Thief of Time (Discworld 26)

'But I thought you stored lightning?' Her ladyship indicated the greenish glass cylinders bubbling and hissing along the wall of the workshop. Just by the bench with, yes, the hammer on it. And no one could read her thoughts! The power! 'There will easily be enough to keep the mechanism working, but to start the clock will require what Igor call's a jump,' said Jeremy. Igor held up two crocodile clips the size of his head. 'th right,' he said. 'But you hardly ever get the right kind of thunderthtormth down here. Thould've built thith in Uberwald, I keep thaying.'

'What is the nature of this delay?' said - possibly - Mr White. 'We need a thunderstorm, sir. For the lightning,' said Jeremy. Lady LeJean stepped back, a little closer to the bench. 'Well? Arrange one,' said Mr White. 'Hah, well, if we were in Uberwald, of courthe-'

'It is merely a matter of pressures and potentials,' said Mr White. 'Can you not simply create one?' Igor gave him a look of disbelief mixed with respect. 'You're not from Uberwald, are you?' he said. Then he gasped, and banged the side of his head. 'Hey, I felt that one,' he said. 'Whoopth! How did you do that? Prethure dropping like a thtone!' Sparks glittered along his black fingernails. He beamed. 'I'll jutht go and raithe the lightning rod,' he said, hurrying to a pulley system on the wall. Lady LeJean turned on the others. This time she wished they could read her thoughts. She didn't know enough pronounceable human swearwords. 'That is against the rules!' she hissed. 'Mere expediency,' said Mr White. If you had not been... lax, this would have been concluded by now!'

'I counselled further study!'

'Unnecessary!'

Is there a problem?' said Jeremy, in the diffident voice he used for conversations not involving clocks. 'The clock should not be started yet!' said Lady LeJean, not taking her eyes off the other Auditors. 'But you asked me... We've been... It's all set up!'

'There may be ... problems! I think we should see another week of testing!' But there weren't problems, she knew. Jeremy had built the thing as if he'd built a dozen like it before. It had been all Lady LeJean could do to spin things out this long, especially with the Igor watching her like a hawk. 'What is your “name”, young person?' said Mr White to Jeremy. The clockmaker backed away. 'Jeremy,' he said, 'and I... I don't understand, Mr, er, White. A clock tells the time. A clock isn't dangerous. How can a clock be a problem? It's a perfect clock!'

'Then start it!'

'But her ladyship-' The door knocker thundered. 'Igor?' said Jeremy. 'Yeth, thur?' said Igor, from the hallway. 'How did the servant person get there?' said Mr White, still watching her ladyship. 'It's a, a sort of trick they, they have,' said Jeremy. 'I'm, I'm sure it's only-'

'It'th Dr Hopkinth, thur,' said Igor, entering from the hall. 'I told him you were buthy, but-' -but Dr Hopkins, although apparently as mild-mannered as milk, was also a Guild official and had survived as such for several years. Ducking under Igor's arm was no problem at all for a man who could handle a meeting of clockmakers, no two of whom exactly ticked in time with the rest of humanity. 'I just happened to have business this way,' he began, smiling brightly, 'and it was no trouble to drop in at the apothecary to pick up- Oh, you have company?' Igor grimaced, but there was the Code to think of. 'Thall I make thome tea, thur?' he said, as all the Auditors glared at the doctor. 'What is this tea?' Mr White demanded.

'It is protocol!' snapped Lady LeJean. Mr White hesitated. Protocol was important. 'Er, er, er, yes,' said Jeremy. 'Tea, Igor, please. Please.'

'My word, I see you have finished your clock!' said Dr Hopkins, apparently oblivious of an atmosphere that could have floated iron. 'What a magnificent piece of work!' The Auditors stared at one another as the doctor ambled past them and looked up at the glass face. 'Well done indeed, Jeremy!' he said, removing his glasses and polishing them enthusiastically. 'And what is this pretty blue glow?'

'It's, it's the crystal ring,' said Jeremy. 'It, it-'

'It spins light,' said Lady LeJean. 'And then it makes a hole in the universe.'

