Terry Pratchett. Soul music
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...s it?''You're on the wrong side of the road. It's over here.'
Glod glared at the blank wall, and then turned and stomped across the
road.
'It was a mistake anyone could have made.'
'Yep.'
'It doesn't invalidate anything I said.'
Glod rattled the door and, to his surprise, found it was unlocked.
'It's gone two in the morning! What kind of music shop is open at two
in the morning?' Glod struck a match.
The dusty graveyard of old instruments loomed around them. It looked as
though a number of prehistoric animals had been caught in a flash flood and
then fossilized.
'What's that one that looks like a serpent?' whispered Cliff.
'It's called a Serpent.'
Glod was uneasy. He'd spent most of his life as a musician. He hated
the sight of dead instruments, and these were dead. They didn't belong to
anyone. No one played them. They were like bodies without life, people
without souls. Something they had contained had gone. Every one of them
represented a musician down on his luck.
There was a pool of light in a grove of bassoons. The old lady was
deeply asleep in a rocking chair, with a tangle of knitting on her lap and a
shawl around her shoulders.
'Glod?'
Glod jumped. 'Yes? What?'
'Why are we here? We know the place exists now-'
'Grab some ceiling, hooligans!'
Glod blinked at the crossbow bolt pricking the end of his nose, and
raised his hands. The old lady had gone from asleep to firing stance without
apparently passing through any intermediate stage.
'This is the best I can do,' he said. 'Er ... the door wasn't locked,
you see, and ...'
'So you thought you could rob a poor defenceless old lady?'
'Not at all, not at all, in fact we-'
'I belongs to the Neighbourhood Witch scheme, I do! One word from me
and you'll be hopping around look-ing for some princess with an amphibian
fixation-'
'I think dis has gone far enough,' said Cliff. He reached down and his
huge hand closed over the bow. He squeezed. Bits of wood oozed between his
fingers.
'We're quite harmless,' he said. 'We've come about the instrument you
sold our friend last week.'
'Are you the Watch?'
Glod bowed.
'No, ma'am. We're musicians.'
'That's supposed to make me feel better, is it? What instrument are you
talking about?'
'A kind of guitar.'
The old woman put her head on one side. Her eyes narrowed.
'I won't take it back, you know,' she said. 'It was sold fair 'n'
square. Good working condition, too.'
'We just want to know where you got it from.'
'Never got it from nowhere,' said the old lady. 'It's always been here.
Don't blow that!'
Glod nearly dropped the flute he'd nervously picked up from the debris.
'... or we'll be knee deep in rats,' said the old lady. She turned back
to Cliff. 'It's always been here,' she repeated.
'It's got a one chalked on it,' said Glod.
'It's always been here,' said the woman. 'Ever since I've had the
shop.'
'Who brought it in?'
'How should I know? I never asks them their name. People don't like
that. They just gets the number.'
Glod looked at the flute. There was a yellowing tag attached to it, on
which the number 431 had been scrawled.
He stared along the shelves behind the makeshift counter. There was a
pink conch shell. That had a number on it, too. He moistened his lips and
reached out...
'If you blow that, you'd just better have a sacrificial virgin and a
big cauldron of breadfruit and turtle meat standing by,' said the old lady.
There was a trumpet next to it. It looked amazingly untarnished.
'And this one?' he said. 'It'll make the world end and the sky fall on
me if I give it a tootle, will it?'
'Interesting you should say that,' said the old lady.
Glod lowered his hand, and then something else caught his eye.
'Good grief,' he said, 'is that still here? I'd forgotten about that
...'
'What is it?' said Cliff, and then looked where Glod was pointing.
'That?'
'We've got some money. Why not?'
'Yeah. It might help. But you know what Buddy said. We'd never be able
to find-'
'It's a big city. If you can't find it in Ankh Morpork, you can't find
it anywhere.'
Glod picked up half a drumstick and looked thought-fully at a gong half
buried in a pile of music-stands.
'I shouldn't,' said the old lady. 'Not if you don't want seven hundred
and seventy seven skeletal warriors springing out of the earth.'
Glod pointed.
'We'll take this.'
'Two dollars.'
'Hey, why should, we pay anything? It's not as though it's yours-'
'Pay up,' said Cliff with a sigh. 'Don't negotiate.'
Glod handed over the money with bad grace, snatched the bag the old
lady gave him, and strutted out of the shop.
'Fascinating stock you have here,' said Cliff, staring at the gong.
The old lady shrugged.
'My friend's a bit annoyed because he thought you one of dose
mysterious shops you hear about in folk tales,' Cliff went on. 'You know,
here today and gone tomorrow. He was looking for you on der other side of
der road, haha!'
'Sounds daft to me,' said the old lady, in a voice to discourage any
further unseemly levity.
Cliff glanced at the gong again, shrugged, and followed Glod.
The woman waited until their footsteps had died away in the fog.
Then she opened the door and peered up and down the street. Apparently
satisfied by its abundance of emptiness, she went back to her counter and
reached for a curious lever underneath. Her eyes glowed green for a moment.
'Forget my own head next,' she said, and pulled.
There was a grinding of hidden machinery.
The shop vanished. A moment later, it reappeared on the other side of
the road.
Buddy lay looking at the ceiling.
How did food taste? It was hard to remember. He'd eaten meals over the
last few days, he must have done, but he couldn't remember the taste. He
couldn't remember much of anything, except the playing. Glod and rest of
them sounded as if they were talking through a thick gauze.
Asphalt had wandered off somewhere.
He swung himself off the hard bed and padded over to the window.
The Shades of Ankh Morpork were just visible in the grey, cheap rate
light before dawn. A breeze blew in through the open window. When he turned
around, there was a young woman standing in the middle of the floor.
She put her finger to her lips.
