Terry Pratchett. Soul music
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...aid loudly.'Hey, what was that?' said Glod.
'I said there's-'
'I heard something.'
'What?'
'There it is again.'
There was a series of crashes and thumps behind them as Lias liberated
a double bass from a drift of old music stands and tried to blow down the
sharp bit.
'There was a funny sound when you spoke,' said Glod. 'Say something.'
Imp hesitated, as people do when, after having used a language all
their lives, they're told to 'say something'.
'Imp?' he said.
WHUM Whum whum.
'It came from-'
WHAA Whaa whaa.
Glod lifted aside a pile of ancient sheet music. There was a musical
graveyard behind it, including a skinless drum, a set of Lancre bagpipes
without the pipes and a single maraca, possibly for use by a Zen flamenco
dancer.
And something else.
The dwarf pulled it out. It looked, vaguely, like a guitar carved out
of a piece of ancient wood by a blunt stone chisel. Although dwarfs did not,
as a rule, play stringed instruments, Glod knew a guitar when he saw one.
They were supposed to be shaped like a woman, but this was only the case if
you thought women had no legs, a long neck and too many ears.
'Imp?' he said.
'Yes?'
Whauauaum. The sound had a saw edged, urgent fringe to it. There were
twelve strings, but the body of the instrument was solid wood, not at all
hollow it was more or less just a shape to hold the strings.
'It resonated to your voice,' said Glod.
'How can ?'
Whaum wha.
Glod clamped his hand over the strings, and beckoned the other two
closer.
'We're right by the University here,' he whispered. 'Magic leaks out.
It's a well known fact. Or maybe some wizard pawned it. Don't look a gift
rat in the mouth. Can you play a guitar?'
Imp went pale.
'You mean like . . . follk music?'
He took the instrument. Folk music was not approved of in Llamedos, and
the singing of it was rigorously discouraged; it was felt that anyone
espying a fair young maiden one morning in May was entitled to take whatever
steps they considered appropriate without someone writing it down. Guitars
were frowned upon as being, well . . . too easy.
Imp struck a chord. It created a sound quite unlike anything he'd heard
before there were resonances and odd echoes that seemed to run and hide
among the instrumental debris and pick up additional harmonics and then
bounce back again.
It made his spine itch. But you couldn't be even the worst musician in
the world without some kind of instrument . . .
'Right,' said Glod.
He turned to the old woman.
'You don't call this a music instrument, do you?' he demanded. 'Look at
it, half of it's not even there.'
'Glod, I don't think-' Imp began. Under his hand the strings trembled.
The old woman looked at the thing.
'Ten dollars,' she said.
'Ten dollars? Ten dollars?' said Glod. 'It's not worth two dollars!'
'That's right,' said the old woman. She brightened up a bit in a nasty
way, as if looking forward to a battle in which no expense would be spared.
'And it's ancient,' said Glod.
'Antique.'
'Would you listen to that tone? It's ruined.'
'Mellow. You don't get craftsmanship like that these days.'
'Only because we've learned from experience!'
Imp looked at the thing again. The strings resonated by themselves.
They had a blue tint to them and a slightly fuzzy look, as though they never
quite stopped vibrating.
He lifted it close to his mouth and whispered, 'Imp.' The strings
hummed.
Now he noticed the chalk mark. It was almost faded. And all it was was
a mark.
Just a stroke of the chalk . . .
Glod was in full flow. Dwarfs were said to be the keenest of financial
negotiators, second only in acumen and effrontery to little old ladies. Imp
tried to pay attention to what was going on.
'Right, then,' Glod was saying, 'it's a deal, yes?'
'A deal,' said the little old lady. 'And don't go spitting on your hand
before we shake, that sort of thing's unhygienic.'
Glod turned to Imp. 'I think I handled that pretty well,' he said.
'Good. Llisten, this is a very-'
'Got twelve dollars?'
'What?'
'Something of a bargain, I think.'
There was a thump behind them. Lias appeared, rolling a very large drum
and carrying a couple of cymbals under his arm.
'I said I'd got no money!' Imp hissed.
'Yes, but . . . well, everyone says they've got no money. That's sense.
You don't want to go around saying you've got money. You mean you've really
got no money?'
'No!'
'Not even twelve dollars?'
'No!'
Lias dumped the drum, the cymbals and a pile of sheet music on the
counter.
'How much for everything?' he said.
'Fifteen dollars,' said the old woman.
Lias sighed and straightened up. There was a distant look in his eyes
for a moment, and then he hit himself on the jaw. He fumbled around inside
his mouth with a finger and then produced
Imp stared.
'Here, let me have a look,' said Glod. He snatched the thing from
Lias's unprotesting fingers and examined it carefully. 'Hey! Fifty carats at
least!'
'I'm not taking that,' said the old woman. 'It's been in a troll's
mouth!'
'You eat eggs, don't you?' said Glod. 'Anyway, everyone knows trolls'
teeth are pure diamond.'
The old woman took the tooth and examined it by candlelight.
'If I took it along to one of those jewellers in Nonesuch Street they'd
tell me it's worth two hundred dollars,' said Glod.
'Well, I'm telling you it's worth fifteen right here,' said the old
lady. The diamond magically disappeared somewhere about her person. She gave
them a bright, fresh smile.
'Why couldn't we just take it off her?' said Glod, when they were
outside.
'Because she's a poor defencelless olld woman,' said Imp.
'Exactly! My point exactly!'
Glod looked up at Lias.
'You got a whole mouthful of them things?'
'Yup.'
