by J. F. Penn
Within the ring, a vortex of black energy spiraled up toward the roof and high above, an opening led out to the sky. Inside the whirlwind, a dark figure spun in slow spirals, features obscured by tendrils of mist, its shape concealed by folds of midnight cloth that merged with the eddies of shadow.
Sienna.
The voice was all-consuming now, and a longing rose inside her, the marks on her skin calling like to like.
Sienna reached out a hand. The edge of the whirlwind licked along her skin, tendrils of black mist emerging as if to join with her flesh. For a second, there was tension, a skin on the tornado — then it broke, like the surface of water parting. It pulled her inside, the silver compass falling unheeded to the floor.
She gasped at the chill, the cold of the depths below ice caps, darkness tinged by blue light from a world now out of reach above. Creatures swam just out of sight with scything teeth ready to tear her apart, scuttling legs and unseeing eyes waiting to devour what remained. The sound of her pulse pounded through the water and below that, the howling of trapped souls drowned in the pitch black below.
Sienna reached out for the surface, desperately clawing her way up, but her limbs were too heavy, her lungs tight to bursting.
She wouldn’t make it.
A lithe figure dived in from the ice above and reached for her hand, soft skin but with a powerful strength. As her vision narrowed, Sienna grasped hold and let herself be dragged back up to the world above.
As her head broke the surface, she took huge gasps of life-giving air. Her rescuer helped her to shore — not a world of ice, but a meadow of green grass, cherry trees and dappled light. Pink blossom blew on a warm summer breeze and flowers spiraled around her as she lay on the bank, the touch of soft petals on her cheeks.
Sienna.
Her rescuer was a young woman, her features perfectly sculpted like a Renaissance portrait. A robe of Marian blue clung to her body, wet from the water, and a silver mist hung around her like an aura. The woman from the mosaic at the heart of the border.
Her eyes were the shifting shades of opal and Sienna thought she could see a touch of Xander, maybe a hint of Sir Douglas. The silver hair at her temples mirrored an echo of Elf, yet the woman seemed ageless and Sienna could sense her deep wisdom. How long had she been here sustaining the Borderlands? There was so much Sienna wanted to know.
Let me show you.
The woman reached out a hand, and Sienna took it gladly. Together they spun into the air, up into the sky above the meadow and into the clouds away from the tower. They flew across the realm of the Borderlands, rich and teeming with life. So much to explore and learn about. A beautiful chaos, so different to the cornered world of Earthside where everything was ordered and limited. Sienna knew she could never be her complete self there. She could never use her magic in the way she was born to if she went back.
All this can be yours, Sienna. Join us and we will bring down the border. One world, together at last.
As Elf rose on a pillar of blinding silver light, anger surged through Perry in a burning white-hot heat. She had taken his father from him. She would not take Zoe and Sienna and his friends.
Perry let his grief ignite and in that moment, the spark caught within. He raised his hands, opening his palms as fireballs formed and caught alight in blazing crimson dancing with flecks of electric blue. He tapped into the last of what remained of his magic, conjuring the words his father had spoken as he died. For Galileo.
Perry roared the cry of the phoenix who rises once more within the flame. His entire body flared into a blaze and he ran full-tilt across the library floor, fire catching the surrounding wood.
Elf turned in surprise and reached out in a blaze of light —
Perry leapt, spun in the air, and her beam glanced off his shoulder.
He slammed into her, a human pillar of flame. He wrapped his arms around her and as every cell of his body transformed into fire, Perry split open with metamorphosis, screaming in agony as he became more heat than skin, more flame than bone.
Within the ring of his grasp, Elf twisted and shuddered, her skin melting. He held her ever more tightly, burning through to the white of her bones, blood boiling, her hair on fire, eyes bulging as she screamed in torment.
Smoke rose around them, an offering to the ancient gods, those who had split the worlds apart so long ago. Perry felt Elf sag in his arms and sensed her spirit burn up alongside their fused flesh.
