Terry Pratchett. Soul music
страница №6
... missed out on somethingsomewhere.
He'd never really realized it until the last couple of days. He didn't
know what it was. He just wanted to do things. He didn't know what they
were. But he wanted to do them soon. He wanted ... he felt like a lifelong
tundra dweller when he wakes up one morning with a deep urge to go water
skiing. He certainly wasn't going to stay indoors when there was music in
the air ...
'mumblemumblemumblenotgonnastayindoorsmumble.'
Unaccustomed feelings surged through him. He wanted to disobey! Disobey
everything! Including the law of gravity. He was definitely not going to
fold his clothes before going to bed! Ridcully was going to say, oh, you're
a rebel, are you, what are you rebelling against, and he'd say ... he'd say
something pretty damn memorable, that's what he'd do! He was.
But the Archchancellor had stalked off.
'mumblemumblemumble,' said the Dean defiantly, a rebel without a pause.
There was a knock at the door, barely audible above the din. Cliff
opened it a cautious fraction.
'It's me, Hibiscus. Here's your beers. Drink 'em up and get out!'
'How can we get out?' said Glod. 'Every time they see us they force us
to play some more!'
Hibiscus shrugged. 'I don't care,' he said. 'But you owe me a dollar
for the beer and twenty five dollars for the broken furniture-'
Cliff shut the door.
'I could negotiate with him,' said Glod.
'No, we can't afford it,' said Buddy.
They looked at one another.
'Well, the crowd loved us,' said Buddy. 'I think we were a big success.
Er.'
In the silence Cliff bit the end off a beer bottle and poured the
contents over his head. [18]
'What we all want to know is,' said Glod, 'what you thought you were
doing out there?'
'Gook.'
'And how come,' said Cliff, crunching up the rest of the bottle, 'we
all knew what to play?'
'Gook.'
'And also,' said Glod, 'what you were singing.'
'Er...
'Don't Tread On My New Blue Boots"?' said Cliff. 'Gook.'
'Good Gracious Miss Polly"?' said Glod.
'Er...'
'Sto Helit Lace"?' said Cliff.
'Gook?'
'It's a kind of very fine lace they make iii the city of Sto Helit,'
said Glod. Glod gave Buddy a lopsided look.
'That bit where you said "hello, baby",' he said. 'Why'd you do that?'
'Er...'
'I mean, it's not as if they even allow small children into the Drum.'
'I don't know. The words were just there,' said Buddy. 'They were sort
of part of the music ...'
'And you were ... moving about in a funny way. Like you were having
trouble with your trousers,' said Glod. 'I'm not expert on humans, of
course, but I saw some ladies in the audience looking at you like a dwarf
looks at a girl when he knows her father's got a big shaft and several rich
seams.'
'Yeah,' said Cliff, 'and like when a troll is thinking: hey, will you
look at der strata on dat one ...'
'You're certain you've got no elvish in you, are you?' said Glod. 'Once
or twice
I thought you were acting a bit ... elvish.'
'I don't know what's happening!' said Buddy.
The guitar whined.
They looked at it.
'What we do is,' said Cliff, 'we take dat and throw it in de river. All
those in favour say "Aye". Or Oook, as the case may be.'
There was another silence. No one rushed to pick up the instrument.
'But the thing is,' said Glod, 'the thing is ... they did love us out
there.'
They thought about this.
'It didn't actually feel ... bad,' said Buddy.
'Got to admit ... I never had an audience like dat in my whole life,'
said Cliff.
'Oook.'
'If we're so good,' said Glod, 'why ain't we rich?'
'Cos you do the negotiatin',' said Cliff. 'If we've got to pay for der
furniture, I'm soon goin' to have to eat my dinner through a straw.'
'You saying I'm no good?' said Glod, getting angrily to his feet.
'You blow good horn. But you ain't no financial wizard.'
'Hah, I'd just like to see '
There was a knock on the door.
Cliff sighed. 'Dat'll be Hibiscus again,' he said. 'Pass me dat mirror.
I'll try to hit one out on de other side.'
Buddy opened the door. Hibiscus was there, but behind a smaller man
wearing a long coat and a wide, friendly grin.
'Ah,' said the grin. 'You'd be Buddy, right?'
'Er, yes.'
And then the man was inside, without actually appearing to have moved,
and kicking the door shut in the landlord's face.
'Dibbler's the name,' the grin went on. 'C. M. O. T. Dibbler. I dare
say you've heard of me?'
'Gook!'
'I ain't talking to you! I'm talking to you other guys.'
'No,' said Buddy, 'I don't think we have.'
The grin appeared to widen.
'I hear you boys are in a bit of trouble,' said Dibbler. 'Broken
furniture and whatnot.'
'We're not even going to get paid,' said Cliff, glaring at Glod.
'Well now,' said Dibbler, 'it could just be that I could help you
there. I'm a businessman. I do business. I can see you boys are musicians.
You play music.
You don't want to worry your heads about money stuff, right? Gets in
the way of the creative processes, am I right? How about if you leave that
to me?'
'Huh,' said Glod, still smarting from the insult to his financial
acumen. 'And what can you do?'
'Well,' said Dibbler, ' I can get you paid for tonight, for a start.'
'What about the furniture?' said Buddy.
'Oh, stuff gets busted here every night,' said Dibbler expansively.
'Hibiscus was just having you on. I'll square it with him. Confidentially,
you want to watch out for people like him.'
He leaned forward. If his grin had been any wider the top of his head
would have fallen off.
'This city, boys,' he said, 'is a jungle.'
'If he can get us paid, I trust him,' said Glod.
'As simple as dat?' said Cliff.
'I trust anyone who gives me money.'
Buddy glanced at the table. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling
that if something was wrong the guitar would do something play a discord,
maybe. But it just purred gently to itself.
