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Terry Pratchett. Soul music
THE HISTORY
This is a story about memory. And this much can be remembered...
...that the Death of the Discworld, for reasons of his own, once
rescued a baby girl and took her to his home between the dimensions. He let
her grow to become sixteen because he believed that older children were
easier to deal with than younger children, and this shows that you can be an
immortal anthropomorphic personification and still get things, as it were,
dead wrong...
...that he later hired an apprentice called Mortimer, or Mort for
short.
Between Mort and Ysabell there was an instant dislike and everyone
knows what that means in the long term. As a substitute for the Grim Reaper
Mort was a spectacular failure, causing problems that led to a wobbling of
Reality and a fight between him and Death which Mort lost . . .
...and that, for reasons of his own, Death spared his life and sent him
and Ysabell back into the world.
No one knows why Death started to take a practical interest in the
human beings he had worked with for so long. It was probably just curiosity.
Even the most efficient rat catcher will sooner or later take an interest in
rats. They might watch rats live and die, and record every detail of rat
existence, although they may never themselves actually know what it is like
to run the maze.
But if it is true that the act of observing changes the thing which is
observed [1], it's even more true that it changes the observer.
Mort and Ysabell got married.
They had a child.
This is also a story about sex and drugs and Music With Rocks In.
Well...
...one out of three ain't bad.
Actually, it's only thirty three per cent, but it could be worse.
Where to finish?
A dark, stormy night. A coach, horses gone, plunging through the
rickety, useless fence and dropping, tumbling into the gorge below. It
doesn't even strike an outcrop of rock before it hits the dried river bed
far below, and erupts into fragments.
Miss Butts shuffled the paperwork nervously.
Here was one from the girl aged six:
What We Did On our Holidys: What I did On my holidys I staid with
grandad he has a big White hors and a garden it is al Black. We had Eg and
chips.
Then the oil from the coach lamps ignites and there is a second
explosion, out of which rolls because there are certain conventions, even in
tragedy a burning wheel.
And another paper, a drawing done at age severe. All in black. Miss
Butts sniffed. It wasn't as though the gel had only a black crayon. It was a
fact that the Quirm College for Young Ladies had quite expensive crayons of
all colours.
And then, after the last of the ember spits and crackles, there is
silence.
And the watcher.
Who turns, and says to someone in the darkness:
YES. I COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING.
And rides away.
Miss Butts shuffled paper again. She was feeling dis-tracted and
nervous, a feeling common to anyone who had much to do with the gel. Paper
usually made her feel better. It was more dependable.
Then there had been the matter of . . . the accident.
Miss Butts had broken such news before. It was an occasional hazard
when you ran a large boarding school. The parents of many of the gels were
often abroad on business of one sort or another, and it was sometimes the
kind of business where the chances of rich reward go hand in hand with the
risks of meeting unsympathetic men.
Miss Butts knew how to handle these occasions. It was painful, but the
thing ran its course. There was shock and tears, and then, eventually, it
was all over.
People had ways of dealing with it. There was a sort of script built
into the human mind. Life went on.
But the child had just sat there. It was the politeness that scared the
daylights out of Miss Butts. She was not an unkind woman, despite a lifetime
of being gently dried out on the stove of education, but she was
conscientious and a stickler for propriety and thought she knew how this
sort of thing should go and was vaguely annoyed that it wasn't going.
'Er . . . if you would like to be alone, to have a cry-' she'd
prompted, in an effort to get things moving on the right track.
'Would that help?' Susan had said.
It would have helped Miss Butts.
All she'd been able to manage was: 'I wonder if, perhaps, you fully
understood what I have told you?'
The child had stared at the ceiling as though trying to work out a
difficult problem in algebra and then said, ' I expect I will.'
It was as if she'd already known, and had dealt with it in some way.
Miss Butts had asked the teachers to watch Susan carefully. They'd said that
was hard, because...
There was a tentative knock on Miss Butts's study door, as if it was
being made by someone who'd really prefer not to be heard. She returned to
the present.
'Come,' she said.
The door swung open.
Susan always made no sound. The teachers had all remarked upon it. It
was uncanny, they said. She was always in front of you when you least
expected it.
'Ah, Susan,' said Miss Butts, a tight smile scuttling across her face
like a nervous tick over a worried sheep. 'Please sit down.'
'Of course, Miss Butts.'
Miss Butts shuffled the papers.
'Susan . . .'
'Yes, Miss Butts?'
'I'm sorry to say that it appears you have been missed in lessons
again.'
'I don't understand, Miss Butts.'
The headmistress leaned forward. She felt vaguely annoyed with herself,
but... there was some-thing frankly unlovable about the child. Academically
brilliant at the things she liked doing, of course, but that was just it;
she was brilliant in the same way that a diamond is brilliant, all edges and
chilliness.
'Have you been . . . doing it?' she said. 'You prom-ised you were going
to stop this silliness.'
'Miss Butts?'
'You've been making yourself invisible again, haven't you?'
Susan blushed. So, rather less pinkly, did Miss Butts. I mean, she
thought, it's ridiculous. It's against all reason. It's oh, no . . .
She turned her head and shut her eyes.
'Yes, Miss Butts?' said Susan, just before Miss Butts said, 'Susan?'
Miss Butts shuddered. This was something else the teachers had
mentioned.
Sometimes Susan answered questions just before you asked them . . .
She steadied herself.
'You're still sitting there, are you?'
'Of course, Miss Butts.'
Ridiculous.
It wasn't invisibility, she told herself. She just makes herself
inconspicuous.
