There's nothing like a fresh pair of eyes 14

Pausing on "clowning" which I really want to wrap up in at most four chapters. I can see what way it's going to go, and the outcome of the collapse of the clown revolt is roughly plotted (nothing like that can succeed when so much counter-force is being brought to bear on it) but I'm not too happy so far and I want more Rats in it. The Clowns have annoyed too many people. Who all want words with them.

Looking at other halted tales. Here's how Catherine and the girls ace their field exercise and the tale is told as to how they can pull it off in a way that makes their teachers think twice. And just for Nimbus Llewellyn, Natasha Romanoff will defintely have a central role in this one too.

Exploiting other teams being detected and eliminated, and taking care to follow a route where there was clear evidence of traps having been triggered, Saartie and Chakkie made their stealthy way towards the Tower. At one point they paused and watched as a headless Wizard moved across their field of view. The figure was partly transparent and wore ornate wizarding robes. It wore a pointy hat in the place you'd expect to see one: it was just that there was no apparent head there. Just a gap between hat-brim and shoulders. They watched it drift past, unheeding of them, then abruptly disappear twenty yards away. As Chakkie made to move on, Saartie gripped her shoulder.

Wait, she mimed.

And then the figure re-appeared where they'd first seen it and it started its lonely walk again.

The two students looked at each other, and shrugged.

Some sort of projected image. A Moving Picture?

They ignored it, and passed on.

Catherine's group made a steady, unhurried and zig-zagging path along the route she had chosen. There was no sign from the tower that they had been spotted. Catherine and Natasha took the lead, with Deborah and Solveig following in their path. They passed several clear signs that traps had been triggered, taking care not to transfer any of the spilled dye-powder to their clothing. It made interesting Jockson Pillock (1) patterns on the grass and undergrowth, the more so where canisters of different colours had gone off and intermingled together in streaks and splashes.

As yet another team was identified and eliminated by thunderflashes and paint-bombs thrown down from the top of the tower, Catherine's team took advantage of the situation to advance towards the last piece of cover she had identified near the tower. Once in those bushes, they could lie low and make their attack after it all went quiet. With luck, Miss Band and Miss Smith-Rhodes might think they'd got everybody and would relax a little. That would be the time to get up to the door and throw bombs inside…

Catherine froze. Something long and thin caught just enough light. It was stretched right across the path she'd selected. Nothing grew like that in nature. It had to be a tripwire. She signalled everybody else to halt and dropped to the ground, inching slowly forward, visually assessing the wire with infinite care. It ran at ankle-height. Somebody walking without due care could trip it. Even if they stood on it, it would depress the wire enough to trigger whatever surprise was there. But something was wrong. If this was one of Miss Band's, why was it out in the open? She usually concealed her traps better than that. She was renowned for it.

She tapped Natasha on the shoulder. Go right. Natasha nodded understanding. Catherine moved to her left, tracing the wire. It seemed to be attached to nothing. With infinite care, she edged around the outside of the obvious tripwire. Then froze dead.

Madame Emmanuelle les Deux-Epées had opted for an early night. It was quiet in Black Widow House, with her rogues of fifth-year girls away. With such homework as there was marked, and with no situations to warrant her active involvement, she had decided to take a few hours' sleep. Setting a bedside alarm clock to ring at approximately eleven-fifteen, so that she could do the mandatory dorm checks, she slipped gratefully into bed and was soon asleep.

Emmanuelle found herself moving in a darkened place by night. She realised, in that passive and lazy floating dream-state, that this was somewhere out in the dark spaces between towns and cities, the boring inhospitable region that was not lit up at night and which could get foully uncomfortable. She had sworn a quiet but emphatic oath to have as little to do with the countryside as she could get away with. And this was worse. It said "wilderness" to her.

She watched with quiet fascination as the body in which she was but a passenger realised there was a tripwire in front of her. Her viewpoint suddenly dropped to within inches of the ground and, with infinite care, she ran a finger very gently along the wire, checking its tension. She was aware of a second person inches away. The face and demeanour looked familiar. As the two silently conferred and the two crawled in opposite directions, she recalled a name. Natasha Romanoff, one of her more trying pupils. Not incapable, indeed, commendably able, but headstrong and self-willed. A nightmare indeed, she thought. On a contract with the terrible Natasha.

Then her body, seemingly of its own volition, crawled off to the left. Emmanuelle caught a mood of intense focus and concentration. She felt the surprise that the tripwire appeared to be a dummy, a tight wire attached to nothing whatsoever. The fingers reached out and explored, carefully, slowly, inch by inch, in the space to the left. Exactly where somebody might step, she thought, if they had spotted an unconcealed tripwire left out in the open and were seeking to skirt round it. It looked like the sort of thing the estimable Alice Band might devise to trap an over-confident student.

