but across the valley in the land of Orth,

his neighbor mage Hurth brought other climes forth.

Younger in terms of years and decades,

Hurth favored sunshine rather than haze.

With bespectacled awe he marveled the dawns,

the waxing warm light that softened his lawns

and co-fed his beds of glistening gardenias,

fostering his roses, mums, and azaleas.

A salmon-pink morn

he preferred as the norm,

replete with gray geese and gangly herons,

flapping blithely over unfettered barrens.

Nothing bested the boldest blue sky,

not women, not gold, nothing mortally plied,

and with the vast powers he commanded,

Their clash of wills sparked majestic rainbows,

spanning the canyon with such glorious glows

for such displays were only drawn by a god.

Such was their habit for a fairly long time;

one wizard loved gloom, the other loved shine.

For many years their differences were accepted,

but as time trudged on they grew less respected.

Occasional discussions about brews and potions

gave way to grumbles and unspoken notions

imagined maligns against their own occult brother.

Not once did they address this growing deviance,

until one day crotchety Neuss woke to a rooster crowing,

and rolling from his cot, heard his mottled milk cow lowing.

A dream about Hurth had disturbed his sleep,

wherein the other magister in his keep

had rudely mocked Neuss’s ripe age

and announced himself the superior mage.

“Ingrate,” Neuss grumbled. “I journeyed here first.

quaffed three cups and paused to pull

a woolen jacket over his chest,

buckles of brass pinioning the vest.

some wooden and wild, others living and stout,

animated statues that clamored and clanged

and feline familiars, sharp-clawed and fanged.

“Young fool!” snarled Neuss from the balustrade,

watching the spryer young man ply his trade,

up before dawn plucking rare herbs

for boiling tinctures and flavoring curds.

“He thinks he’s a master I do believe,

but a trickster at heart and owed no reprieve.”

While on the cusp of Hurth’s wending wall

Always summoning his loathsome gloom.

We cannot both live here. There’s simply no room

Believes he’s actually superior methinks.

Doesn’t he know his methodology stinks?”

And there spawned a wizardly duel,

fed by fierce egos and fanatic fuel.

A sorcerer to the north who proclaimed wind and rain,

opposed by a sage to the south solely sun-ordained,

both close enough to guess the other’s snide leer,

“I claim winter!” yelled Neuss from his tower,

words gaining the gulf with galvanized power.

“And I the spring!” answered Hurth with zeal.

For All The greatest gods I appeal!”

Neuss summoned his chair and smoothed his gown,

purring black cats that passed round his knees,

as mechanical contraptions marched on mixed legs,

vaguely arachnoidal results of Neuss’s dark dregs.

His fine chair arrived with a clickety-clack,

“To the end then,” promised the petulant wizard.

“I’ll bury your bones beneath a blizzard!”

“A deal!” answered Hurth, bristling with anger.

“We settle this now, regardless of danger!”

Hurth bravely leapt to a teetering wall,

stretched his hands for a staff to call

that flew to his fingers like a knobbed wooden bird,

staunchly held up as his shouts assured--

“In the name of the deities and all things holy,

I call on your help, all exalted and lowly!”

A gale gathered from the rut of the vale

where a river slithered like slimy slow snail.

Neuss’s vapors were pushed verily on,

tugging life and blusterous luster along.

“Too easy!” cried Hurth. “I’ve not broken a sweat.

“Your paltry preference is soon beaten, I bet.”

Propped in his palisade on the opposite peak,

Neuss sneered at his peer and primed his own feat.

With hands tangled and twisted, tense furled fists,

he beckoned to the sky and dwindling mists.

Turbulence tumbled in tumultuous skies,

where winnowing winds whistled and vied.

“RETURN I SAY!” Neuss’s voice exploded,