‘Then start it!’
‘But her ladyship-‘
The door knocker thundered.
‘Igor?’ said Jeremy.
‘Yeth, thur?’ said Igor, from the hallway.
‘How did the servant person get there?’ said Mr White, still watching her ladyship.
‘It’s a, a sort of trick they, they have,’ said Jeremy. ‘I’m, I’m sure it’s only-‘
‘It’th Dr Hopkinth, thur,’ said Igor, entering from the hall. ‘I told him you were buthy, but-‘
-but Dr Hopkins, although apparently as mild-mannered as milk, was also a Guild official and had survived as such for several years. Ducking under Igor’s arm was no problem at all for a man who could handle a meeting of clockmakers, no two of whom exactly ticked in time with the rest of humanity.
‘I just happened to have business this way,’ he began, smiling brightly, ‘and it was no trouble to drop in at the apothecary to pick up- Oh, you have company?’
Igor grimaced, but there was the Code to think of.
‘Thall I make thome tea, thur?’ he said, as all the Auditors glared at the doctor.
‘What is this tea?’ Mr White demanded.
‘It is protocol!’ snapped Lady LeJean.
Mr White hesitated. Protocol was important.
‘Er, er, er, yes,’ said Jeremy. ‘Tea, Igor, please. Please.’
‘My word, I see you have finished your clock!’ said Dr Hopkins, apparently oblivious of an atmosphere that could have floated iron. ‘What a magnificent piece of work!’
The Auditors stared at one another as the doctor ambled past them and looked up at the glass face.
‘Well done indeed, Jeremy!’ he said, removing his glasses and polishing them enthusiastically. ‘And what is this pretty blue glow?’
‘It’s, it’s the crystal ring,’ said Jeremy. ‘It, it-‘
‘It spins light,’ said Lady LeJean. ‘And then it makes a hole in the universe.’
‘Really?’ said Dr Hopkins, putting his glasses back on. ‘What an original idea! Does a cuckoo come out?’
Tick
Of the very worst words that can be heard by anyone high in the air, the pair known as ‘Oh-oh’ possibly combine the maximum of bowel-knotting terror with the minimum wastage of breath.
When Lu-Tze uttered them, Lobsang didn’t need a translation. He’d been watching the clouds for some time. They were getting blacker, and thicker, and darker.
‘The handle’s tingling!’ shouted Lu-Tze.
‘That’s because there’s a storm right above us!’ screamed Lobsang.
‘The sky was as clear as a bell a few minutes ago!’
Ankh-Morpork was much closer now. Lobsang could make out some of the taller buildings, and see the river snaking across the plain. But the storm was coming up all around the city.
‘I’m going to have to land this thing while I can!’ Lu-Tze said. ‘Hold on…’
The stick dropped until it was a few feet above the cabbage fields. The plants were a rushing green blur inches below Lobsang’s sandals.
Lobsang heard another word that, while not the worst you can hear while airborne, is not at all good when it’s said by the person steering.
‘Er…’
‘Do you know how to stop this?’ yelled Lobsang.
‘Not in so many words,’ shouted Lu-Tze. ‘Hold on, I’m going to try something…’
The stick tilted up but kept moving in the same direction. The bristles dipped into the cabbages.
It took the width of a field to slow down, at the end of a furrow with the smell that only squashed cabbage leaves can yield.
‘How fine can you slice time?’ the sweeper said, scrambling over the battered plants.
‘I’m pretty good-‘ Lobsang began.
‘Get better quick!’
Lu-Tze faded to blue as he ran towards the city. Lobsang caught him up within a hundred yards but the sweeper was still fading, still slicing time thinner and thinner. The apprentice gritted his teeth and followed, straining every muscle.
The old man might be a fraud when it came to fighting, but there was no kidding here. The world went from blue to indigo to an inky, unnatural darkness, like the shadow of an eclipse.
This was deep time. You couldn’t stay there long, he knew. Even if you could tolerate the ghastly chill, there were parts of the body that just weren’t designed for this. Go too far down, too, and you’d die if you came back too quickly…
He hadn’t seen it, of course, no apprentice had, but there were some quite graphic drawings in the classrooms. A man’s life could become very, very painful if his blood began to move through time faster than his bones. It would also be very short.
