Soul Music

The raven talked.
    The plate shattered on the sink.
    “I knew it!” Albert shouted. “ Saving him! She hasn’t got the faintest idea! Right! I’m going to sort this out. The Master thinks he can slope off, eh? Not from old Albert! You two wait here!”

    There were already posters up in Pseudopolis. News travels fast, especially when C.M.O.T. Dibbler is paying for the horses…
    “Hello, Pseudopolis!”
    They had to call out the City Watch. They had to organize a bucket chain from the river. Asphalt had to stand outside Buddy’s dressing room with a club. With a nail in it.

    Albert, in front of a scrap of mirror in his bedroom, brushed his hair furiously. It was white. At least, long ago it was white. Now it was the color of a tobacco addict’s index finger.
    “It’s my duty, that’s what it is,” he muttered. “Don’t know where he’d be without me. Maybe he does remember the future, but he always gets it wrong! Oh, he can go on worrying about the eternal verities, but who has to sort it out when all’s said and done…Muggins, that’s who.”
    He glared at himself in the mirror.
    “Right!” he said.
    There was a battered shoe box under the bed. Albert pulled it out very, very carefully and took the top off. It was half-full of cotton wool; nestling in the wool, like a rare egg, was a lifetimer.
    Engraved on it was the name: Alberto Malich.
    The sand inside was frozen, immobile, in midpour. There wasn’t much left in the top bulb.
    No time passed, here.
    It was part of the Arrangement. He worked for Death, and time didn’t pass, except when he went into the World.
    There was a scrap of paper by the glass. The figures “91” had been written at the top, but lower numbers trailed down the page after it. 73…68…37…19.
    Nineteen!
    He must have been daft. He’d let his life leak away by hours and minutes, and there had been a lot more of them lately. There’d been all that business with the plumber, of course. And shopping. The Master didn’t like to go shopping. It was hard to get served. And Albert had taken a few holidays, because it was nice to see the sun, any sun, and feel wind and rain; the Master did his best, but he could never get them right. And decent vegetables, he couldn’t do them properly either. They never tasted grown .
    Nineteen days left in the world. But more than enough.
    Albert slipped the lifetimer into his pocket, put on an overcoat, and stamped back down the stairs.
    “You,” he said, pointing to the Death of Rats. “You can’t sense a trace of him? There must be something . Concentrate.”
    SQUEAK.
    “What did he say?”
    “He said all he can remember is something about sand.”
    “Sand,” said Albert. “All right. Good start. We search all the sand.”
    SQUEAK?
    “Wherever the Master is, he’ll make an impression.”

    Cliff awoke to a swish-swish sound. The shape of Glod was outlined in the light of dawn, wielding a brush.
    “What’re you doing, dwarf?”
    “I got Asphalt to get some paint,” said Glod. “These rooms are a disgrace.”
    Cliff raised himself on his elbows and looked around.
    “What do you call der color on der door?”
    “Eau-de-nil.”
    “Nice.”
    “Thank you,” said Cliff.
    “The curtains are good, too.”
    The door creaked open. Asphalt came in, with a tray, and kicked the door shut behind him.
    “Oh, sorry,” he said.
    “I’ll paint over the mark,” said Glod.
    Asphalt put the tray down, trembling with excitement.
    “Everyone’s talking about you guys!” he said. “And they’re saying it was about time they built a new theater anyway. I’ve got you eggs and bacon, eggs and rat, eggs and coke, and…and…what was it…oh, yes. The Captain of the Watch says if you’re still in the city at sunrise he will personally have you buried alive. I’ve got the cart all ready by the back door. Young women have been writing things on it in lipstick. Nice curtains, by the way.”
    All three of them looked at Buddy.
    “He hasn’t moved,” said Glod. “Flopped down right after the show and out like a light.”
    “He was certainly leaping around last night,” said Cliff.
    Buddy continued to snore gently.
    “When we get back,” said Glod, “we ought to have a nice holiday somewhere.”
    “Dat’s right,” said Cliff. “If we get out of dis alive, I’m going to put my rock kit on my back and take a long walk, and der first time someone says to me ‘what are dem things on your back?’ dat’s where I’m