Map of the Impossible

by J. F. Penn

  “Can’t you help her?” Sienna whispered. “She’s still in distress.”

  Rachel shook her head. “We’ve tried so many things and continue to experiment with more. But the coma is powerful, and the Shadow has its hooks in deep. Each of these Mapwalkers invited it in, a drop for every use of magic. You know the dangers, Sienna, and even though you have some ability to control it, who knows where that may lead. The only way to wake these people up is to take them into the Borderlands.”

  “So why keep them here?”

  Rachel frowned. “What would happen to them over there? Slaughtered by the Warlord, sucked dry of their magic in one of the dark chambers, or turned into Shadow Cartographers like Sir Douglas Mercator — perhaps the deepest cut of all. I have heard of what goes on over there.”

  “But there is also beauty, and good people fighting in the Resistance — and hope for a different future.” Sienna walked over to the bed and looked down at the young woman, her body and mind ravaged by a nightmare. “Perhaps even a way to end all this.”

  Rachel came to stand next to her. “If you think there is a chance, I won’t stop you — I’ll tell Bridget you have time left before the stain is critical — but you have to understand the danger, Sienna. I don’t want to see you in one of these beds.”

  As dawn turned the sky coral-pink, Titus and Finn reached the outskirts of the trader town. Early morning workers emerged from the doors of the shanty-town huts, eyes blearily assessing the strangers before turning away.

  Titus led the way, weaving through narrow lanes until they reached the densely populated center of town. Larger buildings made of stone and brick lined these streets, designed to last longer than the outer camp dwellings. Wealthy merchants lived in the upper floors, a world away from the living conditions of those they enslaved. Their servants lived in warrens of underground rooms beneath.

  Over the years, these basement dwellings had been sublet, knocked together and turned into enterprises for the working class. In one such subterranean cellar, deep down and heavily insulated, Kabila the midwife helped women give birth away from the prying eyes of the Shadow Guards, those who would take the babies or even the women themselves for the camps.

  Titus paused at a small wooden hatch in the side of one house, more like a hurricane shelter than a proper door. He knocked once, twice, once again, then waited.

  A minute later, the hatch opened slightly.

  Kabila smiled up at him, the lines on her face deepening in a broad smile. “Come in, come in.”

  Titus clambered inside and Finn followed close behind, shutting the hatch behind him and bolting it securely.

  Kabila walked ahead down a tunnel with a ceiling so low, both Titus and Finn had to bend down. The midwife was short and wide with ample curves draped in a faded red sari embroidered with silver thread, a remnant of her Indian heritage.

  She had told Titus about her early memories one night as they sat waiting for the guards to pass by overhead, how she had been aboard one of the refugee boats escaping a flood. Her family had found themselves lost in the dark and woken to find themselves in the Borderlands. Titus would never forget the look on her face as she recounted the terror of being torn from her mother’s arms, from seeing her father beaten to the ground, her older sister taken by the guards for the Fertility Halls.

  Kabila had been sold as a child slave to the household of the wealthy merchant whose house she still lived beneath so many years later. When she had outlived her use for her master’s pleasure, she worked in the kitchens, learning from women in the warrens all the ways she could help the girls of the trader town. Kabila had eventually taken on the mantle of underground midwife, while still maintaining her day job above ground. It was dangerous work. The soldiers of the Shadow would be only too happy to destroy the rebels helping women in trouble, but Kabila saw her lost sister in every young woman saved and she lived for the cause.

  “Come and have tea.” The midwife led them into a cozy kitchen with low stools around a small table. Everything down here was compact and basic, but somehow it felt welcoming and just as it should be. Titus glimpsed a room beyond with a simple bed over a stone floor, scrubbed clean of the blood shed in childbirth, but still bearing marks from the suffering within. He thought of Maria, tied to such a bed in the mountains, screaming his name. He shook his head to clear the image.

  Kabila filled a rustic teapot with leaves and boiling water and let it steep on the table, steam rising from its spout in spirals. She placed cups down before it and then sat, hands folded in her lap, her eyes alive with curiosity.

  “Now, tell me what you found.”

  Titus pulled the black boxes from the pack and explained what they had found in the alchemist’s tomb.

  “I’m sure the base of Liberation is made from belladonna. If we can try an antidote for that, perhaps the magic will not take in the womb.”

  As he explained the plan, Titus knew his words sounded farfetched. He saw doubt in Kabila’s eyes. What had seemed possible under the moon faded away in the harsh light of day. His words trailed off …

  Finn continued for him. “You could test these compounds and find the best option, then I can source more of these ingredients from the rainforest. We can make more of it. Send it all over the Borderlands. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  Kabila picked up the teapot and poured the tea, the sound of liquid sloshing into the cups filling the silence.

  “Even if you’re right, an antidote for belladonna means nothing.”

