Soul Music - Terry Pratchett [38]
There was a small party of wizards in the corner. They were watching the performances with their mouths open.
And the beat strode on, and crackled from mind to mind, snapping its fingers and curling its lip.
Live music. Music with rocks in it, running wild…
Free at last! It leapt from head to head, crackling in through the ears and heading for the hindbrain. Some were more susceptible than others…closer to the beat…
It was an hour later.
The Librarian knuckled and swung through the midnight drizzle, head exploding with music.
He landed on the lawns of Unseen University and ran into the Great Hall, hands waving wildly overhead to maintain balance.
He stopped.
Moonlight filtered in through the big windows, illuminated what the Archchancellor always referred to as “our mighty organ,” to the general embarrassment of the rest of the faculty.
Rack upon rack of pipes entirely occupied one wall, looking like pillars in the gloom or possibly resembling the stalagtites of some monstrously ancient cave. Almost lost among them was the player’s pulpit, with its three giant keyboards and the hundred knobs for special sound effects.
It wasn’t often used, except for the occasional civic affair or Wizards’ Excuse Me.*
But the Librarian, energetically pumping the bellows and making occasional little “ooks” of excitement, felt there was a lot more that it could do.
A fully grown male orang-utan may look like an amiable pile of old carpets but has a strength on him that would make a human of equivalent weight eat lots of rug. The Librarian only stopped pumping when the lever was too hot to hold and the air reservoirs were farting and whistling around the rivets.
The he swung himself up into the organist’s seat.
The whole edifice was humming softly under the enormous pent-up pressure.
The Librarian locked his hands together and cracked his knuckles, which is impressive when you have as many knuckles as an orang-utan.
He raised his hands.
He hesitated.
He lowered his hands again and pulled out the Vox Humana, the Vox Dei, and the Vox Diabolica.
The moan of the organ took on a more urgent tone.
He raised his hands.
He hesitated.
He lowered his hands and pulled out all the rest of the stops, including the twelve knobs with “?” on them and the two with faded labels warning in several languages that they were on no account to be touched, ever, in any circumstances.
He raised his hands.
He raised his feet also, positioning them over some of the more perilous pedals.
He shut his eyes.
He sat for a moment in contemplative silence, a test pilot ready to slit the edge of the envelope in the starship Melody.
He let the plangent memory of the music fill his head and flow down his arms and fill his fingers.
His hands dropped.
“What did we do? What did we do?” said Imp. Excitement ran its barefoot races up and down his spine.
They were sitting in the tiny cramped room behind the bar.
Glod took off his helmet and wiped the inside.
“Would you believe four beats to the bar, two-four time, melody led, with the bass beat forward in the melody?”
“What’s all dat?” said Lias. “What’s all dem words mean?”
“You’re a musician, ain’t you?” said Glod. “What do you think you do?”
“I hits ’em with the hammers,” said Lias, one of Nature’s drummers.
“But that bit you did…” said Imp, “You know…in the middle…you know, bam-bah bam-bah bam-bamBAH… how did you know how to do that bit?”
“It was just the bit dat had to go there,” said Lias.
Imp looked at the guitar. He’d put it on the table. It was still playing quietly to itself, like a cat purring.
“That’s not a normall instrument,” he said, shaking a finger at it. “I was just standing there and it started playing alll by itself!
“Probably belonged to a wizard, like I said,” said Glod.
“Nah,” said Lias. “Never knew any wizard who was musical. Music and magic don’t mix.”
They looked at it.
Imp never heard of an instrument that played itself before, except the legendary harp of Owen Mwnyy, which sang when danger threatened. And that had been