“Because with luck we won't have to run so far when the lightning strikes, of course.”
“Sweeper, no one can outrun lightning!”
Lu-Tze spun round and grabbed Lobsang by the robe, dragging him closer.
“Then tell me where to run, speedy boy!” he shouted. “There's more to you than meets the third eye, lad! No apprentice should be able to find Zimmerman's Valley! It takes hundreds of years of training! And no one should be able to make the spinners sit up and dance to his tune the very first time he sees them! Think I'm daft, do you? Orphan boy, strange power… what the hell are you? The Mandala knew you! Well, I'm just a mortal human, and what I know is, I'll be damned if I'll see the world shattered a second time! So help me! Whatever it is you've got, I need it now! Use it!”
He let go, and stood back. A vein in his bald head was throbbing.
“But I don't know what I can do to—”
“Find out what you can do!”
Tick
Protocol. Rules. Precedent. Ways of doing things. That's how we've always worked, thought Lady LeJean. This and this must follow that. It has always been our strength. I wonder if it can be a weakness?
If looks could have killed, Dr Hopkins would have been a smear on the wall. The Auditors watched his every move like cats watching a new species of mouse.
Lady LeJean had been incarnate much longer than the others. Time can change a body, especially when you've never had one before. She wouldn't have stared and fumed. She would have clubbed the doctor to the ground. What was one more human?
She realized, with some amazement, that the thought there was a human thought.
But the other six were still wet behind the ears. They hadn't yet realized the dimensions of duplicity that you needed to survive as a human being. They clearly found it hard to think inside the little dark world behind the eyes, too. Auditors reached decisions in concert with thousands, millions of other Auditors.
Sooner or later they'd learn to be their own thinkers, though. It might take a while, because they'd try to learn from one another first.
At the moment they were watching Igor's tea tray with great suspicion.
“Drinking tea is protocol,” said Lady LeJean. “I must insist.”
“Is this correct?” Mr White barked at Dr Hopkins.
“Oh, yes,” said the doctor. “With a ginger biscuit, usually,” he added hopefully.
“A ginger biscuit,” repeated Mr White. “A biscuit of red-brown colouring?”
“Yeth, thur,” said Igor. He nodded to the plate on his tray.
“I would like to try a ginger biscuit,” volunteered Miss Red.
Oh yes, thought Lady LeJean, please try the ginger biscuits.
“We do not eat or drink!” snapped Mr White. He gave Lady LeJean a look of deep suspicion. “It could cause incorrect ways of thinking.”
“But it is the custom,” said Lady LeJean. “To ignore protocol is to draw attention.”
Mr White hesitated. But he was a quick adaptor.
“It is against our religion!” he said. “Correct!”
It was an amazing leap. It was inventive. And he'd come up with it all alone. Lady LeJean was impressed. The Auditors had tried to understand religion, because so much that made no sense whatsoever was done in its name. But it could also excuse practically any kind of eccentricity. Genocide, for example. By comparison, a lack of tea drinking was easy.
“Yes, indeed!” said Mr White, turning to the other Auditors. “Is that not true?”
“Yes, that is not true. Indeed!” said Mr Green desperately.
“Oh?” said Dr Hopkins. “I did not know there was any religion that forbade tea.”
“Indeed!” said Mr White. Lady LeJean could almost feel his mind racing. “It is a… yes, it is a drink of the… correct… it is a drink of the… extremely bad negatively regarded gods. It is a… correct… it is a commandment of our religion to… yes… to shun ginger biscuits also.” There was sweat on his forehead. For an Auditor, this was genius-level creativity. “Also,” he went on slowly, as if reading the words off some page invisible to everyone else, “our religion… correct!… our religion demands that the clock be started now! For… who may know when the hour may be?”
Despite herself, Lady LeJean nearly applauded.
“Who indeed?” said Dr Hopkins.
“I, I absolutely agree,” said Jeremy, who had been staring at Lady LeJean. “I don't understand who you… why there's all this fuss… I don't understand why… oh, dear… I'm having a headache…”
Dr Hopkins spilled his tea because of the speed with which he got up and reached into his coat pocket.
