Looking Through Fresh Eyes: Swords and Spiders.
(Tying up a dangling loose end left loose at the end of Nature Studies)
Yet another meme that I re-acquainted myself with while writing this short; on Alice Cooper's critically acclaimed album Welcome to my Nightmare, apart from the brilliant Only Women Bleed, the sick and very very funny Cold Ethyl (1), and a rafter of creepy-but-brilliant songs, there is this – the Black Widow. Alert readers with good memories will recall where Johanna Smith-Rhodes' dialogue came from in Nature Studies, when introducing Emmanuelle to the spiders in the Animal Management Unit. Only this time in a rather camp American accent, and not Rimwards Howondalandian.
Prologue: from Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare
(Vincent Price, the Zoo Curator, speaks)
Leaving lepidoptera... Please, don't touch the display,
little boy! Ha, ha, cute! Moving to the next aisle we have
Arachnida, the spiders, our...finest collection.
This friendly little devil is the heptothilidi,
unfortunately harmless. Next to him, the nasty Lycosa
Raptoria, her tiny fangs cause creeping ulcerations of
the skin (laugh). And here, my prize, the Black
Widow. Isn't she lovely?...And so deadly. Her kiss is
fifteen times as poisonous as that of the rattlesnake.
You see her venom is highly neurotoxic, which is to say
that it attacks the central nervous system causing
intense pain, profuse sweating, difficulty in
breathing, loss of consciousness, violent convulsions
and, finally...Death. You know what I think I love the
most about her is her inborn need to dominate,
Possess. In fact, immediately after the consummation
of her marriage to the smaller and weaker male of the
species she kills and eats him...(laughs) Oh, she is
delicious...(snide aside) And I hope he was! (grows more manic and Igor-employer-like)
Such power and dignity...unhampered by sentiment.
If I may put forward a slice of personal philosophy,
I feel that Man has ruled this world as a stumbling demented child-king long enough! And as his empire crumbles, my precious Black
Widow shall rise as his most fitting successor!
(Alice Cooper speaks) These words he speaks are true.
We're all humanary stew; if
We don't pledge allegiance to...
The Black Widow!
The terror that she brings!
The horror of her sting!
The unholiest of kings -
The Black Widow
Our minds will be her toy;
And every girl and boy
will learn to be employed by
The Black Widow!
Love me,
Yes we love me;
Love him,
Yes we love him;
Love her,
Yes we love her;
Love She,
Yes we love her...
She sits upon her throne, and picks at all the bones,
of her Husbands and her
Wives she's devoured;
She stares with a gleam,
With a laugh so obscene,
at the virgins and the children
She's deflowered!
Love me,
Yes we love me;
Love him,
Yes we love him;
Love her,
Yes we love her;
Love She,
Yes we love her...
Our thoughts are hot and crazed;
Our brains are webbed in haze;
Of mindless senseless days;
The Black Widow!
These words he speaks are true!
We're all humanary stew!
If we don't pledge allegiance to -
The Black Widow!
Now read on...
Several weeks passed. Outwardly, nothing obvious happened to alert staff at the Assassins' School that there were any complications with Catherine.
Emmanuelle was covertly observing for anything out of the ordinary or that would give concern, but as the weeks went past, she relaxed, daring to hope the risk had passed.
Emmanuelle was not a slack or negligient Housemistress. But she preferred to manage Black Widow House with a light touch of the tiller, fostering a relaxed and easy-going atmosphere with the absolute minimum of formal discipline. This was not to say she could not impose order and chastisement where necessary, but it was rare for a Black Widow girl to end up tapping the boards in the Mistress's office. She only enforced the rules – with vigour and necessary stern-ness – when no other alternative presented itself.
The result was a House where the resident tutor was respected and well-liked, if not adored by the more impressionable girls. Student Assassins under the more austere care of Alice Band or Joan Sanderson-Reeves or Lady T'Malia looked to their more fortunate contemporaries in Black Widow with envy and longing.
Catherine's formal return-to-school interview had been brief and swiftly concluded. Madame Deux-Epées had completed the paperwork swiftly and tidily, while Catherine looked at the nearly human-sized but white shrouded Something with interest. She had been warned by Chaka N'Golate and the others what it was: Catherine felt gratitude to her Housemistress for her thought and consideration. She wasn't nearly ready to contemplate baboons again.
"And how do you feel, ma petite?" Madame Deux-Epées asked her, with sympathy and concern. "Should you wish to leave the School and drop out of the Black after your recent experience, nobody will blame you. Students have left the Black Years for less and with lesser injuries."
