Terry Pratchett. Soul music
страница №10
...od.He turned back again. The road stretched ahead of them, pale in the
starlight.
'You said you just wanted to work,' said Cliff. 'You said you didn't
want to be famous. How'd you like it, having to worry about all that gold,
and having girls throw their chain mail at you?'
'I'd just have to put up with it.'
'I'd like a quarry,' said the troll.
'Yeah?'
'Yeah. Heart shaped.'
A dark, stormy night. A coach, horses gone, plunged through the
rickety, useless fence and dropped, tum-bling, into the gorge below. It
didn't even strike an outcrop of rock before it hit the dried river bed far
below and erupted into fragments. Then the oil from the coach lamps ignited
and there was a second ex-plosion, out of which rolled because there are
certain conventions, even in tragedy a burning wheel.
What was strange to Susan was that she felt nothing. She could think
sad thoughts, because in the circum-stances they had to be sad. She knew who
was in the coach. But it had already happened. There was nothing she could
do to stop it, because if she'd stopped it, it wouldn't have happened. And
she was here watching it happen. So she hadn't. So it had. She felt the
logic of the situation dropping into place like a series of huge leaden
slabs.
Perhaps there was somewhere where it hadn't hap-pened. Perhaps the
coach had skidded the other way, perhaps there had been a convenient rock,
perhaps it hadn't come this way at all, perhaps the coachman had remembered
about the sudden curve. But those possibilities could only exist if there
was this one.
This wasn't her knowledge. It flowed in from a mind far, far older.
Sometimes the only thing you could do for people was to be there.
She rode Binky into the shadows by the cliff road, and waited. After a
minute or two there was a clattering of stones and a horse and rider came up
an almost vertical path from the river bed.
Binky's nostrils flared. Parapsychology has no word for the uneasy
feeling you have when you're in the presence of yourself.[27]
Susan watched Death dismount and stand looking down at the river bed,
leaning on his scythe.
She thought: but he could have done something.
Couldn't he?
The figure straightened, but did not turn around.
YES. I COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING.
'How ... how did you know I was here ... ?'
Death waved a hand irritably.
I REMEMBER YOU. AND NOW UNDERSTAND THIS: YOUR PARENTS KNEW THINGS MUST
HAPPEN. EVERY-THING MUST HAPPEN SOMEWHERE. DO YOU NOT THINK I SPOKE TO THEM
OF THIS? BUT I CANNOT GIVE LIFE. I CAN ONLY GRANT ... EXTENSION.
CHANGELESSNESS. ONLY HUMANS CAN GIVE LIFE. AND THEY WANTED TO BE HUMAN, NOT
IMMORTAL. IF IT HELPS YOU, THEY DIED INSTANTLY. INSTANTLY.
I've got to ask, Susan thought. I've got to say it. Or I'm not human.
'I could go back and save them ... ?' Only the faintest tremor
suggested that the statement was a question.
SAVE? FOR WHAT? A LIFE THAT HAS RUN OUT? SOME THINGS END. I KNOW THIS.
SOMETIMES I HAVE THOUGHT OTHERWISE. BUT ... WITHOUT DUTY, WHAT AM I? THERE
HAS TO BE A LAW.
He climbed into the saddle and, still without turning to face her,
spurred Binky out and over the gorge.
There was a haystack behind a livery stable in Phedre Road. It bulged
for a moment, and there was a muffled swearing.
A fraction of a second later there was a bout of coughing and another,
much better, swear word inside a grain silo down near the cattle market.
Very shortly after that some rotten floorboards in an old feed store in
Short Street exploded upwards, followed by a swear word that bounced off a
flour sack.
'Idiot rodent!' bellowed Albert, fingering grain out of his ear.
SQUEAK.
'I should think so! What size do you think I am?'
Albert brushed hay and flour off his coat and walked over to the
window.
'Ah,' he said, 'let us repair to the Mended Drum, then.'
In Albert's pocket, sand resumed its interrupted journey from future to
past.
Hibiscus Dunelm had decided to close up for an hour. It was a simple
process.
First he and his staff collected any unbroken mugs and glasses. This
didn't take long. Then there was a desultory search for any weapons with a
high resale value, and a quick search of any pockets whose owners were
unable to object on account of being drunk, dead or both. Then the furniture
was moved aside and everything else was swept out of the back door and into
the broad brown bosom of the river Ankh, where it piled up and, by degrees,
sank.
Finally, Hibiscus locked and bolted the big front door ...
It wouldn't shut. He looked down. A boot was wedged in it.
'We're shut,' he said.
'No, you ain't.'
The door ground back, and Albert was inside.
'Have you seen this person?' he demanded, thrusting a pasteboard oblong
in front of Dunelm's eyes.
This was a gross breach of etiquette. Dunelm wasn't in the kind of job
where you survived if you told people you'd seen people. Dunelm could serve
drinks all night without seeing anyone.
'Never seen him before in my life,' he said, automatically, without
even looking at the card.
'You've got to help me,' said Albert, 'otherwise something dreadful
will happen.'
'Push off!'
Albert kicked the door shut behind him.
'Just don't say I didn't warn you,' he said. On his shoulder the Death
of Rats sniffed the air suspiciously.
A moment later Hibiscus was having his chin pressed firmly into the
boards of one of his tables.
'Now, I know he'd come in here,' said Albert, who wasn't even breathing
heavily,
'because everyone does, sooner or later. Have another look.'
'That's a Caroc card,' said Hibiscus indistinctly. 'That's Death!'
'That's right. He's the one on the white horse. You can't miss him.
Only he wouldn't look like that in here, I expect.'
'Let me get this straight,' said the landlord, trying desperately to
wriggle out of the iron grip. 'You want me to tell you if I've seen someone
who doesn't look like that?'
