The First Stone tlr-6

by Mark Anthony

  Years passed, and the tavern folk waited. Surely the worlds would draw closer soon, and the Philosophers would return. Only they did not. Some heard whispers that the Philosophers had begun a new organization, and finally one young man of the tavern grew bold enough to seek out this new order in hopes of finding a way to convince the Philosophers to return to Greenfellow’s and help its denizens.

  And that was how Thomas Atwater joined the Seekers.

  The Seekers were reluctant to let him join the order at first. They weren’t certain he had the proper background, and they intended to research his origins more fully, only before they could do so word came down from the Philosophers themselves, and so he was admitted to the order–but on one condition. While he was a Seeker, he must never return to Greenfellow’s Tavern. Such was his desire to help his kindred that Atwater readily acquiesced to this request, and he thought nothing of it.

  Atwater’s first two years in the Seekers were ones of wonder and constant discovery. He learned quickly, and seemed to have an uncanny knack for finding meanings and connections where others could not. Soon he was promoted from apprentice to journeyman, and his future in the Seekers looked bright.

  However, Atwater never forgot his true purpose in joining the order. Always he sought to learn more about Knossos, and the archway, and why the Philosophers believed it might open a doorway to another world. He kept his research in this regard to himself, doing it in secret at night, apart from his other work, for the Philosophers had commanded him not to speak of his true origins to the other Seekers, and he feared if the others knew what he was doing, he would be forced to tell them of the tavern.

  His secrecy proved both boon and bane. Such was his skill and cleverness that he was soon left to his own devices, and was allowed access to all the same vaults of books that the masters themselves used. And in his night work, he finally learned the truth–or at least something of the truth–about the Philosophers.

  He found it in a box of papers–records set down by the Philosophers themselves, and which surely had been meant for their private library, but which had, by some mistake, been forgotten in a corner of the vaults. A corner in which Atwater would one day hide some of his own writings.

  The papers were fragmentary; they did not tell Atwater everything, but they told him enough.

  The Philosophers had indeed sought to open a doorway using the keystone in the tavern. However, the keystone was not the only discovery they made beneath the ruined palace at Knossos. They had found other things as well–things that changed them, and convinced them there was another world they might journey to, a world other than this Earth, where the true secret of transmutation would be revealed.

  The Sleeping Ones have shown us that a state of true perfection is possible. But their blood, while a powerful catalyst for transmutation itself, is not by itself enough. It provides life, but not immortality, and must be drunk again and again for the effects to be maintained. Surely the Sleeping Ones knew of this true catalyst, what we would call the Philosopher’s Stone, for their golden bodies do not age. And if the gate could be made to open, we might travel to their world and find it there. . . .

  Their words had been lies. The Philosophers had not found the true secret of perfection, of transmutation, on Crete. They sought it still, and they had used those with fairy blood to try to gain it. Only when they failed, they had abandoned the tavern folk to poverty and suffering.

  Rage filled Atwater at this betrayal, and despair. The last hastily written pages of the journal told how Atwater had hidden some of his papers in the vaults, hoping to retrieve them later. Then he intended to defy the order of the Philosophers and return to Greenfellow’s, to take the journal to his people, that they might know the truth.

  They did not wish for their own Seekers to know about us, Atwater wrote on the final page. They feared the Seekers might learn too much about their true nature. That was why the Philosophers forbade me to return to the tavern. They did not want me to lead the Seekers there.

  That they will destroy me for what I intend to do, I have no doubt. It will not come at once–they will not wish to call attention to my defiance of their order, for fear it will lead the Seekers to the tavern–but it will come. And one day it will be my blood that will stain the keystone. That is why I leave this journal, as a record of the truth, of the cruelty and lies of the Philosophers. May it one day come into the hands of one who can seek vengeance for all of us.

  There the journal ended. I closed the book, gripping it to keep my hands from trembling.

  It was not my fault alone that Alis had perished. The Philosophers had known of the tavern all along. They had caused Alis to be sent out into the world, and had made me watch her–one more experiment just like those they had performed on the tavern folk.

  “I am the one, Thomas,” I murmured. “I am the one who can seek vengeance for you.”

  And thus began my plot to destroy the Philosophers.

  My thirst for whiskey was forgotten; my mind was as clear and sharp as a knife made of glass. To ruin the founders of the Seekers, my first task would be to become, once again, the perfect Seeker myself. There was no other way to remain close to the Philosophers, to gain the knowledge I would need. With this in mind, I took my love for Alis, as well as my sorrow and pain, and put them away like precious things in a box, hiding them for a future when my revenge would be complete. That very day, I set out to become what I had once before resolved to be: the greatest Seeker the order had ever known.

  The events of those next years are beyond the bounds of this tale. You can read of them easily enough–indeed, I’m sure you have done so already–in the annals of the Seekers.

  It took several months and many acts of contrition to convince Rebecca and the rest of the Seekers that I was over my madness, that I had understood the error of my ways, that I had learned well from my mistakes. As a boy in Edinburgh, I had deceived many fair ladies into thinking me a pitiable waif in need of aid, and those skills served me now. Such was the apparent sincerity of my claims that in time the Seekers could not resist them, and I was readmitted to the order–under Rebecca’s supervision, of course, and as a journeyman again.

