Soul Music

Susan always made no sound. The teachers had all remarked upon it. It was uncanny, they said. She was always in front of you when you least expected it.

" Ah, Susan," said Miss Butts, a tight smile scuttling across her face like a nervous tick over a worried sheep. "Please sit down."

" Of course, Miss Butts."

Miss Butts shuffled the papers.

" Susan..."

" Yes, Miss Butts?"

" I'm sorry to say that it appears you have been missed in lessons again."

" I don't understand, Miss Butts."

The headmistress leaned forward. She felt vaguely annoyed with herself, but... there was some­thing frankly unlovable about the child. Academically brilliant at the things she liked doing, of course, but that was just it; she was brilliant in the same way that a diamond is brilliant, all edges and chilliness.

" Have you been... doing it?" she said. "You prom­ised you were going to stop this silliness."

" Miss Butts?"

" You've been making yourself invisible again, haven't you?"

Susan blushed. So, rather less pinkly, did Miss Butts. I mean, she thought, it's ridiculous. It's against all reason. It's‑ oh, no...

She turned her head and shut her eyes.

" Yes, Miss Butts?" said Susan, just before Miss Butts said, "Susan?"

Miss Butts shuddered. This was something else the teachers had mentioned. Sometimes Susan answered questions just before you asked them...

She steadied herself.

" You're still sitting there, are you?"

" Of course, Miss Butts."

Ridiculous.

It wasn't invisibility, she told herself. She just makes herself inconspicuous. She... who...

She concentrated. She'd written a little memo to herself against this very eventuality, and it was pinned to the file.

She read:

You are interviewing Susan Sto Helit. Try not to forget it.

" Susan?" she ventured.

" Yes, Miss Butts?"

If Miss Butts concentrated, Susan was sitting in front of her. If she made an effort, she could hear the gel's voice. She just had to fight against a pressing tendency to believe that she was alone.

" I'm afraid Miss Cumber and Miss Greggs have complained," she managed.

" I'm always in class, Miss Butts."

" I dare say you are. Miss Traitor and Miss Stamp say they see you all the time." There'd been quite a staffroom argument about that.

" Is it because you like Logic and Maths and don't like Language and History?"

Miss Butts concentrated. There was no way the child could have left the room. If she really stressed her mind, she could catch a suggestion of a voice saying, "Don't know, Miss Butts."

" Susan, it is really most upsetting when–"

Miss Butts paused. She looked around the study, and then glanced at a note pinned to the papers in front of her. She appeared to read it, looked puzzled for a moment, and then rolled it up and dropped it into the wastepaper basket. She picked up a pen and, after staring into space for a moment, turned her attention to the school accounts.

Susan waited politely for a while, and then got up and left as quietly as possible.

Certain things have to happen before other things. Gods play games with the fates of men. But first they have to get all the pieces on the board, and look all over the place for the dice.

It was raining in the small, mountainous country of Llamedos. It was always raining in Llamedos. Rain was the country's main export. It had rain mines.

Imp the bard sat under the evergreen, more out of habit than any real hope that it would keep the rain off. Water just dribbled through the spiky leaves and formed rivulets down the twigs, so that it was really a sort of rain concentrator. Occasional lumps of rain would splat on to his head.

He was eighteen, extremely talented and, currently, not at ease with his life.

He tuned his harp, his beautiful new harp, and watched the rain, tears running down his face and mingling with the drops.

Gods like people like this.

It is said that whosoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. In fact, whosoever the gods wish to destroy, they first hand the equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse and Acme Dynamite Company written on the side. It's more interesting, and doesn't take so long.

Susan mooched along the disinfectant‑smelling cor­ridors. She wasn't particularly worried about what Miss Butts was going to think. She didn't usually worry about what anyone thought. She didn't know why people forgot about her when she wanted them to, but afterwards they seemed a bit embarrassed about raising the subject.

Sometimes, some teachers had trouble seeing her. This was fine. She'd generally take a book into the classroom and read it peacefully, while all around her The Principal Exports of Klatch happened to other people.

It was, undoubtedly, a beautiful harp. Very rarely a craftsman gets something so right that it is impossible to imagine an improvement. He hadn't bothered with ornamentation. That would have been some kind of sacrilege.