Is there something more beautiful than a country?

Not its power or influence, of course -- those are transient and shift every day, though most may not be aware of it. Not its physical territories and resources, either. As beautiful as a gleaming waterfall may be, or as seductive a glow as a mine's gold may have, these are things one can find anywhere.  There is no difference between one mountain and another when one looks at them carefully, after all. No, what makes a country beautiful is its culture. Thousands of men and women, separated by petty rivalries and worldly worries, yet bound together by the unbreakable strings of a set of ideals and customs more tightly than a family is bound by blood. It's wonderful. Dazzling, even. The sum of all those shared life experiences illuminates the world, you see, inspiring those that glimpse it, shining as brightly as a torch. But every torch casts shadows, dancing at the edge of your vision, where the light does not reach. I am one of those.

Spies. Thieves. Murderers. I have seen and been all of those and more in service of the Royal Crown of Spain, and later the Grand Council of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. I am not ashamed to admit what I have done. If nations knew how to solve their differences through speech and simple warfare, duties such as my own would no longer be necessary. I would relish that, of course. But direct confrontation is frightening, and dangerous. It exposes flaws and inadequacies in a stark, clear light. What would you do to avoid having your quirks and foibles revealed to prying eyes? Anything? Anything at all? Then you understand why a nation might seek any possible advantage it can find to prevent that. It's all a matter of pride. Pride, yes...the source of all paranoia and loneliness, the feelings that give rise to people like me.

We are necessary as a defensive measure, you see. We do the things you would never do, so no one ever does them to you. We exist because you are imperfect, because [i]we[/i] are imperfect and can't see a better answer to our nations' problems. Better us than anyone else. We shadows can accept taking monstrous shapes. It does not keep us from being monsters, far from it - the Guardians' rhetoric has never sat well with me for this reason - but it does keep us honest, in our own way. Honest liars...such a strange concept, isn't it? And yet, it's true. It's why there is one thing we cannot abide, above all else, are traitors.

Can you imagine the very thought of it? There is no greater sin than to betray one's homeland. It's not as simple as fleeing a territory -- it is tantamount to abandoning everything you love, every single influence that made you who you are, even abandoning the way you THINK. We think in the voice of our people. To turn one's back on them is a crime worthy of death.

I came here chasing one such criminal. Don Salvador Martínez y Berazategui. You remember the invasions of the Viceroyalty a few years ago, I take? Good. That simplifies things, then. When Beresford and his forces came to Santa María de los Buenos Aires and threw themselves upon her defenseless body, he was one of the first to bend the knee. He kept in touch with the English after they were thrown out, too, and when General Whitelocke made his own bid at taking the city, he led his forces into the city through secret passageways his servants had dug themselves. He didn't linger after La Defensa was successful, running back to his masters with his tail between his legs. But I was there when my homeland was in danger, and I heard and confirmed the rumors of his involvement. I had other assignments to take care of -- but what kind of world can we live in, if the lowest of the low, the vilest of the vile, manage to avoid being punished for their crimes?

It wasn't easy to pin him down, of course. It was all one complication after another, constant interruptions and distractions letting him slip away from my grasp, inconvenient demands from my superiors...but all patience is rewarded eventually, and after a year of effort, I finally cornered him. I did not sleep for three days straight as I studied my plans over and over again, afraid I'd overlooked something, that he'd slip away again.

I needn't have bothered. They were perfect. Flawless. Calculated down to the last detail. Inescapable as the scythe of Death itself. And most of all...

...Worthless. Berazategui wasn't there when I infiltrated the townhouse he was hiding in, the study where he conducted his daily business. None of my watchmen had seen him leave, yet there it was, the letter that was undeniable proof of his absence. 'World's End, 7 PM. It's time for your departure.' Enough to discourage any man reading them at a townhouse in St. James', and that was before even throwing a dozen armed thugs into the mix who came in right then, as if they knew I was there.

Though I pride myself on my subtlety, the escape from that ambush wasn't one of my best moments. Why, I simply dismissed the notion of fighting my way out and dived out the window, into the crowded street. None of the goons were willing to risk cuts like I sustained by taking that exit route...but one of them had the presence of mind to yell 'Stop, thief!' before he gave chase, alerting the curious constables who'd come running at the sound of glass shattering.

I was wounded, surrounded, exhausted, and even if I could've shaken off my pursuers, it would've meant giving up on the quarry I'd spent a year trying to hunt down. Covering a distance of miles in mere minutes would've been an impossible feat even for the best of runners. I remember the crushing despair I felt back then, a feeling like I'd been born to lose that day.

And I rejected it. I [i]refused[/i] to accept that this was my fate. My plans had been flawless. I knew it as certainly as I knew my own name. If there had been a miscalculation, some unaccounted for factor that had doomed me, then it was not my powers of observation but a flaw in reality that was to blame. If all the possible courses of action I'd considered previously had fallen to pieces so suddenly, I reasoned, there was nothing to say a new path to victory could not arise just as swiftly.

It was a desperate, feverish thought, but it was enough. I ran and I ran and I ran some more until I felt like my lungs were about to give out, and still I kept on running. I dived through a thicket of thorns, not caring if I added one more wound to my list of injuries or ten if it meant leaving my pursuers behind. I looked to my right and I saw myself, chased by enemies that were as fast as fiends. I looked to my left and I also saw myself, foaming at the mouth and on the brink of collapse. I looked beyond and I saw myself, over and over again, taking every route, making every possible effort, sometimes being caught, sometimes dying, sometimes enduring just a moment longer.

In that moment, I knew that what I felt was not desperation any longer. It was confidence, confidence in my absolute victory. London has not seen yet seen a star blaze a path through the sky as brightly as I did the streets that day. I was not a man any longer. I was a blur of motion, bent to a singular purpose. I cleared the distance that separated me from my destination in moments, and soon enough I saw him, standing at the entrance to the World's End inn: Salvador Berazategui, the man who would've seen his own countrymen crushed beneath a foreign boot for his own gain.

He never stood a chance. I still had my cane with me, and the blade contained within it. I gutted him like a fish and fell on my knees, exhausted. I smiled, knowing it had all been worthwhile...and then I saw what lay beyond. An endless Abyss that threatened to engulf the world and dissolve it to nothingness. A danger so great every war mankind had waged seemed meaningless by comparison...

...It was too much. Darkness took me. That should have been the end for me. It would have been, if not for the intervention of L.

I woke up days later, in a house I was unfamiliar with, being tended to by the most infuriating woman I have ever had the displeasure to meet. It's pointless to think of what she did to anger me so much, truly -- it's easier to think of what she [i]didn't[/i] do. I have never met anyone as adept at probing someone's weakpoints as her.  She told me tall tales of magic, a grand conspiracy, how Berazategui was nothing more than her patsy...and she used my anger and disbelief to coax me into a geas to replace her lost agent. Frankly speaking, I deserved it for being such an idiot. That was how I began my magical apprenticeship -- and how, together, we joined forces to unify the Mages of the world against the Abyss.