  However, these limitations were temporary. By the end of that first year I had achieved several major breakthroughs, and it seemed even the Philosophers had forgotten my past transgressions, for I was elevated again to the rank of master, and given free rein in conducting my investigations. And if I was grimmer than before, more likely to spend late nights poring over manuscripts and records than drinking with the younger Seekers at pub, then it was seen simply as an indication of my maturity and the important lessons I had learned so hard.

  By the end of four years I was the Seeker you heard legends about upon first joining the order. I devised the Encounter Class system still used today, and I had achieved numerous otherworldly encounters myself, including several Class One Encounters. James Sarsin was only the first otherworldly traveler I met, but none of those events are important now. All that matters is that by the summer of 1684, I had achieved my goals. All regarded me as the finest specimen of Seekerhood ever to exist.

  All that is, perhaps, save Rebecca. Her manner was ever cool and courteous to me. Indeed, we had worked on several cases together. Yet I knew she remained suspicious. She had never learned the truth of Byron’s death, and it gnawed at her. I did not care; she would not stop me. And that summer I knew it was time at last to set my plan in motion.

  Never, since that day they came to Madstone Hall, had I seen the Philosophers. Yet I knew they were ever present, observing what the Seekers were doing, and issuing their orders by written missives that mysteriously appeared inside a locked chest in a room in the Charterhouse.

  By order of the Philosophers, no Seeker was to enter the room that contained the chest between sunset and dawn. It was during that time the missives were delivered, and I was determined to find out how it was done. If I could see who delivered the letters from the Phil
osophers, then I could follow him back to their hiding place. And once there, I believed I could learn what I needed to make my plan complete.

  After leaving the Charterhouse for the day–making certain several Seekers saw me depart–I waited until dusk, then employed one of my oldest tricks, gathering the night shadows around myself, and slipped back into the Charterhouse. I crept into the room with the locked chest. Moments later I heard footsteps, and the door opened.

  It was Rebecca. I froze as she scanned the chamber, but her eyes passed over the corner where I hid. She nodded, then shut the door, and I heard a key turning. I was locked inside the room; there were no windows by which I might escape.

  I waited long hours, until I was certain midnight had passed. A headache came over me, as they still often did, and I began to drift. Then I heard a noise that at once made me alert: a scraping sound. In the gloom, I watched as one of the stone slabs that paved the floor lifted up. Gold light spilled through the opening.

  A figure draped in black climbed through the trapdoor, then approached the chest, unlocked it, and placed a sealed parchment inside. The figure locked the chest again and retreated through the trapdoor, shutting it behind.

  I forced myself to count a hundred heartbeats, though these were rapid enough, then crept forward, groping the floor with my hands. The trapdoor was so skillfully made that no trace of it could be detected even as I ran my fingers over it. Yet I had other senses, honed in my years in the dark labyrinth beneath Edinburgh. Now that I knew to seek it, I could detect the hollowness beneath one piece of slate. However, I could find no way to lift it. I tried to wedge my knife into the crack, but the blade broke. It was useless; the trapdoor could only be opened from within. I laid my head down on the floor in despair.

  And heard voices.

  “I’ve delivered the missive,” said a man’s voice I did not recognize.

  A woman answered. “Very good. I believe it is past time he had new orders.”

  The stone beneath my ear hummed, bringing their voices to me, as if by some trick of echoes and angles like that in the Whispering Gallery. There must have been a passage below where the two stood. I pressed my ear closer to the floor, straining to hear their words.

  “. . . and he has redeemed himself,” the woman was saying. “It seems Adalbrecht’s ill influence has not ruined him after all, for we have made a fine Seeker of him at last.”

  I tensed, and not only because I knew they were speaking of me, as well as of my former master, but because I recognized her voice. Years ago I had crouched in the shadows outside my master’s study and had listened to this very same voice tell him, We have come.

  I had been a fool. The Philosophers employed no messengers who might lead me to them; they would never risk their secrecy in that way. They delivered the missives themselves. Only they believed no one was in the room above, and my hearing, always sharp, had been made preternaturally keen by my excitement and dread.

  “Adalbrecht,” the man said, his voice thick with disgust. “We must go to Knossos next month, else we shall end up as he did.”

  “You need not tell me.” The woman’s voice was sharp; I could imagine her gold eyes flashing.

  “I still wonder why he chose as he did,” the man said. His voice was beginning to fade; they were moving away. “Why he chose death.”

  “Adalbrecht was always the weakest of us. Remember, he was the last to drink of the Sleeping Ones and be . . .” I lost her voice, and I thought them gone. Then the stone whispered once more in my ear. “. . . and he always had strange notions. Yet we never discovered anything of his writings. I suppose we shall never know what his thoughts were, and nor does it matter. He is dead now.”

  “Something we shall never be.”

  The man’s laughter was the last thing I heard. Then the stone ceased its humming.

  I rose to me knees, and I knew what I had to do.