'He'd have been odd. Odder than most.' Albert thought for a moment.
'And he'd have drunk a lot, if I know him. He always does.'
'This is Ankh Morpork, you know.'
'Don't be cheeky, or I'll get angry.'
'You mean you're not angry now?'
'I'm just impatient. You can try for angry if you like.'
'There was ... someone ... few days ago. Can't remember exactly what he
looked like-'
'Ah. That'd be him.'
'Drank me dry, complained about the Barbarian In-vaders game, got
legless and then ...'
'What?'
'Can't recall. We just threw him out.'
'Out the back door?'
'Yes.'
'But that's just river out there.'
'Well, most people come round before they sink.'
SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats.
'Did he say anything?' said Albert, too busy to pay attention.
'Something about remembering everything, I think. He said ... he said
being drunk didn't make him forget. Kept going on about doorknobs and ...
hairy sunlight.'
'Hairy sunlight?'
'Something like that.'
And the pressure on Hibiscus's arm was suddenly released. He waited a
second or two and then, very cautiously, turned his head.
There was no one behind him.
Very carefully, Hibiscus bent down to look under the tables.
Albert stepped out into the dawn and, after some fumbling, produced his
box. He opened it and glanced at his lifetimer, then snapped the lid shut.
'All right,' he said. 'What next?'
SQUEAK!
'What?'
And someone hit him across the head.
It wasn't a killing stroke. Timo Laziman of the
Thieves' Guild knew what happened to thieves who killed people. The
Assassins' Guild came and talked briefly to them in fact, all they said was,
'Goodbye.'
All he'd wanted to do was knock the old man out so that he could rifle
his pockets.
He'd not expected the sound as the body hit the ground. It was like the
tinkle of broken glass, but with unpleasant overtones that carried on
echoing in Timo's ears long after they should have stopped.
Something leapt from the body and whirred into his face. Two skeletal
claws grabbed his ears and a bony muzzle jerked forward and hit him hard on
the forehead. He screamed and ran for it.
The Death of Rats dropped to the ground again and scurried back to
Albert. It patted his face, kicked him frantically a few times and then, in
desperation, bit him on the nose.
Then it grabbed Albert's collar and tried to pull him out of the
gutter, but there was a warning tinkle of glass.
The eye sockets turned madly towards the Drum's closed front door.
Ossified whiskers bristled.
A moment later Hibiscus opened the door, if only to stop the thunderous
knocking.
'I said we're-'
Something shot between his legs, paused momen-tarily to bite him on the
ankle, and scuttled towards the back door, nose pressed firmly to the floor.
It was called Hide Park not because people could, but because a hide
was once a measure of land capable of being ploughed by one man with three
and one half oxen on a wet Thursday, and the park was exactly this amount of
land, and people in Ankh Morpork stick to tradition and often to other
things as well.
And it had trees, and grass, and a lake with actual fish in it. And, by
one of those twists of civic history, it was a fairly safe place. People
seldom got mugged in Hide Park. Muggers like 'somewhere safe to sunbathe,
just like everyone else. It was, as it were, neutral territory.
And it was already filling up, even though there was nothing much to
see except the workmen still hammering together a large stage by the lake.
An area behind it had been walled off with strips of cheap sacking nailed to
stakes.
Occasionally excited people would try to get in and would be thrown
into the lake by Chrysoprase's trolls.
Among the practising musicians Crash and his group were immediately
noticeable, partly because Crash had his shirt off so that Jimbo could paint
iodine on the wounds.
'I thought you were joking,' he growled.
'I did say it was in your bedroom,' said Scum.
'How'm I going to play my guitar like this?' said Crash.
'You can't play your guitar anyway,' said Noddy.
'I mean, look at my hand. Look at it.'
They looked at his hand. Jimbo's mum had put a glove on it after
treating the wounds; they hadn't been very deep, because even a stupid
leopard won't hang around anyone who wants to take its trousers off.
'A glove,' said Crash, in a terrible voice. 'Whoever heard of a serious
musician with a glove? How can I ever play my guitar with a glove on?' '
'How can you ever play your guitar anyway?'
'I don't know why I put up with you three,' said Crash. 'You're
cramping my artistic development. I'm thinking of leaving and forming my own
band.'
'No you won't,' said Jimbo, 'because you won't find anyone even worse
than us.
Let's face it. We're rubbish.'
He was voicing a hitherto unspoken yet shared thought. The other
musicians around them were, it was true, quite bad. But that's all they
were. Some of them had some minor musical talent; as for the rest, they
merely couldn't play. They didn't have a drummer who missed the drums and a
bass guitarist with the same natural rhythm as a traffic accident. And
they'd generally settled on their name. They might be unimaginative names,
like 'A Big Troll and Some Other Trolls', or 'Dwarfs With Altitude', but at
least they knew who they were.
'How about "We're A Rubbish Band"?' said Noddy, sticking his hands in
his pockets.
'We may be rubbish,' snarled Crash, 'but we're Music With Rocks In
rubbish.'
'Well, well, and how's it all going, then?' said Dibbler, pushing his
way through the sacking. 'It won't be long now what're you doing here?'
'We're in the programme, Mr Dibbler,' said Crash meekly.
'How can you be in the programme when I don't know what you're called?'
said Dibbler, waving a hand irritably at one of the posters. 'Your name up
there, is it?'
'We're probably where it says Ande Supporting Bandes,' said Noddy.
'What happened to your hand?' said Dibbler.
'My trousers bit it,' said Crash, glowering at Scum. 'Honest, Mr
Dibbler, can't you give us one more chance?'
'We'll see,' said Dibbler, and strode away.
He was feeling too cheerful to argue much. The sausages in a-bun were
selling very fast, but they were just covering minor expenses. There were
ways of making money out of Music With Rocks In that he'd never thought of
... and C. M. O. T. Dibbler thought of money all the time.
