The wizard and I picked through the ruins of a once-great city, fishing what we needed from the abandoned structures and rubble. He was exuberant, and it was contagious. I had been able to forget about the Jazir, about the upcoming war, and skipped from one rubble pile to another. 

"Bring me that beam over there, Ferton, and we'll see if we can get this stone moved."

He pointed at a metal bar that jutted from a pile of smooth, porous red stones. The wizard called these stones 'bricks', and said people used to build huge buildings with them. I have my doubts - they looked far too crumbly to make a decent structure. Those buildings still standing were constructed out of a far stronger and more durable material the wizard called 'plastek' or 'pollamer'. More...