Catherine shook her head.
"I am fit, Madame, and well. My riding teacher taught me many years ago that when you fall off a horse, you must get back into the saddle at the earliest opportunity. Please, Madame, I wish to get back into the saddle again, in a manner of speaking!"
Emmanuelle smiled and extended her hand.
"Then I am pleased and honoured to be a part of your continuing education!" she said. "Your attitude does you credit. Now..."
She consulted the school timetable in front of her.
"Tomorrow, you would first have a lesson in Advanced Quirmian with Monsieur LeBalouard." she noted. "Bon, that will be a physically undemanding start to your return to school. Following on, you are timetabled for a lesson in Basic Exothermic Alchemy with Miss Smith-Rhodes. I understand this will be basic theory and classroom-based. After lunch... ah, this may pose an issue. Your class is scheduled to attend the new City Zoo for a working lesson. I feel perhaps I should consult with Miss Smith-Rhodes and have you excused from Zoo duties for a period? That would be for the best, I think. And your last lesson in the afternoon is Music. I believe you play the virginal and the harpsichord? Eh bien. And in the evening period, you will study Applied Vindictive Theology and Localised Immanetization of the Eschaton (2) with Canon Clement."
Emmanuelle smiled.
"Très bon!" she said. "You are fortunate, ma petite. This is as near to an undemanding day as this school ever offers. A gentle return, yes? I will speak to the members of staff involved to say you will be returning to classes. Miss Smith-Rhodes will, sans doute, find you an alternative to going to the Zoo. You are not too disappointed, I hope?"
Catherine shook her head.
"At some point, Madame, I should like to see and participate in caring for the animals we recaptured on ...that day. But... " her glance took in the white-shrouded Something, "...not just yet, I think."
Emmanuelle nodded, understanding.
"The new Zoo accommodates living specimens of those filthy accursed sales singes." she said. "It may be too much for you at present."
And now, several weeks further on, Catherine was to be found, very nervously, just about to resume her course in Nature Studies (For Assassins). This took her to the Animal Management Unit, a purpose-built facility on Short Street, just a short stroll from the Guild. Senior students were trusted to move between the various School sites on their own, without escort or close observation. She had walked round in the company of Chaka N'Golate, a cheerful Howondalandian girl who had received praise and guild thanks for her conduct on the Urban Safari in Hide Park, the same one that had left Catherine grievously hurt.
"I suppose I was lucky. I knew just whet to do with the lions." Chaka said, modestly. "Just before I left Home to come here to study, some of the boys from my kraal were being prepared for their initiation into menhood. The Witch-Finder was teaching them the rituals involved in the lion-hunt. It was strictly taboo for women or girls to be there, but I didn't see why, end I really wanted to become a warrior like them. So I concealed myself behind a baobab and some thornbush end watched them. They shipped me off to Ankh-Morpork really quickly after that!"
Catherine laughed appreciatively.
"But I think about what had happened to you, end I think: it could have gone the other way, and I could have ended up on sale et Harry King's for two dollars a bucket. Eventually."
Catherine noticed that after five years in Ankh-Morpork, her friend's Howondalandian accent was fading and a distinct Morporkian tone was creeping in. But then, she was only eleven when she arrived here.
And then there was the A.M.U., a modern building, strictly functional and without much external ostentation. From the outside it looked like a factory or a warehouse. But the sounds and smells suggested a city farm, or a small menagerie. The building was on three floors to best utilise the site, and the roof was flat. This was intentional: the roof gardens and greenhouses were used to cultivate the very special and exotic sort of plants that the Assassins' Guild had always taken a botanical interest in.
The basement largely housed storage facilities, most of the Aquarium for river and sea lifeforms, and for those species of animals and plants which were nocturnal, from the very deepest seas (in pressurised tanks) or simply not tolerant of too much daylight. The Guild was interested in quite a lot of these.
On the ground floor, the space was exclusively taken up by animal habitats, vivariums, cages, tanks and the Aviary. In fact, it looked as if the building were built around the Aviary, whose cages soared through all three floors and up through the roof. This allowed the captive birds a necessary and important third dimension of height, and they could be observed from all three lower floors and on the roof.
More animal habitats and tanks existed on the second floor, but here part of the space was taken up with laboratories, demonstration rooms, storerooms and classrooms. On the top floor, there were more classrooms and lecture rooms, as well as supporting infrastructure. Clever design allowed rainwater landing on the roof, where it did not nourish the plants, to run down collecting channels and to be collected in a large tank on the third floor for use elsewhere in the building. It rained a lot in Ankh-Morpork: running out of water was not normally a problem.
