Soul Music (21 page)

‘Oh, all right. If it means I get to keep my teef, I'm all for it,' said Cliff.

‘OK,' said Buddy.

‘Great! Great! We can make beautiful music together! At least – you boys can, eh?'

He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil. In Dibbler's eyes, the lion roared.

Somewhere high in the Ramtops, Susan rode Binky over a cloudbank.

‘How could he
talk
like that?' she said. ‘Play around with people's lives, and then talk about duty?'

All the lights were on in the Musicians' Guild.

A gin bottle played a tattoo on the edge of a glass. Then it rattled briefly on the desktop as Satchelmouth put it down.

‘Doesn't anyone know who the hells they are?' Mr Clete said, as Satchelmouth managed to grip the glass on the second try. ‘
Someone
must know who they are!'

‘Dunno about the boy,' said Satchelmouth. ‘No one's ever seen him before. An' . . . an' . . . well, you know trolls . . . could've been anyone . . .'

‘One of them was definitely the Librarian from the University,' said Herbert ‘Mr Harpsichord' Shuffle, the Guild's own librarian.

‘We can leave him for now,' said Clete.

The others nodded. No one really wanted to attempt to beat up the Librarian if there was anyone smaller available.

‘What about the dwarf?'

‘Ah.'

‘Someone said they thought he was Glod Glodsson. Lives in Phedre Road somewhere—'

Clete growled. ‘Get some of the lads over there right
now
. I want the position of musicians in this city explained to them
right now
. Hat. Hat. Hat.'

The musicians hurried through the night, the din of the Mended Drum behind them.

‘Wasn't he nice,' said Glod. ‘I mean, we haven't just got our pay, but he was so interested he gave us twenty dollars of his own money!'

‘I tink what he said,' said Cliff, ‘was dat he'd give us twenty dollars
with
interest.'

‘Same thing, isn't it? And he said he could get us more jobs. Did you read the contract?'

‘Did you?'

‘It was very small writing,' said Glod. He brightened up. ‘But there was a lot of it,' he added. ‘Bound to be a good contract, with that much writing on it.'

‘The Librarian ran away,' said Buddy. ‘Oooked a lot, and ran away.'

‘Hah! Well, he'll be sorry later on,' said Glod. ‘Later on, people'll talk to him and he'll say: I left, you know, before they became famous.'

‘He'll say ook.'

‘Anyway, that piano's going to need some work.'

‘Yeah,' said Cliff. ‘Like, I saw once where dis guy made stuff out of matches.
He
could repair it.'

A couple of dollars became two lamb kormas and pitchblende vindaloo at the Curry Gardens, along with a bottle of wine so chemical that even trolls could drink it.

‘And after this,' said Glod, as they sat down to wait for the food, ‘we'll find somewhere else to stay.'

‘What wrong with your place?' said Cliff.

‘It's too draughty. It's got a piano-shaped hole in the door.'

‘Yes, but you put it there.'

‘So what?'

‘Won't the landlord object?'

‘Of course he'll object. That's what landlords are
for
. Anyway, we're on the up and up, lads. I can feel it in my water.'

‘I thought you were just happy to get paid,' said Buddy.

‘Right. Right. But I'm even happier to get paid a lot.'

The guitar hummed. Buddy picked it up, and plucked a string.

Glod dropped his knife.

‘That sounded like a piano!' he said.

‘I think it can sound like anything,' said Buddy. ‘And now it knows about pianos.'

‘Magic,' said Cliff.

‘Of
course
magic,' said Glod. ‘That's what I keep
saying
. A strange old thing found in a dusty old shop one stormy night—'

‘It wasn't stormy,' said Cliff.

‘—it's
bound
to . . . yes, all right, but it was raining a bit . . . it's
bound
to be a bit special. I bet if we was to go back now the shop wouldn't be there. And that'd prove it. Everyone knows things bought from shops which aren't there next day are dead mysterious and items of Fate. Fate's smiling on us, could be.'

‘Doing something on us,' said Cliff. ‘I hope it's smiling.'

‘And Mr Dibbler said he'd find us somewhere really special to play tomorrow.'

‘Good,' said Buddy. ‘We
must
play.'

‘Right,' said Cliff. ‘We play all right. It's our job.'

‘People should hear our music.'

‘Sure.' Cliff looked puzzled. ‘Right. Of course. Dat's what we want. And some pay, too.'

‘Mr Dibbler'll help us,' said Glod, who was too preoccupied to notice the edge in Buddy's voice. ‘He must be very successful. He's got an office in Sator Square. Only very posh businesses can afford that.'

A new day dawned.

It had hardly finished doing so before Ridcully hurried through the dewy grass of the University gardens and hammered on the door of the High Energy Magic Building.

Generally he never went near the place. It wasn't that he didn't understand what it was the young wizards in there were actually doing, but because he strongly suspected that they didn't, either. They seemed to positively enjoy becoming less and less certain about everything and would come in to dinner saying things like ‘Wow, we've just overturned Marrowleaf's Theory of Thaumic Imponderability! Amazing!' as if it was something to be proud of, instead of gross discourtesy.

And they were always talking about splitting the thaum, the smallest unit of magic. The Archchancellor couldn't see the point. So you had bits all over the place. What good would that do? The universe was bad enough without people poking it.

The door opened.

‘Oh, it's you, Archchancellor.'

Ridcully pushed the door open further.

‘'Morning, Stibbons. Glad to see you're up and about early.'

