Soul Music

The lifetimer of Imp stood in the middle of the huge desk. The Death of Rats walked around it, squeaking under his breath.

Susan looked at it, too. There was no doubt that all the sand was in the bottom bulb. But something else had filled the top and was pouring through the pinch. It was pale blue and coiling in frantically on itself, like excited smoke.

" Have you ever seen anything like it?" she said.

SQUEAK.

" Nor me."

Susan stood up. The shadows around the walls, now that she'd got used to them, seemed to be of things ‑not exactly machinery, but not exactly furniture either. There had been an orrery on the lawn at the college. The distant shapes put her in mind of it, although what stars it measured in what dark courses she really couldn't say. They seemed to be projections of things too strange even for this strange dimension.

She'd wanted to save his life, and that was right. She knew it. As soon as she'd seen his name she... well, it was important. She'd inherited some of Death's memory. She couldn't have met the boy, but perhaps he had. She felt that the name and the face had established themselves so deeply in her mind now that the rest of her thoughts were forced to orbit them.

Something else had saved him first.

She held the lifetimer up to her ear again.

She found herself tapping her foot.

And realized that distant shadows were moving.

She ran across the floor, the real floor, the one out­side the boundaries of the carpet.

The shadows looked more like mathematics would be if it was solid. There were vast curves of... something. Pointers like clock hands, but longer than a tree, moved slowly through the air.

The Death of Rats climbed on to her shoulder.

" I suppose you don't know what's happening?"

SQUEAK.

Susan nodded. Rats, she supposed, died when they should. They didn't try to cheat, or return from the dead. There were no such things as zombie rats. Rats knew when to give up.

She looked at the glass again. The boy ‑ and she used the term as girls will of young males several years older than them ‑ the boy had played a chord on the guitar or whatever it was, and history had been bent. Or had skipped, or something.

Something besides her didn't want him dead.

It was two o'clock in the morning, and raining.

Constable Detritus, Ankh‑Morpork City Watch, was guarding the Opera House. It was an approach to policing that he'd picked up from Sergeant Colon. When you were all by yourself in the middle of a rainy night, go and guard something big with handy overhanging eaves. Colon had pursued this policy for years, as a result of which no major landmark had ever been stolen.

It had been an uneventful night. About an hour earlier a 64‑foot organ pipe had dropped out of the sky. Detritus had wandered over to inspect the crater, but he wasn't quite certain if this was criminal activity. Besides, for all he knew this was how you got organ pipes.

For the last five minutes he'd also been hearing muffled thumps and the occasional tinkling noise from inside the Opera House. He'd made a note of it. He did not wish to appear stupid. Detritus had never been inside the Opera House. He didn't know what sound it normally made at 2 a.m.

The front doors opened, and a large oddly shaped flat box came out, hesitantly. It advanced in a curious way ‑ a few steps forward, a couple of steps back. And it was also talking to itself.

Detritus looked down. He could see... he paused... at least seven legs of various sizes, only four of which had feet.

He shambled across to the box and banged on the side.

" Hello, hello, hello, what is all this... then?" he said, concentrating to get the sentence right.

The box stopped.

Then it said, "We're a piano."

Detritus gave this due consideration. He wasn't sure what a piano was.

" A piano move about, does it?" he said.

" It's... we've got legs," said the piano.

Detritus conceded the point.

" But it are the middle of the night," he said.

" Even pianos have to have time off," said the piano.

Detritus scratched his head. This seemed to cover it.

" Well... all right," he said.

He watched the piano jerk and wobble down the marble steps and round the corner.

It carried on talking to itself:

" How long have we got, d'you think?"

" We ought to make it to the bridge. He not clever enough to be a drummer."

" But he's a policeman."

" So?"

" Cliff?"

" Yup?"

" We might get caught."

" He can't stop us. We're on a mission from Glod."

" Right."

The piano tottered onward through the puddles for a little while, and then asked itself:

" Buddy?"

" Yup?"

" Why did I just say dat?"

" Say what?"

" About us being on a mission... you know... from Glod?"

" Weeell... the dwarf said to us, go and get the piano, and his name is Glod, so–'

" Yeah. Yeah. Right... but... he could've stopped us, I mean, dere's nothing special about some mission from some dwarf–'

" Maybe you were just a bit tired."

" Maybe dat's it," said the piano, gratefully.