Pyramids

couple of long-bladed throwing tlingas were slipped into their sheaths inside his boots. A thin silk line and folding grapnel were wound around his waist, over the chain-mail shirt. A blowpipe was attached to its leather thong and dropped down his back under his cloak; Teppic pocketed a slim tin container with an assortment of darts, their tips corked and their stems braille-coded for ease of selection in the dark.
    He winced, checked the blade of his rapier and slung the baldric over his right shoulder, to balance the bag of lead slingshot ammunition. As an after-thought he opened his sock drawer and took a pistol crossbow, a flask of oil, a roll of lockpicks and, after some consideration, a punch dagger, a bag of assorted caltraps and a set of brass knuckles.
    Teppic picked up his hat and checked its lining for the coil of cheesewire. He placed it on his head at a jaunty angle, took a last satisfied look at himself in the mirror, turned on his heel and, very slowly, fell over.

    It was high summer in Ankh-Morpork. In fact it was more than high. It was stinking.
    The great river was reduced to a lava-like ooze between Ankh, the city with the better address, and Morpork on the opposite bank. Morpork was not a good address. Morpork was twinned with a tar pit. There was not a lot that could be done to make Morpork a worse place. A direct hit by a meteorite, for example, would count as gentrification.
    Most of the river bed was a honeycomb crust of cracked mud. Currently the sun appeared to be a big copper gong nailed to the sky. The heat that had dried up the river fried the city by day and baked it by night, curling ancient timbers, turning the traditional slurry of the streets into a drifting, choking ocher dust.
    It wasn’t Ankh-Morpork’s proper weather. It was by inclination a city of mists and drips, of slithers and chills. It sat panting on the crisping plains like a toad on a firebrick. And even now, around midnight, the heat was stifling, wrapping the streets like scorched velvet, searing the air and squeezing all the breath out of it.
    High in the north face of the Assassins’ Guildhouse there was a click as a window was pushed open.
    Teppic, who had with considerable reluctance divested himself of some of the heavier of his weapons, took a deep draft of the hot, dead air.
    This was it .
    This was the night .
    They said you had one chance in two unless you drew old Mericet as examiner, in which case you might as well cut your throat right at the start.
    Teppic had Mericet for Strategy and Poison Theory every Thursday afternoon, and didn’t get along with him. The dormitories buzzed with rumors about Mericet, the number of kills, the astonishing technique…He’d broken all the records in his time. They said he’d even killed the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. Not the present one, that is. One of the dead ones.
    Maybe it would be Nivor, who was fat and jolly and liked his food and did Traps and Deadfalls on Tuesdays. Teppic was good at traps, and got on well with the master. Or it could be the Kompt de Yoyo, who did Modern Languages and Music. Teppic was gifted at neither, but the Kompt was a keen edificeer and liked boys who shared his love of dangling by one hand high above the city streets.
    He stuck one leg over the sill and unhitched his line and grapnel. He hooked the gutter two floors up and slipped out of the window.
    No assassin ever used the stairs.

    In order to establish continuity with later events, this may be the time to point out that the greatest mathematician in the history of the Discworld was lying down and peacefully eating his supper.
    It is interesting to note that, owing to this mathematician’s particular species, what he was eating for his supper was his lunch.

    Gongs around the Ankh-Morpork sprawl were announcing midnight when Teppic crept along the ornate parapet four stories above Filigree Street, his heart pounding.
    There was a figure outlined against the afterglow of the sunset. Teppic paused alongside a particularly repulsive gargoyle to consider his options.
    Fairly solid classroom rumor said that if he inhumed his examiner before the test, that was an automatic pass. He slipped a Number Three throwing knife from its thigh sheath and hefted it thoughtfully. Of course, any attempt, any overt move which missed would attract immediate failure and loss of privileges. *

    The silhouette was absolutely still. Teppic’s eyes swiveled to the maze of chimneys, gargoyles,