Terry Pratchett. Soul music
страница №5
...s. 'It'sallowable for Bona Fide Travellers to get a Drink at Licensed Premises at
any Hour of Day or Night. City statute, you know.'
'Where were you travelling from, then?' Ridcully demanded.
'The Bunch of Grapes.'
'That's just around the corner.'
'Yes, but we were ... tired.'
'All right, all right,' said Ridcully, in the voice of a man who knows
that pulling at a thread any more will cause the whole vest to unravel. 'The
Librarian was with you?'
'Oh, yes.'
'Go on.'
'Well, there was this music-'
'Sort of twangy,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Melody led,' said the Dean.
'It was ...'
'... sort of ...'
'... in a way it ...'
'... kind of gets under your skin and makes you feel fizzy,' said the
Dean.
'Incidentally, has anyone got any black paint? I've looked everywhere.'
'Under your skin,' murmured Ridcully. He scratched his chin. 'Oh, dear.
One of those. Stuff leakin' into the universe again, eh? Influences coming
from Outside, yes? Remember what happened when Mr Hong opened his takeaway
fish bar on the site of the old temple in Dagon Street? And then there were
those moving pictures. I was against them from the start. And those wire
things on wheels.
This universe has more damn holes in it than a Quirm cheese. Well, at-'
'Lancre cheese,' said the Senior Wrangler helpfully. 'That's the one
with the holes. Quirm is the one with the blue veins.'
Ridcully gave him a look.
'Actually, it didn't feel magical,' said the Dean. He sighed. He was
seventy two. It had made him feel that he was seventeen again. He couldn't
remember having been seventeen; it was something that must have happened to
him while he was busy. But it made him feel like he imagined it felt like
when you were seventeen, which was like having a permanent red hot vest on
under your skin.
He wanted to hear it again.
'I think they're going to have it again tonight,' he ventured. 'We
could, er, go along and listen. In order to learn more about it, in case
it's a threat to society,' he added virtuously.
'That's right, Dean,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'It's our
civic duty.
We're the city's first line of supernatural defence. Supposing ghastly
creatures started coming out of the air?'
'What about it?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'Well, we'd be there.'
'Yes? That's good, is it?'
Ridcully glared at his wizards. Two of them were surreptitiously
tapping their feet. And several of them appeared to be twitching, very
gently. The Bursar twitched gently all the time, of course, but that was
only his way.
Like canaries, he thought. Or lightning conductors.
'All right,' he said reluctantly. 'We'll go. But we won't draw
attention to ourselves.'
'Certainly, Archchancellor.'
'And everyone's to buy their own drink.'
'Oh.'
Corporal (possibly) Cotton saluted in front of the fort's sergeant, who
was trying to shave.
'It's the new recruit, sir,' he said. ' He won't obey orders.'
The sergeant nodded, and then looked blankly at something in his own
hand.
'Razor, sir,' said the corporal helpfully. 'He just keeps on saying
things like IT'S NOT HAPPENING YET.' 'Have you tried burying him up to the
neck in the sand? That usually works.'
'It's a bit ... um ... thing ... nasty to people ... had it a moment
ago
...' The corporal snapped his fingers. 'Thing. Cruel. That's it. We
don't give people ... the Pit ... these days.'
'This is the ...' the sergeant glanced at the palm of his left hand,
where there were several lines of writing, 'the Foreign Legion.'
'Yessir. All right, sir. He's weird. He just sits there all the time.
We call him Beau Nidle, sir.'
The sergeant peered bemusedly at the mirror.
'It's your face, sir,' said the corporal.
Susan stared at herself critically.
Susan ... it wasn't a good name, was it? It wasn't a truly bad name, it
wasn't like poor Iodine in the fourth form, or Nigella, a name which means
'oops, we wanted a boy'. But it was dull. Susan. Sue. Good old Sue. It was a
name that made sandwiches, kept its head in difficult circumstances and
could reliably look after other people's children.
It was a name used by no queens or goddesses anywhere.
And you couldn't do much even with the spelling. You could turn it into
Suzi, and it sounded as though you danced on tables for a living. You could
put in a Z and a couple of Ns and an E, but it still looked like a name with
extensions built on. It was as bad as Sara, a name that cried out for a
prosthetic H.
Well, at least she could do something about the way she looked.
It was the robe. It might be traditional but ... she wasn't. The
alternative was her school uniform or one of her mother's pink creations.
The baggy dress of the Quirm College for Young Ladies was a proud one and,
in the mind of Miss Butts at least, proof against all the temptations of the
flesh ... but it lacked a certain panache as costume for the Ultimate
Reality. And pink was not even to be thought of.
For the first time in the history of the universe, a Death wondered
about what to wear.
'Hold on,' she said, to her reflection. 'Here ... I can create things,
can't I?'
She held out her hand and thought: cup. A cup appeared. It had a skull
and bones pattern around the rim.
'Ah,' said Susan. 'I suppose a pattern of roses is out of the question?
Probably not right for the ambience, I expect.'
She put the cup on the dressing table and tapped it. It went plink in a
solid sort of way.
'Well, then,' she said, 'I don't want something soppy and posey. No
silly black lace or anything worn by idiots who write poetry in their rooms
and dress like vampires and are vegetarians really.'
The images of clothes floated across her reflection. It was clear that
black was the only option, but she settled on something practical and
without frills. She put her head on one side critically.
'Well, maybe a bit of lace,' she said. 'And perhaps a bit more ...
bodice.'
She nodded at her reflection in the mirror. Certainly it was a dress
that no Susan would ever wear, although she suspected that there was a basic
Susanness about her which would permeate it after a while.
'It's a good job you're here,' she said, 'or I'd go totally mad. Haha.'
Then she went to see her grandf ... Death.
There was one place he had to be.
Glod wandered quietly into the University Library. Dwarfs respected
learning, provided they didn't have to experience it.
He tugged at the robe of a passing young wizard.