For example, there were the shirts. They were of cotton so cheap and
thin that it was practically invisible in a good light and tended to
dissolve in the wash.
He'd sold six hundred already! At five dollars each! All he had to do
was buy them at ten for a dollar from Klatchian Wholesale Trading and pay
Chalky half a dollar each to print them.
And Chalky, with un troll like initiative, had even printed off his own
shirts.
They said:
ChaIKies,
12 The Scours
Thyngs Done.
And people were buying them, paying money to advertise Chalky's
workshop.
Dibbler had never dreamed that the world could work like this. It was
like watching sheep shear themselves. Whatever was causing this reversal of
the laws of commercial practice he wanted in big lumps.
He'd already sold the idea to Plugger the shoemaker in New Cobblers[28]
and a hundred shirts had just walked out of the shop, which was more than
Plugger's merchandise usually did. People wanted clothes just because they
had writing on! He was making money. Thousands of dollars in a day! And a
hundred music traps were lined up in front of the stage, ready to capture
Buddy's voice. If it went on at this rate, in several billion years he'd be
rich beyond his wildest dreams!
Long Live Music With Rocks In!
There was only one small cloud in this silver lining.
The Festival was due to start at noon. Dibbler had planned to put on a
lot of the small, bad groups first that is to say, all of them and finish
with The Band. So there was no reason to worry if they weren't here right
now.
But they weren't here right now. Dibbler was worried.
A tiny dark figure quartered the shores of the Ankh, moving so fast as
to be a blur. It zigzagged desperately back and forth, snuffling.
People didn't see it. But they saw the rats. Black, brown and grey,
they were leaving the godowns and wharfs by the river, running over one
another's backs in a determined attempt to get as far away as possible.
A haystack heaved, and gave birth to a Glod.
He rolled out on to the ground, and groaned. Fine rain was drifting
over the landscape. Then he staggered upright, looked around at the rolling
fields, and disappeared behind a hedge for the moment.
He trotted back a few seconds later, explored the haystack for a while
until he found a part that was lumpier than normal, and kicked it repeatedly
with his metal topped boot.
'Ow!'
'C flat,' said Glod. 'Good morning, Cliff. Hello, world! I don't think
I can stand life in the fast leyline, you know the cabbages, the bad beer,
all those rats pestering you all the time-' Cliff crawled out.
'I must have had some bad ammonium chloride last night,' he said. 'Is
the top of my head still on?'
'Yes.'
'Pity.'
They hauled Asphalt out by his boots and brought him round by pounding
him repeatedly.
'You're our road manager,' said Glod. 'You're supposed to see no harm
comes to us.'
'Well, I'm doing that, ain't I?' Asphalt muttered. 'I'm not hitting
you, Mr Glod. Where's Buddy?'
The three circled the haystack, prodding at bulges which turned out to
be damp hay.
They found him on a small rise in the ground, not very far away. A few
holly bushes grew there, carved into curves by the wind. He was sitting
under one, guitar on his knees, rain plastering his hair to his face.
He was asleep, and soaking wet.
On his lap, the guitar played raindrops.
'He's weird,' said Asphalt.
'No,' said Glod. 'He's wound up by some strange compulsion which leads
him through dark pathways.'
'Yeah. Weird.'
The rain was slackening off. Cliff glanced at the sky.
'Sun's high,' he said.
'Oh, no!' said Asphalt. 'How long were you asleep?'
'Same as I am awake,' said Cliff.
'It's almost noon. Where did I leave the horses? Has anyone seen the
cart? Someone wake him up!'
A few minutes later they were back on the road.
'An' you know what?' said Cliff. 'We left so quick last night I never
did know if she turned up.'
'What was her name?' said Glod.
'Dunno,' said the troll.
'Oh, that's real love, that is,' said Glod.
'Ain't you got any romance in your soul?' said Cliff.
'Eyes crossed in a crowded room?' said Glod. 'No, not really-'
They were pushed aside as Buddy leaned forward.
'Shut up,' he said. The voice was low and contained no trace whatsoever
of humour.
'We were only joking,' said Glod.
'Don't.'
Asphalt concentrated on the road, aware of the general lack of
amiability.
'I expect you're looking forward to the Festival, eh?' he said, after a
while.
No one replied.
'I expect there'll be big crowds,' he said.
There was silence, except for the clatter of the hoofs and the rattle
of the cart. They were in the hills now, where the road wound alongside a
gorge. There wasn't even a river down there, except in the wettest season.
It was a gloomy area. Asphalt felt that it was getting gloomier.
'I expect you'll really have fun,' he said, eventually.
'Asphalt?' said Glod.
'Yes, Mr Glod?'
'Watch the road, will you?'
The Archchancellor polished his staff as he walked along. It was a
particularly good one, six feet long and quite magical. Not that he used
magic very much. In his experience, anything that couldn't be disposed of
with a couple of whacks from six feet of oak was probably immune to magic as
well.
'Don't you think we should have brought the senior wizards, sir?' said
Ponder, struggling to keep up.
'I'm afraid that taking them along in their present frame of mind would
only make whatever happens-' Ridcully sought for a useful phrase, and
settled for 'happen worse. I've insisted they stay in college.'
'How about Drongo and the others?' said Ponder hopefully.
'Would they be any good in the event of a thaumaturgical dimension rip
of enormous proportions?' said Ridcully. 'I remember poor old Mr Hong. One
minute he was dishing up an order of double cod and mushy peas, the next
...'
'Kaboom?' said Ponder.
'"Kaboom"?' said Ridcully, forcing his way up the crowded street. 'Not
that I heard tell. More like "Aaaaerrrrscream gristle-gristle gristle crack"
and a shower of fried food. Big Mad Adrian and his friends any good when the
chips are down?'
