A wind whipped around the room, and the light changed. Shadows formed on Susan's face. A faint blue light outlined her.

    Lobsang swallowed.

    The light faded. The shadows vanished.

    'There is a process called death, and there is a person called Death,' said Susan. 'That is how it works. And I am Death's granddaughter. Am I going too fast for you?'

    'Er, no, although right up until just now you looked human,' said Lobsang.

    'My parents were human. There's more than one kind of genetics.' Susan paused. 'You look human, too. Human is a very popular look in these parts. You'd be amazed.'

    'Except that I am human.'

    Susan gave a little smile that, on anyone less obviously in full control of themself, might have seemed slightly nervous.

    'Yes,' she said. 'And, then again, no.'

    'No?'

    'Take War, now,' said Susan, backing away from the point. 'Big man, hearty laugh, tends to fart after meals. As human as the next man, you say. But the next man is Death. He's human-shaped, too. And that's because humans invented the idea of... of... of ideas, and they think in human shapes-'

    'Get back to the "and, then again, no", will you?'

    'Your mother is Time.'

    'No one knows who my mother is!'

    'I could take you to the midwife,' said Susan. 'Your father found the best there's ever been. She delivered you. Your mother was Time.'

    Lobsang sat with his mouth open.

    'It was easier for me,' said Susan. 'When I was very small my parents used to let me visit my grandfather. I thought every grandfather had a long black robe and rode a pale horse. And then they decided that maybe that wasn't the right environment for a child. They were worried about how I was going to grow up!' She laughed mirthlessly. 'I had a very strange education, you know? Maths, logic, that sort of thing. And then, when I was a bit younger than you, a rat turned up in my room and suddenly everything I thought I knew was wrong.'

    'I'm a human! I do human things! I'd know if-'

    'You had to live in the world. Otherwise, how could you learn to be human?' said Susan, as kindly as she could.

    'And my brother? What about him?'

    Here it comes, Susan thought. 'He's not your brother,' she said. 'I lied a bit. I'm sorry.'

    'But you said-'

    'I had to lead up to it,' said Susan. 'It's one of those things you have to get hold of a bit at a time, I'm afraid. He's not your brother. He's you.'

    'Then who am I?'

    Susan sighed. 'You. Both of you... are you.'

    'And there I was, and there she was,' said Mrs Ogg, 'and out the baby came, no problem there, but that's always a tryin' moment for the new mum, and there was ...' she paused, her eyes peering through the windows of memory, 'like ... like a feelin' that the world had stuttered, and I was holdin' the baby and I looked down and there was me deliverin' a baby, and I looked at me, and I looked at me, and I remember saying, "This is a fine to-do, Mrs Ogg," and she, who was me, said, "You never said a truer word, Mrs Ogg," and then it all went strange and there I was, just one of me, holdin' two babies.'

    'Twins,' Susan said.

    'You could call them twins, yes, I s'pose you could,' said Mrs Ogg. 'But I always thought that twins is two little souls born once, not one born twice.'

    Susan waited. Mrs Ogg looked in the mood to talk.

    'So I said to the man, I said, "What now?" and he said, "Is that any business of yours?" and I said he could be damn sure it was my business and he could look me in the eye and I'd speak my mind to anyone. But I was thinking, you're in trouble now, Mrs Ogg, 'cos it'd all gone myffic.'

    'Mythic?' said schoolteacher Susan.

    'Yep. With extra myff. And you can get into big trouble, with myffic. But the man just smiled and said that he must be brought up human until he's of age and I thought, yep, it's gone myffic all right. I could see he hadn't got a clue about what to do next and it was all going to be down to me.'

    Mrs Ogg took a suck at her pipe and her eyes twinkled at Susan through the smoke. 'I don't know how much experience you have with this sort of thing, my girl, but sometimes when the high and mighty make big plans they don't always think about the fine detail, right?'

    Yes. I'm a fine detail, Susan thought. One day Death took it into his skull to adopt a motherless child, and I'm a fine detail. She nodded.

    'I thought, how does this go, in a myffic kind of way?' Mrs Ogg went on. 'I mean, technic'ly I could see we're in that area where the prince gets brought up as a swineherd until he manifests his destiny, but there's not that many swineherding jobs around these days, and poking hogs with a stick is not all it's cracked up to be, believe you me. So I said, well, I'd heard the Guilds down in the big cities took in foundlings out of charity, and looked after them well enough, and there's many well set-up men and women who started life that way. There's no shame in it, plus, if the destiny doesn't manifest as per schedule, he'd have set his hands to a good trade, which would be a consolation. Whereas swineherding 's just swineherding. You're giving me a stern look, miss.'

    'Well, yes. It was rather a chilly decision, wasn't it?'

    'Someone has to make 'em,' said Mrs Ogg sharply. 'Besides, I've been around for some time and I've noticed that them as has it in them to shine will shine through six layers of muck, whereas those who ain't shiny won't shine however much you buff' em. You may think otherwise, but it was me standing there.'

    She investigated the bowl of her pipe with a matchstick.

    Eventually she went on: 'And that was it. I would have stayed, of course, because there wasn't so much as a crib in the place, but the man took me aside and said thank you and that it was time to go. And why would I argue? There was love there. It was in the air. But I won't say that I don't sometimes wonder how it all turned out. I really do.'

    There were differences, Susan had to admit. Two different lives had indeed burned their unique tracks on the faces. And the selves had been born a second or so apart, and a lot of the universe can change in a second.

    Think of identical twins, she told herself. But they are two different selves occupying bodies that, at least, start out identical. They'don't start out as identical selves.

    'He looks quite like me,' said Lobsang, and Susan blinked. She leaned closer to the unconscious form of Jeremy.

    'Say that again,' she said.

    'I said, he looks quite like me,' said Lobsang.

    Susan glanced at Lady LeJean, who said, 'I saw it too, Susan.'

    'Who saw what?' said Lobsang. 'What are you hiding from me?'

    'His lips move when you speak,' said Susan. 'They try to form the same words.'

    'He can pick up my thoughts?'

    'It's more complicated than that, I think.' Susan picked up a limp hand and gently pinched the web of skin between thumb and forefinger.

    Lobsang winced, and glanced at his own hand. A patch of white skin was reddening again.

    'Not just thoughts,' said Susan. 'This close, you feel his pain. Your speech controls his lips.'

    Lobsang stared down at Jeremy.

    'Then what will happen,' he said slowly, 'when he comes round?'

    'I'm wondering the same thing,' said Susan. 'Perhaps you shouldn't be here.'

    'But this is where I have to be!'

    'We at least should not stay here,' said Lady LeJean. 'I know my kind. They will have been discussing what to do. The signs will not hold them for ever. And I have run out of soft centres.'

    'What are you supposed to do when you are where you're supposed to be?' said Susan.

    Lobsang reached down and touched Jeremy's hand with his fingertip.

    The world went white.

    Susan wondered later if this was what it would be like at the heart of a star. It wouldn't be yellow, you wouldn't see fire, there would just be the searing whiteness of every overloaded sense screaming all at once.

    It faded, gradually, into a mist. The walls of the room appeared, but she could see through them. There were other walls beyond, and other rooms, transparent as ice and visible only at the corners and where the light caught them. In each one another Susan was turning to look at her.

    The rooms went on for ever.

    Susan was sensible. It was, she knew, a major character flaw. It did not make you popular, or cheerful, and - this seemed to her to be the most unfair bit - it didn't even make you right. But it did make you definite, and she was definite that what was happening around her was not, in any accepted sense, real.

    That was not in itself a problem. Most of the things humans busied themselves with weren't real, either. But sometimes the mind of the most sensible person encountered something so big, so complex, so alien to all understanding, that it told itself little stories about it instead. Then, when it felt it understood the story, it felt it understood the huge incomprehensible thing. And this, Susan knew, was her mind telling itself a story.

    There was a sound like great heavy metal doors slamming, one after another, getting louder and faster...

    The universe reached a decision.

    The other glass rooms vanished. The walls clouded. Colour rose, pastel at first, then darkening as timeless reality flowed back.

    The bed was empty. Lobsang had gone. But the air was full of slivers of blue light, turning and swirling like ribbons in a storm.

    Susan remembered to breathe again. 'Oh,' she said aloud. 'Destiny.'

    She turned. The bedraggled Lady LeJean was still staring at the empty bed.

    'Is there another way out of here?'

    'There's an elevator at the end of the corridor, Susan, but what happened to-?'

    'Not Susan,' said Susan sharply. 'It's Miss Susan. I'm only Susan to my friends, and you are not one of them. I don't trust you at all.'

    'I don't trust me either,' said Lady LeJean meekly. 'Does that help?'

    'Show me this elevator, will you?'

    It turned out to be nothing more than a large box the size of a small room, which hung from a web of ropes and pulleys in the ceiling. It had been installed recently, by the look of it, to move the large works of art around. Sliding doors occupied most of one wall.

    'There are capstans in the cellar for winching it up,' said Lady LeJean. 'Downward journeys are slowed safely because of a mechanism by which the weight of the descending elevator causes water to be pumped up into rainwater cisterns on the roof, which in turn can be released back into a hollow counterweight that assists in the elevation of heavier items of-'

    'Thank you,' said Susan quickly. 'But what it really needs in order to descend is time.' Under her breath she added, 'Can you help?'

    The ribbons of blue light orbited her, like puppies anxious to play, and then drifted towards the elevator.

    'However,' she added, 'I believe Time is on our side now.'

    Miss Tangerine was amazed at how fast a body learned.

    Until now Auditors had learned by counting. Sooner or later, everything came down to numbers. If you knew all the numbers, you knew everything. Often the later was a lot later, but that did not matter because for an Auditor time was just another number. But a brain, a few soggy pounds of gristle, counted numbers so fast that they stopped being numbers at all. She'd been astonished at how easily it could direct a hand to catch a ball in the air, calculating future positions of hand and ball without her even being aware of it.

    The senses seemed to operate and present her with conclusions before she had time to think.

    At the moment she was trying to explain to other Auditors that not feeding an elephant when there was no elephant not to feed was not in fact impossible. Miss Tangerine was one of the faster-learning Auditors and had already formulated a group of things, events and situations that she categorized as 'bloody stupid'. Things that were 'bloody stupid' could be dismissed.

    Some of the others were having difficulty understanding this, but now she stopped in mid-harangue when she heard the rumble of the elevator.

    'Do we have anyone upstairs?' she demanded.

    The Auditors around her shook their heads. 'IGNORE THIS NOTICE' had produced too much confusion.

    'Then someone is coming down!' said Miss Tangerine. 'They are out of place! They must be stopped!'

    'We must discuss-' an Auditor began.

    'Do what I say, you organic organ!'

    'It's a matter of personalities,' said Lady LeJean, as Susan pushed open a door in the roof and stepped out onto the leads.

    'Yes?' said Susan, looking around at the silent city. 'I thought you didn't have them.'

    'They will have them now,' said Lady LeJean, climbing out behind her. 'And personalities define themselves in terms of other personalities.'

    Susan, prowling along the parapet, considered this strange sentence.

    'You mean there will be flaming rows?' she said.

    'Yes. We have never had egos before.'

    'Well, you seem to be managing.'

    'Only by becoming completely and utterly insane,' said her ladyship.

    Susan turned. Lady LeJean's hat and dress had become even more tattered, and she was shedding sequins. And then there was the matter of the face. An exquisite mask on a bone structure like fine china had been made up by a clown. Probably a blind clown. And one who was wearing boxing gloves. In a fog. Lady LeJean looked at the world through panda eyes and her lipstick touched her mouth only by accident.

    'You don't look insane,' lied Susan. 'As such.'

    'Thank you. But sanity is defined by the majority, I am afraid. Do you know the saying "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts"?'

    'Of course.' Susan scanned the rooftops for a way down. She did not need this. The... thing seemed to want to talk. Or, rather, to chatter aimlessly.

    'It is an insane statement. It is a nonsense. But now I believe that it is true.'

    'Good. That elevator should be getting down about... now.'

    Slivers of blue light, like trout slipping through a stream, danced around the elevator door.

    The Auditors gathered. They had been learning. Many of them had acquired weapons. And a number of them had taken care not to communicate to the others that gripping something offensive in the hand seemed a very natural thing to do. It spoke to something right down in the back of the brain.

    It was therefore unfortunate that when a couple of them pulled open the elevator door it was to reveal, slightly melting in the middle of the floor, a cherry liqueur chocolate.

    The scent wafted.

    There was only one survivor and, when Miss Tangerine ate the chocolate, there wasn't even that.

    'One of life's little certainties,' said Susan, standing on the edge of the museum's parapet, 'is that there is generally a last chocolate hidden in all those empty wrappers.'

    Then she reached down and grabbed the top of a drainpipe.

    She wasn't certain how this would work. If she fell... but would she fall? There was no time to fall. She had her own personal time. In theory, if anything so definite as a theory existed in a case like this, that meant she could just drift down to the ground. But the time to test a theory like that was when you had no other choice. A theory was just an idea, but a drainpipe was a fact.

    The blue light flickered around her hands.

    'Lobsang?' she said quietly. 'It is you, isn't it?'

    That name is as good as any for us. The voice was as faint as a breath.

    'This may seem a stupid question, but where are you?'

    We are just a memory. And I am weak.

    'Oh.' Susan slid a little further.

    But I will grow strong. Get to the clock.

    'What's the point? There was nothing we could do!'

    Times have changed.

    Susan reached the ground. Lady LeJean followed, moving clumsily. Her evening dress had acquired several more tears.

    'Can I offer a fashion tip?' said Susan.

    'It would be welcomed,' said her ladyship politely.

    'Long cerise bloomers with that dress? Not a good idea.'

    'No? They are very colourful, and quite warm. What should I have chosen instead?'

    'With that cut? Practically nothing.'

    'That would have been acceptable?'

    'Er...' Susan blanched at unfolding the complex laws of lingerie to someone who wasn't even, she felt, anybody. 'To anyone likely to find out, yes,' she finished. 'It would take too long to explain.'

    Lady LeJean sighed. 'All of it does,' she said. 'Even clothing. Skin-substitutes to preserve body heat? So simple. So easy to say. But there are so many rules and exceptions, impossible to understand.'

    Susan looked along Broad Way. It was thick with silent traffic, but there was no sign of an Auditor.

    'We'll run into more of them,' she said aloud.

    'Yes. There will be hundreds, at least,' said Lady LeJean.

    'Why?'

    'Because we have always wondered what life is like.'

    'Then let's get up into Zephire Street,' said Susan.

    'What is there for us?'

    'Wienrich and Boettcher.'

    'Who are they?'

    'I think the original Herr Wienrich and Frau Boettcher died a long time ago. But the shop still does very good business,' said Susan, darting across the street. 'We need ammunition.'

    Lady LeJean caught up. 'Oh. They make chocolate?' she said.

    'Does a bear poo in the woods?' said Susan, and realized her mistake straight away.[16]

    Too late. Lady LeJean looked thoughtful for a moment.

    'Yes,' she said at last. 'Yes, I believe that most varieties do indeed excrete as you suggest, at least in the temperate zones, but there are several that-'

    'I meant to say that, yes, they make chocolate,' said Susan.

