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Chapter 2 – Mike’s Day (In Which Mike Has a Bad Day)
With a soft click the crossbow was cocked, then rested on a low wall. All that was left to do now was wait. The target would be in range soon enough.
Mike sighted down the length of the crossbow and began to go over his plan in his head. His target was in the dragon house right now, but he would come out in about five minutes and most likely pause at the bear trap in the bushes, which Mike knew for a fact had been tripped two days before and had not been re-set. A job like this took a lot of planning and, most importantly, careful observation. One wrong move on this property and he would be toast. Possibly scrambled eggs and bacon as well.
Settling back, Mike blew out a breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. What a day to be wearing black. The sun beat down and, even though he had some shade from the low wall he was sitting behind, Mike was still getting rather warm. He only hoped he wouldn’t fall asleep or pass out before his target came into sight. He unbuttoned his cloak and laid it on the ground like a blanket, kneeling on it and leaning forward when he thought he heard voices coming from the direction of the dragon house. Sighting down the length of the crossbow again, Mike put his finger on the trigger and tensed himself…
“Mike, what are you doing?”
“Gah!” Mike started and knocked his crossbow off the low wall and onto the ground. Fortunately it didn’t go off, because another man, tall and skinny with blonde hair and a City Watch uniform, was standing behind him.
“Oh, Peter, it’s you,” Mike took several deep breaths in an attempt to slow his racing heart, “Don’t do that to me! This thing” – here he picked up the crossbow and waved it around for emphasis – “is a Burleigh and Stronginthearm, and it don’t respond well to startled people. Mostly, it shoots them.”
“Sorry,” Peter apologized, “You’re not really going to…do anything, are you?”
Mike sighed and rolled his eyes, propping the crossbow on the wall again. “Peter, I’m an Assassin on a job,” he explained patiently, “And just what do you think that means?”
Peter crouched on the ground next to Mike and looked out at the dragon house. “I know what it means,” he replied, “It’s just that…well, I’m not about to let an Assassin kill a watchman, now am I? He is my boss, after all.”
“And, if I’m recallin’ correctly, it was a watchman who killed the last head of the Assassin’s Guild,” Mike shot back irritably.
“Only because he was a direct threat,” Peter said calmly, “Now come on, Mike, why are you even bothering? You know how many people have tried to assassinate Mr. Vimes, and I’m sure you know what happened to them after they failed.”
Mike didn’t reply. With his gaze set on the doors of the dragon house, he was keenly aware of what he was up against. According to the stories, most of which circulated by word of mouth around the Assassin’s Guild, the last man who had failed to kill Sir Samuel Vimes was still looking for his teeth. The Assassin before that was, apparently, the main component of C.M.O.T. Dibber’s sausages for at least a month. As for the others…Mike shook his head. He wasn’t going to be the next one to fail. But what with Peter, a watchman, crouching right next to him, it was hard to concentrate.
“Hey, what’re you guys up to?” At the sound of the voice, Mike started again, almost setting off the crossbow. He looked up to find another man standing over him, or at least attempting to stand over him. In reality, the other man was only a few inches taller than Mike’s crouched form.
“Davy!” Mike hissed, “Get down! And what are you doin’ here?”
Davy crouched on the ground, as well. “Well, I just got out of breakfast with Lady Selachii, and I promised William I’d have something for today’s paper, so I’m here for tea with Lady Sybil. I was going to ask her some things about her dragon breeding –” He was cut off by a muffled voice saying, “Bingley, bingley beep!” Rolling his eyes, he pulled a Dis-Organizer out of his shirt pocket and opened the flap. “Yes?”
“Ten oh five ay em, mid-morning tea with Lady Sybil,” the imp announced, “Would you like to hear the rest of your schedule for today?”
“Sure,” Davy replied, even though Mike was frantically shaking his head and had a finger pressed to his lips.
“Twelve pee em, luncheon with Lord Rust,” the imp said, “Three pee em, tea with Lady Margolotta. Five pee em, dinner at the Patrician’s palace. Seven thirty pee em, gig with the band.”
Mike smacked himself in the forehead. “The gig. Of course. That’s why we’re all suddenly runnin’ into each other. It never fails.”
