Soul Music

" You can hear it again and again?" said Dibbler. "What, by just opening a box?"

" Yes," said Ponder.

" No," said Ridcully.

" Yes you can," said Ponder. "I showed you, Arch­chancellor? Don't you remember?"

" No," said Ridcully.

" Any kind of box?" said Dibbler, in a voice choked with money.

" Oh, yes, but you have to stretch a wire inside it so the music has somewhere to live and ouch ouch ouch."

" Can't think what's come over me with these sudden muscular spasms," said Ridcully. "Come, Mr Stibbons, let us not waste any more of Mr Dibbler's valuable time."

" Oh, you're not wasting it," said Dibbler. "Boxes full of music, eh?"

" We'll take this one," said Ridcully, snatching it up. "It's an important magical experiment."

He frogmarched Ponder away, which was a lit­tle hard because the youth was bent double and wheezing.

" What did you have to go... and do... that for?" 'Mr Stibbons, I know you to be a man who seeks to understand the universe. Here's an important rule: never give a monkey the key to the banana plantation. Some­times you can just see an accident waiting to‑ oh, no."

He let Ponder go and waved vaguely up the street.

" Got any theories about that, young man?"

Something golden‑brown and viscous was oozing out on to the street from what was just possibly, behind the mounds of the stuff, a shop. As the two wizards watched there was a tinkle of glass and the brown substance began to emerge from the second floor.

Ridcully stamped forward and scooped up a hand­ful, leaping back before the wall could reach him. He sniffed at it.

" Is it some ghastly emanation from the Dungeon Dimensions?" said Ponder.

" Shouldn't think so. Smells like coffee," said Ridcully.

" Coffee?"

" Coffee‑flavoured froth, anyway. Now, why is it I have this feeling that there's going to be wizards in there somewhere?"

A figure lurched out of the foam, dripping brown bubbles.

" Who goes there?" said Ridcully.

" Ah, yes! Did anyone get the number of that ox‑cart? Another doughnut, if you would be so good!" said the figure brightly, and fell over into the froth.

" That sounded like the Bursar to me," said Ridcully. "Come along, lad. It's only bubbles." He strode into the foam.

After a moment's hesitation Ponder realized that the honour of young wizardry was at stake, and pushed his way in behind him.

Almost immediately he bumped into someone in the fog of bubbles.

" Er, hello?"

" Who's that?"

" It's me, Stibbons. I've come to rescue you."

" Good. Which way is out?"

" Er–"

There were some explosions somewhere in the cof­fee cloud and a popping noise. Ponder blinked. The level of bubbles was sinking.

Various pointy hats appeared like drowned logs in a drying lake.

Ridcully waded over, coffee froth dripping from his hat.

" Something bloody stupid's been going on here," he said, "and I'm going to wait quite patiently until the Dean owns up."

" I don't see why you should assume it was me," muttered a coffee‑coloured column.

" Well, who was it, then?"

" The Dean said the coffee ought to be frothy," said a mound of foam of a Senior Wranglish persuasion, "and he did some simple magic and I rather think we got carried away."

" Ah, so it was you, Dean."

" Yes, all right, but only by coincidence," said the Dean testily.

" Out of here, all of you," said Ridcully. "Back to the University this minute."

" I mean, I don't see why you should assume it's my fault just because sometimes it might happen to be me who–"

The froth had sunk a bit more, to reveal a pair of eyes under a dwarfish helmet.

"Scuse me," said a voice still under the bubbles, "but who's going to pay for all this? That's four dol­lars, thank you very much."

" The Bursar's got the money," said Ridcully quickly.

" Not any more," said the Senior Wrangler. "He bought seventeen doughnuts."

" Sugar?" said Ridcully. "You let him eat sugar. You know that makes him, you know, a bit funny. Mrs Whitlow said she'd give notice if we let him get anywhere near sugar again." He herded the damp wizards towards the door. "It's all right, my good man, you can trust us, we're wizards, I shall have some money sent around in the morning."

" Hah, you expect me to believe that, do you?" said the dwarf.

It had been a long night. Ridcully turned and waved his hand at the wall. There was a crackle of octarine fire and the words 'IOU 4 DOLERS' burned themselves into the stone.

" Right you are, no problem there," said the dwarf, ducking back into the froth.

" I shouldn't think Mrs Whitlow is going to worry," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes as they squelched through the night. "I saw her and some of the maids at the, er, concert. You know, the kitchen girls. Molly, Polly and, er, Dolly. They were, er, screaming."

" I didn't think the music was that bad," said Ridcully.