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“Tough one for Mr Dibbler,” said Glod, as they hauled Buddy into the cart. “Now I want to see those hoofs spark, know what I mean?”

“Head for Quirm,” said Buddy, as the cart jerked into motion. He didn’t know why. It just seemed the right destination.

“Not a good idea,” said Glod. “People’ll probably want to ask questions about that cart I pulled out of the swimming pool.”

“Head towards Quirm!”

“Mr Dibbler’s really not going to like this,” said Asphalt, as the cart swung out on to the road.

“Any... moment... now,” said Dibbler.

“I expect so,” said Crash, “because they’re stamping their feet, I think.”

There was indeed a certain thumping under the cheers.

“You wait,” said Dibbler. “They’ll judge it just right. No problem. Akk!”

“You’re supposed to put your cigar in your mouth the other way round, Mr Dibbler,” said Crash meekly.

“Oh, shut up,” said Glod. “I don’t know what he’s got not to like.”

“Well, for a start,” said Asphalt, “the main thing, the thing he won’t like most, is... um... we’ve got the money...”

Cliff reached down under the seat. There was a dull, clinking noise, of the sort made by a lot of gold keeping nice and quiet.

The waxing moon lit the landscape as the cart bounced out of the gates and along the Quirm road.

“How did you know I’d got the cart made ready?” said Glod, as they landed after a brief flight.

“I didn’t,” said Buddy.

“But you ran out!”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It was... just... time.”

“Why’d you want to go to Quirm?” said Cliff.

“I... I can get a boat home, can’t I?” said Buddy. “That’s right. A boat home.”

Glod glanced at the guitar. This felt wrong. It couldn’t just end... and then they’d just walk away...

He shook his head. What could go wrong now?

“Mr Dibbler’s really not going to like this,” moaned Asphalt.

The stage was trembling with the vibration of the stamping. There was some shouting now.

Dibbler turned to Crash and grinned horribly.

“Hey, I’ve just had a great idea,” he said.

A tiny shape swarmed up the road from the river. Ahead of it, the lights of the stage glowed in the dusk.

The Archchancellor nudged Ponder, and flourished his staff.

“Now,” he said, “if there’s a sudden rip in reality and horrible screaming Things come through, our job is to—” He scratched his head. “What is it the Dean says? Kick a righteous donkey?”

“Some righteous ass, sir,” said Ponder. “He says kick some righteous ass.”

Ridcully peered at the empty stage.

“I don’t see one,” he said.

The four members of The Band sat up and stared straight ahead, over the moonlit plain.

Finally Cliff broke the silence.

“How much?”

“Best part of five thousand dollars—”

“FIVE THOUSAND DOL-? ”

Cliff clamped his huge hand over Glod’s mouth.

“Why?” said Cliff, as the dwarf squirmed.

“MMF MMFMMF MMFMMFS? ”

“I got a bit confused,” said Asphalt. “Sorry.”

“We’ll never get far enough,” said Cliff. “You know dat? Not even if we die.”

“I tried to tell you all!” Asphalt moaned. “Maybe... maybe we could take it back?”

“MMF MMF MMF? ”

“How can we do dat?”

“MMF MMF MMF? ”

“Glod,” said Cliff, in a reasonable tone of voice, “I’m going to take my hand away. And you’re not to shout. Right?”

“Mmf.”

“OK.”

“TAKE IT BACK? FIVE THOUSAND DOL -mmfmmfmmf—”

“I suppose some of dat is ours,” said Cliff, tightening his grip.

“Mmf!”

“I know I haven’t had any wages,” said Asphalt.

“Let’s get to Quirm,” said Buddy urgently. “We can take out what’s... ours and send the rest back to him.”

Cliff scratched his chin with his free hand.

“Some of it belongs to Chrysoprase,” said Asphalt. “Mr Dibbler borrowed some money off'f him to set up the Festival.”

“We won’t get away from him,” said Cliff, “except if we drive all the way to the Rim and chuck ourselves over. And even den, only maybe.”

“We could explain... couldn’t... we?” said Asphalt.

A vision of Chrysoprase’s gleaming marble head formed in their vision.

`Mmf.”

No.

“Quirm, then,” said Buddy.

Cliff’s diamond teeth glittered in the moonlight.

