JEFFREY AMBROSE CRAFTER opened the worn leather envelope slowly, almost reverently. Although the pages it contained were only copies, he handled them as though they were “the actual handwritten documents. The originals, the diaries and manuscripts, some frayed and worn, mended time after time, were in safekeeping with a Crafter cousin wealthy enough to afford a museum-quality storage system. Still, to Jeffrey, even these copies, the record of ten generations of his family, were his heritage, precious in duplicate.
Next, he pulled the frayed drawstring on the deep-blue velvet bag, and spilled the contents on the bed. A small ruby, a silver button, scraps of cloth, a broken piece of glass, pebbles and twigs—these too were his legacy.
He moved the only chair in the room close to the bed and sat contemplating the odds and ends, the papers and pieces of apparent debris. Outside, snow fell steadily, and furred and booted figures plodded their way through the square.
The room was warm, however, if not cozy. Crafter had engaged it over a week before, and in that week had sat, as he now sat, many times.
He was a Crafter. He had, in his lifetime, used the particular abilities that this gave him in the service of his country. He was a special agent, an operative, a spy. Whatever term might be applied, he was very good at what he did.
But the fact that he was a Crafter had also given him a damnable foresight. He had come to realize, along with other members of his far-flung family, that the current course of world history was a dire one, that the precarious balance of power would soon tip toward disaster. Unless something was done.
So he had come here, to this small hotel in the center of Moscow, with a plan in mind, a dangerous, desperate plan. He was assailed by doubts. What if the spell he would dare to attempt failed and brought about the very Armageddon he was trying to prevent? And what right had he, or any other Crafter, to use the powers they possessed to manipulate others? How far was it possible and proper for a Crafter to go in interfering with the lives of those around them?
For days such questions had plagued him. He walked the snowy streets of the city, ate sparingly, and sat with his heritage and the memory of his father’s voice, counseling him to allow others, always, to live their own lives and think their own thoughts without magical interference. A basic law of the family.
But these were extraordinary times and extraordinary circumstances. Jeffrey knew that the time had come for him to make a decision. The practice cantrips of the last week now had to give way to a difficult and risky conjurgation. He hoped to find—no, he knew he must find—in a final contemplation of the artifacts of his family’s past the strength of will and conviction to do what must be done. For the smallest flicker of doubt, and the spell would fail…
He breathed deeply, and picked up the shard of glass, translucent and irregular. With the glass in his hand, Jeffrey Ambrose Crafter began to search the past ...