“Get right to the point, don’t you?” he asked, chuckling. “Come in, come in. Sit down. Make yourself at home. Whiskey?”
For a job interview? But when in Rome. “Sure.” I sat down on a red leather chair.
“Straight, or watered down?”
Was this one of those weird interview questions where someone thinks they can figure out someone’s character by the way they want their Scotch? Personally, the only way I liked whiskey at all was in an Old Fashioned, because a sugar cube helped the taste a lot. That seemed unlikely to be the passing answer, and it wasn’t one of the options. “Straight,” I said. “But go easy. I want a clear head.”
“Good man,” he said. He poured a finger into a small glass, and handed it to me. He poured his up to the rim, so only surface tension kept it from spilling, and he had to take a healthy sip to get the level down to where he could carry it to his desk. He moved behind his desk with surprising grace for someone so short and stout, but he’d still never be mistaken for a swan.
Once he was perched in his chair, he looked at me. “Good, isn’t it?”
I hadn’t tasted it. I sipped it gingerly and managed not to cough. “Smooth,” I said.
“Maybe you like it better watered. Or you’d rather have your water whiskied.”
“I’m good,” I said. I was going to a lot of effort for a job I didn’t know I was going to take. But there was no way I was saving my questions for the end. “So about the job description.”
He smiled. “Right to the point,” he said again. “I like that. Let me tell you straight up that the job is yours. You’re qualified, and we’re running out of time. Is the salary sufficient?”
“The salary is fine, but could you tell me what you need me to do?”
“Ah yes, that.”
“That.”
“You’re going to find it rather difficult to believe. But I assure you, that you are qualified. You just don’t know it yet.”
“And the thing I am qualified for is…?”
“Ahem. Well, you see, we need a town mage.”
“A town what?”
“Mage. Sorcerer. Wizard. We can adjust the job title to your preferences, up to a point. Nothing inflammatory, like ‘Necromancer.’ But, uh, you get the general picture.”
“Uh, no, I don’t.” Unless the picture involved him in a loony bin.
“There are books about this where you come from,” Bran said. “Have you not read any?”
“I’ve read plenty,” I said to the delusional man, remembering that grip and thinking I needed to be careful not to send him over the edge. I didn’t know what he was capable of if he flipped his lid entirely.
“Ah, good. So then. Your main job will be to keep the town shields up. But of course, you’ll spend some time fixing various enchantments for the town’s people as well. The tradition is to tip, so you’ll get some additional income. Usually they’ll give you something in kind. We all pitch in our skills here. Barter, you know.”
“But I get paid on top of that.”
“Yes. Direct Deposit, on the first and fifteenth of every month. Don’t worry about that. We have a person on the outside.”
I nodded as if all that made sense. “Right.” Then I frowned. “Why doesn’t my phone work?”
“Charles did tell you not to bring any electronics, didn’t we?” Charles was the name of the guy who interviewed me back home.
“Well, yes, but –"
He beamed at me. “You will help us, won’t you?”
What I would do was try not to upset him and drive home as soon as I could. Assuming I could get my car working. I had doubts about the ability of a tow truck to navigate that narrow road. So I smiled at him. “I will need to hear more about what’s needed. I don’t, um, have any actual experience doing magic.” Because it’s not real. “So I’d have to see a little more of what we’re talking about.” How was I going to use my pay, if I couldn’t get to a bank and couldn’t use the internet? I didn’t think Amazon would deliver down that road, either.
“Right! Very practical, I like it. You haven’t finished your whiskey yet, though.”
I downed the rest in one gulp, like ripping off a band-aid. He did the same with his, like it was milk.
If it affected him, it didn’t show in his walk. He jumped down the floor and moved around the desk and out the door, gesturing for me to follow him. I did. He kept going through the big hall, which would have served pretty well as a dance floor, I thought, and then outside and down the four steps. I kept following him all the way to the big tower. Now that I was closer to it, I realized it was about thirty feet in diameter, maybe a little more. He pulled out a big key and unlocked the large wooden door at its base.
“There’s a couple living on the bottom floor,” he said.
“Ah.” I thought of the Browns, as they were the only couple I knew of in town.
The door opened into a narrow lobby, off of which there was a door to the left and right, and a spiral staircase in the middle. I looked around for the elevator, but didn’t see any.
One of the doors opened, and a beautiful woman walked out. She had long orangeish red hair, and little fox ears sticking up that blended in. Another cosplayer, I supposed. She was about five-eight, with a slender build, and wore a green dress with a lace-up bodice, not quite a corset, with just a hint of pale cleavage in front.
“Hello,” she said, her voice musical. “Is this our new Mage?”
“Yes. Laurel, Gerald Kenner.”
“Jerry,” I said, putting out my hand. Surely the whole village couldn’t believe this nonsense. Maybe she was just playing along.
She shook it gravely. “Pleased to meet you,” she said.
It was a shame she was already attached, assuming that Bran meant a “couple” when he said couple, and not just two people. She was nice to look at, and I couldn’t help but feel when I heard her voice that she was a very kind person. Of course voices could be misleading, and I was just projecting, but there it was.
She smiled at me. “Very pleased,” she said, and then looked away shyly.
“Likewise,” I said.
“You’ll want to go all the way to the top,” she said. “The view, you know.”
The view was just fine down here. “Who are you supposed to be?” I asked.
She blinked. “Who am I supposed to be? Myself.”
“I mean what character are you cosplaying?” If I remembered right, kitsune generally had multiple tails, although I didn’t know why. She didn’t have a tail at all.
She laughed a little, in the way women sometimes do when they want you to see that they appreciate their sense of humor. “Mages. You’re funny,” she said. But she looked a little doubtful.
