Thief of Time tds-26

by Terry Pratchett

  No one could be that accurate, could they?

  “You're down to months now, lad, months!” he shouted. “Keep it up! No, blimey, you're down to days… days! Keep an eye on me!”

  The sweeper ran towards the end of the hall, to where the Procrastinators were smaller. Time was fine-tuned here, on cylinders of chalk and wood and other short-lived materials. To his amazement, some of them were already slowing.

  He raced down an aisle of oak columns a few feet high. But even the Procrastinators that could wind time in hours and minutes were falling silent.

  There was a squeaking noise.

  Beside him, one final little chalk cylinder at the end of a row rattled around on its bearing like a spinning-top.

  Lu-Tze crept towards it, staring at it intently, one hand raised. The squeaking was the only sound now, apart from the occasional clink of cooling bearings.

  “Nearly there,” he called out. “Slowing down now… wait for it, wait… for… it…”

  The chalk Procrastinator, no bigger than a reel of cotton, slowed, spun… stopped.

  On the racks, the last two shutters closed.

  Lu-Tze's hand fell.

  “Now! Kill the board! No one touch a thing!”

  For a moment there was dead silence in the hall. The monks watched, holding their breath.

  This was a timeless moment, of perfect balance.

  Tick

  And in that timeless moment the ghost of Mr Shoblang, to whom the scene was hazy and fuzzy as though seen through a gauze, said, “This is just impossible! Did you see that?”

  SEE WHAT? said a dark figure behind him.

  Shoblang turned. “Oh,” he said, and added with sudden certainty, “You're Death, right?”

  YES. I AM SORRY I AM LATE.

  The spirit formerly known as Shoblang looked down at the pile of dust that represented his worldly habitation for the previous six hundred years.

  “So am I,” he said. He nudged Death in the ribs.

  EXCUSE ME?

  “I said, ‘I'm sorry I'm late.’ Boom, boom.”

  I BEG YOUR PARDON?

  “Er, you know… Sorry I'm late. Like… dead?”

  Death nodded. OH, I SEE. IT WAS THE “BOOM BOOM” I DID NOT UNDERSTAND.

  “Er, that was to show it was a joke,” said Shoblang.

  AH, YES. I CAN SEE HOW THAT WOULD BE NECESSARY. IN FACT, MR SHOBLANG, WHILE YOU ARE LATE, YOU ARE ALSO EARLY. BOOM, BOOM.

  “Pardon?”

  YOU HAVE DIED BEFORE YOUR TIME.

  “Well, yes, I should think so!”

  DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHY? IT'S VERY UNUSUAL.

  “All I know is that the spinners went wild and I must've copped a load when one of 'em went overspeed,” said Shoblang. “But, hey, what about that kid, eh? Look at the way he's making the buggers dance! I wish I'd had him training under me! What am I saying? He could give me a few tips!”

  Death looked around. TO WHOM DO YOU REFER?

  “That boy up on the podium, see him?”

  NO, I'M AFRAID I SEE NO ONE THERE.

  “What? Look, he's right there! Plain as the nose on your fa—Well, obviously not on your face…”

  I SEE THE COLOURED PEGS MOVING…

  “Well, who do you think is moving them? I mean, you are Death, right? I thought you could see everyone!”

  Death stared at the dancing bobbins.

  EVERYONE… THAT I SHOULD SEE, he said. He continued to stare.

  “Ahem,” said Shoblang.

  OH, YES. WHERE WERE WE?

  “Look, if I'm, er, too early, then can't you—”

  EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS STAYS HAPPENED.

  “What kind of philosophy is that?”

  THE ONLY ONE THAT WORKS. Death took out an hourglass and consulted it. I SEE THAT BECAUSE OF THIS PROBLEM YOU ARE NOT DUE TO REINCARNATE FOR SEVENTY-NINE YEARS. DO YOU HAVE ANYWHERE TO STAY?

  “Stay? I'm dead. It's not like locking yourself out of your own house!” said Shoblang, who was beginning to fade.

  PERHAPS YOU COULD BE BUMPED UP TO AN EARLIER BIRTH?

  Shoblang vanished.

  In the timeless moment Death turned back to stare at the hall of spinners…

  Tick

  The chalk cylinder started to spin again, squeaking gently.

