Thief of Time (Discworld 26)

'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 ...'

'No, you're wound up again,' said a young woman in front of him. She stood back, giving him a critical look. Lu-Tze, for the first time in eight hundred years, felt that he'd been caught doing something wrong. It was that kind of expression - searching, rummaging around inside his head. 'You'll be Lu-Tze, then,' said Susan. 'I'm Susan Sto Helit. No time for explanations. You've been out for... well, not for long. We have to get Lobsang to the glass clock. Are you any good? Lobsang thinks you're a bit of a fraud.'

'Only a bit? I'm surprised.' Lu-Tze looked around. 'What happened here?' The street was empty, except for the ever-present statues. But scraps of silver paper and coloured wrappers littered the ground, and across the wall behind him was a long splash of what looked very much like chocolate icing. 'Some of them got away,' said Susan, picking up what Lu-Tze could only hope was a giant icing syringe. 'Mostly they fought with one another. Would you try to tear someone apart just for a coffee creme?' Lu-Tze looked into those eyes. After eight hundred years you learn how to read people. And Susan was a story that went back a very long way. She probably even knew about Rule One, and didn't care. This was someone to treat with respect. But you couldn't let even someone like her have it all their own way. 'The kind with a coffee bean on the top, or the ordinary kind?' he said. 'The kind without the coffee bean, I think,' said Susan, holding his gaze.

'Nnn-o. No. No, I don't think I would,' said Lu-Tze. 'But they are learning,' said a woman's voice behind the sweeper. 'Some resisted. We can learn. That's how humans became humans.' Lu-Tze regarded the speaker. She looked like a society lady who had just had a really bad day in a threshing machine. 'Can I just be clear here?' he said, staring from one woman to the other. 'You've been fighting the grey people with chocolate?'

'Yes,' said Susan, peering round the corner. 'It's the sensory explosion. They lose control of their morphic field. Can you throw at all? Good. Unity, give him as many chocolate eggs as he can carry. The secret is to get them to land hard so that there's lots of shrapnel-'

'And where is Lobsang?' said Lu-Tze. 'Him? You could say he's with us in spirit.' There were blue sparkles in the air. 'Growing pains, I think,' Susan added. Centuries of experience once again came to Lu-Tze's aid. 'He always looked like a lad who needed to find himself,' he said. 'Yes,' said Susan. 'And it came as a bit of a shock. Let's go.' Death looked down at the world. Timelessness had reached the Rim now, and was expanding into the universe at the speed of light. The Discworld was a sculpture in crystal. Not an apocalypse. There had always been plenty of those - small apocalypses, not the full shilling at all, fake apocalypses: apocryphal apocalypses. Most of them had been back in the old days, when the world as in 'end of the world' was often objectively no wider than a few villages and a clearing in the forest. And those little worlds had ended. But there had always been somewhere else. There had been the horizon, to start with. The fleeing refugees would find that the world was bigger than they'd thought. A few villages in a clearing? Hah, how could they have been so stupid! Now they knew it was a whole island! Of course, there was that horizon again... The world had run out of horizons. As Death watched, the sun stopped in its orbit and its light became duller, redder. He sighed, and nudged Binky. The horse stepped forward, in a direction that could not be found on any map.

And the sky was full of grey shapes. There was a ripple in the ranks of Auditors as the Pale Horse trotted forward. One drifted towards Death and hung in the air a few feet away. It said, Should you not be riding out? DO YOU SPEAK FOR ALL ? You know the custom, said the voice in Death's mind. Among us, one speaks for all. WHAT IS BEING DONE IS WRONG. It is not your business. NEVERTHELESS, WE ARE ALL ANSWERABLE. The universe will last for ever, said the voice. Everything preserved, ordered, understood, lawful, filed. . . changeless. A perfect world. Finished. NO. It will all end one day in any case. BUT THIS IS TOO SOON. THERE IS UNFINISHED BUSINESS. And that is-? EVERYTHING. And, with a flash of light, a figure clothèd all in white appeared, holding a book in one hand. It looked from Death to the endlessly massing ranks of the Auditors, and said: 'Sorry? Is this the right place?' Two Auditors were measuring the number of atoms in a paving slab. They looked up at a movement. 'Good afternoon,' said Lu-Tze. 'May I draw your attention to the notice my assistant is holding up?' Susan held up the sign. It read: Mouths Must Be Open. By Order. And Lu-Tze unfolded his hands. There was a caramel in each one, and he was a good shot. The mouths shut. The faces went impassive. Then there was a sound somewhere between a purr and a wail, which disappeared into the ultrasonic. And then... the Auditors dissolved, gently, first going fuzzy around the edges and, as the process accelerated, swiftly becoming a spreading cloud.

