Thief of Time

“Oh, I knew you wouldn't catch one,” said Lu-Tze. “Even our boisterous friend out there in the dojo wouldn't catch one at that speed.”

“But you said you had slowed it down!”

“Only so that it wouldn't kill you. Just a test, see. Everything's a test. Let's go, lad. Can't keep the abbot waiting.”

Trailing cigarette smoke, Lu-Tze ambled away.

Lobsang followed, getting more and more nervous. This was Lu-Tze, the dojo had proved that. And he knew it, anyway. He'd looked at the little round face as it gazed amicably at the angry fighter and known it. But… just a sweeper? No insignia? No status? Well, obviously status, because the dojo master couldn't have bowed lower for the abbot, but…

And now he was following the man along passages where even a monk was not allowed to go, on pain of death. Sooner or later, there was surely going to be trouble.

“Sweeper, I really ought to be back at my duties in the kitchens—” he began.

“Oh, yes. Kitchen duties,” said Lu-Tze. “To teach you the virtues of obedience and hard work, right?”

“Yes, Sweeper.”

“Are they working?”

“Oh… yes.”

“Really?”

“Well… no.”

“They're not all they're cracked up to be, I have to tell you,” said Lu-Tze. “Whereas, my lad, what we have here,” he stepped through an archway, “is an education!”

It was the biggest room Lobsang had ever seen. Shafts of light speared down from glazed holes in the roof. And below, more than a hundred yards across and tended by senior monks who walked above it on delicate wire walkways…

Lobsang had heard about the Mandala.

It was as if someone had taken tons of coloured sands and thrown them across the floor in a great swirl of coloured chaos. But there was order fighting for survival in the chaos, rising and falling and spreading. Millions of randomly tumbling sand grains would nevertheless make a piece of pattern, which would replicate and spread across the circle, rebounding or merging with other patterns and eventually dissolving into the general disorder. It happened again and again, turning the Mandala into a silent raging war of colour.

Lu-Tze stepped out onto a frail-looking wood-and-rope bridge.

“Well?” he said. “What d'you think?”

Lobsang took a deep breath. He felt that if he fell off the bridge he'd drop into the surging colours and never, ever hit the floor. He blinked and rubbed his forehead.

“It's… evil,” he said.

“Really?” said Lu-Tze. “Not many people say that the first time. They use words like ‘wonderful’.”

“It's going wrong!”

“What?”

Lobsang clutched the rope railing. “The patterns—” he began.

“History repeating,” said Lu-Tze. “They're always there.”

“No, they're—” Lobsang tried to take it all in. There were patterns under the patterns, disguised as part of the chaos. “I mean… the other patterns…”

He slumped forward.

The air was cold, the world was spinning, and the ground rushed up to enfold him.

And stopped, a few inches away.

The air around him sizzled, as though it was being gently fried.

“Newgate Ludd?”

“Lu-Tze?” he said. “The Mandala is…”

But where were the colours? Why was the air wet and smelling of the city? And then the ghost memories faded away. As they disappeared, they said: How can we be memories, when we have yet to happen? Surely what you remember is climbing all the way up onto the roof of the Bakers' Guild and finding that someone had loosened all the capping stones, because that just happened?

And a last dying memory said, Hey, that was months ago…

“No, we're not Lu-Tze, mysterious falling kid,” said the voice that had addressed him. “Can you turn round?”

Newgate managed, with great difficulty, to move his head. It felt as though he was stuck in tar.

A heavy young man in a grubby yellow robe was sitting on an upturned box a few feet away. He looked a bit like a monk, except for his hair, because his hair looked a bit like an entirely separate organism. To say that it was black and bound up in a ponytail is to miss the opportunity of using the term “elephantine”. It was hair with personality.

“Mostly my name's Soto,” said the man underneath. “Marco Soto. I won't bother memorizing yours until we know if you're going to live or not, eh? So tell me, have you ever considered the rewards of the spiritual life?”

“Right now? Certainly!” said… yes, Newgate, he thought, that's my name, yes? So why do I remember Lobsang? “Er, I was thinking about the possibility of taking up a new line of work!”

“Good career move,” said Soto.

“Is this some kind of magic?” Newgate tried to move but hung, turning gently, in the air just above the waiting ground.

“Not exactly. You seem to have shaped time.”

“Me? How did I do that?”

“You don't know?”

“No!”

“Hah, will you listen to him?” said Soto, as if talking to a genial companion. “There's probably the spin time of a whole Procrastinator being used up to prevent your little trick causing untold harm to the entire world, and you don't know how you did it?”

“No!”

“Then we'll train you. It's a good life, and it offers excellent prospects. At least,” he added, sniffing, “better than those that confront you now.”

Newgate strained to turn his head further. “Train me in what, exactly?”

The man sighed. “Still asking questions, kid? Are you coming or not?”

“How—?”

“Look, I'm offering you the opportunity of a lifetime, do you understand?”

“Why is it the opportunity of a lifetime, Mr Soto?”

“No, you misunderstand me. You, that is Newgate Ludd, are being offered, that is by me, the opportunity of having a lifetime. Which is more than you will have shortly.”

Newgate hesitated. He was aware of a tingling in his body. In a sense, it was still falling. He didn't know how he knew this, but the knowledge was as real as the cobbles just below him. If he made the wrong choice the fall would simply continue. It had been easy so far. The last few inches would be terminally hard.

“I must admit I don't like the way my life is going at the moment,” he said. “It may be advantageous to find a new direction.”

“Good.” The be-haired man pulled something out of his robe. It looked like a folded abacus, but when he opened it up parts of it vanished with little flashes of light, as if they'd moved somewhere where they could not be seen.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you know what kinetic energy is?”

“No.”

“It's what you have far too much of.” Soto's fingers danced on the beads, sometimes disappearing and reappearing. “I imagine you weigh about a hundred and ten pounds, yes?”