It sounded, they say, like someone counting: One, Two, Three, Four.
The very best one, who listened to basalt, said he thought he could make out, very faintly, some numbers that came even earlier.
When they asked him what it was, he said: “It sounds like One, Two.”
No one ever asked what, if there was a sound that called the universe into being, what happened to it afterward. It’s mythology. You’re not supposed to ask that kind of question.
On the other hand, Ridcully believed that everything had come into being by chance or, in the particular case of the Dean, out of spite.
Senior wizards didn’t usually drink in the Mended Drum except when they were off duty. They were aware that they were here tonight in some sort of ill-defined official capacity, and were seated rather primly in front of their drinks.
There was a ring of empty seats around them, but it was not very big because the Drum was unusually crowded.
“Lot of ambience in here,” said Ridcully, looking around. “Ah, I see they do Real Ale again. I’ll have a pint of Turbot’s Really Odd, please.”
The wizards watched him as he drained the mug. Ankh-Morpork beer has a flavor all its own; it’s something to do with the water. Some people say it’s like consommé, but they are wrong. Consommé is cooler.
Ridcully smacked his lips happily.
“Ah, we certainly know what goes into good beer in Ankh-Morpork,” he said.
The wizards nodded. They certainly did. That’s why they were drinking gin and tonic.
Ridcully looked around. Normally at this time of night there was a fight going on somewhere, or at least a mild stabbing. But there was just a buzz of conversation and everyone was watching the small stage at the far end of the room, where nothing was happening in large amounts. There was theoretically a curtain across it; it was only an old sheet, and there was a succession of thuds and thumps from behind it.
The wizards were quite close to the stage. Wizards tend to get good seats. Ridcully thought he could make out some whispering, and see the shadows moving behind the sheet.
“He said what do we call ourselves?”
“Cliff, Buddy, Glod, and the Librarian. I thought he knew that.”
“No, we’ve got to have one name for all of us.”
“Dey rationed, den?”
“Something like The Merry Troubadours, maybe.”
“Oook!”
“Glod and the Glodettes?”
“Oh, yes? How about Cliff and the Cliffettes?”
“Oook ook Oook-ook?”
“No. We need a different type of name. Like the music.”
“How about Gold? Good dwarf name.”
“No. Something different from that.”
“Silver, then.”
“Ook!”
“I don’t think we should name ourselves after any kind of heavy metal, Glod.”
“What’s so special? We’re a band of people who play music.”
“Names are important.”
“The guitar is special. How about The Band With Buddy’s Guitar In It?”
“Oook.”
“Something shorter.”
“Er…”
The universe held its breath.
“The Band with Rocks In?”
“I like it. Short and slightly dirty, just like me.”
“Oook.”
“We ought to think up a name for the music, too.”
“It’s bound to occur to us sooner or later.”
Ridcully looked around the bar.
On the opposite side of the room was Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork’s most spectacularly unsuccessful businessman. He was trying to sell someone a felonious hot dog, a sign that some recent surefire business venture had collapsed. Dibbler sold his hot sausages only when all else failed. *
He gave Ridcully a wave at no charge.
The next table was occupied by Satchelmouth Lemon, one of the Musicians’ Guild’s recruiting officers, with a couple of associates whose apparent knowledge of music extended only to the amount of percussion available on the human skull. His determined expression suggested that he was not there for his health, although the fact that the Guild officers had a mean look about them rather hinted he was there for other people’s health, mostly in order to take it away.
Ridcully brightened up. The evening might just possibly be more interesting than he had expected.
There was another table near the stage. He nearly didn’t notice it, and then his gaze swiveled back to it of its own accord.
There was a young woman sitting there, all by herself. Of course, it wasn’t unusual to see young women in the Drum. Even unaccompanied young women. They were generally there in order to become accompanied.
