by J. F. Penn
“This should be exciting,” Mila said, smiling in welcome.
“Oh yes,” the woman said. “We haven’t had such as these for a while. Some say they’re true aberrations, powerful enough to make it through the challenge.” She gave a sly grin. “But it will go better for me if they’re ravaged or devoured.”
Her words startled Mila with their violent intent, but she kept a smile plastered on her face. “Why’s that?”
The woman thrust her ample figure forward. “Good for business. The soldiers spend more coin after savagery.” She laughed and took another swig.
Mila fell back to walk alongside Sienna and Perry. “There’s some kind of competition or tournament and it might not end well for whoever’s involved.”
“Do you think it’s Zoe?” Perry asked with a frown of concern.
“Perhaps, but the woman mentioned ‘they’ as if there are multiple contenders. We have to get closer.”
Mila wiggled through the crowd, flowing with the stream of people until she reached a low wall at the water’s edge with a clear view. A ceremonial temple made from thick wooden pillars carved with magical symbols stood pride of place and before it, a wide open plaza. The sense of excitement was palpable, a thrum of energy from the gathered masses, eager for blood.
A flash of blue light came from out on the lake, then the buzz and snap of electrical force as something twisted toward the shore. It darted below the wall and Mila recognized its shape. An enormous electric eel, its body as thick as the wheel of a car, crackling with its own current. From the flashes of light further out, there were more of them waiting to be fed.
Sienna and Perry joined her by the wall as a hush fell over the crowd.
Two figures walked out from the wooden temple doorway, a silver-haired young girl with a willowy figure next to a tall man wrapped in a cloak of shadow, his face obscured by a hood. He stayed out of the sunlight, shielded by one of the pillars.
“Elf,” Sienna whispered, and Mila remembered what her friend had told of Xander’s death. The girl’s power was not to be underestimated.
“And my father,” Perry said, his voice hardening. “Or what’s left of him.”
Mila narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on the shape of Sir Douglas, but he was more a cloud of particles than a solid body now.
The transition to pure shadow was by all accounts a painful one, undertaken by only the most powerful Cartographers. It was unclear how much of the original man lay beneath that dusky blur, but while his physicality diminished, his magic grew.
These two were the central force powering the dark transformation of the Borderlands, and as the crowd cheered, raising their hands in salute, Mila wondered whether anyone could stop them.
Elf’s sweet girlish voice rang out. “You are all welcome here tonight to witness the challenge. The reward for survival is great, but the risk is only undertaken by a chosen few.” She pointed out to the lake. “Tonight, the challenge is something we have never seen before. A magic once thought lost has been reborn. If the challenge is won, we will have a new force to add to the army of the Borderlands.”
She turned and beckoned to the side of the dais.
Two slight figures walked onto the stage, their steps hesitant as they emerged in front of the crowd.
Mila gasped at the sight of them. Twins with skin as black as Ekon’s, limbs as long and slender as her own. A boy and a girl, twins, around eight or nine years old.
“Waterwalkers,” Elf announced in triumph. “The first in a generation. They will face the challenge together.” She pointed to the sunken church, its spire jutting out toward the night sky with a half-moon pennant flying from its peak. “Retrieve the flag and I will grant you the highest honor.”
“They’re only children,” Sienna said softly. “How will they survive alone?”
Mila couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe. She had thought for so long that she was the only one of her kind until she had met Ekon at Ganvié and seen evidence of their once great people. Now two more stood before her — about to go to their deaths.
Even if the children survived the electric eels, she didn’t like the sound of the ‘highest honor.’ The challenge was clearly a way to find those who had the strongest magic, but what was their fate if they proved themselves?
The crowd parted before them as the children walked down the steps. There was no hesitation in their stride, their expressions determined as they faced the water. Waves lapped up on the shore, a surge generated by the powerful tails of the creatures below, their thick bodies undulating through the liquid, their blue light arcing out around them. The air hummed with anticipation as the twins reached the edge of the lake.
They stood for a moment on the shore, then dived in, bodies shimmering as they shifted into their magical form. The crowd gasped at the sight, unseen for so long.
Mila didn’t hesitate.
She dived over the side of the wall into the water below, disappearing into the depths as she followed the Waterwalker twins.
Finn wound the explosive cord tightly around the barrels and then dropped it down through the center to Titus waiting below. As he emerged onto the walkway between the vats, he had an unobstructed view over the lake and the crowd beyond.
A splash caught his eye from the other side of the plaza where people gathered around a low wall.
Someone had dived in after the children.
Behind the wall, Finn saw the sun catch on bright titian hair before the figure ducked away into the crowd. Could it be Sienna? Was Mila the unknown swimmer?
His mind raced with the possibility of what it might mean. He had to find her and there was only one place they would all be heading for. He turned to peer around the vat to the temple. Surely, the Mapwalker team would head there next.
18
As Mila sank into the lake, her body changed and she moved as one with the water, scanning around her for the Waterwalker children and keeping an eye out for the electric eels.