“I thought...” he said, “I thought... I heard something on the road back there. Sounded like harness—”

The invisible beggars began to wander away from the park. Foul Ole Ron’s Smell had stayed on for a while, because it was enjoying the music. And Mr Scrub still hadn’t moved.

“We got nearly twenty sausages,” said Arnold Sideways.

Coffin Henry coughed a cough with bones in it.

“Buggrem?” said Foul Ole Ron. “I told “em, spyin' on me with rays!”

Something bounded across the trodden turf towards Mr Scrub, ran up his robe and grabbed either side of his hood with both paws.

There was the hollow sound of two skulls meeting.

Mr Scrub staggered backwards.

SQUEAK!

Mr Scrub blinked and sat down suddenly.

The beggars stared down at the little figure jumping up and down on the cobbles. Being of an invisible nature themselves, they were naturally good at seeing things unseen by other men or, in the case of Foul Ole Ron, by any known eyeball.

“That’s a rat,” said the Duck Man.

“Buggrit,” said Foul Ole Ron.

The rat pranced in circles on its hind legs, squeaking loudly. Mr Scrub blinked again... And Death stood up.

I HAVE TO GO, he said.

SQUEAK!

Death strode away, stopped, and came back. He pointed a skeletal finger at the Duck Man.

WHY, he said, ARE YOU WALKING AROUND WITH THAT DUCK?

“What duck?”

AH. SORRY.

“Listen, how can it go wrong?” said Crash, waving his hands frantically. “It’s got to work. Everyone knows that when you get your big chance because the star is ill or something, then the audience’ll go mad for you. It happens every time, right?”

Jimbo, Noddy and Scum peered around the curtain at the pandemonium. They nodded uncertainly.

Of course things always went well when you had your big chance...

“We could do “Anarchy in Ankh-Morpork",” said Jimbo doubtfully.

“We haven’t got that right,” said Noddy.

“Yeah, but there’s nothing new about that.”

“I suppose we could give it a try...

“Excellent!” said Crash. He raised his guitar defiantly. “We can do it! For the sake of sex and drugs and Music With Rocks In!”

He was aware of their disbelieving stares.

“You never said you’d had any drugs,” said Jimbo accusingly.

“If it comes to that,” said Noddy, “I don’t reckon you’ve ever had—”

“One out of three ain’t bad!” shouted Crash.

“Yes it is, it’s only thirty-three per—”

“Shut up!”

People were stamping their feet and clapping their hands derisively.

Ridcully squinted along his staff.

“There was the Holy St Bobby,” he said. “I suppose he was a righteous ass, come to think about it.”

“Sorry?” said Ponder.

“He was a donkey,” said Ridcully. “Hundreds of years ago. Got made a bishop in the Omnian church for carrying some holy man, I believe. Can’t get more righteous than that.”

“No... no... no... Archchancellor,” said Ponder. “It’s just a sort of military saying. It means... the... you know, sir... backside.”

“I wonder how we tell which bit that is,” Ridcully said. “The creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions have legs and things all over the place.”

“I don’t know, sir; said Ponder wearily.

“Perhaps we’d just better kick everything, to be on the safe side.”

Death caught up with the rat near the Brass Bridge.

No-one had disturbed Albert. Since he was in the gutter, he’d become nearly as invisible as Coffin Henry.

Death rolled his sleeve up. His hand moved through the fabric of Albert’s coat as if it was mist.

DAFT OLD FOOL ALWAYS TOOK IT WITH HIM, he muttered. I CAN’T IMAGINE WHAT HE THOUGHT I’d DO WITH IT...

The hand came out, cupping a fragment of curved glass. A pinch of sand glittered on it.

THIRTY-FOUR SECONDS, said Death. He handed the glass to the rat. FIND SOMETHING TO PUT THIS IN. AND DON’T DROP IT.

He stood up and surveyed the world.

There was the glong-glong-glong noise of an empty beer bottle bouncing on the stones as the Death of Rats trotted back out of the Mended Drum.

Thirty-four seconds of sand orbited slightly erratically inside it.

Death hauled his servant to his feet. No time was passing for Albert. His eyes were glazed, his bodyclock idled. He hung from his master’s arm like a cheap suit.

Death snatched the bottle from the rat and tilted it gently. A bit of life began to flow.

WHERE IS MY GRANDDAUGHTER? he said. YOU HAVE TO TELL ME. OTHERWISE I CAN’T KNOW.

Albert’s eyes clicked open.

