Wizards Conclave

deceptively mundane-looking planks.

Finally, he stood, turning toward the opposite wall of the hallway, confronting his own reflection in a crystal mirror, in an ornate platinum frame. With a strangled cry, Kalrakin smashed his fist into the mirror, shattering the glass. Ignoring the shards on the floor, he stalked on through the Tower.

This was the second time he had assaulted the wizard-locked door. The first had been weeks earlier, shortly after he and Luthar had arrived here. The first time the sorcerer had smashed the planks with a great battle axe. The blade, heavy steel of dwarven manufacture, enchanted with ancient magic, had bounced off the wooden planks without making so much as a scratch. Kalrakin had exhausted himself banging on the portal, without making any progress.

This time, he had focused on the stone, holding it while he caressed a multitude of magical items that he had collected while ransacking the Tower. Thus he had drained away the enchantments in pitchers that never emptied, weapons of rare ensorcellment, doorknobs and saddles and lamps that had each been infused with potent magical power. They were mundane and lifeless now, the enchantments having been absorbed by the Irda Stone.

But even that potent blast of stored magic had been thwarted by the wizard lock.

Kalrakin spiraled down a long ways, past many other doors and landings, passages leading through the still- imperfectly mapped tower. He found Luthar in the great dining room in the foretower. The rotund mage sat at the big table, eating noisily.

'Come-I wish to try again.'

'You can't wait for tomorrow?' Luthar said with a grimace.

'We have been waiting for too many tomorrows,' snapped the tall sorcerer. His hawk-nose jutted angrily toward his compatriot. 'We are making no progress-none at all! That door must be sealed by the power of the gods themselves! I sent a surge of wild magic that would have torn down a castle-but it rebounded against me, had no effect on either the door or its frame.'

'That makes only five rooms, all sealed, in this whole tower,' Luthar reflected. 'There are a hundred times that many we are able to enter and make our own. Again, Master, I counsel patience. These doors will open to us, in time. In the meantime, think what we have: food of any variety, as much as we want, provided by the Tower; drink; and treasures galore!'

'Bah-I have no patience for petty delights! Or for fools, Luthar. We have discovered apartments both Spartan and sumptuous; galleries of rare art, pantries and cisterns and training halls. All of them are filled with silly trinkets and novelties-paintings with moving pictures, dishes that wash themselves, rings and bracelets of various natures. But where are the true artifacts: the library of scrolls, the laboratory of potions and elixirs? What of the treasures of the ages, those items that will pave my way to ultimate mastery?

'No, my slow-witted friend, these all-important relics are still hidden away from us. And those are the secrets of the five doors, the doors locked by the ancient wizards, doors that still resist our most potent magic.'

'Every lock can be broken,' Luthar replied plaintively. 'If not with a spell, then with great force. You must collect a greater force.

'No, these ancient wizard locks require a clever solution.' Kalrakin said. 'Clearly they encompass all sides of these chambers, including the floor and ceiling-I have tried to warp the stones in all dimensions, but they resist every probe, every advance of my wild magic. I need to find another way.'

'There are times, Master, when I feel as though this cursed tower is alive, is working against us-it's like a secret enemy, lurking around the corner of every hallway-watching, scheming. I tell you, I don't like it! It is dangerous here, and we don't need this place! The whole world is open to us-maybe we should just go somewhere else?'

'No. There is a purpose here, a reason that we were invited in. The Tower beckoned to us, drew us through the dark wood, brought us safely within. It wanted us to come.'

'Now, perhaps, it wants us to leave,' suggested Luthar.

The gaunt sorcerer shook his head and ran his fingers through the long tangle of his beard, turning a slow circle as he inspected the dining hall. 'I care not what it wants. I am here, I like it here, and I intend to stay. Now, come with me,' he said abruptly.

