Someone like me. Suddenly there's some dangerous clock somewhere in the world, and suddenly I'm told that there's someone like me.

    Someone like me. Except not like me. At least I knew my parents. And she'd listened to Death's account of the tall dark woman wandering from room to room in the endless castle of glass, weeping for the child she'd given birth to and could see every day but could never touch...

    Where do I even begin?

    Tick

    Lobsang learned a lot. He learned that every room has at least four corners. He learned that the sweepers started work when the sky was light enough to see the dust, and continued until sunset.

    As a master, Lu-Tze was kind enough. He would always point out those bits that Lobsang had not done properly.

    After the initial anger, and the taunting of his former classmates, Lobsang found that the work had a certain charm. Days drifted past under his broom...

    ... until, almost with an audible click in his brain, he decided that enough was enough. He finished his section of passageway, and found Lu-Tze dreamily pushing his brush along a terrace. 'Sweeper?'

    'Yes, lad?'

    'What is it you are trying to tell me?'

    'I'm sorry?'

    'I didn't expect to become a... a sweeper! You're Lu-Tze! I expected to be apprentice to... well, to the hero!'

    'You did?' Lu-Tze scratched his beard. 'Oh, dear. Damn. Yes, I can see the problem. You should've said. Why didn't you say? I don't really do that sort of thing any more.'

    'You don't?'

    'All that playing with history, running about, unsettling people... No, not really. I was never quite certain we should be doing it, to be honest. No, sweeping is good enough for me. There's something... real about a nice clean floor.'

    'This is a test, isn't it?' said Lobsang coldly.

    'Oh, yes.'

    'I mean, I understand how it works. The master makes the pupil do all the menial jobs, and then it turns out that really the pupil is learning things of great value... and I don't think I'm learning anything, really, except that people are pretty messy and inconsiderate.'

    'Not a bad lesson, all the same,' said Lu-Tze. 'Is it not written, "Hard work never did anybody any harm"?'

    'Where< is this written, Lu-Tze?' said Lobsang, thoroughly exasperated.

    The sweeper brightened up. 'Ah,' he said. 'Perhaps the pupil is ready to learn. Is it that you don't wish to know the Way of the Sweeper, you wish to learn instead the Way of Mrs Cosmopilite?'

    'Who?'

    'We have swept well. Let's go to the gardens. For is it not written, "It does you good to get out in the fresh air"?'

    'Is it?' said Lobsang, still bewildered.

    Lu-Tze pulled a small tattered notebook out of his pocket.

    'In here, it is,' he said. 'I should know.'

    Tick

    Lu-Tze patiently adjusted a tiny mirror to redirect sunlight more favourably on one of the bonsai mountains. He hummed tunelessly under his breath.

    Lobsang, sitting cross-legged on the stones, carefully turned the yellowing pages of the ancient notebook on which was written, in faded ink, 'The Way of Mrs Cosmopilite'.

    'Well?' said Lu-Tze.

    'The Way has an answer for everything, does it?'

    'Yes.'

    'Then...' Lobsang nodded at the little volcano, which was gently smoking, 'how does that work? It's on a saucer!'

    Lu-Tze stared straight ahead, his lips moving. 'Page seventy-six, I think,' he said.

    Lobsang turned to the page. ' "Because,"' he read.

    'Good answer,' said Lu-Tze, gently caressing a minute crag with a camel-hair brush.

    'Just "Because", Sweeper? No reason?'

    'Reason? What reason can a mountain have? And, as you accumulate years, you will learn that most answers boil down, eventually, to "Because".'

    Lobsang said nothing. The Book of the Way was giving him problems. What he wanted to say was this: Lu-Tze, this reads like a book of the sayings of an old lady. It's the sort of thing old ladies say. What kind of koan is 'It won't get better if you pick at it,' or 'Eat it up, it'll make your hair curly,' or 'Everything comes to he who waits'? This is stuff you get in Hogswatch crackers!

    'Really?' said Lu-Tze, still apparently engrossed in a mountain.

    'I didn't say anything.'

    'Oh. I thought you did. Do you miss Ankh-Morpork?'

    'Yes. I didn't have to sweep floors there.'

    'Were you a good thief?'

    'I was a fantastic thief.'

    A breeze blew the scent of cherry blossom. Just once, thought Lu-Tze, it would be nice to pick cherries.

    'I have been to Ankh-Morpork,' he said, straightening up and moving on to the next mountain. 'You have seen the visitors we get here?'

    'Yes,' said Lobsang. 'Everyone laughs at them.'

    'Really?' Lu-Tze raised his eyebrows. 'When they have trekked thousands of miles seeking the truth?'

    'But did not Wen say that if the truth is anywhere, it is everywhere?' said Lobsang.

    'Well done. I see you've learned something, at least. But one day it seemed to me that everyone else had decided that wisdom can only be found a long way off. So I went to Ankh-Morpork. They were all coming here, so it seemed only fair.'

    'Seeking enlightenment?'

    'No. The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. So while I was waiting it occurred to me that seeking perplexity might be more fun,' said Lu-Tze. 'After all, enlightenment begins where perplexity ends. And I found perplexity. And a kind of enlightenment, too. I had not been there five minutes, for example, when some men in an alley tried to enlighten me of what little I possessed, giving me a valuable lesson in the ridiculousness of material things.'

    'But why Ankh-Morpork?' said Lobsang.

    'Look in the back of the book,' said Lu-Tze.

    There was a yellow, crackling scrap of paper tucked in there. The boy unfolded it.

    'Oh, this is just a bit of the Almanack,' he said. 'It's very popular there.'

    'Yes. A seeker after wisdom left it here.'

    'Er... it's just got the Phases of the Moon on this page.'

    'Other side,' said the sweeper.

    Lobsang turned the paper over. 'It's just an advert from the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Merchants,' he said. '"Ankh-Morpork Has Everything!"' He stared at the smiling Lu-Tze. 'And... you thought that-'

    'Ah, I am old and simple and understand,' said the sweeper. 'Whereas you are young and complicated. Didn't Wen see portents in the swirl of gruel in his bowl, and in the flight of birds? This was actually written. I mean, flights of birds are quite complex, but these were words. And, after a lifetime of searching, I saw at last the opening of the Way. My Way.'

    'And you went all the way to Ankh-Morpork...' said Lobsang weakly.

    'And I fetched up, calm of mind but empty of pocket, in Quirm Street,' said the sweeper, smiling serenely at the recollection, 'and espied a sign in a window saying "Rooms For Rent". Thus I met Mrs Cosmopilite, who opened the door when I knocked and then when I hesitated, not being sure of the language, she said, "I haven't got all day, you know." Almost to a word, one of the sayings of Wen! Instantly I knew that I had found what I was seeking! During the days I washed dishes in an eating house for twenty pence a day and all the scraps I could take away, and in the evenings I helped Mrs Cosmopilite clean the house and listened carefully to her conversation. She was a natural sweeper with a good rhythmical motion and had bottomless wisdom. Within the first two days she uttered to me the actual words said by Wen upon understanding the true nature of Time! It was when I asked for a reduced rate because of course I did not sleep in a bed, and she said "I was not born yesterday, Mr Tze!" Astonishing! And she could never have seen the Sacred Texts!'

    Lobsang's face was a carefully drawn picture. '"I was not born yesterday"?' he said.

    'Ah, yes, of course, as a novice you would not have got that far,' said Lu-Tze. 'It was when he fell asleep in a cave and in a dream saw Time appear to him and show him that the universe is recreated from second to second, endlessly, with the past just a memory. And he stepped out from the cave into the truly new world and said, "I was not born - yesterday"!'

    'Oh, yes,' said Lobsang. 'But-'

    'Ah, Mrs Cosmopilite,' said Lu-Tze, his eyes misting over. 'What a woman for keeping things clean! If she were a sweeper here, no one would be allowed to walk on the floor! Her house! So amazing! A palace! New sheets every other week! And cook? Just to taste her Beans Baked Upon the Toast a man would give up a cycle of the universe!'

    'Um,' said Lobsang.

    'I stayed for three months, sweeping her house as is fitting for the pupil, and then I returned here, my Way clear before me.'

    'And, er, these stories about you...'

    'Oh, all true. Most of them. A bit of exaggeration, but mostly true.'

    'The one about the citadel in Muntab and the Pash and the fish bone?'

    'Oh, yes.'

    'But how did you get in where half a dozen trained and armed men couldn't even-?'

    'I'm a little man and I carry a broom,' said Lu-Tze simply. 'Everyone has some mess that needs clearing up. What harm is a man with a broom?'

    'What? And that was it?'

    'Well, the rest was a matter of cookery, really. The Pash was not a good man, but he was a glutton for his fish pie.'

    'No martial arts?' said Lobsang.

    'Oh, always a last resort. History needs shepherds, not butchers.'

    'Do you know okidoki?'

    'Just a lot of bunny-hops.'

    'Shiitake?'

    'If I wanted to thrust my hand into hot sand I would go to the seaside.'

    'Upsidazi?'

    'A waste of good bricks.'

    'No kando?'

    'You made that one up.'

    'Tung-pi?'

    'Bad-tempered flower-arranging.'

    'Déjà-fu?' That got a reaction. Lu Tze's eyebrows raised.

    'Déjà-fu?' You heard that rumour? Ha! None of the monks here knows déjà-fu,' he said. 'I'd soon know about it if they did. Look, boy, violence is the resort of the violent. In most tight corners a broomstick suffices.'

    'Only most, eh?' said Lobsang, not trying to hide the sarcasm.

    'Oh, I see. You wish to face me in the dojo? For it's a very old truth: when the pupil can beat the master, there is nothing the master cannot tell him, because the apprenticeship is ended. You want to learn?'

    'Ah! I knew there was something to learn!'

    Lu-Tze stood up. 'Why you?' he said. 'Why here? Why now? "There is a time and a place for everything." Why this time and this place? If I take you to the dojo, you will return what you stole from me! Now!'

    He looked down at the teak table where he worked on his mountains.

    The little shovel was there.

    A few cherry blossom petals fluttered to the ground.

    'I see,' he said. 'You are that fast? I did not see you.'

    Lobsang said nothing.

    'It is a small and worthless thing,' said Lu-Tze. 'Why did you take it, please?'

    'To see if I could. I was bored.'

    'Ah. We shall see if we can make life more interesting for you, then. No wonder you are bored, when you can already slice time like that.'

    Lu-Tze turned the little shovel over and over in his hand.

    'Very fast,' he said. He leaned down and blew the petals away from a tiny glacier. 'You slice time as fast as a Tenth Djim. And as yet barely trained. You must have been a great thief! And now... Oh dear, I shall have to face you in the dojo...'

    'No, there is no need!' said Lobsang, because now Lu-Tze looked frightened and humiliated and, somehow, smaller and brittle-boned.

    'I insist,' said the old man. 'Let us get it done now. For it is written, "There is no time like the present", which is Mrs Cosmopilite's most profound understanding.' He sighed and looked up at the giant statue of Wen.

    'Look at him,' he said. 'He was a lad, eh? Completely blissed out on the universe. Saw the past and future as one living person, and wrote the Books of History to tell how the story should go. We can't imagine what those eyes saw. And he never raised a hand to any man in his life.'

    'Look, I really didn't want to-'

    'And you've looked at the other statues?' said Lu-Tze, as if he'd completely forgotten about the dojo.

    Distractedly, Lobsang followed his gaze. Up on the raised stone platform that ran the whole length of the gardens were hundreds of smaller statues, mostly carved of wood, all of them painted in garish colours. Figures with more eyes than legs, more tails than teeth, monstrous amalgamations of fish and squid and tiger and parsnip, things put together as if the creator of the universe had tipped out his box of spare parts and stuck them together, things painted pink and orange and purple and gold, looked down over the valley.

    'Oh, the dhlang-' Lobsang began.

    'Demons? That's one word for them,' said the sweeper. 'The abbot called them the Enemies of Mind. Wen wrote a scroll about them, you know. And he said that was the worst.'

    He pointed to a little hooded grey shape, which looked out of place among the festival of wild extremities.

    'Doesn't look very dangerous,' said Lobsang. 'Look, Sweeper, I don't want to-'

    'They can be very dangerous, things that don't look dangerous,' said Lu-Tze. 'Not looking dangerous is what makes them dangerous. For it is written, "You can't tell a book by its cover."'

    '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 main 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.

    There was a rotting cork hat there, and a pair of ancient sandals. In between was a pile of grey dust.

    'Poor fellow,' said Lu-Tze. 'A full fifty thousand years in one jolt, I'd say.' He glared at the scurrying monks again. 'Will you lot stop and come here! I ain't going to ask you twice!'

    Several of them swept the sweat out of their eyes and trotted towards the podium, relieved to hear any kind of order, while behind them the Procrastinators screamed.

    'Right!' said Lu-Tze, as they were joined by more and more. 'Now listen to me! This is just a surge cascade! You've all heard of them! We can deal with it! We just have to cross-link futures and pasts, fastest ones first-'

    'Poor Mr Shoblang already tried that,' said a monk. He nodded at the sad pile.

    'Then I want two teams-' Lu-Tze stopped. 'No, we haven't got time! We'll do it by the soles of our feet, like we used to do! One man to a spinner, just smack the bars when I say! Ready to go when I call the numbers!'