She . . . who . . .
She concentrated. She'd written a little memo to herself against this
very eventuality, and it was pinned to the file.
She read:
You are interviewing Susan Sto Helit. Try not to forget it.
'Susan?' she ventured.
'Yes, Miss Butts?'
If Miss Butts concentrated, Susan was sitting in front of her. If she
made an effort, she could hear the gel's voice. She just had to fight
against a pressing tendency to believe that she was alone.
'I'm afraid Miss Cumber and Miss Greggs have complained,' she managed.
'I'm always in class, Miss Butts.'
'I dare say you are. Miss Traitor and Miss Stamp say they see you all
the time.'
There'd been quite a staffroom argument about that.
'Is it because you like Logic and Maths and don't like Language and
History?'
Miss Butts concentrated. There was no way the child could have left the
room. If she really stressed her mind, she could catch a suggestion of a
voice saying,
'Don't know, Miss Butts.'
'Susan, it is really most upsetting when-'
Miss Butts paused. She looked around the study, and then glanced at a
note pinned to the papers in front of her. She appeared to read it, looked
puzzled for a moment, and then rolled it up and dropped it into the
wastepaper basket.
She picked up a pen and, after staring into space for a moment, turned
her attention to the school accounts.
Susan waited politely for a while, and then got up and left as quietly
as possible.
Certain things have to happen before other things. Gods play games with
the fates of men. But first they have to get all the pieces on the board,
and look all over the place for the dice.
It was raining in the small, mountainous country of Llamedos. It was
always raining in Llamedos. Rain was the country's main export. It had rain
mines.
Imp the bard sat under the evergreen, more out of habit than any real
hope that it would keep the rain off. Water just dribbled through the spiky
leaves and formed rivulets down the twigs, so that it was really a sort of
rain concentrator. Occasional lumps of rain would splat on to his head.
He was eighteen, extremely talented and, currently, not at ease with
his life.
He tuned his harp, his beautiful new harp, and watched the rain, tears
running down his face and mingling with the drops.
Gods like people like this.
It is said that whosoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make
mad. In fact, whosoever the gods wish to destroy, they first hand the
equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse and Acme Dynamite Company written
on the side. It's more interesting, and doesn't take so long.
Susan mooched along the disinfectant smelling cor-ridors. She wasn't
particularly worried about what Miss Butts was going to think. She didn't
usually worry about what anyone thought. She didn't know why people forgot
about her when she wanted them to, but afterwards they seemed a bit
embarrassed about raising the subject.
Sometimes, some teachers had trouble seeing her. This was fine. She'd
generally take a book into the classroom and read it peacefully, while all
around her The Principal Exports of Klatch happened to other people.
It was, undoubtedly, a beautiful harp. Very rarely a craftsman gets
something so right that it is impossible to imagine an improvement. He
hadn't bothered with ornamentation. That would have been some kind of
sacrilege.
And it was new, which was very unusual in Llamedos. Most of the harps
were old.
It wasn't as if they wore out. Sometimes they needed a new frame, or a
neck, or new strings but the harp went on. The old bards said they got
better as they got older, although old men tend to say this sort of thing
regardless of daily experience.
Imp plucked a string. The note hung in the air, and faded. The harp was
fresh and bright and already it sang out like a bell. What it might be like
in a hundred years' time was unimaginable.
His father had said it was rubbish, that the future was written in
stones, not notes. That had only been the start of the row.
And then he'd said things, and he'd said things, and suddenly the world
was a new and unpleasant place, because things can't be unsaid.
He'd said, 'You don't know anything! You're just a stupid old man! But
I'm giving my life to music! One day soon everyone will say I was the
greatest musician in the world!'
Stupid words. As if any bard cared for any opinions except those of
other bards, who'd spent a lifetime learning how to listen to music.
But said, nevertheless. And, if they're said with the right passion and
the gods are feeling bored, some-times the universe will reform itself
around words like that. Words have always had the power to change the world.
Be careful what you wish for. You never know who will be listening.
Or what, for that matter.
Because, perhaps, something could be drifting through the universes,
and a few words by the wrong person at the right moment may just cause it to
veer in its course...
Far away in the bustling metropolis of Ankh Morpork there was a brief
crawling of sparks across an other-wise bare wall and then...
...there was a shop. An old musical instrument shop. No one remarked on
its arrival. As soon as it appeared, it had always been there.
Death sat staring at nothing, chinbone resting on his hands.
Albert approached very carefully.
It had continually puzzled Death in his more introspective moments, and
this was one of them, why his servant always walked the same path across the
floor.
I MEAN, he thought, CONSIDER THE SIZE OF THE ROOM . . .
...which went on to infinity, or as near infinity as makes no
difference. In fact it was about a mile. That's big for a room, whereas
infinity you can hardly see.
Death had got rather flustered when he'd created the house. Time and
space were things to be manipulated, not obeyed. The internal dimensions had
been a little too generous. He'd forgotten to make the outside bigger than
the inside. It was the same with the garden. When he'd begun to take a
little more interest in these things, he'd realized the role people seemed
to think that colour played in concepts like, for example, roses. But he'd
made them black. He liked black.
It went with anything. It went with everything, sooner or later.
The humans he'd known and there had been a few had responded to the
impossible size of the rooms in a strange way, by simply ignoring them.
Take Albert, now. The big door had opened, Albert had stepped through,
carefully balancing a cup and saucer...
...and a moment later had been well inside the room, on the edge of the
relatively small square of carpet that surrounded Death's desk. Death gave
up wondering how Albert covered the intervening space when it dawned on him
that, to his servant, there was no intervening space . . .
