“You don't?”
“All that playing with history, running about, unsettling people… No, not really. I was never quite certain we should be doing it, to be honest. No, sweeping is good enough for me. There's something… real about a nice clean floor.”
“This is a test, isn't it?” said Lobsang coldly.
“Oh, yes.”
“I mean, I understand how it works. The master makes the pupil do all the menial jobs, and then it turns out that really the pupil is learning things of great value… and I don't think I'm learning anything, really, except that people are pretty messy and inconsiderate.”
“Not a bad lesson, all the same,” said Lu-Tze. “Is it not written, ‘Hard work never did anybody any harm’?”
“Where is this written, Lu-Tze?” said Lobsang, thoroughly exasperated.
The sweeper brightened up. “Ah,” he said. “Perhaps the pupil is ready to learn. Is it that you don't wish to know the Way of the Sweeper, you wish to learn instead the Way of Mrs Cosmopilite?”
“Who?”
“We have swept well. Let's go to the gardens. For is it not written, ‘It does you good to get out in the fresh air’?”
“Is it?” said Lobsang, still bewildered.
Lu-Tze pulled a small tattered notebook out of his pocket.
“In here, it is,” he said. “I should know.”
Tick
Lu-Tze patiently adjusted a tiny mirror to redirect sunlight more favourably on one of the bonsai mountains. He hummed tunelessly under his breath.
Lobsang, sitting cross-legged on the stones, carefully turned the yellowing pages of the ancient notebook on which was written, in faded ink, “The Way of Mrs Cosmopilite”.
“Well?” said Lu-Tze.
“The Way has an answer for everything, does it?”
“Yes.”
“Then…” Lobsang nodded at the little volcano, which was gently smoking, “how does that work? It's on a saucer!”
Lu-Tze stared straight ahead, his lips moving. “Page seventy-six, I think,” he said.
Lobsang turned to the page. “‘Because,’” he read.
“Good answer,” said Lu-Tze, gently caressing a minute crag with a camel-hair brush.
“Just ‘Because’, Sweeper? No reason?”
“Reason? What reason can a mountain have? And, as you accumulate years, you will learn that most answers boil down, eventually, to ‘Because’.”
Lobsang said nothing. The Book of the Way was giving him problems. What he wanted to say was this: Lu-Tze, this reads like a book of the sayings of an old lady. It's the sort of thing old ladies say. What kind of koan is “It won't get better if you pick at it,” or “Eat it up, it'll make your hair curly,” or “Everything comes to he who waits”? This is stuff you get in Hogswatch crackers!
“Really?” said Lu-Tze, still apparently engrossed in a mountain.
“I didn't say anything.”
“Oh. I thought you did. Do you miss Ankh-Morpork?”
“Yes. I didn't have to sweep floors there.”
“Were you a good thief?”
“I was a fantastic thief.”
A breeze blew the scent of cherry blossom. Just once, thought Lu-Tze, it would be nice to pick cherries.
“I have been to Ankh-Morpork,” he said, straightening up and moving on to the next mountain. “You have seen the visitors we get here?”
“Yes,” said Lobsang. “Everyone laughs at them.”
“Really?” Lu-Tze raised his eyebrows. “When they have trekked thousands of miles seeking the truth?”
“But did not Wen say that if the truth is anywhere, it is everywhere?” said Lobsang.
“Well done. I see you've learned something, at least. But one day it seemed to me that everyone else had decided that wisdom can only be found a long way off. So I went to Ankh-Morpork. They were all coming here, so it seemed only fair.”
“Seeking enlightenment?”
“No. The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. So while I was waiting it occurred to me that seeking perplexity might be more fun,” said Lu-Tze. “After all, enlightenment begins where perplexity ends. And I found perplexity. And a kind of enlightenment, too. I had not been there five minutes, for example, when some men in an alley tried to enlighten me of what little I possessed, giving me a valuable lesson in the ridiculousness of material things.”
“But why Ankh-Morpork?” said Lobsang.
“Look in the back of the book,” said Lu-Tze.
There was a yellow, crackling scrap of paper tucked in there. The boy unfolded it.
“Oh, this is just a bit of the Almanack,” he said. “It's very popular there.”
“Yes. A seeker after wisdom left it here.”
“Er… it's just got the Phases of the Moon on this page.”
“Other side,” said the sweeper.
Lobsang turned the paper over. “It's just an advert from the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Merchants,” he said. “‘Ankh-Morpork Has Everything!’” He stared at the smiling Lu-Tze. “And… you thought that—”
“Ah, I am old and simple and understand,” said the sweeper. “Whereas you are young and complicated. Didn't Wen see portents in the swirl of gruel in his bowl, and in the flight of birds? This was actually written. I mean, flights of birds are quite complex, but these were words. And, after a lifetime of searching, I saw at last the opening of the Way. My Way.”