    Lu-Tze climbed onto the podium and ran his eye over a board covered with wooden bobbins. A red or blue nimbus hovered over each one.

    'What a mess,' he said. 'What a mess.'

    'What do they mean?' said Lobsang.

    Lu-Tze's hands hovered over the bobbins. 'Okay. The red-tinted ones are winding time out, speeding it up,' he said. 'The blue-tinted ones, they're winding time in, slowing it down. Brightness of the colour, that's how fast they're doing it. Except that now they're all freewheeling because the surge cut them loose, understand?'

    'Loose from what?'

    'From the load. From the world. See up there?' He waved a hand towards two long racks that ran all the way along the cavern wall. Each one held a row of swivelling shutters, one line blue, one line dark red.

    'The more shutters showing a colour, the more time winding or unwinding?'

    'Good lad! Got to keep it balanced! And the way we get through this is we couple the spinners up in twos, so that they wind and unwind one another. Cancel themselves out. Poor old Shoblang was trying to put them back into service, I reckon. Can't be done, not during a cascade. You've got to let it all fall over, and then pick up the pieces when it's nice and quiet.' He glanced at the bobbins and then at the crowd of monks. 'Right. You... l28 to 17, and then 45 to 89. Off you go. And you. .. 596 to, let's see... yes, 402...'

    'Seven hundred and ninety!' shouted Lobsang, pointing to a bobbin.

    'You what?'

    'Seven hundred and ninety!'

    'Don't be daft. That's still unwinding, lad. Four hundred and two is our man, right here.'

    'Seven hundred and ninety is about to start winding time again!'

    'It's still bright blue.'

    'It's going to wind. I know it. Because' - the novice's finger moved over the lines of bobbins, hesitated, and pointed to a bobbin on the other side of the board - 'it's matching speeds with this one.'

    Lu-Tze peered. 'It is written, "Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!"' he said. 'They're forming a natural inversion.' He squinted at Lobsang. 'You're not the reincarnation of someone, are you? That happens a lot in these parts.'

    'I don't think so. It's just... obvious.'

    'A moment ago you didn't know anything about these!'

    'Yes, yes, but when you see them... it's obvious.'

    'Is it? Is it? All right. Then the board's yours, wonder boy!' Lu-Tze stood back.

    'Mine? But I-'

    'Get on with it! That is an order.'

    For a moment there was a suggestion of blue light around Lobsang. Lu-Tze wondered how much time he'd folded around himself in that second. Time enough to think, certainly.

    Then the boy called out half a dozen pairs of numbers. Lu-Tze turned to the monks.

    'Jump to it, boys. Mr Lobsang has the board! You boys just watch those bearings!'

    'But he's a novice-' one of the monks began, and stopped and backed away when he saw Lu-Tze's expression. 'All right, Sweeper... all right...'

    A moment later there was the sound of jumpers slamming into place. Lobsang called out another set of numbers.

    While the monks dashed to and fro to the butter pits for grease, Lu-Tze watched the nearest column. It was still spinning fast, but he was sure he could see the carvings.

    Lobsang ran his eye over the board again and stared up at the rumbling cylinders, and then back to the lines of shutters.

    There wasn't anything written down about all this, Lu-Tze knew. You couldn't teach it in a classroom, although they tried. A good spin driver learned it through the soles of his feet, for all the theory that they taught you these days. He'd learn to feel the flows, to see the rows of Procrastinators as sinks or fountains of time. Old Shoblang had been so good that he'd been able to pull a couple of hours of wasted time from a classroom of bored pupils without their even noticing, and dump it into a busy workshop a thousand miles away as neat as you pleased.

    And then there was that trick he used to do with an apple to amaze the apprentices. He'd put it on a pillar next to them, and then flick time at it off one of the small spindles. In an instant it'd be a collection of small, spindly trees before crumbling to dust. That's what'll happen to you if you get things wrong, he'd say.

    Lu-Tze glanced down at the pile of grey dust under the disintegrating hat as he hurried past. Well, maybe it was the way he'd want to go-

    A scream of tormented stone made him look up.

    'Keep those bearings greased, you lazy devils!' he yelled, running down the rows. 'And watch those rails! Hands off the splines! We're doing fine!'

    As he ran he kept his eyes on the columns. They were no longer turning randomly. Now, they had purpose.

    'I think you're winning, lad!' he shouted to the figure on the podium.

    'Yes, but I can't balance it! There's too much time wound up and nowhere to put it!'

    'How much?'

    'Almost forty years!'

    Lu-Tze glanced at the shutters. Forty years looked about right, but surely-?

    'How much?' he said.

    'Forty! I'm sorry! There's nothing to take it up!'

    'No problem! Steal it! Shed load! We can always pull it back later! Dump it!'

    'Where?'

    'Find a big patch of sea!' The sweeper pointed to a crude map of the world painted on the wall. 'Do you know how to- Can you see how to give it the right spin and direction?'

    Once again, there was the blueness in the air.

    'Yes! I think so!'

    'Yes, I imagine you do! In your own time, then!'

    Lu-Tze shook his head. Forty years? He was worried about forty years? Forty years was nothing! Apprentice drivers had dumped fifty thousand years before now. That was the thing about the sea. It just stayed big and wet. It always had been big and wet, it always would be big and wet. Oh, maybe fishermen would start to dredge up strange whiskery fish that they'd only ever seen before as fossils, but who cared what happened to a bunch of codfish?

    The sound changed.

    'What are you doing?'

    'I've found space on number 422! It can take another forty years! No sense in wasting time! I'm pulling it back now!'

    There was another change of tone.

    'Got it! I'm sure I've got it!'

    Some of the bigger cylinders were already slowing to a halt. Lobsang was moving pegs around the board now faster than the bewildered Lu-Tze could follow. And, overhead, the shutters were slamming back, one after another, showing age-blackened wood instead of colour.

    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 pinsharp 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 felt... 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.'

    'Yeah, 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.'

    The abbot was in his highchair, and had recently flicked a spoonful of nourishing pap all over the chief acolyte, who was smiling like a man whose job depended on looking happy that parsnip-and-gooseberry custard was dribbling down his forehead.

    It occurred to Lobsang, not for the first time, that the abbot was a little bit more than purely random in his attacks on the man. The acolyte was, indeed, the kind of mildly objectionable person who engendered an irresistible urge in any right-thinking person to pour goo into his hair and hit him with a rubber yak, and the abbot was old enough to listen to his inner child.

    'You sent for me, your reverence,' said Lu-Tze, bowing.

    The abbot upturned his bowl down the chief acolyte's robe.

    'Wahahaahaha ah, yes, Lu-Tze. How old are you now?'

    'Eight hundred, your reverence. But that's no age at all!'

    'Nevertheless, you have spent a lot of time in the world. I understood you were looking to retire and cultivate your gardens?'

    'Yes, but-'

    'But,' the abbot smiled angelically, like an old warhorse you say "haha!" at the sound of trumpets, yes?'

    'I don't think so,' said Lu-Tze. 'There's nothing funny about trumpets, really.'

    'I meant that you long to be out in the field again. But you have been helping to train world operatives for many years, haven't you? These gentlemen?'

    A number of burly and muscular monks were sitting on one side of the room. They were kitted out for travel, with rolled sleeping mats on their backs, and dressed in loose black clothing. They nodded sheepishly at Lu-Tze, and their eyes above their half-masks looked embarrassed.

    'I did my best,' said Lu-Tze. 'Of course, others trained them. I just tried to undo the damage. I never taught them to be ninjas.' He nudged Lobsang. 'That, apprentice, is Agatean for "the Passing Wind",' he said, in a stage whisper.

    'I am proposing to send them out immediately WAH!' The abbot hit his highchair with his spoon. 'That is my order, Lu-Tze. You are a legend, but you have been a legend for a long time. Why not trust in the future? Bikkit!'

    'I see,' said Lu-Tze sadly. 'Oh, well, it had to happen some time. Thank you for your consideration, your reverence.'

    'Brrmbrrm ... Lu-Tze, I have known you a long time! You will not go within a hundred miles of Uberwald, will you?'

    'Not at all, your reverence.'

    'That is an order!'

    'I understand, of course.'

    'You've disobeyed my baababa orders before, though. In Omnia, I remember.'

    'Tactical decision made by the man on the spot, your reverence. It was more what you might call an interpretation of your order,' said Lu-Tze.

    'You mean, going where you had distinctly been told not to go and doing what you were absolutely forbidden to do?'

    'Yes, your reverence. Sometimes you have to move the seesaw by pushing the other end. When I did what shouldn't be done in a place where I shouldn't have been, I achieved what needed to be done in the place where it should have happened.'

    The abbot gave Lu-Tze a long hard stare, the kind that babies are good at giving.

    'Lu-Tze, you are not nmnmnbooboo to go to Uberwald or anywhere near Uberwald, understand?' he said.

    'I do, your reverence. You are right, of course. But, in my dotage, may I travel another path, of wisdom rather than violence? I wish to show this young man... the Way.'

    There was laughter from the other monks.

    'The Way of the Washerwoman?' said Rinpo.

    'Mrs Cosmopilite is a dressmaker,' said Lu-Tze calmly.

    'Whose wisdom is in sayings like "It won't get better if you pick at it"?' said Rinpo, winking at the rest of the monks.

    'Few things get better if you pick at them,' said Lu-Tze, and now his calmness was a lake of tranquillity. 'It may be a mean little Way but, small and unworthy though it is, it is my Way.' He turned to the abbot. 'That was how it used to be, your reverence. You recall? Master and pupil go out into the world, where the pupil may pick up practical instruction by precept and example, and then the pupil finds his own Way and at the end of his Way-'

    '-he finds himself bdum,' said the abbot.

    'First, he finds a teacher,' said Lu-Tze.

    'He is lucky that you will bdumbdum be that teacher.'

    'Reverend sir,' said Lu-Tze. 'It is in the nature of Ways that none can be sure who the teacher may be. All I can do is show him a path.'

    'Which will be in the direction of bdum the city,' said the abbot.

    'Yes,' said Lu-Tze. 'And Ankh-Morpork is a long way from Uberwald. You won't send me to Uberwald because I am an old man. So, in all respect, I beg you to humour an old man.'

    'I have no choice, when you put it like that,' said the abbot.

    'Reverend sir-' began Rinpo, who felt that he did.

    The spoon was banged on the tray again. 'Lu-Tze is a man of high reputation!' the abbot shouted. 'I trust him implicitly to do the correct action! I just wish I could blumblum trust him to do what I blumblum want! I have forbidden him to go to Uberwald! Now do you wish me to forbid him not to go to Uberwald? BIKKIT! I have spoken! And now, will all you gentlemen be so good as to leave? I have urgent business to attend to.'

    Lu-Tze bowed and grabbed Lobsang's arm. 'Come on, lad!' he whispered. 'Let's bugger off quick before anyone works it out!'

    On the way out they passed a lesser acolyte carrying a small potty with a pattern of bunny rabbits around it.

    'It's not easy, reincarnating,' said Lu-Tze, running down the corridor. 'Now we've got to be out of here before someone gets any funny ideas. Grab your bag and bedroll!'

    'But no one would countermand the abbot's orders, would they?' said Lobsang, as they skidded round a corner.

    'Ha! It'll be his nap in ten minutes and if they give him a new toy when he wakes up he might end up being so busy banging square green pegs into round blue holes that he'll forget what he said,' said Lu-Tze. 'Politics, lad. Too many idiots will start saying what they're sure the abbot would have meant. Off you go, now. I'll see you in the Garden of Five Surprises in one minute.'

    When Lobsang arrived Lu-Tze was carefully tying one of the bonsai mountains into a bamboo framework. He fastened the last knot and placed it in a bag over one shoulder.

    'Won't it get damaged?' said Lobsang.

    'It's a mountain. How can it get damaged?' Lu-Tze picked up his broom. 'And we'll just drop in and have a chat with an old mate of mine before we leave, though. Maybe we'll pick up some stuff.'

    'What's going on, Sweeper?' said Lobsang, trailing after him.

    'Well, it's like this, lad. Me and the abbot and the bloke we're going to see, we go back a long way. Things are a bit different now. The abbot can't just say, "Lu-Tze, you are an old rogue, it was you who put the idea of Uberwald into everyone's heads in the first place, but I see you're onto something so off you go and follow your nose."'

    'But I thought he was the supreme ruler!'

    'Exactly! And it's very hard to get things done when you're a supreme ruler. There're too many people in the way, mucking things up. This way, the new lads can have fun running around Uberwald going, "Hai!" and we, my lad, will be heading for Ankh-Morpork. The abbot knows that. Almost knows that.'

    'How do you know the new clock is being built in Ankh Morpork?' said Lobsang, trailing behind Lu-Tze as he took a mossy, sunken path that led through rhododendron thickets to the monastery wall.

    'I know. I'll tell you, the day someone pulls the plug out of the bottom of the universe, the chain will lead all the way to Ankh-Morpork and some bugger saying, "I just wanted to see what would happen." All roads lead to Ankh-Morpork.'

    'I thought all roads led away from Ankh-Morpork.'