'I've brought you some camomile tea, sir,' said Albert.
HMM?
'Sir?'
SORRY. I WAS THINKING. WHAT WAS IT YOU SAID?
'Camomile tea?'
I THOUGHT THAT WAS A KIND OF SOAP.
'You can put it in soap or tea, sir,' said Albert. He was worried. He
was always worried when Death started to think about things. It was the
wrong job for thinking about things. And he thought about them in the wrong
way.
HOW VERY USEFUL. CLEAN INSIDE AND OUT.
Death put his chin on his hands again.
'Sir?' said Albert, after a while.
HMM?
'It'll get cold if you leave it.'
ALBERT . . .
'Yessir?'
I HAVE BEEN WONDERING . . .
'Sir?'
WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT? SERIOUSLY? WHEN YOU GET RIGHT DOWN TO IT?
'Oh. Er. Couldn't really say, sir.'
I DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT, ALBERT. YOU KNOW THAT. NOW I KNOW WHAT SHE
MEANT. NOT JUST ABOUT THE KNEES.
'Who, Sir?'
There was no reply.
Albert looked back when he'd reached the door. Death was staring into
space again. No one could stare quite like him.
Not being seen wasn't a big problem. It was the things that she kept
seeing that were more of a worry.
There were the dreams. They were only dreams, of course. Susan knew
that modern theory said that dreams were only images thrown up while the
brain was filing the day's events. She would have been more reassured if the
day's events had ever included flying white horses, huge dark rooms and lots
of skulls.
At least they were only dreams. She'd seen other things. For example,
she'd never mentioned the strange woman in the dormitory the night Rebecca
Snell put a tooth under the pillow. Susan had watched her come through the
open window and stand by the bed. She looked a bit like a milkmaid and not
at all frightening, even though she had walked through the furniture. There
had been the jingle of coins. Next morning the tooth had gone and Rebecca
was richer by one 50 pence coin.
Susan hated that sort of thing. She knew that men-tally unstable people
told children about the Tooth Fairy, but that was no reason for one to
exist. It suggested woolly thinking. She disliked woolly think-ing, which in
any case was a major misdemeanour under the regime of Miss Butts.
It was not, otherwise, a particularly bad one. Miss Eulalie Butts and
her colleague, Miss Delcross, had founded the college on the astonishing
idea that, since gels had nothing much to do until someone married them,
they may as well occupy themselves with learn-ing things.
There were plenty of schools in the world, but they were all run either
by the various churches or by the Guilds. Miss Butts objected to churches on
logical grounds and deplored the fact that the only Guilds that considered
girls worth educating were the Thieves and the Seamstresses. But it was a
big and dangerous world out there, and a gel could do worse than face it
with a sound knowledge of geometry and astronomy under her bodice. For Miss
Butts sincerely believed that there were no basic differences between boys
and gels.
At least, none worth talking about.
None that Miss Butts would talk about, anyway.
And therefore she believed in encouraging logi-cal thought and a
healthy enquiring mind among the nascent young women in her care, a course
of action which is, as far as wisdom is concerned, on a par with going
alligator hunting in a cardboard boat during the sinking season.
For example, when she lectured to the school, pointed chin trembling,
on the perils to be found outside in the town, three hundred healthy
enquiring minds decided that 1) they should be sampled at the earliest
opportunity, and logical thought wondered 2) exactly how Miss Butt knew
about them. And the high, spike topped walls around the college grounds
looked simple enough to anyone with a fresh mind full of trigonometry and a
body honed by healthy fencing, calisthenics and cold baths. Miss Butts could
make peril seem really interesting.
Anyway, that was the incident of the midnight visitor. After a while,
Susan considered that she must have imagined it. That was the only logical
explanation. And Susan was good at those.
Everyone, they say, is looking for something.
Imp was looking for somewhere to go.
The farm cart that had brought him the last stretch of the way was
rumbling off across the fields.
He looked at the signpost. One arm pointed to Quirm, the other to Ankh
Morpork.
He knew just enough to know that Ankh Morpork was a big city, but built
on loam and therefore of no interest to the druids in his family. He had
three Ankh Morpork dollars and some change. It probably wasn't very much in
Ankh Morpork.
He didn't know anything about Quirm, except that it was on the coast.
The road to Quirm didn't look very worn, while the one to Ankh Morpork was
heavily rutted.
It'd be sensible to go to Quirm to get the feel of city life. It'd be
sensible to learn a bit about how city people thought before heading for
Ankh Morpork, which they said was the largest city in the world. It'd be
sensible to get some kind of job in Quirm and raise a bit of extra cash.
It'd be sensible to learn to walk before he started to run.
Common sense told Imp all these things, so he marched off firmly
towards Ankh Morpork.
As far as looks were concerned, Susan had always put people in mind of
a dandelion on the point of telling the time. The college dressed its gels
in a loose navy blue woollen smock that stretched from neck to just above
the ankle practical, healthy and as attractive as a plank. The waistline was
some-where around knee level. Susan was beginning to fill it out, however,
in accordance with the ancient rules hesitantly and erratically alluded to
by Miss Delcross in Biology and Hygiene. Gels left her class with the vague
feeling that they were supposed to marry a rabbit. (Susan had left with the
feeling that the cardboard skeleton on the hook in the corner looked like
someone she'd known...)