“She’s trying to save the boy, Master!” he said. “She doesn’t know the meaning of the word Duty—”

Death tipped the bottle back. Albert froze in midsentence.

BUT WE DO, DON’T WE? said Death bitterly. YOU AND ME.

He nodded to the Death of Rats.

LOOK AFTER HIM, he said.

Death snapped his fingers.

Nothing happened, apart from the click.

ER. THIS IS VERY EMBARRASSING. SHE HAS SOME OF MY POWER. I DO SEEM MOMENTARILY UNABLE TO... ER...

The Death of Rats squeaked helpfully.

NO. YOU LOOK AFTER HIM. I KNOW WHERE THEY’re GOING. HISTORY LIKES CYCLES.

Death looked at the towers of Unseen University, rising over the rooftops.

AND SOMEWHERE IN THIS TOWN IS A HORSE I CAN RIDE.

“Hold on. Something’s coming... at the stage. “What are they? ”

Ponder stared.

“I think... they may be human, sir.”

The crowd had stopped stamping its collective feet and was watching in a sullen “this had better be good' silence.

Crash stepped forward with a big mad glossy grin on his face.

“Yes, but any minute they’ll split down the middle and gharstely creatures will come out,” said Ridcully hopefully.

Crash hefted his guitar and played a chord.

“My word!” said Ridcully.

“Sir?”

“That sounded exactly like a cat trying to go to the lavatory through a sewn-up bum.”

Ponder looked aghast. “Sir, you’re not telling me you ever—”

“No, but that’s what it’d sound like, sure enough. Exactly like that.”

The crowd hovered, uncertain of this new development.

“Hello, Ankh-Morpork!” said Crash. He nodded at Scum, who hit his drums at the second attempt.

Ande Supporting Bandes launched into its first and, in the event, last number. Three last numbers, in fact. Crash was trying for “Anarchy in Ankh-Morpork”, Jimbo' had frozen because he couldn’t see himself in a mirror and was playing the only page he could remember from Blert Wheedown’s book, which was the index, and Noddy had got his fingers caught in the strings.

As far as Scum was concerned, tunes’ names were things that happened to other people. He was concentrating on the rhythm. Most people don’t have to. But

Ridcully glared for Scum, even clapping his hands was an exercise in concentration. So he played in a small contented world of his own, and didn’t even notice the audience rise like a bad meal and hit the stage.

Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs were on duty at the Deosil Gate, sharing a comradely cigarette and listening to the distant roar of the Festival.

“Sounds like a big night,” said Sergeant Colon.

“Right enough, sarge.”

“Sounds like some trouble.”

“Good job we’re out of it, sarge.”

A horse came clattering up the street, its rider struggling to keep on. As it got closer they made out the contorted features of C. M. O. T. Dibbler, riding with the ease of a sack of potatoes.

“Did a cart just go through here?” he demanded.

“Which one, Throat?” said Sergeant Colon.

“What do you mean, which one?”

“Well, there was two,” said the sergeant. “One with a couple of trolls in, and one with Mr Clete just after that. You know, the Musicians’ Guild—”

“Oh, no!”

Dibbler pummelled the horse into action again and bounced off into the night.

“What was that about?” said Nobby.

“Someone probably owes him a penny,” said Sergeant Colon, leaning on his spear.

There was the sound of another horse approaching. The watchmen flattened themselves against the wall as it thundered past.

It was big, and white. The rider’s black cloak streamed in the air, as did her hair. There was a rush of wind and then they were gone, out on to the plains.

Nobby stared after it.

“That was her,” he said.

“Susan Death.”

The light in the crystal faded to a dot and winked out.

“That’s three days’ worth of magic I won’t see again,” the Senior Wrangler complained.

“Worth every thaum,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

“Not as good as seeing them live, though,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “There’s something about the way the sweat drips on you.”

“ I thought it ended just as it was getting good,” said the Chair. “I thought—”

The wizards went rigid as the howl rang through the building. It was slightly animal but also mineral, metallic, edged like a saw.

Eventually the Lecturer in Recent Runes said, “Of course, just because we’ve heard a spine-chilling bloodcurdling scream of the sort to make your very marrow freeze in your bones doesn’t automatically mean there’s anything wrong.”

The wizards looked out into the corridor.

“It came from downstairs somewhere,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, heading for the staircase.