    'Not the way we're going. Ah, here we are.'

    Lu-Tze knocked on the door of a rough but large shed built right up against the wall. At the same moment there was an explosion within and someone - Lobsang corrected himself - half of someone tumbled very fast out of the unglazed window beside it and hit the path with bone-cracking force. Only when it stopped rolling did he realize that it was a wooden dummy in a monk's robe.

    'Qu's having fun, I see,' said Lu-Tze. He hadn't moved as the dummy had sailed past his ear.

    The door burst open and a plump old monk looked out excitedly.

    'Did you see that? Did you see that?' he said. 'And that was with just one spoonful!' He nodded at them. 'Oh, hello, Lu-Tze. I was expecting you. I've got some things ready.'

    'Got what?' said Lobsang.

    'Who's the boy?' said Qu, ushering them in.

    'The untutored child is called Lobsang,' said Lu-Tze, looking around the shed. There was a smoking circle on the stone floor, with drifts of blackened sand around it. 'New toys, Qu?'

    'Exploding mandala,' said Qu happily, bustling forward. 'Just sprinkle the special sand on a simple design anywhere you like, and the first enemy to walk on it- Bang, instant karma! Don't touch that!'

    Lu-Tze reached across and snatched from Lobsang's inquisitive hands the begging bowl that he had just picked up from a table.

    'Remember Rule One,' he said, and hurled the bowl across the room. Hidden blades slid out as it spun, and the bowl buried itself in a beam.

    'That would take a man's head right off!' said Lobsang. And then they heard the faint ticking.

    '... three, four, five...' said Qu. 'Everybody duck... Now!'

    Lu-Tze pushed Lobsang to the floor a moment before the bowl exploded. Metal fragments scythed overhead.

    'I added just a little something extra since you last saw it,' said Qu proudly, as they got to their feet again. 'A very versatile device. Plus, of course, you can use it to eat rice out of. Oh, and have you seen this?'

    He picked up a prayer drum. Both Lu-Tze and Lobsang took a step back.

    Qu twirled the drum a few times, and the weighted cords pattered against the skins.

    'The cord can be instantly removed for a handy garotte,' he said, 'and the drum itself can be removed - like so - to reveal this useful dagger.'

    'Plus, of course, you can use it to pray with?' said Lobsang.

    'Well spotted,' said Qu. 'Quick boy. A prayer is always useful in the last resort. In fact we've been working on a very promising mantra incorporating sonic tones that have a particular effect on the human nervous syst-'

    'I don't think we need any of this stuff, Qu,' said Lu-Tze.

    Qu sighed. 'At least you could let us turn your broom into a secret weapon, Lu-Tze. I've shown you the plans-'

    'It is a secret weapon,' said Lu-Tze. 'It's a broom.'

    'How about the new yaks we've been breeding? At the touch of a rein their horns will instantly-'

    'We want the spinners, Qu.'

    The monk suddenly looked guilty. 'Spinners? What spinners?'

    Lu-Tze walked across the room and pressed a hand against part of the wall, which slid aside.

    'These spinners, Qu. Don't muck me about, we haven't got time.'

    Lobsang saw what looked very much like two small Procrastinators, each one within a metal framework mounted on a board. There was a harness attached to each board.

    'You haven't told the abbot about them yet, have you?' said Lu-Tze, unhooking one of the things. 'He'd put a stop to them if you did, you know that.'

    'I didn't think anyone knew!' said Qu. 'How did you-'

    Lu-Tze grinned. 'No one notices a sweeper,' he said.

    'They're still very experimental!' said Qu, close to panic. 'I was going to tell the abbot, of course, but I was waiting until I had something to demonstrate! And it would be terrible if they fell into the wrong hands!'

    'Then we'll see to it that they don't,' said Lu-Tze, examining the straps. 'How're they powered now?'

    'Weights and ratchets were too unreliable,' said Qu. 'I'm afraid I had to resort to... clockwork.'

    Lu-Tze stiffened, and he glared at the monk. 'Clockwork?

    'Only as a motive force, only as a motive force!' Qu protested. 'There's really no other choice!'

    'Too late now, it'll have to do,' said Lu-Tze, unhooking the other board and passing it across to Lobsang. 'There you go, lad. With a bit of sacking round it it'll look just like a backpack.'

    'What is it?'

    Qu sighed. 'They're portable Procrastinators. Try not to break them, please.'

    'What will we need them for?'

    'I hope you won't have to find out,' said Lu-Tze. 'Thanks, Qu.'

    Are you sure you wouldn't prefer some time bombs?' said Qu hopefully. 'Drop one on the floor and time will slow for-'

    'Thanks, but no.'

    'The other monks were fully equipped,' said Qu.

    'But we're travelling light,' said Lu-Tze firmly. 'We'll go out the back way, Qu, okay?'

    The back way led to a narrow path and a small gate in the wall. Dismembered wooden dummies and patches of scorched rock indicated that Qu and his assistants often came this way. And then there was another path, beside one of the many icy streamlet's.

    'Qu means well,' said Lu-Tze, walking fast. 'But if you listen to him you end up clanking when you walk and exploding when you sit down.'

    Lobsang ran to keep up. 'It'll take weeks to walk to Ankh-Morpork, Sweeper!'

    'We'll slice our way there,' said Lu-Tze, and he stopped and turned. 'You think you can do that?'

    'I've done it hundreds of times-' Lobsang began.

    'In Oi Dong, yes,' said Lu-Tze. 'But there're all kinds of checks and safeguards in the valley. Oh, didn't you know that? Slicing in Oi Dong is easy, lad. It's different out there. The air tries to get in the way. Do it wrong and the air is a rock. You have to shape the slice around you so that you move like a fish in water. Know how to do that?'

    'We learned a bit of the theory, but-'

    'Soto said you stopped time for yourself back in the city. The Stance of the Coyote, it's called. Very hard to do, and I don't reckon they teach it in the Thieves' Guild, eh?'

    'I suppose I was lucky, Sweeper.'

    'Good. Keep it up. We'll have plenty of time for you to practise before we leave the snow. Get it right before you tread on grass, or kiss your feet goodbye.'

    They called it slicing time. ..

    There is a way of playing certain musical instruments that is called 'circular breathing', devised to allow people to play the didgeridoo or the bagpipes without actually imploding or being sucked down the tube. 'Slicing time' was very much the same, except time was substituted for air and it was a lot quieter. A trained monk could stretch a second further than an hour...

    But that wasn't enough. He'd be moving in a rigid world. He'd have to learn to see by echo light and hear by ghost sound and let time leach into his immediate universe. It wasn't hard, once he found the confidence; the sliced world could almost seem normal, apart from the colours...

    It was like walking in sunsets, although the sun was fixed high in the sky and barely moved. The world ahead shaded towards violet, and the world behind, when Lobsang looked round, was the shade of old blood. And it was lonely. But the worst of it, Lobsang realized, was the silence. There was noise, of a sort, but it was just a deep sizzle at the edge of hearing. His footsteps sounded strange and muffled, and the sound arrived in his ears out of sync with the tread of his feet.

    They reached the edge of the valley and stepped out of the perpetual springtime into the real world of the snows. Now the cold crept in, slowly, like a sadist's knife.

    Lu-Tze strode on ahead, seemingly oblivious of it.

    Of course, that was one of the stories about him. Lu-Tze, it was said, would walk for miles during weather when the clouds themselves would freeze and crash out of the sky. Cold did not affect him, they said.

    And yet-

    In the stories Lu-Tze had been bigger, stronger... not a skinny little bald man who preferred not to fight.

    'Sweeper!'

    Lu-Tze stopped and turned. His outline blurred slightly, and Lobsang unwrapped himself from time. Colour came back into the world, and while the cold ceased to have the force of a drill it still struck hard.

    'Yes, lad?'

    'You're going to teach me, right?'

    'If there's anything left that you don't know, wonder boy,' said Lu-Tze drily. 'You're slicing well, I can see that.'

    'I don't know how you can stand this cold!'

    'Ah, you don't know the secret?'

    'Is it the Way of Mrs Cosmopilite that gives you such power?'

    Lu-Tze hitched up his robe and did a little dance in the snow, revealing skinny legs encased in thick, yellowing tubes.

    'Very good, very good,' he said. 'She still sends me these double-knit combinations, silk on the inside, then three layers of wool, reinforced gussets and a couple of handy trapdoors. Very reasonably priced at six dollars a pair because I'm an old customer. For it is written, "Wrap up warm or you'll catch your death."'

    'It's just a trick?'

    Lu-Tze looked surprised. 'What?' he said.

    'Well, I mean, it's all tricks, isn't it? Everyone thinks you're a great hero and... you don't fight, and they think you possess all kinds of strange knowledge and... and it's just... tricking people. Isn't it? Even the abbot? I thought you were going to teach me... things worth knowing...'

    'I've got her address, if that's what you want. If you mention my name- Oh. I see you don't mean that, right?'

    'I don't want to be ungrateful I just thought-'

    'You thought I should use mysterious powers derived from a lifetime of study just to keep my legs warm? Eh?'

    'Well-'

    'Debase the sacred teachings for the sake of my knees, you think?'

    'If you put it like that-'

    Then something made Lobsang look down.

    He was standing in six inches of snow. Lu-Tze was not. His sandals were standing in two puddles. The ice was melting away around his toes. His pink, warm toes.

    'Toes, now, that's another matter,' said the sweeper. 'Mrs Cosmopilite is a wizard with longjohns, but she can't turn a heel worth a damn.' Lobsang looked up into a wink. 'Always remember Rule One, eh?'

    Lu-Tze patted the shaken boy on the arm. 'But you're doing well' he said. 'Let's have a quiet sit down and a brew-up.' He pointed to some rocks, which at least offered some protection from the wind; snow had piled up against them in big white mounds.

    'Lu-Tze?'

    'Yes, lad?'

    'I've got a question. Can you give me a straight answer?'

    'I'll try, of course.'

    'What the hell is going on?'

    Lu-Tze brushed the snow off a rock.

    'Oh,' he said. 'One of the difficult questions.'

    Tick

    Igor had to admit it. When it came to getting weird things done, sane beat mad hands down.

    He'd been used to masters who, despite doing wonderful handstands on the edge of the mental catastrophe curve, couldn't put their own trousers on without a map. Like all Igors, he'd learned how to deal with them. In truth, it wasn't a difficult job (although sometimes you had to work the graveyard shift) and once you got them settled into their routine you could get on with your own work and they wouldn't bother you until the lightning rod needed raising.

    It wasn't like that with Jeremy. He was truly a man you could set your watch by. Igor had never seen a life so organized, so slimmed down, so timed. He found himself thinking of his new master as the tick-tock man.

    One of Igors former masters had made a tick-tock man, all levers and gearwheels and cranks and clockwork. Instead of a brain, it had a long tape punched with holes. Instead of a heart, it had a big spring. Provided everything in the kitchen was very carefully positioned, the thing could sweep the floor and make a passable cup of tea. If everything wasn't carefully positioned, or if the ticking, clicking thing hit an unexpected bump, then it'd strip the plaster off the walls and make a furious cup of cat.

    Then his master had conceived the idea of making the thing live, so that it could punch its own tapes and wind its own spring. Igor, who knew exactly when to follow instructions to the letter, dutifully rigged up the classic rising-table-and-lightning-rod arrangement on the evening of a really good storm. He didn't see exactly what happened thereafter, because he wasn't there when the lightning hit the clockwork. No, Igor was at a dead run halfway down the hill to the village, with all his possessions in a carpet bag. Even so, a white-hot cogwheel had whirred over his head and buried itself in a tree trunk.

    Loyalty to a master was very important, but it took second place to loyalty to Igordom. If the world was going to be full of lurching servants, then they were damn well going to be called Igor.

    It seemed to this Igor that if you could make a tick-tock man live, he'd be like Jeremy. And Jeremy was ticking faster, as the clock neared completion.

    Igor didn't much like the clock. He was a people person. He preferred things that bled. And as the clock grew, with its shimmering crystal parts that didn't seem entirely all here, so Jeremy grew more absorbed and Igor grew more tense. There was definitely something new happening here, and while Igors were avid to learn new things there were limits. Igors did not believe in forbidden knowledge and 'Things Man Was Not Meant to Know', but obviously there were some things a man was not meant to know, such as what it felt like to have every single particle of your body sucked into a little hole, and that seemed to be one of the options available in the immediate future.

    And then there was Lady LeJean. She gave Igor the willies, and he was a man not usually subject to even the smallest willy. She wasn't a zombie and she wasn't a vampire, because she didn't smell like one. She didn't smell like anything. In Igor's experience, everything smelled like something.

    And there was the other matter.

    'Her feet don't touch the ground, thur,' he said.

    'Of course they do,' said Jeremy, buffing up part of the mechanism with his sleeve. 'She'll be here again in a minute and seventeen seconds. And I'm sure her feet will be touching the ground.'

    'Oh, thometimeth they do, thur. But you watch when thee goeth up or down a thtep, thur. Thee doethn't get it egthactly right, thur. You can jutht thee the thadow under her thoeth.'

    'Thoeth?'

    'On her feet, thur,' sighed Igor. The lisp could be a problem, and in truth any Igor could easily fix it, but it was part of being an Igor. You might as well stop limping.

