Discworld 26 - The Thief of Time (23 page)

 
 
  
'But I thought you stored lightning?'
Her ladyship indicated the greenish glass cylinders bubbling and hissing along the wall of the
workshop. Just by the bench with, yes, the hammer on it. And no one could read her
thoughts! The power!
'There will easily be enough to keep the mechanism working, but to start the clock will
require what Igor call's a jump,' said Jeremy.
Igor held up two crocodile clips the size of his head.
'th right,' he said. 'But you hardly ever get the right kind of thunderthtormth down here.
Thould've built thith in Uberwald, I keep thaying.'
'What is the nature of this delay?' said - possibly - Mr White.
'We need a thunderstorm, sir. For the lightning,' said Jeremy. Lady LeJean stepped back, a
little closer to the bench.
'Well? Arrange one,' said Mr White.
'Hah, well, if we were in Uberwald, of courthe-'
'It is merely a matter of pressures and potentials,' said Mr White. 'Can you not simply create
one?'
Igor gave him a look of disbelief mixed with respect.
'You're not from Uberwald, are you?' he said. Then he gasped, and banged the side of his
head.
'Hey, I felt that one,' he said. 'Whoopth! How did you do that? Prethure dropping like a
thtone!'
Sparks glittered along his black fingernails. He beamed.
'I'll jutht go and raithe the lightning rod,' he said, hurrying to a pulley system on the wall.
Lady LeJean turned on the others. This time she wished they could read her thoughts. She
didn't know enough pronounceable human swearwords.
'That is against the rules!' she hissed.
'Mere expediency,' said Mr White. If you had not been... lax, this would have been concluded
by now!'
'I counselled further study!'
'Unnecessary!'

 
 
  
Is there a problem?' said Jeremy, in the diffident voice he used for conversations not
involving clocks.
'The clock should not be started yet!' said Lady LeJean, not taking her eyes off the other
Auditors.
'But you asked me... We've been... It's all set up!'
'There may be ... problems! I think we should see another week of testing!'
But there weren't problems, she knew. Jeremy had built the thing as if he'd built a dozen like
it before. It had been all Lady LeJean could do to spin things out this long, especially with the
Igor watching her like a hawk.
'What is your “name”, young person?' said Mr White to Jeremy.
The clockmaker backed away. 'Jeremy,' he said, 'and I... I don't understand, Mr, er, White. A
clock tells the time. A clock isn't dangerous. How can a clock be a problem? It's a perfect
clock!'
'Then start it!'
'But her ladyship-'
The door knocker thundered.
'Igor?' said Jeremy.
'Yeth, thur?' said Igor, from the hallway.
'How did the servant person get there?' said Mr White, still watching her ladyship.
'It's a, a sort of trick they, they have,' said Jeremy. 'I'm, I'm sure it's only-'
'It'th Dr Hopkinth, thur,' said Igor, entering from the hall. 'I told him you were buthy, but-'
-but Dr Hopkins, although apparently as mild-mannered as milk, was also a Guild official and
had survived as such for several years. Ducking under Igor's arm was no problem at all for a
man who could handle a meeting of clockmakers, no two of whom exactly ticked in time
with the rest of humanity.
'I just happened to have business this way,' he began, smiling brightly, 'and it was no trouble
to drop in at the apothecary to pick up- Oh, you have company?'
Igor grimaced, but there was the Code to think of.
'Thall I make thome tea, thur?' he said, as all the Auditors glared at the doctor.
'What is this tea?' Mr White demanded.

 
 
  
'It is protocol!' snapped Lady LeJean.
Mr White hesitated. Protocol was important.
'Er, er, er, yes,' said Jeremy. 'Tea, Igor, please. Please.'
'My word, I see you have finished your clock!' said Dr Hopkins, apparently oblivious of an
atmosphere that could have floated iron. 'What a magnificent piece of work!'
The Auditors stared at one another as the doctor ambled past them and looked up at the glass
face.
'Well done indeed, Jeremy!' he said, removing his glasses and polishing them
enthusiastically. 'And what is this pretty blue glow?'
'It's, it's the crystal ring,' said Jeremy. 'It, it-'
'It spins light,' said Lady LeJean. 'And then it makes a hole in the universe.'
'Really?' said Dr Hopkins, putting his glasses back on. 'What an original idea! Does a cuckoo
come out?'
Tick
Of the very worst words that can be heard by anyone high in the air, the pair known as 'Oh-
oh' possibly combine the maximum of bowel-knotting terror with the minimum wastage of
breath.
When Lu-Tze uttered them, Lobsang didn't need a translation. He'd been watching the clouds
for some time. They were getting blacker, and thicker, and darker.
'The handle's tingling!' shouted Lu-Tze.
'That's because there's a storm right above us!' screamed Lobsang.
'The sky was as clear as a bell a few minutes ago!'
Ankh-Morpork was much closer now. Lobsang could make out some of the taller buildings,
and see the river snaking across the plain. But the storm was coming up all around the city.
'I'm going to have to land this thing while I can!' Lu-Tze said. 'Hold on...'
The stick dropped until it was a few feet above the cabbage fields. The plants were a rushing
green blur inches below Lobsang's sandals.
Lobsang heard another word that, while not the worst you can hear while airborne, is not at
all good when it's said by the person steering.
'Er...'