'Hand-to-mouth fighting,' said Lu-Tze. 'Why doesn't it happen to humans?'

'It nearly does,' said Susan, and when they stared at her she blinked and said, 'To stupid, indulgent humans, anyway.'

'You don't have to concentrate to stay the same shape,' said Unity. 'And that was the last of the caramels, by the way.'

'No, there's six in one of W&B's Gold Selections,' said Susan. 'Three have got white chocolate cream in dark chocolate and three have got whipped cream in milk chocolate. They're the ones in the silver wrapp- Look, I just happen to know things, all right? Let's keep going, okay? Without mentioning chocolate.' You have no power over us, said the Auditor. We are not alive. BUT YOU ARE DEMONSTRATING ARROGANCE, PRIDE AND STUPIDITY. THESE ARE EMOTIONS. I WOULD SAY THEY ARE SIGNS OF LIFE. 'Excuse me?' said the shining figure in white. But you are all alone here! 'Excuse me?' YES? said Death. WHAT IS IT? 'This is the Apocalypse, yes?' said the shining figure petulantly. WE ARE TALKING. 'Yes, right, but is it the Apocalypse? The actual end of the actual whole world?' No, said the Auditor. YES, said Death. IT IS. 'Great!' said the figure. What? said the Auditor. WHAT? said Death. The figure looked embarrassed. 'Well, not great, obviously. Obviously not great, as such. But it's what I'm here for. It's what I'm for, really.' It held up the book. 'Er, I've got the place marked ready. Wow! It's been, you know, so long...' Death glanced at the book. The cover and all the pages were made of iron. Realization dawned.

YOU ARE THE ANGEL CLOTHED ALL IN WHITE OF THE IRON BOOK FROM THE PROPHECIES OF TOBRUN, AM I CORRECT? 'That's right!' The pages clanged as the angel hurriedly thumbed through them. 'And it's clothèd, by the way, if you don't mind. Clo-theddd. Just a detail, I know, but I like to get it right.' What is happening here? the Auditor growled. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO TELL YOU THIS, said Death, ignoring the interruption, BUT YOU ARE NOT OFFICIAL. The pages stopped clanking. 'What do you mean?' said the angel suspiciously. THE BOOK OF TOBRUN HAS NOT BEEN CONSIDERED OFFICIAL CHURCH DOGMA FOR A HUNDRED YEARS. THE PROPHET BRUTHA REVEALED THAT THE WHOLE CHAPTER WAS A METAPHOR FOR A POWER STRUGGLE WITHIN THE EARLY CHURCH. IT IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE REVISED VERSION OF THE BOOK OF OM, AS DETERMINED BY THE CONVOCATION OF EE. 'Not at all?' I'M SORRY. 'I've been thrown out? Just like the damn rabbits and the big syrupy things?' YES. 'Even the bit where I blow the trumpet?' OH, YES. 'You sure?' ALWAYS. 'But you are Death and this is the Apocalypse, right?' said the angel, looking wretched. 'So therefore-' UNFORTUNATELY, HOWEVER, YOU ARE NO LONGER A FORMAL PART OF THE PROCEEDINGS. Out of the corner of his mind, Death was observing the Auditor. Auditors always listened when people spoke. The more people spoke, the closer to consensus every decision came, and the less responsibility anyone had. But the Auditor was showing signs of impatience and annoyance... Emotions. And emotions made you alive. Death knew how to deal with the living.

