or,
Waiting for Chidder
Teppic was dreaming of his schoolboy days.
This was hardly unusual. Just about every man reaches a stage in his life where he begins to linger fondly on memories of youthful pranks and childhood comrades, haunted by a self before paychecks and plateaus, before lost hair and gained weight.
Teppic, however, was only twenty-three. His salad days(1) were hardly a thing of the distant past; the entire prime rib of his life lay before him, and he had yet to polish off the overpriced appetizer.
Nor did his dreams, despite their vivid realism, leave him feeling particularly nostalgic.
In fact, it was probably more accurate to call them nightmares.
Teppic's schoolboy days had involved any number of youthful pranks and childhood comrades. These had dwindled steadily in number as he'd matured, in part because the former tended to thin out the ranks of the latter. Furthermore, as he'd risen through the levels, the examinations at the end of seventh year had loomed increasingly large in the minds of all. Less time had been devoted to pranks, particularly after the change in policy regarding the award of extra credit for inhuming classmates.
The School's exam was nearly as infamous as it was strenuous, and few and far between were the candidates who ran it without a preliminary round of nightmares. Like all former schoolboys, even the students of the School who'd passed found themselves dreaming, years afterwards, of the moment in which they knew they were going to fail.
Happily, if you failed, you were spared the embarrassment of telling your parents, as the School generally took care of that with its trademark refined competency.
Unhappily, if you failed, you found yourself trying to explain it all to your ancestors, most of whom thought of private education as a sacred tradition and couldn't understand how you'd bollocksed it up.
The School maintained that technically, there was no penalty for failing. There was, after all, little point in penalizing a corpse.
Teppic awoke with a gasp and the reverberation of the Gong Tower still ringing distinctly in his ears. In his dream, it had been striking two, which was far, far too late.
He rolled over and looked at the sundial beside his bed. It told him that the time was sometime after sunset and before sunrise. Lying back on his bulrush mattress with a muffled thud, he closed his eyes.
Teppic's aunt had been firmly against his going to the Assassins' Guild School. She was firmly against a number of things, including Youth, Those Shocking Harlots Who Refuse To Shave Their Heads, and Smiling.
Nevertheless, whenever Teppic awoke from a dream of the School, he sometimes wondered if perhaps Aunt Cleph-ptah-re had been right. It was useful, no doubt, to be able to speak sixteen languages and kill with an ordinary chair in twelve different ways(2). And Teppic was prepared to manfully admit that the dancing lessons had come more in handy than he'd thought. But there were times it just didn't seem worth it, not when the price was having exam anxiety for the rest of your life.
Especially when it was someone else's anxiety you were having.
(1)Thus named by an Ephebian philosopher who
compared the stages of life to those of a 14-course
dinner.
(2)Twenty-two, if it was a swivel-back, and sixty-four if
it was the World's First Recliner, designed by Bloody Stupid
Johnson.
APPROXIMATELY ONE MONTH AGO
Teppic was twenty-three, and technically retired from both his professions.
Being retired, he found, was trickier than it sounded. The problem, he suspected, after watching countless other retirees to see how they coped, was that he didn't have anything to complain about.
Money was rarely an issue. He'd retired from being royalty, but he still went home now and then. Djelibeybi was undeniably flourishing under Ptraci's small and nicely manicured hands. She'd decided-decreed, technically-to pay him a salary as "Royal Foreign Correspondent" after his first reappearance, loaded with small curios and bits of gossip. To his surprise, she'd been less interested in the curios than the gossip.
One night, she astonished him by asking, "Is that all there is to politics? Listening around and figuring out what people want?"
"Well, it gets a bit more complicated than that," he said after a lame pause, during which he rummaged the drawers of memory for the more relevant bits of Lady T'malia's lessons in Political Expediency. The only items that came to mind were rules about when it was acceptable to kill second cousins who were connected to the local religious institution. "You also have to decide whether you're going to give it to them or not."
"That's easy," she replied, "You do it if you're going to get something better back."
Chidder and the Mistress of the Women, it seemed, had managed to give Ptraci a better sense of Political Expediency than seven years of private school and extensive exposure to Funny Foreign Ways.
"You won't be needing me much longer," he said to her the sixth or seventh time he came back.
"That's not true," she said automatically, then snapped down on her sympathy like a sacred crocodile when she realized that he didn't sound particularly sad or wistful over it.