'Oh, all right. If it means I get to keep my teef, I'm all for it,'
said Cliff.
'OK,' said Buddy.
'Great! Great! We can make beautiful music together! At least you boys
can, eh?'
He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil. In Dibbler's eyes, the
lion roared.
Somewhere high in the Ramtops, Susan rode Binky over a cloudbank.
'How could he talk like that?' she said. 'Play around with people's
lives, and then talk about duty?'
All the lights were on in the Musicians' Guild.
A gin bottle played a tattoo on the edge of a glass. Then it rattled
briefly on the desktop as Satchelmouth put it down.
'Doesn't anyone know who the hells they are?' Mr Clete said, as
Satchelmouth managed to grip the glass on the second try. 'Someone must know
who they are!'
'Dunno about the boy,' said Satchelmouth. 'No one's ever seen him
before. An'... an' ... well, you know trolls ... could've been anyone...'
'One of them was definitely the Librarian from the University,' said
Herbert 'Mr Harpsichord' Shuffle, the Guild's own librarian.
'We can leave him for now,' said Clete.
The others nodded. No one really wanted to attempt to beat up the
Librarian if there was anyone smaller available.
'What about the dwarf?'
'Ah.'
'Someone said they thought he was Glod Glodsson. Lives in Phedre Road
somewhere-'
Clete growled. 'Get some of the lads over there right now. I want the
position of musicians in this city explained to them right now. Hat. Hat.
Hat.'
The musicians hurried through the night, the din of the Mended Drum
behind them.
'Wasn't he nice,' said Glod. 'I mean, we haven't just got our pay, but
he was so interested he gave us twenty dollars of his own money!'
'I tink what he said,' said Cliff, 'was dat he'd give us twenty dollars
with interest.'
'Same thing, isn't it? And he said he could get us more jobs. Did you
read the contract?'
'Did you?'
'It was very small writing,' said Glod. He brightened up. 'But there
was a lot of it,' he added. 'Bound to be a good contract, with that much
writing on it.'
'The Librarian ran away,' said Buddy. 'Oooked a lot, and ran away.'
'Hah! Well, he'll be sorry later on,' said Glod. 'Later on, people'll
talk to him and he'll say: I left, you know, before they became famous.'
'He'll say ook.'
'Anyway, that piano's going to need some work.'
'Yeah,' said Cliff. 'Like, I saw once where dis guy made stuff out of
matches.
He could repair it.'
A couple of dollars became two lamb kormas and pitchblende vindaloo at
the Curry Gardens, along with a bottle of wine so chemical that even trolls
could drink it.
'And after this,' said Glod, as they sat down to wait for the food,
'we'll find somewhere else to stay.'
'What wrong with your place?' said Cliff.
'It's too draughty. It's got a piano shaped hole in the door.'
'Yes, but you put it there.'
'So what?'
'Won't the landlord object?'
'Of course he'll object. That's what landlords are for. Anyway, we're
on the up and up, lads. I can feel it in my water.'
'I thought you were just happy to get paid,' said Buddy.
'Right. Right. But I'm even happier to get paid a lot.'
The guitar hummed. Buddy picked it up, and plucked a string.
Glod dropped his knife.
'That sounded like a piano!' he said.
'I think it can sound like anything,' said Buddy. 'And now it knows
about pianos.'
'Magic,' said Cliff.
'Of course magic,' said Glod. 'That's what I keep saying. A strange old
thing found in a dusty old shop one stormy night-'
'It wasn't stormy,' said Cliff.
'it's bound to ... yes, all right, but it was raining a bit ... it's
bound to be a bit special. I bet if we was to go back now the shop wouldn't
be there. And that'd prove it. Everyone knows things bought from shops which
aren't there next day are dead mysterious and items of Fate. Fate's smiling
on us, could be.'
'Doing something on us,' said Cliff. 'I hope it's smiling.'
'And Mr Dibbler said he'd find us somewhere really special to play
tomorrow.'
'Good,' said Buddy. 'We must play.'
'Right,' said Cliff. 'We play all right. It's our job.'
'People should hear our music.'
'Sure.' Cliff looked puzzled. 'Right. Of course. Dat's what we want.
And some pay, too.'
'Mr Dibbler'll help us,' said Glod, who was too preoccupied to notice
the edge in Buddy's voice. 'He must be very successful. He's got an office
in Sator Square. Only very posh businesses can afford that.'
A new day dawned.
It had hardly finished doing so before Ridcully hurried through the
dewy grass of the University gardens and hammered on the door of the High
Energy Magic Building.
Generally he never went near the place. It wasn't that he didn't
understand what it was the young wizards in there were actually doing, but
because he strongly suspected that they didn't, either. They seemed to
positively enjoy becoming less and less certain about everything and would
come in to dinner saying things like 'Wow, we've just overturned
Marrowleaf's Theory of Thaumic Imponderability! Amazing!' as if it was
something to be proud of, instead of gross discourtesy. And they were always
talking about splitting the thaum, the smallest unit of magic. The
Archchancellor couldn't see the point. So you had bits all over the place.
What good would that do? The universe was bad enough without people poking
it.
The door opened.
'Oh, it's you, Archchancellor.'
Ridcully pushed the door open further.
'Morning, Stibbons. Glad to see you're up and about early.'
Ponder Stibbons, the faculty's youngest member, blinked at the sky.
'Is it morning already?' he said.
Ridcully pushed his way past him and into the HEM. It was unfamiliar
ground for a traditional wizard. There wasn't a skull or dribbly candle to
be seen; this particular room looked like an alchemist's laboratory had
suffered the inevitable explosion and landed in a blacksmith's shop.