It was her hair that made people stop and turn to watch her. It was
pure white, except for a black streak. School regulations required that it
be in two plait's, but it had an uncanny tendency to unravel itself and
spring back into its preferred shape, like Medusa's snakes.[2]
And then there was the birthmark, if that's what it was. It only showed
up if she blushed, when three faint pale lines appeared across her cheek and
made it look exactly as though she'd been slapped. On the occasions when she
was angry and she was quite often angry, at the sheer stupidity of the world
they glowed.
In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd
much prefer to read a good book. Currently she had Wold's Logic and Paradox
open on her desk and was reading it with her chin in her hands.
She listened with half an ear to what the rest of the class was doing.
It was a poem about daffodils.
Apparently the poet had liked them very much.
Susan was quite stoical about this. It was a free country. People could
like daffodils if they wanted to. They just should not, in Susan's very
definite and precise opinion, be allowed to take up more than a page to say
so.
She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to
interfere with it.
Around her, the poet's vision was taken apart with inexpert tools.
The kitchen was built on the same gargantuan lines as the rest of the
house. An army of cooks could get lost in it. The far walls were hidden in
the shadows and the stovepipe, supported at intervals by soot covered chains
and bits of greasy rope, disappeared into the gloom somewhere a quarter of a
mile above the floor.
At least, it did to the eye of the outsider.
Albert spent his time in a small tiled patch big enough to contain the
dresser, the table and the stove. And a rocking chair.
'When a man says "What's it all about then, seriously, when you get
right down to it?" he's in a bad way,' he said, rolling a cigarette. 'So I
don't know what it means when he says it. It's one of his fancies again.'
The room's only other occupant nodded. His mouth was full.
'All that business with his daughter,' said Albert. 'I mean...
daughter? And then he heard about apprentices. Nothing would do but he had
to go and get one!
Hah! Nothing but trouble, that was. And you, too, come to think of
it... you're one of his fancies. No offence meant,' he added, aware of who
he was talking to. 'You worked out all right. You do a good job.'
Another nod.
'He always gets it wrong,' said Albert. 'That's the trouble. Like when
he heard about Hogswatchnight? Remember that? We had to do the whole thing,
the oak tree in a pot, the paper sausages, the pork dinner, him sitting
there with a paper hat on saying IS THIS JOLLY? I made him a little desk
ornament thing and he gave me a brick.'
Albert put the cigarette to his lips. It had been expertly rolled. Only
an expert could get a rollup so thin and yet so soggy.
'It was a good brick, mind. I've still got it somewhere.'
SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats.
'You put your finger on it, right enough,' said Albert. 'At least, you
would have done if you had a proper one. He always misses the point. You
see, he can't get over things. He can't forget.'
He sucked on the wretched homemade until his eyes watered.
'What's it all about, seriously, when you get right down to it?' said
Albert.
'Oh, dear.'
He glanced up at the kitchen clock, out of a special human kind of
habit. It had never worked since Albert had bought it.
'He's normally in by this time,' he said. 'I'd better do his tray.
Can't think what's keeping him.'
The holy man sat under a holy tree, legs crossed, hands on knees. He
kept his eyes shut in order to focus better on the Infinite, and wore
nothing but a loincloth in order to show his disdain of discly things.
There was a wooden bowl in front of him.
He was aware, after a while, that he was being watched. He opened one
eye. There was an indistinct figure sitting a few feet away. Later on, he
was sure that the figure had been of... someone. He couldn't quite remember
the description, but the person must certainly have had one. He was about...
this tall, and sort of... definitely...
EXCUSE ME.
'Yes, my son?' His brow wrinkled. 'You are male, aren't you?' he added.
YOU TOOK A LOT OF FINDING. BUT I AM GOOD AT IT.
'Yes?'
I AM TOLD YOU KNOW EVERYTHING.
The holy man opened the other eye.
'The secret of existence is to disdain earthly ties, shun the chimera
of material worth, and seek one ness with the Infinite,' he said. 'And keep
your thieving hands off my begging bowl.'
The sight of the supplicant was giving him trouble.
I'VE SEEN THE INFINITE, said the stranger. IT'S NOTHING SPECIAL.
The holy man glanced around.
'Don't be daft; he said. 'You can't see the Infinite. 'Cos it's
infinite.'
I HAVE.
'All right, what did it look like?'
IT'S BLUE.
The holy man shifted uneasily. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. A
quick burst of the Infinite and a meaningful nudge in the direction of the
begging bowl was how it was supposed to go.
"S black,' he muttered.
NOT, said the stranger, WHEN SEEN FROM THE OUTSIDE. THE NIGHT SKY IS
BLACK. BUT THAT IS JUST SPACE. INFINITY, HOWEVER, IS BLUE.
'And I suppose you know what sound is made by one hand clapping, do
you?' said the holy man nastily.
YES. CL. THE OTHER HAND MAKES THE AP.
'Ah ha, no, you're wrong there,' said the holy man, back on firmer
ground. He waved a skinny hand. 'No sound, see?'
THAT WASN'T A CLAP. THAT WAS JUST A WAVE.
'It was a clap. I just wasn't using both hands. What kind of blue,
anyway?'
YOU JUST WAVED. I DON'T CALL THAT VERY PHILOSOPHICAL. DUCK EGG.
The holy man glanced down the mountain. Several people were
approaching. They had flowers in their hair and were carrying what looked
very much like a bowl of rice.
OR POSSIBLY EAU DE NIL.
'Look, my son,' the holy man said hurriedly, 'what exactly is it you
want? I haven't got all day.'
YES, YOU HAVE. TAKE IT FROM ME.
'What do you want?'
