Chapter 3

Never Pass a Chance

Name, length, weight…

She stood in the middle of the oval room, feeling uncomfortable under the scrutiny. Granted, the monk who was sitting behind the massive, strangely glittering desk, asking questions and making notes, was not looking at her. He was too busy filling in the papers. But the other two people in the room were. She'd barely caught a glimpse of them when she'd entered, and therefore couldn't really form any kind of an opinion of them. They were just two blurs of colour on her left and right, and she'd be damned if she'd turn to look at them.

"Age?" asked the man behind the desk

"Sixteen." She tensed, expecting trouble. The blur on her right shifted, and she thought she could hear a snort. The monk who was interviewing her looked away from the paperwork for the first time since she had arrived. He sized her up and narrowed his eyes. She looked right back, unblinking, struggling not to let her anxiety show. He'd take it as a sign of guilt, and then there'd be no way to convince him that she was, in fact, telling the truth.

Her eyes had almost started to water before he turned his attention back to his papers.

"Hometown?"

"Luca."

"Ah, the Blitz town," he commented, apparently without real interest. "Ever think of becoming a blitzer?"

Her father had been an attacker for the Luca Goers. Every time he played in a match, she and her mother had been in the front row, waving their banners and cheering themselves hoarse. He often took her to the locker room after the game, to meet the other players. They never seemed to tire of showing her replays of her favourite moves. But her fondest memory was from the time when she'd been seven. She had been sitting on her father's shoulders when the Goers were handed the League Cup, in front of a stadium full of people.

He had taught her how to handle the ball. She wasn't very fast or a very good shooter, but he had said that she had the makings of a fine defender. She'd used to practise hours on end, kicking or hitting the ball to see how many times she could bounce it off the wall before she missed, or diving under the long piers near her parents' house, to build up endurance.

"No."

The monk scribbled something into his papers. "Previous or existing positions and allegiances?"

She wondered for a moment what the question was supposed to mean. It wasn't as though there was much in the way of choice. Crusaders, Warrior Monks, priesthood? Perhaps it was simply about whether or not she had any other jobs to hold her down. "None."

"Experience?"

The mother of a friend of hers had been a professional Blitz recorder. She'd recorded several official matches, and when the friend of her daughter's had been curious, she'd offered to show her how a sphere recorder worked. She had got the full treatment, mainly because every time the woman stopped talking, she'd had another question waiting. She suspected that some of the tips she'd been given could be called professional secrets.

That spur-of-the-moment documentary she and her friend had shot would have been unlikely to convince anyone of their budding talents, but the problem had been more with the content than with a lack of technical knowledge. At least, until the point when a bit of wood got stuck in the control panel and splintered when they tried to get it out. Fortunately, her friend's mother hadn't been terribly angry. For terribly long, anyway.

"Tutored by a professional. No official assignments, but some personal projects."

"If you were given a recorder now, could you use it?"

"Yes."

"Very well," said the monk. "Next of kin?"

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

Looking faintly annoyed, he proceeded to explain in a falsely patient voice. "In case of emergency, whom do we contact?"

The obvious choice would have been her grandmother, also living in Luca. But were she to hear that something had happened to her, she was likely to suffer heart failure on the spot.

"No one."

"Is that so?" He looked up again, this time bemusedly. When she didn't answer, he wrote it down, seemingly satisfied. "Why are you applying for this position?"

Because there had been a more-than-two-metres-tall wall of a guard standing at the entrance of the room in which people signed up for the squad itself. Not that that would have been a problem, if not for the fact that the guard refused to be convinced that she was qualified, and that taking on someone two or three times her size was simply beyond her ability.

And because when she had been kicking at the snow outside the temple, trying to swallow her bitter disappointment and cursing the fate and her abominable luck, she'd heard a passer-by say that they were interviewing recorders for the squad in another room further down the hall.

She shrugged. "Looking for some challenge."

"I see. Good." After some final scribbling, the monk sat up straight and picked up the papers, letting their edges drop against the table so that they arranged themselves into a neat pile in his hands. Then he fixed her with a sharp gaze. "One last question."

She tried hard to remain calm. She'd done well enough so far, so it would be pretty embarrassing to start stuttering at this point. But when framed like that, the last question had an innate way of inciting discomfiture before she'd even heard it.

"Yes?"

"How committed will you be to your duties?"

She had guessed right. That one had to be the decisive question. Whether or not she got selected probably hung most heavily on what she answered to this one. It would be better to take her time, because if it was the decisive one, they wouldn't dock points for not spitting something out the moment she heard it; they'd probably award her points for thinking about it.

The right answer was obvious. Delivering it in a package they would appreciate was the problem.

Because she sure as hell wasn't going to miss this chance.

"Very," she said, looking him squarely in the eye.

For some reason, it seemed like for a moment, everything paused. The monk held her gaze for a while, as though testing her. Then he nodded. "Good."

He rose from the seat and walked to a wide, towering cabinet, which stood open at the very end of the room, and picked up another stack of papers. He turned back to her, flicking slowly through them before handing the stack to her. "You'll need these."

She accepted the papers uncertainly. Need those? For what? Having seen little effect, her determination had somehow curled into itself and vanished.

"Those files contain a description of your duties," the monk went on, oblivious to her confusion. "South of Bevelle, there is a small camp by the shore, distinguished by the same banner you'll find in those files, along with a map of the location. In the camp, you'll find an official to whom you'll report for duty. He will ask for a letter of validation. You'll find that disclosed here as well." He gestured at the stack of paper.

Her brain finally caught on. "Does that mean I have the job?"

At this, the monk smiled. It was not the nicest of smiles – somehow, it reminded her of a bucktoothed lupine – but it was enough to make her heart skip a beat. "Yes," he affirmed. "You're to report in within one week. You'll be filled in on the rest at the campsite. Dismissed." He returned to his seat behind the desk.

Clutching the papers in her hand, she turned around and headed for the door. She was dazed enough to forget even to steal a look at the two other persons on her way. Then she was standing outside in the hall, the Hymn of the Fayth echoing in her ears.

She'd made it. She was in. Maybe it wasn't the same as being accepted for the squad itself, but she would get to do something useful and important, something she had the skills for – perhaps even something better than being in the squad.

She finally had a chance to prove herself.

The smile wouldn't stay away from her face as she walked past the door for the squad enrolment, her boots clanging on the floor with a strangely uplifting beat. It was hard to even feel very sorry for the blond guy in baggy pants who seemed to be having the same problem she'd had with that overgrown guard standing by the door.