    Vanity, vanity, thought Lu-Tze, as the milk cart rattled through the silent city. Ronnie would have been like a god, and people of that stripe don't like hiding. Not really hiding. They like to leave a little clue, some emerald tablet somewhere, some code in some tomb under the desert, something to say to the keen researcher: I was here, and I was great.

    What else had the first people been afraid of? Night, maybe. Cold. Bears. Winter. Stars. The endless sky. Spiders. Snakes. One another. People had been afraid of so many things.

    He reached into his pack for the battered copy of the Way, and opened it at random.

    Koan 97: 'Do unto otters as you would have them do unto you.' Hmm. No real help there. Besides, he'd occasionally been unsure that he'd written that one down properly, although it certainly had worked. He'd always left aquatic mammals well alone, and they had done the same to him.

    He tried again.

    Koan 124: 'It's amazing what you see if you keep your eyes open.'

    'What's the book, monk?' said Ronnie.

    'Oh, just... a little book,' said Lu-Tze. He looked around.

    The cart was passing a funeral parlour. The owner had invested in a large plate-glass window, even though the professional undertaker does not, in truth, have that much to sell that looks good in a window and they usually make do with dark, sombre drapes and perhaps a tasteful urn.

    And the name of the Fifth Horseman.

    'Hah!' said Lu-Tze quietly.

    'Something funny, monk?'

    'Obvious, when you think about it,' said Lu-Tze, as much to himself as to Ronnie. Then he turned in his seat and stuck out his hand. 'Pleased to meet you,' he said. 'Let me guess your name.'

    And said it.

    Susan had been unusually inexact. To call Wienrich and Boettcher 'chocolate makers' was like calling Leonard of Quirm 'a decent painter who also tinkered with things', or Death 'not someone you'd want to meet every day'. It was accurate, but it didn't tell the whole story.

    For one thing, they didn't make, they created. There's an important difference.[17] And, while their select little shop sold the results, it didn't do anything so crass as to fill the window with them. That would suggest... well, over-eagerness. Generally, W&B; had a display of silk and velvet drapes with, on a small stand, perhaps one of their special pralines or no more than three of their renowned frosted caramels. There was no price tag. If you had to ask the price of W&B;'s chocolates, you couldn't afford them. And if you'd tasted one, and still couldn't afford them, you'd save and scrimp and rob and sell elderly members of your family for just one more of those mouthfuls that fell in love with your tongue and turned your soul to whipped cream.

    There was a discreet drain in the pavement in case people standing in front of the window drooled too much.

    Wienrich and Boettcher were, naturally, foreigners, and according to Ankh-Morpork's Guild of Confectioners they did not understand the peculiarities of the city's tastebuds.

    Ankh-Morpork people, said the Guild, were hearty, no-nonsense folk who did not want chocolate that was stuffed with cocoa liquor, and were certainly not like effete la-di-dah foreigners who wanted cream in everything. In fact they actually preferred chocolate made mostly from milk, sugar, suet, hooves, lips, miscellaneous squeezings, rat droppings, plaster, flies, tallow, bits of tree, hair, lint, spiders and powdered cocoa husks. This meant that according to the food standards of the great chocolate centres in Borogravia and Quirm, Ankh-Morpork chocolate was formally classed as 'cheese' and only escaped, through being the wrong colour, being defined as 'tile grout'.

    Susan allowed herself one of their cheaper boxes per month. And she could easily stop at the first layer if she wanted to.

    'You needn't come in,' she said, as she opened the shop door. Rigid customers lined the counter.

    'Please call me Myria.'

    'I don't think I-'

    'Please?' said Lady LeJean meekly. 'A name is important.'

    Suddenly, in spite of everything, Susan felt a brief pang of sympathy for the creature.

    'Oh, very well. Myria, you needn't come in.'

    'I can stand it.'

    'But I thought chocolate was a raging temptation?' said Susan, being firm with herself.

    'It is.'

    They stared up at the shelves behind the counter.

    'Myria... Myria,' said Susan, speaking only some of her thoughts aloud. 'From the Ephebian word myrios, meaning "innumerable". And LeJean as a crude pun of "legion"... Oh dear.'

    'We thought a name should say what a thing is,' said her ladyship. 'And there is safety in numbers. I am sorry.'

    'Well, these are their basic assortments,' said Susan, dismissing the shop display with a wave of her hand. 'Let's try the back room- Are you all right?'

    'I am fine, I am fine...' murmured Lady LeJean, swaying.

    'You're not going to pig out on me, are you?'

    'We... I... know about will-power. The body craves the chocolate but the mind does not. At least, so I tell myself. And it must be true! The mind can overrule the body! Otherwise, what is it for?'

    'I've often wondered,' said Susan, pushing open another door. 'Ah. The magician's cave...'

    'Magic? They use magic here?'

    'Nearly right.'

    Lady LeJean leaned on the door frame for support when she saw the tables.

    'Oh,' she said. 'Uh... I can detect... sugar, milk, butter, cream, vanilla, hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, raisins, orange peel, various liqueurs, citrus pectin, strawberries, raspberries, essence of violets, cherries, pineapples, pistachios, oranges, limes, lemons, coffee, cocoa-'

    'Nothing there to be frightened of, right?' said Susan, surveying the workshop for useful weaponry. 'Cocoa is just a rather bitter bean, after all.'

    'Yes, but...' Lady LeJean clenched her fists, shut her eyes and bared her teeth, 'put them all together and they make-'

    'Steady, steady...'

    'The will can overrule the emotions, the will can overrule the instincts-' the Auditor intoned.

    'Good, good, now just work your way up to the bit where it says chocolate, okay?'

    'That's the hard one!'

    In fact it seemed to Susan, as she walked past the vats and counters, that chocolate lost some of its attraction when you saw it like this. It was the difference between seeing the little heaps of pigment and seeing the whole picture. She selected a syringe that seemed designed to do something intensely personal to female elephants, athough she decided that here it was probably used for doing the wiggly bits of decoration.

    And over here was a small vat of cocoa liquor.

    She stared around at the trays and trays of fondant cremes, marzipans and caramels. Oh, and here was an entire table of Soul Cake eggs. But they weren't the hollow-shelled, cardboard tasting presents for children, oh, no - these were the confectionery equivalent of fine, intricate jewellery.

    Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. One of the statue-like workers bent over her tray of Praline Dreams was shifting almost imperceptibly.

    Time was flowing into the room. Pale blue light glinted in the air.

    She turned and saw a vaguely human figure hovering beside her. It was featureless and as transparent as mist, but in her head it said, I'm stronger. You are my anchor, my link to this world. Can you guess how hard it is to find it again in so many? Get me to the clock. ..

    Susan turned and thrust the icing syringe into the arms of the groaning Myria. 'Grab that. And make some kind of... of sling or something. I want you to be carrying as many of those chocolate eggs as possible. And the cremes. And the liqueurs. Understand? You can do it!'

    Oh, gods, there was no alternative. The poor thing needed some kind of morale boost. 'Please, Myria? And that's a stupid name! You're not many, you're one. Okay? Just be... yourself. Unity... that'd be a good name.'

    The new Unity raised a mascara-streaked face. 'Yes, it is, it's a good name...'

    Susan snatched as much merchandise as she could carry, aware of some rustling behind her, and turned to find Unity standing to attention holding, by the look of it, a bench-worth of assorted confectionery in...

    ... a sort of big cerise sack.

    'Oh. Good. Intelligent use of the materials to hand,' said Susan weakly. Then the teacher within her cut in and added, 'I hope you brought enough for everybody.'

    * * *

    'You were the first,' said Lu-Tze. 'You basically created the whole business. Innovative, you were.'

    'That was then,' said Ronnie Soak. 'It's all changed now.'

    'Not like it used to be,' agreed Lu-Tze.

    'Take Death,' said Ronnie Soak. 'Impressive, I'll grant you, and who doesn't look good in black? But, after all, Death... What's death?'

    'Just a big sleep,' said Lu-Tze.

    'Just a big sleep,' said Ronnie Soak. 'As for the others... War? If war's so bad, why do people keep doing it?'

    'Practically a hobby,' said Lu-Tze. He began to roll himself a cigarette.

    'Practically a hobby,' said Ronnie Soak. 'As for Famine and Pestilence, well...'

    'Enough said,' said Lu-Tze sympathetically.

    'Exactly. I mean, Famine's a fearful thing, obviously-'

    '-in an agricultural community, but you've got to move with the times,' said Lu-Tze, putting the roll-up in his mouth.

    'That's it,' said Ronnie. 'You've got to move with the times. I mean, does your average city person fear famine?'

    'No, he thinks food grows in shops,' said Lu-Tze. He was beginning to enjoy this. He had eight hundred years' worth of experience in steering the thoughts of his superiors, and most of them had been intelligent. He decided to strike out a little.

    'Fire, now: city folk really fear fire,' he said. 'That's new. Your primitive villager, he reckoned fire was a good thing, didn't he? Kept the wolves away. If it burned down his hut, well, logs and turf are cheap enough. But now he lives in a street of crowded wooden houses and everyone's cooking in their rooms, well-'

    Ronnie glared.

    'Fire? Fire? Just a demi-god! Some little tea-leaf pinches the flame from the gods and suddenly he's immortal? You call that training and experience?' A spark leapt from Ronnie's fingers and ignited the end of Lu-Tze's cigarette. 'And as for gods-'

    'Johnny-come-latelys, the pack of 'em,' said Lu-Tze quickly.

    'Right! People started worshipping them because they were afraid of me,' said Ronnie. 'Did you know that?'

    'No, really?' said Lu-Tze innocently.

    But now Ronnie sagged. 'That was then, of course,' he said. 'It's different now. I'm not what I used to be.'

    'No, no, obviously not, no,' said Lu-Tze soothingly. 'But it's all a matter of how you look at it, am I correct? Now, supposing a man- that is to say a-'

    'Anthropomorphic personification,' said Ronnie Soak. 'But I've always preferred the term "avatar".'

    Lu-Tze's brow wrinkled. 'You fly around a lot?' he said.

    'That would be aviator.'

    'Sorry. Well, supposing an avatar, thank you, who was perhaps a bit ahead of his time thousands of years ago, well, supposing he took a good look around now, he might just find the world is ready for him again.'

    Lu-Tze waited. 'My abbot, now, he reckons you are the bees' knees,' he said, for a little reinforcement.

    'Does he?' said Ronnie Soak suspiciously.

    'Bee's knees, cat's pyjamas and dog's... elbows,' Lu-Tze finished. 'He's written scroll's and scroll's about you. Says you are hugely important in understanding how the universe works.'

    'Yeah, but... he's just one man,' said Ronnie Soak, with all the sullen reluctance of someone cuddling a lifetime's huge snit like a favourite soft toy.

    'Technically, yes,' said Lu-Tze. 'But he's an abbot. And brainy? He thinks such big thoughts he needs a second lifetime just to finish them off! Let a lot of peasants fear famine, I say, but someone like you should aim for quality. And you look at the cities, now. Back in the old days there were just heaps of mud bricks with names like Ur and Uh and Ugg. These days there's millions of people living in cities. Very, very complicated cities. Just you think about what they really, really fear. And fear... Well, fear is belief. Hmm?'

    There was another long pause.

    'Well, all right, but...' Ronnie began.

    'Of course, they won't be living in 'em very long, because by the time the grey people have finished taking them to pieces to see how they work there won't be any belief left.'

    'My customers do depend on me...' Ronnie Soak mumbled.

    'What customers? That's Soak speaking,' said Lu-Tze. 'That's not the voice of Kaos.'

    'Hah!' said Kaos bitterly. 'You haven't told me yet how you worked that one out.'

    'Because I've got more than three brain cells and you're vain and you painted your actual name back to front on your cart whether you knew it or not and a dark window is a mirror and K and S are still recognizable in a reflection even when they're back to front, thought Lu-Tze. But that wasn't a good way forward.

    'It was just obvious,' he said. 'You sort of shine through. It's like putting a sheet over an elephant. You might not be able to see it, but you're sure the elephants still there.'

    Kaos looked wretched. 'I don't know,' he said. 'It's been a long time-'

    'Oh? And I thought you said you were Number One?' said Lu-Tze, deciding on a new approach. 'Sorry! Still, I suppose it's not your fault you've lost a few skills over the centuries, what with one thing and-'

    'Lost skills?' snapped Kaos, waving a finger under the sweeper's nose. 'I could certainly take you to the cleaners, you little maggot!'

    'What with? A dangerous yoghurt?' said Lu-Tze, climbing off the cart.

    Kaos leapt down after him. 'Where do you get off, talking to me like that?' he demanded.

    Lu-Tze glanced up. 'Corner of Merchant and Broad Way,' he said. 'So what?'

    Kaos roared. He tore off his striped apron and his white cap. He seemed to grow in size. Darkness evaporated off him like smoke.

    Lu-Tze folded his hands and grinned. 'Remember Rule One,' he said.

    'Rules? Rules? I'm Kaos!'

    'Who was the first?' said Lu-Tze.

    'Yes!'

    'Creator and Destroyer?'

    'Damn right!'

    'Apparently complicated, apparently patternless behaviour that nevertheless has a simple, deterministic explanation and is a key to new levels of understanding of the multidimensional universe?'

    'You'd better believe it- What?'

    'Got to move with the times, mister, got to keep up!' shouted Lu-Tze excitedly, hopping from foot to foot. 'You're what people think you are! And they've changed you! I hope you're good at sums!'

    'You can't tell me what to be!' Kaos roared. 'I'm Kaos!'

    'You don't think so? Well, your big comeback ain't gonna happen now that the Auditors have taken over! The rules, mister! That's what they are! They're the cold dead rules!'

    Silver lightning flickered in the walking cloud that had once been Ronnie. Then cloud, cart and horse vanished.

    'Well, could have been worse, I suppose,' said Lu-Tze to himself. 'Not a very bright lad, really. Possibly a bit too old-fashioned.'

    He turned round and found a crowd of Auditors watching him. There were dozens of them.

    He sighed and grinned his sheepish little grin. He'd had just about enough for one day.

    'Well I expect you have heard of Rule One, right?' he said.

    That seemed to give them pause. One said, 'We know millions of rules, human.'

    'Billions. Trillions,' said another.

    'Well you can't attack me,' said Lu-Tze, ''cos of Rule One.'

    The nearest Auditors went into a huddle.

    'It must involve gravitation.'

    'No, quantum effects. Obviously.'

    'Logically there cannot be a Rule One because at that point there would be no concept of plurality.'

    'But if there is not a Rule One, can there be any other rules? If there is no Rule One, where is Rule Two?'

    'There are millions of rules! They cannot fail to be numbered!'

    Wonderful thought Lu-Tze. All I have to do is wait until their heads melt.

    But an Auditor stepped forward. It looked more wild-eyed than the others, and was much more unkempt. It was also carrying an axe.

    'We do not have to discuss this!' it snapped. 'We must think: This is nonsense, we will not discuss it!'

    'But what is Rule-' an Auditor began.

    'You will call me Mr White!'

    'Mr White, what is Rule One?'