WHY DO THINGS HAVE TO BE THE WAY THEY ARE?
'Well-'
YOU DON'T KNOW, DO YOU?
'Not exactly. The whole thing is meant to be a mystery, see?'
The stranger stared at the holy man for some time, causing the man to
feel that his head had become transparent.
THEN I WILL ASK YOU A SIMPLER QUESTION. HOW DO HUMANS FORGET?
'Forget what?'
FORGET ANYTHING. EVERYTHING.
'It... er... it happens automatically.' The prospective acolytes had
turned the bend on the mountain path. The holy man hastily picked up his
begging bowl.
'Let's say this bowl is your memory,' he said, waving it vaguely. 'It
can only hold so much, see? New things come in, so old things must
overflow-'
NO. I REMEMBER EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING. DOORKNOBS. THE PLAY OF SUNLIGHT
ON HAIR. THE SOUND OF LAUGHTER. FOOTSTEPS. EVERY LITTLE DETAIL. AS IF IT
HAPPENED ONLY YESTERDAY. AS IF IT HAPPENED ONLY TOMMOROW. EVERYTHING. DO YOU
UNDERSTAND?
The holy man scratched his gleaming bald head.
'Traditionally,' he said, 'the ways of forgetting include joining the
Klatchian Foreign Legion, drinking the waters of some magical river, no one
knows where it is, and imbibing vast amounts of alcohol.'
AH, YES.
'But alcohol debilitates the body and is a poison to the soul.'
SOUNDS GOOD TO ME.
'Master?'
The holy man looked around irritably. The acolytes had arrived.
'Just a minute, I'm talking to-'
The stranger had gone.
'Oh, master, we have travelled for many miles over-' said the acolyte.
'Shut up a minute, will you?'
The holy man put out his hand, palm turned vertical, and waved it a few
times.
He muttered under his breath.
The acolytes exchanged glances. They hadn't expected this. Finally,
their leader found a drop of courage.
'Master-'
The holy man turned and caught him across the ear. The sound this made
was definitely a clap.
'Ah! Got it!' said the holy man. 'Now, what can I do for-'
He stopped as his brain caught up with his ears.
'What did he mean, humans?'
Death walked thoughtfully across the hill to the place where a large
white horse was placidly watching the view.
He said, GO AWAY.
The horse watched him warily. It was considerably more intelligent than
most horses, although this was not a difficult achievement. It seemed aware
that things weren't right with its master.
I MAY BE SOME TIME, said Death.
And he set out.
It wasn't raining in Ankh Morpork. This had come as a big surprise to
Imp.
What had also come as a surprise was how fast money went. So far he'd
lost three dollars and twenty-seven pence.
He'd lost it because he'd put it in a bowl in front of him while he
played, in the same way that a hunter puts out decoys to get ducks. The next
time he'd looked down, it had gone.
People came to Ankh Morpork to seek their fortune. Unfortunately, other
people sought it too.
And people didn't seem to want bards, even ones who'd won the mistletoe
award and centennial harp in the big Eisteddfod in Llamedos.
He'd found a place in one of the main squares, tuned up and played. No
one had taken any notice, except sometimes to push him out of the way as
they hurried past and, apparently, to nick his bowl. Eventually, just when
he was beginning to doubt that he'd made the right decision in coming here
at all, a couple of watchmen had wandered up.
'That's a harp he's playing, Nobby,' said one of them, after watching
Imp for a while.
'Lyre.'
'No, it's the honest truth, I'm-' The fat guard frowned and looked
down.
'You've just been waiting all your life to say that, ain't you, Nobby,'
he said. ' I bet you was born hoping that one day someone'd say "That's a
harp" so you could say "lyre", on account of it being a pun or play on
words. Well, har har.'
Imp stopped playing. It was impossible to continue, in the
circumstances.
'It is a harp, actualllly,' he said. 'I won it in-'
'Ah, you're from Llamedos, right?' said the fat guard. 'I can tell by
your accent. Very musical people, the Llamedese.'
'Sounds like garglin' with gravel to me,' said the one identified as
Nobby. 'You got a licence, mate?'
'Llicence?' said Imp.
'Very hot on licences, the Guild of Musicians,' said Nobby. 'They catch
you playing music without a licence, they take your instrument and they
shove-'
'Now, now,' said the other watchman. 'Don't go scaring the boy.'
'Let's just say it's not much fun if you're a piccolo player,' said
Nobby.
'But surelly music is as free as the air and the sky, see,' said Imp.
'Not round here it's not. Just a word to the wise, friend,' said Nobby.
'I never ever heard of a Guilld of Musicians,' said Imp.
'It's in Tin Lid Alley,' said Nobby. 'You want to be a musician, you
got to join the Guild.'
Imp had been brought up to obey the rules. The Llamedese were very law
abiding.
'I shallll go there directlly,' he said.
The guards watched him go.
'He's wearing a nightdress,' said Corporal Nobbs.
'Bardic robe, Nobby,' said Sergeant Colon. The guards strolled onwards.
'Very bardic, the Llamedese.'
'How long d'you give him, sarge?'
Colon waved a hand in the flat rocking motion of someone hazarding an
informed guess.
'Two, three days,' he said.
They rounded the bulk of Unseen University and ambled along The Backs,
a dusty little street that saw little traffic or passing trade and was
therefore much favoured by the Watch as a place to lurk and have a smoke and
explore the realms of the mind.
'You know salmon, sarge,' said Nobby.
'It is a fish of which I am aware, yes.'
'You know they sell kind of slices of it in tins . . .'
'So I am given to understand, yes.'