Nor did he approve of Stibbons's robe. It was the right length but a
washed out greeny grey, with pockets and toggles and a hood with a bit of
rabbit fur around the edge. There weren't any sequins or jewels or mystic
symbols anywhere. Just a blodgy stain where Stibbons's pen leaked.
'You ain't been out lately?' said Ridcully.
'No, sir. Er. Should I have been? I've been busy working on my Make It
Bigger device. You know, I showed you'[19]
'Right, right,' said Ridcully, looking around. 'Anyone else been
working in here?'
'Well ... there's me, and Tez the Terrible and Skazz and Big Mad
Drongo, I think ...'
Ridcully blinked.
'What are they?' he said. And then, from the depths of memory, a
horrible answer suggested itself. Only a very specific species had names
like that.
'Students?'
'Er. Yes?' said Ponder, backing away. 'That's all right, isn't it? I
mean, this is a university ...'
Ridcully scratched his ear. The man was right, of course. You had to
have some of the buggers around, there was no getting away from it.
Personally, he avoided them .whenever possible, as did the rest of the
faculty, occasionally running the other way or hiding behind doors whenever
they saw them. The Lecturer in Recent Runes had been known to lock himself
in his wardrobe rather than take a tutorial.
'You better fetch 'em,' he said. 'The fact is, I seem to have lost my
faculty.'
'For what, Archchancellor?' said Ponder, politely.
'What?'
'Sorry?'
They looked at one another in incomprehension, two minds driving
opposite ways up a narrow street and waiting for the other man to reverse
first.
'The faculty,' said Ridcully, giving up. 'The Dean and whatnot. Gone
totally round the corner. Been up all night, playing guitars and whatnot.
The Dean's made himself a coat out of leather.'
'Well, leather is a very practical and functional material-'
'Not the way he's using it,' said Ridcully darkly ...
[... the Dean stood back. He'd borrowed a dressmaker's dummy from Mrs
Whitlow, the housekeeper.
He'd made some changes to the design that had buzzed around his brain.
For one thing, a wizard in his very soul is loath to wear any garment that
doesn't reach down at least to the ankles, so there was quite a lot of
leather. Lots of room for all the studs.
He'd started with: DEAN.
That had hardly begun to fill the space. After a while he'd added: BORN
TO, and left a space because he wasn't quite sure what he'd been born to.
BORN TO EAT BIG DINNERS wouldn't be appropriate.
After some more bemused thought he'd gone on to: LIVE FATS DIE YO GNU.
It wasn't quite right, he could see; he'd turned the material over while he
was making the holes for the studs and had sort of lost track of which
direction he was going.
Of course, it didn't matter which direction you went, just so long as
you went.
That's what music with rocks in it was all about ...]
... 'And Recent Runes is in his room playing drums, and the rest of
them have all got guitars, and what the Bursar's done to the bottom of his
robe is really strange,' said Ridcully. 'And the Librarian's wandering
around the place pinchin' stuff and no one listens to a word I say.'
He stared at the students. It was a worrying sight, and not just
because of the natural look of students. Here were some people who, while
this damn music was making everyone tap their feet, had stayed in-doors all
night working.
'What are you lot doing in here?' he said. 'You ... what's your name?'
The student wizard pinned by Ridcully's pointing finger squirmed
anxiously.
'Er. Um. Big Mad Drongo,' he said, twisting the brim of his hat in his
hands.
'Big. Mad. Drongo,' said Ridcully. 'That's your name, is it? That's
what you've got sewn on your vest?'
'Um. No, Archchancellor.'
'It is...?'
'Adrian Turnipseed, Archchancellor.'
'So why're you called Big Mad Drongo, Mr Turnipseed?' said Ridcully.
'Um ... um ...'
'He once drank a whole pint of shandy,' said Stibbons, who had the
decency to look embarrassed.
Ridcully gave him a carefully blank look. Oh, well. They'd have to do.
'All right, you lot,' he said, 'what do you make of this?'
He produced from his robe a Mended Drum beer tankard with a beer mat
fastened over the top with a piece of string.
'What have you got in there, Archchancellor?' said Ponder Stibbons.
'A piece of music, lad.'
'Music? But you can't trap music like that.'
'I wish I was a clever bugger like you and knew every damn thing,' said
Ridcully. 'That big flask over there ... You Big Mad Adrian take the top off
it, and be ready to slam it down again when I say. Ready with that lid, Mad
Adrian ... right!'
There was a brief angry chord as Ridcully pulled the beer mat off the
mug and upended it quickly into the flask. Mad Drongo Adrian slammed the lid
down, in total terror of the Archchancellor.
And then they could hear it ... a persistent faint beat, rebounding off
the inner walls of the glass flask.
The students peered in at it.
There was something in there. A sort of movement in the air ...
'I trapped it in the Drum last night.'
'That's not possible,' said Ponder. 'You can't trap music.'
'That isn't Klatchian mist, lad.'
'It's been in that mug since last night?' said Ponder.
'Yes.'
'But that's not possible!'
Ponder looked absolutely crestfallen. There are some people born with
the instinctive feeling that the universe is solvable.
Ridcully patted him on the shoulder.
'You never thought that being a wizard was going to be easy, did you?'
Ponder stared at the jar, and then his mouth snapped into a thin line of
determination.
'Right! We're going to sort this out! It must be something to do with
the frequency! That's right! Tez the Terrible, get the crystal ball! Skazz,
fetch the roll of steel wire! It must be the frequency!'
The Band With Rocks In slept the night away in a single males' hostel
in an alley off Gleam Street, a fact that would have interested the four
enforcers of the Musicians' Guild sitting outside a piano shaped hole in
Phedre Road.
Susan strode through the rooms of Death, seething gently with anger and
just a touch of fear, which only made the anger worse.