'Don't go shouting to the little troll,' she said. 'He's downstairs
having some supper. Anyway, he wouldn't be able to see me.'
'Are you my muse?'
Susan frowned.
'I think I know what you mean,' she said. 'I've seen pictures. There
were eight of them, led by ... um ... Cantaloupe. They're supposed to
protect people. The Ephebians believe they inspire musicians and artists,
but of course they don't exi-' She paused, and made a conscientious
correction. 'At least, I've never met them. My name's Susan. I'm here
because ...'
Her voice trailed away.
'Cantaloupe?' said Buddy. 'I'm pretty sure it wasn't Cantaloupe.'
'Whatever.'
'How did you get in here?'
'I'm ... Look, sit down. Right. Well ... you know how some things ...
like the Muses, as you said ... people think that some things are
represented by people?'
A look of temporary understanding informed Buddy's perplexed features.
'Like the Hogfather representing the spirit of the midwinter festival?'
he said.
'Right. Well ... I'm sort of in that business,' said Susan. 'It doesn't
exactly matter what I do.'
'You mean you're not human?'
'Oh, yes. But I'm ... doing a job. I suppose thinking of me as a Muse
is probably as good as anything. And I'm here to warn you.'
'A Muse for Music With Rocks In?'
'Not really, but listen ... hey, are you all right?'
'Don't know.'
'You looked all washed out. Listen. The music is dangerous-'
Buddy shrugged. 'Oh, you mean the Guild of Musicians. Mr Dibbler says
not to worry about that. We're leaving the city for-'
Susan stamped forward and picked up the guitar.
'I mean this!'
The strings moved and whined under her hand.
'Don't touch that!'
'It's taken you over,' said Susan, throwing it on to the bed. Buddy
grabbed it and played a chord.
'I know what you're going to say,' he said. 'Everyone says it. The
other two think it's evil. But it's not!'
'It might not be evil, but it's not right! Not here, not now.'
'Yes, but I can handle it.'
'You can't handle it. It handles you.'
'Anyway, who are you to tell me all this? I don't have to take lessons
from a tooth fairy!'
'Listen, it'll kill you! I'm sure of it!'
'So I'm supposed to stop playing, then?'
Susan hesitated.
'Well, not exactly ... because then-'
'Well, I don't have to listen to mysterious occult women! You probably
don't even exist! So you can just fly back to your magic castle, OK?'
Susan was temporarily speechless. She was reconciled to the
irredeemable dumbness of most of mankind, particularly the section of it
that stood upright and shaved in the mornings, but she was also affronted.
No one had ever talked to Death like this. At least, not for long.
'All right,' she said, reaching out and touching his arm. 'But you'll
see me again, and ... and you won't like it much! Because, let me tell you,
I happen to be-'
Her expression changed. She felt the sensation of falling backwards
while standing still; the room drifted past her and away into darkness,
pinwheeling around Buddy's horrified face.
The darkness exploded, and there was light.
Dribbly candle light.
Buddy waved his hand through the empty space where Susan had been.
'Are you still here? Where did you go? Who are you?'
Cliff looked around.
'Thought I heard something,' he muttered. 'Here, you do know, don't
you, dat some of dose instruments weren't just ordin-'
'I know,' said Glod. 'I wish I'd had a go on the rat pipe. I'm hungry
again.'
'I mean they were mythi-'
'Yes.'
'So how come dey end up in a second hand music shop?'
'Ain't you ever hocked your stones?'
'Oh, sure,' said Cliff. 'Everyone does, some time or other, you know
that.
Sometimes it's all you've got if you want to see another meal.'
'There you are, then. You said it. It's something every working
musician's going to do, sooner or later.'
'Yeah, but the thing that Buddy ... I mean, it's got the number one on
it...'
'Yes.'
Glod peered up at a street sign.
'Cunning Artificers",' he said. 'Here we are. Look, half the workshops
are still open even at this time of night.' He shifted the sack. Something
cracked inside it. 'You knock that side, I'll knock this.'
'Yeah, all right ... but, I mean, number one. Even the conch shell was
number fifty two. Who used to own the guitar?'
'Don't know,' said Glod, knocking on the first door, 'but I hope they
never come back for it.'
'And that,' said Ridcully, 'is the Rite of AshkEnte. Quite easily done.
You have to use a fresh egg, though.'
Susan blinked.
There was a circle drawn on the floor. Strange unearthly shapes
surrounded it, although when she adjusted her mind set she realized that
these were perfectly ordinary students.
'Who are you?' she said. 'What's this place? Let me go this instant!'
She strode across the circle and rebounded from an invisible wall.
The students were staring at her in the manner of those who have heard
of the species 'female' but have never expected to get this close to one.
'I demand that you let me go!' She glared at Ridcully. 'Aren't you the
wizard I saw last night?'
'That's right,' said Ridcully, 'and this is the Rite of AshkEnte. It
calls Death into the circle and he or as it may be, in this case, she can't
leave until we say so. There's a lot of stuff in this book here spelled with
funny long esses and it goes on about abjuring and conjuration, but it's all
show, really.
Once you're in, you're in. I must say your predecessor hah, bit of a
pun there was a lot more gracious about it.'
Susan glared. The circle played tricks with her ideas of space. It
seemed most unfair.
'Why have you summoned me, then?' she said.
'That's better. That's more according to the script,' said Ridcully. '
We are allowed to ask you questions, you see. And you have to answer them.
Truthfully.'
'Well?'
'Would you like to sit down? A glass of something?'
'No.'
'Just as you like. This new music ... tell us about it.' 'You summoned
Death to ask that?'
'I'm not sure who we've summoned,' said Ridcully. 'It is really alive?'
'I ... think so.'
'Does it live anywhere?'
'It seems to have lived in one instrument but I think it's moving
around now. Can I go?'
