Things are stranger than usual in Ankh-Morpork.
Commander Vimes is dealing with a series of strange killings carried out by some sort of feral animal. Good evidence suggests it's a species not native to the Central Continent. A good witness, who has the scars to prove it (for now - werewolves heal quickly provided it's not silver or fire) - identified them as leopards, a large cat native to Howondaland.
Vimes swears in a trainee Special Constable of his own recruiting, who he knows is possibly the most knowledgeable person the city has concerning Howondalandian wildlife. She's from possibly the darkest corner of darkest Howondaland, after all. And she runs the City Zoo, to boot.
Johanna Smith-Rhodes teams up with Angua von Überwald to solve the mystery. And Ankh-Morpork becomes even more of a dangerous place to live as the leopards attract the jaundiced interest of Thieves, Assassins, Seamstresses, Beggars, Priests and Unseen University. And the gods. And Vetinari.
Angua discovers she has prejudices and unresolved issues of her own to deal with, as it becomes increasingly apparent the leopards are not all they seem. Meanwhile, newly graduate Assassin Ruth N'Kweze falls in love with a classic bastard. Are her loyalties to the Guild now compromised? Read on.
A wildlife/espionage/political/police/supernatural/romantic thriller written by A.A. Pessimal for FanFicNet
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This fan work has examples of the following:
- Ambadassador: Pieter van der Graaf, a man unperturbed by being target of a leopard attack. And Ambassador Canaan Banana N'Vectif of Kwa'Zululand.
- ActionAdventurer: Johanna.
- Action Girl: Johanna. And Angua.
- All Hail the Great God Mickey!: the former Mouse God of the Disc. Claimed by the Death of Rats after a little unfortunate incident involving Bast, the Cat-Headed Goddess of Cats. The new God of Mice (as Nature and Belief abhor a vacuum) is better briefed, however.
- Bargain with Heaven: Sort of. But Hughnon Ridcully knows how to get the best out of his God.
- Bastard Bastard: Emmanuel N'Juri.
- Berserk Button: When Johanna, a White Howondalandian, takes her whip to Emmanuel N'Juri, a Black Howondalandian. This confirms all his suspicions about White Howondalandian attitudes to black people, and makes him want to kill her, slowly and agonisingly. Ironic, as... refer to
Values Dissonance, below. - Bilingual Bonus: Frequent but hopefully meaningful uses of French, Afrikaans, and some Zulu (this latter is not guaranteed perfect, however).
- Black Widow: Literally, Ruth N'Kweze.
- Bluff the Eavesdropper: Johanna, remembering her lessons in covert espionage at the Guild of Assassins, pulls this one to fool the spy team who are following her.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: the A-team is made up of blonde Angua, and redhead Johanna, with the brunette role variably played by key supporting characters Gillian Lansbury (brunette) Davinia Bellamy (mousy), or Emmanuelle Lapoignard Les Deux-Epées (OK, so her hair's black, but nobody is ever absolutely black-haired; ditto Ruth N'Kweze.) Platinum-blonde hairdresser Conina Cohensdaughter-Harebut, a semi-retired Thief/Heroine who keeps an ear to the grapevine, also comes into the story.
- Bolt of Divine Retribution: Blind Io is more than happy for this to be subcontracted to his Discly intercessionary. Or at least to his high priest's brother, Mustrum.
- Chatty Hairdresser: Conina Cohensdaughter-Harebut, who having retired from being an active Barbarian/Thief to run a hairdressing salon, keeps her ear to the ground and provides information to a clientele of professional ladies, whose hair can get a bit mussed up in the course of normal work as a Thief, Assassin, Barbarian Heroine or Teacher.
- Cloak and Dagger: Everything that happens, cloaked in some inspired misdirection. Also the membership badge of the Guild of Assassins.
- Conspicuously Public Assassination: the attempt to destabilise peace in Howondaland by a series of increasingly more blatant killings.
- Covert Group with Mundane Front: The Leopard Society. They aren't just a folklorique Howondalandian dance troupe.
