Soul Music (16 page)

‘A lick based on an E pentatonic scale using the major seventh as a passing tone?' said the Dean.

The Archchancellor peered at the open page.

‘But
this
says “Lesson One: Fairy Footsteps”,' he said.

‘Um, um, um, I was getting a bit impatient,' said the Dean.

‘You've never been musical, Dean,' said Ridcully. ‘It's one of your good points. Why the sudden interest –
what
have you got on your feet?'

The Dean looked down.

‘I
thought
you were a bit taller,' said Ridcully. ‘You standing on a couple of planks?'

‘They're just thick soles,' said the Dean. ‘Just . . . just something the dwarfs invented, I suppose . . . dunno . . . found them in my closet . . . Modo the gardener says he thinks they're crêpe.'

‘That's strong language for Modo, but I'd say he's right enough.'

‘No . . . it's a kind of rubbery stuff . . .' said the Dean, dismally.

‘Erm . . . excuse me, Archchancellor . . .'

It was the Bursar, standing in the doorway. A large red-faced man was behind him, craning over his shoulder.

‘What is it, Bursar?'

‘Erm, this gentleman has got a—'

‘It's about your monkey,' said the man.

Ridcully brightened up.

‘Oh, yes?'

‘Apparently, erm, he sto—
removed
some wheels from this gentleman's carriage,' said the Bursar, who was on the depressive side of his mental cycle.

‘You sure it was the Librarian?' said the Archchancellor.

‘Fat, red hair, says “ook” a lot?'

‘That's him. Oh, dear. I wonder why he did that?' said Ridcully. ‘Still, you know what they say . . . a five-hundred-pound gorilla can sleep where he likes.'

‘But a three-hundred-pound monkey can give me my bloody wheels back,' said the man, unmoved. ‘If I don't get my wheels back, there's going to be trouble.'

‘Trouble?' said Ridcully.

‘Yeah. And don't think you can scare me. Wizards don't scare me. Everyone knows there's a rule that you mustn't use magic against civilians.' The man thrust his face close to Ridcully and raised a fist.

Ridcully snapped his fingers. There was an inrush of air, and a croak.

‘I've always thought of it more as a guideline,' he said, mildly. ‘Bursar, go and put this frog in the flower-bed and when he becomes his old self give him ten dollars. Ten dollars would be all right, wouldn't it?'

‘Croak,' said the frog hastily.

‘Good. And
now
will someone tell me what's going on?'

There was a series of crashes from downstairs.

‘Why do I think,' said Ridcully to the world in general, ‘that this isn't going to be the answer?'

The servants had been laying the tables for lunch. This generally took some time. Since wizards took their meals seriously, and left a lot of mess, the tables were in a permanent state of being laid, cleaned or occupied. Place-settings alone took a lot of time. Each wizard required nine knives, thirteen forks, twelve spoons and one rammer, quite apart from all the wine glasses.

Wizards often turned up in ample time for the next meal. In fact they were often there in good time to have second helpings of the last one.

A wizard was sitting there now.

‘That's Recent Runes, ain't it?' said Ridcully.

He had a knife in each hand. He also had the salt, pepper and mustard pots in front of him. And the cake-stand. And a couple of tureen covers. All of which he was hitting vigorously with the knives.

‘What's he doing that for?' said Ridcully. ‘And, Dean, will you stop tapping your feet?'

‘Well, it's catchy,' said the Dean.

‘It's
catching
,' said Ridcully.

The Lecturer in Recent Runes was frowning in concentration. Forks jangled across the woodwork. A spoon caught a glancing blow, pinwheeled through the air and hit the Bursar on the ear.

‘What the hells does he think he's doing?'

‘That really hurt!'

The wizards clustered around the Lecturer in Recent Runes. He paid them no attention whatsoever. Sweat poured down his beard.

‘He just broke the cruet,' said Ridcully.

‘It's going to smart for
hours
.'

‘Ah, yes, he's as hot as mustard,' said the Dean.

