Teppic looked up. There was a senior assassin standing beside him, with a purple teaching sash over his robes. It was the first assassin he'd seen, apart from Vyrt. The man was pleasant enough. You could imagine him making sausages.

'Are you talking to me?' he said.

'You will stand up when you address a master,' said the rosy face.

'I will?' Teppic was fascinated. He wondered how this could be achieved. Discipline had not hitherto been a major feature in his life. Most of his tutors had been sufficiently unnerved by the sight of the king occasionally perched on top of a door that they raced through such lessons as they had and then locked themselves in their rooms.

'I will sir,' said the teacher. He consulted the list in his hand.

'What is your name, boy?' he continued.

'Prince Pteppic of the Old Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Sun,' said Teppic easily. 'I appreciate you are ignorant of the etiquette, but you should not call me sir, and you should touch the ground with your forehead when you address me.'

'Pateppic, is it?' said the master.

'No. Pteppic.'

'Ah. Teppic,' said the master, and ticked off a name on his list. He gave Teppic a generous smile.

'Well, now, your majesty,' he said, 'I am Grunworth Nivor, your housemaster. You are in Viper House. To my certain knowledge there are at least eleven Kingdoms of the Sun on the Disc and, before the end of the week, you will present me with a short essay detailing their geographical location, political complexion, capital city or principal seat of government, and a suggested route into the bed— chamber of the head of state of your choice. However, in all the world there is only one Viper House. Good morning to you, boy.'

He turned away and homed in on another cowering pupil. 'He's not a bad sort,' said a voice behind Teppic. 'Anyway, all the stuffs in the library. I'll show you if you like. I'm Chidder.

Teppic turned. He was being addressed by a boy of about his own age and height, whose black suit — plain black, for First Years — looked as though it had been nailed on to him in bits. The youth was holding out a hand. Teppic gave it a polite glance.

'Yes?' he said.

'What's your name, kiddo?'

Teppic drew himself up. He was getting fed up with this treatment. 'Kiddo? I'll have you know the blood of pharaohs runs in my veins!'

The other boy looked at him unabashed, with his head on one side and a faint smile on his face.

'Would you like it to stay there?' he said.

The baker was just along the alley, and a handful of the staff had stepped out into the comparative cool of the pre-dawn air for a quick smoke and a break from the desert heat of the ovens. Their chattering spiralled up to Teppic, high in the shadows, gripping a fortuitous window sill while his feet scrabbled for a purchase among the bricks.

It's not that bad, he told himself. You've tackled worse. The hubward face of the Patrician's palace last winter, for example, when all the gutters had overflowed and the walls were solid ice. This isn't much more than a 3, maybe a 3.2. You and old Chiddy used to go up walls like this rather than stroll down the street, it's just a matter of perspective.

Perspective. He glanced down, at seventy feet of infinity. Splat City, man, get a grip on yourself. On the wall. His right foot found a worn section of mortar, into which his toes planted themselves with barely a conscious instruction from a brain now feeling too fragile to take more than a distant interest in the proceedings.

He took a breath, tensed, and then dropped one hand to his belt, seized a dagger, and thrust it between the bricks beside him before gravity worked out what was happening. He paused, panting, waiting for gravity to lose interest in him again, and then swung his body sideways and tried the same thing a second time.

Down below one of the bakers told a suggestive joke, and brushed a speck of mortar from his ear. As his colleagues laughed Teppic stood up in the moonlight, balancing on two slivers of Klatchian steel, and gently walked his palms up the wall to the window whose sill had been his brief salvation.

It was wedged shut. A good blow would surely open it, but only at about the same moment as it sent him reeling back into empty air. Teppic sighed and, moving with the delicacy of a watchmaker, drew his diamond compasses from their pouch and dragged a slow, gentle circle on the dusty glass…

'You carry it yourself,' said Chidder. 'That's the rule around here.'

Teppic looked at the trunk. It was an intriguing notion. 'At home we've people who do that,' he said. 'Eunuchs and so on.

'You should of brought one with you.'

'They don't travel well,' said Teppic. In fact he'd adamantly refused all suggestions that a small retinue should accompany him, and Dios had sulked for days. That was not how a member of the royal blood should go forth into the world, he said. Teppic had remained firm. He was pretty certain that assassins weren't expected to go about their business accompanied by handmaidens and buglers. Now, however, the idea seemed to have some merit. He gave the trunk an experimental heave, and managed to get it across his shoulders.