“And you went all the way to Ankh-Morpork…” said Lobsang weakly.
“And I fetched up, calm of mind but empty of pocket, in Quirm Street,” said the sweeper, smiling serenely at the recollection, “and espied a sign in a window saying ‘Rooms For Rent’. Thus I met Mrs Cosmopilite, who opened the door when I knocked and then when I hesitated, not being sure of the language, she said, ‘I haven't got all day, you know.’ Almost to a word, one of the sayings of Wen! Instantly I knew that I had found what I was seeking! During the days I washed dishes in an eating house for twenty pence a day and all the scraps I could take away, and in the evenings I helped Mrs Cosmopilite clean the house and listened carefully to her conversation. She was a natural sweeper with a good rhythmical motion and had bottomless wisdom. Within the first two days she uttered to me the actual words said by Wen upon understanding the true nature of Time! It was when I asked for a reduced rate because of course I did not sleep in a bed, and she said ‘I was not born yesterday, Mr Tze!’ Astonishing! And she could never have seen the Sacred Texts!”
Lobsang's face was a carefully drawn picture. “‘I was not born yesterday’?” he said.
“Ah, yes, of course, as a novice you would not have got that far,” said Lu-Tze. “It was when he fell asleep in a cave and in a dream saw Time appear to him and show him that the universe is recreated from second to second, endlessly, with the past just a memory. And he stepped out from the cave into the truly new world and said, ‘I was not born—yesterday’!”
“Oh, yes,” said Lobsang. “But—”
“Ah, Mrs Cosmopilite,” said Lu-Tze, his eyes misting over. “What a woman for keeping things clean! If she were a sweeper here, no one would be allowed to walk on the floor! Her house! So amazing! A palace! New sheets every other week! And cook? Just to taste her Beans Baked Upon the Toast a man would give up a cycle of the universe!”
“Um,” said Lobsang.
“I stayed for three months, sweeping her house as is fitting for the pupil, and then I returned here, my Way clear before me.”
“And, er, these stories about you…”
“Oh, all true. Most of them. A bit of exaggeration, but mostly true.”
“The one about the citadel in Muntab and the Pash and the fish bone?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But how did you get in where hall a dozen trained and armed men couldn't even—?”
“I'm a little man and I carry a broom,” said Lu-Tze simply. “Everyone has some mess that needs clearing up. What harm is a man with a broom?”
“What? An
d that was it?”
“Well, the rest was a matter of cookery, really. The Pash was not a good man, but he was a glutton for his fish pie.”
“No martial arts?” said Lobsang.
“Oh, always a last resort. History needs shepherds, not butchers.”
“Do you know okidoki?”
“Just a lot of bunny-hops.”
“Shiitake?”
“If I wanted to thrust my hand into hot sand I would go to the seaside.”
“Upsidazi?”
“A waste of good bricks.”
“No kando?”
“You made that one up.”
“Tung-pi?”
“Bad-tempered flower-arranging.”
“Deja-fu?” That got a reaction. Lu Tze's eyebrows raised.
“Deja-fu? You heard that rumour? Ha! None of the monks here knows deja-fu,” he said. “I'd soon know about it if they did. Look, boy, violence is the resort of the violent. In most tight corners a broomstick suffices.”
“Only most, eh?” said Lobsang, not trying to hide the sarcasm.
“Oh, I see. You wish to face me in the dojo? For it's a very old truth: when the pupil can beat the master, there is nothing the master cannot tell him, because the apprenticeship is ended. You want to learn?”
“Ah! I knew there was something to learn!”
Lu-Tze stood up. “Why you?” he said. “Why here? Why now? ‘There is a time and a place for everything.’ Why this time and this place? If I take you to the dojo, you will return what you stole from me! Now!”
He looked down at the teak table where he worked on his mountains.
The little shovel was there.
A few cherry blossom petals fluttered to the ground.
“I see,” he said. “You are that fast? I did not see you.”
Lobsang said nothing.
“It is a small and worthless thing,” said Lu-Tze. “Why did you take it, please?”
“To see if I could. I was bored.”
“Ah. We shall see if we can make life more interesting for you, then. No wonder you are bored, when you can already slice time like that.”
Lu-Tze turned the little shovel over and over in his hand.
“Very fast,” he said. He leaned down and blew the petals away from a tiny glacier. “You slice time as fast as a Tenth Djim. And as yet barely trained. You must have been a great thief! And now… Oh dear, I shall have to face you in the dojo…”
“No, there is no need!” said Lobsang, because now Lu-Tze looked frightened and humiliated and, somehow, smaller and brittle-boned.
