Terry Pratchett. Soul music
страница №11
...re was the glong glong glong noise of an empty beer bottle bouncingon the stones as the Death of Rats trotted back out of the Mended Drum.
Thirty four seconds of sand orbited slightly erratically inside it.
Death hauled his servant to his feet. No time was passing for Albert.
His eyes were glazed, his bodyclock idled. He hung from his master's arm
like a cheap suit.
Death snatched the bottle from the rat and tilted it gently. A bit of
life began to flow.
WHERE IS MY GRANDDAUGHTER? he said. YOU HAVE TO TELL ME. OTHERWISE I
CAN'T KNOW.
Albert's eyes clicked open.
'She's trying to save the boy, Master!' he said. 'She doesn't know the
meaning of the word Duty-'
Death tipped the bottle back. Albert froze in midsentence.
BUT WE DO, DON'T WE? said Death bitterly. YOU AND ME.
He nodded to the Death of Rats.
LOOK AFTER HIM, he said.
Death snapped his fingers.
Nothing happened, apart from the click.
ER. THIS IS VERY EMBARRASSING. SHE HAS SOME OF MY POWER. I DO SEEM
MOMENTARILY UNABLE TO ... ER ...
The Death of Rats squeaked helpfully.
NO. YOU LOOK AFTER HIM. I KNOW WHERE THEY'RE GOING. HISTORY LIKES
CYCLES.
Death looked at the towers of Unseen University, rising over the
rooftops.
AND SOMEWHERE IN THIS TOWN IS A HORSE I CAN RIDE.
'Hold on. Something's coming ... at the stage. 'What are they?'
Ponder stared.
'I think ... they may be human, sir.'
The crowd had stopped stamping its collective feet and was watching in
a sullen 'this had better be good' silence.
Crash stepped forward with a big mad glossy grin on his face.
'Yes, but any minute they'll split down the middle and gharstely
creatures will come out,' said Ridcully hopefully.
Crash hefted his guitar and played a chord.
'My word!' said Ridcully.
'Sir?'
'That sounded exactly like a cat trying to go to the lavatory through a
sewn up bum.'
Ponder looked aghast. 'Sir, you're not telling me you ever-'
'No, but that's what it'd sound like, sure enough. Exactly like that.'
The crowd hovered, uncertain of this new development.
'Hello, Ankh Morpork!' said Crash. He nodded at Scum, who hit his drums
at the second attempt.
Ande Supporting Bandes launched into its first and, in the event, last
number.
Three last numbers, in fact. Crash was trying for 'Anarchy in Ankh
Morpork', Jimbo' had frozen because he couldn't see himself in a mirror and
was playing the only page he could remember from Blert Wheedown's book,
which was the index, and Noddy had got his fingers caught in the strings.
As far as Scum was concerned, tunes' names were things that happened to
other people. He was concentrating on the rhythm. Most people don't have to.
But Ridcully glared for Scum, even clapping his hands was an exercise in
concentration. So he played in a small contented world of his own, and
didn't even notice the audience rise like a bad meal and hit the stage.
Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs were on duty at the Deosil Gate,
sharing a comradely cigarette and listening to the distant roar of the
Festival.
'Sounds like a big night,' said Sergeant Colon.
'Right enough, sarge.'
'Sounds like some trouble.'
'Good job we're out of it, sarge.'
A horse came clattering up the street, its rider strug-gling to keep
on. As it got closer they made out the contorted features of C. M. O. T.
Dibbler, riding with the ease of a sack of potatoes.
'Did a cart just go through here?' he demanded.
'Which one, Throat?' said Sergeant Colon.
'What do you mean, which one?'
'Well, there was two,' said the sergeant. 'One with a couple of trolls
in, and one with Mr Clete just after that. You know, the Musicians' Guild-'
'Oh, no!'
Dibbler pummelled the horse into action again and bounced off into the
night.
'What was that about?' said Nobby.
'Someone probably owes him a penny,' said Ser-geant Colon, leaning on
his spear.
There was the sound of another horse approaching. The watchmen
flattened themselves against the wall as it thundered past.
It was big, and white. The rider's black cloak streamed in the air, as
did her hair. There was a rush of wind and then they were gone, out on to
the plains.
Nobby stared after it.
'That was her,' he said.
'Susan Death.'
The light in the crystal faded to a dot and winked out.
'That's three days' worth of magic I won't see again,' the Senior
Wrangler complained.
'Worth every thaum,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'Not as good as seeing them live, though,' said the Lecturer in Recent
Runes.
'There's something about the way the sweat drips on you.'
'I thought it ended just as it was getting good,' said the Chair. 'I
thought-'
The wizards went rigid as the howl rang through the building. It was
slightly animal but also min-eral, metallic, edged like a saw.
Eventually the Lecturer in Recent Runes said, 'Of course, just because
we've heard a spine chilling blood-curdling scream of the sort to make your
very marrow freeze in your bones doesn't automatically mean there's anything
wrong.'
The wizards looked out into the corridor.
'It came from downstairs somewhere,' said the Chair of Indefinite
Studies, heading for the staircase.
'So why are you going upstairs?'
'Because I'm not daft!'
'But it might be some terrible emanation!'
'You don't say?' said the Chair, still accelerating.
'All right, please yourself. That's the students' floor up there.'
'Ah. Er-'
The Chair came down slowly, occasionally glancing fearfully up the
stairs.
'Look, nothing can get in,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'This place is
protected by very powerful spells.'
'That's right,' said Recent Runes.
'And I'm sure we've all been strengthening them periodically, as is our
duty,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Er. Yes. Yes. Of course,' said Recent Runes.
The sound came again. There was a slow pulsating rhythm in the roar.
