Read an excerpt of Map of the Impossible

“Pulvis et umbra sumus.

We are but dust and shadow.” 

Horace, The Odes

 

“There is nothing impossible to him who will try.”

Alexander the Great

 

Prologue

Fongafale, Tuvalu, South Pacific

The earth shook once more, a tremor more powerful than the last. A deep rumble sounded from beneath the ground as if the gods wakened in anger, and Meihani clutched a nearby palm tree with gnarled fingers to hold herself steady. The rough bark scraped against her skin as she tried to stay upright. She was old but a lifetime of walking the island had strengthened her limbs and as she braced herself, the shudder passed beneath her.

It would not be the last.

Something had changed in recent weeks, a shift in the cycles she had seen in her long life. The earth was broken — and they would all pay the price.

Meihani looked out over the waves to the horizon across the tiny cove. She stood just around the bay from where fishermen launched their boats, hoping that today would bring enough food for their families and maybe even some to sell at the market. She walked here each morning as first light struck the water and every day, she thanked the gods she was still alive. At her age, there was no guarantee she would greet the dawn once more.

Meihani breathed in the salty air, relishing every inhale and exhale. She had witnessed the final moments of so many as an elder of the village. The wracking coughs of the old, the tiny sighs of the too-early born and too soon to pass. So many souls ahead of her on the ancient path and still each day she rose once more to greet the dawn. She said a prayer to the god of the ocean, her lips moving as she whispered words of thanks and supplication.

The waves were grey green, reflecting the thick clouds gathering above, and the sun hid behind a storm front, its light and power dimmed by a force that would sweep over the island before midday. Meihani could read the signs as easily as others read the newspapers that came over from the mainland. She understood the moods of the ocean and from this vantage point each morning, she could judge her daily walk.

On soft days, when the waves were gentle, she shuffled off her shoes and paddled in the water, sinking into the sand and wiggling her toes like she had done since she was a girl, delighting in the pleasure of sensation. On wild days, she would stand here by the thick palm, both of them grown strong over the years they dwelled on the coast. The wind could howl and the waves pound down, but she was safe up here as rain pelted the green leaves above her. On those days, she would remember how wild she had once been, surfing on a hand-carved board, diving amongst the rocks, almost made of seawater. The ocean was in her veins and Meihani knew it more intimately than any lover.

Today, something was very wrong.

The ground shook again with a deep rumbling under the earth. A horde of tiny crabs emerged from the sand, shaken loose from the golden grains. They scuttled for shelter under the palms up the beach, their skittering legs leaving tiny marks in the sand that were quickly shuffled away by movement from the depths beneath.

Meihani frowned. That was odd. The creatures should have run for the waterline and sunk beneath the wet sand once more. Out in the open, they would be easy prey for the gulls, flipped over, legs wriggling while sharp beaks tore the soft flesh from their undersides as they were eaten alive.

She looked up, expecting to see eager birds wheeling toward the ready feast. But the flocks overhead flew inland to the hills, calling to one another with shrill notes on the edge of a scream. When birds and beasts fled inland away from the water, the danger was out to sea. This ancient wisdom had never failed her ancestors and Meihani knew she should hurry back to the village, tell them all to run for higher ground. She looked again to the horizon. Perhaps it was only a storm and besides, warnings from the old were rarely heeded unless danger was imminent. She would wait a little longer.

The tremors had been coming for days, some sharp blows that knocked her off her feet like the fist of her husband on nights when he had drunk his weight in beer. Others had been soft and gentle, like the arms of her loving mama. Both dead many years now, but neither forgotten. Meihani could still remember everything from back then, even though these days she often forgot where she put her glasses, or the names of her various grandchildren when they came so infrequently to visit from Fiji, a world away from her quiet life. Her body may be stooped and wrinkled, folded by time, but this physical frame would not cage her mind — and on this beach every day, she was briefly free. A spirit of the ocean once more.

Another rumbling deep below the earth.

A jolt. A dip as the ground seemed to fall away.

Meihani’s stomach dropped, and she gasped as a terrible realization rose within. She looked back at the path to the village, knowing that her legs could not carry her fast enough now. It was too late.

The water receded with a wet sucking sound, leaving sea creatures in its wake, like the ebb of the tide but so much faster. Parrotfish flopped on the sand and arched their spines in desperation for water, mouths gaping open. Jellyfish pulsed their last as they lay stranded next to coral-tinted cowrie shells. A turtle clawed at the sand, head poked out, eyes wide as it stared around in confusion.

The sea withdrew further, revealing sand and rocks that had never been uncovered before in Meihani’s lifetime. Then the skeletal hull of a wooden boat, barnacles clustered on its spars, rainbow anemones dying as they met the air, colors fading quickly.

Still the water sucked back, further and further.