'No. Can it be killed?'
'I don't know.'
'Should it be here?'
'What?'
'Should it be here?' Ridcully repeated patiently. 'Is it something
that's supposed to be happening?'
Susan suddenly felt important. Wizards were rumoured to be wise in
fact, that's where the word came from.[23] But they were asking her things.
They were listening to her. Pride sparkled in her eyes.
'I ... don't think so. It's turned up here by some kind of accident.
This isn't the right world for it.'
Ridcully looked smug. 'That's what I thought. This isn't right, I said.
It's making people try and be things they aren't. How can we stop it?'
'I don't think you can. It's not susceptible to magic.'
'Right. Music's not. Any music. But something must be able to make it
stop. Show her your box, Ponder.'
'Er ... yes. Here.'
He lifted the lid. Music, slightly tinny but still recognizable,
drifted out into the room.
'Sounds like a spider trapped in a matchbox, don't it?' said Ridcully.
'You can't reproduce music like that on a piece of wire in a box,' said
Susan.
'It's against nature.'
Ponder looked relieved.
'That's what I said,' he said. 'But it does it anyway. It wants to.'
Susan stared at the box.
She began to smile. There was no humour in it.
'It's unsettling people,' said Ridcully. 'And ... look at this.' He
pulled a roll of paper out of his robe and unfolded it. 'Caught some lad
trying to paste this on to our gates. Blooming cheek! So I took it off him
and told him to hop it, which was,' Ridcully looked smugly at his
fingertips, 'quite appropriate as it turned out. It's going on about some
festival of Music With Rocks In. It'll all end with monsters from another
dimension breaking through, you can rely on that. That's the sort of thing
that happens a lot in these parts.'
'Excuse me,' said Big Mad Adrian, his voice cargoed with suspicion, 'I
don't want to cause any trouble, right, but is this Death or not? I've seen
pictures, and they didn't look like her.'
'We did the Rite stuff,' said Ridcully. 'And this is what we got.'
'Yes, but my father's a herring fisherman and he doesn't just find
herring in his herring nets,' said Skazz.
'Yeah. She could be anyone,' said Tez the Terrible. 'I thought Death
was taller and bonier.'
'She's just some girl messing about,' said Skazz.
Susan stared at them.
'She hasn't even got a scythe,' said Tez.
Susan concentrated. The scythe appeared in her hands, its blue edged
blade making a noise like a finger dragged around the rim of a glass.
The students straightened up.
'But I've always thought it was time for a change,' said Tez.
'Right. It's about time girls got a chance in the professions,' said
Skazz.
'Don't you dare patronize me!'
'That's right; said Ponder. 'There's no reason why Death has to be
male. A woman could be almost as good as a man in the job.'
'You're doing it very well,' said Ridcully.
He gave Susan an encouraging smile.
She rounded on him. I'm Death, she thought technically, anyway and this
is a fat old man who has no right to give me any kind of orders. I'll glare
at him, and he'll soon realize the gravity of his situation. She glared.
'Young lady,' said Ridcully, 'would you care for breakfast?'
The Mended Drum seldom closed. There tended to be a lull around six in
the morning, but Hibiscus stayed open so long as someone wanted a drink.
Someone wanted a lot of drinks. Someone indistinct was standing at the
bar. Sand seemed to be running out of him and, in so far as Hibiscus could
tell, he had a number of arrows of Klatchian manufacture sticking in him.
The barman leaned forward.
'Have I seen you before?'
I'M IN HERE QUITE OFTEN, YES. A WEEK LAST WEDNESDAY, FOR EXAMPLE.
'Ha! That was a bit of a do. That's when poor old Vince got stabbed.'
YES.
'Asking for it, calling yourself Vincent the Invulnerable.'
YES. INACCURATE, TOO.
'The Watch are saying it was suicide.'
Death nodded. Going into the Mended Drum and calling yourself Vincent
the
Invulnerable was clearly suicide by Ankh-Morpork standards.
THIS DRINK'S GOT MAGGOTS IN IT.
The barman squinted at it.
'That's not a maggot, sir,' he said. 'That's a worm.'
OH THAT'S BETTER, IS IT?
'It's supposed to be there, sir. That's mexical, that is. They put the
worm in to show how strong it is.'
STRONG ENOUGH TO DROWN WORMS?
The barman scratched his head. He'd never thought of it in those terms.
'It's just something people drink,' he said vaguely.
Death picked up the bottle and held it up to what normally would have
been eye level. The worm rotated forlornly.
WHAT'S IT LIKE? he said.
'Well, it's a sort of-'
I WASN'T TALKING TO YOU.
'Breakfast? said Susan, I mean BREAKFAST?
'It must be coming up to that time,' said the Archchancellor. 'It's a
long time since I last had breakfast with a charming young woman.'
'Good grief, you're all just as bad as each other,' said Susan.
'Very well, scratch charming,' said Ridcully evenly. 'But the sparrows
are coughin' in the trees and the sun is peepin' over the wall and I smell
cookin', and having a meal with Death is a chance that doesn't happen to
everyone. You don't play chess, do you?'
'Extremely well,' said Susan, still bewildered.
'Thought as much. All right, you fellows. You can go back to prodding
the universe. Will you step this way, madam?'
'I can't leave the circle!'
'Oh, you can if I invite you. It's all a matter of courtesy. I don't
know if you've ever had the concept explained?'
He reached out and took her hand. She hesitated, then stepped across
the chalk line. There was a slight tingling feeling.
The students backed away hurriedly.
'Go on, get on with it,' said Ridcully. 'This way, madam.' Susan had
never experienced charm before. Ridcully possessed quite a lot of it, in a
twinkly eyed kind of way.
She followed him across the lawns to the Great Hall.
