Candlemas's workshop had been swept, scrubbed, and aired, but the maids hadn't dared to throw anything away, so the fresh-wiped tables were heaped with the remains of his work and hobbies.
A dark, dumpy, bearded, balding, paunchy man, Candlemas knew he was no beauty, and took little regard of his looks. Despite his status and personal wealth, he wore only a gray wool smock, rope belt, and sandals when working and administering from his high tower. Vanity, love of clothing and jewelry, and lust for fine robes only distracted an arcanist from his studies, he believed. Candlemas was determined to study hard and soar up the ladder, to someday be as fabulous an archwizard as Lady Polaris herself. Perhaps then, when he owned his own floating castle and lands, and had his own under-mages slaving to resolve his problems, then he might succumb to vanity. For now, he could look like a shepherd and keep busy.
But a lot of work had been lost. Some of the broken jars and pots he recognized on the table had been vital experiments that he'd pursued for months. Growling at the callous idiocy of his underlings, he gathered a handful of trash, marched to the high windows, and pushed it through the mild shield spell that kept out the icy wind. He let it drop onto the fields or forest or whatever lay below. Though he was steward of all the lands visible from the castle, right now he didn't care what happened to them. They belonged to Lady Polaris after all, not him. Very little really belonged to him except his knowledge and studies; his hard work that had been destroyed, again.
He'd hurled out the last of it when Sunbright marched into the workshop. The young man's face was still pink from the hot bath, but clean, his hair neatly combed and retied, his temples neatly shaven. He wore his thick knee- high boots and an off-white shirt that reached to his knees with a wide belt of brown leather. The boy (as Candlemas thought of him) dressed as simply as he, like a son he might someday have. It gave the arcanist a glad feeling: if they agreed on simple clothing, they'd agree on much else, and accomplish more.
Candlemas glanced around his half-emptied workshop, then waved his hands. 'Never mind the losses. Things can be replaced. Let's get on with your lessons. Now… the first step in conjuring magic is summoning it. So-'
'Where does it come from?' Sunbright interrupted.
'What?' Candlemas flexed his pudgy fingers. 'Where does what come from?'
'Magic. Where does it come from?'
'The weave, of course. Now-'
'Where does the weave come from?'
'What do you mean, where? It just is. Like… the rain.'
'Rain comes from the sky, from clouds. Clouds are full of water, as anyone who's climbed a mountain into a cloud can tell you.' Sunbright stood spraddled-legged, arms folded across his chest. 'If magic rains, where from?'
'It doesn't rain from anywhere,' snapped Candlemas. 'You summon it and it's there, to use as you wish.'
'It must have a source. Everything has a source.' Sunbright frowned in concentration. 'Even the mightiest river is formed from the tiniest streams of the hills.'
'Well, there.' Candlemas absently picked up one of his fine silver statues. It had been a medusa, but most of the snakes were broken off her head. He set it down again, unsure what to do with it. 'Magic is collected from the thousands of tiny sources that make up the weave. If you can answer your own questions, why ask me?'
'I need the answers wizards have gathered over the ages. I have only the knowledge of my people, the barbarians of the tundra. They know many things, but not all, and I've much to learn. The girls showed me that.'
'Girls? Oh, you mean the bathmaidens.' Candlemas chuckled knowingly. 'I imagine they can teach you a thing or two. Did you enjoy them?'
'Enjoy? No. I felt like an ox awaiting slaughter, too stupid to see the hammer in the butcher's hand.'
'Butchery? Slaughter? The girls mentioned that?'
'No, of course not!'
'Then who brought it up? Hamuda?'
'No one said it. When I talk of dressing livestock, I speak of myself!'
'But-never mind.' Candlemas rubbed the top of his bald head and moved to an empty table. From a pocket in his smock he drew a steel stylus, but he had nothing to write on and didn't know why he'd taken it out. Angrily, he put it away. 'We're getting off the track. Now be silent and listen. How do you expect to learn anything if you keep asking questions?'
