Unreasonably Leander's worries turned, as he hurried through the city, from how they would afford food and lodgings to whether he was letting Lissy down. Her reaction was easy to predict: concern, for a moment, then straight to optimism. She would suggest some other way of getting quick money which would worry him further, then opine that they certainly find work soon. Yes, very soon.
But what if it wasn't soon? By rights he should be sorting out their day-to-day subsistence while she, with her unusual set of skills, should be free to look for a job without pressure. What if she rushed, what if she somehow drew too much attention to herself? What then?
His panic was reaching irrational soaring heights just as he entered Emeritus Square in the heart of the city. To his right, looking across the flagstones and drifts of shoppers and vendors, were three great buildings, shoulder-to-shoulder, making up the most imposing side of the quadrangle. Somehow, he thought, they linked to the vast network of buildings behind, which made up the campus cloistering all the great sorcerers. Where Lissy needed to be.
Quite by chance his eyes fell to a tiny notice in a distant ground floor window, and after a moment his spectacles magnified the distance and clearly picked the letters out as if it were only arms-length away.
"Ha!" he barked near-hysterically when he had read it. The noise made an elderly woman nearby jump, then dart around him skittishly as he mulled it over. Before he could develop second thoughts, he collected himself and marched into the smallest of the three buildings.
"I saw an advert for a librarian...?" he told the woman behind the reception desk. Oddly, he felt slightly out of breath.
"Door at the end of the corridor," she told him, not looking up from her rustling heap of documents. It was a long corridor, and the door she specified led straight onto the street at the opposite side of the building. For a moment he thought there had been some mistake until he saw a grim black door set opposite in a sprawling ancient building of uneven and crumbling brick. There was nothing to suggest what the place was, other than an absurdly small notice beside the tarnished brass door handle proclaiming it the National Library of Runes and Runological Study.
The inside was even gloomier than the frontage suggested. Without any sort of reception desk, Leander hovered in the front hall before steeling himself and heading down another corridor. The oval room at the end of it contained a single sickly-yellow lantern, which struggled to illuminate the dark panelling.
"Gotta pass?" asked someone, as Leander entered.
"Oh. Er," he said, then ran out of words as he looked around for who had spoken. One of the deep alcoves in the wall suddenly produced the balding head of a man, who peered unhappily at Leander from below an impressive set of eyebrows.
"Your library pass?"
"No, I don't have-"
"Well-"
"I'm here about the job. The librarian job?"
There was a long pause as the man stared at him, then left his alcove and crossed to the desk.
"Fine. They'll probably interview you straight away. Happens that Gorstanley's upstairs with Teckirrion. You know runic?"
"Er, passably I think," Leander said, hoping they didn't need an expert.
"We need an expert," the man added, and Leander's heart sank. "It's just me at the moment. You'd work with me. We have over five thousand uncatalogued runic objects and most of these books have never been organised by the reference system. That makes them unusable. Have to know your stuff."
"Right..."
"I'll tell them you're here." He loped away down the dark twisting book-passages beyond, and Leander waited alone for several minutes.
The librarian returned suddenly, looming into the pool of greasy yellow lamplight in reception, and flicked his head tersely to indicate Leander should follow. Had Leander not been wearing his glasses he would have struggled not to bump into desks and bookshelves, for the network of rooms they navigated were horribly dark and the lamp swinging from the librarian's hand rarely threw light back towards him. What a place to work, he thought as he skirted a large pile of toppled books. Half the shelves were empty, save for a few spiders.
They went up a tight staircase at the back, bypassing the floor above and arriving at the next, where an enterprising architect had suddenly hit upon the idea of windows, making it seem a different building for all the familiarity it bore to the storeys below, yet still the dusty, ignored feeling pervaded. Halfway down a forlorn corridor, while Leander reminded himself he didn't have the luxury of being choosy, he was suddenly delivered to a door. The librarian knocked and left without ceremony. Startled at this sudden arrival, Leander looked at the man's retreating back and then at the door.
"Come in," a voice called from within. Straightening his spine, he entered.
Leander didn't know who Teckirrion and Gorstanley were but thought little of their workplace, until the door opened fully and he saw an unused clerk's office which had been adopted for the purpose of interviewing him. There was no suggestion of what they had been doing before Nutte alerted them, but it must have been elsewhere in the building. The desk, small and spindly, was too dusty for recent use, and behind it sat two men with their backs to the window. The older man wore a gentleman scholar's tweeds, and he confirmed Leander's suspicion that he was in charge by rising to shake his hand first. The second was younger, tall and sharp-featured with an uncombed head of dark hair, terrible posture, glasses, and a storm-cloud blue set of robes which he had unbuttoned and folded back over his shoulders like a cloak. He stared in unblinking assessment until Leander began to sweat.
"Now, Mister Nutte tells me you walked in and asked about the librarian position," said the older man affably. "I'm Edward Gorstanley, this is Teckirrion, and we're quite happy to interview you immediately if it's convenient."