'There's a monkey runs this place, right?' he said. 'Big fat hairy
monkey, hands a couple of octaves wide?'
The wizard, a pasty faced post graduate student, looked down at Glod
with the disdainful air a certain type of person always reserves for dwarfs.
It wasn't much fun being a student in Unseen University. You had to
find your pleasures where you could. He grinned a big, wide, innocent grin.
'Why, yes,' he said. 'I do believe right at this moment he's in his
workroom in the basement. But you have to be very careful how you address
him.'
'Is that so?' said Glod.
'Yes, you have to be sure to say, "Do you want a peanut, Mr Monkey?"'
said the student wizard. He signalled a couple of his colleagues. 'That's
so, isn't it?
He has to say Mister Monkey.'
'Oh, yes indeedy,' said a student. 'Actually, if you don't want him to
get annoyed it's best to be on the safe side and scratch under your arms.
That puts him at his ease.'
'And go ugh ugh ugh,' said a third student. 'He likes that.'
'Well, thank you very much,' said Glod. 'Which way do I go?'
'We'll show you,' said the first student.
'That's so very kind.'
'Don't mention it. Only too glad to help.'
The three wizards led Glod down a flight of steps and into a tunnel.
Light filtered down through the occasional pane of green glass set in the
floor above.
Every so often Glod heard a snigger behind him.
The Librarian was squatting down on the floor in a long, high cellar.
Miscellaneous items had been scattered on the floor in front of him;
there was a cartwheel, odd bits of wood and bone, and various pipes, rods
and lengths of wire that somehow suggested that, around the city, people
were puzzling over broken pumps and fences with holes in. The Librarian was
chewing the end of a piece of pipe and looking intently at the heap.
'That's him,' said one of the wizards, giving Glod a push.
The dwarf shuffled forward. There was another outburst of muffled
giggling behind him.
He tapped the Librarian on the shoulder.
'Excuse me-'
'Ook?'
'Those guys just called you a monkey,' said Glod, jerking a thumb in
the direction of the door. 'I'd make them say sorry, if I was you.'
There was a creaking, metallic noise, followed very closely by a
scuffling outside as the wizards trampled one another in their effort to get
away.
The Librarian had bent the pipe into a U shape, apparently without
effort.
Glod went to the door and looked out. There was a pointy hat on the
flagstones, trampled flat.
'That was fun,' he said. 'If I'd just asked them where the Librarian
was, they'd have said bugger off, you dwarf. You have to know how to deal
with people in this game.'
He came back and sat down beside the Librarian. The ape put a smaller
bend in the pipe.
'What're you making?' said Glod.
'Gook oook OOK!'
'My cousin Modo is the gardener here,' said Glod. 'He says you're a
mean keyboard player.' He stared at the hands, busy in the pipe-bending.
They were big. And of course there were four of them. 'He was certainly
partly right,' he added.
The ape picked up a length of driftwood and tasted it.
'We thought you might like to play pianoforte with us at the Drum
tonight,' said Glod. 'Me and Cliff and Buddy, that is.'
The Librarian rolled a brown eye towards him, then picked up a piece of
wood, gripped one end and began to strum.
'Ook?'
'That's right,' said Glod. 'The boy with the guitar.'
'Eeek.'
The Librarian did a back somersault.
'Oookoook ooka ooka OOOka OOK!'
'I can see you're in the swing of it already,' said Glod.
Susan saddled the horse and mounted up.
Beyond Death's garden were fields of corn, their golden sheen the only
colour in the landscape. Death might not have been any good at grass (black)
and apple trees (gloss black on black), but all the depth of colour he
hadn't put elsewhere he'd put in the fields. They rippled as if in the wind,
except that there wasn't any wind.
Susan couldn't imagine why he'd done it.
There was a path, though. It led across the fields for half a mile or
so, then disappeared abruptly. It looked as though somebody walked out here
occasionally and just stood, looking around.
Binky followed the path and stopped at the end.
Then he turned, managing not to disturb a single ear.
'I don't know how you do this,' Susan whispered, 'but you must be able
to do it, and you know where I want to go.'
The horse appeared to nod. Albert had said that Binky was a genuine
flesh and blood horse, but maybe you couldn't be ridden by Death for
hundreds of years without learning something. He looked as though he'd been
pretty bright to start with.
Binky began to trot, and then canter, and then gallop. And then the sky
flickered, just once.
Susan had expected more than that. Flashing stars, some sort of
explosion of rainbow colours ... not just a flicker. It seemed a rather
dismissive way of travelling nearly seventeen years.
The cornfields had gone, but the garden was pretty much the same. There
was the strange topiary and the pond with the skeletal fish. There were,
pushing jolly wheelbarrows and carrying tiny scythes, what might have been
garden gnomes in a mortal garden but here were cheery little skeletons in
black robes. Things tended not to change.
The stables were a little different, though. Binky was in them, for a
start.
He whinnied quietly as Susan led him into an empty stall next to
himself.
'I'm sure you two know each other,' she said. She'd never expected it
to work, but it had to, didn't it? Time was something that happened to other
people, wasn't it?
She slipped into the house.
NO. I CANNOT BE BIDDEN. I CANNOT BE FORCED. I WILL ONLY DO THAT WHICH I
KNOW TO BE RIGHT ...
Susan crept along behind the shelves of lifetimers.
No one noticed her. When you are watching Death fight, you don't notice
shadows in the background.
They'd never told her about this. Parents never do. Your father could
be Death's apprentice and your mother Death's adopted daughter, but that's
just fine detail when they become Parents. Parents were never young. They
were merely waiting to become Parents.
Susan reached the end of the shelves.
Death was standing over her father ... she corrected herself, the boy
who would be her father.
Three red marks burned on his cheek where Death had struck him. Susan
raised a hand to the pale marks on her own face.
But that's not how heredity works.
At least ... the normal kind ...
Her mother ... the girl who would become her mother ... was pressed
against a pillar. She had actually improved with age, Susan thought. Her
dress sense certainly had. And she mentally shook herself. Fashion comments?