The odd thing was that, although people were jammed along the benches, she had space all around her. She was quite attractive in a skinny way, Ridcully thought. What was the tomboy word? Gammon, or something. She was wearing a black lace dress of the sort worn by healthy young women who want to look consumptive, and had a raven sitting on her shoulder.
She turned her head, saw Ridcully looking at her, and vanished.
More or less.
He was a wizard, after all. He felt his eyes watering as she flickered in and out of vision.
Ah. Well, he’d heard the Tooth Fairy girls were in the city these days. It’d be one of the night people. They probably had a day off, just like everyone else.
A movement on the table made him look down. The Death of Rats skrittered past, carrying a bowl of peanuts.
He turned back to the wizards. The Dean was still wearing his pointy hat. There was also something slightly shiny about his face.
“You look hot, Dean,” said Ridcully.
“Oh, I’m lovely and cool, Archchancellor, I assure you,” said the Dean. Something runny oozed past his nose.
The Lecturer in Recent Runes sniffed suspiciously.
“Is someone cooking bacon?” he said.
“Take it off, Dean,” said Ridcully. “You’ll feel a lot better.”
“Smells more like Mrs. Palm’s House of Negotiable Affection to me,” said the Senior Wrangler. They looked at him in surprise. “I just happened to walk past once,” he said quickly.
“Runes, please take the Dean’s hat off for him, will you?” said Ridcully.
“I assure you—”
The hat came off. Something long and greasy and very nearly the same pointy shape flopped forward.
“Dean,” said Ridcully eventually, “what have you done to your hair? It looks like a spike at the front and a duck’s arse, excuse my Klatchian, at the back. And it’s all shiny.”
“Lard. That’d be the bacon smell, “said the Lecturer.
“That’s true,” said Ridcully. “But what about the floral smell?”
“mumblemumblemumblelavendermumble,” said the Dean sullenly.
“Pardon, Dean?”
“I said it’s because I added lavender oil,” said the Dean loudly. “And some of us happen to think it’s a rather nifty hairstyle, thank you so very much. Your trouble, Archchancellor, is that you don’t understand people of our age!”
“What…you mean seven months older than me?” said Ridcully.
This time the Dean hesitated.
“What did I just say?” he said.
“Have you been taking dried frog pills, old chap?” said Ridcully.
“Of course not, they’re for the mentally unstable!” said the Dean.
“Ah. There’s the trouble, then.”
The curtain went up or, rather, was jerkily pulled aside.
The Band with Rocks In blinked in the torchlight.
No one clapped. On the other hand, No one threw anything, either. By Drum standards, this was a hearty welcome.
Ridcully saw a tall, curly-headed young man clutching what looked like an undernourished guitar or possibly a banjo that had been used in a fight. Beside him was a dwarf, holding a battle horn. At the rear was a troll, ham
mer in each paw, seated behind a pile of rocks. And to one side was the Librarian, standing in front of…Ridcully leaned forward…what appeared to be the skeleton of a piano, balanced on some beer kegs.
The boy looked paralyzed by the attention.
He said: “Hello…er…Ankh-Morpork…”
And, this amount of conversation apparently having exhausted him, he started to play.
It was a simple little rhythm, one that you might easily have ignored if you’d met it in the street. It was followed by a sequence of crashing chords and then, Ridcully realized, it hadn’t been followed by the chords, because the rhythm was there all the time. Which was impossible. No guitar could be played like that.
The dwarf blew a sequence of notes on the horn. The troll picked up the beat. The Librarian brought both hands down upon the piano keyboard, apparently at random.
Ridcully had never heard such a din.
And then…and then…it wasn’t a din anymore.
It was like that nonsense about white light that the young wizards in the High Energy Magic Building went on about. They said that all the colors together made up white, which was bloody nonsense as far as Ridcully was concerned, because everyone knew that if you mixed up all the colors you could get your hands on you got a sort of greeny-brown mess which certainly wasn’t any kind of white. But now he had a vague idea what they meant.
