'You know the Listening Monks up in the Ramtops? They say that there's a background noise to the universe? A sort of echo of some sound?'
'Sounds sensible to me. The whole universe starting up, bound to make a big bang,' said Ridcully.
'It wouldn't have to be very loud,' said Ponder. 'It'd just have to be everywhere, all at once. I read that book. Old Riktor the Counter wrote it. The Monks are still listening to it, he said. A sound that never fades away.'
'Sounds like loud to me,' said Ridcully. 'Got to be loud to be heard any distance. If the wind's in the wrong direction, you can't even hear the bells on the Assassins' Guild.'
'It wouldn't have to be loud to be heard everywhere,' said Ponder. 'The reason being, at that point everywhere was all in one place.'
Ridcully gave him the look people give conjurors who've just removed an egg from their ear.
'Everywhere was all in one place?'
'Yes.'
'So where was everywhere else?'
'That was all in one place, too.'
'The same place?'
'Yes.'
'Crunched up very small?'
Ridcully was beginning to show certain signs. If he had been a volcano, natives living nearby would be looking for a handy virgin.
'Haha, in fact you could say it was crunched up very big,' said Ponder, who always walked into it. 'The reason being, space didn't exist until there was a universe, so anything there was, was everywhere.'
'The same everywhere we had just now?'
'Yes.'
'All right. Go on.'
'Riktor said he thought that the sound came first. One great big complicated chord. The biggest, most complicated sound there ever was. A sound so complex that you couldn't play it within a universe, any more than you can open a box with the crowbar that's inside it. One great chord which . . . as it were . . . played everything into being. Started the music, if you like.'

A voice said: One. One. One, two. One, two.
Then the footsteps went back into the distance.
After a while, another voice said: One, two, three, four-
And the universe came into being.
It was wrong to call it a big bang. That would just be noise, and all that noise could create is more noise and a cosmos full of random particles.
Matter exploded into being, apparently as chaos, but in fact as a chord. The ultimate power chord.
Everything, all together, streaming out in one huge rush that contained within itself, like reverse fossils, everything that it was going to be.
And, zigzagging through the expanding cloud, alive, that first wild live music.
This had shape. It had spin. It had rhythm. It had a beat, and you could dance to it.
Everything did.
A voice right inside Susan's head said: And I will never die.
She said, aloud: 'There's a bit of you in everything that lives.'
Yes. I am the heart beat. The back beat.

When the music spoke, the falling snow danced.
You can't kill me.
Death reached into his robe, and brought out the guitar. Bits of it had broken off, but this didn't matter; the shape flickered in the air. The strings glowed.
Death took a stance that Crash would have died to achieve, and raised one hand. In his fingers the sliver glinted. If light could have made a noise, it would have flashed ting.
He wanted to be the greatest musician in the world. There has to be a law. Destiny runs its course.
For once, Death appeared not to smile.
He brought his hand down on the strings.
There was no sound.
There was, instead, a cessation of sound, the end of a noise which Susan realized she'd been hearing all along. All the time. All her life. A kind of sound you never notice until it stops . . .
The strings were still.
There are millions of chords. There are millions of numbers. And everyone forgets the one that is a zero.
But without the zero, numbers are just arithmetic. Without the empty chord, music is just noise.
Death played the empty chord.
The beat slowed. And began to weaken. The universe spun on, every atom of it. But soon the whirling would end and the dancers would look around and wonder what to do next.
It's not time for THAT! Play something else!
I CANNOT.
Death nodded towards Buddy.
BUT HE CAN.
He threw the guitar towards Buddy. It passed right through him.
Susan ran and snatched it up, holding it out.
'You've got to take it! You've got to play! You've got to start the music again!'
She strummed frantically at the strings. Buddy winced.
'Please!' she shouted. 'Don't fade away!'
The music screamed in her head.
Buddy managed to grasp the guitar, but stood looking at it as if he'd never seen it before.
'What'll happen if he doesn't play it?' said Glod.
'You'll all die in the wreckage!'
AND THEN, said Death, THE MUSIC WILL DIE. AND THE DANCE WILL END. THE WHOLE DANCE.
The ghostly dwarf gave a cough.
'We're getting paid for this number, right?' he said.
YOU'LL GET THE UNIVERSE.
'And free beer?'