    'I am not glad you asked that question!' screamed Mr White, and swung the axe. The body of the other Auditor crumbled in around the blade, dissolving into floating motes that dispersed in a fine cloud.

    'Anyone else got any questions?' said Mr White, raising the axe again.

    One or two Auditors, not yet entirely in tune with current developments, opened their mouths to speak. And shut them again.

    Lu-Tze took a few steps back. He prided himself on an incredibly well-honed ability to talk his way in or out of anything, but that rather depended on a passably sane entity being involved at the other end of the dialogue.

    Mr White turned to Lu-Tze. 'What are you doing out of your place, organic?'

    But Lu-Tze was overhearing another, whispered conversation. It was coming from the other side of a nearby wall, and it went like this:

    'Who cares about the damn wording!'

    'Accuracy is important, Susan. There is a precise description on the little map inside the lid. Look.'

    'And you think that will impress anyone?'

    'Please. Things should be done properly.'

    'Oh, give it to me, then!'

    Mr White advanced on Lu-Tze, axe raised. 'It is forbidden to-' he began.

    'Eat... Oh, good grief... Eat... "a delicious fondant sugar creme infused with delightfully rich and creamy raspberry filling wrapped in mysterious dark chocolate" ... you grey bastards!'

    A shower of small objects pattered down on the street. Several of them broke open.

    Lu-Tze heard a whine or, rather, the silence caused by the absence of a whine he'd grown used to.

    'Oh, no, I'm winding dow...'

    Trailing smoke, but looking more like a milkman again, albeit one that'd just delivered to a blazing house, Ronnie Soak stormed into his dairy.

    'Who does he think he is?' he muttered, gripping the spotless edge of a counter so hard that the metal bent. 'Hah, oh yes, they just toss you aside, but when they want you to make a comeback-'

    Under his fingers the metal went white hot and then dripped.

    'I've got customers. I've got customers. People depend on me. It might not be a glamorous job, but people will always need milk-'

    He clapped a hand to his forehead. Where the molten metal touched his skin the metal evaporated.

    The headache was really bad.

    He could remember the time when there was only him. It was hard to remember, because... there was nothing, no colour, no sound, no pressure, no time, no spin, no light, no life...

    Just Kaos.

    And the thought arose: Do I want that again? The perfect order that goes with changelessness?

    More thoughts were following that one, like little silvery eels in his mind. He was, after all, a Horseman, and had been ever since the time the people in mud cities on baking plains put together some hazy idea of Something that had existed before anyone else. And a Horseman picks up the noises of the world. The mud-city people and the skin-tent people, they'd known instinctively that the world swirled perilously through a complex and uncaring multiverse, that life was lived a mirrors thickness from the cold of space and the gulfs of night. They knew that everything they called reality, the web of rules that made life happen, was a bubble on the tide. They feared old Kaos. But now-

    He opened his eyes and looked down at his dark, smoking hands. To the world in general, he said, 'Who am I now?'

    Lu-Tze heard his voice speed up from nothing: '-wn...'

    'No, you're wound up again,' said a young woman in front of him. She stood back, giving him a critical look. Lu-Tze, for the first time in eight hundred years, felt that he'd been caught doing something wrong. It was that kind of expression - searching, rummaging around inside his head.

    'You'll be Lu-Tze, then,' said Susan. 'I'm Susan Sto Helit. No time for explanations. You've been out for... well, not for long. We have to get Lobsang to the glass clock. Are you any good? Lobsang thinks you're a bit of a fraud.'

    'Only a bit? I'm surprised.' Lu-Tze looked around. 'What happened here?'

    The street was empty, except for the ever-present statues. But scraps of silver paper and coloured wrappers littered the ground, and across the wall behind him was a long splash of what looked very much like chocolate icing.

    'Some of them got away,' said Susan, picking up what Lu-Tze could only hope was a giant icing syringe. 'Mostly they fought with one another. Would you try to tear someone apart just for a coffee creme?'

    Lu-Tze looked into those eyes. After eight hundred years you learn how to read people. And Susan was a story that went back a very long way. She probably even knew about Rule One, and didn't care. This was someone to treat with respect. But you couldn't let even someone like her have it all their own way.

    'The kind with a coffee bean on the top, or the ordinary kind?' he said.

    'The kind without the coffee bean, I think,' said Susan, holding his gaze.

    'Nnn-o. No. No, I don't think I would,' said Lu-Tze.

    'But they are learning,' said a woman's voice behind the sweeper. 'Some resisted. We can learn. That's how humans became humans.'

    Lu-Tze regarded the speaker. She looked like a society lady who had just had a really bad day in a threshing machine.

    'Can I just be clear here?' he said, staring from one woman to the other. 'You've been fighting the grey people with chocolate?'

    'Yes,' said Susan, peering round the corner. 'It's the sensory explosion. They lose control of their morphic field. Can you throw at all? Good. Unity, give him as many chocolate eggs as he can carry. The secret is to get them to land hard so that there's lots of shrapnel-'

    'And where is Lobsang?' said Lu-Tze.

    'Him? You could say he's with us in spirit.'

    There were blue sparkles in the air.

    'Growing pains, I think,' Susan added.

    Centuries of experience once again came to Lu-Tze's aid.

    'He always looked like a lad who needed to find himself,' he said.

    'Yes,' said Susan. 'And it came as a bit of a shock. Let's go.'

    Death looked down at the world. Timelessness had reached the Rim now, and was expanding into the universe at the speed of light. The Discworld was a sculpture in crystal.

    Not an apocalypse. There had always been plenty of those - small apocalypses, not the full shilling at all, fake apocalypses: apocryphal apocalypses. Most of them had been back in the old days, when the world as in 'end of the world' was often objectively no wider than a few villages and a clearing in the forest.

    And those little worlds had ended. But there had always been somewhere else. There had been the horizon, to start with. The fleeing refugees would find that the world was bigger than they'd thought. A few villages in a clearing? Hah, how could they have been so stupid! Now they knew it was a whole island! Of course, there was that horizon again...

    The world had run out of horizons.

    As Death watched, the sun stopped in its orbit and its light became duller, redder.

    He sighed, and nudged Binky. The horse stepped forward, in a direction that could not be found on any map.

    And the sky was full of grey shapes. There was a ripple in the ranks of Auditors as the Pale Horse trotted forward.

    One drifted towards Death and hung in the air a few feet away. It said, Should you not be riding out?

    DO YOU SPEAK FOR ALL ?

    You know the custom, said the voice in Death's mind. Among us, one speaks for all.

    WHAT IS BEING DONE IS WRONG.

    It is not your business.

    NEVERTHELESS, WE ARE ALL ANSWERABLE.

    The universe will last for ever, said the voice. Everything preserved, ordered, understood, lawful, filed. .. changeless. A perfect world. Finished.

    NO.

    It will all end one day in any case.

    BUT THIS IS TOO SOON. THERE IS UNFINISHED BUSINESS.

    And that is-?

    EVERYTHING.

    And, with a flash of light, a figure clothèd all in white appeared, holding a book in one hand.

    It looked from Death to the endlessly massing ranks of the Auditors, and said: 'Sorry? Is this the right place?'

    Two Auditors were measuring the number of atoms in a paving slab.

    They looked up at a movement.

    'Good afternoon,' said Lu-Tze. 'May I draw your attention to the notice my assistant is holding up?'

    Susan held up the sign. It read: Mouths Must Be Open. By Order.

    And Lu-Tze unfolded his hands. There was a caramel in each one, and he was a good shot.

    The mouths shut. The faces went impassive. Then there was a sound somewhere between a purr and a wail, which disappeared into the ultrasonic. And then... the Auditors dissolved, gently, first going fuzzy around the edges and, as the process accelerated, swiftly becoming a spreading cloud.

    'Hand-to-mouth fighting,' said Lu-Tze. 'Why doesn't it happen to humans?'

    'It nearly does,' said Susan, and when they stared at her she blinked and said, 'To stupid, indulgent humans, anyway.'

    'You don't have to concentrate to stay the same shape,' said Unity. 'And that was the last of the caramels, by the way.'

    'No, there's six in one of W&B;'s Gold Selections,' said Susan. 'Three have got white chocolate cream in dark chocolate and three have got whipped cream in milk chocolate. They're the ones in the silver wrapp- Look, I just happen to know things, all right? Let's keep going, okay? Without mentioning chocolate.'

    You have no power over us, said the Auditor. We are not alive.

    BUT YOU ARE DEMONSTRATING ARROGANCE, PRIDE AND STUPIDITY. THESE ARE EMOTIONS. I WOULD SAY THEY ARE SIGNS OF LIFE.

    'Excuse me?' said the shining figure in white.

    But you are all alone here!

    'Excuse me?'

    YES? said Death. WHAT IS IT?

    'This is the Apocalypse, yes?' said the shining figure petulantly.

    WE ARE TALKING.

    'Yes, right, but is it the Apocalypse? The actual end of the actual whole world?'

    No, said the Auditor.

    YES, said Death. IT IS.

    'Great!' said the figure.

    What? said the Auditor.

    WHAT? said Death.

    The figure looked embarrassed. 'Well, not great, obviously. Obviously not great, as such. But it's what I'm here for. It's what I'm for, really.' It held up the book. 'Er, I've got the place marked ready. Wow! It's been, you know, so long...'

    Death glanced at the book. The cover and all the pages were made of iron. Realization dawned.

    YOU ARE THE ANGEL CLOTHED ALL IN WHITE OF THE IRON BOOK FROM THE PROPHECIES OF TOBRUN, AM I CORRECT?

    'That's right!' The pages clanged as the angel hurriedly thumbed through them. 'And it's clothèd, by the way, if you don't mind. Clo-theddd. Just a detail, I know, but I like to get it right.'

    What is happening here? the Auditor growled.

    I DON'T KNOW HOW TO TELL YOU THIS, said Death, ignoring the interruption, BUT YOU ARE NOT OFFICIAL.

    The pages stopped clanking. 'What do you mean?' said the angel suspiciously.

    THE BOOK OF TOBRUN HAS NOT BEEN CONSIDERED OFFICIAL CHURCH DOGMA FOR A HUNDRED YEARS. THE PROPHET BRUTHA REVEALED THAT THE WHOLE CHAPTER WAS A METAPHOR FOR A POWER STRUGGLE WITHIN THE EARLY CHURCH. IT IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE REVISED VERSION OF THE BOOK OF OM, AS DETERMINED BY THE CONVOCATION OF EE.

    'Not at all?'

    I'M SORRY.

    'I've been thrown out? Just like the damn rabbits and the big syrupy things?'

    YES.

    'Even the bit where I blow the trumpet?'

    OH, YES.

    'You sure?'

    ALWAYS.

    'But you are Death and this is the Apocalypse, right?' said the angel, looking wretched. 'So therefore-'

    UNFORTUNATELY, HOWEVER, YOU ARE NO LONGER A FORMAL PART OF THE PROCEEDINGS.

    Out of the corner of his mind, Death was observing the Auditor. Auditors always listened when people spoke. The more people spoke, the closer to consensus every decision came, and the less responsibility anyone had. But the Auditor was showing signs of impatience and annoyance...

    Emotions. And emotions made you alive. Death knew how to deal with the living.

    The angel looked around at the universe. 'Then what am I supposed to do?' he wailed. 'This is what Ive been waiting for! For thousands of years!' He stared at the iron book. 'Thousands of dull, boring, wasted years...' he mumbled.

    Have you quite finished? said the Auditor.

    'One big scene. That's all I had. That was my purpose. You wait, you practise - and then you're just edited out because brimstone is no longer a fashionable colour?' Anger was infusing the bitterness in the angel's voice. 'No one told me, of course...'

    He glared at the rusted pages. 'It ought to be Pestilence next,' he muttered.

    'Am I late, then?' said a voice in the night.

    A horse walked forward. It gleamed unhealthily, like a gangrenous wound just before the barber-surgeon would be called in with his hacksaw for a quick trim.

    I THOUGHT YOU WEREN'T COMING, said Death.

    'I didn't want to,' Pestilence oozed, 'but humans do get such interesting diseases. I'd rather like to see how weasles turn out, too.' One crusted eye winked at Death.

    'You mean measles?' said the angel.

    'Weasles, I'm afraid,' said Pestilence. 'People are getting really careless with this bio-artificing. We're talking boil's that really bite.'

    Two of you will not suffice! snarled the Auditor in their heads.

    A horse walked out of the darkness. Some toast racks had more flesh.

    'I've been thinking,' said a voice. 'Maybe there are things worth putting up a fight for.'

    'And they are-?' said Pestilence, looking round.

    'Salad-cream sandwiches. You just can't beat them. That tang of permitted emulsifiers? Marvellous.'

    'Hah! You're Famine, then?' said the Angel of the Iron Book. It fumbled with the heavy pages again.

    What, what, what is this nonsense of 'salad cream'? [18] shouted the Auditor.

    Anger, thought Death. A powerful emotion.

    'Do I like salad cream?' said a voice in the dark.

    A second, female voice replied: 'No, dear, it gives you hives.'

    The horse of War was huge and red and the heads of dead warriors hung from the saddle horn. And Mrs War was hanging on to War, grimly.

    'All four. Bingo!' said the Angel of the Iron Book. 'So much for the Convocation of Ee!'

    War had a woolly scarf round his neck. He looked sheepishly at the other Horsemen.

    'He's not to strain himself,' said Mrs War sharply. 'And you're not to let him do anything dangerous. He's not as strong as he thinks. And he gets confused.'

    So, the gang is all here, said the Auditor.

    Smugness, Death noticed. And self-satisfaction.

    There was a clanging as of metal pages. The Angel of the Iron Book was looking puzzled.

    'Actually, I don't think that's entirely correct,' it said.

    No one paid it any attention.

    Off you go on your little pantomime, said the Auditor.

    And now irony and sarcasm, thought Death. They must be picking it up from the ones down in the world. All the little things that go to make up a... personality.

    He looked along the row of Horsemen. They caught his eye, and there were almost imperceptible nods from Famine and Pestilence.

    War turned in the saddle and spoke to his wife. 'Right now, dear, I'm not confused at all. Could you get down, please?'

    'Remember what happened when-' Mrs War began.

    'Right now, please, my dear,' said War, and this time his voice, which was still calm and polite, had echoes of steel and bronze.

    'Er... oh.' Mrs War was suddenly flustered. 'That was just how you used to talk when-' She stopped, blushed happily for a moment, and slid off the horse.

    War nodded at Death.

    And now you must all go and bring terror and destruction and so on and so forth, said the Auditor. Correct?

    Death nodded. Floating in the air above him, the Angel of the Iron Book slammed the pages back and forth in an effort to find his place.

    EXACTLY. ONLY, WHILE IT IS TRUE WE HAVE TO RIDE OUT, Death added, drawing his sword, IT DOESN'T SAY ANYWHERE AGAINST WHOM.

    Your meaning? hissed the Auditor, but now there was a flicker of fear. Things were happening that it didn't understand.

    Death grinned. In order to fear, you had to be a me. Don't let anything happen to me. That was the song of fear.

    'He means,' said War, 'that he asked us all to think about whose side we're really on.'

    Four swords were drawn, blazing along their edges like flame. Four horses charged.

    The Angel of the Iron Book looked down at Mrs War.

