“You didn’t have to accept the duel now!” Primrose told me with more than a little exasperation in her normally calm voice, “You don’t have your staff, why wouldn’t you just delay? You were the challenged party, you could set the time and place!”

“That was an option?” I ask.

“Of course it was! Which you would know if you’d not fallen asleep in etiquette classes! The rules of how duels work was probably half the class material!”

“Hmm… yeah that makes sense.”

“And it’s also your fault you don’t have a working staff!”

“Hey I thought butlers didn’t judge. I am feeling pretty judged right now!”

Primrose breathed deeply and calmed herself. “You’re right, it’s not my place to lecture you on how much of an idiot you are. A butler cleans up after her master’s mistakes, no matter how easily they could have been avoided.”

I nod in agreement. “So any chance you have my staff?” I asked, currently the room was being cleared, a large area reserved for the upcoming duel. To ensure bystanders weren’t harmed, a small group of guild mages had been brought in to provide a barrier spell that would block spells leaving the ring we’d be dueling in.

“Say, Jason, have you perhaps not been casting anti-scrying spells this whole time?” Primrose asked me in a polite voice.

“Um, I don’t normally cast that sort of spell, so yes, I haven’t been?” I reply carefully.

“It would seem that your old staff has been stolen. I just received a runner informing me of that, and by some coincidence, the previous court wizard chose to challenge you today, despite the fact that he probably knew he couldn’t win unless you had some disadvantage. I’m guessing our conversation earlier today was spied upon. By someone using a scrying spell, would be my guess.”

“Ah,” I said.

“In the future, you should make sure to prevent that from happening, as would be normal and expected behavior for a court wizard, don’t you think?” Primrose asked with exquisite calmness. “I wouldn’t think I would have to inform you of how important basic precautions like that are.”

“Ok, so I messed up, maybe more than once. But why are you so upset? Wouldn’t you be happy to have your old master back?” I asked, my own anger roused.

“Never doubt my loyalty.” Primrose said coldly, “Regardless of the fact that I used to work for that man, I work for you now, and I’m here to see you succeed. Besides, my old master was corrupted by a certain conniving princess and can’t be trusted with the job, so you’re still the better option than him, despite your many… mistakes. Can you win without a working staff?”

I sighed, “It’s certainly possible, but it won’t be pretty.”

“Do you even want to win? Seems like this would be your chance to get out of a job you don’t want,” Primrose observed.

“I don’t want to lose, I have some pride. And, well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint...” I said, thinking of the kind king I’d just met, who had put his trust in me, and Primrose, who was determined to see me succeed.

“Alright, well, don’t tell me your plan, as there’s at least a dozen people listening to us speak right now,” Primrose warned. “Good luck,” she added, with a pat on my shoulder.

My mind drifted back to the past, a lecture from the academy’s combat instructor.

“A wizard without a staff is like a soldier with no sword. So why should I bother training you on how to win a wizard’s duel without a staff? Can anyone guess?” The instructor asked, addressing the small group of students, myself included.

“We might have to fight without a staff some day,” one student said.

“Good answer, but not quite right. After all, you all know how to use magic without a staff, you’d not have passed the admission exams if you didn’t. A wizard without a staff is basically just a mage, so if you don’t have a staff, you can always just fight like a mage. Maybe I should ask a better question; why does a wizard with a staff beat a mage with no staff?”

“A staff focuses a wizard’s will, making it easier to manifest spells faster,” another student said.

“That’s part of it, what else?”

“A staff increases efficiency, makes spells cheaper,” a third student suggested.

“True, anything else?”

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“A staff can store mana, adding an extra pool of mana from which to cast spells.”

“Yes, what else?”

“You can use a staff to defend against hostile magic, as it can serve like a lightning rod, absorbing enemies' attacks,” the first student offered.

“All good points, but there’s one more thing I’m looking for…”

“A staff is an anchor for your will, making your magic harder to disrupt, while also making it easier to disrupt the magic of your opponent,” I volunteer.

“Yes! That’s what I was looking for. A staff is a symbol of will, reality bends around a wizard’s staff because the staff is infused with meaning! Remember magic isn’t just mana, it’s also intent. The staff holds your intent, and when two equal spells clash, it’s the one with the greater intent and meaning that holds sway. Willpower is the key, a staff reinforces the will of it’s user to the extent that a mage cannot match!” The instructor explained.

“So going back to how to win a fight against a wizard with a staff while having no staff of your own?” The instructor continued. “The answer is, don’t oppose the enemy’s intent, work around the other wizard’s magic. Deflect, avoid, and never attack head on or try to block directly. In other words… Be sneaky and hit them from the side!”