Words came on the wind, whispering to Meihani in her Mama’s voice, spoken from her deathbed as she took her last breath. “If there is danger, child, cross over. The Borderlands will always welcome you.”

Some thought the Borderlands were a myth, but Meihani knew there was a place off the edge of the map where displaced people could find a home. When she looked to the sea some days, she glimpsed what might be a shimmer of a veil between the worlds.

Many in her village could sense some kind of border out there, perhaps descendants of those who had crossed long ago, leaving some latent gift in generations to come. But in recent weeks, they had spoken in whispers of it closing, a sense that the barrier in the sky and in the ocean had become blocked. Some dismissed their words, others stored up provisions in case of disaster. But none had seen this coming.

Meihani gazed at the track toward the village. Her footprints still lingered in the dust, marks made every day for the span of a life. Times had changed, but the ocean remained her constant — and now she knew it would be her end. She turned away from the village, putting the past behind her, and looked out to the waves as they pulled back still further.

Their island was low-lying, one of many threatened by the rise of oceans and vulnerable to natural disaster. They had been encouraged to leave, but this was their home. There was nowhere else to go. Meihani had hoped to die before the end of the island, but it seemed like fate would entwine them in a lover’s embrace.

She pushed away from the palm and walked slowly down the beach, kicking off her shoes and wriggling her toes in the wet sand. A smile transformed her features into those of a young girl once more. She relished each footstep, an imprint on the ocean floor that disappeared even as she walked on. Manoko fish died around her, flopping their last, as she picked a path through the arms of death.

She reached the ruins of the fishing boat and touched its spars. Her father had once sailed something like it, his face ever set to the sea. Sometimes he would let her go out with him and she would sit curled up in the bow and watch for dolphins, shouting with joy when they swam ahead, leaping before the wave. He always told her that the sea was their life and their death, and that was as it should be for an island people.

Meihani looked past the boat to where the water towered high against the horizon, sucked back into a giant wave the size of the American skyscrapers she saw on TV shows. Such a thing was incredible to behold, but those who saw it this close would never tell their tale. That was certain.

Part of her wanted to keep walking toward that wall of water, to welcome it with open arms like the wild teenager she had once been, screaming her fury into the storm. But the little girl inside was afraid.

Meihani reached up into the boat and pulled herself toward the bow. Her arms were weak but her old body was frail and light so it wasn’t too difficult. The wood was wet and cold but she had spent much of her life that way, so it wasn’t a hardship to curl up in the corner of the bow, her face toward the island that held so many memories.

The smell of salt and kelp filled the air as the roar of the ocean grew to a deafening sound. A rush of oncoming horses charging into battle, a hail of rain and thunder. The first drops of the tsunami fell upon her face. As it towered above, Meihani closed her eyes, her palms against the wooden hull beneath her as she waited for its final embrace.

* * *

BBC News Report

A tsunami struck the low-lying island of Fongafale in Tuvalu today in the aftermath of a deep-sea earthquake off the coast. The entire island remains underwater with several villages and a resort submerged by the flood. Casualties are reported to be in the thousands and no survivors have been found.

Military vessels from Australia and New Zealand converged on the area to help the Tuvaluan police recover bodies from the waves, but the operation has been hampered by ongoing tremors in the region and stormy weather conditions.

Geologists cannot explain why there has been such an increase in earthquakes and natural disasters in the last month.

“After the San Francisco Bay Area evacuation and now this South Pacific disaster, plans are underway to move people out of possible danger zones,” Dr Willow Mackenzie said, speaking from James Cook University in Australia. “It’s a daunting task on a global scale. Tectonic plates all over the globe seem to be rubbing up against a new barrier, shifting in ways we’ve never seen before. It’s unprecedented, but we have a multi-disciplinary team working on mapping scenarios. We can say that this will not be the last natural disaster.”

 

Chapter 1

Sienna Farren closed heavy curtains over the tall Georgian windows, blocking out the light. It was raining and the buildings opposite were empty, but she didn’t want any witnesses to what she was about to do.

The open-plan apartment above the map shop in Bath had been her grandfather’s, handed down to her on his death, a casualty of the ongoing war between those who protected Earthside and the Shadow Cartographers of the Borderlands. Sienna hadn’t been in the place long enough to make it her own, or perhaps she wanted to keep it intact in memory of the man she hadn’t known well in life. She felt his presence in the bookshelves filled with his journals and art on the walls that reflected his passion for cartography. And of course, downstairs, in the collection of antique maps and globes, each a portal to those who could travel through. But the toll of magic tainted their promise, the stain of shadow in exchange for the gift of mapwalking — and that price concerned her now.

