"Candidates. You will go on the sound of the Guild clock chiming the hour."
The first eight were in the courtyard of the Guild, each facing one of the eight directions of the Disc compass. Emilia Mountjoy- Standish is at Hubwards, which means she is to leave via the front gate. She is aware of Dominica La Diabla on her left, and of Lucinda Rust on her right. She would bet a small sum on Lucinda becoming a Fail: she is a typical product of the Rust family, whose arrogance and over-confidence are in inverse proportion to their intelligence and ability. Dominica, she knows, is from the bull-running country out on the Vieux River down towards Genua and Brindisi. She has the natural hauteur of the Hidalga, and with good reason.
She'll pass. Cowbag.
The Teacher's Guild clock heralded the cacophony of noise that signals midnight. The eight Candidates waited, through the twelve deadly silences of the university bell Old Tom, for the very last clock of all – their own – to toll out the twelve sonorous peals that told somebody, somewhere, the time was now Too Late. She hoped it wouldn't be for her.
And, without fuss or haste, they were off. The candidates for Under were being directed to their entry points to the Undercity: a senior Assassin called "Black-One!" and indicated an otherwise anonymous drain cover. Emilia followed the directed exit point for White-Three: not, under any circumstances, through the Guild gates, but over them. As she climbed, Emilia wondered what might have happened if she had walked through the gates. An immediate Fail, she supposed. From a higher vantage point, she scanned Filigree Street . Was that a gleam of darkened metal in the shadow there, watching the gates? She shrugged it away and carried on the climb, having memorized the first leg of the route. This would take her to her first checkpoint: the invigilator would then either give her a next stage to memorise, or tell her where her next checkpoint would be, leaving her free to plan her own route.
Emilia felt the exultation of edificeering. The heights, the breeze in her hair, the freedom of the high places…. Knock it off, she told herself. Tonight it's as serious as it ever gets. You don't know what they've got planned for you to keep you on your toes. There are all manner of little surprises, they change randomly from year to year, so reading old exam reports doesn't help, and they keep introducing new ones. Just don't let yourself be surprised!
To her heightened eyes, something seemed wrong with the plank-bridge that normally spanned Wixon's Alley. It was there, where it always had been, but… somebody's moved it lately. They just haven't put it back in exactly the same place. You can see the paler, less dirty, stone where it used to sit.
She crouched and regarded it some more, then thought That's fair. They're giving me just enough of a chance to see it's been moved. If I miss an obvious clue like that, I deserve to Fail myself, from…. About ninety feet up onto hard cobbles.
She prepared and threw a grapple, testing it for strength and securing it with a slip-knot on her own side. Clutching the doubled length of rope that she needed on the other side, she discreetly rope-crawled across, tugging hard on the free length to release the slip-knot and so recover the rope. Recoiling it and slipping it over her shoulder, she moved on, prickling hairs on the nape of her neck telling her she was not alone.
Let's see… the rooftop of the temple of the Troll Gods, Clay Lane.
She now recognized the mis-shapen monolithic things around her as Troll sculpture, devotional statues of their Gods.
She took a deep breath.
"Sir. I am here!"
One of the misshapen monolithic rocks shuddered, stepped forward, and doffed its disguise. The familiar hunchbacked shape was hardly more comforting.
"Very vell." said the voice of Doctor Graumunchen (Languages Dept: Überwaldean, Borogravian and Zlobenian).
"Candidate, you vill have zer goodness to identify yourself!"
"White, Three" Emilia called, using her issued code number.
"Vhich is Miss Mountjoy-Standish, Emilia. Nicht wahr?"
"Ich heisse Emilia Mountjoy-Standish, ja"
"Alles in ordning. We begin, shall we?"
The hunchbacked Assassin held up a card. Light glinted from his monocle.
"Sir, that is Witch-sign for Female resident. Middle-aged widow. She is hungry for psychic readings of all kinds. She is actively seeking news of her next husband. Pays generously."
"Sehr gut."
A tick on the clipboard, the card is replaced.
"Name for me the culturally identifying veapons of five different races on the Disc."
"The prospecting axe of the Dwarfs. The knobkerrie of the Kwa'Zulu. The short-hafted stabbing assegai of the Bantustan. (Thank you, miss Smith-Rhodes!) The flint-tipped arrow of the Elves…." Emilia dried up.