'Weell... how come all the tins are the same size? Salmon gets thinner
at both ends.'
'Interesting point, Nobby. I think-'
The watchman stopped, and stared across the street. Corporal Nobbs
followed his gaze.
'That shop,' said Sergeant Colon. 'That shop there . . . was it there
yesterday?'
Nobby looked at the peeling paint, the little grime-encrusted window,
the rickety door.
'Course,' he said. 'It's always been there. Been there years.'
Colon crossed the street and rubbed at the grime. There were dark
shapes vaguely visible in the gloom.
'Yeah, right,' he mumbled. 'It's just that . . . I mean . . . was it
there for years yesterday?'
'You ail right, sarge?'
'Let's go, Nobby,' said the sergeant, walking away as fast as he could.
'Where, sarge?'
'Anywhere not here.'
In the dark mounds of merchandise, something felt their departure.
Imp had already admired the Guild buildings the majestic frontage of
the Assassins' Guild, the splendid columns of the Thieves' Guild, the
smoking yet still impressive hole where the Alchemists' Guild had been up
until yesterday.
And it was therefore disappointing to find that the Guild of Musicians,
when he eventually located it, wasn't even a building. It was just a couple
of poky rooms above a barber shop.
He sat in the brown walled waiting room, and waited. There was a sign
on the wall opposite. It said 'For Your Comforte And Convenience YOU WILL
NOT SMOKE'. Imp had never smoked in his life. Everything in Llamedos was too
soggy to smoke.
But he suddenly felt inclined to try.
The room's only other occupants were a troll and a dwarf. He was not at
ease in their company. They kept looking at him.
Finally the dwarf said, 'Are you elvish?'
'Me? No!'
'You look a bit elvish around the hair.'
'Not ellvish at allll. Honestlly.'
'Where you from?' said the troll.
'Llamedos,' said Imp. He shut his eyes. He knew what trolls and dwarfs
traditionally did to people suspected of being elves. The Guild of Musicians
could take lessons.
'What dat you got dere?' said the troll. It had two large squares of
darkish glass in front of its eyes, supported by wire frames hooked around
its ears.
'It's a harp, see.'
'Dat what you play?'
'Yes.'
'You a druid, den?'
'No!'
There was silence again as the troll marshalled its thoughts.
'You look like a druid in dat nightie,' it rumbled, after a while.
The dwarf on the other side of Imp began to snigger.
Trolls disliked druids, too. Any sapient species which spends a lot of
time in a stationary, rock like pose objects to any other species which
drags it sixty miles on rollers and buries it up to its knees in a circle.
It tends to feel it has cause for disgruntlement.
'Everyone dresses like this in Llamedos, see,' said Imp. 'But I'm a
bard! I'm not a druid. I hate rocks!'
'Whoops,' said the dwarf quietly.
The troll looked Imp up and down, slowly and deliberately. Then it
said, without any particular trace of menace, 'You not long in dis town?'
'Just arrived,' said Imp. I won't even reach the door, he thought. I'm
going to be mashed into a pullp.
'Here is some free advice what you should know. It is free advice I am
giving you gratis for nothing. In dis town, "rock" is a word for troll. A
bad word for troll used by stupid humans. You call a troll a rock, you got
to be prepared to spend some time looking for your head. Especially if you
looks a bit elvish around de ears. Dis is free advice 'cos you are a bard
and maker of music, like me.'
'Right! Thank you! Yes!' said Imp, awash with relief.
He grabbed his harp and played a few notes. That seemed to lighten the
atmosphere a bit. Everyone knew elves had never been able to play music.
'Lias Bluestone,' said the troll, extending something massive with
fingers on it.
'Imp y Celyn,' said Imp. 'Nothing to do with moving rocks around at
allll in any way!'
A smaller, more knobbly hand was thrust at Imp from another direction.
His gaze travelled up its associated arm, which was the property of the
dwarf. He was small, even for a dwarf. A large bronze horn lay across his
knees.
'Glod Glodsson,' said the dwarf. 'You just play the harp?'
'Anything with strings on it,' said Imp. 'But the harp is the queen of
instruments, see.'
'I can blow anything,' said Glod.
'Realllly?' said Imp. He sought for some polite comment. 'That must
make you very popullar.'
The troll heaved a big leather sack off the floor.
'Dis is what I play,' he said. A number of large round rocks tumbled
out on to the floor. Lias picked one up and flicked it with a finger. It
went bam.
'Music made from rocks?' said Imp. 'What do you callll it?'
'We call it Ggroohauga,' said Lias, 'which means, music made from
rocks.'
The rocks were all of different sizes, carefully tuned here and there
by small nicks carved out of the stone.
'May I?' said Imp.
'Be my guest.'
Imp selected a small rock and flicked it with his finger. It went bop.
A smaller one went bing.
'What do you do with them?' he said.
'I bang them together.'
'And then what?'
'What do you mean, "And then what?"'
'What do you do after you've banged them together?'
'I bang them together again,' said Lias, one of nature's drummers.
The door to the inner room opened and a man with a pointed nose peered
around it.
'You lot together?' he snapped.
There was indeed a river, according to legend, one drop of which would
rob a man of his memory.
Many people assumed that this was the river Ankh, whose waters can be
drunk or even cut up and chewed. A drink from the Ankh would quite probably
rob a man of his memory, or at least cause things to happen to him that he
would on no account wish to recall.
In fact there was another river that would do the trick. There was, of
course, a snag. No one knows where it is, because they're always pretty
thirsty when they find it.