Sienna walked over to the full-length mirror in the corner of the room and pulled up her long-sleeved t-shirt to reveal her slim torso. She had inherited her grandfather’s pale skin and titian hair and usually her stomach was lightly freckled, but now those subtle hues were lost in tendrils of black that formed patterns under her skin like tattoos of some ancient tribe.

The marks didn’t follow the lines of her veins, but curled into beautiful shapes, almost like ink swirling in water, shifting with the movement of her body and even her mood. Some days they were faint, like the last days of a bruise. She could even make them disappear if she concentrated hard enough. But after a night of restless dreams, the marks had etched themselves deeper into her skin and begun their journey along her arms toward her neckline. These t-shirts would not hide the stain for long and Sienna feared what would happen when Bridget or her father or one of the other Mapwalkers noticed. She didn’t want to face the possibility of what it might mean.

But the dreams were becoming more vivid.

Last night, she had dreamed of soaring amongst the clouds above the Borderlands, darting like a bird into the blue. She heard her name called from the Tower of the Winds in a voice of a thousand thousand souls.

Sienna.

The pull was almost irresistible, a longing inside her that echoed some elemental need. But as she drew closer, the tattooed lines of the city of Bath on her arms burned, a reminder of her promise to safeguard Earthside. She shifted in the air, tried to dive down toward the land below, tried to escape from the voice, but mist gathered about her and skeletal shapes of winged creatures with razor talons swooped close to ward her away from safety, herding her back to the Tower of the Winds. Closer, closer, until she could almost see what lay inside. She had woken with a gasp, heart pounding, sheets damp with sweat, and the marks on her skin had spread.

Sienna traced one of the dark whorls with a fingertip, touching her own skin as if it was a stranger’s body. The marks were beautiful and yet, if anyone knew how deeply she was entwined with the Shadow, she would be sent to the medical wing of the Ministry. There were rumors of it, whispers of a ward filled with Mapwalkers in shadow coma, their bodies etched in black ink. Some recovered, others were lost.

It was the price of Mapwalker magic, a drop of shadow for every use. Those with too much could turn and become a Shadow Cartographer, powerful on the other side of the border but a sworn enemy to those on Earthside.

Or they must remain here, banished from ever crossing again, denied the place that brought them alive, denied the use of their magic for fear of what they might become. Like her father, a broken man, bled of his magic, afraid of the Shadow turning him, scared of it taking what was left of his life, and yet, still, he craved its touch.

But perhaps she was different, perhaps she could remain on the knife edge — but only if she kept the marks hidden. At least long enough to get back over to the Borderlands.

Sienna thought of Finn’s dark eyes, the soft touch of his lips as he woke her from the shadow weave when she had last seen him. What was he doing now? She didn’t know if he was alive, safe but on the run with the Resistance, or dead at the hands of his father, the Warlord, Kosai. She had to go back to find out whether they might have a future together — and to face the voice that kept calling in her dreams.

She pulled down her t-shirt and turned away from the mirror, reaching up to the bookcase for one of her grandfather’s journals. He had traveled widely in the Borderlands, with years of experience as a roaming Mapwalker. His skin had been tattooed with the lines of Bath, as her own was now, but perhaps he had never heard the call from the Tower of the Winds. Or things had changed somehow. The balance undone by the shifting wheel of time and circumstance.

Every day, she scoured the pages of his journals for some clue as to how they could undo what had been done. She kept coming back to journal 24. It mentioned the Map of the Impossible, a way through the space between the worlds. Her grandfather had learned of it during one of his sojourns in the Library of Alexandria, perhaps from the lips of his lost love, the Librarian, but there were no specifics as to what it was or where it might be.

Sienna turned another page of the journal, sensing the throb of shadow beneath her skin. Perhaps today she would find the way back.

* * *

Mila Wendell put another log into her tiny wood-burning stove, pushed it deeper into the flames with a poker, and then shut the grate once more. Rain hammered on the roof of the canal boat, making it a snug haven down here below. The smell of cedar wood hung in the air, mingled with the scent of freshly roasted coffee. Everything was as it should be — but Mila couldn’t deny the sense of unease that curled in her stomach.

When Bridget closed the border, there had been a moment of rest, a beat of silence, almost a numb realization amongst the Mapwalkers. They had stopped the invasion, saved Earthside from a devastating plague — but the sense of loss took her breath away, as if they had chopped off a limb. Mila wanted to fling open the gates again and consequences be damned. She had an inkling she wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

Zippy, her golden cocker spaniel, whined a little and nuzzled up to her leg before settling on the rug in front of the stove. He put his head on his paws and looked up at her with patient eyes. Mila knew he would love to be out there running along the towpath, splashing in the puddles. They would go out later, whatever the weather.

She reached down to stroke his soft ears, scratching the places he loved. “Good boy. You sleep there for a bit.”

