WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT CATS?
‘Sorry?’
CATS. DO YOU LIKE ‘EM?
‘They’re . . .’ Susan hesitated, ‘all right. But a cat’s just a cat.’
CHOCOLATE, said Death. DO YOU LIKE CHOCOLATE?
‘I think it’s possible to have too much,’ said Susan.
YOU CERTAINLY DON’T TAKE AFTER YSABELL.
Susan nodded. Her mother’s favourite dish had been Genocide by Chocolate.
AND YOUR MEMORY? YOU HAVE A GOOD MEMORY?
‘Oh, yes. I . . . remember things. About how to be Death. About how it’s all supposed to work. Look, just then you said you remembered about the rat, and it hasn’t even happ-‘
Death stood up and strode across to the model of the Discworld.
MORPHIC RESONANCE, he said, not looking at Susan. DAMN. PEOPLE DON’T BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND IT. SOUL HARMONICS. IT’S RESPONSIBLE FOR SO MANY THINGS.
Susan pulled out Imp’s lifetimer. Blue smoke was still pouring through the pinch.
‘Can you help me with this?’ she said.
Death spun around.
I SHOULD NEVER HAVE ADOPTED YOUR MOTHER.
‘Why did you?’
Death shrugged.
WHAT’S THAT YOU’VE GOT THERE?
He took Buddy’s lifetimer from her and held it up.
AH. INTERESTING.
‘Do you know what it means, Grandad?’
I’VE NOT COME ACROSS IT BEFORE, BUT I SUPPOSE IT’S POSSIBLE. IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES. IT MEANS . . . SOMEHOW . . . THAT HE HAS RHYTHM IN HIS SOUL . . . GRANDAD?
‘Oh, no. That can’t be right. That’s just a figure of speech. And what’s wrong with grandad?’
GRANDFATHER I CAN LIVE WITH. GRANDAD? ONE STEP AWAY FROM GRAMPS, IN MY OPINION. ANYWAY, I THOUGHT YOU BELIEVED IN LOGIC. CALLING SOMETHING A FIGURE OF SPEECH DOESN’T MEAN IT’S NOT TRUE.
Death waved the hourglass vaguely.
FOR EXAMPLE, he said, MANY THINGS ARE BETTER THAN A POKE IN THE EYE WITH A BLUNT STICK. I’VE NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE PHRASE. SURELY A SHARP STICK WOULD BE EVEN WORSE-
Death stopped.
I’M DOING IT AGAIN! WHY SHOULD I CARE WHAT THE WRETCHED PHRASE MEANS? OR WHAT YOU CALL ME? UNIMPORTANT! GETTING ENTANGLED WITH HUMANS CLOUDS THE THINKING. TAKE IT FROM ME. DON’T GET INVOLVED.
‘But I am a human.’
I DIDN’T SAY IT WAS GOING TO BE EASY, DID I? DON’T THINK ABOUT IT. DON’T FEEL.
‘You’re an expert, are you?’ said Susan hotly.
I MAY HAVE ALLOWED MYSELF SOME FLICKER OF EMOTION IN THE RECENT PAST, said Death, BUT I CAN GIVE IT UP ANY TIME I LIKE.
He held up the hourglass again.
IT’S AN INTERESTING FACT THAT MUSIC, BEING OF ITS NATURE IMMORTAL, CAN SOMETIMES PROLONG THE LIFE OF THOSE INTIMATELY ASSOCIATED WITH IT, he said. I’VE NOTICED THAT FAMOUS COMPOSERS IN PARTICULAR HANG ON FOR A LONG TIME. DEAF AS POSTS, MOST OF THEM, WHEN I COME CALLING. I EXPECT SOME GOD SOMEWHERE FINDS THAT VERY AMUSING. Death contrived to look disdainful.
IT’S THEIR KIND OF JOKE.[16]
He set the glass down and twanged it with a bony digit.
It went whauuummmmeeee-chida-chida-chida.
HE HAS NO LIFE. HE HAS MUSIC.
‘Music’s taken him over?’
YOU COULD PUT IT LIKE THAT.
‘Making his life longer?’
LIFE IS EXTENSIBLE. IT HAPPENS OCCASIONALLY AMONG HUMANS. NOT OFTEN. USUALLY TRAGICALLY, IN A THEATRICAL KIND OF WAY. BUT THIS ISN’T ANOTHER HUMAN. THIS IS MUSIC.
‘He played something, on some sort of stringed instrument like a guitar-‘
Death turned.
INDEED? WELL, WELL, WELL . . .
‘Is that important?’
IT IS . . . INTERESTING.
‘Is it something I should know?’
IT IS NOTHING IMPORTANT. A PIECE OF MYTHOLOGICAL DEBRIS. MATTERS WILL RESOLVE THEMSELVES, YOU MAY DEPEND UPON IT.
‘What do you mean, resolve themselves?’
HE WILL PROBABLY BE DEAD IN A MATTER OF DAYS.
Susan stared at the lifetimer.
‘But that’s dreadful!’
ARE YOU ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED WITH THE YOUNG MAN?
‘What? No! I’ve only ever seen him once!’
YOUR EYES DIDN’T MEET ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM OR ANYTHING OF THAT NATURE?
‘No! Of course not.’
WHY SHOULD YOU CARE, THEN?