'Your people are pretty rich, then?' said Chidder, ambling along beside him.

Teppic thought about this. 'No, not really,' he said. 'They mainly grow melons and garlic and that kind of thing. And stand in the streets and shout «hurrah».'

'This is your parents you're talking about?' said Chidder, puzzled.

'Oh, them? No, my father's a pharaoh. My mother was a concubine. I think.'

'I thought that was some sort of vegetable.'

'I don't think so. We've never really discussed it. Anyway, she died when I was young.

'How dreadful,' said Chidder cheerfully.

'She went for a moonlight swim in what turned out to be a crocodile.' Teppic tried politely not to be hurt at the boy's reaction.

'My father's in commerce,' said Chidder, as they passed through the archway.

'That's fascinating,' said Teppic dutifully. He felt quite broken by all these new experiences, and added, 'I've never been to Commerce, but I understand they're very fine people.'

Over the next hour or two Chidder, who ambled gently through life as though he'd already worked it all out, introduced Teppic to the various mysteries of the dormitories, the classrooms and the plumbing. He left the plumbing until last, for all sorts of reasons.

'Not any?' he said.

'There's buckets and things,' said Teppic vaguely, 'and lots of servants.'

'Bit old fashioned, this kingdom of yours?'

Teppic nodded. 'It's the pyramids,' he said. 'They take all the money.'

'Expensive things, I should imagine.'

'Not particularly. They're just made of stone.' Teppic sighed. 'We've got lots of stone,' he said, 'and sand. Stone and sand. We're really big on them. If you ever need any stone and sand, we're the people for you. It's fitting out the insides that is really expensive. We're still avoiding paying for grandfather's, and that wasn't very big. Just three chambers.' Teppic turned and looked out of the window; they were back in the dormitory at this point.

'The whole kingdom's in debt,' he said, quietly. 'I mean even our debts are in debt. That's why I'm here, really. Someone in our house needs to earn some money. A royal prince can't hang around looking ornamental any more. He's got to get out and do something useful in the community.'

Chidder leaned on the window sill.

'Couldn't you take some of the stuff out of the pyramids, then?' he said.

'Don't be silly.'

'Sorry.'

Teppic gloomily watched the figures below.

'There's a lot of people here,' he said, to change the subject. 'I didn't realise it would be so big.' He shivered. 'Or so cold,' he added.

'People drop out all the time,' said Chidder. 'Can't stand the course. The important thing is to know what's what and who's who. See that fellow over there?'

Teppic followed his pointing finger to a group of older students, who were lounging against the pillars by the entrance.

'The big one? Face like the end of your boot?'

'That's Fliemoe. Watch out for him. If he invites you for toast in his study, don't go.'

'And who's the little kid with the curls?' said Teppic. He pointed to a small lad receiving the attentions of a washed-out looking lady. She was licking her handkerchief and dabbing apparent smudges off his face. When she stopped that, she straightened his tie.

Chidder craned to see. 'Oh, just some new kid,' he said. 'Arthur someone. Still hanging on to his mummy, I see. He won't last long.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Teppic. 'We do, too, and we've lasted for thousands of years.'

A disc of glass dropped into the silent building and tinkled on the floor. There was no other sound for several minutes. Then there was the faint clonk-clonk of an oil can. A shadow that had been lying naturally on the window sill, a morgue for blue— bottles, turned out to be an arm which was moving with vegetable slowness towards the window's catch.

There was a scrape of metal, and then the whole window swung out in tribological silence.

Teppic dropped over the sill and vanished into the shadow below it.

For a minute or two the dusty space was filled with the intense absence of noise caused by someone moving with extreme care. Once again there was the squirting of oil, and then a metallic whisper as the bolt of a trapdoor leading on to the roof moved gently aside.

Teppic waited for his breath to catch up with him, and in that moment heard the sound. It was down among the white noise at the edge of hearing, but there was no doubt about it. Someone was waiting just above the trapdoor, and they'd just put their hand on a piece of paper to stop it rattling in the breeze.

