Terry Pratchett. Soul music
страница №7
... 'Maybe no one'll turn up and we can go home?' said Cliff.Buddy ran his fingers over the strings. The others stopped eating as
the chords filled up the room.
'Magic,' said Cliff, shaking his head.
'Don't you boys worry,' said Asphalt. 'If there are any problems, it's
the other guys who'll get it in the teeth.'
Buddy stopped playing.
'What other guys?'
'S funny thing,' said the little troll, 'suddenly everyone's playing
music with rocks in it. Mr Dibbler's signed up another band for the concert,
too. To kind of warm it up.'
'S called Insanity,' said Asphalt.
'Where are they?' said Cliff.
'Well, put it like this ... you know how your dressing room is next to
the privy?'
Crash, behind the Cavern's raggedy curtain, tried to tune his guitar.
Several things got in the way of this simple procedure. Firstly, Blert had
realized what his customers really wanted and, praying forgiveness from his
ancestors, had spent more time gluing on bits of glittery stuff than he had
on the actual functioning sections of the instrument. To put it another way,
he'd knocked in a dozen nails and tied the strings to them. But this wasn't
too much of a problem, because Crash himself had the musical talent of a
blocked nostril.
He looked at Jimbo, Noddy and Scum. Jimbo, now the bass player (Blert,
giggling hysterically, had used a bigger lump of wood and some fence wire),
was holding up his hand hesitantly.
'What is it, Jimbo?'
'One of my guitar strings has broke.'
'Well, you've got five more, ain't you?'
'Yur. But I doesn't know how to play them, like.'
'You didn't know how to play six, right? So now you're a bit less
ignorant.'
Scum peered around the curtain.
'Crash?'
'Yes?'
'There's hundreds of people out there. Hundreds! A lot of 'em have got
guitars, too. They're sort of waving 'em in the air!'
Insanity listened to the roar from the other side of the curtain. Crash
did not have too many brain cells, and they often had to wave to attract one
another's attention, but he had a tiny flicker of doubt that the sound that
Insanity had achieved, while a good sound, was the sound that he'd heard
last night in the Drum. The sound made him want to scream and dance, while
the other sound made him ... well ... made him want to scream and smash
Scum's drum kit over its owner's head, quite frankly.
Noddy took a peek between the curtains.
'Hey, there's a bunch of wiz ... I think they're wizards, right in the
front row,' he said. 'I'm ... pretty sure they're wizards, but, I mean ...'
'You can tell, stupid,' said Crash. 'They've got pointy hats.'
'There's one with ... pointy hair ...' said Noddy.
The rest of Insanity applied eyes to the gap.
'Looks like ... a kind of unicorn spike made out of hair...
'What's that he's got on the back of his robe?' said Jimbo.
'It says BORN TO RUNE,' said Crash, who was the fastest reader in the
group and didn't need to use his finger at all.
'The skinny one's wearing a flared robe,' said Noddy.
'He must be old.'
'And they've all got guitars! Do you reckon they've come to see us?'
'Bound to have,' said Noddy.
'That's a bodacious audience,' said Jimbo.
'Yeah, that's right, bodacious,' said Scum. 'Er. What's bodacious
mean?'
'Means ... means it bodes,' said Jimbo.
'Right. It looks like it's boding all right.'
Crash thrust aside his doubts.
'Let's get out there,' he said, 'and really show them what Music With
Rocks In is about!'
Asphalt, Cliff and Glod sat in one corner of the dressing room. The
roar of the crowd could be heard from here.
'Why's he not saying anything?' Asphalt whispered.
'Dunno,' said Glod.
Buddy was staring at nothing, with the guitar cradled in his arms.
Occasionally he'd slap the casing, very gently, in time with whatever
thoughts were sluicing through his head.
'He goes like that sometimes,' said Cliff. 'Just sits and looks at the
air-'
'Hey, they're shouting something out there,' said Glod. 'Listen.'
The roar had a rhythm to it.
'Sounds like "Rocks, Rocks, Rocks",' said Cliff.
The door burst open and Dibbler half ran, half fell in.
'You've got to get out there!' he shouted. 'Right now!'
'I thought the Insanitary boys-'Glod began.
'Don't even ask,' said Dibbler. 'Come on! Otherwise they'll wreck the
place!'
Asphalt picked up the rocks.
'OK,' he said.
'No,' said Buddy.
'What dis?' said Dibbler. 'Nerves?'
'No. Music should be free. Free as the air and the sky.'
Glod's head spun around. Buddy's voice had a faint suggestion of
harmonics.
'Sure, right, that's what I said,' said Dibbler. 'The Guild-'
Buddy unfolded his legs and stood up.
'I expect people had to pay to get in here, didn't they?' he said.
Glod looked at the others. No one else seemed to have noticed it. But
there was a twang on the edge of Buddy's words, a sibilance of strings.
'Oh, that. Of course,' said Dibbler. 'Got to cover expenses. There's
your wages ... wear and tear on the floor ... heating and lighting ...
depreciation...'
The roar was louder now. It had a certain footstamping component.
Dibbler swallowed. He suddenly had the look of a man prepared to make
the supreme sacrifice.
'I could ... maybe go up ... maybe ... a dollar,' he said, each word
fighting its way out of the strongroom of his soul.
'If we go on stage now, I want us to do another performance,' said
Buddy.
Glod glared suspiciously at the guitar.
'What? No problem. I can soon-'Dibbler began.
'Free.'
'Free?' The word got past Dibbler's teeth before they could snap shut.
He rallied magnificently. 'You don't want paying? Certainly, if-'
Buddy didn't move.
'I mean, we don't get paid and people don't have to pay to listen. As
many people as possible.'
'Free?'
'Yes!'
