by J. F. Penn
A group of pilgrims stood watching the chase. Some urged the team on, beckoning them to safety. Others were silent, watching with hungry eyes, eager to witness the magical victims dragged back down to the catacombs.
A slender Nubian woman stood in the middle of the flowering arch, her hair white as spun sugar, her face ageless, her eyes deep pools of an unusual sapphire blue that stood out against her black skin. Even as she ran for her life, Sienna sensed the woman saw further than this realm, and weighed greater matters than just their lives in her hands.
The Librarian.
Jari ran through the arch first, falling to her knees, hugging the little girl to her chest. Finn crossed the line next, placing Perry on the ground before turning to reach for Sienna’s hand, pulling her over with Mila just as the gatehouse Scryer reached them. It stopped outside the gate of flowers as its brethren gathered behind, tall wraith-like creatures wrapped in rags, long skeletal fingers brushing the ground. They exuded menace, their presence causing a hush to fall over the gathered crowd.
Finn went down on his knees before the Librarian. “Please, give us sanctuary. We need your help for a terror far greater than these can bring. A terror that threatens us all.”
The Librarian looked over his head at the ragged Scryers beyond, her blue eyes raking over them with an edge of steel in the depths. It was clear that she hated the devourers of magic and abhorred their power in the outer limits of her realm, but she had little choice.
The gatehouse Scryer took a step forward, right up to the flower gate, only millimeters from the bright fallen petals strewn over the earth. It gave a rough caw like a crow over carrion, a reminder of the balance that must be kept according to the laws of the Shadow.
The Librarian’s shoulders slumped and she looked around at the Mapwalker team with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I must …”
9
The Librarian’s words trailed off as her eyes alighted on Sienna and the sapphire blue sparkled as she smiled in recognition. She lifted one regal hand and pointed away from the gate speaking in the rough caw of the Scryer tongue. It was clearly a dismissal.
The Scryers stood for a long second, then turned as one and stalked away, back to the darkness beneath and the hidden inner gatehouse beyond.
The crowd drifted away now the conflict was over, leaving the Mapwalker team kneeling on the ground before the Librarian.
“Thank you,” Sienna said. “Why did you change your mind?”
The Librarian smiled. “Your grandfather was my … friend … when he was your age. I would know that titian hair anywhere and I can sense an echo of his power in your blood.”
Her eyes grew soft at the mention of the past and Sienna wondered how much more than friends they had really been. She remembered the young woman sketched in her grandfather’s journal with such love. Time passed differently out here at the edge of the Uncharted but could this really be the same woman? If it was, she had barely aged a day.
The Librarian waved her arm toward the inner courts. “Welcome to the library. Now, come inside and tell me why you’re here. It had better be worth the fury of the Scryers.” She looked down at Jari, her arms still wrapped around the little girl. “Leave her with the Sisters of Grace in the forecourt. She will not be sent back down there, I give you my word.”
Jari nodded and darted away with the child without a second glance. Finn watched her go and Sienna noticed a smile playing around his lips as he witnessed the warrior woman’s long-hidden kindness. It seemed she was not so cold after all.
The Librarian led them inside the classical library, a grand edifice of marble columns with decorative Corinthian scrolls, like a stylized forest of learning. The atmosphere was hushed, reverent, and Sienna glimpsed rooms beyond the columns where scholars studied and pilgrims worshipped at the shrine of the book. Part of her wished she could stay awhile, with nothing to concern herself except the number of pages read each day. But would a quiet life of contemplation really satisfy her now after all she had seen in the Borderlands — and all that was yet to come?
Jari emerged from a side corridor as they passed by. She was alone now, the hand that had clutched that of the little girl now wrapped around the pommel of her sword.
She met Sienna’s questioning gaze with a hard look. “Don’t even think about saying anything.”
They stopped by a pool of crystal water surrounded by ornate fountains with sculptures of ancient Egyptian gods at their center. The high ceiling opened up to the sky above, allowing dappled light to play across the stream. Tropical flowers blossomed, casting their heavy scent into the air and tiny birds flitted between the leaves, their song a sweet note.
The Librarian indicated marble benches under a bower of flowering cherry blossom that provided privacy from the bustling pilgrims. Mila and Finn helped Perry to a long bench and healers came to tend to his wounds. He lay unmoving as they coated his lesions with a salve that smelled of honey and spice.
Servers brought fruit and tea with the fragrance of high mountains and the team sat together with the Librarian as Sienna explained their mission to find the Map of Plagues.
“The Mapwalker annals mention that one of the knights may have crossed over here to the Library of Alexandria. Perhaps he hid a piece in the archives amongst the many manuscripts? Perhaps he sought help from the Librarian of the time?”
The Librarian frowned. “It’s possible. We have our own annals, passed down over the centuries, notes about what really happened since history written by men of power portrays only one version of the truth. Those scrolls rest in the oldest part of the library.” She took Sienna’s hand. “I’ll take you to them because of your grandfather.”
Sienna smiled. “I know he would have loved to see you once again.”
The healers finished patching up Perry, providing a staff for him to lean upon until he recovered full strength. He was pale and drawn, his shoulders slumped, but his eyes had regained a glimmer of their old sparkle.