She stretched as much as she could in the tiny space, raising her arms up so they pressed against the ceiling. The sound of rain on the roof and the smell of wood smoke and Zippy’s rhythmic breath could usually anchor her, but Mila couldn’t escape her sense of restlessness.

Was this truly her home, or would she feel more at ease somewhere else … with someone else? She thought of Ekon, his lithe, muscular body slipping ahead of her through the waters beneath Ganvié Island. The touch of his liquid skin under the waves as they swam together to the sunken tomb with the buried map.

Mila smiled at the memory, a bubble of joy welling up at the knowledge that there was someone else like her out there. Perhaps there were more in other corners of the Borderlands. In discovering the Mapwalkers, she had found a family and a purpose to her life, but in finding another Waterwalker, Mila had glimpsed a possible future. She couldn’t go to Ekon now, but there was something she could do to feel closer to him.

She bent to the woven rug in the middle of the canal boat and pulled it back, revealing a trapdoor surrounded by a waterproof seal. She tugged it open with a squelch of rubber and looked down into the dark water of the canal lapping beneath. Zippy put his head up at the sound, ears perked, eyes questioning.

Mila reached over to stroke him again. “It’s okay, boy. I won’t be long.”

She slipped off her clothes and sat on the edge of the hatch, dangling her legs for a moment. The water was cool against her skin in the moment of change, but as her limbs shimmered, she became part of the liquid and pushed off to sink below the surface.

As a Waterwalker, she could travel in the spaces between ripples along the watercourses of this world and beyond, her magic turning her into almost another being. But every time she used it, Mila felt that drop of shadow remain. Even now, lying here under the canal boat, she could feel it seep further into her. Each time she turned, it was harder to emerge into the world of air above.

As she sank into the canal, Mila felt a sense of relief, a welcome coolness as her body changed. She was increasingly out of place in the world above and she wondered if perhaps her people had never disappeared, but merely stayed in the water, invisible to those above. Did they become pure liquid after a time?

She had no real knowledge of the bloodline from which she came, raised by a foster mum in the high-rise blocks of East London. There were hints that her father had been a student from war-torn Sierra Leone, her mother too young to keep her. In London, her mixed-race heritage was normal, but here in Bath, her dark skin and almond-shaped eyes stood out. Yet under the water, she shimmered and became all the colors of the rainbow and yet, no color at all.

Mila slipped out from beneath the shelter of the boat into the channel of the canal. She darted up toward the lock, her body reveling in the freedom to move, however brief her time could be here. She gazed up through the green light to the world above, watching as the rain dimpled the surface. It was a moment of beauty but the canal was a tame playground, protected and safe with only a short distance to roam. The only danger was the discovery of her true nature which she kept hidden by her daily routine as a resident of the canal.

But this dual existence was becoming harder to maintain. Should she embrace life on the edge of this elegant city of Bath and truly make her home here? Or was she really a Waterwalker, meant to live under the waves in a land on the other side of the map? She could not do both, for that way, madness would lie in the constant longing for a different life.

A choice loomed ahead, and it would come for Sienna, too. Something had shifted for both of them on the last mission, and Mila sensed her friend was even more torn than she was. They both had one foot on either side of the border and it was slowly tearing them apart.

 

Chapter 2

Perry Mercator pulled himself up once more, muscles bulging as he touched the lintel of the door with his chin.

“14 … 15 …”

Sweat ran down his back, his breath ragged as he counted the repetitions, embracing physical pain as the best way to dull the screaming in his mind.

“29 … 30.”

He dropped to the floor and bent over with exhaustion as he fought to regain his breath. Nausea rose in his stomach as his body rebelled at the harsh treatment, hours every day, pushing himself to physical extremes.

For most of his life, Perry’s fire magic had been out of control — sometimes a tiny flame, sometimes an inferno — and yet on the last mission, he had finally found a way to channel it. He had saved the Mapwalker team at the Eagle’s Nest, and in those moments, he had felt most alive. But the stench of burned maps still hung in the air of the corridors of the Ministry, a reminder of how fire had destroyed the very heart of the Mapwalker domain. Fire started by his father, Sir Douglas Mercator, a Shadow Cartographer, a traitor — a murderer.

After the death of the Illuminated Cartographer, Perry had helped John Farren take the body out to an ancient Somerset hill overlooking Glastonbury. Under the light of the full moon, they built a pyre of old English oak and piled up the tattered remains of the ruined vellum and paper maps and burned books, the scraps of what had once been his home.

Perry lifted the body of the old man onto the logs and placed him in the middle of a nest of map fragments, his frame so wasted and thin that there was hardly anything left before the flames devoured what little remained. The Illuminated had always seemed so vibrant, so strong, but clearly, the maps had sustained him. His blood ran with ink and when he relinquished their hold, there was nothing left but a husk of flesh. He had lived many generations For Galileo, his name lost to time, but whoever he had once been, his legacy was certain in the strength of the remaining Mapwalkers.