"That is only four, miss Mountjoy-Standish!" Graumunchen prompted her. She swallowed and her mouth dried. Think, girl! Überwald… human… Graumunchen's face… those triangular scars… ah!
"The ritual schlange sword of the Überwaldean university duelling societies. Sir!"
Nod, tick.
"Are these permissible to the Assassin?"
"Automatically, sir, only if the Assassin is also of that race and culture. Sometimes if the client is of a certain race and culture, it is considered a courtesy detail to inhume them with a culturally appropriate weapon. Or in extremis, if these are the only weapons to be found when needed. Otherwise we are expected to remain within the limits set by the Concordat."
Nod, tick.
"Sehr gut, alles in befehl. You are now to make your way to the roof of the Opera House, taking very great care to remain Overground at all times. Setting even one foot on the ground will be cause for a Fail. Fahren sie auf!"
Emilia set off again, from rooftop to cornice, climbing sometimes up, sometimes down, as the route unfolded in her mind's eye. One down, three to go. Plus her Emergency Drop – she wasn't complacent enough to think she'd spotted and avoided it just before her meeting with Graumunchen. There would be others.
She cautiously crossed the River, courtesy of the row of houses that had sprung up along the line of the Wood Bridge, and recconoitred the approach to the Opera House. At first the instruction looked impossible - there was so much open space between the Opera House and its surrounding buildings that approaching at ground level seemed inevitable. There was no clear way to bridge it.
Emilia circled from rooftop to rooftop, looking for away. Once she spotted another Candidate, heading towards his or her next checkpoint. Am I as easy to spot as that?
Then she saw it.
The coach park. Of course, the building was brightly lit up. Opera was being perpetrated inside. She had a chance to stay within the letter of her instructions, if not the spirit. The unwritten law of the concordat blazed in front of her eyes.
Thou shalt not get caught.
And what had Miss Band said to her last year, on the occasion Cass and herself had been caught out, and might have been expelled?
I know what the school rules say. But as you get older, ladies, you will realize that there are no such things as rules: merely guidelines. But if I may advise you: Rule One is what it always was, which is Don't let yourselves be caught. It makes life so much simpler if the people who make the rules believe you are conforming to them. That's the benefit of hard personal experience."
OK. Here goes nothing.
The coaches were packed closely together in the park. Little knots of drivers and teamsters were clustered , sharing a smoke or a cup of tea from a nearby stall. Only a few remained with their vehicles.
Millie leapt from the wall to the roof of a nearby coach, and thereafter from roof to roof. Whinnying horses, and a shout of "'Ere you, what's your game?" followed her. Millie paused just long enough to let her identity be guessed at, and a second, more nervous, voice called "Jed, Jed! Leave 'im be! The Assassins are out tonight, weren't you told? He'll only be the first! Listen, mate, if your coachwork gets damaged tonight, you bill the Guild. They're usually good about paying up."
Millie nodded, leapt across the last few coach roofs, and was under the wall of the Opera House. She leapt again, caught a drainpipe, and was soon lost to view in the light and shadow.
The Opera House side wall rates as a fairly easy climb, in normal edificeering terms. But this wasn't a normal night: instinct made Emilia pause before going for a new hand-hold behind a drainpipe cover. Something was there…. A few moments careful fumbling with an angled mirror revealed two or three ordinary dressmakers' pins, set into a wooden block and positioned just where fingers keen for their next secure grip would find them. They didn't need to be tipped with rare poison: the shock of clutching a handful of sharp pins might have been enough to provoke a fall.
Estimating she had only thirty or forty feet to the top, Emilia considered the brick surface of the wall. It would have just enough finger and toeholds, and she could see what was there.
She left the safe territory of the external piping behind, and sprinted for the top, finally falling over the parapet onto the roof.
Taking a few moments to get her breath back, she heard distant laughter and the chink of glasses. She cautiously approached, ducking behind a chimney-stack.
Of all the nights for off-duty opera people to come outside for a drink! she raged.
She heard a snatch of a conversation in Quirmian un moment, s'il tu plais. Ah, je crois que j'ai une affaire!
A dark shadow put down a glass, detached itself from the drinking group, and moved across towards Emilia.
Damn, damn and blast, it's Two Swords!
"Ma'am. I am here."
