Soul Music (6 page)

As Susan saw it, the world offered two choices. She could go back to bed, or she could follow the rat.

Which would be a stupid thing to do. Soppy people in books did that sort of thing. They ended up in some idiot world with goblins and feeble-minded talking animals. And they were such sad, wet girls. They always let things
happen
to them, without making any
effort
. They just went around saying things like ‘My goodness me', when it was obvious that any sensible human being could soon get the place properly organized.

Actually, when you thought of it like that, it was tempting . . . The world held too much fluffy thinking. She always told herself that it was the job of people like Susan, if there were any more like her, to sort it out.

She pulled on her dressing-gown and climbed over the sill, holding on until the last moment and dropping into a flower-bed.

The rat was a tiny shape scurrying across the moonlit lawn. She followed it around to the stables, where it vanished somewhere in the shadows.

As she stood feeling slightly chilly and more than slightly an idiot, it returned dragging an object rather bigger than itself. It looked like a bundle of old rags.

The skeletal rat walked around the side of it and gave the ragged bundle a good hard kick.

‘All
right
, all
right
!'

The bundle opened one eye, which swivelled around wildly until it focused on Susan.

‘I warn you,' said the bundle, ‘I don't do the N word.'

‘I'm sorry?' said Susan.

The bundle rolled over, staggered upright and extended two scruffy wings. The rat stopped kicking it.

‘I'm a raven, aren't I?' it said. ‘One of the few birds who speak. The first thing people say is, oh, you're a raven, go on, say the N word . . . If I had a penny every time that's happened, I'd—'

‘All
right
, all
right
.' The raven ruffled its feathers. ‘This thing here is the Death of Rats. Note the scythe and cowl, yes? Death of Rats. Very big in the rat world.'

The Death of Rats bowed.

‘Tends to spend a lot of time under barns and anywhere people have put down a plate of bran laced with strychnine,' said the raven. ‘Very conscientious.'

‘All right. What does it – he want with me?' said Susan. ‘I'm not a rat.'

‘Very perspicacious of you,' said the raven. ‘Look, I didn't ask to do this, you know. I was asleep on my skull, next minute he had a grip on my leg. Being a raven, as I said, I'm naturally an occult bird—'

‘Sorry,' said Susan. ‘I know this is all one of those dreams, so I want to make sure I understand it. You said . . . you were asleep on your
skull
?'

‘Oh, not my
personal
skull,' said the raven. ‘It's someone else's.'

‘Whose?'

The raven's eyes spun wildly. It never managed to have both eyes pointing in the same direction. Susan had to resist trying to move around to follow them.

‘How do I know? They don't come with a label on them,' it said. ‘It's just a skull. Look . . . I work for this wizard, right? Down in the town. I sit on this skull all day and go “caw” at people—'

‘Why?'

‘
Because
a raven sitting on a skull and going “caw” is as much part of your actual wizarding
modus operandi
as the big dribbling candles and the old stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling. Don't you know anything? I should have thought anyone knows that who knows anything about anything. Why, a proper wizard might as well not even have bubbling green stuff in bottles as be without his raven sitting on a skull and going “caw”—'

SQUEAK
!

‘Look, you have to lead up to things with humans,' said the raven wearily. One eye focused on Susan again. ‘He's not one for subtleties, him. Rats don't argue questions of a philosophical nature when they're dead. Anyway, I'm the only person round here he knows who can talk—'

‘Humans can talk,' said Susan.

‘Oh, indeed,' said the raven, ‘but the key point about humans, a crucial distinction you might say, is that they're not prone to being woken up in the middle of the night by a skeletal rat who needs an interpreter in a hurry. Anyway, humans can't see him.'

‘I can see him.'

‘Ah. I think you've put your digit on the nub, crux and gist of it all,' said the raven. ‘The marrow, as you might say.'

‘Look,' said Susan, ‘I'd just like you to know that I don't believe any of this. I don't believe there's a Death of Rats in a cowl carrying a scythe.'

‘He's standing in front of you.'

‘That's no reason to believe it.'

‘I can see you've certainly had a
proper
education,' said the raven sourly.

Susan stared down at the Death of Rats. There was a blue glow deep in its eye sockets.

‘The thing is,' said the raven, ‘that he's gone again.'

‘Who?'

‘Your . . . grandfather.'

‘Grandad Lezek? How can he be gone again? He's dead!'

‘Your . . . er . . .
other
grandfather . . . ?' said the raven.

‘I haven't got—'

Images rose from the mud at the bottom of her mind. Something about a horse . . . and there was a room full of whispers. And a bathtub, that seemed to fit in somewhere. And fields of wheat came into it, too.

‘This is what happens when people try to educate their children,' said the raven, ‘instead of telling them things.'

‘I thought my other grandad was also . . . dead,' said Susan.

‘The rat says you've got to come with him. It's very important.'

The image of Miss Butts rose like a Valkyrie in Susan's mind. This was
silliness
.

‘Oh, no,' said Susan. ‘It must be midnight already. And we've got a geography exam tomorrow.'

The raven opened its beak in astonishment.

‘You can't be saying that,' it said.

‘You really expect me to take instructions from a . . . a bony rat and a talking raven? I'm going back!'

‘No, you're not,' said the raven. ‘No one with any blood in them'd go back now. You'd never find things out if you went back now. You'd just get educated.'

‘But I haven't got
time
,' Susan wailed.

‘Oh,
time
,' said the raven. ‘Time's mainly habit. Time is not a particular feature of things for
you
.'

‘How—'

‘You'll have to find out, won't you?'

The raven jumped up and down excitedly.

