Soul Music

Nor did he approve of Stibbons's robe. It was the right length but a washed‑out greeny‑grey, with pockets and toggles and a hood with a bit of rabbit fur around the edge. There weren't any sequins or jewels or mystic symbols anywhere. Just a blodgy stain where Stibbons's pen leaked.

" You ain't been out lately?" said Ridcully.

" No, sir. Er. Should I have been? I've been busy working on my Make‑It‑Bigger device. You know, I showed you–'

" Right, right," said Ridcully, looking around. "Anyone else been working in here?"

" Well... there's me, and Tez the Terrible and Skazz and Big Mad Drongo, I think..."

Ridcully blinked.

" What are they?" he said. And then, from the depths of memory, a horrible answer suggested itself. Only a very specific species had names like that.

" Students?"

" Er. Yes?" said Ponder, backing away. "That's all right, isn't it? I mean, this is a university..."

Ridcully scratched his ear. The man was right, of course. You had to have some of the buggers around, there was no getting away from it. Personally, he avoided them .whenever possible, as did the rest of the faculty, occasionally running the other way or hiding behind doors whenever they saw them. The Lecturer in Recent Runes had been known to lock himself in his wardrobe rather than take a tutorial.

" You better fetch 'em," he said. "The fact is, I seem to have lost my faculty."

" For what, Archchancellor?" said Ponder, politely.

" What?"

" Sorry?"

They looked at one another in incomprehension, two minds driving opposite ways up a narrow street and waiting for the other man to reverse first.

" The faculty," said Ridcully, giving up. "The Dean and whatnot. Gone totally round the corner. Been up all night, playing guitars and whatnot. The Dean's made himself a coat out of leather."

" Well, leather is a very practical and functional material–"

" Not the way he's using it," said Ridcully darkly...

[... the Dean stood back. He'd borrowed a dressmaker's dummy from Mrs Whitlow, the housekeeper.

He'd made some changes to the design that had buzzed around his brain. For one thing, a wizard in his very soul is loath to wear any garment that doesn't reach down at least to the ankles, so there was quite a lot of leather. Lots of room for all the studs.

He'd started with: DEAN.

That had hardly begun to fill the space. After a while he'd added: BORN TO, and left a space because he wasn't quite sure what he'd been born to. BORN TO EAT BIG DINNERS wouldn't be appropriate.

After some more bemused thought he'd gone on to: LIVE FATS DIE YO GNU. It wasn't quite right, he could see; he'd turned the material over while he was making the holes for the studs and had sort of lost track of which direction he was going.

Of course, it didn't matter which direction you went, just so long as you went. That's what music with rocks in it was all about...]

... "And Recent Runes is in his room playing drums, and the rest of them have all got guitars, and what the Bursar's done to the bottom of his robe is really strange," said Ridcully. "And the Librarian's wandering around the place pinchin' stuff and no‑one listens to a word I say."

He stared at the students. It was a worrying sight, and not just because of the natural look of students. Here were some people who, while this damn music was making everyone tap their feet, had stayed in­doors all night ‑ working.

" What are you lot doing in here?" he said. "You... what's your name?"

The student wizard pinned by Ridcully's pointing finger squirmed anxiously.

" Er. Um. Big Mad Drongo," he said, twisting the brim of his hat in his hands.

" Big. Mad. Drongo," said Ridcully. "That's your name, is it? That's what you've got sewn on your vest?"

" Um. No, Archchancellor."

" It is...?"

" Adrian Turnipseed, Archchancellor."

" So why're you called Big Mad Drongo, Mr Turnipseed?" said Ridcully.

" Um... um..."

" He once drank a whole pint of shandy," said Stibbons, who had the decency to look embarrassed.

Ridcully gave him a carefully blank look. Oh, well. They'd have to do.

" All right, you lot," he said, "what do you make of this?"

He produced from his robe a Mended Drum beer tankard with a beer mat fastened over the top with a piece of string.

" What have you got in there, Archchancellor?" said Ponder Stibbons.

" A piece of music, lad."

" Music? But you can't trap music like that."

" I wish I was a clever bugger like you and knew every damn thing," said Ridcully. "That big flask over there... You ‑ Big Mad Adrian ‑take the top off it, and be ready to slam it down again when I say. Ready with that lid, Mad Adrian... right!"

There was a brief angry chord as Ridcully pulled the beer mat off the mug and upended it quickly into the flask. Mad Drongo Adrian slammed the lid down, in total terror of the Archchancellor.

And then they could hear it... a persistent faint beat, rebounding off the inner walls of the glass flask.