A Mapwalker Trilogy

by J. F. Penn

  Zoe was early as usual, but there were a few familiar faces already working, heads bent over vellum, cloth or paper, all diligent in trying to trace the lines on the maps, some burned beyond recognition, others salvageable to those who knew their craft, both worldly and magical.

  Her own magic was muddled, a touch of this and that, but Zoe had found her life’s work in restoration. She could lose herself in the maps, her light touch turning a broken thing into something those with real magic could travel through once more. She was a little in awe of the Blood Mapwalkers, those who could travel through maps, even create their own, whose very essence could transform the boundaries of the world. Her abilities seemed paltry in comparison, but she did what she could.

  At the British Library, Zoe had been responsible for tracing the provenance of older maps, finding those with magic imbued within them so they could be separated from purely Earthside cartography. The collection held in excess of four million individual maps, and even with her touch of weaver magic, Zoe couldn’t work fast enough. But she must have done something right because now she was here, in the Ministry at Bath, part of the Antiquities team drafted in to help Restoration after the fire.

  Each of the workers had a private area shielded by high panels so they could work in the way that best suited their gifts. Magic had a hierarchy, just as any part of society, and the Mapwalkers were no different. Blood Mapwalkers were the most revered — but they also took the most risk, and when they died, their skin became the maps that others traveled in their turn.

  Below them were those with strong fire or water magic, and then those with other kinds of gifts, many of whom found their way to the Ministry over time. Zoe had heard a rumor that those in the Borderlands deliberately bred children of mixed magic, trying to encourage new forms to emerge. But here on Earthside, such things were forbidden and Zoe’s own gift was considered a lesser form. But she could still be useful in her quiet way, and to be honest, she was perfectly happy here in the quiet of Antiquities. She could dampen down the desire for something more — at least, most of the time.

  Zoe primarily worked with the tools of every map restorer. De-acidification and removal of caustic adhesives from incorrect backing materials. Preparation and flattening, bleaching and cleaning, cutting where necessary, re-backing with linen. But she specialized in fixing rips and tears both physical and magical, and she suspected that this was why she had been asked to come to Bath.

  She circled behind her desk, placing her bag underneath as she looked down at the map pinned gently to the surface. The Egyptian papyrus depicted a fifteen-kilometer stretch of Wadi Hammamat in the Eastern Desert made for Pharaoh Ramesses IV on a quarrying expedition. Although initially thought to show only rock formations, a magical imprint had been overlaid in generations past, now disturbed by the degradation of the map. Unless it was restored, the ancient paths would be lost forever. Zoe had studied Egyptology and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics as part of her degree. If she could restore the papyrus, perhaps she could also restore the Mapwalker magic that lay interwoven with its strands.

  She walked to the coffee machine in the corner, a filter system that seemed as ancient as the room itself. She poured herself a generous mug and went back to her desk. In the last few days, she had been preparing the map in traditional ways as she had learned in her degree in Conservation and Restoration from Lincoln University, home to the largest center for such work in the UK. She had already placed re-moistenable repair paper over the worst of the cracks. It was made from high-grade Japanese paper coated with a cellulose gum that would not degrade the papyrus, one of the best ways to both protect what was left and repair the map. But as Zoe looked down at the lines depicting the Wadi, she knew she had done everything traditionally possible as a restorer. It was time to move to the next step.

  Her white gloves lay next to the map, and usually, reaching for them was her first task of the day. But now she left them to the side and concentrated on the map itself. Zoe softened her gaze into the space above the lines and curves and colors of ancient Egypt. As her focus shifted, contours appeared in the air, suspended as if woven from motes of dust and glimmers of sunlight. Tears and fissures cracked through the dimensions, breaking the perfection of the original magical lines and weakening its fabric.

  Zoe raised her hands and began to gently tease the contours back into shape, weaving the magic together as if she stitched an intricate pattern in the air. The room fell away around her as she concentrated, barely breathing as she sensed the holes and gaps and filled them with little drops of her gift.

  As the minutes passed, she began to comprehend the unseen undulations of the magical map. She had worked on enough of these multi-layered papyri to learn the conventions of how early Mapwalkers structured their cartography, but this one was different. Zoe frowned as she considered a particular layer over the quarry. As much as she tried to weave the contours together, it resisted her magic; the tendrils coming undone even as she repeated her actions. It was strange, something she had never encountered before, but she was sure her mother would have.

  Her mother’s family had been Christian refugees from Armenia, fleeing the Ottoman Empire in the wake of genocide. Three generations had passed but the pain of persecution and the loss of their homeland persisted, a shared legacy that permeated songs and stories told over and over to keep the memory alive.

  Many of the women of her mother’s bloodline had been renowned weavers — both of cloth and of magic. Her father was a British accountant, a straight-backed man of impeccable manners, a port in the emotional storm that was her mother’s intensity. Zoe was their only child, and whenever she went home to the terraced house in Clapham, south London, they wanted to know everything, all the details of her life. She left London partly to escape their constrictive orbit, but her mother had taught her everything about weaving, and she could use the help now.