Death turned his attention elsewhere.
'Seventy five dollllars?' said Imp. 'Just to pllay music?'
'That's twenty five dollars registration fee, twenty per cent of fees,
and fifteen dollars voluntary compulsory annual subscription to the Pension
Fund,' said Mr Clete, secretary of the Guild.
'But we haven't got that much money!'
The man gave a shrug which indicated that, although the world did
indeed have many problems, this was one of them that was not his.
'But maybe we shallll be ablle to pay when we've earned some,' said Imp
weakly.
'If you could just, you know, llet us have a week or two-'
'Can't let you play anywhere without you being members of the Guild,'
said Mr Clete.
'But we can't be members of the Guild until we've played,' said Glod.
'That's right,' said Mr Clete cheerfully. 'Hat. Hat. Hat.'
It was a strange laugh, totally mirthless and vaguely birdlike. It was
very much like its owner, who was what you would get if you extracted
fossilized genetic material from something in amber and then gave it a suit.
Lord Vetinari had encouraged the growth of the Guilds. They were the
big wheels on which the clockwork of a well regulated city ran. A drop of
oil here... a spoke inserted there, of course... and by and large it all
worked.
And gave rise, in the same way that compost gives rise to worms, to Mr
Clete. He was not, by the standard definitions, a bad man; in the same way a
plague bearing rat is not, from a dispassionate point of view, a bad animal.
Mr Clete worked hard for the benefit of his fellow men. He devoted his
life to it. For there are many things in the world that need doing that
people don't want to do and were grateful to Mr Clete for doing for them.
Keeping minutes, for example. Making sure the membership roll was quite up
to date. Filing.
Organizing.
He'd worked hard on behalf of the Thieves' Guild, although he hadn't
been a thief, at least in the sense normally meant. Then there'd been a
rather more senior vacancy in the Fools' Guild, and Mr Clete was no fool.
And finally there had been the secretaryship of the Musicians.
Technically, he should have been a musician. So he bought a comb and
paper. Since up until that time the Guild had been run by real musicians,
and therefore the membership roll was unrolled and hardly anyone had paid
any dues lately and the organization owed several thousand dollars to
Chrysoprase the troll at punitive interest, he didn't even have to audition.
When Mr Clete had opened the first of the unkempt ledgers and looked at
the unorganized mess, he had felt a deep and wonderful feeling. Since then,
he'd never looked back. He had spent a long time looking down. And although
the Guild had a president and council, it also had Mr Clete, who took the
minutes and made sure things ran smoothly and smiled very quietly to
himself. It is a strange but reliable fact that whenever men throw off the
yoke of tyrants and set out to rule themselves there emerges, like a
mushroom after rain, Mr Clete.
Hat. Hat. Hat. Mr Clete laughed at things in inverse proportion to the
actual humour of the situation.
'But that's nonsense!'
'Welcome to the wonderful world of the Guild economy,' said Mr Clete.
'Hat. Hat. Hat.'
'What happens if we pllay without belonging to the Guilld, then?' said
Imp. 'Do you confiscate our instruments?'
'To start with,' said the president. 'And then we sort of give them
back to you. Hat. Hat. Hat. Incidentally . . . you're not elvish, are you?'
'Seventy five dollars is criminall,' said Imp, as they plodded along
the evening streets.
'Worse than criminal,' said Glod. 'I hear the Thieves' Guild just
charges a percentage.'
'And dey give you a proper Guild membership and everything,' Lias
rumbled. 'Even a pension. And dey have a day trip to Quirm and a picnic
every year.'
'Music should be free,' said Imp.
'So what we going to do now?' said Lias.
'Anyone got any money?' said Glod.
'Got a dollar,' said Lias.
'Got some pennies,' said Imp.
'Then we're going to have a decent meal,' said Glod. 'Right here.'
He pointed up at a sign.
'Gimlet's Hole Food?' said Lias. 'Gimlet? Sounds dwarfish. Vermincelli
and stuff?'
'Now he's doing troll food too,' said Glod. 'Decided to put aside
ethnic differences in the cause of making more money. Five types of coal,
seven types of coke and ash, sediments to make you dribble. You'll like it.'
'Dwarf bread too?' said Imp.
'You like dwarf bread?' said Glod.
'Llove it; said Imp.
'What, proper dwarf bread?' said Glod. 'You sure?'
'Yes. It's nice and crunchy, see.' Glod shrugged.
'That proves it,' he said. 'No one who likes dwarf bread can be
elvish.'
The place was almost empty. A dwarf in an apron that came up to its
armpits watched them over the top of the counter. 'You do fried rat?' said
Glod.
'Best damn fried rat in the city,' said Gimlet.
'OK. Give me four fried rats.'
'And some dwarf bread,' said Imp.
'And some coke,' said Lias patiently.
'You mean rat heads or rat legs?'
'No. Four fried rats.'
'And some coke.'
'You want ketchup on those rats?'
'No.'
'You sure?'
'No ketchup.'
'And some coke.'
'And two hard boilled eggs,' said Imp.
The others gave him an odd look.
'Wellll? I just like hard boilled eggs,' he said.
'And some coke.'
'And two hard boiled eggs.'
'And some coke.'
'Seventy five dollars,' said Glod, as they sat down. 'What's three
times seventy five dollars?'
'Many dollars,' said Lias.
'More than two hundred dollllars,' said Imp.
'I don't think I've even seen two hundred dollars,' said Glod. 'Not
while I've been awake.'