Finally, there was a small courtyard outside allowing for Doctor Davinia Bellamy's Maximum Security greenhouses and hothouses, where the more restive and troublesome examples of Mother Nature's floral bounty were imprisoned. Only those students trained and experienced in threatening the plants were allowed in here, and then only in pairs, and then only when wearing protective clothing.
As Doctor Davinia Bellamy (PhD, Brin) pointed out to her students, this was Botany and Ecology for Assassins.
Her students respected her. She had no House or form responsibilities, but had a healthy appreciation of the way young peoples' minds worked due to her being one half of a happy marriage with three children. Like Emmanuelle, she had joined the Guild one step ahead of a hotly pursuing Watch, judging it to be the lesser of two evils. A successful businesswoman and florist, she still owned two florists' shops and several street-traders' rounds. But her encyclopaedic knowledge of plants and flowers had enabled her to perform additional services for clients. Specifically, clients with abusive or dangerous husbands. For a fee, Davinia would send round a special bouquet or floral tribute, perhaps built around a Howondalandian Death Lily or Cyanic Tulips from Sto Kerrig.
Davinia knew the language of flowers. She could say "Drop Dead!" in a dozen inventive ways. Which is why the Guild had snapped her up and made her an Offer. (3)
The two girls reported to Davinia Bellamy. Johanna Smith-Rhodes, the principal staff member of the Natural History department, was up at the Zoo, getting things together for its Grand Opening.
"I'm so glad you're back!" Doctor Bellamy said, with a wide open smile. She looked her pupil full in the face and frowned slightly. Catherine was used to this sort of thing by now. But she still sighed with resignation.
"You used to have brown eyes, didn't you? But that's not important. Just thank the Gods you have got eyes again! Now where shall we start... it's important, I think, to bring you back into animal handling gently. "
Doctor Bellamy looked down and read a clipboard.
"Let me see... ah, yes. We've got some routine tasks to do in Arachnida. Nothing especially interesting, I'm afraid. The sort of run-of-the-mill routine things that need to be done. Arachne Webber's been stepped up to Teaching Assistant for today, so she'll direct you!"
Arachne Webber was a final-year student who was on the point of doing her Final Run. Catherine thought she was slightly weird. Arachne had been keen on Nature Studies practically ever since her first day at the School. In particular, she was keen on one particular animal to the point of obsession. When Miss Smith-Rhodes had won her Animal Management Unit several years earlier, Arachne had taken to it like... well, a spider to a web. She had studied and researched and experimented and observed and read – to the point where even Johanna Smith-Rhodes could say, without jealousy, that Arachne's specialist knowledge of spiders far outstripped her own. Johanna was quietly proud of Arachne. She had arranged for her pupil to have occasional Teaching Assistant status in her speciality, and had put the word about that whenever Arachne was wearing the purple and white sash, she was to be addressed as Miss Webber and given the same respect as any other member of teaching staff. Any insult, insubordination or indiscipline towards Miss Webber would be treated as if it was an act of insult, insubordination or indiscipline towards herself, Miss Smith-Rhodes.
This was rare, and required special permission from Lord Downey and Lady T'Malia; but both agreed that an exceptional student, respected by her peers, with an area of expertise that now went way past her teacher's not inconsiderable knowledge, was an asset who required special nurturing.
Johanna had been trying to get her star pupil interested in becoming Curator of Arachnia after she graduated, dividing her time between the Zoo and the A.M.U., and holding full Teacher status at the Guild School. Arachne was flattered by the job offer but non-committal, replying, tactfully, that while she felt honoured, she was rather inclined to take a gap year after graduating. Perhaps to travel to Rimwards Howondaland or even to Fourecks do field study and research. Naturally, Miss Smith-Rhodes would be first in line to receive her research notes.