“AhitsohappensIwaspassingtheapothecaryonmywayhere—” he began, all in one breath.
“I feel it's not the time to start the clock,” said Lady LeJean, edging herself along the desk. The hammer was still invitingly there.
“I'm seeing those little flashes of light, Dr Hopkins,” said Jeremy urgently, staring into the middle distance.
“Not the flashes of light! Not the flashes of light!” said Dr Hopkins. He grabbed a teaspoon off Igor's tray, stared at it, threw it over his shoulder, tipped the tea out of a cup, opened the bottle of blue medicine by smashing the top off on the edge of the bench, and poured a cupful, spilling quite a lot of it in his hurry.
The hammer was inches away from her ladyship's hand. She didn't dare look round, but she could sense it there. While the Auditors stared at the trembling Jeremy, she let her fingers walk across the bench. She wouldn't even have to move. A brisk overarm throw should do it.
She saw Dr Hopkins try to put the cup to Jeremy's lips. The boy put his hands over his face and elbowed the cup out of the way, spilling the medicine across the floor.
Then Lady LeJean's fingers were grasping the handle. She brought her hand round and hurled the hammer directly at the clock.
Tick
The war was going badly for the weaker side. Their positioning was wrong, their tactics ragged, their strategy hopeless. The Red army advanced across the whole front, dismembering the scurrying remnant of the collapsing Black battalions.
There was room for only one anthill on this lawn…
Death found War down among the grass blades. He admired attention to detail. War was in full armour, too, but the human heads he normally had tied to his saddle had been replaced by ant heads, feelers and all.
DO THEY NOTICE YOU, DO YOU THINK? he said.
“I doubt it,” said War.
NEVERTHELESS, IF THEY DID, I'M SURE THEY WOULD APPRECIATE IT.
“Ha! Only decent theatre of war around these days,” said War. “That's what I like about ants. The buggers don't learn, what?”
IT HAS BEEN RATHER PEACEFUL OF LATE, I AGREE, said Death.
“Peaceful?” said War. “Ha! I may as well change m'name to ‘Police Action’, or ‘Negotiated Settlement’! Remember the old days? Warriors used to froth at the mouth! Arms and legs bouncing in all directions! Great times, eh?” He leaned across and slapped Death on the back. “I'll bag' em and you tag' em, what?”
This looked hopeful, Death thought.
TALKING OF THE OLD DAYS, he said carefully, I'M SURE YOU REMEMBER THE TRADITION OF RIDING OUT?
War gave him a puzzled look. “Mind's a blank on that one, old boy.”
I SENT OUT THE CALL.
“Can't say it rings a bell…”
APOCALYPSE? said Death. END OF THE WORLD?
War continued to stare. “Definitely knocking, old chap, but no one's home. And talking of home…” War looked around at the twitching remains of the recent slaughter. “Spot of lunch?”
Around them the forest of grass grew shorter and smaller until it was, indeed, no more than grass, and became the lawn outside a house.
It was an ancient long-house. Where else would War live? But Death saw ivy growing over the roof. He remembered when War would never have allowed anything like that, and a little worm of worry began to gnaw.
War hung up
his helmet as he entered, and once he would have kept it on. And the benches around the fire pit would have been crowded with warriors, and the air would have been thick with beer and sweat.
“Brought an old friend back, dear,” he said.
Mrs War was preparing something on the modern black iron kitchen range which, Death saw, had been installed in the fire pit, with shiny pipes extending up to the hole in the roof. She gave Death the kind of nod a wife gives a man whom her husband has, despite previous warnings, unexpectedly brought back from the pub.
“We're having rabbit,” she said, and added in the voice of one who has been put upon and will extract payment later, “I'm sure I can make it stretch to three.”
War's big red face wrinkled. “Do I like rabbit?”
“Yes, dear.”
“I thought I liked beef.”
“No, dear. Beef gives you wind.”
“Oh.” War sighed. “Any chance of onions?”
“You don't like onions, dear.”
