Soul Music

To Susan's horror and amazement she found that she was blushing. "Just some boy," she said. "He was supposed to have died quite ridiculously, and I was going to save him, and then the music saved him, and now it's getting him into all sorts of trouble and I've got to save him anyway and I don't know why."

" Music?" said Ridcully. "Does he play a sort of guitar?"

" Yes! How did you know?"

Ridcully sighed. "When you're a wizard you get an instinct for these things." He prodded his burger some more. "And lettuce, for some reason. And one very, very thin slice of pickled cucumber."

He let the bread drop.

"The music is alive," he said.

Something that had been knocking on Susan's attention for the past ten minutes finally used its boots.

" Oh, my god," she said.

" Which one would that be?" said Ridcully politely.

" It's so simple! It strolls into traps! It changes people! They want to play m‑ I've got to go," said Susan hurriedly. " Er. Thank you for the porridge..."

" You haven't eaten any of it," Ridcully pointed out mildly.

" No, but... but I had a really good look at it."

She vanished. After a little while Ridcully leaned forward and waved his hand vaguely in the space where she had been sitting, just in case.

Then he reached into his robe and pulled out the poster about the Free Festival. Great big things with tentacles, that was the problem. Get enough magic in one place and the fabric of the universe gave at the heel just like one of the Dean's socks which, Ridcully noticed, had been in some extremely bright colours the last few days.

He waved a hand at the maids.

" Thank you, Molly, Dolly or Polly," he said. "You can clear this stuff away."

" Yay‑yay."

" Yes, yes, thank you."

Ridcully felt rather alone. He'd quite enjoyed talking to the girl. She seemed to be the only person in the place who wasn't mildly insane or totally preoccupied with something that he, Ridcully, didn't understand.

He wandered back to his study, but was distracted by the sounds of hammering coming from the Dean's chambers. The door was ajar.

The senior wizards had quite large suites that included study, workshop and bedroom. The Dean was hunched over the furnace in the workshop area, with a smoked‑glass mask over his face and a hammer in his hand. He was hard at work. There were sparks.

This was much more cheering, Ridcully thought. Maybe this was an end to all this Music With Rocks In nonsense and a return to some real magic.

" Everythin' all right, Dean?" he said.

The Dean pushed up the glass and nodded.

" Nearly finished, Archchancellor," he said.

" Heard you bangin' away right down the passage," said Ridcully, conversationally.

" Ah. I'm working on the pockets," said the Dean.

Ridcully looked blank. Quite a number of the more difficult spells involved heat and hammering, but pockets was a new one.

The Dean held up a pair of trousers.

They were not, strictly speaking, as trousery as normal trousers; senior wizards developed a distinctive 50" waist, 25" leg shape that suggested someone who sat on a wall and required royal assistance to be put together again. They were dark blue.

" You were hammerin' them?" said Ridcully. "Mrs Whitlow been heavy on the starch again?"

He looked closer.

" You're rivetin' them together?"

The Dean beamed.

" These trousers," he said, "are where it's at."

" Are you talkin' Music With Rocks In again?" said Ridcully suspiciously.

" I mean they're cool."

" Well, better than a thick robe in this weather," Ridcully conceded, "but– you're not going to put them on now, are you?"

" Why not?" said the Dean, struggling out of his robe.

" Wizards in trousers? Not in my university! It's cissy. People'd laugh," said Ridcully.

" You always try and stop me doing anything I want!"

" There's no need to take that tone with me–'

" Huh, you never listen to anything I say and I don't see why I shouldn't wear what I like!"

Ridcully glared around the room.

" This room is a total mess!" he bellowed. "Tidy it up right now!"

" Sharn't!"

" Then it's no more Music With Rocks In for you, young man!"

Ridcully slammed the door behind him.

He slammed it open again and added, "And I never gave you permission to paint it black!"

He slammed the door shut.

He slammed it open.

" They don't suit you, either!"

The Dean rushed out into the passage, waving his hammer.

" Say what you like," he shouted, "when history comes to name these, they certainly won't call them Archchancellors!"

It was eight in the morning, a time when drinkers are trying either to forget who they are or to remember where they live. The other occupants of the Mended Drum were hunched over their drinks around the walls and watching an orang‑utan, who was playing Barbarian Invaders and screaming with rage every time he lost a penny.

Hibiscus really wanted to shut. On the other hand, it'd be like blowing up a goldmine. It was all he could do to keep up the supply of clean glasses.