Discworld 26 - The Thief of Time (12 page)

BOOK: Discworld 26 - The Thief of Time
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'Lu-Tze, I really don't want to fight you-'
'Oh, your tutors will tell you that the discipline of a martial art enables you to slice time, and
that's true as far as it goes,' said Lu-Tze, apparently not listening. 'But so can sweeping, as
perhaps you have found. Always find the perfect moment, Wen said. People just seem so
keen on using it to kick other people on the back of the neck.'
'But it wasn't a challenge, I just wanted you to show me-'
'And I shall. Come on. I made a bargain. I must keep it, old fool that I am.'
The nearest dojo was the dojo of the Tenth Djim. It was empty except for two monks blurring
as they danced across the mat and wrapped time around themselves.
Lu-Tze had been right, Lobsang knew. Time was a resource. You could learn to let it move
fast or slow, so that a monk could walk easily through a crowd and yet be moving so fast that
no one could see him. Or he could stand still for a few seconds, and watch the sun and moon
chase one another across a flickering sky. He could meditate for a day in a minute. Here, in
the valley, a day lasted for ever. Blossom never became cherries.
The blurred fighters became a couple of hesitant monks when they saw Lu-Tze. He bowed.
'I beg the use of this dojo for a short period while my apprentice teaches me the folly of old
age,' he said.
'I really didn't mean-' Lobsang began, but Lu-Tze elbowed him in the ribs. The monks gave
the old man a nervous look.
'It's yours, Lu-Tze,' said one of them. They hurried out, almost tripping over their own feet as
they looked back.
'Time and its control is what we should teach here,' said Lu-Tze, watching them go. 'The
martial arts are an aid. That is all they are. At least, that's all they were meant to be. Even out
in the world a well-trained person may perceive, in the fray, how flexible time may be. Here,
we can build on that. Compress time. Stretch time. Hold the moment. Punching people's
kidneys out through their nose is only a foolish by-product.'
Lu-Tze took down a razor-edged pika sword from the rack and handed it to the shocked boy.
'You've seen one of these before? They're not really for novices, but you show promise.'
'Yes, Sweeper, but-'
'Know how to use it?'
'I'm good with the practice ones, but they're just made of-'
'Take it, then, and attack me.'

 
 
  
There was a rustling noise above them. Lobsang looked up and saw monks pouring into the
observation gallery above the dojo. There were some very senior ones among them. News
gets around quickly in a little world.
'Rule Two,' said Lu-Tze, 'is never refuse a weapon.' He took a few steps back. 'In your own
time, boy.'
Lobsang wielded the curved sword uncertainly.
'Well?' said Lu-Tze.
'I can't just-'
'Is this the dojo of the Tenth Djim?' said Lu-Tze. 'Why, mercy me, I do believe it is. That
means there are no rules, doesn't it? Any weapon, any strategy... anything is allowed. Do you
understand? Are you stupid?'
'But I can't just kill someone because they've asked me to!'
'Why not? What happened to Mr Manners?'
'But-'
'You are holding a deadly weapon! You are facing an unarmed man in a pose of submission!
Are you frightened?'
'Yes! Yes, I am!'
'Good. That's the Third Rule,' said Lu-Tze quietly. 'See how much you're learning already?
Wiped the smile off your face, have I? All right, put the sword on the rack and take- Yes, take
a dakka stick. The most you can do with that is bruise my old bones.'
'I would prefer it if you wore the protective padding-'
'You're that good with the stick, are you?'
'I'm very fast-'
'Then if you don't fight right now I shall wrest it from you and break it over your head,' said
Lu-Tze, drawing back. 'Ready? The only defence is to attack well, I'm told.'
Lobsang tilted the stick in reluctant salute.
Lu-Tze folded his hands and, as Lobsang danced towards him, closed his eyes and smiled to
himself.
Lobsang raised the stick again.
And hesitated.

 
 
  
Lu-Tze was grinning.
Rule Two, Rule Three... What had been Rule One?
Always remember Rule One...
'Lu-Tze!'
The abbot's chief acolyte arrived panting in the doorway, waving urgently.
Lu-Tze opened one eye, and then the other one, and then winked at Lobsang.
'Narrow escape there, eh?' he said. He turned to the acolyte. 'Yes, exalted sir?'
'You must come immediately! And all monks who are cleared for a tour in the world! To the
Mandala Hall! Now!'
There was a scuffling in the gallery and several monks pushed their way out through the
crowd.
'Ah, excitement,' said Lu-Tze, taking the stick from Lobsang's unresisting hands and putting
it back into the rack. The hall was emptying fast. Around the whole of Oi Dong, gongs were
being banged frantically.
'What's happening?' said Lobsang, as the last of the monks surged past.
'I daresay we shall soon be told,' said Lu-Tze, starting to roll himself a cigarette.
'Hadn't we better hurry? Everyone's going!' The sound of flapping sandals died away in the
distance.
'Nothing seems to be on fire,' said Lu-Tze calmly. 'Besides, if we wait a little then by the time
we get there everyone will have stopped shouting and perhaps they will be making some
sense. Let us take the Clock Path. The display is particularly fine at this time of day.'
'But... but...'
'It is written “You've got to learn to walk before you can run,”' said Lu-Tze, putting his broom
over his shoulder.
'Mrs Cosmopilite again?'
'Amazing woman. Dusted like a demon, too.'
The Clock Path wound out from the majn complex, up through the terraced gardens, and then
rejoined the wider path as it tunnelled into the cliff wall. Novices always asked why it was
called the Clock Path, since there was no sign of a clock anywhere .

