Soul Music

consideration encouraged a more patient type of wizard. Everyone dies sooner or later. They could wait.
    Ridcully took stock and found his first impression was mistaken. There appeared to be no murderous magic going on. There was just sound, cramming the room to every corner.
    Ridcully shuffled into his slippers and went out into the corridor, where other members of the faculty were milling around and blearily asking one another what the hell was happening. Plaster rained down on them from the ceiling in a steady fog.
    “Who’s causing that din?” shouted Ridcully. There was a mute chorus of unheard replies, and much shrug of shoulder.
    “Well, I will find out ,” growled the Archchancellor, and set off for the stairs with the others trailing after him. He walked without his knees or elbows bending very much, a sure sign of a forthright man in a bad temper.

    The trio said nothing all the way out of the Drum. They said nothing all the way to Gimlet’s delicatessen. They said nothing while they waited in the queue, and then all they said was: “So…right…that’s one Quatre-rodenti with extra newts, hold the chilis, one Klatchian Hots with double salami and a Four Strata, no pitchblende.”
    They sat down to wait. The guitar hummed to itself, a little four-note riff. They tried not to think about it. They tried to think about other things.
    “I think I change my name,” said Lias, eventually. “I mean…Lias? Not a good name for the music business.”
    “What’ll you change it to?” said Glod.
    “I thought…don’t laugh…I thought…Cliff?” said Lias.
    “ Cliff? ”
    “Good troll name. Very stony. Very rocky. Nothing wrong with it,” said Cliff né Lias, defensively.
    “Well…yes…but, I dunno, I mean…well…Cliff? Can’t see anyone lasting long in this business with a name like Cliff .”
    “Better than Glod, anyway.”
    “I’m sticking with Glod,” said Glod. “And Imp is sticking with Imp, right?”
    Imp looked at the guitar. It’s not right , he thought. I hardly touched it. I just…And I feel so tired…I…
    “Not sure,” he said, wretchedly. “Not sure if Imp is the right name for…this music.” His voice trailed off. He yawned.
    “Imp?” said Glod, after a while.
    “Hmm?” said Imp. And he’d felt someone was watching him out there. That was daft, of course. He couldn’t say to someone “I was on stage and I thought someone was watching me.” They’d say “Really? That’s really occult , that is…”
    “Imp?” said Glod, “Why’re you snapping your fingers like that?”
    Imp looked down.
    “Was I?”
    “Yes.”
    “Just thinking. My name…it’s not right for this music, either.”
    “What does it mean in real language?” said Glod.
    “Well, all my family are y Celyns ,” said Imp, ignoring the insult to an ancient tongue. “It means ‘of the hollly.’ That’s all that grows in Llamedos, you see. Everything else just rots.”
    “I wasn’t goin’ to say,” said Cliff, “but Imp sounds a bit like elf to me.”
    “It just means ‘smalll shoot,’” said Imp. “You know. Like a bud.”
    “Bud y Celyn?” said Glod. “Buddy? Worse than Cliff, in my opinion.”
    “I…think it sounds right,” said Imp.
    Glod shrugged, and pulled a handful of coins out of his pocket.
    “We’ve still got more’n four dollars,” he said. “I know what we should do with it, too.”
    “We should put it toward Guild membership,” said the new Cliff.
    Glod stared into the middle distance.
    “No,” he said. “We haven’t got the sound right. I mean, it was very good, very… new ,” he stared hard at Imp-cum-Buddy, “but there’s still something missing…”
    The dwarf gave Buddy né Imp another penetrating stare.
    “Do you know you’re shaking all over?” he said. “Moving around on your seat like you got a pant full of ant.”
    “I can’t help it,” said Buddy. He wanted to sleep, but a rhythm was bouncing around inside his head.
    “I saw it too,” said Cliff. “When we was walking here, you were bouncing along.” He looked under the table. “And you is tapping your feet.”
    “And you keep snapping your fingers,” said Glod.
    “I can’t stop thinking about the music,” said Buddy. “You’re right. We need…” he drummed his fingers along the table, “…a sound like… pang pang pang PANG Pang… ”
    “You mean a keyboard?” said Glod.
    “Do I?”
    “They’ve got one of those new pianofortes just over the river in