Perry had started the fire with his magic, kindling the remaining pieces of the maps around the corpse. As the flames rose, he contained its heat and strength, making sure everything was destroyed. The stars shone brightly overhead, the air crisp and chill, and the smoke formed symbols and pathways as it rose, as if the old man traveled through a new map toward the heavens.

Now, weeks later, Perry ached to get back to the fight. The Mapwalkers had stopped the invasion and won the battle, but they had lost so much. Earthside itself was wounded and Perry knew the time ticked away until he would cross the border again. There was no way to regain what they had lost, only a path forward to a different future.

He jumped and hung on the doorframe once more before pulling himself up to start the next set.

“1 … 2 … 3 …”

When he faced his father again, he would be ready.

* * *

Bridget Ronan sat at her desk in the library surrounded by a billowing sea of maps. As she reached for the next volume of the Mapwalker annals, the vellum and paper moved with her. She could feel their weight on her body — pressing down against the mercurial flights of her mind.

An anchor some days. A prison on others.

Some days her new role as the Illuminated Cartographer didn’t seem real, and she tried to walk out the door of the library, striding toward freedom, only to be jolted back, held tightly by the maps that wound themselves into her flesh. The ink that now ran in her veins meant she could never leave this place again. She had traveled the world and the lands beyond and yet, she could now only sense it through the maps here in this room. Her world was at once constrained and yet also of unlimited possibility.

After the night of the fire, Bridget wondered if the Ministry was wounded beyond repair. But not all the maps had been destroyed in the flames that Sir Douglas had set, and the memory of many more ran through the ink that now mingled in her veins. In the weeks since, she had questioned her choice many times. But had there really been a choice? The maps could not live without an Illuminated, a Blood Mapwalker, and the death of the old could only mean a new one must be bound to the cause.

John had told her of the pyre he and Perry built under the stars for the old man. How the smoke had carried his spirit away. Bridget wondered if one day someone would do the same for her, whether she would last as long, and whether her name would also be lost over the generations ahead.

It wasn’t clear how long the old man had been the Illuminated, but the line was unbroken, the position assumed and lived with no record of who each had been before. Eventually her own name would be erased. She would only be the Illuminated, tied to the maps for generations to come. Perhaps she would even forget what she had once been.

Memories came to her through the ink, memories held by the Illuminated Cartographers before her, remnants of what they had seen. Bridget understood that each time she accessed them, part of her own life crumbled away, dissolving into the ink.

Some days she raged against her captivity, wishing she had a flame so she could finish what Sir Douglas had started. Other days, she closed her eyes and roamed into the maps, traveling in her mind further than she had ever been able to do in person.

Over the last weeks, Bridget had called for a renewal of the map library. She sent requests to the other Ministries around the world, asking for copies of everything they had. She had used funds to buy originals from antique map houses in Istanbul and Amsterdam, needing to build the library back up but also to expand her world once more.

Truthfully, she did not know what she was doing, but she trusted that the maps of the world held everything she needed. There was wisdom in the maps and a vestige of magic in the ink that flowed through her. She just didn’t know how to wield it yet.

Had the old man learned his role from a previous incarnation of the Illuminated? Or did he have to learn as she did from the very beginning? Perhaps her predecessor had not chosen this path either. Perhaps it was only ever unwillingly pressed upon the next.

Bridget sighed and opened the volume of annals, turning the pages and scanning the text as she continued her search for a way to open the border once more.

Suddenly, she stopped, her attention caught by a drawing sketched on the ivory paper. Its bold lines portrayed a figure whirling within a vortex of shadow and light, the face obscured by a silver mist surrounded by drops of scarlet. A faint scent wafted up, a memory of flame. Bridget bent closer to the page to examine the medium and then drew back with a frown.

Ash and blood. Smoke and magic. But what did it mean?

“Look what I found.” John’s voice interrupted her from the outer room of the library and Bridget turned in greeting.

He pulled out a rolled map as he walked around the corner, still limping and bowed, his injuries a permanent reminder of how the Mapwalkers had failed once before.

“It’s Buondelmonti’s Constantinople from 1422. The only surviving map predating the Turkish conquest.” John placed the scroll down on the desk and gently unrolled it. “The Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris sent it over. On loan, of course, but I thought it might brighten your day.”

He smiled at her and in his blue eyes, Bridget saw a glimmer of the man he had once been, his head thrown back in laughter as they danced on the edge of a silver lake in the Uncharted, together for a brief magical moment. She smiled at the memory, bittersweet with the knowledge that they would never again walk those trails together. She was trapped here and the man he once was had been bled out of him, cut away by a Shadow Cartographer in the dungeon of a dark castle.