 
 
  
More gongs started to bang, but they were muffled by the greenery. Lobsang heard running
feet up on the main path. Down here, humming birds flickered from flower to flower,
oblivious of any excitement.
'I wonder what time it is,' said Lu-Tze, who was walking ahead.
Everything is a test. Lobsang glanced around at the flowerbed.
'A quarter past nine,' he said.
'Oh? And how do you know that?'
'The field marigold is open, the red sandwort is opening, the purple bindweed is closed, and
the yellow goat's beard is closing,' said Lobsang.
'You worked out the floral clock all by yourself?'
'Yes. It's obvious.'
'Really? What time is it when the white waterlily opens?'
'Six in the morning.'
'You came to look?'
'Yes. You planted this garden, did you?'
'One of my little... efforts.'
'It's beautiful.'
'It's not very accurate in the small hours. There aren't too many night-blooming plants that
grow well up here. They open for the moths, you know-'
'It's how time wants to be measured,' said Lobsang.
'Really? Of course I'm not an expert,' said Lu-Tze. He pinched out the end of his cigarette and
stuck it behind his ear. 'Oh well, let's keep going. Everyone may have stopped arguing at
cross purposes by now. How do you feel about going through the Mandala Hall again?'
'Oh, I'll be fine, I'd just ... forgotten about it, that's all.'
'Really? And you'd never seen it before, too. But time plays funny tricks on us all. Why, I
once-' Lu-Tze stopped, and stared at the apprentice.
'Are you all right?' he said. 'You've gone pale.'
Lobsang grimaced and shook his head.

 
 
  
'Something... felt odd,' he said. He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the lowlands,
spread out in a blue and grey pattern on the horizon. 'Something over there...'
The glass clock. The great glass house and here, where it shouldn't be, the glass clock. It was
barely here: it showed up as shimmering lines in the air, as if it was possible to capture the
sparkle of light off a shiny surface without the surface itself.
Everything here was transparent - delicate chairs, tables, vases of flowers. And now he
realized that glass was not a word to use here. Crystal might be better; or ice - the thin,
flawless ice you sometimes got after a sharp frost. Everything was visible only by its edges.
He could make out staircases through distant walls. Above and below and to every side, the
glass rooms went on for ever.
And yet it was all familiar. It felt like home.
Sound filled the glass rooms. It streamed away in clear sharp notes, like the tones made by a
wet finger around a wineglass rim. There was movement, too - a haze in the air beyond the
transparent walls, shifting and wavering and ... watching him ...
'How can it come from over there? And how do you mean, odd?' said the voice of Lu-Tze.
Lobsang blinked. This was the odd place, the one right here, the rigid and unbending world...
And then the feeling passed, and faded.
'Just odd. For a moment,' he mumbled. There was dampness on his cheek. He raised his hand,
and touched wetness.
'It's that rancid yak butter they put in the tea, I've always said so,' said Lu-Tze. 'Mrs
Cosmopilite never- Now that is unusual,' he said, looking up.
'What? What?' said Lobsang, looking blankly at his wet fingertips and then up at the
cloudless sky.
'A Procrastinator going overspeed.' He shifted position. 'Can't you feel it?'
'I can't hear anything!' said Lobsang.
'Not hear, feel. Coming up through your sandals? Oops, there goes another one... and another.
You can't feel it? That one's... that's old Sixty-Six, they've never got it properly balanced.
We'll hear them in a minute... Oh dear. Look at the flowers. Do look at the flowers!'
Lobsang turned.
The ice plants were opening. The field sowthistle was closing.
'Time-leak,' said Lu-Tze. 'Hark at that! You can hear them now, eh? They're dumping time
randomly! Come on!'