    'Go and get ready by the door,' said Jeremy. 'Floating in the air doesn't make you a bad person.'

    Igor shrugged. He was entertaining the idea that it didn't mean you were a person at all, and incidentally he was rather worried that Jeremy seemed to have dressed himself with a little more care this morning.

    He'd decided in these circumstances not to broach the subject of his hiring, but he had been working that one out. He'd been hired before her ladyship had engaged Jeremy to do this work? Well, all that showed was that she knew her man. But she'd hired him herself in Bad Schüschein. And he'd got himself onto the mail coach that very day. And it turned out that Lady LeJean had visited Jeremy on that day, too.

    The only thing faster than the mail coach between Uberwald and Ankh-Morpork was magic, unless someone had found a way to travel by semaphore. And Lady LeJean hardly looked like a witch.

    The shop's clocks were putting up a barrage of noise to signal the passing of seven o'clock when Igor opened the front door. It always Did[10] to anticipate the knock. That was another part of the Code of the Igors.

    He wrenched it open.

    'Two pints, sir, lovely and fresh,' said Mr Soak, handing him the bottles. 'And a day like this just says fresh cream, doesn't it?'

    Igor glared at him, but took the bottles. 'I prefer it when it'th going green,' he said haughtily. 'Good day to you, Mr Thoak.'

    He shut the door.

    'It wasn't her?' said Jeremy, when he arrived back in the workshop.

    'It wath the milkman, thur.'

    'She's twenty-five seconds late!' said Jeremy, looking concerned. 'Do you think anything could have happened to her?'

    'Real ladieth are often fathionably late, thur,' said Igor, putting the milk away. It was icy cold under his fingers.

    'Well, I'm sure her ladyship is a real lady.'

    'I wouldn't know about that, thur,' said Igor, who in fact had the aforesaid very strong doubts in that area. He walked back into the shop and took up position with his hand on the door handle just as the knock came.

    Lady LeJean swept past Igor. The two trolls ignored him and took up their positions just inside the workshop. Igor put them down as hired rock, anyone's for two dollars a day plus walking-around money.

    Her ladyship was impressed.

    The big clock was nearing completion. It wasn't the squat, blocky thing that Igor's grandfather had told him about. Jeremy had, much to Igor's surprise - for there wasn't a scrap of decoration anywhere in the house - gone for the impressive look.

    'Your grandfather helped to make the first one,' Jeremy had said. 'So let's build a grandfather clock, eh?' And there it stood - a slim, long-case clock in crystal and spun glass, reflecting the light in worrying ways.

    Igor had spent a fortune in the Street of Cunning Artificers. For enough money, you could buy anything in Ankh-Morpork, and that included people. He'd made sure that no crystal-cutter or glassworker had done enough of the work to give them any sort of clue about the finished clock, but he'd worried needlessly about that. Money could buy a lot of uninterest. Besides, who would believe you could measure time with crystals? Only in the workshop did it all come together.

    Igor bustled around, polishing things, listening. carefully as Jeremy showed off his creation.

    '-no need for any metal parts,' he was saying. 'We've come up with a way of making the tamed lightning flow across glass, and we've found a workman who can make glass that bends slightly-'

    'We', Igor noticed. Well, that was always the way of it. 'We' discovering things meant the master asking for them and Igor thinking them up. Anyway, the flow of lightning was a family passion. With sand and chemicals and a few secrets, you could make lightning sit up and beg.

    Lady LeJean reached out with a gloved hand and touched the side of the clock.

    'This is the divider mechanism-' Jeremy began, picking up a crystalline array from the workbench.

    But her ladyship was still staring up at the clock. 'You've given it a face and hands,' she said. 'Why?'

    'Oh, it will function very well in the measurement of traditional time,' said Jeremy. 'Glass gears throughout, of course. In theory it will never need adjusting. It will take its time from the universal tick.'

    'Ah. You found it, then?'

    'The time it takes the smallest possible thing that can happen to happen. I know it exists.'

    She looked almost impressed. 'But the clock is still unfinished.'

    'There is a certain amount of trial and error,' said Jeremy. 'But we will do it. Igor says there will be a big storm on Monday. That should provide the power, he says. And then,' Jeremy's face lit up with a smile, 'I see no reason why every clock in the world shouldn't say precisely the same time!'

    Lady LeJean glanced at Igor, who bustled with renewed haste.

    'The servant is satisfactory?'

    'Oh, he grumbles a bit. But he has got a good heart. And a spare, apparently. He is amazingly skilled in all crafts, too.'

    'Yes, Igors generally are,' said the lady distantly. 'They seem to have mastered the art of inheriting talents.' She snapped her fingers and one of the trolls stepped forward and produced a couple of bags.

    'Gold and invar,' she said. 'As promised.'

    'Hah, but invar will be worthless when we've finished the clock,' said Jeremy.

    'We're sorry? You want more gold?'

    'No, no! You have been very generous.'

    Right, thought Igor, dusting the workbench vigorously.

    'Until next time, then,' said Lady LeJean. The trolls were already turning towards the door.

    'You'll be here for the start?' said Jeremy, as Igor hurried into the hall to open the front door because, whatever he thought about her ladyship, there was such a thing as tradition.

    'Possibly. But we have every confidence in you, Jeremy.'

    'Um...'

    Igor stiffened. He hadn't heard that tone in Jeremy's voice before. In the voice of a master, it was a bad tone.

    Jeremy took a deep, nervous breath, as if contemplating some minute and difficult piece of clockwork that would, without tremendous care, unwind catastrophically and spray cogwheels across the floor.

    'Um... I was wondering, um, your ladyship, um... perhaps, um, you would like to take dinner with me, um, tonight, um...'

    Jeremy smiled. Igor had seen a better smile on a corpse.

    Lady LeJean's expression flickered. It really did. It seemed to Igor to go from one expression to another as if they were a series of still pictures, with no perceptible movement of the features between each one. It went from her usual blankness to sudden thoughtfulness and then all the way to amazement. And then, to Igor's own astonishment, it began to blush.

    'Why, Mr Jeremy, I... I don't know what to say,' her ladyship stammered, her icy composure turning into a warm puddle. 'I really... I don't know... perhaps some other time? I do have an important engagement, so glad to have met you, I must be going. Goodbye.'

    Igor stood stiffly to attention, as upright as the average Igor could manage, and almost shut the door behind her ladyship as she hurried out of the building down the steps.

    She ended up, just for a moment, half an inch above the street. It was only for a moment, and then she drifted downwards. No one except Igor, glaring balefully through the crack between door and frame, could possibly have noticed.

    He darted back into the workshop. Jeremy still stood transfixed, blushing as pinkly as her ladyship had done.

    'I'll jutht be nipping out to get that new glathwork for the multiplier, thur,' Igor said quickly. 'It thould be done by now. Yeth?'

    Jeremy spun on his heel and marched very quickly over to the workbench.

    'You do that, Igor. Thank you,' he said, his voice slightly muffled. Lady LeJean's party were down the street when Igor slipped out and moved quickly into the shadows.

    At the crossroad her ladyship waved one hand vaguely and the trolls headed off by themselves. Igor stayed with her. For all the trademark limp, Igors could move fast when they had to. They often had to, when the mob hit the windmill.[11]

    Out in the open he could see more wrong things. She didn't move quite right. It was as though she was controlling her body, rather than letting it control itself. That's what humans did. Even zombies got the hang of things after a while. The effect was subtle, but Igors had very good eyesight. She moved like someone unused to wearing skin.

    The quarry headed down a narrow street, and Igor half hoped that some of the Thieves' Guild were around. He'd very much like to see what happened if one of them gave her the tap on the noggin that was their prelude to negotiations. One had tried it with Igor yesterday, and if the man had been surprised at the metallic clang, he'd been astonished to have his arm grabbed and broken with anatomical exactitude.

    In fact, she turned into an alleyway between a couple of the buildings.

    Igor hesitated. Letting yourself be outlined in the daylight at the mouth of an alley was item one on the local checklist of death. But, on the other hand, he wasn't actually doing anything wrong, was he? And she didn't look armed.

    There was no sound of footsteps in the alley. He waited a moment and stuck his head round the corner.

    There was no sign of Lady LeJean. There was also no way out of the alley - it was a dead end, full of rubbish.

    But there was a fading grey shape in the air, which vanished even as he stared. It was a hooded robe, grey as fog. It merged into the general gloom and disappeared.

    She'd turned into an alleyway, and then she'd turned into... something else.

    Igor felt his hands twitch.

    Individual Igors might have their particular specialities, but they were all expert surgeons and had an inbuilt desire not to see anybody wasted. Up in the mountains, where most of the employment was for woodchoppers and miners, having an Igor living locally was considered very fortunate. There was always the risk of an axe bouncing or a sawblade running wild, and then a man was glad to have an Igor around who could lend a hand - or even an entire arm, if you were lucky.

    And while they practised their skills freely and generously in the community, the Igors were even more careful to use them amongst themselves. Magnificent eyesight, a stout pair of lungs, a powerful digestive system... It was terrible to think of such wonderful workmanship going to the worms. So they made sure it didn't. They kept it in the family.

    Igor really did have his grandfather's hands. And now they were bunching into fists, all by themselves.

    Tick

    A very small kettle burned on a fire of wood shavings and dried yak dung.

    'It was... a long time ago,' said Lu-Tze. 'Exactly when doesn't matter, 'cos of what happened. In fact asking exactly "when" doesn't make any sense any more. It depends where you are. In some places it was hundreds of years ago. Some other places... well, maybe it hasn't happened yet. There was this man in Uberwald. Invented a clock. An amazing clock. It measured the tick of the universe. Know what that is?'

    'No.'

    'Me neither. The abbot's your man for that kind of stuff. Lemme see... okay... think of the smallest amount of time that you can. Really small. So tiny that a second would be like a billion years. Got that? Well, the cosmic quantum tick - that's what the abbot calls it - the cosmic quantum tick is much smaller than that. It's the time it takes to go from now to then. The time it takes an atom to think of wobbling. It's-'

    'It's the time it takes for the smallest thing that's possible to happen to happen?' said Lobsang.

    'Exactly. Well done,' said Lu-Tze. He took a deep breath. 'It's also the time it takes for the whole universe to be destroyed in the past and rebuilt in the future. Don't look at me like that - that's what the abbot said.'

    'Has it been happening while we've been talking?' said Lobsang.

    'Millions of times. An oodleplex of times, probably.'

    'How many's that?'

    'It's one of the abbot's words. It means more numbers than you can imagine in a yonk.'

    'What's a yonk?'

    'A very long time.'

    'And we don't feel it? The universe is destroyed and we don't feel it?'

    'They say not. The first time it was explained to me I got a bit jumpy, but it's far too quick for us to notice.'

    Lobsang stared at the snow for a while. Then he said, 'All right. Go on.'

    'Someone in Uberwald built this clock out of glass. Powered by lightning, as I recall. It somehow got down to a level where it could tick with the universe.'

    'Why did he want to do that?'

    'Listen, he lived in a big old castle on a crag in Uberwald. People like that don't need a reason apart from "because I can". They have a nightmare and try to make it happen.'

    'But, look, you can't make a clock like that, because it's inside the universe, so it'll... get rebuilt when the universe does, right?'

    Lu-Tze looked impressed, and said so. 'I'm impressed,' he said.

    'It'd be like opening a box with the crowbar that's inside.'

    'The abbot believes that part of the clock was outside, though.'

    'You can't have something outside the-'

    'Tell that to a man who has been working on the problem for nine lifetimes,' said Lu-Tze. 'You want to hear the rest of the story?'

    'Yes, Sweeper.'

    'So... we were spread pretty thin in those days, but there was this young sweeper-'

    'You,' said Lobsang. 'This is going to be you, right?'

    'Yes, yes,' said Lu-Tze testily. 'I was sent to Uberwald. History hadn't diverged much in those days, and we knew something big was going to happen around Bad Schüschein. I must have spent weeks looking. You know how many remote castles there are along the gorges? You can't move for remote castles!'

    'That's why you didn't find the right one in time,' said Lobsang. 'I remember what you told the abbot.'

    'I was just down in the valley when the lightning struck the tower,' said Lu-Tze. 'You know it is written, "Big events always cast their shadows." But I couldn't detect where it was happening until too late. A half-mile sprint uphill faster than a lightning bolt... No one could do that. Nearly made it, though - I was actually through the door when it all went to hell!'

    'No point in blaming yourself, then.'

    'Yes, but you know how it is - you keep thinking "If only I'd got up earlier, or had gone a different way..."' said Lu-Tze.

    'And the clock struck,' said Lobsang.

    'No. It stuck. I told you part of it was outside the universe. It wouldn't go with the flow. It was trying to count the tick, not move with it.'

    'But the universe is huge! It can't be stopped by a piece of clock work!'

    Lu-Tze flicked the end of his cigarette into the fire.

