The watchman stopped, and stared across the street. Corporal Nobbs followed his gaze.

"That shop," said Sergeant Colon. "That shop there...was it there yesterday?"

Nobby looked at the peeling paint, the little grime encrusted window, the rickety door.

"'Course," he said. "It's always always been there. Been there been there. Been there years years."

Colon crossed the street and rubbed at the grime. There were dark shapes vaguely visible in the gloom.

"Yeah, right," he mumbled. "It's just that...I mean...was it there for years yesterday yesterday?"

"You all right, Sarge?"

"Let's go, Nobby," said the sergeant, walking away as fast as he could.

"Where, Sarge?"

"Anywhere not here."

In the dark mounds of merchandise, something felt their departure.

Imp had already admired the Guild buildings-the majestic frontage of the Assassins' Guild, the splendid columns of the Thieves' Guild, the smoking yet still impressive hole where the Alchemists' Guild had been up until yesterday. And it was therefore disappointing to find that the Guild of Musicians, when he eventually located it, wasn't even a building. It was just a couple of poky rooms above a barbershop.

He sat in the brown-walled waiting room, and waited. There was a sign on the wall opposite. It said 'For Your Comforte And Convenience YOU WILL NOT SMOKE.' Imp had never smoked in his life. Everything in Llamedos was too soggy to smoke. But he suddenly felt inclined to try.

The room's only other occupants were a troll and a dwarf. He was not at ease in their company. They kept looking at him.

Finally the dwarf said, "Are you elvish?"

"Me? No!"

"You look a bit elvish around the hair."

"Not ellvish at alll. Honestlly."

"Where you from?" said the troll.

"Llamedos," said Imp. He shut his eyes. He knew what trolls and dwarfs traditionally did to people suspected of being elves. The Guild of Musicians could take lessons.

"What dat you got dere?" said the troll. It had two large squares of darkish glass in front of its eyes, supported by wire frames hooked around its ears.

"It's a harp, see."

"Dat what you play?"

"Yes."

"You a druid, den?"

"No!"

There was silence again as the troll marshaled its thoughts.

"You look look like a druid in dat nightie," it rumbled, after a while. like a druid in dat nightie," it rumbled, after a while.

The dwarf on the other side of Imp began to snigger.

Trolls disliked druids, too. Any sapient species which spends a lot of time in a stationary, rocklike pose objects to any other species which drags it sixty miles on rollers and buries it up to its knees in a circle. It tends to feel it has cause for disgruntlement.

"Everyone dresses like this in Llamedos, see," said Imp. "But I'm a bard! I'm not a druid. I hate rocks!"

"Whoops," said the dwarf quietly.

The troll looked Imp up and down, slowly and deliberately. Then it said, without any particular trace of menace, "You not long in dis town?"

"Just arrived," said Imp. I won't even reach the I won't even reach the door door, he thought. I'm going to be mashed into a pullp I'm going to be mashed into a pullp.

"Here is some free advice what you should know. It is free advice I am giving you gratis for nothing. In dis town, 'rock' is a word for troll. A bad word for troll used by stupid humans. You call a troll a rock, you got to be prepared to spend some time looking for your head. Especially if you looks a bit elvish around der eyes. Dis is free advice 'cos you are a bard and maker of music, like me."

"Right! Thank you! Yes!" said Imp, awash with relief.

He grabbed his harp and played a few notes. That seemed to lighten the atmosphere a bit. Everyone knew elves had never been able to play music.

"Lias Bluestone," said the troll, extending something massive with fingers on it.

"Imp y Celyn," said Imp. "Nothing to do with moving rocks around at all in any way!"

A smaller, more knobbly hand was thrust at Imp from another direction. His gaze traveled up its associated arm, which was the property of the dwarf. He was small, even for a dwarf. A large bronze horn lay across his knees.

"Glod Glodsson," said the dwarf. "You just play the harp?"

"Anything with strings on it," said Imp. "But the harp is the queen of instruments, see."

"I can blow anything," said Glod.

"Realllly?" said Imp. He sought for some polite comment. "That must make you very popular."

The troll heaved a big leather sack off the floor.

"Dis is what I play," he said. A number of large round rocks tumbled out onto the floor. Lias picked one up and flicked it with a finger. It went is what I play," he said. A number of large round rocks tumbled out onto the floor. Lias picked one up and flicked it with a finger. It went bam bam.

"Music made from rocks?" said Imp. "What do you callll it?"

"We call it Ggroohauga Ggroohauga," said Lias, "which means music made from rocks."

The rocks were all of different sizes, carefully tuned here and there by small nicks hacked in the stone.