All this noise, this mess of music, suddenly came together and there was a new music inside it.
The Dean’s quiff was quivering.
The whole crowd was moving.
Ridcully realized his foot was tapping. He stamped on it with his other foot.
Then he watched the troll pick up the beat and hammer the rocks until the walls shook. The Librarian’s fingers swooped along the keyboard. Then his toes did the same. And all the time the guitar hooted and screamed and sang out the melody.
The wizards were bouncing in their seats and twirling their fingers in the air.
Ridcully leaned over to the Bursar and screamed at him.
“What?” shouted the Bursar.
“I said, they’ve all gone mad except me and you!”
“What?”
“It’s the music!”
“Yes! It’s great!” said the Bursar, waving his skinny hands in the air.
“And I’m not too certain about you!”
Ridcully sat down again and pulled out the thaumometer. It was vibrating crazily, which was no help at all. It didn’t seem to be able to decide if this was magic or not.
He nudged the Bursar sharply.
“This ain’t magic! This is something else!”
“You’re exactly right!”
Ridcully had the feeling that he suddenly wasn’t speaking the right language.
“I mean it’s too much!”
“Yes!”
Ridcully sighed.
“Is it time for your dried frog pill?”
Smoke was coming out of the stricken piano. The Librarian’s hands were walking through the keys like Casanunda in a nunnery.
Ridcully looked around. He felt all alone.
Someone else hadn’t been overcome by the music. Satchelmouth had stood up. So had his two associates.
They had drawn some knobbly clubs. Ridcully knew the Guild laws. Of course, they had to be enforced. You couldn’t run a city without them. This certainly wasn’t licensed music—if ever there was unlicensed music, this was it. Nevertheless…he rolled up his sleeve and prepared a quick fireball, just in case.
One of the men dropped his club and clutched his foot. The other one spun around as if something had slapped his ear. Satchelmouth’s hat dented, as if someone had just hit him on the head.
Ridcully, one eye watering terribly, thought he made out the Tooth Fairy girl bringing the handle of a scythe down on Satchelmouth’s head.
The Archchancellor was quite a bright man but often had trouble in forcing his train of thought to change tracks. He was having difficulty with the idea of a scythe, after all, grass didn’t have teeth—and then the fireball burned his fingers, and then, as he sucked frantically at them, he realized that there was something in the sound. Something extra.
“Oh, no,” he said, as the fireball floated to the floor and set fire to the Bursar’s boot, “it’s alive.”
He grabbed the beer mug, finished the contents hurriedly, and rammed it upside down on the tabletop.
The moon shone over the Klatchian desert, in the vicinity of the dotted line. Both sides of it got exactly the same amount of moonlight, although minds like Mr. Clete’s deplored this state of affairs.
The sergeant strolled across the packed sand of the parade ground. He stopped, sat down, and produced a cheroot. Then he pulled out a match, reached down, and struck it on something sticking out of the sand, which said:
GOOD EVENING.
“I expect you’ve had enough, eh, soldier?” said the sergeant.
ENOUGH WHAT, SERGEANT?
“Two days in the sun, no food, no water…I expect you’re delirious with thirst and are just begging to be dug out, eh?”
YES. IT IS CERTAINLY VERY DULL.
“Dull?”
I AM AFRAID SO.
“Dull? It’s not meant to be dull! It’s the Pit! It’s meant to be a horrible physical and mental torture! After one day of it you’re supposed to be a…” The sergeant glanced surreptitiously at some writing on his wrist, “…a raving madman! I’ve been watching you all day! You haven’t even groaned! I can’t sit in my…thing, you sit in it, there’s papers and things…”
OFFICE.
“…working with you outside like this! I can’t bear it!”
Beau Nidle glanced upward. He felt it was time for a kindly gesture.
HELP, HELP. HELP, HELP, he said.
The sergeant sagged with relief.
THIS ASSISTS PEOPLE TO FORGET, DOES IT?
