Terry Pratchett: Soul Music

" Let's get your friends, shall we?"

There was a friction in the air, as if the attention of the world were being focused. Death stared into the future.

OH, BLAST.

Things were coming apart. The Librarian had done his best, but mere bone and wood couldn't take this sort of strain. Feathers and beads whirled away and landed, smoking, in the road. A wheel parted company from its axle and bounced away, shedding spokes, as the machine took a curve almost horizontally.

It made no real difference. Something like a soul flickered in the air where the missing pieces had been.

If you took a shining machine, and shone a light on

it so that there were gleams and highlights, and then took away the machine but left the light...

Only the horse's skull remained. That and the rear wheel, which spun in forks now only of flickering light, and was smouldering.

The thing whirred past Dibbler, causing his horse to throw him into the ditch and bolt.

Death was used to travelling fast. In theory he was already everywhere, waiting for almost anything else. The fastest way to travel is to be there already.

But he'd never been this fast while going this slow. The landscape had often been a blur, but never while it was only four inches from his knee on the bends.

The cart shifted again. Now even Cliff was looking down into the darkness.

Something touched his shoulder.

HANG ON TO THIS. BUT DON'T TOUCH THE BLADE.

Buddy leaned past.

" Glod, if you let go of the bag I ,;an–"

" Don't even think about it."

" There's no pockets in a shroud, Glod."

" You got the wrong tailor, then."

In the end Buddy grabbed a spare leg and hauled. One at a time, clambering over one another, the Band eased themselves back on to the road. And turned to look at Susan.

" White horse," said Asphalt. "Black cloak. Scythe. Um."

" You can see her too?" said Buddy.

" I hope we're not going to wish we couldn't," said Cliff.

Susan held up a lifetimer and peered at it critically.

" I suppose it's too late to cut some sort of deal?" said Glod.

" I'm just looking to see if you're dead or not," said Susan.

" I think I'm alive," said Glod.

" Hold on to that thought."

They turned at a creaking sound. The cart slid forward and dropped into the gorge. There was a crash as it hit an outcrop halfway to the bottom, and then a more distant thud as it smashed into the rocks. There was a 'whoomph' and orange flames blossomed as the oil in the lamps exploded.

Out of the debris, trailing flame, rolled a burning wheel.

" We would have been in dat," said Cliff.

" You think maybe we're better off now?" said Glod.

" Yep," said Cliff. "Cos we're not dyin' in the wreckage of a burning cart."

" Yes, but she looks a bit... occult."

" Fine by me. I'll take occult over deep‑fried any day."

Behind them, Buddy turned to Susan.

" I... think I've worked it out," she said. "The music... twisted up history, I think. It's not supposed to be in our history. Can you remember where you got it from?"

Buddy just stared. When you've been saved from certain death by an attractive girl on a white horse, you don't expect a shopping quiz.

" A shop in Ankh‑Morpork," said Cliff.

I

" A mysterious old shop?"

" Mysterious as anything. There–"

" Did you go back? Was it still there? Was it in the same place?"

" Yes," said Cliff.

" No," said Glod.

" Lots of interesting merchandise that you wanted to pick up and learn more about?"

" Yes!" said Glod and Cliff together.

" Oh; said Susan, " that kind of shop."

" I knew it didn't belong here," said Glod. "Didn't I say it didn't belong here? I said it didn't belong here. I said it was eldritch."

" I thought that meant oblong," said Asphalt.

Cliff held out his hand.

" It's stopped snowing," he said.

" I dropped the thing into the gorge," said Buddy. "I... didn't need it any more. It must have smashed."

" No," said Susan, "it's not as–"

" The clouds... now they look eldritch," said Glod, looking up.

" What? Oblong?" said Asphalt.

They all felt it... a sensation that the walls had been removed from around the world. The air buzzed.

" What's this now?" said Asphalt, as they instinctively huddled together.

" You ought to know," said Glod. "I thought you'd been everywhere and seen everything?"

White light crackled in the air.

And then the air became light, white as moonlight but as strong as sunlight. There was also a sound, like the roar of millions of voices.

It said: Let me show you who I am. I am the music.

Satchelmouth lit the coach‑lamps.

" Hurry up, man!" shouted Clete. "We want to catch them, you know! Hat. Hat. Hat."

" I don't see that it matters much if they get away," Satchelmouth grumbled, climbing onto the coach as Clete lashed the horses into motion. "I mean, they're away. That's all that matters, isn't it?"

" No! You saw them. They're the... the soul of all this trouble," said Clete. " We can't let this sort of thing go on!"

Satchelmouth glanced sideways. The thought was flooding into his mind, and not for the first time, that Mr Clete was not playing with a full orchestra, that he was one of those people who built their own hot madness out of sane and chilly parts. Satchelmouth was by no means averse to the finger foxtrot and the skull fandango, but he'd never murdered anyone, at least on purpose. Satchelmouth had been made aware that he had a soul and, though it had a few holes in it and was a little ragged around the edges, he cherished the hope that some day the god Reg would find him a place in a celestial combo. You didn't get the best gigs if you were a murderer. You probably had to play the viola.

" How about if we leave it right now?" he said. "They won't be back–"

" Shut up!"

" But there's no point–"

The horses reared. The coach rocked. Something went past in a blur and vanished in the darkness, leaving a line of blue flames that flickered for a little while, then went out.

Death was aware that at some point he would have to stop. But it was creeping up on him that, in whatever dark vocabulary the ghost machine had been envisaged, the words 'slow down' were as inconceivable as 'drive safely'.

It was not in its very nature to reduce speed in any circumstances other than the dramatically calamitous at the end of the third verse.

That was the trouble with Music With Rocks In. It liked to do things its own way.

Very slowly, still spinning, the front wheel rose off the ground.

Absolute darkness filled the universe.

A voice spake: "Is that you, Cliff?"

" Yup."

" OK. Is this me: Glod?"

" Yup. Sounds like you."

" Asphalt?"

" 'Sme."

" Buddy?"

" Glod?"

" And... er... the lady in black?"

" Yes?"

" Do you know where we are, miss?"

There was no ground under them. But Susan didn't feel that she was floating. She was simply standing. The fact that it was on nothing was a minor point. She wasn't falling because there was nowhere to fall to, or from.

She'd never been interested in geography. But she had a very strong feeling that this place was not locatable on any atlas.

" I don't know where our bodies are," she said, carefully.

" Oh, good," said the voice of Glod. "Really? I'm here, but we don't know where my body is? How about my money?"

There was the sound of faint footsteps far away in the darkness. They approached, slowly and deliberately. And stopped.

A voice said: One. One. One, two. One, two.

Then the footsteps went back into the distance.

After a while, another voice said: One, two, three, four–