'We raise money?' said Lias. ' We can't raise money by being
musicians,' said Imp. 'It's the Guild Raw. If they catch you, they take your
instrument and shove-' He stopped. 'Llet's just say it's not much fun for
the piccollo pllayer,' he added from memory.
'I shouldn't think the trombonist is very happy either,' said Glod,
putting some pepper on his rat.
'I can't go back home now,' said Imp. 'I said I'd. . . I can't go back
home yet. Even if I could, I'd have to raise monolliths llike my brothers.
Allll they care about is stone circlles.'
'If I go back home now,' said Lias, 'I'll be clubbing druids.'
They both, very carefully, sidled a little further away from each
other.
'Then we play somewhere where the Guild won't find us,' said Glod
cheerfully. ' We find a club somewhere-'
'Got a club,' said Lias, proudly. 'Got a nail in it.'
'I mean a night club,' said Glod.
'Still got a nail in it at night.'
'I happen to know,' said Glod, abandoning that line of conversation,
'that there's a lot of places in the city that don't like paying Guild
rates. We could do a few gigs and raise the money with no trouble.'
'Allll three of us together?' said Imp.
'Sure.'
'But we pllay dwarf music and human music and trollll music,' said Imp.
'I'm not sure they'llll go together. I mean, dwarfs llisten to dwarf music,
humans llisten to human music, trolllls Ilisten to trollll music. What do we
get if we mix it allll together? It'd be dreadfull.'
'We're getting along OK,' said Lias, getting up and fetching the salt
from the counter.
'We're musicians,' said Glod. 'It's not the same with real people.'
'Yeah, right,' said the troll.
Lias sat down.
There was a cracking noise.
Lias stood up.
'Oh,' he said.
Imp reached over. Slowly and with great care he picked the remains of
his harp off the bench.
'Oh,' said Lias.
A string curled back with a sad little sound.
It was like watching the death of a kitten.
'I won that at the Eisteddfod,' said Imp.
'Could you glue it back together?' said Glod, eventually.
Imp shook his head.
'There's no one left in Llamedos who knows how, see.'
'Yes, but in the Street of Cunning Artificers-'
'I'm real sorry. I mean real sorry, I don't know how it got dere.'
'It wasn't your faullt.'
Imp tried, ineffectually, to fit a couple of pieces together. But you
couldn't repair a musical instrument. He remembered the old bards saying
that. They had a soul. All instruments had a soul. If they were broken, the
soul of them escaped, flew away like a bird. What was put together again was
just a thing, a mere assemblage of wood and wire. It would play, it might
even deceive the casual listener, but . . . You might as well push someone
over a cliff and then stitch them together and expect them to come alive.
'Um . . . maybe we could get you another one, then?' said Glod.
'There's . . . a nice little music shop in The Backs-'
He stopped. Of course there was a nice little music shop in The Backs.
It had always been there.
'In The Backs,' he repeated, just to make sure. 'Bound to get one
there. In The Backs. Yes. Been there years.'
'Not one of these,' said Imp. 'Before a craftsman even touches the wood
he has to spend two weeks sitting wrapped in a bullllock hide in a cave
behind a waterfallll.'
'Why?'
'I don't know. It's traditionall. He has to get his mind pure of allll
distractions.'
'There's bound to be something else, though,' said Glod. 'We'll buy
something.
You can't be a musician without an instrument.'
'I haven't got any money,' said Imp.
Glod slapped him on the back. 'That doesn't matter,' he said. 'You've
got friends! We'll help you! Least we can do.'
'But we allll spent everything we had on this meall. There's no more
money,' said Imp.
'That's a negative way of looking at it,' said Glod.
'Wellll, yes. We haven't got any, see?'
'I'll sort out something,' said Glod. 'I'm a dwarf. We know about
money. Knowing about money is practically my middle name.'
'That's a long middle name.'
It was almost dark when they reached the shop, which was right opposite
the high walls of Unseen University. It looked the kind of musical
instrument emporium which doubles as a pawnshop, since every musician has at
some time in his life to hand over his instrument if he wants to eat and
sleep indoors.
'You ever bought anything in here?' said Lias.
'No . . . not that I remember,' said Glod.
'It shut,' said Lias.
Glod hammered on the door. After a while it opened a crack, just enough
to reveal a thin slice of face belonging to an old woman.
'We want to buy an instrument, ma'am,' said Imp.
One eye and a slice of mouth looked him up and down.
'You human?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'All right, then.'
The shop was lit by a couple of candles. The old woman retired to the
safety of the counter, where she watched them very carefully for any signs
of murdering her in her bed.
The trio moved carefully amongst the merchandise. It seemed that the
shop had accumulated its stock from unclaimed pledges over the centuries.
Musicians were often short of money; it was one definition of a musician.
There were battle horns. There were lutes. There were drums.
'This is junk,' said Imp under his breath.
Glod blew the dust off a crumhorn and put it to his lips, achieving a
sound like the ghost of a refried bean.
'I reckon there's a dead mouse in here,' he said, peering into the
depths.
'It was all right before you blew it,' snapped the old woman.
There was an avalanche of cymbals from the other end of the shop.
'Sorry,' Lias called out.
Glod opened the lid of an instrument that was entirely unfamiliar to
Imp. It revealed a row of keys; Glod ran his stumpy fingers over them,
producing a sequence of sad, tinny notes.
'What is it?' whispered Imp.
'A virginal,' said the dwarf.
'Any good to us?'
'Shouldn't think so.'
Imp straightened up. He felt that he was being watched. The old lady
was watching, but there was something else . . .
'It's no use. There's nothing here,' he s...