'Only I owe my landlord two months' re-'
'Don't even fink about it,' said the troll levelly.
Behind them, the door slammed shut.
'Look, cheer up,' said Glod. 'Tomorrow I'll find us a gig. Don't worry.
I know everyone in this city. Three of us . . . that's a band.'
'We haven't even practised together properlly,' said Imp.
'We'll practise as we go along,' said Glod. 'Welcome to the world of
professional musicianship.'
Susan did not know much about history. It always seemed a particularly
dull subject. The same stupid things were done over and over again by
tedious people.
What was the point? One king was pretty much like another.
The class was learning about some revolt in which some peasants had
wanted to stop being peasants and, since the nobles had won, had stopped
being peasants really quickly. Had they bothered to learn to read and
acquire some history books they'd have learned about the uncertain merits of
things like scythes and pitchforks when used in a battle against crossbows
and broadswords.
She listened half heartedly for a while, until boredom set in, and then
took out a book and let herself fade from the notice of the world.
SQUEAK!
Susan glanced sideways.
There was a tiny figure on the floor by her desk. It looked very much
like a rat skeleton in a black robe, holding a very small scythe.
Susan looked back at her book. Such things did not exist. She was quite
certain about that.
SQUEAK!
Susan looked down again. The apparition was still there. There had been
cheese on toast for supper the previous night. In books, at least, you were
supposed to expect things after a late night meal like that.
'You don't exist,' she said. 'You're just a piece of cheese.'
SQUEAK?
When the creature was sure it had got her full attention, it pulled out
a tiny hourglass on a silver chain and pointed at it urgently.
Against all rational considerations, Susan reached down and opened her
hand. The thing climbed on to it its feet felt like pins and looked at her
expectantly.
Susan lifted it up to eye level. All right, perhaps it was a figment of
her imagination. She ought to take it seriously.
'You're not going to say something like "Oh, my paws and whiskers", are
you?' she said quietly. 'If you do, I shall go and drop you in the privy.'
The rat shook its skull.
'And you're real?'
SQUEAK. SQUEAKSQUEAKSQUEAK--
'Look, I don't understand,' said Susan patiently. 'I don't speak
rodent. We only do Klatchian in Modern Languages and I only know how to say
"My aunt's camel has fallen in the mirage". And if you are imaginary, you
might try to be a bit more ...lovable.'
A skeleton, even a small one, is not a naturally lovable object, even
if it has got an open countenance and a grin. But the feeling . . . no, she
realized . . . the memory was creeping over her from somewhere that this one
was not only real but on her side. It was an unfamiliar concept. Her side
had normally consisted of her.
The late rat regarded Susan for a moment and then, in one movement,
gripped the tiny scythe between its teeth and sprang off Susan's hand,
landed on the classroom floor, and scuttled away between the desks.
'It's not even as if you've got paws and whiskers,' said Susan. 'Not
proper ones, anyway.'
The skeletal rat stepped through the wall.
Susan turned back to her book and ferociously read Noxeuse's
Divisibility Paradox, which demonstrated the impossibility of falling off a
log.
They practised that very night, in Glod's obsessively neat lodgings.
These were behind a tannery in Phedre Road, and were probably safe from the
wandering ears of the Musicians' Guild. They were also freshly painted and
well scrubbed. The tiny room sparkled. You never got cockroaches or rats or
any kind of vermin in a dwarf home. At least, not while the owner could
still hold a frying pan.
Glod and Imp sat and watched Lias the troll hit his rocks.
'What d'you fink?' he said, when he'd finished.
'Is that all you do?' said Imp, after a while.
'They're rocks,' said the troll, patiently. 'That's all you can do.
Bop, bop, bop.'
'Hmm. Can I have a go?' said Glod.
He sat behind the array of stones and looked at them for a while. Then
he rearranged a few of them, took a couple of hammers out of his toolbox,
and tapped a stone experimentally.
'Now, let's see . . .' he said.
Bambam bamBAM.
Beside Imp, the guitar strings hummed.
'Without A Shirt,' said Glod.
'What?' said Imp.
'It's just a bit of musical nonsense,' said Glod. 'Like "Shave and a
haircut, two pence"?'
'Sorry?'
Bam bam a bambam, bamBAM.
'Shave and haircut good value for two pence,' said Lias.
Imp looked hard at the stones. Percussion wasn't approved of in
Llamedos either.
The bards said that anyone could hit a rock or a hollow log with a
stick. That wasn't music. Besides, it was . . . and here they'd drop their
voices... too animal.
The guitar hummed. It seemed to pick up sounds.
Imp suddenly had a nagging feeling that there was a lot you could do
with percussion.
'Can I try?' he said.
He picked up the hammers. There was the faintest of tones from the
guitar.
Forty five seconds later, he put down the hammers. The echoes died
away.
'Why did you hit me on the helmet at the end there?' said Glod,
carefully.
'Sorry,' said Imp. 'I think I got carried away. I thought you were a
cymball.'
'It was very...unusual,' said the troll.
'The music's... in the stones,' said Imp. 'You just have to llet it
out.
There's music in everything, if you know how to find it.'
'Can I try dat riff?' said Lias. He took the hammers and shuffled
around behind the stones again.
A bam bop a re bop a bim bam boom.
'What did you do to them?' he said. 'They sound . . . wild.'
'Sounded good to me,' said Glod. 'Sounded a whole lot better.'
Imp slept that night wedged between Glod's very small bed and the bulk
of Lias. After a while, he snored.
Beside him, the strings hummed gently in harmony.