Ponder Stibbons, the faculty's youngest member, blinked at the sky.

‘Is it morning already?' he said.

Ridcully pushed his way past him and into the HEM. It was unfamiliar ground for a traditional wizard. There wasn't a skull or dribbly candle to be seen; this particular room looked like an alchemist's laboratory had suffered the inevitable explosion and landed in a blacksmith's shop.

Nor did he approve of Stibbons's robe. It was the right length but a washed-out greeny-grey, with pockets and toggles and a hood with a bit of rabbit fur around the edge. There weren't any sequins or jewels or mystic symbols
anywhere
. Just a blodgy stain where Stibbons's pen leaked.

‘You ain't been out lately?' said Ridcully.

‘No, sir. Er. Should I have been? I've been busy working on my Make-It-Bigger device. You know, I showed you—'
¹⁹

‘Right, right,' said Ridcully, looking around. ‘Anyone else been working in here?'

‘Well . . . there's me, and Tez the Terrible and Skazz and Big Mad Drongo, I think . . .'

Ridcully blinked.

‘What are they?' he said. And then, from the depths of memory, a horrible answer suggested itself. Only a very specific species had names like that.

‘Er. Yes?' said Ponder, backing away. ‘That's all right, isn't it? I mean, this
is
a university . . .'

Ridcully scratched his ear. The man was right, of course. You had to have some of the buggers around, there was no getting away from it. Personally, he avoided them whenever possible, as did the rest of the faculty, occasionally running the other way or hiding behind doors whenever they saw them. The Lecturer in Recent Runes had been known to lock himself in his wardrobe rather than take a tutorial.

‘You better fetch 'em,' he said. ‘The fact is, I seem to have lost my faculty.'

‘For what, Archchancellor?' said Ponder, politely.

‘What?'

‘Sorry?'

They looked at one another in incomprehension, two minds driving opposite ways up a narrow street and waiting for the other man to reverse first.

‘
The
faculty,' said Ridcully, giving up. ‘The Dean and whatnot. Gone totally round the corner. Been up all night, playing guitars and whatnot. The Dean's made himself a coat out of leather.'

‘Well, leather
is
a very practical and functional material—'

‘Not the way he's using it,' said Ridcully darkly . . .

. . . ‘And Recent Runes is in his room playing drums, and the rest of them have all got guitars, and what the Bursar's done to the bottom of
his
robe is really strange,' said Ridcully. ‘And the Librarian's wandering around the place pinchin' stuff and no one listens to a word I say.'

He stared at the students. It was a worrying sight, and not just because of the natural look of students. Here were some people who, while this damn music was making everyone tap their feet, had stayed indoors all night –
working
.

‘What are you lot
doing
in here?' he said. ‘You . . . what's your name?'

The student wizard pinned by Ridcully's pointing finger squirmed anxiously.

‘Er. Um. Big Mad Drongo,' he said, twisting the brim of his hat in his hands.

‘Big. Mad. Drongo,' said Ridcully. ‘That's your name, is it? That's what you've got sewn on your vest?'

‘Um. No, Archchancellor.'

‘It is . . . ?'

‘Adrian Turnipseed, Archchancellor.'

‘So why're you called Big Mad Drongo, Mr Turnipseed?' said Ridcully.

‘Um . . . um . . .'

‘He once drank a whole pint of shandy,' said Stibbons, who had the decency to look embarrassed.

Ridcully gave him a carefully blank look. Oh, well. They'd have to do.

‘All right, you lot,' he said, ‘what do you make of this?'

He produced from his robe a Mended Drum beer tankard with a beer mat fastened over the top with a piece of string.

‘What have you got in there, Archchancellor?' said Ponder Stibbons.

‘A piece of music, lad.'

‘Music? But you can't trap music like that.'

‘I wish I was a clever bugger like you and knew every damn thing,' said Ridcully. ‘That big flask over there . . . You – Big Mad Adrian – take the top off it, and be ready to slam it down again when I say. Ready with that lid, Mad Adrian . . .
right
!'

There was a brief angry chord as Ridcully pulled the beer mat off the mug and upended it quickly into the flask. Mad Drongo Adrian slammed the lid down, in total terror of the Archchancellor.

And then they could hear it . . . a persistent faint beat, rebounding off the inner walls of the glass flask.

The students peered in at it.

There was something in there. A sort of movement in the air . . .

‘I trapped it in the Drum last night.'

‘That's not possible,' said Ponder. ‘You can't trap music.'

‘That isn't Klatchian mist, lad.'

‘It's been in that mug since last night?' said Ponder.

‘Yes.'

‘But that's not possible!'

Ponder looked absolutely crestfallen. There are some people born with the instinctive feeling that the universe is solvable.

Ridcully patted him on the shoulder.

‘You never thought that being a wizard was going to be easy, did you?'

Ponder stared at the jar, and then his mouth snapped into a thin line of determination.

‘Right! We're going to sort this out! It must be something to do with the frequency! That's right! Tez the Terrible, get the crystal ball! Skazz, fetch the roll of steel wire! It must be the frequency!'

The Band With Rocks In slept the night away in a single males' hostel in an alley off Gleam Street, a fact that would have interested the four enforcers of the Musicians' Guild sitting outside a piano-shaped hole in Phedre Road.

Susan strode through the rooms of Death, seething gently with anger and just a touch of fear, which only made the anger worse.

How could anyone even
think
like that? How could anyone be content to just be the personification of a blind force? Well, there were going to be changes . . .