'Where's the profit in that?' An empty beer bottle vibrated off the
table and smashed on the floor. A troll appeared in the doorway, or at least
part of it did. It wouldn't be able to get into the room without ripping the
door frame out, but it looked as though it wouldn't think twice about doing
so.
'Mr Chrysoprase says, what's happening?' it growled.
'Er-' Dibbler began.
'Mr Chrysoprase don't like being kept waiting.'
'I know, it-'
'He gets sad if he's kept waiting-'
'All right!' shouted Dibbler. 'Free! And that's cutting my own throat.
You do know that, don't you?'
Buddy played a chord. It seemed to leave little lights in the air.
'Let's go,' he said softly.
'I know this city,' Dibbler mumbled, as The Band With Rocks In hurried
towards the vibrating stage. 'Tell people something's free and you'll get
thousands of them turning up-'
Needing to eat, said a voice in his head. It had a twang.
Needing to drink.
Needing to buy Band With Rocks In shirts ...
Dibbler's face, very slowly, rearranged itself into a grin.
'A free festival,' he said. 'Right! It's our public duty. Music should
be free.
And sausages in a bun should be a dollar each, mustard extra. Maybe a
dollar fifty. And that's cutting my own throat.'
In the wings, the noise of the audience was a solid wall of sound.
'There's lots of them,' said Glod. 'I never played for that many in my
entire life!'
Asphalt was arranging Cliff's rocks on the stage and getting massive
applause and catcalls.
Glod glanced up at Buddy. He hadn't let go of the guitar all this time.
Dwarfs weren't given to deep introspection, but Glod was suddenly aware of a
desire to be a long way from here, in a cave somewhere.
'Best of luck, you guys,' said a flat little voice behind them.
Jimbo was bandaging Crash's arm.
'Er, thanks,' said Cliff. 'What happened to you?'
'They threw something at us,' said Crash.
'What?'
'Noddy, I think.'
What could be seen of Crash's face broke into a huge and terrible
smile.
'We done it, though!' he said. 'We done music with rocks in all right!
That bit where Jimbo smashed his guitar, they loved that bit!'
'Smashed his guitar?'
'Yeah,' said Jimbo, with the pride of the artist. 'On Scum.'
Buddy had his eyes closed. Cliff thought he could see a very, very
faint glow surrounding him, like a thin mist. There were tiny points of
light in it.
Sometimes, Buddy looked very elvish.
Asphalt scurried off the stage.
'OK, all done,' he said.
The others looked at Buddy.
He was still standing with his eyes shut, as if he was asleep on his
feet.
'We'll ... get on out there, then?' said Glod.
'Yes,' said Cliff, 'we'll get on out there, will we? Er. Buddy?'
Buddy's eyes snapped open suddenly.
'Let's rock,' he whispered.
Cliff had thought that the sound was loud before, but it hit him like a
club as they trooped out of the wings.
Glod picked up his horn. Cliff sat down and found his hammers.
Buddy walked to the centre of the stage and, to Cliff's amazement, just
stood there looking down at his feet.
The cheering began to subside.
And then died away altogether. The huge hall was filled with the hush
of hundreds of people holding their breath.
Buddy's fingers moved.
He picked out three simple little chords.
And then he looked up.
'Hello, Ankh Morpork!'
Cliff felt the music rise up behind him and rush him forward into a
tunnel of fire and sparks and excitement. He brought his hammers down. And
it was Music With Rocks In.
C. M. O. T. Dibbler stood out in the street so that he didn't have to
hear the music. He was smoking a cigar and doing calculations on the back of
an overdue bill for stale buns.
Lessee ... OK, have it outside somewhere, so there's no rent ... maybe
ten thousand people, one sausageinna bun each at a dollar fifty, no, say a
dollar seventy five, mustard tenpence extra ten thousand Band With Rocks In
shirts at five dollars each, make that ten dollars ... add stall rental for
other traders, because people who like Music With Rocks In could probably be
persuaded to buy anything ...
He was aware of a horse coming along the street. He paid it no
attention until a female voice said: 'How do I get in here?'
'No chance. Tickets all sold out,' said Dibbler, with-out turning his
head. Even Band With Rocks In posters, people had been offering three
dollars just for posters, and Chalky the troll could knock out a hundred a-
He looked up. The horse, a magnificent white one, watched him
incuriously.
Dibbler looked around. 'Where'd she go?'
There were a couple of trolls lounging just inside the entrance. Susan
ignored them. They ignored her.
In the audience, Ponder Stibbons looked both ways and cautiously opened
a wooden box.
The stretched string inside began to vibrate.
'This is all wrong!' he shouted in Ridcully's ear. 'This is not
according to the laws of sound!'
'Maybe they're not laws!' screamed Ridcully. People a foot away
couldn't hear him. 'Maybe they're just guidelines!'
'No! There have to be laws!'
Ridcully saw the Dean try to climb on the stage in the excitement.
Asphalt's huge troll feet landed heavily on his fingers.
'Oh, I say, good shot,' said the Archchancellor.
A prickling sensation on the back of his neck made him look around.
Although the Cavern was crowded, a space seemed to have formed in the
floor.
People were pressed together but, somehow, this circle was as inviolate
as a wall.
In the middle of it was the girl he'd seen in the Drum. She was walking
across the floor, holding her dress daintily.
Ridcully's eyes watered.
He stepped forward, concentrating. You could do almost anything if you
concentrated. Anyone could have stepped into the circle if their senses had
been prepared to let them know it was there. Inside the circle the sound was
slightly muted.
He tapped her on the shoulder. She spun around, startled.
'Good evening,' said Ridcully. He looked her up and down, and then
said, 'I'm Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University. I can't
help won-dering who you are.'
'Er ...' The girl looked panicky for a moment. 'Well, technically ... I
suppose I'm Death.'
'Technically?'
'Yes. But not on duty at the moment.'
