Death played the empty chord.
The beat slowed. And began to weaken. The universe spun on, every atom of it. But soon the whirling would end and the dancers would look around and wonder what to do next.
It’s not time for THAT! Play something else!
I CANNOT.
Death nodded towards Buddy.
BUT HE CAN.
He threw the guitar towards Buddy. It passed right through him.
Susan ran and snatched it up, holding it out.
‘You’ve got to take it! You’ve got to play! You’ve got to start the music again!’
She strummed frantically at the strings. Buddy winced.
‘Please!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t fade away!’
The music screamed in her head.
Buddy managed to grasp the guitar, but stood looking at it as if he’d never seen it before.
‘What’ll happen if he doesn’t play it?’ said Glod.
‘You’ll all die in the wreckage!’
AND THEN, said Death, THE MUSIC WILL DIE. AND THE DANCE WILL END. THE WHOLE DANCE.
The ghostly dwarf gave a cough.
‘We’re getting paid for this number, right?’ he said.
YOU’LL GET THE UNIVERSE.
‘And free beer?’
Buddy held the guitar to him. His eyes met Susan’s.
He raised his hand, and played.
The single chord rang out across the gorge, and echoed back with strange harmonics.
THANK YOU, said Death. He stepped forward and took the guitar.
He moved suddenly, and smashed the thing against a rock. The strings parted, and something accelerated away, towards the snow and the stars.
Death looked at the wreckage with some satisfaction.
NOW THAT’S MUSIC WITH ROCKS IN.
He snapped his fingers.
The moon rose over Ankh-Morpork.
The park was deserted. The silver light flowed over the wreckage of the stage, and the mud and halfconsumed sausages that marked the spot where the audience had been. Here and there it glinted off broken sound traps.
After a while some of the mud sat up and spat out some more mud.
‘Crash? Jimbo? Scum?’ it said.
‘Is that you, Noddy?’ said a sad shape hanging from one of the stage’s few remaining beams.
The mud pulled some more mud out of its ears. ‘Right! Where’s Scum?’
‘I think they threw him into the lake.’
‘Is Crash alive?’
There was a groan from under a heap of wreckage. ‘Pity,’ said Noddy, with feeling.
A figure emerged out of the shadows, squelching.
Crash half crawled, half fell out of the rubble.
‘You’fe got to admit,’ he mumbled, because at some stage in the performance a guitar had hit him in the teeth, ‘that waf Music Wif Rocks In . . .’
‘All right,’ said Jimbo, and slithered off his beam. ‘But next time, thanks all the same, I’d rather try sex ‘n’ drugs.’
‘My dad said he’d kill me if I took drugs,’ said Noddy.
‘This is your brain on drugs . . .’ said Jimbo.
‘No, this is your brain, Scum, on this lump here.’
‘Oh, cheers. Thanks.’
‘A painkiller’d be favourite right now,’ said Jimbo.
A little closer to the lake a heap of sacking slid sideways.
‘Archchancellor?’
‘Yes, Mr Stibbons?’
‘I think someone trod on my hat.’
‘So what?’
‘It’s still on my head.’
Ridcully sat up, easing the ache in his bones.
‘Come on, lad,’ he said. ‘Let’s go home. I’m not sure I’m that interested in music any more. It’s a world of hertz.’
A coach rattled along the winding mountain road. Mr Clete was standing on the box, whipping the horses.
Satchelmouth got unsteadily to his feet. The cliff edge was so close he could see right down into the darkness.
‘I’ve had just about altogether too much of this by half,’ he shouted, and tried to snatch at the whip.
‘Stop that! We’ll never catch up with them!’ shouted Clete.
‘So what? Who cares? I liked their music!’
Clete turned. His expression was terrible.
‘Traitor!’
The butt-end of the whip caught Satchelmouth in the stomach. He staggered back, clutched at the edge of the coach, and dropped.
His outflung arm caught hold of what felt like a thin branch in the darkness. He swung wildly over the drop until his boots got a purchase on the rock, and his other hand gripped a broken fence-post.
He was just in time to see the cart rumble straight on. The road, on the other hand, curved sharply.
Satchelmouth shut his eyes and held on tight until the last scream and crackle and splinter had died away. When he opened them, it was just in time to see a burning wheel bounce down the canyon.
‘Blimey,’ he said, ‘it was lucky there . . . was . . . some . . . thing . . .’
His gaze went up. And up.
YES. IT WAS, WASN’T IT?