‘Because he matt- because he’s a human being, that’s why,’ said Susan, surprised at herself. ‘I don’t see why people should be messed around like that,’ she added lamely. ‘That’s all. Oh, I don’t know.’
He leaned down again until his skull was on a level with her face.
BUT MOST PEOPLE ARE RATHER STUPID AND WASTE THEIR LIVES. HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THAT? HAVE YOU NOT LOOKED DOWN FROM THE HORSE AT A CITY AND THOUGHT HOW MUCH IT RESEMBLED AN ANT HEAP, FULL OF BLIND CREATURES WHO THINK THEIR MUNDANE LITTLE WORLD IS REAL? YOU SEE THE LIGHTED WINDOWS AND WHAT YOU WANT TO THINK IS THAT THERE MAY BE MANY INTERESTING STORIES BEHIND THEM, BUT WHAT YOU KNOW IS THAT REALLY THERE ARE JUST DULL, DULL SOULS,
MERE CONSUMERS OF FOOD, WHO THINK THEIR INSTINCTS ARE EMOTIONS AND THEIR TINY LIVES OF MORE ACCOUNT THAN A WHISPER OF WIND.
The blue glow was bottomless. It seemed to be sucking her own thoughts out of her mind.
‘No,’ whispered Susan, ‘no, I’ve never thought like that.’
Death stood up abruptly and turned away. YOU MAY FIND THAT IT HELPS, he said.
‘But it’s all just chaos,’ said Susan. ‘There’s no sense to the way people die. There’s no justice!’
HAH.
‘You take a hand,’ she persisted. ‘You just saved my father.’
I WAS FOOLISH. TO CHANGE THE FATE OF ONE INDIVIDUAL IS TO CHANGE THE WORLD. I REMEMBER THAT. SO SHOULD YOU.
Death still hadn’t turned to face her.
‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t change things if it makes the world better,’ said Susan.
HAH.
‘Are you too scared to change the world?’
Death turned. The very sight of his expression made Susan back away.
He advanced slowly towards her. His voice, when it came, was a hiss.
YOU SAY THAT TO ME? YOU STAND THERE IN YOUR PRETTY DRESS AND SAY THAT TO ME? YOU? YOU PRATTLE ON ABOUT CHANGING THE WORLD? COULD YOU FIND THE COURAGE TO ACCEPT IT? TO KNOW WHAT MUST BE DONE AND DO IT, WHATEVER THE COST? IS THERE ONE HUMAN ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD WHO KNOWS WHAT DUTY MEANS?
His hands opened and shut convulsively.
I SAID YOU MUST REMEMBER . . . FOR US, TIME IS ONLY A PLACE. IT’S ALL SPREAD OUT. THERE IS WHAT IS, AND WHAT WILL BE. IF YOU CHANGE THAT, YOU CARRY THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CHANGE. AND THAT IS TOO HEAVY TO BEAR.
‘That’s just an excuse!’
Susan glared at the tall figure. Then she turned and marched out of the room.
SUSAN?
She stopped halfway across the floor, but didn’t turn around.
‘Yes?’
REALLY . . . BONY KNEES?
‘Yes!’
It was probably the first piano case that’d ever been made, and made out of a carpet at that. Cliff swung it easily on to his shoulder and picked up his sack of rocks in the other hand.
‘Is it heavy?’ said Buddy.
Cliff held the piano up on one hand and weighed it reflectively.
‘A bit,’ he said. The floorboards creaked underneath him. ‘ Do you think we should’ve took all dem bits out?’
‘It’s bound to work,’ said Glod. ‘It’s like . . . a coach. The more bits you take off, the faster it goes. Come on.’
They set out. Buddy tried to look as inconspicuous as a human can look if he is accompanying a dwarf with a big horn, an ape, and a troll carrying a piano in a bag.
‘I’d like a coach,’ said Cliff, as they headed for the Drum. ‘Big black coach with all dat liver on it.’
‘Liver?’ said Buddy. He was beginning to get accustomed to the name.
‘Shields and dat.’
‘Oh. Livery.’
‘And dat.’
‘What’d you get if you had a pile of gold, Glod?’ said Buddy. In its bag the guitar twanged gently to the sound of his voice.
Glod hesitated. He wanted to say that for a dwarf the whole point of having a pile of gold was, well, to have a pile of gold. It didn’t have to do anything other than be just as oraceous as gold could be.
‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Never thought I’d have a pile of gold. What about you?’
‘I swore I’d be the most famous musician in the world.’
‘Days dangerous, dat kinda swear,’ said Cliff.
‘Cook.’
‘Isn’t it what every artist wants?’ said Buddy.
‘In my experience,’ said Glod, ‘what every true artist wants, really wants, is to be paid.’
‘And famous,’ said Buddy.
‘Famous I don’t know about,’ said Glod. ‘It’s hard to be famous and alive. I just want to play music every day and hear someone say, “Thanks, that was great, here is some money, same time tomorrow OK?”‘
‘Is that all?’
‘It’s a lot. I’d like people to say, “We need a good horn man, get Glod Glodsson!”‘
‘Sounds a bit dull,’ said Buddy.
‘I like dull. It lasts.’
They reached the side door of the Drum and entered a gloomy room that smelled of rats and second-hand beer. There was a distant murmur of voices from the bar.