Other strange creatures moved in the gloom, the pulsating mass of globular jellyfish, their insides glowing with a bilious light, disfigured tentacles hanging down to catch passing prey. Shoals of silver-sided fish darted past with misshapen heads and tumors bulging from their spines. Even the rocks on the lake bed were contorted, as if twisted by some primeval force into submission. Whatever they did in this camp, it affected the environment as well as the people.
A flash in the black water ahead.
As her vision adjusted, Mila could just make out the thick body of one creature as it darted after the twins. These were no ordinary beasts, but mutants created by the Shadow. They were gigantic, hunting with high-voltage pulses like a radar to locate their quarry before crushing it in their coils and activating the electric charge.
A scream echoed through the water. “Daniel!”
The cry for help galvanized Mila into action and she darted through the water, accelerating past the eel. It lunged, snapping its jaws, sending a pulse of electricity through her.
A searing jolt of pain and her limbs softened. For a moment, Mila thought she would sink to the bottom of the lake, a broken thing ready to be devoured.
The eel twisted its coils, whipping its tail at her.
Mila summoned her strength and rolled, corkscrewing down and away before it could catch her — then hurtled toward where the sound had come from.
The sunken church emerged from the gloom, its once majestic windows covered with green algae, its graveyard now home to crawling, creeping things with poisonous spines and probing tentacles.
An eel lay wrapped around one of the Waterwalkers, the girl, her face flitting between water and skin as the creature pulsed with electricity. Her crumpled body was limp, her eyes closed.
Her brother tried in vain to pull the coils of the beast away, screaming as he tried to help her. “Dawn, wake up! You need to get out of there. Please!”
Their language was a different dialect to the one Ekon had spoken with her in the ruined
world under Ganvié, but Mila understood his desperation.
As the eel pulsed once more, she dived down, remembering Ekon’s words when she lay trapped under the boulder in the ancient pyramid.
You are water. You cannot be pinned down. No rock can trap you.
And no eel either. These children had no one to teach them the ways of their people. But she could show them now.
Mila swept past Daniel, surprise flashing over his face as she eased herself between the coils next to Dawn. She wrapped her arms around the girl, whispering to her. “You are water. Nothing can trap you.”
Dawn shifted a little, her eyes flickering as she registered the strange presence. Then the little girl wrapped her arms around Mila, clutching her as a child needing protection. Mila felt the frail body turn into pure liquid and made herself the same, dissolving out from under the coils of the eel.
She darted into the nave of the church, Daniel following close behind.
The eel swam after them, crashing into the stone doorway, its body too thick to enter. They were safe — for now.
“Who are you?” the boy demanded as Mila laid his sister down on one pew.
“A friend,” Mila said. “A Waterwalker.”
Daniel crossed his arms, a frown on his face. “They told us there are no others. We’re special, our magic is unique.”
Mila smiled. “You’re definitely special, more than you know, but there are more of us. I have a friend, Ekon. He lives where our people have always lived.” She smoothed a hand over Dawn’s forehead as the girl stirred. “I hope you can meet him.”
“But we live here,” Daniel said. “Elf is our friend. She said there’ll be a party if we can bring back the flag.”
I bet she did, Mila thought. But she didn’t want to frighten the children.
“Have any of your other friends had parties with Elf?”
Daniel’s frown deepened. “Some said they were having one, but they didn’t come back to school, so maybe they didn’t pass their challenge …” His voice faded away.
Dawn opened her eyes and tried to sit up. Daniel rushed to her side as Mila helped the girl and together, they sat side by side on the pew in the church. Water eddied around them from the circling of the eels beyond the stone walls. The faint sound of carnival from the shore echoed through the water. Bread and circuses indeed. The masses kept at bay with alcohol and sacrifice. But Mila would not see these children suffer the same fate as Xander.
“Did you come from Atlantis to save us?” Dawn asked hesitantly, the words unfamiliar in her mouth. “They told us you were all dead.”
Mila shook her head, wondering what else the children had been told of their heritage. “I’m not from Atlantis, at least not that I know of. But I am here to help you.”
Dawn curled inward, pulling her legs up to her chest as she looked at the door of the church, illuminated by flashes of light outside. The eels battered the surrounding stone, seeking a way in. “I don’t want to go back out there.”
Mila put her arm around the girl and Dawn leaned in, snuggling up as if desperate for the contact. Daniel sat up straight a little way off, still wary. Mila’s heart ached for them both, knowing full well that they couldn’t stay in this sanctuary for long. They had to leave this place — but they did not have to return to the camp.
Daniel stood up. “I will get the flag. I’ll wave to shore, make it clear we won. Then we can work out how to get back safely.” He smiled at Mila. “Elf will be pleased to meet you, too. Maybe you can come to our party?”
Dawn reached out a hand to her brother. “No,” she whispered. “You haven’t seen what she does.”
Daniel snatched his arm away. “What do you mean? Elf is our friend.”