  Zoe took a deep breath. She did not want to call her mother and explain why she needed help. She had left London for a reason, and she could work this out herself. She just needed to go back to first principles.

  The first step in untangling a bad weave was to step back and look at it from a fresh angle, to try and work out what could be released elsewhere to free tension from the knots. Brute strength made a tangle worse, whereas gentle easing could solve the problem and leave the strands unbroken. Zoe took a step backward to shift her perspective on the contours that hung in the air. But there was nothing new to see, and she bit her lip in frustration.

  She hunkered down, squatting on the ground to look up from below and there, suddenly, she saw it. A golden thread hung from the underside of the deep quarry lines, a shimmering cord of magic that implied … another layer.

  Zoe couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her lips at the realization. She had read so many maps where there was only one layer of magic woven into the threads; she had never considered that there might be more below that. She reached for the golden thread and as she touched it, a jolt of energy passed through her. The scent of sandalwood filled the air and as she caressed the length of cord, she saw another dimension, another layer of magic, woven beneath the first.

  She blinked, shaking her head a little, trying to adjust her focus so she could see what lay below. But it was as if she had only stitched a tiny part of the whole and much was left to be revealed. Perhaps fixing the upper layer further would uncover more.

  Zoe stood again and worked faster, her fingers darting in and out of silver contours, motes of light dancing around her as stitch by stitch, she remade the map.

  It seemed as if time slowed while Zoe dwelled within and between the layers, fingers flashing faster, a smile playing around her lips. For so long, she had held her weaver magic in check, not daring to use it much for fear of discovery amongst those who knew not of Mapwalkers, but also for fear of the drops of shadow that all exchanged for the use of their gift. But now, Zoe glimpsed the possibilities. How many more maps had these layers, hidden magical paths
below what was obvious? What else could she discover?

  She made the final stitch in the upper layer of magic and the Egyptian papyrus seemed renewed, at least through her eyes. The physical cracks disappeared as the magical ones closed, and then it was as if the entire thing became a three-dimensional puzzle. She bent down to look on the underside, her eyes sparkling at what lay below outlined in threads of golden light.

  Zoe carefully examined the network of underground caverns. What had been a plain quarry on the surface was clearly a funerary complex of great riches, a hidden treasure trove undiscovered by Egyptologists. An area of barren desert may well harbor the greatest wealth.

  She traced a path through the chambers, glimpsing golden hieroglyphics on the walls, woven into the magical fabric. She frowned as she recognized symbols from the Book of the Dead, markers on the path to the afterlife.

  Warnings and curses. A forbidden place.

  What could possibly be down there that needed so much protection?

  5

  Sienna stepped into the library, a bag over her shoulder containing her grandfather’s journal. She stood in the doorway for a moment, gazing around at what was left. The fire had carved a swathe through the dry paper and ancient vellum once stacked on the English oak shelves that now stood bowed and blackened — but not completely ravaged. Perhaps nothing could really destroy the heart of the Ministry.

  A rustle came from deeper within the room.

  Sienna walked further in and rounded the shelves to the annex where once the Illuminated Cartographer could be found at study. At first glance, it was as if nothing had changed.

  The area had been partially protected by the sheer density of maps and more had been brought from other departments to replace them. Rolled sheets of vellum painted with routes to distant places lined the walls. Tiny fragments of papyrus lay pinned within frames next to a grand print of an ancient sea map with a tentacled monster nestled in one corner. Glimpses of what it had once been — but the smell of burned paper still hung in the air, a reminder of recent desolation.

  A figure stood at a desk piled high with books and for a moment, Sienna thought she saw the craggy features of the Illuminated emerging from the maps. She blinked, and the image faded as Bridget turned. Her close-cropped dark hair still curled around fine features and piercing blue eyes. She still had laughter lines and an air of mischief, but it was tempered now with a darker stain, and her shoulders hung heavy as if she bore a great weight upon them. Where once she had worn multi-colored dresses of patchwork stitching, she now clothed herself in maps. They wound about her, wrapping her body in layers of lines and symbols, overlaying the tattoos she had etched on her skin. At her wrists, ink merged with blood, a pulsing of life and magic that sustained the border at a cost beyond imagining.

  “Did we do the right thing when we closed the border?” Sienna said softly.

  “We did what we could.” Bridget shrugged, the maps rustling around her at the movement. “But I still don’t know. It’s impossible to tell.” She turned back to the desk, indicating the books stacked high around her. “The reports of natural disasters keep coming, and the annals of the Mapwalkers have little of help. This has never been done before.”

  Sienna walked to the desk and touched the leather spine of one book. Words of those long dead meant nothing as people continued to die every day in the here and now.

  “You can open the border again though, right?”

  Bridget sighed. “It’s hard to tell. When my blood mingled with the maps that day, I used significant power to close it. It would take much more to reverse that action.” She hung her head. “I don’t know if I can do it alone, or if I have the strength to maintain it without letting in a tide of Borderlanders.”

  Sienna put a hand out to touch the edge of the maps that curled around Bridget’s arm. “You’re not alone. There are still Blood Mapwalkers who stand alongside you, those who will fight for Earthside.”