Johanna had also heard that Lord Vetinari himself, who had granted the A.M.U. the lucrative contracts to supply snakes, spiders and scorpions to the Palace dungeons, had requested copies of Arachne's research papers "for his own interest". She had sighed, philosophically, realising there was a possibility she might lose Arachne Webber to Palace service. (4)
Catherine walked round to Arachnia, wondering why she was suddenly feeling queasy and her heart was racing. She'd always felt at home in the aisles of the A.M.U., with their familiar sights, the background smells of several thousand animals in their respective habitats, designed to be as much Home to the creatures as possible, with all the scuttling, slithering, chittering and scratching noises , the timbre and quality of which subtly altered as she moved around. She paused at Entomology (5), the study of insects, to gather her thoughts and calm herself. She watched the activity in a colony of Hersheban Lawyer Beetles, which were part of a long-term breeding and research program. The Lawyer Beetle had a very precise internal body clock. It had long been noted that the creature performed a somersault at precisely three in the afternoon every day. This had been used by the Guild of Clockmakers to create an amusing novelty clock.(6)
Johanna Smith-Rhodes had seen the exciting possibility that the Lawyer Beetle might be employed as fuse and detonator on an Exothermic Alchemy charge, if the contract called for a really precisely timed explosion.(7) It just needed selective breeding to create beetles that could be preset to any time of day or night. A colony of Bombardier Beetles were nearby. They were even more exciting, but had to be kept in a specially reinforced habitat.(8)
Catherine gathered her breath, with an effort, and walked on to report to Miss Webber. She wondered why her body was twanging with alarm and her heart was still pounding. She'd never felt this way in the A.M.U. before. She turned the aisle into Arachnia, with a great effort, trying not to touch nor even to look at the displays. And there was Arachne Webber, with her long angular legs and arms and slightly bulbous pear-shaped body. It wasn't unattractive or ugly, but she seemed made out of limbs. It was as if the legs from one woman had been grafted onto the body of another and the two didn't quite match up. She seemed at first to have more limbs – and eyes – than the average person. Men felt distinctly uncomfortable in her presence, even if they didn't know she was an Assassin. She had a very wide mouth and a smile that almost seemed predatory. On concealment lessons, her tutors had noticed she could freeze absolutely still and hold the position for incredible lengths of time. She had experimented with ropes and cords covered in glue as a means of setting a trap. The more the victim struggled, the more deeply mired they got. It had earned her full marks for inventiveness. Rumour had it that she routinely dipped her daggers in potions of her own devising. Her teachers in Concealment, Traps and Poisons adored her for these qualities.
Catherine knew that in person, Arachne could be pleasant and personable. (although she was not a person to get on the wrong side of.) Standing in the aisle, suddenly aware of spiders all around her, thousands of the creatures, milles des araignées, spiders everywhere. She froze solid, heart pounding, unable to move forward or back. Sheer panic made her quake and shudder and she felt herself wobbling. She was dimly aware of Chakkie calling "Cethy? Cethy? What's wrong?" from a long distance away. And Miss Arachne Webber was also running to her, those long stilt-like legs propelling her with ease and speed. Miss Band loved Arachne for her wall-climbing skills, she recalled. Catherine had a last fleeting thought about Arachne Webber in a skin-tight silver lamé dress and some sort of mask. Spider-webs radiated above and behind and to both sides of her, a tracery of filigree'd silver. I must be delirious, she thought. But the spiders are coming for me...
Doctor Bellamy took one look and sent a junior student running back to the Guild with instructions to get Matron Igorina. In the meantime Catherine was lying down in the quiet room, the place Davinia had set aside for students who were overcome or had got over-emotional concerning some of the things they were asked to do in the normal course of events at the A.M.U. (9) Davinia was a mother: she took pastoral care of the students as a duty. Mumsy and approachable, a friendly face, students sometimes asked her advice on very personal issues.
A mother of sons, she soon realised a lot of the issues were familiar from her own experience, and she gave sound advice and a sympathetic ear. This came in handy on those occasions where a student was in danger of flunking the grading test all student Assassins had to undergo in the A.M.U. Davinia's standard practice, if anyone was unduly distressed at the idea of actually killing an animal, or even if they couldn't bring themselves to perform the standard dissection of an already humanely dispatched rat or a frog that was mandatory in Biology classes, was to allow them space and counselling in the quiet room before bringing them back for another go.(10) But at least the Guild frowned upon and did not practice vivisection. (at least, unless the contract called for Extreme Prejudice).
But this was new. Igorina had delivered a sedative to calm the girl, who was now in a chemical bliss, half-aware of the conference going on around her.
"It does get some of them like this." said Arachne Webber. She was intellectually aware there was such a thing as arachnophobia. Although she was bang alongside the concept that it was an irrational fear of spiders. She prided herself on being totally rational. And it is well-known fact that on the Disc every thing or concept has its absolute polar opposite. Arachne Webber was the walking embodiment of arachnophilia.
