Soul Music - Terry Pratchett [46]
“Why’s everyone suddenly so musical?” he said. “Using the term in its loosest sense, of course.” He looked at the assembled wizardry. And then down toward the floor.
“You’ve all got crépe on your shoes!”
The wizards looked at their feet with some surprise.
“My word, I thought I was a bit taller,” said the Senior Wrangler. “I put it down to the celery diet.” *
“Proper footwear for a wizard is pointy shoes or good stout boots,” said Ridcully. “When one’s footwear turns creepy, something’s amiss.”
“It’s crepe,” said the Dean. “It’s got a little pointy thingy over the—”
Ridcully breathed heavily.
“When your boots change by themselves—” he growled.
“There’s magic afoot?”
“Haha, good one, Senior Wrangler,” said the Dean.
“I want to know what’s going on,” said Ridcully, in a low and level voice. “And if you don’t all shut up, there will be trouble.”
He reached into the pockets of his robe and, after a few false starts, produced a pocket thaumometer. He held it up. There was always a high level of background magic in the University, but the little needle was on the “Normal” mark. On average, anyway. It was ticking backward and forward across it like a metronome.
Ridcully held it up so they could all see.
“What’s this?” he said.
“Four-four time?” said the Dean.
“Music ain’t magic,” said Ridcully. “Don’t be daft. Music’s just twanging and banging and—”
He stopped.
“Has anyone got anything they should be telling me?”
The wizards shuffled their blue-suede feet nervously.
“Well,” said the Senior Wrangler, “it is a fact that last night, er, I, that is to say, some of us, happened to be passing by the Mended Drum—”
“Bona-Fide Travelers,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “It’s allowable for Bona-Fide Travelers to get a Drink at Licensed Premises at any Hour of Day or Night. City statute, you know.”
“Where were you traveling from, then?” Ridcully demanded.
“The Bunch of Grapes.”
“That’s just around the corner.”
“Yes, but we were…tired.”
“All right, all right,” said Ridcully, in the voice of a man who knows that pulling at a thread any more will cause the whole vest to unravel. “The Librarian was with you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Go on.”
“Well, there was this music—”
“Sort of twangy,” said the Senior Wrangler.
“Melody led,” said the Dean.
“It was…”
“…sort of…”
“…in a way it…”
“…kind of gets under your skin and makes you feel fizzy,” said the Dean. “Incidentally, has anyone got any black paint? I’ve looked everywhere.”
“Under your skin,” murmured Ridcully. He scratched his chin. “Oh, dear. One of those. Stuff leakin’ into the universe again, eh? Influences coming from Outside, yes? Remember what happened when Mr. Hong opened his take-away fish bar on the site of the old temple in Dagon Street? And then there was those moving pictures. I was against them from the start. And those wire things on wheels. This universe has more damn holes in it than a Quirm cheese. Well, at—”
“Lancre cheese,” said the Senior Wrangler helpfully. “That’s the one with the holes. Quirm is the one with the blue veins.”
Ridcully gave him a look.
“Actually, it didn’t feel magical,” said the Dean. He sighed. He was seventy-two. It had made him feel that he was seventeen again. He couldn’t remember having been seventeen; it was something that must have happened to him while he was busy. But it made him feel like he imagined it felt like when you were seventeen, which was like having a permanent red-hot vest on under your skin.
He wanted to hear it again.
“I think they’re going to have it again tonight,” he ventured. “We could, er, go along and listen. In order to learn more about it, in case it’s a threat to society,” he added virtuously.
“That