“Forget? People forget everything when they’re given…er…”
THE PIT.
“Yes! That’s it!”
AH. DO YOU MIND IF I ASK A QUESTION?
“What?”
DO YOU MIND IF PERHAPS I HAVE ANOTHER DAY?
The sergeant opened his mouth to reply, and the D’regs attacked over the nearest sand dune.
“Music?” said the Patrician. “Ah. Tell me more.”
He leaned back in an attitude that suggested attentive listening. He was extremely good at listening. He created a kind of mental suction. People told him things just to avoid the silence.
Besides, Lord Vetinari, the supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork, rather liked music.
People wondered what sort of music would appeal to such a man. Highly formalized chamber music, possibly, or thunder-and-lightning opera scores.
In fact the kind of music he really liked was the kind that never got played. It ruined music, in his opinion, to torment it by involving it on dried skins, bits of dead cat, and lumps of metal hammered into wires and tubes. It ought to stay written down, on the page, in rows of little dots and crotchets all neatly caught between lines. Only there was it pure. It was when people started doing things with it that the rot set in. Much better to sit quietly in a room and read the sheets, with nothing between yourself and the mind of the composer but a scribble of ink. Having it played by sweaty fat men and people with hair in their ears and spit dribbling out of the end of their oboe…well, the idea made him shudder. Although not much, because he never did anything to extremes.
So…
“And then what happened?” he said.
“An’ then he started singin’, yerronner,” said Cumbling Michael, licensed beggar and informal informant. “A song about Great Fiery Balls.”
The Patrician raised an eyebrow.
“Pardon?”
“Somethin’ like that. Couldn’t really make out the words, the reason bein’, the piano exploded.”
“Ah? I imagine this interrupted the proceedings somewhat.”
“Nah, the monkey went on playin’ what was lef
t,” said Cumbling Michael. “And people got up and started cheerin’ and dancin’ and stampin’ their feet like there was a plague of cockroaches.”
“And you say the men from the Musicians’ Guild were hurt?”
“It was dead strange. They were white as a sheet afterward. At least,” Cumbling Michael thought about the state of his own bedding, “white as some sheets—”
The Patrician glanced at his reports while the beggar talked. It had certainly been a strange evening. A riot at the Drum…well, that was normal, although it didn’t sound exactly like a typical riot and he’d never heard of wizards dancing. He rather felt he recognized the signs…There was only one thing that could make it worse.
“Tell me,” he said. “What was Mr. Dibbler’s reaction to all this?”
“What, yerronner?”
“A simple enough question, I should have thought.”
Cumbling Michael found the words “But how did you know ole Dibbler was there? I never said” arranging themselves for the attention of his larynx, and then had second, third, and fourth thoughts about saying them.
“He just sat and stared, yerronner. With his mouth open. And then he rushed right out.”
“I see. Oh, dear. Thank you, Cumbling Michael. Feel free to leave.”
The beggar hesitated.
“Foul Ole Ron said as yerronner sometimes pays for information,” he said.
“Did he? Really? He said that, did he? Well, that is interesting.” Vetinari scribbled a note in the margin of a report. “Thank you.”
“Er—”
“Don’t let me detain you.”
“Er. No. Gods bless yerronner,” said Cumbling Michael, and ran for it.
When the sound of the beggar’s boots had died away the Patrician strolled over to the window, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, and sighed.
There were probably city-states, he reasoned, where the rulers only had to worry about the little things…barbarian invasions, the balance of payments, assassination, the local volcano erupting. There weren’t people busily opening the door of reality and metaphorically saying, “Hi, come on in, pleased to see you, what a nice ax you have there, incidentally, can I make some money out of you since you’re here?”
Sometimes Lord Vetinari wondered what had happened to Mr. Hong. Everyone knew, of course. In general terms. But not exactly what.
Discworld 16 - Soul Music Page 14