Thief of Time

“You're that good with the stick, are you?”

“I'm very fast—”

“Then if you don't fight right now I shall wrest it from you and break it over your head,” said Lu-Tze, drawing back. “Ready? The only defence is to attack well, I'm told.”

Lobsang tilted the stick in reluctant salute.

Lu-Tze folded his hands and, as Lobsang danced towards him, closed his eyes and smiled to himself.

Lobsang raised the stick again.

And hesitated.

Lu-Tze was grinning.

Rule Two, Rule Three… What had been Rule One?

Always remember Rule One…

“Lu-Tze!”

The abbot's chief acolyte arrived panting in the doorway, waving urgently.

Lu-Tze opened one eye, and then the other one, and then winked at Lobsang.

“Narrow escape there, eh?” he said. He turned to the acolyte. “Yes, exalted sir?”

“You must come immediately! And all monks who are cleared for a tour in the world! To the Mandala Hall! Now!”

There was a scuffling in the gallery and several monks pushed their way out through the crowd.

“Ah, excitement,” said Lu-Tze, taking the stick from Lobsang's unresisting hands and putting it back into the rack. The hall was emptying fast. Around the whole of Oi Dong, gongs were being banged frantically.

“What's happening?” said Lobsang, as the last of the monks surged past.

“I daresay we shall soon be told,” said Lu-Tze, starting to roll himself a cigarette.

“Hadn't we better hurry? Everyone's going!” The sound of flapping sandals died away in the distance.

“Nothing seems to be on fire,” said Lu-Tze calmly. “Besides, if we wait a little then by the time we get there everyone will have stopped shouting and perhaps they will be making some sense. Let us take the Clock Path. The display is particularly fine at this time of day.”

“But… but…”

“It is written ‘You've got to learn to walk before you can run,’” said Lu-Tze, putting his broom over his shoulder.

“Mrs Cosmopilite again?”

“Amazing woman. Dusted like a demon, too.”

The Clock Path wound out from the main complex, up through the terraced gardens, and then rejoined the wider path as it tunnelled into the cliff wall. Novices always asked why it was called the Clock Path, since there was no sign of a clock anywhere.

More gongs started to bang, but they were muffled by the greenery. Lobsang heard running feet up on the main path. Down here, humming birds flickered from flower to flower, oblivious of any excitement.

“I wonder what time it is,” said Lu-Tze, who was walking ahead.

Everything is a test. Lobsang glanced around at the flowerbed.

“A quarter past nine,” he said.

“Oh? And how do you know that?”

“The field marigold is open, the red sandwort is opening, the purple bindweed is closed, and the yellow goat's beard is closing,” said Lobsang.

“You worked out the floral clock all by yourself?”

“Yes. It's obvious.”

“Really? What time is it when the white waterlily opens?”

“Six in the morning.”

“You came to look?”

“Yes. You planted this garden, did you?”

“One of my little… efforts.”

“It's beautiful.”

“It's not very accurate in the small hours. There aren't too many night-blooming plants that grow well up here. They open for the moths, you know—”

“It's how time wants to be measured,” said Lobsang.

“Really? Of course I'm not an expert,” said Lu-Tze. He pinched out the end of his cigarette and stuck it behind his ear. “Oh well, let's keep going. Everyone may have stopped arguing at cross purposes by now. How do you feel about going through the Mandala Hall again?”

“Oh, I'll be fine, I'd just… forgotten about it, that's all.”

“Really? And you'd never seen it before, too. But time plays funny tricks on us all. Why, I once—” Lu-Tze stopped, and stared at the apprentice.

“Are you all right?” he said. “You've gone pale.”

Lobsang grimaced and shook his head.

“Something… felt odd,” he said. He vaguely waved a hand in the direction of the lowlands, spread out in a blue and grey pattern on the horizon. “Something… over there…”

The glass clock. The great glass house and here, where it shouldn't be, the glass clock. It was barely here; it showed up as shimmering lines in the air, as if it was possible to capture the sparkle of light off a shiny surface without the surface itself.

Everything here was transparent—delicate chairs, tables, vases of flowers. And now he realized that glass was not a word to use here. Crystal might be better; or ice—the thin, flawless ice you sometimes got after a sharp frost. Everything was visible only by its edges.

He could make out staircases through distant walls. Above and below and to every side, the glass rooms went on for ever.

And yet it was all familiar. It felt like home.

Sound filled the glass rooms. It streamed away in clear sharp notes, like the tones made by a wet finger around a wineglass rim. There was movement, too—a haze in the air beyond the transparent walls, shifting and wavering and… watching him…

“How can it come from over there? And how do you mean, odd?” said the voice of Lu-Tze.

Lobsang blinked. This was the odd place, the one right here, the rigid and unbending world…

And then the feeling passed, and faded.

“Just odd. For a moment,” he mumbled. There was dampness on his cheek. He raised his hand, and touched wetness.

“It's that rancid yak butter they put in the tea, I've always said so,” said Lu-Tze. “Mrs Cosmopilite never— Now that is unusual,” he said, looking up.

“What? What?” said Lobsang, looking blankly at his wet fingertips and then up at the cloudless sky.

“A Procrastinator going overspeed.” He shifted position. “Can't you feel it?”

“I can't hear anything!” said Lobsang.

“Not hear, feel. Coming up through your sandals? Oops, there goes another one… and another. You can't feel it? That one's… that's old Sixty-Six, they've never got it properly balanced. We'll hear them in a minute… Oh dear. Look at the flowers. Do look at the flowers!”

Lobsang turned.

The ice plants were opening. The field sowthistle was closing.

“Time-leak,” said Lu-Tze. “Hark at that! You can hear them now, eh? They're dumping time randomly! Come on!”