Thief of Time (Discworld 26)

'My customers do depend on me...' Ronnie Soak mumbled. 'What customers? That's Soak speaking,' said Lu-Tze. 'That's not the voice of Kaos.'

'Hah!' said Kaos bitterly. 'You haven't told me yet how you worked that one out.'

'Because I've got more than three brain cells and you're vain and you painted your actual name back to front on your cart whether you knew it or not and a dark window is a mirror and K and S are still recognizable in a reflection even when they're back to front, thought Lu- Tze. But that wasn't a good way forward. 'It was just obvious,' he said. 'You sort of shine through. It's like putting a sheet over an elephant. You might not be able to see it, but you're sure the elephants still there.'

Kaos looked wretched. 'I don't know,' he said. 'It's been a long time-'

'Oh? And I thought you said you were Number One?' said Lu-Tze, deciding on a new approach. 'Sorry! Still, I suppose it's not your fault you've lost a few skills over the centuries, what with one thing and-'

'Lost skills?' snapped Kaos, waving a finger under the sweeper's nose. 'I could certainly take you to the cleaners, you little maggot!'

'What with? A dangerous yoghurt?' said Lu-Tze, climbing off the cart. Kaos leapt down after him. 'Where do you get off, talking to me like that?' he demanded. Lu-Tze glanced up. 'Corner of Merchant and Broad Way,' he said. 'So what?' Kaos roared. He tore off his striped apron and his white cap. He seemed to grow in size. Darkness evaporated off him like smoke. Lu-Tze folded his hands and grinned. 'Remember Rule One,' he said. 'Rules? Rules? I'm Kaos!'

'Who was the first?' said Lu-Tze. 'Yes!'

'Creator and Destroyer?'

'Damn right!'

'Apparently complicated, apparently patternless behaviour that nevertheless has a simple, deterministic explanation and is a key to new levels of understanding of the multidimensional universe?'

'You'd better believe it- What?'

'Got to move with the times, mister, got to keep up!' shouted Lu-Tze excitedly, hopping from foot to foot. 'You're what people think you are! And they've changed you! I hope you're good at sums!'

'You can't tell me what to be!' Kaos roared. 'I'm Kaos!'

'You don't think so? Well, your big comeback ain't gonna happen now that the Auditors have taken over! The rules, mister! That's what they are! They're the cold dead rules!' Silver lightning flickered in the walking cloud that had once been Ronnie. Then cloud, cart and horse vanished. 'Well, could have been worse, I suppose,' said Lu-Tze to himself. 'Not a very bright lad, really. Possibly a bit too old-fashioned.'

He turned round and found a crowd of Auditors watching him. There were dozens of them. He sighed and grinned his sheepish little grin. He'd had just about enough for one day. 'Well I expect you have heard of Rule One, right?' he said. That seemed to give them pause. One said, 'We know millions of rules, human.'

'Billions. Trillions,' said another. 'Well you can't attack me,' said Lu-Tze, ''cos of Rule One.' The nearest Auditors went into a huddle. 'It must involve gravitation.'

'No, quantum effects. Obviously.'

'Logically there cannot be a Rule One because at that point there would be no concept of plurality.'

'But if there is not a Rule One, can there be any other rules? If there is no Rule One, where is Rule Two?'

'There are millions of rules! They cannot fail to be numbered!' Wonderful thought Lu-Tze. All I have to do is wait until their heads melt. But an Auditor stepped forward. It looked more wild-eyed than the others, and was much more unkempt. It was also carrying an axe. 'We do not have to discuss this!' it snapped. 'We must think: This is nonsense, we will not discuss it!'

'But what is Rule-' an Auditor began. 'You will call me Mr White!'

'Mr White, what is Rule One?'

'I am not glad you asked that question!' screamed Mr White, and swung the axe. The body of the other Auditor crumbled in around the blade, dissolving into floating motes that dispersed in a fine cloud. 'Anyone else got any questions?' said Mr White, raising the axe again. One or two Auditors, not yet entirely in tune with current developments, opened their mouths to speak. And shut them again.

Lu-Tze took a few steps back. He prided himself on an incredibly well-honed ability to talk his way in or out of anything, but that rather depended on a passably sane entity being involved at the other end of the dialogue. Mr White turned to Lu-Tze. 'What are you doing out of your place, organic?' But Lu-Tze was overhearing another, whispered conversation. It was coming from the other side of a nearby wall, and it went like this: 'Who cares about the damn wording!'

'Accuracy is important, Susan. There is a precise description on the little map inside the lid. Look.'

'And you think that will impress anyone?'

'Please. Things should be done properly.'

'Oh, give it to me, then!' Mr White advanced on Lu-Tze, axe raised. 'It is forbidden to-' he began. 'Eat... Oh, good grief... Eat... “a delicious fondant sugar creme infused with delightfully rich and creamy raspberry filling wrapped in mysterious dark chocolate” ... you grey bastards!' A shower of small objects pattered down on the street. Several of them broke open. Lu-Tze heard a whine or, rather, the silence caused by the absence of a whine he'd grown used to. 'Oh, no, I'm winding dow ...' Trailing smoke, but looking more like a milkman again, albeit one that'd just delivered to a blazing house, Ronnie Soak stormed into his dairy. 'Who does he think he is?' he muttered, gripping the spotless edge of a counter so hard that the metal bent. 'Hah, oh yes, they just toss you aside, but when they want you to make a comeback-' Under his fingers the metal went white hot and then dripped. 'I've got customers. I've got customers. People depend on me. It might not be a glamorous job, but people will always need milk-' He clapped a hand to his forehead. Where the molten metal touched his skin the metal evaporated. The headache was really bad.

He could remember the time when there was only him. It was hard to remember, because... there was nothing, no colour, no sound, no pressure, no time, no spin, no light, no life... Just Kaos. And the thought arose: Do I want that again? The perfect order that goes with changelessness? More thoughts were following that one, like little silvery eels in his mind. He was, after all, a Horseman, and had been ever since the time the people in mud cities on baking plains put together some hazy idea of Something that had existed before anyone else. And a Horseman picks up the noises of the world. The mud-city people and the skin-tent people, they'd known instinctively that the world swirled perilously through a complex and uncaring multiverse, that life was lived a mirrors thickness from the cold of space and the gulfs of night. They knew that everything they called reality, the web of rules that made life happen, was a bubble on the tide. They feared old Kaos. But now- He opened his eyes and looked down at his dark, smoking hands. To the world in general, he said, 'Who am I now?' Lu-Tze heard his voice speed up from nothing: '-wn ...'