With his last fiery breath, he spun into a pillar of flame, twisting down through the wooden staircase, burning a giant hole and pulling the last of the mutants down with him.
Zoe gasped for breath as the library burned. Smoke billowed out of the chasm in the center, embers dancing in the air like fireflies as ash rained down. The staircase had collapsed and only the roar of flames came from below. She clutched a hand to her mouth, tears streaming from her eyes, a sob erupting from her throat. Perry was truly gone.
In that last moment, she had witnessed his transformation from man to a creature of flame and burning wind, a fierce magic that ripped through his very flesh. He had become a master of his craft in those last moments — and it had cost him everything.
Zoe sat for a moment, her back against the stone of the tower. In the haze of smoke, it seemed as if she were here alone with the crackle of fire and the creak of burning wood. Was this really the end of the Mapwalker team at the top of the tower at the edge of the world? How could they have traveled so far and failed so badly?
But then she thought of Perry’s face, his determination in those final moments. His sacrifice set a fire within Zoe’s own soul. If he could summon so much in those last seconds, then she could, too.
She reached out and tested the strings of the world. Somehow, there was still balance. The Shadow had not won yet. Sienna was above in the tower and down here — she tested the cords — yes, Finn and Titus still lived.
Zoe pulled her sleeve down and held it over her mouth and nose as she crawled through the wreckage of the library, coughing in the dense smoke. She sensed the heaviness of the men before she saw them. Broken bodies, unconscious from the pain of their wounds, barely breathing.
Finn lay face down over Titus, shielding his friend from the worst of the fire even as his own back lay scarred and ragged from mutant claws and embers from fallen beams.
Zoe grabbed Finn’s arms and tugged him sideways off Titus’s body and out along the corridor to the window. Muscles screaming, she dashed back through the smoke to do the same for Titus, laying him next to his friend.
Maybe the fresh air would revive them. Maybe together, they could help Sienna.
“Finn,” Zoe croaked, her voice hoarse from the smoke. She stared down at the rebel leader’s handsome face, sooty with ash and bloody from his wounds. “Wake up, please.”
Finn stirred. His eyelids fluttered as he groaned and reached for Zoe’s hand.
“Sienna,” he gasped from his burned throat, his voice breaking with the effort. His face contorted with pain and Zoe could see how much it cost him to speak.
Zoe squeezed his hand. “It’s okay. I’ll go to her. Follow when you can.”
She saw doubt in the rebel Borderlander’s eyes, but Zoe knew he couldn’t make it up those stairs right now, let alone face whatever lay in the tower above.
“It will be okay.” She tried to hide the desperation in her voice. Finn and Titus were out of action, so she would have to go alone to face whatever was left in this dark place. Creatures of nightmare or Sienna herself, transformed.
Zoe left the men and crawled around the perimeter of the library, one hand on the rough wall to guide her. After a few meters, she turned back. Finn and Titus had already faded from view, obscured by the billowing smoke.
She was alone.
The black staircase emerged from the gloom. Zoe pulled herself to her feet and began to climb. She could hear something in the tower above, a cacophony of sound that drowned out the flames below. But she couldn’t hea
r Sienna.
Zoe ran up the steps, driving herself on with every ounce of energy she had left. Was she already too late?
24
Zoe reached the top of the stairs and rushed through the door, her breath ragged from running. Hideous figures carved on the walls around her seemed to move as she walked past, trapped in grotesque portraits of suffering, writhing in unending agony.
Smoke whirled in the air from the fire below, along with shadows that formed into tattered creatures of claw and fang. Zoe’s heart hammered in fear, but she forced herself to step further into the room.
Sienna spun slowly in a vortex of shadow in the center of a circle of skulls. Her eyes were closed, but she smiled in delight as dusky mist contorted around her, bearing her up into the air like a celebratory offering. The patterns on her skin twisted in dizzy formation. The sound of many voices joined in a chorus. A harsh discord, like all the wrong notes played at once, and behind them, the fleshy sound of beating, whips hitting flesh, the thud of fists, the cries of the tortured.