“You ready, wizard Jason?” The voice of the old court wizard interrupted my musings.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” I told him, not bothering to address him politely as I stepped into the warding circle provided by the guild mages. He was already waiting for me with a gloating look. He certainly didn’t look like the “gentle” old man Primrose had described. There was a manic look to him, a desperation that spoke of something like an addiction. He needed this a lot more than I did, someone had promised him great rewards if he succeeded in humiliating me.

“On my mark, three, two, one…” one of the guild mages counted down.

As the mage said “Go!” I was already moving, flinging myself to the side. At the same time I was pouring all my mana into my clothes, rewriting the enchantment that gave them the illusion of stars and galaxies with a crude invisibility spell. It was a brute force approach, temporarily overriding the existing spell and rewriting the meaning, but the runes I’d used were illusion and light, so I was able to twist the spell briefly. It helped that I’d enchanted it myself, and that the enchantment was less than a day old, meaning it wasn’t quite “dry”, the intent behind the magic was still flexible and mutable. Light filtered into the robe and was filtered into the robe and out the other side, by extending my will, I pushed the enchantment out to cover my head, limbs, and the nearly useless staff I carried.

“Firebolt!” A bolt of fire lanced out from where the old court wizard pointed his staff, slamming into the ward laid down by the small group of mages, straining their magic, but it held. In the meantime, I was sprinting, closing the distance between me and the older wizard.

“What? Where…” the other wizard muttered, then overcoming his momentary confusion, he slammed his staff down on the ground and proclaimed, “Dispel!” A wave of magic burst out from the point of impact, rippling outwards, and I felt my magic tatter. I think my robe was still invisible, as I’d anchored the heart of my spell with runes, but my head and staff were exposed, as those parts I’d only covered with pure will.

“There you are!” He swung his staff at me, “Lightning!” he yelled.

Man, this guy loved telling me what spells he was using, I thought to myself. I would never be caught dead casting spells that way. In fact, one of the reasons I almost always won duels back in the academy is because my mostly noble born classmates all had the same fatal flaw. They loved to strike a heroic pose and proudly declare what they were doing to the world. To them, magic had always been something to be proud of, something that proved their worth. When I was a child, I’d learned magic in secret, and I’d spent a long time hiding it because I was afraid of what people would say. In the end, my parents had been happy to learn I could do magic, and had encouraged me, but those formative years of fearful secrecy had given me the ability to use magic silently.

The brass poles that served to keep people in their proper place with lines of string were currently also being used to keep people away from getting too close. Silently I yanked several of the closest ones and telekinetically tossed them at the old wizard. This made him flinch, but more importantly, they drew the cackling discharge of lightning from his attack, draining the elemental fury bearing down on me into the ground.

A few stray arcs still managed to hit me, singing me painfully, but I didn’t bother trying to block them. Without a working staff, my defensive magic was always going to fail against an attack fueled by a wizard staff. Despite my greater strength, magic wasn’t just about who had more mana, and in much the same way, wizard duels weren’t just about who had the better magic.

Finally closing the distance, while the other wizard was distracted blocking the brass poles with a hasty “Stop!” I slammed my staff into his side.

With a meaty thunk, my staff shattered his concentration, and maybe a rib or two, as he fell to the ground, stunned. “Argh!” he groaned, but with a glare he tried to focus, pointing his staff at me.

“Yield.” I told him, slamming my own staff down upon his, knocking it out of his grip. Then I pushed it away telekinetically, forcing it to fly out of the ward.

“You cheated!” the old court wizard complained.

I tilted my head at him, “How so?”

“You pulled those poles from outside of the ring!”

“Not against the rules. Trust me, my instructors told me that using the environment to your advantage is good tactics.”

“In a battle! Not a duel!”

I scratched my chin. “I don’t honestly see the difference.”

“There were no rules like that stated beforehand,” Primrose spoke up, coming to my defense.

“You didn’t even win with magic, you clubbed me with your stick! You damned peasant!” the older wizard complained, after shooting Primrose a betrayed look.

“You knew my staff was incomplete and chose to challenge me anyways, after stealing my old staff. I don’t see why fairness is something you should be worried about,” I pointed out.

A murmur from the watching audience.

“I had nothing to do with stealing your old staff!” The court wizard said, indignantly.

“But you admit that you knew this staff wasn’t complete?”

“I…”

“Perhaps you want to continue the fight as mages? Neither of us using a staff?” I tossed my staff at Primrose with a telekinetic push, and stepped away from the prone form of the older wizard.

The old court wizard looked away, unable to meet my hard glaze. “I yield,” he said finally.