'Very glad to hear that.'
There was a shriek from the stage as Asphalt threw the Lecturer in
Recent Runes into the audience, which applauded.
'Can't say I've seen that much of Death,' said Ridcully. 'But in so far
as I have, he's tended to be ... well, he, to start with. And a good deal
thinner... ?'
'He's my grandfather.'
'Ah. Ah. Really? I didn't even know he was-'Ridcully stopped. 'Well,
well, well, fancy that. Your grandfather? And you're in the family firm?'
'Shut up, you stupid man,' said Susan. 'Don't you dare patronize me.
You see him?' She pointed to the stage, where Buddy was in mid riff. 'He's
going to die soon because ... because of silliness. And if you can't do
anything about it, go away!'
Ridcully glanced at the stage. When he looked back, Susan had vanished.
He made a mighty effort and thought he caught a glimpse of her a little way
off, but she knew he was looking for her and he had no chance of finding her
now.
Asphalt got back into the dressing room first. There is something very
sad about an empty dressing room. It's like a discarded pair of underpants,
which it resembles in a number of respects. It's seen a lot of activity. It
may even have witnessed excitement and a whole gamut of human passions. And
now there's nothing much left but a faint smell.
The little troll dumped the bag of rocks on the floor and bit the top
off a couple of beer bottles.
Cliff entered. He got halfway across the floor and then fell over,
hitting the boards with every part of his body at once. Glod stepped over
him and flopped on to a barrel.
He looked at the beer bottles. He took off his helmet. He poured the
beer into the helmet. Then he let his head flop forward.
Buddy entered and sat down in the corner, leaning against the wall.
And Dibbler followed. 'Well, what can I say? What can I say?' he said.
'Don't ask us,' said Cliff from his prone position. 'How should we
know?'
'That was magnificent,' said Dibbler. 'What's up with the dwarf? Is he
drowning?'
Glod reached out an arm, without looking, smashed the top off another
bottle of beer and poured it over his head.
'Mr Dibbler?' said Cliff.
'Yes?'
'I think we want to talk. Just us, like. The band. If you don't mind.'
Dibbler looked from one to the other. Buddy was staring at the wall.
Glod was making bubbling noises. Cliff was still on the floor.
'OK,' he said, and then added brightly, 'Buddy? The free performance
... great idea. I'll start organizing it right away and you can do it just
as soon as you get back from your tour. Right. Well, I'll just-'
He turned to leave and walked into Cliff's arm, which was suddenly
blocking the doorway.
'Tour? What tour?'
Dibbler backed off a little. 'Oh, a few places. Quirm, Pseudopolis, Sto
Lat ' He looked around at them. 'Didn't you want that?'
'We'll talk about dat later,' said Cliff.
He pushed Dibbler out of the door and slammed it shut.
Beer dripped off Glod's beard.
'Tour? Three more nights of this?'
'What's the problem?' said Asphalt. 'It was great! Everyone was
cheering. You did two hours! I had to keep kickin' 'em off the stage! I
never felt so-'
He stopped.
'That's it, really,' said Cliff. 'The fing is, I go on dat stage, I
sits down not knowing even what we're goin' to do, next minute Buddy plays
something on his ... on that thing, next I'm goin' bam Bam chcha chcha BAM
bam. I don't know what I'm playing. It just comes in my head and down my
arms.'
'Yes,' said Glod. 'Me, too. Seems to me I'm getting stuff out of that
horn I never put in there.'
'And it ain't like proper playing,' said Cliff. 'That's what I'm
saying. It's more like being played.'
'You've been in show business a long time, right?' said Glod to
Asphalt.
'Yep. Been there, done it. Seem 'em all.'
'You ever seen an audience like that?'
'I've seen 'em throw flowers and cheer at the Opera House-'
'Ha! Just flowers? Some woman threw her ... clothing at the stage!'
'Dat's right! Landed on my head!'
'And when Miss VaVa Voom did the Feather Dance down at the Skunk Club
in Brewer Street, the whole audience rushed the stage when she was down to
the last feather-'
'That was like this, was it?'
'No,' the troll admitted. 'I got to say it, I ain't never seen an
audience so... hungry. Not even for Miss VaVa Voom, and they were pretty
damn peckish then, I can tell you. Of course, no one threw underwear on to
the stage. She used to throw it off the stage.'
'Dere's something else,' said Cliff. 'Dere's four people in this room
and only three of 'em's talking.'
Buddy looked up.
'The music's important,' he mumbled.
'It ain't music,' said Glod. 'Music don't do this to people. It don't
make them feel like they've been put through a wringer. I was sweating so
much I'm going to have to change my vest any day now.' He rubbed his nose.
'Also, I looked at that audience, and I thought: they paid money to get in
here. I bet it came to more than ten dollars.'
Asphalt held up a slip of paper.
'Found this ticket on the floor,' he said.
Glod read it.
'A dollar fifty?' he said. 'Six hundred people at a dollar-fifty each?
That... that's four hundred dollars!'
'Nine hundred,' said Buddy, in the same flat tone, 'but the money isn't
important.'
'The money's not important? You keep on saying that! What kind of
musician are you?'
There was still a muted roar from outside.
'You want to go back to playing for half a dozen people in some cellar
somewhere after this?' said Buddy. 'Who's the most famous horn player there
ever was, Glod?'
'Brother Charnel,' said the dwarf promptly. 'Everyone knows that. He
stole the altar gold from the Temple of Offler and had it made into a horn
and played magical music until the gods caught up with him and pulled his-'
'Right,' said Buddy, 'but if you went out there now and asked who the
most famous horn player is, would they remember some felonious monk or would
they shout for Glod Glodsson?'
'They'd-'
Glod hesitated.
'Right,' said Buddy. 'Think about that. A musician has to be heard. You
can't stop now. We can't stop now.'
