Map of Plagues

Prologue The storm broke over London in the early hours of the morning. Rain crashed down onto the cobbled street that ran past Traitor’s Gate, the passage to death in the Tower above. Lightning flashed, forking across the city, illuminating the skyscrapers that reached heavenward. A confident city, secure in its power, with no heed of the threat below. Beneath the gate, the murky river Thames began to boil. A fetid stench bubbled from the depths as four men swam up from below. As they reached for the shore, another flash of lightning caught their faces in profile. Hard ridges of bone, thick jaws set in determination and the half-moon tattoo of the Warlord that painted their faces in shadow. As the Feral Borderlanders climbed from the water, pulling their muscled bodies easily up the side of the wall, a man stepped from the shelter of the Tower. He wore a plague doctor’s mask, the hooked beak of an ibis, the Egyptian bird of the dead. Two bags lay at his feet. He called softly down to the climbing men. “Quickly now. We don’t have much time.” The four men changed into dry clothes, pulling up hoods to hide their faces in this city of ever-present cameras. Two hefted the bags onto their backs. The plague doctor pulled a long cloak around him, set his face against the storm and led the men around the perimeter of the Tower. He glanced up at the symbol of a once-great empire. Fragile flesh would rot away but these stones would remain even as a new power took this city in the days to come. The men crossed Smithfield within sight of what had once been the Royal Mint, the white imperial facade of what was now the Chinese Embassy lit with spotlights from below. They skirted the edge of the light, staying in the shadows, until they reached a door on the building beyond marked with No Entry signs. It was bolted and padlocked, set with multiple alarms. The plague doctor stood in front of the door and the four men ranged around him, alert for danger. A spark of flame from his fingers, a flash of electrics. The bolts fell off, the padlock dropped, the door clicked. He held his breath for a moment, half expecting the high-pitched squeal of alarms. But it remained silent. The plague doctor pushed the door open and the men stepped inside. They turned on torches, revealing stone steps that wound down into darkness. Water dripped from their clothes onto the stone, droplets as dark as blood. It smelled of damp earth and decay. They headed down with heavy footsteps, their boots marking time like the inevitable march of history. At the bottom, they emerged into a wide cavern, the roof supported by metal reinforcing pillars so as not to disturb the graves beneath. The excavation was just one of many in London, part of the ever-expanding development of the transport network. This site had once been a Cistercian Abbey and in 1349, during the Black Death, it had become a plague cemetery, a mass grave for the diseased bodies of parishioners. Pieces of rope bisected the site, dividing the plot into specific areas and orange flags marked the bodies beneath. Skeletons embedded in the dirt reached for freedom, bony fingers clutching at the air as if they tried to rise again even as their remains crumbled to dust. The plague doctor ignored these common dead, his cloak swirling about him as he strode to the back of the cavern where a stone wall barred the way. It was made from mismatched blocks, some of the stones weathered as if they had once stood against ferocious storms like the one raging outside. The plague doctor ran his fingertips over the blocks, leaning close to them as if he could sense their history through his skin. According to ancient texts, these stones had been carried from Jerusalem, taken from the rubble of the Second Temple, borne across plague-ravaged Europe to stand guard at the entrance to the knights’ final resting place. After years of research, the plague doctor suspected that the graves of those who fought the plague also rested here. A secret order of knights who believed that the contagion ravaging the continent had been sent by the Devil himself, a curse that could somehow be lifted by those of faith — and power. Secret annals suggested that they had achieved their goal, pushing the last of the plague out of this world — and into another. But after years of searching in the Borderlands, the plague island was still out of his reach, lost as the borders continued to morph over time until the original contours disappeared. The only chance to find it now was the map that the knights had made, a map of skin made from plague victims that linked to the island of the dead, a portal back from that lost world to this one. The plague doctor thought of the gleaming skyscrapers in the city above, the millions who slept secure in their beds. They had no idea what was coming for them. He stood back from the wall. “Take it down.” The four men with half-moon tattoos put down the bags and pulled out lump hammers, shovels and picks. One man hefted the weight of a hammer, a grin spreading across his face as his meaty hands dwarfed the handle. He stepped toward the wall and smashed the weapon into the stone. The sound echoed through the chamber but the blow made scarcely a dent. The man swung again. Another stepped beside him and together they pounded the ancient wall, muscles flexing. The striking of metal on stone rang through the plague pit but the plague doctor was confident that the thick walls of the old Cistercian Abbey would shield the noise from above. By the time the workers arrived in the morning, his team would be long gone. The men hammered away until they made a hole in the wall big enough to step through, then stepped back, panting with exertion. Sweat ran down their faces, carving a path through the dust that had settled on their skin. The plague doctor held his torch high and stepped through the hole into the chamber beyond. The mass grave of the outer room was crammed full of the dead, but this inner tomb was spacious. Intricately carved arches rose to a dome overhead painted with faded images of demons devouring plague victims beneath the watchful eye of a vengeful god. Around the walls, deep niches held the remains of the band of brothers, but the plague doctor ignored them and stalked toward the centerpiece of the vault. A huge stone sarcophagus sat in pride of place in the middle of the chamber topped with the effigy of the knight who slept beneath. He lay resplendent in full armor, the pommel of a longsword clutched between his hands. Lichen covered his craggy face, eating away at the features of a man who had been feared once, but was now forgotten in time. The plague doctor pointed, his finger shaking just a little as he considered what might be inside. “Open it.” Two of the men hefted the lid from the top of the stone sarcophagus, grunting with effort as they pushed it to one side revealing darkness within. The smell of rotted leather with a metallic edge filled the air, permeating even the plague doctor’s mask as the men pushed again. The stone crashed to the floor. The plague doctor walked to the edge of the sarcophagus and peered in. A suit of armor lay with its hands on its chest, sunken in death, the patina of age turning the once shiny metal to rust red. A yellowed skull grimaced from within the helmet, bones held together by metal hundreds of years after death. This knight had died fighting a foe that could not be beaten by any sword, a creeping invisible enemy that slaughtered loved ones with no hope of reprieve. The plague doctor could only imagine what this man had done to try and rid Europe of the devastation. In his skeletal hand, the knight clutched a rough box fashioned from lead with rivets at the edges. The plague doctor reached for it, his heart pounding. He had searched for so long, could this finally be the moment? As he touched the knight’s hands, the bones turned to dust, leaving the box resting on top of the armor. He lifted it from the remains and beckoned for light. One of the men shone a torch at the box while the plague doctor gently levered the top open. A folded piece of parchment lay inside, grimy with the dust of generations but still intact. The plague doctor lifted the tattered piece of parchment from its resting place with care, placing it lightly on the stone beneath. He unfurled it, revealing a piece of an ancient map, the edges rough where it had been ripped into quarters. It was only one fragment, but it was the beginning of the end for Earthside. “The plague wreaked havoc on Europe,” he whispered. “Some say it killed six in every ten people. It heralded the end of civilization.” He looked more closely at the tattered map, a silver-grey gleam in his eyes, like a wolf identifying its prey. “It can do so once again.”