'The Library, I think,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Anyone seen the Librarian lately?'
'He always seems to be carrying something when I see him. You don't
think he's up to something occult, do you?'
'This is a magical university.'
'Yes, but more occult is what I mean.'
'Keep together, will you?'
'I am together.'
'For if we are united, what can possibly harm us?'
'Well, (1), a great big-'
'Shut up!'
The Dean opened the library door. It was warm, and velvety quiet.
Occasionally, a book would rustle its pages or clank its chains restlessly.
A silvery light was coming from the stairway to the basement. There was
also the occasional 'ook'.
'He doesn't sound very upset,' said the Bursar.
The wizards crept down the steps. There was no mistaking the door the
light streamed from it.
The wizards stepped into the cellar.
They stopped breathing.
It was on a raised dais in the centre of the floor, with candles all
around it.
It was Music With Rocks In.
A tall dark figure skidded around the corner into Sator Square and,
accelerating, pounded through the gateway of Unseen University.
It was seen only by Modo the dwarf gardener, as he happily wheeled his
manure barrow through the twilight. It had been a good day. Most days were,
in his experience.
He hadn't heard about the Festival. He hadn't heard about Music With
Rocks In.
Modo didn't hear about most things, because he wasn't listening. He
liked compost. Next to compost he liked roses, because they were something
to compost the compost for.
He was by nature a contented dwarf, who took in his short stride all
the additional problems of gardening in a high magical environment, such as
greenfly, whitefly and lurching things with tentacles. Proper lawn
main-tenance could be a real problem when things from another dimension were
allowed to slither over it.
Someone pounded across it and disappeared through the doorway of the
library. Modo looked at the marks and said, 'Oh, dear.'
The wizards started breathing again.
'Oh, my,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Rave In ...' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Now that's what I call Music With Rocks In,' sighed the Dean. He
stepped forward with the rapt expression of a miser in a goldmine.
The candlelight glittered off black and silver. There was a lot of
both.
'Oh, my,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. It was like some kind of
incantation.
'I say, isn't that my nose hair mirror?' said the Bursar, breaking the
spell.
'That's my nose hair mirror, I'm sure-'
Except that while the black was black the silver wasn't really silver.
It was whatever mirrors and bits of shiny tin and tinsel and wire the
Librarian had been able to scrounge and bend into shape ...
'-it's got the little silver frame ... why's it on that two wheeled
cart? Two wheels, one after the other? Ridiculous. It'll fall over, depend
upon it. And where's the horse going to go, may I ask?'
The Senior Wrangler tapped him gently on the shoulder.
'Bursar? Word to the wizard, old chap.'
'Yes? What is it?'
'I think if you don't stop talking this minute the Dean will kill you.'
There were two small cart wheels, one behind the other, with a saddle
in between them. In front of the saddle was a pipe with a complicated double
curve in it, so that someone sitting in the saddle would be able to get a
grip.
The rest was junk. Bones and tree branches and a jackdaw's banquet of
gewgaws. A horse's skull was strapped over the front wheel, and feathers and
beads hung from every point.
It was junk, but as it stood in the flickering glow it had a dark,
organic quality not exactly life, but something dynamic and disquieting and
coiled and potent that was making the Dean vibrate on his feet. It radiated
something that suggested that, just by existing and looking like it did, it
was breaking at least nine laws and twenty three guidelines.
'Is he in love?' said the Bursar.
'Make it go!' said the Dean. 'It's got to go! It's meant to go!'
'Yes, but what is it?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'It's a masterpiece,' said the Dean. 'A triumph!'
'Oook?'
'Perhaps you have to push it along with your feet?' whispered the
Senior Wrangler.
The Dean shook his head in a preoccupied way.
'We're wizards, aren't we?' he said. 'I expect we could make it go.'
He walked around the circle. The draught from his studded leather robe
made the candle flames waver and the shadows of the thing danced on the
wall.
The Senior Wrangler bit his lip. 'Not too certain about that,' he said.
'Looks like it's got more than enough magic in it as it is. Is it ... er...
is it breathing or is that just my imagination?'
The Senior Wrangler spun around and waved a finger at the Librarian.
'You built it?' he barked.
The orang utan shook his head.
'Oook.'
'What'd he say?'
'He said he didn't build it, he just put it together,' said the Dean,
without turning his head.
'Ook.'
'I'm going to sit on it,' said the Dean.
The other wizards felt something draining out of their souls and sudden
uncertainty sloshing into its place.
'I wouldn't do that if I were you, old chap,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'You don't know where it might take you.'
'Don't care,' said the Dean. He still didn't take his eyes off the
thing.
'I mean, it's not of this world,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'I've been of this world for more than seventy years; said the Dean,
'and it is extremely boring.'
He stepped into the circle and put his hand on the thing's saddle.
It trembled.
EXCUSE ME.
The tall dark figure was suddenly there, in the doorway, and then in a
few strides was in the circle.
A skeletal hand dropped on to the Dean's shoulder and propelled him
gently but unstoppably aside.
THANK YOU.
The figure vaulted into the saddle and reached out for the handlebars.
It looked down at the thing it bestrode.
Some situations you had to get exactly right ...
A finger pointed at the Dean.
I NEED YOUR CLOTHES.
The Dean backed away.
'What?'
GIVE ME YOUR COAT.
The Dean, with great reluctance, shrugged off his leather robe and
handed it over.
Death put it on. That was better ...
NOW, LET ME SEE ...
A blue glow flickered under his fingers and spread in jagged blue
lines, forming a corona at the tip of every feather and bead.
'We're in a cellar!' said the Dean. 'Doesn't that matter?'
Death gave him a look.
NO.
