There was a small red brick house under the eve of a hill in the dark countryside, a house propped up against the grassy ridge before the forest, and in front of a dirt path, picketed with stick fences. The path led southwest a short distance to a rural church, made of wood and stone, outside the village of Corbury.

Father William Mackenzie stood outside the house, looking up at the stars through the leaves of the trees swinging in the wind above him. His heart beat fast and furiously, knowing that any second his life could be taken from him.

“Christ before me, Christ behind me,” Father William said, dashing off toward the path to Corbury and Hampshire, a revolver clasped in his hands. “Christ to my right, and to my left, in every ear that hears me, in every eye that sees me.”

A wolf howled in the distance, shrieking its baleful cry. The branches and leaves rustled in the woods to the right of William. Footsteps came running behind him.

“Christ be my armor.”

An arrow hurtled through the air over William’s shoulder, and he threw himself to the ground, drawing his pistol and firing. Hands overtook him, beating him, tearing away his gun, and smothering him under their strength. It was all over.

“He hit me,” a rough voice said, clutching his chest. “Kill him at once, and search him. Traitor to the Authority, you betrayed us all. By their fruits shall ye know them, and by their tempts shall ye—!”

“Don’t, please, it’s not me,” Father Mackenzie said, looking up at the men around him. Four soldiers of the Vatican’s Inquisitorial Court of Discipline were holding him down, with their leader on the ground, a bullet in his chest.

“Lieutenant, shall I call for a doctor?” asked one of the soldiers. He had a slight Roman accent to his English.

“No, leave me, I shall have the Martyr’s Palm!” the captain of the soldiers said, his face growing pale. “Kill the traitor, and search his body.”

Mackenzie cried out as two sword blades pierced through his body, finding his frail heart. The soldiers released him, and his body fell into the ditch on the side of the road. They tore off his clothes, searching wildly for their prize.

“Check the woods, he might have thrown it in before we caught him,” the Lieutenant said, choking on his blood. “Into your hands I commit my spirit, Lord take me!”

The Lieutenant leaned back, coughing and choking as his lungs filled with blood, clutching the bullet wound in his chest. Three soldiers began looking everywhere, while the other stayed to comfort his captain. The Lieutenant twitched a leg, and expired, his face filled with the same ecstatic radiance that the soldiers saw in the paintings of martyrs at the Inquisitorial Courts.

“We might have taken him before the Courts and had him tortured for information,” said one soldier. “I don’t think he has it here.”

The soldier guarding the Lieutenant’s body sighed, and said, “Rome won’t be happy if we don’t find this.”

“Do we have any Authoritative Powers in the area?”

“We have three bene elim in the Southampton area,” the soldier replied. “It’s under control, we can go.”

The soldiers departed, leaving the naked body of Father Mackenzie on the road.

“Adam, wake up,” said a soothing female voice. “It’s ten o’clock.”

Adam Waters sat up in bed, finding his mother hovering over him in the doorway to the cramped bedroom in their house in Corbury. “Hold on, I’m getting up.”

“It’s not a school day, don’t hurry too much,” his mother said, leaving the doorway.

She was a woman in her forties with dark hair, how old Adam never knew. His father had been killed in action serving in Her Majesty’s Royal Marines during the Great Baltic War, and he had only vague, hazy memories of him.

Adam stood up and passed the mirror on the way to the bathroom; he was seventeen, with dark hair and a weak chest, and clear, ephemeral blue eyes. Within a few minutes, Adam had exited the shower and made his way downstairs to the living room of his tiny house.

“Good morning, sunshine,” his mother said, sorting through the post. “You got a letter from Father Mac, it’s right here. No stamp, he must have delivered it straight to the door.”

Adam’s heart rose; Father Mackenzie had tutored him for the last few months, and his wisdom was immense, especially for a priest so young. Adam took the letter and the London Times and sat down on one of the chairs in the dimly-lit dining room, reading the letter. As he got further and further into the letter, his blood felt icy in his veins.

