The Crafters Book One

by Christopher Stasheff

  Young Ephraim’s jaw had dropped as his father’s recital became more and more specific, and he shook his head as his sire finally wound down. At twenty-two, he was sometimes inclined to believe that his youthful agility gave him an edge on gathering news; but somehow his father usually managed to know about important events long before the local grapevine carried it to Ephraim’s ears.

  “You knew!” he blurted, half-indignant. “How in the world did you know? I only found out the details this afternoon.”

  The old man only smiled, touching a fingertip lightly along the leaves of the laurel wreath and watching his son. The smile was infectious, and Ephraim soon broke into his own perplexed grin.

  “It’s clear that I still have a great deal to learn,” the youth said amiably. “I suppose you’ve also heard that it’s feared the British will close the Port of Boston in retaliation, and make them pay back the eighteen thousand pounds?”

  The old man raised one eyebrow in question.

  “You hadn’t heard?” The young man’s delight was palpable. “Well, Caleb had it from his father, who heard it in Philadelphia. Apparently the State House is all a-buzz with talk of a blockade, once Parliament finds out what’s happened. The Virginia Burgesses are calling the threat an attack made on all British America, and wondering who’ll be next. In fact, all the Colonies are supporting what Boston did. There’s even talk of a Continental Congress in the new year.”

  The old man drew a deep breath as the youth finished, lowering his eyes in contemplation, and a silence fell around the little table. When he raised his eyes to them once more, the fire of his calling smoldered in their blue depths, and he carefully folded his hands on the table before him.

  “It all is coming to pass, even sooner than I dreamed,” he murmured, shifting his gaze into the circlet of the laurel wreath, focusing beyond the scrubbed pine of the tabletop. “The events in Boston have already triggered the change. No more shall the Old World extend its wickedness to the New. Those who revere the cause of freedom shall enshrine it upon these shores, and hereon the footsteps of kings shall never tread. God has spoken and it is so. Say Amen!”

  “Amen,” his children repeated softly, not daring to gainsay him.

  There would be no supper tonight, for fasting would hone and focus their energies for the night’s work. Bread and water only would he allow, though he made of this sparse fare a sacrament, as he blessed and broke the bread for them, then blessed and passed the cup filled from the sacred spring outside their door.

  Afterward, when they had spent an hour in meditation, threesome hands joined around the table, Amanda silently helped father and brother pull on the ritual garments set aside for their most important work—white hooded robes sewn from nubbly virgin wool, carded, spun, and loomed by her virgin hands. The scarlet cinctures they knotted about their waists had been plaited of more of the wool, each one the prayerful work of the individual who should wear it, dyed with the last of the precious cochineal Jakob had brought with him twenty years before. Amanda donned her robe as well, but she did not go with them to the chapel; her place was to keep watch here in the house, adding her prayers to theirs, and to join them when he had come. She set a candle in the window as they went out, sinking to her knees to focus on the flame.

  The two men did not speak as they made their way across the snow, Ephraim carrying a lantern and his father bearing the laurel wreath, both wrapped in cloaks over their robes. The chapel was a small, round building made of sod, but with a good thatched roof and a chimney thrusting skyward on the right. A little wooden vestibule guarded the doorway, and as Ephraim opened the door, light from the candles left burning on the altar streamed out across the snow. The night wind swept a flurry of snow inside and stirred the white cloth adorning the altar, and Ephraim shut the door before setting the lantern squarely in the center of the little chamber.

  The walls and floor were planked with pine, with a modest brick fireplace built into the wall on the right as they entered. A large cross of iron hung above the altar, clean-lined and simple, centered on a hanging of nubbly white wool. As Ephraim went to feed the fire back to life, his father carried the laurel wreath to the altar and laid it beside a slender silver flagon and a large, richly bound Bible. The latter had been a family heirloom for nearly two hundred years, bound in crimson leather and stamped in gold, the comers and clasps fashioned of silver-gilt, but the old man paid it only passing interest as he shifted its bulk a little nearer the altar’s front edge. For beyond the book and the wreath and the flagon, almost invisible in the angle between surface and wall, lay a naked sword of an earlier age. And in the nearer angle of quillons and blade lay three smooth-polished quartz pebbles that had not been there earlier in the afternoon.

  Blessing the messenger, the old man smiled and bowed his respect to the altar, touched his fingertips to his lips and to the crossing of the sword hilt, then scooped up the pebbles and closed them in his hand before turning to face his son.

  “The one we have awaited will come at the third hour after midnight,” he said quietly. At his son’s look askance, he repeated, “Doubt it not, he will come. At the third hour of the new year, as the clock concludes its strike, he will come through yonder door to take upon himself his sacred mission. All is prepared for his coming. We have only to keep our faith, to continue the Call, and he cannot but come.”

