Terry Pratchett: Soul Music

He'd worked hard on behalf of the Thieves' Guild, although he hadn't been a thief, at least in the sense normally meant. Then there'd been a rather more senior vacancy in the Fools' Guild, and Mr Clete was no fool. And finally there had been the secretaryship of the Musicians.

Technically, he should have been a musician. So he bought a comb and paper. Since up until that time the Guild had been run by real musicians, and therefore the membership roll was unrolled and hardly anyone had paid any dues lately and the organization owed several thousand dollars to Chrysoprase the troll at punitive interest, he didn't even have to audition.

When Mr Clete had opened the first of the unkempt ledgers and looked at the unorganized mess, he had felt a deep and wonderful feeling. Since then, he'd never looked back. He had spent a long time looking down. And although the Guild had a president and council, it also had Mr Clete, who took the minutes and made sure things ran smoothly and smiled very quietly to himself. It is a strange but reliable fact that whenever men throw off the yoke of tyrants and set out to rule themselves there emerges, like a mushroom after rain, Mr Clete.

Hat. Hat. Hat. Mr Clete laughed at things in inverse proportion to the actual humour of the situation.

" But that's nonsense!"

" Welcome to the wonderful world of the Guild economy," said Mr Clete. "Hat. Hat. Hat."

" What happens if we pllay without belonging to the Guilld, then?" said Imp. "Do you confiscate our instruments?"

" To start with," said the president. "And then we sort of give them back to you. Hat. Hat. Hat. Incidentally... you're not elvish, are you?"

" Seventy‑five dollars is criminall," said Imp, as they plodded along the evening streets.

" Worse than criminal," said Glod. "I hear the Thieves' Guild just charges a percentage."

" And dey give you a proper Guild membership and everything," Lias rumbled. "Even a pension. And dey have a day trip to Quirm and a picnic every year."

" Music should be free," said Imp.

" So what we going to do now?" said Lias.

" Anyone got any money?" said Glod.

" Got a dollar," said Lias.

" Got some pennies," said Imp.

" Then we're going to have a decent meal," said Glod. "Right here."

He pointed up at a sign.

" Gimlet's Hole Food?" said Lias. "Gimlet? Sounds dwarfish. Vermincelli and stuff?"

" Now he's doing troll food too," said Glod. "Decided to put aside ethnic differences in the cause of making more money. Five types of coal, seven types of coke and ash, sediments to make you dribble. You'll like it."

" Dwarf bread too?" said Imp.

" You like dwarf bread?" said Glod.

" Llove it; said Imp.

" What, proper dwarf bread?" said Glod. "You sure?"

" Yes. It's nice and crunchy, see."

Glod shrugged.

" That proves it," he said. "No‑one who likes dwarf bread can be elvish."

The place was almost empty. A dwarf in an apron that came up to its armpits watched them over the top of the counter. "You do fried rat?" said Glod.

" Best damn fried rat in the city," said Gimlet.

" OK. Give me four fried rats."

" And some dwarf bread," said Imp.

" And some coke," said Lias patiently.

" You mean rat heads or rat legs?"

" No. Four fried rats."

" And some coke."

" You want ketchup on those rats?"

" No."

" You sure?"

" No ketchup."

" And some coke."

" And two hard‑boilled eggs," said Imp.

The others gave him an odd look.

" Wellll? I just like hard‑boilled eggs," he said.

" And some coke."

" And two hard‑boiled eggs."

" And some coke."

" Seventy‑five dollars," said Glod, as they sat down. "What's three times seventy‑five dollars?"

" Many dollars," said Lias.

" More than two hundred dollllars," said Imp.

" I don't think I've even seen two hundred dollars," said Glod. "Not while I've been awake."

" We raise money?" said Lias. " We can't raise money by being musicians," said Imp. "It's the Guild Raw. If they catch you, they take your instrument and shove–" He stopped. "Llet's just say it's not much fun for the piccollo pllayer," he added from memory.

" I shouldn't think the trombonist is very happy either," said Glod, putting some pepper on his rat.

" I can't go back home now," said Imp. "I said I'd... I can't go back home yet. Even if I could, I'd have to raise monolliths llike my brothers. Allll they care about is stone circlles."

" If I go back home now," said Lias, "I'll be clubbing druids."

They both, very carefully, sidled a little further away from each other.

" Then we play somewhere where the Guild won't find us," said Glod cheerfully. " We find a club somewhere–"

" Got a club," said Lias, proudly. "Got a nail in it."

" I mean a night club," said Glod.

" Still got a nail in it at night."

" I happen to know," said Glod, abandoning that line of conversation, "that there's a lot of places in the city that don't like paying Guild rates. We could do a few gigs and raise the money with no trouble."

" Allll three of us together?" said Imp.

" Sure."

" But we pllay dwarf music and human music and trollll music," said Imp. "I'm not sure they'llll go together. I mean, dwarfs llisten to dwarf music, humans llisten to human music, trolllls Ilisten to trollll music. What do we get if we mix it allll together? It'd be dreadfull."

" We're getting along OK," said Lias, getting up and fetching the salt from the counter.

" We're musicians," said Glod. "It's not the same with real people."

" Yeah, right," said the troll.

Lias sat down.

There was a cracking noise.

Lias stood up.

" Oh," he said.

Imp reached over. Slowly and with great care he picked the remains of his harp off the bench.

" Oh," said Lias.

A string curled back with a sad little sound.

It was like watching the death of a kitten.

" I won that at the Eisteddfod," said Imp.

" Could you glue it back together?" said Glod, eventually.

Imp shook his head.

" There's no‑one left in Llamedos who knows how, see."

" Yes, but in the Street of Cunning Artificers–"

" I'm real sorry. I mean real sorry, I don't know how it got dere."

" It wasn't your faullt."

Imp tried, ineffectually, to fit a couple of pieces together. But you couldn't repair a musical instrument. He remembered the old bards saying that. They had a soul. All instruments had a soul. If they were broken, the soul of them escaped, flew away like a bird. What was put together again was just a thing, a mere assemblage of wood and wire. It would play, it might even deceive the casual listener, but... You might as well push someone over a cliff and then stitch them together and expect them to come alive.

" Um... maybe we could get you another one, then?" said Glod. "There's... a nice little music shop in The Backs–"

He stopped. Of course there was a nice little music shop in The Backs. It had always been there.

" In The Backs," he repeated, just to make sure. "Bound to get one there. In The Backs. Yes. Been there years."

" Not one of these," said Imp. "Before a craftsman even touches the wood he has to spend two weeks sitting wrapped in a bullllock hide in a cave behind a waterfallll."

" Why?"

" I don't know. It's traditionall. He has to get his mind pure of allll distractions."

" There's bound to be something else, though," said Glod. "We'll buy something. You can't be a musician without an instrument."

" I haven't got any money," said Imp.

Glod slapped him on the back. "That doesn't matter," he said. "You've got friends! We'll help you! Least we can do."