Pyramids

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 afterward 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 around 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 rumors 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 practiced on the palace cats.
    Finally the teacher gave a brief smile that had absolutely nothing to do with humor, 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