Lulled by their almost imperceptible sound, he'd completely forgotten
about the harp.
Susan awoke. Something was tugging at her ear.
She opened her eyes.
SQUEAK?
'Oh, nooo-'
She sat up in bed. The rest of the girls were asleep. The window was
open, because the school encouraged fresh air. It was available in large
amounts for free.
The skeletal rat leapt on to the window ledge and then, when it had
made sure she was watching, jumped into the night.
As Susan saw it, the world offered two choices. She could go back to
bed, or she could follow the rat.
Which would be a stupid thing to do. Soppy people in books did that
sort of thing. They ended up in some idiot world with goblins and feeble
minded talking animals. And they were such sad, wet girls. They always let
things happen to them, without making any effort. They just went around
saying things like 'My goodness me', when it was obvious that any sensible
human being could soon get the place properly organized.
Actually, when you thought of it like that, it was tempting . . . The
world held too much fluffy thinking. She always told herself that it was the
job of people like Susan, if there were any more like her, to sort it out.
She pulled on her dressing gown and climbed over the sill, holding on
until the last moment and dropping into a flower bed.
The rat was a tiny shape scurrying across the moonlit lawn. She
followed it around to the stables, where it vanished somewhere in the
shadows.
As she stood feeling slightly chilly and more than slightly an idiot,
it returned dragging an object rather bigger than itself. It looked like a
bundle of old rags.
The skeletal rat walked around the side of it and gave the ragged
bundle a good hard kick.
'All right, all right!'
The bundle opened one eye, which swivelled around wildly until it
focused on Susan.
'I warn you,' said the bundle, 'I don't do the N word.'
'I'm sorry?' said Susan.
The bundle rolled over, staggered upright and extended two scruffy
wings. The rat stopped kicking it.
'I'm a raven, aren't I?' it said. 'One of the few birds who speak. The
first thing people say is, oh, you're a raven, go on, say the N word . . .
If I had a penny every time that's happened, I'd
SQUEAK.
'All right, all right.' The raven ruffled its feathers. 'This thing
here is the Death of Rats. Note the scythe and cowl, yes? Death of Rats.
Very big in the rat world.'
The Death of Rats bowed.
'Tends to spend a lot of time under barns and anywhere people have put
down a plate of bran laced with strychnine,' said the raven. 'Very
conscientious.'
SQUEAK.
'All right. What does it he want with me?' said Susan. 'I'm not a rat.'
'Very perspicacious of you,' said the raven. 'Look, I didn't ask to do
this, you know. I was asleep on my skull, next minute he had a grip on my
leg. Being a raven, as I said, I'm naturally an occult bird-'
'Sorry,' said Susan. 'I know this is all one of those dreams, so I want
to make sure I understand it. You said . . . you were asleep on your skull?'
'Oh, not my personal skull,' said the raven. 'It's someone else's.'
'Whose?'
The raven's eyes spun wildly. It never managed to have both eyes
pointing in the same direction. Susan had to resist trying to move around to
follow them.
'How do I know? They don't come with a label on them,' it said. 'It's
just a skull. Look . . . I work for this wizard, right? Down in the town. I
sit on this skull all day and go "caw" at people-'
'Why?'
'Because a raven sitting on a skull and going "caw" is as much part of
your actual wizarding modus operandi as the big dribbling candles and the
old stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling. Don't you know anything? I
should have thought anyone knows that who knows anything about anything.
Why, a proper wizard might as well not even have bubbling green stuff in
bottles as be without his raven sitting on a skull and going "caw"-'
SQUEAK.
'Look, you have to lead up to things with humans,' said the raven
wearily. One eye focused on Susan again. 'He's not one for subtleties, him.
Rats don't argue questions of a philosophical nature when they're dead.
Anyway, I'm the only person round here he knows who can talk-'
'Humans can talk,' said Susan.
`Oh, indeed,' said the raven, 'but the key point about humans, a
crucial distinction you might say, is that they're not prone to being woken
up in the middle of the night by a skeletal rat who needs an interpreter in
a hurry.
Anyway, humans can't see him.'
`I can see him.'
'Ah. I think you've put your digit on the nub, crux and gist of it
all,' said the raven. 'The marrow, as you might say.'
'Look,' said Susan, 'I'd just like you to know that I don't believe any
of this.
I don't believe there's a Death of Rats in a cowl carrying a scythe.'
'He's standing in front of you.'
'That's no reason to believe it.'
'I can see you've certainly had a proper education,' said the raven
sourly.
Susan stared down at the Death of Rats. There was a blue glow deep in
its eye sockets.
SQUEAK.
'The thing is,' said the raven, 'that he's gone again.'
'Your... grandfather.'
'Grandad Lezek? How can he be gone again? He's dead!'
'Your... er... other grandfather... ?' said the raven.
'I haven't got-'
Images rose from the mud at the bottom of her mind. Something about a
horse... and there was a room full of whispers. And a bathtub, that seemed
to fit in somewhere. And fields of wheat came into it, too.
'This is what happens when people try to educate their children,' said
the raven, 'instead of telling them things.'
'I thought my other grandad was also... dead,' said Susan.
SQUEAK.
'The rat says you've got to come with him. It's very important.'
The image of Miss Butts rose like a Valkyrie in Susan's mind. This was
silliness.
'Oh, no,' said Susan. 'It must be midnight already. And we've got a
geography exam tomorrow.'
The raven opened its beak in astonishment.
'You can't be saying that,' it said.
'You really expect me to take instructions from a . . . a bony rat and
a talking raven? I'm going back!'
