‘Sounds like there’s a lot of people in,’ said Glod.
Hibiscus bustled up. ‘You boys ready, then?’ he said.
‘Hold on a minute,’ said Cliff. ‘We ain’t discussed our pay.’
‘I said six dollars,’ said Hibiscus. ‘What d’you expect? You aren’t Guild, and the Guild rate is eight dollars.’
‘We wouldn’t ask you for eight dollars,’ said Glod.
‘Right!’
‘We’ll take sixteen.’
‘Sixteen? You can’t do that! That’s almost twice Guild rate!’
‘But there’s a lot of people out there,’ said Glod. ‘I bet you’re renting a lot of beer. We don’t mind going home.’
‘Let’s talk about this,’ said Hibiscus. He put his arm around Glod’s head and led him to a corner of the room.
Buddy watched the Librarian examine the piano. He’d never seen a musician begin by trying to eat his instrument. Then the ape lifted the lid and regarded the keyboard. He tried a few notes, apparently for taste.
Glod returned, rubbing his hands.
‘That’s sorted him out,’ he said. ‘Hah!’
‘How much?’ said Cliff.
‘Six dollars!’ said Glod.
There was some silence.
‘Sorry,’ said Buddy. ‘We were waiting for the “-teen”.’
‘I had to be firm,’ said Glod. ‘He got down to two dollars at one point.’
Some religions say that the universe was started with a word, a song, a dance, a piece of music. The Listening Monks of the Ramtops have trained their hearing until they can tell the value of a playing card by listening to
it, and have made it their task to listen intently to the subtle sounds of the universe to piece together, from the fossil echoes, the very first sounds.
There was certainly, they say, a very strange noise at the beginning of everything.
But the keenest ears (the ones who win most at poker), who listen to the frozen echoes in ammonites and amber, swear they can detect some tiny sounds before that.
It sounded, they say, like someone counting: One, Two, Three, Four.
The very best one, who listened to basalt, said he thought he could make out, very faintly, some numbers that came even earlier.
When they asked him what it was, he said: ‘It sounds like One, Two.’
No-one ever asked what, if there was a sound that called the universe into being, happened to it afterwards. It’s mythology. You’re not supposed to ask that kind of question.
On the other hand, Ridcully believed that everything had come into being by chance or, in the particular case of the Dean, out of spite.
Senior wizards didn’t usually drink in the Mended Drum except when they were off duty. They were aware that they were here tonight in some sort of ill-defined official capacity, and were seated rather primly in front of their drinks.
There was a ring of empty seats around them, but it was not very big because the Drum was unusually crowded.
‘Lot of ambience in here,’ said Ridcully, looking around. ‘Ah, I see they do Real Ale again. I’ll have a pint of Turbot’s Really Odd, please.’
The wizards watched him as he drained the mug. Ankh-Morpork beer has a flavour all its own; it’s something to do with the water. Some people say it’s like consomm�, but they are wrong. Consomm� is cooler.
Ridcully smacked his lips happily.
‘Ah, we certainly know what goes into good beer in AnkhMorpork,’ he said.
The wizards nodded. They certainly did. That’s why they were drinking gin and tonic.
Ridcully looked around. Normally at this time of night there was a fight going on somewhere, or at least a mild stabbing. But there was just a buzz of conversation and everyone was watching the small stage at the far end of the room, where nothing was happening in large amounts. There was theoretically a curtain across it; it was only an old sheet, and there was a succession of thuds and thumps from behind it.
The wizards were quite close to the stage. Wizards tend to get good seats. Ridcully thought he could make out some whispering, and see shadows moving behind the sheet.
‘He said, what do we call ourselves?’
‘Cliff, Buddy, Glod and the Librarian. I thought he knew that.’
‘No, we’ve got to have one name for all of us.’
‘Dey rationed, den?’
‘Something like The Merry Troubadours, maybe.’
‘Oook!’
‘Glod and the Glodettes?’
‘Oh, yes? How about Cliff and the Cliffettes?’
‘Gook ook Oook-ook?’
‘No. We need a different type of name. Like the music.’
‘How about Gold? Good dwarf name.’
‘No. Something different from that.’
