Prologue
At the southern edge
of a moonlit city, a woman stood over an open grave. The blue edge
of a tower’s long shadow sliced across the ground beside her feet
and the grave yawned like an open throat, its headstone cracked in
two, leaving only a broken piece of stone to mark the place where
the dead still lay.
The lamp in her hand
was hooded against the wind, and the ruby beads sewn along her
dress sleeves shone and sparkled in its light. Shovelfuls of earth
arched up through the air and she leaned out further, watching her
companion slice into the ground, clearing the way to the coffin she
knew would be waiting deep down in the dark.
‘Faster,’ she
commanded.
The man obeyed,
muddying his black robes as he worked.
A few late carriages
rattled along a road in the distance but they were too far away to
see anything but the lantern’s tiny light, and when the sharp crack
of metal striking wood sounded through the night, only the woman
could sense the spirits of the dead that gathered close around
their digging place.
‘Open it,’ she
said.
The man knelt down to
clear the last patch of earth from the coffin’s face, then he
snatched his hands back and stared down in horror. ‘I don’t think
ya wanna do that,’ he said. ‘Take a look at this.’
He moved back,
letting the lantern light spread all the way down to where a large
symbol was burned deeply into the wood. It was a perfect circle,
almost as wide as the coffin itself, and scorched into the very
centre of it was a large snowflake, burned down to a finger’s width
deep.
‘That is the mark of
the Winters family,’ said the woman. ‘We are close. Now, open
it!’
She glared at Kalen
when he hesitated. The dead were close by - that mark meant that
the coffin was protected by more than the eye could see - but she
had waited too long for this moment to turn back now. ‘I have no
time for superstition, Kalen,’ she said. ‘Get out of my
way.’
‘My
lady?’
‘Out!’
The man clambered up
on to the ground as the woman lowered herself into the grave,
staining her dress with streaks of grass and moss. She did not
care. She lifted the spade and smashed it straight into the centre
of the symbol, releasing an invisible energy that spread out across
the ground, making the hairs on Kalen’s neck bristle and forcing
the spirits that had gathered around them to retreat at
once.
Kalen stood warily
over the hole as the lid of the coffin crunched and split beneath
his mistress’s hands. The ruby beads on her sleeves alone could buy
her ten teams of carriage horses, but she dropped to her knees and
reached down into the dark void she had uncovered, scraping them
carelessly against the broken wood and snapping them from their
threads as if they were made of glass. The grave was old, the
coffin lined with yellowing bones, and in the very centre - where
it had remained for more than a hundred years - was the object the
woman had come to find.
She slid it out into
the open air: a small black box barely ten inches wide, made from
gnarled wood and sealed with a silver clasp.
‘Give me your
dagger,’ she said.
The clasp snapped
easily with a twist of the blade and beneath the lid, which creaked
and split when she lifted it, was a small leather-bound
book.
The woman snatched it
up, desperate to possess it at last, and inspected the edges of its
discoloured pages as if they were the last ones left in the world.
It was small, but the pages were packed tight - as thick as a fist
- and folded inside its cover was an ancient document bearing a
warning that had been ignored many times. There, in the hands of
its discoverer, it was about to be ignored again.
Kalen held out a hand
to help her climb out of the grave, where she read its words with
eager eyes.
The ways of Wintercraft are not for the careless, the arrogant, nor the unwise.You hold now a book of instructions which, if followed, shall allow the fearless mind to go beyond the boundaries of this world and step without restraint into the mysteries of another.Keep it safe. Keep it secret. And follow its words with care. This path is more dangerous than you can know.
The woman smiled.
After years of searching, she had found it. She opened the book to
the first page, where a further warning was written in sharp black
ink.
Those Who Wish To See The Dark,
Be Ready To Pay Your Price.
She nodded slowly, as
if the book had spoken those thirteen words out loud. Whatever
price was required, she would pay it gladly.
Kalen looked around
warily as the woman ran her fingers along the title on the front of
the book, its silver-leafed letters glinting in the
moonlight.
Wintercraft
‘This is only the
beginning,’ she said.