Now?
Death stood over Mort, sword in one hand and Mort's own lifetimer in
the other.
YOU DON'T KNOW HOW SORRY THIS MAKES ME, he said.
'I might,' said Mort.
Death looked up, and looked straight at Susan. His eye sockets flared
blue for a moment. Susan tried to press herself into the shadows.
He looked back down at Mort for a moment, and then at Ysabell, and then
back at Susan, and then back down at Mort. And laughed.
And turned the hourglass over.
And snapped his fingers.
Mort vanished, with a small 'pop' of imploding air. So did Ysabell and
the others.
It was, suddenly, very quiet.
Death put the hourglass down, very carefully, on the table and looked
at the ceiling for a while. Then he said:
ALBERT?
Albert appeared from behind a pillar.
WOULD YOU BE SO GOOD AS TO MAKE ME A CUP OF TEA, PLEASE.
'Yes, Master. Hehe, you sorted him out right enough-'
THANK YOU.
Albert scurried off in the direction of the kitchen.
Once again there was the closest thing there could ever be to silence
in the room of lifetimers.
YOU'D BETTER COME OUT.
Susan did so, and stood before the Ultimate Reality.
Death was seven feet tall. He looked taller. Susan had vague memories
of a figure carrying her on its shoulders through the huge dark rooms, but
in memory it had been a human figure bony, but human in a way she was
certain of but couldn't quite define.
This wasn't human. It was tall, and haughty, and terrible. He might
unbend enough to bend the Rules, Susan thought, but that doesn't make him
human. This is the keeper of the gate of the world. Immortal, by definition.
The end of everything.
He is my grandfather.
Will be, anyway. Is. Was.
But ... there was the thing in the apple tree. Her mind kept swinging
back to that. You looked up at the figure, and thought about the tree. It
was almost impossible to keep both images in one mind.
WELL, WELL, WELL. YOU HAVE A LOT OF YOUR MOTHER ABOUT YOU, said Death.
AND YOUR FATHER.
'How did you know who I am?' said Susan.
I HAVE A UNIQUE MEMORY.
'How can you remember me? I haven't even been conceived yet!'
I DID SAY UNIQUE. YOUR NAME IS--
'Susan, but ...'
SUSAN? said Death bitterly. THEY REALLY WANTED TO MAKE SURE, DIDN'T
THEY?
He sat down in his chair, steepled his fingers and looked at Susan over
the top of them.
She looked back, matching stare for stare.
TELL ME, said Death, after a while, WAS I ... WILL I BE ... AM I A GOOD
GRANDFATHER?
Susan bit her lip thoughtfully.
'If I tell you, won't that be a paradox?'
NOT FOR US.
'Well ... you've got bony knees.'
Death stared at her.
BONY KNEES?
'Sorry.'
YOU CAME HERE TO TELL ME THAT?
'You've gone missing back ... there. I'm having to do the Duty. Albert
is very worried. I came here to ... find things out. I didn't know my father
worked for you.'
HE WAS VERY BAD AT IT.
'What have you done with him?'
THEY'RE SAFE FOR NOW. I'M GLAD IT'S OVER. HAVING PEOPLE AROUND WAS
BEGINNING TO AFFECT MY JUDGEMENT. AH, ALBERT ...
Albert had appeared on the edge of the carpet, bearing a tea tray.
ANOTHER CUP, IF YOU WOULD BE SO GOOD.
Albert looked around, and totally failed to see Susan. If you could be
invisible to Miss Butts, everyone else was easy.
'If you say so, Master.'
SO, said Death, when Albert had shuffled away, I HAVE GONE MISSING. AND
YOU BELIEVE YOU HAVE INHERITED THE FAMILY BUSINESS. YOU?
'I didn't want to! The horse and the rat just turned up!'
RAT?
'Er... I think that's something that's going to happen.'
OH, YES. I REMEMBER. HMM. A HUMAN DOING MY JOB? TECHNICALLY POSSIBLE,
OF COURSE, BUT WHY?
'I think Albert knows something, but he changes the subject.'
Albert reappeared, carrying another cup and saucer. He plonked it down
pointedly on Death's desk, with the air of one who is being put upon.
'That'll be all, will it, Master?' he said.
THANK YOU, ALBERT. YES.
Albert left again, more slowly than normal. He kept looking over his
shoulder.
'He doesn't change, does he?' said Susan. 'Of course, that's the point
about this place-'
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT CATS?
'Sorry?'
CATS. DO YOU LIKE 'EM?
'They're ...' Susan hesitated, 'all right. But a cat's just a cat.'
CHOCOLATE, said Death. DO YOU LIKE CHOCOLATE?
'I think it's possible to have too much,' said Susan.
YOU CERTAINLY DON'T TAKE AFTER YSABELL.
Susan nodded. Her mother's favourite dish had been Genocide by
Chocolate.
AND YOUR MEMORY? YOU HAVE A GOOD MEMORY?
'Oh, yes. I ... remember things. About how to be Death. About how it's
all supposed to work. Look, just then you said you remembered about the rat,
and it hasn't even happ-'
Death stood up and strode across to the model of the Discworld.
MORPHIC RESONANCE, he said, not looking at Susan. DAMN. PEOPLE DON'T
BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND IT. SOUL HARMONICS. IT'S RESPONSIBLE FOR SO MANY THINGS.
Susan pulled out Imp's lifetimer. Blue smoke was still pouring through
the pinch.
'Can you help me with this?' she said.
Death spun around.
I SHOULD NEVER HAVE ADOPTED YOUR MOTHER.
'Why did you?'
Death shrugged.
WHAT'S THAT YOU'VE GOT THERE?
He took Buddy's lifetimer from her and held it up.
AH. INTERESTING.
'Do you know what it means, Grandad?'
