Every twenty-six thousand
years, the earth, sun, and moon align at the exact center of the
Milky Way . . . and all hell breaks loose.
During the last Great
Conjunction, in 24,000 B.C., the earth’s magnetic poles reversed,
sunspots torched half the planet, tsunamis drowned the other half,
and terrible, bloodthirsty demons broke out of the underworld and
destroyed the civilization that would later become known as
Atlantis.
The few survivors of the
devastation, powerful warrior-priests called Nightkeepers, managed
to band together and kick the demons’ asses back to the underworld,
sealing them behind a barrier of psi energy. Ever since then, the
Nightkeepers and their servants, the winikin, have had one imperative: to stay alive until the next
Great Conjunction, when the magi will be the only power standing
between mankind and the demons’ return . . .
... on December 21,
2012.
For tens of thousands of
years, the Nightkeepers have walked among normal humans, teaching
them math, science, writing, and an intricate polytheistic religion
based on blood sacrifice and sex. They lived first with the
Egyptians and then with the Maya, influencing the development of
ancient legends and prophecies, and the backward-ticking Mayan Long
Count calendar that will end on the day of the Great Conjunction,
signaling that there is no more time to count. On that day, mankind
will either enter a new time cycle, one of enlightenment . . . or
humanity will cease to exist. It will be up to the Nightkeepers,
guardians of the night and protectors of the barrier between the
earth and the underworld, to make sure time continues past the zero
date and mankind is enlightened, not annihilated.
Within the Mayan Empire,
however, arose the Order of Xibalba, a group of demon-worshiping
dark magi who believed that when the zero date came and humanity
was destroyed, they would become the leaders of the new
earth.
The Maya had no knowledge of
the wheel or metal tools, yet they produced thousands of soaring
stone temples and pyramids, serving a population that eventually
topped thirteen million. They worshiped time and their three
calendars, one of which was a set of daily prophecies used to plan
everything from marriages and the naming of children, to wars and
sacrifices. There were also larger prophecies repeating on a longer
cycle that still holds today. One such prophecy, set for the
Gregorian date of Easter Day 1521, spoke of a white man coming from
the east. The Nightkeepers warned that he brought death and
destruction. Members of the Order of Xibalba, however, convinced
the Maya that this heralded the coming of the god Kulkulkan (later
known as Quetzalcoatl).
When Cortés and the Spanish
conquistadors appeared on precisely this day, the Maya welcomed
them into their lands and hearts. Over the next thirty years,
pre-Columbian civilization was decimated by disease, war, and the
efforts of the conquistadors’ missionaries, who slaughtered the
priests and burned tens of thousands of written texts in their zeal
to convert the ‘‘heathens’’ from the Mayan pantheon to the
missionaries’ one true God. A handful of Nightkeeper children
survived the slaughter, protected by their winikin . . .
but most of their traditions and all but a few
of their spellbooks were lost.
The Order of Xibalba went
underground, over time becoming a rumor, and then a myth. The
surviving Nightkeepers fled north and took shelter with the Hopi
for several hundred years, then eventually liquidated many of their
artifacts and used the money to build a training center deep in the
Chacoan territories of New Mexico. Each year the warrior-priests
gathered at the training center to celebrate the equinoxes and
solstices, the four cardinal days when the barrier was thinnest and
the magi were sometimes able to speak to their gods and ancestors.
They collected the remaining spells, along with their theories on
the end date and interpretations of the ancient prophecies, in a
hidden archive. They trained. They raised their children. And they
waited for the Long Count to run out, signaling the time for
war.
Then, nearly thirty years
before the zero date, the Nightkeepers’ king had a vision unlike
any other—one he believed was sent by the gods. Even though
prescience was never granted to Nightkeeper males, King
Scarred-Jaguar saw himself leading an attack on the intersection of
the earth, sky, and underworld and sealing the barrier forever,
using a spell that was burned into his mind when he awoke . . . a
spell that hadn’t existed on earth since the fifteen hundreds. A
spell given to him by the gods.
This intersection, located in
a sacred underground chamber beneath the Mayan ruins of Chichén
Itzá, was the one place the gods and demons could access the
earthly plane. While sealing the intersection would rob the
Nightkeepers of their magic and forever separate them from their
gods, it would also prevent the coming apocalypse.
Or so the king
believed.