As usual, Luthar had to trot to keep up with Kalrakin's long-legged stride. They made their way to the great central stairway and headed up, the taller sorcerer taking the steps three at a time, while the shorter mage huffed and hurried behind. Passing the scattered remnants of plate mail he had earlier wrecked, the wild magic user returned to the stubborn door that had resisted his most potent casting.

'You dare to taunt me?' he declared softly, addressing that door. He did not expect a reply, but Luthar's words had pointed him toward a truth: There was some being listening, observing, watching him. The Tower was indeed a sentient presence who was testing him-and with this realization, the tall mage had determined a course of action.

Kalrakin kept his eyes on the locked room as he reached his gloved hand behind his back and pushed open the door to another chamber. Only then did he spin around and stalk into that room, one of several small art galleries that he and Luthar had discovered weeks earlier, upon their first explorations of the Tower. The sorcerer waved his hand, and light flared from the crystal chandelier overhead, illuminating a large, irregular chamber that was dominated by a life-sized statue of three humans, a trio standing back to back in the center.

Executed by a talented sculptor out of three shades of marble, the statues depicted archetypes of the three schools of godly magic-or perhaps, the three deities ruling those orders. One image carved in pure white displayed an elderly man, wrinkled and slightly stooped in posture, leaning on a knobby staff. His eyes were kindly, his smile beneficent, and if his flowing beard and hair bespoke great age, his visage had a benign aspect that, when he had first glimpsed this statue, Kalrakin found it patently absurd.

Next to him was the likeness of another man, cut from stone of ebony black. This was a younger wizard, smoothfaced and short-haired, with penetrating eyes. The third image was female, carved from some exotic version of marble that was nearly blood-red in color; the sorceress was of indeterminate age, stern-faced, and slender, and her hands were raised slightly, reaching outward in a gesture of encompassing embrace.

'Artifacts of the distant past,' Kalrakin sneered aloud. He leaned back and crowed toward the ceiling. 'Pathetic symbols of a time gone by-but they are part of you still, are they not?'

He glared at the trio of statues and raised his hands toward the female figure in red marble. Intertwining his thumbs, the gaunt sorcerer roared, making an animalistic sound of fury. With a sharp gesture he broke his grip and whipped his arms apart-and in that instant the statue shattered, scattering shards of crimson stone across the wooden floor of the gallery.

Kalrakin stood still, every sense quivering. He heard it first as a groan, a sound of nearly physical pain, followed by the faintest of tremors. The floorboards rippled slightly under his feet. 'Feel the force of my displeasure!' he shouted to the ceiling, his voice exultant. 'And know that there is no limit to the pain I can inflict!'

With sharp, brutal gestures, he then wove a spell of wild magic around the white and then the black statues, leaving them likewise destroyed. Shards of rock in three colors now littered the floor of the gallery, and the suffering of the Tower became tangible. The floor shivered more violently; an elaborately jeweled lamp, with a surface of carved turquoise, trembled atop its marble pedestal. With a flip of his hand, Kalrakin caused that precious treasure to slide from its perch; it fell and broke against the hard floor.

The sorcerer breathed hard, snorting like a bull through his massive beak of a nose. He glared at a shelf of crystal vases then turned to scrutinize a painting of exceptional age, depicting an elven patriarch from beyond the Age of Heroes. He toyed with the thought of further mayhem. But perhaps his point had been made.

With a growl, he exited the room, glaring across the hall at the doorway that taunted him.

'Do you dare to tempt me into further retribution?' he asked, his voice rising. Once more he rooted his feet to the stone floor-and felt the wild magic surge. Curling his hand into a fist, still clutching the Irda Stone, he aimed his strongest blow at the wizard-locked door, expended the full force of his magic in one mighty hammer strike.

This time the force rebounded against him so hard that he was hurled against the wall; his skull rang as he bit down, hard, on his own tongue. He was utterly unconscious by the time his insensate body hit the floor.

The pale, cringing Luthar crept into the hallway, and with a deep sigh, and a small snort of disgust, slumped down next to Kalrakin, to wait.