On top of all that, Xander had been without his phone for missions into the Borderlands but he had never really considered a life without technology altogether. It pretty much sucked.

  Despite his annoyance at Bridget and the Ministry and the dire warnings of what would happen if they gave in to the shadow side, he found himself missing Bath. The way the stone turned to honey-gold in the late afternoons, the birdsong along the canal where he had walked with Mila sometimes, Zippy her spaniel running ahead. Right now he even missed Perry. He could start a fire anywhere and right now, the warmth of the flames would go a long way to making this place bearable. Xander wasn’t even getting a chance to use his magic, since Sir Douglas was holed up in his study at the top of the north tower and hadn’t been seen for days.

  Enough.

  Xander unwrapped himself from the blanket and grabbed the satchel containing his sketchbook and pens. He would just go knock on the door and ask — no, demand — access to the forbidden library. That would be a start until there was something more interesting to do. Like summon the cool beasts he’d soon be drawing. After all, what was the point of being an Illustrator when you couldn’t illustrate? He would prove himself to the Shadow if it took all his magic
to get there.

  Xander stalked through the corridors of the castle, the stone tunnels lit with lamps in iron brackets, the cold permeating his bones. He passed soldiers along the way, some staring at him with searching eyes, assessing his status. He met their gaze, noting their features, determined to seek them out once he was given his rightful place here. They would respect him when they faced the creatures he conjured.

  As their footsteps faded into the distance, Xander reached the bottom of the staircase to the north tower. It was flanked by two pillars carved with occult symbols on one side and the crest of the Mercators’ on the other. Xander put his foot on the first step, hesitating as the cold seemed to permeate deep into his blood, filling his veins with ice. He looked up, a sudden doubt filling him. What was really up there?

  Perhaps he should come back another time? Perhaps Sir Douglas was too busy to see him right now?

  Footsteps echoed behind him as the soldiers marched back down the corridor.

  Xander walked on, taking the steps two at a time, unwilling to face them as he retreated. His heart pounded as he climbed, the welcome exertion of physical movement combined with one concern.

  He had not been invited.

  Xander slowed his steps to stop on the curve of the stair and pulled a scrap of leather from his pocket. Placing it on the ground, he smoothed out the edges around the beasts drawn there: a tentacled sea monster and a shark in one corner, a dragon in the opposite, next to a coiled serpent and a powerful lion.

  Xander summoned his Illustrator magic and channeled it into the leather. Asada, the lion, stepped from the map, shaking his thick golden mane as if waking from sleep. He rolled his powerful shoulders and nuzzled against Xander’s side, his purr a deep sound that echoed in the corridor. Xander put his face in Asada’s mane, closed his eyes and breathed in the animal scent mingled with the leather of the map. This was about as close to home as he could get and for now, it was enough. With Asada by his side, Xander’s confidence returned. Together they padded quietly up the stairs.