Soul Music

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."

"OK."

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'llll do whatefer you want, see? I'llll 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 an 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 colours.

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 on her anvil, and the moment when he'd first realized that he'd fallen in love.[29] 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 could 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 spawning 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.