Modo straightened up, and paused to admire his rosebed, which contained
the finest display of pure black roses he'd ever managed to produce. A high
magical environment could be useful, sometimes. Their scent hung on the
evening air like an encouraging word.
The flower bed erupted.
Modo had a brief vision of flames and something arcing into the sky
before his vision was blotted out by a rain of beads, feathers and soft
black petals.
He shook his head, and ambled off to fetch his shovel.
'Sarge?'
'Yes, Nobby?'
'You know your teeth ...'
'What teeth?'
'The teeth like in your mouth?'
'Oh, right. Yep. What about 'em?'
'How come they fit together at the back?'
There was a pause while Sergeant Colon prodded the recesses of his
mouth with his tongue.
'It uh ah-' he began, and untangled himself. 'Interesting observation,
Nobby.'
Nobby finished rolling a cigarette.
'Reckon we should shut the gates, sarge?'
'Might as well.'
With the exact minimum amount of effort they swung the huge gates
together. It wasn't much of a precaution. The keys had been lost a long time
ago. Even the sign 'Thank you for Nott Invading Our City' was barely
readable now.
'I reckon we should-' Colon began, and then peered down the street.
'What's that light?' he said. 'And what's making that noise?'
Blue light glittered on the buildings at the end of the long street.
'Sounds like some kind of wild animal,' said Corporal Nobbs.
The light resolved itself into two actinic blue lances.
Colon shaded his eyes.
'Looks like some kind of ... horse or something.'
'It's coming straight for the gates!'
The tortured roar bounced off the houses.
'Nobby, I don't think it's gonna stop!'
Corporal Nobbs threw himself flat against the wall. Colon, slightly
more aware of the responsibilities of rank, waved his hands vaguely at the
approaching light.
'Don't do it! Don't do it!'
And then picked himself up out of the mud.
Rose petals, feathers and sparks fell softly around him. In front of
him, a hole in the gates sparkled blue around the edges. 'That's old oak,
that is,' he said vaguely. 'I just hope they don't make us pay for it out of
our own money. Did you see who it was, Nobby? Nobby?'
Nobby edged carefully along the wall.
'He ... he had a rose in his teeth, sarge.'
'Yes, but would you recognize him if you saw him again?'
Nobby swallowed.
'If I didn't, sarge,' he said, 'it'd have to be one hell of an identity
parade.'
'I don't like this, Mr Glod! I don't like this!'
'Shut up and steer!'
'But this isn't the kind of road you're supposed to go fast on!'
'That's all right! You can't see where you're going anyway!'
The cart went around a corner on two wheels. It was starting to snow, a
weak, wet snow that melted as soon as it hit the ground.
'But we're back in the hills! That's a drop down there! We'll go over
the side!'
'You want Chrysoprase to catch us?'
'Giddyup, yah!'
Buddy and Cliff clung to the sides of the cart as it rocked from side
to side into the darkness.
'Are they still behind us?' Glod yelled.
'Can't see anything!' shouted Cliff. 'If you stopped the cart, maybe we
could hear something?'
'Yeah, but suppose we heard something really up close?'
'Giddyup hiyah!'
'OK, so how about if we throw the money out?'
'FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?'
Buddy looked over the edge of the cart. Darkness with a certain gulch
like quality, a certain suggestion of depth, was a few feet from the side of
the road.
The guitar twanged gently to the rhythm of the wheels. He picked it up
in one hand. Strange how it was never silent. You couldn't silence it even
by pressing on the strings heavily with both hands; he'd tried.
There was the harp beside it. The strings were absolutely silent.
'This is daft!' shouted Glod, from the front. 'Slow down! You nearly
had us over the side that time!'
Asphalt hauled on the reins. The cart slowed, eventually, to walking
pace.
'That's better-'
The guitar screamed. The note was so high that it hit the ears like a
needle.
The horses jerked nervously in the shafts and then shot forward again.
'Hold them!'
'I am!'
Glod turned around, gripping the back of the seat.
'Throw that thing out!'
Buddy gripped the guitar and stood up, moving his arm back to hurl the
thing into the gorge.
He hesitated.
'Throw it out!'
Cliff got to his feet and tried to take the guitar.
'No!'
Buddy whirled it around his head and caught the troll on the chin,
knocking him backwards.
'No!'
'Glod, slow down-'
And a white horse was overtaking them. A hooded shape leaned over and
grabbed the reins.
The cart hit a stone and was airborne for a mo-ment before crashing
back down on the road. Asphalt heard the splintering of posts as the wheels
smashed into the fence, saw the traces snap, felt the cart swing around ...
... and stop.
So much happened later that Glod never did tell anyone about the
sensation he had, that although the cart had definitely wedged itself
uncertainly on the edge of the cliff it had also plunged on, tumbling over
and over, towards the rocks...
Glod opened his eyes. The image tugged at him like a bad dream. But
he'd been thrown across the cart as it skewed around, and his head was lying
on the backboard.
He was looking straight into the gorge. Behind him, wood creaked.
Someone was holding on to his leg.
'Who's that?' he whispered, in case heavier words would send the cart
over.
'It's me. Asphalt. Who's that holding on to my foot?'
'Me,' said Cliff. 'What're you holding on to, Glod?'
'Just ... something my flailing hand happened to snatch at,' said Glod.
The cart creaked again.
'It's the gold, isn't it?' said Asphalt. 'Admit it. You're holding on
to the gold.'
'Idiot dwarf!' shouted Cliff. 'Let it go or we're going to die!'
'Letting go of five thousand dollars is dying,' said Glod.
'Fool! You can't take it with you!'
Asphalt scrambled for purchase on the wood. The cart shifted.
'It's going to be the other way around in a minute,' he muttered.
