A Mapwalker Trilogy

by J. F. Penn

  Mila and Perry stood with backpacks on, faces set with determination as they gazed into the desert land before them. Both were around her age, but they had an air of experience that Zoe lacked. Mila moved with a liquid grace, but Zoe had heard tales of her ability to hold her own in a fight. Perry was muscular, his arms bulging against the seams of his jacket, his face that of a young god. He looked over and gave a smile. Zoe blushed a little as their eyes locked. Perhaps this trip wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

  The door opened, and Sienna walked in with a palpable sense of purpose. She walked to the map of Egypt and then turned to face Zoe.

  “Have you traveled this way before?”

  Zoe shook her head.

  Sienna smiled and held out a hand. “Just hold on and keep breathing.”

  Mila and Perry gathered round and laid their hands on Sienna’s. She reached out with her other hand and entered the map.

  Zoe watched the golden threads part and suddenly, they were inside the fabric itself. She tried to catch her breath, but the rush was like a wind tunnel. It was all she could do to keep her balance as nausea rose violently inside. Sounds of rushing water surrounded her, a cacophony that made her want to cover her ears, but she couldn’t let go of Sienna for fear of being trapped here between the threads of the world.

  Under the sound of the storm, Zoe heard a voice.

  Sienna.

  A voice made up of thousands of souls, a sound that made her both shiver in fear and want to run toward it. Something seductive and powerful, something that promised the world and only asked one thing in return.

  A bump. A crash.

  The ground rushed up to meet her and Zoe tumbled to the desert floor, retching and coughing, spitting up the bile that rose in her mouth. Her head throbbed, her muscles ached. If this was mapwalking, then she’d stick with an airplane next time.

  Zoe groaned and rolled onto her back. The sky brooded with heavy rain clouds and a falcon hovered in the warm air currents high above; the bird representing Horus, the Egyptian god of the sky and protector of the realm. Its cry pierced the air, a haunting sound of melancholy.

  “Here, drink this.” Perry handed her a bottle of water. Zoe sat up and took a sip. “First time is rough. But you get used to it.”

  Mila gave a terse laugh as she dusted herself off. “Well, some people do.”

  Sienna stood a little way off, looking out over the lip of a quarry. She turned as they reached her and for a moment she caught Zoe’s gaze, a question in her eyes. The voice — perhaps the others had never heard it — but now was not the time to speak of what it might mean. Zoe gave a slight nod and a look of understanding passed between them.

  “Wow, look at this place.” Perry gazed out across the valley, a deep scar in the earth pitted with excavation, as the others came to stand with him.

  “The great monuments of ancient Egypt were built from this rock,” Zoe said. “The land was barren outside the reaches of the Nile, the only place where human life could thrive, but this place made their construction possible.”

  Countless slaves toiled and died here, their blood soaking the earth, augmenting the coppery red of the layers below. In the millennia since, the quarry had been partially filled in by the sands of the desert. A ruined village on the southern edge showed evidence that man had tried to flourish here, but rumors of a cursed land and the inhospitable landscape kept people away for generations.

  Mila shivered as a sharp wind blew across the desert, sending whirlwinds of sand and dust into the air. Clouds gathered overhead and a roll of thunder sounded in the distance. “We need to get moving. That storm’s heading straight for us.” She turned to Zoe. “So how do we get in?”

  Zoe flushed a little, suddenly the center of attention. “Well, um, I think …” The words were heavy in her mouth and it seemed as if everything she knew dissolved to incoherence now they were in the field. She had only ever dealt with manuscripts and papyri, never the genuine thing. This place was three-dimensional, it had texture, it had weather, and the team looked to her to take control.

  After a beat of silence, Sienna pointed down the valley. “It looks like there’s a change in the rock strata down there. What do you think?”

  Zoe knew Sienna was trying to help and the moment of respite allowed a shift in her perspective. As she looked down the valley, she called to mind the papyrus map back at her desk in the Ministry. It had been too fragile to carry with them, but she had committed every detail to memory. She thought of the golden threads and how she had to see differently to allow them to emerge.

