Leslie and I, surprisingly, were particularly good at rile them up with academic issues. Though at first, I thought were we to remain mostly in silence, while they had their small club, it was soon surpassed by our stubbornness. In a matter of minutes, the twelve of us were sitting around a table having an improvised dissertation, each of us putting at the table the themes of which we excelled on.
A German-accented man, which he tried miserably to disguise as Scottish, explain a whole ordeal relating to the architectural design of the building. The blond woman, whose eyeliner could give Cleopatra’s a run for her money, talked endlessly about social rites of precolonial Mexico and New Guinea. I, on the other hand, bored everyone with my knowledge of India and their religious practices (my senior thesis). But, when Leslie was beginning to instruct us in the Dewey Decimal System, the door to Mr. Athenida’s office opened again.
The door opened, but he hadn’t stopped arguing on the telephone.
—No, sir. I have to put my foot down on this. I don’t really care how well recommended is Mr. Morshead. I’m not in the liberty of accepting, at the moment, any type of military officer. No, not even as a candidate— his voice went up and up as irater was becoming—. How many times I have to say it!? I don’t care you’re the king of bloody England! That’s enough. Good day, sir. I THINK I SAID GOOD DAY GEORGE!
—Did he just refer to the King as “George”? —the blonde murmured.
After he said his goodbyes, we heard the unmistakable noise of someone who had crashed a telephone at a wall. The conversation at the lounge stopped immediately. We heard him walking towards the door and stood at the entrance for a moment before entering. I’ve seen angry people in my life, you have to be extremely lucky in your life to not have, but Mr. Athenida was absolutely furious. His slightly crooked nose had its nostrils opening and closing at an alarming rate, and his lips were so tense they were just lines in his face. His hand, on the doorknob, had its knuckles white due to the pressure he was exerting.
Perhaps I was imagining things, but I could swear his eyes were flashing red instead of his natural steel-grey. The rest of the applicants seemed ready to dock, scared he would hex all of us.
—I am so utterly sorry you had to hear this—Mr. Athenida apologised, regaining composure in an instant—. There are people in this world that cannot take a no for answer. Now, if I can do this with the Prime Minister, everything would be fine tomorrow. For now, if Quentin Frederiksen can come with me, we’ll begin with the personal interviews.
Frederiksen, who was the German-accented man, stood up like he was going to his executioner. It was a splash of reality to the other applicants, as if fearing the old man was enough for themselves to question their place there. We remained in silence most of the time, while waiting to be called. After twenty minutes, the door opened, and the man left without saying goodbye to us. Then, Ms. Sanders, the blonde of the eyeliner, and the same process repeated. Mr. Corvus, a man of Russian physique. Mr. Thomas, a short and bold man of slouched appearance. Mrs. Gordon, a woman who was eerily similar to the secretary downstairs. Ms. June-Green, a thin woman with straight dark hair. One by one, each of the dozen people were called, interviewed, and dismissed.
—Blaire Faraday? —Mr. Athenida’s voice came from the office— Come on in, please.
I was the last one at the lounge. Even Leslie had bolted downstairs. I felt like my boots were made of lead, and stumbled for half a second before going. The office had changed; the chairs were gone and the desk was in front of a fireplace with a white mantlepiece I don’t recall was there the first time. Above the fireplace there was a portrait of Mr. Athenida in a style proper of the era of Pitt the Older, about mid-18th century. He was, as painted, standing with the background of a large brick factory, whose chimneys filled the air with grey smoke.
The real Mr. Athenida was sitting behind his desk, dictating to a small typewriter. The pages flew from it and piled into a small coffee table next to a sofa.
—Thank you for coming, please, have a seat— he said, waving at the last remaining armchair, at the other side of the desk—. Last phrase: “Kind regards, Daedalus Abraham Athenida.”
The typewriter stopped, sending the last page with the others, and the lot leaving the office flying away. He looked as they flew, but his hand was reaching for one of the drawers of the desk, from where he pulled a large and heavy manila envelope. With a swift movement, the man lifted it, so I could see my own name printed on the side of it, and threw it in back into the lighted fire.
—Now, if I wanted to sleep, I have a prescription for laudanum. There is nothing drier and more uninteresting than to read the life of someone, no matter if that person is Alexander the Great or myself. I’m going to keep this part simple. Masters of their fields are a dime a dozen, as you can tell from your job at the museum. People who is capable of complex reasoning and thought? Not quite as much. So, to figure out if this is worthy or we are both wasting time, I propose to you a challenge. Tell me something I don’t know.
What to say to a man who just catapulted my life into its metaphorical funeral pyre? If any of the rumours I heard of him were true, my sea of possibilities was beginning to look like a dried-out pond. To the man who knows everything, pretty much like my own mother, what can you tell that he really has no idea about. Bingo. I looked around at the room, took a steep breath, and made my bet.