'So who,' said Cliff, as the cart sagged another inch, 'is holding
Buddy?'
There was a pause while the three counted their extremities and
attachments thereto.
'I ... er ... think he might have gone over,' said Glod.
Four chords rang out.
Buddy hung from a rear wheel, feet over the drop, and jerked as the
music played an eight note riff on his soul.
Never age. Never die. Live for ever in that one last white hot moment,
when the crowd screamed. When every note was a heartbeat. Burn across the
sky.
You will never grow old. They will never say you died.
That's the deal. You will be the greatest musician in the world.
Live fast. Die young.
The music tugged at his soul.
Buddy's legs swung up slowly and touched the rocks of the cliff. He
braced himself, eyes shut, and pulled at the wheel.
A hand touched his shoulder.
'No!'
Buddy's eyes snapped open.
He turned his head and looked into Susan's face, and then up at the
cart.
'What ... ?' he said, his voice slurred with shock.
He let go with one hand and fumbled clumsily for the guitar strap,
slipping it off his shoulder. The strings howled as he gripped the guitar's
neck and flung it into the darkness.
His other hand slipped on the freezing wheel, and he dropped into the
gorge.
There was a white blur. He landed heavily on some-thing velvety and
smelling of horse sweat.
Susan steadied him with her free hand as she urged Binky upwards
through the sleet.
The horse alighted on the road, and Buddy slipped off into the mud. He
raised himself on his elbows.
'You?'
'Me,' said Susan.
Susan pulled the scythe out of its holster. The blade sprang out;
snowflakes that fell on it split gently into two halves without a pause in
their descent.
'Let's get your friends, shall we?'
There was a friction in the air, as if the attention of the world were
being focused. Death stared into the future.
OH, BLAST.
Things were coming apart. The Librarian had done his best, but mere
bone and wood couldn't take this sort of strain. Feathers and beads whirled
away and landed, smoking, in the road. A wheel parted company from its axle
and bounced away, shedding spokes, as the machine took a curve almost
horizontally.
It made no real difference. Something like a soul flickered in the air
where the missing pieces had been.
If you took a shining machine, and shone a light on it so that there
were gleams and highlights, and then took away the machine but left the
light ...
Only the horse's skull remained. That and the rear wheel, which spun in
forks now only of flickering light, and was smouldering.
The thing whirred past Dibbler, causing his horse to throw him into the
ditch and bolt.
Death was used to travelling fast. In theory he was already everywhere,
waiting for almost anything else. The fastest way to travel is to be there
already.
But he'd never been this fast while going this slow. The landscape had
often been a blur, but never while it was only four inches from his knee on
the bends.
The cart shifted again. Now even Cliff was looking down into the
darkness.
Something touched his shoulder.
HANG ON TO THIS. BUT DON'T TOUCH THE BLADE.
Buddy leaned past.
'Glod, if you let go of the bag I ,;an-'
'Don't even think about it.'
'There's no pockets in a shroud, Glod.'
'You got the wrong tailor, then.'
In the end Buddy grabbed a spare leg and hauled. One at a time,
clambering over one another, the Band eased themselves back on to the road.
And turned to look at Susan.
'White horse,' said Asphalt. 'Black cloak. Scythe. Um.'
'You can see her too?' said Buddy.
'I hope we're not going to wish we couldn't,' said Cliff.
Susan held up a lifetimer and peered at it critically.
'I suppose it's too late to cut some sort of deal?' said Glod.
'I'm just looking to see if you're dead or not,' said Susan.
'I think I'm alive,' said Glod.
'Hold on to that thought.'
They turned at a creaking sound. The cart slid forward and dropped into
the gorge. There was a crash as it hit an outcrop halfway to the bottom, and
then a more distant thud as it smashed into the rocks. There was a 'whoomph'
and orange flames blossomed as the oil in the lamps exploded.
Out of the debris, trailing flame, rolled a burning wheel.
'We would have been in dat,' said Cliff.
'You think maybe we're better off now?' said Glod.
'Yep,' said Cliff. "Cos we're not dyin' in the wreckage of a burning
cart.'
'Yes, but she looks a bit ... occult.'
'Fine by me. I'll take occult over deep fried any day.'
Behind them, Buddy turned to Susan.
'I ... think I've worked it out,' she said. 'The music ... twisted up
history, I think. It's not supposed to be in our history. Can you remember
where you got it from?'
Buddy just stared. When you've been saved from certain death by an
attractive girl on a white horse, you don't expect a shopping quiz.
'A shop in Ankh Morpork,' said Cliff.
'A mysterious old shop?'
'Mysterious as anything. There-'
'Did you go back? Was it still there? Was it in the same place?'
'Yes,' said Cliff.
'No,' said Glod.
'Lots of interesting merchandise that you wanted to pick up and learn
more about?'
'Yes!' said Glod and Cliff together.
'Oh; said Susan, 'that kind of shop.'
'I knew it didn't belong here,' said Glod. 'Didn't I say it didn't
belong here?
I said it didn't belong here. I said it was eldritch.'
'I thought that meant oblong,' said Asphalt.
Cliff held out his hand.
'It's stopped snowing,' he said.
'I dropped the thing into the gorge,' said Buddy. 'I ... didn't need it
any more. It must have smashed.'
'No,' said Susan, 'it's not as-'
'The clouds ... now they look eldritch,' said Glod, looking up.
'What? Oblong?' said Asphalt.
They all felt it... a sensation that the walls had been removed from
around the world. The air buzzed.
'What's this now?' said Asphalt, as they instinctively huddled
together.
'You ought to know,' said Glod. 'I thought you'd been everywhere and
seen everything?'
White light crackled in the air.
And then the air became light, white as moonlight but as strong as
sunlight.