  She closed her eyes for a second and then opened them again, focusing not on the landscape but in the surrounding air, softening her gaze until … Zoe gasped, grinning in delight as the world shifted and suddenly she could see the warp and weft of threads that held the environment together. There was a knot of stitches in the valley below and filaments that stretched down into the earth. It must be the opening to the funerary complex.

  “What is it? What can you see?”

  Sienna’s voice startled Zoe, and the threads dissolved as quickly as they had appeared.

  “I … I saw the complex down there. I know the way now.”

  Zoe stumbled a little, suddenly weak, her head spinning.

  Sienna put a hand out to steady her. “Careful now, we don’t want to lose you so soon.” Her voice was gentle. “Do you know how to use your weaver magic?”

  Zoe looked into her eyes, meeting the young woman’s more experienced gaze. “I thought it was just for restoration, but I think there might be more to it. I can see threads running through the earth, binding the world.”

  Sienna smiled. “There are often surprising elements to our gifts. Don’t worry. We’ve all been through it. Just trust that it will emerge at the right time.” As she spoke, shadows darkened in her eyes, thunderclouds gathering in a reflection of the storm above. Zoe blinked, and they were gone.

  The team set off down the edge of the quarry, slip-sliding on the scree, careful not to trip over the rocks. The wind picked up and funneled through the valley, whistling through piles of strewn boulders like a warning in this desolate place. But there was life even here, clumps of prickly shrubs with small leathery leaves and tiny succulents with sharp spines. Zoe caught sight of a small furry creature darting under a rock as they approached, maybe one of the desert gerbils endemic to the area. As she turned her head to watch it run, she skidded on the loose stones. Perry reached out a hand to steady her.

  “Careful, we need you.” He smiled and Zoe’s heart beat a little faster. Did he hold her hand for just a second longer than was necessary?

  Rain pattered down as the Mapwalkers reached the bottom of the valley. By the time they made it to where Zoe thought the entrance would be, it poured down in sheets of wind that slammed against the rocks as if nature itself tried to stop their progress. They were all soaked through, dripping wet, cold and desperate to get under shelter.

  They hurried to a pile of enormous blocks of stone, each one carved from the quarry and discarded here — or perhaps placed specifically to camouflage the entrance. Zoe relaxed her gaze and once again, saw the golden thread weaving its way through.

  “This is definitely it.”

  Perry frowned. “How do we get inside? There’s no way we can move these blocks ourselves.”

  Sienna placed her hands on the stone pile. “Now we’re here, I can draw a map and take us inside.”

  Mila shook her head. “No need. But you all need to stand way back if I’m going to do this.”

  The others walked up and away from the entrance, high enough to be out of range but still close enough to see. Zoe’s skin tingled with the cold of the rain but also with the anticipation of what might happen, of the thrill of being here with the Mapwalker team.

  As the storm raged above them, Mila lifted her hands, then her face to the rain. Her clothes were soaked through and it was as if her skin underneath became one with the water. Mila reached for the de
luge and brought it down in a torrent, using it to sweep under one of the heavy stone blocks and move it to the side of the entrance, lifting and floating it away as if on flood waters. She directed the rain as a symphony, sweeping it down from the heavens above and swirling the rocks away from the entrance. Mila’s face rippled with joy as the surge washed around her. This was her element, and Zoe felt a sense of privilege to see the Waterwalker so transformed. Would she ever be that confident in her magic?

  Once she had uncovered the entrance, Mila swirled the water away from the quarry floor, pinning her flood behind the barrier of rocks now placed like a dam to one side. But it didn’t stop the rainfall that still poured down upon them, trickling down into the revealed mouth of the complex below.

  Mila beckoned, and the team jogged back down to the entrance. “Let’s get inside, then I’ll seal it up behind us with some rocks. We don’t want a flood following us down there.”