“Micky’s not here,” Davy pointed out, closing the Dis-Organizer and putting it back in his pocket. “Yes, and I wish you two weren’t, either!” Mike exclaimed in exasperation, “I’m tryin’ to do my job, and you keep distractin’ me! Not to mention how loud you’re bein’.”
Peter shrugged, standing up. “Well, it’s your choice, Mike. I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it down at the Watch House either way.”
Mike grunted. “Thanks, Pete, that’s really encouraging of you.”
“You’re welcome,” Peter replied absently before walking away. Davy also got up and walked away, muttering to himself about tea times and newspaper articles. Mike took a deep breath and tried to relax. He needed to regain his focus. Once again, he picked up the crossbow and rested it on the low wall, sighting and leaning back to wait. He watched Davy enter the dragon house, and, as if on cue, Sam Vimes came out at the exact same time. The two bumped into each other, rude words were briefly exchanged, then Vimes walked around the side of the dragon house. The only problem was that he walked around the wrong side.
Mike swore, but quietly. All the planning, the watching, the waiting, the putting up with interruptions, for what? So his target could walk around the wrong side of a building? He wasn’t going to put up with that. Getting up quietly, Mike picked his cloak up off the ground and slung it around his shoulders. Then, after collecting his crossbow and making sure it wasn’t about to go off anytime soon, he made his way toward the dragon house.
The sound of dozens of dragons flaming on and off met his ears as he got closer. He flattened himself against the wall and waited for the sound of Vimes’s footsteps. The man would have to show up sometime, and at this close a range, there would be no way he could miss.
Somewhere behind him and slightly above his left shoulder, there was a hiccup. Knowing what would come next, Mike dropped to his knees just in time to avoid the flying swamp dragon remains that shot through the wall. There was a great deal of shouting inside the dragon house, as well as a cry of, “Those damn dragons!” from around the back; it was Vimes. Mike tensed as the footsteps he had been waiting for got closer.
A moment later, Vimes emerged from around the corner. He was lighting a thin cigar and didn’t see Mike right away. When Vimes did look up, it was into the business end of Mike’s crossbow, aimed straight between his eyes.
“Good morning,” Vimes said pleasantly. Mike was a little taken aback by this reaction, but he didn’t let it affect his aim.
“Goodbye,” he replied, starting to pull the trigger.
“Did it ever occur to you that I could just duck?” said Vimes suddenly. Mike raised his eyebrows and paused for a moment, realizing with increasing embarrassment that he hadn’t taken that simple fact into account. He would to be the laughingstock of the Guild, if he even made it back there alive…
“You’re also on fire,” Vimes continued calmly, flicking the ashes off the end of his cigar. Mike looked around frantically, and realized that Vimes was right. Small flames were licking his right sleeve and spreading rapidly up his arm. The flames must have come from the holes in the dragon house wall. He’d have to do something fast if he didn’t want to become a human barbecue.
Ten seconds later, the crossbow hit the ground and went off into the air as Mike rolled around frantically, trying to put out his flaming shirt. Vimes watched with casual interest, puffing on his cigar and trying not to smile.
When it seemed that Mike had just about finished flailing, Vimes picked up the crossbow, calmly walked over to where the arrow had fallen, picked it up, fitted it back into the bow, and turned around. What he saw was Mike looking extremely embarrassed.
“Now, I could be nice about this,” Vimes began, aiming the crossbow with a slight grin, “But I am not a nice person. And when you’ve had as many people try and assassinate you as I have, it doesn’t pay to be nice. So I’m giving you five seconds to get the hell out of here before I, in a manner of speaking, impale you on your own sword. One…”
Realizing that Vimes was serious, Mike started running and tripped over his cloak, tumbling head over heels and landing sprawled on his back.
“Two…”
Scrambling to get up, Mike threw his cloak to the ground, took two steps, and promptly fell over the low wall he had been hiding behind before.
“Three…”
Deciding that standing up would probably only lead to tripping again, Mike stayed on the ground and tried his best to crawl away at a quick pace.
“Four…”
Mike found himself encountering a tangle of pricker bushes that he wasn’t quite sure had been there before, but the whole day had already been giving him trouble; why not dish out some more?
“Five!”
Mike rolled into the pricker bushes and hoped for the best.
“Sam, what are you doing?” Sybil asked, coming out of the dragon house. Davy was soon to follow, scribbling furiously on a notepad.