I'VE NOT COME ACROSS IT BEFORE, BUT I SUPPOSE IT'S POSSIBLE. IN CERTAIN
CIRCUMSTANCES. IT MEANS ... SOMEHOW ... THAT HE HAS RHYTHM IN HIS SOUL ...
GRANDAD?
'Oh, no. That can't be right. That's just a figure of speech. And
what's wrong with grandad?'
GRANDFATHER I CAN LIVE WITH. GRANDAD? ONE STEP AWAY FROM GRAMPS, IN MY
OPINION. ANYWAY, I THOUGHT YOU BELIEVED IN LOGIC. CALLING SOMETHING A FIGURE
OF SPEECH DOESN'T MEAN IT'S NOT TRUE.
Death waved the hourglass vaguely.
FOR EXAMPLE, he said, MANY THINGS ARE BETTER THAN A POKE IN THE EYE
WITH A BLUNT STICK. I'VE NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE PHRASE. SURELY A SHARP STICK
WOULD BE EVEN WORSE-
Death stopped.
I'M DOING IT AGAIN! WHY SHOULD I CARE WHAT THE WRETCHED PHRASE MEANS?
OR WHAT YOU CALL ME? UNIMPORTANT! GETTING ENTANGLED WITH HUMANS CLOUDS THE
THINKING. TAKE IT FROM ME. DON'T GET INVOLVED.
'But I am a human.'
I DIDN'T SAY IT WAS GOING TO BE EASY, DID I? DON'T THINK ABOUT IT.
DON'T FEEL.
'You're an expert, are you?' said Susan hotly.
I MAY HAVE ALLOWED MYSELF SOME FLICKER OF EMOTION IN THE RECENT PAST,
said Death, BUT I CAN GIVE IT UP ANY TIME I LIKE.
He held up the hourglass again.
IT'S AN INTERESTING FACT THAT MUSIC, BEING OF ITS NATURE IMMORTAL, CAN
SOMETIMES PROLONG THE LIFE OF THOSE INTIMATELY ASSOCIATED WITH IT, he said.
I'VE NOTICED THAT FAMOUS COMPOSERS IN PARTICULAR HANG ON FOR A LONG TIME.
DEAF AS POSTS, MOST OF THEM, WHEN I COME CALLING. I EXPECT SOME GOD
SOMEWHERE FINDS THAT VERY AMUSING. Death contrived to look disdainful. IT'S
THEIR KIND OF JOKE. [16]
He set the glass down and twanged it with a bony digit.
It went whauuummmmeeee chida chida chida.
HE HAS NO LIFE. HE HAS MUSIC.
'Music's taken him over?'
YOU COULD PUT IT LIKE THAT.
'Making his life longer?'
LIFE IS EXTENSIBLE. IT HAPPENS OCCASIONALLY AMONG HUMANS. NOT OFTEN.
USUALLY TRAGICALLY, IN A THEATRICAL KIND OF WAY. BUT THIS ISN'T ANOTHER
HUMAN. THIS IS MUSIC.
'He played something, on some sort of stringed instrument like a
guitar-'
Death turned.
INDEED? WELL, WELL, WELL ...
'Is that important?'
IT IS ... INTERESTING.
'Is it something I should know?'
IT IS NOTHING IMPORTANT. A PIECE OF MYTHOLOGICAL DEBRIS. MATTERS WILL
RESOLVE THEMSELVES, YOU MAY DEPEND UPON IT.
'What do you mean, resolve themselves?'
HE WILL PROBABLY BE DEAD IN A MATTER OF DAYS.
Susan stared at the lifetimer.
'But that's dreadful!'
ARE YOU ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED WITH THE YOUNG MAN?
'What? No! I've only ever seen him once!'
YOUR EYES DIDN'T MEET ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM OR ANYTHING OF THAT NATURE?
'No! Of course not.'
WHY SHOULD YOU CARE, THEN?
'Because he matt- because he's a human being, that's why,' said Susan,
surprised at herself. 'I don't see why people should be messed around like
that,' she added lamely. 'That's all. Oh, I don't know.'
He leaned down again until his skull was on a level with her face.
BUT MOST PEOPLE ARE RATHER STUPID AND WASTE THEIR LIVES. HAVE YOU NOT
SEEN THAT? HAVE YOU NOT LOOKED DOWN FROM THE HORSE AT A CITY AND THOUGHT HOW
MUCH IT RESEMBLED AN ANT HEAP, FULL OF BLIND CREATURES WHO THINK THEIR
MUNDANE LITTLE WORLD IS REAL? YOU SEE THE LIGHTED WINDOWS AND WHAT YOU WANT
TO THINK IS THAT THERE MAY BE MANY INTERESTING STORIES BEHIND THEM, BUT WHAT
YOU KNOW IS THAT REALLY THERE ARE JUST DULL, DULL SOULS, MERE CONSUMERS OF
FOOD, WHO THINK THEIR INSTINCTS ARE EMOTIONS AND THEIR TINY LIVES OF MORE
ACCOUNT THAN A WHISPER OF WIND.
The blue glow was bottomless. It seemed to be sucking her own thoughts
out of her mind.
'No,' whispered Susan, 'no, I've never thought like that.'
Death stood up abruptly and turned away. YOU MAY FIND THAT IT HELPS, he
said.
'But it's all just chaos,' said Susan. 'There's no sense to the way
people die. There's no justice!'
HAH.
'You take a hand,' she persisted. 'You just saved my father.'
I WAS FOOLISH. TO CHANGE THE FATE OF ONE INDIVIDUAL IS TO CHANGE THE
WORLD. I REMEMBER THAT. SO SHOULD YOU.
Death still hadn't turned to face her.
'I don't see why we shouldn't change things if it makes the world
better,' said Susan.
HAH.
'Are you too scared to change the world?'
Death turned. The very sight of his expression made Susan back away. He
advanced slowly towards her. His voice, when it came, was a hiss.