  One by one, the oak Procrastinators began to revolve, picking up the rising load. This time there was no scream of bearings. They twirled slowly, like old ballerinas, this way and that, gradually taking up the strain as millions of humans in the world outside bent time around themselves. The creaking sounded like a teaclipper rounding Cape Wrath on a gentle breeze.

  Then the big stone cylinders groaned as they picked up the time their smaller brethren couldn't handle. A rumbling underlay the creaking now, but it was still gentle, controlled…

  Lu-Tze lowered his hand gently and straightened up.

  “A nice clean pick-up,” he said. “Well done, everyone.” He turned to the astonished, panting monks and beckoned the most senior towards him.

  Lu-Tze pulled a ragged cigarette end out of its lodging behind his ear and said, “Well now, Rambut Handisides, what d'you think happened just now, eh?”

  “Er, well, there was a surge which blew out—”

  “Nah, nah, after that,” said Lu-Tze, striking a match on the sole of his sandal. “See, what I don't think happened was that you boys ran around like a lot of headless chickens and a novice got up on the platform and did the sweetest, smoothest bit of rebalancing that I've ever seen. That couldn't have happened, because that sort of thing does not happen. Am I right?”

  The monks of the Procrastinator floor were not among the temple's great political thinkers. Their job was to tend and grease and strip down and rebuild and follow the directions of the man on the platform. Rambut Handisides' brow wrinkled.

  Lu-Tze sighed. “See, what I think happened,” he said helpfully, “was that you lads rose to the occasion, right, and left myself and the young man there aghast at the practical skills you all showed. The abbot will be impressed and blow happy bubbles. You could be looking at some extra momos in your thugpa come dinner-time, if you get my drift?”

  Handisides ran this up his mental flagpole and it did indeed send prayers to heaven. He began to smile.

  “However,” said Lu-Tze, stepping closer and lowering his voice, “I'll probably be around again soon, this place looks as though it could do with a good sweeping, and if I don't find you boys pin-sharp and prodding buttock inside a week, you and I will have a… talk.”

  The smile vanished. “Yes, Sweeper.”

  “You've got to test them all and see to those bearings.”

  “Yes, Sweeper.”

  “And someone clear up Mr Shoblang.”

  “Yes, Sweeper.”

  “Fair play to you, then. Me and young Lobsang here will be going. You've done a lot for his education.”

  He took the unresisting Lobsang by the hand and led him out of the hall, past the long lines of turning, humming Procrastinators. A pall of blue smoke still hung under the high ceiling.

  “Truly it is written, ‘You could knock me down with a feather,’” he muttered, as they headed up the sloping passage. “You spotted that inversion before it happened. I'd have blown us into next week. At least.”

  “Sorry, Sweeper.”

  “Sorry? You don't have to be sorry. I don't know what you are, son. You're too quick. You're taking to this place like a duck to water. You don't have to learn stuff that takes other people years to get the hang of. Old Shoblang, may he be reincarnated somewhere nice and warm, even he couldn't balance the load down to a second. I mean, a second. Over a whole damn world!” He shuddered. “Here's a tip. Don't let it show. People can be funny about that sort of thing.”

  “Yes, Sweeper.”

  “And another thing,” said Lu-Tze, leading the way out into the light. “What was all that fuss just before the Procrastinators cut loose? You felt something?”

  “I don't know. I just fel
t… everything went wrong for a moment.”

  “Ever happened before?”

  “No-o. It was a bit like what happened in the Mandala Hall.”

  “Well, don't talk about it to anyone else. Most of the high-ups these days probably don't even know how the spinners work. No one cares about them any more. No one notices something that works too well. Of course, in the old days you weren't even allowed to become a monk until you'd spent six months in the hall, greasing and cleaning and fetching. And we were better for it! These days it's all about learning obedience and cosmic harmony. Well, in the old days you learned that in the halls. You learned that if you didn't jump out of the way when someone yelled, ‘She's dumping!’ you got a couple of years where it hurt, and that there's no harmony better than all the spinners turning sweetly.”

  The passage rose into the main temple complex. People were still scurrying around as they headed for the Mandala Hall.

