Discworld 16 - Soul Music

by Terry Pratchett

  “It’s important. We’ve got to pick up something.”

  People flocked the streets. This wasn’t unusual, except that this time most of them were moving the same way.

  “And you get down in the back of the cart,” said Glod to Buddy. “We don’t want young women trying to rip your clothes off, eh, Buddy…?”

  He turned. Buddy had gone to sleep again.

  “Speaking for myself—” Cliff began.

  “You’ve only got a loincloth,” said Glod.

  “Well, dey could grab it, couldn’t dey?”

  The cart threaded its way through the streets until it turned into Cunning Artificers.

  It was a street of tiny shops. In this street you could have anything made, repaired, crafted, rebuilt, copied, or forged. Furnaces glowed in every doorway; smelters smoked in every backyard. Makers of intricate clockwork eggs worked alongside armourers. Carpenters worked next door to men who carved ivory into tiny shapes so delicate that they used grasshoppers’ legs, cast in bronze, for saws. At least one in every four craftsmen was making tools to be used by the other three. Shops didn’t just abut, they overlapped; if a carpenter had a big table to make, he relied on the goodwill of his neighbors to make space, so that he’d be working at one end of it while two jewelers and a potter were using the other end as a bench. There were shops where you could drop in to be measured in the morning and pick up a complete suit of chain mail with an extra pair of pants in the afternoon.

  The cart stopped outside one small shop and Glod leapt down and went inside.

  Asphalt heard the conversation:

  “Have you done it?”

  “Here you are, mister. Right as rain.”

  “Will it play? You know I said where you have to have spent a fortnight wrapped in a bullock hide behind a waterfall before you should touch one of these things.”

  “Listen, mister, for this kind of money it had me in the shower for five minutes with a chamois leather on me head. Don’t tell me that’s not good enough for folk music.”

  There was a pleasant sound, which hung in the air for a moment before being lost in the busy din of the street.

  “We said twenty dollars, right?”

  “No, you said twenty dollars. I said twenty-five dollars,” said a cunning voice.

  “Just a minute, then.”

  Glod came out, and nodded at Cliff.

  “All right,” he said. “He’s too cunning for me. Cough up.”

  Cliff growled, but fumbled for a moment somewhere at the back of his mouth.

  They heard the cunning artificer say, “What the hell’s that?”

  “A molar. Got to be worth at least—”

  “It’ll do.”

  Glod came out again with a sack, which he tucked under the seat.

  “Okay,” he said. “Head for the park.”

  They went in through one of the back gates. Or, at least, tried to. Two trolls barred their way. They had the glossy marble patina of Chrysoprase’s basic gang thugs. He didn’t have henchmen. Most trolls weren’t clever enough to hench.

  “Dis is for der bands,” one said.

  “Dat’s right,” said the other one.

  “We are The Band,” said Asphalt.

  “Which one?” said the first troll. “I got a list here.”

  “Dat’s right.”

  “We’re the Band With Rocks In,” said Glod.

  “Hah, you ain’t them. I’ve seen them. Dere’s a guy with this glow round him, and when he plays der guitar it goes—”

  Whauauauaummmmm-eeeee-gngngn.

  “Dat’s right—”

  The chord curled around the cart.

  Buddy was standing up, guitar at the ready.

  “Oh, wow,” said the first troll. “This are amazing!” He fumbled in his loincloth and produced a dog-eared piece of paper. “You couldn’t write your name down, could you? My boy Clay, he won’t believe I met—”

  “Yes, yes,” said Buddy wearily. “Pass it up.”

  “Only it not for me, it for my boy Clay—” said the troll, jumping from one foot to the other in excitement.

  “How d’you spell it?”

  “It don’t matter, he can’t read anyway.”

  “Listen,” said Glod, as the cart trundled into the backstage area. “Someone’s already playing. I said we—”

  Dibbler hurried up.

  “What kept you?” he said. “You’ll be on soon! Right after…Boyz From the Wood. How did it go? Asphalt, come here.”