How could anyone even think like that? How could anyone be content to
just be the personification of a blind force? Well, there were going to be
changes ...
Her father had tried to change things, she knew. But only because he
was, well, quite frankly, a bit soppy.
He'd been made a duke by Queen Keli of Sto Lat. Susan knew what the
title meant duke meant 'war leader'. But her father never fought anyone. He
seemed to spend all his time travelling from one wretched city state to
another, all over the Sto Plains, just talking to people and trying to get
them to talk to other people. He'd never killed anyone, as far as Susan
knew, although he may have talked a few politicians to death. That didn't
seem to be much of a job for a war leader. Admittedly there didn't seem to
be all the little wars there used to be, but it was
... not a proud kind of life.
She walked through the hall of lifetimers. Even those on the highest
shelves rattled gently as she passed.
She'd save lives. The good could be spared, and the bad could die
young. It would all balance up, too. She'd show him. As for responsibility,
well ... humans always made changes. That was what being human was all
about.
Susan opened another door and stepped into the library.
It was a room even bigger than the hall of lifetimers. Bookcases rose
like cliffs; a haze obscured the ceiling.
But of course it'd be childish, she told herself, to think that she
could go in waving the scythe like a magic wand and turn the world into a
better place overnight. It might take some time. So she should start in a
small way and work up.
She held out a hand.
'I'm not going to do the voice,' she said. 'That's just unnecessary
drama and really a bit stupid. I just want the book of Imp y Celyn, thank
you very much.'
Around her the busyness of the library went on. Millions of books
quietly carried on writing themselves, causing a rustle like that of
cockroaches. She remembered sitting on a knee or, rather, sitting on a
cushion on a knee, because the knee itself had been out of the question.
Watching a bony finger follow the letters as they formed on the page. She'd
learned to read her own life-
'I'm waiting,' said Susan meaningfully.
She clenched her fists.
IMP Y CELYN, she said.
The book appeared in front of her. She just managed to catch it before
it fluttered to the floor.
'Thank you,' she said.
She flicked through the pages of his life until she came to the last
one, and stared. Then she hastily went back until she found, written neatly
down, his death in the Drum. It was all there all untrue. He hadn't died.
The book was lying. Or and this she knew was a far more accurate way of
looking at it the book was true and reality was lying.
What was more important was that from the moment of his death the book
was writing music. Page after page had been covered with neat staves. While
Susan watched, a clef drew itself in a series of careful loops.
What did it want? Why should it save his life?
And it was vitally important that she save him instead. She could feel
the certainty like a ball bearing in her mind. It was absolutely imperative.
She'd never met him up close, she'd not exchanged a word with him, he was
just one person, but it was him she had to save.
Grandfather had said she shouldn't do that sort of thing. What did he
know about anything? He'd never lived.
Blert Wheedown made guitars. It was quiet, satisfying work. It took him
and Gibbsson, the apprentice, about five days to make a decent instrument,
if the wood was available and properly seasoned. He was a conscientious man
who'd devoted many years to the perfection of one type of musical
instrument, on which he himself was no mean performer.
In his experience, guitarists came in three categories. There were the
ones he thought of as real musicians, who worked at the Opera House or for
one of the small private orchestras. There were the folk singers, who
couldn't play but that was all right because most of them couldn't sing
either. Then there were the hemhem troubadours and other swarthy types who
thought a guitar was, like a red rose in the teeth, a box of chocolates and
a strategically placed pair of socks, another weapon in the battle of the
sexes. They didn't play at all, apart from one or two chords, but they were
regular customers. When leaping out of a bedroom window just ahead of an
angry husband the one thing a paramour is least concerned about leaving
behind is his instrument.
Blert thought he'd seen them all.
Mind you, first thing this morning he'd sold some to some wizards. That
was unusual. Some of them had even bought Blert's guitar primer.
The bell rang.
'Yes-'Blert looked at the customer, and made a huge mental effort '
sir?'
It wasn't just the leather jerkin. It wasn't just the wristbands with
studs. It wasn't just the broadsword. It wasn't just the helmet with the
spikes. It was the leather and the studs and the sword and the helmet. This
customer couldn't possibly be in categories one or two, Blert decided.
The figure stood, looking uncertain, hands gripping convulsively,
clearly not at home in a dialogue situation.
'This a guitar shop?' it said.
Blert looked around at the merchandise hanging from walls and ceiling.
'Er. Yes?' he said.
'I wants one.'
As for category three, he didn't look like someone used to bothering
with chocolates or roses. Or even 'hello'.
'Er ...' Blert grabbed one at random and held it out in front of him.
'One like this?'
'I wants one that goes blam Blam blamma BLAM blammmm-ooohieeee.
Y'know?'
Blert looked down at the guitar. 'I'm not sure it does that,' he said.
Two enormous black nailed hands took it out of his grasp.
'Er, you're holding it wro-'
'Got a mirror?'
'Er, no-'
One hairy hand was raised high in the air, and then plunged towards the
strings.
Blert never wanted to repeat the next ten seconds. People shouldn't be
allowed to do that sort of thing to a defenceless musical instrument. It was
like raising a little pony, feeding it and grooming it properly, plaiting
ribbons in its tail, giving it a nice field with bunnies and daisies in it,
and then watching the first rider take it out with spurs and a whip.
The thug played as if he were searching for something. He didn't find
it, but as the last discords faded away his features twisted into the
determined expression of one who intends to go on looking.
'Yer, right. How much?' he said.
It was on sale for fifteen dollars. But Blert's musical soul rebelled.
He snapped.
'Twenty five dollars,' was what he snapped.
'Yer, right. Will this be enough, then?'
A small ruby was produced from somewhere in a pocket.
'I can't change that!'
Blert's musical soul was still protesting, but his business head
stepped in and flexed its elbows.