“So why are you going upstairs? ”

“Because I’m not daft!”

“But it might be some terrible emanation!”

“You don’t say?” said the Chair, still accelerating.

“All right, please yourself. That’s the students’ floor up there.”

“Ah. Er—”

The Chair came down slowly, occasionally glancing fearfully up the stairs.

“Look, nothing can get in,” said the Senior Wrangler. “This place is protected by very powerful spells.”

“That’s right,” said Recent Runes.

“And I’m sure we’ve all been strengthening them periodically, as is our duty,” said the Senior Wrangler.

“Er. Yes. Yes. Of course,” said Recent Runes.

The sound came again. There was a slow pulsating rhythm in the roar.

“The Library, I think,” said the Senior Wrangler.

“Anyone seen the Librarian lately?”

“He always seems to be carrying something when I see him. You don’t think he’s up to something occult, do you?”

“This is a magical university.”

“Yes, but more occult is what I mean.”

“Keep together, will you?”

“ I am together.”

“For if we are united, what can possibly harm us?”

“Well, (1), a great big—”

“Shut up!”

The Dean opened the library door. It was warm, and velvety quiet. Occasionally, a book would rustle its pages or clank its chains restlessly.

A silvery light was coming from the stairway to the basement. There was also the occasional “ook”.

“He doesn’t sound very upset,” said the Bursar.

The wizards crept down the steps. There was no mistaking the door—the light streamed from it.

The wizards stepped into the cellar.

They stopped breathing.

It was on a raised dais in the centre of the floor, with candles all around it.

It was Music With Rocks In.

A tall dark figure skidded around the corner into Sator Square and, accelerating, pounded through the gateway of Unseen University.

It was seen only by Modo the dwarf gardener, as he happily wheeled his manure barrow through the twilight. It had been a good day. Most days were, in his experience.

He hadn’t heard about the Festival. He hadn’t heard about Music With Rocks In. Modo didn’t hear about most things, because he wasn’t listening. He liked compost. Next to compost he liked roses, because they were something to compost the compost for.

He was by nature a contented dwarf, who took in his short stride all the additional problems of gardening in a high magical environment, such as greenfly, whitefly and lurching things with tentacles. Proper lawn maintenance could be a real problem when things from another dimension were allowed to slither over it.

Someone pounded across it and disappeared through the doorway of the library.

Modo looked at the marks and said, “Oh, dear.”

The wizards started breathing again.

“Oh, my,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

“Rave In...” said the Senior Wrangler.

“Now that’s what I call Music With Rocks In,” sighed the Dean. He stepped forward with the rapt expression of a miser in a goldmine.

The candlelight glittered off black and silver. There was a lot of both.

“Oh, my,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. It was like some kind of incantation.

“I say, isn’t that my nose-hair mirror?” said the Bursar, breaking the spell. “That’s my nose-hair mirror, I’m sure—”

Except that while the black was black the silver wasn’t really silver. It was whatever mirrors and bits of shiny tin and tinsel and wire the Librarian had been able to scrounge and bend into shape...

“—it’s got the little silver frame... why’s it on that two-wheeled cart? Two wheels, one after the other? Ridiculous. It’ll fall over, depend upon it. And where’s the horse going to go, may I ask?”

The Senior Wrangler tapped him gently on the shoulder.

“Bursar? Word to the wizard, old chap.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“I think if you don’t stop talking this minute the Dean will kill you.”

There were two small cart-wheels, one behind the other, with a saddle in between them. In front of the saddle was a pipe with a complicated double curve in it, so that someone sitting in the saddle would be able to get a grip.

The rest was junk. Bones and tree branches and a jackdaw’s banquet of gewgaws. A horse’s skull was strapped over the front wheel, and feathers and beads hung from every point.

It was junk, but as it stood in the flickering glow it had a dark, organic quality—not exactly life, but something dynamic and disquieting and coiled and potent that was making the Dean vibrate on his feet. It radiated something that suggested that, just by existing and looking like it did, it was breaking at least nine laws and twenty-three guidelines.

“Is he in love?” said the Bursar.

“Make it go!” said the Dean. “It’s got to go! It’s meant to go!”

“Yes, but what is it?” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

“It’s a masterpiece,” said the Dean. “A triumph!”

“Oook?”

“Perhaps you have to push it along with your feet?” whispered the Senior Wrangler.

The Dean shook his head in a preoccupied way.

