A Mapwalker Trilogy

Chapter 5-1

5

Bridget's words rocked through Sienna. Her heart pounded, her mind whirling. "What do you mean, he's not dead? My mum said he was lost on a mission to Antarctica."

Bridget sighed. "Your mother never knew what John really did. He kept his Mapwalking secret. He wanted to protect you both."

Sienna shook her head. "I can't believe it." That her father might still be alive was one thing, but that he purposefully let her believe him dead seemed unthinkable. She had so many questions but at least there was some hope she might see him again.

Bridget put a hand out and touched Sienna's arm. "It's true. I don't know what else to say. John was lost a month ago on the edge of the Uncharted, along with the rest of his Mapwalker team. It's a place of wild magic, beyond the Borderlands where the Shadow Cartographers rule." Bridget shook her head. "They should never have gone so far out, but there were rumors about a Map of Shadows being created there." She turned away. "They never came back. Time warps the further out you go in the Uncharted, so he could have been lost only yesterday in his time."

"So there's nothing I can do in order to find him?"

Bridget smiled. "We'll see." She turned away down the hall. "You will know your path when the way forks before you."

Her words resounded in Sienna, an echo of something her father had said long ago. Words he had written on her heart. He had clearly wanted her to stay away from this place, but now she needed to know more. If he was still alive, she might somehow see him again. She hurried after Bridget.

They walked down a long corridor hung with tapestries. The maps were recognizable as European, but the contours were wrong, the lines off in some places. Bridget saw her looking. "These are maps of what was and perhaps what will be again."

"What do you mean?"

"People trust that the maps they see in books and pictures are true. They rarely question whether they match the real world. But what is more real? The map in your geography textbook or the world you walk upon with your own feet."

"But you can't know the shape of a land by walking it. You're too close to the ground," Sienna noted.

Bridget smiled. "Exactly, and the borders of these lands have been remade by those who draw the maps. The Cartographers. We make the borders and we have to keep redrawing the maps. There is no status quo. The Borderlanders are always shifting as new places are pushed through."

She pointed to the tapestries. "Maps are not an exact representation of the world, merely a worldview of the creator. For example, there are some maps that don't have Israel on them, others that have no Palestine. All you have to do is erase a name or change a line if you wish to wipe a nation off the map, or create a new one. Look at how the Sykes-Picot line changed the Middle East. Sykes drew his finger across a map, drawing a line that continues to shape modern day. Yet those lines didn't represent people's tribal allegiances, just an ideology."

Suddenly, a whooshing sound echoed down the corridor, like the explosive belch of air as a fire bursts from a furnace.

"Oh no, not again." Bridget ran towards the sound, Sienna following close behind. They reached a thick metal door, riveted with huge bolts and a reinforced glass window in the side. They peered inside.

A young man stood in the blackened room with his back turned, his clothes charred. His shoulders were slumped, and Sienna sensed his disappointment. He wore a blue t-shirt and jeans, but they were patchy with burned holes. He was tall and slender, his arms lightly muscled and now covered in ash. Before him on the table was a map that looked completely unharmed by the flames, if indeed there had been any, because there were none there now.

"Perry is struggling to harness his fire magic," Bridget explained as she knocked on the window.

The young man turned, his ice-blue eyes widening as he saw them. His face looked as if it had been carved from porcelain, so perfect were his features, his lips full with a patrician nose. His short blonde hair was singed and sooty. He made the okay signal with his finger and thumb and gave Sienna a wink as Bridget turned away.

"Luckily, the room is made for fire practice."

"What exactly is he doing?" Sienna asked as they continued to walk.

"There are different types of magic. The fire element enables the Mapwalker to destroy maps in order to remake them, so it's a blend of destruction and creation. Fire can rejuvenate, some seed pods open only in the heat of a flame, some species live only because others die. Those like Perry can walk in smoke and flame and travel in the seams of energy in the earth." Bridget sighed. "There's a strong fire faction in the Shadow Cartographers, so we're lucky to have Peregrine. Of course, as long as he can master it before the next mission."