"So I perceive. Your number?"
"White, three"
"Emilia, ma petite. Tu es prêt?"
"Oui, madame!"
"Let's start." Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Epées readied her clip-board. She unclipped and held up a sign in the dim light. Emilia was ready.
"Alchemists' Guild pictogram, madame. It's a warning sign telling everybody that the liquid chemical essence stored here is corrosive, acidic, and its fumes are poisonous. Do not enter without the relevant protective clothing and a breathing mask."
D'Accord. (nod, tick).
"Name me three occasions where musical instruments have been used as tools of inhumation."
"In 1890, the Hon. Llewellyn Lloyd-Purdey of Viper House successfully rebuilt a Llamedosian Battle Harp according to the ancient original. Pointed at an enemy, the unique sonic properties can cause bowels to evacuate, walls to collapse, and in the lowest of all registers, localized earthquakes will…"
"C'est l'une. Et deuxième?"
"In 1745, posing as a traveling minstrel, Richard de Plombe of Scorpion House used his mandolin strings as a makeshift garotte…"
"C'est deux. Et la troisième?"
Emilia was temporarily stumped. But a memory surfaced. She grabbed at it.
"Nine years ago, an Assassin posed as a violinist with the house musicians at a restaurant. She had a one-shot crossbow concealed in her violin. Whilst serenading the client with a selection of Quirmian melodies, she activated the crossbow and shot him through the throat, then escaped in the resultant confusion".
There was a dead icy silence. Emilia wondered if she'd gone too far.
"You would not care to identify this unique creature, this female assassin, would you? " Two Swords said, with a hint of cold silk in her voice.
Emilia took a deep breath.
"She is believed to be Emmanuelle-Marie Lapoignarde les Deux-Epées, housemistress of Black Widow House."
A moment of still silence went on for ever. It was broken by an appreciative low laugh. And the noise of a tick against a clipboard.
"Your third question. Must a well-dressed Assassin wear a sword at all times?"
Emilia went cold. It was barely an hour, maybe less, since she'd raised this with Jocasta and asked what the chances were of drawing Two-Swords as examiner. Ah well, in for a penny…
"Only on those social or professional occasions that call for a sword, madame, and where not wearing one could be taken as bad manners or discourtesy."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes, I believe I am."
"You would not like to reconsider, peut-être?"
"No, madame, I believe I am quoting Lord Downey himself when he was asked to give a ruling."
A reluctant third tick.
"Eh bien" she said, lowering the clipboard. "Attends! Ecoutes! White Three. Somewhere on this rooftop is a trapdoor. It leads to an otherwise disused staircase which has been forgotten by the Opera House and its staff. But it will take you into the opera cellars and from there into the Undercity. From the Undercity to the Grand Cul. You will navigate until you are underneath Scoone Avenue, An exit will be marked that will bring you out into the garden of a private residence on that road. There you shall encounter your next checkpoint. Va't'en! Allez! Vite!"
Emilia needed no encouragement. She wondered what demon had prompted her to needle Two-Swords with a memory of an inhumation she carried out when she was working for Chrysoprase the Troll.
But where was this dratted trapdoor? There were at least two or three. One, when lifted, led to a flight of stairs, but these were well-travelled and looked regularly swept. She moved onto the next. The same, and anyway it lifted too easily and silently to be long-disused. . And to the third… Ah-ha! The trapdoor sounded the first note of a creak, soon silenced by an application of spiral stairway beneath showed as a mass of paler-coloured dust undisturbed on either side of a darker pathway in the middle, which had been occasionally traveled but not that regularly. Emilia thought back to the big gossip a few years ago about the Opera Phantom and wondered if she was treading in his footsteps.
She moved quickly and carefully, staying to the well-beaten centre of each tread, passing boarded-up doorways at regular intervals, She passed… a full length mirror? A quick look showed that from this side it was glass, permitting a view into a singer's bedroom. Clothes were scattered in untidy clumps and a music stand was upright with a score in it, facing the mirror. Emiliia grinned and carried on down.. she noticed the dusty steps were coming to an abrupt end and everything was all dark… then her feet trod on nothing. She fell downwards and forwards, avoiding the drop into the void on her right. She saw the continuation of the steps flash in front of her, and by sheer good luck got her fingertips to it, twisting her body as she swung her other arm up and grabbed for dear life.