'No, you're not,' said the raven. 'No one with any blood in them'd go
back now.
You'd never find things out if you went back now. You'd just get
educated.'
'But I haven't got time,' Susan wailed.
'Oh, time,' said the raven. 'Time's mainly habit. Time is not a
particular feature of things for you.'
'How-'
'You'll have to find out, won't you?'
SQUEAK.
The raven jumped up and down excitedly.
'Can I tell her? Can I tell her?' it squawked. It swivelled its eyes
towards Susan.
'Your grandfather,' it said, 'is . . . (dah dah dah DAH) . . . Dea-'
SQUEAK!
'She's got to know some time,' said the raven.
'Deaf? My grandfather is deaf?' said Susan. 'You've got me out here in
the middle of the night to talk about hearing difficulties?'
'I didn't say deaf, I said your grandfather is . . . (dah dah dah DAH)
. . . D-'
SQUEAK!
'All right! Have it your way!'
Susan backed away while the two of them argued.
Then she grasped the skirts of her nightdress and ran, out of the yard
and across the damp lawns. The window was still open. She managed, by
standing on the sill of the one below, to grab the ledge and heave herself
up and into the dormitory. She got into bed and pulled the blankets over her
head . . .
After a while she realized that this was an unintelligent reaction. But
she left them where they were, anyway.
She dreamed of horses and coaches and a clock without hands.
'D'you think we could have handled that better?'
SQUEAK? 'Dah dah dah DAH' SQUEAK?
'How did you expect me to put it. "Your grandfather is Death?" Just
like that?
Where's the sense of occasion? Humans like drama.'
SQUEAK, the Death of Rats pointed out.
'Rats is different.'
SQUEAK.
'I reckon I ought to call it a night,' said the raven. 'Ravens are not
generally nocturnal, you know.' It scratched at its bill with a foot. 'Do
you just do rats, or mice and hamsters and weasels and stuff like that as
well?'
SQUEAK.
'Gerbils? How about gerbils?'
SQUEAK.
'Fancy that. I never knew that. Death of Gerbils, too? Amazing how you
can catch up with them on those treadmills-'
SQUEAK.
'Please yourself.'
There are the people of the day, and the creature's of the night.
And it's important to remember that the creatures of the night aren't
simply the people of the day staying up late because they think that makes
them cool and interesting. It takes a lot more than heavy mascara and a pale
complexion to cross the divide.
Heredity can help, of course.
The raven had grown up in the forever crumbling, ivy clad Tower of Art,
overlooking Unseen University in far Ankh Morpork. Ravens are naturally
intelligent birds, and magical leakage, which has a tendency to exaggerate
things, had done the rest.
It didn't have a name. Animals don't normally bother with them.
The wizard who thought he owned him called him Quoth, but that was only
because he didn't have a sense of humour and, like most people without a
sense of humour, prided himself on the sense of humour he hadn't, in fact,
got. The raven flew back to the wizard's house, skimmed in through the open
window, and took up his roost on the skull.
'Poor kid,' he said.
'That's destiny for you,' said the skull.
'I don't blame her for trying to be normal. Considering.'
'Yes,' said the skull. 'Quit while you're a head, that's what I say.'
The owner of a grain silo in Ankh Morpork was having a bit of a
crackdown. The Death of Rats could hear the distant yapping of the terriers.
It was going to be a busy night.
It would be too hard to describe the Death of Rats' thought--processes,
or even be certain that he had any. He had a feeling that he shouldn't have
involved the raven, but humans set a great store by words.
Rats don't think very far ahead, except in general terms. In general
terms, he was very, very worried. He hadn't expected education.
Susan got through the next morning without having to go non-existent.
Geography consisted of the flora of the Sto Plains,[3] chief exports of the
Sto Plains[4] and the fauna of the Sto Plains.[5] Once you mastered the
common denominator, it was straightforward. The gels had to colour in a map.
This involved a lot of green. Lunch was Dead Man's Fingers and Eyeball
Pudding, a healthy ballast for the afternoon's occupation, which was Sport.
This was the province of Iron Lily, who was rumoured to shave and lift
weights with her teeth, and whose shouts of encouragement as she thundered
up and down the touchline tended towards the nature of 'Get some ball, you
bunch of soft nellies!'
Miss Butts and Miss Delcross kept their windows closed on games
afternoon. Miss Butts ferociously read logic and Miss Delcross, in her idea
of a toga, practised eurhythmics in the gym.
Susan surprised people by being good at sport. Some sport, anyway.
Hockey, lacrosse and rounders, certainly. Any game that involved putting a
stick of some sort in her hands and asking her to swing it, definitely. The
sight of Susan advancing towards goal with a calculating look made any
goalie lose all faith in her protective padding and throw herself flat as
the ball flashed past at waist height, making a humming noise.
It was only evidence of the general stupidity of the rest of humanity,
Susan considered, that although she was manifestly one of the best players
in the school she never got picked for teams. Even fat girls with spots got
picked before her. It was so infuriatingly unreasonable, and she could never
understand why.
She'd explained to other girls how good she was, and demonstrated her
skill, and pointed out just how stupid they were in not picking her. For
some exasperating reason it didn't seem to have any effect.
This afternoon she went for an official walk instead. This was an
acceptable alternative, provided girls went in company. Usually they went
into town and bought stale fish and chips from an unfragrant shop in Three
Roses Alley; fried food was considered unhealthy by Miss Butts, and
therefore bought out of school at every opportunity.
Girls had to walk in groups of three or more. Peril, in Miss Butts's
conjectural experience, couldn't happen to units of more than two.