The breakfast tables had been laid out, but they were unoccupied. The
big sideboard had sprouted copper tureens like autumn fungi. Three rather
young maids were waiting patiently behind the array.
'We tend to help ourselves,' said Ridcully conversationally, lifting a
cover.
'Waiters and so on make too much nois this is some sort of a joke, is
it?'
He prodded what was under the cover and beckoned the nearest maid.
'Which one are you?' he said. 'Molly, Polly or Dolly?'
'Molly, your lordship,' said the maid, dropping a curtsy and trembling
slightly.
'Is there something wrong?'
'A wrong wrong wrong wrong, a do wrong wrong,' said the other two
maids.
'What happened to the kippers? What's this? Looks like a beef patty in
a bun,' said Ridcully, staring at the girls.
'Mrs Whitlow gave instructions to the cook,' said Molly nervously.
'It's a-'
'-yay yay yay-'
'-it's a burger.'
'You're telling me' said Ridcully. 'And why've you got a beehive made
of hair on your head, pray? Makes you look like a matchstick.'
'Please sir, we-'
'You went to see the Music With Rocks In concert, did you?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Yay, yay.'
'You, er, you didn't throw anything on the stage, did you?'
'No, sir!'
'Where's Mrs Whitlow?'
'In bed with a cold, sir.'
'Not at all surprised.' Ridcully turned to Susan. 'People are playing
silly burgers, I'm afraid.'
'I eat only muesli at breakfast,' said Susan.
'There's porridge,' said Ridcully. 'We do it for the Bursar because
it's not exciting.' He lifted the lid of a tureen. 'Yes, still here,' he
said. 'There's some things Music With Rocks In can't change, and one of
them's porridge. Let me help you to a ladleful.'
They sat on either side of the long table..
'Well, isn't this nice?' Ridcully said.
'Are you laughing at me?' said Susan suspiciously.
'Not at all. In my experience, what you mostly get in herring nets is
herring. But, speaking as a mortal a customer, as you might say I'm
interested to know why Death is suddenly a teenage girl instead of the
animate natomy we've come to know and ... know.'
'Natomy?'
'Another word for skeleton. Probably derived from "anatomy".'
'He's my grandfather.'
'Ah. Yes, you said. And that's true, is it?'
'It sounds a bit silly, now I come to tell someone else.'
Ridcully shook his head.
'You should do my job for five minutes. Then tell me about silly,' he
said. He took a pencil out of his pocket and cautiously lifted the top half
of the bun on his plate.
'There's cheese in this,' he said, accusingly.
'But he's gone off somewhere and next thing I know I've inherited the
whole thing. I mean, I didn't ask for it! Why me? Having to go around with
this silly scythe thing ... that's not what I wanted out of life-'
'It's certainly not something you get careers leaflets about,' said
Ridcully.
'Exactly.'
'And I suppose you're stuck with it?' said Ridcully.
'We don't know where he's gone. Albert says he's very depressed about
something but he won't say what.'
'Dear me. What could depress Death?'
'Albert seems to think he might do something ... silly.'
'Oh, dear. Not too silly, I hope. Could that be possible? It'd be ...
morticide, I suppose. Or cidicide.'
To Susan's amazement Ridcully patted her hand.
'But I'm sure we'll all sleep safer in our beds knowing that you're in
charge,' he said.
'It's all so untidy! Good people dying stupidly, bad people living to a
ripe old age ... it's so disorganized. There's no sense to it. There's no
justice at all. I mean, there's this boy-'
'What boy?'
To Susan's horror and amazement she found that she was blushing. 'Just
some boy,' she said. 'He was supposed to have died quite ridiculously, and I
was going to save him, and then the music saved him, and now it's getting
him into all sorts of trouble and I've got to save him anyway and I don't
know why.'
'Music?' said Ridcully. 'Does he play a sort of guitar?'
'Yes! How did you know?'
Ridcully sighed. 'When you're a wizard you get an instinct for these
things.' He prodded his burger some more. 'And lettuce, for some reason. And
one very, very thin slice of pickled cucumber.'
He let the bread drop.
'The music is alive,' he said.
Something that had been knocking on Susan's attention for the past ten
minutes finally used its boots.
'Oh, my god,' she said.
'Which one would that be?' said Ridcully politely.
'It's so simple! It strolls into traps! It changes people! They want to
play m I've got to go,' said Susan hurriedly. ' Er. Thank you for the
porridge ...'
'You haven't eaten any of it,' Ridcully pointed out mildly.
'No, but ... but I had a really good look at it.'
She vanished. After a little while Ridcully leaned forward and waved
his hand vaguely in the space where she had been sitting, just in case.
Then he reached into his robe and pulled out the poster about the Free
Festival.
Great big things with tentacles, that was the problem. Get enough magic
in one place and the fabric of the universe gave at the heel just like one
of the
Dean's socks which, Ridcully noticed, had been in some extremely bright
colours the last few days.
He waved a hand at the maids.
'Thank you, Molly, Dolly or Polly,' he said. 'You can clear this stuff
away.'
'Yay yay.'
'Yes, yes, thank you.'
Ridcully felt rather alone. He'd quite enjoyed talking to the girl. She
seemed to be the only person in the place who wasn't mildly insane or
totally preoccupied with something that he, Ridcully, didn't understand.
He wandered back to his study, but was distracted by the sounds of
hammering coming from the Dean's chambers. The door was ajar.
The senior wizards had quite large suites that included study, workshop
and bedroom. The Dean was hunched over the furnace in the workshop area,
with a smoked glass mask over his face and a hammer in his hand. He was hard
at work.
There were sparks.
This was much more cheering, Ridcully thought. Maybe this was an end to
all this Music With Rocks In nonsense and a return to some real magic.
'Everythin' all right, Dean?' he said.