In point of fact, he wasn't, as he had every intention of making regular visits regardless. He suspected that despite his thorough grasp of the principles, he'd never be much good at actual inhuming anyone, but there were times when it was an indispensable part of politics to let people think that you were. Priests were a stubborn lot, and he saw no point in letting them think that life would be any easier with Ptraci out of the way.
The larger problem was that he was now left with even fewer employment options than before.
"I don't see why it's even necessary for you to have a job," Ptraci argued. "Why not just go on traveling and seeing the world?"
"I've seen it," he explained patiently, "in fact, I've seen all the bits of it I can get to conveniently several times over. And there's really only so much Quirmish cheese you can have before you realize that it comes from goats."
"That's true," she said, wrinkling her nose. Quirmish cheese had been one of the first souvenirs he'd brought back from his travels. Ptraci had tried it, then ordered the tariff raised on all Quirmish imports. "Well, we know someone who can get you a job, anyhow."
"Who?" he asked, then realized it aloud at the same time as she said, "Chidder."
Chidder was not an easy person to locate, unless you had a particularly lucrative proposition which involved the transportation of goods from Here to There at Extremely Fast Speeds and Quite Reasonable Prices.
Chidder was involved in Commerce, and frequently with the law. The law, however, had not seen fit to do much with him, partly because they couldn't catch him, and partly because there were criminals whose liberty was less profitable at hand.
Furthermore, Chidder was perfectly capable of explaining to people, at length and through his lawyers, that Commerce was not only indispensable, but had a long and honorable history as the oldest of industries(1).
All this meant that Chidder was no doubt capable of employing an ex-king and any number of trained Assassins, Commerce being similar to combat, only more profitable.
However, there were any number of reasons why Teppic hesitated to take up Chidder's offer of employment, which had been generously extended at more than one point in their past. Most were too embarrassing to elaborate upon, although Ptraci settled one herself, the fifth time he returned.
"We aren't," she said vaguely but firmly.
"And you won't be, ever? You're sure?" he asked her curiously. After all, he felt, as far as most things went, you could do a lot worse than Chidder. The bald fact of the matter was, the palace was mostly priests. There were the handmaidens, to be sure, but they could hardly do Ptraci much good.
"Well, now that I've got myself a kingdom," she threw him a look that was warm and exasperated, "I think I'd like to hang on to it."
"Chiddy wouldn't steal your kingdom from you," Teppic reassured her, then added quite reassuringly, "I think."
"No, I don't think he would either," Ptraci said thoughtfully. "I'm more worried that he'd find some way to buy it."
All in all, Teppic was more than slightly relieved when Ptraci took up with a well-muscled young man from the crocodile pits. They were a bit of tradition that Ptraci had conceded to, largely for the sake of those who insisted traditions(3) were important and should be kept.
The young man, whose name was Buhlses, cheerfully kept his assigned traditions slightly on the hungry side. That way, he informed Ptraci excitedly, they made wonderful garbage disposals, as they would eat absolutely anything that had once been alive(3).
Teppic was of the opinion that anyone who believed in the words, "It's a dirty job but someone's got to lose an arm or leg to it" was likely to make a loyal friend and consort.
It appeared that Chidder would be missing at least one title from his collection (which at last count had included eight directorships on six different boards, and the kingship of a small island country close to the Rim(5).)
This was a source of great relief to Teppic, for reasons he preferred not to examine too closely.
As it was, he had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew what they were.
(1) Once, an officer(2) had argued this point with him, saying, "I thought that was-"
"Ah," Chidder had said wisely, "But someone in Commerce set the prices, you see."
(2) The young and idealistic sort who hadn't quite gotten the hang of being bribed yet.
(3) Such as slavery, chauvinism, and the flaying alive of petty criminals.
(4) To his credit, Buhlses was referring to the waste from the Palace kitchens, thereby inventing a crude but effective form of organic recycling.
(5) For tax purposes.
"Write him a letter," Ptraci suggested.
"You think that would work? He's a busy man." Teppic was dubious. How long had it been, anyway? Three years? Four? They'd been good friends at school, or at least, he thought they'd been. They'd pranked with, not against each other, and neither had ever done well enough in class to earn more than a few words of Mericet's dehydrated praise.
He had to admit that there was more to it than that, though.
Chidder was the first person he'd met at the School. At first glance, you could see that he already had it all sorted out. Being in Commerce, Chidder told him, taught you a lot about the System(1).
