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By Root 750 0

faces, and snapped ”I accept.“ Then he struck an ostentatious pose and vanished. An instant later, amid a puff of scarlet smoke, he reappeared on the edge of the gorge and made an insulting gesture at the Old Mage from afar. Elminster chuckled, waved a lazy hand in reply, and climbed clumsily back up onto his long-suffering horse. Storm saw him salute Duara with a wink. Then Duara's eyes met her own, and Storm could read the silent plea in them as clearly as if the young sorceress had shouted it in her ear: Look after him, lady-please. By the time they had ridden up out of the valley to the meadows beyond, many wizards had gathered to watch. Haughty young sorcerers had been hurling fire about all day, but the expectant silence hanging over the scene seemed to indicate that the mage with the red staff had won a reputation at the fair, or many elders remembered Elminster, or perhaps even both. With more haste than grace, Elminster fell from his saddle. He hit the ground at a stumbling run, staggered to a halt, and dusted himself off. Then he saw his waiting opponent and, with obvious pleasant surprise, said, ”Well... lead off, boy!“ ”One side, old man,“ said the young mage darkly, waving his staff. ”Or have you no fear of dying in a ball of flame?“ Elminster stroked his beard. ”Yes, yes,“ he said eagerly, his mind seemingly far away. ”Well do I remember! Oho, those were the days ... great bursts of fire in the sky....“ The young mage pushed past him. ”Now, how did that one go, eh? Oh, my, yes, I think I recall...." Elminster burbled on, voice thick and eyes far away.

Contemptuously the young mage set his staff in the crook of his arm, muttered his incantation in low tones so the Old Mage could not hear, and moved his hands in the deftly gliding gestures of the spell. An instant later, above the grassy meadow, fire grew from nothingness into a great red-violet sphere. It seethed and roiled, rolled over once, and burst in orange ruin over the meadow, raining down small teardrops of flame onto the grass. Heat smote the watchers' faces, and the ground rocked briefly. As the roaring died away, the quavering voice of the Old Mage could still be heard, murmuring about the triumphs of yesteryear. He broke off his chatter for a moment to say mildly, “Dear me, that's a gentle one. Can't ye do better than that?” The young mage sneered. “I suppose you can?” Elminster nodded calmly. “Oh, yes.” “Would it be possible to see thee perform this awesome feat?” the mage inquired with acidic courtliness, his voice a mocking, over-pompous parody of Elminster's own thickened tones. The Old Mage blinked. “Young man,” he said disapprovingly, “the great mastery of magic lies in knowing when not to use the power, else all these lands would long ago have become a smoking ruin.” The young mage sneered again. “So you won't perform such a trifling spell for us, O mightiest of mages? Is that the way of it?” “No, no,” Elminster said with a sigh. “We did agree, and ye have done thy little bit, so I-” he sighed again “-shall do mine.” He gestured vaguely, then paused and harrumphed. “Ah, now,” he said, “how does the rhyme go?” There were a few titters from the watching crowd as he scratched his beard and looked around with a puzzled air. The young mage sneered at his back, and then turned to favor Storm with the same disdain. The bard, who stood close by, hand on the hilt of her sword, met his gaze with a wintry look of her own. Elminster suddenly drew himself up and shouted: “By tongue of bat and sulphur's reek, And mystic words I now do speak, There, where I wish to play my game, Let empty air burst into flame!” In answer, the very air seemed to shatter with an ear-splitting shriek. A gigantic ball of flame suddenly towered over the meadow, its heat blistering the watchers' faces. It was like the sun had fallen. As mages cried out and shaded their eyes, the fireball rolled away from the awed crowd for a trembling instant, then burst in a blinding white flash, hurling out its mighty energies in a long jet of flame that roared away to the horizon. The earth