Traps are not just tripwires, Emmanuelle thought. There are such things as sensitive footplates that once stepped on, activate a device. Alice demonstrated that these may be fabricated from simple readily available materials… ah, I believe this is one. And the fingers quest and follow the logic of the device… there are one, no, two, explosive devices, possibly smoke bombs or thunderflashes, buried up to their necks in soft earth. Which magnifies the bang considerably. This is a most instructive dream!

Catherine withdrew her fingers and thought furiously. She tried to put the thought that she was being watched out of her mind. Then crawled on further to the left. There were no obvious devices here. But having realised Miss Band had built one layer of deception into this trap, she wondered if there might not be a third one still. The first wire was meant to be seen. So you'd try to step round it. Then trigger the elaborately concealed charges that you were not meant to see. Maybe there wasn't a third level. Miss Band might not have thought that necessary.

Natasha returned. She indicated the ground to the right of the obvious tripwire, then mimed a "boom!" with her hands and shook her head. Catherine indicated the left and did likewise.

So do we just carefully step over it and proceed? She knelt just short of the dummy wire, and reached over it, exploring the ground about a pace behind it. Where somebody who spotted a very obvious tripwire might very carefully place her feet when stepping over it, taking infinite care not to trigger the wire. Natasha assisted. Then pulled a face. More pressure plates. Simple things made out of tree-bark and naturally springy wood. But once depressed. The spring snapped open and pulled a pin. Detonating a buried smoke-bomb.

I would attempt to dismantle and defuse the trap. Then return the unexploded bombs to Alice wrapped in red ribbon with a compliment slip attached, as is only courteous. thought Emmanuelle. She thought she now knew the identity of the body in which she was a passenger. The meticulous care and attention to detail and conscientious approach. Together with a well-founded sense of caution. It had to be Catherine Perry-Bowen. She wondered if this was also due to her new eyes. Interesting. This had not happened before. She felt a stab of alarm, wondering if in Catherine's dreams the girl might see things that she, Emmanuelle, would prefer to keep private. I must ask Igorina, she thought, as the burst of emotional energy broke the dream, and she spiralled into a new dreaming place. To her relief, a rather nice young man she'd seen in the street was in it.

Catherine fought down the absurd temptation to try to dismantle the device and present the parts to Miss Band with her compliments. Too risky, and it wasn't the mission. As she led the team back down the path to seek an alternative way round, she wondered where that thought had come from. It had suddenly appeared, fully-formed, in her head as if somebody else had put it there. It was the sort of thing Madame Two-Swords might think of. Her sense of humour, for one thing. And her style.

She put it from her mind, and found her alternative route. She signalled for Natasha to drop back and nursemaid Deborah Rust, and for Solveig to come up to point with her. Then their careful slow movement in the shadows continued.

Chakkie and Saartie, one of the few working teams yet to be eliminated, slowly but surely worked their way up to the tower. Saartie had skirted round one of the few stunted trees in the valley, indicating to Chakkie that there was a noose under tension attached to a springy bough. Concealed by undergrowth, anyone stepping into it would have soon found herself dangling in the air by one ankle. It was a classic trap in Howondaland and had been refined by Boor Special Forces. Chakkie appreciated the informal lesson she was getting into the way White Howondalandians set their traps.

They passed other traps that unwarier students had triggered. Fairly soon they had the open ground before the Tower in front of them. This would pose a problem.

"Ladies, that was positively fiendish!" the voice said, approvingly. Alice grinned. They'd got used to sharing the top of the tower with a resident demon and had soon arrived at an agreement. Ponder Stibbons had set up a ceremonial octagram and suggested the demon stepped into it – of his own free will, naturally – and bearing in mind he was in the presence of two Assassins, he might care to look upon it as protective custody, for now?

Johanna Smith-Rhodes had folded her arms and spoken the terrifying words "Teatime Prize." (2)

Alice Band had nodded up to an apparently twenty-foot tall well-muscled demon and reminded him her father had been a Bishop of Blind Io and one of the top half-dozen people in the hierarchy. "And my uncle is Hughnon Ridcully. I don't know if the name rings any bells? But you wouldn't want him after you with bell, book and candle!"

Alice smiled up at the demon.