Chidder knew the System; Chidder could slide between its cracks with the ease of a buttered ant. If Teppic asked, he was sure Chidder would be able to slide him in pretty neatly, too.
Still, he thought about what he knew of Commerce, and wondered about the fit.
(1) Mostly for the purposes of getting around it.
Dear Chiddy,
Was wondering how you were the other day. Haven't seen you in a while. You're welcome to stop by if you care to catch up, the next time you're thinking of popping by the Djel. (There aren't as many crocodiles now; we've stopped feeding them people, and they tried switching to baby hippopotami. Have you ever seen a full-grown hippopotamus charge? I could almost feel sorry for the crocodiles, if it weren't for. Well. You know.)
Truth is, I'm a bit at loose ends these days. Maybe you could offer me a word of advice on what ex-monarchs usually do. I imagine you'd know more of them than me.
Yours sincerely,
Teppic
"How is it?" he asked Ptraci rather nervously. He'd come across her at the entrance to the Hall of Important Judgments, and she'd pounced on it like one of the palace cats.
"Mmmm," she said, eyes skimming the contents. Her lips were pursed tight enough to hold change, and Teppic reminded himself that he had spent seven years of his life learning how to kill people.
Right now, he felt rather tempted to kill himself. "Think it'll do the trick?"
"Mmmm."
"Ptraci," he said with what he hoped was commendable patience. "Does it strike you as too personal? Too flippant?"
"'Well. You know'?"
"What?" he blinked, missing the inner quotation marks.
"What about crocodiles?"
"Oh." He tried hard not to shuffle his feet. At times like these, it was hard to remember that Ptraci had once been small, slender, and harmless. She was still small and slender. "One got my mother. He knows, I told him about it on the first day, I think."
"Oh," Ptraci echoed, rather softly, and contrived to make kohl-lined eyes look quite gentle.
"It's alright, it happened when I was quite small," he said hastily.
There were times when he still found himself wishing that she hadn't been his sister. But otherwise, he reminded himself, he would've been King Teppicymon XXVIII, so really, it was all for the best.
"The letter?" he prompted.
"Hmmm," she said, and strode away, legs flickering rapidly down the corridor. Teppic started after her, but there was a sudden shout and a patter of wet sandals as Buhlses burst into the room.
"Oh thank goodness, it's you. Come help, quick! One got out!" Buhlses' eyes were rather wild, and, Teppic noted with some alarm, he was bleeding.
Teppic nearly said, "One what?" which showed that he'd definitely been away from home too long.
"Which one?" he asked instead.
"It's Oom(1)!"
Teppic snatched the Bronze Spear of Ceremony from the wall and ran.
(1) This was an abbreviation of "Offler's Old Man," a name given by the last Keeper of the Sacred Crocodiles to a particularly large and ugly animal. The name had lasted longer than the Keeper.
In the excitement that followed, he proceeded to forget all about the letter. Meaning that by the time a reply arrived, his guts were twisted so tightly in anticipation that fibrous fruits were becoming a challenge.
Dear PT,
Well, I can't say I wasn't surprised to hear from you. It's not a request I'd have thought you would make, to be honest, but it's a perfectly logical one, and I'm happy to help, of course. I'll be in the region on the 12th, if you care to hang around until then. Otherwise, let me know where you plan to be.
Give my fondest regards to Ptraci. How's that well-developed young man of hers? What do you suppose the Personal Combat Master would've made of him, eh?
Yours,
Chidder
"'PT'?" Ptraci asked, her gracefully-plucked eyebrows raised. She'd read it aloud to him, by way of delivery. There were times when Teppic was distinctly nostalgic for the days when he'd been an only child.
"It's a nickname," he explained somewhat sheepishly. "From when we were at School."
"What's it stand for?"
"Er. Prince Teppic, I think. He hasn't really used it in ages, he just liked to poke fun at the beginning. Before I'd really gotten the System sorted out." For some reason, he was struggling not to blush. Ptraci's eyebrows were more effective than a sceptre: She had only to raise them slightly before feet shuffled, voices mumbled, and capillaries betrayed.
"What about the Combat Master?" she asked, to his relief.
"Oh, we had a teacher for hand-to-hand who, er, rather liked strong young men."
The eyebrows rose another notch. "Hmmmmm."
"I wish," he said rather fervently, "that you would stop saying that."