Dangling there, over the drop, she saw that a full half-spiral's worth of steps had been removed. The spiral continued below her: she could just see its continuation, ten feet below her feet. The drop to her right, down the empty space at the centre of the spiral, appeared to be seventy or eighty feet onto stone flags. Feeling the step she was holding onto creaking ominously under her fingers, Emilia made a very quick choice, and kicked herself into space, seeking to throw her weight backwards as she landed on the steps below, succeeding in barking her shins and knocking her breath out. She laid like a stranded fish for a while, gasping for breath, mouth opening and closing in pain and eyes streaming with tears.
But she was alive and had survived the Emergency Drop.
The passage down into the Undercity was uneventful. She passed several checkpoints on the way, called out her number, and was waved on: these were not for her. As she proceeded further up the Cloaca and underneath some of the richest real estate in the city of Ankh, she noted that Harry King's boys had been busy: they had been tracing secondary outlets back to the source and labeling them appropriately, prior to reconnecting and re-opening the drainage system for the people who could afford to pay for the privilege.
She shuddered at the implication, but realized her next stage in the route. At least she could walk upright in the tributary sewer labelled "Scoone Avenue, Moon Pond Lane, Nap Hill"… for now, anyway.
She tried to close her nose and eyes to what she was walking in, and carefully made her way upwards via the drains.
Twenty minutes later, feeling rank, grubby and stinking, Emilia could sense and smell fresh air on the other side of the manhole cover. Very, very, carefully, she lifted it just clear of its mounting and slid it to one side. Trying to show the lowest possible profile, she slid gratefully onto the grass and eased the cover back into place. Then a dark shadow moved towards a darker shadow still.
Emilia's senses were heightened. She had a suspicion that somebody was out there looking for her. Get under cover, girl! Then assess the situation!
She felt, rather than heard, a large animal running up behind her. As it leapt for her back, bowling her over, she was surprised at its silence – a dog would be barking? Or growling? She fumbled for the pepper spray to fire in its face as they struggled.
"GrrrrRHHH!"
Oh yes. Now it was growling, a low, primeval, primitive growl.
Other feet rushed over.
"SIR! Sir! We got one! It's alright, miss, no, I'm not talking to YOU, quick, get the cuffs on him – her - she's a sodding Assassin! Let go now, miss, Ping's getting her cuffed. Don't move, you, this is a loaded crossbow.."
The large heavy dog that had knocked her down retreated out of her field of vision, and she looked up into the even less pleasant vista that was the face of Corporal Nobby Nobbs of the Watch. The bolt of the crossbow that was supposed to be covering her was describing a frightened figure-of-eight in the air, and she wanted to kick it out of his hands, but the other watchman had got her handcuffed.
And behind them, a flash of light as a match flared. For a second it illuminated a very familiar face, and in a second she realized, with despair, exactly whose garden on Scoone Avenue she'd emerged into.
Commander Vimes of the Watch, Duke of Ankh-Morpork, took a satisfied draw on his cigar.
"First one tonight, then. Well done, lads. Let's get her to the holding area. Sergeant Angua?"
The blonde sergeant reappeared, doing up her breastplate straps.
"Sir?"
"First catch, well done. It's a girl, though, so you and Precious dust her down for concealed weapons. I'd better take your name, young lady, for my paperwork"
Emilia felt utterly disconsolate. She'd Failed. What happened next?
"Emilia Mountjoy-Standish, sir" she said, head hanging low.
"You're a friend of Jocasta Wiggs, aren't you? Is she running tonight?"
"Not till much later, sir. Well after three."
She passively stood as the gigantic policewoman, built like a troll, searched her for weapons and equipment.
"I think that's all, sir"
"You only think? Check the hatband. There's usually a flexible knife hidden in there"
Damn.
Vimes inspected the pile of weapons critically.
"That's all? Assassin's honour?"
"Word of honour, sir, but I'm not an Assassin. Never will be, now. "
Vimes put an uncomfortable, intended to be fatherly, hand on her shoulder.