YOU SAY THAT TO ME? YOU STAND THERE IN YOUR PRETTY DRESS AND SAY THAT
TO ME? YOU? YOU PRATTLE ON ABOUT CHANGING THE WORLD? COULD YOU FIND THE
COURAGE TO ACCEPT IT? TO KNOW WHAT MUST BE DONE AND DO IT, WHATEVER THE
COST? IS THERE ONE HUMAN ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD WHO KNOWS WHAT DUTY MEANS?
His hands opened and shut convulsively.
I SAID YOU MUST REMEMBER ... FOR US, TIME IS ONLY A PLACE. IT'S ALL
SPREAD OUT. THERE IS WHAT IS, AND WHAT WILL BE. IF YOU CHANGE THAT, YOU
CARRY THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CHANGE. AND THAT IS TOO HEAVY TO BEAR.
'That's just an excuse!'
Susan glared at the tall figure. Then she turned and marched out of the
room. SUSAN?
She stopped halfway across the floor, but didn't turn around.
'Yes?'
REALLY ... BONY KNEES?
'Yes!'
It was probably the first piano case that'd ever been made, and made
out of a carpet at that. Cliff swung it easily on to his shoulder and picked
up his sack of rocks in the other hand.
'Is it heavy?' said Buddy.
Cliff held the piano up on one hand and weighed it reflectively.
'A bit,' he said. The floorboards creaked underneath him. ' Do you
think we should've took all dem bits out?'
'It's bound to work,' said Glod. 'It's like ... a coach. The more bits
you take off, the faster it goes. Come on.'
They set out. Buddy tried to look as inconspicuous as a human can look
if he is accompanying a dwarf with a big horn, an ape, and a troll carrying
a piano in a bag.
'I'd like a coach,' said Cliff, as they headed for the Drum. 'Big black
coach with all dat liver on it.'
'Liver?' said Buddy. He was beginning to get accustomed to the name.
'Shields and dat.'
'Oh. Livery.'
'And dat.'
'What'd you get if you had a pile of gold, Glod?' said Buddy. In its
bag the guitar twanged gently to the sound of his voice.
Glod hesitated. He wanted to say that for a dwarf the whole point of
having a pile of gold was, well, to have a pile of gold. It didn't have to
do anything other than be just as oraceous as gold could be.
'Dunno,' he said. 'Never thought I'd have a pile of gold. What about
you?'
'I swore I'd be the most famous musician in the world.'
'Days dangerous, dat kinda swear,' said Cliff.
'Cook.'
'Isn't it what every artist wants?' said Buddy.
'In my experience,' said Glod, 'what every true artist wants, really
wants, is to be paid.'
'And famous,' said Buddy.
'Famous I don't know about,' said Glod. 'It's hard to be famous and
alive. I just want to play music every day and hear someone say, "Thanks,
that was great, here is some money, same time tomorrow OK?"'
'Is that all?'
'It's a lot. I'd like people to say, "We need a good horn man, get Glod
Glodsson!"'
'Sounds a bit dull,' said Buddy.
'I like dull. It lasts.'
They reached the side door of the Drum and entered a gloomy room that
smelled of rats and second hand beer. There was a distant murmur of voices
from the bar.
'Sounds like there's a lot of people in,' said Glod.
Hibiscus bustled up. 'You boys ready, then?' he said.
'Hold on a minute,' said Cliff. 'We ain't discussed our pay.'
'I said six dollars,' said Hibiscus. 'What d'you ex-pect? You aren't
Guild, and the Guild rate is eight dollars.'
'We wouldn't ask you for eight dollars,' said Glod.
'Right!'
'We'll take sixteen.'
'Sixteen? You can't do that! That's almost twice Guild rate!'
'But there's a lot of people out there,' said Glod. 'I bet you're
renting a lot of beer. We don't mind going home.'
'Let's talk about this,' said Hibiscus. He put his arm around Glod's
head and led him to a corner of the room.
Buddy watched the Librarian examine the piano. He'd never seen a
musician begin by trying to eat his instrument. Then the ape lifted the lid
and regarded the keyboard. He tried a few notes, apparently for taste.
Glod returned, rubbing his hands.
'That's sorted him out,' he said. 'Hah!'
'How much?' said Cliff.
'Six dollars!' said Glod.
There was some silence.
'Sorry,' said Buddy. 'We were waiting for the " teen".'
'I had to be firm,' said Glod. 'He got down to two dollars at one
point.'
Some religions say that the universe was started with a word, a song, a
dance, a piece of music. The Listening Monks of the Ramtops have trained
their hearing until they can tell the value of a playing card by listening
to it, and have made it their task to listen intently to the subtle sounds
of the universe to piece together, from the fossil echoes, the very first
sounds.
There was certainly, they say, a very strange noise at the beginning of
everything.
But the keenest ears (the ones who win most at poker), who listen to
the frozen echoes in ammonites and amber, swear they can detect some tiny
sounds before that.
It sounded, they say, like someone counting: One, Two, Three, Four.
The very best one, who listened to basalt, said he thought he could
make out, very faintly, some numbers that came even earlier.
When they asked him what it was, he said: 'It sounds like One, Two.'
No one ever asked what, if there was a sound that called the universe
into being, happened to it after-wards. It's mythology. You're not supposed
to ask that kind of question.
On the other hand, Ridcully believed that everything had come into
being by chance or, in the particular case of the Dean, out of spite.
Senior wizards didn't usually drink in the Mended Drum except when they
were off duty. They were aware that they were here tonight in some sort of
ill defined official capacity, and were seated rather primly in front of
their drinks.
There was a ring of empty seats around them, but it was not very big
because the Drum was unusually crowded.
'Lot of ambience in here,' said Ridcully, looking around. 'Ah, I see
they do Real Ale again. I'll have a pint of Turbot's Really Odd, please.'
The wizards watched him as he drained the mug. Ankh Morpork beer has a
flavour all its own; it's something to do with the water. Some people say
it's like consomme, but they are wrong. Consomme is cooler.
Ridcully smacked his lips happily.