    'Excuse me,' he said, 'but do you have a pencil?'

    Susan peered round the corner into Artificers Street, and groaned. 'It's full of them... and I think they've gone mad.'

    Unity took a look. 'No. They have not gone mad. They are being Auditors. They are taking measurements, assessing and standardizing where necessary.'

    'They're taking up the paving slabs now!'

    'Yes. I suspect it is because they are the wrong size. We do not like irregularities.'

    'What the hell is the wrong size for a slab of rock?'

    'Any size that is not the average size. I'm sorry.'

    The air around Susan flashed blue. She was very briefly aware of a human shape, transparent, spinning gently, which vanished again.

    But a voice in her ear, in her ear said: Nearly strong enough. Can you get to the end of the street?

    'Yes. Are you sure? You couldn't do anything to the clock before!'

    Before, I was not me.

    A movement in the air made Susan look up. The lightning bolt that had stood rigid over the dead city had gone. The clouds were rolling like ink poured into water. There were flashes within them, sulphurous yellows and reds.

    The Four Horsemen are fighting the other Auditors, Lobsang supplied.

    'Are they winning?'

    Lobsang did not answer.

    'I said-'

    It's hard for me to say. I can see... everything. Everything that could be...

    Kaos listened to history.

    There were new words. Wizards and philosophers had found Chaos, which is Kaos with his hair combed and a tie on, and had found in the epitome of disorder a new order undreamed of. There are different kinds of rules. From the simple comes the complex, and from the complex comes a different kind of simplicity. Chaos is order in a mask...

    Chaos. Not dark, ancient Kaos, left behind by the evolving universe, but new, shiny Chaos, dancing in the heart of everything. The idea was strangely attractive. And it was a reason to go on living.

    Ronnie Soak adjusted his cap. Oh, yes... there was one last thing.

    The milk was always lovely and fresh. Everyone remarked on that. Of course, being everywhere at seven in the morning was no trouble to him. If even the Hogfather could climb down every chimney in the world in one night, doing a milk round for most of a city in one second was hardly a major achievement.

    Keeping things cool was, however. But there he had been lucky. Mr Soak walked into the ice room, where his breath turned to fog in the frigid air. Churns were stacked across the floor, sparkling on the outside. Vats of butter and cream were piled on shelves that glistened with ice. Rack after rack of eggs were just visible through the frost. He'd been planning to add the ice-cream business in the summer. It was such an obvious step. Besides, he needed to use up the cold.

    A stove was burning in the middle of the floor. Mr Soak always bought good coal from the dwarfs, and the iron plates were glowing red. The room, one felt, ought to be an oven, but there was a gentle sizzling on the stove as frost battled with the heat. With the stove roaring, the room was merely an ice-box. Without the stove...

    Ronnie opened the door of a white-rimmed cupboard and smashed at the ice within with his fist. Then he reached inside.

    What emerged, crackling with blue flame, was a sword.

    It was a work of art, the sword. It had imaginary velocity, negative energy and positive cold, cold so cold that it met heat coming the other way and took on something of its nature. Burning cold. There had never been anything as cold as this since before the universe began. In fact, it seemed to Chaos, everything since then had been merely lukewarm.

    'Well, I'm back,' he said.

    The Fifth Horseman rode out, and a faint smell of cheese followed him.

    Unity looked at the other two, and at the blue glow that still hovered around the group. They had taken cover behind a fruit barrow.

    'If I may make a suggestion,' she said, 'it is that w- that Auditors are not good with surprises. The impulse is always to consult. And the assumption is always that there will be a plan.'

    'So?' said Susan.

    'I suggest total madness. I suggest you and... and the... young man run for the shop, and I will attract the attention of the Auditors. I believe this old man should assist me because he will die soon in any case.'

    There was silence.

    'Accurate yet unnecessary,' said Lu-Tze.

    'That was not good etiquette?' she said.

    'It could have been better. However, is it not written, "When you have got to go, you have got to go" ?' said Lu-Tze. 'And also that, "You should always wear clean underwear because you never know if you will be knocked down by a cart"?'

    'Will it help?' said Unity, looking very puzzled.

    'That is one of the great mysteries of the Way,' said Lu-Tze, nodding sagely. 'What chocolate do we have left?'

    'We're down to the nougat now,' said Unity. 'And I believe nougat is a terrible thing to cover with chocolate, where it can ambush the unsuspecting. Susan?'

    Susan was peering up the street. 'Mmm?'

    'Do you have any chocolate left?'

    Susan shook her head. 'Mmm-mmm.'

    'I believe you were carrying the cherry cremes?'

    'Mmm?'

    Susan swallowed, and then gave a cough that expressed, in a remarkably concise way, embarrassment and annoyance.

    'I just had one!' she snapped. 'I need the sugar.'

    'I'm sure no one said you did have more than one,' said Unity meekly.

    'We haven't been counting at all,' said Lu-Tze.

    'If you have a handkerchief,' said Unity, still diplomatically, 'I could wipe away the chocolate around your mouth which must have inadvertently got there during the last engagement.'

    Susan glared and used the back of her hand.

    'It's just the sugar,' she said. 'That's all. It's fuel. And do stop going on about it! Look, we can't just let you die to get-'

    Yes, we can, said Lobsang.

    'Why?' said Susan, shocked.

    Because I have seen everything.

    'Would you like to tell everyone?' said Susan, reverting to Classroom Sarcasm. 'We'd all like to know how this ends!'

    You misunderstand the meaning of 'everything'.

    Lu-Tze rummaged in his sack of ammunition and produced two chocolate eggs and a paper bag. Unity went white at the sight of the bag.

    'I didn't know we had any of those!' she said.

    'Good, are they?'

    'Coffee beans coated in chocolate,' breathed Susan. 'They should be outlawed!'

    The two women watched in horror as Lu-Tze put one in his mouth. He gave them a surprised look.

    'Quite nice, but I prefer liquorice,' he said.

    'You mean you don't want another one?' said Susan.

    'No, thank you.'

    'Are you sure?'

    'Yes. I'd quite like liquorice, though, if you have any...'

    'Have you had some special monk training?'

    'Well, not in chocolate combat, no,' said Lu-Tze. 'But is it not written, "If you have another one you won't have an appetite for your dinner"?'

    'You really mean you will not eat a second chocolate coffee bean?'

    'No, thank you.'

    Susan looked across at Unity, who was trembling. 'You do have tastebuds, don't you?' she said, but she felt a pressure on her arm pulling her away.

    'You two get behind that cart over there and run when you get the signal,' said Lu-Tze. 'Go now!'

    'What signal?'

    We'll know, said the voice of Lobsang.

    Lu-Tze watched them hurry away. Then he picked up his broom in one hand and stepped out into the view of a street full of grey people.

    'Excuse me?' he said. 'Could I have your attention, please?'

    'What is he doing?' said Susan, crouching behind the cart.

    They're all going towards him, said Lobsang. Some of them have weapons.

    'They'll be the ones giving the orders,' said Susan.

    Are you sure?

    'Yes. They've learned from humans. Auditors aren't used to taking orders. They need persuading.'

    He's telling them about Rule One, and that means he's got a plan. I think it's working. Yes!

    'What's he done? What's he done?'

    Come on! He'll be fine!

    Susan leapt up. 'Good!'

    Yes, they've cut his head off...

    * * *

    Fear, anger, envy... Emotions bring you alive, which is a brief period just before you die. The grey shapes fled in front of the swords.

    But there were billions of them. And they had their own ways of fighting. Passive, subtle ways.

    'This is stupid!' Pestilence shouted. 'They can't even catch a common cold!'

    'No soul to damn, no arse to kick!' said War, hacking at grey shreds that rolled away from his blade.

    'They have a kind of hunger,' said Famine. 'I just can't find a way to get at it!'

    The horses were reined in. The wall of greyness hovered in the distance, and began to close in again.

    THEY ARE FIGHTING BACK, said Death. CAN YOU NOT FEEL IT?

    'I just feel we're too damn stupid,' said War.

    AND WHERE DOES THAT FEELING COME FROM?

    'Are you saying they're affecting our minds?' said Pestilence. 'We're Horsemen! How can they do that to us?'

    WE HAVE BECOME TOO HUMAN.

    'Us? Human? Don't make me lau-'

    LOOK AT THE SWORD IN YOUR HAND, said Death. DON'T YOU NOTICE ANYTHING?

    'It's a sword. Sword-shaped. Well?'

    LOOK AT THE HAND. FOUR FINGERS AND A THUMB. A HUMAN HAND. HUMANS GAVE YOU THAT SHAPE. AND THAT IS THE WAY IN. LISTEN! DO YOU NOT FEEL SMALL IN A BIG UNIVERSE? THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE SINGING. IT IS BIG AND YOU ARE SMALL AND AROUND YOU THERE IS NOTHING BUT THE COLD OF SPACE AND YOU ARE SO VERY ALONE.

    The other three Horsemen looked unsettled, nervous.

    'That's coming from them?' said War.

    YES. IT IS THE FEAR AND HATRED THAT MATTER HAS FOR LIFE AND THEY ARE THE BEARERS OF THAT HATRED.

    'Then what can we do?' said Pestilence. 'There're too many of them!'

    DID YOU THINK THAT THOUGHT, OR DID THEY? Death snapped.

    'They're coming closer again,' said War.

    THEN WE WILL DO WHAT WE CAN.

    'Four swords against an army? That'll never work!'

    YOU THOUGHT IT MIGHT A FEW MOMENTS AGO. WHO IS TALKING FOR YOU NOW? HUMANS HAVE ALWAYS FACED US AND THEY HAVE NOT SURRENDERED.

    'Well, yes,' said Pestilence. 'But with us they could always hope for a remission.'

    'Or a sudden truce,' said War.

    'Or-' Famine began, and hesitated, and said finally, 'A shower of fish?' He looked at their expressions. 'That actually happened once,' he added defiantly.

    IN ORDER TO HAVE A CHANGE OF FORTUNE AT THE LAST MINUTE YOU HAVE TO TAKE YOUR FORTUNE TO THE LAST MINUTE, said Death. WE MUST DO WHAT WE CAN.

    'And if that doesn't work?' said Pestilence.

    Death gathered up Binky's reins. The Auditors were much closer now. He could make out their individual, identical shapes. Remove one, and there were always a dozen more.

    THEN WE DID WHAT WE COULD, he said, UNTIL WE COULD NOT.

    On his cloud, the Angel Clothèd all in White wrestled with the Iron Book.

    'What are they talking about?' said Mrs War.

    'I don't know, I can't hear! And these two pages are stuck together!' said the angel. It scrabbled ineffectively at them for a moment.

    'This is all because he wouldn't wear his vest,' said Mrs War firmly. 'It's just the sort of thing I-'

    She had to stop because the angel had wrenched the halo from its head and was dragging it down the fused edge of the pages, with sparks and a sound like a cat slipping down a blackboard.

    The pages clanged apart.

    'Right, let's see...' It scanned the newly revealed text. 'Done that... done that... oh...' It stopped and turned a pale face to Mrs War.

    'Oh, boy,' it said, 'we're in trouble now.'

    A comet sprang up from the world below, growing visibly larger as the angel spoke. It flamed across the sky, burning fragments detaching and dropping away and revealing, as it closed with the Horsemen, a chariot on fire.

    It was a blue flame. Chaos burned with cold.

    The figure standing in the chariot wore a full-face helmet dominated by two eye holes that looked slightly like the wings of a butterfly and rather more like the eyes of some strange, alien creature. The burning horse, barely sweating, trotted to a halt; the other horses, regardless of their riders, moved aside to make room.

    'Oh, no,' said Famine, waving a hand in disgust. 'Not him, too? I said what'd happen if he came back, didn't I? Remember that time he threw the minstrel out of the hotel window in Zok? Didn't I say-'

    SHUT UP, said Death. He nodded. HELLO, RONNIE. GOOD TO SEE YOU. I WONDERED IF YOU WOULD COME.

    A hand trailing cold steam came up and removed the helmet.

    'Hello, boys,' said Chaos pleasantly.

    'Uh... long time no see,' said Pestilence.

    War coughed. 'Heard you were doing well,' he said.

    'Yes, indeed,' said Ronnie, in a careful tone of voice. 'There's a real future in the retail milk and milk derivatives business.'

    Death glanced at the Auditors. They'd stopped moving in but were circling, watchfully.

    'Well, the world will always need cheese,' said War desperately. 'Haha.'

    'Looks like there's some trouble here,' said Ronnie.

    'We can handl-' Famine began.

    WE CAN'T, said Death. YOU CAN SEE HOW IT IS, RONNIE. TIMES HAVE CHANGED. WOULD YOU CARE TO SIT IN FOR THIS ONE?

    'Hey, we haven't discussed-' Famine began, but stopped when War glared at him.

    Ronnie Soak put on his helmet, and Chaos drew his sword. It glinted and, like the glass clock, looked like the intrusion into the world of something a great deal more complex.

    'Some old man told me you live and learn,' he said. 'Well. I have lived, and now I've learned that the edge of a sword is infinitely long. I've also learned how to make damn good yoghurt, although this is not a skill I intend to employ today. Shall we go get' em, boys?'

    Far down, in the street, a few of the Auditors moved forward.

    'What is Rule One?' said one of them.

    'It does not matter. I am Rule One!' An Auditor with a big axe waved them back. 'Obedience is necessary!'

    The Auditors wavered, watching the cleaver. They'd learned about pain. They'd never felt pain before, not in billions of years. Those who had felt it had no desire at all to feel it again.

    'Very well,' said Mr White. 'Now get back to-'

    A chocolate egg spun out of nowhere and smashed on the stones. The crowd of Auditors rippled forward, but Mr White slashed the axe through the air a few times.

    'Stand back! Stand back!' he screamed. 'You three! Find out who threw that! It came from behind that stall! No one is to touch the brown material!'

    He stooped carefully and picked up a large fragment of chocolate, on which could just be made out the shape of a smiling duck in yellow icing. Hand shaking and sweat beading his forehead, he raised it aloft and flourished the cleaver triumphantly. There was a collective sigh from the crowd.

    'You see?' he shouted. 'The body can be overcome! You see? We can find a way to live! If you are good, there may be brown material! If you disobey, there will be the sharp edge! Ah...' He lowered his arms as a struggling Unity was dragged towards him.

    'The pathfinder,' he said, 'the renegade...'

    He walked towards the captive. 'What will it be?' he said. 'The cleaver or the brown material?'

    'It's called chocolate,' snapped Unity. 'I do not eat it.'

    'We shall see,' Mr White said. 'Your associate seemed to prefer the axe!'

    He pointed to the body of Lu-Tze.

    To the empty patch of cobbles where Lu-Tze had been.

    A hand tapped him on the shoulder.

    'Why is it,' said a voice by his ear, 'that no one ever believes in Rule One?'

    Above him the sky began to burn blue.

    Susan sped up the street to the clock shop.

    She glanced sideways, and Lobsang was there, running beside her. He looked... human, except that not many humans had a blue glow around them.

    'There will be grey men around the clock!' he shouted.

    'Trying to find what makes it tick?'

    'Hah! Yes!'

