Thief of Time

dressed, at home in any company and, proverbially, a good horseman.

The fact that he was the Grim Reaper was the only bit that didn't quite fit.

Most of the overstuffed chairs in the library were occupied by contented lunchers dozing happily under tented copies of the Ankh-Morpork Times. Susan looked around until she found the copy from which projected the bottom half of a black robe and two bony feet. There was also a scythe leaning against the back of the armchair. She raised the paper.

GOOD AFTERNOON, said Death. HAVE YOU HAD LUNCH? IT WAS JAM ROLY-POLY.

“Why do you do this, Grandfather? You know you don't sleep.”

I FIND IT RESTFUL. ARE YOU WELL?

“I was until the rat arrived.”

YOUR CAREER PROGRESSES? YOU KNOW I CARE FOR YOU.

“Thank you,” said Susan shortly. “Now, why did—”

WOULD A LITTLE SMALL TALK HURT?

Susan sighed. She knew what was behind that, and it wasn't a happy thought. It was a small, sad and wobbly little thought, and it ran: each of them had no one else but the other. There. It was a thought that sobbed into its own handkerchief, but it was true.

Oh, Death had his manservant, Albert, and of course there was the Death of Rats, if you could call that company.

And as far as Susan was concerned…

Well, she was partly immortal, and that was all there was to it. She could see things that were really there,8 she could put time on and off like an overcoat. Rules that applied to everyone else, like gravity, applied to her only when she let them. And, however hard you tried, this sort of thing did tend to get in the way of relationships. It was hard to deal with people when a tiny part of you saw them as a temporary collection of atoms that would not be around in another few decades.

And there she met the tiny part of Death that found it hard to deal with people when it thought of them as real.

Not a day went past but she regretted her curious ancestry. And then she'd wonder what it could possibly be like to walk the world unaware at every step of the rocks beneath your feet and the stars overhead, to have a mere five senses, to be almost blind and nearly deaf…

THE CHILDREN ARE WELL? I LIKED THEIR PAINTINGS OF ME.

“Yes. How is Albert?”

HE IS WELL.

…and not really have any small talk, Susan added to herself. There wasn't room for small talk in a big universe.

THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END.

Well, that was big talk. “When?”

NEXT WEDNESDAY.

“Why?”

THE AUDITORS ARE BACK, said Death.

“Those evil little things?”

YES.

“I hate them.”

I, OF COURSE, DO NOT HAVE ANY EMOTIONS, said Death, poker-faced as only a skull can be.

“What are they up to this time?”

I CANNOT SAY.

“I thought you could remember the future!”

YES. BUT SOMETHING HAS CHANGED. AFTER WEDNESDAY, THERE IS NO FUTURE.

“There must be something, even if it's only debris!”

NO. AFTER ONE O'CLOCK NEXT WEDNESDAY THERE IS NOTHING. JUST ONE O'CLOCK NEXT WEDNESDAY, FOR EVER AND EVER. NO ONE WILL LIVE. NO ONE WILL DIE. THAT IS WHAT I NOW SEE. THE FUTURE HAS CHANGED. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

“And what has this got to do with me?” Susan knew this would sound stupid to anyone else.

I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THE END OF THE WORLD IS EVERYONE'S RESPONSIBILITY, WOULDN'T YOU?

“You know what I mean!”

I BELIEVE THIS HAS TO DO WITH THE NATURE OF TIME, WHICH IS BOTH IMMORTAL AND HUMAN. THERE HAVE BEEN CERTAIN… RIPPLES.

“They're going to do something to Time? I thought they weren't allowed to do things like that.”

NO. BUT HUMANS CAN. IT HAS BEEN DONE ONCE BEFORE.

“No one would be that stu—”

Susan stopped. Of course someone would be that stupid. Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying “End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH”, the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.

She thought some more. Death was watching her intently.

Then she said, “Funnily enough, there is this book I've been reading to the class. I found it on my desk one day. It's called Grim Fairy Tales…”

AH, HAPPY TALES FOR LITTLE FOLK, said Death, without a trace of irony.

“…which is mostly about wicked people dying in horrible ways. It's strange, really. The children seem quite happy with the idea. It doesn't seem to worry them.”

Death said nothing.

“…except in the case of the Glass Clock of Bad Schuschein,” said Susan, watching his skull. “They found that quite upsetting, even though it's got a kind of happy ending.”

IT MAY BE BECAUSE THE STORY IS TRUE.

Susan had known Death long enough not to argue.

“I think I understand,” she said. “You made sure the book was there.”

YES. OH, THE RUBBISH ABOUT THE HANDSOME PRINCE AND SO ON IS AN OBVIOUS ADDITION. THE AUDITORS DID NOT INVENT THE CLOCK, OF COURSE. THAT WAS THE WORK OF A MADMAN. BUT THEY ARE GOOD AT ADAPTING. THEY CANNOT CREATE, BUT THEY CAN ADAPT. AND THE CLOCK IS BEING REBUILT.

“Was time really stopped?”

TRAPPED. ONLY FOR A MOMENT, BUT THE RESULTS STILL LIE ALL AROUND US. HISTORY WAS SHATTERED, FRAGMENTED. PASTS WERE NO LONGER LINKED TO FUTURES. THE HISTORY MONKS HAD TO REBUILD IT PRACTICALLY FROM SCRATCH.

Susan did not waste breath saying things like, “That's impossible,” at a time like this. Only people who believed that they lived in the real world said things like that.

“That must have taken some… time,” she said.

TIME, OF COURSE, WAS NOT THE ISSUE. THEY USE A FORM OF YEARS BASED ON THE HUMAN PULSE RATE. OF THOSE YEARS, IT TOOK ABOUT FIVE HUNDRED.

“But if history was shattered, where did they get—”

Death steepled his fingers.

THINK TEMPORALLY, SUSAN. I BELIEVE THEY STOLE SOME TIME FROM SOME EARLIER AGE OF THE WORLD, WHERE IT WAS BEING WASTED ON A LOT OF REPTILES. WHAT IS TIME TO A BIG LIZARD, AFTER ALL? HAVE YOU SEEN THOSE PROCRASTINATORS THE MONKS USE? WONDERFUL THINGS. THEY CAN MOVE TIME, STORE IT, STRETCH IT… QUITE INGENIOUS. AS FOR WHEN THIS HAPPENED, THE QUESTION ALSO MAKES NO SENSE. WHEN THE BOTTLE IS BROKEN, DOES IT MATTER WHERE THE GLASS WAS HIT? THE SHARDS OF THE EVENT ITSELF NO LONGER EXIST IN THIS REBUILT HISTORY, IN ANY CASE.

“Hold on, hold on… How can you take a piece of, oh, some old century, and stitch it into a modern one? Wouldn't people notice that…” Susan flailed a bit, “oh, that people have got the wrong armour and the buildings are all wrong and they're still in the middle of wars that happened centuries ago?”