Thief of Time

Susan grimaced. “You know, that's why I've never liked philosophers,” she said. “They make it all sound grand and simple, and then you step out into a world that's full of complications. I mean, look around. I bet this garden needs regular weeding, and the fountains have to be unblocked, and the peacocks shed feathers and dig up the lawn… and if they don't do that, then this is just a fake.”

“No, everything is real” said Wen. “At least, it is as real as anything else. But this is a perfect moment.” He smiled at Susan again. “Against one perfect moment, the centuries beat in vain.”

“I'd prefer a more specific philosophy,” said Susan. She tried the wine. It was perfect.

“Certainly. I expected that you would. I see you cling to logic as a limpet clings to a rock in a storm. Let me see… Defend the small spaces, don't run with scissors, and remember that there is often an unexpected chocolate,” said Wen. He smiled. “And never resist a perfect moment.”

A breeze made the fountains splash over the sides of their bowls, just for a second. Wen stood up.

“And now, I believe my wife and son have finished their meeting,” he said.

The garden faded. The stone seat melted like mist as soon as Susan got up, although until then it had felt as solid as, well, rock. The wineglass vanished from her hand, leaving only a memory of its pressure on her fingers and the taste lingering in her mouth. Lobsang was standing in front of the clock. Time herself was not visible, but the song that wove through the rooms now had a different tone.

“She's happier,” said Lobsang. “She's free now.”

Susan looked around. Wen had vanished along with the garden. There was nothing but the endless glass rooms.

“Don't you want to talk to your father?” she said.

“Later. There will be plenty of time,” said Lobsang. “I shall see to it.”

The way he said it, so carefully dropping the words into place, made her turn.

“You're going to take over?” she said. “You are Time now?”

“Yes.”

“But you're mostly human!”

“So?” Lobsang's smile took after his father. It was the gentle and, to Susan, the infuriating smile of a god.

“What's in all these rooms?” she demanded. “Do you know?”

“One perfect moment. In each one. An oodleplex of oodleplexes.”

“I'm not certain there's such a thing as a genuinely perfect moment,” said Susan. “Can we go home now?”

Lobsang wrapped the edge of his robe around his fist and smashed it against the glass front panel of the clock. It shattered, and dropped to the ground.

“When we get to the other side,” he said, “don't stop and don't look back. There will be a lot of flying glass.”

“I'll try to dive behind one of the benches,” said Susan.

“They probably won't be there.”

SQUEAK?

The Death of Rats had scurried up the side of the clock and was peering cheerfully over the top.

“What do we do about that?” said Lobsang.

“That looks after itself,” said Susan. “I never worry about it.”

Lobsang nodded. “Take my hand,” he said. She reached out.

With his free hand Lobsang grasped the pendulum and stopped the clock.

A blue-green hole opened in the world.

The return journey was a lot swifter but, when the world existed again, she was falling into water. It was brown, muddy and stank of dead plants. Susan surfaced, fighting against the drag of her skirts, and trod water while she tried to get her bearings.

The sun was nailed to the sky, the air was heavy and humid, and a pair of nostrils was watching her from a few feet away.

Susan had been brought up to be practical and that meant swimming lessons. The Quirm College for Young Ladies had been very advanced in that respect, and its teachers took the view that a girl who couldn't swim two lengths of the pool with her clothes on wasn't making an effort. To their credit, she'd left knowing four swimming strokes and several life-saving techniques, and was entirely at home in the water. She also knew what to do if you were sharing the same stretch of water with a hippopotamus, which was to find another stretch of water. Hippos only look big and cuddly from a distance. Close up, they just look big.

Susan summoned up all the inherited powers of the deathly voice plus the terrible authority of the schoolroom, and yelled, GO AWAY!

The creature floundered madly in its effort to turn round, and Susan struck out for the shore. It was an unsure shore, the water becoming land in a tangle of sandbanks, sucking black muck, rotted tree roots and swamp. Insects swirled around and—

–the cobbles were muddy underfoot, and there was the sound of horsemen in the mist

–and ice, piled up against dead trees—

–and Lobsang, taking her arm.

“Found you,” he said.

“You just shattered history,” said Susan. “You broke it!”

The hippo had come as a shock. She'd never realized one mouth could hold so much bad breath, or be so big and deep.

“I know. I had to. There was no other way. Can you find Lu-Tze? I know Death can locate any living thing, and since you—”