“I insist,” said the old man. “Let us get it done now. For it is written, ‘There is no time like the present’, which is Mrs Cosmopilite's most profound understanding.” He sighed and looked up at the giant statue of Wen.
“Look at him,” he said. “He was a lad, eh? Completely blissed out on the universe. Saw the past and future as one living person, and wrote the Books of History to tell how the story should go. We can't imagine what those eyes saw. And he never raised a hand to any man in his life.”
“Look, I really didn't want to—”
“And you've looked at the other statues?” said Lu-Tze, as if he'd completely forgotten about the dojo.
Distractedly, Lobsang followed his gaze. Up on the raised stone platform that ran the whole length of the gardens were hundreds of smaller statues, mostly carved of wood, all of them painted in garish colours. Figures with more eyes than legs, more tails than teeth, monstrous amalgamations of fish and squid and tiger and parsnip, things put together as if the creator of the universe had tipped out his box of spare parts and stuck them together, things painted pink and orange and purple and gold, looked down over the valley.
“Oh, the dhlang—” Lobsang began.
“Demons? That's one word for them,” said the sweeper. “The abbot called them the Enemies of Mind. Wen wrote a scroll about them, you know. And he said that was the worst.”
He pointed to a little hooded grey shape, which looked out of place among the festival of wild extremities.
“Doesn't look very dangerous,” said Lobsang. “Look, Sweeper, I don't want to—”
“They can be very dangerous, things that don't look dangerous,” said Lu-Tze. “Not looking dangerous is what makes them dangerous. For it is written, ‘You can't tell a book by its cover.’”
“Lu-Tze, I really don't want to fight you—”
“Oh, your tutors will tell you that the discipline of a martial art enables you to slice time, and that's true as far as it goes,” said Lu-Tze, apparently not listening. “But so can sweeping, as perhaps you have found. Always find the perfect moment, Wen said. People just seem so keen on using it to kick other people on the back of the neck.”
“But it wasn't a challenge, I just wanted you to show me—”
“And I shall. Come on. I made a bargain. I must keep it, old fool that I am.”
The nearest dojo was the dojo of the Tenth Djim. It was empty except for two monks blurring as they danced across the mat and wrapped time around themselves.
Lu-Tze had been right, Lobsang knew. Time was a resource. You could learn to let it move fast or slow, so that a monk could walk easily through a crowd and yet be moving so fast that no one could see him. Or he could stand still for a few seconds, and watch the sun and moon chase one another across a flickering sky. He could meditate for a day in a minute. Here, in the valley, a day lasted for ever. Blossom never became cherries.
The blurred fighters became a couple of hesitant monks when they saw Lu-Tze. He bowed.
“I beg the use of this dojo for a short period while my apprentice teaches me the folly of old age,” he said.
“I really didn't mean—” Lobsang began, but Lu-Tze elbowed him in the ribs. The monks gave the old man a nervous look.
“It's yours, Lu-Tze,” said one of them. They hurried out, almost tripping over their own feet as they looked back.
“Time and its control is what we should teach here,” said Lu-Tze, watching them go. “The martial arts are an aid. That is all they are. At least, that's all they were meant to be. Even out in the world a well-trained person may perceive, in the fray, how flexible time may be. Here, we can build on that. Compress time. Stretch time. Hold the moment. Punching people's kidneys out through their nose is only a foolish by-product.”
Lu-Tze took down a razor-edged pika sword from the rack and handed it to the shocked boy.
“You've seen one of these before? They're not really for novices, but you show promise.”
“Yes, Sweeper, but—”
“Know how to use it?”
“I'm good with the practice ones, but they're just made of—”
“Take it, then, and attack me.”
There was a rustling noise above them. Lobsang looked up and saw monks pouring into the observation gallery above the dojo. There were some very senior ones among them. News gets around quickly in a little world.
“Rule Two,” said Lu-Tze, “is never refuse a weapon.” He took a few steps back. “In your own time, boy.”
Lobsang wielded the curved sword uncertainly.
“Well?” said Lu-Tze.
“I can't just—”
“Is this the dojo of the Tenth Djim?” said Lu-Tze. “Why, mercy me, I do believe it is. That means there are no rules, doesn't it? Any weapon, any strategy… anything is allowed. Do you understand? Are you stupid?”
“But I can't just kill someone because they've asked me to!”
“Why not? What happened to Mr Manners?”
“But—”
“You are holding a deadly weapon! You are facing an unarmed man in a pose of submission! Are you frightened?”
“Yes! Yes, I am!”
“Good. That's the Third Rule,” said Lu-Tze quietly. “See how much you're learning already? Wiped the smile off your face, have I? All right, put the sword on the rack and take—Yes, take a dakka stick. The most you can do with that is bruise my old bones.”
> “I would prefer it if you wore the protective padding—”
“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?”
Thief of Time tds-26 Page 10