The angel looked around at the universe. 'Then what am I supposed to do?' he wailed. 'This is what Ive been waiting for! For thousands of years!' He stared at the iron book. 'Thousands of dull, boring, wasted years...' he mumbled. Have you quite finished? said the Auditor. 'One big scene. That's all I had. That was my purpose. You wait, you practise - and then you're just edited out because brimstone is no longer a fashionable colour?' Anger was infusing the bitterness in the angel's voice. 'No one told me, of course...' He glared at the rusted pages. 'It ought to be Pestilence next,' he muttered. 'Am I late, then?' said a voice in the night. A horse walked forward. It gleamed unhealthily, like a gangrenous wound just before the barber-surgeon would be called in with his hacksaw for a quick trim. I THOUGHT YOU WEREN'T COMING, said Death. 'I didn't want to,' Pestilence oozed, 'but humans do get such interesting diseases. I'd rather like to see how weasles turn out, too.' One crusted eye winked at Death. 'You mean measles?' said the angel. 'Weasles, I'm afraid,' said Pestilence. 'People are getting really careless with this bio- artificing. We're talking boil's that really bite.' Two of you will not suffice! snarled the Auditor in their heads. A horse walked out of the darkness. Some toast racks had more flesh. 'I've been thinking,' said a voice. 'Maybe there are things worth putting up a fight for.'

'And they are-?' said Pestilence, looking round. 'Salad-cream sandwiches. You just can't beat them. That tang of permitted emulsifiers? Marvellous.'

'Hah! You're Famine, then?' said the Angel of the Iron Book. It fumbled with the heavy pages again. What, what, what is this nonsense of 'salad cream'? [18] shouted the Auditor. Anger, thought Death. A powerful emotion. 'Do I like salad cream?' said a voice in the dark. A second, female voice replied: 'No, dear, it gives you hives.'

The horse of War was huge and red and the heads of dead warriors hung from the saddle horn. And Mrs War was hanging on to War, grimly. 'All four. Bingo!' said the Angel of the Iron Book. 'So much for the Convocation of Ee!' War had a woolly scarf round his neck. He looked sheepishly at the other Horsemen. 'He's not to strain himself,' said Mrs War sharply. 'And you're not to let him do anything dangerous. He's not as strong as he thinks. And he gets confused.' So, the gang is all here, said the Auditor. Smugness, Death noticed. And self-satisfaction. There was a clanging as of metal pages. The Angel of the Iron Book was looking puzzled. 'Actually, I don't think that's entirely correct,' it said. No one paid it any attention. Off you go on your little pantomime, said the Auditor. And now irony and sarcasm, thought Death. They must be picking it up from the ones down in the world. All the little things that go to make up a... personality. He looked along the row of Horsemen. They caught his eye, and there were almost imperceptible nods from Famine and Pestilence. War turned in the saddle and spoke to his wife. 'Right now, dear, I'm not confused at all. Could you get down, please?'

'Remember what happened when-' Mrs War began. 'Right now, please, my dear,' said War, and this time his voice, which was still calm and polite, had echoes of steel and bronze. 'Er ... oh.' Mrs War was suddenly flustered. 'That was just how you used to talk when-' She stopped, blushed happily for a moment, and slid off the horse. War nodded at Death. And now you must all go and bring terror and destruction and so on and so forth, said the Auditor. Correct? Death nodded. Floating in the air above him, the Angel of the Iron Book slammed the pages back and forth in an effort to find his place. EXACTLY. ONLY, WHILE IT IS TRUE WE HAVE TO RIDE OUT, Death added, drawing his sword, IT DOESN'T SAY ANYWHERE AGAINST WHOM.

Your meaning? hissed the Auditor, but now there was a flicker of fear. Things were happening that it didn't understand. Death grinned. In order to fear, you had to be a me. Don't let anything happen to me. That was the song of fear. 'He means,' said War, 'that he asked us all to think about whose side we're really on.' Four swords were drawn, blazing along their edges like flame. Four horses charged. The Angel of the Iron Book looked down at Mrs War. 'Excuse me,' he said, 'but do you have a pencil?' Susan peered round the corner into Artificers Street, and groaned. 'It's full of them... and I think they've gone mad.' Unity took a look. 'No. They have not gone mad. They are being Auditors. They are taking measurements, assessing and standardizing where necessary.'

