Read Online Sea of Death: Blade of the Flame - Book 3 by Tim Waggoner - Free Book Online Page A

through Kolbyr, and though Tresslar had never been here before, he’d received directions from artificers in Perhata before setting sail for this side of the gulf, and after a short time the three companions stood before a domed building with a single wooden door hanging slightly askew on its hinges.
    “This is it?” Hinto said, eyeing the building skeptically. “Kolbyr’s artificers must not be very good if they can’t fix a simple door.”
    “I told you, Tinker’s Rooms aren’t advertised,” Tresslar said. “The door’s state of disrepair is no doubt intended to help disguise the building’s true nature.” Which was possible, but it was equally possible—and Tresslar had to admit, more likely—that Kolbyr’s artificers hadn’t even noticed the door’s condition. If there was nothing magical about the door, there wouldn’t be anything about it to interest artificers. “But you don’t have to take my word for it.”
    Tresslar removed his backpack, reached inside, and withdrew a small metal ring with a wooden handle attached. Tresslar held the device, which resembled a magnifying glass that had lost its lens, up to the stone wall to the right of the door. He moved the device slowly up and down until a golden light began to glow within the center of the ring. The glow grew brighter, and the illumination began to take on a distinct shape: a hand grasping a tool that looked like a small trident wrapped in a coil of wire.
    “Behold the Tinker’s Mark,” Tresslar said. He held the revealer steady for a moment while he gazed upon the mark, his mind filling with fond memories of the many Tinker’s Rooms he’d visited over the years—especially back when he’d been a young adventurer sailing on the
Sea Star
with Erdis Cai. Without a doubt, those had been the happiest days of his life, and he missed them.
    Tresslar sensed he was being scrutinized, and he turned to see Solus looking at him, though it wasn’t always easy to tell when warforged had their artificial eyes trained on you. He was certain Solus had been reading his thoughts, purposefully or not, and he turned away, embarrassed. He deactivated the revealer and the golden image of the Tinker’s Mark winked out. Tresslar put the revealer away, slid his pack over his shoulders once again and, without looking at either of his companions, pushed open the door. The hinges creaked and the door wobbled, but it opened smoothly enough. Tresslar stepped inside without hesitation, and Solus and Hinto followed.
    This was Tresslar’s favorite part of entering a Tinker’s Room: seeing what the outer chamber looked like. Tinker’s Rooms always had a legitimate business as a front in order to conceal their true nature and to create a plausible reason why people—quite often strangers such as themselves—would be entering and leaving at all hours. In his time, Tresslar had seen Tinker’s Rooms that had such wildly diverse disguises as a chandlers’ shop, a garment merchant, and once even a taxidermist’s. But this rivaled them all.
    The outer chamber was set up as a shop, with a main counter and display shelves. But the wares for sale were like nothing Tresslar had ever seen before. At first he thought they were some sort of glass sculptures, but after a moment’s inspection, he realized that the beautiful arrangements of translucent blue-green orbs were, in fact, structures created out of water bubbles. The bubbles were of various sizes, configurations, and hues, but the arrangements all had two things in common: the bubbles were frozen in space without any visible sign that anything was holding them up, and they were all set atop triangular jade bases. A number of the bubbles glowed with soft, gentle light, providing illumination for the room.
    A beautiful woman in her late forties or early fifties emergedfrom a back room behind the counter. She had long flowing hair that was tinted blue and bereft of the usual beadwork favored by most Lhazaarites. Her