PROLOGUE
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A drowsy silence lay over the small village of Calcine. Children and mothers alike were at home, dreaming of things untold or unseen. Nothing moved…except for an old man in a battered, gray, traveling cloak walking through the town square with an withered, old walking stick. This man's name was Lewd Latency.
No one could have told you what he was doing on this coldest night of winter in late December, but he was walking with a purpose and did not flinch when a dog barked in the distance. He paused only in front of a pair of wrought iron gates on the edge of town that stood at the entrance to Calcine Manor, which was set high above the village, upon Languid Hill.
The gates swung inward though no one visibly opened them and the old man walked through and was swallowed by darkness as the gates noiselessly swung shut behind him. The great manor, home to Aerial Calcine and the late Lord and Lady Calcine after whom the village was named, was in complete darkness except for a single window on the ground floor, where a soft light flickered from the flame of a single candle.
Aerial Calcine did not know she was being watched as she finished the letter to her great-aunt, the Lady Crux, who lives in Crux Manor on the shores of Lake Virtuosity. She rolled and sealed the letter before putting it into her leather pouch. She grabbed the candle and left the room. Everything was quite in the old Manor as Aerial made her was up the sweeping staircase to the second floor.
So all is well … Lewd thought as he turned and walked into the woods next to the manor. He knew of course that it would be for Legerdemain had told him it was so before he left, but he had to see for himself. Some things can not be left to what other people think.
Lewd reached the road and turned in an eastwardly direction. Soon the Village of Calcine was far beyond his sight. Dawn was breaking when its first light swam before his eyes and when it settled again he was not looking at an outside landscape but at a stonewall.
"Did you find everything to your satisfaction?" a voice asked from behind him. Lewd turned to see his mentor Legerdemain the White standing behind him.
"Yes, master, I did," he replied.