'Um. Probably not, Archchancellor.'
'Correct. People shout and run about. That never did any good. A pocket
full of decent spells and a well charged staff will get you out of trouble
nine times out of ten.'
'Nine times out of ten?'
'Correct.'
'How many times have you had to rely on them, sir?'
'Well ... there was Mr Hong ... that business with the Thing in the
Bursar's wardrobe ... that dragon, you remember ...' Ridcully's lips moved
silently as he counted on his fingers. 'Nine times, so far.'
'It worked every time, sir?'
'Absolutely! So there's no need to worry. Gangway! Wizard comin'
through.'
The city gates were open. Glod leaned forward as the cart rumbled in.
'Don't go straight to the park,' he said.
'But we're late,' said Asphalt.
'This won't take long. Go to the Street of Cunning Artificers first.'
'That's right on the other side of the river!'
'It's important. We've got to pick up something.'
People flocked the streets. This wasn't unusual, except that this time
most of them were moving the same way.
'And you get down in the back of the cart,' said Glod to Buddy. 'We
don't want young women trying to rip your clothes off, eh, Buddy ... ?'
He turned. Buddy had gone to sleep again.
'Speaking for myself-' Cliff began.
'You've only got a loincloth,' said Glod.
'Well, they could grab it, couldn't they?'
The cart threaded its way through the streets until it turned into
Cunning Artificers.
It was a street of tiny shops. In this street you could have anything
made, repaired, crafted, rebuilt, copied or forged. Furnaces glowed in every
doorway; smelters smoked in every backyard. Makers of intricate clockwork
eggs worked alongside armourers. Carpenters worked next door to men who
carved ivory into tiny shapes so delicate that they used grasshoppers' legs,
cast in bronze, for saws. At least one in every four craftsmen was making
tools to be used by the other three. Shops didn't just abut, they
overlapped; if a carpenter had a big table to make he relied on the goodwill
of his neighbours to make space, so that he'd be working at one end of it
while two jewellers and a potter were using the other end as a wench. There
were shops where you could drop in to be measured in the morning and pick up
a complete suit of chain mail with an extra pair of pants in the afternoon.
The cart stopped outside one small shop and Glod leapt down and went
inside.
Asphalt heard the conversation:
'Have you done it?'
'Here you are, mister. Right as rain.'
'Will it play? You know I said where you have to have spent a fortnight
wrapped in a bullock hide behind a waterfall before you should touch one of
these things.'
'Listen, mister, for this kind of money it had me in the shower for
five minutes with a chamois leather on me head. Don't tell me that's not
good enough for folk music.'
There was a pleasant sound, which hung in the air for a moment before
being lost in the busy din of the street.
'We said twenty dollars, right?'
'No, you said twenty dollars. I said twenty five dollars.'
'Just a minute, then.'
Glod came out, and nodded at Cliff.
'All right,' he said. 'Cough up.'
Cliff growled, but fumbled for a moment somewhere at the back of his
mouth.
They heard the cunning artificer say, 'What the hell's that?'
'A molar. Got to be worth at least-'
'It'll do.'
Glod came out again with a sack, which he tucked under the seat.
'OK,' he said. 'Head for the park.'
They went in through one of the back gates. Or, at least, tried to. Two
trolls barred their way. They had the glossy marble patina of Chrysoprase's
basic gang thugs. He didn't have henchmen. Most trolls weren't clever enough
to hench.
'Dis is for der bands,' one said.
'Days right,' said the other one.
'We are The Band,' said Asphalt.
'Which one?' said the first troll. 'I got a list here.'
'Days right.'
'We're The Band With Rocks In,' said Glod.
'Hah, you ain't them. I've seen them. Dere's a guy with this glow round
him, and when he plays der guitar it goes-'
Whauauauaummmmm eeeee gngngn.
'Dat's right-'
The chord curled around the cart.
Buddy was standing up, guitar at the ready.
'Oh, wow,' said the first troll. 'This are amazing!' He fumbled in his
loincloth and produced a dog eared piece of paper. 'You couldn't write your
name down, could you? My boy Clay, he won't believe I met-'
'Yes, yes,' said Buddy wearily. 'Pass it up.'
'Only it not for me, it for my boy Clay-' said the troll, jumping from
one foot to the other in excitement.
'How d'you spell it?'
'It don't matter, he can't read anyway.'
'Listen,' said Glod, as the cart trundled into the backstage area,
'someone's already playing. I said we-'
Dibbler hurried up.
'What kept you?' he said. 'You'll be on soon! Right after ... Boyz From
The Wood. How did it go? Asphalt, come here.'
He pulled the small troll into the shadows at the back of the stage.
'You brought me some money?' he said.
'About three thousand-'
'Not so loud!'
`I'm only whispering it, Mr Dibbler.'
Dibbler looked around carefully. There was no such thing as a whisper
in Ankh Morpork when the sum involved had the word 'thousand' in it
somewhere; people could hear you think that kind of money in Ankh Morpork.
'You be sure and keep an eye on it, right? There's going to be more
before this day's out. I'll give Chrysoprase his seven hundred dollars and
the rest is all prof-' He caught Asphalt's little beady eye and remembered
himself. 'Of course, there's depreciation ... overheads ... advertising ...
market research... buns ... mustard ... basically, I'll be lucky if I break
even. I'm practically cutting me own throat in this deal.'
'Yes, Mr Dibbler.'
Asphalt peered around the edge of the stage.
'Who's that playing now, Mr Dibbler?'
'And you".'
'Sorry, Mr Dibbler?'
'Only they write it &U,' said Dibbler. He relaxed a little and pulled
out a cigar. 'Don't ask me why. The right kind of name for musicians ought
to be something like Blondie and his Merry Troubadours. Are they any good?'