  He pulled the small troll into the shadows at the back of the stage.

  “You brought me some money?” he said.

  “About three thousand—”

  “Not so loud!”

  “I’m only whispering it, Mr. Dibbler.”

  Dibbler looked around carefully. There was no such thing as a whisper in Ankh-Morpork when the sum involved had the word “thousand” in it somewhere; people could hear you think that kind of money in Ankh-Morpork.

  “You be sure and keep an eye on it, right? There’s going to be more before this day’s out. I’ll give Chrysoprase his seven hundred dollars and the rest is all prof—” He caught Asphalt’s beady little eye and remembered himself. “Of course, there’s depreciation…overheads…advertising…market research…buns…mustard…basically, I’ll be lucky if I break even. I’m practically cutting me own throat in this deal.”

  “Yes, Mr. Dibbler.”

  Asphalt peered around the edge of the stage.

  “Who’s that playing now, Mr. Dibbler?”

  “‘And you.’”

  “Sorry, Mr. Dibbler?”

  “Only they write it & U,” said Dibbler. He relaxed a little and pulled out a cigar. “Don’t ask me why. The right kind of name for musicians ought to be something like Blondie and His Merry Troubadours. Are they any good?”

  “Don’t you know, Mr. Dibbler?”

  “It’s not what I call music,” said Dibbler. “When I was a lad we had proper music with real words…‘Summer is icumen in, lewdly sing cuckoo,’ that sort of thing.”

  Asphalt looked at & U again.

  “Well, it’s got a beat and you can dance to it,” he said, “but they’re not very good. I mean, people are just watching them. They don’t just watch when The Band are playing, Mr. Dibbler.”

  “You’re right,” said Dibbler. He looked at the front of the stage. In between the candles were a row of music traps.

  “You’d better go and tell them to get ready. I think this lot are running out of ideas.”

  “Um. Buddy?”

  He looked up from his guitar. Some of the other musicians were tuning theirs, but he’d found he never had to. He couldn’t, anyway. The pegs didn’t move.

  “What is it?”

  “Um,” said Glod. He waved vaguely at Cliff, who grinned sheepishly and produced the sack from behind his back.

  “This is…well, we thought…that is, all of us,” said Glod, “that…well, we saw it, you see, and I know you said it couldn’t be repaired but there’s people in this city that can do just about anything so we asked around, and we knew how much it meant to you, and there’s this man in the Street of Cunning Artificers and he said he thought he could do it and it cost Cliff another tooth but here you are anyway because you’re right, we’re on top of the music business right enough and it’s because of you and we know how much this meant to you so it’s a sort of thank-you present, well, go on then, give it to him.”

  Cliff, who’d lowered his arm again as the sentence began to extend, pushed the sack toward the puzzled Buddy.

  Asphalt poked his head through the sacking.

  “We guys better get on the stage,” he said. “Come on!”

  Buddy put down the guitar. He opened the sack, and began to pull at the linen wrappings inside.

  “It’s been tuned and everything,” said Cliff helpfully.

  The harp gleamed in the sun as the last wrapping came off.

  “They can do amazing things with glue and
stuff,” said Glod. “I mean, I know you said there wasn’t anyone left in Llamedos that could repair it. But this is Ankh-Morpork. We can fix nearly everything.”

  “Please!” said Asphalt, as his head reappeared. “Mr. Dibbler says you’ve got to come, they’ve started to throw things!”

  “I don’t know much about strings,” said Glod, “But I had a go. Sounds…kind of nice.”

  “I…er…don’t know what to say,” said Buddy.

  The chanting was like a hammer.

  “I…won this,” said Imp y Celyn, sometimes known as Buddy, in a small, distant world of his own. “With a song. ‘Sioni Bod Da,’ it was. I worked on it alll winter. Alll about…home, you know. And going away, see? And trees and things. The judges were…very plllleased. They said that in fifty years I might realllly understand music.”

  He pulled the harp toward him.