"And two of us here know that's just an illusion. I'm from a priestly family and one of the things that happens is that you get to see what's really there. Professor Stibbons is a wizard and he's already worked it out. And my colleague miss Smith-Rhodes would take you on anyway just to get a chance for the Teatime Prize. So be a good boy – a good male-gendered supernatural entity - would you, and drop the disguise? Show us your true form. I could say "The power of Blind Io compels you!""

There was a sudden shrinking noise, a reverse implosion of air. Then a rather smaller, weedier, demon was standing there, slightly less than four feet tall and looking a little woebegone.

"No need to go that far!" he mumbled, and stepped into the octogram. He looked pleadingly at Ponder Stibbons.

"I don't suppose you could, you know, banish me later?" he asked. "I've been stuck here for six centuries now since that other wizard summoned me up. Then he only went and bloody well died without banishing me, ungrateful bastard, pardon my Cenotian!"

Ponder nodded. The demon ploughed on, seemingly glad of an audience to complain to.

"You just won't believe how bloody boring it's been! Cold, wet, miserable, just the odd lost traveller or adventurer to terrify…"

"Stick eround." Johanna said. "Et least, until Ponder benishes you formally."

And now they were watching the open space around the tower, occasionally throwing down a device, or firing one from a crossbow, at any girls they spotted. The demon had been allowed to freely move and was watching the action, enthusing at the creative callousness displayed by the two teachers. Ponder had left to assist Gillian in umpiring and dealing with any magical issues.

"How many's that now?" Alice asked. "I'm losing count."

"I make it thirty-four." Johanna said. "Give or take two."

"Can't be sure from up here." Alice said. "But I don't think we've seen Catherine's group yet."

Johanna shrugged.

"Cen you be surprised? We put three bleddy good students together. Then gave them Deborah Rust es a hendicep."

"Keep watching." Alice said. "Gillian's going to signal to us when she's ticked them all off her list. It does seem as if Catherine's applied peer pressure to our two problems, though. Or they'd have imploded by now."

They continued their vigil. Down in the open space there was a sudden explosion and a cloud of billowing fire-orange smoke. It washed over and outlined two figures.

"Thirty-six." Johanna said. "End I make thet twenty-five yards."

"Gillian can get the names. We can pat them on the back later, say well done, and tell them they will learn to do this better."

As the smoke thinned, they saw Gillian Lansbury, wearing a bright yellow tabard over her Assassin black to signal her umpire status, moving forwards with a clipboard and night-lantern to officially register the latest casualties.

Chakkie and Saartie froze in cover as the latest dye-bomb erupted, perhaps thirty yards to their right. They closed their eyes in order to preserve their night vision. Counting to twenty before opening them again, they saw a yellow-tabarded Gillian Lansbury pass closely by. Miss Lansbury let her eyes pass over the two without acknowledging them, and moved purposely on.

"Bad luck." she said to the latest two eliminées. "You got so close, too! Miss Heaton-Chapel of Scorpion House and Miss Adswood-Davenport of Raven House, isn't it? I shouldn't worry about the orange dye, it's water-soluble. You get a free morning tomorrow for personal admin, and can wash clothes. Do you want to make your way back to the camp now? Don't go to bed, there will be a debriefing later. And do hold onto the thunderflashes. They will need to be accounted for."

Chakkie allowed them to pass and took stock of where they were. It appeared there were two doors to the tower on the ground floor, two archways spaced not too far apart. One was illuminated by a dim lantern that shone with a green hue. She assumed either doorway would open into the ground floor and they could throw their bombs into either. Any actual wooden door as such had gone, possibly centuries before. So the arches were open. No need for lockpicks. But how to get there…

Gillian Lansbury looked down at her list. Thirty-eight names were accounted for, all the weaker candidates and outright no-hopers. As well as the ones she thought were middle-rankers. By each name was a note as to how near the tower she had reached before being eliminated, and a tick to confirm that she still had an unexpended thunderflash to be collected in later. A final column, which would record where the person's expended thunderflash had been found, was blank in all cases.

Gillian frowned. The ten people currently unaccounted for were, as she might have expected, the best girls in the year. Plus Deborah Rust, of course. But she was tagged onto three of the best…

She looked up at the tower. Wondering if Alice and Johanna were going to get a surprise. It wasn't just students who could get overconfident. And Alice and Johanna had been definitely certain no student was going to get inside twenty yards of the tower… and ten students whose aptitude ranged from very good to excellent were still out there.

There was another whoosh, an explosion, and a shriek of angry frustration. Violet smoke welled up, this time. Gillian, an artist to her core, speculated on iodine salts giving that smoke such a vivid purple hue. She wondered if they could be used as a paint pigment.

Make that eight….

