Unseen Academicals

He did. It was a roar, a great sky-filling roar, old and animal and coming up from the gods knew where, but inside it, travelling like a hidden message, he made out the words. They swam into focus, if indeed the ear could focus and if he was actually hearing them with his ears. They might have been coming through his bones… If the striker thinks he scores Or if the keeper cries in shame They understand not the crowd’s applause I make, and hear and earn again For I am the crowd and I am the ball I am the triumph and the blame I am the turf, the pies, the All Always and ever, I am the Game. It matters not who won or lost Nothing is the score you made Fame is a petal that curls in the frost But I will remember how you played.

And it stays there, Glenda thought, like sound in a banner. Everybody one part of it.

Juliet and Trev began to float down, hand in hand, turning gently until they landed lightly on the turf, still kissing. A sort of reality began to leak back into the arena, and there are some people who, even when hearing the voice of the nightingale, will say ‘What’s that bloody noise?’

‘Cheatin’ bastard,’ said Andy and launched himself directly at Trev, covering the ground at speed as the boy stood there with a very bemused but happy expression on his face. He did not notice the hell-bent Andy until a huge boot kicked him squarely in the groin, so hard that the eyes of all male watchers watered in sympathetic pain.

For the second time in twenty-four hours, Trev felt the micromail sing as the thousands of links moved and just as quickly settled down again. It was as if a little breeze had blown up his pants. Apart from that, he hadn’t felt a thing.

Andy, on the other hand, had. He was lying on the ground, bent double, making a sort of whistling noise through his teeth.

Someone slapped Trev on the back. It was Pepe.

‘You did put my pants on, didn’t you? Well, obviously not my pants. You’d have to be suicidal to want to put my pants on. Anyway, I’ve come up with a name for the stuff: I’m going to call it Retribushium. Can’t ever say it will be an end to war, ’cos I can’t imagine anything putting an end to war, but it sends the force back the way it came. Didn’t chafe either, did it?’

‘No,’ said Trev, amazed.

‘Well, it did for him! My word, though, he’s a game one. That reminds me, I’ll need a picture of you in them.’

Andy was rising slowly, elevating himself to the vertical almost by willpower alone. Pepe grinned, and somehow it seemed obvious to Trev that anyone who was going to get up and try any threats with Pepe grinning at him was more than suicidal.

‘Got a knife, have you, you little squirt?’ said Andy.

‘No, Andy,’ said Nutt behind him. ‘No more. The game is over. Fortune has favoured Unseen Academicals and I believe the traditional ending is to exchange shirts in an atmosphere of good fellowship.’

‘But not pants,’ said Pepe under his breath.

‘What do you know about that sort of thing?’ growled Andy. ‘You’re a bloody orc. I know all about you people. You can tear arms and legs off. You’re black magic. I’m not scared of you.’ He came at Nutt with commendable speed for a man in such pain.

Nutt dodged. ‘I believe there is a peaceful solution to the obvious enmity between us.’

‘You what?!’

Pepe and some of the footballers were closing in. Andy had not been making friends. Nutt waved them away.

‘I’m sure I could help you, Andy. Yes, you are right, I am an orc, but doesn’t an orc have eyes? Doesn’t an orc have ears? Doesn’t an orc have arms and legs?’

‘Yeah, at the moment,’ said Andy, and leaped.

What happened next happened so fast that Trev didn’t see the middle of it. It started with Andy jumping and finished with him sitting on the ground with Nutt’s hands clamped around his head, claws out. ‘Let me see now,’ Nutt mused as the man struggled in vain. ‘Twisting the skull with enough force to snap the spine and spinal column should not present much difficulty since it is a non-rotating joint. And, of course, the ear holes and eye sockets allow for extra grip in the manner of a bowling ball,’ he added happily.

There was a horrified hush as he continued. ‘Using the unit of measurement of force invented by Sir Rosewood Bunn, I should think that a mere 250 Bunns should do the trick. But, of course, and possibly surprisingly, it is the tearing of the skin, tendons and muscles that would present me with some difficulty. You are a young man and the tensile strength would be quite high. I imagine the skin alone would require a force of about a thousand Bunns.’

Andy yelped as his head was gently twisted.

‘Oh, I say! Look here now!’ said Ridcully. ‘A joke is a joke and all that, but… ’

‘From then on it gets rather messy,’ said Nutt. ‘Muscle would tear off the bones comparatively easily.’

Andy gave another strangled yelp.