- Dark Is Evil: Unlike wereleopards, werepanthers are explicitly stated as always being crazy, malevolent, twisted individuals. The werepanther featured in the fic is no exception to the general belief, being the instigator of the feasts on human flesh that ultimately lead to the revelation of the wereleopards' existence.
- Deep Cover Agent: the Howondalandian exile in Ankh-Morpork, a white woman working for the Zulus.
- Doctor's Orders: Ignored by Johanna, who re-breaks a broken arm in concluding a contract, much to Matron Igorina's acerbic displeasure.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Do not take the names of Discworld Gods in vain. At the very least it pisses off their representatives on Disc.
- Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: Anthony N'Kima's ultimate fate. Paradoxically, as everyone knows, it makes him both useful and safe from further harm.
- Femme Fatale Spy: Ruth N'Kweze is forced into this role. She is pivotal to the denouement of the story.
- Forbidden Chekhov's Gun: the weapon Johanna and Mr Mericet devise to take out a werecreature. As this would also be terminally and decisively lethal to Angua, Sam Vimes makes it abundantly clear any Assassin caught with one in future will be introduced to a world of pain.
- The Gods Must Be Lazy: Naturally. This is the Discworld.
- Her Boyfriend's Jacket: There's a scene where Assassin Johanna dons Wizard Ponder Stibbons' wizarding robes. Partly because they're warm, comfortable and smell slightly of Ponder. (a big plus in the early stages of a relationship). But mainly because she'd otherwise have had to answer the door naked.
- Heroic BSoD: Angua's reaction when she realises her own people engaged in systematic genocide to ensure werewolves were the only werecreatures on the Disc.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: it is revealed that to make the Change, a wereleopard has to wear a correctly magically charged leopardskin loincloth. One wereleopard effectively does "change his shorts" when he makes the Heel–Face Turn at the story's climax.
- Home of the Gods: Dunmanifestin, home of the Discworld's consensus Gods, becomes a location when the Gods of Howondaland turn up note . The Howondalandian Gods note that Dunmanifestin is the exclusive preserve of white-skinned Central Continent gods with Offler as a token Klatchian, and demand an end to divine apartheid. After seeing them off, Blind Io realises that at least part of the belief that sustains him comes from White Howondalandians and makes a cutting remark about "those bloody people, next thing we know, they'll be setting up a Township just outside the stoep."
- Holy Burns Evil: High Priest Hughnon Ridcully remarks that for a really tricky exorcism requirin' a bathtub full of holy water, it saved a bloody large amount of time and effort, when he realised all he needed to do was to bless the taps - so that any water passing through them was, by default, holy.
- Incredibly Obvious Tail: Johanna encounters this when she realises she is being followed in the street. She deduces, as her tail is a black Howondalandian, he is most likely working for the Zulus. She is Genre Savvy enough to realise there must be a second spy on her tail, but fails to identify the second follower until she is tipped off by a street vendor who owes her a favour.
- Jerkass Gods: This is Discworld. What else could you expect?
- Machete Mayhem: Johanna's Guild-approved (but only just) cultural weapon.
- Our Gods Are Different: when the Gods of Howondaland turn up at Dunmanifestin, to protest against the perceived fact that there is little ethnic representation of anything other than white-skinned deities from the Central Continent. Offler is dismissed as a token Klatchian, and the other Gods demand their civil rights and an end to divine apartheid. The argument is resolved in the time-honoured manner with Fate adjudicating. But the Lady still gets to roll the dice...
