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that he would be crushed against the rocky walls. And, in accordance with the crystal's widening, its tip rose up into the morning sky, keeping the dimensions aligned with its power source. Then it was complete, still an exact image of Crenshinibon, but now of mammoth proportions.
    A crystalline tower. Somehow-the same way Kessell knew anything about the crystal shard-he knew its name.
    Cryshal-Tirith.
    *****
    Kessell would have been contented, for the time being, at least, to remain in Cryshal-Tirith and feast off of the unfortunate animals that wandered by. He had come from a meager background of unambitious peasants, and though he outwardly boasted of aspirations beyond his station, he was intimidated by the implications of power. He didn't understand how or why those who had gained prominence had risen above the common rabble, and even lied to himself, passing off the accomplishments of others, and, conversely, the lack of his own, as a random choice of fate.
    Now that he had power within his grasp he had no notion of what to do with it.
    But Crenshinibon had waited too long to see its return to life wasted as a hunting lodge for a puny human. Kessell's wishy-washiness was actually a favorable attribute from the relic's perspective. Over a period of time, it could persuade Kessell to follow almost any course of action with its nighttime messages.
    And Crenshinibon had the time. The relic was anxious to again taste the thrill of conquest, but a few years did not seem long to an artifact that had been created at the dawn of the world. It would mold the bumbling Kessell into a proper representative of its power, nurture the weak man into an iron-fisted glove to deliver its message of destruction. It had done likewise a hundred times in the initial struggles of the world, creating and nurturing some of the most formidable and cruel opponents of law across any of the universal planes.
    It could do so again.
    That very night, Kessell, sleeping in the comfortably adorned second level of Cryshal-Tirith, had dreams of conquest. Not violent campaigns waged against a city such as Luskan, or even on the scale of battle against a frontier settlement, like the villages of Ten-Towns, but a less ambitious and more realistic start to his kingdom. He dreamed that he had forced a tribe of goblins into servitude, using them to assume the roles as his personal staff, catering to his every need. When he awakened the next morning, he remembered the dream and found that he liked the idea.
    Later that morning, Kessell explored the third level of the tower, a room like all the others, made of smooth yet stone-strong crystal, this particular one filled with various scrying devices. Suddenly, an urge came over him to make a certain gesture and speak an arcane word of command that he assumed he must have heard in the presence of Morkai. He complied with the feeling and watched in amazement as the dimension within the depths of one of the mirrors in the room suddenly swirled in a gray fog. When the fog cleared, an image came into focus.
    Kessell recognized the area depicted as a valley he had passed a short distance down the trail when Eldulac, Dendybar the Mottled, and the others had left him to die.
    The image of the region was bustling with a tribe of goblins at work constructing a campsite. These were nomads, probably, for war bands rarely brought females and young ones along on their raids. Hundreds of caves dotted the sides of these mountains, but they weren't numerous enough to hold the tribes of orcs, goblins, ogres, and even more powerful monsters. Competition for lairs was fierce, and the lesser goblin tribes were usually forced above ground, enslaved, or slaughtered.
    "How convenient," Kessell mused, wondering if the subject of his dream had been a coincidence or a prophecy. On another sudden impulse, he sent his will through the mirror toward the goblins. The effect startled him.
    As one, the goblins turned, apparently confused, in the