"Even so," Davina Bellamy mused, thoughtfully, "Why should it suddenly happen to her now? I remember Catherine as a normally well-adjusted young woman with no particular phobia concerning spiders. She just gets on with it, normally, whatever animal or plant you direct her to tend. Or else I would not have sent her to you."
"Sometimes new psychic or physiological dithorders lie latent in the body and mind, and only emerge at puberty." Igorina offered. "Do you remember Angela Carter, from Scorpion Houthe? She was a perfectly unremarkable student until the onset of menarche. Then she developed late-onset lycanthropy. We had to ask the Watch to lend us Sergeant Angua to bring her down and thubdue her."
They remembered. The Guild having inadvertently accepted a werewolf pupil had been embarrassing. Angua von Überwald had been unstintingly helpful. As well as detaining Angela, at no small risk to herself, she had asked around the werewolf community and discovered that Angela's maternal grandmother had been a von Nebelhünde, a member of a Clan from beyond Müning. Now all prospective pupils were discreetly requested to furnish proof that, to the best of their knowledge, there was no vampire or werewolf blood in the family history.
"Yes, we were in the company of wolves then, certainly. But Catherine is nearly sixteen." Davinia objected. She regularly counselled girls who had not had the Talk from a sensible female relative and who were consequently appalled at the unexpected things their bodies were doing to them. The upper classes were worst of all at this, considering such things beneath their notice. Davinia and the other female teachers were therefore used to reassuring and educating distressed Venturis, Eorles and Selachiis about beastly, lower-class, things like this.
"It would have emerged a long time before now, surely?"
"We need to monitor this, given her recent trauma." said Igorina. If we return her to the Guild, I will keep her in the sanitorium overnight and observe her condition."
"Hmm." said Davinia. "Do you think there's a connection between this coming on so suddenly and her recent injuries? Although you would have thought baboons would be the trigger, not spiders. That's why Miss Smith-Rhodes is very careful about letting her go to the Zoo. The baboon pack that injured her is in captivity there."
Igorina did not reply, but just looked thoughtful. Davinia noted this for reflection later.
Another informal conference happened at the Guild, later. Emmanuelle les Deux-Epées and Johanna Smith-Rhodes were called for a chat with Igorina and Arachne, and were briefed on the incident at the A.M.U.
"The very sudden onset of uncontrollable arachnophobia." Emmanuelle mused. "With no previous history as such."
Johanna gave her old friend a long sideways look. A sudden suspicion occurred to her. She did not pursue it, but instead asked
"Erechne. Were eny specific species of spider involved? Where exectly was she stending when the penic hit her?"
An irrelevant thought crossed Arachne's mind; she reflected that Miss Smith-Rhodes would always have trouble with some names, like Arachne, Ariadne, or even Pamela.
"She was standing just beside the very large habitat, miss." Arachne replied. "Where we keep the Paraquatian species. The monkey-eating spiders and the larger sloth-eating spider (11)."
Johanna nodded.
"We do not hev spiders thet size in Howondaland." she reflected. "It scared me, the first time I saw it!"
Emmanuelle shuddered. She only rarely went to the A.M.U. After her first visit, she took diligent care to avoid the spiders. Igorina and Johanna both noticed this and while Johanna took care to look away quickly, respecting her friend's confidence and not wanting to expose her weakness, Igorina read the mood and pounced.
"Emmanuelle," Igorina asked, in a let-me-be-your-friend voice. "Is it possible there is something here you have not disclosed to me?"
"Erechne," Johanna said quickly, "Be edvised you ere still only a student. Enything thet mey be disclosed in this room is in complete confidence."
"I understand completely, miss." Arachne replied.
Emmanuelle took a deep breath and composed herself.
"Bon." she said. "I find it ironic to an extreme that while I am the housemistress of Black Widow House, a place of study named after a deadly and venomous spider, I have a fear of spiders. My name is Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Epées, countess-in-waiting to the Lapoignard estates, Gambler and Assassin. And I have the arachnophobia. (12) Nom d'un espece d'idiot! Vraiment, je suis hardiment ri sous cape a part des dieux!"
Igorina took a deep breath. "And your eyes are now Catherine's eyes. Psychic and pyschological side-effects arising from the bioartificing and transplantation..."
"So when she sees spiders..." breathed Arachne.
"She responds as you would respond. With rising fear end penic!"
There was silence in the room as the four women began to grasp the implication.
"I can test for this and put it beyond doubt." said Arachne, thoughtfully. "It requires your approval?"
She explained her idea for a conclusive test. Johanna trusted her student absolutely.
"Go on with this. I will make errangements."
The others agreed.