“Well,” Bran said. “We better get going. It’s a long way up.”
“Are the stairs the only way up?” I asked.
“Well, unless you’ve got a spell,” he said.
“I don’t have a spell.”
“Pity. But we don’t expect you to know anything on the first day. You’ll get there. Up we go. Hi ho.” He jumped up onto the first step, then started hauling himself to the next. The steps were made for someone my size, it seemed, not for a dwarf.
Dwarf. Foxgirl. Town Mage. It had to be a joke, a kind of test. I gave them credit for being committed to the bit.
I started up the stairs after Bran. Of course, he was just short. The ‘dwarf’ thing was in my head. He sure did have a tolerance for whiskey though, because I’d watched to make sure his came from the same bottle as mine, and that stuff was strong.
The staircase kept going up, each floor having two doors off the center, slightly broader step. At least there was a bannister to hold on to. I was too curious to leave, at this point, even had my car been working, but it didn’t take long for my legs to ache, and I thought I was in pretty good shape.
Eventually, we came to a trap door in the ceiling, and he got out his keys again. He unlocked it, and pushed it aside. I followed him up. At least we were done with stairs.
When I got up there, I was amazed.
More than half the wall was window glass. One could see in every direction for miles. For the most part, that was tops of trees from where I stood, but when I walked to the edge, having to circle past a table that had various bits of chemistry-class glassware and pottery on it, I could look down at the town. There were a few hundred houses there. And in two of the directions, past the town there were farms, with cows that looked like little toys.
I walked to another side, and spotted my car. It was the only car around. The air in Scarletdale had been remarkably fresh, and that might explain part of it. No traffic pollution, although real medieval towns had their own smells of sweat and waste. Ergo, this wasn’t a real medieval town either. But it sure did look like one.
The areas between the windows were full of books. There was a very comfortable looking chair in one spot, and a desk with a less comfortable, very upright one next to it. It might not be my idea of an ideal work chair, but the craftsmanship was incredible. It, and the desk, looked like museum pieces. There were several cabinets with multiple small drawers, and leaning up against one of them was a crooked wooden staff about as tall as I was. There was a white circle painted on the floor in the middle, but it didn’t have a pentagram in it or anything. Still, it was an abomination to paint something on hardwood.
“Your study, and laboratory. I believe the previous mage liked to read in that chair, and in his later years, take naps in it.”
“He, um, quit?”
“He died.”
“Uh.” That sounded ominous.
“He was two-hundred and thirty-two,” Bran said. “Even mages die eventually.”
Right. “And how long ago was that?”
“Two years.”
“Huh.” It was the same time Stacy and I split up.
“It took us that long to find a suitable applicant,” Bran said. He walked over to a glowing ball about the size of a basketball sitting on a table, which would have attracted my attention immediately if there hadn’t been so much else to look at. “Our shields are starting to weaken. This has something to do with them, but what exactly, I don’t know. I’m not a mage.”
“Ah.” I had no idea if the thing was even safe to touch. “And what do the smaller globes do?” There were several of the things, looking like softball versions of the big one, lying on desks and tables.
Bran touched one, and it lit up like a light bulb. “Those are just for studying at night.”
“Ah.” I was being a brilliant conversationalist. I didn’t want to say anything that would alarm the crazy man with big muscles. I went to look at the books, instead. Beautiful, leather-bound books, mostly. I took one at random from the shelf. The flowery script proclaimed the title to be “Agricultural Enchantments.” I flipped a few of the pages, and found a description of how to enchant flax seeds to give a better yield, “using the general enchantment for seeds, but with these variations.” The English looked dated, but intelligible. Perhaps the general enchantment for seeds was earlier in the book.
I kept scanning the shelves while Bran watched me, shifting his heavy feet occasionally. I wasn’t in a mood to be rushed. Most of the volumes were similar, in that they were leather-bound tomes on some magical subject or other, but on the third bookcase I looked at there was a shelf with old pulp magazines from the 20s and 30s, mostly Black Mask and Weird Tales, although there were a couple with lurid covers called Spicy Stories.
They had been read a time or two, but they should all have been in bags, not just sitting bare on shelves. It wasn’t too late. They were still well preserved.
“Hi,” said a high voice, and I turned, a copy of Spicy Stories in hand.
Emerging from the trap door was the dark woman with the purple hair that I’d seen earlier. I tried to ignore the boobs straining at her T-shirt as her chest heaved. She had to catch her breath after all the stairs, I guessed. I moved my gaze up to find an easy if less enjoyable distraction. Her ears poked through her hair and were pointed on top, and her eyes were a violet than seemed to match her hair dye.
Was she supposed to be a dark elf? Up close, she didn’t look Indian, or Black, or anything else I could fix on. There was a silvery-violet quality to her skin, and I couldn’t imagine what she had to do to create it. Certainly, it required more effort than just putting on some fox or cat ears.
“I’m Vixie,” she said. “Short for Vixiel, but you can call me Vixie. Hello housemate! I hear you met my girlfriend already.”
Girlfriend. Couple. Okay. “I’m Jerry.”
“Hi Jerry,” she said, climbing the last couple stairs to get all the way in. “The door was open, so I just came on in. So you’re the new mage, huh? That’s great. Any help you need, I’m right here. Of course as an elf I have a little magic, but not the kind we need. Still happy to pitch in.”
As an elf. Sure, she was a drow or something. “I don’t know any magic at all.” Because magic doesn’t exist. But my belief in that was starting to shake a little.
“Oh! Well, I can help you take your first steps,” Vixie said. “If you want, I mean.”
“That would be great,” I said. Was I seriously considering this?