His own hand dropped from the bolt. He eased his way with exquisite care back across the greasy floor and felt his way along a rough wooden wall until he came to the door. This time he took no chances, but uncorked his oil can and let a silent drop fall on to the hinges.

A moment later he was through. A rat, idly patrolling the draughty passage beyond, had to stop itself from swallowing its own tongue as he floated past.

There was another doorway at the end, and a maze of musty storerooms until he found a stairway. He judged himself to be about thirty yards from the trapdoor. There hadn't been any flues that he could see. There ought to be a clear shot across the roof.

He hunkered down and pulled out his knife roll, its velvet blackness making a darker oblong in the shadows. He selected a Number Five, not everyone's throwing knife, but worthwhile if you had the trick of it.

Shortly afterwards his head rose very carefully over the edge of the roof, one arm bent behind it but ready to uncurl in a complex interplay of forces that would combine to send a few ounces of steel gliding across the night.

Mericet was sitting by the trapdoor, looking at his clipboard. Teppic's eyes swivelled to the oblong of the plank bridge, stored meticulously against the parapet a few feet away.

He was certain he had made no noise. He'd have to swear that the examiner heard the sound of his gaze falling on him.

The old man raised his bald head.

'Thank you, Mr Teppic,' he said, 'you may proceed.'

Teppic felt the sweat of his body grow cold. He stared at the plank, and then at the examiner, and then at his knife. 'Y's, sir,' he said. This didn't seem like enough, in the circumstances. He added, 'Thank you, sir.'

He'd always remember the first night in the dormitory. It was long enough to accommodate all eighteen boys in Viper House, and draughty enough to accommodate the great outdoors. Its designer may have had comfort in mind, but only so that he could avoid it wherever possible: he had contrived a room that could actually be colder than the weather outside.

'I thought we got rooms to ourselves,' said Teppic.

Chidder, who had laid claim to the least exposed bed in the whole refrigerator, nodded at him.

'Later on,' he said. He lay back, and winced. 'Do they sharpen these springs, do you reckon?'

Teppic said nothing. The bed was in fact rather more comfortable than the one he'd slept in at home. His parents, being high born, naturally tolerated conditions for their children which would have been rejected out of hand by destitute sandflies.

He stretched out on the thin mattress and analysed the day's events. He'd been enrolled as an assassin, all right, a student assassin, for more than seven hours and they hadn't even let him lay a hand on a knife yet. Of course, tomorrow was another day . . .

Chidder leaned over.

'Where's Arthur?' he said.

Teppic looked at the bed opposite him. There was a pathetically small sack of clothing positioned neatly in its centre, but no sign of its intended occupant.

'Do you think he's run away?' he said, staring around at the shadows.

'Could be,' said Chidder. 'It happens a lot, you know. Mummy's boys, away from home for the first time-'

The door at the end of the room swung open slowly and Arthur entered, backwards, tugging a large and very reluctant billy goat. It fought him every step of the way down the aisle between the bedsteads.

The boys watched in silence for several minutes as he tethered the animal to the end of his bed, upended the sack on the blankets, and took out several black candles, a sprig of herbs, a rope of skulls, and a piece of chalk. Taking the chalk, and adopting the shiny, pink-faced expression of someone who is going to do what they know to be right no matter what, Arthur drew a double circle around his bed and then, getting down on his chubby knees, filled the space between them with as unpleasant a collection of occult symbols as Teppic. had ever seen. When they were completed to his satisfaction he placed the candles at strategic points and lit them; they spluttered and gave off a smell that suggested that you really wouldn't want to know what they were made of. He drew a short, red-handled knife from the jumble on the bed and advanced towards the goat— A pillow hit him on the back of the head.

'Garn! Pious little bastard!'

Arthur dropped the knife and burst into tears. Chidder sat up in bed.

'That was you, Cheesewright!' he said. 'I saw you!' Cheesewright, a skinny young man with red hair and a face that was one large freckle, glared at him.

'Well, it's too much,' he said. 'A fellow can't sleep with all this religion going on. I mean, only little kids say their prayers at bedtime these days, we're supposed to be learning to be assassins-'

'You can jolly well shut up, Cheesewright,' shouted Chidder. 'It'd be a better world if more people said their prayers, you know. I know I don't say mine as often as I should-'

A pillow cut him off in mid-sentence. He bounded out of bed and vaulted at the red-haired boy, fists flailing.

