Thief of Time

“But you are one of them,” said Susan. “I can tell, even under all that.. that stuff!”

“I was one of them,” said Lady LeJean. “Now I rather think I'm one of me.”

People were living in the attic. There was a whole family up there. Susan wondered if their presence was official or unofficial or one of those in-between states that were so common in Ankh-Morpork, where there was always a chronic housing shortage. So much of the city's life took place on the street because there was no room for it inside. Whole families were raised in shifts, so that the bed could be used for twenty-four hours a day. By the look of it, the caretakers and men who knew the way to Caravati's Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze had moved their families in to the rambling attics.

The rescuer had simply moved in on top of them. A family, or at least one shift of it, was seated on benches around a table. frozen in timelessness. Lady LeJean removed her hat, hung it on the mother and shook out her hair. Then she unwrapped the heavy bandages from her nose and mouth.

“We are relatively safe here,” she said. “They are mostly in the main streets. Good… day. My name is Myria LeJean. I know who you are, Susan Sto Helit. I do not know the young man, which surprises me. I take it you are here to destroy the clock?”

“To stop it,” said Lobsang.

“Hold on, hold on,” said Susan. “This makes no sense. Auditors hate everything about life. And you are an Auditor, aren't you?”

“I have no idea what I am,” sighed Lady LeJean. “But right now I know that I am everything an Auditor should not be. We… they… we have to be stopped!”

“With chocolate?” said Susan.

“The sense of taste is new to us. Alien. We have no defences.”

“But… chocolate?”

“A dry biscuit almost killed me,” said her ladyship. “Susan, can you imagine what it is like to experience taste for the first time? We built our bodies well. Oh, yes. Lots of tastebuds. Water is like wine. But chocolate… even the mind stops. There is nothing but the taste.” She sighed. “I imagine it is a wonderful way to die.”

“It doesn't seem to affect you,” said Susan suspiciously.

“The bandages and the gloves,” said Lady LeJean. “Even then, it is all I can do not to give in. Oh, where are my manners? Do sit down. Pull up a small child.”

Lobsang and Susan exchanged a glance. Lady LeJean noticed it.

“I said something wrong?” she said.

“We don't use people as furniture,” said Susan.

“But surely they will not be aware of it?” said her ladyship.

“We will,” said Lobsang. “That's the point, really.”

“Ah. I have so much to learn. There is… there is so much context to being human, I am afraid. You, sir, can you stop the clock?”

“I don't know how to,” said Lobsang. “But I… I think I should know. I'll try.”

“Would the clockmaker know? He is here.”

“Where?” said Susan.

“Just down the passage,” said Lady LeJean.

“You carried him here?”

“He was barely able to walk. He was hurt badly in the fight.”

“What?” said Lobsang. “How could he walk at all? We're outside time!”

Susan took a deep breath.

“He carries his own time, just like you,” she said. “He's your brother.”

And it was a lie. But he wasn't ready for the truth. By the look on his face, he wasn't even ready for the lie.

“Twins,” said Mrs Ogg. She picked up the brandy glass, looked at it, and put it down. “There wasn't one. There was twins. Two boys. But…”

She turned on Susan a glare like a thermic lance. “You'll be thinking, this is an old biddy of a midwife,” she said. “You'll be thinking, what does she know?”

Susan paid her the courtesy of not lying.

“Part of me was,” she admitted.