Thief of Time tds-26

by Terry Pratchett

  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-rimed 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.”

  “I believe you were carrying the cherry cremes?”

  “Mmm?”

  Susan swallowed, and then gave a cough that expressed, in a remarkably concise way, embarrassment and annoyance.

  “I just had one!” she snapped. “I need the sugar.”

  “I'm sure no one said you did have more than one,” said Unity meekly.

  “We haven't been counting at all,” said Lu-Tze.

  “If you have a handkerchief,” said Unity, still diplomatically, “I could wipe away the chocolate around your mouth which must have inadvertently got there during the last engagement.”

  Susan glared and used the back of her hand.

  “It's just the sugar,” she said. “That's all. It's fuel. And do stop going on about it! Look, we can't just let you die to get—”

  Yes, we can, said Lobsang.

  “Why?” said Susan, shocked.

  Because I have seen everything.

  “Would you like to tell everyone?” said Susan, reverting to Classroom Sarcasm. “We'd all like to know how this ends!”

  You misunderstand the meaning of “everything”.

  Lu-Tze rummaged in his sack of ammunition and produced two chocola
te eggs and a paper bag. Unity went white at the sight of the bag.

  “I didn't know we had any of those!” she said.

  “Good, are they?”

  “Coffee beans coated in chocolate,” breathed Susan. “They should be outlawed!”

  The two women watched in horror as Lu-Tze put one in his mouth. He gave them a surprised look.

  “Quite nice, but I prefer liquorice,” he said.

  “You mean you don't want another one?” said Susan.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I'd quite like liquorice, though, if you have any…”

  “Have you had some special monk training?”

  “Well, not in chocolate combat, no,” said Lu-Tze. “But is it not written, ‘If you have another one you won't have an appetite for your dinner’?”

  “You really mean you will not eat a second chocolate coffee bean?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Susan looked across at Unity, who was trembling. “You do have tastebuds, don't you?” she said, but she felt a pressure on her arm pulling her away.

  “You two get behind that cart over there and run when you get the signal,” said Lu-Tze. “Go now!”

  “What signal?”

  We'll know, said the voice of Lobsang.

  Lu-Tze watched them hurry away. Then he picked up his broom in one hand and stepped out into the view of a street full of grey people.

  “Excuse me?” he said. “Could I have your attention, please?”

  “What is he doing?” said Susan, crouching behind the cart.

  They're all going towards him, said Lobsang. Some of them have weapons.

  “They'll be the ones giving the orders,” said Susan.

  Are you sure?

  “Yes. They've learned from humans. Auditors aren't used to taking orders. They need persuading.”

  He's telling them about Rule One, and that means he's got a plan. I think it's working. Yes!

  “What's he done? What's he done?”

  Come on! He'll be fine!

  Susan leapt up. “Good!”

  Yes, they've cut his head off…

  Fear, anger, envy… Emotions bring you alive, which is a brief period just before you die. The grey shapes fled in front of the swords.

  But there were billions of them. And they had their own ways of fighting. Passive, subtle ways.

  “This is stupid!” Pestilence shouted. “They can't even catch a common cold!”

  “No soul to damn, no arse to kick!” said War, hacking at grey shreds that rolled away from his blade.

  “They have a kind of hunger,” said Famine. “I just can't find a way to get at it!”

  The horses were reined in. The wall of greyness hovered in the distance, and began to close in again.

  THEY ARE FIGHTING BACK, said Death. CAN YOU NOT FEEL IT?

  “I just feel we're too damn stupid,” said War.

  AND WHERE DOES THAT FEELING COME FROM?

  “Are you saying they're affecting our minds?” said Pestilence. “We're Horsemen! How can they do that to us?”

  WE HAVE BECOME TOO HUMAN.

  “Us? Human? Don't make me lau—”

  LOOK AT THE SWORD IN YOUR HAND, said Death. DON'T YOU NOTICE ANYTHING?

  “It's a sword. Sword-shaped. Well?”

  LOOK AT THE HAND. FOUR FINGERS AND A THUMB. A HUMAN HAND. HUMANS GAVE YOU THAT SHAPE. AND THAT IS THE WAY IN. LISTEN! DO YOU NOT FEEL SMALL IN A BIG UNIVERSE? THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE SINGING. IT IS BIG AND YOU ARE SMALL AND AROUND YOU THERE IS NOTHING BUT THE COLD OF SPACE AND YOU ARE SO VERY ALONE.

  The other three Horsemen looked unsettled, nervous.

  “That's coming from them?” said War.

  YES. IT IS THE FEAR AND HATRED THAT MATTER HAS FOR LIFE AND THEY ARE THE BEARERS OF THAT HATRED.

  “Then what can we do?” said Pestilence. “There're too many of them!”

  DID YOU THINK THAT THOUGHT, OR DID THEY? Death snapped.

  “They're coming closer again,” said War.

  THEN WE WILL DO WHAT WE CAN.

  “Four swords against an army? That'll never work!”

  YOU THOUGHT IT MIGHT A FEW MOMENTS AGO. WHO IS TALKING FOR YOU NOW? HUMANS HAVE ALWAYS FACED US AND THEY HAVE NOT SURRENDERED.

  “Well, yes,” said Pestilence. “But with us they could always hope for a remission.”

  “Or a sudden truce,” said War.