  Crete. I had to go to Crete, to the ruins of Knossos. They would be traveling there soon, they had said so; I could get close to them there. But I needed to know more. I needed to find the secret way beneath the ruins, to the tomb of those they called the Sleeping Ones, so I could lay in wait for them. But how could I discover it?

  We shall never know what his thoughts were. . . .

  Yes, that was it. I wished to get close to the Philosophers, that I might learn how to destroy them. But had I not lived for years with a Philosopher? Master Albrecht had been one of their kind. After his death, I had searched his library and had found his old journal, from the years when he was still mortal. But surely he had left other records behind–records that would help me find the tomb beneath Knossos.

  I waited until the room was unlocked and, concealing myself in shadows once again, slipped outside. I appeared at the Charterhouse later that morning, feigning surprise when Rebecca informed me I had new orders from the Philosophers themselves. I opened the missive and could not help but smile.

  “Is it an assignment you favor, then?” Rebecca said, arching an eyebrow.

  “Very much so,” I said, tucking the missive inside my coat. The Philosophers wished me to go to Scotland, to investigate legends of a magical portal in a cave in the Highlands. It would be just the excuse I needed; no one would question my leaving London and going north.

  I departed that very morning, and after several days of jostling in carriages down muddy roads, I reached Madstone Hall. As I stepped out of the carriage, I laid eyes on my manor for the first time in nearly ten years. Despite all that had happened to me, I smiled at the familiar sight. I was received in the front hall with great deference–and equal trepidation–by several servants I vaguely recognized. I looked around, then asked them where I could find Pietro.

  An older man blinked watery eyes. “But did you not receive the letters, sir?”

  “Letters?” It had been long since I had received a missive from Madstone. I could not remember the last.

  “It was some years ago, sir. It was a fever that took him. Your solicitors mind the affairs of the manor now, and we keep the house in good order.” He swallowed. “For your return, of course, sir.”

  His words were like a blow to me. The letters must have come four years ago, in the months of my madness after Alis died. I suppose I had thrown them in the fire without ever opening them. Thus I had never heard the news of Pietro’s death, and it struck me now as if it had just occurred. There was nothing left to connect me to him, to Master Albrecht.

  Only that wasn’t true. There had to be something there, something more.

  “Unpack my things,” I told the servants. “I shall be staying at Madstone Hall for a time.”

  They stared at me with wide eyes, then did as I bid them.

  I began my search that day, beginning with the library. The silver key was in the desk drawer where I had left it, and I used it to unlock the cabinet of arcane books. Inside was the small wooden box with the diary and the vial of dark fluid. I had no doubt that the reason Rebecca and Byron came to Madstone after Master Albrecht died was to search for these things by order of the Philosophers. Only I had found them first. Then, before we departed for London, I had spirited them back into the cabinet. And here they were, just as I had left them.

  While the objects had not changed, I had, and I knew better what they were. The diary was written by my master before he became a Philosopher, when he was simply Martin Adalbrecht, one of the young alchemists who had frequented Greenfellow’s Tavern with John Dee. Then, with his cronies, he had gone to Knossos, and there they had been . . . transformed. However, the journal had been written before that time; it could not help me.

  I lifted the vial, and I thought I knew what it was as well. It was blood, taken from those they called the Sleeping Ones. Who these beings were–whence they came and why they slumbered–I did not know. All I knew was that drinking their blood had changed the Philosophers, giving them eyes of gold. And it continued to give them life.

  The vial seemed hot in my hand. I shut it bac
k in the box with the journal and locked them back in the cabinet.

  I continued my search of the manor, looking for anything that might help me–any letters he wrote, any records he kept, any notes he might have scribbled in the margins of books. Soon I had the servants frantic, for they would no sooner clean a room than I would tear it apart, looking for some clue that could help me. Only there was nothing.

  Days became a week, then a fortnight. I did not sleep, did not eat, and I began to crave whiskey again. The servants fled at the mere sight of my coming. The manor had become a ruin. I had punched holes in the walls and torn up floorboards in my search, but still had found nothing of my master’s. The only writing of his in the house was his old journal. . . .

  The journal. Midnight found me sitting in his library, staring at the journal. I read through it again, but it was the same as before: the foolish hopes and dreams of a man who believed magic was real.

  Yet he had been right, hadn’t he? It wasreal.

  I picked up the vial. The gold spider on the stopper shone in the candlelight, the ruby set into its abdomen winking at me. Then, before I could reconsider, I unstopped the vial, held it to my lips, and tilted my head back. The fluid coursed down my throat, hot and thick. I knew fiery pain, then only blackness.

  It was morning when one of the servingwomen found me, sprawled on the floor of the library. She shook my shoulder, begging me to wake, but when I finally opened my eyes she clasped her hand to her mouth, stifling a scream, and fled.

  I pulled myself up and caught my reflection in the glass doors of a cabinet. Startled eyes stared back at me, gold as coins. By all that was holy, what had I done?

  A strange sensation came over me. I felt, not stronger, but horribly weak, as if for the first time in my life I sensed the encroaching decrepitude, the constant rotting of my body, that was a correlate of mortality. And I also sensed that, for the moment, that mortal progress had ceased.