John had lost more than his blood down there and he could never cross the border again. Even if he could, Bridget didn’t think he would go. He once had the confidence of the true Blood Mapwalker, one who could wield his power against the Shadow and win — but no longer. She only hoped his daughter could find her way to true power.

Bridget bent down to examine the map more closely, the waters of the Bosphorus in a faded green with ramparts of the walled city of Constantinople ringing its shores in shades of umber.

“It’s beautiful, thank you.” She gestured toward the racks of newly built shelving. “Put it on the third shelf down. That’s my to read pile — once we get through the rest of the annals.” She pointed to the stack of thick books by her desk. “We’ve still got hundreds of years to trawl through.”

John carefully rolled the map up with gentle fingers and laid it on the rack. He sat down next to the desk and pulled the next volume off the pile of annals.

“We’ll find something. The answer has to be in these somewhere.” He dusted the cover off, opened the front page and began to read.

Bridget watched him in companionable silence. John came every day to sit in the library and read by her side as they scoured the archives for anything that might help with the border. When it closed, they had not realized the ramifications. But the world beyond deteriorated, earthquakes, tsunamis and people dying because they couldn’t cross over. The Borderlands were home to many; they were an escape to many more. Now they knew that Earthside needed an escape valve, a way to release the pressure — and neither world could exist in isolation.

Bridget stared down at the figure sketch in ash and blood. John had barely glanced at it in the excitement of the rare Constantinople find, so perhaps it was nothing. But blood had always been at the heart of Mapwalker history.

There were family trees in the scrolls, but over time, many of the bloodlines had dwindled in power. Those on Earthside truly had nothing to compete with what the Shadow Cartographers did on the other side of the border: forcible breeding across magical lines to create original forms of magic. There were also tales of a drug given to pregnant women to encourage mutation in children born away from the Fertility Halls, in the hope that nature would produce new kinds of power.

As abhorrent as the practices were, Bridget understood why they did it. Every day more children of magic were born over there, some powerful, some destined to work the mines or fight as soldiers, some discarded as worthless. It was relentless and if things didn’t change, those on Earthside would be outnumbered within a generation.

But the border was the most immediate problem. They closed it to stop the plague coming over in a wave of refugees, but now that seemed like a terrible mistake. In closing the border, they doomed Earthside to an acceleration of natural disasters. They had to find a way to open it again.

Bridget pulled the next volume from the stack and began to read once more.

 

Chapter 3

Finn Page pulled his cloak tighter against his body, wrapping the black material around his sword to hide any glint of metal. He stood motionless in the shelter of a temple wall as a band of soldiers ran past through the narrow streets, the half-moon of the Shadow Cartographers tattooed on their faces, the banner of the wolf’s head held high above them. As they rounded the corner of the street and their footsteps faded into the noise of the trader town, Finn shook his head and sighed. That had been much too close.

The price on his head was so high now that he had started to doubt even close members of the Resistance. His father, the Warlord, Kosai, offered riches and status to anyone who would turn him in, alive or dead, so he had to remain vigilant, only walking the streets when he really needed to.

Finn pulled out the vial of blue liquid from within his shirt pocket and swirled it around, inky darkness mixing with a lighter teal within. He hoped this had been worth the risk.

He set off through the warren of dirt streets, staying away from the thoroughfare of the trader town. The city was said to have no name because no one stayed long enough to call it home. Refugees arrived on its stinking shore, drifting across the ocean from Earthside to be swept up by the slave traders and sold to the mines or sent to the Fertility Halls — at least, they had arrived that way until the border closed a month ago. The trader town had emptied after days of watching the becalmed sea and now only a few slavers waited by the beach just in case, while the rest had gone to raid villages on the outer edges of the Uncharted. The tide of new arrivals had stopped altogether on that fateful day.

The last time he had seen Sienna.

Finn remembered her face that night, bruised and muddied but still beautiful, her titian hair streaming down behind her as she told him of her plan. The only way to stop the plague crossing over to Earthside was to close the border.

He had not believed it possible, but she had surprised him once again. Just as she had in the dungeons of the Fertility Halls where she had helped him find his sister moments before her bloody end. It was possible that Sienna’s magic was much stronger than even she knew, and as much as he wanted more, Finn felt the distance between them might now be too wide a gulf.

He had fled the camp that night, guilt chasing him even as he ran through the sea of rats, leaving behind thousands of refugees to die of the plague. There was nothing he could do for them and it was better to live another day than die from the bites of plague-ridden rodents or under the swords of his father’s men.

Flashes of memory from that night still haunted his dreams. Hordes of rats gnawing on the half-dead. A silver-haired girl with arms raised high, clawing life energy from those around her while mutants from the Shadow roamed the corpse-strewn camp, finishing any left alive. There was powerful magic on both sides of the border, but he was one of the majority who were merely human. Finn could only think that his role was to stand against the darkness as much as he could. The Borderlands were his world and he could not wait for the Mapwalkers or anyone else to save his people.

