Thief of Time

Lu-Tze climbed onto the podium and ran his eye over a board covered with wooden bobbins. A red or blue nimbus hovered over each one.

“What a mess,” he said. “What a mess.”

“What do they mean?” said Lobsang.

Lu-Tze's hands hovered over the bobbins. “Okay. The red-tinted ones are winding time out, speeding it up,” he said. “The blue-tinted ones, they're winding time in, slowing it down. Brightness of the colour, that's how fast they're doing it. Except that now they're all freewheeling because the surge cut them loose, understand?”

“Loose from what?”

“From the load. From the world. See up there?” He waved a hand towards two long racks that ran all the way along the cavern wall. Each one held a row of swivelling shutters, one line blue, one line dark red.

“The more shutters showing a colour, the more time winding or unwinding?”

“Good lad! Got to keep it balanced! And the way we get through this is we couple the spinners up in twos, so that they wind and unwind one another. Cancel themselves out. Poor old Shoblang was trying to put them back into service, I reckon. Can't be done, not during a cascade. You've got to let it all fall over, and then pick up the pieces when it's nice and quiet.” He glanced at the bobbins and then at the crowd of monks. “Right. You… 128 to 17, and then 45 to 89. Off you go. And you… 596 to, let's see… yes, 402…”

“Seven hundred and ninety!” shouted Lobsang, pointing to a bobbin.

“You what?”

“Seven hundred and ninety!”

“Don't be daft. That's still unwinding, lad. Four hundred and two is our man, right here.”

“Seven hundred and ninety is about to start winding time again!”

“It's still bright blue.”

“It's going to wind. I know it. Because”—the novice's finger moved over the lines of bobbins, hesitated, and pointed to a bobbin on the other side of the board—“it's matching speeds with this one.”

Lu-Tze peered. “It is written, ‘Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!’” he said. “They're forming a natural inversion.” He squinted at Lobsang. “You're not the reincarnation of someone, are you? That happens a lot in these parts.”

“I don't think so. It's just… obvious.”

“A moment ago you didn't know anything about these!”

“Yes, yes, but when you see them… it's obvious.”

“Is it? Is it? All right. Then the board's yours, wonder boy!” Lu-Tze stood back.

“Mine? But I—”

“Get on with it! That is an order.”

For a moment there was a suggestion of blue light around Lobsang. Lu-Tze wondered how much time he'd folded around himself in that second. Time enough to think, certainly.

Then the boy called out half a dozen pairs of numbers. Lu-Tze turned to the monks.

“Jump to it, boys. Mr Lobsang has the board! You boys just watch those bearings!”

“But he's a novice—” one of the monks began, and stopped and backed away when he saw Lu-Tze's expression. “All right, Sweeper… all right…”

A moment later there was the sound of jumpers slamming into place. Lobsang called out another set of numbers.

While the monks dashed to and fro to the butter pits for grease, Lu-Tze watched the nearest column. It was still spinning fast, but he was sure he could see the carvings.

Lobsang ran his eye over the board again and stared up at the rumbling cylinders, and then back to the lines of shutters.

There wasn't anything written down about all this, Lu-Tze knew. You couldn't teach it in a classroom, although they tried. A good spin driver learned it through the soles of his feet, for all the theory that they taught you these days. He'd learn to feel the flows, to see the rows of Procrastinators as sinks or fountains of time. Old Shoblang had been so good that he'd been able to pull a couple of hours of wasted time from a classroom of bored pupils without their even noticing, and dump it into a busy workshop a thousand miles away as neat as you pleased.

And then there was that trick he used to do with an apple to amaze the apprentices. He'd put it on a pillar next to them, and then flick time at it off one of the small spindles. In an instant it'd be a collection of small, spindly trees before crumbling to dust. That's what'll happen to you if you get things wrong, he'd say.

Lu-Tze glanced down at the pile of grey dust under the disintegrating hat as he hurried past. Well, maybe it was the way he'd want to go—

A scream of tormented stone made him look up.

“Keep those bearings greased, you lazy devils!” he yelled, running down the rows. “And watch those rails! Hands off the splines! We're doing fine!”

As he ran he kept his eyes on the columns. They were no longer turning randomly. Now, they had purpose.

“I think you're winning, lad!” he shouted to the figure on the podium.

“Yes, but I can't balance it! There's too much time wound up and nowhere to put it!”

“How much?”

“Almost forty years!”

Lu-Tze glanced at the shutters. Forty years looked about right, but surely—?

“How much?” he said.

“Forty! I'm sorry! There's nothing to take it up!”

“No problem! Steal it! Shed load! We can always pull it back later! Dump it!”

“Where?”

“Find a big patch of sea!” The sweeper pointed to a crude map of the world painted on the wall. “Do you know how to—Can you see how to give it the right spin and direction?”

Once again, there was the blueness in the air.

“Yes! I think so!”

“Yes, I imagine you do! In your own time, then!”

Lu-Tze shook his head. Forty years? He was worried about forty years? Forty years was nothing! Apprentice drivers had dumped fifty thousand years before now. That was the thing about the sea. It just stayed big and wet. It always had been big and wet, it always would be big and wet. Oh, maybe fishermen would start to dredge up strange whiskery fish that they'd only ever seen before as fossils, but who cared what happened to a bunch of codfish?

The sound changed.

“What are you doing?”

“I've found space on number 422! It can take another forty years! No sense in wasting time! I'm pulling it back now!”

There was another change of tone.

“Got it! I'm sure I've got it!”

Some of the bigger cylinders were already slowing to a halt. Lobsang was moving pegs around the board now faster than the bewildered Lu-Tze could follow. And, overhead, the shutters were slamming back, one after another, showing age-blackened wood instead of colour.

No one could be that accurate, could they?

“You're down to months now, lad, months!” he shouted. “Keep it up! No, blimey, you're down to days… days! Keep an eye on me!”

The sweeper ran towards the end of the hall, to where the Procrastinators were smaller. Time was fine- tuned here, on cylinders of chalk and wood and other short-lived materials. To his amazement, some of them were already slowing.

He raced down an aisle of oak columns a few feet high. But even the Procrastinators that could wind time