'Don't you know, Mr Dibbler?'
'It's not what I call music,' said Dibbler. 'When I was a lad we had
proper music with real words ... "Summer is icumen in, lewdly sing cuckoo",
that sort of thing.'
Asphalt looked at &U again.
'Well, it's got a beat and you can dance to it,' he said, 'but they're
not very good. I mean, people are just watching them. They don't just watch
when The Band are playing, Mr Dibbler.'
'You're right,' said Dibbler. He looked at the front of the stage. In
between the candles was a row of music traps.
'You'd better go and tell them to get ready. I think this lot are
running out of ideas.'
'Um. Buddy?'
He looked up from his guitar. Some of the other musicians were tuning
theirs, but he'd found he never had to. He couldn't, anyway. The pegs didn't
move.
'What is it?'
'Um,' said Glod. He waved vaguely at Cliff, who grinned sheepishly and
produced the sack from behind his back.
'This is ... well, we thought ... that is, all of us,' said Glod,
'that... well, we saw it, you see, and I know you said it couldn't be
repaired but there's people in this city that can do just about anything so
we asked around, and we knew how much it meant to you, and there's this man
in the Street of Cunning Artificers and he said he thought he could do it
and it cost Cliff another tooth but here you are anyway because you're
right, we're on top of the music business right enough and it's because of
you and we know how much this meant to you so it's a sort of thank you
present, well, go on then, give it to him.'
Cliff, who'd lowered his arm again as the sentence began to extend,
pushed the sack towards the puzzled Buddy.
Asphalt poked his head through the sacking.
'We guys better get on the stage,' he said. 'Come on!'
Buddy put down the guitar. He opened the sack, and began to pull at the
linen wrappings inside.
'It's been tuned and everything,' said Cliff helpfully.
The harp gleamed in the sun as the last wrapping came off.
'They can do amazing things with glue and stuff,' said Glod. ' I mean,
I know you said there wasn't anyone left in Llamedos that could repair it.
But this is Ankh Morpork. We can fix nearly everything.'
'Please!' said Asphalt, as his head reappeared. 'Mr Dibbler says you've
got to come, they've started to throw things!'
'I don't know much about strings,' said Glod, 'but I had a go. Sounds
... kind of nice.'
'I ... er ... don't know what to say,' said Buddy.
The chanting was like a hammer.
'I ... won this,' said Buddy, in a small, distant world of his own.
'With a song. Sioni Bod Da, it was. I worked on it allll winter. Allll about
... home, you know. And going away, see? And trees and things. The judges
were ... very plleased. They said that in fifty years I might realllly
understand music.' He pulled the harp towards him.
Dibbler pushed his way through the rabble of musicians backstage until
he found Asphalt.
'Well?' he said. 'Where are they?'
'They're just sitting around talking, Mr Dibbler.'
'Listen,' said Dibbler. 'You hear the crowd? It's Music With Rocks In
they want! If they don't get it ... they'd just better get it, all right?
Letting the anticipation build up is all very well but ... I want them on
stage right now!'
Buddy stared at his fingers. Then he looked up, whitefaced, at the
other bands milling around.
'You ... with the guitar ...' he said hoarsely.
'Me, sir?'
'Give it to me!'
Every nascent group in Ankh Morpork was in awe of The Band With Rocks
In. The guitarist handed his instrument over with the expression of one
passing over a holy item to be blessed.
Buddy stared at it. It was one of Mr Wheedown's best.
He struck a chord.
The sound sounded like lead would sound if you could make guitar
strings out of it.
'OK, boys, what's the problem?' said Dibbler, hurrying towards them.
'There's six thousand ears out there waiting to be filled up with music and
you're still sitting around?'
Buddy handed the guitar back to the musician and swung his own
instrument around on its strap. He played a few notes that seemed to twinkle
in the air.
'But I can play this,' he said. 'Oh, yes.'
'Right, good, now get up there and play it,' said Dibbler.
'Someone else give me a guitar!'
Musicians fell over themselves to hand them to him. He strummed
frantically at a couple. But the notes weren't simply flat. Flat would have
been an improvement. The Musicians' Guild contingent had managed to secure
an area close to the stage by the simple expedient of hitting any
encroachers very hard.
Mr Clete scowled at the stage.
'I don't understand,' he said. 'It's rubbish. It's all the same. It's
just noise. What's so good about it?'
Satchelmouth, who had twice had to stop himself tapping his feet, said,
' We haven't had the main band yet. Er. Are you sure you want to-'
'We're within our rights,' said Clete. He looked around at the shouting
people.
'There's a hot dog seller over there. Anyone else fancy a hot dog? Hot
dog?' The Guild men nodded. 'Hot dog? Right. That's three hot d-'
The audience cheered. It wasn't the way that an audience normally
applauds, with it starting at one point and rippling outwards, but all at
once, every single mouth opening at the same time.
Cliff had knuckled on to the stage. He sat down behind his rocks and
looked desperately back towards the wings.
Glod trailed on, blinking in the lights.
And that seemed to be it. The dwarf turned and said something which was
lost in the noise, and then stood looking awkward while the cheers gradually
subsided.
Buddy came on, staggering slightly as if he'd been pushed.
Up until then Mr Clete had thought the crowd was yelling. And then he
realized that it had been a mere murmur of approval compared to what was
happening now.
It went on and on while the boy stood there, head bowed.
'But he's not doing anything,' Clete shouted into Satchelmouth's ear. '
Why're they all cheering him for not doing anything?'
'Can't say, sir,' said Satchelmouth.
He looked around at the glistening, staring, hungry faces, feeling like
an atheist who has wandered into Holy Communion.
The applause went on. It redoubled again when Buddy slowly raised his
hands to the guitar.
