“Though not his piercing glance, which flames at this very moment like the molten basalt of creation,” specified the fifth.
“Here’s to the molten basalt of creation!” roared the sixth. This was apparently in the nature of a riffraff toast, for the six rowdies guzzled their pots in unison, Shelyid joining in, with a zeal which can, under the circumstances, only be described as a public scandal.
“A sorcerer,” pronounced the first.
“From Goimr, ’tis clear,” added the second.
“Most wretched wizards in all Grotum,” commented the third.
“Not so!” countered the fourth. “‘Tis a truth beyond dispute that of all piss-poor prestidigitators, ’tis those of Kankr who excel all others in the fumble-witted scale of misbegotten magery.”
“Preposterous!” snorted the fifth. “‘Tis true that your Kankrene conjuror is an incorrigible maladroit, this I admit. ‘Tis true as well that your Goimric goetic is a bungling buffoon, this goes without saying. Yet still do these shine as veritable Magi in comparison to the feckless rattlepates who adorn the pantheon of Sfinctrian necromancy.”
“What nonsense!” bellowed the sixth. “‘Tis a fact known to babes in swaddling clothes that the faculties of all Groutch incantators are of such base degree that ’tis impossible, as a practic art, to discern amongst them the lowest from the low. Easier to rank the art of a pile of fruit flies!”
Now spoke the first. “In general, I would agree, yet there is one exception must be made.”
“Most true!” cried the second. “For even here in Prygg itself does there reside a thaumaturge of undisputable acumen and merit!”
“Aye,” agreed the third. “Our very own Magrit.”
“Proper witch, she is,” intoned the fourth piously.
“Here’s to Magrit!” roared the fifth. This was apparently in the nature of a scalawag toast, for the six scoundrels guzzled their pots in unison, Shelyid joining in, with a ravenous fervor which, it can hardly be doubted, caused the angels to ring the dome of heaven with a united peal of outrage.
“I grant you that single exception,” admitted the sixth. “She’s not one to stutter up her cantrips, maladminister her potions, bungle her exsufflations or muddle her demonography!” He took a deep draught of ale. “Nor, I might add, is she one to sneak about alehouses in a foolish attempt to inveigle privy information from a motley crew of drunken lowlifes such as us—rude, crude, lewd and uncouth though we be”—here there took place a clinking together of ale pots, in which, grievous to relate, Shelyid’s pot was not found absent—”but who are still, I estimate with my primitive brain untutored in the mathematic skills, approximately thirteen orders of magnitude more clever than yon wizard of Goimr. Taken together, that is—alone, I reckon the slowest wit among us is not more than eight orders of magnitude smarter.” He mused briefly; waved a huge magnanimous paw. “I will give him seven.”
Then, like the stalking lion discarding all stealth and leaping forward in his fury, did the mage charge forth into the center of the room. His eyes glowed like coals, smoke and lightning issued from his ears.
“O infamy!” he raged. “O base impudence!”
“Impudence, is it?” roared the first, slamming his great fist onto the table. “And who are you, sirrah, to call us impudent?”
“I bear the dreaded name Zulkeh of—”
“—Goimr, physician,” concluded the lowborn in one voice.
“Author of Reason’s Absolute Idea?” asked the second.
“The Speculative Logic?” queried the third.
“The Phenomenology of True Truth?” This from the fourth.
“They number among my titles,” spoke the wizard in a majestic tone.
“And are you not as well the originator of the Theoretical Theorem, that all facts derive from theory?” boomed the fifth.
“That I am!”
“And—this last but not least,” demanded the sixth, “are you not also the author of The True Law of Gravity, Properly So-Named Only By Myself?”
“Quite so!” spoke Zulkeh. “And may I say I am pleased, albeit surprised, to find that my fame has penetrated even into the—”
But his speech was cut short, for even at that moment did the motley crew erupt into gargantuan laughter, slapping their backs and pounding their fists onto the table, rocking back and forth in mad abandon upon their chairs, several, indeed, collapsing onto the floor in most unseemly mirth. Grievous to relate, into this grotesque revelry did the now-utterly-inebriated Shelyid throw himself without a thought, behaving in a manner which, were there justice in the world, should have seen him burned at the stake.