'But, but, but I'll throw in my guitar primer and a strap and a couple
of pleckies, yes?' he said. 'It's got pictures of where to put your fingers
and everything, yes?'
'Yer, right.'
The barbarian walked out. Blert stared at the ruby in his hand.
The bell rang. He looked up.
This one wasn't quite so bad. There were fewer studs, and the helmet
had only two spikes.
Blert's hand shut around the jewel.
'Don't tell me you want a guitar?' he said.
'Yep. One of them that goes whoweeeooowweeeeoowwwwngngngng.'
Blert looked around wildly.
'Well, there's this one,' he said, grabbing the nearest instrument. 'I
don't know about wooeeoowweee but here's my primer as well and a strap and
some pleckies, that'll be thirty dollars and I'll tell you what I'll do,
I'll throw in the space between the strings for free, OK?'
'Yep. Er. Got a mirror?'
The bell rang.
And rang.
An hour later Blert leaned on the door frame of his workshop, a manic
grin on his face and his hands on his belt to stop the weight of money in
his pockets pulling his trousers down.
'Gibbsson?'
'Yes, boss?'
'You know those guitars you made? When you were learning?'
'The ones you said sounded like a cat going to the toilet through a
sewn up bum, boss?'
'Did you throw them away?'
'No, boss. I thought: I'll keep them, so's in five years' time when I
can make proper instruments, I'll be able to take 'em out and have a good
laugh.' Blert wiped his forehead. Several small gold coins fell out with his
handkerchief.
'Where did you put them, out of interest?'
'Chucked 'em inna shed, boss. Along with that whaney timber you said
was about as useful as a mermaid in a chorus line.'
'Just fetch them out again, will you? And that timber.'
'But you said-'
'And bring me a saw. And then nip out and get me, oh, a couple of
gallons of black paint. And some sequins.'
'Sequins, boss?'
'You can get them up at Mrs Cosmopilite's dress shop. And ask her if
she's got any of those glittery ankhstones. And some fancy material for
straps. Oh ... and see if she can lend us her biggest mirror ...'
Blert hitched up his trousers again.
'And then go down to the docks and hire a troll and tell him to stand
in the corner and if anyone else comes in and tries to play ...' he paused,
and then remembered, 'Pathway to Paradise, I think they said it's called ...
he's to pull their head off.'
'Shouldn't he give them a warning?' said Gibbsson.
'That will be the warning.'
It was an hour later.
Ridcully had got bored and sent Tez the Terrible over to the kitchens
to see about a snack. Ponder and the other two had been busying themselves
around the flask, messing around with crystal balls and wire. And now...
There was a wire stretched between two nails on the bench. It was a
blur as it twanged an interesting beat.
Big curved green lines hung in the air above it.
'What's that?' said Ridcully.
'That's what the sound looks like,' said Ponder.
'Sound looks like,' said Ridcully. 'Well, there's a thing. I never saw
sound looking like that. This is what you boys used magic for, is it?
Looking at sound? Hey, we've got some nice cheese in the kitchen, how about
we go and listen to how it smells?'
Ponder sighed.
'It's what sound would be if your ears were eyes,' he said.
'Really?' said Ridcully, brightly. 'Amazing!'
'It looks very complicated,' said Ponder. 'Simple when you look at it
from a distance and up close, very complex. Almost ...'
'Alive,' said Ridcully, firmly.
'Er ...'
It was the one known as Skazz. He looked about seven stone and had the
most interesting haircut Ridcully had ever seen, since it consisted of a
shoulderlength fringe of hair all round. It was only the tip of his nose
poking out which told the world which way he was facing. If he ever
developed a boil on the back of his neck, people would think he was walking
the wrong way.
'Yes, Mr Skazz?' said Ridcully.
'Er. I read something about this once,' said Skazz.
'Remarkable. How did you manage that?'
'You know the Listening Monks up in the Ramtops? They say that there's
a background noise to the universe? A sort of echo of some sound?'
'Sounds sensible to me. The whole universe starting up, bound to make a
big bang,' said Ridcully.
'It wouldn't have to be very loud,' said Ponder. 'It'd just have to be
everywhere, all at once. I read that book. Old Riktor the Counter wrote it.
The Monks are still listening to it, he said. A sound that never fades
away.'
'Sounds like loud to me,' said Ridcully. 'Got to be loud to be heard
any distance. If the wind's in the wrong direction, you can't even hear the
bells on the Assassins' Guild.'
'It wouldn't have to be loud to be heard everywhere,' said Ponder. 'The
reason being, at that point everywhere was all in one place.'
Ridcully gave him the look people give conjurors who've just removed an
egg from their ear.
'Everywhere was all in one place?'
'Yes.'
'So where was everywhere else?'
'That was all in one place, too.'
'The same place?'
'Yes.'
'Crunched up very small?'
Ridcully was beginning to show certain signs. If he had been a volcano,
natives living nearby would be looking for a handy virgin.
'Haha, in fact you could say it was crunched up very big,' said Ponder,
who always walked into it. 'The reason being, space didn't exist until there
was a universe, so anything there was, was everywhere.'
'The same everywhere we had just now?'
'Yes.'
'All right. Go on.'
'Riktor said he thought that the sound came first. One great big
complicated chord. The biggest, most complicated sound there ever was. A
sound so complex that you couldn't play it within a universe, any more than
you can open a box with the crowbar that's inside it. One great chord which
... as it were ... played everything into being. Started the music, if you
like.'
'A sort of ta dahhh?' said Ridcully.
'I suppose so.'
'I thought the universe came into being because some god cut off some
other god's wedding tackle and made the universe out of it,' said Ridcully.
'Always seemed straightforward to me. I mean, it's the kind of thing you can
imagine happenin'.'