He shrugged off the help that Finn and Mila tried to provide. “I’m fine, honestly. Just let me walk.”
The Librarian led them away from the sanctuary of the pool toward the center of the collection. The architecture changed as they wound their way through corridors of stone, becoming less ornate, more functional. Age had worn down the flagstones they walked upon, leaving imprints of footsteps from the long dead. Ash and the dust of millennia blackened the walls. These inner halls were almost deserted, just a few quiet figures slipping behind columns as they passed.
“There’s not much left of Alexandria now,” the Librarian said as she led them deeper within, light fading as the windows grew smaller until they were only chinks that let in a sliver of light. “What is left we keep in darkness to protect from the damage of time.”
The inner library became a labyrinth of twists and turns until finally, they reached a central room constructed from huge blocks of stone. Shelves hacked from the rock were piled high with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scrolls. Some were thick, as long as carpets, rolled on the lower shelves, and others light and airy heaped nearer the ceiling. Many looked fragile, like they would crumble to the touch. It was reminiscent of the Illuminated Cartographer’s study, but where that was alive and vibrant, lit by reflected sunbeams, this room was cold and barren.
The past could be alive in the Borderlands after it had been pushed out from Earthside, but only if people made it their own. These scrolls were the dead parts of Alexandria, discarded history that the descendants of those Egyptians chose to leave behind. But Sienna also sensed power lying in maps of skin somewhere here, maps made from Blood Mapwalkers like herself.
Jari spun around in the center of the room, shaking her head. “How are we meant to find a tiny piece of a map in here?”
The Librarian gave a knowing smile. “If the map is to be found, I trust it will be.” She turned to Sienna. “Your grandfather renewed the pact with the library and I hold you now to the same promise. The dark clouds of war gather ov
erhead and we want no part of it. Leave us be. Take your fragment and then forget you were ever here. Do not mark us on your new maps, do not report us to the Ministry. Let us continue to be forgotten as a piece of a once glorious past so that we can live on for centuries more.”
As Sienna looked into the deep blue of the Librarian’s eyes, she caught a glimpse of ancient Egypt, palm trees and pyramids, then the slow death of a civilization that thought it would rule forever. A sense of foreboding washed over her, a realization that everything must die, that every great society must crumble.
“Promise me,” the Librarian urged.
Sienna nodded. “I promise.”
The Librarian squeezed her hand, then turned to the group. “I’ll leave you now. Go with my blessing.”
Jari looked confused. “But you can’t leave us in here. There’s no way we’ll make it out of this labyrinth without help.”
Finn put his hand on her shoulder. “We’re not leaving that way.”
Jari flushed, shook her head. “Of course, I didn’t … let’s just start looking.” She walked to a stack of scrolls and began to search.
The Librarian walked to the door and turned one last time as if to fix them all in her memory, then she left, leaving only the scent of flowers in her wake.
Perry sank to the floor with exhaustion and leaned back against one of the pillars. Sienna bent and tucked his jacket around his shoulders. “Just rest until it’s time to go.”
Mila turned around in the center of the room, hands on her hips, as she examined the racks of scrolls. “There’s something here, something more than just vellum and papyrus.” She met Sienna’s eyes. “Something of skin.”
Sienna nodded. “I feel it, too.”
She stood and together they walked slowly around the chamber, becoming attuned to the vibrations of the library and each scroll within it. Finn and Jari went to sit next to Perry, watching the women in silence.
Sienna felt a pulse in her blood quicken as they drew closer to one section and Mila stopped next to her with a puzzled expression. They both turned to the shelf and examined the pile of scrolls. They had fused together with time, a tangle of lost knowledge. Mila bent and blew off the dust. It rose into the air, making them sneeze.
“Bless you,” Perry said instinctively from across the room before falling into an awkward silence. The phrase stemmed from plague times when the blessing of God was called down on potential sufferers, a ward against disease. Sienna hoped they wouldn’t need that protection themselves.
“Let’s go carefully and try not to inhale too much ancient dust,” Mila joked, breaking the tension. She pulled out each scroll carefully, edging the top ones off the pile and Sienna placed them on the floor. Jari and Finn came to help and together, they emptied the rack, laying out the scrolls in rows.
Sienna noticed that one in particular seemed to emanate with an inner light. It was dirty brown on the outside, as dusty as the rest, nothing special, and yet she felt an urge to touch it. She stepped gingerly around the other scrolls and bent down, brushing her fingertips over the skin.
She gasped as a jolt of energy rushed through her.
She unrolled it carefully on the stone floor. Inside the outer scroll lay a piece of tattered skin, a patchwork of different colors and lines. It was not the skin of an animal and it wasn’t like the blood maps that hung in the gallery of the Ministry. This was something hybrid, something knitted from the skin of many and inscribed with powerful blood.
“Is that it?” Jari asked. “Is it a fragment from the Map of Plagues?”
Sienna nodded. “It must be. It’s knitted together from pieces of skin, some from plague sufferers and some from a Blood Mapwalker. The knights must have sewn them together, entwining magic with the plague itself to keep it hidden.”