As the rest of the dormitory gathered around the scuffling pair Teppic slid out of bed and padded over to Arthur, who was sitting on the edge of his bed and sobbing.

He patted him uncertainly on the shoulder, on the basis that this sort of thing was supposed to reassure people.

'I shouldn't cry about it, youngster,' he said, gruffly.

'But — but all the runes have been scuffed,' said Arthur. 'It's all too late now! And that means the Great Om will come in the night and wind out my entrails on a stick!'

'Does it?'

'And suck out my eyes, my mother said!'

'Gosh!' said Teppic, fascinated. 'Really?' He was quite glad his bed was opposite Arthur's, and would offer an unrivalled view. 'What religion would this be?'

'We're Strict Authorised Ormits,' said Arthur. He blew his nose. 'I noticed you don't pray,' he said. 'Don't you have a god?'

'Oh yes,' said Teppic hesitantly, 'no doubt about that.'

'You don't seem to want to talk to him.'

Teppic shook his head. 'I can't,' he said, 'not here. He wouldn't be able to hear, you see.'

'My god can hear me anywhere,' said Arthur fervently.

'Well, mine has difficulty if you're on the other side of the room,' said Teppic. 'It can be very embarrassing.'

'You're not an Offlian, are you?' said Arthur. Offler was a Crocodile God, and lacked ears.

'No.'

'What god do you worship, then?'

'Not exactly worship,' said Teppic, discomforted. 'I wouldn't say worship. I mean, he's all right. He's my father, if you must know.'

Arthur's pink-rimmed eyes widened.

'You're the son of a god?' he whispered.

'It's all part of being a king, where I come from,' said Teppic hurriedly. 'He doesn't have to do very much. That is, the priests do the actual running of the country. He just makes sure that the river floods every year, d'you see, and services the Great Cow of the Arch of the Sky. Well, used to.'

'The Great-'

'My mother,' explained Teppic. 'It's all very embarrassing.'

'Does he smite people?'

'I don't think so. He's never said.'

Arthur reached down to the end of the bed. The goat, in the confusion, had chewed through its rope and trotted out of the door, vowing to give up religion in future.

'I'm going to get into awful trouble,' he said. 'I suppose you couldn't ask your father to explain things to the Great OM?'

'He might be able to,' said Teppic doubtfully. 'I was going to write home tomorrow anyway.

'The Great Orm is normally to be found in one of the Nether Hells,' said Arthur, 'where he watches everything we do. Everything I do, anyway. There's only me and mother left now, and she doesn't do much that needs watching.'

'I'll be sure and tell him.'

'Do you think the Great Orm will come tonight?'

'I shouldn't think so. I'll ask my father to be sure and tell him not to.'

At the other end of the dormitory Chidder was kneeling on Cheesewright's back and knocking his head repeatedly against the wall.

'Say it again,' he commanded. 'Come on — «There's nothing wrong-«'

'"There's nothing wrong with a chap being man enough-« curse you, Chidder, you beastly-'

'I can't hear you, Cheesewright,' said Chidder.

'"Man enough to say his prayers in front of other chaps», you rotter.'

'Right. And don't you forget it.'

After lights out Teppic lay in bed and thought about religion. It was certainly a very complicated subject.

The valley of the Djel had its own private gods, gods which had nothing to do with the world outside. It had always been very proud of the fact. The gods were wise and just and regulated the lives of men with skill and foresight, there was no question about that, but there were some puzzles.

For example, he knew his father made the sun come up and the river flood and so on. That was basic, it was what the pharaohs had done ever since the time of Khuft, you couldn't go around questioning things like that. The point was, though, did he just make the sun come up in the Valley or everywhere in the world? Making the sun come up in the Valley seemed a more reasonable proposition, after all, his father wasn't getting any younger, but it was rather difficult to imagine the sun coming up everywhere else and not the Valley, which led to the distressing thought that the sun would come up even if his father forgot about it, which was a very likely state of affairs. He'd never seen his father do anything much about making the sun rise, he had to admit. You'd expect at least a grunt of effort round about the dawn. His father never got up until after breakfast. The sun came up just the same.