'Well-'
'Now you're telling me someone blew a big hooter and here we are?'
'I don't know about someone,' said Ponder.
'Noises don't just make themselves, that I do know,' said Ridcully. .
He relaxed a bit, certain in his own mind that reason had prevailed,
and patted Ponder on the back.
'It needs some work, lad,' he said. 'Old Riktor was a bit ... unsound,
y'know.
He thought everything came down to numbers.'
'Mind you,' said Ponder, 'the universe does have a rhythm. Day and
night, light and dark, life and death-'
'Chicken soup and croutons,' said Ridcully.
'Well, not every metaphor bears close examination.'
There was a knock on the door. Tez the Terrible entered, carrying a
tray. He was followed by Mrs Whitlow, the housekeeper.
Ridcully's jaw dropped.
Mrs Whitlow curtsied.
'Good morning, hyour grace,' she said.
Her ponytail bobbed. There was a rustle of starched petticoats.
Ridcully's jaw rose again, but only so that he could say: 'What have
you done to your-'
'Excuse me, Mrs Whitlow,' said Ponder quickly, 'but have you served
breakfast to any of the faculty this morning?'
'That's right, Mr Stibbons,' said Mrs Whitlow. Her ample and mysterious
bosom shifted under its sweater. 'None of the gentlemen came down, so I got
trays taken up to them all. Daddio.'
Ridcully's gaze continued downwards. He'd never thought of Mrs Whitlow
as having legs before. Of course, in theory the woman needed something to
move around on, but ... well ...
But there were two pudgy knees protruding from the huge mushroom of
skirts.
Further down there were white socks.
'Your hair-'he began, hoarsely.
'Is there something wrong?' said Mrs Whitlow.
'Nothing, nothing,' said Ponder. 'Thank you very much.'
The door closed behind her.
'She was snapping her fingers as she went out, just like you said,'
said Ponder.
'Wasn't the only thing that's snapped,' said Ridcully, still
shuddering.
'Did you look at her shoes?'
'I think my eyes shut themselves protectively about there.'
'If it's really alive,' said Ponder, 'then it's very contagious.'
This scene took place in Crash's father's coach house, but it was an
echo of a scene evolving all around the city.
Crash hadn't been christened Crash. He was the son of a rich dealer in
hay and feedstuffs, but he despised his father for being dead from the neck
up, totally concerned with material things, unimaginative and also for
paying him a ridiculous three dollars a week allowance.
Crash's father had left his horses in the coach house. At the moment
they were both trying to squeeze into one corner, having tried fruitlessly
to kick a hole in the walls.
'I reckon I nearly had it that time,' said Crash, as hay dust poured
down from the roof and woodworm hurried off to find a better home.
'It isn't I mean, it ain't like the sound we heard in the Drum,' said
Jimbo critically. 'It's a bit like it, but it isn it ain't it.'
Jimbo was Crash's best friend and wished he was one of the people.
'It's good enough to start with,' said Crash. 'So you and Noddy, you
two get guitars. And Scum, you ... you can play the drums.'
'Dunno how,' said Scum. It was actually his name.
'No one knows how to play the drums,' said Crash patiently. 'There's
nothing to know. You just hit them with the sticks.'
'Yeah, but what if I sort of miss?'
'Sit closer. Right,' said Crash, sitting back. 'Now ... the important
thing, the really important thing is ... what're we going to call
ourselves?'
Cliff looked around.
'Well, I reckon we look at every house and I'm damned if I see der name
Dibbler anywhere,' he growled.
Buddy nodded. Most of Sator Square was the frontage of the University,
but there was room for a few other buildings. They were the sort that have a
dozen brass plates by the door. The sort that hinted that even wiping your
feet on the doormat was going to cost you dear.
'Hello, boys.'
They turned. Dibbler beamed at them over a tray of possible sausages
and buns.
There were a couple of sacks beside him.
'Sorry we're late,' said Glod, 'but we couldn't find your office
anywhere.'
Dibbler spread his arms wide.
'This is my office,' he said, equally expansively. 'Sator Square!
Thousands of square feet of space! Excellent communications! Passing trade!
Try these on,' he added, picking up one of the sacks and opening it. ' I had
to guess at sizes.'
They were black, and made of cheap cotton. One of them was XXXXL.
'A vest with words on?' said Buddy.
'The Band With Rocks In",' Cliff read, slowly. 'Hey, dat's us, isn't
it?'
'What do we want these for?' said Glod. 'We know who we are.'
'Advertising,' said Dibbler. 'Trust me.' He put a brown cylinder in his
mouth and lit the end.
'Wear them tonight. Have I got a gig for you!'
'Have you?' said Buddy.
'That's what I said!'
'No, you asked us,' said Glod. 'How should we know?'
'Has it got dat livery on der side?' said Cliff.
Dibbler started again.
'It's a big place, you'll get a great audience! And you'll get ...' he
looked at their trusting, open faces, 'ten dollars over Guild rate, how
about that?'
Glod's face split into a big grin. 'What, each?' he said.
Dibbler gave them another appraising look. 'Oh ... no,' he said. 'Fair
do's. Ten dollars between you. I mean, be serious. You need exposure.'
'Dere's dat word again,' said Cliff. 'The Musicians' Guild'll be right
on our necks.'
'Not this place,' said Dibbler. 'Guaranteed.'
'Where is it, then?' said Glod.
'Are you ready for this?'
They blinked at him. Dibbler beamed, and blew a cloud of greasy smoke.
'The Cavern!'
The beat went on ...
Of course, there are bound to be a few mutations ...
Gortlick and Hammerjug were songwriters, and fully paid up members of
the Guild.
They wrote dwarf songs for all occasions.
