Terry Pratchett - Soul Music

" I'd just have to put up with it."

" I'd like a quarry," said the troll.

" Yeah?"

" Yeah. Heart‑shaped."

A dark, stormy night. A coach, horses gone, plunged through the rickety, useless fence and dropped, tum­bling, into the gorge below. It didn't even strike an outcrop of rock before it hit the dried river‑bed far below and erupted into fragments. Then the oil from the coach‑lamps ignited and there was a second ex­plosion, out of which rolled ‑ because there are certain conventions, even in tragedy ‑ a burning wheel.

What was strange to Susan was that she felt nothing. She could think sad thoughts, because in the circum­stances they had to be sad. She knew who was in the coach. But it had already happened. There was nothing she could do to stop it, because if she'd stopped it, it wouldn't have happened. And she was here watching it happen. So she hadn't. So it had. She felt the logic of the situation dropping into place like a series of huge leaden slabs.

Perhaps there was somewhere where it hadn't hap­pened. Perhaps the coach had skidded the other way, perhaps there had been a convenient rock, perhaps it hadn't come this way at all, perhaps the coachman had remembered about the sudden curve. But those possibilities could only exist if there was this one.

This wasn't her knowledge. It flowed in from a mind far, far older.

Sometimes the only thing you could do for people was to be there.

She rode Binky into the shadows by the cliff road, and waited. After a minute or two there was a clattering of stones and a horse and rider came up an almost vertical path from the river‑bed.

Binky's nostrils flared. Parapsychology has no word for the uneasy feeling you have when you're in the presence of yourself.

Susan watched Death dismount and stand looking down at the river‑bed, leaning on his scythe.

She thought: but he could have done something.

Couldn't he?

The figure straightened, but did not turn around.

YES. I COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING.

"How... how did you know I was here... ?"

Death waved a hand irritably.

I REMEMBER YOU. AND NOW UNDERSTAND THIS: YOUR PARENTS KNEW THINGS MUST HAPPEN. EVERY­THING MUST HAPPEN SOMEWHERE. DO YOU NOT THINK I SPOKE TO THEM OF THIS? BUT I CANNOT GIVE LIFE. I CAN ONLY GRANT... EXTENSION. CHANGELESSNESS. ONLY HUMANS CAN GIVE LIFE. AND THEY WANTED TO BE HUMAN, NOT IMMORTAL. IF IT HELPS YOU, THEY DIED INSTANTLY. INSTANTLY.

I've got to ask, Susan thought. I've got to say it. Or I'm not human.

" I could go back and save them... ?" Only the faintest tremor suggested that the statement was a question.

SAVE? FOR WHAT ? A LIFE THAT HAS RUN OUT? SOME THINGS END. I KNOW THIS. SOMETIMES I HAVE THOUGHT OTHERWISE. BUT... WITHOUT DUTY, WHAT AM I? THERE HAS TO BE A LAW.

He climbed into the saddle and, still without turning to face her, spurred Binky out and over the gorge.

There was a haystack behind a livery stable in Phedre Road. It bulged for a moment, and there was a muffled swearing.

A fraction of a second later there was a bout of coughing and another, much better, swear‑word inside a grain silo down near the cattle market.

Very shortly after that some rotten floorboards in an old feed store in Short Street exploded upwards, followed by a swear‑word that bounced off a flour sack.

" Idiot rodent!" bellowed Albert, fingering grain out of his ear.

SQUEAK.

" I should think so! What size do you think I am?"

Albert brushed hay and flour off his coat and walked over to the window.

" Ah," he said, "let us repair to the Mended Drum, then."

In Albert's pocket, sand resumed its interrupted journey from future to past.

Hibiscus Dunelm had decided to close up for an hour. It was a simple process. First he and his staff collected any unbroken mugs and glasses. This didn't take long. Then there was a desultory search for any weapons with a high resale value, and a quick search of any pockets whose owners were unable to object on account of being drunk, dead or both. Then the furniture was moved aside and everything else was swept out of the back door and into the broad brown bosom of the river Ankh, where it piled up and, by degrees, sank.

Finally, Hibiscus locked and bolted the big front door...

It wouldn't shut. He looked down. A boot was wedged in it.

" We're shut," he said.

" No, you ain't."

The door ground back, and Albert was inside.

" Have you seen this person?" he demanded, thrusting a pasteboard oblong in front of Dunelm's eyes.

This was a gross breach of etiquette. Dunelm wasn't in the kind of job where you survived if you told people you'd seen people. Dunelm could serve drinks all night without seeing anyone.

" Never seen him before in my life," he said, automatically, without even looking at the card.

" You've got to help me," said Albert, "otherwise something dreadful will happen."

" Push off!"

Albert kicked the door shut behind him.

" Just don't say I didn't warn you," he said. On his shoulder the Death of Rats sniffed the air suspiciously.

A moment later Hibiscus was having his chin pressed firmly into the boards of one of his tables.

" Now, I know he'd come in here," said Albert, who wasn't even breathing heavily, "because everyone does, sooner or later. Have another look."

" That's a Caroc card," said Hibiscus indistinctly. "That's Death!"

" That's right. He's the one on the white horse. You can't miss him. Only he wouldn't look like that in here, I expect."

" Let me get this straight," said the landlord, trying desperately to wriggle out of the iron grip. "You want me to tell you if I've seen someone who doesn't look like that?"

" He'd have been odd. Odder than most." Albert thought for a moment. "And he'd have drunk a lot, if I know him. He always does."

" This is Ankh‑Morpork, you know."

" Don't be cheeky, or I'll get angry."

" You mean you're not angry now?"

" I'm just impatient. You can try for angry if you like."

" There was... someone... few days ago. Can't remember exactly what he looked like–'

" Ah. That'd be him."

" Drank me dry, complained about the Barbarian In­vaders game, got legless and then..."

" What?"

" Can't recall. We just threw him out."

" Out the back door?"

" Yes."

" But that's just river out there."

" Well, most people come round before they sink."

SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats.

" Did he say anything?" said Albert, too busy to pay attention.

" Something about remembering everything, I think. He said... he said being drunk didn't make him forget. Kept going on about doorknobs and... hairy sunlight."

" Hairy sunlight?"

" Something like that."

And the pressure on Hibiscus's arm was suddenly released. He waited a second or two and then, very cautiously, turned his head.

There was no‑one behind him.

Very carefully, Hibiscus bent down to look under the tables.

Albert stepped out into the dawn and, after some fumbling, produced his box. He opened it and glanced at his lifetimer, then snapped the lid shut.

" All right," he said. "What next?"

SQUEAK!

" What?"

And someone hit him across the head.

It wasn't a killing stroke. Timo Laziman of the

Thieves' Guild knew what happened to thieves who killed people. The Assassins' Guild came and talked briefly to them ‑ in fact, all they said was, "Goodbye."

All he'd wanted to do was knock the old man out so that he could rifle his pockets.

He'd not expected the sound as the body hit the ground. It was like the tinkle of broken glass, but with unpleasant overtones that carried on echoing in Timo's ears long after they should have stopped.