The Resistance had grown in the wake of the plague and mass murder of those in the camps. News had spread of the culling of infected refugees, the indiscriminate destruction of those considered useless once the invasion proved impossible.

Ordinary Borderlanders, those with no magic, had always known of the Shadow Cartographers and those who followed the dark path. It had been a minor part of life, but now, bands of mutants roamed the land, taking women and girls back to the Fertility Halls, increasingly spread across multiple locations. Those who protested, who went to try to get their wives or daughters or sisters back, were taken to Elf, the silver-haired banshee Finn had seen stalking the plague field that night. Her magical ability was like a battery, draining, storing and transforming life energy. It was said that those who faced her were dragged away afterward as a husk of skin and bone, mouths open in a last terrible scream.

Finn turned the last corner into a dirt street a few blocks back from the central slave market. The stench of fish hung in the air from the drying racks nearby, a staple food for those in the trader town, but even that was under threat now. The closing of the border had impacted the giant shoals of herring that once darted through the porous line between the worlds. Nature was out of balance and Finn was sure that those on Earthside must be suffering, too. He could only hope that Sienna was okay.

He ducked between rows of huts and stood for a moment watching the area, alert for any who might track the Resistance. A dirty tarpaulin flapped at the door of a nearby shack, drawing his eyes, but it was just the wind. Children played with a misshapen ball near a pile of rubbish, but they didn’t even glance in his direction. Those who lived here learned to turn a blind eye almost as soon as they could walk. Better not to notice what went on in these streets.

Finn hurried to a ramshackle hut, pushed the wooden door open and ducked inside. The point of a sharp blade against his throat stopped him, the cold metal tight against his skin.

A beat of silence, then the knife dropped.

“You’re meant to whistle, you idiot.” Titus O’Byrne stepped forward into the light, sandy curls tied roughly back from his face. “I could have cut your throat.”

Finn smiled. “Just making sure you’re staying vigilant.” He walked further inside. The tiny shack was barely large enough for the two of them, both sizeable men used to more generous quarters. It smelled of yesterday’s soup, old sweat and the reek of the open sewers only meters outside but it was only a place to lie low while they investigated the latest abhorrent attempt by the Shadow Cartographers to shape the destiny of the Borderlands.

Finn placed the vial gently on the wooden tabletop. “There were soldiers everywhere and this cost us most of the gold we had left. I hope it was enough to keep the man from betraying our location, but I can’t be sure. We need to move on.”

Titus bent to look at the vial, his blue eyes reflecting the hues of the liquid within. “It’s worth it, brother. This might be the key.”

Finn smiled at his words. They were brothers in the war against the Shadow, but no one could mistake them for blood relations. Finn’s heritage was evident in his black skin and the regal bearing of an Ethiopian king. Titus was stocky and muscular, with the body of a boxer and a face to match, with mixed Irish and South African blood. They had served together several years ago in the Warlord’s army, but Titus had deserted to join the Resistance in the wake of the atrocities against the refugees, many of whom he counted amongst his kin. Titus had knowledge of the mines and training in chemistry, primarily for warfare, and now he used his talents to fight against the Shadow. He was a brother in every way that mattered.

Titus ran a fingertip along the edge of the glass vial. “There’s a midwife who lives on the other side of town near the soup kitchen. She helps women infected with this stuff. The … babies they deliver.” He shivered, as if shaking off a bad dream. “She keeps them hidden from the soldiers, but I’m not sure they’re better off …” His words trailed away.

Finn nodded. “We’ll figure out an antidote. There has to be one. But first, we have to change locations. I know somewhere that might have what you need to analyze this.” He put his hand on Titus’s shoulder. “One step at a time.”

They packed up their meager belongings, pulled cloaks around to hide their weapons and headed out into the night.

Finn led the way, cutting through narrow walkways between the shacks, navigating the warren of the shanty town on the outskirts. He had come this way many times, the makeshift city a perfect place to lie low.

Most people here were just passing through, forced on to work the mines or serve in the Warlord’s army, others for the Fertility Halls, and still more to the farmlands. There were many mouths to feed in the Borderlands, many who went hungry and took handouts from the soldiers who controlled the food supply. The blue poison was an addictive liquid that the destitute begged for, that dulled their minds and took the edge off their hunger. It was added to food in the trader town and handed out on street corners, sometimes in exchange for pleasure quickly taken.

A giggle came from the shadows as they passed by. A young woman sat with her back against a dirt wall, filthy and stinking clothes stretched over a swollen belly. Maybe only a few weeks until she gave birth. She might have been pretty once, but now she looked ravaged, her skin taking on the hue of a corpse. Yet she smiled coquettishly, as if she wandered through fields of poppies without a care in the world.