Mr Clete sat up in the ruins of the cart. It was clearly very much on fire. He was lucky, he told himself, to have survived that.
A black-robed figure walked through the flames.
Mr Clete looked at it. He’d never believed in this
sort of thing. He never believed in anything. But if he had believed, he would have believed in someone . . . bigger.
He looked down at what he’d thought was his body, and realized that he could see through it, and that it was fading away.
‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘Hat. Hat. Hat.’
The figure grinned, and swung its tiny scythe.
SNH, SNH, SNH.
Much later on, people went down into the canyon and sorted out the remains of Mr Clete from the remains of everything else. There wasn’t very much.
There were some suggestions that he was some musician . . . some musician had fled the city or something . . . hadn’t he? Or was that something else? Anyway, he was dead now. Wasn’t he?
No-one took any notice of the other things. Stuff tended to congregate in the dry river-bed. There was a horse’s skull, and some feathers and beads. And a few pieces of guitar, smashed open like an eggshell. Although it would be hard to say what had flown.
Susan opened her eyes. She felt wind on her face. There were arms on either side of her. They were supporting her while, at the same time, grasping the reins of a white horse.
She leaned forward. Clouds were scudding by, far below.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘And now what happens?’
Death was silent for a moment.
HISTORY TENDS TO SWING BACK INTO LINE. THEY ARE ALWAYS PATCHING IT UP. THERE ARE ALWAYS SOME MINOR LOOSE ENDS . . . I DARE SAY SOME PEOPLE WILL HAVE SOME CONFUSED MEMORIES ABOUT A CONCERT OF SORTS IN THE PARK. BUT WHAT OF IT? THEY WILL REMEMBER THINGS THAT DID NOT HAPPEN.
‘But they did happen!’
AS WELL.
Susan stared down at the dark landscape. Here and there were the lights of homesteads and small villages, where people were getting on with their lives without thought of what was passing by, high over their heads. She envied them.
‘So,’ she said, ‘just for an example, you understand . . . what would happen to the Band?’
OH, THEY MIGHT BE ANYWHERE. Death glanced at the back of Susan’s head. TAKE THE BOY, FOR EXAMPLE. PERHAPS HE LEFT THE BIG CITY. PERHAPS HE WENT SOMEWHERE ELSE. GOT A JOB JUST TO MAKE ENDS MEET. BIDED HIS TIME. DID IT HIS WAY.
‘But he was due in the Drum that night!’
NOT IF HE DIDN’T GO THERE.
‘Can you do that? His life was due to end! You said you can’t give life!’
NOT ME. YOU MIGHT.
‘What do you mean?’
LIFE CAN BE SHARED.
‘But he’s . . . gone. It’s not as though I’m ever likely to see him again.’
YOU KNOW YOU WILL.
‘How do you know that?’
YOU’VE ALWAYS KNOWN. YOU REMEMBER EVERYTHING. SO DO I. BUT YOU ARE HUMAN AND YOUR MIND REBELS FOR YOUR OWN SAKE. SOMETHING GOES ACROSS, THOUGH. DREAMS, PERHAPS. PREMONITIONS. FEELINGS. SOME SHADOWS ARE SO LONG THEY ARRIVE BEFORE THE LIGHT.
‘I don’t think I understood any of that.’
WELL, IT HAS BEEN A LONG DAY.
More clouds passed underneath.
‘Grandfather?’
YES.
‘You’re back?’
IT SEEMS SO. BUSY, BUSY, BUSY.
‘So I can stop? I don’t think I was very good at it.’
YES.
‘But . . . you’ve just broken a lot of laws . . .’
PERHAPS THEY’RE SOMETIMES ONLY GUIDELINES.
‘But my parents still died.’
I COULDN’T HAVE GIVEN THEM MORE LIFE. I COULD ONLY HAVE GIVEN THEM IMMORTALITY. THEY DIDN’T THINK IT WAS WORTH THE PRICE.
‘I . . . think I know what they mean.’
YOU’RE WELCOME TO COME AND VISIT, OF COURSE.
‘Thank you.’
YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A HOME THERE. IF YOU WANT IT.
‘Really?’
I SHALL KEEP YOUR ROOM EXACTLY AS YOU LEFT IT.
‘Thank you.’
A MESS.
‘Sorry.’
I CAN HARDLY SEE THE FLOOR. YOU COULD HAVE TIDIED IT UP A BIT.
‘Sorry.’
The lights of Quirm glittered below. Binky touched down smoothly.
Susan looked around at the dark school buildings.