"Word of advice, miss. It's never over while you're still alive and breathing." He paused. "Ah. I see. That's what's worrying you. Relax. When Vetinari and that bastard Downey asked for my assistance in your final exams, I put a lot of conditions on it. Condition one: I and my Watchmen are here tonight to co-operate with the Assassin's Guild in providing you with a realistic examination. But I made it clear to Downey that we are not his bloody executioners. OK, if one of you showed fight and killed or wounded one of my Watchmen, it would be different and another set of rules would apply. Downey would most probably be collecting a coffin in the morning, which is what the bastard prefers. But you gave up and surrendered to superior force."
Vimes took another drag of his cigar.
"You're the first. There will be more by morning. I am taking your names so that I can stick the list on Downey's desk and warn him I want to see you all alive and ready to resit your exam, or there will be seven kinds of bloody Hell to pay. Vetinari agrees, by the way. His opinion is that too many of you get killed on Finals, and he wants a Fail grade to be nowhere near as final as that. You're in a dangerous job, some of you inevitably will die tonight, but it shouldn't be at the hands of your examiners. I agree."
They had arrived at a wooden shed in the Ramkin family grounds. Vimes courteously held the door open.
"One door. Several strong locks. You're handcuffed. Not impregnable, but the best I can do at short notice. When we get a few more of you, I'll get Willikins to organize you hot drinks, maybe something to eat, blankets if you need them. Just dump her gear on the table there, constable? Thank you.
"Where were we? Oh yes, Vetinari suggested a twist on the usual for tonight, where a proportion of you get vectored through my garden to test your escape and evasion skills. It gives me a chance to test my home security in near-real conditions. I get to sharpen my Watchmens' skills on patrolling and capturing prowlers by night. They get a field exercise in real conditions. You get the sense of fear of knowing you're being followed by people, some of whom know their business. And on the face of it, you've failed, but you're still alive to try again, which is gravy for you people. Downey has been persuaded to allow a retake for borderline fails tonight, by the way. I'll hold him to that, whatever part of the body I have to hold him by! "
Vimes grinned at her. "Goodnight, miss. You might want to have a think about what it really says in your Concordat. Sometimes people have been reading the same bits for so long that they miss the real meaning."
The door closed, and was locked. Emilia was left alone with her thoughts. What had Vimes been trying to tell her? Something he wasn't able to say explicitly? Something about the real meaning of the Concordat? And why had he left her equipment within easy reach? That was sloppy, for the Watch! Think, Emilia. He called it "Escape and evasion". He said the game isn't over while you're still alive and breathing.
Ten minutes or so later, heavy footsteps on the gravel path outside the shed. Two men.
"Wonder if she's worked it out yet?" Vimes.
"You dropped her enough hints, sir." Carrot, his deputy.
"Hmm. She could just be sitting there feeling sorry for herself. Shame, really. I took the time to try and read their Concordat, Carrot. It's interesting what it actually says."
"Really, sir?"
"Did you know, Carrot, it's actually there, in black and white on the pages of their own bloody manual, that an Assassin should only be prepared to sacrifice his life if the circumstances are completely hopeless? If they're injured beyond the reach of field medicine and their buddies can't carry them out, for instance. Even then, an Assassin should submit to temporary captivity, if there is no alternative, and play along with the captors until such time as an escape opportunity presents itself. The Assassin is actually expected to make an escape attempt and then evade pursuit until they're back on friendly ground again."
"And even if injured, their associates should make every conceivable attempt to get them to safety. Even if the injury is the result of their own negligence or over-confidence."
"Exactly, Carrot. So this business of the examiner having the right to inhume a candidate who gets it wrong is plain against even their own rulebook. Which makes it murder, Carrot, by anyone's standards. I mean, we put Watch recruits through the most realistic exercises we can devise, like tonight, and the odd accident happens, but we don't bloody well test them to destruction! "
"I thought you hated the assasins, sir?"
"Oh, I do! With a passion. But these aren't yet Assassins. They're just kids. And in my book, need fair treatment and protection like any other kid of seventeen or eighteen . You know, I put all this to Downey at the palace? At least the black-hearted bastard had the grace to look shifty!"
"So, all the young lady in there needs to do..."
"Is to remember she's got a set of lockpicks in her boot-heels. Precious didn't look there and somehow I forgot to prompt her. "Get the cuffs off – she can leave those behind, they're Watch property – pick up her kit, break out of the shed, and make it to safe ground"
"Which would be Miss Sanderson-Reeves, who's waiting with a clip-board at the summerhouse."