The Dean pushed up the glass and nodded.
'Nearly finished, Archchancellor,' he said.
'Heard you bangin' away right down the passage,' said Ridcully,
conversationally.
'Ah. I'm working on the pockets,' said the Dean.
Ridcully looked blank. Quite a number of the more difficult spells
involved heat and hammering, but pockets was a new one.
The Dean held up a pair of trousers.
They were not, strictly speaking, as trousery as normal trousers;
senior wizards developed a distinctive 50" waist, 25" leg shape that
suggested someone who sat on a wall and required royal assistance to be put
together again. They were dark blue.
'You were hammerin' them?' said Ridcully. 'Mrs Whitlow been heavy on
the starch again?'
He looked closer.
'You're rivetin' them together?'
The Dean beamed.
'These trousers,' he said, 'are where it's at.'
'Are you talkin' Music With Rocks In again?' said Ridcully
suspiciously.
'I mean they're cool.'
'Well, better than a thick robe in this weather,' Ridcully conceded,
'butyou're not going to put them on now, are you?'
'Why not?' said the Dean, struggling out of his robe.
'Wizards in trousers? Not in my university! It's cissy. People'd
laugh,' said Ridcully.
'You always try and stop me doing anything I want!'
'There's no need to take that tone with me-'
'Huh, you never listen to anything I say and I don't see why I
shouldn't wear what I like!'
Ridcully glared around the room.
'This room is a total mess!' he bellowed. 'Tidy it up right now!'
'Sharn't!'
'Then it's no more Music With Rocks In for you, young man!'
Ridcully slammed the door behind him.
He slammed it open again and added, 'And I never gave you permission to
paint it black!'
He slammed the door shut.
He slammed it open.
'They don't suit you, either!'
The Dean rushed out into the passage, waving his hammer.
'Say what you like,' he shouted, 'when history comes to name these,
they certainly won't call them Archchancellors!'
It was eight in the morning, a time when drinkers are trying either to
forget who they are or to remember where they live. The other occupants of
the Mended Drum were hunched over their drinks around the walls and watching
an orang utan, who was playing Barbarian Invaders and screaming with rage
every time he lost a penny.
Hibiscus really wanted to shut. On the other hand, it'd be like blowing
up a goldmine. It was all he could do to keep up the supply of clean
glasses.
'Have you forgotten yet?' he said.
IT APPEARS I HAVE ONLY FORGOTTEN ONE THING.
'What's that? Hah, silly of me to ask really, seeing as you've
forgotten-'
I HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO GET DRUNK.
The barman looked at the rows and rows of glasses. There were wine
glasses.
There were cocktail glasses. There were beer mugs. There were steins in
the shape of jolly fat men. There was a bucket.
'I think you're on the right lines,' he hazarded.
The stranger picked up his most recent glass and wandered over to the
Barbarian Invaders machine.
It was made of clockwork of a complex and intricate design. There was a
suggestion of many gears and worm drives in the big mahogany cabinet under
the game, the whole function of which appeared to be to make rows of rather
crudely carved Barbarian Invaders jerk and wobble across a rectangular
proscenium. The player, by means of a system of levers and pulleys, operated
a small self loading catapult that moved below the Invaders. This shot small
pellets upwards. At the same time the Invaders (by means of a ratchet and
pawl mechanism) dropped small metal arrows. Periodically a bell rang and an
Invader on horseback oscillated hesitantly across the top of the game,
dropping spears.
The whole assemblage rattled and creaked continuously, partly because
of all the machinery and partly because the orang utan was wrenching both
handles, jumping up and down on the Fire pedal, and screaming at the top of
his voice.
'I wouldn't have it in the place,' said the barman behind him. 'But
it's popular with the customers, you see.'
ONE CUSTOMER, ANYWAY.
'Well, it's better than the fruit machine, at least.'
YES?
'He ate all the fruit.'
There was a screech of rage from the direction of the machine.
The barman sighed. 'You wouldn't think anyone'd make so much fuss over
a penny, would you?'
The ape slammed a dollar coin on the counter and went away with two
handfuls of change. One penny in a slot allowed a very large lever to be
pulled; miraculously, all the Barbarians rose from the dead and began their
wobbly invasion again.
'He poured his drink into it,' said the barman. 'It may be my
imagination, but I think they're wobbling a bit more now.'
Death watched the game for a while. It was one of the most depressing
things he'd ever seen. The things were going to get down to the bottom of
the game anyway. Why shoot things at them?
Why...?
He waved his glass at the assembled drinkers.
D'YOU. D'YOU. THING IS, D'YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE, EH, HAVING A MEMORY
SO GOOD, RIGHT, SO GOOD YOU EVEN REMEMBER WHAT HASN'T HAPPENED YET? THAT'S
ME. OH, YES. RIGHT ENOUGH. AS THOUGH. AS THOUGH. AS THOUGH THERE'S NO FUTURE
... ONLY THE PAST THAT HASN'T HAPPENED YET. AND. AND. AND. YOU HAVE TO DO
THINGS ANYWAY. YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN AND YOU HAVE TO DO THINGS.
He looked around at the faces. People in the Drum were used to
alcoholic lectures, but not ones like this.
YOU SEE. YOU SHEE. YOU SEE STUFF LOOMING UP LIKE ICEBERG THINGS AHEAD
BUT YOU MUSTN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT BECAUSE BECAUSE BECAUSEITSALAW. CAN'T
BREAK THE LAW. 'SGOTABEALAW.
SEE THIS GLASS, RIGHT? SEE IT? 'S LIKE MEMORY. ONNACOUNTA IF YOU PUT
MORE STUFF IN, MORE STUFF FLOWS OUT, RIGHT? 'S' FACT. EVERYONEGOTTA MEMORY
LIKE THIS. 'S'WHAT KEEPS HUMANS FROM GOING ISS ISH INSH MAD. 'CEPT ME.