Saartie and Chakkie agreed that the open ground between them and the tower offered no concealment. They agreed that putting a large bomb or two under Miss Band and Miss Smith-Rhodes was worth washing out of the exercise. They agreed they would openly rush the doorways and stop for nobody or for nothing. They would be deaf to Miss Lansbury telling them they were dead and would, if pressed, tell her they knew, but they'd come back as zombies driven by an all-encompassing need to put a bomb under their teachers. If the game could "kill" them, then fine, we're now Undead. Punishment for insubordination would be worth it.

They shook hands, got the thunderflashes out of their pouches, and prepared to make the attack. They were helped by another explosion and a cloud of glowing maroon smoke over on the other side of the tower.

Then they were running for the doors…

And make that six…

Gillian went to record the latest eliminées on her check list. Patricia Palmer and Hazel Grove. This left only… Saartie van der Plessis. Chakalate N'Golante. Solveig von Kugelblitz. Natasha Romanoff. Catherine Perry-Bowen. And, surprisingly, Deborah Rust.

And she saw movement behind her and to her right…

Catherine led her team on the last leg. A stealthy approach under cover to a low rise and its crown of shrubbery. Deborah Rust had petulantly asked why they weren't going to the same covered place where they'd done their sketches earlier in the day. Catherine patiently said this was because Miss Smith-Rhodes now knows we were there. So she'll be watching that place. Therefore we avoid it. Now. Silence, please?

They slowly and methodically made their final approach, exploiting shadow and cover. As they arrived there was another series of explosions from the tower, two in quick succession. Acrid chemical smoke tinged the night breeze. It was a different and more persistent quality to that of the dye-bombs.

And a loud angry voice shouting jou blitsem, fockenwil! You didn't need to know the language to recognise the speaker was really frustrated about something. Catherine thought it was Saartie van der Plessis. Which meant Chakkie was out there too.

"Well, two more down." Alice said, drily. "We can call this over, soon, and start debriefing people."

"Ja." said Johanna. "How are you enjoying it, Mr Demon?"

The small unthreatening demon smiled.

"I've not had so much fun in centuries, Miss Smith-Rhodes!" he assured her. "You Assassins know how to entertain yourselves, I must say!"

"So what's your name?" Alice asked. The demon winced.

"Really, Miss Band! You can't go around telling people! There are rules…" the demon faltered. "My name is unspeakable by human mouths." He uttered a guttural spitting sequence of sounds. "But in human language, it comes out as Derek."

Alice turned, amused. Then there was shouting and a sequence of explosions from directly underneath the tower wall. Glowing yellow smoke billowed up and both Alice and Johanna ducked to avoids being stained by it, Then there were two very loud bangs, one after the other.

A voice was heard raised in anger and frustration.

"Jou blitsem, fockenwil!"

Johanna shook her head. The bangs had been too close for comfort.

"Saartie van der Plessis." she said, with a certain national pride. "One for the mother country!"

"It had to be one of yours, didn't it!" Alice agreed. She privately thought Rimwards Howondalandians were on just the sane side of crazy. Johanna was the walking proof. "But she triggered a smoke bomb doing it. So she died in the attempt. Only a half mark, there."

"We cen confirm with Gillian later." Johanna agreed. "End she is paired with Miss N'Golante, yesno? There were two thunderflashes there. But both exploded just outside the tower."

"Unless there are any more out there who can do better, we can say those two did the best. Shame they triggered a smoke bomb and got disqualified, though."

In the last mad rush to the tower, where they'd agreed speed mattered more than subtlety, Saartie and Chakkie had primed their bombs as they ran, hoping to slip away in the confusion afterwards. When Saartie felt the slipping of a pressure plate under her foot and knew she'd triggered a dye bomb that would disqualify her, she had automatically thrown the thunderflash, hoping it would be accepted as a valid attack. She had seen the flying tube hit the left-hand upright of the door arch, and go skidding off to the right, bouncing back and exploding a foot or so short of the door. She had screamed a mighty curse in Vondalaans out of rage and frustration as the yellow staining smoke enveloped her.

Meanwhile Chakkie had thrown hers into the darkness of the right-hand door, the one illuminated by the dim green lamp, and had stood in consternation as it appeared to bounce off some sort of invisible barrier, exploding in the open maybe a yard short of the tower. She thought They have got a wizard. He must have created an illusion. It certainly fooled me. And then the yellow dye washed over her. She tried not to breathe it in, and resigned herself to doing some serious laundering.

Catherine and her team, out of danger for the moment, watched cautiously from the undergrowth, looking out over the open bare space in front of the objective. She thought furiously about some way of crossing that open ground that offered no cover.