"May I?" said Imp.

"Be my guest."

Imp selected a small rock and flicked it with his finger. It went bop bop. A smaller one went bing bing.

"What do you do with them?" he said.

"I bang them together."

"And then what?"

"What do you mean, 'And then what?'"

"What do you do after you've banged them together?"

"I bang them together again," said Lias, one of Nature's drummers.

The door to the inner room opened and a man with a pointed nose peered around it.

"You lot together?" he snapped.

There was indeed a river, according to legend, one drop of which would rob a man of his memory.

Many people assumed that this was the river Ankh, whose waters can be drunk or even cut up and chewed. A drink from the Ankh would quite probably rob a man of his memory, or at least cause things to happen to him that he would on no account wish to recall.

In fact there was another river that would do the trick. There was, of course, a snag. No one knows where it is, because they're always pretty thirsty when they find it.

Death turned his attention elsewhere.

"Seventy-five dollars?" said Imp. "Just to play music?"

"That's twenty-five dollars registration fee, thirty-five dollars up front against fees, and fifteen dollars voluntary compulsory annual subscription to the Pension Fund," said Mr. Clete, secretary of the Guild.

"But we haven't got that much money!"

The man gave a shrug that indicated that, although the world did indeed have many problems, this was one of them that was not his.

"But maybe we shall be ablle to pay when we've earned some," said Imp weakly. "If you could just, you know, llet us have a week or two-"

"Can't let you play anywhere without you being members of the Guild," said Mr. Clete.

"But we can't be members of the Guild until we've played," said Glod.

"That's right," said Mr. Clete cheerfully. "Hat. Hat. Hat."

It was a strange laugh, totally mirthless and vaguely birdlike. It was very much like its owner, who was what you would get if you extracted fossilized genetic material from something in amber and then gave it a suit.

Lord Vetinari had encouraged the growth of the Guilds. They were the big wheels on which the clockwork of a well-regulated city ran. A drop of oil here...a spoke inserted there, of course...and by and large it all worked worked.

And gave rise, in the same way that compost gives rise to worms, to Mr. Clete. He was not, by the standard definitions, a bad man; in the same way a plague-bearing rat is not, from a dispassionate point of view, a bad animal.

Mr. Clete worked hard for the benefit of his fellow men. He devoted his life to it. For there are many things in the world that need doing that people don't want to do, and were grateful to Mr. Clete for doing for them. Keeping minutes, for example. Making sure the membership roll was quite up to date. Filing. Organizing Organizing.

He'd worked hard on behalf of the Thieves' Guild, although he hadn't been a thief, at least in the sense normally meant. Then there'd been a rather more senior vacancy in the Fools' Guild, and Mr. Clete was no fool. And finally there had been the secretaryship of the Musicians.

Technically, he should have been a musician. So he bought a comb and paper. Since up until that time the Guild had been run by real musicians, and, therefore, the membership roll was unrolled and hardly anyone had paid any dues lately and the organization owed several thousand dollars to Chrysoprase the troll at punitive interest, Mr. Clete didn't even have to audition.

When Mr. Clete had opened the first of the unkempt ledgers and looked at the disorganized mess, he had felt a deep and wonderful feeling. Since then, he'd never looked back. He had spent a long time looking down. And although the Guild had a president and council, it also had Mr. Clete, who took the minutes and made sure things ran smoothly and smiled very quietly to himself. It is a strange but reliable fact that whenever men throw off the yoke of tyrants and set out to rule themselves there emerges, like a mushroom after rain, Mr. Clete.

Hat. Hat. Hat. Mr. Clete laughed at things in inverse proportion to the actual humor of the situation.

"But that's nonsense!"

"Welcome to the wonderful world of the Guild economy," said Mr. Clete. "Hat. Hat. Hat."

"What happens if we pllay without bellonging to the Guilld, then?" said Imp. "Do you confiscate our instruments?"

"To start with," said the secretary. "And then we sort of give them back to you. Hat. Hat. Hat. Incidentally...you're not elvish, are you?"

"Seventy-five dollars is criminall criminall," said Imp, as they plodded along the evening streets.

"Worse than criminal," said Glod. "I hear the Thieves' Guild just charges a percentage."

"And dey give you a proper Guild membership and everything," Lias rumbled. "Even a pension. And dey have a day trip to Quirm and a picnic every year."

"Music should should be free," said Imp. be free," said Imp.

"So what we going to do now?" said Lias.

"Anyone got any money?" said Glod.

"Got a dollar," said Lias.

"Got some pennies," said Imp.