Glod waved a finger at the guitar.
'It's that thing,' he said. 'It's too dangerous.'
'I can handle it!'
'Yes, but where's it going to end?'
'It's not how you finish that matters,' said Buddy. 'It's how you get
there.'
'That sounds elvish to me-'
The door burst open again.
'Er,' said Dibbler, 'boys, if you don't come back and play something
else then we're in the deep brown...'
'Can't play,' said Glod. 'I've run out of breath through lack of
money.'
'I said ten dollars, didn't I?' said Dibbler.
'Each,' said Cliff.
Dibbler, who hadn't expected to get away with less than a hundred,
waved his hands in the air.
'Gratitude, is it?' he said. 'You want me to cut my own throat?'
'We'll help. If you like,' said Cliff.
'All right, all right, thirty dollars,' said Dibbler. 'And I go without
my tea.'
Cliff looked at Glod, who was still digesting the thing about the most
famous horn player in the world.
'There's a lot of dwarfs and trolls in the audience,' said Cliff.
'Cavern Deep, Mountain High"?' said Glod.
'No,' said Buddy.
'What, then?'
'I'll think of something.'
The audience spilled out into the street. The wizards gathered around
the Dean, snapping their fingers.
'Wella wella wella-' sang the Dean happily.
'It's gone midnight!' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, snapping his
fingers,
'and I don't care a bit! What shall we do now?'
'We could have a rumble,' said the Dean.
'That's true,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, 'we did miss
dinner.'
'We missed dinner?' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Wow! That's Music With
Rocks In! We just don't care!'
'No, I meant ...' The Dean paused. He wasn't quite sure, now he came to
really think about it, what he had meant. 'It's a long walk back to the
University,' he conceded. 'I suppose we could at least stop for a coffee or
something.'
'Maybe a doughnut or two,' said Recent Runes.
'And perhaps some cake,' said the Chair.
'I could just fancy some apple pie,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'And some cake.'
'Coffee,' said the Dean. 'Ye ess. A coffee bar. That's right.'
'What's a coffee bar?' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Like a chocolate bar?' said Recent Runes. The missed dinner, hitherto
forgotten, was beginning to loom large in everyone's stomachs.
The Dean looked down at his shiny new leather robe. Everyone had said
how good it was. They'd admired BORN TO RUNE. His hair was right, too. He
was thinking of shaving off his beard but just leaving the side bits because
that felt right.
And coffee ... yes ... coffee was in there somewhere. Coffee was all
part of it.
And there was the music. That was in there. That was everywhere.
But there was something else, too. Something missing. He wasn't sure
what it was, only that he'd know it if he ever saw it.
It was very dark in the alley behind the Cavern, and only the keenest
sighted would have seen several figures pressed against the wall.
The occasional glint of a tarnished sequin would indicate to those who
knew about such things that these were the Musicians' Guild's crack
enforcers, the
Grisham Frord Close Harmony Singers. Unlike most of the people employed
by Mr
Clete they did, in fact, genuinely have some musical talent.
They'd also been in to see the band.
'Do wop, uh do wop, uh do wop-' said the thin one.
'Bubububuh-' said the tall one. There's always a tall one.
'Clete's right. If they keep pulling in audiences like that, everyone
else is out of the show,' said Grisham.
'Oh yeah,' said the bass man.
'When they come through that door-' three more knives slipped from
their sheaths ' well, just take your time from me.'
They heard the sound of feet on stairs. Grisham nodded.
'A one, a two, a one two thr-'
GENTLEMEN?
They pivoted.
A dark figure stood behind them, holding a glowing scythe in its hands.
Susan smiled horribly.
TAKE IT FROM THE TOP?
'Oh, nooo,' said the bass man.
Asphalt unbolted the door and stepped out into the night.
'Hey, what was that?' he said.
'What was what?' said Dibbler.
'I thought I heard some people running away ...' The troll stepped
forward.
There was a ting. He reached down and picked up something.
'And whoever it was dropped this ...'
'Just some item or other,' said Dibbler loudly. 'Come along, boys. You
don't have to go back to any flophouse tonight. It's The Gritz for you!'
'That's a troll hotel, isn't it?' said Glod suspiciously.
'Trollish,' said Dibbler, waving a hand irritably.
'Hey, I bin in dere once doing cabarett!' said Cliff.
'Dey got nearly everything! Water out of taps in nearly every room! A
speaking tube so's you can holler your meal order right down to the kitchen,
and dese guys with actual shoes on who brings it right to you! The works!'
'Treat yourself!' said Dibbler. 'You boys can afford it!'
'And then there's this tour, is there?' said Glod sharply. ' We can
afford that too, can we?'
'Oh, I shall help out with that,' said Dibbler expansively. 'Tomorrow
you'll go to Pseudopolis, that'll take two days, then you can come back via
Sto Lat and Quirm and be back here on Wednesday for the Festival. Great idea
that. Giving something to the community, I've always been in favour of
giving to the community. It's very good for ... for ... for the community.
I'll get it all organized while you're away, OK? And then ...' He put one
arm around Buddy's shoulders and another around Glod's head. 'Genua! Klatch!
Hersheba! Chimera! Howondaland! Maybe even the Counterweight Continent,
they're talking about discovering it again real soon now, great
opportunities for the right people! With your music and my unerring business
sense, the world is our mollusc! Now, you just go off with Asphalt, the best
rooms now, nothing's too much for my boys, and get some sleep without
worrying about the bill-'
'Thank you,' said Glod.
' you can pay it in the morning.'
The Band With Rocks In shambled away in the direction of the best
hotel.
Dibbler heard Cliff say, 'What's a mollusc?'
'It's like two plates of precipitated calcium carbonate with a salty
slimy fishy thing in the middle.'