'Really?' said Dr Hopkins, putting his glasses back on. 'What an original idea! Does a cuckoo come out?' Tick Of the very worst words that can be heard by anyone high in the air, the pair known as 'Oh- oh' possibly combine the maximum of bowel-knotting terror with the minimum wastage of breath. When Lu-Tze uttered them, Lobsang didn't need a translation. He'd been watching the clouds for some time. They were getting blacker, and thicker, and darker. 'The handle's tingling!' shouted Lu-Tze. 'That's because there's a storm right above us!' screamed Lobsang. 'The sky was as clear as a bell a few minutes ago!' Ankh-Morpork was much closer now. Lobsang could make out some of the taller buildings, and see the river snaking across the plain. But the storm was coming up all around the city. 'I'm going to have to land this thing while I can!' Lu-Tze said. 'Hold on...' The stick dropped until it was a few feet above the cabbage fields. The plants were a rushing green blur inches below Lobsang's sandals. Lobsang heard another word that, while not the worst you can hear while airborne, is not at all good when it's said by the person steering. 'Er...'

'Do you know how to stop this?' yelled Lobsang. 'Not in so many words,' shouted Lu-Tze. 'Hold on, I'm going to try something...' The stick tilted up but kept moving in the same direction. The bristles dipped into the cabbages. It took the width of a field to slow down, at the end of a furrow with the smell that only squashed cabbage leaves can yield. 'How fine can you slice time?' the sweeper said, scrambling over the battered plants. 'I'm pretty good-' Lobsang began. 'Get better quick!' Lu-Tze faded to blue as he ran towards the city. Lobsang caught him up within a hundred yards but the sweeper was still fading, still slicing time thinner and thinner. The apprentice gritted his teeth and followed, straining every muscle. The old man might be a fraud when it came to fighting, but there was no kidding here. The world went from blue to indigo to an inky, unnatural darkness, like the shadow of an eclipse. This was deep time. You couldn't stay there long, he knew. Even if you could tolerate the ghastly chill, there were parts of the body that just weren't designed for this. Go too far down, too, and you'd die if you came back too quickly... He hadn't seen it, of course, no apprentice had, but there were some quite graphic drawings in the classrooms. A man's life could become very, very painful if his blood began to move through time faster than his bones. It would also be very short. 'I can't ... keep this up...' he panted, running after Lu-Tze in the violet gloom. 'You can,' gasped the sweeper. 'You're fast, right?'

'I'm not ... trained ... for this!' The city was getting closer. 'No one's trained for this!' growled Lu-Tze. 'You do it, and you find out that you're good at it!'

'What happens if you find out you're no good?' said Lobsang. The going felt easier now. He no longer had the feeling that his skin was trying to drag itself off him. 'Dead men don't find things out,' said Lu-Tze. He turned his head to his apprentice and his evil grin was a yellow-toothed curve in the shadows. 'Getting the hang?' he added. 'I'm... I'm on top of it...'

'Right! Then now that we've warmed up...'

To Lobsang's horror, the sweeper faded further into the dark. He called up reserves he knew he didn't have. He screamed at his liver to stay with him, thought that he felt his brain creak, and plunged on. The shape of Lu-Tze lightened as Lobsang drew level with him in time. 'Still here? One last effort, lad!'

'I can't!'

'You bloody well can!' Lobsang gulped freezing air and fell onwards- -where the light was suddenly a calm, pale blue and Lu-Tze was trotting gently between the frozen carts and unmoving people around the city's gate. 'See? Nothing to it,' said the sweeper. 'Just maintain, that's all. Nice and steady.' It was like balancing on a wire. It was fine if you didn't think about it. 'But all the scrolls say you go to blue and violet and into the black and then you hit the Wall,' said Lobsang. 'Ah, well, scrolls,' said Lu-Tze, and left it there, as if the tone of voice said it all. 'This is Zimmerman's Valley, lad. It helps if you know it's here. The abbot said it's something to do with... what was it? ... Oh, yeah, boundary conditions. Something like... the foam on the tide. We're right on the edge, boy!'

'But I can breathe easily!'

'Yeah. Shouldn't happen. Keep moving about, though, otherwise you'll exhaust all the good air around your body field. Good old Zimmerman, eh? One of the best, he was. And he reckoned there was another dip even closer to the Wall, too.'

'Did he ever find it?'

'Don't think so.'

'Why?'

'The way he exploded gave me a hint. Don't worry! You can maintain the slice easily here. You don't have to think about it. You've got other things to think about! Keep an eye on those clouds!' Lobsang looked up. Even in this blue-on-blue landscape, the clouds over the city looked ominous.

'It's what happened back in Uberwald,' said Lu-Tze. 'The clock needs a lot of power. The storm blew up out of nowhere.'

'But the city's huge! How can we find a clock here?'