'He's not doing anything!' screamed Clete.
'He's got us bang to rights, sir,' Satchelmouth bellowed. 'He's not
guilty of playing without belonging to the Guild if he doesn't play!'
Buddy looked up.
He stared at the audience so intently that Clete craned to see what it
was the wretched boy was staring at.
It was nothing. There was a patch of it right in front of the stage.
People were packed tight everywhere else but there, right in front of
the stage, was a little area of cleared grass. It seemed to rivet Buddy's
attention.
'Uh huh huh ...'
Clete rammed his hands over his ears but the force of the cheering made
his head echo.
And then, very gradually, layer by layer, it died away. It yielded to
the sound of thousands of people being very quiet, which was somehow,
Satchelmouth thought, a lot more dangerous.
Glod glanced at Cliff, who made a face.
Buddy was still standing, staring at the audience.
If he doesn't play, Glod thought, then we've had it.
He hissed at Asphalt, who sidled over.
'Is the cart ready?'
'Yes, Mr Glod.'
'You filled up the horses with oats?'
'Just like you said, Mr Glod.'
'OK.'
The silence was velvet. And it had that quality of suction found in the
Patrician's study and in holy places and deep canyons, engendering in people
a terrible desire to shout or sing or yell their name. It was a silence that
demanded: fill me up.
Somewhere in the darkness, someone coughed.
Asphalt heard his name hissed from the side of the stage. With extreme
reluctance he sidled over to the darkness, where Dibbler was frantically
beckoning him.
'You know that bag?' said Dibbler.
'Yes, Mr Dibbler. I put it-'
Dibbler held up two small but very heavy sacks.
'Tip these in and be ready to leave in a big hurry.'
'Yes, that's right, Mr Dibbler, because Glod said-'
'Do it now!'
Glod looked around. If I throw away the horn and helmet and this chain
mail shirt, he thought, I might just get out of here alive. What's he doing?
Buddy put down the guitar and walked into the wings. He returned before
the audience had realized what was happening. He was carrying the harp.
He stood facing the audience.
Glod, who was closest to him, heard him murmur: 'Just once? Cwm on?
Just one more time? And then I'llll do whatefer you want, see? I'llll pay
for it.'
There were a few faint chords from the guitar.
Buddy said, 'I mean it, see.'
There was another chord.
'Just once.'
Buddy smiled at an empty space in the audience, and began to play.
Every note was sharp as a bell and as simple as sunlight so that in the
prism of the brain it broke up and flashed into a million colours.
Glod's mouth hung open. And then the music unfolded in his head. It
wasn't Music With Rocks In, although it used the same doors. The fall of the
notes conjured up memories of the mine where he'd been born, and dwarf bread
just like Mum used to hammer out on her anvil, and the moment when he'd
first realized that he'd fallen in love.[29] He remembered life in the caves
under Copperhead, before the city had called him, and more than anything
else he wanted to be home. He'd never realized that humans could sing hole.
Cliff laid aside his hammers. The same notes crept into his corroded
ears, but in his mind they became quarries and moorlands. He told himself,
as emotion filled his head with its smoke, that right after this he was
going to go back and see how his old mum was, and never leave ever again.
Mr Dibbler found his own mind spawning strange and disturbing thoughts.
They involved things you couldn't sell and shouldn't pay for ...
The Lecturer in Recent Runes thumped the crystal ball.
'The sound is a bit tinny,' he said.
'Get out of the way, I can't see,' said the Dean.
Recent Runes sat down again.
They stared at the little image.
'This doesn't sound like Music With Rocks In,' said the Bursar
'Shut up,' said the Dean. He blew his nose.
It was sad music. But it waved the sadness like a battle flag. It said
the universe had done all it could but you were still alive.
The Dean, who was as impressionable as a dollop of warm wax, wondered
if he could learn to play the harmonica.
The last note faded.
There was no applause. The audience sagged a little, as each individual
came down from whatever reflective corner they'd been occupying. One or two
of them murmured things like 'Yeah, that's how it is', or 'You an' me both,
brother'. A lot of people blew their noses, sometimes on other people.
And then reality snuck back in, as it always does.
Glod heard Buddy say, very quietly, 'Thank you.'
The dwarf leaned sideways and said, out of the corner of his mouth:
'What was that?'
Buddy seemed to shake himself awake.
'What? Oh. It's called Sioni Bod Da. What do you think?'
'It's got ... hole,' said Glod. 'It's definitely got hole.'
Cliff nodded. When you're a long way from the old familiar mine or
mountain, when you're lost among strangers, when you're just a great big
aching nothingness inside ... only then can you really sing hole.
'She's watching us,' whispered Buddy.
'The invisible girl?' said Glod, staring at the empty grass.
'Yes.'
'Ah, yes. I can definitely not see her. Good. And now, if you don't
play Music With Rocks In this time, we're dead.'
Buddy picked up the guitar. The strings trembled under his fingers. He
felt elated. He'd been allowed to play it in front of them. Everything else
was unimportant now. Whatever happened next didn't matter.
'You ain't heard nothing yet,' he said.
He stamped his foot.
'One, two, one two three four-'
Glod had time to recognize the tune before the music took him. He'd
heard it only a few seconds before. But now it swung.
Ponder peered into his box.
'I think we're trapping this, Archchancellor,' he said, 'but I don't
know what it is.'
Ridcully nodded, and scanned the audience. They were listening with
their mouths open. The harp had scoured their souls, and now the guitar was
hot wiring their spines.
And there was an empty patch near the stage.
Ridcully put a hand over one eye and focused until the other eye
watered. Then he smiled.
He turned to look at the Musicians' Guild and saw, to his horror, that
Satchelmouth was raising a crossbow. He seemed to be doing it with
reluctance; Mr Clete was prodding him.