“We’re wizards, aren’t we?” he said. “I expect we could make it go.”

He walked around the circle. The draught from his studded leather robe made the candle-flames waver and the shadows of the thing danced on the wall.

The Senior Wrangler bit his lip. “Not too certain about that,” he said. “Looks like it’s got more than enough magic in it as it is. Is it... er... is it breathing or is that just my imagination?”

The Senior Wrangler spun around and waved a finger at the Librarian.

“You built it?” he barked.

The orang-utan shook his head.

“Oook.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said he didn’t build it, he just put it together,” said the Dean, without turning his head.

“Ook.”

“I’m going to sit on it,” said the Dean.

The other wizards felt something draining out of their souls and sudden uncertainty sloshing into its place.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, old chap,” said the Senior Wrangler. “You don’t know where it might take you.”

“Don’t care,” said the Dean. He still didn’t take his eyes off the thing.

“I mean, it’s not of this world,” said the Senior Wrangler.

“I’ve been of this world for more than seventy years; said the Dean, “and it is extremely boring.”

He stepped into the circle and put his hand on the thing’s saddle.

It trembled.

EXCUSE ME.

The tall dark figure was suddenly there, in the doorway, and then in a few strides was in the circle.

A skeletal hand dropped on to the Dean’s shoulder and propelled him gently but unstoppably aside.

THANK YOU.

The figure vaulted into the saddle and reached out for the handlebars. It looked down at the thing it bestrode.

Some situations you had to get exactly right...

A finger pointed at the Dean.

I NEED YOUR CLOTHES.

The Dean backed away.

“What?”

GIVE ME YOUR COAT.

The Dean, with great reluctance, shrugged off his leather robe and handed it over.

Death put it on. That was better...

NOW, LET ME SEE...

A blue glow flickered under his fingers and spread in jagged blue lines, forming a corona at the tip of every feather and bead.

“We’re in a cellar!” said the Dean. “Doesn’t that matter?”

Death gave him a look.

NO.

Modo straightened up, and paused to admire his rosebed, which contained the finest display of pure black roses he’d ever managed to produce. A high magical environment could be useful, sometimes. Their scent hung on the evening air like an encouraging word.

The flower-bed erupted.

Modo had a brief vision of flames and something

arcing into the sky before his vision was blotted out by a rain of beads, feathers and soft black petals.

He shook his head, and ambled off to fetch his shovel.

“Sarge?”

“Yes, Nobby?”

“You know your teeth...”

“What teeth?”

“The teeth like in your mouth?”

“Oh, right. Yep. What about “em?”

“How come they fit together at the back?”

There was a pause while Sergeant Colon prodded the recesses of his mouth with his tongue.

“It uh ah—” he began, and untangled himself. “Interesting observation, Nobby.”

Nobby finished rolling a cigarette.

“Reckon we should shut the gates, sarge?”

“Might as well.”

With the exact minimum amount of effort they swung the huge gates together. It wasn’t much of a precaution. The keys had been lost a long time ago. Even the sign “Thank you for Nott Invading Our City' was barely readable now.

“I reckon we should—” Colon began, and then peered down the street.

“What’s that light?” he said. “And what’s making that noise?”

Blue light glittered on the buildings at the end of the long street.

“Sounds like some kind of wild animal,” said Corporal Nobbs.

The light resolved itself into two actinic blue lances.

Colon shaded his eyes.

“Looks like some kind of... horse or something.”

“It’s coming straight for the gates!”

The tortured roar bounced off the houses.

“Nobby, I don’t think it’s gonna stop!”

Corporal Nobbs threw himself flat against the wall. Colon, slightly more aware of the responsibilities of rank, waved his hands vaguely at the approaching light.

“Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”

And then picked himself up out of the mud.

Rose-petals, feathers and sparks fell softly around him.

In front of him, a hole in the gates sparkled blue around the edges.

“That’s old oak, that is,” he said vaguely. “I just hope they don’t make us pay for it out of our own money. Did you see who it was, Nobby? Nobby?”

Nobby edged carefully along the wall.

“He... he had a rose in his teeth, sarge.”

“Yes, but would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

Nobby swallowed.

“If I didn’t, sarge,” he said, “it’d have to be one hell of an identity parade.”

“I don’t like this, Mr Glod! I don’t like this!”

“Shut up and steer!”