 
 
  
According to the Second Scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised, Wen the Eternally
Surprised sawed the first Procrastinator from the trunk of a wamwam tree, carved
certain symbols on it, fitted it with a bronze spindle and summoned the apprentice,
Clodpool.
'Ah. Very nice, master,' said Clodpool. 'A prayer wheel, yes?'
'No, this is nothing like as complex,' said Wen. 'It merely stores and moves time.'
'That simple, eh?'
'And now I shall test it,' said Wen. He gave it a half-turn with his hand.
'Ah. Very nice, master,' said Clodpool. 'A prayer wheel, yes?'
'No, this is nothing like as complex,' said Wen. 'It merely stores and moves time.'
'That simple, eh?'
'And now I shall test it,' said Wen. He moved it a little less this time.
'That simple, eh?'
'And now I shall test it,' said Wen. This time he twisted it gently to and fro.
'That si-si-si That simple-ple, eh eheh simple, eh?' said Clodpool.
'And I have tested it,' said Wen.
'It worked, master?'
'Yes, I think so.' Wen stood up. 'Give me the rope that you used to carry the firewood.
And... yes, a pit from one of those cherries you picked yesterday.'
He wound the frayed rope around the cylinder and tossed the pit onto a patch of mud.
Clodpool jumped out of the way.
'See those mountains?' said Wen, tugging the rope. The cylinder spun and balanced
there, humming gently.
'Oh yes, master,' said Clodpool obediently. There was practically nothing up here but
mountains; there were so many that sometimes they were impossible to see; because
they got in the way.
'How much time does stone need?' said Wen. 'Or the deep sea? We shall move it' - he
placed his left hand just above the spinning blur - 'to where it is needed.'
He looked down at the cherry pit. His lips moved silently, as though he was working
through some complex puzzle. Then he pointed his right hand at the pit.

 
 
  
'Stand back,' he said, and gently let a finger touch the cylinder.
There was no sound except the crack of the air as it moved aside, and a hiss of steam
from the mud.
Wen looked up at the new tree, and smiled. 'I did say you should stand back,' he said.
'I, er, I shall get down now, then, shall I?' said a voice among the blossom-laden
branches.
'But carefully,' said Wen, and sighed as Clodpool crashed down in a shower of petals.
'There will always be cherry blossom here,' he said.
Lu-Tze hitched up his robe and scurried back down the path. Lobsang ran after him. A high-
pitched whine seemed to be coming out of the rocks. The sweeper skidded at the carp pond,
which was now erupting in strange waves, and headed down a shady track alongside a
stream. Red ibises erupted into flight-
He stopped, and threw himself flat on the paving slabs.
'Get down now!'
But Lobsang was already headlong. He heard something pass overhead with a plangent
sound. He looked back and saw the last ibis tumbling in the air, shrinking, shedding feathers,
surrounded by a halo of pale blue light. It squawked and vanished with a 'pop'.
Not vanished entirely. An egg followed the same trajectory for a few seconds, and then
smashed on the stones.
'Random time! Come on, come on!' shouted Lu-Tze. He scrambled to his feet again, headed
towards an ornamental grille in the cliff face ahead of them, and with surprising strength
wrenched it out of the wall.
'It's a bit of a drop but if you roll when you land you'll be okay,' he said, lowering himself into
the hole.
'Where does it go to?'
'The Procrastinators, of course!'
'But novices aren't allowed in there on pain of death!'
'That's a coincidence,' said Lu-Tze, lowering himself to the tips of his fingers. 'Because death
is what awaits you if you stay out there, too.'
He dropped into the darkness. A moment later there was an unenlightened curse from below.
Lobsang climbed in, hung by his fingertips, dropped and rolled when he hit the floor.

 
 
  
'Well done,' said Lu-Tze in the gloom. 'When in doubt, choose to live. This way!'
The passageway opened into a wide corridor. The noise here was shattering. Something
mechanical was in agony.
There was a 'crump' and, a few moments later, a babble of voices.
Several dozen monks, wearing thick cork hats as well as their traditional robes, came running
round the corner. Most of them were yelling. A few of the brighter ones were saving their
breath in order to cover the ground more quickly. Lu-Tze grabbed one of them, who tried to
struggle free.
'Let me go!'
'What's happening?'
'Just get out of here before they all go!'
The monk shook himself free and sped after the rest of them. Lu-Tze bent down, picked up a
fallen cork helmet, and solemnly handed it to Lobsang.
'Health and safety at work,' he said. 'Very important.'
'Will it protect me?' said Lobsang, putting it on.
'Not really. But when they find your head, it may be recognizable. When we get into the hall,
don't touch anything.'
Lobsang had been expecting some vaulted, magnificent structure. People talked about the
Procrastinator Hall as if it was some kind of huge cathedral. But what there was, at the end of
the passage, was a haze of blue smoke. It was only when his eyes became accustomed to the
swirling gloom that he saw the nearest cylinder.
It was a squat pillar of rock, about three yards across and six yards high. It was spinning so
fast that it was a blur. Around it the air flickered with slivers of silver-blue light.
'See? They're dumping! Over here! Quick!'
Lobsang ran after Lu-Tze, and saw there were hundreds - no, thousands - of the cylinders,
some of them reaching all the way to the cavern roof.
There were still monks in here, running to and from the wells with buckets of water, which
flashed into steam when they threw it over the smoking stone bearings at the base of the
cylinders.
'Idiots,' the sweeper muttered. He cupped his hands and shouted, 'Where-is-the-overseer?'
Lobsang pointed down to the edge of a wooden podium built onto the wall of the hall.

BOOK: Discworld 26 - The Thief of Time
11.02Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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