Yellow smoke dispersed, and Miss Lansbury appeared to process and usher away two more failed candidates. From sixty yards or so away, she recognised one bright yellow Assassin as her friend Chakkie and reasoned the other must be Saartie.

Catherine counted the two doors, one with a dim green light over it, and frowned. She noted there was a light breeze blowing over them. It would carry any whispered conversation away from the tower. Good.

"Ideas?" she whispered to her team.

"We can't easily cross without being seen." Solveig said. Natasha and Deborah nodded.

"There may be another way." Natasha said. She slipped off her backpack, which Catherine noted had what looked like a shaped rigid frame, pieces arched and curved to fit the contours of her back. Catherine appreciated the simplicity of the design. Then she boggled as Natasha began to dismantle the frame, assessing the pieces in her hands. Then she slotted two of the curved struts together in an interestingly different way, and twisted them so that something locked into place. Other struts joined them.

"Took ages to get the design right." she said. "So that the assembly reinforces itself when you flex it. Totally illegal, of course. They barred us from taking weapons out on this trip. So I had to disguise it. Concealed weapon." She shook out two of the longer straighter struts. They were hollow. Each contained a fledged arrow. Another hidden pouch contained an oiled bowstring.

"There's a limit to the number of arrows I can carry." she said, almost apologetically. "And this collapsible bow is only good for short ranges. But I reckon if you all give me your thunderflashes, I can fire them through that doorway and into the tower. Forty yards. Easy. Thanks, Cathy. Deborah."

There was a pause. A third thunderflash was belatedly passed over.

"Thanks, beet-eater. I mean, Solveig."

"Just fire that arrow straight, turniphead. I mean, Natasha."

"I just need something to tie them to the arrow with…"

There was a pause. Solveig sighed. She reached down and removed her boots. Then took the laces out. She offered them to Natasha.

"Thank you. Solveig."

"Just shoot straight. Natasha."

Solveig offered the advice that the weight distribution in those thunderflashes is uneven. They weigh heavier at the bottom than the top. So tie them one up, one down to spread the mass evenly. Natasha considered this, then thanked her for the advice and did as suggested.

"Keep the fuse strips on the outside so they aren't fouled… right, I think that's it. You know, I think I could drop this right on top of the tower where they are right now?"

"Please don't, Natasha. I could go a long way without Miss Band or Miss Smith-Rhodes getting annoyed at me for bursting their ear-drums. Tempting, though."

Natasha grinned.

"Doorway it is, then. Want to pull a cracker with me, Solveig?"

Catherine looked on, feeling oddly pleased. Could it really be that in the excitement of concluding the mission, those two had sunk their differences? She hoped so.

"Quickly." Natasha urged her. She and Deborah pulled the fuses on the other two thunderflashes. Now they were committed…

Natasha Romanoff, a student even Alice Band agreed was outstanding at archery, knelt, nocked, aimed, and fired. The arrow appeared to judder and wobble in flight, but even as they held their breath, it passed between the uprights of the left-hand archway. Deborah Rust frowned.

"Why not the one to the right, that's lit up?" she asked.

Natasha grinned.

"Decoy. Never trust a Green Lantern." she said.

And then a massive, ear-splitting, explosion, which seemed to be made up of three or four smaller explosions happening together, rocked the tower, Multicolour smoke erupted from the doorway and from arrow slits all the way up to the roof. Bits of masonry fell off. The sound echoed and re-echoed. The four whooped and shook hands. Even Natasha and Solveig shook hands.

"Now let's get out of here." Catherine said. "We still have to get out undetected, remember?"

She assured herself the tower was still standing, and they moved off.

Next: aftermath. The girls are debriefed. Alice and Johanna have words.

(1) Jockson Pillock was a modern conceptual artist of the Daniellerina Pouter school of thought, who created abstract pictures by scattering, splattering, squirting or otherwise randomly distributing pigment over canvas. Lord Vetinari had attentively viewed his exhibition and listened to his ideas about modern abstract art in the Century of the Anchovy, and had then had him locked in the stocks with ample buckets of interestingly coloured substances made freely available, so that passers-by with an interest in abstract art could use him as a canvas. Vetinari considered this instructive and educative to all concerned.

(2) Bad news gets around on the Chthonic Planes. The idea that the Assassins of Ankh-Morpork, in their methodical and meticulous way, now had a competition for the best inhumation strategies for a range of potential supernatural clients and were amassing case-studies and strategies in the event, was food for thought for more reflective and imaginative demonic entities.

Turnipheads (Zlobenian) and Beet-eaters (Borogravian)