“I don't?”
“Because of your stomach, dear.”
“Oh.”
War smiled awkwardly at Death. “It's rabbit,” he said. “Erm… dear, do I ride out for Apocalypses?”
Mrs War took the lid off a saucepan and prodded viciously at something inside.
“No, dear,” she said firmly. “You always come down with a cold.”
“I thought I rather, er, sort of liked that kind of thing…?”
“No, dear. You don't.”
Despite himself, Death was fascinated. He had never come across the idea of keeping your memory inside someone else's head.
“Perhaps I would like a beer?” War ventured.
“You don't like beer, dear.”
“I don't?”
“No, it brings on your trouble.”
“Ah. Uh, how do I feel about brandy?”
“You don't like brandy, dear. You like your special oat drink with the vitamins.”
“Oh, yes,” said War mournfully. “I'd forgotten I liked that.” He looked sheepishly at Death. “It's quite nice,” he said.
COULD I HAVE A WORD WITH YOU, said Death, IN PRIVATE?
War looked puzzled. “Do I like wo—”
IN PRIVATE, PLEASE, Death thundered.
Mrs War turned and gave Death a disdainful look.
“I understand, I quite understand,” she said haughtily. “But don't you dare say anything to bring on his acid, that's all I shall say.”
Mrs War had been a Valkyrie once, Death remembered. It was another reason to be extremely careful on the battlefield.
“You've never been tempted by the prospect of marriage, old man?” said War, when she'd gone.
NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. IN NO WAY.
“Why not?”
Death was nonplussed. It was like asking a brick wall what it thought of dentistry. As a question, it made no sense.
I HAVE BEEN TO SEE THE OTHER TWO, he said, ignoring it. FAMINE DOESN'T CARE AND PESTILENCE IS FRIGHTENED.
“The two of us, against the Auditors?” said War.
RIGHT IS ON OUR SIDE.
“Speaking as War,” said War, “I'd hate to tell you what happens to very small armies that have Right on their side.”
I HAVE SEEN YOU FIGHT.
“My old right arm isn't what it was…” War murmured.
YOU ARE IMMORTAL. YOU ARE NOT ILL, said Death, but he could see the worried, slightly hunted look in Wars eyes and knew that there was only one way this was going to go.
To be human was to change, Death realized. The Horsemen… were horsemen. Men had wished upon them a certain shape, a certain form. And, just like the gods, and the Tooth Fairy, and the Hogfather, their shape had changed them. They would never be human, but they had caught aspects of humanity as though they were some kind of disease.
Because the point was that nothing, nothing, had one aspect and one aspect alone. Men would envisage a being called Famine, but once they gave him arms and legs and eyes, that meant he had to have a brain. That meant he'd think. And a brain can't think about plagues of locusts all the time.
Emergent behaviour again. Complications always crept in. Everything changed.
THANK GOODNESS, thought Death, THAT I AM COMPLETELY UNCHANGED AND EXACTLY THE SAME AS I EVER WAS.
And then there was one.
Tick
The hammer stopped, halfway across the room. Mr White walked over and picked it out of the air.
“Really, your ladyship,” he said. “You think we don't watch you? You, the Igor, make the clock ready!”
Igor looked from him to Lady LeJean and back. “I only take orderth from Marthter Jeremy, thank you,” he said.
“The world will end if you start that clock!” said Lady LeJean.
“What a foolish idea,” said Mr White. “We laugh at it.”
“Hahaha,” said the other Auditors obediently.
“I don't need medicine!” Jeremy shouted, pushing Dr Hopkins out of the way. “And I don't need people to tell me what to do. Shut up!”
In the silence, thunder grumbled in the clouds.
“Thank you,” said Jeremy, more calmly. “Now, I hope I am a rational man, and I shall approach this rationally. A clock is a measuring device. I have built the perfect clock, my lady. I mean ladies. And gentlemen. It will revolutionize timekeeping.”
He reached up and moved the hands of the clock to almost one o'clock. Then he reached down, gripped the pendulum, and set it swinging.
The world continued to exist.