Some people say this is not hard to do so long as you can remember how
to spell 'Gold', but this is a little bit cynical. Many dwarf songs[20] are
on the lines of 'Gold, gold, gold' but it's all in the inflexion; dwarfs
have thousands of words for 'gold' but will use any of them in an emergency,
such as when they see some gold that doesn't belong to them.
They had a small office in Tin Lid Alley, where they sat either side of
an anvil and wrote popular songs to mine along to.
'Gort?'
'What?'
'What do you think of this one?'
Hammerjug cleared his throat.
'I'm mean and turf and I'm mean and turf and
I'm mean and turf and I'm mean and turf, 'And me an' my friends can
walk towards you with our hats on backwards in a menacing way, 'Yo!'
Gortlick chewed the end of his composing hammer thoughtfully.
'Good rhythm,' he said, 'but the words need some work.'
'You mean more gold, gold, gold?'
'Ye es. What're you thinking of calling it?'
'Er ... r ... rat ... music...'
'Why rat music?'
Hammerjug looked puzzled.
'Couldn't really say,' he said. 'It was just an idea I had in my
brain.'
Gortlick shook his head. Dwarfs were a burrowing race. He knew what
they liked.
'Good music's got to have hole in it,' he said. 'You ain't got nothing
if you ain't got hole.'
'Now calm down, calm down,' said Dibbler. 'It's the biggest venue in
Ankh Morpork, that's why. I don't see what the problem is ...'
'The Cavern?' screamed Glod. 'Chrysoprase the troll runs it, that's the
problem!'
'Dey say he's a godfather in the Breccia,' said Cliff.
'Now now, that's never been proved ...'
'Only 'cos it's very hard to prove things when someone's scooped a hole
in your head and buried your feet in it!'
'There's no need for this prejudice, just because he's a troll-'said
Dibbler.
'I'm a troll! So I can be prejudiced against trolls, all right? He's
one mean mutherlode! Dey say when dey found the De Bris gang none of 'em had
any teef-'
'What is the Cavern?' said Buddy.
'Troll place,' said Cliff. 'Dey say-'
'It'll be great! Why worry?' said Dibbler.
'It's a gambling joint, too!'[21]
'But the Guild won't go in there,' said Dibbler. 'Not if they know
what's good for them.'
'And I know what's good for me, too!' shouted Glod. 'I'm good at
knowing that!
It's good for me not to go into a troll dive!'
'They threw axes at you in the Drum,' said Dibbler, reasonably.
'Yes, but only in fun. It's not as if they were aiming.'
'Anyway,' said Cliff, 'only trolls and damn silly young humans go there
who think it clever to drink in a troll bar. You won't get an audience.'
Dibbler tapped the side of his nose.
'You play,' he said. 'You'll get an audience. That's my job.'
'The doors aren't big enough for me to go in!' snapped Glod.
'They're huge doors,' said Dibbler.
'They ain't big enough for me 'cos if you try to get me in there you'll
have to drag the street in too, on account of me holding on to it!'
'No, be sensible-'
'No!' screamed Glod. 'And I'm screaming for all three of us!'
The guitar whined.
Buddy swung it around until he could hold it, and played a couple of
chords.
That seemed to calm it down.
'I think it ... er ... likes the idea,' he said.
'It likes the idea,' said Glod, simmering down a little bit. 'Oh, good.
Well, do you know what they do to dwarfs who go into the Cavern?'
`We do need the money, and it's probably not worse than what the
Guild'll do to us if we play anywhere else,' said Buddy. 'And we've got to
play.'
They stood looking at one another.
'What you boys should do now,' said Dibbler, blowing out a smoke ring,
`is find somewhere nice and quiet to spend the day. Have a bit of a rest.'
'Damn right,' said Cliff. 'I never expected to carry these rocks around
the whole time-'
Dibbler raised a finger. 'Ah,' he said, 'I thought of that, too. You
don't want to waste your talents lugging stuff around, that's what I told
myself. I hired you a helper. Very cheap, only a dollar a day, I'll take it
straight out of your wages so's you don't have to bother about it. Meet
Asphalt.'
'Who?' said Buddy.
'S me,' said one of the sacks beside Dibbler.
The sack opened up a bit and turned out not to be a sack at all, but a
... a sort of crumbled ... a kind of mobile heap of...
Buddy felt his eyes watering. It looked like a troll, except that it
was shorter than a dwarf. It wasn't smaller than a dwarf what Asphalt lacked
in height he made up in breadth and, while on the subject, also in smell.
'How come,' said Cliff, 'he's so short?'
"N'elephant sat on me,' said Asphalt, sulkily.
Glod blew his nose.
'Only sat?'
Asphalt was already wearing a 'Band With Rocks In' shirt. It was tight
across the chest but reached down to the floor.
'Asphalt'll look after you,' said Dibbler. 'There isn't anything he
doesn't know about show business.'
Asphalt gave them a big grin.
'You'll be OK with me,' he said. 'I've worked with 'em all, I have.
Been everywhere, done it all.'
'We could go to the Fronts,' said Cliff. 'No one around there when the
University's on holiday.'
'Good. Got things to organize,' said Dibbler. 'See you tonight. The
Cavern. Seven o'clock.'
He strode off.
'You know the funny thing about him?' said Glod.
'What?'
'The way he was smoking that sausage. Do you think he knew?'
Asphalt grabbed Cliff's bag and slung it easily over his shoulder.
'Let's go, boss,' he said.
'An elephant sat on you?' said Buddy, as they crossed the square.
'Yup. At the circus,' said Asphalt. 'I used to muck 'em arht.'
'That's how you got like that?'
'Nope. Dint get like this 'til elephants had sat on me tree, fo'
times,' said the small flat troll. 'Dunno why. I'd be cleanin' up after 'em,
next minute it'd all be dark.'