    'The abbot says the size wouldn't make any difference at all,' he said. 'Look, it's taken him nine lifetimes to know what he knows, so it's not our fault if we can't understand it, is it? History shattered. It was the only thing that could give. Very strange event. There were cracks left all over the place. The... oh, I can't remember the words... the fastenings that tell bits of the past which bits of the present they belong to, they were flapping allover the place. Some got lost for ever.' Lu-Tze stared into the dying flames. 'We stitched it up as best we could,' he added. 'Up and down history. Filling up holes with bits of time taken from somewhere else. It's a patchwork, really.'

    'Didn't people notice?'

    'Why should they? Once we'd done it, it had always been like that. You'd be amazed at what we got away with. F'rinstance-'

    'I'm sure they'd spot it somehow.'

    Lu-Tze gave Lobsang one of his sidelong glances. 'Funny you should say that. I've always wondered about it. People say things like "Where did the time go?" and "It seems like only yesterday." We had to do it, anyway. And it's healed up very nicely.'

    'But people would look in the history books and see-'

    'Words, lad. That's all. Anyway, people have been messing around with time ever since there were people. Wasting it, killing it, sparing it, making it up. And they do it. People's heads were made to play with time. Just like we do, except we're better trained and have a few extra skills. And we've spent centuries working to bring it all back in line. You watch the Procrastinators even on a quiet day. Moving time, stretching it here, compressing it there... it's a big job. I'm not going to see it smashed a second time. A second time, there won't be enough left to repair.'

    He stared at the embers. 'Funny thing,' he said. 'Wen himself had some very curious ideas about time, come the finish. You remember I told you that he reckoned time was alive: He said it acted like a living thing, anyway. Very strange ideas indeed. He said he'd met Time, and she was a woman. To him, anyway. Everyone says that was just a very complicated metaphor, and maybe I was simply hit on the head or something, but on that day I looked at the glass clock just as it exploded and-'

    He stood up and grabbed his broom.

    'Best foot forward, lad. Another two or three seconds and we'll be down in Bong Phut.'

    'What were you going to say?' said Lobsang, hurrying to his feet.

    'Oh, just an old man rambling,' said Lu-Tze. 'The mind wanders a bit when you get to over seven hundred. Let's get moving.'

    'Sweeper?'

    'Yes, lad?'

    'Why are we carrying spinners on our backs?'

    'All in good time, lad. I hope.'

    'We're carrying time, right? If time stops, we can keep going? Like... divers?'

    'Full marks.'

    'And-?'

    'Another question?'

    'Time is a "she"? None of the teachers have mentioned it and I don't recall anything in the scrolls.'

    'Don't you think about that. Wen wrote... well, the Secret Scroll, it's called. They keep it in a locked room. Only the abbots and the most senior monks ever get to see it.'

    Lobsang couldn't let that one pass. 'So how did you-?' he began.

    'Well, you wouldn't expect men like that to do the sweeping up in there, would you ?' said Lu-Tze. 'Terribly dusty, it got.'

    'What was it about?'

    'I didn't read much of it. Didn't feel it was right,' said Lu-Tze.

    'You? What was it about, then?'

    'It was a love poem. And it was a good one...'

    Lu-Tze's image blurred as he sliced time. Then it faded and vanished. A line of footprints appeared across the snowfield. Lobsang wrapped time around himself and followed. And a memory came from nowhere at all: Wen was right.

    Tick

    There were lots of places like the warehouse. There always are, in every old city, no matter how valuable the building land is. Sometimes, space just gets lost.

    A workshop is built, and then another beside it. Factories and storerooms and sheds and temporary lean-tos crawl towards one another, meet and merge. Spaces between outside walls are roofed with tar paper. Odd-shaped bits of ground are colonized by nailing up a bit of wall and cutting a doorway. Old doorways are masked by piles of lumber or new tool racks. The old men who know what was where move on and die, just like the flies who punctuate the thick cobwebs on the grubby windows. Young men, in this noisome world of whirring lathes and paint shops and cluttered workbenches, don't have time to explore.

    And so there were spaces like this, a small warehouse with a crusted skylight that no fewer than four factory owners thought was owned by one of the other three, when they thought about it at all. In fact each of them owned one wall, and certainly no one recalled who roofed the space. Beyond the walls on all four sides men and dwarfs bent iron, sawed planks, made string and turned screws. But in here was a silence known only to rats.

    The air moved, for the first time in years. Dust balls rolled across the floor. Little motes sparkled and spun in the light that forced its way down from the roof. In the surrounding area, invisible and subtle, matter began to move. It came from workmen's sandwiches and gutter dirt and pigeon feathers, an atom here, a molecule there, and streamed unheeded into the centre of the space.

    It spiralled. Eventually it became, after passing through some strange, ancient and horrible shapes, Lady LeJean.

    She staggered, but managed to stay upright.

    Other Auditors also appeared and, as they did so, it seemed that they had never really not been there. The dead greyness of the light merely took on shapes; they emerged like ships from a fog. You stared at the fog, and suddenly part of the fog was hull that had been there all along, and now there was nothing for it but to race for the lifeboats...

    Lady LeJean said: 'I cannot keep doing this. It is too painful.'

    One said, Ah, can you tell us what pain is like? We have often wondered.

    'No. No, I don't think I can. It is... a body thing. It is not pleasant. From now on, I will retain the body.'

    One said, That could be dangerous.

    Lady LeJean shrugged. 'We have been through that before. It's only a matter of appearance,' she said. 'And it is remarkable how much easier it is to deal with humans in this form.'

    One said, You shrugged. And you are talking with your mouth. A hole for food and air.

    'Yes. It is remarkable, isn't it?' Lady LeJean's body found an old crate, pulled it over and sat on it. She hardly had to think about muscle movements at all.

    One said, You aren't eating, are you?

    'As yet, no.'

    One said, As yet? That raises the whole dreadful subject of. .. orifices.

    One said, And how did you learn to shrug?

    'It comes with the body,' said her ladyship. 'We never realized this, did we? Most of the things it does it appears to do automatically. Standing upright takes no effort whatsoever. The whole business gets easier every time.'

    The body shifted position slightly, and crossed its legs. Amazing, she thought. It did it to be comfortable. I didn't have to think about it at all. We never guessed.

    One said, There will be questions.

    The Auditors hated questions. They hated them almost as much as they hated decisions, and they hated decisions almost as much as they hated the idea of the individual personality. But what they hated most was things moving around randomly.

    'Believe me, everything will be fine,' said Lady LeJean. 'We will not be breaking any of the rules, after all. All that will happen is that time will stop. Everything thereafter will be neat. Alive, but not moving. Tidy.'

    One said, And we can get the filing finished.

    'Exactly,' said Lady LeJean. 'And he wants to do it. That is the strange thing. He hardly thinks about the consequences.'

    One said, Splendid.

    There was one of those pauses when no one is quite ready to speak. And then:

    One said, Tell us. ... What is it like?

    'What is what like?'

    One said, Being insane. Being human.

    'Strange. Disorganized. Several levels of thinking go on at once. There are... things we have no word for. For example, the idea of eating seems now to have an attraction. The body tells me this.'

    One said, Attraction? As in gravity?

    'Ye-es. One is drawn towards food.'

    One said, Food in large masses?

    'Even in small amounts.'

    One said, But eating is simply a function. What is the... attraction of performing a function? Surely the knowledge that it is necessary for continued survival is sufficient?

    'I cannot say,' said Lady LeJean.

    One Auditor said, You persist in using a personal pronoun.

    And one added, And you have not died! To be an individual is to live, and to live is to die!

    'Yes. I know. But it is essential for humans to use the personal pronoun. It divides the universe into two parts. The darkness behind the eyes, where the little voice is, and everything else. It is... a horrible feeling. It is like being... questioned, all the time.'

    One said, What is the little voice?

    'Sometimes thinking is like talking to another person, but that person is also you.'

    She could tell this disturbed the other Auditors. 'I do not wish to continue in this way any longer than necessary,' she added. And realized that she had lied.

    One said, We do not blame you.

    Lady LeJean nodded.

    The Auditors could see into human minds. They could see the pop and sizzle of the thoughts. But they could not read them. They could see the energies flow from node to node, they could see the brain glittering like a Hogswatch decoration. What they couldn't see was what was happening.

    So they'd built one.

    It was the logical thing to do. They'd used human agents before, because early on they'd worked out that there were many, many humans who would do anything for sufficient gold. This was puzzling, because gold did not seem to the Auditors to hold any significant value for a human body - it needed iron and copper and zinc, but only the most minute traces of gold. Therefore, they'd reasoned, this was further evidence that the humans who required it were flawed, and this was why attempts to make use of them were doomed. But why were they flawed?

    Building a human being was easy; the Auditors knew exactly how to move matter around. The trouble was that the result didn't do anything but lie there and, eventually, decompose. This was annoying, since human beings, without any special training or education, seemed to be able to make working replicas quite easily.

    Then they learned that they could make a human body which worked if an Auditor was inside it.

    There were, of course, huge risks. Death was one of them. The Auditors avoided death by never going so far as to get a life. They strove to be as indistinguishable as hydrogen atoms, and with none of the latter's joie de vivre. Some luckless Auditor might be risking death by 'operating' the body. But lengthy consultation decided that if the driver took care, and liaised at all times with the rest of the Auditors, this risk was minimal and worth taking, considering the goal.

    They built a woman. It was a logical choice. After all, while men wielded more obvious power than women, they often did so at the expense of personal danger, and no Auditor liked the prospect of personal danger. Beautiful women often achieved great things, on the other hand, merely by smiling at powerful men.

    The whole subject of 'beauty' caused the Auditors a lot of difficulty. It made no sense at a molecular level. But research turned up the fact that the woman in the picture Woman Holding Ferret by Leonard of Quirm was considered the epitome of beauty, and so they'd based Lady LeJean on that. They had made changes, of course. The face in the picture was asymmetrical and full of minor flaws, which they had carefully removed.

    The result would have been successful beyond the Auditors' wildest dreams, had they ever dreamed. Now that they had their stalking horse, their reliable human, anything was possible. They were learning fast, or at least collecting data, which they considered to be the same as learning.

    So was Lady LeJean. She had been a human for two weeks, two astonishing, shocking weeks. Whoever would have guessed that a brain operated like this? Or that colours had a meaning that went way, way beyond spectral analysis? How could she even begin to describe the blueness of blue? Or how much thinking the brain did all by itself? It was terrifying. Half the time her thoughts seemed not to be her own.

    She had been quite surprised to find that she did not want to tell the other Auditors this. She did not want to tell them a lot of things. And she didn't have to!

    She had power. Oh, over Jeremy, that was not in question and was now, she had to admit, rather worrying. It was causing her body to do things by itself, like blush. But she had power over the other Auditors, too. She made them nervous.

    Of course, she wanted the project to work. It was their goal. A tidy and predictable universe, where everything stayed in its place. If Auditors dreamed, this would be another dream.

    Except... except...

    The young man had smiled at her in a nervous, worrying way, and the universe was turning out to be a lot more chaotic than even the Auditors had ever suspected.

    A lot of the chaos was happening inside Lady LeJean's head.

    Tick

    Lu-Tze and Lobsang passed through Bong Phut and Long Nap like ghosts in twilight. People and animals were blueish statues and were not, said Lu-Tze, to be touched in any circumstances.

    Lu-Tze restocked his travel bag with food from some of the houses, making sure to leave little copper tokens in their place.

    'It means we're obliged to them,' he said, filling Lobsang's bag as well. 'The next monk through here might have to give someone a minute or two.'

    'A minute or two isn't much.'

    'For a dying woman to say goodbye to her children, it's a lifetime,' said Lu-Tze. 'Is it not written, "Every second counts"? Let's go.'

    'I'm tired, Sweeper.'

    'I did say every second counts.'

    'But everybody has to sleep!'

    'Yes, but not yet,' Lu-Tze insisted. 'We can rest in the caves down at Songset. Can't fold time while you're asleep, see?'

    'Can't we use the spinners?'

    'In theory, yes.'

    'In theory? They could wind out time for us. We'd only sleep for a few seconds-'

    'They're for emergencies only,' said Lu-Tze bluntly.

    'How do you define an emergency, Sweeper?'

    'An emergency is when I decide its time to use a clockwork spinner designed by Qu, wonder boy. A lifebelt's for saving your life. That's when I'll trust an uncalibrated, unblessed spinner powered by springs. When I have to. I know Qu says-'

    Lobsang blinked and shook his head. Lu-Tze grabbed his arm.

    'You felt something again?'

    'Ugh... like having a tooth out in my brain,' said Lobsang, rubbing his head. He pointed. 'It came from over there.'

    'A pain came from over there?' said Lu-Tze. He glared at the boy. 'Like last time? But we've never found a way of detecting which way-'

    He stopped and rummaged in his sack. Then he used the sack to sweep snow off a flat boulder.

    'Well see what-'

    Glass house.

    This time Lobsang could concentrate on the tones that filled the air. Wet finger on a wineglass? Well, you could start there. But the finger would have to be the finger of a god on the glass of some celestial sphere. And the wonderful, complex, shifting tones did not simply fill the air, they were the air.

    The moving blur beyond the walls was getting closer now. It was just beyond the closest wall, then it found the open doorway... and vanished.

    Something was behind Lobsang.

    He turned. There was nothing there that he could see, but he felt movement and, for just a moment, something warm brushed his cheek...