Ridcully raised a finger and appeared to scratch his nose.
Even above the sound of the playing he heard the twang as the
crossbow's string broke and, to his secret delight, a yelp from Mr Clete as
a loose end caught his ear. He hadn't even thought of that.
'I'm just an old softy, that's my trouble,' Ridcully said to himself.
'Hat. Hat. Hat.'
'You know, this was an extremely good idea,' said the Bursar, as the
tiny images moved in the crystal ball. 'What an excellent way to see things.
Could we perhaps have a look at the Opera House?'
'How about the Skunk Club in Brewer Street?' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Why?' said the Bursar.
'Just a thought,' said the Senior Wrangler quickly. 'I've never been in
there at all in any way, you understand.'
'We really shouldn't be doing this,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
' It's really not a proper use of a magic crystal-'
'I can't think of a better use of a magic crystal,' said the Dean,
'than to see people playing Music With Rocks In.'
The Duck Man, Coffin Henry, Arnold Sideways, Foul Ole Ron and Foul Ole
Ron's Smell and Foul Ole Ron's dog ambled around the edges of the crowd.
Pickings had been particularly good. They always were when Dibbler's hot
dogs were on sale. There were some things people wouldn't eat even under the
influence of Music With Rocks In. There were some things even mustard
couldn't disguise.
Arnold gathered up the scraps and put them in a basket on his trolley.
There was going to be the prince of a primal soup under the bridge tonight.
The music had poured over them. They ignored it. Music With Rocks In
was the stuff of dreams, and there were no dreams under the bridge.
Then they'd stopped and listened, as new music poured out over the park
and took every man and woman and thing by the hand and showed him or her or
it the way home.
The beggars stood and listened, mouths open. Some one looking from face
to face, if anyone did look at the invisible beggars, would have had to turn
away ...
Except from Mr Scrub. You couldn't turn away there.
When the band were playing Music With Rocks In again, the beggars got
back down to earth.
Except for Mr Scrub. He just stood and stared.
The last note rang out.
Then, as the tsunami of applause began to roll, The Band ran off into
the darkness.
Dibbler watched happily from the wings at the other side of the stage.
He'd been a bit worried for a while there, but it all seemed back on course
now.
Someone tugged at his sleeve.
'What're they doing, Mr Dibbler?'
Dibbler turned.
'Scum, isn't it?' he said.
'It's Crash, Mr Dibbler.'
'What they're doing, Scum, is not giving the audi-ence what they want,'
said Dibbler. 'Superb business practice. Wait till they're screaming for it,
and then take it away. You wait. By the time the crowd is stamping its feet
they'll come prancing back on again. Superb timing. When you learn that sort
of trick, Scum-'
'It's Crash, Mr Dibbler.'
' then maybe you'll know how to play Music With Rocks In. Music With
Rocks In, Scum-'
' Crash
'... isn't just music,' said Dibbler, pulling some cotton wool out of
his ears. 'It's lots of things. Don't ask me how.'
Dibbler lit a cigar. The din made the match flame flicker.
'Any minute now,' he said. 'You'll see.'
There was a fire that had been made of old boots and mud. A grey shape
circled it, snuffling excitedly.
'Get on, get on, get on!'
'Mr Dibbler's not going to like this,' moaned Asphalt.
'Tough one for Mr Dibbler,' said Glod, as they hauled Buddy into the
cart. 'Now
I want to see those hoofs spark, know what I mean?'
'Head for Quirm,' said Buddy, as the cart jerked into motion. He didn't
know why. It just seemed the right destination.
'Not a good idea,' said Glod. 'People'll probably want to ask questions
about that cart I pulled out of the swimming pool.'
'Head towards Quirm!'
'Mr Dibbler's really not going to like this,' said Asphalt, as the cart
swung out on to the road.
'Any ... moment ... now,' said Dibbler.
'I expect so,' said Crash, 'because they're stamping their feet, I
think.'
There was indeed a certain thumping under the cheers.
'You wait,' said Dibbler. 'They'll judge it just right. No problem.
Akk!'
'You're supposed to put your cigar in your mouth the other way round,
Mr Dibbler,' said Crash meekly.
'Oh, shut up,' said Glod. 'I don't know what he's got not to like.'
'Well, for a start,' said Asphalt, 'the main thing, the thing he won't
like most, is ... um ... we've got the money ...'
Cliff reached down under the seat. There was a dull, clinking noise, of
the sort made by a lot of gold keeping nice and quiet.
The waxing moon lit the landscape as the cart bounced out of the gates
and along the Quirm road.
'How did you know I'd got the cart made ready?' said Glod, as they
landed after a brief flight.
'I didn't,' said Buddy.
'But you ran out!'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'It was ... just ... time.'
'Why'd you want to go to Quirm?' said Cliff.
'I ... I can get a boat home, can't I?' said Buddy. 'That's right. A
boat home.'
Glod glanced at the guitar. This felt wrong. It couldn't just end ...
and then they'd just walk away ...
He shook his head. What could go wrong now?
'Mr Dibbler's really not going to like this,' moaned Asphalt.
The stage was trembling with the vibration of the stamping. There was
some shouting now.
Dibbler turned to Crash and grinned horribly.
'Hey, I've just had a great idea,' he said.
A tiny shape swarmed up the road from the river. Ahead of it, the
lights of the stage glowed in the dusk.
The Archchancellor nudged Ponder, and flourished his staff.
'Now,' he said, 'if there's a sudden rip in reality and horrible
screaming
Things come through, our job is to-' He scratched his head. 'What is it
the Dean says? Kick a righteous donkey?'
'Some righteous ass, sir,' said Ponder. 'He says kick some righteous
ass.'
Ridcully peered at the empty stage.
