Thief of Time

He turned off the main passage and reached for the handles of a pair of large, red-lacquered doors. Then he looked behind him. Lobsang had stopped dead, some yards away.

“Coming?”

“But not even dongs are allowed in there!” said Lobsang. “You have to be a Third Djim ting at least!”

“Yeah, right. It's a short-cut. Come on, it's draughty out here.” With extreme reluctance, expecting at any moment the outraged scream of authority, Lobsang trailed after the sweeper.

And he was just a sweeper! One of the people who swept the floors and washed the clothes and cleaned the privies! No one had ever mentioned it! Novices heard about Lu-Tze from their very first day—how he'd gone into some of the most tangled knots of time and unravelled them, how he'd constantly dodged the traffic on the crossroads of history, how he could divert time with a word and used this to develop the most subtle arts of battle…

…and here was a skinny little man who was sort of generically ethnic, so that he looked as if he could have come from anywhere, in a robe that had once been white before it fell to all those stains and patches, and the sandals repaired with string. And the friendly grin, as if he was constantly waiting for something amusing to happen. And no belt at all, just another piece of string to hold his robe closed. Even some novices got to the level of grey dong in their first year!

The dojo was busy with senior monks at practice. Lobsang had to dodge aside as a pair of fighters whirled past, arms and legs blurring as each sought an opening, paring time into thinner and thinner slivers—

“You! Sweeper!”

Lobsang looked round, but the shout had been directed at Lu-Tze. A ting, only just elevated to the Third Djim by the fresh look of his belt, was advancing on the little man, his face red with fury.

“What for are you coming in here, cleaner of filth? This is forbidden!”

Lu-Tze's little smile didn't change. But he reached in his robe and brought out a small bag.

“'s a short-cut,” he said. He pulled a pinch of tobacco and, while the ting loomed over him, began to roll a cigarette. “And there's dirt everywhere, too. I'll certainly have a word with the man who does this floor.”

“How dare you insult!” screamed the monk. “Back to the kitchens with you, sweeper!”

Cowering behind Lu-Tze, Lobsang realized that the entire dojo had stopped to watch this. One or two of the monks were whispering to one another. The man in the brown robe of the dojo master was watching impassively from his chair, with his chin on his hand.

With great and patient and infuriating delicacy, like a samurai arranging flowers, Lu-Tze marshalled the shreds of tobacco in the flimsy cigarette paper.

“No, I reckon I'll go out of that door over there, if you don't mind,” he said.

“Impudence! Then you are ready to fight, enemy of dust?” The man leapt back and raised his hands to form the Combat of the Hake. He spun round and planted a kick on a heavy leather sack, hitting it so hard that its supporting chain broke. Then he was back to face Lu-Tze, hands held in the Advancement of the Snake.

“Ai! Shao! Hai-eee—” he began.

The dojo master stood up. “Hold!” he commanded. “Do you not want to know the name of the man you are about to destroy?”

The fighter held his stance, glaring at Lu-Tze. “I don't need to know name of sweeper,” he said.

Lu-Tze rolled the cigarette into a skinny cylinder and winked at the angry man, which only stoked the anger.

“It is always wise to know the name of a sweeper, boy,” said the dojo master. “And my question was not addressed to you.”

Tick

Jeremy stared at his bed sheets.

They were covered in writing. His own writing.

It trailed across the pillow and onto the wall. There were sketches, too, scored deeply into the plaster.

He found his pencil under the bed. He'd even sharpened it. In his sleep, he'd sharpened a pencil! And by the look of it he'd been writing and drawing for hours. Trying to draw a dream.

With, down one side of his eiderdown, a list of parts.

It had all made absolute sense when he'd seen it, like a hammer or a stick or Wheelbright's Gravity Escapement. It had been like meeting an old friend. And now… He stared at the scrawled lines. He had been writing so fast he'd ignored punctuation and some of the letters, too. But he could see some sense in there.

He'd heard of this sort of thing. Great inventions sometimes did arise from dreams and daydreams. Didn't Hepzibah Whitlow have the idea of the adjustable pendulum clock as a result of his work as the public hangman? Didn't Wilframe Balderton always say that the idea for the Fish Tail Escapement came after he'd eaten too much lobster?

Yes, it had all been so clear in the dream. By daylight, it needed a bit more work.

There was a clatter of dishes from the little kitchen behind his workshop. He hurried down, dragging the sheet behind him.

“I usually have—” he began.

“Toatht, thur,” said Igor, turning away from the range. “Lightly browned, I thuthpect.”

“How did you know that?”