"Mission?"

"We're training a new team of Mapwalkers. The Map of Shadows is a way to remake the borders, to write us out of history. The mission is to retrieve it from the Borderlands."

"So this team are going after my father?"

Bridget frowned. "Following his footsteps, for sure, but this time, we don't intend to lose anyone in the process."

They arrived at another door carved from a light ash inscribed with a globe. Bridget turned to Sienna. "What you see in here is as true as the maps in your grandfather's shop. Remember that."

Her words puzzled Sienna, and she frowned as Bridget pushed open the door and they stepped into the room.

For so deep under the ground, the room was incredibly bright, filled with mirrors reflecting light into even the farthest corners. It was a library of sorts, but instead of books, the shelves were full of rolled maps, some tiny and frayed, others the size of a rolled carpet. They spilt onto the floor in piles, like a hoarder's den. It smelled of cedar wood, tea and a hint of spices, of rose water and Turkish delight, like a Middle Eastern souk with an endless array of delight for the senses. There was a path through the maze of maps, and a rustling sound came from deeper inside the room.

"Is that you, Bridget?"

A man emerged from the pile as if he had been sleeping amongst the maps. His craggy face was etched with lines as deep as the caves under the Mendip hills, and as he moved, the maps moved with him. He was connected to them, they wound into him and through him, his blood inking the pages.

"They call me the Illuminated Cartographer," he said, and his voice crackled like the maps around him. "I am bound to this room, the beating heart of the maps. But once I walked as free as Bridget here." His dark eyes crinkled as he smiled. "I knew your father, Sienna, and I hope I will get to know you. After all, your place has always been here." He frowned. "Now there is something I have to give you." He spun around, the maps winding themselves around him. The colors changed as if the symbols morphed with his mood. "But I don't know quite where it is."

He walked away from them, pausing at a huge shelf with rows of rolled maps. A ladder leaned against it. "I'm getting too old for this." He looked back at Sienna. "Why don't you go up and get it, my dear?"

Sienna looked up at the miles of shelves. She thought she could spend forever in here, delving into interesting corners, but there was clearly something the Illuminated Cartographer wanted her to see.

She walked through the rustle of maps to the ladder and climbed up. Symbols marked each shelf she passed, the runes of the Mapwalkers. Some she recognized and others were foreign, evoking images of words whispered in forgotten places.

"A bit higher and to your right."

Sienna reached a shelf near the ceiling marked with a row of stars.

"Yours is there, child." There was a hint of regret in his voice as if he didn't want her to see whatever it was. And yet, she was here.

She leaned out to her right, looking down to the ground below. She had a fleeting thought that she could jump and land cushioned on the maps below, like a huge bouncy castle. Or she might just crack her head open on the floor. She turned back to the shelf.

The rolled maps had names written on them in tiny writing. Peregrine Mercator. Was he the guy in the fire room and was he related to Sir Douglas, the man who wanted her father's shop? Xander Temple. Mila Wendell. And then her name. Sienna Farren. What the hell?

"The children of the Mapwalkers," the Illuminated Cartographer called up to her. "We map your star charts at birth and store them here. These charts go back generations, Sienna. You are here, as well as your father, your grandfather and those who came before."

"Why?"

"If you are lost, it is your last way home, back to the place where your stars aligned."

Sienna pulled her map from the shelf, wrapping one arm around the ladder to hold herself in place as she unrolled it. A star chart was tattooed on the smooth vellum, dots of stars anchoring her to a specific time and place. In the corner was a five-pointed compass rose, the decoration matching her father's compass that she remembered playing with as a child. Sienna looked down the rows of rolled vellum stretching into the distance. Who were all these other Mapwalkers and how far back did this lineage go?

Suddenly an alarm rang out, the lights around her flashing red, casting the room in a bloody glow.