Discworld 26 - The Thief of Time (22 page)

 
 
  
The sun had barely moved from the horizon when they came down through warmer woods on
the Rim side of the mountain. Here the landscape had a more domesticated air. It was
woodland rather than forest. The game trail they d been following crossed a creek at a point
where there were cart tracks, old but still not overgrown.
Lobsang looked behind him after he'd walked across the ford, and watched the water very
slowly reclaim the shape of his footprints in the stream.
He'd been trained in time-slicing on the snowfields above the valley, like the rest of the
novices. That was so they couldn't come to any harm, the monks had said, although no one
actually explained what harm they might come to. Outside the monastery, this was the first
time Lobsang had sliced in a living landscape.
It was marvellous! Birds hung in the sky. Early morning bumblebees hovered over the
opening flowers. The world was a crystal made of living things.
Lobsang slowed near a group of deer cropping the grass, and watched as the nearer eye of
one of them swivelled, with geological slowness, to watch him. He saw the skin move as the
muscles underneath started to bunch for flight...
'Time for a smoko,' said Lu-Tze.
The world around Lobsang speeded up. The deer fled, along with the magic of the moment.
'What's a smoko?' said Lobsang. He was annoyed. The quiet slow world had been fun.
'You ever been to Fourecks?'
'No. There's a barman at the Bunch of Grapes from there, though.'
Lu-Tze lit one of his skinny cigarettes.
'Don't mean much,' he said. 'The barman everywhere is from there. Strange country. Big time
source right in the middle, very useful. Time and space all tangled up. Probably all that beer.
Nice place, though. Now, you see that country down there?'
On one side of the clearing the ground fell away steeply, showing treetops and, beyond, a
small patchwork of fields tucked into a fold in the mountains. In the distance was a gorge,
and Lobsang thought he could make out a bridge across it.
'Doesn't look much like a country,' he said. 'Looks more like a shelf.'
'That's witch country,' said Lu-Tze. 'And we're going to borrow a broomstick. Quickest way
to Ankh-Morpork. Only way to travel.'
'Isn't that, er, interfering with history? I mean, I was told that sort of thing is all right up in the
valleys, but down here in the world...'
'No, it's absolutely forbidden,' said Lu-Tze. ' 'cos it's Interfering With History. Got to be
careful of your witch, of course. Some of them are pretty canny.' He caught Lobsang's

 
 
  
expression. 'Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break
'em.'
'But-'
Lu-Tze sighed, and pinched out the end of his cigarette. 'We're being watched,' he said.
Lobsang spun round. There were only trees, and insects buzzing in the early-morning air.
'Up there,' said Lu-Tze.
There was a raven perched on the broken crown of a pine tree, shattered in some winter
storm. It looked at them looking at it.
'Caw?' it said.
'It's just a raven,' said Lobsang. 'There's lots of them in the valley.'
'It was watching us when we stopped.'
'There's ravens all over the mountains, Sweeper.'
'And when we met the yeti,' Lu-Tze persisted.
'That settles it, then. It's coincidence. One raven couldn't move that fast.'
'Maybe it's a special raven,' said Lu-Tze. 'Anyway, it's not one of our mountain ravens. It's a
lowland raven. Mountain ravens croak. They don't caw. Why's it so interested in us?'
'It's a bit... weird, thinking you're being followed by a bird,' said Lobsang.
'When you get to my age you notice things in the sky,' said Lu-Tze. He shrugged and gave a
grin. 'You start worrying they might be vultures.'
They faded into time, and vanished.
The raven ruffled its feathers.
'Croak?' it said. 'Damn.'
Tick
Lobsang felt around under the thatched eaves of the cottage, and his hand closed on the
bristles of a broomstick that had been thrust among the reeds.
'This is rather like stealing,' he said, as Lu-Tze helped him down.
'No, it's not,' said the sweeper, taking the broomstick and holding it up so he could look along
its length. 'And I'll tell you why. If we sort things out, we'll drop it off on our way back and
she'll never know it's gone... and if we don't sort things out, well, she'll still never know it's

 
 