In any case it was certainly unlikely to happen to any group that
contained Princess Jade and Gloria Thogsdaughter.
The school's owners had been a bit bothered about taking a troll, but
Jade's father was king of an entire mountain and it always looked good to
have royalty on the roll. And besides, Miss Butts had remarked to Miss
Delcross, it's our duty to encourage them if they show any inclination to
become real people and the King is actually quite charming and assures me he
can't even remember when he last ate anyone. Jade had bad eyesight, a note
excusing her from unnecessary sunshine, and knitting chain mail in
handicraft class.
Whereas Gloria was banned from sport because of her tendency to use her
axe in a threatening manner. Miss Butts had suggested that an axe wasn't a
ladylike weapon, even for a dwarf, but Gloria had pointed out that, on the
contrary, it had been left to her by her grandmother who had owned it all
her life and polished it every Saturday, even if she hadn't used it at all
that week. There was something about the way she gripped it that made even
Miss Butts give in. To show willing, Gloria left off her iron helmet and,
while not shaving off her beard there was no actual rule about girls not
having beards a foot long at least plaited it. And tied it in ribbons in the
school colours.
Susan felt strangely at home in their company, and this had earned
guarded praise from Miss Butts. It was nice of her to be such a chum, she
said. Susan had been surprised. It had never occurred to her that anyone
actually said a word like chum.
The three of them trailed back along the beech drive by the playing
field.
'I don't understand sport,' said Gloria, watching the gaggle of panting
young women stampeding across the pitch.
'There's a troll game,' said Jade. 'It's called aargrooha.'
'How's it played?' said Susan.
'Er . . . you rip off a human's head and kick it around with special
boots made of obsidian until you score a goal or it bursts. But it's not
played any more, of course,' she added quickly.
'I should think not,' said Susan.
'No one knows how to make the boots, I expect,' said Gloria.
'I expect if it was played now, someone like Iron Lily would go running
up and down the touchline shouting, "Get some head, you soft nellies",' said
Jade.
They walked in silence for a while.
'I think,' said Gloria, cautiously, 'that she probably wouldn't,
actually.'
'I say, you two haven't noticed anything . . . odd lately, have you?'
said Susan.
'Odd like what?' said Gloria.
'Well, like . . . rats . . .' said Susan.
'Haven't seen any rats in the school,' said Gloria. 'And I've had a
good look.'
'I mean . . . strange rats,' said Susan.
They were level with the stables. These were normally the home of the
two horses that pulled the school coach, and the term time residence of a
few horses belonging to gels who couldn't be parted from them.
There is a type of girl who, while incapable of cleaning her bedroom
even at knifepoint, will fight for the privilege of being allowed to spend
the day shovelling manure in a stable. It was a magic that hadn't rubbed off
on Susan.
She had nothing against horses, but couldn't understand all the
snaffles, bridles and fetlocks business. And she couldn't see why they had
to be measured in 'hands' when there were perfectly sensible inches around
to do the job.
Having watched the jodhpured girls who bustled around the stables, she
decided it was because they couldn't understand complicated machines like
rulers. She'd said so, too.
'All right,' said Susan. 'How about ravens?'
Something blew in her ear.
She spun around.
The white horse stood in the middle of the yard like a bad special
effect. He was too bright. He glowed. He seemed like the only real thing in
a world of pale shapes. Compared to the bulbous ponies that normally
occupied the loose boxes, he was a giant.
A couple of the jodhpured girls were fussing around him. Susan
recognized Cassandra Fox and Lady Sara Grateful, almost identical in their
love of anything on four legs that went 'neigh' and their disdain for
anything else, their ability to apparently look at the world with their
teeth, and their expertise in putting at least four vowels in the word 'oh'.
The white horse neighed gently at Susan, and began to nuzzle her hand.
You're Binky, she thought. I know you. I've ridden on you. You're . . .
mine. I think.
'I say,' said Lady Sara, 'who does he belong to?'
Susan looked around.
'What? Me?' she said. 'Yes. Me . . . I suppose.'
'Oeuwa? He was in the loose box next to Browny. I didn't knoeuwa you
had a horse here. You have to get permission from Miss Butts, you knoeuwa.'
'He's a present,' said Susan. 'From . . . someone . . .?'
The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind. She
wondered why she'd said that. She hadn't thought of her grandfather for
years. Until last night.
I remember the stable, she thought. So big you couldn't see the walls.
And I was given a ride on you once. Someone held me so I wouldn't fall off.
But you couldn't fall off this horse. Not if he didn't want you to.
'Oeuwa. I didn't know you rode.'
'I . . . used to.'
'There's extra fees, you knoeuwa. For keeping a horse,' said Lady Sara.
Susan said nothing. She strongly suspected they'd be paid.
'And you've got noeuwa tack,' said Lady Sara.
And Susan rose to it.
'I don't need any,' she said.
'Oeuwa, bareback riding,' said Lady Sara. 'And you steer by the ears,
ya?'
Cassandra Fox said: 'Probably can't afford them, out in the sticks. And
stop that dwarf looking at my pony. She's looking at my pony!'
'I'm only looking,' said Gloria.
'You were . . . salivating,' said Cassandra.
There was a pattering across the cobbles and Susan swung herself up and
on to the horse's back.
She looked down at the astonished girls, and then at the paddock beyond
the stables. There were a few jumps there, just poles balanced on barrels.
Without her moving a muscle, the horse turned and trotted into the
paddock and turned towards the highest jump. There was a sensation of
bunched energy, a moment of acceleration, and the jump passed underneath . .