  Zoe stepped inside the rough-hewn tunnel, chisel marks still visible in the stone overhead. It was just big enough for them to walk upright, although Perry’s head almost touched the ceiling. As they descended, torches in hand, she wondered about the forgotten people who had dug this place, whether they had died here, their bones becoming part of history.

  As they rounded a corner out of sight of the entrance, Mila dropped back and a moment later, a resounding crash echoed through the tunnel. Flakes of rock dropped from the ceiling from thin fissures above that seemed to widen as they watched. Zoe held her breath, aware of the tons of rock above, suddenly conscious that they were now barricaded in an ancient tomb, their only way out now blocked by impenetrable slabs of stone. There was no turning back.

  A thin stream of water trickled down the tunnel as Mila rounded the corner once more, her footsteps a little weary as the magic took its toll. But Zoe could see that the tattooed Waterwalker welcomed the price for the joy it gave her in the moment.

  As the team came together again, Perry led them on. “Let’s see what’s down here.”

  He walked on with confident steps as the tunnel wound down into the earth. Zoe recalled that the chambers of the complex were several stories down, so they were probably entering from one of the side tunnels. Etchings marked the walls of the corridor and occasionally, a few crude paintings, but nothing of the skill or importance of the art in the Valley of the Kings. These were only rudimentary slashes and fragments of curses that Zoe recognized from funerary texts. Nothing remarkable. Could this really be the right place?

  They turned a last corner and Perry stopped in surprise; the others halting quickly behind him.

  The tunnel ended in a low doorway, a crawl space into blackness beyond. Above it, an ancient god looked down upon them with eyes of deep blue lapis lazuli, its hideous features a dire warning. The head of a Nile river crocodile, jagged teeth dripping with blood, its forelegs the powerful body of a lion and its rear, the thick hide of a hippopotamus. It was carved into the rock and outlined in precious stones, surrounded by curses etched deep into stone.

  “Ammit, devourer of the dead,” Zoe whispered. “Made up of the three dread creatures the Egyptians feared the most. He eats the hearts of the impure if they are weighed and found wanting.”

  Mila bent down and shone her torch into the black hole. “And we’re meant to crawl into this?” She looked up at Zoe. “Are you sure this is the right way?”

  Sienna stepped forward. “It’s the Map of the Impossible, it’s not going to be a walk in the park, is it?” She pointed up to a series of hieroglyphics. “I recognize these from my grandfather’s journal. This has to be the right way.”

  She bent down and crawled into the dark, the light from her torch vanishing quickly. Zoe held her breath, part of her expecting to hear a scream, a crash, a moan.

  A moment later, Sienna’s excited voice came echoing back. “You guys need to come and see this.”

  9

  It was a relief to get away from the image of the devouring god and out of the constricting tunnel. The vault stretched away into the shadows, the far end out of sight, but the echo of their voices showed how large the space was. Perry stood up, looking around as Mila and Zoe brushed dust from their clothes. His gaze lingered on the restorer for a moment. Something about her made him want to know more. Perhaps this mission would give him the opportunity.

  Sienna stood shining her torchlight ahead. “What is this place?”

  Her words were clearly directed at Zoe, the only one of them who knew much about ancient Egypt, but Perry couldn’t help but feel it was a broader question. They had thought this was some kind of entrance to the Borderlands, perhaps a simple portal like the gate in the Circus at Bath, but this was far more than a doorway.

  It was some kind of antechamber and bundles of cloth covered every inch of the floor, discolored with age, dirty yellow-brown wrappings around a bulbous center.

  “What are they?” Perry nudged one with his toe, grimacing as it rolled heavily to the side, crunching on a layer of loose stones beneath. “Ugh. There’s definitely something in there.”

  He shivered a little, trying not to imagine what lay inside.

  Zoe bent to look at the bundle more closely. “The Egyptians mummified all kinds of creatures. Cats, crocodiles, mice and ibis amongst them.”

