Thief of Time

on which was written, in faded ink, “The Way of Mrs Cosmopilite”.

“Well?” said Lu-Tze.

“The Way has an answer for everything, does it?”

“Yes.”

“Then…” Lobsang nodded at the little volcano, which was gently smoking, “how does that work? It's on a saucer!”

Lu-Tze stared straight ahead, his lips moving. “Page seventy-six, I think,” he said.

Lobsang turned to the page. “‘Because,’” he read.

“Good answer,” said Lu-Tze, gently caressing a minute crag with a camel-hair brush.

“Just ‘Because’, Sweeper? No reason?”

“Reason? What reason can a mountain have? And, as you accumulate years, you will learn that most answers boil down, eventually, to ‘Because’.”

Lobsang said nothing. The Book of the Way was giving him problems. What he wanted to say was this: Lu-Tze, this reads like a book of the sayings of an old lady. It's the sort of thing old ladies say. What kind of koan is “It won't get better if you pick at it,” or “Eat it up, it'll make your hair curly,” or “Everything comes to he who waits”? This is stuff you get in Hogswatch crackers!

“Really?” said Lu-Tze, still apparently engrossed in a mountain.

“I didn't say anything.”

“Oh. I thought you did. Do you miss Ankh-Morpork?”

“Yes. I didn't have to sweep floors there.”

“Were you a good thief?”

“I was a fantastic thief.”

A breeze blew the scent of cherry blossom. Just once, thought Lu-Tze, it would be nice to pick cherries.

“I have been to Ankh-Morpork,” he said, straightening up and moving on to the next mountain. “You have seen the visitors we get here?”

“Yes,” said Lobsang. “Everyone laughs at them.”

“Really?” Lu-Tze raised his eyebrows. “When they have trekked thousands of miles seeking the truth?”

“But did not Wen say that if the truth is anywhere, it is everywhere?” said Lobsang.

“Well done. I see you've learned something, at least. But one day it seemed to me that everyone else had decided that wisdom can only be found a long way off. So I went to Ankh-Morpork. They were all coming here, so it seemed only fair.”

“Seeking enlightenment?”

“No. The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. So while I was waiting it occurred to me that seeking perplexity might be more fun,” said Lu-Tze. “After all, enlightenment begins where perplexity ends. And I found perplexity. And a kind of enlightenment, too. I had not been there five minutes, for example, when some men in an alley tried to enlighten me of what little I possessed, giving me a valuable lesson in the ridiculousness of material things.”

“But why Ankh-Morpork?” said Lobsang.

“Look in the back of the book,” said Lu-Tze.

There was a yellow, crackling scrap of paper tucked in there. The boy unfolded it.

“Oh, this is just a bit of the Almanack,” he said. “It's very popular there.”

“Yes. A seeker after wisdom left it here.”

“Er… it's just got the Phases of the Moon on this page.”

“Other side,” said the sweeper.

Lobsang turned the paper over. “It's just an advert from the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Merchants,” he said. “‘Ankh-Morpork Has Everything!’” He stared at the smiling Lu-Tze. “And… you thought that—”

“Ah, I am old and simple and understand,” said the sweeper. “Whereas you are young and complicated. Didn't Wen see portents in the swirl of gruel in his bowl, and in the flight of birds? This was actually written. I mean, flights of birds are quite complex, but these were words. And, after a lifetime of searching, I saw at last the opening of the Way. My Way.”

“And you went all the way to Ankh-Morpork…” said Lobsang weakly.

“And I fetched up, calm of mind but empty of pocket, in Quirm Street,” said the sweeper, smiling serenely at the recollection, “and espied a sign in a window saying ‘Rooms For Rent’. Thus I met Mrs Cosmopilite, who opened the door when I knocked and then when I hesitated, not being sure of the language, she said, ‘I haven't got all day, you know.’ Almost to a word, one of the sayings of Wen! Instantly I knew that I had found what I was seeking! During the days I washed dishes in an eating house for twenty pence a day and all the scraps I could take away, and in the evenings I helped Mrs Cosmopilite clean the house and listened carefully to her conversation. She was a natural sweeper with a good rhythmical motion and had bottomless wisdom. Within the first two days she uttered to me the actual words said by Wen upon understanding the true nature of Time! It was when I asked for a reduced rate because of course I did not sleep in a bed, and she said ‘I was not born yesterday, Mr Tze!’ Astonishing! And she could never have seen the Sacred Texts!”

Lobsang's face was a carefully drawn picture. “‘I was not born yesterday’?” he said.

“Ah, yes, of course, as a novice you would not have got that far,” said Lu-Tze. “It was when he fell asleep in a cave and in a dream saw Time appear to him and show him that the universe is recreated from second to second, endlessly, with the past just a memory. And he stepped out from the cave into the truly new world and said, ‘I was not born—yesterday’!”

“Oh, yes,” said Lobsang. “But—”

“Ah, Mrs Cosmopilite,” said Lu-Tze, his eyes misting over. “What a woman for keeping things clean! If she were a sweeper here, no one would be allowed to walk on the floor! Her house! So amazing! A palace! New sheets every other week! And cook? Just to taste her Beans Baked Upon the Toast a man would give up a cycle of the universe!”

“Um,” said Lobsang.

“I stayed for three months, sweeping her house as is fitting for the pupil, and then I returned here, my Way clear before me.”

“And, er, these stories about you…”

“Oh, all true. Most of them. A bit of exaggeration, but mostly true.”

“The one about the citadel in Muntab and the Pash and the fish bone?”

“Oh, yes.”

“But how did you get in where hall a dozen trained and armed men couldn't even—?”

“I'm a little man and I carry a broom,” said Lu-Tze simply. “Everyone has some mess that needs clearing up. What harm is a man with a broom?”

“What? And that was it?”

“Well, the rest was a matter of cookery, really. The Pash was not a good man, but he was a glutton for his fish pie.”

“No martial arts?” said Lobsang.

“Oh, always a last resort. History needs shepherds, not butchers.”

“Do you know okidoki?”

“Just a lot of bunny-hops.”

“Shiitake?”

“If I wanted to thrust my hand into hot sand I would go to the seaside.”

“Upsidazi?”

“A waste of good bricks.”

“No kando?”

“You made that one up.”

“Tung-pi?”