into the mirror and saw concern on his face. Teclis’s features had become a mask, and his gaze was fixed and staring. Even as Tyrion watched, the mirror misted as if someone had breathed on it, although no one had. Their outlines became shadow and blurred and then vanished altogether. The surface of the mirror rippled and settled and became normal again.
‘It looks just the same,’ said Tyrion. ‘I don’t know what you were trying but it did not work.’
Teclis smile was a ghastly rictus. He made a gesture with his left hand as if he were spinning a top. The image in the mirror turned. At first Tyrion wondered if Teclis had made him dizzy with his magic but then he realised that he was perfectly stable and so was the room. It was the point of view in the mirror that was changing.
Teclis made another gesture and he was looking at the two of them from behind. It was as if the mirror had become the eye of some great roving beast and they were looking out from behind that eye. Tyrion laughed at the wonder of it and Teclis joined in, obviously enjoying the feeling of power, and the use of magic.
The view in the mirror shifted again, moving through the door and out into the corridor. It flew along now as fast as Tyrion could run, and Tyrion guessed his brother was enjoying the vicarious experience of running at a speed he would never achieve in life. Tyrion wondered if the point of view could fly. That would be truly a wonderful thing.
Even as that thought struck him, he saw Lady Malene running along the corridor towards them. She reached a point just in front of the eye and gestured. The mirror went suddenly dark. Teclis gasped as if stabbed. A few moments later, the door in the room opened and she entered.
‘What is going on?’ she demanded, in a tone of utmost urgency. She gazed around the room as if seeking some threat, a faint nimbus of light played around her hands. Tyrion realised she was prepared to work magic at a moment’s notice, and he guessed from her expression that it would be a spell of a potent and deadly sort. ‘Did something try to break in here?’
He could hear the sound of many running feet now. Armed warriors poured into the room as if in answer to some unheard summons. They gazed around the room too, obviously as baffled as Lady Malene. They looked like soldiers who having nerved themselves up for combat were disappointed to find no foe awaiting them.
‘It was me, lady,’ said Teclis.
‘What was you?’ she said.
‘I worked a spell.’
‘You are not a mage yet, boy. I sensed the presence of an awful power. I thought we were attacked, that you were attacked because the focus of the power was here.’
‘I worked a spell,’ said Teclis stubbornly. He indicated the open book on his knee.
Lady Malene came over and snatched it up. ‘You cast this?’ There was naked disbelief in her voice. ‘Impossible.’
‘My brother does not lie,’ said Tyrion rankled by the tone their aunt was taking. He would have been more annoyed at her tone had he not sensed that she was angry as much from concern about their well-being as annoyance at what Teclis had done.
She looked at the spell again, and then at the mirror. Her hand moved through a small circular gesture. She spoke a few words in the archaic version of Elvish that Teclis had used to invoke the spell. The surface of the mirror shimmered brilliantly and then faded. She turned her gaze back upon them.
‘Look at me,’ she said. ‘This is no joke so don’t smile. Answer me and answer me true. Did anything enter this chamber? Did anything breach the wards on this palace?’
‘No,’ said Teclis with utter assurance.
‘Did you cast the Spell of the Invisible Eye?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who taught you how to do that?’
‘No one.’
‘Don’t lie, boy. What did your father teach you?’
‘Nothing, witch,’ said Teclis just as annoyed, and seemingly completely oblivious to the way armed elves reached for weapons when they heard his tone. ‘My father taught me nothing. The basic procedures were all in this book. I worked out the rest for myself from what you have already taught me.’
‘You worked out the rest for yourself? Do you seriously expect me to believe an untrained lad could derive from first principles the knowledge to cast a third order spell of