  Mila shone her torch at the wall, illuminating paintings of hundreds of birds. Hooked bills like scythes, black eyes made of obsidian beads that flashed as the light touched them, as if they watched the intruders from centuries past.

  “I guess they’re ibis, but why so many?”

  Zoe pulled out a pen from her pack and used the end to prod at the mummified creature, trying to ease the wrappings aside. “There might be amulets here, evidence of what they represent. I’ve read of sacrificial chambers at Sakkara with thousands of dead ibis inside, offerings to Thoth—”

  “God of wisdom, writing and magic,” Sienna finished for her.

  Zoe looked up. “Yes, you know of him?”

  “My grandfather’s journal contains much about Thoth, postulating that the priests who served him were some of the earliest Mapwalkers. Those who combined writing and magic, who created living worlds with their inscriptions — and their paintings.”

  “Makes sense,” Perry said as he took a tentative step forward, trying not to tread on any of the shrouded bodies. “But whatever the reason, we have to get through this chamber. Let’s move on.”

  He took another step, holding out his arms for balance as he gingerly tiptoed around the ancient corpses. The thought of the dust and bones and feathers and dried blood of millennia made him want to get out of there fast. The others gathered their things and followed in his footsteps.

  A crunch as Perry stepped on more of the loose stones. These were larger chunks, and he rolled a little on his ankle. Steadying himself, he looked down, the light from his head-torch reflecting off … what was that? He bent down to look more closely and then stood up sharply. The others stopped at his alarm.

  “Bones. Human, by the look of them.” He pointed down, not wanting to move for the unbearable crunch that would inevitably come.

  Sienna crouched down and examined the detritus on the chamber floor. “You’re right. Human bones, dismembered. They have weird patterns on them, like tiny slashes. I wonder …” She looked up at the wall paintings where the ibis stood on the banks of the Nile, their beaks like scythes.

  As she spoke, Perry saw a movement in the darkness near the wall, as if a shudder passed through one of the bundles. Mila saw it too and shone her light toward it, just as the mummies began to twitch and shake. Perry frowned, a moment of confusion before he realized what was happening.

  The things inside were trying to get out.

  “Move!” Mila shouted as the shuddering spread across the floor, the bundles rolling and lurching. The thud of bodies hitting each other and bumping against the walls echoed about the chamber as clouds of dust rose into the air.

  The Mapwalkers ran through the field of mummified
creatures, covering their mouths as they coughed, eyes streaming as dust obscured the way.

  Perry led them on, no longer caring where his feet landed, relishing the crunch of bodies under his stride, each one a broken beast that could no longer emerge from the grave.

  A cry behind him.

  Perry stopped and spun round.

  Zoe had slipped and fallen amongst the mummies. As he bent to help her up, he felt the sudden weight of bodies on his back, the slash of tiny knives on his skin. He jerked up and shook himself, seeing for the first time the horror that emerged from the dusty haze.

  The remains of mummified ibis, dried flesh hanging from their skeletons, eyes coal black holes in elongated skulls and beaks like sickles, slashing back and forth. They shrieked together, high-pitched calls over guttural grunts, the volume growing as more escaped the bonds of their ancient wrapping.

  Two more leapt for him.

  Perry pushed Zoe behind his back, shielding her as he opened his palm and released his fire magic. The remains of the two creatures fell to the bone-covered floor. Almost immediately, the burned parts twitched and began to re-form into a semblance of a creature, parts of one subsumed into the other — a hybrid corpse.

  Perry shuddered as he directed his flame down and finished it off, leaving only ash this time.

  Sienna and Mila fought the creatures alongside, batting them away with torches and kicking the birds as they attacked from below. Zoe regained her balance and swung her pack like a mace, using it to beat the birds off.

  Together, they could keep the ibis at bay for now … but they kept coming.

  There were so many in the chamber, waves of shrieking dead birds with thousands more to be born anew from the bundles of wrapping that shuddered as the Mapwalkers progressed through the cave. They had to get out of here.