POOROLE ME. I REMEMBER EVERYTHING. AS IF IT HAPPENED ONLY TOMORROW.
EVERYTHING.
He looked down at his drink.
AH, he said, FUNNY HOW THINGS COME BACK TO YOU, ISN'T IT?
It was the most impressive collapse the bar had ever seen. The tall
dark stranger fell backwards slowly, like a tree. There was no cissy sagging
of the knees, no cop out bouncing off a table on the way down. He simply
went from vertical to horizontal in one marvellous geometric sweep.
Several people applauded as he hit the floor. Then they searched his
pockets, or at least made an effort to search his pockets but couldn't find
any. And then they threw him into the river.[24]
In the giant black study of Death one candle burned, and got no
shorter.
Susan leafed frantically through the books.
Life wasn't simple. She knew that; it was the Knowledge, which went
with the job. There was the simple life of living things but that was, well
... simple...
There were other kinds of life. Cities had life. Anthills and swarms of
bees had life, a whole greater than the sum of the parts. Worlds had life.
Gods had a life made up of the belief of their believers.
The universe danced towards life. Life was a remarkably common
commodity.
Anything sufficiently complicated seemed to get cut in for some, in the
same way that anything massive enough got a generous helping of gravity. The
universe had a definite tendency towards awareness. This suggested a certain
subtle cruelty woven into the very fabric of space time. Perhaps even a
music could be alive, if it was old enough. Life is a habit.
People said: I can't get that darn tune out of my head ...
Not just a beat, but a heartbeat.
And anything alive wants to breed.
C. M. O. T. Dibbler liked to be up at first light, in case there was an
opportunity to sell a worm to the early bird.
He had set up a desk in the corner of one of Chalky's workshops. He
was, by and large, against the idea of a permanent office. On the positive
side it made him easier to find, but on the negative side it made him easier
to find. The success of Dibbler's commercial strategy hinged on him being
able to find customers, not the other way around.
Quite a large number of people seemed to have found him this morning.
Many of them were holding guitars.
'Right,' he said to Asphalt, whose flat head was just visible over the
top of the makeshift desk. 'All understood? It'll take you two days to get
to
Pseudopolis and then you report to Mr Klopstock at the Bull Pit. And
I'll want receipts for everything.'
'Yes, Mr Dibbler.'
'It'll be a good idea to get away from the city for a bit.'
'Yes, Mr Dibbler.'
'Did I already say I wanted receipts for everything?'
'Yes, Mr Dibbler,' sighed Asphalt.
'Off you go, then.' Dibbler ignored the troll and beckoned to a group
of dwarfs who'd been hanging around patiently. 'OK, you lot, come over here.
So you want to be Music With Rocks In stars, do you?'
'Yes, sir!'
'Then listen here to what I say ...'
Asphalt looked at the money. It wasn't much to feed four people for
several days. Behind him, the interview continued.
'So what do you call yourselves?'
'Er dwarfs, Mr Dibbler,' said the lead dwarf.
I "Dwarfs"?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Why?'
'Because we are, Mr Dibbler,' said the lead dwarf patiently.
'No, no, no. That won't do. That won't do at all. You gotta have a name
with a bit of-' Dibbler waved his hands in the air, ' with a bit of Music
With Rocks In ... uh ... in. Not just "Dwarfs". You gotta be ... oh, I don't
know ... something more interesting.'
'But we're certainly dwarfs,' said one of the dwarfs.
'We're Certainly Dwarfs,' said Dibbler. 'Yes, that might work. OK. I
can book you in at the Bunch of Grapes on Thursday. And into the Free
Festival, of course. Since it's free you don't get paid, of course.'
'We've written this song,' said the head dwarf, hopefully.
'Good, good,' said Dibbler, scribbling on his notepad.
'It's called "Something's Gotten Into My Beard".'
'Good.'
'Don't you want to hear it?'
Dibbler looked up.
'Hear it? I'd never get anything done if I went around listening to
music. Off you go. See you next Wednesday. Next! You all trolls?'
'Days right.'
In this case, Dibbler decided not to argue. Trolls were a lot bigger
than dwarfs.
'All right. But you've got to spell it with a Z. Trollz.
Yep, looks good. Mended Drum, Friday. And the Free Festival. Yes?'
'We've done a song-'
'Good for you. Next!'
'It's us, Mr Dibbler.'
Dibbler looked at Jimbo, Noddy, Crash and Scum.
'You've got a nerve,' he said, 'after last night.'
'We got a bit carried away,' said Crash. 'We was wondering if we could
have another chance?'
'You did say the audience loved us,' said Noddy.
'Loathed you. I said the audience loathed you,' said Dibbler. 'Two of
you kept looking at Blert Wheedown's guitar primer!'
'We've changed our name,' said Jimbo. 'We thought, well, Insanity was a
bit daft, it's not a proper name for a serious band that's pushing back the
boundaries of musical expression and is definitely going to be big one day.'
'Thursday,' nodded Noddy.
'So now we're Suck,' said Crash.
Dibbler gave them a long, cool look. Bear baiting, bull-harassing, dog
fighting and sheep worrying were currently banned in Ankh Morpork, although
the Patrician did permit the unrestricted hurling of rotten fruit at anyone
suspected of belonging to a street theatre group. There was perhaps an
opening.
'All right,' he said. 'You can play at the Festival. After that ...
we'll see.'
After all, he thought, there was a possibility that they'd still be
alive.
A figure climbed slowly and unsteadily out of the Ankh on to a jetty by
the Misbegot Bridge, and stood for a moment as mud dripped off him and
formed a puddle under the planks.
