Xerxes returned to the school laden with an armful of packages and bundles. He hadn’t encountered any fellow students during his entire shopping trip. The Gula Bazaar was that huge.

He spent a lot more money than he’d intended and returned without a single shekel in his pouch, only a handful of minas. Tossing the remaining money back in the box with the shekels, he tore open the packages and laid his new outfit on the bed.

A new mage hat, white and cylindrical, crafted from the finest felt, embroidered with silver thread, and decorated with cowrie shells. A brand new robe of overlapping white, maroon, and aqua, also heavily embroidered, and with a decorative fringe of yellow that his old robe lacked. Most impressive of all was the girdle, expertly made from tanned goatskin and burnished bronze, with a pattern of embedded jewels that he’d found particularly eye-catching.

In addition, he’d managed to find a few pieces of jewelry, including a hefty thumb ring, a necklace, and a bracer.

In terms of footwear, he’d run out of time, but more importantly, money.

For a time, he was content to just look at everything laying there together. This was definitely the finest and most expensive outfit he’d ever possessed.

“Damn, I’m impressed!” Gandash said, backing through the door laden with packages of his own. “That’s a nice combination. I had no idea you knew so much about fashion.”

Xerxes tilted his chin up. “I have my moments. Say, where’d you get off to back there? One minute you were next to me, the next you vanished.”

“I was going to ask the same thing.”

“Hunh. Guess we just got separated.”

Gandash threw his packages onto his bed and then stepped over to take a closer look at Xerxes’ haul. “Nice thread count,” he murmured, rubbing the fabric of the robe between his fingers. “I like the bronze work on the girdle.”

After a bit more inspection, he turned and smacked Xerxes on the shoulder. “The red-head is going to notice you for sure.”

Xerxes instinctively laughed, but almost immediately cut himself off and cleared his throat. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Gandash laughed softly. “Sure you don’t. By the way, check out the hat I got.”

Unwrapping the package, he showed Xerxes a white mage hat with golden embroidery.

“Is that an elephant on the front?” Xerxes asked, peering closer.

Preening a bit, Gandash held the hat out for him to look at closer. “Yeah. Slick, huh?”

Xerxes took the hat and looked at it closer. The craftsmanship was indeed superb. “Nice.”

As Gandash continued opening packages, he said, “Xerk… I’m glad we’re here.”

“Huh?”

He stopped unpacking for a moment. “I mean, I haven’t forgotten everything on Mannemid. All the—” his jaw tightened briefly “—never mind. I just want to say I’m glad we’re here together. Best friends.”

Xerxes smiled and sat down on his bed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Kind of like back when we became Sighted and went to the Mage Academy for the first time.”

Gandash smiled. “Yeah. We’re….” He hesitated, clearly struggling for words.

“We’re what?”

Keeping his eyes on a package as he ripped it open, Gandash said, “We’ll always be friends, right? No matter what?”

“Of course!”

“Alright.”

The burst of emotion confused Xerxes. He must be stressed out because of the test results.

“Say, Xerk, this is our first banquet on Sin-Amuhhu. Do you know how they handle toasts here?”

“The same as on Mannemid?”

Gandash groaned. “No. No, no, no. Okay, let me explain.”

In the remaining hours before the event began, Gandash proceeded to give Xerxes an extensive lesson in local banquet etiquette. Soon, the hour of the banquet approached, and they headed in the direction of the main hall.

By chance, the first people they encountered in the corridor were Jad and Enusat.

“Hey, looking sharp, Xerk-man,” Jad said. His outfit was suitably extravagant, and Xerxes was particularly jealous that he had rings on every single one of his fingers.

“You too, Jad,” Xerxes said.

Enusat’s outfit was just as fancy, and though he had no rings, he’d triple-folded the sleeves of his robe, which was the latest fashion on the streets of Sin-Amuhhu. “Can’t say the same about you, Gandash,” Enusat said.

Gandash looked down at his outfit. “Huh? What do you mean?”

Jad snicker. “Not the robe. The hat. I don’t know about Mannemid, but where we come from, if you wear a hat with an elephant on it, it means… well… never mind.”

Enusat laughed. “It’s not just where we come from. ‘Elephant cap’ means the same thing ‘ere, too. I ‘eard some people in the bazaar say it.”

His voice quieter than before and somewhat tremulous, Gandash said, “What does it mean…?”

Both Jad and Enusat stopped walking, forcing Gandash and Xerxes to do the same.