‘I'd take that with a pinch of salt,' said the Senior Wrangler.

Ridcully straightened up. He raised a hand.

‘Now, someone's about to say something like “I hope the Watch don't
ketchup
with him”, aren't you?' he said. ‘Or “That's a bit of a
sauce
”, or I bet you're all trying to think of somethin' silly to say about pepper. I'd just like to know what's the difference between this faculty and a bunch of pea-brained idiots.'

‘Hahaha,' said the Bursar nervously, still rubbing his ear.

‘It wasn't a rhetorical question.' Ridcully snatched the knives out of the Lecturer's hands. The man went on beating the air for a moment, and then appeared to wake up.

‘Oh, hello, Archchancellor. Is there a problem?'

‘What were you doing?'

The Lecturer looked down at the table.

‘He was syncopating,' said the Dean.

‘I never was!'

Ridcully frowned. He was a thick-skinned, single-minded man with the tact of a sledgehammer and about the same sense of humour, but he was not stupid. And he knew that wizards were like weathervanes, or the canaries that miners used to detect pockets of gas. They were by their nature tuned to an occult frequency. If there was anything
strange
happening, it tended to happen to wizards. They turned, as it were, to face it. Or dropped off their perch.

‘Why's everyone suddenly so musical?' he said. ‘Using the term in its loosest sense, of course.' He looked at the assembled wizardry. And then down towards the floor.

‘You've
all
got crêpe on your shoes!'

The wizards looked at their feet with some surprise.

‘My word, I
thought
I was a bit taller,' said the Senior Wrangler. ‘I put it down to the celery diet.'
¹⁵

‘Proper footwear for a wizard is pointy shoes or good stout boots,' said Ridcully. ‘When one's footwear turns creepy, something's amiss.'

‘It's crêpe,' said the Dean. ‘It's got a little pointy thingy over the—'

Ridcully breathed heavily. ‘
When your boots change by themselves
—' he growled.

‘There's magic afoot?'

‘Haha, good one, Senior Wrangler,' said the Dean.

‘I want to know what's going on,' said Ridcully, in a low and level voice, ‘and if you don't all shut up there will be trouble.'

He reached into the pockets of his robe and, after a few false starts, produced a pocket thaumometer. He held it up. There was always a high level of background magic in the University, but the little needle was on the ‘Normal' mark. On average, anyway. It was ticking backwards and forwards across it like a metronome.

Ridcully held it up so they could all see.

‘What's this?' he said.

‘Four-four time?' said the Dean.

‘Music ain't magic,' said Ridcully. ‘Don't be daft. Music's just twanging and banging and—'

He stopped.

‘Has anyone got anything they should be telling me?'

The wizards shuffled their blue-suede feet nervously.

‘Well,' said the Senior Wrangler, ‘it
is
a fact that last night, er, I, that is to say, some of us, happened to be passing by the Mended Drum—'

‘Bona-Fide Travellers,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. ‘It's allowable for Bona-Fide Travellers to get a Drink at Licensed Premises at any Hour of Day or Night. City statute, you know.'

‘Where were you travelling from, then?' Ridcully demanded.

‘The Bunch of Grapes.'

‘That's just around the corner.'

‘Yes, but we were . . . tired.'

‘All right, all right,' said Ridcully, in the voice of a man who knows that pulling at a thread any more will cause the whole vest to unravel. ‘The Librarian was with you?'

‘Oh, yes.'

‘Go on.'

‘Well, there was this music—'

‘Sort of twangy,' said the Senior Wrangler.

‘Melody led,' said the Dean.

‘It was . . .'

‘. . . sort of . . .'

‘. . . in a way it . . .'

‘. . . kind of gets under your skin and makes you feel fizzy,' said the Dean. ‘Incidentally, has anyone got any black paint? I've looked everywhere.'