Vimes lowered the crossbow and flicked the ashes off his cigar. “Nothing, dear,” he replied slowly.
“You’ve got that look, Sam,” Sybil persisted, walking over and trying to follow Vimes’s gaze, “You’re up to something.”
“Oh, just another Assassin,” Vimes waved his hand as if to dismiss the problem and walked off towards the house. Sybil watched him for a moment, wondering what it was her husband had done to avoid getting killed this time.
In the bushes, Mike was trying to unhook himself from all the prickers before standing up. He didn’t have much success, and so he staggered into the Assassin’s Guild building fifteen minutes later covered in dirt, dripping sweat, and bleeding with rips in his shirt and pants. Lord Downey regarded him silently for a moment before speaking.
“I’m assuming you did not succeed,” he said finally.
Mike shook his head, trying to brush some of the dirt off his clothes.
“Well,” Downey continued, “I can’t exactly say that I’m disappointed so much as surprised. You did, after all, come out of it in much better shape than the last few who have tried to assassinate Vimes.”
“Uh, thank you sir,” Mike replied uncertainly.
“You’ve never been my best Assassin; however, I do recognize how much work it is to attempt to fool or trap Vimes,” Downey said, “Why don’t you go home, clean up, take the rest of the day off?”
This caught Mike off guard, but he wasn’t too startled to realize that there was something too good to be true about Downey’s suggestion. The look on Downey’s face didn’t match his tone of voice, and that worried Mike.
“You’re not tryin’ to fire me, are you sir?” he asked cautiously.
Downey gave Mike a long, cool stare. “You know we don’t fire anyone here, Nesmith,” he replied evenly. Mike nodded, trying not to shiver. He knew exactly what Lord Downey was telling him, and he didn’t like it. Having an Assassin keep an eye on you when you were an Assassin yourself was worse than happy hour in a dwarf bar. Nonetheless, Mike took Downey’s suggestion and went home to clean up.
After stripping off his dirty and torn clothes, Mike eased himself into a warm bath, reclining in the water and staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t have a bad life, really; it was just that being an Assassin was so dangerous most of the time. Sure, people were afraid of you and you spent most of your time making sure they wouldn’t expect you or see you, but that took some pretty strange work. Walking on roofs, falling off walls, tripping over things that were completely unexpected, and then, of course, dealing with Downey or, Mike thought with a shudder, maybe even the Patrician when something went totally wrong.
Then, of course, there was the matter of a personal life. If you were an Assassin, it was pretty much a given that you didn’t do much of anything else. Not that it was easy to have a personal life in Ankh-Morpork even if you weren’t an Assassin, unless you spent most of you time at the Seamstresses’ Guild, but being one did really put a damper on things. You couldn’t even go in a pub without being shied away from. Most Assassins lived in or near the Guild building for that reason.
There was the band. Mike couldn’t dispute the fact that the band really was a ray of sunshine in his dim Assassin’s life. One thing that Ankh-Morpork really lacked was music, and that was one of the reasons that he and the other guys had started the band. At first, they hadn’t really been sure that Ankh-Morpork was stable enough to sit down and stop fighting long enough to listen to anyone perform, but it had turned out to work pretty well. Even the dwarfs would put down their battle-axes if a song was interesting enough.
The other guys seemed to have pretty good lives, interesting lives. Peter was almost always on patrol with someone bigger than he was or a dwarf, so it really couldn’t be said that he was in any danger; Davy spent his days hobnobbing with the nobs; and Micky…well, Mike wasn’t exactly sure what Micky did all day, but it was probably better than running around trying to kill people for money while avoiding getting killed yourself. In fact, Mike couldn’t think of a single reason that he had become an Assassin besides the fact that it kept him out of the immediate muck of the city. He got to run around in the pandemonium that the presence of a man with dangerous weapon ensued instead.
Sighing, Mike hauled himself out of the tub and thought about lunch. His stomach rumbled and he realized that he hadn’t had breakfast. He wondered why as he pulled on some pants and a fresh shirt before padding out to his small kitchen. After looking in several cabinets and under the sink, Mike came to the conclusion that he didn’t have any food. There wasn’t even any dirt. Every cabinet was completely empty. He tried to recall what he had been eating for the past few days and had vague recollections of some sort of sausage that he didn’t want to think too hard about. He must have been pretty desperate to buy anything “inna bun”, considering. Ah well, time to hit the pub or something, as long as the dwarfs were sober.
