Pyramids

Cheesewright. “ Commerce .”
    Chidder never went into details about what kind of commerce it was. It had something to do with moving items around and supplying needs, but exactly what items and which needs was never made clear.
    After hitting Cheesewright he explained carefully that Terminate with Extreme Prejudice did not simply require that the victim was inhumed, preferably in an extremely thorough way, but that his associates and employees were also intimately involved, along with the business premises, the building, and a large part of the surrounding neighborhood, so that everyone involved would know that the man had been unwise enough to make the kind of enemies who could get very angry and indiscriminate.
    “Gosh,” said Arthur.
    “Oh, that’s nothing,” said Chidder, “one Hogswatch-night my grandad and his accounts department went and had a high-level business conference with the Hubside people and fifteen bodies were never found. Very bad, that sort of thing. Upsets the business community.”
    “All the business community, or just that part of it floating face down in the river?” said Teppic.
    “That’s the point. Better it should be like this,” said Chidder, shaking his head. “You know. Clean . That’s why my father said I should join the Guild. I mean, you’ve got to get on with the business these days, you can’t spend your whole time on public relations.”

    The end of the crossbow trembled.
    He liked everything else about the school, the climbing, the music studies, the broad education. It was the fact that you ended up killing people that had been preying on his mind. He’d never killed anyone.
    That’s the whole point, he told himself. This is where everyone finds out if you can, including you.
    If I get it wrong now, I’m dead.
    In his corner, Mericet began to hum a discouraging little tune.
    There was a price the Guild paid for its license. It saw to it that there were no careless, half-hearted or, in a manner of speaking, murderously inefficient assassins. You never met anyone who’d failed the test.
    People did fail. You just never met them. Maybe there was one under there, maybe it was Chidder, even, or Snoxall or any one of the lads. They were all doing the run this evening. Maybe if he failed he’d be bundled under there…
    Teppic tried to sight on the recumbent figure.
    “Ahem,” coughed the examiner.
    His throat was dry. Panic rose like a drunkard’s supper. His teeth wanted to chatter. His spine was freezing, his clothes a collection of damp rags. The world slowed down.
    No. He wasn’t going to. The sudden decision hit him like a brick in a dark alley, and was nearly as surprising. It wasn’t that he hated the Guild, or even particularly disliked Mericet, but this wasn’t the way to test anyone. It was just wrong.
    He decided to fail. Exactly what could the old man do about it, here?
    And he’d fail with flair.
    He turned to face Mericet, looked peacefully into the examiner’s eyes, extended his crossbow hand in some vague direction to his right, and pulled the trigger.
    There was a metallic twang.
    There was a click as the bolt ricocheted off a nail in the window sill. Mericet ducked as it whirred over his head. It hit a torch bracket on the wall, and went past Teppic’s white face purring like a maddened cat.
    There was a thud as it hit the blanket, and then silence.
    “Thank you, Mr. Teppic. If you could bear with me just one moment.”
    The old assassin pored over his clipboard, his lips moving.
    He took the pencil, which dangled from it by a bit of frayed string, and made a few marks on a piece of pink paper.
    “I will not ask you to take it from my hands,” he said, “what with one thing and another. I shall leave it on the table by the door.”
    It wasn’t a particularly pleasant smile: it was thin and dried-up, a smile with all the warmth long ago boiled out of it; people normally smiled like that when they had been dead for about two years under the broiling desert sun. But at least you felt he was making the effort.
    Teppic hadn’t moved. “I’ve passed?” he said.
    “That would appear to be the case.”
    “But—”
    “I am sure you know that we are not allowed to discuss the test with pupils. However, I can tell you that I personally do not approve of these modern flashy techniques. Good morning to you.” And Mericet stalked out.
    Teppic tottered over to the dusty table by the door and looked down, horrified, at the paper. Sheer