'Ah, we certainly know what goes into good beer in Ankh-Morpork,' he
said.
The wizards nodded. They certainly did. That's why they were drinking
gin and tonic.
Ridcully looked around. Normally at this time of night there was a
fight going on somewhere, or at least a mild stabbing. But there was just a
buzz of conversation and everyone was watching the small stage at the far
end of the room, where nothing was happening in large amounts. There was
theoretically a curtain across it; it was only an old sheet, and there was a
succession of thuds and thumps from behind it.
The wizards were quite close to the stage. Wizards tend to get good
seats.
Ridcully thought he could make out some whispering, and see shadows
moving behind the sheet.
'He said, what do we call ourselves?'
'Cliff, Buddy, Glod and the Librarian. I thought he knew that.'
'No, we've got to have one name for all of us.'
'Dey rationed, den?'
'Something like The Merry Troubadours, maybe.'
'Oook!'
'Glod and the Glodettes?'
'Oh, yes? How about Cliff and the Cliffettes?'
'Gook ook Oook ook?'
'No. We need a different type of name. Like the music.'
'How about Gold? Good dwarf name.'
'No. Something different from that.'
'Silver, then.'
'Ook!'
'I don't think we should name ourselves after any kind of heavy metal,
Glod.'
'What's so special? We're a band of people who play music.'
'Names are important.'
'The guitar is special. How about The Band With Buddy's Guitar In It?'
'Oook.'
'Something shorter.'
'Er ...'
The universe held its breath.
'The Band With Rocks In?'
'I like it. Short and slightly dirty, just like me.'
'Oook.'
'We ought to think up a name for the music, too.'
'It's bound to occur to us sooner or later.' .
Ridcully looked around the bar.
On the opposite side of the room was Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler, Ankh
Morpork's most spectacularly unsuccessful businessman. He was trying to sell
someone a felonious hot dog, a sign that some recent sure fire business
venture had collapsed. Dibbler sold his hot sausages only when all else
failed.[17]
He gave Ridcully a wave at no charge.
The next table was occupied by Satchelmouth Lemon, one of the
Musicians' Guild's recruiting officers, with a couple of associates whose
apparent knowledge of music extended only to the amount of percussion
available on the human skull.
His determined expression suggested that he was not there for his
health, although the fact that the Guild officers had a mean look about them
rather hinted he was there for other people's health, mostly in order to
take it away.
Ridcully brightened up. The evening might just possibly be more
interesting than he had expected.
There was another table near the stage. He nearly didn't notice it, and
then his gaze swivelled back to it of its own accord.
There was a young woman sitting there, all by herself. Of course, it
wasn't unusual to see young women in the Drum. Even unaccompanied young
women. They were generally there in order to become accompanied.
The odd thing was that, although people were jammed along the benches,
she had space all around her. She was quite attractive in a skinny way,
Ridcully thought. What was the tomboy word? Gammon, or something. She was
wearing a black lace dress of the sort worn by healthy young women who want
to look consumptive, and had a raven sitting on her shoulder.
She turned her head, saw Ridcully looking at her, and vanished.
More or less.
He was a wizard, after all. He felt his eyes watering as she flickered
in and out of vision.
Ah. Well, he'd heard the Tooth Fairy girls were in the city these days.
It'd be one of the night people. They probably had a day off, just like
everyone else.
A movement on the table made him look down. The Death of Rats
scrittered past, carrying a bowl of peanuts.
He turned back to the wizards. The Dean was still wearing his pointy
hat. There was also something slightly shiny about his face.
'You look hot, Dean,' said Ridcully.
'Oh, I'm lovely and cool, Archchancellor, I assure you,' said the Dean.
Something runny oozed past his nose.
The Lecturer in Recent Runes sniffed suspiciously.
'Is someone cooking bacon?' he said.
'Take it off, Dean,' said Ridcully. 'You'll feel a lot better.'
'Smells more like Mrs Palm's House of Negotiable Affection to me,' said
the
Senior Wrangler.
They looked at him in surprise.
'I just happened to walk past once,' he said quickly.
'Runes, please take the Dean's hat off for him, will you?' said
Ridcully.
'I assure you-'
The hat came off. Something long and greasy and very nearly the same
pointy shape flopped forward.
'Dean,' said Ridcully eventually, 'what have you done to your hair? It
looks like a spike at the front and a duck's arse, excuse my Klatchian, at
the back. And it's all shiny.'
'Lard. That'd be the bacon smell,' said the Lecturer.
'That's true,' said Ridcully, 'but what about the floral smell?'
'mumblemumblemumblelavendermumble,' said the Dean sullenly.
'Pardon, Dean?'
'I said it's because I added lavender oil,' said the Dean loudly. 'And
some of us happen to think it's a nifty hairstyle, thank you so very much.
Your trouble, Archchancellor, is that you don't understand people of our
age!'
'What ... you mean seven months older than me?' said Ridcully.
This time the Dean hesitated.
'What did I just say?' he said.
'Have you been taking dried frog pills, old chap?' said Ridcully.
'Of course not, they're for the mentally unstable!' said the Dean.
'Ah. There's the trouble, then.'
The curtain went up or, rather, was jerkily pulled aside.
The Band With Rocks In blinked in the torchlight.
No one clapped. On the other hand, no one threw anything, either. By
Drum standards, this was a hearty welcome.
Ridcully saw a tall, curly headed young man clutching what looked like
an undernourished guitar or possibly a banjo that had been used in a fight.
Beside him was a dwarf, holding a battle horn. At the rear was a troll,
hammer in each paw, seated behind a pile of rocks. And to one side was the
Librarian, standing in front of ... Ridcully leaned forward ... what
appeared to be the skeleton of a piano, balanced on some beer kegs.
The boy looked paralysed by the attention.
He said: 'Hello ... er ... Ankh Morpork.
And, this amount of conversation apparently having exhausted him, he
started to play.