“You really don’t know?” Jad asked.

Laughing even harder, Enusat looked up and down the hallway, grabbed his crotch, and moved his hips rhythmically. “Gandash, sending out the signals to the ladies!”

The sight of Enusat doing something so ridiculous caused a chuckle to rise up in Xerxes’ throat. Then his eyes flickered to Gandash, and his friend’s discomfort was so obvious he felt bad.

Jad’s previous snicker turned into outright laughter. “I doubt any girls are going to be asking ol’ Randy Gandy out after tonight, though! Girls usually steer clear of pervs, right?”

Enusat’s eyes went wide with delight. “Randy Gandy? Randy Gandy! I like it!”

He joined Jad to roar with laughter. Gandash was visibly wilting, but Xerxes, feeling a bit infected by their mood, also chortled.

Meanwhile, Gandash’s neck had turned bright red, and the flush was creeping up toward his ears. “I… y-you… you do know that in the ancient texts the root word for elephant—”

Jade threw his arm around Gandash’s shoulders, and pulled him down the corridor. “Say no more, Randy Gandy. We’re just joking around. We’re all friends here, right?”

Enusat walked after them, and Xerxes followed up.

“Er… right,” Gandash said.

“But seriously,” Enusat said. “An elephant hat? Please tell me your grandma got it for you or something?”

Jad and Enusat continued to laugh and tease Gandash all the way to the main hall. Xerxes didn’t like seeing his friend so out of sorts, but at the same time, didn’t want to cause friction with the others. Once inside, Gandash immediately slipped away from the group. Xerxes made to follow, but Jad grabbed his arm.

“Xerk-man, aren’t you going to sit with the Humusi Swordsmasters? Come on, the club was your idea!”

“Right,” Xerxes said.

And that was how he ended up at a table with Jad, Enusat, Kashtiliash and Teucer. Gandash sat on the other side of the room with some people Xerxes vaguely recognized but didn’t know the names of.

Of course, from the moment Xerxes entered the hall, he had his eye out for Katayoun. Unfortunately, she picked a table equally far away as Gandash’s, with so many other tables in between that it was almost impossible to see her.

The banquet was nothing short of spectacular. Appetizers and non-alocholic drinks were served, whereupon an acrobatic performance took place. Feats of juggling and tumbling were carried out that provoked wild applause over and over again. After the acrobatics was a dance. The dancers were so lithe and sensuous that, for a moment, Xerxes completely forgot about Katayoun on the other side of the room.

Next came the main course, and there was so much food that it boggled the mind. Meat of oxen, sheep, deer, gazelle, pigeon, turtle doves, and others that Xerxes had never heard of. Dishes with honey, pistachios, roasted grain, dates, and cheese. Breads. Spices.

And then came the alcohol.

There were ales, wines, and distilled liquors the names of which Xerxes immediately forgot.

The Archons led quite a few toasts for the entire room, at which point Xerxes was glad he understood Sin-Amuhhu toasting customs. Not everyone in the room did. Of course, there was toasting at the table level as well. Jad, Enusat, and Tuecer were all drinkers, and Xerxes didn’t want to stick out as different, so he matched them for every drink and toast. Before the second round of performances began, he was already feeling a bit dizzy, despite having eaten so much food.

The second performance featured a menagerie, with animals not only from Sin-Amuhhu, but also from distant starisles. Creatures with long necks and short necks, spots and stripes, claws and fangs, wings and tails. Following the menagerie were martial arts performances that Xerxes found especially intriguing.

“Next, we have a master of the Epitome from Sin-Erimmatu,” shouted the master of ceremonies. “He’ll perform feats of swordplay and martial arts that will dazzle you and leave you breathless!”

The members of the Humsui Swordsmasters cheered so loudly that their voices grew distinctively hoarser during the course of their outcry. And the Sin-Erimmatu swordsman didn’t disappoint. His mastery of the longsword surpassed anything Xerxes had seen, and left him longing for more.

By the time the third course of food and alcohol was served, Xerxes finally had to dismiss himself to answer a call of nature. “I’ll be right back,” he said, his head spinning a bit as he rose.

On the way back a few minutes later, he rounded a corner into the middle of a fifty-cubit-long corridor with marble floor tiles and human-sized decorative vases. To the right was the main hall, but after catching motion out of the corner of his eye, he looked left.

Someone crouched at the far end of the corridor, near the wall, close to the doorway. Someone with red hair.