He took some time to get to sleep. The bed, whatever Chidder said, was too soft, the air was too cold and, worst of all, the sky outside the high windows was too dark. At home it would have been full of flarelight from the necropolis, its silent flames eerie but somehow familiar and comforting, as though the ancestors were watching over their valley. He didn't like the darkness.

The following night in the dormitory one of the boys from further along the coast shyly tried to put the boy in the next bed inside a wickerwork cage he made in Craft and set fire to him, and the night after that Snoxall, who had the bed by the door and came from a little country out in the forests somewhere, painted himself green and asked for volunteers to have their intestines wound around a tree. On Thursday a small war broke out between those who worshipped the Mother Goddess in her aspect of the Moon and those who worshipped her in her aspect of a huge fat woman with enormous buttocks. After that the masters intervened and explained that religion, while a fine thing, could be taken too far.

Teppic had a suspicion that unpunctuality was unforgivable. But surely Mericet would have to be at the tower ahead of him? And he was going by the direct route. The old man couldn't possibly get there before him. Mind you, he couldn't possibly have got to the bridge in the alley first . . . He must have taken the bridge away before he met me and then he climbed up on the roof while I was climbing up the wall, Teppic told himself, without believing a word of it.

He ran along a roof ridge, senses alert for dislodged tiles or tripwires. His imagination equipped every shadow with watching figures.

The gong tower loomed ahead of him. He paused, and looked at it. He had seen it a thousand times before, and scaled it many times although it barely rated a 1.8, notwithstanding that the brass dome on top was an interesting climb. It was just a familiar landmark. That made it worse now; it bulked in front of him, a stubby menacing shape against the greyness of the sky.

He advanced more slowly now, approaching the tower obliquely across the sloping roof. It came to him that his initials were there, on the dome, along with Chiddy's and those of hundreds of other young assassins, and that they'd carry on being up there even if he died tonight. It was sort of comforting. Only not very.

He unslung his rope and made an easy throw on to the wide parapet that ran around the tower, just under the dome. He tested it, and heard the gentle clink as it caught.

Then he tugged it as hard as possible, bracing himself with one foot on a chimney stack.

Abruptly, and with no sound, a section of parapet slid outwards and dropped.

There was a crash as it hit the roof below and then slid down the tiles. Another pause was punctuated by a distant thump as it hit the silent street. A dog barked.

Stillness ruled the rooftops. Where Teppic had been the breeze stirred the burning air.

After several minutes he emerged from the deeper shadow of a chimney stack, smiling a strange and terrible smile.

Nothing the examiner could do could possibly be unfair. An assassin's clients were invariably rich enough to pay for extremely ingenious protection, up to and including hiring assassins of his own5. Mericet wasn't trying to kill him; he was merely trying to make him kill himself.

He sidled up to the base of the tower and found a drainpipe. It hadn't been coated with slipall, rather to his surprise, but his gently questing fingers did find the poisoned needles painted black and glued to the inner face of the pipe. He removed one with his tweezers and sniffed it.

Distilled bloat. Pretty expensive stuff, with an astonishing effect. He took a small glass phial from his belt and collected as many needles as he could find, and then put on his armoured gloves and, with the speed of a sloth, started to climb.

'Now it may well be that, as you travel across the city on your lawful occasions, you will find yourselves in opposition to fellow members, even one of the gentlemen with whom you are currently sharing a bench. And this is quite right and /what are you doing Mr Chidder no don 't tell me I'm sure I wouldn't want to know see me afterwards/ proper. It is open to everyone to defend themselves as best they may. There are, however, other enemies who will dog your steps and against whom you are all ill-prepared /who are they Mr Cheesewright?'/ Mericet spun round from his blackboard like a vulture who has just heard a death-rattle and pointed the chalk at Cheesewright, who gulped.

'Thieves' Guild, sir?' he managed.

'Step out here, boy.'

There were whispered rumours in the dormitories about what Mericet had done to slovenly pupils in the past, which. were always vague but horrifying. The class relaxed. Mericet usually concentrated on one victim at a time, so all they had to do now was look keen and enjoy the show. Crimson to his ears, Cheesewright got to his feet and trooped down the aisle between the desks.

The master inspected him thoughtfully.