The Mended Drum was full of people, among other things: watchmen on break, dwarfs with nothing better to do, sulking Thieves who hadn’t had a profitable morning. Mike sat down behind the bar, balancing his guitar next to him. If he was lucky, the barman would let him practice in the basement like he had the week before.
“Hey, what can I get ya?” the bartender asked, getting to Mike after giving three dwarfs their beer.
“Any kind of sandwich that contains no traces of rat would be fine with me,” Mike replied, earning several strange looks from the dwarfs.
The bartender thought for a minute. “I think I can find something.”
“Thanks,” Mike sat back and looked around the pub again, hoping he wouldn’t run into any more trouble. The last thing he needed was to be battered and bruised more than he already was before the gig that night. He absentmindedly dug in his pockets so that he could pay the bartender for the upcoming sandwich…and panicked. “Here’s your sandwich…what’s the problem?” the bartender asked when he saw the look on Mike’s face.
“Well, there really is no problem other than the fact that I’m famished and entirely broke,” Mike sighed. The bartender looked at him, then his gaze traveled to the guitar resting on the edge of the bar.
“Tell ya what,” he said slowly, resting his chin in his hand, “I’ll give you the sandwich if you play a song for me and the rest.”
Mike considered this. He wasn’t too keen on singing in front of a full bar by himself, especially since he hadn’t practiced in nearly a week. He also wasn’t quite sure what he could play; the band’s performances usually consisted of music that was unheard of on nearly the whole of the Disc. On top of that, he didn’t want to give away any of that night’s performance for the sake of one measly sandwich. On the other hand, he was extremely hungry, and the sandwich sure looked better than any of Dibbler’s sausages. With a shrug, Mike picked up his guitar and plucked the strings.
“All right,” he agreed, figuring he had nothing to lose except possibly several members of his impromptu audience. He cleared his throat.
“Here you go,” he said, grinning. Mike gratefully took a bite of the sandwich, chewed for a moment, and probably would have spit it out if he hadn’t been so hungry.
“This is a terrible sandwich!” he exclaimed when his mouth was empty.
“Well kid,” the bartender laughed, “That was a terrible song.”
Mike rolled his eyes, “Thanks a lot.” But he finished the sandwich all the same. Afterwards, he didn’t bother to ask for practicing time in the basement, considering the look of extreme fear on the bartender’s face when he picked up his guitar again.
“Huh! Maybe I should have used that on Vimes,” Mike huffed to himself as he headed home.
Quickly, Mike discovered how boring it was to have nothing to do. After two solid hours of staring at the wall and attempting to practice his guitar without the upstairs neighbors dropping things on him through the holes in the ceiling, he decided to take action, do something, break the rut. Now, what did he normally do when he wasn’t being an Assassin? He thought for a moment and realized that he didn’t do much of anything except sleep.
“Well, I’m gonna change that right now,” Mike muttered. He tried to find something in his wardrobe that wasn’t black and came up with two ripped t-shirts and an ancient “Live Large In Klatch” sweater that some distant cousin had sent him one year on Hogswatch. However, in the back of the drawer, there was a pair of jeans. Pretty beat-up jeans, but wearable jeans. Mike paired that with a button-up black shirt and figured that it looked all right. So, in that and a cape, he set out.
Amazingly, he was excited. He had never been excited about walking around the city, at least not that he could remember. Maybe something about it had interested him when he was a kid, but that would have been back before his parents decided to send him to the Assassins’ school. No wonder he wasn’t cut out for that life; it had been chosen for him, pulling him in before he had his say. Well, not today. It might have started terribly, but Mike was determined to make the most of it.
Since he wasn’t quite sure where to start, Mike began going over in his head everything that he’d been told to avoid as a kid. This turned out to be quite a list: don’t go near the Shades (easy enough, nobody ever did); don’t bother the Patrician, especially if you weren’t partial to sudden death (the same went for most of the lords in the city); avoid the Fool’s Guild if you were afraid of clowns (who wasn’t?); don’t swim in the river Ankh (you could easily knock yourself out trying to dive in); and, most importantly, don’t ever pester a drunken dwarf. Mike seemed to recall some reason for avoiding Unseen University, as well, but he couldn’t remember quite what it was at the moment.
