The Apprentice’s Path

Chapter 1-3

I arrived at the dorms and changed into more comfortable attire (but kept the fedora; it's my favorite). Also made a salami sandwich to avoid paying for pub food (universally terrible, and sometimes provoked food poisoning). Munching the sandwich, a few crowns in my pocket, I left all the valuables in the safe and headed out. It was time to blow off some steam.

The pub I went to was one of the decent ones. Families dined there during the day, although you wouldn't see anybody respectable this late in the afternoon. The floor was still clean, without the sticky gloss it would acquire by the end of the night. The beer here was decent, cool and not watered down. It was also more expensive than in other places. I usually didn’t mind if my beer tasted like piss, but I came to see Joe tonight, and he hung out in fancier places (at the beginning of the night, at least; by the end of the evening, he would not mind what he drank). I elbowed my way to the bar, making my way through sweaty and smelly men. Some of them got annoyed at first, but when they saw me, they went back to minding their own business.

At the bar, I ordered a pint, and after the barman poured me one, ahead of everybody else, I paid the half-shilling it cost. I took a sip of the overflowing glass and looked around. Joe should be somewhere here. After I went around the tables, stepping on some toes and maneuvering between the tables, he saw me first, probably because of the field of annoyed stares that surrounded me.

"Hey, Dan! Come here." He was sitting alone. This was rare for him, as he tended to be surrounded by friends, and many women. He probably waited for me, as he knew this was my last interview.

I sat down in front of him, after taking the chair from a guy who headed towards the bar. His friends tried to stop me, but I looked at them and they shut up. The chair was still warm. It was nice.

"So, how did it go?" — Joe asked. He was used to my lack of manners.

"It was awful. The same cowardly excuses I always get."

Somebody from the next table heckled me obscenely. There weren't that many women in the bar, so I guess he was desperate. I gave them the finger. After some hooting, they didn't take it further. I was more a man than a woman to them, anyway.

"You show remarkable restraint," Joe commented. "If somebody made such lurid comments about me, I would be furious."

"Would that be just because of the comment, or because they'd be implying you're gay? Men get incredibly insecure when their s****l orientation gets questioned. In my case, I don't like it, but not enough to beat them. It hasn't been easy maintaining a clean police record."

Joe seemed surprised at the last comment. For a dark arall to have a clean police record was quite rare, as my peers tended to get into fights. It's not that I never fought, to be clear; the trick was never getting caught, and not destroying any property. Choosing people who wouldn't go to the police if beaten by a woman was very important in not getting caught.

"Are you saying you have a clean record? Wow, I never thought that would be possible. That opens some interesting possibilities."

"What do you mean?" The only reason I cared about the police record was my father's desire not to get any attention. Although his marriage to mother and his long residency in Kalmar allowed him to gain citizenship, he still didn't like to get on the authorities' radar. A bit absurd for one of the most prominent men in our town, but it was probably because of his Yllamese origins. He tended to be very skeptical of law enforcement, which is why he studied the law (and made me read it).

"Well, I saw this advert recently. I didn't think about you, because it said you'd need to have a clean record, but…" he paused, as if unsure he should continue.

"What, what did you see?"

"Well, I saw that the army was offering alchemy jobs for students. They're doing a collaboration with the University. It's a pilot project, the first time they're doing it."

"Where did you see that? When did it appear?" Joe had this uncanny ability for learning about everything, before everybody.

"It appeared on the student board a week or so ago."

"Ah." The student board! The corkboard in the Main Hall was so full of adverts, pasted one on top of each other, that reading anything from it was almost impossible. People posted everything there: love confessions, poems, offers of puppies and kittens (how did they keep them in dorms, when they were banned?), and adverts for all kinds of things. Nothing serious ever got posted there, so I tended to ignore it. I would have to check it out.

"Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out. How are you, by the way?"

I took another sip of beer. Was my life going to get better?

* * * *

When I went to the Main Hall to check the announcement board, it was the mess it usually was. It took me a while to find it, and I had to remove a ton of stupid love messages, advertisements, and pictures of male genitals. Finally, I found it. It was small, written on a typewriter.

Looking for fourth- and fifth-year alchemists for training in repair and logistics. Must have clean record. Bring CV, grades and records to office G22 in Old Alchemy building.

The advert was small. I'd be surprised if they got many applicants, but that may mean I will get a shot.

In the G22 office, I met a smiling secretary who collected the documents, made me fill a form, and promised to call me in a week. We'll see.