SLIGHTLY LESS THAN ONE MONTH LATER
Teppic waited on the swaying dock with a certain amount of trepidation. As an assassin, his night vision was trained, but shapes still seemed more ominous in the uncertain moonlight. Around him, inky water rippled in the darkness, while things that looked suspiciously like crocodiles trying to look like logs floated just beyond the rushes.
He was fairly certain that Chidder would be coming. Chidder had an unorthodox notion of honor, but a very sound grasp of Commerce. Breaking one's word, he maintained, violated the principles of recurrent trade. It was better to simply word things trickily in the first place, so that no technical breakage was necessary.
Chidder would come, he told himself.
Teppic didn't believe in the significance of recurrent dreams unless they involved specific numbers of thin and fat cows. After all, Chidder had passed the exam four years ago, as had he; they'd waited together with Arthur as the city gongs struck. It had been Cheesewright, not Chidder, who hadn't made it. The fact that the damp darkness of the night and the nagging fear in his belly were frighteningly familiar meant nothing.
When Chidder tapped him on the shoulder, he nearly shrieked.
"You're late," he said instead. "Mericet would dock points for that."
Chidder smirked. "Rule of Commerce. Keep 'em waiting if you can, it does 'em good."
"Good to see you, Chiddy."
Chidder regarded him for a moment, his expression hard to make out in the moonlight. "Come on, ship's waiting. There's a dinghy a ways down from here."
"What about the crocodiles?"
"Oh, don't worry," Chidder waved a hand, "Doubt they'll be bothering us for a while."
"Really? Why?"
There was a violent splashing sound somewhere downstream, and Teppic froze. "What was that?"
"The rack of beef I threw over the side, I imagine."
He was silent, but his apprehension grew.
Chidder looked at him steadily as they rowed out, seeming to guess his thoughts. "Teppic, it was really a rack of beef." He sounded surprisingly serious-for Chidder.
Teppic found himself relaxing anyway. "It's a nice night," he said involuntarily, because it was. They rowed past a raft of water lilies, whose fragrance competed nearly evenly with the smell of hippo dung. The breeze off the Djel was just enough to lift the summer heat, and the splashing sound had moved further downstream.
"It's good to see you too," Chidder replied.
The Unnamed seemed to have changed its dimensions since the last time he'd been in it. Of course, it was probably actually the Unnamed VIII or IX; Chidder believed in staying on the cutting edge of transporation, and made upgrades whenever one came his way. "It's called competitive benchmarking," he'd explained once.
The new hold was slightly narrower, hardly wide enough to fit the banquet table, which creaked alarmingly under the weight of the spread. Dinner for two looked like the product of a furious challenge between the Disc's top ten chefs. There was plenty to eat in the Palace, but Ptraci was perenially concerned with her figure, and he hadn't seen anything on this scale since Quirm.
He spared a glance at Chidder's waistline. Black was slimming, to be sure, but no one could eat like this on a regular basis and still look good in hose. "Were you trying to corner the truffles market?"
Chidder stuck a finger into a molding of pate. "Not bad," he said judiciously. "No, it's just that our latest cook is a bit of an overachiever." He grinned wolfishly. "I'm offering the best retirement package this side of the Disc."
"Really? That's rather generous of you," Teppic said hopefully.
"Not really," Chidder explained. "I'm not expecting to have to pay it."
If he wanted to be honest with himself, he'd seen this coming all along, possibly even back at the School. Back then he'd wondered if Chidder had had any qualms at the last stage of the exam, but now he had a sinking feeling that he knew.
Suddenly he felt rather nauseated by the sheer magnitude of the spread. There were probably enough calories on the table to make two and a half hippopotami. Where did it all come from?
Assassins got paid blood money, he knew. But truffle money? Pate money?
Was that waldorf salad(1) Chidder was digging into?
Teppic held his breath a moment, then blew it out. "Listen, maybe this is a bad idea-"
"Not at all," Chidder looked puzzled. "It's in the fine print, as unclear as can be-"
"Not that," he interrupted desperately. "Look, Chiddy, I appreciate your agreeing to help and all, but I think it's probably best that I work things out on my own."
Chidder sounded faintly wounded. "What, you don't trust my judgment? I've got good taste, you ought to know that. I wouldn't pick out anything unsuitable for you. I know you used to have a kingdom and all that baroque. Though it beats me what you'd like, if you don't enjoy being fed peeled grapes by those handmaidens."