‘Silver, then.’
‘Ook!’
‘I don’t think we should name ourselves after any kind of heavy metal, Glod.’
‘What’s so special? We’re a band of people who play music.’
‘Names are important.’
‘The guitar is special. How about The Band With Buddy’s Guitar In It?’
‘Oook.’
‘Something shorter.’
‘Er …’
The universe held its breath.
‘The Band With Rocks In?’
‘I like it. Short and slightly dirty, just like me.’
‘Oook.’
‘We ought to think up a name for the music, too.’
‘It’s bound to occur to us sooner or later.’ .
Ridcully looked around the bar.
On the opposite side of the room was Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork’s most spectacularly unsuccessful businessman. He was trying to sell someone a felonious hot dog, a sign that some recent sure-fire business venture had collapsed. Dibbler sold his hot sausages only when all else failed.[17]
He gave Ridcully a wave at no charge.
The next table was occupied by Satchelmouth Lemon, one of the Musicians’ Guild’s recruiting officers, with a couple of associates whose apparent knowledge of music extended only to the amount of percussion available on the human skull. His determined expression suggested that he was not there for his health, although the fact that the Guild officers had a mean look about them rather hinted he was there for other people’s health, mostly in order to take it away.
Ridcully brightened up. The evening might just possibly be more interesting than he had expected.
There was another table near the stage. He nearly didn’t notice it, and then his gaze swivelled back to it of its own accord.
There was a young woman sitting there, all by herself. Of course, it wasn’t unusual to see young women in the Drum. Even unaccompanied young women. They were generally there in order to become accompanied.
The odd thing was that, although people were jammed along the benches, she had space all around her. She was quite attractive in a skinny way, Ridcully thought. What was the tomboy word? Gammon, or something. She was wearing a black lace dress of the sort worn by healthy young women who want to look consumptive, and had a raven sitting on her shoulder.
She turned her head, saw Ridcully looking at her, and vanished.
More or less.
He was a wizard, after all. He felt his eyes watering as she flickered in and out of vision.
Ah. Well, he’d heard the Tooth Fairy girls were in the city these days. It’d be one of the night people. They probably had a day off, just like everyone else.
A movement on the table made him look down. The Death of Rats scrittered past, carrying a bowl of peanuts.
He turned back to the wizards. The Dean was still wearing his pointy hat. There was also something slightly shiny about his face.
‘You look hot, Dean,’ said Ridcully.
‘Oh, I’m lovely and cool, Archchancellor, I assure you,’ said the Dean. Something runny oozed past his nose.
The Lecturer in Recent Runes sniffed suspiciously.
‘Is someone cooking bacon?’ he said.
‘Take it off, Dean,’ said Ridcully. ‘You’ll feel a lot better.’
‘Smells more like Mrs Palm’s House of Negotiable Affection to me,’ said the Senior Wrangler.
They looked at him in surprise.
‘I just happened to walk past once,’ he said quickly.
‘Runes, please take the Dean’s hat off for him, will you?’ said Ridcully.
‘I assure you-‘
The hat came off. Something long and greasy and very nearly the same pointy shape flopped forward.
‘Dean,’ said Ridcully eventually, ‘what have you done to your hair? It looks like a spike at the front and a duck’s arse, excuse my Klatchian, at the back. And it’s all shiny.’
‘Lard. That’d be the bacon smell,’ said the Lecturer.
‘That’s true,’ said Ridcully, ‘but what about the floral smell?’
‘mumblemumblemumblelavendermumble,’ said the Dean sullenly.
‘Pardon, Dean?’
‘I said it’s because I added lavender oil,’ said the Dean loudly. ‘And some of us happen to think it’s a nifty hairstyle, thank you so very much. Your trouble, Archchancellor, is that you don’t understand people of our age!’
‘What . . . you mean seven months older than me?’ said Ridcully.
This time the Dean hesitated.
‘What did I just say?’ he said.
‘Have you been taking dried frog pills, old chap?’ said Ridcully.
‘Of course not, they’re for the mentally unstable!’ said the Dean.
‘Ah. There’s the trouble, then.’
The curtain went up or, rather, was jerkily pulled aside.