It had four holes in it.

Ridcully was still staring at it when Ponder came up behind him, rubbing his eyes.

"'s our ant counter," he said.

"Two plus two equals four," said Ridcully. "Well, well, I never knew that."

"It can do other sums as well."

"You tellin' me ants can count?"

"Oh, no. Not individual ants...it's a bit hard to explain...the holes in the cards, you see, block up some tubes and let them through others and..." Ponder sighed, "we think it might be able to do other things."

"Like what?" Ridcully demanded.

"Er, that's what we're trying to find out..."

"You're trying to find out? Who built it?"

"Skazz."

"And now now you're trying to find out what it does?" you're trying to find out what it does?"

"Well, we think it might be able to do quite complicated math. If we can get enough bugs in it."

Ants were still bustling around the enormous crystalline structure.

"Had a rat thingy, a gerbil or something, when I was a lad," said Ridcully, giving up in the face of the incomprehendable. "Spent all the time on a treadmill. Round and round, all night long. This is a bit like that, yes?"

"In very broad terms," said Ponder carefully.

"Had an ant farm, too," said Ridcully, thinking faraway thoughts. "The little devils never could plow straight." He pulled himself together. "Anyway, get the rest of your chums here right now."

"What for?"

"A bit of a tutorial," said Ridcully.

"Aren't we going to examine the music?"

"In good time," said Ridcully. "But first, we're going to talk to someone."

"Who?"

"I'm not sure," said Ridcully. "We'll know when he turns up. Or her."

Glod looked at their suite. The hotel owner had just left, after going through the "dis is der window, it really opens, dis is der pump, you get water out of it wit der handle here, dis is me waiting for some money" routine.

"Well, that just about does it. That just about puts the iron helmet on it, that does," he said, "We play Music With Rocks In all evening, and we've got a room that looks like this this?"

"It's homely," said Cliff. "Looks, trolls don't have much to do with der frills of life-"

Glod looked toward his feet.

"It's on the floor and it's soft," he said. "Silly me for thinking it was a carpet. Someone fetch me a broom. No, someone fetch me a shovel. Then Then someone fetch me a broom." someone fetch me a broom."

"It'll do," said Buddy.

He put down his guitar and stretched out on the wooden slab that was apparently one of the beds.

"Cliff," said Glod, "can I have a word?"

He jerked a stubby thumb at the door.

They conferred on the landing.

"It's getting bad," said Glod.

"Yep."

"He hardly says a word now when he's not onstage."

"Yep."

"Ever met a zombie?"

"I know a golem. Mr. Dorfl down in Long Hogmeat."

"Him? He's a genuine zombie?"

"Yep. Got a holy word on his head, I seen it."

"Yuk. Really? I buy sausages from him."

"Anyway...what about about zombies?" zombies?"

"...you couldn't tell from the taste, I thought he was a really good sausage maker..."

"What was you saying about zombies?"

"...funny how you can know someone for years and then find out they've got feet of clay..."

"Zombies..." said Cliff patiently.

"What? Oh. Yes. I mean he acts like one." Glod recalled some of the zombies in Ankh-Morpork. "At least, like zombies are supposed to act."

"Yep. I know what you mean."

"And we both know why."

"Yep. Er. Why?"

"The guitar."

"Oh, dat. Yeah."

"When we're onstage, that thing thing is in charge-" is in charge-"

In the silence of the room, the guitar lay in the dark by Buddy's bed and its strings vibrated gently to the sound of the dwarf's voice...

"Okay, so what do we do about it?" said Cliff.

"It's made of wood. Ten seconds with an ax, no more problem."

"I'm not sure. Dat ain't no ordinary instrument."

"He was a nice kid when we met him. For a human," said Glod.

"So what do we do? I don't think we could get it off him."

"Maybe we could get him to-"

The dwarf paused. He was aware of a fuzzy echo to his voice.

"That damn thing is listening listening to us!" he hissed. "Let's go outside." to us!" he hissed. "Let's go outside."

They ended up out in the road.

"Can't see how it can listen," said Cliff. "An instrument's for listening to."

"The strings listen," said Glod, flatly. "That is not not an ordinary instrument." an ordinary instrument."

Cliff shrugged. "Dere's one way we could find out," he said.

Early morning fog filled the streets. Around the University it was sculpted into curious forms by the slight magical background radiation. Strangely shaped things moved across the damp cobbles.

Two of them were Glod and Cliff.

"Right," said the dwarf. "Here we are."

He looked up at a blank wall.

"I knew it!" he said. "Didn't I say? Magic! How many times have we heard this story? There's a mysterious shop no one's ever seen before, and someone goes in and buys some rusty old curio, and it turns out to-"

"Glod-"

"-some kind of talisman or a bottle full of genie, and then when there's trouble they go back and the shop-"

"Glod-?"

"-has mysteriously disappeared mysteriously disappeared and gone back to whatever dimension it came from-yes, what is it?" and gone back to whatever dimension it came from-yes, what is it?"

"You're on der wrong side of der road. It's over here."

Glod glared at the blank wall, and then turned and stomped across the road.

"It was a mistake anyone could have made."

"Yep."

"It doesn't invalidate anything I said."

Glod rattled the door and, to his surprise, found it was unlocked.

"It's gone two in the morning! What kind of music shop is open at two in the morning?" Glod struck a match.

The dusty graveyard of old instruments loomed around them. It looked as though a number of prehistoric animals had been caught in a flash flood and then fossilized.

"What's dat one dat looks like a serpent?" whispered Cliff.

"It's called a Serpent."

Glod was uneasy. He'd spent most of his life as a musician. He hated the sight of dead instruments, and these were were dead. They didn't belong to anyone. No one played them. They were like bodies without life, people without souls. Something they had contained had gone. Every one of them represented a musician down on his luck. dead. They didn't belong to anyone. No one played them. They were like bodies without life, people without souls. Something they had contained had gone. Every one of them represented a musician down on his luck.

There was a pool of light in a grove of bassoons. The old lady was deeply asleep in a rocking chair, with a tangle of knitting on her lap and a shawl around her shoulders.

"Glod?"

Glod jumped. "Yes? What?"

"Why are we here? We know the place exists now-"

"Grab some ceiling, hooligans!"

Glod blinked at the crossbow bolt pricking the end of his nose, and raised his hands. The old lady had gone from asleep to firing stance apparently without passing through any intermediate stage.

"This is the best I can do," he said. "Er...the door wasn't locked, you see, and..."

"So you thought you could rob a poor defenseless old lady?"

"Not at all, not at all, in fact we-"