Sunbright blinked. 'What?'
Disgusted with both of them, Candlemas growled, 'See? That didn't make sense. You've got me babbling nonsense to your pesky questions. What I meant to say was, If you keep hurling questions at me, I won't have time to answer them. No, wait, that's wrong too, damn it!'
'Wait.' Sunbright waved his hands. 'Ignore the source of magic for now. What's the price of magic?'
'Price? Magic doesn't cost anything. It's free!'
'Free like what? Deer in the forest?'
'Forget the animals, would you? Is food all you think of? Jewels of Jannath, I wish I were twenty-odd again and had your appetite!'
'I wasn't talking of food, though now that you mention it, I am hungry. How old are you, anyway?' Sunbright was nothing if not curious.
'Old enough not to discuss butchery with a bath-maiden!' the mage retorted hotly. Plying magic, Candlemas had in fact lived three times the span of a normal life, but he didn't like to be reminded of it. 'Can we get back to the lesson? When I say magic is free, I mean it's there for the taking by someone who can master it. Like the damned deer, if you will.'
'I thought we'd forgotten the deer,' Sunbright chided. 'And I may just be a moss-brained barbarian, but even I know magic costs. Nothing is free. If you shoot a deer or an elk, you must lay it on its side gently, slit the belly to release its spirit, then stuff its mouth with lichens to feed the beast on its way to the other world. Otherwise it's offended, and won't be reborn to be killed again next year to feed your family. And then there'd be no more elk, and the people and timber wolves would starve, and so all. That's what I mean by the price of magic.'
Staring, Candlemas sputtered, 'What a barrel of blather! What superstitious claptrap! Elk aren't reborn to be shot again. Elk calves come from mother elk-bull elk know what to do with randy cows, at least! They make little elk. You can have as many elk as you like. They're free for the taking, and so is magic!'
Put out, the steward stamped to another table. Propped against a cracked urn was a painting of a boy teaching his dog to jump for a snack. But a giant flea's claw had punctured the boy's face. Furiously, Candlemas kited the ruined painting at a window. It rebounded off the shield spell and clattered on the floor.
He whirled. 'Why can't you just believe me when I tell you something? The knowledge I offer is the sum total of eons of study by the most learned mages of all time. Men and women so wise they transcend humanity to challenge the gods themselves! But if you question every little thing I tell you-'
'I don't believe anything I don't witness myself.' Sunbright cut in. 'I don't believe half of what I witness anyway. The eyes can be deceived just as easily as the mind, which you would know if you ever hunted elk in a spring fog near the ocean at sunrise. You'd loose a quiver full of arrows into wisps of fog and come home with nothing on your shoulders. And where would you be then? Hungry!'
'I don't need to go hunting!' Candlemas shouted back. He was unsure when the shouting had begun. 'If I want venison, I ring a bell and tell the cook's boy. Hunting is for peasants! It requires no more knowledge than a cat pawing a mouse. It's instinctive. Any fool-'
'Fool? The hunters of my tribe are the smartest, fastest, toughest men and women on the tundra! The tribe counts on them-'
'Will you stop nattering about that misbegotten clot of lunatics who hunker on the prairie and gnaw knucklebones by moonlight? I'm sick of hearing about them! Forget them! That's in the past. You've been blessed by the gods, can't you see that? You're in Castle Delia, on the threshold of the entire Netherese Empire, with a chance to advance up the ranks of true nobility-'
'Nobles who hunt men for sport?' the barbarian sneered. 'Nobles who starve entire cities without conscience? Nobles who dump garbage on sacred groves-'
'If you don't care to associate with nobles, why the blazes did you come here in the first place?'
'You invited me!' Sunbright jabbed a finger like a fireplace poker. 'But I'll admit I need help. I scoured the empire for any sign of Greenwillow and failed to trace her! I was despairing of what to do when you came