.
Binky turned and halted, prancing from one hoof to the other.
The girls were watching. All four of them had an expression of total
amazement.
'Should it do that?' said jade.
'What's the matter?' said Susan. 'Have none of you seen a horse jump
before?'
'Yes. The interesting point is . . .' Gloria began, in that slow,
deliberate tone of voice people use when they don't want the universe to
shatter, '. . . is that, usually; they come down again.'
Susan looked.
The horse was standing on the air.
What sort of command was necessary to make a horse resume contact with
the ground? It was an instruction that the equestrian sorority had not
hitherto required.
As if understanding her thoughts, the horse trotted forward and down.
For a moment the hoofs dipped below the field, as if the surface were no
more substantial than mist. Then Binky appeared to determine where the
ground level should be, and decided to stand on it.
Lady Sara was the first one to find her voice.
'We'll tell Miss Butts of youewa,' she managed.
Susan was almost bewildered with unfamiliar fright, but the
petty-mindedness in the tones slapped her back to something approaching
sanity.
'Oh yes?' she said. 'And what will you tell her?'
'You made the horse jump up and . . .' The girl stopped, aware of what
she was about to say.
'Quite so,' said Susan. 'I expect that seeing horses float in the air
is silly, don't you?'
She slipped off the horse's back, and gave the watchers a bright smile.
'It's against school rules, anyway,' muttered Lady Sara.
Susan led the white horse back into the stables, rubbed him down, and
put him in a spare loose box.
There was a rustling in the hay rack for a moment. Susan thought she
caught a glimpse of ivory white bone.
'Those wretched rats,' said Cassandra, struggling back to reality. 'I
heard Miss Butts tell the gardener to put poison down.'
'Shame,' said Gloria.
Lady Sara seemed to have something boiling in her mind.
'Look, that horse didn't really stand in mid air, did it?' she
demanded. 'Horses can't do that!'
'Then it couldn't have done it,' said Susan.
'Hang time,' said Gloria. 'That's all it was. Hang time. Like in
basketball. [6] Bound to be something like that.'
'Yes.'
'That's all it was.'
'Yes.'
The human mind has a remarkable ability to heal. So have the trollish
and dwarfish minds. Susan looked at them in frank amazement. They'd all seen
a horse stand on the air. And now they had carefully pushed it somewhere in
their memories and broken off the key in the lock.
'Just out of interest,' she said, still eyeing the hayrack, 'I don't
suppose any of you know where there's a wizard in this town, do you?'
'I've found us somewhere to play!' said Glod.
'Where?' said Lias.
Glod told them.
'The Mended Drum?' said Lias. 'They throw axes!'
'We'd be safe there. The Guild won't play in there,' said Glod.
'Well, yah, dey lose members in there. Their members lose members,'
said Lias.
'We'll get five dollars,' said Glod.
The troll hesitated.
'I could use five dollars,' he conceded.
'One third of five dollars,' said Glod.
Lias's brow creased.
'Is that more or less than five dollars?' he said.
'Look, it'll get us exposure,' said Glod.
'I don't want exposure in de Drum,' said Lias. 'Exposure's the last
thing I want in de Drum. In de Drum, I want something to hide behind.'
'All we have to do is play something,' said Glod. 'Anything. The new
landlord is dead keen on pub entertainment.'
'I thought they had a one arm bandit.'
'Yes, but he got arrested.'
There's a floral clock in Quirm. It's quite a tourist attraction.
It turns out to be not what they expect.
Unimaginative municipal authorities throughout the multiverse had made
floral clocks, which turn out to be a large clock mechanism buried in a
civic flower-bed with the face and numbers picked out in bedding plants.[7]
But the Quirm clock is simply a round flower bed, filled with twenty
four different types of flower, care-fully chosen for the regularity of the
opening and closing of their petals . . .
As Susan ran past, the Purple Bindweed was open-ing and Love in a Spin
was closing. This meant that it was about half past ten.
The streets were deserted. Quirm wasn't a night town. People who came
to Quirm looking for a good time went somewhere else. Quirm was so
respectable that even dogs asked permission before going to the lavatory.
At least, the streets were almost deserted. Susan fancied she could
hear something following her, fast and pattering, moving and dodging across
the cobbles so quickly that it was never more than a suspicion of a shape.
Susan slowed down as she reached Three Roses Alley.
Somewhere in Three Roses near the fish shop, Gloria had said. The gels
were not encouraged to know about wizards. They did not figure in Miss
Butts's universe.
The alley looked alien in the darkness. A torch burned in a bracket at
one end. It merely made the shadows darker.
And, halfway along in the gloom, there was a ladder leaning against the
wall and a young woman just preparing to climb it. There was something
familiar about her.
She looked around as Susan approached, and seemed quite pleased to see
her.
'Hi,' she said. 'Got change of a dollar, miss?'
'Pardon?'
'Couple of half dollars'd do. Half a dollar is the rate. Or I'll take
copper. Anything, really.'
'Um. Sorry. No. I only get fifty pence a week allow-ance anyway.'
'Blast. Oh, well, nothing for it.'
In so far as Susan could see, the girl did not appear to be the usual
sort of young woman who made her living in alleys. She had a kind of well
scrubbed beefiness about her; she looked like a nurse of the sort who assist
doctors whose patients occasionally get a bit confused and declare they're a
bedspread.
She looked familiar, too.
The girl took a pair of pliers from a pocket in her dress, shinned up
the ladder and climbed in through an upper window.