"I'm afraid," he said carefully, "that I may not be well-suited to Commerce."
Now Chidder wore a look of bewilderment, which was slightly but significantly different from his look of innocent confusion. "What's Commerce got to do with it?"
"Well, I assume that's the kind of job you'd find me?" he asked, with some embarrassment. Perhaps he'd made too hasty an assumption, even if Chidder had offered in the past. After all, this time he'd only asked for advice.
"Kind of job?" If anything, Chidder only looked more lost in the desert.
"What," he asked suspiciously, "did Ptraci write you, exactly?"
Chidder stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Should've known it was her idea," he said fondly. "I'm telling you, she's wasted on a kingdom."
"What did she write?" he repeated.
Chidder lifted a delicate tidbit that involved, among many others, something pink and something green. "That you were looking for a wife," he said, and popped it in.
"That I was looking-" he echoed, and then shouted, "What?"
"These are really good," Chidder said cheerfully. "You should try one."
It struck Teppic that Chidder had been a bit tense until now. And no wonder! "She asked you to help me find a wife?" he asked woodenly, wondering if there was any way to borrow Buhlses' crocodiles without letting him know. She deserved one for this, maybe Oom.
"What were you actually looking for?" Chidder asked.
"A job," he said, and sat down. Chidder passed him the plate of pink-and-green, and he took one wordlessly.
"Well, it's not a bad idea. A wife, that is."
"What?" He turned to look at Chidder, startled.
"Why not?" Chidder said judiciously. "Do you some good to get some real experience. You were always a bit shy at the School, if I recall."
"I wasn't," he retorted, slightly affronted. "And I don't particularly want one, thanks."
"Why don't you?" Chidder looked at him curiously, eyes keen in the candlelight.
Teppic was struck dumb. "Because I've never found anyone more attractive than my sister" wasn't really the kind of thing you could say in public, even if Chidder would likely understand.
Somehow, "Because I keep dreaming about you," didn't seem much better.
"Why don't you?" he settled for asking, in place of a response.
Chidder shrugged, and took a sip of wine from a goblet that looked as fragile as newly-formed frost. Assassins lived comfortable (if rather short) lives, but Commerce apparently allowed you to wallow in luxury. Chidder might not wallow, but by the looks of it, he took occasional dips. "All our biggest competitors have had only sons," he said ruefully. "Just my luck."
"Right," Teppic said, reminding himself that the royal family of Djelibeybi had married its own cousins for generations. He lived, so to speak, in a glass pyramid.
"You say you want a job?" Chidder took a bite of salad.
"I do," Teppic replied, deeply grateful that the talk had turned from wives.
"Why ask me?"
Chidder didn't seem offended, munching waldorf salad calmly, so Teppic said, "You did offer before."
He did not say, "And I thought that if I saw you now and then, I might stop having dreams where you died."
"I did," Chidder said, "But PT, you're probably right, you know."
It was really Chidder's voice, Teppic reflected, that fond, rather jolly voice. He could get you to believe almost anything, especially if you were inclined to believe it in the first place.
"Right about what?" He reached for the soup, which was blood-red and chilled. It had a strange tang, and he took a spoonful curiously.
"The best oxblood soup outside of Bhangbhangduc," Chidder explained from across the table, as Teppic tried his best not to spit. "And I meant you're probably right about not being cut out for Commerce."
"Probably not," Teppic agreed, setting down his spoon. The more he learned of Commerce, in fact, the less he liked it. Whenever Chidder was engaged in Commerce, he became somehow smoother, more unreadable than the boy he'd been at the School. Teppic had a strange conviction that one day, he wouldn't be able to recognize Chidder at all.
"You might still be able to help me out, though. Listen," and here Chidder began to look, for the first time since Teppic had known him, somewhat unsure of himself. "Lately I've gotten a bit worried that I'm starting to do, you know."
"I don't," Teppic said, because he didn't.
"Business," Chidder pronounced, the way an extremely rich person(2) might have pronounced, "Taxes."
"Isn't that what you've been doing all along?"
"No, that's Commerce," Chidder said indignantly. "There's nothing wrong with Commerce. It's a respectable enough trade, oldest one in the book. Business, though, that's something else." He stared into his oxblood soup gloomily. "From there, it's just a short stop from Finance, and then it's all over with you."
"It sounds terrible," he said as sincerely as he could. "Er, what's that got to do with me, though?"