    'What are you going to do?'

    'Smash it!'

    'That'll destroy history!'

    'So?'

    He reached out and took her hand. She felt a shock run up her arm.

    'You won't need to open the door! You won't need to stop! Head straight for the clock!' he said.

    'But-'

    'Don't talk to me! I've got to remember!'

    'Remember what?'

    'Everything!'

    Mr White was already raising the axe as he turned round. But you just can't trust a body. It thinks for itself. When it is surprised, it does a number of things even before the brain has been informed. The mouth opens, for example.

    'Ah, good,' said Lu-Tze, raising his cupped hand. 'Eat this!'

    The door was no more substantial than mist. There were Auditors in the workshop, but Susan moved through them like a ghost.

    The clock glowed. And, as she ran towards it, it moved away. The floor unrolled in front of her, dragging her back. The clock accelerated towards some distant event horizon. At the same time it grew bigger but became more insubstantial, as if the same amount of clockness was trying to spread itself across more space.

    Other things were happening. She blinked, but there was no flicker of darkness.

    'Ah,' she said to herself, 'so I'm not seeing with my eyes. And what else? What's happening to me? My hand... looks normal, but does that mean it is? Am I getting smaller or bigger? Does-?'

    'Are you always like this?' said the voice of Lobsang.

    'Like what? I can feel your hand and I can hear your voice - at least, I think I can hear it, but maybe it's just in my head - but I can't feel myself running-'

    'So... so analytical?'

    'Of course. What am I supposed to be thinking? "Oh, my paws and whiskers"? Anyway, it's quite straightforward. It's all metaphorical. My senses are telling me stories because they can't cope with what is really happening-'

    'Don't let go of my hand.'

    'It's all right, I won't let you go.'

    'I meant, don't let go of my hand because otherwise every part of your body will be compressed into a space much, much smaller than an atom.'

    'Oh.'

    'And don't try to imagine what this really looks like from outside. Here comes the cloooccckkkkkkk-'

    Mr White's mouth closed. His expression of surprise became one of horror, and then one of shock, and then one of terrible, wonderful bliss.

    He began to unravel. He came apart like a big and complex jigsaw puzzle made of tiny pieces, crumbling gently at the extremities and then vanishing into the air. The last piece to evaporate was the lips, and then they too were gone.

    A half-chewed chocolate-coated coffee bean dropped onto the street. Lu-Tze reached down quickly, picked up the axe and flourished it at the other Auditors. They leaned back out of the way, mesmerized by authority.

    'Who does this belong to now?' he demanded. 'Come on, whose is it?'

    'It is mine! I am Miss Taupe!' shouted a woman in grey.

    'I am Mr Orange and it belongs to me! No one is even sure that taupe is a proper colour!' screamed Mr Orange.

    An Auditor in the crowd said, rather more thoughtfully, 'Is it the case, then, that hierarchy is negotiable?'

    'Certainly not!' Mr Orange was jumping up and down.

    'You have to decide it amongst yourselves,' said Lu-Tze. He tossed the axe into the air. A hundred pairs of eyes watched it fall.

    Mr Orange got there first, but Miss Taupe trod on his fingers. After that, it became very busy and confusing and, to judge by the sounds from within the growing scrum, also very, very painful.

    Lu-Tze took the arm of the astonished Unity.

    'Shall we be going?' he said. 'Oh, don't worry about me. I was just desperate enough to try something I'd learned from a yeti. It did sting a bit...'

    There was a scream from somewhere in the mob.

    'Democracy at work,' said Lu-Tze happily. He glanced up. The flames above the world were dying out, and he wondered who'd won.

    There was bright blue light ahead and dark red light behind, and it amazed Susan how she could see both kinds without opening her eyes and turning her head. Eyes open or shut, she couldn't see herself. All that told her that she was something else besides mere point of view was a slight pressure on what she remembered as her fingers. And the sound of someone laughing, close to her.

    A voice said, 'The sweeper said everyone has to find a teacher and then find their Way.'

    'And?' said Susan.

    'This is my Way. It's the way home.'

    And then, with a noise that was unromantically very similar to the kind Jason would make by putting a wooden ruler on the edge of his desk and twanging it, the journey ended.

    It might not even have begun. The glass clock was in front of her, full size, glittering. There was no blue glow inside. It was just a clock, entirely transparent, and ticking.

    Susan looked down the length of her arm, and up his arm to Lobsang. He let go of her hand.

    'We're here,' he said.

    'With the clock?' said Susan. She could feel herself gasping to get her breath back.

    'This is only a part of the clock,' said Lobsang. 'The other part.'

    'The bit outside the universe?'

    'Yes. The clock has many dimensions. Do not be afraid.'

    'I don't think I have ever been afraid of anything in my life,' said Susan, still gulping air. 'Not really afraid. I get angry. I'm getting angry now, in fact. Are you Lobsang or are you Jeremy?'

    'Yes.'

    'Yes, I walked into that. Are you Lobsang and are you Jeremy?'

    'Much closer. Yes. I will always remember both of them. But I would prefer you to call me Lobsang. Lobsang has the better memories. I never liked the name Jeremy even when I was Jeremy.'

    'You really are both of them?'

    'I am... everything about them that was worth being, I hope. They were very different and they were both me, born just an instant apart, and neither of them was very happy by himself. It makes you wonder if there is anything to astrology after all.'

    'Oh, there is,' said Susan. 'Delusion, wishful thinking and gullibility.'

    'Don't you ever let go?'

    'I haven't yet.'

    'Why?'

    'I suppose... because in this world, after everyone panics, there's always got to be someone to tip the wee out of the shoe.'

    The clock ticked. The pendulum swung. But the hands did not move.

    'Interesting,' said Lobsang. 'You're not a follower of the Way of Mrs Cosmopilite, are you?'

    'I don't even know what it is,' said Susan.

    'Have you got your breath back now?'

    'Yes.'

    'Let's turn around, then.'

    Personal time moved on again, and a voice behind them said, 'Is this yours?'

    Behind them there were glass steps. At the top of the steps was a man dressed like a History Monk, shaven-headed, besandalled. The eyes gave away a lot more. A young man who'd been alive for a very long time, Mrs Ogg had said, and she had been right.

    He was holding a struggling Death of Rats by the scruff of his robe.

    'Er, he's his own,' said Susan, as Lobsang bowed.

    'Then please take him away with you. We cannot have him running around here. Hello, my son.'

    Lobsang walked towards him and they embraced, briefly and formally.

    'Father,' said Lobsang, straightening up. 'This is Susan. She has been... very helpful.'

    'Of course she has,' said the monk, smiling at Susan. 'She is helpfulness personified.' He put the Death of Rats on the floor and prodded him forward.

    'Yes, I'm very dependable,' said Susan.

    'And interestingly sarcastic, too,' the monk added. 'I am Wen. Thank you for joining us. And for helping our son find himself.'

    Susan looked from the father to the son. The words and the movements were stilted and chilly, but there was a communication going on that she wasn't party to, and it was happening a lot faster than speech.

    'Aren't we supposed to be saving the world?' she said. 'I don't want to rush anybody, of course.'

    'There's something I must do first,' said Lobsang. 'I must meet my mother.'

    'Have we got ti-?' Susan began, and then added, 'We have, haven't we? All the time in the world.'

    'Oh, no. Far more time than that,' said Wen. 'Besides, there's always time to save the world.'

    Time appeared. Again there was the impression that a figure that was in the air, unfocused, was resolving itself into a million specks of matter that poured together and filled a shape in space, slowly at first and then... someone was there.

    She was a tall woman, quite young, dark-haired, wearing a long red-and-black dress. By the look on her face, Susan thought, she had been weeping. But she was smiling now.

    Wen took Susan by the arm, and gently pulled her aside.

    'They'll want to talk,' he said. 'Shall we walk?'

    The room vanished. Now there was a garden, with peacocks and fountains, and a stone seat, upholstered with moss.

    Lawns unrolled towards woodlands that had the manicured look of an estate that had been maintained for hundreds of years so that nothing grew here that was not wanted, or in the wrong place. Long-tailed birds, their plumage like living jewels, flashed from treetop to treetop. Deeper in the woods, other birds called.

    As Susan watched, a kingfisher alighted on the edge of a fountain. It glanced at her and flew away, its wingbeats sounding like a snapping of tiny fans.

    'Look,' said Susan, 'I don't... I'm not... Look, I understand this sort of thing. Really. I'm not stupid. My grandfather has a garden where everything is black. But Lobsang built the clock! Well, part of him did. So he's saving the world and destroying it, all at once?'

    'Family trait,' said Wen. 'It is what Time does at every instant.'

    He gave Susan the look of a teacher confronted with a keen but stupid pupil.

    'Think like this,' he said at last. 'Think of everything. It's an everyday word. But "everything" means... everything. It's a much bigger word than "universe". And everything contains all possible things that can happen at all possible times in all possible worlds. Don't look for complete solutions in anyone of them. Sooner or later, everything causes everything else.'

    'Are you saying one little world is not important, then?' said Susan.

    Wen waved a hand, and two glasses of wine appeared on the stone.

    'Everything is as important as everything else,' he said.

    Susan grimaced. 'You know, that's why I've never liked philosophers,' she said. 'They make it all sound grand and simple, and then you step out into a world that's full of complications. I mean, look around. I bet this garden needs regular weeding, and the fountains have to be unblocked, and the peacocks shed feathers and dig up the lawn... and if they don't do that, then this is just a fake.'

    'No, everything is real' said Wen. 'At least, it is as real as anything else. But this is a perfect moment.' He smiled at Susan again. 'Against one perfect moment, the centuries beat in vain.'

    'I'd prefer a more specific philosophy,' said Susan. She tried the wine. It was perfect.

    'Certainly. I expected that you would. I see you cling to logic as a limpet clings to a rock in a storm. Let me see... Defend the small spaces, don't run with scissors, and remember that there is often an unexpected chocolate,' said Wen. He smiled. 'And never resist a perfect moment.'

    A breeze made the fountains splash over the sides of their bowls, just for a second. Wen stood up.

    'And now, I believe my wife and son have finished their meeting,' he said.

    The garden faded. The stone seat melted like mist as soon as Susan got up, although until then it had felt as solid as, well rock. The wineglass vanished from her hand, leaving only a memory of its pressure on her fingers and the taste lingering in her mouth. Lobsang was standing in front of the clock. Time herself was not visible, but the song that wove through the rooms now had a different tone.

    'She's happier,' said Lobsang. 'She's free now.'

    Susan looked around. Wen had vanished along with the garden. There was nothing but the endless glass rooms.

    'Don't you want to talk to your father?' she said.

    'Later. There will be plenty of time,' said Lobsang. 'I shall see to it.'

    The way he said it, so carefully dropping the words into place, made her turn.

    'You're going to take over?' she said. 'You are Time now?'

    'Yes.'

    'But you're mostly human!'

    'So?' Lobsang's smile took after his father. It was the gentle and, to Susan, the infuriating smile of a god.

    'What's in all these rooms?' she demanded. 'Do you know?'

    'One perfect moment. In each one. An oodleplex of oodleplexes.'

    'I'm not certain there's such a thing as a genuinely perfect moment,' said Susan. 'Can we go home now?'

    Lobsang wrapped the edge of his robe around his fist and smashed it against the glass front panel of the clock. It shattered, and dropped to the ground.

    'When we get to the other side,' he said, 'don't stop and don't look back. There will be a lot of flying glass.'

    'I'll try to dive behind one of the benches,' said Susan.

    'They probably won't be there.'

    SQUEAK?

    The Death of Rats had scurried up the side of the clock and was peering cheerfully over the top.

    'What do we do about that?' said Lobsang.

    'That looks after itself,' said Susan. 'I never worry about it.'

    Lobsang nodded. 'Take my hand,' he said. She reached out.

    With his free hand Lobsang grasped the pendulum and stopped the clock.

    A blue-green hole opened in the world.

    The return journey was a lot swifter but, when the world existed again, she was falling into water. It was brown, muddy and stank of dead plants. Susan surfaced, fighting against the drag of her skirts, and trod water while she tried to get her bearings.

    The sun was nailed to the sky, the air was heavy and humid, and a pair of nostrills was watching her from a few feet away.

    Susan had been brought up to be practical and that meant swimming lessons. The Quirm College for Young Ladies had been very advanced in that respect, and its teachers took the view that a girl who couldn't swim two lengths of the pool with her clothes on wasn't making an effort. To their credit, she'd left knowing four swimming strokes and several life-saving techniques, and was entirely at home in the water. She also knew what to do if you were sharing the same stretch of water with a hippopotamus, which was to find another stretch of water. Hippos only look big and cuddly from a distance. Close up, they just look big.

    Susan summoned up all the inherited powers of the deathly voice plus the terrible authority of the schoolroom, and yelled, GO AWAY!

    The creature floundered madly in its effort to turn round, and Susan struck out for the shore. It was an unsure shore, the water becoming land in a tangle of sandbanks, sucking black muck, rotted tree roots and swamp. Insects swirled around and-

    -the cobbles were muddy underfoot, and there was the sound of horsemen in the mist

    -and ice, piled up against dead trees-

    -and Lobsang, taking her arm.

    'Found you,' he said.

    'You just shattered history,' said Susan. 'You broke it!'

    The hippo had come as a shock. She'd never realized one mouth could hold so much bad breath, or be so big and deep.

    'I know. I had to. There was no other way. Can you find Lu-Tze? I know Death can locate any living thing, and since you-'

    'All right, all right, I know,' said Susan darkly. She held out her hand and concentrated. An image of Lu-Tze's extremely heavy lifetimer appeared, and gathered weight.

    'He's only a few hundred yards over there,' she said, pointing to a frozen drift.

    'And I know when he is,' said Lobsang. 'Only sixty thousand years away. So...'

    Lu-Tze, when they found him, was looking calmly up at an enormous mammoth. Under its huge hairy brow its eyes were squinting with the effort both of seeing him and of getting all three of its brain cells lined up so that it could decide whether to trample on him or gouge him out of the frost-bound landscape. One brain cell was saying 'gouge', one was going for 'trample' but the third had wandered off and was thinking about as much sex as possible.

    At the far end of its trunk, Lu-Tze was saying, 'So, you've never heard of Rule One, then?'

    Lobsang stepped out of the air beside him. 'We must go, Sweeper!'

    The appearance of Lobsang did not seem to surprise Lu-Tze at all, although he did seem annoyed at the interruption.

    'No rush, wonder boy,' he said. 'I've got this perfectly under control-'

    'Where's the lady?' said Susan.

    'Over by that snowdrift,' said Lu-Tze, indicating with his thumb while still trying to outstare a pair of eyes five feet apart. 'When this turned up she screamed and twisted her ankle. Look, you can see I've made it nervous-'

    Susan waded into the drift and hauled Unity upright. 'Come on, we're leaving,' she said brusquely.

    'I saw his head cut off!' Unity babbled. 'And then suddenly we were here!'

    'Yes, that kind of thing happens,' said Susan.

    Unity stared at her, wild-eyed.

    'Life is full of surprises,' said Susan, but the sight of the creature's distress made her hesitate. All right, the thing was one of them, one that was merely wearing- Well, at least had started out merely wearing a body as a kind of coat, but now... After all, you could say that about everyone, couldn't you?