"Exactly, Carrot, The moment she's within sight of the Marriage Guidance Counsellor and the hatchet-faced old bat acknowledges her, it's Game Over, and she gets a safe-conduct out of my garden. Shall we go and check the patrols?"
They marched off, Vimes' smoke-break over.
Emilia filled up with mixed emotions. Vimes was secretly on her side? He must be…
She had a Plan. She followed it. About fifteen minutes later, a loose plank at the back of the shed prised itself loose and a dark figure crept out…
Ten minutes after that, she was sprinting for dear life across the Ramkin lawn with a werewolf and three or four Watchmen in pursuit. She saw the summerhouse. She called out:
"Ma'am! I am here!"
"Very well."
The spare figure of Miss Sanderson-Reeves stepped out. She was sipping from a cup of tea. Emilia heard the pursuit behind her slacken and fade.
"Identify yourself!"
"White-three"
"Ah, Miss Mountjoy-Standish. Incidentally, without seeing me, how did you know I was a "ma'am?" "
Emilia thought quickly.
"Ma'm, simple deduction. The Guild prides itself on being socially aware. This is Lady Ramkin's family home. It follows on that the member of staff sent to invigilate here should be somebody who could represent the Guild properly in the presence of the Duke and Duchess. I therefore guessed it either had to be you or Lady T'Malia."
The appeal to her vanity and snobishness had worked: the teacher visibly preened. Knowing the weaknesses of your teachers is a sort of power, Emilia thought.
"Lady Ramkin was kind enough to send refreshments out to me. A true member of the nobility" she said, approvingly.
"Now let us begin. This sign?"
"Troll-runes. They roughly translate as " Guhoolog thieving pebble of unmarried parents. Do not even think it or your guhoolug head is kicked in"
"And the word "guhoolog" which you are very carefully not translating?"
"Perhaps best left untranslated, ma'am. I understand it to be a term used for extra emphasis."
Five minutes later, Segeant Angua was escorting her to the gate with a safe-conduct pass.
"Good luck" she said. "I know I shouldn't be wishing you luck, but every profession in this city is going to be better off for a few more women in it."
Emilia had been told to make her way to the Tump, by the quickest possible route.
While the hill itself had been rebuilt on and was now the Tump Tower, headquarters of the Grand Trunk Clacks Company (now owned by the Post Office), the crypts and cellars of the old castle still existed in the mound itself.
She entered one of them.
"Sir. I am here."
"Ok, let's get cracking."
Bill Bradlifudd, one of the new intake of teachers, a bluff, funny, one-of-the-boys man, admired and liked by the pupils, totally at one with the boys (he'd previously taught at Hugglestones) but not quite at ease with girl pupils. He taught PE and Games.
Another sign and three more questions.
Bluff Bill then led her into another chamber. In the dim light, she saw a figure lying on a paliasse on the floor, covered b y a blanket.
Well, this is easy, she thought. Everyone knows it's a dummy under the blanket.
"In your own time" Bill requested, clipboard at the ready.
She leveled her pistol crossbow, thinking Is this it? What an anticlimax! And aimed for the dummy's head.
Then the figure under the blanket started to writhe and moan.
She felt the hair prickling on the back of her neck. Horror welled. But she steadied herself.
"Forgive me" she breathed, and fired. The figure jolted and twirched and was still and silent.
Emilia, full of the horror and exultation of the moment, accepted the pink slip absently, not realizing its full significance.
Bill took a deep breath.
"No. You should forgive me."
He pulled the blanket back and revealed a realistic human dummy, with a key in its side. He removed the crossbow bolt and passed it back to Emilia, then turned the key a few times. The dummy writhed and the sound of moaning resumed.
"We changed the surprise. We asked Tuttles to design a realistic dummy with a clockwork mechanism. You should think yourself lucky. They experimented with live pigs in my graduation year. Too messy, and the animal rights people protested."
He paused.
"You do know you're a full Assassin now? Well done. You can go back to the Guild. I'm sure your family need to know you've passed."
Emilia Mountjoy-Standish, Licenced Assassin, went and sat on the Tump mound for a while to get her head together. Walking back through the City in her current state of mind would be bringing trouble on her own head. She was horrified, she was elated, she was confused, but most of all, she needed a bath and her bed.