Soul Music

lordship,” said the clerk.
    “Does he by any chance have some kind of poster with him?”
    “Yes, your lordship.”
    “And is he very angry?”
    “This is very much the case, your lordship. It’s about some festival. He insists you have it stopped.”
    “Dear me.”
    “And he demands that you see him instantly.”
    “Ah. Then leave him for, say, twenty minutes, then show him up.”
    “Yes, your lordship. He keeps saying that he wants to know what you are doing about it.”
    “Good. Then I can ask him the same question.”
    The Patrician sat back. Si non confectus, non reficiat . That was the motto of the Vetinaris. Everything worked if you just let it happen.
    He picked up a stack of sheet music and began to listen to Salami’s Prelude to a Nocturne on a Theme by Bubbla .
    After a while he looked up.
    “Don’t hesitate to leave,” he snapped. The Smell slunk away.

    SQUEAK!
    “Don’t be stupid! All I did was frighten them off. It’s not as though I hurt them. What’s the good of having the power if you can’t use it?”
    The Death of Rats put his nose in his paws. It was a lot easier, with rats. *

    C.M.O.T. Dibbler often did without sleep, too. He generally had to meet Chalky at night. Chalky was a large troll but tended to dry up and flake in daylight.
    Other trolls looked down on him because he came from a sedimentary family and was therefore a very low-class troll indeed. He didn’t mind. He was a very amiable character.
    He did odd jobs for people who needed something unusual in a hurry and without entanglements and had clinking money. And this job was pretty odd.
    “Just boxes?” he said.
    “With lids,” said Dibbler. “Like this one I’ve made. And a bit of wire stretched inside.”
    Some people would have said “Why?” or “What for?” but Chalky didn’t make his money like that. He picked up the box and turned it this way and that.
    “How many?” he said.
    “Just ten to start with,” said Dibbler. “But I think there’ll be more later. Lots and lots more.”
    “How many’s ten?” said the troll.
    Dibbler held up both hands, fingers extended.
    “‘ll do them for two dollar,” said Chalky.
    “You want me to cut my own throat?”
    “Two dollar.”
    “Dollar each for these and a dollar-fifty for the next batch.”
    “Two dollar.”
    “All right, all right, two dollars each. That’s ten dollars the lot, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And that’s cutting my own throat.”
    Chalky tossed the box aside. It bounced on the floor and the lid came off.
    Some time later a small greyish brown mongrel dog, on the prowl for anything edible, limped into the workshop and sat peering into the box for a while.
    Then it felt a bit of an idiot and wandered off.

    Ridcully hammered on the door of the High Energy Magic Building as the city clocks were striking two. He was supporting Ponder Stibbons, who was asleep on his feet.
    Ridcully was not a quick thinker. But he always got there eventually.
    The door opened and Skazz’s hair appeared.
    “Are you facin’ me?” said Ridcully.
    “Yes, Archchancellor.”
    “Let us in, then, the dew’s soaking through me boots.”
    Ridcully looked around as he helped Ponder in.
    “Wish I knew what it was that keeps you lads working all hours,” he said. “I never found magic that interesting when I was a lad. Go and fetch some coffee for Mr. Stibbons here, will you? And then get your friends.”
    Skazz bustled off and Ridcully was left alone, except for the slumbering Ponder.
    “What is it they do?” he said. He never really tried to find out.
    Skazz had been working at a long bench by one wall.
    At least he recognized the little wooden disc. There were small oblong stones ranged on it in a couple of concentric circles, and a candle lantern positioned on a swiveling arm so that it could be moved anywhere around the circumference.
    It was a traveling computer for druids, a sort of portable stone circle, something they called a “kneetop.” The Bursar had sent off for one once. It had said For the Priest In a Hurry on the box. He’d never been able to make it work properly and now it was used as a doorstop. Ridcully couldn’t see what they had to do with magic. After all, it wasn’t much more than a calendar and you could get a perfectly good calendar for 8p.
    Rather more puzzling was the huge array of glass tubes behind it. That was where Skazz had been working; there was a litter of bent glassware and jars and bits of cardboard