    Susan had even wondered if the human soul without the anchor of a body would end up, eventually, as something like an Auditor. Which, to be fair, meant that Unity, who was getting more firmly wrapped in flesh by the minute, was something like a human. And that was a pretty good definition of Lobsang and, if it came to it, Susan as well. Who knew where humanity began and where it finished?

    'Come along,' she said. 'We've got to stick together, right?'

    Like shards of glass, spinning through the air, fragments of history drifted and collided and intersected in the dark.

    There was a lighthouse, though. The valley of Oi Dong held on to the ever-repeating day. In the hall almost all of the giant cylinders stood silent, all time run out. Some had split. Some had melted. Some had exploded. Some had simply vanished. But one still turned.

    Big Thanda, the oldest and largest, ground slowly on its basalt bearing, winding time out at one end and back on the other, ensuring as Wen had decreed that the perfect day would never end.

    Rambut Handisides was all alone in the hall, sitting beside the turning stone in the light of a butter lamp and occasionally throwing a handful of grease onto the base.

    A clink of stone made him peer into the darkness. It was heavy with the smoke of fried rock.

    There the sound was again and, then, the scratch and flare of a match.

    'Lu-Tze?' he said. 'Is that you?'

    'I hope so, Rambut, but who knows, these days?' Lu-Tze stepped into the light and sat down. 'Keeping you busy, are they?'

    Handisides sprang to his feet. 'It's been terrible, Sweeper! Everyone's up in the Mandala Hall! It's worse than the Great Crash! There's bits of history everywhere and we've lost half the spinners! We'll never be able to put it all-'

    'Now, now, you look like a man who's had a busy day,' said Lu-Tze kindly. 'Not got a lot of sleep, eh? Tell you what, I'll take care of this. You go and get a bit of shut-eye, okay?'

    'We thought you were lost out in the world, and-' the monk burbled.

    'And now I'm back,' smiled Lu-Tze, patting him on the shoulder. 'There's still that little alcove round the corner where you repair the smaller spinners? And there's still those unofficial bunks for when it's the night shift and you only need a couple of lads to keep their eye on things?'

    Handisides nodded, and looked guilty. Lu-Tze wasn't supposed to know about the bunks.

    'You get along, then,' said Lu-Tze. He watched the man's retreating back and added, quietly, 'and if you wake up you might turn out to be the luckiest idiot that ever there was. Well, wonder boy? What next?'

    'We put everything back,' said Lobsang, emerging from the shadows.

    'You know how long that took us last time?'

    'Yes,' said Lobsang, looking around the stricken hall and heading towards the podium, 'I do. I don't think it will take me as long.'

    'I wish you sounded more certain,' said Susan.

    'I'm... pretty certain,' said Lobsang, running his fingers over the bobbins on the board.

    Lu-Tze waved a cautionary hand at Susan. Lobsang's mind was already on the way to somewhere else, and now she wondered how large a space it was occupying. His eyes were closed.

    'The... spinners that are left... Can you move the jumpers?' he said.

    'I can show the ladies how to,' said Lu-Tze.

    'Are there not monks who know how to do this?' said Unity.

    'It would take too long. I am an apprentice to a sweeper. They would run around asking questions,' said Lobsang. 'You will not.'

    'He's got a point right enough,' said Lu-Tze. 'People will start saying "What is the meaning of this?" and "Bikkit!", and we'll never get anything done.'

    Lobsang looked down at the bobbins and then across at Susan.

    'Imagine... that there is a jigsaw, all in pieces. But... I am very good at spotting edges and shapes. Very good. And all the pieces are moving. But because they were once linked, they have by their very nature a memory of that link. Their shape is the memory. Once a few are in the right position, the rest will be easier. Oh, and imagine that all the bits are scattered across the whole of eventuality, and mixing randomly with pieces from other histories. Can you grasp all that?'

    'Yes. I think so.'

    'Good. Everything I have just said is nonsense. It bears no resemblance to the truth of the matter in any way at all. But it is a lie that you can... understand, I think. And then, afterwards-'

    'You're going to go, aren't you,' said Susan. It was not a question.

    'I will not have enough power to stay,' said Lobsang.

    'You need power to stay human?' said Susan. She hadn't been aware of the rise of her heart, but now it was sinking.

    'Yes. Even trying to think in a mere four dimensions is a terrible effort. I'm sorry. Even to hold in my mind the concept of something called "now" is hard. You thought I was mostly human. I'm mostly not.' He sighed. If only I could tell you what everything looks like to me... it's so beautiful.'

    Lobsang stared into the air above the little wooden bobbins. Things twinkled. There were complex curves and spirals, brilliant against the blackness.

    It was like looking at a clock in pieces, with every wheel and spring carefully laid out in the dark in front of him. Dismantled, controllable, every part of it understood... but a number of small but important things had gone ping into the corners of a very large room. If you were really good, then you could work out where they'd landed.

    'You've only got about a third of the spinners,' came the voice of Lu-Tze. 'The rest are smashed.'

    Lobsang couldn't see him. There was only the glittering show before his eyes.

    'That... is true, but once they were whole,' he said. He raised his hands and lowered them onto the bobbins.

    Susan looked around at the sudden grinding noise and saw row after row of columns rising out of the dust and debris. They stood like lines of soldiers, rubble cascading from them.

    'Good trick!' Lu-Tze shouted to Susan's ear, above the thunder. 'Feeding time into the spinners themselves! Theoretically possible, but we never managed to do it!'

    'Do you know what he's actually going to do?' Susan shouted back.

    'Yeah! Snatch the extra time out of bits of history that are too far ahead and shove it into the bits that have fallen behind!'

    'Sounds simple!'

    'Just one problem!'

    'What?'

    'Can't do it! Losses!' Lu-Tze snapped his fingers, trying to explain time dynamics to a non-initiate. 'Friction! Divergence! All sorts of stuff! You can't create time on the spinners, you can only move it around-'

    There was a sudden bright blue glow around Lobsang. It flickered over the board, and then snapped across the air to form arcs of light leading to all the Procrastinators. It crawled between the carved symbols and clung to them in a thickening layer, like cotton winding on a reel.

    Lu-Tze looked at the whirling light and the shadow within it, almost lost against the glow.

    '-at least,' he added, 'until now.'

    The spinners wound up to their working speed and then went faster, under the lash of the light. It poured across the cavern in a solid, unending stream.

    Flames licked around the bottom of the nearest cylinder. The base was glowing, and the noise from its stone bearing was joining a rising, cavern-filling scream of stone in distress.

    Lu-Tze shook his head. 'You, Susan, buckets of water from the wells! You, Miss Unity, you follow her with the grease pails!'

    'And what are you going to do?' said Susan, grabbing two buckets.

    'I'm going to worry like hell and that's not an easy job, believe me!'

    Steam built up then, and there was a smell of burning butter. There was no time for anything but to run from the wells to the nearest spitting bearing and back, and there was not enough time even for that.

    The spinners turned back and forth. There was no need for the jumpers now. The crystal rods that had survived the crash hung uselessly from their hooks as time arced overhead from one Procrastinator to another, showing up as red or blue glows in the air. It was a sight to frighten the knoptas off any trained spinner driver, Lu-Tze knew. It looked like a cascade running wild, but there was some control in there, some huge pattern being woven.

    Bearings squealed. Butter bubbled. The bases of some spinners were smoking. But things held. They're being held, Lu-Tze thought. He looked up at the registers. The boards slammed back and forth, sending lines of red or blue or bare wood across the wall of the cavern. There was a pall of white smoke around them as their own wooden bearings gently charred.

    Past and future were streaming through the air. The sweeper could feel them.

    On the podium, Lobsang was wrapped in the glow. The bobbins were not being moved any more. What was going on now was on some other level, which didn't need the intervention of crude mechanisms.

    Lion tamer, Lu-Tze thought. He starts off needing chairs and whips but one day, if he's really good, he can go into the cage and do the show using nothing more than eye and voice. But only if he's really good, and you'll know if he's really good because he'll come out of the cage again-

    He stopped his prowl along the thundering lines because there was a change in the sound.

    One of the biggest spinners was slowing down. It stopped as Lu-Tze watched, and didn't start again.

    Lu-Tze raced around the cavern until he found Susan and Unity. Three more spinners stopped before he reached them.

    'He's doing it! He's doing it! Come away!' he shouted. With a jolt that shook the floor, another spinner stopped.

    The three ran towards the end of the cavern, where the smaller Procrastinators were still whirling, but the halt was already speeding down the rows. Spinner after spinner slammed to a standstill, the domino effect overtaking the humans until, when they reached the little chalk spinners, they were in time to see the last ones rattle gently to a halt.

    There was silence, except for the sizzle of grease and the click of cooling rock.

    'Is it all over?' said Unity, wiping the sweat from her face with her dress and leaving a trail of sequins.

    Lu-Tze and Susan looked at the glow at the other end of the hall, and then at one another.

    'I... don't... think... so,' said Susan.

    Lu-Tze nodded. 'I think it's just-' he began.

    Bars of green light leapt from spinner to spinner and hung in the air as rigid as steel. They flickered on and off between the columns, filling the air with thunderclaps. Patterns of switching snapped back and forth across the cavern.

    The tempo increased. The thunderclaps became one long roll of overpowering sound. The bars brightened, expanded and then the air was all one brilliant light

    Which vanished. The sound ceased so abruptly that the silence clanged.

    The trio got to their feet, slowly.

    'What was that?' said Unity.

    I think he made some changes,' said Lu-Tze.

    The spinners were silent. The air was hot. Smoke and steam filled the roof of the cavern.

    Then, responding to the routine of humanity's eternal wrestle with time, the spinners began to pick up the load.

    It came gently, like a breeze. And the spinners took the strain, from the smallest to the largest, settling once again into their gentle, ponderous pirouette.

    'Perfect,' said Lu-Tze. 'Almost as good as it was, I'll bet.'

    'Only almost?' said Susan, wiping the butter off her face.

    'Well, he's partly human,' said the sweeper. They turned to the podium, and it was empty. Susan was not surprised. He'd be weak now, of course. Of course, something like this would take it out of anyone. Of course, he'd need to rest. Of course.

    'He's gone,' she said flatly.

    'Who knows?' said Lu-Tze. 'For is it not written, "You never know what's going to turn up" ?'

    The reassuring rumble of the Procrastinators now filled the cave. Lu-Tze could feel the time flows in the air. It was invigorating, like the smell of the sea. I ought to spend more time down here, he thought.

    'He broke history and repaired it,' said Susan. 'Cause and cure. That makes no sense!'

    'Not in four dimensions,' said Unity. 'In eighteen, it's all perfectly clear.'

    'And now, may I suggest you ladies leave by the back way?' said Lu-Tze. 'People are going to come running down here in a minute and it's all going to get very excitable. Probably best if you aren't around.'

    'What will you do?' said Susan.

    'Lie,' said Lu-Tze happily. 'It's amazing how often that works.'

    -ick

    Susan and Unity stepped out of a door in the rock. A path led through rhododendron groves out of the valley. The sun was touching the horizon and the air was warm, although there were snowfields quite close by.

    At the lip of the valley the water from the stream plunged over a cliff in a fall so long that it landed as a sort of rain. Susan pulled herself onto a rock, and settled down to wait.

    'It is a long way to Ankh-Morpork,' said Unity.

    'We'll have a lift,' said Susan. The first stars were already coming out.

    'The stars are very pretty,' said Unity.

    'Do you really think so?'

    'I am learning to. Humans believe they are.'

    'The thing is, I mean, there's times when you look at the universe and you think, "What about me?" and you can just hear the universe replying, "Well, what about you?"'

    Unity appeared to consider this. 'Well, what about you?' she said.

    Susan sighed. 'Exactly.' She sighed again. 'You can't think about just one person while you're saving the world. You have to be a cold, calculating bastard.'

    'That sounded as if you were quoting somebody,' said Unity. 'Who said that?'

    'Some total idiot,' said Susan. She tried to think of other things, and added, 'We didn't get all of them. There's still Auditors down there somewhere.'

    'That will not matter,' said Unity calmly. 'Look at the sun.'

    'Well?'

    'It is setting.'

    'And...?'

    'That means time is flowing through the world. The body exacts its toll Susan. Soon my- my former colleagues, bewildered and fleeing, will become tired. They will have to sleep.'

    'I follow you, but-'

    'I am insane. I know this. But the first time it happened to me I found such horror that I cannot express it. Can you imagine what it is like? For an intellect a billion years old, in a body which is an ape on the back of a rat that grew out of a lizard? Can you imagine what comes out of the dark places, uncontrolled?'

    'What are you telling me?'

    'They will die in their dreams.'

    Susan thought about this. Millions and millions of years of thinking precise, logical thoughts - and then humanity's murky past drops all its terrors on you in one go. She could almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

    'But you didn't,' she said.

    'No. I think I must be... different. It is a terrible thing to be different, Susan. Did you have romantic hopes in connection with the boy?'

    The question came out of nowhere and there was no defence. Unity's face showed nothing but a kind of nervous concern.

    'No,' said Susan. Unfortunately, Unity did not seem to have mastered some of the subtleties of human conversation, such as when a tone of voice means 'Stop this line of inquiry right now or may huge rats eat you by day and by night.'

    'I confess to strange feelings regarding his... self that was the clockmaker. Sometimes, when he smiled, he was normal. I wanted to help him, because he seemed so closed in and sad.'

    'You don't have to confess to things like that,' Susan snapped. 'How do you even know the word romantic, anyway?' she added.

    'I found some books of poetry.' Unity actually looked embarrassed.

    'Really? I've never trusted it,' said Susan. Huge, giant, hungry rats.

    'I found it most curious. How can words on a page have a power like that? There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime,' said Unity sadly.

    Susan felt a stab of guilt. It wasn't Unity's fault, after all. People learn things as they grow up, things that never get written down. And Unity had never grown up.

    'What are you going to do now?' she said.

    'I do have a rather human ambition,' said Unity.

    'Well, if I can help in any way...'

    It was, she realized later, one of those phrases like 'How are you?' People were supposed to understand that it wasn't a real question. But Unity hadn't learned that, either.

    'Thank you. You can indeed help.'

    'Uh, fine, if-'

    'I wish to die.'

    And, galloping out of the sunset, some riders were approaching.

    Tick

    Small fires burned in the rubble, brightening the night. Most of the houses had been completely destroyed, although, Soto considered, the word 'shredded' was much more accurate.

    He was sitting by the side of the street, watching carefully, with his begging bowl in front of him. There were of course far more interesting and complex ways for a History Monk to avoid being noticed, but he'd adopted the begging bowl method ever since Lu-Tze had shown him that people never see anyone who wants them to give him money.

    He'd watched the rescuers drag the bodies out of the house. Initially they'd thought that one of them had been hideously mutilated in the explosion, until it had sat up and explained that it was an Igor and in very good shape for an Igor, at that. The other he'd recognized as Dr Hopkins of the Guild of Clockmakers, who was miraculously unharmed.