Susan hesitated. The girl had seemed quite business-like about it all,
but in her limited experience people who climbed ladders to get into houses
at night were Miscreants whom Plucky Gels should Apprehend. And she might at
least have gone to look for a watchman, had it not been for the opening of a
door further up the alley.
Two men staggered out, arm in arm, and zigzagged happily towards the
main street. Susan stepped back. No one bothered her when she didn't want to
be noticed.
The men walked through the ladder.
Either the men weren't exactly solid, and they certainly sounded solid
enough, or there was something wrong with the ladder. But the girl had
climbed it... ... and was now climbing down again, slipping something into
her pocket.
'Never even woke up, the little cherub,' she said.
'Sorry?' said Susan.
'Didn't have Sop on me,' said the girl. She swung the ladder easily up
on to her shoulder. 'Rules are rules. I had to take another tooth.'
'Pardon?'
'It's all audited, you see. I'd be in real trouble if the dollars and
teeth didn't add up. You know how it is.'
'I do?'
'Still, can't stay here talking all night. Got sixty more to do.'
'Why should I know? Do what? Whom to?' said Susan.
'Children, of course. Can't disappoint them, can I? Imagine their
little faces when they lift up their little pillows, bless them.'
Ladder. Pliers. Teeth. Money. Pillows...
'You don't expect me to believe you're the Tooth Fairy?' said Susan
suspiciously.
She touched the ladder. It felt solid enough.
'Not the,' said the girl. 'A. I'm surprised you don't know that.'
She'd sauntered around the corner before Susan asked, 'Why me?'
'Cos she can tell,' said a voice behind her. 'Takes one to know one.'
She turned. The raven was sitting in a small open window.
'You'd better come in,' it said. 'You can meet all sorts, out in that
alley.'
'I already have.'
There was a brass plate screwed on the wall beside the door. It said:
'C V Cheesewaller, DM (Unseen) B. Thau, B.F.'
It was the first time Susan had ever heard metal speak.
'Simple trick,' said the raven, dismissively. 'It senses you looking at
it. Just give-'
'C V Cheesewaller, DM (Unseen) B. Thau, B.F.'
'... shut up ... just give the door a push.'
'It's locked.'
The raven gave her a beady eyed look with its head on one side. Then it
said:
'That stops you? Oh, well. I'll fetch the key.'
It appeared a moment later and dropped a large metal key on to the
cobbles.
'Isn't the wizard in?'
'In, yes. In bed. Snoring his head off.'
'I thought they stayed up all night!'
'Not this one. Cup of cocoa around nine, dead to the world at five
past.'
'I can't just let myself into his house!'
'Why not? You've come to see me. Anyway, I'm the brains of the outfit.
He just wears the funny hat and does the hand waving.'
Susan turned the key.
It was warm inside. There was the usual wizardly paraphernalia a forge,
a bench with bottles and bundles strewn over it, a bookcase with books
rammed in anyhow, a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling, some very
big candles that were just lava streams of wax, and a raven on a skull.
`They get it all out of a catalogue,' said the raven. 'Believe me. It
all comes in a big box. You think candles get dribbly like that by
themselves? That's three days' work for a skilled candle dribbler.'
`You're just making that up,' said Susan. 'Anyway, you can't just buy a
skull.'
'You know best, I'm sure, being educated,' said the raven.
'What were you trying to tell me last night?'
'Tell you?' said the raven, with a guilty look on its beak.
'All that dah dah dah DAH stuff.'
The raven scratched its head.
'He said I wasn't to tell you. I was just supposed to warn you about
the horse. I got carried away. Turned up, has it?'
'Yes!'
'Ride it.'
'I did. It can't be real! Real horses know where the ground is.'
'Miss, there's no horse realer than that one.'
'I know his name! I've ridden him before!'
The raven sighed, or at least made a sort of whistling noise which is
as close to a sigh as a beak can get.
'Ride the horse. He's decided you're the one.'
'Where to?'
'That's for me not to know and you to find out.'
'Just supposing I was stupid enough to do it . . . can you kind of hint
about what will happen?'
'Well . . . you've read books, I can see. Have you ever read any about
children who go to a magical faraway kingdom and have adventures with
goblins and so on?'
'Yes, of course,' said Susan, grimly.
'It'd probably be best if you thought along those lines,' said the
raven.
Susan picked up a bundle of herbs and played with them.
'I saw someone outside who said she was the Tooth Fairy,' she said.
'Nah, couldn't've been the Tooth Fairy,' said the raven. 'There's at
least three of them.'
'There's no such person. I mean... I didn't know, I thought that's just
a... story. Like the Sandman or the Hogfather.[8]
'Ah,' said the raven. 'Changing our tone, yes? Not so much of the
emphatic declarative, yes? A bit less of the "There's no such thing" and a
bit more of the "I didn't know", yes?'
'Everyone knows I mean, it's not logical that there's an old man in a
beard who gives everyone sausages and chitterlings on Hogswatchnight, is
it?'
'I don't know about logic. Never learned about logic,' said the raven.
'Living on a skull ain't exactly logical, but that's what I do.'
'And there can't be a Sandman who goes around throwing sand in
children's eyes,' said Susan, but in tones of uncertainty. 'You'd . . .
never get enough sand in one bag.'
'Could be. Could be.'
'I'd better be going,' said Susan. 'Miss Butts always checks the dorms
on the stroke of midnight.'
'How many dormitories are there?' said the raven.
'About thirty, I think.'
'You believe she checks them all at midnight and you don't believe in
the Hogfather?'
'I'd better be going anyway,' said Susan. 'Um. Thank you.'