'Sounds tasty. You don't have to eat dat bit in the middle, do you?'
When they'd gone, Dibbler looked at the knife he'd taken from Asphalt.
It had sequins on it.
Yes. A few days with the lads out of the way was definitely a good
move.
On his perch in the gutter above, the Death of Rats gibbered to
himself.
Ridcully walked slowly out of the Cavern. Only a light drift of used
tickets on the steps bore witness to the hours of music.
He felt like someone watching a game who didn't know the rules. For
example, the boy had been singing ... what was it? Rave In. What the hell
did that mean?
Raving, yes, he could understand that, and in the Dean's case it was
perfectly accurate. Rave In? But everyone else had seemed to know what was
meant. And then there had been, as far as he could remember, a song about
not stepping on someone's shoes. Fair enough, sensible suggestion, no one
wanted their feet trodden on, but why a song asking people to avoid doing so
should have such an effect Ridcully was at a loss to understand.
And as for the girl ...
Ponder bustled up, clutching his box.
'I've got nearly all of it, Archchancellor!' he shouted.
Ridcully glanced past him. There was Dibbler, still bearing a tray of
unsold
Band With Rocks In shirts.
'Yes, fine, Mr Stibbons (shutupshutupshutup),' he said. 'Jolly good,
let's get back home.'
'Good evening, Archchancellor,' said Dibbler.
'Why, hello, Throat,' said Ridcully. 'Didn't see you there.'
'What's in that box?'
'Oh, nothing, nothing at all-'
'It's amazing!' said Ponder, full of the undirected excitement of the
true discoverer and idiot. 'We can trap the arragh aargh aargh.'
'My word, clumsy old me,' said Ridcully, as the young wizard clutched
at his leg. 'Here, let me take that totally innocent device you have there-'
But the box had tumbled out of Ponder's arms. It hit the street before
Ridcully could catch it, and the lid flew off.
The music spilled out into the night.
'How did you do that?' said Dibbler. 'It is magic?'
'The music lets itself be trapped so you can hear it again and again,'
said Ponder. 'And I think you did that on purpose, sir!'
'You can hear it again and again?' said Dibbler. 'What, by just opening
a box?'
'Yes,' said Ponder.
'No,' said Ridcully.
'Yes you can,' said Ponder. 'I showed you, Arch-chancellor? Don't you
remember?'
'No,' said Ridcully.
'Any kind of box?' said Dibbler, in a voice choked with money.
'Oh, yes, but you have to stretch a wire inside it so the music has
somewhere to live and ouch ouch ouch.'
'Can't think what's come over me with these sudden muscular spasms,'
said Ridcully. 'Come, Mr Stibbons, let us not waste any more of Mr Dibbler's
valuable time.'
'Oh, you're not wasting it,' said Dibbler. 'Boxes full of music, eh?'
'We'll take this one,' said Ridcully, snatching it up. 'It's an
important magical experiment.'
He frogmarched Ponder away, which was a lit-tle hard because the youth
was bent double and wheezing.
'What did you have to go ... and do ... that for?' 'Mr Stibbons, I know
you to be a man who seeks to understand the universe. Here's an important
rule: never give a monkey the key to the banana plantation. Some-times you
can just see an accident waiting to oh, no.'
He let Ponder go and waved vaguely up the street.
'Got any theories about that, young man?'
Something golden brown and viscous was oozing out on to the street from
what was just possibly, behind the mounds of the stuff, a shop. As the two
wizards watched there was a tinkle of glass and the brown substance began to
emerge from the second floor.
Ridcully stamped forward and scooped up a hand-ful, leaping back before
the wall could reach him. He sniffed at it.
'Is it some ghastly emanation from the Dungeon Dimensions?' said
Ponder.
'Shouldn't think so. Smells like coffee,' said Ridcully.
'Coffee?'
'Coffee flavoured froth, anyway. Now, why is it I have this feeling
that there's going to be wizards in there somewhere?'
A figure lurched out of the foam, dripping brown bubbles.
'Who goes there?' said Ridcully.
'Ah, yes! Did anyone get the number of that ox cart? Another doughnut,
if you would be so good!' said the figure brightly, and fell over into the
froth.
'That sounded like the Bursar to me,' said Ridcully. 'Come along, lad.
It's only bubbles.' He strode into the foam.
After a moment's hesitation Ponder realized that the honour of young
wizardry was at stake, and pushed his way in behind him.
Almost immediately he bumped into someone in the fog of bubbles.
'Er, hello?'
'Who's that?'
'It's me, Stibbons. I've come to rescue you.'
'Good. Which way is out?'
'Er-'
There were some explosions somewhere in the cof-fee cloud and a popping
noise.
Ponder blinked. The level of bubbles was sinking.
Various pointy hats appeared like drowned logs in a drying lake.
Ridcully waded over, coffee froth dripping from his hat.
'Something bloody stupid's been going on here,' he said, 'and I'm going
to wait quite patiently until the Dean owns up.'
'I don't see why you should assume it was me,' muttered a coffee
coloured column.
'Well, who was it, then?'
'The Dean said the coffee ought to be frothy,' said a mound of foam of
a Senior Wranglish persuasion, 'and he did some simple magic and I rather
think we got carried away.'
'Ah, so it was you, Dean.'
'Yes, all right, but only by coincidence,' said the Dean testily.
'Out of here, all of you,' said Ridcully. 'Back to the University this
minute.'
'I mean, I don't see why you should assume it's my fault just because
sometimes it might happen to be me who-'
The froth had sunk a bit more, to reveal a pair of eyes under a
dwarfish helmet.
'Scuse me,' said a voice still under the bubbles, 'but who's going to
pay for all this? That's four dol-lars, thank you very much.'
'The Bursar's got the money,' said Ridcully quickly.
'Not any more,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'He bought seventeen
doughnuts.'
