Thief of Time

“I thought, here's a little bald monk sort of a fellow,” said the man, holding a bottle up to the light to inspect it. “With a wind-up thing on his back, and down on his luck. Fancy a cup of tea? Kettle's on. I've got yak butter.”

“Yak? Am I still in Ankh-Morpork?” Lu-Tze looked down at a rack of ladles beside him. The man still hadn't looked round.

“Hmm. Interestin' question,” said the bottle-washer. “You could say you're sort of in Ankh-Morpork. No to yak milk? I can get cow's milk, or goat, sheep, camel, llama, horse, cat, dog, dolphin, whale or alligator if you prefer.”

“What? Alligators don't give milk!” said Lu-Tze, grasping the biggest ladle. It made no noise as it came off its hook.

“I didn't say it was easy.”

The sweeper got a good grip. “What is this place, friend?” he said.

“You are in… the dairy.”

The man at the sink said the last word as if it was as portentous as “castle of dread”, placed another bottle on the draining board, and, still with his back to Lu-Tze, held up a hand. All the fingers were folded except for the middle digit, which was extended.

“You know what this is, monk?” he said.

“It's not a friendly gesture, friend.” The ladle felt good and heavy. Lu-Tze had used much worse weapons than this.

“Oh, a superficial interpretation. You are an old man, monk. I can see the centuries on you. Tell me what this is, and know what I am.”

The coldness in the dairy got a little colder.

“It's your middle finger,” said Lu-Tze.

“Pah!” said the man.

“Pah?”

“Yes, pah! You have a brain. Use it.”

“Look, it was good of you to—”

“You know the secret wisdoms that everyone seeks, monk.” The bottle-washer paused. “No, I even suspect that you know the explicit wisdoms, the ones hidden in plain view, which practically no one looks for. Who am I?”

Lu-Tze stared at the solitary finger. The wall's of the dairy faded. The cold grew deeper.

His mind raced, and the librarian of memory took over.

This wasn't a normal place, that wasn't a normal man: A finger. One finger. One of the five digits on a—One of five. One of Five. Faint echoes of an ancient legend signalled his attention.

One from five is four.

And one left over.

Lu-Tze very carefully hung the ladle back on its hook.

“One from Five,” he said. “The Fifth of Four.”

“There we are. I could see you were educated.”

“You were… you were the one who left before they became famous?”

“Yes.”

“But… this is a dairy, and you're washing bottles!”

“Well? I had to do something with my time.”

“But… you were the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse!” said Lu-Tze.

“And I bet you can't remember my name.”

Lu-Tze hesitated. “No,” he said. “I don't think I ever heard it.”

The Fifth Horseman turned round. His eyes were black. Completely black. Shiny, and black, and without any whites at all.

“My name,” said the Fifth Horseman, “is…”

“Yes?”

“My name is Ronnie.”

Timelessness grew like ice. Waves froze on the sea. Birds were pinned to the air. The world went still.

But not quiet. There was a sound like a finger running around the rim of a very large glass.

“Come on,” said Susan.

“Can't you hear it?” said Lobsang, stopping.

“But it's no use to us—”

She pushed Lobsang back into the shadows. The robed grey shape of an Auditor appeared in the air halfway down the street, and began to spin. The air around it filled with dust, which became a whirling cylinder, which became, slightly unsteady on its feet, something that looked human.

It rocked backwards and forwards for a moment. It raised its hands slowly and looked at them, turning them this way and that. Then it marched away, purposefully. Further along the street it was joined by another one, emerging from an alley.

“This really isn't like them,” said Susan, as the pair turned a corner. “They're up to something. Let's follow them.”

“What about Lu-Tze?”

“What about him? How old did you say he was?”

“He says he's eight hundred years old.”

“Hard to kill, then. Ronnie's safe enough if you're alert and don't argue. Come on.”

She set off along the streets.

The Auditors were joined by others, weaving through the silent carts and motionless people and along the street towards, as it turned out, Sator Square, one of the biggest open spaces in the city. It was market day. Silent, motionless figures thronged the stalls. But, amongst them, there were scurrying grey shapes.

“There's hundreds of them,” said Susan. “All human-shaped… and it looks like they're having a meeting.”

Mr White was losing patience. Up until now, he had never been aware that he had any, because, if anything, he had been all patience. But now he could feel it evaporating. It was a strange, hot sensation in his head. And how could a thought be hot?

The mass of incarnated Auditors watched him nervously.

“I am Mr White!” he said to the luckless new Auditor that had been brought before him, and shuddered with the astonishment of using that singular word and surviving. “You cannot be Mr White also. It would be a matter of confusion.”

“But we are running out of colours,” said Mr Violet, intervening.