'Lock up behind you and chuck the key through the window,' said the
raven.
The room was silent after she'd gone, except for the crackle as coals
settled in the furnace.
Then the skull said: 'Kids today, eh?'
'I blame education,' said the raven.
'A lot of knowledge is a dangerous thing ' said the skull. 'A lot more
dangerous than just a little. I always used to say that, when I was alive.'
'When was that, exactly?'
'Can't remember. I think I was pretty knowledgeable. Probably a teacher
or philosopher, something of that kidney. And now I'm on a bench with a bird
crapping on my head.'
'Very allegorical,' said the raven.
No one had taught Susan about the power of belief, or at least about
the power of belief in a combination of high magical potential and low
reality stability such as existed on the Discworld.
Belief makes a hollow place. Something has to roll in to fill it.
Which is not to say that belief denies logic. For example, it's fairly
obvious that the Sandman needs only a small sack.
On the Discworld, he doesn't bother to take the sand out first.
It was almost midnight.
Susan crept into the stables. She was one of those people who will not
leave a mystery unsolved.
The ponies were silent in the presence of Binky. The horse glowed in
the darkness.
Susan heaved a saddle down from the rack, and then thought better of
it. If she was going to fall off, a saddle wouldn't be any help. And reins
would be about as much use as a rudder on a rock.
She opened the door to the loose box. Most horses won't walk backwards
voluntarily, because what they can't see doesn't exist. But Binky shuffled
out by himself and walked over to the mounting block, where he turned and
watched her expectantly.
Susan climbed on to his back. It was like sitting on a table.
'All right,' she whispered. 'I don't have to believe any of this, mind
you.'
Binky lowered his head and whinnied. Then he trotted out into the yard
and headed for the field. At the gate he broke into a canter, and turned
towards the fence.
Susan shut her eyes.
She felt muscles bunch under the velvet skin and then the horse was
rising, over the fence, over the field.
Behind it, in the turf, two fiery hoofprints burned for a second or
two.
As she passed above the school she saw a light flicker in a window.
Miss Butts was on her rounds.
There's going to be trouble over this, Susan told herself.
And then she thought: I'm on the back of a horse a hundred feet up in
the air, being taken somewhere mysterious that's a bit like a magic land
with goblins and talking animals. There's only so much more trouble I could
get into...
Besides, is riding a flying horse against school rules? I bet it's not
written down anywhere.
Quirm vanished behind her, and the world opened up in a pattern of
darkness and moonlight silver. A chequer board pattern of fields strobed by
in the moonlight, with the occasional light of an isolated farm. Ragged
clouds whipped past and away.
Away on her left the Ramtop Mountains were a cold white wall. On her
right, the Rim Ocean carried a pathway to the moon. There was no wind, or
even a great sensation of speed just the land flashing by, and the long slow
strides of Binky.
And then someone spilled gold on the night. Clouds parted in front of
her and there, spread below, was Ankh Morpork a city containing more Peril
than even Miss Butts could imagine.
Torchlight outlined a pattern of streets in which Quirm would have not
only been lost, but mugged and pushed into the river as well.
Binky cantered easily over the rooftops. Susan could hear the sounds of
the streets, even individual voices, but there was also the great roar of
the city, like some kind of insect hive. Upper windows drifted by, each one
a glow of candlelight.
The horse dropped through the smoky air and landed neatly and at the
trot in an alley which was otherwise empty except for a closed door and a
sign with a torch over it.
Susan read:
CURRY GARDENS
Kitchren Entlance Keep Out. Ris Means You.
Binky seemed to be waiting for something. Susan had expected a more
exotic destination.
She knew about curry. They had curry at school, under the name of Bogey
and Rice. It was yellow. There were soggy raisins and peas in it. Binky
whinnied, and stamped a hoof.
A hatch in the door flew open. Susan got a brief impression of a face
against the fiery atmosphere of the kitchen.
'Ooorrh, nooorrrh! Binkorrr!'
The hatch slammed shut again. Obviously something was meant to happen.
She stared at a menu nailed to the wall. It was misspelled, of course,
because the menu of the folkier kind of restaurant always has to have
misspellings in it, so that customers can be lured into a false sense of
superiority. She couldn't recognize the names of most of the dishes, which
included:
Curry with Vegetable 8p Curry with Sweat, and Sore Balls of Pig 10p
Curry with Sweer and Sour, Ball of Fish 10p Curry with Meat 10p Curry with
Named Meat 15p Extra Curry 5p Porn cracker 4p
Eat It Here Or, Take It Away
The hatch snapped open again and a large brown bag of allegedly but not
really waterproof paper was dumped on the little ledge in front of it. Then
the hatch slammed shut again.
Susan reached out carefully. The smell rising from the bag had a sort
of thermic lance quality that warned against metal cutlery. But tea had been
a long time ago.
She realized she didn't have any money on her. On the other hand, no
one had asked her for any. But the world would go to wrack and ruin if
people didn't recognize their responsibilities.
She leaned forward and knocked on the door.
'Excuse me . . . don't you want anything ?'
There was shouting and a crash from inside, as if half a dozen people
were fighting to get under the same table.
'Oh. How nice. Thank you. Thank you very much,' said Susan, politely.
Binky walked away, slowly. This time there was no bunched leap of
muscle power he trotted into the air carefully, as if some time in the past
he'd been scolded for spilling something.
Susan tried the curry several hundred feet above the speeding
landscape, and then threw it away as politely as possible.
'It was very . . . unusual,' she said. 'And that's it? You ...