  Dibbler pushed his way through the rabble of musicians backstage until he found Asphalt.

  “Well?” he said. “Where are they?”

  “They’re just sitting around talking, Mr. Dibbler.”

  “Listen,” said Dibbler. “You hear the crowd? It’s Music With Rocks In they want! If they don’t get it…they’d just better get it, all right? Letting the anticipation build up is all very well but…I want them onstage right now!”

  Buddy stared at his fingers. Then he looked up, white faced, at the other bands milling around.

  “You…with the guitar…” he said hoarsely.

  “Me, sir?”

  “Give it to me!”

  Every nascent group in Ankh-Morpork was in awe of The Band With Rocks In. The guitarist handed his instrument over with the expression of one passing over a holy item to be blessed.

  Buddy stared at it. It was one of Mr. Wheedown’s best.

  He struck a chord.

  The sound sounded like lead would sound if you could make guitar strings out of it.

  “Okay, boys, what’s the problem?” said Dibbler, hurrying toward them. “There’s six thousand ears out there waiting to be filled up with music and you’re still sitting around?”

  Buddy handed the guitar back to the musician and swung his own instrument around on its strap. He played a few notes that seemed to twinkle in the air.

  “But I can play this,” he said. “Oh, yes.”

  “Right, good, now get up there and play it,” said Dibbler.

  “Someone else give me a guitar!”

  Musicians fell over themselves to hand them to him. He strummed frantically at a couple. But the notes weren’t simply flat. Flat would have been an improvement.

  The Musicians’ Guild contingent had managed to secure an area close to the stage by the simple expedient of hitting any encroachers very hard.

  Mr. Clete scowled at the stage.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “It’s rubbish. It’s all the same. It’s just noise. What’s so good about it?”

  Satchelmouth, who had twice had to stop himself tapping his feet, said, “We haven’t had the main band yet. Er. Are you sure you want to—”

  “We’re within our rights,” said Clete. He looked around at the shouting people. “There’s a hot dog seller over there. Anyone else fancy a hot dog? Hot dog?” The Guild men nodded. “Hot dog? Right. That’s three hot d—”

  The audience cheered. It wasn’t the way that an audience normally applauds, with it starting at one point and rippling outward, but all at once, every single mouth opening at the same time.

  Cliff had knuckled onto the stage. He sat down behind his rocks and looked desperately back toward the wings.

  Glod trailed on, blinking in the lights.

  And that seemed to be it. The dwarf turned and said something which was lost in the noise, and then stood looking awkward while the cheers gradually subsided.

  Buddy came on, staggering slightly as if he’d been pushed.

  Up until then Mr. Clete had thought the crowd were yelling. And then he realized that it had been a mere murmur of approval compared to what was happening now.

  It went on and on while the boy stood there, head bowed.

  “But he’s not doing anything,” Clete shouted into Satchelmouth’s ear. “Why’re they all cheering him for not doing anything?”

  “Can’t say, sir,” said Satchelmouth.

  He looked around at the glistening, staring, hungry faces, feeling like an atheist who has wandered into Holy Communion.

  The applause went on. It redoubled again when Buddy slowly raised his hands to the guitar.

  “He’s not doing anything!” screamed Clete.

  “He’s got us bang to rights, sir,” Satchelmouth bellowed. “He’s not guilty of playing without belonging to the Guild if he doesn’t play!”

  Buddy looked up.

  He stared at the audience so intently that Clete craned to see what it was the wretched boy was staring at.

  It was nothing. There was a patch of it right in front of the stage. People were packed tight everywhere else but there, right in front of the stage, was a little area of cleared grass. It seemed to rivet Buddy’s attention.

  “Uh-huh-huh…”

  Clete rammed his hands over his ears but the force of the cheering made his head echo.

  And then, very gradually, layer by layer, it died away. It yielded to the sound of thousands of people being very quiet, which was somehow, Satchelmouth thought, a lot more dangerous.

  Glod glanced at Cliff, who made a face.

  Buddy was still standing, staring at the audience.