    Soto did not believe in miracles, however. He was also suspicious about the fact that the ruined house was full of oranges, that Dr Hopkins was babbling about getting sunlight out of them, and that his sparkling little abacus was telling him that something enormous had happened.

    He decided to make a report and see what the boys at Oi Dong said.

    Soto picked up the bowl and set off through the network of alleys back to his base. He didn't bother much about concealment now; Lu-Tze's time in the city had been a process of accelerated education for many citizens of the lurking variety. The people of Ankh-Morpork knew all about Rule One.

    At least, they had known until now. Three figures lurched out of the dark, and one of them swung a heavy cleaver which would have connected with Soto's head if he hadn't ducked.

    He was used to this sort of thing, of course. There was always the occasional slow learner, but they presented no peril that a neat slice couldn't handle.

    He straightened up, ready to ease his way out of there, and a thick lock of black hair fell onto his shoulder, slithered down his robe and flopped onto the ground. It made barely a sound, but the expression on his face as Soto looked down and then up at his attackers made them draw back.

    He could see, through the blood-red rage, that they all wore stained grey clothes and looked even crazier than the usual alley people; they looked like accountants gone mad.

    One of them reached out towards the begging bowl.

    Everyone has a conditional clause in their life, some little unspoken addition to the rules like 'except when I really need to' or 'unless no one is looking' or, indeed, 'unless the first one was nougat'. Soto had for centuries embraced a belief in the sanctity of all life and the ultimate uselessness of violence, but his personal conditional clause was 'but not the hair. No one touches the hair, okay?'

    Even so, everyone ought to have a chance.

    The attackers recoiled as he threw the bowl against the wall, where the hidden blades buried themselves in the woodwork.

    Then it began to tick.

    Solo ran back down the alley, skidded round the corner and then shouted, 'Duck!'

    Unfortunately for the Auditors, alas, he was just a tiny, tiny fraction of a second too late-

    Tick

    Lu-Tze was in his Garden of Five Surprises when the air sparkled and fragmented and swirled into a shape in front of him.

    He looked up from his ministrations to the yodelling stick insect, who'd been off its food.

    Lobsang stood on the path. The boy was wearing a black robe dotted with stars, which blew and rattled its rags around him on this windless morning as if he was standing in the centre of a gale. Which, Lu-Tze supposed, he more or less was.

    'Back again, wonder boy?' said the sweeper.

    'In a way, I never leave,' said Lobsang. 'Things have gone well with you?'

    'Don't you know?'

    'I could. But part of me has to do this the traditional way.'

    'Well, the abbot is mighty suspicious and there's some amazing rumours flying around the place. I didn't say much. What do I know about anything? I'm just a sweeper.'

    With that, Lu-Tze turned his attention to the sick insect. He'd counted to four under his breath before Lobsang said: 'Please? I have to know. I believe that the fifth surprise is you. Am I right?'

    Lu-Tze cocked his head. A low noise, which he'd heard for so long he no longer consciously heard it, had changed its tone.

    'The spinners are all winding out,' he said. 'They know you're here, lad.'

    'I shall not be here long, Sweeper. Please?'

    'You just want to know my little surprise?'

    'Yes. I know nearly everything else,' said Lobsang.

    'But you are Time. What I tell you in the future you'll know now, right?'

    'But I'm partly human. I want to stay partly human. That means doings things the right way round. Please?'

    Lu-Tze sighed and looked for a while down the avenue of cherry blossom.

    'When the pupil can beat the master, there is nothing the master cannot tell him,' he said. 'Remember?'

    'Yes.'

    'Very well. The Iron Dojo should be free.'

    Lobsang looked surprised. 'Uh, the Iron Dojo... Isn't that the one with all the sharp spikes in the walls?'

    'And the ceiling, yes. The one that's like being inside a giant porcupine turned inside out.'

    Lobsang looked horrified. 'But that's not for practice! The rules say-'

    'That's the one,' said Lu-Tze. 'And I say we use it.'

    'Oh.'

    'Good. No argument,' said Lu-Tze. 'This way, lad.'

    Blossom cascaded from the trees as they passed. They entered the monastery, and took the same route they'd taken once before. This brought them into the Hall of the Mandala, and the sand rose like a dog welcoming its master and spiralled in the air far below Lobsang's sandals. Lu-Tze heard the shouts of the attendants behind him.

    News like this spread throughout the valley like ink in water. Hundreds of monks, apprentices and sweepers were trailing the pair as they crossed the inner courtyards, like the tail of a comet.

    Above them, all the time, petals of cherry blossom fell like snow. At last Lu-Tze reached the high, round metal door of the Iron Dojo. The clasp of the door was fifteen feet up. No one who did not belong there was supposed to open the door of the dojo.

    The sweeper nodded at his former apprentice.

    'You do it,' he said. I can't.'

    Lobsang glanced at him, and then looked up at the high clasp. Then he pressed a hand against the iron.

    Rust spread under his fingers. Red stains spread out across the ancient metal. The door began to creak, and then to crumble. Lu-Tze prodded it with an experimental finger, and a slab of biscuit-strong metal fell out and collapsed on the flagstones.

    'Very impress-' he began. A squeaky rubber elephant bounced off his head.

    'Bikkit!'

    The crowd parted. The chief acolyte ran forward, carrying the abbot.

    'What is the wanna bikkit BIKKIT meaning of this? Who is wozza funny man this person, Sweeper? The spinners are dancing in their hall!'

    Lu-Tze bowed.

    'He is Time, reverend one, as you have suspected,' he said. Still bent in the bow, he looked up and sideways at Lobsang.

    'Bow!' he hissed.

    Lobsang looked puzzled. 'I should bow even now?' he said.

    'Bow, you little stonga, or I shall teach you such discipline! Show deserved respect! You are still my apprentice until I give you leave!'

    Shocked, Lobsang bowed.

    'And why do you visit us in our timeless valley?' said the abbot.

    Tell the abbot!' Lu-Tze snapped.

    'I... I wish to learn the Fifth Surprise,' said Lobsang.

    '-reverend one-' said Lu-Tze.

    '-reverend one,' Lobsang finished.

    'You visit us just to learn of our clever sweeper's fancies?' said the abbot.

    'Yes, er, reverend one.'

    'Of all the things Time could be doing, you wish to see an old man's trick? Bikkit!'

    'Yes, reverend one.' The monks stared at Lobsang. His robe still fluttered this way and that in the teeth of the intangible gale, the stars glinting when they caught the light.

    The abbot smiled a cherubic smile. 'So should we all,' he said. 'None of us has ever seen it, I believe. None of us has ever been able to wheedle it out of him. But... this is the Iron Dojo. It has rules! Two may walk in, but only one can walk out! This is no practice dojo! Wanna 'lephant! Do you understand?'

    'But I don't want-' Lobsang began, and the sweeper jerked an elbow into his ribs.

    'You say "Yes, reverend one,"' he growled.

    'But I never intended-'

    This time the back of his head was slapped.

    'This is no time to step back!' Lu-Tze said. 'You're too late, wonder boy!' He nodded to the abbot. 'My apprentice understands, reverend one.'

    'Your apprentice, Sweeper?'

    'Oh, yes, reverend one,' said Lu-Tze. 'My apprentice. Until I say otherwise.'

    'Really? Bikkit! Then he may enter. You too, Lu-Tze.'

    'But I only meant to-' Lobsang protested.

    'Inside!' Lu-Tze roared. 'Will you shame me? Shall people think I have taught you nothing?'

    The inside of the Iron Dojo was, indeed, a darkened dome full of spikes. They were needle thin and there were tens of thousands of them covering the nightmare walls.

    'Who would build something like this?' said Lobsang, looking up at the glistening points that covered even the ceiling.

    'It teaches the virtues of stealth and discipline,' said Lu-Tze, cracking his knuckles. Impetuosity and speed can be as dangerous to the attacker as to the attacked, as perhaps you will learn. One condition: we are all human here? Agreed?'

    'Of course, Sweeper. We are all human here.'

    'And shall we agree: no tricks?'

    'No tricks,' said Lobsang. 'But-'

    'Are we fighting, or are we talking?'

    'But, look, if only one can walk out, that means I'll have to kill you-' Lobsang began.

    'Or vice versa, of course,' said Lu-Tze. 'That is the rule, yes. Shall we get on?'

    'But I didn't know that!'

    'In life, as in breakfast cereal, it is always best to read the instructions on the box,' said Lu-Tze. 'This is the Iron Dojo, wonder boy!' He stepped back and bowed.

    Lobsang shrugged, and bowed in return.

    Lu-Tze took a few steps back. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then went through a series of simple moves, limbering up. Lobsang winced to hear the crackle of joints.

    Around Lobsang there was a series of snapping noises, and for a moment he thought of the old sweeper's bones. But tiny hatches all over the curved wall were swinging open. He could hear whispers as people jostled for position. And by the sound of it, there were a great many people.

    He extended his hands, and let himself rise gently in the air.

    'I thought we said no tricks?' said Lu-Tze.

    'Yes, Sweeper,' said Lobsang, poised in mid-air. 'And then I thought: never forget Rule One.'

    'Aha! Well done. You've learned something!'

    Lobsang drifted closer. 'You cannot believe the things that I have seen since last I saw you,' he said. 'Words cannot describe them. I have seen worlds nesting within worlds, like those dolls they carve in Uberwald. I have heard the music of the years. I know more than I can ever understand. But I do not know the Fifth Surprise. It is a trick, a conundrum... a test.'

    'Everything is a test,' said Lu-Tze.

    'Then show me the Fifth Surprise and I promise not to harm you.'

    'You promise not to harm me?'

    'I promise not to harm you,' Lobsang repeated solemnly.

    'Fine. You only had to ask,' said Lu-Tze, smiling broadly.

    'What? I asked before and you refused!'

    'You only had to ask at the right time, wonder boy.'

    'And is it the right time now?'

    'It is written, "There's no time like the present,"' said Lu-Tze. 'Behold, the Fifth Surprise!'

    He reached into his robe.

    Lobsang floated closer.

    The sweeper produced a cheap carnival mask. It was one of those that consisted of a fake pair of spectacles, glued above a big pink nose, and finished with a heavy black moustache.

    He put it on and waggled his ears once or twice.

    'Boo,' he said.

    'What?' said Lobsang, bewildered.

    'Boo,' Lu-Tze repeated. 'I never said it was a particularly imaginative surprise, did I?'

    He waggled his ears again, and then waggled his eyebrows.

    'Good, eh?' he said, and grinned.

    Lobsang laughed. Lu-Tze grinned wider. Lobsang laughed louder, and lowered himself to the mat.

    The blows came out of nowhere. They caught him in the stomach, on the back of his neck, in the small of his back and swept his legs from under him. He landed on his stomach, with Lu-Tze pinning him down in the Straddle of the Fish. The only way to get out of that was to dislocate your own shoulders.

    There was a sort of collective sigh from the hidden watchers.

    'Déjà-fu!'

    'What?' said Lobsang, into the mat. 'You said none of the monks knew déjà-fu!'

    'I never taught it to 'em, that's why!' said Lu-Tze. 'Promise not to harm me, would you? Thank you so very much! Submit?'

    'You never told me you knew it!' Lu-Tze's knees, rammed into the secret pressure points, were turning Lobsang's arms into powerless lumps of flesh.

    'I may be old but I'm not daft!' Lu-Tze shouted. 'You don't think I'd give away a trick like that, do you?'

    'That's not fair-'

    Lu-Tze leaned down until his mouth was an inch from Lobsang's ear.

    'Didn't say "fair" on the box, lad. But you can win, you know. You could turn me into dust, just like that. How could I stop Time?'

    'I can't do that!'

    'You mean you won't, and we both know it. Submit?'

    Lobsang could feel parts of his body trying to shut themselves down. His shoulders were on fire. I can discarnate, he thought. Yes, I can, I could turn him to dust with a thought. And lose. I'd walk out and he'd be dead and I'd have lost.

    'Nothing to worry about, lad,' said Lu-Tze, calmly now. 'You just forgot Rule Nineteen. Submit?'

    'Rule Nineteen?' said Lobsang, almost pushing himself off the mat until terrible pain forced him down again. 'What the hell is Rule Nineteen? Yes, yes, submit, submit!'

    '"Remember Never to Forget Rule One",' said Lu-Tze. He released his grip. 'And always ask yourself: how come it was created in the first place, eh?'

    Lu-Tze got to his feet, and went on: 'But you have performed well, all things considered, and therefore as your master I have no hesitation in recommending you for the yellow robe. Besides,' he lowered his voice to a whisper, 'everyone peeking in here has seen me beat Time and that's the sort of thing that'll look really good on my curriculum vitae, if you catch my meaning. Def'nitely give the o'l Rule One a fillip. Let me give you a hand up.'

    He reached down.

    Lobsang was about to take the hand when he hesitated. Lu-Tze grinned again, and gently pulled him upright.

    'But only one of us can leave, Sweeper,' said Lobsang, rubbing his shoulders.

    'Really?' said Lu-Tze. 'But playing the game changes the rules. I say the hell with it.'

    The remains of the door were pushed aside by the hands of many monks. There was the sound of someone being hit with a rubber yak. 'Bikkit!'

    '... and the abbot, I believe, is ready to present you with the robe,' said Lu-Tze. 'Don't make any comment if he dribbles on it, please.'

    They left the dojo and, followed now by every soul in Oi Dong, headed for the long terrace.

    It was, Lu-Tze reminisced later, an unusual ceremony. The abbot did not appear overawed, because babies generally aren't and will throw up over anyone. Besides, Lobsang might have been master of the gulfs of time, but the abbot was master of the valley, and therefore respect was a line that travelled in both directions.

    But the handing over of the robe had caused a difficult moment.

    Lobsang had refused it. It had been left to the chief acolyte to ask why, while the whispered current of surprise washed through the crowd.

    'I am not worthy, sir.'

    'Lu-Tze has declared that you have completed your apprenticeship, my lo- Lobsang Ludd.'

    Lobsang bowed. 'Then I will take the broom and the robe of a sweeper, sir.'

    This time the current was a tsunami. It crashed over the audience. Heads turned. There were gasps of shock, and one or two nervous laughs. And, from the lines of sweepers who had been allowed to pause in their tasks to watch the event, there was a watchful, intent silence.

    The chief acolyte licked his suddenly dehydrated lips.

    'But... but... you are the incarnation of Time...'

    'In this valley, sir,' said Lobsang firmly, 'I am as worthy as a sweeper.'

    The chief acolyte looked around, but there was no help anywhere. The other senior members of the monastery had no wish to share in the huge pink cloud of embarrassment. The abbot merely blew bubbles, and grinned the inward knowing grin of all babies everywhere.

    'Do we have any... uh... do we present sweepers with... do we by any chance... ?' the acolyte mumbled.

    Lu-Tze stepped up behind him. 'Can I be of any help, your acolytility?' he said, with a sort of mad keen subservience that was quite alien to his normal attitude.

    'Lu-Tze? Ah...er...yes...er...'

    'I could fetch a nearly new robe, sir, and the lad can have my old broom if you'll sign a chitty for me to get a new one from stores, sir,' said Lu-Tze, sweating helpfulness at every pore.

    The chief acolyte, drowning well out of his depth, seized on this like a passing lifebelt.