It was a simple little rhythm, one that you might easily have ignored
if you'd met it in the street. It was followed by a sequence of crashing
chords and then, Ridcully realized, it hadn't been followed by the chords,
because the rhythm was there all the time. Which was impossible. No guitar
could be played like that.
The dwarf blew a sequence of notes on the horn. The troll picked up the
beat.
The Librarian brought both hands down upon the piano keyboard,
apparently at random.
Ridcully had never heard such a din.
And then ... and then ... it wasn't a din any more.
It was like that nonsense about white light that the young wizards in
the High Energy Magic Building went on about. They said that all the colours
together made up white, which was bloody nonsense as far as Ridcully was
concerned, because everyone knew that if you mixed up all the colours you
could get your hands on, you got a sort of greeny brown mess which certainly
wasn't any kind of white. But now he had a vague idea what they meant.
All this noise, this mess of music, suddenly came together and there
was a new music inside it.
The Dean's quiff was quivering.
The whole crowd was moving.
Ridcully realized his foot was tapping. He stamped on it with his other
foot. Then he watched the troll carry the beat and hammer the rocks until
the walls shook. The Librarian's fingers swooped along the keyboard. Then
his toes did the same. And all the time the guitar hooted and screamed and
sang out the melody.
The wizards were bouncing in their seats and twirling their fingers in
the air.
Ridcully leaned over to the Bursar and screamed at him.
'What?' shouted the Bursar.
'I said, they've all gone mad except me and you!'
'What?'
'It's the music!'
'Yes! It's great!' said the Bursar, waving his skinny hands in the air.
'And I'm not too certain about you!'
Ridcully sat down again and pulled out the thaumometer. It was
vibrating crazily, which was no help at all. It didn't seem to be able to
decide if this was magic or not.
He nudged the Bursar sharply.
'This ain't magic! This is something else!'
'You're exactly right!'
Ridcully had the feeling that he suddenly wasn't speaking the right
language.
'I mean it's too much!'
'Yes!'
Ridcully sighed.
'Is it time for your dried frog pill?'
Smoke was coming out of the stricken piano. The Librarian's hands were
walking through the keys like Casanunda in a nunnery.
Ridcully looked around. He felt all alone.
Someone else hadn't been overcome by the music. Satchelmouth had stood
up. So had his two associates.
They had drawn some knobbly clubs. Ridcully knew the Guild laws. Of
course, they had to be enforced. You couldn't run a city without them. This
certainly wasn't licensed music if ever there was unlicensed music, this was
it. Nevertheless
... he rolled up his sleeve and prepared a quick fireball, just in
case.
One of the men dropped his club and clutched his foot. The other one
spun around as if something had slapped his ear. Satchelmouth's hat dented,
as if someone had just hit him on the head.
Ridcully, one eye watering terribly, thought he made out the Tooth
Fairy girl bringing the handle of a scythe down on Satchelmouth's head.
The Archchancellor was quite a bright man but often had trouble in
forcing his train of thought to change tracks. He was having difficulty with
the idea of a scythe, after all, grass didn't have teeth and then the
fireball burned his fingers, and then, as he sucked frantically at them, he
realized that there was something in the sound. Something extra.
'Oh, no,' he said, as the fireball floated to the floor and set fire to
the Bursar's boot, 'it's alive.'
He grabbed the beer mug, finished the contents hur-riedly, and rammed
it upside down on the tabletop.
The moon shone over the Klatchian desert, in the vicinity of the dotted
line.
Both sides of it got exactly the same amount of moonlight, although
minds like
Mr Clete's deplored this state of affairs.
The sergeant strolled across the packed sand of the parade ground. He
stopped, sat down, and produced a cheroot. Then he pulled out a match,
reached down and struck it on something sticking out of the sand, which
said:
GOOD EVENING.
'I expect you've had enough, eh, soldier?' said the sergeant.
ENOUGH WHAT, SERGEANT?
'Two days in the sun, no food, no water ... I expect you're delirious
with thirst and are just begging to be dug out, eh?'
YES. IT IS CERTAINLY VERY DULL.
'Dull?'
I AM AFRAID SO.
'Dull? It's not meant to be dull! It's the Pit! It's meant to be a
horrible physical and mental torture! After one day of it you're supposed to
by a ...'
The sergeant glanced surreptitiously at some writing on his wrist, '...
a raving madman! I've been watching you all day! You haven't even groaned! I
can't sit in my ... thing, you sit in it, there's papers and things ...'
OFFICE.
'... working, with you outside like this! I can't bear it!'
Beau Nidle glanced upwards. He felt it was time for a kindly gesture.
HELP, HELP. HELP, HELP, he said.
The sergeant sagged with relief.
THIS ASSISTS PEOPLE TO FORGET, DOES IT?
'Forget? People forget everything when they're given ...er...'
THE PIT.
'Yes! That's it!'
AH. DO YOU MIND IF I ASK A QUESTION?
'What?.
DO YOU MIND IF PERHAPS I HAVE ANOTHER DAY?
The sergeant opened his mouth to reply, and the D'regs attacked over
the nearest sand dune.
'Music?' said the Patrician. 'Ah. Tell me more.'
He leaned back in an attitude that suggested attentive listening. He
was extremely good at listening. He created a kind of mental suction. People
told him things just to avoid the silence.
Besides, Lord Vetinari, the supreme ruler of Ankh Morpork, rather liked
music.
People wondered what sort of music would appeal to such a man.
Highly formalized chamber music, possibly, or thunder and-lightning
opera scores.
In fact the kind of music he really liked was the kind that never got
played. It ruined music, in his opinion, to torment it by involving it on
dried skins, bits of dead cat and lumps of metal hammered into wires and
tubes. It ought to stay written down, on the page, in rows of little dots
and crotchets, all neatly caught between lines. Only there was it pure. It
was when people started doing things with it that the rot set in. Much
better to sit quietly in a room and read the sheets, with nothing between
yourself and the mind of the composer but a scribble of ink. Having it
played by sweaty fat men and people with hair in their ears and spit
dribbling out of the end of their oboe ... well, the idea made him shudder.