Chidder brightened like a refilled lamp. "Well, I figure, since you'd be terrible at Commerce, you'd be perfect for this."
"For what?" he asked, accidentally taking another sip of the soup.
"It'd be like outsourcing, really," Chidder said enthusiastically. "You could tell me when you thought things were getting a bit too..."
"Heartless? Illegal?"
"Business-like," Chidder concluded.
"Sort of like being your Official Conscience?" Teppic helped himself to a spoonful of the waldorf salad, crunching over the idea. The more he crunched, the more he liked it. The idea, that was, not the salad, which tasted like crunchy oysters. Oysters, in Teppic's opinion, were things that oughtn't crunch.
"Sort of. But that doesn't have quite the right ring to it." Chidder frowned. "You wouldn't be technically working for me; that would defeat the entire purpose. I'd just be asking you for advice. Judgment calls and the like."
"Consulting me about moral issues? Wrong vs. Horribly Wrong, that sort of thing?" It sounded ridiculous, but at the same time, appealing. Being paid to save Chidder from the clutches of Commerce or Business or whatever it was. And naturally he'd have to come around from time to time, or how would Chidder ask his advice?
"Exactly! Consulting." Chidder leaned back with a satisfied smile. "That's it, you could be the M.C.-short for Moral Consultant."
"It sounds like a pretty easy job," Teppic said cautiously. "You're sure you'd want to pay me for it?"
"Of course," Chidder replied. "In Commerce, what you give is what you get, and I fully intend to get good service from you."
Ten years ago, the idea of providing anyone with a service would've offended Teppic immensely. Now, he was quite happy at the thought of being able to offer a service that didn't require and could even possibly prevent a few people from being inhumed.
It was possible that other factors were contributing to his happiness as well, but Teppic decided that they were unworthy of scrutiny.
"When would you want me to start?"
"Immediately," Chidder said, "If it's convenient for you."
"It is," said Teppic, and decided that the salad wasn't half bad, crunchy oysters and all. There was a sticky white sauce that made everything quite palatable.
"We could sign a retainer contract if it worked out well," Chidder was saying.
He was hardly paying attention. "I'm still going to kill Ptraci." Looking for a wife, indeed. Feminine intuition, Teppic decided, was clearly overvaunted.
"Nonsense, this is a fantastic arrangement. We should drink to her health." Chidder lifted a glass of white wine, suiting words to actions.
"That isn't counterwise wine, is it?" he asked.
It was one of the last things he remembered, that and Chidder's laughing reply. Then they toasted Ptraci, and themselves. Then the Good Old Days, and Cheesewright, who was dead, and Mericet, who would probably never die, and cheeses, and camels, and nearly everything under the sun, it seemed, except for Commerce and pyramids.
At some point Chidder reached behind him and picked up a box. "Here," he said, "These're for you."
"Whass that?"
"Just open it, you'll see. I picked 'em up for youa few ports ago. Think they may be all the rage, next season."
Seven toasts ago, Teppic might have noticed that Chidder was watching him somewhat anxiously. At the moment, however, he was having some trouble opening the box.
Inside lay a pair of boots with an odd pattern, beautifully made. He pulled off his old ones and tried them on the spot. They fit perfectly, which failed to strike him as strange.
"Int'resting texture," he noticed. "Whassit made out of?"
"Crocodile skin," Chidder said.
Teppic looked at him in the warm glow of wine and candlelight, and smiled.
(1) So named for its chief ingredient, the waldorf, a small green fruit that tastes amazingly like raw oysters on the half-shell and is approximately four times as expensive by the ounce.
(2) Such as Chidder.
Teppic was dreaming of his schoolboy days.
He was also buried in the downy depths of a bed in one of the Unnamed's guest cabins, and thoroughly drunk.
In the morning when he woke, he would have a severe headache. He would also not remember his dream, which went like this:
He was waiting in the shadows of the Guild School's gates for Chidder to finish his exam. He had been waiting for what seemed like forever, as the torches burned lower and the gong tower struck two.
Finally, when he had begun to give up hope that the other boy had passed, Chidder appeared.
"You're late," Teppic accused. Looking down, he noticed that he was wearing a new pair of boots.
"Rule of Commerce," Chidder replied cheerfully. "Keep 'em waiting, if you can. I made it, though, didn't I?"
"Yes," said Teppic, standing up from the bench as Chidder moved forward, through the arch of the main gates and into the yard. "You did."