suit seemed to become too long in one leg and too short in one arm.
Lord Ermenwyr bared his teeth and replied; “No, I am a handsome and exquisitely dressed fellow of somewhat less than average height while you are a squawking duck with gas!”
Blichbiss shuddered all over and dwindled, farting explosively, as Lord Ermenwyr and his suit returned to their normal proportions. Through the emerging bill that was replacing his teeth, Blichbiss managed to quack out the counterspell; “No, I am a gas-free man with neither wings nor bill who speaks in pure and persuasive tones, whereas you are a streak of black slime in a crack in the floor, soon to be scrubbed into oblivion!”
And like an expanding balloon he resumed his original shape, as Lord Ermenwyr seemed to dissolve, to darken, to sink down toward a crack in the floor…
“No!” he gurgled desperately. “I am a straight sound mage, mildew-resistant and clean in all my parts, but you are a one-legged castrated blind dog with mange!”
Whereupon he became the upright mage he said he was, and the black fungus that had begun to cover his face vanished; but Blichbiss toppled to the floor, clutching at his groin with swiftly withering arms, and turning his blind scabrous furry face he howled; “No! I am a man, full and complete and strong upon both my legs, clearly seeing that you are a toad whose teeth have grown together, preventing your speech!”
“Whoops,” said Lord Eyrdway gleefully, for both he and Smith had caught the fallacy: Toads have no teeth. “Tried too hard to be clever!”
Lord Ermenwyr jerked back, an agonized look on his face as his teeth snapped shut. He struggled to get out words as he began to shrink and change color; as his mouth widened, the rest of the incantation cycled through and the teeth vanished. He made a horrible noise, just perceptible as words, “No! I am no toad but a man, with perfect and flawless dentition, clearly capable of stating that you are a mere giant mayfly with no mouth at all!”
“No!” gasped Blichbiss, as gauzy wings burst from the back of his dinner jacket. “I am a”—her reached up and tore at his elongating face to prevent his mouth from sealing before he could finish the counterspell—”a man with a mouth such as all men have, and no wings nor any brief life span, whereas you are a cheap tallow taper, your mouth wide with molten wax, your tongue the black wick, awrithe with living flame!”
“No!” Lord Ermenwyr screamed, spitting fire. “I am a man, and my tongue is supple, alive and flameless, no tallow to block my loud pronouncement that you are no man at all but a hanging effigy of old clothes stuffed with paper, your face a painted sack, your mouth a mere painted line, incapable of utterance!”
“Gurk!” exclaimed Blichbiss, as a noose appeared from nowhere and hoisted him up by the neck. “No! I am not hanging and—” He ripped his sealing mouth open again. “I am a mage whose curses are swift and always deadly, with a quick mouth to pronounce that you,”—and a terrible gleam came into his eyes—”are a pusillanimous little half-breed nouveau-arcane psychopath who richly deserves the inescapable blast of witchfire that is about to electrocute him where he stands!”
“Hey!” said Smith in dismay, and Lord Eyrdway looked confused as he played the spell back in his head; but Lord Ermenwyr, his eyes bugging from their sockets, stared up at the crackling circle of white-hot energy that had just begun to circle his head. He shrieked the first thing that came to mind;
“I know you are, but what am I?”
With his last syllable the witchfire reached critical mass and shot out a ravening tongue of lightning, hitting Blichbiss square in the middle of his waistcoat. That gentleman had just time to look outraged before he made a sizzling noise, his sinuses discharged copiously, and the fire engulfed him in a crackling blaze for the space of three seconds before vanishing with a loud popping sound.
Blichbiss fell backward with a crash, smoke and steam rising from his slightly charred mustache. He had been felled by the deadliest of counterspells, the one against which there is no appeal. So simple is its operative principle, even little children grasp it instinctively; so puissant is it in its demoralizing effect, grown men have been driven to inadvertent self-destruction, as Blichbiss now was evidence. Oddly enough, his clothes were almost untouched.
“That was cheating,