The bridge was quite high. There were buildings on it, lining it on
both sides so that the actual roadway was quite cramped. The bridges were
quite popular as building sites, because they had a very convenient sewage
system and, of course, a source of fresh water.
There was the red eye of afire in the shadows under the bridge. The
figure staggered towards the light.
The dark shapes around it turned and squinted into the gloom, trying to
fathom the nature of the visitor.
'It's a farm cart,' said Glod. 'I know a farm cart when I see one. Even
if it is painted blue. And it's all battered.'
'It's all you can afford,' said Asphalt. 'Anyway, I put fresh straw
in.'
'I thought we were going in the stagecoach,' said Cliff.
'Oh, Mr Dibbler says artistes of your calibre shouldn't travel in a
common public vehicle,' said Asphalt. 'Besides, he said you wouldn't want
the expense.'
'What do you think, Buddy?' said Glod.
'Don't mind,' said Buddy vaguely.
Glod and Cliff shared a glance.
'I bet if you were to go and see Dibbler and demand something better,
you'd get it,' said Glod hopefully.
'It's got wheels,' said Buddy. 'It'll do.' .
He climbed aboard and sat down in the straw.
'Mr Dibbler's had some new shirts done,' said Asphalt, aware that there
was not a lot of jolliness in the air. 'It's for the tour. Look, it says on
the back everywhere you're going, isn't that nice?'
'Yes, when the Musicians' Guild twist our heads round we'll be able to
see where we've been,' said Glod.
Asphalt cracked his whip over the horses. They ambled off at a pace
that suggested they intended to keep it up all day, and no idiot too soft to
really use a whip properly was going to change their minds.
'Buggrit, buggrit! The grawney man, says I. Buggrit. He's a yellow
gloak, so he is. Ten thousand years! Buggrit.'
REALLY?
Death relaxed.
There were half a dozen people around the fire. And they were
convivial. A bottle was circling the group. Well, actually it was half a
tin, and Death hadn't quite worked out what was in it or in the rather
larger tin that was bubbling on the fire of old boots and mud.
They hadn't asked him who he was.
None of them had names, as far as he could tell. They had ... labels,
like
Stalling Ken and Coffin Henry and Foul Ole Ron, which said something
about what they were but nothing about what they had been.
The tin reached him. He passed it on as tactfully as he could, and lay
back peacefully.
People without names. People who were as invisible as he was. People
for whom Death was always an option. He could stay here awhile.
'Free music,' Mr Clete growled. 'Free! What sort of idiot makes music
for free? At least you put a hat down, get people to drop the odd copper in.
Otherwise what's the point?'
He stared at the paperwork in front of him for so long that
Satchelmouth coughed politely.
'I'm thinking,' said Mr Clete. 'That wretched Vetinari. He said it's up
to Guilds to enforce guild law-'
'I heard they're leaving the city,' said Satchelmouth. 'On tour. Out in
the country, I heard. It's not our law out there.'
'The country,' said Mr Clete. 'Yes. Dangerous place, the country.'
'Right,' said Satchelmouth. 'There's turnips, for a start.'
Mr Clete's eye fell on the Guild's account books. It occurred to him,
not for the first time, that far too many people put their trust in iron and
steel when gold made some of the best possible weapons.
'Is Mr Downey still head of the Assassins' Guild?' he said.
The other musicians looked suddenly nervous.
'Assassins?' said Herbert 'Mr Harpsichord' Shuffle. 'I don't think
anyone's ever called in the Assassins. This is guild business, isn't it?
Can't have another guild interfering.'
'That's right,' said Satchelmouth. 'What'd happen if people knew we'd
used the Assassins?'
'We'd get a lot more members,' said Mr Clete in his reasonable voice,
'and we could probably put the subscriptions up. Hat. Hat. Hat.'
'Now hang on a minute,' said Satchelmouth. 'I don't mind us seeing to
people who won't join. That's proper guild behaviour, that is. But Assassins
... well...'
'Well what?' said Mr Clete.
'They assassinate people.'
'You want free music, do you?' said Mr Clete.
'Well, of course I don't want-'
'I don't remember you talking like this when you jumped up and down on
that street violinist's fingers last month,' said Mr Clete.
'Yeah, well, that wasn't, like, assassination,' said Satchelmouth. ' I
mean, he was able to walk away. Well, crawl away. And he could still earn a
living; he added. 'Not one that required the use of his hands, sure, but-'
'And that penny whistle lad? That one who plays a chord now every time
he hiccups? Hat. Hat. Hat.'
'Yeah, but that's not the sa-'
'Do you know Wheedown the guitar maker?' said Mr Clete.
Satchelmouth was unbalanced by the change in direction.
'I'm told he's been selling guitars like there was no next Wednesday;
said Mr Clete. 'But I don't see any increase in membership, do you?'
'Well-'
'Once people get the idea that they can listen to music for nothing,
where will it end?'
He glared at the other two.
'Dunno, Mr Clete,' said Shuffle obediently.
'Very well. And the Patrician has been ironical at me,' said Mr Clete.
' I'm not having that again. It's the Assassins this time.'
'I don't think we should actually have people killed,' said
Satchelmouth doggedly.
'I don't want to hear any more from you,' said Mr Clete. 'This is guild
business.'
'Yes, but it's our guild-'
'Exactly! So shut up! Hat! Hat! Hat!'
The cart rattled between the endless cabbage fields that led to
Pseudopolis.
'I've been on tour before, you know,' said Glod. 'When I was with Snori
Snoriscousin And His Brass Idiots. Every night a different bed. You forget
what day of the week it is after a while.'
'What day of the week is it now?' said Cliff.
'See? And we've only been on the road ... what ... three hours?' said
Glod.
'Where're we stopping tonight?' said Cliff.
'Scrote,' said Asphalt.