As she looked at it, Sienna had the sense of something uncurling deep within the earth, something long buried from ancient times. It fed from the mass graves of genocide and the horrors of war. It devoured the plague-ridden bodies of the diseased and dying.
And now it was awake.
10
Finn knelt next to Sienna and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright? You’ve gone pale.”
Sienna took a deep breath. “There’s more going on here than we know.”
He nodded. “But that’s always been true and we just have to keep going. So, where next?”
Sienna lifted the ragged piece of the Map of Plagues away from its protective outer scroll. It too had lines inscribed upon it, a simple sketch showing waterways and islands. There was a drop of dried blood on the page, the color of rust partially obscuring the lines of a death’s head skull. “The knight had to travel somewhere when he left this place. He must have drawn this and then stepped through it to escape Alexandria. The Librarian kept it with the piece of the map he left behind.”
Mila examined it more closely. “It looks like Venice. Does the trail take us back to Earthside?”
Perry pulled himself up from the wall and limped over. “That’s not Venice in Italy. That’s the Venice of Africa. It’s part of Benin on Earthside, on the northern shore of Lake Nokoué.”
Finn laughed. “Of course, it’s Ganvié Island, the floating city. Like Old Aleppo, it straddles the border, half pushed out from your world into ours. The local Fon tribespeople helped Portuguese slave traders by raiding the villages of other tribes hundreds of years ago. But their religious beliefs prevented them from attacking those who dwelled on water, so the floating city grew out of the homes of those early escapees.”
“You know it?” Mila asked.
Finn shook his head. “I’ve never been but I’ve heard stories. We’ll have to be careful. Its waters cross the border and people are lost between the worlds there all the time.”
Sienna folded the piece of the Map of Plagues and placed it inside a waterproof pouch within her jacket. She pulled out the ritual knife that she kept close to her heart, the knife that had spilled the blood of her grandfather. Any blade would do to make the cut, it was her blood that held the power, but the reminder gave her strength. He had never retreated from his duty, and neither would she.
She ran her fingers over the map of Ganvié, calling on the tendrils of her magic as she strengthened herself for what was to come. Every time she spilled her blood and traveled through the maps, a drop of Shadow entered her — a tiny speck, but still, it built up over years and eventually, could turn the Mapwalker to the Shadow side. Some chose never to use their magic after a certain point, trapped on Earthside or in the Borderlands at the point of turning, like Bridget and now her own father. Others chose to give in and become a Shadow Cartographer, embracing their magic in all its glory.
Sienna looked up at Perry. His father had chosen that path, as had Xander, who had been with them on the hunt for the Map of Shadows. She had thought he was a friend but he had betrayed them all.
There were no limits to the use of magic if you gave in to the Shadow and Sienna sometimes dreamed of the possibilities. Back at Oxford, she had always felt so lost and yet over here in the Borderlands, she could be much more than she ever thought possible. She wanted to give in to the rush. A taste of it was never enough, but it was all she could have right now.
Sienna looked up at Finn and Jari. “Make sure you keep hold of my hand.” She purposefully met Finn’s gaze. “I don’t want to lose you.”
She bent over the map and cut into her palm with the knife, letting a single drop of blood drip down onto the lines, pooling with the knight’s from so long ago. She reached out with the other hand so the team could hold onto her, then she closed her eyes and dived into the map.
In Sienna’s mind, the lines became three-dimensional, lifting from the page to form a city stretched out below. This was the moment she craved and Sienna longed to stay right here in the lines between the map and the physical world. If she traveled alone, perhaps she could prolong the time between, but the others were a heavy weight upon her, forcing her back down to the
physical world. She could make out boats below on turquoise water, fisherman casting their nets and a tangle of islands that made up the watery city.
The border appeared as a shimmering line and Sienna made sure to come down on the Borderland side. Finn and Jari would disappear if they crossed back into Earthside without traveling through an open portal. No one really knew what happened to those who disappeared but she wasn’t about to find out now.
She picked one of the huts on stilts that looked like a place of worship rather than a dwelling and dived down into it.
The wooden hut was hot after the cool inner sanctum of the library. The smell of salt water and drying fish wafted through the air. Sienna heard a slithering sound of scales on wood, then the rapid breath of panic as the team landed beside her.
She opened her eyes, trying to focus even as the nausea receded. Traveling this way left her weak, especially when she carried this many people. The tiny wound on her palm throbbed and she could almost feel the drop of shadow suffusing her blood as it healed.
She lay inside a wooden hut with a tin roof, the others on the floor around her. The planks on the floor had gaps between them that showed the water beneath. Around the edges of the hut were wooden crates, stacked three high. The slithering sound came from within.
Jari sat up, a half-smile on her face. She looked at Sienna with renewed respect and an edge of fear. “That was crazy. What a way to travel. You must jump around like that all the time.”
Mila stood up, recovering quickly. “There’s a price she must pay for it.”
Jari shrugged. “We all pay, in this lifetime or the next.”
As the team recovered, pulling themselves up to sit against the walls of the hut, a hissing came from within the stacked crates.
Finn went to look inside, pressing his face against the slats before pulling back sharply. “That’s a lot of snakes.”