    '-the sand says,' said Lu-Tze, tipping the contents of a small bag onto the rock.

    The coloured grains bounced and spread. They did not have the sensitivity of the Mandala itself, but there was a blue bloom in the chaos.

    He gave Lobsang a sharp look.

    'It's been proved that no one can do what you just did,' he said. 'We've never found any way of detecting where a disturbance in time is actually being caused.'

    'Er, sorry.' Lobsang raised a hand to his cheek. It was damp. 'Er, what did I do?'

    'It takes a huge-' Lu-Tze stopped. 'Ankh-Morpork's that way,' he said. 'Did you know that?'

    'No! Anyway, you said you had a feeling things would happen in Ankh-Morpork!'

    'Yes, but I've had a lifetime of experience and cynicism!' Lu-Tze scooped the sand back into its bag. 'You're just gifted. Come on.'

    Four more seconds, sliced thinly, took them below the snowline, into scree slopes that slid under their feet and then through alder forests not much taller than themselves. And it was there they met the hunters, gathered round in a wide circle.

    The men did not pay them much attention. Monks were commonplace in these parts. The leader, or at least the one who was shouting, and this is usually the leader, looked up and waved them past.

    Lu-Tze stopped, though, and looked amiably at the thing in the centre of the circle. It looked back at him.

    'Good catch,' he said. 'What're you going to do now, boys?'

    'Is it any business of yours?' said the leader.

    'No, no, just asking,' said Lu-Tze. 'You boys up from the lowlands, yes?'

    'Yeah. You'd be amazed at what you can get for catching one of these.'

    'Yes,' said Lu-Tze. 'You would be amazed.'

    Lobsang looked at the hunters. There were more than a dozen of them, all heavily armed and watching Lu-Tze carefully.

    'Nine hundred dollars for a good pelt and another thousand for the feet,' said their leader.

    'That much, eh?' said Lu-Tze. 'That's a lot of money for a pair of feet.'

    'That's 'cos they're big feet,' said the hunter. 'And you know what they say about men with big feet, eh?'

    'They need bigger shoes?'

    'Yeah, right,' said the hunter, grinning. 'Load of nonsense, really, but there's rich old boys with young wives over on the Counterweight Continent who'll pay a fortune for a powdered yeti foot.'

    'And there was me thinking they're a protected species,' said Lu-Tze, leaning his broom against a tree.

    'They're only a kind of troll. Who's going to protect them out here?' said the hunter. Behind him, the local guides, who did know Rule One, turned and ran.

    'Me,' said Lu-Tze.

    'Oh?' said the hunter, and this time the grin was nasty. 'You don't even have a weapon.' He turned to look at the fleeing guides. 'You're one of the weird monks from up in the valleys, aren't you?'

    'That's right,' said Lu-Tze. 'Small smiling, weird monk. Totally unarmed.'

    'And there's fifteen of us,' said the hunter. 'Well armed, as you can see.'

    'It's very important that you are all heavily armed,' said Lu-Tze, pulling his sleeves out of the way. 'It makes it fairer.'

    He rubbed his hands together. No one seemed inclined to retreat. 'Er, any of you boys heard of any rules?' he said, after a while.

    'Rules?' said one of the hunters. 'What rules?'

    'Oh, you know,' said Lu-Tze. 'Rules like... Rule Two, say, or Rule Twenty-seven. Any kind of rules of that sort of description.'

    The leading hunter frowned. 'What in damnation are you talking about, mister?'

    'Er, not so much a "mister" as a small rather knowing, elderly, entirely unarmed, weird monk,' said Lu-Tze. 'I'm just wondering if there is anything about this situation that makes you, you know... slightly nervous?'

    'You mean, us being well armed and outnumbering you, and you backing away like that?' said one of the hunters.

    'Ah. Yes,' said Lu-Tze. 'Perhaps we're up against a cultural thing here. I know, how about... this?' He stood on one leg, wobbling a little, and raised both hands. 'Ai! Hai-eee! Ho? Ye-hi? No? Anyone?'

    There was a certain amount of bewilderment amongst the hunters.

    'Is it a book?' said one who was slightly intellectual. 'How many words?'

    'What I'm trying to find out here,' said Lu-Tze, 'is whether you have any idea what happens when a lot of big armed men try to attack a small, elderly, unarmed monk?'

    'To the best of my knowledge,' said the intellectual of the group, 'he turns out to be a very unlucky monk.'

    Lu-Tze shrugged. 'Oh, well,' he said, 'then we'll just have to try it the hard way.'

    A blur in the air hit the intellectual on the back of the neck. The leader stirred to step forward, and learned too late that his boot laces were tied together. Men reached for knives that were no longer in sheaths, for swords that were inexplicably leaning against a tree on the far side of the clearing. Legs were swept from underneath them, invisible elbows connected with soft parts of their bodies. Blows rained out of empty air. Those who fell down learned to stay that way. A raised head hurt.

    The group was reduced to men lying humbly on the ground, groaning gently. It was then that they heard a low, rhythmic sound.

    The yeti was clapping. It had to be a slow handclap, because of the creature's long arms. But when the hands met, they'd come a long way and were glad to see one another. They echoed around the mountains.

    Lu-Tze reached down and raised the leader's chin.

    'If you have enjoyed this afternoon, please tell your friends,' he said. 'Tell them to remember Rule One.'

    He let the chin go, and walked across to the yeti and bowed.

    'Shall I release you, sir, or would you like to do it yourself?' he said.

    The yeti stood up, looked down at the cruel iron trap around one leg, and concentrated for a moment.

    At the end of the moment, the yeti was a little way from the trap, which was still set and almost hidden in leaves.

    'Well done,' said Lu-Tze. 'Methodical. And very smooth. Headed down to the lowlands?'

    The yeti had to bend double to bring its long face close to Lu-Tze.

    'Yaas,' it said.

    'What do you want to do with these people?'

    The yeti looked round at the cowering hunters.

    'It bein' daark soon,' he said. 'No guides noaw.'

    'They've got torches,' said Lu-Tze.

    'Ha. Ha,' said the yeti, and it said it, rather than laughed. 'Dat's good. Torches show up aat night.'

    'Hah! Yes. Can you give us a lift? It's really important.'

    'You and daat whizzin' kid I seein' there?'

    A patch of grey air at the edge of the clearing became Lobsang, out of breath. He dropped the broken branch he'd been holding.

    'The lad is called Lobsang. I'm training him up,' said Lu-Tze.

    'Looks like you gotta hurry before you runnin' out of things he don't knoow,' said the yeti. 'Ha. Ha.'

    'Sweeper, what were you-' Lobsang began, hurrying forward.

    Lu-Tze put his finger to his lips. 'Not in front of our fallen friends,' he said. 'I'm looking for Rule One to become a lot better respected in these parts as a result of this day's work.'

    'But I had to do all the-'

    'We must be going,' said Lu-Tze, waving him into silence. 'I reckon we can snooze quite happily while our friend here carries us.'

    Lobsang glanced up at the yeti, and then back at Lu-Tze. And then back to the yeti. It was tall. In some ways it was like the trolls he'd met in the city, but rolled out thin. It was more than twice as high as he was, and most of the extra height was skinny legs and arms. The body was a ball of fur, and the feet were indeed huge.

    'If he could've got out of the trap at any-' he began.

    'You are the apprentice, right?' said Lu-Tze. 'Me, I'm the master? I'm sure I wrote that down somewhere...'

    'But you said you weren't going to say any of those know-it-all-'

    'Remember Rule One! Oh, and pick up one of those swords. We'll need it in a minute. Okay, yer honour...'

    The yeti picked them up gently and firmly, cradled them in the crook of each arm, and strode away through the snow and trees.

    'Snug, eh?' said Lu-Tze after a while. 'Their wool is spun out of rock in some way, but it's pretty comfy.'

    There was no answer from the other arm.

    'I spent some time with the yetis,' said Lu-Tze. 'Amazing people. They taught me a thing or two. Valuable stuff. For is it not written, "We live and learn"?'

    Silence, a kind of sullen, deliberate silence, reigned.

    'I'd think myself lucky if I was a boy your age actually being carried by an actual yeti. A lot of people back in the valley have never even seen one. Mind you, they don't come that close to settlements any more. Not since that rumour about their feet got around.'

    Lu-Tze got the feeling that he was taking part in a dialogue of one.

    'Something you want to say, is there?' he said.

    'Well, as a matter of fact, yes, there is, actually,' said Lobsang. 'You let me do all the work back there! You weren't going to do anything!'

    'I was making sure I had their full attention,' said Lu-Tze smoothly.

    'Why?'

    'So that you didn't have their full attention. I had every confidence in you, of course. A good master gives the pupil an opportunity to demonstrate his skills.'

    'And what would you have done if I hadn't been here, pray?'

    'Yes, probably,' said Lu-Tze.

    'What?'

    'But I expect I would have found some way to use their stupidity against them,' said Lu-Tze. 'There generally is one. Is there a problem here?'

    'Well, I just... I thought... well, I just thought you'd be teaching me more, that's all.'

    'I'm teaching you things all the time,' said Lu-Tze. 'You might not be learning them, of course.'

    'Oh, I see,' said Lobsang. 'Very smug. Are you going to try to teach me about this yeti, then, and why you made me bring a sword?'

    'You'll need the sword to learn about yetis,' said Lu-Tze.

    'How?'

    'In a few minutes we'll find a nice place to stop and you can cut his head off. Is that all right by you, sir?'

    'Yaas. Sure,' said the yeti.

    In the Second Scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised a story is written concerning one day when the apprentice Clodpool, in a rebellious mood, approached Wen and spake thusly:

    'Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?'

    Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: 'A fish!'

    And Clodpool went away, satisfied.

    Tick

    The Code of the Igors was very strict.

    Never Contradict: it was no part of an Igor's job to say things like 'No, thur, that'th an artery.' The marthter was always right.

    Never Complain: an Igor would never say 'But that'th a thouthand mileth away!'

    Never Make Personal Remarks: no Igor would dream of saying anything like 'I thould have thomething done about that laugh, if I wath you.'

    And never, ever Ask Questions. Admittedly, Igor knew, that meant never ask BIG questions. 'Would thur like a cup of tea around now?' was fine, but 'What do you need a hundred virginth for?' or 'Where do you ecthpect me to find a brain at thith time of night?' was not. An Igor stood for loyal, dependable, discreet service with a smile, or at least a sort of lopsided grin, or possibly just a curved scar in the right place.[12]

    And, therefore, Igor was getting worried. Things were wrong, and when an Igor thinks that, they are really wrong. Great difficulty lay in getting this across to Jeremy without breaking the Code, though. Igor was increasingly ill at ease with someone so clearly stark, staring sane. Nevertheless, he tried.

    'Her ladythip will be along again thith morning,' he said, as they watched yet another crystal grow in its solution. And I know you know that, he thought, because you've smoothed your hair down with soap and put on a clean shirt.

    'Yes,' said Jeremy. 'I wish we had better progress to report. However, I'm sure we're nearly there now.'

    'Yeth, thatth very thtrange, ithn't it?' said Igor, seizing the opening.

    'Strange, you say?'

    'Call me Mithter Thilly, thur, but it theemth to me that we're alwayth on the point of thuctheth when her ladythip payth uth a vithit, but when thee'th gone we ecthperienth new difficultieth.'

    'What are you suggesting, Igor?'

    'Me, thur? I'm not a thuggethtive perthon, thur. But latht time part of the divider array had cracked.'

    'You know I think that was because of dimensional instability!'

    'Yeth, thur.'

    'Why are you giving me that funny look, Igor?'

    Igor shrugged. That is, one shoulder was momentarily as high as the other one. 'Goeth with the fathe, thur.'

    'She'd hardly pay us so handsomely and then sabotage the project, would she? Why would she do that?'

    Igor hesitated. He had his back right up against the Code now.

    'I am thtill wondering if thee ith all thee theemth, thur.'

    'Sorry? I didn't catch that.'

    'I wonder if we can trutht her, thur,' said Igor patiently.

    'Oh, go and calibrate the complexity resonator, will you?'

    Grumbling, Igor obeyed.

    The second time Igor'd followed their benefactor she'd gone to a hotel. Next day she'd headed for a large house in Kings Way, where she'd been met by an oily man who'd made a great play of presenting her with a key. Igor had followed the oleaginous man back to his office in a nearby street where - because there are few things that are kept from a man with a face full of stitches - he'd learned that she'd just bought the lease for a very large bar of gold.

    After that, Igor had resorted to an ancient Ankh-Morpork tradition and paid someone to follow her ladyship. There was enough gold in the workshop, heavens knew, and the master took no interest in it.

    Lady LeJean went to the opera. Lady LeJean went to art galleries. Lady LeJean was living life to the fullest. Except that Lady LeJean, as far as Igor could determine, never visited restaurants and had no food delivered to the house.

    Lady LeJean was up to something. Igor could spot this easily. Lady LeJean also did not appear in Twurp's Peerage or the Almanack de Gothic or any of the other reference books Igor had checked as a matter of course, which meant that she had something to hide. Of course, he had worked for masters who occasionally had a great deal to hide, sometimes in deep holes at midnight. But this situation was morally different for two reasons. Her ladyship wasn't his master, Jeremy was, and that was where his loyalty lay. And Igor had decided it was morally different.