'They're taking up the paving slabs now!'

'Yes. I suspect it is because they are the wrong size. We do not like irregularities.'

'What the hell is the wrong size for a slab of rock?'

'Any size that is not the average size. I'm sorry.' The air around Susan flashed blue. She was very briefly aware of a human shape, transparent, spinning gently, which vanished again. But a voice in her ear, in her ear said: Nearly strong enough. Can you get to the end of the street? 'Yes. Are you sure? You couldn't do anything to the clock before!' Before, I was not me. A movement in the air made Susan look up. The lightning bolt that had stood rigid over the dead city had gone. The clouds were rolling like ink poured into water. There were flashes within them, sulphurous yellows and reds. The Four Horsemen are fighting the other Auditors, Lobsang supplied. 'Are they winning?' Lobsang did not answer. 'I said-'

It's hard for me to say. I can see... everything. Everything that could be ... Kaos listened to history. There were new words. Wizards and philosophers had found Chaos, which is Kaos with his hair combed and a tie on, and had found in the epitome of disorder a new order undreamed of. There are different kinds of rules. From the simple comes the complex, and from the complex comes a different kind of simplicity. Chaos is order in a mask... Chaos. Not dark, ancient Kaos, left behind by the evolving universe, but new, shiny Chaos, dancing in the heart of everything. The idea was strangely attractive. And it was a reason to go on living. Ronnie Soak adjusted his cap. Oh, yes... there was one last thing. The milk was always lovely and fresh. Everyone remarked on that. Of course, being everywhere at seven in the morning was no trouble to him. If even the Hogfather could climb down every chimney in the world in one night, doing a milk round for most of a city in one second was hardly a major achievement. Keeping things cool was, however. But there he had been lucky. Mr Soak walked into the ice room, where his breath turned to fog in the frigid air. Churns were stacked across the floor, sparkling on the outside. Vats of butter and cream were piled on shelves that glistened with ice. Rack after rack of eggs were just visible through the frost. He'd been planning to add the ice-cream business in the summer. It was such an obvious step. Besides, he needed to use up the cold. A stove was burning in the middle of the floor. Mr Soak always bought good coal from the dwarfs, and the iron plates were glowing red. The room, one felt, ought to be an oven, but there was a gentle sizzling on the stove as frost battled with the heat. With the stove roaring, the room was merely an ice-box. Without the stove... Ronnie opened the door of a white-rimmed cupboard and smashed at the ice within with his fist. Then he reached inside. What emerged, crackling with blue flame, was a sword. It was a work of art, the sword. It had imaginary velocity, negative energy and positive cold, cold so cold that it met heat coming the other way and took on something of its nature. Burning cold. There had never been anything as cold as this since before the universe began. In fact, it seemed to Chaos, everything since then had been merely lukewarm. 'Well, I'm back,' he said. The Fifth Horseman rode out, and a faint smell of cheese followed him. Unity looked at the other two, and at the blue glow that still hovered around the group. They had taken cover behind a fruit barrow.

'If I may make a suggestion,' she said, 'it is that w- that Auditors are not good with surprises. The impulse is always to consult. And the assumption is always that there will be a plan.'

'So?' said Susan. 'I suggest total madness. I suggest you and... and the... young man run for the shop, and I will attract the attention of the Auditors. I believe this old man should assist me because he will die soon in any case.' There was silence. 'Accurate yet unnecessary,' said Lu-Tze. 'That was not good etiquette?' she said. 'It could have been better. However, is it not written, “When you have got to go, you have got to go” ?' said Lu-Tze. 'And also that, “You should always wear clean underwear because you never know if you will be knocked down by a cart”?'

'Will it help?' said Unity, looking very puzzled. 'That is one of the great mysteries of the Way,' said Lu-Tze, nodding sagely. 'What chocolate do we have left?'

'We're down to the nougat now,' said Unity. 'And I believe nougat is a terrible thing to cover with chocolate, where it can ambush the unsuspecting. Susan?' Susan was peering up the street. 'Mmm?'

'Do you have any chocolate left?' Susan shook her head. 'Mmm-mmm.'