And then, of course, why did he even have to stay in Ankh-Morpork at all? Besides the band, there was nothing there to keep him. Mike figured that the only reason he probably stayed in the city was that he had always lived there. But then, how hard was it to get a horse somewhere and just travel? There was the whole Disc to explore, and Mike had always wanted to see the Rimbow…
“Look, it’s the guy who sang that terrible song in the pub!” The sudden shout caused Mike to stop and look over his shoulder. A dozen or so dwarfs were standing about a yard behind him, and all of them looked mildly drunk. Two or three had their axes out, and it seemed that they had been fighting amongst themselves before spotting Mike. Mike didn’t give them any time to process what had been shouted; he instinctively started to run.
“Get him!” shouted one of the dwarfs. A dozen pairs of feet gave chase. Mike began to panic, ducked into the nearest alley, and continued running, only stopping when he was sure that what was in front of him would put him in less danger than what was behind him. Fortunately, the dwarfs had given up, probably to fight with each other again, and Mike resumed his leisurely pace. Now, where was he? Ah yes, the Rimbow…
“Mike! Hey Mike!” This time, it was a shout that jerked Mike out of his thoughts. He looked around and realized that he was in back of Unseen University. Shielding his eyes, Mike looked up. Yes, now he remembered why he usually avoided Unseen U. He had never wanted to be around wizards when they had the location and the potential to be wizarding. Now one was looking down at Mike from four stories up and pointing to the ground.
“Micky? What are you doin’ up there?” Mike asked finally.
“I was trying to have a smoke,” Micky replied, “But I, ah, dropped my tobacco. See it?” Here Micky paused and pointed to the ground again, “Could you toss it up to me?”
Mike looked at the ground and saw a small, paper packet lying a few feet away. He looked from the packet to Micky and back again, then called, “I can’t throw this thing all the way up there.”
“You don’t need to,” Micky replied, “Just get it started; I’ll take care of it the rest of the way.”
Mike raised his eyebrows, but picked up the packet anyway. With a grunt, he heaved it straight up into the air. As he had expected, it only went halfway to where Micky was, but instead of falling back to the ground, the packet floated gently upward and landed on the windowsill in front of Micky. He grinned and immediately started rolling a cigarette.
“Thanks!” he called down to Mike.
“Anytime,” Mike called back, shaking his head and continuing his walk. He wondered if it was safe to pick up his train of thought again. Probably not.
He turned out to be right. Five minutes later, he ran into a fellow Guild member, known only as “Owens”. “Mike!” Owens exclaimed, “I heard the job with Vimes went kind of…poorly.”
Mike sighed. “Yeah, it did,” he replied, “But at least I got out of it alive. I hear Downey’s gonna bring the Patrician up at the next meeting. You volunteering or what?”
Owens shook his head. “No way in the world. It’s good money, but the Patrician? Assassinating an Assassin isn’t exactly easy. And he’s got the brains to plan a counterattack, too. Hell, he’s got the brains to plan a pre-counterattack. I swear the man can see us coming before we even know we’re coming!”
Mike laughed, but in his mind he was trying frantically to find a way out of the conversation.
“I hear ya,” he managed.
“Well, I’ve got to be going,” Owens said, glancing up, “See you around the Guild, I guess.”
“Yeah, see ya,” Mike nodded, looking around for the quickest exit. As soon as Owens was gone, Mike legged it into the next alley. He hated it when other Assassins treated him like a friend, especially since he didn’t get along with most of them. For some reason, the rules changed once you got outside the Guild building. All the Assassins suddenly hobnobbed, like it was their duty to stick together. At least it seemed that way to Mike. All he knew was that people who treated him like total scum in the Guild building treated him like a brother on the streets. It was extremely annoying.
A faint background rustling caught his attention. He looked around, then glanced up on a hunch. All he saw were the tops of buildings poking into the sky, but there was something else, a presence…and that made Mike uneasy.
Five minutes later, he had found a ladder and climbed up onto the nearest accessible roof. The problem with the roofs of Ankh-Morpork was that they were seldom all the same height. All anyone or anything had to do was pick a roof at just the right level, one at which you weren’t standing, and they could hide pretty much undetectably. Mike scrabbled up to the next roof and looked around again. Still, there was nothing. The roofs were as bare as the alley had been, if not more so. In that case, Mike thought, Something is definitely going on.