“You see? The universe doesn't stop even for my clock,” Jeremy went on. He folded his hands and sat down. “Watch,” he said calmly.
The clock ticked gently. Then something rattled in the machinery around it, and the big green glass tubes of acid began to sizzle.
“Well, nothing seems to have happened,” said Dr Hopkins. “That's a blessing.”
Sparks crackled around the lightning rod positioned above the clock.
“This is just making a path for the lightning,” said Jeremy happily. “We send a little lightning up, and a lot more comes back—”
Things were moving inside the clock. There was a sound best represented as fizzle, and greenish-blue light filled the case.
“Ah, the cascade has initialized,” said Jeremy. “As a little exercise, the, ah, more traditional pendulum clock has been slaved to the Big Clock, you'll see, so that every second it will be readjusted to the correct time.” He smiled, and one cheek twitched. “Some day all clocks will be like this,” he said, and added, “While I normally hate such an imprecise term as ‘any second now’, nevertheless I—”
Tick
There was a fight going on in the square. In the strange colours involved in the time-slicing state known as Zimmerman's Valley, it was picked out in shades of light blue.
By the look of it, a couple of watchmen were trying to take on a gang. One man was airborne, and hung there without support. Another had fired a crossbow directly at one of the watchmen; the arrow was nailed unmoving in the air.
Lobsang examined it curiously.
“You're going to touch it, aren't you?” said a voice behind Lobsang. “You're just going to reach out and touch it, despite everything I've told you. Pay attention to the damn sky!”
Lu-Tze was smoking nervously. When it got a few inches away from his body, the smoke went rigid in the air.
“Are you sure you can't feel where it is?” he snapped.
“It's all round us, Sweeper. We're so close, it… it's like trying to see the wood when you're standing under the trees!”
“Well, this is the Street of Cunning Artificers and that's the Guild of Clockmakers over there,” said Lu-Tze. “I don't dare go inside if it's this close, not until we're certain.”
“What about the University?”
“Wizards aren't mad enough to try it!”
“You're going to try and race the lightning?”
“It's doable, if we start from here in the Valley. Light
ning ain't as quick as people think.”
“Are we waiting to see a little pointy bit of lightning coming out of a cloud?”
“Hah! Kids today, where do they get their education? The first stroke is from the ground to the air, lad. That makes a nice hole in the air for the main lightning to come down. Look for the glow. We've got to be giving the road plenty of sandal by the time it reaches the clouds. You holding up okay?”
“I could go on like this all day,” said Lobsang.
“Don't try it.” Lu-Tze scanned the sky again. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's just a storm. Sooner or later you get—”
He stopped. One look at Lobsang's face was enough.
“O-kay,” said the sweeper slowly. “Just give me a direction. Point if you can't speak.”
Lobsang dropped to his knees, hands rising to his head. “I don't know… don't know…”
Silvery light rose over the city, a few streets away. Lu-Tze grabbed the boy's elbow.
“Come on, lad. On your feet. Faster than lightning, eh? Okay?”
“Yeah… yeah, okay…”
“You can do it, right?”
Lobsang blinked. He could see the glass house again, stretching away as a pale outline overlaid the city.
“Clock,” he said thickly.
“Run, boy, run!” shouted Lu-Tze. “And don't stop for anything.”
Lobsang plunged forward, and found it hard. Time moved aside for him, sluggishly at first, as his legs pumped. With every step he pushed himself faster and faster, the landscape changing colours again as the world slowed even further.
There was another stitch in time, the sweeper had said. Another valley, even closer to the null point. Insofar as he could think at all, Lobsang hoped he would reach it soon. His body felt as though it would fly apart; he could feel his bones creaking.
The glow ahead was halfway to the iron-heavy clouds now, but he'd reached a crossroads and he could see it was rising from a house halfway down the street.
He turned to look for the sweeper, and saw the man yards behind him, mouth open, a statue falling forward.
Lobsang turned, concentrated, let time speed up.
He reached Lu-Tze and caught him before he hit the ground. There was blood coming from the old man's ears.
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