Adam Waters, 26 Barnes Close, Corbury, April 20, 2006, Year of the Lord

Dear Adam,

By the time you receive this letter, I may be dead, and slandered as a traitor. I beg you, do not believe what people say when I am gone, that I am a traitor to the Church, and a renegade Satanist of the Magesterium; the papers and radio will do that enough. Believe me, I tried to protect you from the dangers of the Church, the torments of the Inquisitorial Council.

Adam, your life is hanging by a thread. Go to my house, there is a grave out back for Occam, my dog. Open the grave up, and inside the coffin is a note with further instructions, and a treasure that the Authorities are frantically looking for.

Adam, don’t let the Authority take you. They will torture you in front of a Consistory, until you beg for death. Tonight I will run out to the countryside to lure them from my house and misdirect them; possibly I will die. But I die knowing that hopefully, one day, you will know how important you are to some people, to some ideas. I have been training you for long to one day take up the fight which I have fought.

Go now, Adam, and be safe. The Authority may well be on the lookout for you already. Trust no one from the Vatican.

With greatest urgency,

Father Mackenzie

Adam closed up the letter and stared off into space, his heart racing…

“Oh, good lord, Adam,” his mother said with a slight gasp, looking at the paper. “Father Mackenzie…I’m so sorry…he was killed last night on the road from Liverpool. Bandits, they say.”

Father Mackenzie had given his life for Adam. Adam tried to get his head around this, but just felt like vomiting. He stood up, and announced shakily, “I’m going to take a walk.”

“I’m sorry, I know you liked him, Adam,” his mother said. “A walk would be good for your mind.”

Adam opened the door and walked out, the letter jammed in his pocket. The priest’s house was just a little up the road, and he started out walking paranoid at every turn.

The soldiers of the Vatican Council were present in nearly every country in the West, along with each country’s branches of the Magesterium, the Consistorial College of Cardinals, and most infamously the Inquisitorial Court of Discipline. Pope Urban X, otherwise known as John Riccardi, essentially ruled Europe and the Americas with a rod of iron. It was rumored the Vatican had the largest army in the world, and best-equipped, with rifles, fire-throwers and even flying-machines.

It was under a ten-minute walk to the little red-bricked house, now deserted. Further down the road police, soldiers, and Royal investigators were gathered around the crime scene, and it burned Adam inside to know that William Mackenzie was gone forever.

Adam climbed around the back, seizing the shovel from the side of the house. He knew this house well, he spent more time here than at home on some days. Adam found the graves of all the dogs, and selected Occam’s tomb.

“What am I doing?” Adam thought for a moment, doubt shading his mind. He was going to dig up a grave…because of a note. Confidence regaining slowly, Adam dug the tip of the shovel into the shallow grave and tore up the dirt. It was only two feet deep before the shovel touched coffin.

Adam reached down and looking away in disgust, opened the coffin. Strangely, the casket was empty except for a note, and a paper package; there never was an Occam.

Adam took the note and read it:

If you are reading this, then I am dead, and you may be the new hope of this universe and all of them. I don’t know, I am not sure myself. Take the sword, the magen emet, and go to 91 Sturrock Drive, Wapping, London. There you will find someone who can teach you far better than I can about the truths of the universe. Thank you, and may luck be with you,

-William Mackenzie

Adam opened the package and pulled out a short sword, perhaps half a meter long, with a leather hilt and a shimmering, unearthly blade. Other universes…? The magen emet, the protector of truth…Adam shook his head and stood up, trying to figure out exactly what everything meant.

The priest gave his life so that I could go to London, Adam thought, it was something he had to do. There was a sheath included in the package, and Adam carefully reinserted the sword into it.

Adam shoved the sword into his rucksack and thanked his stars that he had brought money with him. Clumsily shoveling dirt back into the grave, Adam bid farewell to the dead priest’s house, and walked on down the path, away from Corbury and the soldiers, and toward London.

To be continued…