'Sugar?' said Ridcully. 'You let him eat sugar. You know that makes
him, you know, a bit funny. Mrs Whitlow said she'd give notice if we let him
get anywhere near sugar again.' He herded the damp wizards towards the door.
'It's all right, my good man, you can trust us, we're wizards, I shall have
some money sent around in the morning.'
'Hah, you expect me to believe that, do you?' said the dwarf.
It had been a long night. Ridcully turned and waved his hand at the
wall. There was a crackle of octarine fire and the words 'IOU 4 DOLERS'
burned themselves into the stone.
'Right you are, no problem there,' said the dwarf, ducking back into
the froth.
'I shouldn't think Mrs Whitlow is going to worry,' said the Lecturer in
Recent Runes as they squelched through the night. 'I saw her and some of the
maids at the, er, concert. You know, the kitchen girls. Molly, Polly and,
er, Dolly. They were, er, screaming.'
'I didn't think the music was that bad,' said Ridcully.
'No, er, not in pain, er, I wouldn't say that,' said the Lecturer in
Recent Runes, beginning to go red, 'but, er, when the young man was waggling
his hips like that-'
'He definitely looks elvish to me,' said Ridcully.
'-er, I think she threw some of her, er, under ... things on to the
stage.'
This silenced even Ridcully, at least for a while. Every wizard was
suddenly busy with his own private thoughts.
'What, Mrs Whitlow?' the Chair of Indefinite Studies began.
'Yes.' 'What, her ?'
'I, er, think so.'
Ridcully had once seen Mrs Whitlow's washing line. He'd been impressed.
He'd never believed there was so much pink elastic in the world.
'What, really her ?' said the Dean, his voice sounding as though it was
coming from a long way away.
'I'm, er, pretty sure.'
'Sounds dangerous to me,' said Ridcully briskly. 'Could do someone a
serious injury. Now then, you lot, back to the University right now for cold
baths all round.'
'Really her ?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. Somehow, none of
them felt able to leave the idea alone.
'Make yourself useful and find the Bursar,' snapped Ridcully. 'And I'd
have you lot up in front of the University authorities first thing in the
morning, if it wasn't for the fact that you are the University authorities
...'
Foul Ole Ron, professional maniac and one of Ankh Morpork's most
industrious beggars, blinked in the gloom. Lord Vetinari had excellent night
vision. And, unfortunately, a well-developed sense of smell.
'And then what happened?' he said, trying to keep his face turned away
from the beggar. Because the fact was that although in actual size Foul Ole
Ron was a small hunched man in a huge grubby overcoat, in smell he filled
the world. In fact Foul Ole Ron was a physical schizophrenic. There was Foul
Ole Ron, and there was the smell of Foul Ole Ron, which had obviously
developed over the years to such an extent that it had a distinct
personality. Anyone could have a smell that lingered long after they'd gone
somewhere else, but the smell of Foul Ole Ron could actually arrive
somewhere several minutes before he did, in order to spread out and get
comfortable before he arrived. It had evolved into something so striking
that it was no longer perceived with the nose, which shut down instantly in
selfdefence; people could tell that Foul Ole Ron was approaching by the way
their ear wax started to melt.
'Buggrit, buggrit, wrong side out, I told 'em, buggrem ...'
The Patrician waited. With Foul Ole Ron you had to allow time for his
wandering mind to get into the same vicinity as his tongue .
'... spyin' on me with magic, I told 'em, bean soup, see here ... and
then everyone was dancing, you see, and then afterwards there were two of
the wizards in the street and one of them was going on about catching the
music in a box and Mr Dibbler was interested and then the coffee house
exploded and they all went back to the University ... buggrit, buggrit,
buggrem, see if I don't.'
'The coffee house exploded, did it?'
'Frothy coffee all over the place, yerronner ... bugg-'
'Yes, yes, and so on,' said the Patrician, waving a thin hand. 'And
that's all you can tell me?'
'Well ... bug-'
Foul Ole Ron caught the Patrician's eye and got a grip on himself. Even
in his own highly individualized sanity he could tell when not to push his
threadbare luck. His Smell wandered around the room, reading documents and
examining the pictures.
'They say,' he said, 'that he drives all the women mad.' He leaned
forward. The Patrician leaned back. 'They say after he moved his hips like
that ... Mrs Whitlow threw her ... wossnames ... on to the stage.'
The Patrician raised an eyebrow.
'Wossnames?'
'You know.' Foul Ole Ron moved his hands vaguely in the air.
'A pair of pillow cases? Two sacks of flour? Some very baggy trou oh. I
see. My word. Were there any casualties?'
'Dunno, yerronner. But there's something I do know.'
'Yes?'
'Uh ... Cumbling Michael says yerronner sometimes pays for
information... ?'
'Yes, I know. I can't imagine how these rumours get about,' said the
Patrician, getting up and opening a window. 'I shall have to have something
done about it.'
Once again, Foul Ole Ron reminded himself that while he was probably
insane he definitely wasn't as mad as all that.
'Only I got this, yerronner,' he said, pulling something out of the
horrible recesses of his clothing. 'It says writing on it, yerronner.'
It was a poster, in glowing primary colours. It couldn't have been very
old, but an hour or two as Foul Ole Ron's chest-warmer had aged it
considerably. The
Patrician unfolded it with a pair of tweezers.
'Them's the pictures of the music players,' said Foul Ole Ron
helpfully, 'and that's writing. And there's more writing there, look. Mr
Dibbler had Chalky the troll run 'em off just now, but I nipped in after and
threatened to breathe on everyone less'n they gives me one.'
'I'm sure that worked famously,' said the Patrician.
He lit a candle and read the poster carefully. In the presence of Foul
Ole Ron, all candles burned with a blue edge to the flame.