‘Under your skin,' murmured Ridcully. He scratched his chin. ‘Oh, dear. One of
those
. Stuff leakin' into the universe again, eh? Influences coming from Outside, yes? Remember what happened when Mr Hong opened his takeaway fish bar on the site of the old temple in Dagon Street? And then there were those moving pictures. I was against
them
from the start. And those wire things on wheels. This universe has more damn holes in it than a Quirm cheese. Well, at—'

‘Lancre cheese,' said the Senior Wrangler helpfully. ‘That's the one with the holes. Quirm is the one with the blue veins.'

Ridcully gave him a look.

‘Actually, it didn't
feel
magical,' said the Dean. He sighed. He was seventy-two. It
had
made him feel that he was seventeen again. He couldn't remember having been seventeen; it was something that must have happened to him while he was busy. But it made him feel like he imagined it felt like when you were seventeen, which was like having a permanent red-hot vest on under your skin.

He wanted to hear it again.

‘I think they're going to have it again tonight,' he ventured. ‘We could, er, go along and listen. In order to learn more about it, in case it's a threat to society,' he added virtuously.

‘That's right, Dean,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. ‘It's our civic duty. We're the city's first line of supernatural defence. Supposing ghastly creatures started coming out of the air?'

‘What about it?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

‘Well, we'd be there.'

‘Yes? That's good, is it?'

Ridcully glared at his wizards. Two of them were surreptitiously tapping their feet. And several of them appeared to be twitching, very gently. The Bursar twitched gently all the time, of course, but that was only his way.

Like canaries, he thought. Or lightning conductors.

‘All right,' he said reluctantly. ‘We'll go. But we won't draw attention to ourselves.'

‘Certainly, Archchancellor.'

‘And everyone's to buy their own drink.'

‘Oh.'

Corporal (possibly) Cotton saluted in front of the fort's sergeant, who was trying to shave.

‘It's the new recruit, sir,' he said. ‘He won't obey orders.'

The sergeant nodded, and then looked blankly at something in his own hand.

‘Razor, sir,' said the corporal helpfully. ‘He just keeps on saying things like
IT'S NOT HAPPENING YET.
'

‘Have you tried burying him up to the neck in the sand? That usually works.'

‘It's a bit . . . um . . . thing . . . nasty to people . . . had it a moment ago . . .' The corporal snapped his fingers. ‘Thing. Cruel. That's it. We don't give people . . . the Pit . . . these days.'

‘This
is
the . . .' the sergeant glanced at the palm of his left hand, where there were several lines of writing, ‘the Foreign Legion.'

‘Yessir. All right, sir. He's weird. He just sits there all the time. We call him Beau Nidle, sir.'

The sergeant peered bemusedly at the mirror.

‘It's your face, sir,' said the corporal.

Susan stared at herself critically.

Susan . . . it wasn't a good name, was it? It wasn't a truly
bad
name, it wasn't like poor Iodine in the fourth form, or Nigella, a name which means ‘oops, we wanted a boy'. But it was
dull
. Susan. Sue. Good old Sue. It was a name that made sandwiches, kept its head in difficult circumstances and could reliably look after other people's children.

It was a name used by no queens or goddesses anywhere.

And you couldn't do much even with the spelling. You could turn it into Suzi, and it sounded as though you danced on tables for a living. You could put in a Z and a couple of Ns and an E, but it still looked like a name with extensions built on. It was as bad as Sara, a name that cried out for a prosthetic H.

Well, at least she could do something about the way she looked.

It was the robe. It might be traditional but . . .
she
wasn't. The alternative was her school uniform or one of her mother's pink creations. The baggy dress of the Quirm College for Young Ladies was a proud one and, in the mind of Miss Butts at least, proof against all the temptations of the flesh . . . but it lacked a certain panache as costume for the Ultimate Reality. And pink was not even to be thought of.

For the first time in the history of the universe, a Death wondered about what to wear.

‘Hold on,' she said, to her reflection. ‘
Here
 . . . I can create things, can't I?'

She held out her hand and thought: cup. A cup appeared. It had a skull-and-bones pattern around the rim.