'I'd have quit after the first time, me,' said Glod.
'Nah,' said Asphalt, with a contented smile. 'Couldn't do that. Show
business is in me soul.'
Ponder looked down at the thing they had hammered together.
'I don't understand it either,' he said. 'But ... it looks as though we
can trap it in a string, and it makes the string play the music again. It's
like an iconograph for sound.'
They'd put the wire inside the box, which resonated beautifully. It
played the same dozen bars, over and over again.
'A box of music,' said Ridcully. 'My word!'
'What I'd like to try,' said Ponder, 'is getting the musicians to play
in front of a lot of strings like this. Perhaps we could trap the music.'
'What for?' said Ridcully. ' What on Disc for?'
'Well ... if you could get music in boxes you wouldn't need musicians
any more.'
Ridcully hesitated. There was a lot to be said for the idea. A world
without musicians had a certain appeal. They were a scruffy bunch, in his
experience.
Quite unhygienic.
He shook his head, reluctantly.
`Not this sort of music,' he said. `We want to stop it, not make more
of it.'
'What exactly is wrong with it?' said Ponder.
`It's ... well, can't you see?' said Ridcully. 'It makes people act
funny.
Wear funny clothes. Be rude. Not do what they're told. I can't do a
thing with them. It's not right. Besides ... remember Mr Hong.'
'It's certainly very unusual,' said Ponder. 'Can we get some more? For
study purposes? Archchancellor?'
Ridcully shrugged. ' We follow the Dean,' he said.
'Good grief,' breathed Buddy, in the huge echoing emptiness. 'No wonder
they call it the Cavern. It's huge.'
'I feel dwarfed,' said Glod.
Asphalt ambled to the front of the stage.
'One two, one two,' he said. 'One. One. One two, one tw -'
'Three,' said Buddy helpfully.
Asphalt stopped and looked embarrassed.
'Just trying the, you know, just trying the ... trying out the ...' he
muttered. 'Just trying ... it.'
'We'll never fill this,' said Buddy.
Glod poked in a box by the side of the stage.
He said, 'We might. Look at these.'
He unrolled a poster. The others clustered around.
'Days a picture of us,' said Cliff. 'Someone painted a picture of us.'
'Looking mean,' said Glod.
'S a good one of Buddy,' said Asphalt. 'Waving his guitar like that.'
'Why's there all that lightning and stuff?' said Buddy.
'I never look that mean even when I'm mean,' said Glod.
'The New Sounde Dat's Goin' Arounde",' Cliff read, his forehead
wrinkling with the effort.
'The Bande With Rockes",' said Glod.
'Oh, no. It says we're going to be here and everything,' moaned Glod.
'We're dead.'
'Bee There Orr Bee A Rectangular Thyng",' said Cliff. 'I don't
understand that.'
'There's dozens of these rolls in here,' said Glod. 'They're posters.
You know what that means? He's been having them stuck up in places. Talking
of which, when the Musicians' Guild get hold of us-'
'Music's free,' said Buddy. 'It has to be free.'
'What?' said Glod. 'Not in this dwarf's town!'
'Then it should be,' said Buddy. 'People shouldn't have to pay to play
music.'
'Right! That boy's right! That's just what I've always said! Isn't that
what I've always said? That's what I've said, right enough.'
Dibbler emerged from the shadows in the wings. There was a troll with
him who, Buddy surmised, must have been Chrysoprase. He wasn't particularly
big, or even very craggy. In fact he had a smooth and glossy look to him,
like a pebble found on a beach. There wasn't a trace of lichen anywhere.
And he was wearing clothes. Clothes, other than uniforms or special
work clothes, weren't normally a troll thing. Mostly they wore a loincloth
to keep stuff in, and that was that. But Chrysoprase had a suit on. It
looked badly tailored. It was in fact very well tailored, but even a troll
with no clothes on looks fundamentally badly tailored.
Chrysoprase had been a very quick learner when he arrived in Ankh
Morpork. He began with an important lesson: hitting people was thuggery.
Paying other people to do the hitting on your behalf was good business.
'I'd like you lads to meet Chrysoprase,' said Dibbler. 'An old friend
of mine. Me and him go way back. That right, Chrys?'
'Indeed.' Chrysoprase gave Dibbler the warm friendly smile a shark
bestows on a haddock with whom it suits it, for now, to swim in the same
direction. A certain play of silicon muscles in the corners also suggested
that, one day, certain people would regret 'Chrys'.
'Mr Throat tells me youse boys is the best ting since slicing bread,'
he said.
'Youse got everyting youse need?'
They nodded, mutely. People tended not to speak to Chrysoprase in case
they said something that offended him. They wouldn't know it at the time, of
course.
They'd know it later, when they were in some dark alley and a voice
behind them said: Mr Chrysoprase is really upset.
'Youse go and rest up in your dressing room,' he went on. 'Youse wants
any food or drink, youse only got to say.'
He'd got diamond rings on his fingers. Cliff couldn't stop staring at
them.
The dressing room was next to the privies and half full of beer
barrels. Glod leaned on the door.
'I don't need the money,' he said. 'Just let me get out of here with my
life, that's all I ask.'
'Oo ownt ave oo orry ' Cliff began.
'You're trying to speak with your mouth shut, Cliff,' said Buddy.
'I said, you don't have to worry, you've got der wrong sort of teeth,'
said the troll.
There was a knock on the door. Cliff slammed his hand back over his
mouth. But the knock turned out to belong to Asphalt, who was carrying a
tray.
There were three types of beer. There were even smoked rat sandwiches
with the crusts and tails cut off. And there was a bowl of finest anthracite
coke with ash on it.
'Crunch it up good,' moaned Glod, as Cliff took his bowl. 'It may be
the last chance you get-'
...