‘I can’t … keep this up…’ he panted, running after Lu-Tze in the violet gloom.
‘You can,’ gasped the sweeper. ‘You’re fast, right?’
‘I’m not … trained … for this!’
The city was getting closer.
‘No one’s trained for this!’ growled Lu-Tze. ‘You do it, and you find out that you’re good at it!’
‘What happens if you find out you’re no good?’ said Lobsang. The going felt easier now. He no longer had the feeling that his skin was trying to drag itself off him.
‘Dead men don’t find things out,’ said Lu-Tze. He turned his head to his apprentice and his evil grin was a yellow-toothed curve in the shadows. ‘Getting the hang?’ he added.
‘I’m… I’m on top of it…’
‘Right! Then now that we’ve warmed up…’
To Lobsang’s horror, the sweeper faded further into the dark.
He called up reserves he knew he didn’t have. He screamed at his liver to stay with him, thought that he felt his brain creak, and plunged on.
The shape of Lu-Tze lightened as Lobsang drew level with him in time.
‘Still here? One last effort, lad!’
‘I can’t!’
‘You bloody well can!’
Lobsang gulped freezing air and fell onwards-
-where the light was suddenly a calm, pale blue and Lu-Tze was trotting gently between the frozen carts and unmoving people around the city’s gate.
‘See? Nothing to it,’ said the sweeper. ‘Just maintain, that’s all. Nice and steady.’
It was like balancing on a wire. It was fine if you didn’t think about it.
‘But all the scrolls say you go to blue and violet and into the black and then you hit the Wall,’ said Lobsang.
‘Ah, well, scrolls,’ said Lu-Tze, and left it there, as if the tone of voice said it all. ‘This is Zimmerman’s Valley, lad. It helps if you know it’s here. The abbot said it’s something to do with… what was it? … Oh, yeah, boundary conditions. Something like… the foam on the tide. We’re right on the edge, boy!’
‘But I can breathe easily!’
‘Yeah. Shouldn’t happen. Keep moving about, though, otherwise you’ll exhaust all the good air around your body field. Good old Zimmerman, eh? One of the best, he was. And he reckoned there was another dip even closer to the Wall, too.’
‘Did he ever find it?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Why?’
‘The way he exploded gave me a hint. Don’t worry! You can maintain the slice easily here. You don’t have to think about it. You’ve got other things to think about! Keep an eye on those clouds!’
Lobsang looked up. Even in this blue-on-blue landscape, the clouds over the city looked ominous.
‘It’s what happened back in Uberwald,’ said Lu-Tze. ‘The clock needs a lot of power. The storm blew up out of nowhere.’
‘But the city’s huge! How can we find a clock here?’
‘First, we’re going to head for the centre,’ said Lu-Tze.
‘Why?’
‘Because with luck we won’t have to run so far when the lightning strikes, of course.’
‘Sweeper, no one can outrun lightning!’
Lu-Tze spun round and grabbed Lobsang by the robe, dragging him closer.
‘Then tell me where to run, speedy boy!’ he shouted. ‘There’s more to you than meets the third eye, lad! No apprentice should be able to find Zimmerman’s Valley! It takes hundreds of years of training! And no one should be able to make the spinners sit up and dance to his tune the very first time he sees them! Think I’m daft, do you? Orphan boy, strange power… what the hell are you? The Mandala knew you! Well, I’m just a mortal human, and what I know is, I’ll be damned if I’ll see the world shattered a second time! So help me! Whatever it is you’ve got, I need it now! Use it!’
He let go, and stood back. A vein in his bald head was throbbing.
‘But I don’t know what I can do to-‘
‘Find out what you can do!’
Tick
Protocol. Rules. Precedent. Ways of doing things. That’s how we’ve always worked, thought Lady LeJean. This and this must follow that. It has always been our strength. I wonder if it can be a weakness?
If looks could have killed, Dr Hopkins would have been a smear on the wall. The Auditors watched his every move like cats watching a new species of mouse.
Lady LeJean had been incarnate much longer than the others. Time can change a body, especially when you’ve never had one before. She wouldn’t have stared and fumed. She would have clubbed the doctor to the ground. What was one more human?