    'Oh, would you be so good, Lu-Tze? It is so kind of you...'

    Lu-Tze vanished in a blur of helpful speed that, once again, quite surprised those who thought they knew him.

    He reappeared with his broom and a robe made white and thin with frequent bashings on the stones by the river. He solemnly handed them over to the chief acolyte.

    'Er, uh, thank you, er, is there a special ceremony for the, for the, er, for... er...' the man burbled.

    'Very simple one, sir,' said Lu-Tze, still radiating eagerness. 'Wording is quite loose, sir, but generally we say, "This is your robe, look after it, it belongs to the monastery," sir, and then with the broom we say something like "Here's your broom, treat it well, it is your friend, you will be fined if you lose it, remember they do not grow on trees," sir.'

    'Er, um, uh,' the chief acolyte murmured. 'And does the abbot-?'

    'Oh no, the abbot would not make a presentation to a sweeper,' said Lobsang quickly.

    'Lu-Tze, who does the, er, does, uh, does the...'

    'It's generally done by a senior sweeper, your acolytility.'

    'Oh? And, er, by some happy chance, er, do you happen to be-?'

    Lu-Tze bobbed a bow. 'Oh, yes, sir.'

    To the chief acolyte, still floundering in the flood of the turning tide, this was as welcome as the imminent prospect of dry land. He beamed manically.

    'I wonder, I wonder, I wonder, then, if you would be so kind, er, then, er, to-'

    'Happy to, sir.' Lu-Tze swung round. 'Right now, sir?'

    'Oh, please, yes!'

    'Right you are. Step forward, Lobsang Ludd!'

    'Yes, Sweeper!'

    Lu-Tze held out the worn robe and the elderly broom. 'Broom! Robe! Do not lose them, we are not made of money!' he announced.

    'I thank you for them,' said Lobsang. I am honoured.'

    Lobsang bowed. Lu-Tze bowed. With their heads close together and at the same height, Lu-Tze hissed, 'Very surprising.'

    'Thank you.'

    'Nicely mythic, the whole thing, definitely one for the scrolls, but bordering on smug. Do not try it again.'

    'Right.'

    They both stood up. 'And, er, what happens now?' said the chief acolyte. He was a broken man, and he knew it. Nothing was going to be the same after this.

    'Nothing, really,' said Lu-Tze. 'Sweepers get on with sweeping. You take that side, lad, and I'll take this.'

    'But he is Time!' said the chief acolyte. 'The son of Wen! There is so much we have to ask!'

    'There is so much I will not tell,' said Lobsang, smiling. The abbot leaned forward and dribbled into the chief acolyte's ear.

    He gave up. 'Of course, it is not up to us to question you,' he said, backing away.

    'No,' said Lobsang. 'It is not. I suggest you all get on with your very important work, because this plaza is going to need all my attention.'

    There were frantic hand signals amongst the senior monks and, gradually, reluctantly, the monastery staff moved away.

    'They'll be watching us from every place they can hide,' mumbled Lu-Tze, when the sweepers were alone.

    'Oh, yes,' said Lobsang.

    'So, how are you, then?'

    'Very well. And my mother is happy, and she will retire with my father.'

    'What? A cottage in the country, that sort of thing?'

    'Not quite. Similar, though.'

    There was no sound for a while but the brushing of two brooms. Then Lobsang said, 'I'm aware, Lu-Tze, that it is usual for an apprentice to give a small gift or token to his master when he finishes his apprenticeship.'

    'Possibly,' said Lu-Tze, straightening up. 'But I don't need anything. I've got my mat, my bowl and my Way.'

    'Every man has something he desires,' said Lobsang.

    'Hah! Got you there, then, wonder boy. I'm eight hundred years old. I've run through all my desires long ago.'

    'Oh dear. That is a shame. I hoped I could find something.' Now Lobsang straightened up and swung his broom onto his shoulder.

    'In any case, I must leave,' he said. 'There is so much still to do.'

    'I'm sure there is,' said Lu-Tze. 'I'm sure there is. There's the whole stretch under the trees, for one thing. And while we're on the subject, wonder boy, did you let that witch have her broomstick back?'

    Lobsang nodded. 'Let us just say... I put things back. It's a lot newer than it was, too.'

    'Hah!' said Lu-Tze, sweeping up a few more petals. 'Just like that. Just like that. So easily does a thief of time repay his debts!'

    Lobsang must have caught the rebuke in the tone. He stared down at his feet. 'Well, perhaps not all of them, I admit,' he said.

    'Oh?' said Lu-Tze, still apparently fascinated by the end of his own broom.

    'But when you have to save a world you cannot think of one person, you see, because one person is a part of that world,' Lobsang went on.

    'Really?' said the sweeper. 'You think so? You've been talking to some very strange people, my lad.'

    'But now I have time,' said Lobsang earnestly. 'And I hope she'll understand.'

    'It's amazing what a lady will understand, if you find the right way of putting it,' said Lu-Tze. 'Best of luck, lad. You didn't do so bad, on the whole. And is it not written, "There's no time like the present"?'

    Lobsang smiled at him, and vanished.

    Lu-Tze went back to his sweeping. After a while, he smiled at a memory. An apprentice gives a gift to the master, eh? As if Lu-Tze could want anything that Time could give him...

    And he stopped, and looked up, and laughed out loud. Overhead, swelling as he watched, the cherries were ripening.

    Tick

    In some place that had not existed before, and only existed now for this very purpose, stood a large, gleaming vat.

    'Ten thousand gallons of delicate fondant sugar cream infused with essence of violet and stirred into dark chocolate,' said Chaos. 'There are also strata of hazelnut praline in rich butter cream, and areas of soft caramel for that special touch of delight.'

    SO... YOU'RE SAYING THAT THIS VAT COULD EXIST SOMEWHERE IN A TRULY INFINITE EVERYWHERE AND THEREFORE IT CAN EXIST HERE? said Death.

    'Indeed,' said Chaos.

    BUT IT NO LONGER EXISTS IN THE PLACE WHERE IT SHOULD EXIST.

    'No. It should, now, exist here. The maths is easy,' said Chaos.

    AH? WELL, MATHS, said Death dismissively. GENERALLY I NEVER GET MUCH FURTHER THAN SUBTRACTION.

    'In any case, chocolate is hardly a rare commodity,' said Chaos. 'There are planets covered in the stuff.'

    REALLY?

    'Indeed.'

    IT MIGHT BE BEST, said Death, IF NEWS LIKE THAT DID NOT GET ABOUT. He walked back to where Unity was waiting in the darkness.

    YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS, he said.

    'What else is there?' said Unity. 'I have betrayed my own kind. And I am hideously insane. I can never be at home anywhere. And staying here would be an agony.'

    She stared into the chocolate abyss. A dusting of sugar sparkled on its surface.

    Then she slipped out of her dress. To her amazement she felt embarrassed about doing so, but still drew herself up haughtily.

    'Spoon,' she commanded, and held out her right hand imperiously. Chaos gave a silver ladle a final, theatrical polish and passed it to her.

    'Goodbye,' said Unity. 'Do pass on my best wishes to your granddaughter.'

    She walked a few steps back, turned, broke into a run, and took off into a perfect swallow dive.

    The chocolate closed over her with barely a sound. Then the two watchers waited until the fat, lazy ripples had died away.

    'Now there was a lady with style,' said Chaos. 'What a waste.'

    YES. I THOUGHT SO.

    'Well, it's been fun... up to that point, anyway. And now I must be off,' said Chaos.

    YOU'RE CONTINUING WITH THE MILK ROUND?

    'People rely on me.'

    Death looked impressed. IT'S GOING TO BE... INTERESTING TO HAVE YOU BACK, he said.

    'Yeah. It is,' said Chaos. 'You're not coming?'

    I'M GOING TO WAIT HERE FOR A WHILE.

    'Why?'

    JUST IN CASE.

    'Ah.'

    YES.

    It was some minutes later that Death reached into his robe and pulled out a lifetimer that was small and light enough to have been designed for a doll. He turned round.

    'But... I died,' said the shade of Unity.

    YES, said Death. THIS IS THE NEXT PART...

    Tick

    Emma Robertson sat in the classroom with wrinkled brow, chewing on her pencil. Then, rather slowly but with the air of one imparting great secrets, she set to work.

    We went to Lanker where there are witches they are kind they grow erbs. We met this which she was very jole and sang us a snog abot a hedghog it had dificut words. Jason try to kick her cat it chase him up a tre. I know a lot about wiches now they do not have warts they do not eat you they are just like your grane except your grane does not know difult words.

    At her high desk Susan relaxed. There was nothing like a classroom of bent heads. A good teacher used whatever materials there were to hand, and taking the class to visit Mrs Ogg was an education in herself. Two educations.

    A classroom going well had its own smell: a hint of pencil shavings, poster paints, long-dead stick insect, glue and, of course, the faint aroma of Billy.

    There had been an uneasy meeting with her grandfather. She'd raged that he hadn't told her things. And he'd said of course he hadn't. If you told humans what the future held, it wouldn't. That made sense. Of course it made sense. It was good logic. The trouble was that Susan was only mostly logical. And so, now, things were back in that uneasy, rather cool state where they spent most of their time, in the tiny little family that ran on dysfunctionality.

    Maybe, she thought, that was a normal family state. When push came to shove - thank you, Mrs Ogg, she'd always remember that phrase now - they'd rely on each other automatically, without a thought. Apart from that, they kept out of one another's way.

    She hadn't seen the Death of Rats lately. It was too much to hope that he was dead. In any case, it hadn't slowed him down so far. That made her think wistfully about the contents of her desk. Susan was very strict about eating in class and took the view that, if there were rules, then they applied to everyone, even her. Otherwise they were merely tyranny. But maybe rules were there to make you think before you broke them.

    There was still half a box of Higgs & Meakins' cheapest assortment tucked in there amongst the books and papers.

    Opening the lid carefully and slipping her hand in was easy, and so was the maintenance of a suitably teachery face while she did so. Questing fingers found a chocolate in the nest of empty paper cups, and told her that it was a damn nougat. But she was resolute. Life was tough. Sometimes you got nougat.

    Then she briskly picked up the keys and walked to the Stationery Cupboard with what she hoped was the purposeful step of someone about to check on the supply of pencils. After all, you never knew, with pencils. They needed watching.

    The door clicked behind her, leaving only the dim light through the transom. She put the chocolate in her mouth and shut her eyes.

    A faint, cardboardy sound made her open them. The lids were gently lifting on the boxes of stars.

    They spilled out and whirled up into the shadows of the cupboard, brilliant against the darkness, a galaxy in miniature, gently spinning.

    Susan watched them for a while, and then said, 'All right, you have my full attention, whoever you are.'

    At least, that was what she meant to say. The peculiar stickiness of the nougat caused it to come out as: 'Allite, you ot my fo' a'nen'on, oover ooah.' Damn!

    The stars spiralled around her head, and the cupboard's interior darkened into interstellar black.

    'If iss is oo, Def o' Raffs-' she began.

    'It's me,' said Lobsang.

    Tick

    Even with nougat, you can have a perfect moment.

    The End

    [1] Except in very small universes

    [BACK]

    [2] Mostly involving big, big beachballs.

    [BACK]

    [3] Quite an overrated activity.

    [BACK]

    [4] An edge witch is one who makes her living on the edges, in that moment when boundary conditions apply - between life and death, light and dark, good and evil and, most dangerously of all, today and tomorrow.

    [BACK]

    [5] But they still use forks, or, at least, the idea of forks. There may, as the philosopher says, be no spoon, although this begs the question of why there is the idea of soup.

    [BACK]

    [6] And the story continues: The novice who had protested that it was only the shrine of a sweeper ran away from the temple, the student who said nothing remained a sweeper for the rest of his life, and the student who had seen the inevitable shape of the story went, after much agonizing and several months of meticulous sweeping, to Lu-Tze and knelt and asked to be shown the Right Way. Whereupon the Sweeper took him to the dojo of the Tenth Djim. with its terrible multi-bladed fighting machines and its fearsome serrated weapons such as the clong-clong and the uppsi. The story runs that the Sweeper then opened a cupboard at the back of the dojo and produced a broom and spake thusly: 'One hand here and the other here, understand? People never get it right. Use good, even strokes and let the broom do most of the work. Never try to sweep up a big pile, you'll end up sweeping every bit of dust twice. Use your dustpan wisely, and remember: a small brush for the corners.'

    [BACK]

    [7] One reason for this was the club food. At his club, a gentleman could find the kind of food he'd got used to at school, like spotted dick, jam roly-poly and that perennial favourite, stodge and custard. Vitamins are eaten by wives.

    [BACK]

    [8] Which is much harder than seeing things that aren't there. Everyone does that.

    [BACK]

    [9] This is true. A chocolate you did not want to eat does not count as chocolate. This discovery is from the same branch of culinary physics that determined that food eaten while walking contains no calories.

    [BACK]

    [10] Not 'Did' anything, just 'Did'. Some things were Done, and some things were Not Done. And the things that were Done, Igors Did.

    [BACK]

    [11] Igors were loyal, but they were not stupid. A job was a job. When an employer had no further use for your services, for example because he'd just been staked through the heart by a crowd of angry villagers, it was time to move on before they decided that you ought to be on the next stake. An Igor soon learned a secret way out of any castle and where to stash an overnight bag. In the words of one of the founding Igors: 'We belong dead? Ecthcuthe me? Where doeth it thay..we"?

    [BACK]

    [12] And it has to be said that there was nothing intrinsically evil about Igors themselves. They just didn.t pass judgement on other people. Admittedly, that was because if you worked for werewolves and vampires and people who looked on surgery as modern art rather than science, passing judgement would mean you'd never have time to get anything done.

    [BACK]

    [13] Every society needs a cry like that, but only in a very few do they come out with the complete, unvarnished version, which is 'Remember-the-Atrocity-Committed-Against-Us-Last-Time-That-Will-Excuse-the-Atrocity-That-We're-About-to-Commit-Today! And So On! Hurrah!'

    [BACK]

    [14] The yeti of the Ramtops, where the Discworld's magical field is so intense that it is part of the very landscape, are one of the few creatures to utilize control of personal time for genetic advantage. The result is a kind of physical premonition - you find out what is going to happen next by allowing it to happen. Faced with danger, or any kind of task that involves risk of death, a yeti will save its life up to that point and then proceed with all due caution, yet in the comfortable knowledge that should everything go pancake-shaped, it will wake up at the point where it saved itself with, and this is the important part, knowledge of the events which have just happened but which will not now happen because it's not going to be such a damn fool next time. This is not quite the paradox it appears because, after it has taken place, it hasn't happened. All that actually remains is a memory in the yeti's head, which merely turns out to be a remarkably accurate premonition. The little eddies in time caused by all this are just lost in the noise of all the kinks, dips and knots put in time by every other living creature.

    [BACK]

    [15] But not tasteful.

    [BACK]

    [16] Teaching small children for any length of time can do this to a vocabulary.

    [BACK]

    [17] Up to ten dollars a pound, usually.

    [BACK]

    [18] If you live in a country where the tradition calls for mayonnaise, just don't ask. Just don't.