'Free Festival of Music with Rocks In It",' he said.
'That's where you don't have to pay to go in,' said Foul Ole Ron
helpfully.
'Buggrem, buggrit.'
Lord Vetinari read on.
'In Hide Park. Next Wednesday. Well, well. A public open space, of
course. I wonder if there'll be many people there?'
'Lots, yerronner. There was hundreds couldn't get into the Cavern.'
'And the band looks like that, do they?' said Lord Vetinari. 'Scowling
like that?'
'Sweating, most of the time I saw 'em,' said Foul Ole Ron.
'Bee There Orr Bee A Rectangular Thyng",' said the Patrician. 'This is
some sort of occult code, do you think?'
'Couldn't say, yerronner,' said Foul Ole Ron. 'My brain goes all slow
when I'm thirsty.'
'They Are Totallye Unable To Bee Seene! And A Longe Way Oute!"' said
Lord Vetinari solemnly. He looked up. 'Oh, I am sorry,' he said. 'I'm sure I
can find someone to give you a cool refreshing drink ...'
Foul Ole Ron coughed. It had sounded like a perfectly sincere offer
but, somehow, he was suddenly not at all thirsty.
'Don't let me keep you, then. Thank you so very much,' said Lord
Vetinari.
'Er ...'
'Yes?'
'Er ... nothing ...'
'Very good.'
When Ron had buggrit, buggrit, buggrem'd down the stairs, the Patrician
tapped his pen thoughtfully on the paper and stared at the wall.
The pen kept bouncing on the word Free.
Finally he rang a small bell. A young clerk put his head around the
door.
'Ah, Drumknott,' said Lord Vetinari, 'just go and tell the head of the
Musicians' Guild he wants a word with me, will you?'
'Er ... Mr Clete is already in the waiting room, your lordship,' said
the clerk.
'Does he by any chance have some kind of poster with him?'
'Yes, your lordship.'
'And is he very angry?'
'This is very much the case, your lordship. It's about some festival.
He insists you have it stopped.'
'Dear me.'
'And he demands that you see him instantly.'
'Ah. Then leave him for, say, twenty minutes, then show him up.'
'Yes, your lordship. He keeps saying that he wants to know what you are
doing about it.'
'Good. Then I can ask him the same question.'
The Patrician sat back. Si non confectus, non reficiat. That was the
motto of the Vetinaris. Everything worked if you just let it happen.
He picked up a stack of sheet music and began to listen to Salami's
Prelude to a
Nocturne on a Theme by Bubbla.
After a while he looked up.
'Don't hesitate to leave,' he snapped.
The Smell slunk away.
SQUEAK!
'Don't be stupid! All I did was frighten them off. It's not as though I
hurt them. What's the good of having the power if you can't use it?'
The Death of Rats put his nose in his paws. It was a lot easier, with
rats.[22]
C. M. O. T. Dibbler often did without sleep, too. He generally had to
meet Chalky at night. Chalky was a large troll but tended to dry up and
flake in daylight.
Other trolls looked down on him because he came from a sedimentary
family and was therefore a very low class troll indeed. He didn't mind. He
was a very amiable character.
He did odd jobs for people who needed something unusual in a hurry and
without entanglements and who had clinking money. And this job was pretty
odd.
'Just boxes?' he said.
'With lids,' said Dibbler. 'Like this one I've made. And a bit of wire
stretched inside.'
Some people would have said 'Why?' or 'What for?' but Chalky didn't
make his money like that. He picked up the box and turned it this way and
that.
'How many?' he said.
'Just ten to start with,' said Dibbler. 'But I think there'll be more
later. Lots and lots more.'
'How many's ten?' said the troll.
Dibbler held up both hands, fingers extended.
'I'll do them for two dollar,' said Chalky.
'You want me to cut my own throat?'
'Two dollar.'
'Dollar each for these and a dollar fifty for the next batch.'
'Two dollar.'
'All right, all right, two dollars each. That's ten dollars the lot,
right?'
'Right.'
'And that's cutting my own throat.'
Chalky tossed the box aside. It bounced on the floor and the lid came
off.
Some time later a small, greyish brown mongrel dog, on the prowl for
anything edible, limped into the workshop and sat peering into the box for a
while.
Then it felt a bit of an idiot and wandered off.
Ridcully hammered on the door of the High Energy Magic Building as the
city clocks were striking two. He was supporting Ponder Stibbons, who was
asleep on his feet.
Ridcully was not a quick thinker. But he always got there eventually.
The door opened and Skazz's hair appeared.
'Are you facin' me?' said Ridcully.
'Yes, Archchancellor.'
'Let us in, then, the dew's soaking through me boots.'
Ridcully looked around as he helped Ponder in.
'Wish I knew what it was that keeps you lads working all hours,' he
said. 'I never found magic that interesting when I was a lad. Go and fetch
some coffee for Mr Stibbons here, will you? And then get your friends.'
Skazz bustled off and Ridcully was left alone, except for the
slumbering Ponder.
'What is it they do?' he said. He never really tried to find out.
Skazz had been working at a long bench by one wall.
At least he recognized the little wooden disc. There were small oblong
stones ranged on it in a couple of concentric circles, and a candle lantern
positioned on a swivelling arm so that it could be moved anywhere around the
circumference.
It was a travelling computer for druids, a sort of portable stone
circle, something they called a 'kneetop'. The Bursar had sent off for one
once. It had said For the Priest In a Hurry on the box. He'd never been able
to make it work properly and now it was used as a doorstop. Ridcully
couldn't see what they had to do with magic.
After all, it wasn't much more than a calendar and you could get a
perfectly good calendar for 8p.
Rather more puzzling was the huge array of glass tubes behind it. That
was where Skazz had been working; there was a litter of bent glassware and
jars and bits of cardboard where the student had been sitting.