‘Can I tell her? Can I tell her?' it squawked. It swivelled its eyes towards Susan.

‘Your grandfather,' it said, ‘is . . . (dah dah dah
DAH
) . . . Dea—'

SQUEAK
!

‘She's got to know some time,' said the raven.

‘Deaf? My grandfather is deaf?' said Susan. ‘You've got me out here in the middle of the night to talk about
hearing difficulties
?'

‘I didn't say deaf, I said your grandfather is . . . (dah dah dah
DAH
) . . . D—'

SQUEAK
!

‘All
right
! Have it your way!'

Susan backed away while the two of them argued.

Then she grasped the skirts of her nightdress and ran, out of the yard and across the damp lawns. The window was still open. She managed, by standing on the sill of the one below, to grab the ledge and heave herself up and into the dormitory. She got into bed and pulled the blankets over her head . . .

After a while she realized that this was an unintelligent reaction. But she left them where they were, anyway.

She dreamed of horses and coaches and a clock without hands.

‘D'you think we could have handled that better?'

SQUEAK?
‘Dah dah dah
DAH
'
SQUEAK?

‘How did you expect me to put it. “Your grandfather is Death?” Just like that? Where's the sense of occasion? Humans like drama.'

SQUEAK,
the Death of Rats pointed out.

‘Rats is different.'

‘I reckon I ought to call it a night,' said the raven. ‘Ravens are not generally nocturnal, you know.' It scratched at its bill with a foot. ‘Do you just do rats, or mice and hamsters and weasels and stuff like that as well?'

‘Gerbils? How about gerbils?'

‘Fancy that. I never knew that. Death of Gerbils, too? Amazing how you can catch up with them on those treadmills—'

‘Please yourself.'

There are the people of the day, and the creatures of the night.

And it's important to remember that the creatures of the night aren't simply the people of the day staying up late because they think that makes them cool and interesting. It takes a lot more than heavy mascara and a pale complexion to cross the divide.

Heredity can help, of course.

The raven had grown up in the forever-crumbling, ivy-clad Tower of Art, overlooking Unseen University in far Ankh-Morpork. Ravens are naturally intelligent birds, and magical leakage, which has a tendency to exaggerate things, had done the rest.

It didn't have a name. Animals don't normally bother with them.

The wizard who thought he owned him called him Quoth, but that was only because he didn't have a sense of humour and, like most people without a sense of humour, prided himself on the sense of humour he hadn't, in fact, got.

The raven flew back to the wizard's house, skimmed in through the open window, and took up his roost on the skull.

‘Poor kid,' he said.

‘That's destiny for you,' said the skull.

‘I don't blame her for trying to be normal. Considering.'

‘Yes,' said the skull. ‘Quit while you're a head, that's what I say.'

The owner of a grain silo in Ankh-Morpork was having a bit of a crackdown. The Death of Rats could hear the distant yapping of the terriers. It was going to be a busy night.

It would be too hard to describe the Death of Rats' thought-processes, or even be certain that he had any. He had a feeling that he shouldn't have involved the raven, but humans set a great store by words.

Rats don't think very far ahead, except in general terms. In general terms, he was very, very worried. He hadn't expected education.

Susan got through the next morning without having to go non-existent. Geography consisted of the flora of the Sto Plains,
³
chief exports of the Sto Plains,
⁴
and the fauna of the Sto Plains.
⁵
Once you mastered the common denominator, it was straightforward. The gels had to colour in a map. This involved a lot of green. Lunch was Dead Man's Fingers and Eyeball Pudding, a healthy ballast for the afternoon's occupation, which was Sport.

This was the province of Iron Lily, who was rumoured to shave and lift weights with her teeth, and whose shouts of encouragement as she thundered up and down the touchline tended towards the nature of ‘Get some ball, you bunch of soft nellies!'

Miss Butts and Miss Delcross kept their windows closed on games afternoon. Miss Butts ferociously read logic and Miss Delcross, in her idea of a toga, practised eurhythmics in the gym.

Susan surprised people by being good at sport. Some sport, anyway. Hockey, lacrosse and rounders, certainly. Any game that involved putting a stick of some sort in her hands and asking her to swing it, definitely. The sight of Susan advancing towards goal with a calculating look made any goalie lose all faith in her protective padding and throw herself flat as the ball flashed past at waist height, making a humming noise.

It was only evidence of the general stupidity of the rest of humanity, Susan considered, that although she was manifestly one of the best players in the school she never got picked for teams. Even fat girls with spots got picked before her. It was so infuriatingly unreasonable, and she could never understand why.

She'd explained to other girls how good she was, and demonstrated her skill, and pointed out just how stupid they were in not picking her. For some exasperating reason it didn't seem to have any effect.

This afternoon she went for an official walk instead. This was an acceptable alternative, provided girls went in company. Usually they went into town and bought stale fish and chips from an unfragrant shop in Three Roses Alley; fried food was considered unhealthy by Miss Butts, and therefore bought out of school at every opportunity.

Girls had to walk in groups of three or more. Peril, in Miss Butts's conjectural experience, couldn't happen to units of more than two.

In any case it was certainly unlikely to happen to any group that contained Princess Jade and Gloria Thogsdaughter.

The school's owners had been a bit bothered about taking a troll, but Jade's father was king of an entire mountain and it always looked good to have royalty on the roll. And besides, Miss Butts had remarked to Miss Delcross, it's our
duty
to encourage them if they show any inclination to become
real
people and the King is actually quite
charming
and assures me he can't even
remember
when he last ate anyone. Jade had bad eyesight, a note excusing her from unnecessary sunshine, and knitting chain mail in handicraft class.