“Take your pleasure for some blue, why don’t you, boys?”

The sweet smell of something like marijuana hung in the air but it was nothing so mundane as that form of escape. The blue drug was known by many names. Some even called it Liberation because those who took it were finally free from their enslavement, no longer caring about death — or those they left behind. The women who took it gave birth to mutants, many taken to the Castle of the Shadow, most never seen again.

Titus stopped and bent down to the young woman. He pulled half a loaf of bread from his pack and gave it to her. “Eat this. You’ll feel better.”

She looked confused, as if she hadn’t seen real food in a long time and didn’t know what to do with it. Then she tore at the bread with both hands, stuffing pieces quickly into her mouth. Titus turned away, his shoulders stooped as if he carried the weight of her suffering away, but Finn knew the young woman and her unborn child were already lost. They walked on through the streets, leaving her behind. One more life consumed by the Shadow.

Finn heard trickles of information from his Resistance sources, some undercover in the castle itself, risking their lives to reveal the truth. The blue drug twisted the genetics of the unborn, adding a dash of chaos into the mix so new mutations emerged. On Earthside, the numbers of those with magic dwindled, but here in the Borderlands, their numbers grew every day, cultivated as part of a new order dedicated to the dark plans of the Shadow Cartographers. The children were tested for their magic and many were found wanting. They were taken for sacrifice at the Tophet, or shoveled into the plague pits. Those with a touch of magic were siphoned, drained of what little they had. Finn had heard tales of the silver-haired Elf sapping newborns dry, leaving their tiny corpses as husks to blow away in the wind.

Finn’s sister, Isabel, had died in the Castle of the Shadow, his baby niece lost to him when the traitor, Jari, had betrayed him in the hunt for the Map of Plagues. Titus, too, was driven by love to find an antidote to the blue, but Finn knew it went deeper for both of them. There were rumors that the drug was made in a camp by a lake out east and for the sake of all the sisters and daughters of the Borderlands, they were determined to find the source and destroy it.

The edge of the city soon bled into the desert, ever encroaching sand that claimed more dwellings by the day. Finn and Titus trudged out into the dunes, the way made harder as their feet sank down with every step. Far ahead, the stark lines of a ruined temple cut a line through the cliff at the base of an escarpment. As they drew closer, Finn remembered the last time he had come here — with Sienna and the Mapwalker team, on the way to the forgotten city of Alexandria and the library at its heart. But this time, the temple was a waypoint for a different reason and Finn could only hope that the sanctuary still held its long-forgotten treasure.

By the time Finn and Titus made it to the entrance of the ruined temple, clouds hid the face of the moon. Statues of the old gods stood in alcoves around the walls, some with faces smashed in by followers of Moloch, devourer of children, and others painted with curses in languages from foreign shores. Finn walked slowly to the stone altar, his footsteps echoing in the empty space. Dried garlands of marigolds and lilies bound with ivy hung from its edge, evidence of believers who still honored the lost religion. The temple might be empty now, but its power still lingered.

Finn knelt in front of the altar, holding his sword in front of him as he had knelt so long ago back when he entered his father’s service as a soldier in the Shadow Guard. But now he pledged allegiance not to the half-moon, but to the people of the Borderlands, and to the Resistance. He prayed for guidance and for strength in the inevitable battle to come.

A minute later, Finn stood up, leaning on his sword with a scrape of metal on stone.

Titus emerged from the shadows. “We need to get out of here before dawn. Patrols come here all the time.”

Finn nodded toward the back of the temple where stone steps led down into darkness. “This way.”

He pulled a metal torch from a bracket on the wall. It had a small patch of oil left inside. Finn lit it and carried the flame down the stairs.

A ritual bathing pool filled the chamber below, empty of water except for a few brackish puddles. A mosaic of cavorting gods in faded colors hinted at the temple pleasures in earlier times, but now it was only a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

At the opposite end of the room, an arched doorway led into darkness topped with a carving of heaped bones.

Finn walked on, through the arch and down a spiral staircase into the halls of the dead below the temple. Torchlight flickered across alcoves in the walls, some with linen-wrapped desiccated corpses, others with piles of bones.

“Only the most powerful were buried down here,” Finn said, his voice echoing through the chamber. “There is one who was buried with everything he worked on, so no one could continue his quest. Superstition keeps people away even now.”

He stopped in front of a massive boulder roughly hewn into an oval shape and rolled in front of an opening. There were symbols carved into the rock — triangles of fire and water, the circle of the golden sun, and curved lines representing the metals of the alchemist.

In the center, a roughly carved skull, eyes of pitted rock that seemed to stare out from the abyss. A warning in every culture. Death lies within.