The silver compass lay on the floor next to the skulls, its face sprung open to show the five-pointed design and the lines of Bath within.
Zoe bent to pick it up. One of the shadow creatures lunged at her, swiping with claws of rotted flesh, the stench of the grave rising up around them. Zoe rolled sideways, grabbing the compass as she did so, pulling it to her chest with one hand.
The specter leapt upon her back, its skeletal fingers freezing her flesh as it tried to wrest the compass away. It opened its maw and instead of rotting teeth; the thing had writhing maggots inside. They tumbled out over Zoe. She wriggled and screamed as the things burrowed into her skin, her breath coming in terrified gasps.
She threw up her hands and opened her eyes, allowing her vision to shift. The strings of the world appeared, and she saw that the ghoul of smoke was merely a creature of lies and deception, the maggots merely motes of dust on her skin. Zoe grasped the cords of shadow, her fingers darting through the air as she twisted the threads together, binding the creatures behind a lattice of their own substance. They moaned and twisted in desperation, clawing for her eyes, but the net held.
She crawled to the outside of the circle of skulls, clutching tightly to the compass. The dark well reached to the edge of the bony perimeter and something inside told her not to step into that vortex or she would be lost in the world between, trapped in the obsidian shards in the temple below the border.
“Sienna,” she shouted, but the cacophony that whirled about her friend drowned her voice.
She held up the compass and called once more into the maelstrom. “For Galileo, Sienna. For your grandfather. For Earthside.”
High above the clouds, Sienna heard someone call her name. A voice from home. Zoe.
The beautiful woman by her side tugged on her hand, distracting her. She pointed down at a giant creature below them just under the waves, scales like a dragon with a long neck and powerful jaws. It was terrifying and glorious all at once — and part of her domain if she would just become one with the Shadow. A promise of the world held out in exchange for what? Her blood, her life?
Zoe’s voice came again. It was faint, but Sienna could just make out her words. For Galileo.
A flash of memory and the world darkened. Sienna saw her grandfather in the copse of plane trees in the Circus on a stormy night in Bath. A pack of wolves closed around him as he painted the sigil of the Illuminated on the earth with his blood, then gave his life to seal the border. Sir Douglas in the robes of a wolf reached down and took the compass, an offering to the darkness that ruled his life. But her grandfather had vanquished the Shadow that night and his blood called to her now.
Dr Rachel’s voice came back to her from the clinic. The Shadow is not always what it seems.
Sienna looked over at the ageless young woman whose hand she held so tightly, then down at the Borderlands below. She could not be up here. There was no icy water, no drowning. She had stepped into the vortex — she must still be down there. This was all some kind of vision designed to distract her.
A howling rose up and the wind whipped them as lashes of rain descended. The woman gripped her hand more tightly, her eyes fixed on Sienna’s, a triumphant smile on her lips. Was it too late?
They fell out of the sky, tumbling together through darkness and hail, the clash of lightning as if the gods raged about them.
But Sienna pushed it all aside and opened her eyes.
She spun within the vortex of shadow — and she held the dried hand of a desiccated corpse made from mis-matched pieces of mangled cadavers, those lost to the Shadow over generations. A husk somehow sustained by dark blood magic.
Sienna desperately tried to thrust the hand away from her, but the shriveled flesh had fused to her own, their skin merging together. The symbols on her body spun ever faster as the silver mist crept up her arm, bringing with it flashes of memory.
A young woman in robes of Marian blue tied to an altar within a circle of skulls, surrounded by hooded figures. Mapwalkers from long ago — those of the Illuminated and those of the Shadow, joined in one moment to split the worlds. They slashed her skin and as her blood ran red; they bound her with a net of magic to this place — a vortex to hold the worlds in balance created by a Weaver.
