"But. . your staff?" Storm asked in wonder as she watched the sweating, dumbfounded wizard in green catch the staff not four paces away. "How will you replace it?"
"Cut myself another one," the Old Mage replied serenely. "They grow on trees."
Clutching the staff and eyeing Elminster anxiously, the velvet-clad wizard reclaimed his pipe, muttered something, and rapidly gestured. Abruptly, he was gone, staff and all, as though he had never been there at all.
Elminster shook his head disapprovingly. "Bad manners," he said severely. "Very. Teleporting at the magefair! It just wasn't done in my day, let me tell ye-"
"When was that, old man? Before the founding of Water-deep, I'll warrant," sneered a darkly handsome young man who stood nearby. Storm turned in her saddle.
This mage was richly dressed in fur-trimmed silks. His black-browed, pinched face was always sneering, it seemed. Storm recognized him as one of the wizards who'd been speaking with Duara when Elminster arrived. His voice and manner radiated cold, scornful power as he curled back his lip a little farther and said, "By the way, graybeard, you may call me 'Master.'"
Gripping his own staff-one made of shining red metal, twelve feet long and adorned with ornaments of gold-the dark-browed mage reached for the reins of the Old Mage's riderless horse.
Storm kicked out at his hand from her saddle. The toe of her boot stung his fingers and smashed them away from Elminster's mount. The handsome mage turned on her angrily-to find a gleaming swordtip inches from his nose.
"Heh, heh," chuckled Elminster in thick, rich tones. "Not learned to leave the ladies alone yet, Young Master?"
The mage flushed red to the roots of his hair and whirled away from Storm's blade to face the old man again. "Why, no, grandsire," he said sarcastically. "Although it's obvious you've been without one for many a year!"
The loud insult brought a few snickers from the younger mages standing near, mingled with gasps and whistles of shocked amazement from older wizards who evidently knew Elminster. The murmuring intensified as some mages shoved closer to watch the coming confrontation, while others suddenly recalled pressing business elsewhere and slipped away to a safe distance.
Elminster yawned. "Put away thy blade," he said softly to Storm. Then he said more loudly and almost merrily, "It appears boastful striplings still come to magefairs for no greater purpose than to insult their betters."
The Old Mage sighed theatrically, and went on. "I suppose, cockerel, that now ye've picked a quarrel and will challenge me, eh? Nay, nay, that's not fair. After all, I've the wisdom of ages with which to make the right choices, whereas ye have only the hot vigor of youth … um, pretty phrase, that… so I'll even thy odds a trifle: I'll challenge thee! Fireball-throwing, hey? What say ye?"
A cheer arose. The red-faced mage waited for it to die, then said scornfully, "A sport for children and, I suppose, old lackwits."
Elminster smiled, very like a cat gloating over cornered prey, and said, "Perhaps. On the other hand, perhaps ye are frightened of losing?"
The mage's face grew redder still. He cast a look around at the interested, watching 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 shook and seemed to leap upward, throwing all but the Old Mage to their knees.
When the shaking had died away, Storm found herself lying beside the horses on the turf. By the time she had struggled to her feet and shook her head clear, the roiling smoke had died away and everyone could see what Elminster's magic had wrought in the meadow. Or rather, what had been the meadow. Where a broad expanse of flame-scorched grass had stretched a moment before, a smoking crater now yawned, large and deep and very impressive.