The stone barrier began to soften and the wizard pushed slowly, bending the rock to his will, changing its shape, cracking it loose where he wanted it to break. He watched in glee as the entire rim of black marble tumbled away, leaving only a thin fragment of the original balcony. Kalrakin now stood at the very edge of a smooth platform, nothing between himself and a drop of several hundred feet. Luthar gasped and shrank back, but Kalrakin relished the sight of the marble tumbling below. He saw the stone crash into the ground far below, felt the tremor through the soles of his feet.

"That is a start," he announced. "Now, to the next."

He turned and entered the Tower with the still-trembling Luthar close behind. The corridor here was a ring surrounding a plunging well of space, with doors to a pair of similar balconies on the right and left, spaced evenly a third of the way around the outer wall. Shards of stone were scattered across the floor, rubble that marked where Kalrakin had torn a section of railing away in an earlier outburst. Here stretched a perilous drop of several hundred feet, a yawning gap plunging into the central atrium of the north tower.

Ignoring the potential danger, Kalrakin made his way to the closest of the doors on this level, leaving Luthar to edge slowly behind. The stout sorcerer inched along the wall, as far as possible from the broken railing, arriving at another, red parapet, surrounded by a ring of rose-colored marble.

His eyes wide, Luthar watched as Kalrakin strutted back and forth across the parapet.

Again, Kalrakin called on the wild magic, which surged through the sorcerer's flesh, expanding and destroying the stone, until this platform, too, tumbled to the ground. In a few moments he had destroyed the third crenellated wall, tearing the white marble cleanly away from its seamless black foundation.

And still the magic flowed through him; it had become a surging torrent of power quickening his heart, tightening his sinews. His jaw remained clenched, teeth bared in a rictus grin that terrified his comrade-who continued to watch from a cowering safe distance.

Kalrakin now turned his magic to the stone walls of the tower, leaping from a parapet to cling to the smooth outer surface of the spire like a human spider. The wind whipped his beard, his tangled hair, and his filthy robe, as he clawed his way down the wall. The wild magic was strong, and he never lost his foot- or handholds. Halfway down he paused, dangling by one hand as he admired the broken stones scattered on the ground below.

Luthar peered down. In less than a minute Kalrakin had climbed to the ground. Standing below, once again Kalrakin summoned the destructive wild magic, focusing it on the rubble. The stone in his hand glowed especially bright in the daylight as the sorcerer drew the shards of red, black, and white marble together, bending their shapes with his will, assembling them in what first looked like simply a chaotic pile of multicolored stones. Now the master of wild magic began to sculpt with care, precision, even affection. From large wedges of black stone he created a pair of massive, knobby stone boots-boots that each stood five feet high.

Next he shaped other chunks of black stone into a pair of massive, trunklike legs. He worked not with his hands, which remained outstretched and motionless, but with the carving skill of his wild sorcery. The white stone shone like a beacon in his hand, and whatever it touched was shaped.

Moments later Luthar pulled open the tower door, gasping and flushed, having taken ten minutes to run down the tower stairs. The shorter wild mage gaped at the torso of white marble which was taking form above the stone legs and huge black boots. Already the half-built creation loomed high over their heads. In a stir of whimsy, Kalrakin had placed a gash of red marble across his creation's "chest"-just where the heart would be in a mortal giant. Next came the arms, a mixture of some of the red and black marble he had remaining, and finally he was ready for the head.

For this crowning touch, Kalrakin took special care. His golem would be a manlike being, glowering and shelf browed, with a square rock for a jaw and two deep, lightless caves where the eyes should be. But of course the thing had no organs, no sight, no flesh. This was a guardian connected by wild magic to Kalrakin himself. Luthar stared, speechless. When it was all done, Kalrakin stationed it at the door of the tower, facing outward, standing with arms hanging at its sides. It would never sleep, never rest, never tire.

And when the wizards of three robes came calling, it would destroy them.

Later, Kalrakin stood atop the rampart of the south tower. He was alone, but his spoken word thrummed through the stonework, the flesh, of the lofty structure, reaching the ears of his cohort many hundreds of feet below. The answer returned via the same medium, tremulous but quick.

"Yes, Master? What is it?"

"How long has it been since I have slept?"

The wild mage closed his eyes, not in fatigue but in sublime ecstasy, as he awaited Luthar's reply. The power of the world pulsed in Kalrakin's veins, and his sinews felt as taut, and as strong, as steel cables. His ears tuned to the faintest sound. When he looked out he could clearly see the pattern and shape of every leaf on every tree within a mile of the tower.

The Irda Stone had become a part of him. He admired the object in his hand, flexed his fingers, saw the pulsing of his blood and the fiery veins of wild magic intertwined among the delicate pearly surface. That maze of energy flickered as, from somewhere far away, Luthar's voice reached him.

"I do not know precisely, Master. But I believe it has been many, many weeks-since shortly after we arrived in this tower."

"Yes. I know that it has been four months and five days since I became lord here. And in that time, the Tower has done my sleeping for me. It suffers, it weakens, it fades-just as the three gods do themselves-and I claim all of their collective power for myself. Luthar, this structure sustains me-and this stone is the vessel through which I now drink life!"

The mage scrutinized one of the lower platforms on the north tower, a hundred feet away. With a scream of delight, like an eagle surveying his mountaintop domain, Kalrakin sprang into the air. His powerful leap carried him across that space, his tattered robe flapping around him as he landed lightly. Approaching the north wall, where a gaping hole marked a door he had earlier smashed into kindling, the sorcerer placed his hand on the stone frame of the doorway, murmuring an incantation. Immediately the stones parted, creating a narrow gap limned in blue light. Ducking his head, the tall mage stepped into that gap, his gloved hand extended before him. In two steps he emerged-only now he was at the base of the Tower, entering one of the luxurious studies where he knew his companion awaited him.

Luthar, who had been seated before a roaring blaze in the deep fireplace, leaped to his feet in consternation.

"I wish you would stop doing that!" sputtered the shorter wizard. "I can never get used to you just popping in and out of sight like this!"

"Your wishes are insignificant," Kalrakin said, striding to the hearth, extending his hands, absorbing the warmth of the fire for just a second. Magic pulsed from the gauntlet in his hand, sucking the heat and energy of the fire, which was instantly doused into a mound of smoldering logs. When Kalrakin turned away, his body was smoking; wisps of gray vapor swirled from his filthy robe, and rose amid the tangled whiskers of his beard.

"There is something I am just beginning to understand," he added meaningfully.

Luthar knelt nervously at the hearth, putting more logs into the fireplace, casting a quick puff of wind with his own wild magic to draw yellow flames from the coals. "What have you learned, Master?" he finally ventured to ask, turning away from the once more roaring blaze.