'I don't see one,' he said.
The four members of The Band sat up and stared straight ahead, over the
moonlit plain.
Finally Cliff broke the silence.
'How much?'
'Best part of five thousand dollars-'
'FIVE THOUSAND DOL-?'
Cliff clamped his huge hand over Glod's mouth.
'Why?' said Cliff, as the dwarf squirmed.
'MMF MMFMMF MMFMMFS?'
'I got a bit confused,' said Asphalt. 'Sorry.'
'We'll never get far enough,' said Cliff. 'You know dat? Not even if we
die.'
'I tried to tell you all!' Asphalt moaned. 'Maybe ... maybe we could
take it back?'
'MMF MMF MMF?'
'How can we do dat?'
'MMF MMF MMF?'
'Glod,' said Cliff, in a reasonable tone of voice, 'I'm going to take
my hand away. And you're not to shout. Right?'
'Mmf.'
'OK.'
'TAKE IT BACK? FIVE THOUSAND DOL-mmfmmfmmf-'
'I suppose some of dat is ours,' said Cliff, tightening his grip.
'Mmf!'
'I know I haven't had any wages,' said Asphalt.
'Let's get to Quirm,' said Buddy urgently. 'We can take out what's ...
ours and send the rest back to him.'
Cliff scratched his chin with his free hand.
'Some of it belongs to Chrysoprase,' said Asphalt. 'Mr Dibbler borrowed
some money off'f him to set up the Festival.'
'We won't get away from him,' said Cliff, 'except if we drive all the
way to the Rim and chuck ourselves over. And even den, only maybe.'
'We could explain ... couldn't ... we?' said Asphalt.
A vision of Chrysoprase's gleaming marble head formed in their vision.
`Mmf.'
No.
'Quirm, then,' said Buddy.
Cliff's diamond teeth glittered in the moonlight.
'I thought ...' he said, 'I thought ... I heard something on the road
back there. Sounded like harness-'
The invisible beggars began to wander away from the park. Foul Ole
Ron's Smell had stayed on for a while, because it was enjoying the music.
And Mr Scrub still hadn't moved.
'We got nearly twenty sausages,' said Arnold Sideways.
Coffin Henry coughed a cough with bones in it.
'Buggrem?' said Foul Ole Ron. ' I told 'em, spyin' on me with rays!'
Something bounded across the trodden turf towards Mr Scrub, ran up his
robe and grabbed either side of his hood with both paws.
There was the hollow sound of two skulls meeting.
Mr Scrub staggered backwards.
SQUEAK!
Mr Scrub blinked and sat down suddenly.
The beggars stared down at the little figure jumping up and down on the
cobbles.
Being of an invisible nature themselves, they were naturally good at
seeing things unseen by other men or, in the case of Foul Ole Ron, by any
known eyeball.
'That's a rat,' said the Duck Man.
'Buggrit,' said Foul Ole Ron.
The rat pranced in circles on its hind legs, squeaking loudly. Mr Scrub
blinked again ... And Death stood up.
I HAVE TO GO, he said.
SQUEAK!
Death strode away, stopped, and came back. He pointed a skeletal finger
at the Duck Man.
WHY, he said, ARE YOU WALKING AROUND WITH THAT DUCK?
'What duck?'
AH. SORRY.
'Listen, how can it go wrong?' said Crash, waving his hands
frantically. 'It's got to work. Everyone knows that when you get your big
chance because the star is ill or something, then the audience'll go mad for
you. It happens every time, right?'
Jimbo, Noddy and Scum peered around the curtain at the pandemonium.
They nodded uncertainly.
Of course things always went well when you had your big chance ...
'We could do "Anarchy in Ankh Morpork",' said Jimbo doubtfully.
'We haven't got that right,' said Noddy.
'Yeah, but there's nothing new about that.'
'I suppose we could give it a try ...
'Excellent!' said Crash. He raised his guitar de-fiantly. ' We can do
it! For the sake of sex and drugs and Music With Rocks In!'
He was aware of their disbelieving stares.
'You never said you'd had any drugs,' said Jimbo accusingly.
'If it comes to that,' said Noddy, 'I don't reckon you've ever had-'
'One out of three ain't bad!' shouted Crash.
'Yes it is, it's only thirty three per-'
'Shut up!'
People were stamping their feet and clapping their hands derisively.
Ridcully squinted along his staff.
'There was the Holy St Bobby,' he said. 'I suppose he was a righteous
ass, come to think about it.'
'Sorry?' said Ponder.
'He was a donkey,' said Ridcully. 'Hundreds of years ago. Got made a
bishop in the Omnian church for carrying some holy man, I believe. Can't get
more righteous than that.'
'No ... no ... no ... Archchancellor,' said Ponder. 'It's just a sort
of military saying. It means ... the ... you know, sir ... backside.'
'I wonder how we tell which bit that is,' Ridcully said. 'The creatures
from the Dungeon Dimensions have legs and things all over the place.'
'I don't know, sir; said Ponder wearily.
'Perhaps we'd just better kick everything, to be on the safe side.'
Death caught up with the rat near the Brass Bridge.
No one had disturbed Albert. Since he was in the gut-ter, he'd become
nearly as invisible as Coffin Henry.
Death rolled his sleeve up. His hand moved through the fabric of
Albert's coat as if it was mist.
DAFT OLD FOOL ALWAYS TOOK IT WITH HIM, he muttered. I CAN'T IMAGINE
WHAT HE THOUGHT I'D DO WITH IT ...
The hand came out, cupping a fragment of curved glass. A pinch of sand
glittered on it.
THIRTY FOUR SECONDS, said Death. He handed the glass to the rat. FIND
SOMETHING TO PUT THIS IN. AND DON'T DROP IT.
He stood up and surveyed the world.
The...