  If he doesn’t play, Glod thought, then we’ve had it.

  He hissed at Asphalt, who sidled over.

  “Is the cart ready?”

  “Yes, Mr. Glod.”

  “You filled up the horses with oats?”

  “Just like you said, Mr. Glod.”

  “Okay.”

  The silence was velvet. And it had that quality of suction found in the Patrician’s study and in holy places and deep canyons, engendering in people a terrible desire to shout or sing or yell their name. It was a silence that demanded: fill me up.

  Somewhere in the darkness, someone coughed.

  Asphalt heard his name hissed from the side of the stage. With extreme reluctance he sidled over to the darkness, where Dibbler was frantically beckoning him.

  “You know that bag?” said Dibbler.

  “Yes, Mr. Dibbler. I put it—”

  Dibbler held up two small but very heavy sacks.

  “Tip these in and be ready to leave in a big hurry.”

  “Yes, that’s right, Mr. Dibbler, because Glod said—”

  “Do it now!”

  Glod looked around. If I throw away the horn and helmet and this chain mail shirt, he thought, I might just get out of here alive. What’s he doing?

  Buddy put down the guitar and walked into the wings. He returned before the audience had realized what was happening. He was carrying the harp.

  He stood facing the audience.

  Glod, who was closest to him, heard him murmur: “Just once? Cwm on? Just one more time? And then I’lll do whatefer you want, see? I’ll pay for it.”

  There were a few faint chords from the guitar.

  Buddy said, “I mean it, see.”

  There was another chord.

  “Just once.”

  Buddy smiled at a empty space in the audience, and began to play.

  Every note was sharp as a bell and as simple as sunlight—so that in the prism of the brain it broke up and flashed into a million colors.

  Glod’s mouth hung open. And then the music unfolded in his head. It wasn’t Music With Rocks In, although it used the same doors. The fall of the notes conjured up memories of the mine where he’d been born, and dwarf bread just like mum used to hammer out of her anvil, and the moment when he’d first realized that he’d fallen in love.* He remembered life in the caves under Copperhead, before the city had called him, and more than anything else he wanted to be home. He’d never realized that humans co
uld sing hole.

  Cliff laid aside his hammers. The same notes crept into his corroded ears, but in his mind they became quarries and moorlands. He told himself, as emotion filled his head with its smoke, that right after this he was going to go back and see how his old mum was, and never leave ever again.

  Mr. Dibbler found his own mind spawn strange and disturbing thoughts. They involved things you couldn’t sell and shouldn’t pay for…

  The Lecturer in Recent Runes thumped the crystal ball.

  “The sound is a bit tinny,” he said.

  “Get out of the way, I can’t see,” said the Dean.

  Recent Runes sat down again.

  They stared at the little image.

  “This doesn’t sound like Music With Rocks In,” said the Bursar.

  “Shut up,” said the Dean. He blew his nose.

  It was sad music. But it waved the sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could but you were still alive.

  The Dean, who was as impressionable as a dollop of warm wax, wondered if he could learn to play the harmonica.

  The last note faded.

  There was no applause. The audience sagged a little, as each individual came down from whatever reflective corner they’d been occupying. One or two of them murmured things like “Yeah, that’s how it is,” or “You an’ me both, brother.” A lot of people blew their noses, sometimes on other people.

  And then reality snuck back in, as it always does.

  Glod heard Buddy say, very quietly, “Thank you.”

  The dwarf leaned sideways and said, out of the corner of his mouth:

  “What was that?”

  Buddy seemed to shake himself awake.

  “What? Oh. It’s called “Sioni Bod Da.” What do you think?”

  “It’s got…hole,” said Glod. “It’s definitely got hole.”

  Cliff nodded. When you’re a long way from the old familiar mine or mountain, when you’re lost among strangers, when you’re just a great big aching nothingness inside…only then can you really sing hole.

  “She’s watching us,” whispered Buddy.

  “The invisible girl?” said Glod, staring at the empty grass.

  “Yes.”