'Well, now,' he said, 'and here we have Cheesewright, G., skulking across the quaking rooftops. See the determined ears. See the firm set of those knees.'

The class tittered dutifully. Cheesewright gave them an idiotic grin and rolled his eyes.

'But what are these sinister figures that march in step with him, hey? /Since you find this so funny, Mr Teppic, perhaps you would be so good as to tell Mr Cheesewright?'/ Teppic froze in mid-laugh.

Mericet's gaze bored into him. He's just like Dios the high priest, Teppic thought. Even father's frightened of Dios.

He knew what he ought to do, and he was damned if he was going to do it. He ought to be scared.

'Ill-preparedness,' he said. 'Carelessness. Lack of concentration. Poor maintenance of tools. Oh, and over-confidence, sir.'

Mericet held his gaze for some time, but Teppic had practised on the palace cats.

Finally the teacher gave a brief smile that had absolutely nothing to do with humour, tossed the chalk in the air, caught it again, and said: 'Mr Teppic is exactly right. Especially about the over-confidence.'

There was a ledge leading to an invitingly open window. There was oil on the ledge, and Teppic invested several minutes in screwing small crampons into cracks in the stonework before advancing.

He hung easily by the window and proceeded to take a number of small metal rods from his belt. They were threaded at the ends, and after a few seconds' brisk work he had a rod about three feet long on the end of which he affixed a small mirror.

That revealed nothing in the gloom beyond the opening. He pulled it back and tried again, this time attaching his hood into which he'd stuffed his gloves, to give the impression of a head cautiously revealing itself against the light. He was confident that it would pick up a bolt or a dart, but it remained resolutely unattacked.

He was chilly now, despite the heat of the night. Black velvet looked good, but that was about all you could say for it. The excitement and the exertion meant he was now wearing several pints of clammy water.

He advanced.

There was a thin black wire on the window sill, and a serrated blade screwed to the sash window above it. It was the work of a moment to wedge the sash with more rods and then cut the wire; the window dropped a fraction of an inch. He grinned in the darkness.

A sweep with a long rod inside the room revealed that there was a floor, apparently free of obstructions. There was also a wire at about chest height. He drew the rod back, affixed a small hook on the end, sent it back, caught the wire, and tugged.

There came the dull smack of a crossbow bolt hitting old plaster.

A lump of clay on the end of the same rod, pushed gently across the floor, revealed several caltraps. Teppic hauled them back and inspected them with interest. They were copper. If he'd tried the magnet technique, which was the usual method, he wouldn't have found them.

He thought for a while. He had slip-on priests in his pouch. They were devilish things to prowl around a room in, but he shuffled into them anyway. (Priests were metal-reinforced overshoes. They saved your soles. This is an Assassin joke.) Mericet was a poisons man, after all. Bloat! If he tipped them with that Teppic would plate himself all over the walls. They wouldn't need to bury him, they'd just redecorate over the top6. The rules. Mericet would have to obey the rules. He couldn't simply kill him, with no warning. He'd have to let him, by carelessness or over-confidence, kill himself.

He dropped lightly on to the floor inside the room and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. A few exploratory swings with the rods detected no more wires; there was a faint crunch underfoot as a priest crushed a caltrap.

'In your own time, Mr Teppic.'

Mericet was standing in a corner. Teppic heard the faint scratching of his pencil as he made a note. He tried to put the man out of his mind. He tried to think.

There was a figure lying on a bed. It was entirely covered by a blanket.

This was the last bit. This was the room where everything was decided. This was the bit the successful students never told you about. The unsuccessful ones weren't around to ask.

Teppic's mind filled up with options. At a time like this, he thought, some divine guidance would be necessary. Where are you, dad?'

He envied his fellow students who believed in gods that were intangible and lived a long way away on top of some mountain. A fellow could really believe in gods like that. But it was extremely hard to believe in a god when you saw him at breakfast every day.

He unslung his crossbow and screwed its greased sections together. It wasn't a proper weapon, but he'd run out of knives and his lips were too dry for the blowpipe.

There was a clicking from the corner. Mericet was idly tapping his teeth with his pencil.

It could be a dummy under there. How would he know? No, it had to be a real person. You heard tales. Perhaps he could try the rods— He shook his head, raised the crossbow, and took careful aim.