Pyramids (3 page)

The seniors were critically inspecting the new arrivals.

Teppic stared at them. Apart from the colors, their clothes were cut off the edge of the latest fashion, which was currently inclining toward wide hats, padded shoulders, narrow waists and pointed shoes and gave its followers the appearance of being very well-dressed nails.

I’m going to be like them, he told himself.

Although probably better dressed, he added.

He recalled Uncle Vyrt, sitting out on the steps overlooking the Djel on one of his brief, mysterious visits. “Satin and leather are no good. Or jewelry of any kind. You can’t have anything that will shine or squeak or clink. Stick to rough silk or velvet. The important thing is not how many people you inhume, it’s how many fail to inhume
you
.”

He’d been moving at an unwise pace, which might assist now. As he arced over the emptiness of the alley he twisted in the air, thrust out his arms desperately, and felt his fingertips brush a ledge on the building opposite. It was enough to pivot him; he swung around, hit the crumbling brickwork with sufficient force to knock what remained of his breath out of him, and slid down the sheer wall…

“Boy!”

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 bedchamber 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 stuff’s 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 onto 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 spiraled 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 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 anymore. 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 realize 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 onto 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 toward 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 onto 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 onto the hinges.

A moment later he was through. A rat, idly patrolling the drafty 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 afterward 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 swiveled 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.

“Yes, 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 drafty 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 analyzed 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 center, but no sign of its intended occupant.

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