There was also a sound, like the roar of millions of voices.
It said: Let me show you who I am. I am the music.
Satchelmouth lit the coach lamps.
'Hurry up, man!' shouted Clete. 'We want to catch them, you know! Hat.
Hat. Hat.'
'I don't see that it matters much if they get away,' Satchelmouth
grumbled, climbing onto the coach as Clete lashed the horses into motion. 'I
mean, they're away. That's all that matters, isn't it?'
'No! You saw them. They're the ... the soul of all this trouble,' said
Clete.
' We can't let this sort of thing go on!'
Satchelmouth glanced sideways. The thought was flooding into his mind,
and not for the first time, that Mr Clete was not playing with a full
orchestra, that he was one of those people who built their own hot madness
out of sane and chilly parts. Satchelmouth was by no means averse to the
finger foxtrot and the skull fandango, but he'd never murdered anyone, at
least on purpose. Satchelmouth had been made aware that he had a soul and,
though it had a few holes in it and was a little ragged around the edges, he
cherished the hope that some day the god
Reg would find him a place in a celestial combo. You didn't get the
best gigs if you were a murderer. You probably had to play the viola.
'How about if we leave it right now?' he said. 'They won't be back-'
'Shut up!'
'But there's no point-'
The horses reared. The coach rocked. Something went past in a blur and
vanished in the darkness, leaving a line of blue flames that flickered for a
little while, then went out.
Death was aware that at some point he would have to stop. But it was
creeping up on him that, in whatever dark vocabulary the ghost machine had
been envisaged, the words 'slow down' were as inconceivable as 'drive
safely'.
It was not in its very nature to reduce speed in any circumstances
other than the dramatically calamitous at the end of the third verse.
That was the trouble with Music With Rocks In. It liked to do things
its own way.
Very slowly, still spinning, the front wheel rose off the ground.
Absolute darkness filled the universe.
A voice spake: 'Is that you, Cliff?'
'Yup.'
'OK. Is this me: Glod?'
'Yup. Sounds like you.'
'Asphalt?'
''Sme.'
'Buddy?'
'Glod?'
'And ... er ... the lady in black?'
'Yes?'
'Do you know where we are, miss?'
There was no ground under them. But Susan didn't feel that she was
floating. She was simply standing. The fact that it was on nothing was a
minor point. She wasn't falling because there was nowhere to fall to, or
from.
She'd never been interested in geography. But she had a very strong
feeling that this place was not locatable on any atlas.
'I don't know where our bodies are,' she said, carefully.
'Oh, good,' said the voice of Glod. 'Really? I'm here, but we don't
know where my body is? How about my money?'
There was the sound of faint footsteps far away in the darkness. They
approached, slowly and deliberately. And stopped.
A voice said: One. One. One, two. One, two.
Then the footsteps went back into the distance.
After a while, another voice said: One, two, three, four-
And the universe came into being.
It was wrong to call it a big bang. That would just be noise, and all
that noise could create is more noise and a cosmos full of random particles.
Matter exploded into being, apparently as chaos, but in fact as a chord. The
ultimate power chord. Everything, all together, streaming out in one huge
rush that contained within itself, like reverse fossils, everything that it
was going to be.
And, zigzagging through the expanding cloud, alive, that first wild
live music.
This had shape. It had spin. It had rhythm. It had a beat, and you
could dance to it.
Everything did.
A voice right inside Susan's head said: And I will never die.
She said, aloud: 'There's a bit of you in everything that lives.'
Yes. I am the heart beat. The back beat.
She still couldn't see the others. The light was streaming past her.
'But he threw away the guitar.'
I wanted him to live for me.
'You wanted him to die for you! In the wreckage of the cart!'
What is the difference? He would be dead anyway. But to die in music
...
People will always remember the songs he never had the chance to sing.
And they will be the greatest songs of all.
Live your life in a moment.
And then live for ever. Don't fade away.
'Send us back!'
You never left.
She blinked. They were still on the road. The air flickered and
crackled, and was full of wet snow.
She looked around into Buddy's horrified face.
'We've got to get away-'
He held up a hand. It was transparent.
Cliff had almost vanished. Glod was trying to grip the handle of the
money bag, but his fingers were slipping through it. His face was full of
the terror of death or, possibly, of poverty.
Susan shouted: 'He threw you away! That's not fair!'
A piercing blue light was heading up the road. No cart could move that
fast.
There was a roar like the scream of a camel who has just seen two
bricks.
The light reached the bend, skidded, hit a rock and leapt into space
over the gorge.
There was just time for a hollow voice to say
OH B-
... before it hit the far wall in one great, spreading circle of flame.
Bones bounced and rolled down to the river bed, and were still.
Susan spun around, scythe ready to swing. But the music was in the air.
It had no soul to aim for.
You could say to the universe, this is not fair. And the universe would
say: Oh, isn't it? Sorry.
You could save people. You could get there in the nick of time. And
something could snap its fingers and say, no, it has to be this way. Let me
tell you how it has to be. This is how the legend has to go.
She reached out and tried to take Buddy's hand. She could feel it, but
only as a coldness.
'Can you hear me?' she shouted, above the tri-umphant chords.
He nodded.
'It's ... it's like a legend! It has to happen! And I can't stop it -
how can
I kill something like music?'
She ran to the edge of the gorge. The cart was well on fire. They
wouldn't appear in it. They would have been in it.
'I can't stop it! It's not fair!'
She pounded at the air with her fists.
'Grandfather!'
Blue flames flickered fitfully on the rocks of the dry river bed.
A small fingerbone rolled across the stones until it came up against
another, slightly larger bone.
A third bone tumbled off a rock and joined them.
