Soul Music

with goblins and so on?”
    “Yes, of course,” said Susan, grimly.
    “It’d probably be best if you thought along those lines,” said the raven.
    Susan picked up a bundle of herbs and played with them.
    “I saw someone outside who said she was the Tooth Fairy,” she said.
    “Nah, couldn’t’ve been the Tooth Fairy,” said the raven. “There’s at least three of them.”
    “There’s no such person. I mean…I didn’t know, I thought that’s just a…a story. Like the Sandman or the Hogfather.” *
    “Ah,” said the raven. “Changing our tone, yes? Not so much of the emphatic declarative, yes? A bit less of the ‘There’s no such thing’ and a bit more of the ‘I didn’t know,’ yes?”
    “Everyone knows—I mean, it’s not logical that there’s an old man in a beard who gives everyone sausages and chitterlings on Hogswatchnight, is it?”
    “I don’t know about logic. Never learned about logic,” said the raven. “Living on a skull ain’t exactly logical, but that’s what I do.”
    “And there can’t be a Sandman who goes around throwing sand in children’s eyes,” said Susan, but in tones of uncertainty. “You’d…never get enough sand in one bag.”
    “Could be. Could be.”
    “I’d better be going,” said Susan. “Miss Butts always checks the dorms on the stroke of midnight.”
    “How many dormitories are there?” said the raven.
    “About thirty, I think.”
    “You believe she checks them all at midnight and you don’t believe in the Hogfather?”
    “I’d better be going anyway,” said Susan. “Um. Thank you.”
    “Lock up behind you and chuck the key through the window,” said the raven.
    The room was silent after she’d gone, except for the crackle as coals settled in the furnace.
    Then the skull said: “Kids today, eh?”
    “I blame education,” said the raven.
    “A lot of knowledge is a dangerous thing,” said the skull. “A lot more dangerous than just a little. I always used to say that, when I was alive.”
    “When was that, exactly?”
    “Can’t remember. I think I was pretty knowledgeable. Probably a teacher or philosopher, something of that kidney. And now I’m on a bench with a bird crapping on my head.”
    “Very allegorical,” said the raven.

    No one had taught Susan about the power of belief, or at least about the power of belief in a combination of high magical potential and low reality stability such as existed on the Discworld.
    Belief makes a hollow place. Something has to roll in to fill it.
    Which is not to say that belief denies logic. For example, it’s fairly obvious that the Sandman needs only a small sack.
    On the Discworld, he doesn’t bother to take the sand out first.

    It was almost midnight.
    Susan crept into the stables. She was one of those people who will not leave a loose thread unpulled or a mystery unsolved.
    The ponies were silent in the presence of Binky. The horse glowed in the darkness.
    Susan heaved a saddle down from the rack, and then thought better of it. If she was going to fall off, a saddle wouldn’t be any help. And reins would be about as much use as a rudder on a rock.
    She opened the door to the loose box. Most horses won’t walk backward voluntarily, because what they can’t see doesn’t exist.
    But Binky shuffled out by himself and walked over to the mounting block, where he turned and watched her expectantly.
    Susan climbed onto his back. It was like sitting on a table.
    “All right,” she whispered. “I don’t have to believe any of this, mind you.”
    Binky lowered his head and whinnied. Then he trotted out into the yard and headed for the field. At the gate he broke into a canter, and turned toward the fence.
    Susan shut her eyes.
    She felt muscles bunch under the velvet skin and then the horse was rising, over the fence, over the field.
    Behind it, in the turf, two fiery hoofprints burned for a second or two.
    As she passed above the school she saw a light flicker in a window. Miss Butts was on her rounds.
    There’s going to be trouble over this , Susan told herself.
    And then she thought: I’m on the back of a horse a hundred feet up in the air, being taken somewhere mysterious that’s a bit like a magic land with goblins and talking animals. There’s only so much more trouble I could get into…
    Besides, is riding a flying horse against school rules? I bet it’s not written down anywhere .
    Quirm vanished behind her, and the world opened up in a pattern of darkness and