The woman had held equilibrium in place for a time, but over generations, Earthside Mapwalkers withdrew, leaving the Borderlands to the Shadow. It had taken hold and slowly, slowly, turned the world toward darkness.
But it needed a host, and the withered corpse before her was finished.
As the silver mist receded from what was left, the body began to crumble, leaving only ash and dust in its wake. It was up to Sienna’s elbow now and she knew that once it reached her heart, she would no longer be able to stop it.
A rush of wind from the opening high above in the vaulted ceiling. The storm was almost overhead. Lightning flashed from heavy clouds, creatures of winged terror flying within. If the Shadow could not take her alive, then Sienna knew it would destroy this tower and all within it. Her friends would die, the border would remain closed, perhaps forever, and Earthside would be wracked with disaster.
She thought of her father and her grandfather, how much they had given to uphold the secrets of the Mapwalkers — and Bridget, tied to the maps themselves, her life blood pulsing with ink.
This path was her true heritage. She had been lost before the Ministry with no purpose, no direction. She had always longed for the world beyond the map — and now she stood at the heart of it. The young woman had held the worlds in balance for generations. Perhaps she could, too.
It was a chance to renew the worlds, save Earthside, and give the Borderlands a chance to thrive. It was everything she had wanted — for Finn, for Mila and Ekon, for those back on Earthside.
The Shadow was within her and on her skin in the writhing symbols and yet, a part of her still clung to Earthside, to her Mapwalker lineage. Her grandfather’s blood had closed the border that night, perhaps her own would open it again. Use the compass once more, Sir Douglas had whispered in his dying words. For Galileo.
Tears spilled down her cheeks as Sienna desperately searched for a way she could make it work — but every path led her back to this place. There was no other way, but she would go on her own terms. The compass would be her anchor to Earthside.
The silver mist rose higher and cold crept over her skin. She was almost out of time.
Sienna turned to the edge of the vortex. Zoe stood on the lip of the circle of skulls, holding out the silver compass. Her lips moved, but the wind drowned her words.
Sienna remembered the moment in the winds as they descended into Egypt. Zoe had heard the voice that time. Perhaps she could hear through the wind now.
“I need your help.”
At the words, Zoe stopped speaking and nodded.
“There’s only one way to stop this. Throw the compass in and then bind me with cords of light and shadow.”
Zoe sh
ook her head, her eyes wide with horror.
“You must do it.” Sienna nodded down at the rising mist. “If the Shadow takes me first, I may not be able to balance the worlds. But this way … it gives us more time, Zoe. Do this and then go back to Bridget. Search the annals for another way. But now, I choose this path.”
The desiccated corpse began to split into fragments, chunks of it breaking off to dissolve into the spinning wind.
“Hurry! We’re out of time.”
Sienna took the ritual knife from her pocket, the blade that her grandfather had used to shed his blood and save Earthside once before. As the wind whipped around her, she drew it down her arm, blood rising and spinning away, droplets joining the vortex.
Screams echoed from within the Shadow as the last of the corpse split into dark beads, joining with Sienna’s blood. Like calling to like.
“Now!” Sienna shouted. She saw Zoe throw the compass as the mist rose to encompass her.
She sensed the expanse of the world outside, a blossoming of power within, that could rise up and spread across both lands. Sienna wanted to tear it all apart, ravage every last inch and absorb the power of those who thought they could stand against the Shadow.
The silver compass tumbled into the whirlwind.
It hung in the air, opening to reveal the lines of Bath, carved by her grandfather’s hand. With the last of her strength, Sienna reached out and hugged it to her chest.
“For Galileo,” she whispered as lines of silver, blood and shadow formed a net around her.
Zoe wept as she weaved the threads of the world together, her fingers flashing through the air as she created a lattice of magic, a net to hold Sienna within the Tower of the Winds. Tears ran down her cheeks as she trapped her friend within the vortex, Sienna’s slender frame now obscured by swirling blood and ash.