‘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.