Soul Music

" I... think so."

" Does it live anywhere?"

" It seems to have lived in one instrument but I think it's moving around now. Can I go?"

" No. Can it be killed?"

" I don't know."

" Should it be here?"

" What?"

" Should it be here?" Ridcully repeated patiently. "Is it something that's supposed to be happening?"

Susan suddenly felt important. Wizards were rumoured to be wise ‑ in fact, that's where the word came from. But they were asking her things. They were listening to her. Pride sparkled in her eyes.

" I... don't think so. It's turned up here by some kind of accident. This isn't the right world for it."

Ridcully looked smug. "That's what I thought. This isn't right, I said. It's making people try and be things they aren't. How can we stop it?"

" I don't think you can. It's not susceptible to magic."

" Right. Music's not. Any music. But something must be able to make it stop. Show her your box, Ponder."

" Er... yes. Here."

He lifted the lid. Music, slightly tinny but still recognizable, drifted out into the room.

" Sounds like a spider trapped in a matchbox, don't it?" said Ridcully.

" You can't reproduce music like that on a piece of wire in a box," said Susan. "It's against nature."

Ponder looked relieved.

" That's what I said," he said. "But it does it anyway. It wants to."

Susan stared at the box.

She began to smile. There was no humour in it.

" It's unsettling people," said Ridcully. "And... look at this." He pulled a roll of paper out of his robe and unfolded it. "Caught some lad trying to paste this on to our gates. Blooming cheek! So I took it off him and told him to hop it, which was," Ridcully looked smugly at his fingertips, "quite appropriate as it turned out. It's going on about some festival of Music With Rocks In. It'll all end with monsters from another dimension breaking through, you can rely on that. That's the sort of thing that happens a lot in these parts."

" Excuse me," said Big Mad Adrian, his voice cargoed with suspicion, "I don't want to cause any trouble, right, but is this Death or not? I've seen pictures, and they didn't look like her."

" We did the Rite stuff," said Ridcully. "And this is what we got."

" Yes, but my father's a herring fisherman and he doesn't just find herring in his herring nets," said Skazz.

" Yeah. She could be anyone," said Tez the Terrible. "I thought Death was taller and bonier."

" She's just some girl messing about," said Skazz.

Susan stared at them.

" She hasn't even got a scythe," said Tez.

Susan concentrated. The scythe appeared in her hands, its blue‑edged blade making a noise like a finger dragged around the rim of a glass.

The students straightened up.

" But I've always thought it was time for a change," said Tez.

" Right. It's about time girls got a chance in the professions," said Skazz.

" Don't you dare patronize me!"

" That's right; said Ponder. "There's no reason why Death has to be male. A woman could be almost as good as a man in the job."

" You're doing it very well," said Ridcully.

He gave Susan an encouraging smile.

She rounded on him. I'm Death, she thought technically, anyway ‑ and this is a fat old man who has no right to give me any kind of orders. I'll glare at him, and he'll soon realize the gravity of his situation. She glared.

" Young lady," said Ridcully, "would you care for breakfast?"

The Mended Drum seldom closed. There tended to be a lull around six in the morning, but Hibiscus stayed open so long as someone wanted a drink.

Someone wanted a lot of drinks. Someone indistinct was standing at the bar. Sand seemed to be running out of him and, in so far as Hibiscus could tell, he had a number of arrows of Klatchian manufacture sticking in him.

The barman leaned forward.

" Have I seen you before?"

I'M IN HERE QUITE OFTEN, YES. A WEEK LAST WEDNESDAY, FOR EXAMPLE.

"Ha! That was a bit of a do. That's when poor old Vince got stabbed."

YES.

" Asking for it, calling yourself Vincent the Invulnerable."

YES. INACCURATE, TOO.

"The Watch are saying it was suicide."

Death nodded. Going into the Mended Drum and calling yourself Vincent the Invulnerable was clearly suicide by Ankh­Morpork standards.

THIS DRINK'S GOT MAGGOTS IN IT.

The barman squinted at it.

" That's not a maggot, sir," he said. "That's a worm."

OH THAT'S BETTER, IS IT?

"It's supposed to be there, sir. That's mexical, that is. They put the worm in to show how strong it is."

STRONG ENOUGH TO DROWN WORMS?

The barman scratched his head. He'd never thought of it in those terms.

" It's just something people drink," he said vaguely.

Death picked up the bottle and held it up to what normally would have been eye level. The worm rotated forlornly.

WHAT'S IT LIKE? he said.

" Well, it's a sort of–"

I WASN'T TALKING TO YOU.

"Breakfast? said Susan, I mean‑ BREAKFAST?

" It must be coming up to that time," said the Archchancellor. "It's a long time since I last had breakfast with a charming young woman."