  
gone. Honestly, they don't take much care of their sticks, witches. Look at the bristles on this
one. I wouldn't use it to clean a pond! Oh, well ... back into clock time, lad. I'd hate to fly one
of these things while I was slicing.'
He straddled the stick and gripped the handle. It rose a little way.
'Good suspension, at least,' he said. 'You can have the comfy seat on the back. Hold tight to
my own broom and make sure you wrap your robe around you. These things are pretty
breezy.'
Lobsang pulled himself aboard and the stick rose. As it drew level with the lower branches
around the clearing, it brought Lu-Tze to eye level with a raven.
It shifted uneasily and turned its head this way and that, trying to fix both eyes on him.
'Are you going to caw or croak, I wonder,' said Lu-Tze, apparently to himself.
'Croak,' said the raven.
'So you're not the raven we saw on the other side of the mountain, then.'
'Me? Gosh, no,' said the raven. 'That's croaking territory over there.'
'Just checking.'
The broom rose higher, and set off above the trees in a Hubwards direction.
The raven ruffled its feathers and blinked.
'Damn!' it said. It shuffled around the tree to where the Death of Rats was sitting.
SQUEAK?
'Look, if you want me to do this undercover work you've got to get me a book on ornithology,
okay?' said Quoth. 'Let's go, or I'll never keep up.'
Tick
Death found Famine in a new restaurant in Genua. He had a booth all to himself and was
eating Duck and Dirty Rice.
'Oh,' said Famine. It's you.'
YES. WE MUST RIDE. YOU MUST HAVE GOT MY MESSAGE.
'Pull up a chair,' Famine hissed. 'They do a very good alligator sausage here.'
I SAID, WE MUST RIDE.
'Why?'

 
 
  
Death sat down and explained. Famine listened., although he never stopped eating.
'I see,' he said at last. 'Thank you, but I think I shall sit this one out.'
SIT IT OUT? YOU'RE A HORSEMAN!
'Yes, of course. But what is my role here?'
I BEG YOUR PARDON?
'No famine appears to be involved, does it? A shortage of food per se? As such?'
WELL, NO. NOT AS SUCH, OBVIOUSLY, BUT-
'So I would, as it were, be turning up just to wave. No, thank you.'
YOU USED TO RIDE OUT EVERY TIME, said Death accusingly.
Famine waved a bone airily. 'We had proper apocalypses in those days,' he said, and sucked
at the bone. 'You could sink your teeth into them.'
NEVERTHELESS, THIS IS THE END OF THE WORLD.
Famine pushed his plate aside and opened the menu. 'There are other worlds,' he said. 'You're
too sentimental, Death. I've always said so.'
Death drew himself up. Humans had created Famine, too. Oh, there had always been
droughts and locusts, but for a really good famine, for fertile land to be turned into a
dustbowl by stupidity and avarice, you needed humans. Famine was arrogant.
I AM SORRY, he said, TO HAVE TRESPASSED ON YOUR TIME.
He went outside, into the crowded street, all alone.
Tick
The stick swooped down towards the plains, and levelled off a few hundred feet above the
ground.
'We're on our way now!' shouted Lu-Tze, pointing ahead. Lobsang looked down at a slim
wooden tower hung with complicated boxes. There was another one in the far distance, a
toothpick in the morning mist.
'Semaphore towers!' Lu-Tze shouted. 'Ever seen them?'
'Only in the city!' Lobsang shouted above the slipstream.
'It's the Grand Trunk!' the sweeper shouted back. 'Runs like an arrow all the way to the city!
All we have to do is follow it!'

 
 
  
Lobsang clung on. There was no snow beneath them and it looked as though spring was well
advanced. And therefore it was unfair that here, that much nearer the sun, the air was frigid
and was being driven into his flesh by the wind of their travel.
'It's very cold up here!'
'Yes! Did I tell you about the double-knit combinations?'
'Yes!'
'I've got a spare pair in my sack. You can have them when we stop!'
'Your own personal pair?'
'Yes! Second-best but well darned!'
'No, thank you!'
'They've been washed!'
'Lu-Tze?'
'Yes?'
'Why can't we slice when we're on this thing?'
The tower was well past them. The next one was pencil-sized already. The black-and-white
shutters on the boxes were twinkling in the sunlight.
'Do you know what happens if you slice time on a magically powered vehicle travelling at
more than seventy miles an hour?'
'No!'
'Me neither! And I don't want to find out!'
Tick
Igor opened the door before the second knock. An Igor might be filling coffins with earth in
the cellar, or up on the roof adjusting the lightning conductor, but a caller never had to knock
twice.
'Ladythip,' he muttered, nodding his head. He looked blankly at the six figures behind her.
'We have called to inspect progress,' said Lady LeJean.
'And thethe ladieth and gentlemen, ladythip?'
'My associates,' said her ladyship, matching Igor's blank stare.

 
 
