Thinblade Read Online Free PDF Page A

concluded, and having finished his report, stood silently.
    Phane sat quietly for a moment, nodded and said, “General Commander, let’s find out how reliable your man really is.” Phane stood and held out his hand toward the tent wall. His eyes lost focus and he relaxed as he touched the firmament with his mind. He released the magic through his will and commanded the door of his Wizard’s Den to open.
    After a moment, the air in front of the ancient arch mage began to shimmer. Then, quite suddenly, an area of space coalesced into an open doorway leading to a place beyond and apart from the real world.
    Jataan had heard stories about the Wizard’s Den spell before, but he’d never actually seen one. It took an arch mage to cast such a powerful constructed spell and it had been two thousand years since an arch mage had walked the Seven Isles.
    The door to the Wizard’s Den was a simple open archway. Jataan leaned slightly to see behind the magical portal. It vanished from sight when he did.
    “Huh.” Jataan P’Tal was a man of few words.
    Phane smiled slightly at his General Commander and walked casually though the door, whistling a tune as he went. Jataan followed. He found himself in a stone room with a vaulted ceiling. A hearth occupied the wall opposite the door; a fire was burning brightly. Lamps spaced out along the walls provided ample illumination. A comfortable-looking bed was pushed into one corner of the room with a trunk at the foot. Along the same wall in the opposite corner stood a finely crafted armoire. A large table occupied most of the wall opposite the bed with a bookshelf taking up the rest. A simple, cushioned wooden chair was pushed in under the table and a more comfortable-looking chair faced the fireplace. The place looked almost homey.
    On the table was strewn all manner of books, maps, scrolls, and other odd scraps of parchment with arcane writing in ancient and long-dead languages. There was also a finely crafted mirror in an ornate gold and silver frame resting in the middle of the table. It was oval, about two and a half feet tall and a foot and a half wide.
    Phane stopped in the middle of the room and looked around as if he expected something to be out of place. He nodded his satisfaction and took a seat at the table in front of the mirror.
    Jataan stood just inside the doorway looking around casually.
    When Phane touched the mirror, it began to shimmer. “Show me the Seven Isles,” he commanded.
    The surface of the mirror seemed to ripple. As the ripples calmed, an image began to appear. It looked like a map of the Seven Isles, except there were clouds. Jataan realized with a shock that he was seeing the entire known world from impossibly high in the sky.
    “This threat you speak of is on Ruatha?” he asked Jataan.
    “Yes, My Prince, House Valentine, just south of the Great Forest, between Highlands Reach and Southport.” Jataan’s eyes didn’t leave the mirror as he spoke.
    Phane nodded and touched the glass where Ruatha was and the island grew to fill the whole mirror. He touched it again just south of the Great Forest and the image grew impossibly fast. Jataan felt a flutter in his stomach like he was falling. Phane searched about until he found the house he wanted. He placed his finger on the mirror frame and the image began to move toward the house, only more slowly.
    Jataan P’Tal was not easily impressed, but the power of this mirror set his mind racing.
    Phane guided the image through doors and into the manor. He searched methodically until he found what he was looking for. He watched as Alexander sat at a large table and listened to his father explain the curse on their bloodline. He could hear every word of the conversation through some magical effect of the mirror as if it were taking place right in front of him.
    Phane smiled, “It would seem that your assassin has succeeded and failed all at once. He killed the elder brother but he killed him before the mark was