Author's note: Hey all, I know it's been a while since I attempted anything with chapters but hey, I'm having another go……
Disclaimer: I own Silas G. Devlin, his Hair and the athletic potato thing. Everything else belongs to Terry Pratchett. Don't sue me.
The best days of our lives.
Chapter one: Rivalry, prejudice and athletic potatoes.
The sun streamed through a gap in the heavy curtains, piercing the gloom of the dormitory.
There was the faintest suggestion of movement in the doorway, a shape moved swiftly towards the beds at the darker end of the room.
There was a muffled thump and a curse, then the buzz that comes with someone making no noise at all.
After a while the shadow moved on.
Two other shadows, which were rather more adept at stealth, lurked in a corner.
They turned to each other.
"What do you think he does every morning?" one said to the other.
The other shadow shrugged.
They stood there for a while in case anything else interesting happened, then there was an empty corner, although the casual observer would have sworn that nothing had moved.
* * *
"Where's Grunworth, Havelock?"
"I've no idea."
The first speaker looked up from his books.
"You sound less than happy." He remarked.
"That's because I am less than happy, Silas." Said the speaker identified as Havelock.
The other raised an eyebrow; this was a confession of magnitude from the seventeen year old opposite him.
Havelock shrugged.
"It doesn't matter." He dared Silas to say more with a stare that could have quickly unnerved a mountain.
Silas knew when to back off.
"I was just being a friend." He said.
There was a derisory noise from Havelock, who bent his head over his own books again.
Silas sighed and got up in search of Grunworth Nivor, his partner in crime.
Silas G. Devlin, son of Zachary G. Devlin, was a naturally optimistic young man with a deceptively
slight frame and a mad mop of brown hair that no amount of combing could tidy.
He'd long ago given up when his hair had unexpectedly become violently rebellious and kidnapped the comb and refused to let it go, only after much tugging and swearing was it persuaded to see reason and they'd come to an informal truce. Silas didn't comb it often and it didn't make trouble. It was ridiculous, being repressed by your hair.
Since enrolling at the Guild of Assassins, he had learned that it is always best to appear more stupid than you actually are.
It was a technique that never failed him. The keenly intelligent were naturally belittled out of jealousy, but the stupid were just stupid, and could safely be ignored.
Silas liked people to ignore him; it meant he could get things done without interruption.
Havelock, he suspected, would never get the hang of appearing stupid, it was part of the reason Downey picked on him, people with the all the intelligence of a dead fish are not only jealous of those they recognize as their superiors on a subconscious level, they fear them as well.
It made Silas smile, although Downey was popular with the more snobbish crowd, when it came to the subtle art of…well, subtlety, he was as competent a contestant as a potato attempting the pentathlon.
Silas allowed himself a full grin, he knew who would win eventually, and sometimes, just sometimes, it's not the getting there that matters, it's where you damn well end up.
Grunworth Nivor was used to dread apparitions, hells, he shared a dorm with Downey and his crowd.
Still, he was surprised to see a living scarecrow wandering through the quad. He peered closer. Ah, Silas was looking for him. Well, he could go on looking.
Also naturally jolly and easy going, Grunworth was a great believer in the basic goodwill inherent in human nature, despite living in Ankh-Morpork. He'd enrolled in the Assassins because he believed it would cure him of this unfortunate character trait. It hadn't so far, but he was learning to appreciate the amount of money generated by the lack of it. He didn't understand why people had to pick on others in order to feel better, but he always helped the unfortunate involved if he could, and if the picked on was a friend, well, they had all just better watch out.
He read the piece of paper again, yes, this would make Havelock's day. This would make Havelock's year.
In a comfortable corner of the quad, Johan Ludorum was in deep discussion with Elliot Downey; they were both irritable after a long history lesson and dying to make up for it in mischief of the vicious kind.
They'd already stuffed Dog Botherer's pillow with thistles but it wasn't good enough, the heat was stifling through the black of their clothing and matters were only made worse by the double religious studies looming ahead.
Spotting "Scarecrow" Devlin wandering across the quad, Downey halfheartedly engaged in some petty bitching whilst looking in his pocket for something.
Johan was agreeing with him on the disgrace to the guild that was Scarecrow, Dog Botherer and anyone else who wasn't rich or prejudiced enough to belong to their clique, when Downey turned pale and ran into the library.
Johan shrugged and sneered at the vacant expression that Silas was careful to adopt when around other students.
Ludorum was a young man with an exceptional grasp of the theory of assassination, and was not entirely oblivious to the subtlety of human nature either.
He only kept Downey around for someone to vent spleen with. He felt that Elliot lacked something, like sufficient intelligence, but made up for it with unshakeable belief in his own superiority. It was all too easy to picture him rising to leader of the pack.
He agreed with him on one thing though, people like Vetinari shouldn't be allowed to be intelligent, it was degrading, it was worse than degrading…and yet…sometimes Johan had watched the boy working and had the awful feeling that he was in the presence of something he didn't understand.
He'd never admit it, but just occasionally, the boy made him afraid.
He shook his head and went to see what had made Downey so worried.
It wasn't there. Not in his pocket, or in his trunk or bag. He had to stay calm; he remembered a tricky spot on the roof as he had slipped past Cobra House this morning. It may have fallen out there.
He ran out of the room as the bells rang to signal the end of lunch.
Grunworth burst into the library just as Havelock was leaving. He dragged him into a corner and showed him his find.
There was a whispered conversation.
Grunworth nodded.
"Are you sure?"
Grunworth nodded, grinning.
Havelock looked at the paper again, then at Grunworth, then at the paper again.
Silas ran in and grabbed them both by the arms.
" What the hells are you two doing?" he yelled, "We'll miss poisons! you know we can't afford to miss poisons!"
Havelock showed him the paper.
There was a whispered conversation.
Silas looked at them both.
"Are you sure?"
They both nodded, grinning.
Silas looked at the paper, then at his friends, then at the paper again.
They made poisons just in time and giggled all the way through it.
To be continued………
Please review, hells, I need all the help I can get.