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 Philosophers, 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.