"Thank you. Yes, if it's quite alright: the advert was in a window as I was passing, I don't know if I should have applied by letter...?"
"Not at all, no need to worry. The library of runology has become a centre of great importance but it's understaffed. We're eager to find an assistant librarian as quickly as possible." He proceeded to ask about Leander, who had prepared himself with the short version of his false personal history and gave it fluidly. That over, he felt slightly more comfortable.
"So you're from Montedion?" Gorstanley asked, peering keenly at Leander.
"I am."
"And you're a registered magician?" said Teckirrion. Like Gorstanley he had an air of intellectualism about him but he was very tall and thin, closer to Leander's age, and without the crows-feet which spread around Gorstanley's eyes. Where Gorstanley's face naturally inclined to a paternal smile, something in Teckirrion's put Leander on edge.
"I am not, no."
"Oh-"
"I lack the talent."
"So you do not personally use runes?" A crease appeared in Gorstanley's forehead.
"No, however much I should wish to..."
"Do you actually know anything about them?" the younger man asked, and then let out a braying laugh.
"What Teckirrion is concerned about is the requirement for expertise in runes: if you have no familiarity with them you won't be aware, perhaps, but they are in fact an entirely different language to that of the common man in the streets. Many of the books in the library downstairs have no recognisable tongue in them at all, to those unfamiliar with runic. It would pose a problem." He smiled apologetically at Leander.
"I don't claim to be an expert in runes, but I do have some experience," Leander told him anxiously.
"But you're not a sorcerer yourself?" Teckirrion asked again, pointedly. He lounged idly in his chair, gangling over the arms.
"As I said. My interest is purely academic."
"How the devil did you come to study runes?" He gave another brassy laugh. "Are you one of those hobbyists?"
"My wife is a very accomplished sorceress-"
"Teckirrion, I have a meeting after this. Are you sure these questions are relevant?"
"I defer to you, of course."
"Right then. I'm going to present you with a series of runes. If you can, I should like you to tell me what they are." Leander nodded and leaned forwards as Gorstanley began sketching onto paper.
To his relief he recognised all of the twenty symbols they presented to him, was able to explain various different methods of connecting runes, and could explain the purpose of several basic spells. He struggled slightly more when they asked him to draw out his own spell, but managed after some consideration.
"Excellent!" Gorstanley told him, looking delighted. He leaned back in his chair. "Well I am quite satisfied, you need no further skills than that to be a librarian here."
"Odd pronunciation on some of those active symbols," said Teckirrion. "Which book did you learn from?" The books Leander had learned from had been mostly modern and written in Pelland: he thought it better to lie.
"Oh, an old book."
"All books of rune are old."
"Burridge's, I think?" he invented.
"Never heard of it."
"No. Well, it's very obsolete, probably not even worth having in this library..."
"Not at all, I'm interested in gathering as much material as exists," Gorstanley replied. "If you can ever get hold of a copy we'd be glad of it. Well, I am quite satisfied if Teckirrion is. Can you start tomorrow?"
"I'd be glad of it," Leander said, and they stood to shake hands again.
Gorstanley left Teckirrion to walk Leander back to the heart of the library and the rooms full of books and dim yellow lamps he had been led through earlier. In some there were study desks neatly lined up, but nobody else was there to use them. Leander voiced this to Teckirrion while he unlocked a secure archive to show him. Teckirrion laughed loudly, making him flinch.
"Anyone who uses runes tries to spend as little time here as possible! Ha ha. Now this room is completely different to the others." He swung open the archive door to show him, and Leander peered into a room that looked identical to every other room in the library. "Want to tell me why?" He laughed horribly again, and Leander wondered why he already disliked him so much. Perhaps because something about him was strongly reminiscent of Trenthurst, though exactly what was hard to see.
"Um..." He peered through the door at the spines of the books, feeling sure Teckirrion was smirking beside him. "Well," he continued, wondering if he was supposed to give a clever answer. "These runes are different?"
"Ha ha!"
"The form is unlike the others; I can't read most of them. They look more art than language. Are they faerie?"
"How the devil can you tell that?"
"That book is labelled as a compendium of the faerie language."
"It's pitch black. Did Nutte tell you about this room earlier?"
"No. It's my glasses."
"They must be damned good."
"They were a present from my wife," he replied, taking them off to show Teckirrion, and was instantly blind to everything beyond their small pool of lamplight outside the archive door.
"Crikey!"
"Good, aren't they?"
"I'll say! Surely she didn't make these?"
"She's very talented," he said, unable to help sounding smug.
"She must be quite a woman," replied Teckirrion. Leander put his hand out for the glasses and stood waiting for a long while, until eventually Teckirrion handed them back with reluctance. "Very impressive," he said lightly, smiling at Leander. "Well, that's the tour of the place. I'm sure Nutte can help you find your feet tomorrow. I'll show you out."