Although not much, because he never did anything to extremes.
So...
'And then what happened?' he said.
'An' then he started singin', yerronner,' said Cumbling Michael,
licensed beggar and informal informant. 'A song about Great Fiery Balls.'
The Patrician raised an eyebrow.
'Pardon?'
'Somethin' like that. Couldn't really make out the words, the reason
bein', the piano exploded.'
'Ah? I imagine this interrupted the proceedings somewhat.'
'Nah, the monkey went on playin' what was left,' said Cumbling Michael.
'And people got up and started cheerin' and dancin and stampin' their feet
like there was a plague of cockroaches.'
'And you say the men from the Musicians' Guild were hurt?'
'It was dead strange. They were white as a sheet afterwards. At least,'
Cumbling Michael thought about the state of his own bedding, 'white as some
sheets-'
The Patrician glanced at his reports while the beggar talked. It had
certainly been a strange evening. A riot at the Drum ... well, that was
normal, although it didn't sound exactly like a typical riot and he'd never
heard of wizards dancing. He rather felt he recognized the signs ... There
was only one thing that could make it worse.
'Tell me,' he said. 'What was Mr Dibbler's reaction to all this?'
'What, yerronner?'
'A simple enough question, I should have thought.'
Cumbling Michael found the words 'But how did you know ole Dibbler was
there? I never said' arranging themselves for the attention of his larynx,
and then had second, third and fourth thoughts about saying them.
'He just sat and stared, yerronner. With his mouth open. And then he
rushed right out.'
'I see. Oh, dear. Thank you, Cumbling Michael. Feel free to leave.'
The beggar hesitated.
'Foul Ole Ron said as yerronner sometimes pays for information,' he
said.
'Did he? Really? He said that, did he? Well, that is interesting.'
Vetinari scribbled a note in the margin of a report. 'Thank you.'
'Er-'
'Don't let me detain you.'
'Er. No. Gods bless yerronner,' said Cumbling Michael, and ran for it.
When the sound of the beggar's boots had died away the Patrician
strolled over to the window, stood with his hands clasped behind his back,
and sighed.
There were probably city states, he reasoned, where the rulers only had
to worry about the little things ... barbarian invasions, the balance of
payments, assassination, the local volcano erupting. There weren't people
busily opening the door of reality and metaphorically saying, 'Hi, come on
in, pleased to see you, what a nice axe you have there, incidentally, can I
make some money out of you since you're here?'
Sometimes Lord Vetinari wondered what had happened to Mr Hong. Everyone
knew, of course. In general terms. But not exactly what.
What a city. In the spring, the river caught fire. About once a month,
the Alchemists' Guild exploded.
He walked back to his desk and made another brief note. He was rather
afraid that he was going to have to have someone killed.
Then he picked up the third movement of Fondel's Prelude in G Major and
settled back to read.
Susan walked back to the alley where she'd left Binky. There were half
a dozen men lying around on the cobbles, clutching parts of themselves and
moaning.
Susan ignored them. Anyone trying to steal Death's horse soon
understood the expression 'a world of hurts'. Binky had a good aim. It would
be a very small, very private world.
'The music was playing him, not the other way round,' she said. 'You
could see.
I'm not sure his fingers even touched the strings.'
SQUEAK.
Susan rubbed her hand. Satchelmouth had turned out to have quite a hard
head.
'Can I kill it without killing him?'
SQUEAK.
'Not a hope,' the raven translated. 'It's all that's keeping him
alive.'
'But Granda ... but he said it'll end up killing him anyway!'
'It's a big wide wonderful universe all right,' said the raven.
SQUEAK.
'But ... look, if it's a ... a parasite, or something like that,' said
Susan, as Binky trotted skywards, 'what's the good of it killing its host?'
SQUEAK.
'He says you've got him there,' said the raven. 'Drop me off over
Quirm, will you?'
'What does it want him for?' said Susan. 'It's using him, but what
for?'
'Twenty seven dollars!' said Ridcully. 'Twenty seven dollars .to get
you out!
And the sergeant kept grinning all the time! Wizards arrested!'
He walked along the row of crestfallen figures.
'I mean, how often does the Watch get called in to the Drum?' said
Ridcully. 'I mean, what did you think you were doing?'
'mumblemumblemumble,' said the Dean, looking at the floor.
'I'm sorry?'
'mumblemumbledancingmumble.'
'Dancing,' said Ridcully levelly, walking back along the row. 'That's
dancing, is it? Banging into people? Throwin' one another over yer
shoulders? Twirling around all over the place? Not even trolls act like that
(not that I've got anything against trolls mind you marvellous people
marvellous people) and you're supposed to be wizards. People are supposed to
look up to you and that's not because you're somersaulting over their heads,
Runes, don't think I didn't notice that little display, I was frankly
disgusted. The poor Bursar has had to have a lie down. Dancing is ... round
in circles, don'tcherknow, Maypoles and suchlike, healthy reels, perhaps a
little light ballroom ... not swinging people round like a dwarf with a
battleaxe (mind you salt of the earth dwarfs I've always said so). Do I make
myself clear?'
'mumblemumblemumbleeveryonewasdoingitmumble,' said the Dean, still
looking at the floor.
'I never thought I'd say this to any wizard over the age of eighteen,
but you're all gated until further notice!' shouted Ridcully.
Being confined to the campus was not much of a punishment. The wizards
usually distrusted any air that hadn't hung around indoors for a while, and
mostly lived in a kind of groove between their rooms and the dining table.
But they were feeling strange.
'mumblemumbledon'tseewhymumble,' mumbled the Dean.
He said, much later on, on the day when the music died, that it must
have been because he'd never been really young, or at least young while just
being old enough to know he was young. Like most wizards, he'd begun his
training while still so small that the official pointy hat came down over
his ears. And after that he'd just been, well, a wizard.
He had the feeling, once again, that he'd ...
