But he did ask the manservant, "Please, a moment. Karsus says I'm his 'special friend' because I've brought him a shooting star. But how many 'special friends' does he have?"
The butler tidied up the tray. Very carefully, he offered, "Karsus has many friends, for everyone loves him. But he always has just one 'special friend' at a time. Sometimes for a month, sometimes for only a day. One never knows."
Candlemas watched the man walk away, silent on a thick, embroidered rug. "Oh…"
Drifting off in the soft chair, he wondered what had happened to Sunbright. And what would happen to him.
The next morning, after climbing out of voluminous sheets and quilts, eating an opulent breakfast, and dressing in a fine short robe of brown and red brocade hand stitched for him that very night, Candlemas searched for Karsus but failed to find him. No one knew where he was, a common occurrence. Candlemas welcomed the fact, actually, for it gave him time to orient himself. Asking around in the vast echoing and ornate halls, he found a library run by a lesser mage with a squint and fuzzy red hair. She showed him racks of arcane books, mundane histories, and other such ephemera. Candlemas studied them all ravenously. He had three hundred and fifty-eight years' worth of catching up to do.
The more he read, the more disturbed he became.
It was late in the afternoon when a page cleared his throat and bowed to Candlemas. "Milord?"
"Eh?" Candlemas grumbled, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes. "What is it? You're not with…"
He stared. The young man wore a neat outfit of black-and-white like a jaybird's, not the shiny blues and greens of Karsus's household. Candlemas realized what the boy resembled when he was offered a card. On it was drawn a single black P with a white star in the loop.
"Is that…?"
"Yes, milord. She bids you come right away. I'm to escort you."
Candlemas looked for irony in the lad's voice, found none, sighed and stood up.
"Very well, then," Candlemas sighed. "Lead on."
Near Castle Karsus's main gate-they walked half a mile through three linked mansions to reach them-waited a coach-and-four. The coach was white, piped with black, as were the coachmen and footmen. The horses were black with white blazes and exact white rings around their middles. Candlemas wondered if they were bred that way or painted. He muttered, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Once Candlemas had crawled inside, the coach rattled through the streets, whip cracking to clear the way. Outside for the first time, Candlemas got his first look at the city. Below this high hill, where Castle Karsus was sprinkled like a handful of cocked dice, lay the enclave, or city, of Karsus. Candlemas knew he was atop an inverted, floating mountain, and in the far distance saw other mountains, yet he was hard put to discern the drop-off. Karsus was more like a floating mountain range. And the buildings! Towers fine as pencils, elongated tubes that arched to meet high overhead, delicate traceries like crystal spiderwebs that spun in all directions, dozens of onion-shaped minarets in a row, each more fantastic than the last. The streets were uniformly paved with even cobblestones, gasglobes stood poised to light every corner, and parks and gardens interspersed the high walls around gorgeous mansions. Public fixtures were just as beautiful, from a shimmering fountain a hundred feet tall to bridges that looked like silver jewelry.
All told, the Karsus enclave made Castle Delia look like a lily pad. And Candlemas felt like a frog atop it, backward, ugly, and ignorant. What he'd seen in Karsus's workshops and read about in histories had humbled him. The lowest apprentice sweating in the workshops cleaning jars knew more than he ever would-probably as much as Lady Polaris had known when she was master of Castle Delia.
But he'd know more soon.
The carriage finally stopped by a black iron fence studded with white dots to resemble pearls. Beyond was a mansion of black stone and white mortar. But it took a while before Candlemas was admitted.
Oddly, the coach stopped on the wide avenue, and Candlemas was bidden out by a footman. Amidst a flurry of apologies, Candlemas was searched, groped by two white-gloved hands. Only then was he allowed inside the gate, where he was searched again by a pair of black-and-white guards, then escorted to the front doors.
Inside the mansion, the search was repeated, though more extensively. To an unbelievable degree. Braced by two guards, Candlemas was directed into a small room and ordered to strip. Wondering, he did so, even removing his loincloth. He was given a black-and-white robe, but the search continued. A maid went through his hair and beard with a comb, while a butler inspected each of his fingers, even pricking them with a needle to draw blood. Candlemas would have protested but for shock. After an inspection of his teeth, each one sounded with a tiny hammer, he was finally marched down a long corridor, handed to two more guards, marched farther, and so on.
Eventually he reached the top floor. A maid said, "Lady Polaris awaits you," and opened the door. Wondering, Candlemas went in. He was already half shielding his eyes. Remembering how stunningly beautiful Polaris had been three centuries ago, he imagined she must resemble a goddess these days.
So his mouth fell open in shock as he entered the chamber.
The light was dim, filtered through thick white curtains. The room was vast but cluttered, mostly with couches and low tables. At the far end of the room, reposing on a wide couch heaped with pillows, was someone who reminded Candlemas, vaguely, of Lady Polaris.
Except she was huge. Massively, obscenely fat.
The formerly beautiful face was lost in rolls of suet. Jowls suited to a hog framed deep-rooted, pouchy eyes and protruding lips. Her frost-blue eyes were lost under triple lids. Her hair looked dry enough to break, like frosted grass. Her body sprawled on the cushions, propped in a dozen places by flat pillows. From under her black gown stuck an ankle like a ham.
"Candlemas!" Even her voice dripped with fat, curdled and choked, unlike her cool tones of centuries gone by. Her skin, Candlemas saw as his eyes adjusted, was blotchy and veined from years of debauchery and gout, too much wine and fatty food. "Candlemas! You wretch! Where have you been? Have you been searched?"
Reeling with shock, the pudgy mage found it hard to respond. Slowly, he grasped her point. He and Sunbright had disappeared three hundred and fifty-eight years ago and had never been seen or heard from again (he supposed). Until today.
"Yes, I was. Um…" he groped for a chair as he groped for words, but found only piles of pillows. Begging pardon, he sank onto them. He couldn't stop staring at his transformed liege.
"I've been busy," he finally said, "in a library, lately."
The obese lady nodded as if that made sense. Grabbing with sausagelike fingers, she crammed a handful of sugared dates into her mouth. Drool chased down her chin, but she didn't seem to notice. "When I heard you were in town, I sent my card immediately. Have you solved my problem of the scrying glass? I'll need it for tonight."
"Scrying glass?" Candlemas didn't know what she meant. The last problem she'd tossed in his lap was the flipping-bone-dice conundrum. But this…
"No, wait. That wasn't you I assigned, was it? It was, let's see-that dark girl. Behira."
Oddly, this memory lapse shocked Candlemas the worst. One thing Lady Polaris had possessed above all was a keen mind that never forgot the smallest detail. Now she couldn't even recall her hired help's names. He watched uneasily as she picked up a mirror and finger combed her frizzled hair.
Absently she murmured, "I need the glass because there's a new form of assassination going around. They hire desperate people to sacrifice an arm, then fashion a simulacrum concealing poison until they can close with the victim…"