Soul Music

at alll. Honestlly.”
    “Where you from?” said the troll.
    “Llamedos,” said Imp. He shut his eyes. He knew what trolls and dwarfs traditionally did to people suspected of being elves. The Guild of Musicians could take lessons.
    “What dat you got dere?” said the troll. It had two large squares of darkish glass in front of its eyes, supported by wire frames hooked around its ears.
    “It’s a harp, see.”
    “Dat what you play?”
    “Yes.”
    “You a druid, den?”
    “No!”
    There was silence again as the troll marshaled its thoughts.
    “You look like a druid in dat nightie,” it rumbled, after a while.
    The dwarf on the other side of Imp began to snigger.
    Trolls disliked druids, too. Any sapient species which spends a lot of time in a stationary, rocklike pose objects to any other species which drags it sixty miles on rollers and buries it up to its knees in a circle. It tends to feel it has cause for disgruntlement.
    “Everyone dresses like this in Llamedos, see,” said Imp. “But I’m a bard! I’m not a druid. I hate rocks!”
    “Whoops,” said the dwarf quietly.
    The troll looked Imp up and down, slowly and deliberately. Then it said, without any particular trace of menace, “You not long in dis town?”
    “Just arrived,” said Imp. I won’t even reach the door , he thought. I’m going to be mashed into a pullp .
    “Here is some free advice what you should know. It is free advice I am giving you gratis for nothing. In dis town, ‘rock’ is a word for troll. A bad word for troll used by stupid humans. You call a troll a rock, you got to be prepared to spend some time looking for your head. Especially if you looks a bit elvish around der eyes. Dis is free advice ’cos you are a bard and maker of music, like me.”
    “Right! Thank you! Yes!” said Imp, awash with relief.
    He grabbed his harp and played a few notes. That seemed to lighten the atmosphere a bit. Everyone knew elves had never been able to play music.
    “Lias Bluestone,” said the troll, extending something massive with fingers on it.
    “Imp y Celyn,” said Imp. “Nothing to do with moving rocks around at all in any way!”
    A smaller, more knobbly hand was thrust at Imp from another direction. His gaze traveled up its associated arm, which was the property of the dwarf. He was small, even for a dwarf. A large bronze horn lay across his knees.
    “Glod Glodsson,” said the dwarf. “You just play the harp?”
    “Anything with strings on it,” said Imp. “But the harp is the queen of instruments, see.”
    “I can blow anything,” said Glod.
    “Realllly?” said Imp. He sought for some polite comment. “That must make you very popular.”
    The troll heaved a big leather sack off the floor.
    “ Dis is what I play,” he said. A number of large round rocks tumbled out onto the floor. Lias picked one up and flicked it with a finger. It went bam .
    “Music made from rocks?” said Imp. “What do you callll it?”
    “We call it Ggroohauga ,” said Lias, “which means music made from rocks.”
    The rocks were all of different sizes, carefully tuned here and there by small nicks hacked in the stone.
    “May I?” said Imp.
    “Be my guest.”
    Imp selected a small rock and flicked it with his finger. It went bop . A smaller one went bing .
    “What do you do with them?” he said.
    “I bang them together.”
    “And then what?”
    “What do you mean, ‘And then what?’”
    “What do you do after you’ve banged them together?”
    “I bang them together again,” said Lias, one of Nature’s drummers.
    The door to the inner room opened and a man with a pointed nose peered around it.
    “You lot together?” he snapped.

    There was indeed a river, according to legend, one drop of which would rob a man of his memory.
    Many people assumed that this was the river Ankh, whose waters can be drunk or even cut up and chewed. A drink from the Ankh would quite probably rob a man of his memory, or at least cause things to happen to him that he would on no account wish to recall.
    In fact there was another river that would do the trick. There was, of course, a snag. No one knows where it is, because they’re always pretty thirsty when they find it.
    Death turned his attention elsewhere.

    “Seventy-five dollars?” said Imp. “Just to play music?”
    “That’s twenty-five dollars registration fee, thirty-five dollars up front against fees, and fifteen dollars voluntary compulsory annual subscription to the