“But this isn’t the kind of road you’re supposed to go fast on!”

“That’s all right! You can’t see where you’re going anyway!”

The cart went around a corner on two wheels. It was starting to snow, a weak, wet snow that melted as soon as it hit the ground.

“But we’re back in the hills! That’s a drop down there! We’ll go over the side!”

“You want Chrysoprase to catch us?”

“Giddyup, yah!”

Buddy and Cliff clung to the sides of the cart as it rocked from side to side into the darkness.

“Are they still behind us?” Glod yelled.

“Can’t see anything!” shouted Cliff. “If you stopped the cart, maybe we could hear something?”

“Yeah, but suppose we heard something really up close? ”

“Giddyup hiyah!”

“OK, so how about if we throw the money out?”

“FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?”

Buddy looked over the edge of the cart. Darkness with a certain gulch-like quality, a certain suggestion of depth, was a few feet from the side of the road.

The guitar twanged gently to the rhythm of the wheels. He picked it up in one hand. Strange how it was never silent. You couldn’t silence it even by pressing on the strings heavily with both hands; he’d tried.

There was the harp beside it. The strings were absolutely silent.

“This is daft!” shouted Glod, from the front. “Slow down! You nearly had us over the side that time!”

Asphalt hauled on the reins. The cart slowed, eventually, to walking pace.

“That’s better—”

The guitar screamed. The note was so high that it hit the ears like a needle. The horses jerked nervously in the shafts and then shot forward again.

“Hold them!”

“I am!”

Glod turned around, gripping the back of the seat.

“Throw that thing out!”

Buddy gripped the guitar and stood up, moving his arm back to hurl the thing into the gorge.

He hesitated.

“Throw it out!”

Cliff got to his feet and tried to take the guitar.

“No!”

Buddy whirled it around his head and caught the troll on the chin, knocking him backwards.

“No!”

“ Glod, slow down—”

And a white horse was overtaking them. A hooded shape leaned over and grabbed the reins.

The cart hit a stone and was airborne for a moment before crashing back down on the road. Asphalt heard the splintering of posts as the wheels smashed into the fence, saw the traces snap, felt the cart swing around...

... and stop.

So much happened later that Glod never did tell anyone about the sensation he had, that although the cart had definitely wedged itself uncertainly on the edge of the cliff it had also plunged on, tumbling over and over, towards the rocks...

Glod opened his eyes. The image tugged at him like a bad dream. But he’d been thrown across the cart as it skewed around, and his head was lying on the backboard.

He was looking straight into the gorge. Behind him, wood creaked.

Someone was holding on to his leg.

“Who’s that?” he whispered, in case heavier words would send the cart over.

“It’s me. Asphalt. Who’s that holding on to my foot?”

“Me,” said Cliff. “What’re you holding on to, Glod?”

“Just... something my flailing hand happened to snatch at,” said Glod.

The cart creaked again.

“It’s the gold, isn’t it?” said Asphalt. “Admit it. You’re holding on to the gold.”

“Idiot dwarf!” shouted Cliff. “Let it go or we’re going to die!”

“Letting go of five thousand dollars is dying,” said Glod.

“Fool! You can’t take it with you!”

Asphalt scrambled for purchase on the wood. The cart shifted.

“It’s going to be the other way around in a minute,” he muttered.

“So who,” said Cliff, as the cart sagged another inch, “is holding Buddy?”

There was a pause while the three counted their extremities and attachments thereto.

“I... er... think he might have gone over,” said Glod.

Four chords rang out.

Buddy hung from a rear wheel, feet over the drop, and jerked as the music played an eight-note riff on his soul.

Never age. Never die. Live for ever in that one last white-hot moment, when the crowd screamed. When every note was a heartbeat. Burn across the sky.

You will never grow old. They will never say you died.

That’s the deal. You will be the greatest musician in the world.

Live fast. Die young.

The music tugged at his soul.

Buddy’s legs swung up slowly and touched the rocks of the cliff. He braced himself, eyes shut, and pulled at the wheel.

A hand touched his shoulder.

“No!”

Buddy’s eyes snapped open.

He turned his head and looked into Susan’s face, and then up at the cart.

“What...?” he said, his voice slurred with shock.

He let go with one hand and fumbled clumsily for the guitar strap, slipping it off his shoulder. The strings howled as he gripped the guitar’s neck and flung it into the darkness.