There was another reflective silence.
Emmanuelle broke it.
"I wonder," she said, thoughtfully, "what of me she will manifest next?"
The other three lapsed into thoughtful silence. This was, at the very least, going to be interesting...
To be continued...
(1) This song is too good to waste. I may well plunder it for another fanfic which is dredged from the depths of my warped and twisted mind. Zombie sex may be involved. Not so much "slashfic" as "bits dropping off"fic.
(2) Normally, eschatology deals with the Armageddon and the End of the World. Canon Clement wanted his theology students to contemplate the possibilities inherent in immanetizing (bringing about) a far more local and personalised End of the World. Clement, a priest/Assassin, also had a unique take on the Last Rites.
(3) See the fic Murder Most 'Orrible.
(4) Arachne appears as an incidental character towards the end of the book Snuff, as a recently qualified Dark Clerk who landed a plum diplomatic assignment to the Embassy in Bugarup, an assignment where she could further her interest in lethal arachnia to her heart's content. Her interest in and knowledge of the Assassin-related uses of spiders is key to delivering justice to Gravid Rust. I've just expanded on her a little. In other writings, I have speculated that she regularly sends samples back to the A.M.U., much to the discomfort of the Post Office. Postmen on the A.M.U. walk go off on hasty grandmothers' funerals, whenever a package arrives from Fourecks with the warning "Live Animals in Transit" written on the outside.
(5) Corrections have been made following beta-reading. (Thanks, CarrieVS!) The science of insects is of course entomology. Sub-divisions include:-
* Apiology (or melittology) - bees
* Coleopterology - beetles
* Dipterology - flies
* Heteropterology - true bugs
* Lepidopterology - moths and butterflies
* Myrmecology - ants
* Orthopterology - grasshoppers, crickets, etc.
* Trichopterology - caddis flies
(6) Refer to Terry Pratchett's Thief Of Time.
(7) Being a Rimwards Howondalandian, Johanna had adopted the black humour of her country's Bureau of State Security. BOSS called its bombs "care packages", as receiving one of those really takes care of people. (Really true. BOSS, in the old South Africa, described its use of letter or parcel bombs to "undesirables" in this way.)
(8) Here on Roundworld, the Bombardier Beetle is a most interesting, and for rugby-player senses of humour, entertaining, insect. It defends itself by pointing its rear end towards a threat, and, to be blunt, farting in its face with a disproportionately loud noise. Opinion is divided as to whether the noise or the smell deters the predator. The Discworld version fires small pellets of rock-hard excrement, not only following through on the fart but very capable of adding injury to insult. Another accelerated breeding program is under way here to enhance certain Assassin-interesting characteristics, but this requires care, reinforced glass, and breathing masks. Lord Downey has expressed a concern that this might be one step away from gonnes, and is monitoring the research. Johanna is again interested in the potential for creating an ecologically sound nature-friendly detonator for Exothermic Alchemy devices.
(9) Life goes on, and for life to go on, Death has to happen. See the Discworld Tarot, c15, "DEATH", for exactly why the A.M.U. has a quiet room and why sometimes the more sensitive students needed to be sent there.
(10) Somebody had to perform the humane killing of rats and frogs that was necessary to provide corpses to dissect. Some students got unduly attached to the lab animals that were bred for this purpose, having nurtured them from birth to inhumation. And virtually all the predatory species preferred live food. A grading task of Assassin students was for them to introduce a live mouse or rat to, say, a tank of pirhanas, or a large snake's herpetorium, or to the Pyramid Strangler Vine, and then to stand and watch what inevitably happened next. It was held to be a neatly expedient method of introducing young Assassins to the process of death, and hardening them to initiating and witnessing the death process. And older students on the Wilderness Survival Course had a grading test where they had to kill a live rabbit. The alternative, miles away from the City, was to go hungry. The principle was the same and it was also assessed by teacher-Assassins.
(11) The sloth is slow to realise it is being eaten and is even slower in reacting. Often they don't wake up at all, which suits the rather lazy and laid-back sloth-eating spider perfectly. One of the larger arachnids on the Disc, the sloth-eating spider does not weave a web so much as a hammock. Any sloth who can't be bothered with the physical exertion involved in hanging upside-down from a branch will find the idea of curling up in a nice soft hammock to be irresistible.
(12) Ankh-Morpork has self-help groups for just about every phobia imaginable. Arachnophobics Anonymous met at a rented room in the unfortunately named Shelob Alley. Emmanuelle had attended, strictly anonymously.