'Sounds a really interesting place,' said Cliff.
'Been there before, with the circus,' said Asphalt. 'It's a one-horse
town.'
Buddy looked over the side of the cart, but it wasn't worth the effort.
The rich silty Sto Plains were the grocery of the continent, but not an awe
inspiring panorama unless you were the kind of person who gets excited about
fifty three types of cabbage and eighty one types of bean.
Spaced every mile or so on the chequerboard of fields was a village,
and spaced rather further apart were the towns. They were called towns
because they were bigger than the villages. The cart passed through a couple
of them. They had two streets in the form of a cross, one tavern, one seed
store, one forge, one livery stable with a name like JOE'S LIVERY STABLE, a
couple of barns, three old men sitting outside the tavern, and three young
men lounging outside JOE'S swearing that one day really soon now they were
going to leave town and make it big in the world outside. Real soon. Any day
now.
'Reminds you of home, eh?' said Cliff, nudging Buddy.
'What? No! Llamedos is all mountains and valleys. And rain. And mist.
And evergreens.'
Buddy sighed.
'You had a great house there, I expect?' said the troll.
'Just a shack,' said Buddy. 'Made of earth and wood. Well, mud and wood
really.'
He sighed again.
'It's like this on the road,' said Asphalt. 'Melancholy. No one to talk
to but each other, I've known people go totally ins-'
'How long has it been now?' said Cliff.
'Three hours and ten minutes,' said Glod.
Buddy sighed.
They were invisible people, Death realized. He was used to
invisibility. It went with the job. Humans didn't see him until they had no
choice.
On the other hand, he was an anthropomorphic personification. Whereas
Foul Ole Ron was human, at least technically.
Foul Ole Ron made a small living by following people until they gave
him money not to. He'd also got a dog, which added something to Foul Ole
Ron's smell. It was a greyish brown terrier with a torn ear and nasty
patches of bare skin; it begged with an old hat in its remaining teeth, and
since people will generally give to animals that which they'd withhold from
humans it added considerably to the earning power of the group.
Coffin Henry, on the other hand, earned his money by not going
anywhere. People organizing important social occasions sent him anti
invitations and little presents of money to ensure he wouldn't turn up. This
was because, if they didn't, Henry had a habit of sidling ingratiatingly
into the wedding party and inviting people to look at his remarkable
collection of skin diseases. He also had a cough which sounded almost solid.
He had a sign on which was chalked 'For sum muny I wunt follo you home.
Coff Coff'.
Arnold Sideways had no legs. It was a lack that didn't seem to figure
largely among his concerns. He would grab people by their knees and say,
'Have you got change for a penny?', invariably profiting by the ensuing
cerebral confusion. And the one they called the Duck Man had a duck on his
head. No one mentioned it. No one drew at-tention to it. It seemed to be a
minor feature of no consequence, like Arnold's leglessness and Foul Ole
Ron's independent smell or Henry's volcanic spitting. But it kept nagging at
Death's otherwise peaceful mind.
He wondered how to broach the subject.
AFTER ALL, he thought, HE MUST KNOW, MUSTN'T HE? IT'S NOT LIKE LINT ON
YOUR JACKET OR SOMETHING ...
By common agreement they'd called Death Mr Scrub. He didn't know why.
On the other hand, he was among people who could hold a lengthy discussion
with a door.
There may have been a logical reason.
The beggars spent their day wandering invisibly around the streets
where people who didn't see them carefully circled out of their way and
threw them the occasional coin. Mr Scrub fitted in very well. When he asked
for money, people found it hard to say no.
Scrote didn't even have a river. It existed simply be-cause there's
only so much land you can have before you have to have something else. .
It had two streets in the form of a cross, one tavern, one seed store,
one forge, a couple of barns and, in a gesture of originality, one livery
stable called SETH'S LIVERY STABLE.
Nothing moved. Even the flies were asleep. Long shadows were the only
occupants of the streets.
'I thought you said dis was a one horse town,' said Cliff, as they
pulled up in the rutted, puddled area that was probably glorified by the
name of Town Square.
'It must have died,' said Asphalt.
Glod stood up in the cart and spread his arms wide. He yelled: 'Hello,
Scrote!'
The name board over the livery stable parted from its last nail and
landed in the dust.
'What I like about this life on the road,' said Glod, 'is the
fascinating people and interesting places.'
'I expect it comes alive at night,' said Asphalt.
'Yes,' said Cliff. 'Yes, I can believe dat. Yes. Dis looks like the
kind of town dat comes alive at night. Dis looks like the whole town should
be buried at the crossroads with a stake through it.'
'Talking of steak ...' said Glod.
They looked at the tavern. The cracked and peeling sign just managed to
convey the words 'The Jolly Cabbage'.
'I doubt it,' said Asphalt.
There were people in the dimly lit tavern, sitting in sullen silence.
The travellers were served by the inn-keeper, whose manner suggested that he
hoped they died horribly just as soon as they left the premises. The beer
tasted as if it was happy to connive at this state of affairs.
They huddled at one table, aware of the eyes on them.
'I've heard about places like this,' whispered Glod. 'You go into this
little town with a name like Friendly or Amity, and next day you're spare
ribs.'
'Not me,' said Cliff. 'I'm too stony.'
'Well, you're in the rockery, then,' said the dwarf.
He looked around at a row of furrowed faces and raised his mug
theatrically.
'Cabbages doing well?' he said. 'I see in the fields they're nice and
yellow. Ripe, eh? That's good, eh?'
'That's Root Fly, that is,' said someone in the shadows.
'Good, good,' said Glod. He was a dwarf. Dwarfs didn't farm.
'We don't like circuses in Scrote,' said another voice. It was a slow,
deep voice.
'We're not a circus,' said Glod brightly. 'We're music...