Very carefully, Mike felt around in an inner pocket in his cape for the dagger he knew was there. His hand had just closed on the small hilt when there was another rustling noise and one strange sound, kind of like several simultaneous clicks. Mike wondered if he should turn around. He was pretty sure what he would find if he did. He quickly tried to recall the best way to use a dagger at long-range. All right, that was it. Time to act.
In one swift movement, Mike spun around and let the dagger go at an angle. It sliced through three arrows and most of one Assassin’s upper arm before stopping. The other four Assassins were sufficiently startled, and the one that still had a working crossbow aimed for Mike while the others reloaded. Mike took the hint and jumped off the roof, landing hard on the cobblestones below. He swore when he felt his wrist crack under him, but he got up and ran anyway.
“Come back here you coward!” shouted one of the Assassins giving chase. Normally, Assassins wouldn’t try to shoot someone down in the street like some filthy, common murderer. They had their style and twisted form of etiquette. But this was a special job.
Mike knew the Assassins’ little code, but he also knew how Downey’s mind worked. As he ran, Mike went over the earlier conversation in his head. That look on Downey’s face still made Mike uneasy. Downey had been right in saying that the Guild never fired anyone. What he hadn’t said was that they did rid themselves of “unwanted” members. Mike was pretty sure that the Vimes fiasco, coupled with many of his past fumbles and failures, qualified him.
Getting an idea and hoping it would work, Mike turned down the next dead-end alley and stood with his back to the wall, so as to be facing the oncoming Assassins. With his good hand, he fished around in another inner pocket, coming up with a short knife. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to use it, but it helped to be prepared. A second later, the four Assassins came around the corner. One of them motioned for the others to stop, and three crossbows were raised.
“Well, well, well, look who’s in another tight spot,” smirked the Assassin who had motioned. Mike gasped; it was Owens.
“Not for long,” he managed to say, brandishing the knife and trying to look menacing.
Owens took one look at the knife and burst out laughing. The other Assassins sniggered.
“This is too much,” Owens said between chuckles, “You are so desperate…and pathetic…”
Mike raised his eyebrows. “Really? I didn’t think I was the one with that problem.”
“Oh come now,” Owens regained his composure and gazed levelly at Mike, “You know how it goes.”
“I know how it goes for you,” Mike replied, “But it doesn’t go that way for me. By the looks of things, I’m not an Assassin anymore, and that means I don’t have to play by your rules.”
Owens looked a bit taken aback by this statement. His eyes traveled to the knife in Mike’s hand again. He seemed to come to a decision, and motioned again to the Assassins behind him. Three crossbows were cocked, and suddenly, Mike began to laugh. This threw Owens off completely.
“What is so funny?” he demanded.
“You can’t judge a book by lookin’ at the cover,” Mike replied, shaking with the force of his laugher. He draped an arm companionably across Owens’ shoulders in an effort to support himself, “You really can’t.”
“What are you talking about?” Owens demanded, trying with little success to stay calm.
“You can’t judge a book by lookin’ at the cover!” Mike repeated, sweeping away and slamming his dagger into a nearby wall where it stuck, quivering, “I’m not an Assassin anymore? Isn’t it great? Yeehaw!”
The other Assassins were backing away. Owens wasn’t quite sure what to do; Mike didn’t seem to be stable at the moment, so it was hard to guess what his next move might be. However, Owens knew what would happen to him if he didn’t finish the job. But his shock kept him from pulling the trigger on his crossbow.
“I’m not an Assassin anymore!” Mike shouted again. He was sprinting away down the street, leaving the stunned Assassins behind him. He would have been doing cartwheels, but his wrist wouldn’t allow it.
It didn’t take him long to get back to his house. He burst in the front door, paused to lock it behind him, then leaned against it, panting and trying to stop laughing. His wrist was really hurting him now; he knew he’d have to see someone about it. For now, though, he was content with calming himself down and letting the full realization of what had just happened hit him.
I’m not an Assassin anymore, he thought, I’m not. It’s really over! I’m free!
And, for the first time in weeks, Mike was happy.
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