Dawn shook her head. “She steals magic, she sucks it from you. When Jenny went for her party—” She turned to Mila to explain. “Jenny was my second best friend. She could make anything grow really big, insects and plants and animals.” Her face crumpled and tears ran down her cheeks. “I followed them, Daniel. I saw Elf pull something out of Jenny, like a magical spark, and she sank to the ground as if she was just empty skin.” The little girl shuddered. “I couldn’t run in case they saw me. I watched them sweep up her remains. She was dead, Daniel. Elf killed her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Dawn sighed. “You wouldn’t have believed me, and anyhow, we couldn’t get away from her. If she found out I knew, she would have killed me, I know it.”
The eel outside smashed its tail into the door of the church once more, this time dislodging chunks of stone. A cloud of dust swirled through the water.
Mila looked up as a crack split one pillar to the side of the entrance, a fissure running up into the arch, dislodging the keystone. Another thump as the creatures outside battered their sanctuary. They didn’t have long before the entire place came down around them.
19
When Mila dived into the water, Sienna quickly took a step back. She pulled Perry away from the edge out of the line of sight from the main stage as people around them shouted and pointed in excitement.
“Another Waterwalker!”
It would only be minutes before the guards made it to this area of the crowd. They slipped into the mass of revelers, aware of suspicious stares as they retreated. Sienna slipped her arm around Perry’s waist and he hugged her close to his side. They giggled and joked as they pushed through, trying not to draw attention. Just another pair of drunken young lovers on their way to find somewhere more private.
The crowd thinned out toward the barracks at the back of the plaza and they ducked behind one of the huts.
“What is she doing?” Perry whispered, his fists clenched in frustration. “Now they know we’re here. What can she possibly hope to achieve?”
Sienna shook her head. “I don’t know if she even considered her actions. She saw the children and went to help. We don’t know how it feels to have her kind of magic. They are others like us, but she is—”
“A shifter,” Perry finished for her, and Sienna heard resignation in his voice. “She belongs here, doesn’t she?”
Sienna nodded. “Perhaps. But she might need our help to get the children out. We have to assume she’ll go to the meeting place if she can. We’ll get Zoe and wait for her at the cave.”
Perry grinned. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Sienna peered around the side of the barracks. “The crowd’s attention is still on the water but the guards will be looking for us. Sir Douglas knows of Mila’s gift. He must know we’re here.”
She looked toward the temple, its wooden beams over the ceremonial door urging her closer. An energy pulsed from within, something bound with stripes of shadow and flashes of light, a sickening mix that made her dizzy. Sienna closed her eyes, attraction and repulsion warring inside as the earth shifted beneath her. Nausea rose inside and she put her hand on the barracks wall to steady herself.
“You okay?” Perry asked.
Sienna nodded. “She’s in there. I’m sure of it.” Her heart thumped as she considered who else might be in there with Zoe, but they had no choice. The Weaver could not be left behind.
They darted between the huts, hiding as groups of guards ran past. Some revelers spilled out of the main plaza, drinking in groups around campfires as dusk turned to night. They shouted and sung together, drowning their miserable lives with cheap ale and the promise of human connection, even just for one evening.
As Sienna and Perry drew closer to the temple, the atmosphere changed. People clustered in groups to pray, prostrating themselves on the ground as they reached toward their imagined salvation. One woman beat herself with a flail tipped in glass, ripping open her tunic, blood flowing from her wounds and dripping onto the earth.
She swayed in ecstasy, her lips moving in a constant prayer. “Transform me, renew me, remake me.”
This place was a magnet for those who desired to become one with the Shadow, who would knowingly give their l
ife force to join with something beyond their understanding. Perhaps it was ever thus, Sienna thought. Was her own quest to the Tower of the Winds any different? Was she really going to save Earthside or did she pursue it because she needed to see whatever called in her nightmares? The promise of power and the threat of annihilation would be held in balance until the moment she stepped into that place.
She looked up at the temple looming ahead. They had to get there first.
“Where are they?” Elf’s high-pitched peal of a voice came from the front of the building. “The children should have captured the flag by now. Get some guards out there on the water.”
She was distracted by the scene on the lake. They had a chance to get inside.
Perry ducked around the back of the temple, Sienna close behind. Two guards stood either side of a staircase, their attention distracted as they talked amongst themselves, unaware of the threat approaching. Zoe was in there, he was sure of it, and the thought of what his father might do to her made him feel sick.
Perry made it within a few meters before the guards saw him, eyes widening as they opened their mouths to shout a warning. He opened his palms and fired two perfectly aimed fireballs — small enough to swallow, expanding into a fast-burning flare.
The guards slumped to the ground, helmets smoking from the heat within.
Perry crept up the steps, wood creaking under his feet, the sound drowned out by the din of the celebratory crowd. He pushed open the door and slipped inside, hands raised at the ready. A dark blue flame flickered around his fingertips with barely restrained energy as Sienna followed him inside.
It was dark at first, and it took a second for Perry’s eyes to adjust to the dim light.
Zoe sat tied to a chair, arms bound to her sides, her face bloody and bruised, head hanging down, maybe unconscious. Perry wanted to run to her, pull her into his arms — but by her side stood the insubstantial figure of his father, Sir Douglas Mercator, the once regal frame reduced to almost complete shadow.