  
'If you will be tho kind ath to thtep inthide, I will thee if the marthter ith in,' said Igor,
observing the convention that a true butler never knows the whereabouts of anyone in the
house until they decide they want it to be known.
He backed through the door into the workshop and then lurched into the kitchen, where
Jeremy was calmly pouring a spoonful of medicine down the sink.
'That woman ith here,' he said, 'and thee hath brought lawyerth.'
Jeremy held out a hand, palm downwards, and examined it critically.
'You see, Igor?' he said. 'Here we are, almost at the completion of our great work, and I
remain absolutely calm. You could build a house on my hand, it is so steady.'
'Lawyerth, thur,' said Igor, giving the word some extra spin.
'And?'
'Well, we have had a lot of money,' said Igor, with the conviction of a man who has
informally secreted a small but sensible amount of gold in his own bag.
'And we have finished the clock,' said Jeremy, still watching his hand.
'We've been nearly finithed for dayth,' said Igor darkly. 'If it wathn't for her, I reckon we
could've caught that thunderthtorm two dayth ago.'
'When's the next one?'
Igor screwed up his face and banged his temple a couple of times with the palm of his hand.
'Unthettled conditionth with a low approaching from the Rim,' he said. 'Can't promith
anything with the thloppy weather you get here. Hah, back home the thunderthtormth come
running ath thoon ath they thee you put up the iron pole. Tho what do you want me to do
about the lawyerth?'
'Show them in, of course. We have nothing to hide.'
'Are you thure, thur?' said Igor, whose carpet bag could not in fact be lifted with one hand.
'Please do it, Igor.'
Jeremy smoothed down his hair while the grumbling Igor disappeared into the shop and
returned with the guests.
'Lady LeJean, thur. And thome other... people,' said Igor.
'It's good to see you, your ladyship,' said Jeremy, smiling glassily. He vaguely remembered
something he had read. 'Won't you introduce me to your friends?'

 
 
  
Lady LeJean gave him a nervous look. Oh, yes... humans always needed to know names. And
he was smiling again. It made it so hard to think.
'Mr Jeremy, these are my... associates,' she said. 'Mr Black. Mr Green. Miss Brown. Miss
White. Miss... Yellow. And Mr Blue.'
Jeremy held out his hand. 'I am pleased to meet you,' he said.
Six pairs of eyes looked uncomprehendingly at the hand.
'The custom here is to shake hands,' said her ladyship.
In unison, the Auditors extended a hand and wiggled it slowly in the air.
'The hand of the other person,' said her ladyship. She gave Jeremy a thin-lipped smile. 'They
are foreigners,' she said.
And she recognized the panic in their eyes, even if they didn't. We can count the number and
types of atom in this room, they were thinking. How can there be anything in here we cannot
understand?
Jeremy managed to catch one wavering hand in his. ' And you are Mr-?'
The Auditor turned worried eyes on Lady LeJean.
'Mr Black,' she said.
'I understood that we were Mr Black,' said another male-shaped Auditor.
'No, you are Mr Green.'
'Nevertheless, we would prefer Mr Black. We are the senior, and black is a more significant
shade. We do not wish to be Mr Green.'
'The translation of your names is not, I think, important,' said Lady LeJean. She gave Jeremy
another smile. 'They are my accountants,' she added, some reading on her part having
suggested that this might excuse most oddities.
'You see, Igor?' said Jeremy. 'They are simply accountants.'
Igor grimaced. Where his baggage was concerned, accountants were probably worse news
than lawyers.
'Grey would be acceptable,' said Mr Green.
'Nevertheless, you are Mr Green. We are Mr Black. It is a matter of status.'
'If that is the case,' said Miss White, 'white is higher status than black. Black is absence of
colour.'

 
 
  
'The point is valid,' said Mr Black. 'Therefore we are now Mr White. You are Miss Red.'
'You previously indicated that you were Mr Black.'
'New information indicates a change of position. This does not indicate incorrectness of said
previous position.'
It's happening already, thought Lady LeJean. It's in the darkness where your eyes can't see.
The universe becomes two halves, and you live in the half behind the eyes. Once you have a
body, you have a 'me'.
I have seen galaxies die. I have watched atoms dance. But until I had the dark behind the
eyes, I didn't know the death from the dance. And we were wrong. When you pour water into
a jug, it becomes jug-shaped and it is not the same water any more. An hour ago they never
dreamed of having names, and now they are arguing about them...
And they can't hear what I think!
She wanted more time. The habits of a billion years don't yield entirely to a mouthful of
bread, and she could see that a crazy life form like humanity should not be allowed to exist.
Yes, indeed. Certainly. Of course.
But she wanted more time.
They should be studied. Yes, studied.
There should be ... reports. Yes. Reports. Full reports. Long, long, full reports.
Caution. That was it. That was the word! Auditors loved that word. Always put off until
tomorrow something that, tomorrow, you could put off until, let's say, next year.
It has to be said that Lady LeJean was not herself at this point. She didn't quite have a herself
to be. The other six Auditors... in time, yes, they'd think the same way. But there wasn't time.
If only she could persuade them to eat something. That would... yes, that would bring them to
their senses. There seemed to be no food around, though.
She could see a very large hammer on the bench.
'How is progress, Mr Jeremy?' she said, walking over to the clock. Igor moved very fast, and
stood almost protectively next to the glass pillar.
Jeremy hurried forward. 'We have carefully aligned all the systems-'
'Again,' Igor growled.
'Yes, again-'
'Theveral timeth, in fact,' Igor added.
'And now we simply await the right weather conditions.'