- Our Werecreatures Are Different: The whole point of the story is this revelation: Werewolves are not the only shapeshifter race on the Disc, despite what they tell themselves. In fact, werewolves were originally one of several human tribes who practiced magic rituals that would unite humans with animal spirits to create shapeshifters who could transform by way of magical pelts left behind at the ritual's end. When a careful program of breeding between werewolves, humans and wolves (which neatly explains the existence of yennorks) resulted in the birth of the first natural shifter werewolves, the wolf tribe exploded in numbers and power, driving out or killing all of the other tribes. One tribe fled all the way to Howandaland, where they adapted their rituals to taking the forms of leopards and panthers. Now disguised as the Leopard Society, they have prospered in their homeland and are starting to secretly enter Ankh-Morpork. At the end of the fic, a vignette is shown depicting of the first ever wereleopard natural shifter, implying that the wereleopards will soon become a distinct race in much the same way as the werewolves once did.
- Panthera Awesome: the leopards. And the other sort. The black panther..
- Religious Bruiser: Hughnon Ridcully. And his big, burly, broken-nosed and cauliflower-eared Security Deacons.
- The Scottish Trope: the sub-plot concerning the play Felmet, Pretender King of Lancre, and the improbably terrible things that happen to actors who say the name in full.
- Secret Weapon: the anti-werecreature bomb devised by the Assassins' Guild.
- Shoot the Hostage Taker: Right at the end of the story, Emmanuel N'Juri, protected by a magic amulet which prevents weapons from doing more than just grazing him, takes Ruth N'Kweze hostage and demands free passage out of Ankh-Morpork. Ruth plays along and speaks the verbal contract of marriage with him, pledging to be his wife until the end of his days. As he draws her in for a kiss, Ruth breaks free and tears the amulet from his neck, urging Johanna Smith-Rhodes to shoot him now. Johanna heeds no second invitation.
- Shout-Out: to Tom Sharpe's farces of apartheid South Africa. Two of his chaotically incompetent policemen appear here in their Discworld incarnations: certifiably lunatic secret policeman Liutnant Verkramp and Sergeant de Kok. although de Kok gets a more sympathetic treatment, Verkramp is still the racist paranoid incompetent tumour of Sharpe's grimly funny creation. The challenge for Johanna and Ambassador van der Graaf is to prevent him making a bad situation far worse in a way guaranteed to draw trenchant sarcasm from Lord Vetinari.
- Silver Bullet: the weapons deployed against the wereleopards.
- Silver Has Mystic Powers: the basis of the anti-werewolf weapon devised by Mericet and Johanna. The logic is - if elemental silver kills werecreatures, could its compounds be even more deadly? After all, chlorine gas kills. Chlorine compounds such as phosgene kill even more quickly in smaller doses. Therefore what could silver nitrate do to a werecreature, especially if delivered in bomb form, with an explosive trigger like silver fulminate to detonate it?
- The Spymaster: Havelock Vetinari. Who else?
- Spy Versus Spy: The deranged Liutnant Verkramp of BOSS, versus the Witch-Finders and the Leopard Society.
- Squishy Wizard: Ponder Stibbons. Johanna is very aware of this and keeps him away from trouble. This is something that comes to define their romance and life together. If necessary, Johanna can become a Violently Protective Girlfriend.
- Staff of Authority: Hughnon Ridcully's crozier; Mustrum Ridcully's wizarding staff. Both have very large knobs on the end.
- Tongue-Tied: both Canon Clement N'Effabl and Ruth N'Kweze discover what is happening, but are bound to silence by a magical curse imposed by a native wizard. Both are Howondalandians and were indoctrinated from birth to realise exactly what it means when a Witch-Finder (native magic-user) points the bone at you. Not only potent "boffo" but deadly, on a world where magic is real. While Clement finds a way to finesse the curse and indirectly communicate the information, both need to be exorcised for the curse to be lifted. Then they can speak freely.
- Tracking Device: Mustrum Ridcully uses a magical version shortly before he subcontracts from Lord Downey to bring about an inhumation with prejudice.
- Ponder Stibbons also uses a thaumometer to pinpoint where the leopards are lurking in the shadows. As Johanna does not want to risk her man in a fight he is ill-prepared for, she hustles him out of danger.
- Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: the anti-werecreature inhumation device. It gets Johanna a place of her own in the informal Assassins' Hall of Fame in the Black Library.