  He and his son knelt in prayer then, while behind them, close beside the door, the ancient grandfather clock that usually graced a comer of their sitting room ticked off the minutes and the hours. At eleven, the old man extinguished the lantern and moved it aside, throwing open the door to the winter night and beginning to pace back and forth across the width of the chapel. His son fed the fire again, remaining nearer its warmth to continue his prayers. The altar candles filled the little chapel with a softer glow than had the lantern, spilling a golden path onto the snow outside—a beacon to anyone approaching.

  The old man paced on, head bowed and hands clasped in prayer. When the clock finally struck twelve, ushering in the new year, Ephraim lifted his head and glanced toward his father, compassion welling up—for though the appointed time was yet three hours away, youthful impatience worried that the old man might be wrong.

  “Father, what if he doesn’t come?” he whispered, tottering unsteadily to his feet to flex his knees, stiff after kneeling so long.

  The old man glanced back at the open doorway, at the path of candlelight streaming out onto the snow, then turned back to the altar and the sacred objects it held.

  “He will come,” the old man declared. “At the third hour after midnight, the Deliverer will come.”

  Silently he resumed his measured pacing; and as Ephraim watched and listened, he realized that the steps and his father’s breathing had fallen into an engaging rhythm. The pattern was at once compelling and reassuring, weaving its own call in counterpoint to the ticking of the clock.

  Renewed in spirit, the youth knelt once more near the fire, out of the direct draught of the open door, and resumed his meditations, letting himself fall into the rhythm of the spell, lifting his spirit to soar with his sire’s call, searching out the one who was to come. Detached from physical perception, he quested outward, casting in an ever-widening net.

  By one o’ clock, the altar candles had nearly burned down.

  Carefully, reverently, the old man changed them, inserting fresh tapers in the pewter candlesticks, making certain they stood straight, that everything was as it should be. The honey scent of beeswax continued to fill the little chamber with its sweet incense as he again resumed his pacing.

  The clock struck two. Now the old man stood before the fireplace, bowed head resting on the hands clasped to the edge of the pine mantel, shifting to a different sort of concentration, never ceasing to send forth his call. The wind had risen with the turn of the year, and the candles danced in the breeze, the altar cloth billowing along th
e front edge and ends. The stillness in the tiny chamber became more profound, each tick of the clock carrying father and son deeper into concentration, strengthening the spell.

  When the clock at last began to strike the hour, the old man slowly raised his head and turned to face the open door, his white head cocked in a listening attitude. And as the third stroke hung and died away on air suddenly gone very, very still, there came hesitant footsteps in the little vestibule, stamping snow from boots; and then a tall stranger of majestic presence ducked his head to enter the room, gray-blue eyes sweeping the little chamber in respect and wonder.

  “Pray, pardon my intrusion, friends, but I seem to have lost my way in the forest,” he said uncertainly, removing his tricorne and making the old man a courteous bow. “Can you direct me to the right way?”

  “I can, if thou wouldst find the way to thy destiny,” the old man said, catching and holding the gray-blue eyes in his compelling gaze. “Come in and close the door. The winter night is cold, and we have waited long for thy coming.”

  The stranger’s eyes widened, but he turned without demur and closed the door, coming in then to the center of the chamber, to stand unresisting before the old man’s inspection. The red-brown hair was powdered now, the linen at his throat more formal, the line of his dark blue coat more stylish than the image the old man had seen in his black water mirror.

  But the gloved hands were the same, and the black cloak with its several shoulder capelets, and the spurred black boots—though the latter now were caked with snow. A smallsword hung at his side, its silver hilt just visible through the parting of the cloak.

  “It is late to be out on such a night,” the old man said. The stranger nodded, fingering his hat a little nervously, his expression suggesting that even he was not certain why or how he had come here.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “And some desperate burden lies upon thy heart, to bring thee to this place at this time,” the old man continued softly. “Is it not thy country’s welfare?”

  Looking a little startled, the stranger gave a cautious nod.

  “And it troubles thee, does it not, that a subject might feel bound to raise his hand against his king?”

  “How do you know that?” the man demanded, staring at the old man in amazement. “Who are you, to know what troubles me?”

  “I am but an instrument, sent to prepare thee,” the old man said. “Thy calling comes from One far higher than I. Put aside thy sword and kneel before this altar. With thy right hand upon the Volume of Sacred Law, pledge thy faith; and having pledged, receive that threefold confirmation which shall sustain thee in the times to come., as future deliverer of a nation’s freedom!”

  A little dazed-looking, the stranger complied, laying his hat aside and letting the youth divest him of his sword, which then was laid reverently upon the altar. Of his own volition he stripped off his gloves as he sank to one knee, stuffing them distractedly into the front of his coat as he set his bare right hand upon the Bible. Throughout, the gray-blue eyes remained locked on the old man’s blue ones, the craggy face still and expectant.

  “Know that before half a year bas passed, thou shalt be called to lead thy fellow countrymen to war!” the old man said, both admiring and pitying him. “Soon shalt thou ride forth to battle at the head of mighty armies. Soon shall thy sword be raised as a shining beacon to those who shall help thee win a nation’s freedom!”