In the semi darkness there was a rattling among the stones and a
handful of little white shapes bounced and tumbled between the rocks until a
hand, indexfinger reaching for the sky, rose into the night.
Then there was a series of deeper, more hollow noises as longer, larger
things skipped end on end through the gloom.
'I was going to make it better!' shouted Susan. 'What's the good of
being Death if you have to obey idiot rules all the time?'
BRING THEM BACK.
As Susan turned, a toe bone hopped across the mud and scuttled into
place somewhere under Death's robe.
He strode forward, snatched the scythe from Susan and, in one movement,
whirled it over his head and brought it down on the stone. The blade
shattered.
He reached down and picked up a fragment. It glittered in his fingers
like a tiny star of blue ice.
IT WAS NOT A REQUEST.
When the music spoke, the falling snow danced.
You can't kill me.
Death reached into his robe, and brought out the guitar. Bits of it had
broken off, but this didn't matter; the shape flickered in the air. The
strings glowed.
Death took a stance that Crash would have died to achieve, and raised
one hand.
In his fingers the sliver glinted. If light could have made a noise, it
would have flashed ting.
He wanted to be the greatest musician in the world. There has to be a
law.
Destiny runs its course.
For once, Death appeared not to smile.
He brought his hand down on the strings.
There was no sound.
There was, instead, a cessation of sound, the end of a noise which
Susan realized she'd been hearing all along. All the time. All her life. A
kind of sound you never notice until it stops ...
The strings were still.
There are millions of chords. There are millions of numbers. And
everyone forgets the one that is a zero. But without the zero, numbers are
just arithmetic. Without the empty chord, music is just noise.
Death played the empty chord.
The beat slowed. And began to weaken. The universe spun on, every atom
of it.
But soon the whirling would end and the dancers would look around and
wonder what to do next.
It's not time for THAT! Play something else!
I CANNOT.
Death nodded towards Buddy.
BUT HE CAN.
He threw the guitar towards Buddy. It passed right through him.
Susan ran and snatched it up, holding it out.
'You've got to take it! You've got to play! You've got to start the
music again!'
She strummed frantically at the strings. Buddy winced.
'Please!' she shouted. 'Don't fade away!'
The music screamed in her head.
Buddy managed to grasp the guitar, but stood looking at it as if he'd
never seen it before.
'What'll happen if he doesn't play it?' said Glod.
'You'll all die in the wreckage!'
AND THEN, said Death, THE MUSIC WILL DIE. AND THE DANCE WILL END. THE
WHOLE DANCE.
The ghostly dwarf gave a cough.
'We're getting paid for this number, right?' he said.
YOU'LL GET THE UNIVERSE.
'And free beer?'
Buddy held the guitar to him. His eyes met Susan's.
He raised his hand, and played.
The single chord rang out across the gorge, and echoed back with
strange harmonics.
THANK YOU, said Death. He stepped forward and took the guitar.
He moved suddenly, and smashed the thing against a rock. The strings
parted, and something accelerated away, towards the snow and the stars.
Death looked at the wreckage with some satisfaction.
NOW THAT'S MUSIC WITH ROCKS IN.
He snapped his fingers.
The moon rose over Ankh Morpork.
The park was deserted. The silver light flowed over the wreckage of the
stage, and the mud and halfconsumed sausages that marked the spot where the
audience had been. Here and there it glinted off broken sound traps.
After a while some of the mud sat up and spat out some more mud.
'Crash? Jimbo? Scum?' it said.
'Is that you, Noddy?' said a sad shape hanging from one of the stage's
few remaining beams.
The mud pulled some more mud out of its ears. 'Right! Where's Scum?'
'I think they threw him into the lake.'
'Is Crash alive?'
There was a groan from under a heap of wreckage. 'Pity,' said Noddy,
with feeling.
A figure emerged out of the shadows, squelching.
Crash half crawled, half fell out of the rubble.
'You'fe got to admit,' he mumbled, because at some stage in the
performance a guitar had hit him in the teeth, 'that waf Music Wif Rocks In
...'
'All right,' said Jimbo, and slithered off his beam. 'But next time,
thanks all the same, I'd rather try sex 'n' drugs.'
'My dad said he'd kill me if I took drugs,' said Noddy.
'This is your brain on drugs ...' said Jimbo.
'No, this is your brain, Scum, on this lump here.'
'Oh, cheers. Thanks.'
'A painkiller'd be favourite right now,' said Jimbo.
A little closer to the lake a heap of sacking slid sideways.
'Archchancellor?'
'Yes, Mr Stibbons?'
'I think someone trod on my hat.'
'So what?'
'It's still on my head.'
Ridcully sat up, easing the ache in his bones.
'Come on, lad,' he said. 'Let's go home. I'm not sure I'm that
interested in music any more. It's a world of hertz.'
A coach rattled along the winding mountain road. Mr Clete was standing
on the box, whipping the horses.
Satchelmouth got unsteadily to his feet. The cliff edge was so close he
could see right down into the darkness.
'I've had just about altogether too much of this by half,' he shouted,
and tried to snatch at the whip.
'Stop that! We'll never catch up with them!' shouted Clete.
'So what? Who cares? I liked their music!'
Clete turned. His expression was terrible.
'Traitor!'
The butt end of the whip caught Satchelmouth in the stomach. He
staggered back, clutched at the edge of the coach, and dropped.
His outflung arm caught hold of what felt like a thin branch in the
darkness. He swung wildly over the drop until his boots got a purchase on
the rock, and his other hand gripped a broken fence post.
He was just in time to see the cart rumble straight on. The road, on
the other hand, curved sharply.
Satchelmouth shut his eyes and held on tight until the last scream and
crackle and splinter had died away. When he opened them, it was just in time
to see a burning wheel bounce down the canyon.