The tubing seemed to be alive.
Ridcully leaned forward.
It was full of ants.
They scuttled along the tubing and through complex little spirals in
their thousands. In the silence of the room, their bodies made a faint,
continuous rustling.
There was a slot level with the Archchancellor's eyes. The word 'In'
was written on a piece of paper that had been pasted onto the glass.
And on the bench was an oblong of card which looked just the right
shape to go in the slot. It had round holes punched in it.
There were two round holes, then a whole pattern of round holes, and
then a further two holes. On it, in pencil, someone had scribbled '2 x 2'.
Ridcully was the kind of man who'd push any lever, just to see what it
did.
He put the card in the obvious slot ...
There was an immediate change in the rustling. Ants trailed in their
busy way through the tubing. Some of them appeared to be carrying seeds ...
There was a small dull sound and a card dropped out of the other end of
the glass maze.
It had four holes in it.
Ridcully was still staring at it when Ponder came up behind him,
rubbing his eyes.
'S our ant counter,' he said.
'Two plus two equals four,' said Ridcully. 'Well, well, I never knew
that.'
'It can do other sums as well.'
'You tellin' me ants can count?'
'Oh, no. Not individual ants ... it's a bit hard to explain ... the
holes in the cards, you see, block up some tubes and let them through others
and ...'
Ponder sighed, 'we think it might be able to do other things.'
'Like what?' Ridcully demanded.
'Er, that's what we're trying to find out ...'
'You're trying to find out? Who built it?'
'Skazz.'
'And now you're trying to find out what it does?'
'Well, we think it might be able to do quite complicated maths. If we
can get enough bugs in it.'
Ants were still bustling around the enormous crystalline structure.
'Had a rat thingy, a gerbil or something, when I was a lad,' said
Ridcully, giving up in the face of the incomprehensible. 'Spent all the time
on a treadmill. Round and round, all night long. This is a bit like that,
yes?'
'In very broad terms,' said Ponder carefully.
'Had an ant farm, too,' said Ridcully, thinking faraway thoughts. 'The
little devils never could plough straight.' He pulled himself together.
'Anyway, get the rest of your chums here right now.'
'What for?'
'A bit of a tutorial,' said Ridcully.
'Aren't we going to examine the music?'
'In good time,' said Ridcully. 'But first, we're going to talk to
someone.'
'I'm not sure,' said Ridcully. 'We'll know when he turns up. Or her.'
Glod looked at their suite. The hotel owners had just left, after going
through the 'dis is der window, it really opens, dis is der pump, you get
water out of it wit der handle here, dis is me waiting for some money'
routine.
'Well, that just about does it. That just about puts the iron helmet on
it, that does,' he said. 'We play Music With Rocks In all evening, and we've
got a room that looks like this?'
'It's homely,' said Cliff. 'Look, trolls don't have much to do with de
frills of life-'
Glod looked towards his feet.
'It's on the floor and it's soft,' he said. 'Silly me for thinking it
was a carpet. Someone fetch me a broom. No, someone fetch me a shovel. Then
someone fetch me a broom.'
'It'll do,' said Buddy.
He put down his guitar and stretched out on the wooden slab that was
apparently one of the beds.
'Cliff,' said Glod, 'can I have a word?'
He jerked a stubby thumb at the door.
They conferred on the landing.
'It's getting bad,' said Glod.
'Yep.'
'He hardly says a word now when he's not on stage.'
'Yep.' 'Ever met a zombie?'
'I know a golem. Mr Dorfl down in Long Hogmeat.'
'Him? He's a genuine zombie?'
'Yep. Got a holy word on his head, I seen it.'
'Yuk. Really? I buy sausages from him.'
'Anyway ... what about zombies?'
'... you couldn't tell from the taste, I thought he was a really good
sausage maker ...'
'What were you saying about zombies?'
'... funny how you can know someone for years and then find out they've
got feet of clay ...'
'Zombies ...' said Cliff patiently.
'What? Oh. Yes. I mean he acts like one.' Glod recalled some of the
zombies in Ankh-Morpork. 'At least, like zombies are supposed to act.'
'Yep. I know what you mean.'
'And we both know why.'
'Yep. Er. Why?'
'The guitar.'
'Oh, that. Yeah.'
'When we're on stage, that thing is in charge-'
In the silence of the room, the guitar lay in the dark by Buddy's bed
and its strings vibrated gently to the sound of the dwarf's voice ...
'OK, so what do we do about it?' said Cliff.
'It's made of wood. Ten seconds with an axe, no more problem.'
'I'm not sure. That ain't no ordinary instrument.'
'He was a nice kid when we met him. For a human,' said Glod.
'So what do we do? I don't think we could get it off him.'
'Maybe we could get him to-'
The dwarf paused. He was aware of a fuzzy echo to his voice.
'That damn thing is listening to us!' he hissed. 'Let's go outside.'
They ended up out in the road.
'Can't see how it can listen,' said Cliff. 'An instrument's for
listening to.'
'The strings listen,' said Glod, flatly. 'That is not an ordinary
instrument.'
Cliff shrugged. 'Dere's one way we could find out,' he said.
Early morning fog filled the streets. Around the University it was
sculpted into curious forms by the slight magical background radiation.
Strange shaped things moved across the damp cobbles.
Two of them were Glod and Cliff.
'Right,' said the dwarf. 'Here we are.'
He looked up at a blank wall.
'I knew it!' he said. 'Didn't I say? Magic! How many times have we
heard this story? There's a mysterious shop no one's ever seen before, and
someone goes in and buys some rusty old curio, and it turns out to-'
'Glod-'
' some kind of talisman or a bottle full of genie, and then when
there's trouble they go back and the shop-'
'Glod ?'
' has mysteriously disappeared and gone back to whatever dimension it
came from yes, what i...