    Now he reached the glass clock.

    It looked almost complete. Jeremy had designed a mechanism to go behind the face and Igor had got it made up, all in glass. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the other mechanism, which flickered away down behind the pendulum and took up a disconcertingly small amount of room now that it was assembled; quite a few of its parts were no longer sharing the same set of dimensions as the rest of it. But the clock had a face, and a face needed hands, and so the glass pendulum swung and the glass hands moved and told normal, everyday time. The 'tick' had a slightly bell-like quality, as though someone were flicking a wineglass with a fingernail.

    Igor looked at his hand-me-down hands. They were beginning to worry him. Now that the glass clock looked like a clock, they began to shake every time Igor came near it.

    Tick

    No one noticed Susan in the library of the Guild of Historians, leafing her way through a pile of books. Occasionally she made a note.

    She didn't know if her other gift was from Death, but she'd always told the children that they had a lazy eye and a business eye. There were two ways of looking at the world. The lazy eye just saw the surface. The business eye saw through into the reality beneath.

    She turned a page.

    Seen through her business eye, history was very strange indeed. The scars stood out. The history of the country of Ephebe was puzzling, for example. Either its famous philosophers lived for a very long time, or they inherited their names, or extra bits had been stitched into history there. The history of Omnia was a mess. Two centuries had been folded into one, by the look of it, and it was only because of the mind-set of the Omnians, whose religion in any case mixed the past and future with the present, that it could possibly have passed unnoticed.

    And what about Koom Valley? Everyone knew that there had been a famous battle there, between dwarfs and trolls and mercenaries on both sides, but how many battles had there actually been? Historians talked about the valley being in just the right place in disputed territory to become more or less the preferred local pitch for all confrontations, but you could just as easily believe - at least you could if you had a grandfather called Death - that a patch that just happened to fit had been welded into history several times, so that different generations went round through the whole stupid disaster again and again, shouting 'Remember Koom Valley!' as they did so.[13]

    There were anomalies everywhere.

    And no one had noticed.

    You had to hand it to human beings. They had one of the strangest powers in the universe. Even her grandfather had remarked upon it. No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. Perhaps it was boredom, not intelligence, that had propelled them up the evolutionary ladder. Trolls and dwarfs had it, too, that strange ability to look at the universe and think 'Oh, the same as yesterday, how dull. I wonder what happens if I bang this rock on that head?'

    And along with this had come an associated power, to make things normal. The world changed mightily, and within a few days humans considered it was normal. They had the most amazing ability to shut out and forget what didn't fit. They told themselves little stories to explain away the inexplicable, to make things normal.

    Historians were especially good at it. If it suddenly looked as though hardly anything had happened in the fourteenth century, they'd weigh in with twenty different theories. Not one of these would be that maybe most of the time had been cut out and pasted into the nineteenth century, where the Crash had not left enough coherent time for everything that needed to happen, because it only takes a week to invent the horse collar.

    The History Monks had done their job well, but their biggest ally was the human ability to think narratively. And humans had risen to the occasion. They'd say things like 'Thursday already? What happened to the week?' and 'Time seems to go a lot faster these days,' and 'It seems like only yesterday...'

    But some things remained.

    The Monks had carefully wiped out the time when the Glass Clock had struck. It had been surgically removed from history. Almost...

    Susan picked up Grim Fairy Tales again. Her parents hadn't bought her books like this when she was a child. They'd tried to bring her up normally; they knew that it is not entirely a good idea for humans to be too close to Death. They taught her that facts were more important than fancy. And then she'd grown up and found out that the real fantasies weren't the Pale Rider or the Tooth Fairy or bogeymen - they were all solid facts. The big fantasy was that the world was the place where the toast didn't care if it came butter side down or not, where logic was sensible, and where things could be made not to have happened.

    Something like the Glass Clock had been too big to hide. It had leaked out via the dark, hidden labyrinths of the human mind, and had become a folk tale. People had tried to coat it with sugar and magic swords, but its true nature still lurked like a rake in an overgrown lawn, ready to rise up at the incautious foot.

    Now someone was treading on it again, and the point, the key point, was that the chin it was rising to meet belonged to...

    ... someone like me.

    She sat and stared at nothing for a while. Around her, historians climbed library ladders, fumbled books onto their lecterns and generally rebuilt the image of the past to suit the eyesight of today. One of them was in fact looking for his glasses.

    Time had a son, she thought, someone who walks in the world.

    There was a man who devoted himself to the study of time so wholeheartedly that, for him, time became real. He learned the ways of time and Time noticed him, Death had said. There was something there like love.

    And Time had a son.

    How? Susan had the kind of mind that would sour a narrative with a question like that. Time and a mortal man. How could they ever... ? Well, how could they?

    Then she thought: my grandfather is Death. He adopted my mother. My father was his apprentice for a while. That's all that happened. They were both human, and I turned up in the normal way. There is no way I should be able to walk through walls and live outside time and be a little bit immortal, but I am, and so this is not an area where logic and, let's face it, basic biology have any part to play.

    In any case, time is constantly creating the future. The future contains things that didn't exist in the past. A small baby should be easy for something... someone who rebuilds the universe once every instant.

    Susan sighed. And you had to remember that Time probably wasn't time, in the same way that Death wasn't exactly the same as death and War wasn't exactly the same as war. She'd met War, a big fat man with an inappropriate sense of humour and a habit of losing the thread, and he certainly didn't personally attend every minor fracas. She disliked Pestilence, who gave her funny looks, and Famine was just wasted and weird. None of them ran their... call it their discipline. They personified it.

    Given that she'd met the Tooth Fairy, the Soul Cake Duck and Old Man Trouble, it amazed Susan that she had grown up to be mostly human, nearly normal.

    As she stared at her notes, her hair unwound itself from its tight bun and took up its ground-state position, which was the hair of someone who had just touched something highly electrical. It spread out around her head like a cloud, with one black streak of nearly normal hair.

    Grandfather might be an ultimate destroyer of worlds and the final truth of the universe, but that wasn't to say he didn't take an interest in the little people. Perhaps Time did, too.

    She smiled.

    Time waited for no man, they said.

    Perhaps she'd waited for one, once.

    Susan was aware that someone was looking at her, turned and saw the Death of Rats peering through the lens of the glasses belonging to the mildly distracted man searching for them on the other side of the room. Up on a long-disregarded bust of a former historian the raven preened itself.

    'Well?' she said.

    SQUEAK!

    'Oh, he is, is he?'

    The doors of the library were nuzzled open and a white horse walked in. There is a terrible habit amongst horsy people to call a white horse 'grey', but even one of that bowlegged fraternity would have had to admit that this horse, at least, was white - not as white as snow, which is a dead white, but at least as white as milk, which is alive. His bridle and reins were black, and so was the saddle, but all of them were in a sense just for show. If the horse of Death was inclined to let you ride him, then you'd stay on, saddle or no. And there was no upper limit to the number of people he could carry. After all, plagues sometimes happened suddenly.

    The historians paid him no attention. Horses did not walk into libraries.

    Susan mounted. There were plenty of times when she wished she'd been born completely human and wholly normal, but the reality was that she'd give it all up tomorrow-

    -apart from Binky.

    A moment later, four hoofprints glowed like plasma in the air above the library, and then faded away.

    Tick

    The crunch-crunch of the yeti's feet over the snow and the eternal wind of the mountains were the only sounds.

    Then Lobsang said, 'By "cut off his head", you actually mean... ?'

    'Sever the head from the body,' said Lu-Tze.

    'And,' said Lobsang, still in the tones of one carefully exploring every corner of the haunted cave, 'he doesn't mind?'

    'Waal, it's a nuisance,' said the yeti. 'A bit of a paarty trick. But it's okaay, if it helps. The sweeper haas alwaays been a goood friend to us. We owe him faavours.'

    'I've tried teaching 'em the Way,' said Lu-Tze proudly.

    'Yaas. Ver' usefuul. "A washed pot never boils,"'said the yeti.

    Curiosity vied with annoyance in Lobsang's head, and won.

    'What have I missed here?' he said. 'You don't die?'

    'I doon't die? Wit my head cut off? For laughing! Ho. Ho,' said the yeti. 'Of course I die. But this is not such a sizeaable traansaaction.'

    'It took us years to work out what the yetis were up to,' said Lu-Tze. 'Their loops played hob with the Mandala until the abbot worked out how to allow for them. They've been extinct three times.'

    'Three times, eh?' said Lobsang. 'That's a lot of times to go extinct. I mean, most species only manage it once, don't they?'

    The yeti was entering taller forest now, of ancient pines.

    'This'd be a good place,' said Lu-Tze. 'Put us down, sir.'

    'And we'll chop your head off,' said Lobsang weakly. 'What am I saying? I'm not going to chop anyone's head off!'

    'You heard him say it doesn't worry him,' said Lu-Tze, as they were gently lowered to the ground.

    'That's not the point!' said Lobsang hotly.

    'It's his head,' Lu-Tze pointed out.

    'But I mind!'

    'Oh, well, in that case,' said Lu-Tze, 'is it not written, "If you want a thing done properly you've got to do it yourself"?'

    'Yaas, it is,' said the yeti.

    Lu-Tze took the sword out of Lobsang's hand. He held it carefully, like someone unused to weapons. The yeti obligingly knelt.

    'You're up to date?' said Lu-Tze.

    'Yaas.'

    'I cannot believe you're really doing this!' said Lobsang.

    'Interesting,' said Lu-Tze. 'Mrs Cosmopilite says, "Seeing is believing," and, strangely enough, the Great Wen said, 'I have seen, and I believe"!'

    He brought the sword down and cut off the yeti's head.

    Tick

    There was a sound rather like a cabbage being sliced in half, and then a head rolled into the basket to cheers and cries of 'Oh, I say, well done!' from the crowd. The city of Quirm was a nice, peaceful, law-abiding place and the city council kept it that way with a penal policy that combined the maximum of deterrence with the minimum of re-offending.

    GRIPPER 'THE BUTCHER' SMARTZ?

    The late Gripper rubbed his neck.

    'I demand a retrial!' he said.

    THIS MAY NOT BE A GOOD TIME, said Death.

    'It couldn't possibly have been murder because the...' The soul of Gripper Smartz fumbled in its spectral pockets for a ghostly piece of paper, unfolded it and continued, in a voice of those to whom the written word is an uphill struggle, '... because the bal-ance of my mind was d... dess-turbed.'

    REALLY, said Death. He found it best to let the recently departed get things off their chest.

    'Yes, 'cos I really, really wanted to kill him, right? And you can't tell me that's a normal frame of mind, right? He was a dwarf, anyway, so I don't think that should count as manslaughter.'

    I UNDERSTAND THAT WAS THE SEVENTH DWARF YOU KILLED, said Death.

    'I'm very prone to being dess-turbed,' said Gripper. 'Really, it's me who's the victim here. All I needed was a bit of understanding, someone to see my point of view for five minutes...'

    WHAT WAS YOUR POINT OF VIEW?

    'All dwarfs need a damn good kicking, in my opinion. 'Ere, you're Death, right?'

    YES INDEED.

    'I'm a big fan! I've always wanted to meet you, y'know? I've got a tattoo of you on my arm, look here. Done it myself.'

    The benighted Gripper turned at the sound of hooves. A young woman in black, entirely unregarded by the crowd, who were gathered around the food stalls and souvenir stands and the guillotine, was leading a large white stallion towards them.

    'And you've even got valet parking!' said Gripper. 'Now that's what I call style!' and with that he faded.

    WHAT A CURIOUS PERSON, said Death. AH, SUSAN. THANK YOU FOR COMING. OUR SEARCH NARROWS.

    'Our search?'

    YOUR SEARCH, IN FACT.

    'It's just mine now, is it?'

    I HAVE SOMETHING ELSE TO ATTEND TO.

    'More important than the end of the world?'

    IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD. THE RULES SAY THAT THE HORSEMEN SHALL RIDE OUT.

    'That old legend? But you don't have to do that!'

    IT IS ONE OF MY FUNCTIONS. I HAVE TO OBEY THE RULES.

    'Why? They're breaking the rules!'

    BENDING THEM. THEY HAVE FOUND A LOOPHOLE. I DO NOT HAVE THAT KIND OF IMAGINATION.

    It was like Jason and the Battle for the Stationery Cupboard, Susan told herself. You soon learned that 'No one is to open the door of the Stationery Cupboard' was a prohibition that a seven year-old simply would not understand. You had to think, and rephrase it in more immediate terms, like, 'No one, Jason, no matter what, no, not even if they thought they heard someone shouting for help, no one - are you paying attention, Jason? - is to open the door of the Stationery Cupboard, or accidentally fall on the door handle so that it opens, or threaten to steal Richenda's teddy bear unless she opens the door of the Stationery Cupboard, or be standing nearby when a mysterious wind comes out of nowhere and blows the door open all by itself, honestly, it really did, or in any way open, cause to open, ask anyone else to open, jump up and down on the loose floorboard to open or in any other way seek to obtain entry to the Stationery Cupboard, Jason!'

    'A loophole,' said Susan.

    YES.