'Blimey,' he said, 'it was lucky there ... was ... some ... thing ...'
His gaze went up. And up.
YES. IT WAS, WASN'T IT?
Mr Clete sat up in the ruins of the cart. It was clearly very much on
fire. He was lucky, he told himself, to have survived that.
A black robed figure walked through the flames.
Mr Clete looked at it. He'd never believed in this sort of thing. He
never believed in anything. But if he had believed, he would have believed
in someone ... bigger.
He looked down at what he'd thought was his body, and realized that he
could see through it, and that it was fading away.
'Oh, dear,' he said. 'Hat. Hat. Hat.'
The figure grinned, and swung its tiny scythe.
SNH, SNH, SNH.
Much later on, people went down into the canyon and sorted out the
remains of Mr
Clete from the remains of everything else. There wasn't very much.
There were some suggestions that he was some mu-sician ... some
musician had fled the city or something ... hadn't he? Or was that something
else? Anyway, he was dead now. Wasn't he?
No one took any notice of the other things. Stuff tended to congregate
in the dry river bed. There was a horse's skull, and some feathers and
beads. And a few pieces of guitar, smashed open like an eggshell. Although
it would be hard to say what had flown.
Susan opened her eyes. She felt wind on her face. There were arms on
either side of her. They were supporting her while, at the same time,
grasping the reins of a white horse.
She leaned forward. Clouds were scudding by, far below.
'All right,' she said. 'And now what happens?'
Death was silent for a moment.
HISTORY TENDS TO SWING BACK INTO LINE. THEY ARE ALWAYS PATCHING IT UP.
THERE ARE ALWAYS SOME MINOR LOOSE ENDS ... I DARE SAY SOME PEOPLE WILL HAVE
SOME CONFUSED MEMORIES ABOUT A CONCERT OF SORTS IN THE PARK. BUT WHAT OF IT?
THEY WILL REMEMBER THINGS THAT DID NOT HAPPEN.
'But they did happen!'
AS WELL.
Susan stared down at the dark landscape. Here and there were the lights
of homesteads and small villages, where people were getting on with their
lives without thought of what was passing by, high over their heads. She
envied them.
'So,' she said, 'just for an example, you understand ... what would
happen to the Band?'
OH, THEY MIGHT BE ANYWHERE. Death glanced at the back of Susan's head.
TAKE THE BOY, FOR EXAM-PLE. PERHAPS HE LEFT THE BIG CITY. PERHAPS HE WENT
SOMEWHERE ELSE. GOT A JOB JUST TO MAKE ENDS MEET. BIDED HIS TIME. DID IT HIS
WAY.
'But he was due in the Drum that night!'
NOT IF HE DIDN'T GO THERE.
'Can you do that? His life was due to end! You said you can't give
life!'
NOT ME. YOU MIGHT.
'What do you mean?'
LIFE CAN BE SHARED.
'But he's ... gone. It's not as though I'm ever likely to see him
again.' YOU KNOW YOU WILL.
'How do you know that?'
YOU'VE ALWAYS KNOWN. YOU REMEMBER EVERY-THING. SO DO I. BUT YOU ARE
HUMAN AND YOUR MIND REBELS FOR YOUR OWN SAKE. SOMETHING GOES ACROSS, THOUGH.
DREAMS, PERHAPS. PRE-MONITIONS. FEELINGS. SOME SHADOWS ARE SO LONG THEY
ARRIVE BEFORE THE LIGHT.
'I don't think I understood any of that.'
WELL, IT HAS BEEN A LONG DAY.
More clouds passed underneath.
'Grandfather?'
YES.
'You're back?'
IT SEEMS SO. BUSY, BUSY, BUSY.
'So I can stop? I don't think I was very good at it.'
YES.
'But ... you've just broken a lot of laws ...'
PERHAPS THEY'RE SOMETIMES ONLY GUIDELINES.
'But my parents still died.'
I COULDN'T HAVE GIVEN THEM MORE LIFE. I COULD ONLY HAVE GIVEN THEM
IMMORTALITY. THEY DIDN'T THINK IT WAS WORTH THE PRICE.
'I ... think I know what they mean.'
YOU'RE WELCOME TO COME AND VISIT, OF COURSE.
'Thank you.'
YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A HOME THERE. IF YOU WANT IT.
'Really?'
I SHALL KEEP YOUR ROOM EXACTLY AS YOU LEFT IT.
'Thank you.'
A MESS.
'Sorry.'
I CAN HARDLY SEE THE FLOOR. YOU COULD HAVE TIDIED IT UP A BIT.
'Sorry.'
The lights of Quirm glittered below. Binky touched down smoothly.
Susan looked around at the dark school buildings.
'So I've ... also ... been here all the time?' she said.
YES. THE HISTORY OF THE LAST FEW DAYS HAS BEEN ... DIFFERENT. YOU DID
QUITE WELL IN YOUR EXAMS.
'Did I? Who sat them?'
YOU DID.
'Oh.' Susan shrugged. 'What grade did I get in Logic?'
YOU GOT AN A.
'Oh, come on. I always get A plus!'
YOU SHOULD HAVE REVISED MORE.
Death swung up into the saddle.
'Just a minute,' said Susan, quickly. She knew she had to say it.
YES?
'What happened to ... you know ... changing the fate of one individual
means changing the world?'
SOMETIMES THE WORLD NEEDS CHANGING.
'Oh. Er. Grandfather?'
YES?
'Er ... the swing ... ' said Susan. The one down in the orchard. I
mean... It was pretty good. A good swing.'
REALLY?
'I was just too young to appreciate it.'
YOU REALLY LIKED IT?