—I have a heart-shaped mole in my left forearm.
He looked at me with a slight tilt in his head, and squinting above his rectangle-shaped glasses. His lips turned into lines, and, as I was predicting myself to be thrown out the window, he burst out laughing. He laughed for a good couple of minutes, until a tear appeared on the corner of his eye. With difficulty to breath, he tried to regain composure before continuing.
—That was surprisingly clever. Most people try a deeply obscure history fact or something of sorts. Just three or four actually tried the smart route. You are very clever.
—Thank you, sir.
—Now that I know I’m not wasting my time, or yours, let’s move on.
What followed was a proper job-related interview. He explained a couple things related to the shell company of Rain-Falcon, and what the job actually entitled. Asked about my qualifications, and I was pleasantly surprised he was friends with Sir Murad and had kept in touch after the latter moved to America. Asked about my available time, though I suspect he knew it was my last day at the museum, and proceeded to the last bit of the interview.
He pulled, from the same drawer he had taken the manila envelope, a small glass bottle filled with red wine. The label was damaged by humidity and time, and was impossible to read. He stood up, told me to do the same, and walked to the centre of the room, where he left the bottle on the floor.
—What do you think that is? —he asked, his eyes fixated in the bottle.
—Assuming is more than a bottle of wine, right?
—Indeed, but it can be pretty unassuming by the look of it. And most accounts of it were to tell nothing but boorish facts. If I were to tell you this is a type of Spanish wine bottled around the 1840s from a cask belonging to an American writer, still wouldn’t ring too many bells.
He picked the bottle and cornered to an empty wall, with us remaining at the centre of the room.
—But imagine as I were an American antiquities dealer, as it happened, and I came to this bottle when the label still could be read. And, as many people do when they find priceless objects, I happened to say the name out loud. Just by the looks of it, you never would assume something were to happen, right?
—Right— I said, and took a pre-emptive step back.
—Fortunato.
The bottle disappeared, and in its place was a fresh brick-layered wall, which had made the room smaller and created an enclosing between this one and the original. It then dawned to me. The Cask of Amontillado of Edgar Alan Poe.
—The man on our story died after a week being sealed inside his own cellar. We came to find him about a decade later, completely mummified— Mr. Athenida continued, sitting back at his desk—. If the infrastructure of Sophia weren’t crumbling for the last century, that could have been avoided before it happened.
—I see.
—However, since we didn’t know much about magical decay back then, it was difficult to secure most of the artefacts we already had. The idea of going after rumours was out of the question. I assume you can explain to me what it is, right?
Magical Decay is one of those subjects that’ve been around just a couple years, but was enough to cause two things: major worry and a massive migration. The theory was one stablished by Sir Murad in a conference in 1915, and laid the groundwork to understand a few things regarding the limited time of magic on Earth.
The idea that every spell ever performed leaves a trace of Magical Radiation. This is picked by the Ley Lines, the invisible lines which traverse the Earth, and deposit it into something called Vacuum Cones. However, the lines were unable to deal with the amount of debris in the immediate days after the Schism, and caused the radiation to increase with each passing year. The excess of radiation had been causing the magical people to have an increasing difficulty to perform spells. Besides that, the Magical Radiation has been latching to things which had been in contact with direct magic, giving creation to the artefacts.
—This means all artefacts can be traced to the Schism? —Mr. Athenida asked after I ended my explanation.
—Not really— argued, glad I asked Sir Murad about it in a telegram a few weeks ago—. It means accidental artefacts can be traced more properly to the Schism as a starting date. Intentionally created ones, like tools of power or enhancers, the ones made by powerful magical beings, predate the Schism for thousands of years. Rumour is that the Ivory Tower is the first manmade artefact, as far as I know.
—Technically yes, but “manmade” wouldn’t be the proper term to it— he said, standing up, pointing to me to do the same again and walking through the hallway—. But I assume Ariel will guarantee you know the whole categorisation system by the end of the year, or die trying.
—This…this means I got the job?
—Yeah— he said, walking downstairs with me on toe—, to be honest, the three-part interview worked better than I thought. Let us to see you in different lights, while weeding out the less promising candidates.
—Three part?
—The collective interview, the board interview, and my own interview we just finished.
—Board interview?
We walked to the lobby, passed next to the secretary’s desk, which now had a sign of “Going Lunch”, and opened an unassuming door. It led to a stretched room with a single large table with a dozen chairs around. Mr. Corvus, Ms. Sanders, and Mr. Frederiksen on one side, promptly approached by Mr. Athenida, and on the other myself, Leslie, and a small man whose name I didn’t remember.
—Let me reintroduce you to Gregory, Cora, and Quentin— Mr. Athenida said, standing in the middle of them—, the members of the Board of Rain.
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