 
 
  
'Do you know how to stop this?' yelled Lobsang.
'Not in so many words,' shouted Lu-Tze. 'Hold on, I'm going to try something...'
The stick tilted up but kept moving in the same direction. The bristles dipped into the
cabbages.
It took the width of a field to slow down, at the end of a furrow with the smell that only
squashed cabbage leaves can yield.
'How fine can you slice time?' the sweeper said, scrambling over the battered plants.
'I'm pretty good-' Lobsang began.
'Get better quick!'
Lu-Tze faded to blue as he ran towards the city. Lobsang caught him up within a hundred
yards but the sweeper was still fading, still slicing time thinner and thinner. The apprentice
gritted his teeth and followed, straining every muscle.
The old man might be a fraud when it came to fighting, but there was no kidding here. The
world went from blue to indigo to an inky, unnatural darkness, like the shadow of an eclipse.
This was deep time. You couldn't stay there long, he knew. Even if you could tolerate the
ghastly chill, there were parts of the body that just weren't designed for this. Go too far down,
too, and you'd die if you came back too quickly...
He hadn't seen it, of course, no apprentice had, but there were some quite graphic drawings in
the classrooms. A man's life could become very, very painful if his blood began to move
through time faster than his bones. It would also be very short.
'I can't ... keep this up...' he panted, running after Lu-Tze in the violet gloom.
'You can,' gasped the sweeper. 'You're fast, right?'
'I'm not ... trained ... for this!'
The city was getting closer.
'No one's trained for this!' growled Lu-Tze. 'You do it, and you find out that you're good at it!'
'What happens if you find out you're no good?' said Lobsang. The going felt easier now. He
no longer had the feeling that his skin was trying to drag itself off him.
'Dead men don't find things out,' said Lu-Tze. He turned his head to his apprentice and his
evil grin was a yellow-toothed curve in the shadows. 'Getting the hang?' he added.
'I'm... I'm on top of it...'
'Right! Then now that we've warmed up...'

 
 
  
To Lobsang's horror, the sweeper faded further into the dark.
He called up reserves he knew he didn't have. He screamed at his liver to stay with him,
thought that he felt his brain creak, and plunged on.
The shape of Lu-Tze lightened as Lobsang drew level with him in time.
'Still here? One last effort, lad!'
'I can't!'
'You bloody well can!'
Lobsang gulped freezing air and fell onwards-
-where the light was suddenly a calm, pale blue and Lu-Tze was trotting gently between the
frozen carts and unmoving people around the city's gate.
'See? Nothing to it,' said the sweeper. 'Just maintain, that's all. Nice and steady.'
It was like balancing on a wire. It was fine if you didn't think about it.
'But all the scrolls say you go to blue and violet and into the black and then you hit the Wall,'
said Lobsang.
'Ah, well, scrolls,' said Lu-Tze, and left it there, as if the tone of voice said it all. 'This is
Zimmerman's Valley, lad. It helps if you know it's here. The abbot said it's something to do
with... what was it? ... Oh, yeah, boundary conditions. Something like... the foam on the tide.
We're right on the edge, boy!'
'But I can breathe easily!'
'Yeah. Shouldn't happen. Keep moving about, though, otherwise you'll exhaust all the good
air around your body field. Good old Zimmerman, eh? One of the best, he was. And he
reckoned there was another dip even closer to the Wall, too.'
'Did he ever find it?'
'Don't think so.'
'Why?'
'The way he exploded gave me a hint. Don't worry! You can maintain the slice easily here.
You don't have to think about it. You've got other things to think about! Keep an eye on those
clouds!'
Lobsang looked up. Even in this blue-on-blue landscape, the clouds over the city looked
ominous.

 
 
  
'It's what happened back in Uberwald,' said Lu-Tze. 'The clock needs a lot of power. The
storm blew up out of nowhere.'
'But the city's huge! How can we find a clock here?'
'First, we're going to head for the centre,' said Lu-Tze.
'Why?'
'Because with luck we won't have to run so far when the lightning strikes, of course.'
'Sweeper, no one can outrun lightning!'
Lu-Tze spun round and grabbed Lobsang by the robe, dragging him closer.
'Then tell me where to run, speedy boy!' he shouted. 'There's more to you than meets the third
eye, lad! No apprentice should be able to find Zimmerman's Valley! It takes hundreds of
years of training! And no one should be able to make the spinners sit up and dance to his tune
the very first time he sees them! Think I'm daft, do you? Orphan boy, strange power... what
the hell are you? The Mandala knew you! Well, I'm just a mortal human, and what I know is,
I'll be damned if I'll see the world shattered a second time! So help me! Whatever it is you've
got, I need it now! Use it!'
He let go, and stood back. A vein in his bald head was throbbing.
'But I don't know what I can do to-'
'Find out what you can do!'
Tick
Protocol. Rules. Precedent. Ways of doing things. That's how we've always worked, thought
Lady LeJean. This and this must follow that. It has always been our strength. I wonder if it
can be a weakness?
If looks could have killed, Dr Hopkins would have been a smear on the wall. The Auditors
watched his every move like cats watching a new species of mouse.
Lady LeJean had been incarnate much longer than the others. Time can change a body,
especially when you've never had one before. She wouldn't have stared and fumed. She
would have clubbed the doctor to the ground. What was one more human?
She realized, with some amazement, that the thought there was a human thought.
But the other six were still wet behind the ears. They hadn't yet realized the dimensions of
duplicity that you needed to survive as a human being. They clearly found it hard to think
inside the little dark world behind the eyes, too. Auditors reached decisions in concert with
thousands, millions of other Auditors.