'It had ... style. I shouldn't think anyone else ever had one like it.'
THANK YOU.
'But ... all this doesn't alter anything, you know. The world is still
full of stupid people. They don't use their brains. They don't seem to want
to think straight.'
UNLIKE YOU?
'At least I make an effort. For example ... if I've been here for the
last few days, who's in my bed now?'
I THINK YOU JUST WENT OUT FOR A MOONLIGHT STROLL.
'Oh. That's all right, then.'
Death coughed.
I SUPPOSE ... ?
'Sorry?'
I KNOW IT'S RIDICULOUS, REALLY ...
'What is?'
I SUPPOSE ... YOU HAVEN'T GOT A KISS FOR YOUR OLD GRANDAD?
Susan stared at him.
The blue glow in Death's eyes gradually faded, and as the light died it
sucked at her gaze so that it was dragged into the eye sockets and the
darkness beyond ...
... which went on and on, for ever. There was no word for it. Even
eternity was a human idea. Giving it a name gave it a length; admittedly, a
very long one. But this darkness was what was left when eternity had given
up. It was where Death lived. Alone.
She reached up and pulled his head down and kissed the top of his
skull. It was smooth and ivory white, like a billiard ball.
She turned and stared at the shadowy buildings in an attempt to hide
her embarrassment.
'I just hope I remembered to leave a window open.' Oh, well, nothing
for it. She had to know, even if she felt angry with herself for asking.
'Look, the ... er, the people I met ... do you know if I ever see-'
When she turned back, there was nothing there. There were only a couple
of hoofprints, fading on the cobbles.
There was no open window. She went around to the door and climbed the
stairs in the darkness.
'Susan!'
Susan felt herself fading protectively, out of habit. She stopped it.
There was no need for that. There had never been a need for that.
A figure stood at the end of the passage, in a circle of lamplight.
'Yes, Miss Butts?'
The headmistress peered at her, as if waiting for her to do something.
'Are you all right, Miss Butts?'
The teacher rallied. 'Do you know it's gone midnight? For shame! And
you're out of bed! And that is certainly not the school uniform!'
Susan looked down. It was always hard to get every little detail right.
She was still wearing the black dress with the lace.
'Yes,' she said, 'that's right.' She gave Miss Butts a bright friendly
smile.
'Well, there are school rules, you know,' said Miss Butts, but her tone
was hesitant.
Susan patted her on the arm. 'I think they're probably more like
guidelines, don't you? Eulalie?'
Miss Butts's mouth opened and shut. And Susan realized that the woman
was actually quite short. She had a tall bearing and a tall voice and a tall
manner, and was tall in every respect except height. Amazingly, she'd
apparently been able to keep this a secret from people.
'But I'd better be off to bed,' said Susan, her mind dancing on
adrenalin. 'And you, too. It's far too late to be wandering around draughty
corridors at your age, don't you think? Last day tomorrow, too. You don't
want to look tired when the parents arrive.'
'Er ... Yes. Yes. Thank you, Susan.'
Susan gave the forlorn teacher another warm smile and headed for the
dormitory, where she undressed in the dark and got between the sheets.
The room was silent except for the sound of nine girls breathing
quietly and the rhythmic muffled avalanche that was Princess Jade asleep.
And, after a while, the sound of someone sobbing and trying not to be
heard. It went on for a long time. There was a lot of catching up to do.
Far above the world, Death nodded. You could choose immortality, or you
could choose humanity.
You had to do it for yourself.
It was the last day of the term, and therefore chaotic. Some girls were
leaving early, there was a stream of parents of various races, and there was
no question of there being any teaching. It was generally accepted all round
that the rules were relaxed.
Susan, Gloria and Princess Jade wandered down to the floral clock. It
was a quarter to Daisy.
Susan felt empty, but also stretched like a string. She was surprised
sparks weren't coming from her fingertips.
Gloria had bought a bag of fried fish from the shop in Three Roses. The
smell of hot vinegar and solid cholesterol rose from the paper, without the
taint of fried rot that normally gave the shop's produce its familiar edge.
'My father says I've got to go home and marry some troll,' said Jade.
'Hey, if there's any good fish bones in there I'll have them.'
'Have you met him?' said Susan.
'No. But my father says he's got a great big mountain.'
'I wouldn't put up with that, if I was you,' said Gloria, through a
mouthful of fish. 'This is the Century of the Fruitbat, after all. I'd put
my foot down right now and say no. Eh, Susan?'
'What?' said Susan, who'd been thinking of something else; then, when
everything had been repeated, she said, 'No. I'd see what he was like first.
Perhaps he's quite nice. And then the mountain is a bonus.'
'Yes. That's logical. Didn't your dad send you a picture?' said Gloria.
'Oh, yes,' said Jade.
'Well...?'
'Um ... it had some nice crevasses,' said Jade thoughtfully. 'And a
glacier that my father says is permanent even at midsummer.'
Gloria nodded approvingly.
'He sounds a nice boy.'
'But I've always liked Crag from the next valley. Father hates him. But
he's working very hard and saving up and he's nearly got enough for his own
bridge.'
Gloria sighed. 'Sometimes it's hard to be a woman,' she said. She
nudged Susan.
'Want some fish?'
'I'm not hungry, thanks.'
'It's really good. Not stale old stuff like it used to be.'
'No, thanks.'
Gloria gave her another nudge.
'Want to go and get your own, then?' she said, leering behind her
beard.
'Why should I do that?'
'Oh, quite a few girls have gone down there today,' said the dwarf. She
leaned closer. 'It's the new boy working there,' she said. 'I'd swear he's
elvish.'
Something inside Susan was plucked and went twang.
She stood up.
'So that's what he meant! Things that haven't hap-pened ye