  “Or—” Famine began, and hesitated, and said finally, “A shower of fish?” He looked at their expressions. “That actually happened once,” he added defiantly.

  IN ORDER TO HAVE A CHANGE OF FORTUNE AT THE LAST MINUTE YOU HAVE TO TAKE YOUR FORTUNE TO THE LAST MINUTE, said Death. WE MUST DO WHAT WE CAN.

  “And if that doesn't work?” said Pestilence.

  Death gathered up Binky's reins. The Auditors were much closer now. He could make out their individual, identical shapes. Remove one, and there were always a dozen more.

  THEN WE DID WHAT WE COULD, he said, UNTIL WE COULD NOT.

  On his cloud, the Angel Clothed all in White wrestled with the Iron Book.

  “What are they talking about?” said Mrs War.

  “I don't know, I can't hear! And these two pages are stuck together!” said the angel. It scrabbled ineffectively at them for a moment.

  “This is all because he wouldn't wear his vest,” said Mrs War firmly. “It's just the sort of thing I—”

  She had to stop because the angel had wrenched the halo from its head and was dragging it down the fused edge of the pages, with sparks and a sound like a cat slipping down a blackboard.

  The pages clanged apart.

  “Right, let's see…” It scanned the newly revealed text. “Done that… done that… oh…” It stopped and turned a pale face to Mrs War.

  “Oh, boy,” it said, “we're in trouble now.”

  A comet sprang up from the world below, growing visibly larger as the angel spoke. It flamed across the sky, burning fragments detaching and dropping away and revealing, as it closed with the Horsemen, a chariot on fire.

  It was a blue flame. Chaos burned with cold.

  The figure standing in the chariot wore a full-face helmet dominated by two eye holes that looked slightly like the wings of a butterfly and rather more like the eyes of some strange, alien creature. The burning horse, barely sweating, trotted to a halt; the other horses, regardless of their riders, moved aside to make room.

  “Oh, no,” said Famine, waving a hand in disgust. “Not him, too? I said what'd happen if he came back, didn't I? Remember that time he threw the minstrel out of the hotel window in Zok? Didn't I say—”

  SHUT UP, said Death. He nodded. HELLO, RONNIE. GOOD TO SEE YOU. I WONDERED IF YOU WOULD COME.

  A hand trailing cold steam came up and removed the helmet.

  “Hello, boys,” said Chaos pleasantly.

  “Uh… long time no see,” said Pestilence.

  War coughed. “Heard you were doing well,” he said.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Ronnie, in a careful tone of voice. “There's a real future in the retail milk and milk derivatives business.”

  Death glanced at the Auditors. They'd stopped moving in but were circling, watchfully.

  “Well, the world will always need cheese,” said War desperately. “Haha.”

  “Looks like there's some trouble here,” said Ronnie.

  “We can handl—” Famine began.

  WE CAN'T, said Death. YOU CAN SEE HOW IT IS, RONNIE. TIMES HAVE CHANGED. WOULD YOU CARE TO SIT IN FOR THIS ONE?

  “Hey, we haven't discussed—” Famine began, but stopped when War glared at him.

  Ronnie Soak put on his helmet, and Chaos drew his sword. It glinted and, like the glass clock, looked like the intrusion into the world of something a great deal more complex.

  “Some old man told me you live and learn,” he said. “Well. I have lived, and now I've learned that the edge of a sword is infinitely long. I've also learned how to make damn good yogh
urt, although this is not a skill I intend to employ today. Shall we go get 'em, boys?”

  Far down, in the street, a few of the Auditors moved forward.

  “What is Rule One?” said one of them.

  “It does not matter. I am Rule One!” An Auditor with a big axe waved them back. “Obedience is necessary!”

  The Auditors wavered, watching the cleaver. They'd learned about pain. They'd never felt pain before, not in billions of years. Those who had felt it had no desire at all to feel it again.

  “Very well,” said Mr White. “Now get back to—”

  A chocolate egg spun out of nowhere and smashed on the stones. The crowd of Auditors rippled forward, but Mr White slashed the axe through the air a few times.

  “Stand back! Stand back!” he screamed. “You three! Find out who threw that! It came from behind that stall! No one is to touch the brown material!”

  He stooped carefully and picked up a large fragment of chocolate, on which could just be made out the shape of a smiling duck in yellow icing. Hand shaking and sweat beading his forehead, he raised it aloft and flourished the cleaver triumphantly. There was a collective sigh from the crowd.

  “You see?” he shouted. “The body can be overcome! You see? We can find a way to live! If you are good, there may be brown material! If you disobey, there will be the sharp edge! Ah…” He lowered his arms as a struggling Unity was dragged towards him.

  “The pathfinder,” he said, “the renegade…”

  He walked towards the captive. “What will it be?” he said. “The cleaver or the brown material?”

  “It's called chocolate,” snapped Unity. “I do not eat it.”

  “We shall see,” Mr White said. “Your associate seemed to prefer the axe!”

  He pointed to the body of Lu-Tze.

  To the empty patch of cobbles where Lu-Tze had been.

  A hand tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Why is it,” said a voice by his ear, “that no one ever believes in Rule One?”

  Above him the sky began to burn blue.

  Susan sped up the street to the clock shop.

  She glanced sideways, and Lobsang was there, running beside her. He looked… human, except that not many humans had a blue glow around them.