Dead Ice

Prologue

Karl Gustavovich Fabergé did not look up from his work when, unheralded, Nikolai bustled through the door. He raised one hand, forestalling further interruption.

“Go outside, close the door, and knock.” Fabergé remained calm and kept his eyes on his work as he gave these instructions. His work required focus and attention to detail, and he could not allow the temerity of a foolish assistant to put him out of sorts.

“Master, someone is here to see you.”

Now Fabergé looked up. Nikolai’s interruption had been out of character, but for the young man to ignore his command, that was something else entirely. Furthermore, there was a tremor in Nikolai’s voice, and a breathy quality to his voice that was so unlike him.

Fabergé looked his assistant up and down. Nikolai’s skin was the color of new-fallen snow, and perspiration ran in rivulets down his cheeks. What had put him out of sorts? Fabergé made a placating gesture.

“Calm yourself and explain.”

“Master, you have a visitor. He says he has plans for an egg…”

“Plans for an egg?” Now Fabergé’s ire rose. “I have always been free to make every egg as I choose. The royal family wishes it so. Whoever this visitor is, tell him to go away. I have no time for such foolishness.”

He turned back to his work, thinking the matter at an end, but Nikolai hurried to his side and reached out a trembling hand, nearly touching Fabergé’s arm.

“Master, please. This is not a man to be turned away.” His voice had fallen to a hoarse whisper, and he kept glancing at the door, as if whoever waited outside might enter at any time.

Fabergé took three deep breaths, restoring himself to his usual calm. “Very well. Did he bring these plans with him?”

Nikolai nodded.

“Take his name and tell him to leave them with you and I will review them. If I wish to make this egg for him, I will contact him.”

“I fear that will not be possible.” The voice that came from the direction of the doorway put Fabergé in mind of a serpent, due both to its hypnotic quality and the faint hiss that underscored his last word.

The man that stepped into the room seemed impossibly tall. His lean body and long face, hair, and beard only served to exaggerate his height. His intense eyes burned into Fabergé, freezing him in place.

“Leave us,” the man said to Nikolai, who scurried out the door, giving the stranger a wide berth as they passed.

Even if there had not been two uniformed, armed men standing just outside the doorway, Fabergé would have been powerless to protest this intruder giving orders to his staff. The tall man’s aura was too strong. It was not charisma, exactly, but something like…

…witchcraft.

Perhaps the stories were true.

Fabergé tried to speak, but found his mouth dry as a desert.

“Forgive me for the intrusion. I know it is the height of discourtesy, but I fear my business cannot wait.” The man was all courtesy now, though condescension twinkled in his eyes.

Nevertheless, the ice now broken, Fabergé managed to speak.

“How may I be of service to you?”

“As your man told you, I need you to craft an egg. A special egg.” The words hung in the air as he reached inside his coat and produced a leather cylinder from which he extracted a roll of papers.”

Fabergé noted a slight tremor to the man’s hand as he passed the plans over to him. He spread the plans out on a table and looked them over. They were all wrong. A note in the margin, written in a spider hand, specified a thickness that would make the egg far too fragile. And the other details…

“I realize the design is not consistent with the other eggs which you have so expertly made, but it will serve my purpose.”

“Purpose? There is no purpose to the eggs beyond the artistic. To what use could you possibly put this?” He tapped the plans with one slender finger.

The smile spreading across the man’s face did not reach his eyes.

“One which could change the world.”