  “You're sure you can look at it again?” said Lu-Tze.

  “Yes, Sweeper.”

  “Okay. You know best.”

  The balconies overlooking the hall were crowded with monks, but Lu-Tze worked his way forward by polite yet firm use of his broom. The senior monks were clustered at the edge.

  Rinpo caught sight of him. “Ah, Sweeper,” he said. “Some dust delayed you?”

  “Spinners cut free and went overspeed,” muttered Lu-Tze.

  “Yes, but you were summoned by the abbot,” said the acolyte reproachfully.

  “Upon a time,” said Lu-Tze, “every man jack of us would have legged it down to the hall when the gongs went.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “BRRRRbrrrrbrrrr,” said the abbot, and Lobsang saw now that he was being carried in a sling on the acolyte's back, with an embroidered pixie hood on his head to keep off the chill. “Lu-Tze always was very keen on the practical approach BRRRbrrr.” He blew milky suds into the acolyte's ear. “I am glad matters have been resolved, Lu-Tze.”

  The sweeper bowed, while the abbot started to beat the acolyte gently over the head with a wooden bear.

  “History has repeated, Lu-Tze. DumDumBBBRRRR…”

  “Glass clock?” said Lu-Tze.

  The senior monks gasped.

  “How could you possibly know that?” said the chief acolyte. “We haven't rerun the Mandala yet!”

  “It is written, ‘I've got a feeling in my water,’” said Lu-Tze. “And that was the only other time I ever heard of when all the spinners went wild like that. They all cut loose. Time-slip. Someone's building a glass clock again.”

  “That is quite impossible,” said the acolyte. “We removed every trace!”

  “Hah! It is written, ‘I'm not as green as I'm cabbage-looking!’” snapped Lu-Tze. “Something like that you can't kill. It leaks back. Stories. Dreams. Paintings on cave walls, whatever—”

  Lobsang looked down at the Mandala floor. Monks were clustered around a group of tall cylinders at the far end of the hall. They looked like Procrastinators, but only one small one was spinning, slowly. The others were motionless, showing the mass of symbols that were carved into them from top to bottom.

  Pattern storage. The thought arrived in his head. That is where the Mandala's patterns are kept, so that they can be replayed. Today's patterns on the little one, long-term storage on the big ones.

  Below him the Mandala rippled, blotches of colour and scraps of pattern drifting across its surface. One of the distant monks called out something, and the small cylinder stopped.

  The rolling sand grains were stilled.

  “This is how it looked twenty minutes ago,” said Rinpo. “See the blue-white dot there? And then it spreads—”

  “I know what I'm looking at,” said Lu-Tze grimly. “I was there when it happened before, man! Your Reverence, get them to run the old Glass Clock sequence! We haven't got a lot of time!”

  “I really think we—” the acolyte began, but he was interrupted by a blow from a rubber brick.

  “Wannapottywanna if Lu-Tze is right, then we must not waste time, gentlemen, and if he is wrong then we have time to spare, is this not so? Pottynowwannawanna!”

  “Thank you,” said the sweeper. He cupped his hands. “Oi! You lot! Spindle two, fourth bhing, round about the nineteenth gupa! And jump to it!”

  “I really must respectfully protest, Your Reverence,” said the acolyte. “We have practised for just such an emergency as—”

  “Yeah, I know all about practising procedures for emergencies,” said Lu-Tze. “And there's always something missing.”

  “Ridiculous! We take great pains to—”

  “You always leave out the damn emergency.” Lu-Tze turned back to the hall and the apprehensive workers. “Ready? Good! Put it on the floor now! Or I shall have to come down there! And I don't want to have to come down there!”

  There was some frantic activity by the men around the cylinders, and a new pattern replaced the one below the balcony. The lines and colours were in different places, but a blue-white circle occupied the centre.

  “There,” said Lu-Tze. “That was less than ten days before the clock struck.”

  There was silence from the monks.

  Lu-Tze smiled grimly. “And ten days later—”

  “Time stopped,” said Lobsang.

  “That's one way of putting it,” said Lu-Tze. He'd gone red in the face.

  One of the monks put a hand on his shoulder.

  “It's all right, Sweeper,” he said soothingly. “We know you couldn't have got there in time.”

