The story opens with Prospero at home on a late summer day when he feels particularly uneasy. In the evening he receives an unexpected visit from his friend Roger Bacon, and the two discuss unusual phenomena that have transpired lately, especially those concerning a mysterious book for which Roger has been searching England. The following morning the two wizards find Prospero’s house besieged by agents of some other wizard who seems to have ill designs for them. They escape the house by shrinking themselves down and sailing out on a model ship via an underground stream accessible through Prospero’s basement. Once they regain their normal size they visit a library of records where Prospero discovers, as Roger stands guard outside, that a seal appearing in the mysterious aforementioned book belongs to Melichus, an old rival of his. Unfortunately, at that point a person comes into the library and claims to have killed Roger.