The next morning I met the Seekers at breakfast and inquired after the quality of their rest. The dark circles under their eyes belied their polite replies; they had not slept. Nor had I, but I felt strangely fresh and awake. I knew what I had to do. He had said not to trust them, and nor would I. But there was so much I had to learn, things he should have taught me himself. I savored the look of shock on their faces when I told Rebecca and Byron that I would accept their invitation.
“I will journey with you to London at once,” I said. “We shall depart this very day.”
The surprise and satisfaction on Rebecca’s face gave way to a look of perturbation. She knew her late‑night wanderings had been detected, and she would have no chance to repeat them. All the same, a moment later she managed a smile that seemed not altogether counterfeit.
“We are fortunate indeed, my lord.”
“Call me Marius,” I said.
Two hours later, I stood before the manor beneath a leaden sky, watching as Rebecca and Byron climbed into the waiting coach. The luggage was already strapped atop, and the driver was ready.
“We shall await your return, Master Marius,” Pietro said. A chill wind howled from the north, and the old servant shook.
I rested a palm against his withered cheek. “Dear Pietro,” I said, then climbed into the coach.
The driver cracked the reins, and the coach lurched into motion. I turned in the seat and watched until the manor was lost from view. It would be many long years before I would return to Madstone Hall, and I never saw Pietro again.
“This is all terribly exciting, Marius,” Byron said. The two Seekers sat on the bench opposite me. “You won’t regret joining us. There’s so much for you to discover.”
“Yes,” I said, noticing Rebecca’s eyes were on me. “Yes, there is.”
I am afraid I must now leap ahead in my tale, for it has taken me much longer to set down this account of my first two decades than I had imagined. However, I believe it was vital for you to see how I was made in my early years–for otherwise, when at last you reach the end, you might not understand why I chose as I did. Why I chose differently than Master Albrecht. And while I have had more time to pen this journal than at first I dared hope–it seems even eyes of gold do not always see clearly– the hour now grows late. Thus I will fly over those next years of my life, to a gray autumn day in London when once again my world was changed forever.
The year was now 1679, and at five‑and‑twenty years of age I was a man grown into his full power, yet still filled with vigor and optimism that the harshness of the world had not yet had time to wear away. As an order, the Seekers were much the same. Founded in A.D. 1615, the Seekers–like myself at the time–were just coming into their own.
The fractious early years, in which the order was little more than a motley collection of wild‑eyed alchemists scrabbling for the secret of making gold in filthy, smoke‑hazed dungeons, had been left behind, and already the organization would have been recognizable to a modern‑day Seeker. The Age of Discovery and the Renaissance were giving way to an Age of Reason, and thus we chose a scientific approach.
The ideas of transmutation and the Philosopher’s Stone–a mystical catalyst that could bring about the instantaneous achievement of perfection in anything it touched–were thrown in the dustbin along with the ashes of myth and superstition. The Seekers had undergone their own Reformation, and while the order was founded on a belief in the existence of magic–a core conviction we had not rescinded–it was agreed we would approach the subject not with flights of fancy, but rather with logic and cold rationalism. Evidence that pointed to an otherworldly origin of magical forces on Earth was already mounting, and by the time I entered the Seekers the order’s focus was steadily being directed toward a single goaclass="underline" the discovery of worlds other than this Earth.
It was an intoxicating notion, and at the time not so outlandish as it might seem today. Before the discovery of the Americas, people had believed a ship that sailed too far west would fall off the edge of the world. However, Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan had proven otherwise. So who was to say there were not other New Worlds waiting to be discovered? Except to find them, one would indeed have to sail over the edge of the Earth. And we thought we were the ones to do it.
Master Albrecht had warned me not to trust the ones who would come after he died, and while I did not entirely forget his words, I kept them at the fringes of thought. Surely his concern was with the Philosophers–the result of some old argument or misunderstanding with his peers–and while they were purportedly the leaders of the Seekers, it quickly became clear they were a distant authority at best. Rebecca and Byron had never seen the Philosophers themselves; in fact, I soon realized that none of the Seekers had. The Philosophers communicated with them only through letters sealed by wax and imprinted with their sigil–a hand holding three flames–and never appeared in person.
I considered telling Rebecca and Byron of the time the three with golden eyes had come to Madstone Hall, but decided against it. The last thing I wished was for something that would mark me as different. I had never had a family. My mother, the Gilroys in their silent mausoleum, Master Albrecht and Pietro–all had offered comfort in some way. However, none had been able to provide that all‑encompassing sense of inclusion I now felt. The Seekers were my first true family, and I embraced them with all my might.
Those first months were filled with constant wonder and delight. The Seekers worked to discover new worlds, but I felt as if I already had, as if Rebecca and Byron had pulled aside a curtain woven in the dull grays and greens of Scotland and shown me the gilded door to a fantastical land I had never dreamed existed. London was grand and glorious, so full of life and beauty and grand squalor that it made Edinburgh look like one of the backward villages huddled around Madstone Hall.
Once my initial astonishment at my new life was complete, I threw myself into my work as a journeyman Seeker. Rebecca had not lied; my talents were indeed perfectly suited to the organization. I had a zeal for both ancient and modern knowledge, and a keen curiosity; but then, so did many of the Seekers. What caused me to excel was my ability to combine these skills with the instincts I had acquired on the streets of Edinburgh. Just as I had been able to sense which passages beneath the old city led upward to light and which plunged into darkness, I was often able to discern the avenues of investigation that would bear fruit from those that were dead ends before concrete evidence favored one over the other.
“You rise more quickly in the order than even I believed you would,” Rebecca said one evening as we lay entwined together on her bed.
We had become lovers not long after our arrival in London. It was not a serious affair. Both of us were far too interested in our work to devote our hearts to another. All the same, our match was a good one. I was tall and handsome, and she had made it clear during the long journey to London that she favored my look. In turn, I found her mature flavor of beauty alluring.
For all my work as a youth in Edinburgh, I had never lain with a woman, but that suited Rebecca well enough. We spent many hours in her chamber, on the upper floor of a small but comfortable house near Covent Garden, in which she taught me the art of making love. And when our bodies were pleasantly spent, we would engage our minds instead, drinking wine as we sat half‑naked on the bed, speaking long into the night about modern science, and philosophy, and the nature of our vocation as Seekers.