  Titus began to protest, but she raised a hand to stop him. “I’ve worked with it for decades, that and all the other medicinal plants. I know when to use them and when to hold off. You’re not telling me anything new. Believe me, I have tried everything. The magic is responsible for mutation. The belladonna might carry it, but magic is the key.”

  She fell silent and took a sip of her drink.

  Titus sighed and shook his head. “I had hoped that somehow this might be new knowledge, that there was a simple way to stop the abomination.”

  Kabila smiled kindly. “Life is never simple.” She put her cup down. “And now I have something for you.” The midwife rose and bent to a low cupboard, opened it and pulled a package from within. She handed it to Titus. “This came late last night by messenger from the rebel base.”

  Kabila put her hand on his arm, squeezing gently, with an expression Titus had seen on her face before when she told families of a death. A deep sense of foreboding rose within him.

  He took the package, recognizing the handwriting from one of the women who cared for Maria and other addicts in the rebel camp. He tore open the seal and unwrapped it, barely constraining the sob that rose within at what he saw.

  The necklace he had given to Maria on their wedding day, a tiny silver hummingbird representing the grace and speed at which she moved and the pace of their love. A folded note lay alongside it.

  Titus flattened it out with one trembling hand as cold fear spread through his limbs. His vision blurred as tears ran down his cheeks, dropping onto the ink. He wanted to wash away the terrible words and then perhaps they could not be true.

  “She’s dead,” he gasped. “She died giving birth to a misshapen corpse. A monster.”

  As he sank to the floor, Finn knelt with him and Titus sobbed into his friend’s embrace as he clutched the tiny hummingbird in one fist.

  Images of their love flooded back to him — stolen kisses in the library, lazy hours entwined under the apple trees in the orchard, running together over the hills, the sound of Maria’s laugh echoing across the valley. He would never touch her skin again, never feel safe in her embrace, never hear her say his name. His heart emptied, each tear wrung from his wretched soul.

  After the wave of despair passed over, Titus let the rage come. He would avenge Maria’s death. He had nothing left to lose.

  He pulled away from Finn and wiped his eyes. “We go east to the camp where they make Liberation. There’s a munitions store on th
e way. We’ll get explosives and stop this thing at the source.”

  Finn nodded. “I’m with you, brother.”

  8

  Sienna walked out of the medical wing with Rachel’s warning echoing through her mind and a vision of the young woman’s hand clutching at the sheets, white-knuckled as she faced an unending nightmare. Would she end up that way if she crossed the border once more?

  “Sienna, wait a moment.”

  Her father’s voice made her turn and Sienna waited in the corridor for him to catch up.

  John Farren’s gait was hobbled, his back torn beyond repair from the tortures of the dungeon below the Castle of the Shadow. He kept the suffering from his face most of the time, but Sienna knew that chronic pain tormented him at night, and plagued his waking hours. She had once believed her father lost on an expedition many years ago, and perhaps it was best to think that was still true. She had not told her mother that he still lived, partly because those old wounds had healed and they had both moved on, but also because of Bridget. Sienna had glimpsed the love between her father and the new Illuminated, but there was little hope for them now to act upon those feelings. Sienna could only hope that she and Finn could transcend their different paths and find a way to be together.

  As her father reached her, Sienna wrapped her arms around him, clasping his shoulders, careful not to press against his back. John winced a little, then relaxed into her hug, putting his arms around her in his turn. They stood for a moment, breathing together. Sienna could hear his heartbeat, still strong in his chest, the magic that ran through both their veins part of a long line of Blood Mapwalkers. There were so few of them left now, and still so much to do on both sides of the border.

  John pulled away. “Be careful over there.” His blue eyes darkened, like waves upon a storm-borne sea. “The balance of power has shifted and there is nothing in the annals to help us navigate this new time.”

  “It will be okay, Dad. Mila and Perry will be with me, and I’m sure we’ll get through, find Finn and the Resistance and work with them.”

  John shook his head. “A cross-border alliance has never worked. Our worlds are ever more divergent and the Borderlanders are right to want their share of wealth. I fear it is too late for compromise.”

  Sienna smiled. “Your generation tried one way, now let mine try another. The Ministry has survived much, and it will continue on, I promise.”

  John bent forward and kissed her forehead. “I’m proud of you,” he whispered. “And I know your grandfather would be, too. Go safe.”

  A few hours later, Zoe joined the Mapwalker team in the Gallery of Geographical Maps. She looked around with fascination at the long corridor, its walls painted with bird’s-eye scenes of distant lands. Each was a portal, a simple way to travel through space and time with minimal use of Mapwalker magic.

  They stood in front of a map of modern Egypt, made notable by the disruption of the Nile by Lake Nasser, but Zoe could see traces of another layer beneath, a magical map that would allow them to travel through. Now she had learned to shift her vision, she could not unsee the contours of the world beneath the real. It gave her a mild sense of vertigo even at this level. How much more would she feel if she navigated the threads below? She tried to quash her fear, digging her nails into her palms. She was determined to be worthy of this assignment.

  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?