  As the stranger’s face went a little paler, the old man laid his own hand atop the one resting on the Book, though no compulsion accompanied the questions he now put to the chosen one.

  “Dost thou promise that, when the appointed time doth come, thou shalt be found ready, sword in hand, to fight for thy country and thy God?”

  Without hesitation the answer came, the voice steady, the gray-blue eyes clear.

  “I do.”

  “Dost thou promise to persevere through defeats as well as victories, knowing that both shall have caused thee to send good men to their deaths?”

  The stranger’s “I do” was softer this time, but no less determined.

  “And dost thou promise that, even in the hour of victory, when a nation shall bow before thee, thou shalt remember that thou art but the instrument of God in achieving this Great Work of a nation’s freedom?”

  “I do promise,” came the answer, clearly and firmly.

  “Then in His Name Who hath given the New World as the last altar of human rights,” the old man said, taking up the flagon from the altar, “I do consecrate thee its Champion and Deliverer.”

  Moistening his thumb with oil from the flagon, he slowly and deliberately traced a cross and then a circle on the stranger’s brow, sealing the vows and imparting his blessing with the sacred symbol. A shiver went through the stranger at the other’s touch, and the eyes half-closed. His breathing deepened as the old man replaced the flagon on the altar and took up the laurel wreath, and he bowed his head and clasped trembling hands in an attitude of prayerful reverence as the old man lifted the wreath above him.

  “In times ahead shall come a victor’s crown,” the old man said, his gaze flicking expectantly to the door. “But let it be no conqueror’s blood-stained wreath—though blood thou shalt shed. Rather, this brighter crown of fadeless laurel.”

  But before he could place it on the stranger’s head, wind gusted through the suddenly open door, billowing the altar cloth and setting the candles to guttering, and Amanda was standing in the doorway. She had wrapped her green cloak over her robe to make her way from the house, and her loosened hair floated on the wind like a tawny halo.

  The old man paused as he saw her, her brother’s eyes also turning in her direction. Then the old man lowered the wreath and made her a profound bow.

  “Come to us, as la Déesse de la Liberté,” he said. “For it is fitting that a nation’s Champion and Deliverer should receive his crown of laurel from the hands of a stainless woman.”

  Lifting her head, she drew the door closed behind her and let fall her cloak, at the same time assuming the psychic mantle he had bade her take upon herself for the office to which she was called. As she came softly to her father’s side and took the laurel wreath from him, the stranger’s eyes lifted to hers, not comprehending; but as she willed him to see past the merely visible, the gray-blue eyes widened—not in fear, but in profound recognition.

  He was trembling as she lifted the laurel wreath above his head, and a shudder went through his body as she placed the leafy crown on his powdered hair—a shudder stilled by the touch of her hands upon his shoulders, and by the kiss she pressed gently to his forehead, atop the imprint of the sacred oil.

  Then, as she straightened and backed away a step to stand beside her father, her brother moved before the altar, unsheathing the stranger’s sword and laying it nearer the front edge, moving the antique sword close beside it. The scabbard and belt he gave into his sister’s keeping, sparing only a brief glance at his father before extending his hands flat over the antique blade as he had been taught, closing his eyes.

  His lips moved silently in prayer; the stranger watched numbly, the big hands still clasped loosely at his heart in an attitude of reverence.

  Then the young man’s eyes opened and the hands slowly were lifted, drawing an ethereal, ghost-image of the antique sword out of the physical steel to float a hand-span above. A gesture of his left hand held the image steady while his right hand traced the Dragon sign over the ghost-hilt, severing the connection with the original weapon.

  Slowly he drew the ghost image to overlap the stranger’s sword, superimposing the energy of the first over that of the second, pressing the image into the second sword’s steel, making of the stranger’s blade a magical implement akin to the first. Blue sparks arced as his hands touched the steel of the stranger’s sword, startling even him.

  But then he took up the weapon by its hilt, touched
his lips to the crossing, and sheathed the blade in the scabbard his sister offered, letting the ends of the sword belt dangle free as he shifted it to his left hand, grasping it below the hilt, and turned to give the stranger his right hand. His eyes locked with the other man’s, compelling his attention, ensuring that his words should be engraved on the other’s memory for all time as he raised him up.

  “Rise now, Champion and Deliverer of a people. To thee I give the hand of loyalty and service, which shall be a sign for the hands and loyalties to come, to sustain thee in thy mission. I know not thy name,” he went on, releasing the other’s hand, “yet on this Book I swear to be faithful to the cause you have made your own, even unto death.”

  He touched the fingertips of his right hand briefly to his lips, to the sacred Book, then bent to buckle the sword to the stranger’s side. When he had finished, he stood back and made him a little bow. It was the signal for the girl also to bow, after which the three of them, in unison, made the stranger a sign of respect.

  The stranger looked at all of them a little dazedly—and at the altar, at the Book, at the iron cross witnessing all—then raised his chin in growing confidence, the laurel wreath resting like a royal diadem on his noble head.