  Bridget turned her palms upward and Sienna looked down to see where the maps entered her veins at the wrists. Her blood turned to a deep indigo — not the dark blue of the Shadow but more the cobalt of Chinese porcelain or the hood of a saint in the stained glass of a medieval cathedral.

  “You can still walk away,” Bridget said. “It’s too late for me. I decided to give my life For Galileo a long time ago, but you have a chance to get away from here.”

  Sienna took Bridget’s hand in her own. She could feel the blood and ink pulsing between them and something called to the magic within her. Like calling to like. “This is my life now, too. I had no direction before coming here, no idea why I felt so restless. Now I know my place in this world and the one beyond.” For a moment, Sienna hesitated, unsure of the next step. She bit her lip and then sighed. “But there is something I need to show you.”

  She pulled up her t-shirt with her other hand, revealing the whorls of shadow that patterned her torso.

  Bridget gasped, her eyes widening. She dropped Sienna’s hand in shock, the connection of ink and blood severed once more. “How did it happen?”

  Sienna shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. It ebbs and flows as I use my magic, but something is different now. I think I might be able to sustain a balance of shadow.”

  Bridget bent to look at the patterns more closely. “I’ve never seen marks as dense as this on someone still functioning. You have to see one of the doctors—”

  “But—”

  Bridget held up a hand. “Don’t even try to argue. You’ll see Dr Rachel Tabib. She’s younger than most of the other Ministry doctors, more open-minded about possibilities. Please, Sienna. Your father will be so worried.”

  Sienna nodded. “Alright, but just to ease his mind. I’m not being confined to some ward while I have time left to find this.” She opened the bag and pulled out her grandfather’s journal.

  Bridget moved a heavy tome to one side and Sienna glimpsed a figure sketched in black lines spinning in a vortex of shadow and blood on its ivory pages.

  “Show me,” Bridget said.

  Sienna placed the journal on the desk and opened it to a page marked with a purple silk ribbon. Intricate drawings covered the paper, sketches of giant stones at the base of a pyramid, a boy lounging against a palm tree eating dates next to a sleeping camel, the triangular sail of a felucca on the waters of the Nile beyond.

  Bridget bent to look closer. “Michael traveled often to Egypt on Earthside when he worked with the Antiquities department. Sometimes he would cross over to the Borderlands to fetch artifacts pushed over in ancient times. Why do you think this is unusual?”

  Sienna turned the page. “He sketched a lot of tombs and because he saw so many, he noted when they were different, when they stood out somehow.” She pointed to a set of hieroglyphics and the scrawled handwriting underneath. Map of the Impossible.

  Sienna flicked through the subsequent pages. “Look here and here. He found these marks in several tombs but never discovered what it referred to. They were all etched with funerary texts and paths through the underworld to the land beyond.”

  Bridget traced the lines with a gentle fingertip. “You think the land beyond might be the Borderlands?”

  “It’s possible. We have to at least consider it as an option.”

  Bridget nodded. “Even if I could open the border once more, it would allow the invasion of the Shadow Cartographers and the forces of the Warlord. The best option is for you and the Mapwalker team to find another way through and see if you can work with the Resistance to change things over there before we open it again.”

  “We need someone who knows hieroglyphics with us.”

  The sound of hurried footsteps came from outside, then the door to the library banged open.

  John rushed in, his face etched with concern as he rounded the corner of the annex. “You both have to see this.”

  He carried a tablet computer with the news playing on mute. He turned it to face Sienna and Bridget as he switched on the sound
.

  “The evacuation of San Francisco is continuing under almost impossible conditions this morning as earthquakes intensify. Emergency sirens sound throughout the downtown area and residents have been asked to calmly leave as fast as possible.”

  John muted the sound again even as horrific images of the aftermath of the Pacific Island disaster played on the screen, followed by footage of cars streaming east away from the coast of California, people running from what was on its way. The news cut to photographs from the 1906 earthquake that devastated San Francisco. Thousands of people dead, buildings destroyed and hundreds of thousands left homeless. Images of the stricken city seared on the memory of those who thought this day would never come in their lifetime.

  “We could not have foreseen the impact of closing the border,” John said. “But more people will die from natural disasters than might have died from invasion or the plague if we don’t get it open again. We’re running out of time.”

  Zoe felt a touch on her shoulder. She jumped, the vision of the golden underworld dropping away, the veil of magic dissipating as her focus shifted.

  The Head of the Antiquities department stood by her side, the woman’s gnomish face crinkled in curiosity. “Found something interesting?” She bent to look more closely at the map on the desk.

  Her words made Zoe hesitate. She didn’t really know what she’d found, but she didn’t want to share anything yet. Not until she was sure.

  “Perhaps, but I need more time.”

  “Well, you won’t have it today. You’re needed in the library.”

  Zoe’s heart beat faster at the prospect of going to the center of the Ministry, the soul of the maps. She had visited the place briefly when she arrived as part of her induction tour, but it was a mess of charred ruins and everyone had ignored her, consumed as they were by cleanup tasks. She could only hope it was better now.