  “Being in time is supposed to be what we do,” said Lu-Tze. “I was nearly at the damn door, Charlie. Too many castles, not enough… time…”

  Behind him the Mandala returned to its slow metering of the present.

  “It wasn't your fault,” said the monk.

  Lu-Tze shook the hand free and turned to face the abbot over the shoulder of the chief acolyte.

  “I want permission to track this one down right now, reverend sir!” he said. He tapped his nose. “I've got the smell of it! I've been waiting for this all these years! You won't find me wanting this time!”

  In the silence the abbot blew a bubble.

  “It'll be in Uberwald again,” said Lu-Tze, a hint of pleading in his voice. “That's where they mess around with the electrick. I know every inch of that place! Give me a couple of men and we can nip this right in the bud!”

  “Bababababa… This needs discussion, Lu-Tze, but we thank you for your offer babababa,” said the abbot. “Rinpo, I want all bdumbdumbdum senior field monks in the Room of Silence within five bababa minutes! Are the spinners working bdumbdum harmoniously?”

  One of the monks looked up from a scroll he'd been handed.

  “It appears so, Your Reverence.”

  “My congratulations to the board master BIKKIT!”

  “But Shoblang is dead,” murmured Lu-Tze.

  The abbot stopped blowing bubbles. “That is sad news. And he was a friend of yours, I understand.”

  “Shouldn't've happened like that,” the sweeper muttered. “Shouldn't've happened like that.”

  “Compose yourself, Lu-Tze. I will talk to you shortly. Bikkit!” The chief acolyte, spurred on by a blow across the ear with a rubber monkey, hurried away.

  The press of monks began to thin out as they went about their duties. Lu-Tze and Lobsang were left on the balcony, looking down at the rippling Mandala.

  Lu-Tze cleared his throat. “See them spinners at the end?” he said. “The little one records the patterns for a day, and then anything interesting is stored in the big ones.”

  “I just premembered you were going to say that.”

  “Good word. Good word. The lad has talent.” Lu-Tze lowered his voice. “Anyone watching us?”

  Lobsang looked around. “There's a few people still here.”

  Lu-Tze raised his voice again. “You been taught anything about the Big Crash?”

  “Only rumours, Sweeper.”

  “Ye
ah, there were a lot of rumours. ‘The day time stood still’, all that sort of thing.” Lu-Tze sighed. “Y'know, most of what you get taught is lies. It has to be. Sometimes if you get the truth all at once, you can't understand it. You knew Ankh-Morpork pretty well, did you? Ever go to the opera house?”

  “Only for pickpocket practice, Sweeper.”

  “Ever wonder about it? Ever look at that little theatre just over the road? Called The Dysk, I think.”

  “Oh, yes! We got penny tickets and sat on the ground and threw nuts at the stage.”

  “And it didn't make you think? Big opera house, all plush and gilt and big orchestras, and then there's this little thatched theatre, all bare wood and no seats and one bloke playing a crumhorn for musical accompaniment?”

  Lobsang shrugged. “Well, no. That's just how things are.”

  Lu-Tze almost smiled. “Very flexible things, human minds,” he said. “It's amazing what they can stretch to fit. We did a fine job there—”

  “Lu-Tze?”

  One of the lesser acolytes was waiting respectfully.

  “The abbot will see you now,” he said.

  “Ah, right,” said the sweeper. He nudged Lobsang and whispered, “We're going to Ankh-Morpork, lad.”

  “What? But you said you wanted to be sent to—”

  Lu-Tze winked. “'Cos it is written, ‘Them as asks, don't get,’ see. There's more than one way of choking a dangdang than stuffing it with pling, lad.”

  “Is there?”

  “Oh yes, if you've got enough pling. Now let's see the abbot, shall we? It'll be time for his feed now. Solids, thank goodness. At least he's done with the wetnurse. It was so embarrassing for him and the young lady, honestly, you didn't know where to put your face and neither did he. I mean, mentally he's nine hundred years old…”

  “That must make him very wise.”

  “Pretty wise, pretty wise. But age and wisdom don't necessarily go together, I've always found,” said Lu-Tze, as they approached the abbot's rooms. “Some people just become stupid with more authority. Not His Reverence, of course.”