 
 
  
Sooner or later they'd learn to be their own thinkers, though. It might take a while, because
they'd try to learn from one another first.
At the moment they were watching Igor's tea tray with great suspicion.
'Drinking tea is protocol,' said Lady LeJean. 'I must insist.'
'Is this correct?' Mr White barked at Dr Hopkins.
'Oh, yes,' said the doctor. 'With a ginger biscuit, usually,' he added hopefully.
'A ginger biscuit,' repeated Mr White. ' A biscuit of red-brown colouring?'
'Yeth, thur,' said Igor. He nodded to the plate on his tray.
'I would like to try a ginger biscuit,' volunteered Miss Red.
Oh yes, thought Lady LeJean, please try the ginger biscuits.
'We do not eat or drink!' snapped Mr White. He gave Lady LeJean a look of deep suspicion.
'It could cause incorrect ways of thinking.'
'But it is the custom,' said Lady LeJean. 'To ignore protocol is to draw attention.'
Mr White hesitated. But he was a quick adaptor.
'It is against our religion!' he said. 'Correct!'
It was an amazing leap. It was inventive. And he'd come up with it all alone. Lady LeJean
was impressed. The Auditors had tried to understand religion, because so much that made no
sense whatsoever was done in its name. But it could also excuse practically any kind of
eccentricity. Genocide, for example. By comparison, a lack of tea drinking was easy.
'Yes, indeed!' said Mr White, turning to the other Auditors. 'Is that not true?'
'Yes, that is not true. Indeed!' said Mr Green desperately.
'Oh?' said Dr Hopkins. 'I did not know there was any religion that forbade tea.'
'Indeed!' said Mr White. Lady LeJean could almost feel his mind racing. 'It is a... yes, it is a
drink of the... correct... it is a drink of the... extremely bad negatively regarded gods. It is a...
correct... it is a commandment of our religion to... yes... to shun ginger biscuits also.' There
was sweat on his forehead. For an Auditor, this was genius-level creativity. 'Also,' he went on
slowly, as if reading the words off some page invisible to everyone else, 'our religion...
correct! ... our religion demands that the clock be started now! For... who may know when the
hour may be?'
Despite herself, Lady LeJean nearly applauded.
'Who indeed?' said Dr Hopkins.

 
 
  
'I, I absolutely agree,' said Jeremy, who had been staring at Lady LeJean. 'I don't understand
who you... why there's all this fuss ... I don't understand why... oh, dear... I'm having a
headache...'
Dr Hopkins spilled his tea because of the speed with which he got up and reached into his
coat pocket.
'AhitsohappensIwaspassingtheapothecaryonmywayhere-' he began, all in one breath.
'I feel it's not the time to start the clock,' said Lady LeJean, edging herself along the desk. The
hammer was still invitingly there.
'I'm seeing those little flashes of light, Dr Hopkins,' said Jeremy urgently, staring into the
middle distance.
'Not the flashes of light! Not the flashes of light!' said Dr Hopkins. He grabbed a teaspoon off
Igor's tray, stared at it, threw it over his shoulder, tipped the tea out of a cup, opened the
bottle of blue medicine by smashing the top off on the edge of the bench, and poured a
cupful, spilling quite a lot of it in his hurry.
The hammer was inches away from her ladyship's hand. She didn't dare look round, but she
could sense it there. While the Auditors stared at the trembling Jeremy, she let her fingers
walk across the bench. She wouldn't even have to move. A brisk overarm throw should do it.
She saw Dr Hopkins try to put the cup to Jeremy's lips. The boy put his hands over his face
and elbowed the cup out of the way, spilling the medicine across the floor.
Then Lady LeJean's fingers were grasping the handle. She brought her hand round and hurled
the hammer directly at the clock.
Tick
The war was going badly for the weaker side. Their positioning was wrong, their tactics
ragged, their strategy hopeless. The Red army advanced across the whole front,
dismembering the scurrying remnant of the collapsing Black battalions.
There was room for only one anthill on this lawn...
Death found War down among the grass blades. He admired attention to detail. War was in
full armour, too, but the human heads he normally had tied to his saddle had been replaced by
ant heads, feelers and all.
DO THEY NOTICE YOU, DO YOU THINK? he said.
'I doubt it,' said War.
NEVERTHELESS, IF THEY DID, I'M SURE THEY WOULD APPRECIATE IT.
'Ha! Only decent theatre of war around these days,' said War. 'That's what I like about ants.
The buggers don't learn, what?'