The chief said, "How have you not collapsed from exhaustion, doing that?"

He was hardly tired. "Seems like I have a lot of magic available. I'm happy to use it for your benefit. Where would you like a new house, or a road, or a wall?"

The rain fell in sheets now, and the room he'd just created had an icy chill. The chief told him, "Come inside. It seems we have a new asset for defeating Thoko."

He returned to the main part of the stone house and tested what else he could do. He proved able to summon a bar of stone that rose up from below but sheared off as a convenient brick, and then to transform it into iron. He felt as though he were kneading dough. "There you go. Enough metal for your smiths. I don't think I can do that part all day; it feels harder than the stone-calling itself. But it would give you a weapon or a shield, easily."

"Iron weapons for all our warriors. This is almost what Thoko wanted. The fool; he made demands of us when if we'd worked together, we might have found this power for ourselves." She sighed. "But only an outsider was able to bypass the Builders' wards and reach the depths."

"I might not be welcome back down there now, to see what else there is."

"You have more immediate concerns. I will contact Thoko immediately to end this fighting."

Arlen said, "I wouldn't yet. He'd want to capture me and make me work for him again."

"Is it your freedom you care about?"

"Partly. But what about Death Island and the Mire? Thoko will see what I'm doing as a blessing to continue hurting people." Arlen leaned closer. "I've also just disrupted his deal with the Mirefolk. If he doesn't need their iron, what happens?"

"Then he stops tolerating their attacks on other islands."

"Does he? Because you're in rebellion right now. Submit to him again and he'll want more hostages to promise you'll do everything he says. I say you should arm yourselves and then tell Thoko he can have peace, with your independence."

Meadow looked outside. "What a storm." It was getting loud, and the wind slashed rain nearly sideways.

The chief left off arguing. "Arlen, I have to wonder now if this weather is a coincidence. If you have such power, well... When I was young we had a real storm that tore roofs of the huts and broke the roof even on a stone building. Now might be a good time to demonstrate how good you are."

Arlen nodded. Good time to find out for himself.

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He set down his backpack, stepped outside, and was instantly soaked and chilled. Gritting his teeth, he looked for a large open spot within the village grounds. He crouched and slapped the soggy ground to send a pulse of violet light all around, stabilizing into a square. Then he began willing it to clear, harden, and rise, shifting from mud and grass into bare tan stone. Maybe twenty feet wide. When the platform stood a few inches above ground level he started raising a thick wall facing the worst rain. With some mental strain he got the wall growing, then focused on a second and third. The rain and wind whipped him. He kept his focus until he had a wall ten feet high and halfway that on the adjacent sides. Now, a roof...

A completely soaked Meadow was shouting nearby. He hesitated, held control of his spell with some trouble, and turned to her. She said, "I'm bringing people over! All right?"

"In a few minutes!"

He focused on growing and expanding the project. Nothing fancy. He expanded it to twenty by forty feet and raised a back wall, then a long, smooth arch over the whole thing, Roman style. He was admiring his work when a slew of villagers hurried over, shivering and splashing through the mud. He blinked, briefly surprised to be reminded that actual people wanted this. He released the magic gingerly and winced at the faint groaning of stone that settled into place, without trouble. "Come in!"

Inside the new building the villagers stared at the chilly walls, poked them, then looked at Arlen himself. "So fast!"

Arlen took a breath and considered how to answer. "Thank the spirits' power. Are your homes fragile?"

Some of them had brought now-soaked bundles of bedding and whatever was wrapped in them. One man held his daughter for warmth and had a son clinging to him. "Already tearing away. Worst I've seen in many years. Brr! Can you make a fire?"

"I don't think so." He thought about creating wood, but when he imagined how he might shift that transmutation ability in the direction of making logs, he wasn't sure how. "I can make a chimney like the chief's, though."

The daughter said, "Did the spirits bless you?"

The man told her, "Never mind that, for now. Stay here while I fetch wood. It's getting cold out there. You, outsider, make that hearth. I don't care how." He pried himself free from his family and darted out into the storm.

Arlen thought, I did cause this, somehow. Half the houses don't look like they can withstand a hurricane. He touched the downwind wall and made stone flow away to start reshaping into a fireplace.

More people hurried in, crowding the building and shedding enough body heat to counter the cold that seemed to come with the construction. Meadow showed up to shepherd townsfolk into the new shelter or (it looked like) toward the chief's large, sturdy place. She was wide-eyed and frantic but visibly holding herself together while people hustled. The father staggered back in with chunks of firewood that he dropped all over. Men, women and children stepped back but then collected it all and waited for Arlen's makeshift chimney. Arlen grimaced and found he had to go back outside to see where he was working.

The entire sky was alive with swirling clouds in an eerie grey and orange that tinted the world. Rain stung his eyes. Lightning flashed and the first thunder followed an instant later. Tremendous energy was at play above. He looked at his newly webbed hands and wondered if his use of the magic was making things worse. How did it all work? Never mind that; he had a job to finish. Shivering violently, he finished the hearth, raised another room of twenty by twenty, and extended a crude roof to start covering that. It was good enough for him to get back inside and finish the expansion from there.

Adding space to an orderly, geometric structure was easier than contemplating what forces his exploration had unleashed.