Shifting Loyalties

Chapter One You know those days when everything seems to go wrong? When it seems like Fate is going out of its way to screw you? Ever have one of those days? I'm having one of those lives. I've been trying to remember the last time I had a really good day. Not just a day that didn't end with me wanting to drink myself into a stupor. I’m talking about a really good day. A day that ends with a feeling like, "f**k yeah, that's what life is about!" I think that day was fourteen years ago. It was the day I was ordained as Protector of the Relic, Order of the Florentine Cross. Sounds impressive, right? It was. At age twenty-two, I was the youngest seer to be ordained by the Order in about a hundred years. If you're not a seer, you might not understand. Imagine getting your PhD in physics from Princeton. Studying under Einstein. And then joining the Manhattan project to do ground-breaking, history-making research. Now you're getting close. I remember that day very clearly. I remember the burning sensation as the High Chamberlain of the Order imbued the runic symbols of protection on the back of my hand. I didn't know then that I would later accumulate more such tattoos, imbued with illegal Black Arcane magic, because I would need them to survive. I remember the beaming smile on my mother's face, the proud tears in her eyes as she squeezed my step-father's hand while they chanted the acceptance of a new Protector. I didn't know then that they both would be murdered soon, right in front of my eyes, and that I would barely escape with my own life. I remember the great pride with which I shook the hand of each master sorcerer in turn, the women and men from whom I learned so much, knowing that although I was not yet their equal, I was now their peer. I didn't know then that most of them were about to be hunted down and killed by the Seers Guild, an organization that was, ostensibly, formed to protect them. I remember the intensity, the passion, the ecstasy of making love with Marina that night, and afterward, the confidence in our voices as we made plans to defy Guild rules and get married once Marina was ordained. I didn't know then that before that could happen, I would be forced to choose between betraying my lover or breaking my most sacred oath; and that I would regret that choice for the rest of my life. There seems to be a pattern. Happiness lies in not knowing what the future holds. And that sucks for me. Because I'm a Fate-bender. Seeing the future is what I do. So, if you’re a normal person, and you find yourself homeless, reduced to sleeping on your bartender’s couch, and nursing a gunshot wound in the belly, you might think you’re having a bad day. But if you’re Mack Kincannon, seer, Fate-bender, Protector of the Relic, and outlaw, you might just chalk that day up into the "win" column. After all, the bullet didn’t hit any vital organs. Doc said you would be good as new in a couple of weeks. The couch is a lot more comfortable than the back of your shitty hatchback. And best of all, nobody you cared about died or got seriously screwed that day. And I could have just gone to sleep with that good-day feeling and had pleasant dreams. But no. I had to check my email. Half a dozen messages waited for me, and none of them were good news. Most of the messages were from the Elders of the Order, confirming some facts that I had obtained myself through the enterprising method of nearly getting myself killed. The messages said an "unknown organization" was actively moving against the Order. All Protectors were warned to take precautions. I don’t know why the Elders try so hard to be diplomatic. They knew as well as I did that it was the Seers Guild moving against us. It wasn’t the first time. Maybe the Elders had started to grow complacent since the Purge ended. Don't bother trying to find the Purge in the Guild Chronicles. It's not there. Instead you will find reference to something they call the Piero Conflict. The Chronicles tell a cockamamie story about a cabal of Fate-benders who had gained access to the Piero Codex. The spells in the Codex gave them extensive abilities to see and control Fate. According to the official record, this cabal of Fate-benders were abusing those abilities to manipulate events on the global stage. Supposedly, the Guild tried to stop them. They fought back. The whole affair devolved into a sort of civil war among seers. The official story is bullshit. I know it's bullshit, because I am a Protector of the Relic, and the Piero Codex is the relic I protect. What actually happened was this. Some Guild oligarchs got delusions of grandeur and decided they wanted to seize the Piero Codex for themselves. In fact, the greedy bastards wanted to horde all the Relics of Power in their little trophy room in the Ring. The thing about power is, some people can never get enough. They couldn’t be satisfied to lead an organization that was basically the seer mafia and the NSA combined. Sticking their fingers in every seer’s business was just the appetizer. They didn’t want to regulate us. They wanted to rule us. Once the Guild held all the Relics of Power, they would use that power to turn all seers into serfs, with them as lords of the manor. The Piero Codex was the linchpin of their plan. Leonardo da Vinci developed spells that would allow a Fate-bender to see years, even centuries, into the future. His apprentice wrote those spells down in the Codex. With that power, the oligarchs could make their plans with confidence. They could anticipate any move made against them and counter it before it happened. They needed to control the Piero Codex. The Order refused to give it up. That’s what started the Purge. The Guild faked up the charges against this imaginary cabal of Fate-benders and started a witch hunt. Any Fate-bender who wasn't in the Guild was labeled a conspirator. Arrested. Taken back to the Ring and interrogated. A few of them survived. A handful. But most didn't. My parents didn't. It’s a sick piece of irony. The Seers Guild was created to protect seers from witch hunts. The real b***h of the thing was, it nearly worked. The Elders of the Order had to work some major mojo to keep the relic out of the Guild's hands. They invented a spell that would create an impenetrable container, a bubble of physical reality within the astral plane. Within that bubble, they hid the Piero Codex. In order to preserve access to the Codex for future generations, the bubble was anchored to the physical plane at three different points around the world: the Piero Gates. Even the Elders themselves don’t know where the gates are. Only the gatekeepers hold that secret. Three gatekeepers for each gate. Nine people in all the world. Even if the location of a gate was somehow disclosed, the enemy could not open them. The Elders ensured that the Piero Gates were locked with an impregnable spell. To open a gate, you need a key. The Elders created three keys and placed them under the protection of the Order. Those who hold the location of a key are known as keymasters. Three keymasters for each key. Nine people in all the world. With that drastic action, the Guild was thwarted. When every Fate-bender and every Protector had known the location of the relic, torturing people at random could get the Guild what they needed. But after the Elders' sacrifice, only nine people in the world knew the location of a gate. Only nine people in the world knew the location of a key. To obtain the relic, you needed one person from each group. The Purge ended. The relic was safe. Or so we all thought. The emails I read that Tuesday night told me that half a dozen Protectors around the world had gone missing that day. Whether they were killed, kidnapped, or simply went underground, no one knew. This, by itself, was enough to make a Protector of the Relic as nervous as a teenager buying condoms. Then came the topper: four of the missing six were keymasters. No one outside the Order was supposed to know who the keymasters were. The implications of those emails were enough to make any Protector lose sleep. I had some nightmares myself that night, but not because of the emails from the Elders. No, it was the last email that had me sweating in my pillow. The note from Marina. I had not heard from Marina in almost five years. Since shortly after I faked my own death and dropped off the radar. That was when I broke it off with her. Told her I was getting out of the magic game altogether. Told her I was tired of having to choose between fighting and running. Being officially dead made hiding an option, and I planned to take it. She lost faith in me after that. Thought I was breaking my oath. Said she could never trust me again. I was as dead to her as I was to the rest of the world. It’s not remotely adequate to say it broke my heart to let her go. It made me ill. I’ve been treating that condition with bourbon ever since. Marina’s message was brief. "Mack, I need your help. ASAP. Please don't let me down this time. — M" Not the kind of message you expect to get from someone who vowed never to trust you and hasn’t spoken to you in five years. If she was reaching out to me, she had to be at the very end of her rope and losing her grip on it. It wasn’t difficult to guess what the trouble was about. Marina was a keymaster. Attached to Marina’s email was an appointment card. It had an address: her home. It had a time: the next day at 1pm. The question of whether I should help her never even presented itself in my mind. I was already there.