listen, a goad's anything that provokes or incites an enemy --- let me have a go: cursed deamon! you have met your end! the shivering fire awaits you! i shall spread your vile essance across this hall like... um, like margarine, a very think layer of it... --- ye-es... im not sure he'll pick up on that analogy. never mind, keep going.

Julius Tallow was a fool. He appeared complacent, but like a weak swimmer out of his depth, his legs were kicking frantically under the surface, trying to keep him afloat. Whatever happened, Nathaniel did not intend to sink with him.

Ambition is all very well, my lad, but you must cloak it.

Hey, we've all got problems, chum. I'm overly talkative. You look like a field of buttercups in a suit.

One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror.

A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick. That's raw intelligence for you.

We communicated with pithy, rather monosyllabic thoughts: viz. Run, Jump, Where? Left, Up, Duck, ect. (This latter was an observation I made on the edge of a lake. Nathaniel unfortunately took it as a command, which resulted in our temporary immersion.) We didn't ever quite say Ug, but it was a close-run thing.