The Ultimate Stonemage: A Modest Autobiography by Duncan McKenzie

this work had been completed in a few inspired hours—rather, I mean the placement of the myriad bindings upon the building.
    This reckoning of the enchantments was no trivial task. Indeed, for most stonemages it would have been well nigh impossible, for most rely upon mathematics to calculate the proper stress points, a procedure which greatly slows the reckoning time and leaves in its wake a spell scheme that is exact but mechanical and unexciting. I have not used mathematics since my schooling, when I found I did not care for the method. Therefore, I place my runes and wefts following my instinctive connection with the buildings I plan to create, which exist in the picture of my mind in a form as real as any castle or house that should fall before my eye. This is to say, then, this planning, while it would have been overwhelming for most stonemages, was a trifle for me.
    However, there were two aspects to the structure which presented a formidable challenge. The first was the right arm of the statue, which I had decided should be raised at an angle of forty-five degrees. The second was to give this great statue the property of speech. Both these problems posed a level of difficulty so great it would be over a year before I fully solved them, and even this time represented work of the most astonishing swiftness and inspiration, because either one of these tasks might well have represented a lifetime’s work for an ordinary stonemage—or even for a very great one.
    But let me say no more here. It is not the proper time to explain my remarkable solutions, and I fear my words might be misinterpreted as a display of vanity. This is not so, however, and you may rest assured that, in many cases, I have considerably understated the many challenges and difficulties which I overcame, for, although I believe in speaking truly, I often find myself racked with an almost crippling humility regarding my own talents.
    So then, I had finished my plans, yet I knew it would still be several weeks before we sighted land. The weather remained foul, so reading upon the deck was impossible—and in any case would have been unappealing to me, for I was alive with the enthusiasm to begin construction, and yet, aboard my ship, I could do nothing but wait. Oh, those weeks were a very wearisome time, and even now, in my memory, the period seems to me longer than the several years of building work which were to follow. And yet the unendurable boredom of those days had a happy and remarkable consequence, for it put my mind in such a state it became receptive to many visions. Often, in fact, as I pored over my plans, looking for some alteration which might occupy my thoughts, I would fancy I heard a noise behind me, or would feel a presence above me, and I would turn to see a great frog, or a hole with tentacles, or a shining weasel, or some such vision. And although these hallucinations were often horrible, and seemed to me to be completely real, yet I felt not the slightest alarm or fear upon beholding them.
    Such visions, I am told, are not unusual—and indeed are a commonplace occurrence among those who are forced to maintain a state of solitude for a lengthy period—nevertheless, they provided me with many striking designs which I have since used upon the walls of buildings as grotesques or gargoyles.
    However, one of these visions was truly singular. I was staring at the wall of my cabin when I thought I saw a movement through the porthole. Then a great, dark figure rose up from the waves. It was a giant, covered with barnacles and seaweed, with a sunken wreck for a body. He reached out and seized the porthole, tearing it from the side of my ship. In my mind I thought, “Ah, my ship will now sink, certainly.” But no. Instead the sea vanished, and I found myself looking upon a jungle. The giant still stood before me, but now had a beautiful and radiant appearance and wore a silver cloak. At his feet was a fox, feeding upon a long-dead