    'Well, why can't you find one too?'

    I AM THE GRIM REAPER. I DO NOT THINK PEOPLE WISH ME TO GET... CREATIVE. THEY WOULD WISH ME TO DO THE TASK ASSIGNED TO ME AT THIS TIME, BY CUSTOM AND PRACTICE.

    'And that's just... riding out?'

    YES.

    'Where to?'

    EVERYWHERE, I THINK. IN THE MEANTIME, YOU WILL NEED THIS.

    Death handed her a lifetimer.

    It was one of the special ones, slightly bigger than normal. She took it reluctantly. It looked like an hourglass, but all those little glittering shapes tumbling through the pinch were seconds.

    'You know I don't like doing the... the whole scythe thing,' she said. 'It's not- Hey, this is really heavy!'

    HE IS LU-TZE, A HISTORY MONK. EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS OLD. HE HAS AN APPRENTICE. I HAVE LEARNED THIS. BUT I CANNOT FEEL HIM, I CANNOT SEE HIM. HE IS THE ONE. BINKY WILL TAKE YOU TO THE MONK, YOU WILL FIND THE CHILD.

    'And then what?'

    I SUSPECT HE WILL NEED SOMEONE. WHEN YOU HAVE FOUND HIM, LET BINKY GO. I SHALL NEED HIM.

    Susan's lips moved as a memory collided with a thought.

    'To ride out on?' she said. 'Are you really talking about the Apocalypse? Are you serious? No one believes in that sort of thing any more!'

    I DO.

    Susan's jaw dropped. 'You're really going to do that? Knowing everything you know?'

    Death patted Binky on the muzzle.

    YES, he said.

    Susan gave her grandfather a sideways look.

    'Hold on, there's a trick, isn't there... ? You're planning something and you're not even going to tell me, right? You're not really going to just wait for the world to end and celebrate it, are you?'

    WE WILL RIDE OUT.

    'No!'

    YOU WILL NOT TELL THE RIVERS NOT TO FLOW. YOU WILL NOT TELL THE SUN NOT TO SHINE. YOU WILL NOT TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD AND SHOULD NOT DO.

    'But it's so-' Susan's expression changed, and Death flinched. 'I thought you cared!'

    TAKE THIS ALSO.

    Without wanting to, Susan took a smaller lifetimer from her grandfather.

    SHE MAY TALK TO YOU.

    'And who is this?'

    THE MIDWIFE, said Death. NOW... FIND THE SON.

    He faded.

    Susan looked down at the lifetimers in her hands. He's done it to you again! she screamed at herself. You don't have to do this and you can put this thing down and you can go back to the classroom and you can be normal again and you just know that you won't, and so does he-

    SQUEAK?

    The Death of Rats was sitting between Binky's ears, grasping a lock of the white mane and giving the general impression of someone anxious to be going. Susan raised a hand to slap him off, and then stopped herself. Instead, she pushed the heavy lifetimers into the rat's paws.

    'Make yourself useful,' she said, grasping the reins. 'Why do I do this?'

    SQUEAK.

    'I have not got a nice nature!'

    Tick

    There was not, surprisingly, a great deal of blood. The head rolled into the snow, and the body slowly toppled forward.

    'Now you've killed-' Lobsang began.

    'Just a second,' said Lu-Tze. 'Any moment now...'

    The headless body vanished. The kneeling yeti turned his head to Lu-Tze, blinked and said, 'Thaat stung a biit.'

    'Sorry.'

    Lu-Tze turned to Lobsang. 'Now, hold on to that memory!' he commanded. 'It'll try to vanish, but you've had training. You've got to go on remembering that you saw something that now did not happen, understand? Remember that time's a lot less unbending than people think, if you get your head right! Just a little lesson! Seeing is believing!'

    'How did it do that?'

    'Good question. They can save their life up to a certain point and go back to it if they get killed,' said Lu-Tze. 'How it's done... well, the abbot spent the best part of a decade working that one out. Not that anyone else can understand it. There's a lot of quantum involved.' He took a pull of his permanent foul cigarette. 'Gotta be good working-out, if no one else can understand it.'[14]

    'How is der abboott these daays?' said the yeti, getting to its feet again and picking up the pilgrims.

    'Teething.'

    'Ah. Reincarnation's alwaays a problem,' said the yeti, falling into its long, ground-eating lope.

    'Teeth are the worst, he says. Always coming or going.'

    'How fast are we going?' said Lobsang.

    The yeti's stride was more like a continuous series of leaps from one foot to the other; there was so much spring in the long legs that each landing was a mere faint rocking sensation. It was almost restful.

    'I reckon we're doing thirty miles an hour or so, clock time,' said Lu-Tze. 'Get some rest. We'll be above Copperhead in the morning. It's all downhill from there.'

    'Coming back from the dead...' Lobsang murmured.

    'It's more like not actually ever going in the first place,' said Lu-Tze. 'I've studied them a bit, but... well, unless it's built in you'd have to learn how to do it, and would you want to bet on getting it right first time? Tricky one. You'd have to be desperate. I hope I'm never that desperate.'

    Tick

    Susan recognized the country of Lancre from the air, a little bowl of woods and fields perched like a nest on the edge of the Ramtop mountains. And she found the cottage, too, which was not the corkscrew-chimneyed compost-heap kind of witch's house popularized by Grim Fairy Tales and other books, but a spanking new one with gleaming thatch and a manicured front lawn.

    There were more ornaments - gnomes, toadstools, pink bunnies, big-eyed deer - around a tiny pond than any sensible gardener should have allowed. Susan spotted one brightly painted gnome fishi- No, that wasn't a rod he was holding, was it? Surely a nice old lady wouldn't put something like that in her garden, would she? Would she?

    Susan was bright enough to go round to the back, because witches were allergic to front doors. The door was opened by a small, fat, rosy-cheeked woman whose little currant eyes said, yep, thars my gnome all right, and be thankful he's only widdling in the pond.

    'Mrs Ogg? The midwife?'

    There was a pause before Mrs Ogg said, 'The very same.'

    'You don't know me, but-' said Susan, and realized that Mrs Ogg was looking past her at Binky, who was standing by the gate. The woman was a witch, after all.

    'Maybe I do know you,' said Mrs Ogg. 'O'course, if you just stole that horse, you just don't know how much trouble you're in.'

    'I borrowed it. The owner is... my grandfather.'

    Another pause, and it was disconcerting how those friendly little eyes could bore into yours like an auger.

    'You'd better come in,' said Mrs Ogg.

    The inside of the cottage was as clean and new as the outside. Things gleamed, and there were a lot of them to gleam. The place was a shrine to bad but enthusiastically painted china ornaments, which occupied every flat surface. What space was left was full of framed pictures. Two harassed-looking women were polishing and dusting.

    'I got comp'ny,' said Mrs Ogg sternly, and the women left with such alacrity that the word 'fled' might have been appropriate.

    'My daughters-in-law,' said Mrs Ogg, sitting down in a plump armchair which, over the years, had shaped itself to fit her. 'They like to help a poor old lady who's all alone in the world.'

    Susan took in the pictures. If they were all family members, Mrs Ogg was head of an army. Mrs Ogg, unashamedly caught out in a flagrant lie, went on: 'Sit down, girl, and say what's on your mind. There's tea brewing.'

    'I want to know something.'

    'Most people do,' said Mrs Ogg. 'And they can go on wantin'.'

    'I want to know about... a birth,' said Susan, persevering.

    'Oh, yes? Well, I done hundreds of confinements. Thousands, prob'ly.'

    'I imagine this one was difficult.'

    'A lot of them are,' said Mrs Ogg.

    'You'd remember this one. I don't know how it started, but I'd imagine that a stranger came knocking.'

    'Oh?' Mrs Ogg's face became a wall. The black eyes stared out at Susan as if she was an invading army.

    'You're not helping me, Mrs Ogg.'

    'That's right. I ain't,' said Mrs Ogg. 'I think I know about you, miss, but I don't care who you are, you see. You can go and get the other one, if you like. Don't think I ain't seen him, neither. I've been at plenty of deathbeds, too. But deathbeds is public, mostly, and birthbeds ain't. Not if the lady don't want them to be. So you get the other one, and I'll spit in his eye.'

    'This is very important, Mrs Ogg.'

    'You're right there,' said Mrs Ogg firmly.

    'I can't say how long ago it was. It may have been last week, even. Time, that's the key.'

    And there it was. Mrs Ogg was not a poker player, at least against someone like Susan. There was the tiniest flicker of the eyes.

    Mrs Ogg's chair was rammed back in her effort to rise, but Susan got to the mantelpiece first and snatched what was there, hidden in plain view amongst the ornaments.

    'You give that here!' shouted Mrs Ogg, as Susan held it out of her reach. She could feel the power in the thing. It seemed to pulse in her hand.

    'Have you any idea what this is, Mrs Ogg?' she said, opening her hand to reveal the little glass bulbs.

    'Yes, it's an eggtimer that don't work!' Mrs Ogg sat down hard in her overstuffed chair, so that her little legs rose off the floor for a moment.

    'It looks to me like a day, Mrs Ogg. A day's worth of time.'

    Mrs Ogg glanced at Susan, and then at the little hourglass in her hand.

    'I reckoned there was something odd about it,' she said. 'The sand don't go through when you tip it up, see?'

    'That's because you don't need it to yet, Mrs Ogg.'

    Nanny Ogg appeared to relax. Once again Susan reminded herself that she was dealing with a witch. They tended to keep up.

    'I kept it 'cos it was a gift,' said the old lady. 'And it looks so pretty, too. What do them letters round the edge say?'

    Susan read the words etched on the metal base of the lifetimer: Tempus Redux. ' "Time Returned",' she said.

    'Ah, that'd be it,' said Mrs Ogg. 'The man did say I'd be repaid for my time.'

    'The man... ?' said Susan gently.

    Nanny Ogg glanced up, her eyes ablaze.

    'Don't you try to take advantage of me just 'cos I'm moment'r'ly a bit flustered,' she snapped. 'There's no way round Nanny Ogg!'

    Susan looked at the woman, and this time not with the lazy eye. And there was, indeed, no way round Mrs Ogg. But there was another way, with Mrs Ogg. It went straight through the heart.

    'A child needs to know his parents, Mrs Ogg,' she said. 'Now more than ever. He needs to know who he really is. It's going to be hard for him, and I want to help him.'

    'Why?'

    'Because I wish someone had helped me,' said Susan.

    'Yes, but there's rules to midwifery,' said Nanny Ogg. 'You don't say what was said or what you saw. Not if the lady don't want you to.'

    The witch wriggled awkwardly in her chair, her face going red. She wants to tell me, Susan knew. She's desperate to. But I've got to play it right, so she can square it with herself.

    'I'm not asking for names, Mrs Ogg, because I expect you don't know them,' she went on.

    'That's true.'

    'But the child-'

    'Look, miss, I'm not supposed to tell a living soul about-'

    'If it helps, I'm not entirely certain that I am one,' said Susan. She watched Mrs Ogg for a while. 'But I understand. There have to be rules, don't there? Thank you for your time.'

    Susan stood up and put the preserved day back on the mantelpiece. Then she walked out of the cottage, shutting the door behind her. Binky was waiting by the gate. She mounted up, and it wasn't until then that she heard the door open.

    'That's what he said,' said Mrs Ogg. 'When he gave me the eggtimer. "Thank you for your time, Mrs Ogg," he said. You'd better come back in, my girl.'

    Tick

    Death found Pestilence in a hospice in Llamedos. Pestilence liked hospitals. There was always something for him to do.

    Currently he was trying to remove the 'Now Wash Your Hands' sign over a cracked basin. He looked up.

    'Oh, it's you,' he said. 'Soap? I'll give 'em soap!'

    I SENT OUT THE CALL, said Death.

    'Oh. Yes. Right. Yes,' said Pestilence, clearly embarrassed.

    YOU'VE STILL GOT YOUR HORSE?

    'Of course, but...'

    YOU HAD A FINE HORSE.

    'Look, Death... it's... look, it's not that I don't see your point, but- Excuse me...' Pestilence stepped aside as a white-robed nun, completely ignorant of the two Horsemen, passed between them. But he took the opportunity to breathe in her face.

    'Just a mild flu,' he said, catching Death's expression.

    SO WE CAN COUNT ON YOU, CAN WE?

    'To ride out...'

    YES.

    'For the Big One...'

    IT'S EXPECTED OF US.

    'How many of the others have you got?'

    YOU ARE THE FIRST.

    'Er...'

    Death sighed. Of course, there had been plenty of diseases, long before humans had been around. But humans had definitely created Pestilence. They had a genius for crowding together, for poking around in jungles, for siting the midden so handily next to the well. Pestilence was, therefore, part human, with all that this entailed. He was frightened.

    I SEE, he said.

    'The way you put it-'

    YOU ARE AFRAID?

    'I'll... think about it.'

    YES. I AM SURE YOU WILL.

    Tick

    Quite a lot of brandy splashed into Mrs Ogg's mug. She waved the bottle vaguely at Susan, with an enquiring look.

    'No, thank you.'

    'Fair enough. Fair enough.' Nanny Ogg put the bottle aside and took a draught of the brandy as though it were beer.