Lion tamer, Lu-Tze thought. He starts off needing chairs and whips, but one day, if he’s really good, he can go into the cage and do the show using nothing more than eye and voice. But only if he’s really good, and you’ll know if he’s really good, because he’ll come out of the cage again—

  He stopped his prowl along the thundering lines because there was a change in the sound.

  One of the biggest spinners was slowing down. It stopped as Lu-Tze watched, and didn’t start again.

  Lu-Tze raced around the cavern until he found Susan and Unity. Three more spinners stopped before he reached them.

  “He’s doing it! He’s doing it! Come away!” he shouted. With a jolt that shook the floor, another spinner stopped.

  The three ran toward the end of the cavern where the smaller Procrastinators were still whirling, but the halt was already speeding down the rows. Spinner after spinner slammed to a standstill, the domino effect overtaking the humans until, when they reached the little chalk spinners, they were in time to see the last ones rattle gently to a standstill.

  There was silence, except for the sizzle of grease and the click of cooling rock.

  “Is it all over?” said Unity, wiping the sweat from her face with her dress and leaving a trail of sequins.

  Lu-Tze and Susan looked at the glow at the other end of the hall, and then at one another.

  “I . . .don’t . . .think . . .so,” said Susan.

  Lu-Tze nodded. “I think it’s just—” he began.

  Bars of green light leaped from spinner to spinner and hung in the air as rigid as steel. They flickered on and off between the columns, filling the air with thunderclaps. Patterns of switching snapped back and forth across the cavern.

  The tempo increased. The thunderclaps became one long roll of overpowering sound. The bars brightened, expanded, and then the air was all one brilliant light—

  Which vanished. The sound ceased so abruptly that the silence clanged.

  The trio got to their feet slowly.

  “What was that?” said Unity.

  “I think he made some changes,” said Lu-Tze.

  The spinners were silent. The air was hot. Smoke and steam filled the roof of the cavern.

  Then, responding to the routine of humanity’s eternal wrestle with time, the spinners began to pick up the load.

  It came gently, like a breeze. And the spinners took the strain, from the smallest to the largest, settling once again into their gentle, ponderous pirouette.

  “Perfect,” said Lu-Tze. “Almost as good as it was, I’ll bet.”

  “Only almost?” said Susan, wiping the butter off her face.

  “Well, he’s partly human,” said the sweeper. They turned to the podium, and it was empty. Susan was not surprised. He’d be weak now, of course. Of course, something like this would take it out of anyone. Of course, he’d need to rest. Of course.

  “He’s gone,” she said flatly.

  “Who knows?” said Lu-Tze. “For is it not written, ‘You never know what’s going to turn up’?”

  The reassuring rumble of the Procrastinators now filled the cave. Lu-Tze could feel the time flows in the air. It was invigorating, like the smell of the sea. I ought to spend more time down here, he thought.

  “He broke history and repaired it,” said Susan. “Cause and cure. That makes no sense!”

  “Not in four dimensions,” said Unity. “In eighteen, it’s all perfectly clear.”

  “And now, may I suggest you ladies leave by the back way?” said Lu-Tze. “People are going to come running down here in a minute and it’s all going to get very excitable. Probably best if you aren’t around.”

  “What will you do?” said Susan.

  “Lie,” said Lu-Tze happily. “It’s amazing how often that works.”

  —ick

  Susan and Unity stepped out of a door in the rock and took the path that led through rhododendron groves out of the valley. The sun was touching the horizon and the air was warm, although there were snowfields quite close by.

  At the lip of the valley the water from the stream plunged over a cliff in a fall so long that it landed as a sort of rain. Susan pulled herself onto a rock and settled down to wait.

  “It is a long way to Ankh-Morpork,” said Unity.

  “We’ll have a lift,” said Susan. The first stars were already coming out.

  “The stars are very pretty,” said Unity.

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I am learning to. Humans believe they are.”

  “The thing is . . .I mean, there’s times when you look at the universe and you think ‘What about me?’ and you can just hear the universe replying, ‘Well, what about you?’”

  Unity appeared to consider this.

  “Well, what about you?” she said.

  Susan sighed. “Exactly.” She sighed again. “You can’t think about just one person while you’re saving the world. You have to be a cold, calculating bastard.”

  “That sounded as if you were quoting somebody,” said Unity. “Who said that?”

  “Some total idiot,” said Susan. She tried to think of other things and added, “We didn’t get all of them. There’re still Auditors down there somewhere.”

  “That will not matter,” said Unity calmly. “Look at the sun.”

  “Well?”

  “It is setting.”

  “And . . .?”

  “That means time is flowing through the world. The body exacts its toll, Susan. Soon my—my former colleagues, bewildered and fleeing, will become tired. They will have to sleep.”

  “I follow you, but—”

  “I am insane. I know this. But the first time it happened to me I found such horror that I cannot express it. Can you imagine what it is like? For an intellect a billion years old, in a body which is an ape on the back of a rat that grew out of a lizard? Can you imagine what comes out of the dark places, uncontrolled?”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “They will die in their dreams.”

  Susan thought about this. Millions and millions of years of thinking precise, logical thoughts—and then humanity’s murky past drops all its terrors on you in one go. She could almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

  “But you didn’t,” she said.

  “No. I think I must be . . .different. It is a terrible thing to be different, Susan. Did you have romantic hopes in connection with the boy?”

  The questions came out of nowhere and there was no defense. Unity’s face showed nothing but a kind of nervous concern.

  “No,” said Susan. Unfortunately, Unity did not seem to have mastered some of the subtleties of human conversation, such as when a tone of voice means “stop this line of inquiry right now or may huge rats eat you by day and by night.”

  “I confess to strange feelings regarding his . . .self that was the clockmaker,” said Unity. “Sometimes, when he smiled, he was normal. I wanted to help him, because he seemed so closed in and sad.”

  “You don’t have to confess to things like that,” Susan snapped. “How do you even know the word romantic, anyway?” she added.

  “I found some books of poetry.” Unity actually looked embarrassed.

  “Really? I’ve never trusted it,” said Susan. Huge, giant, hungry rats.

  “I found it most curious. How can words on a page have a power like that? There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime,” said Unity sadly.

  Susan felt a stab of guilt. It wasn’t Unity’s fault, after all. People learn things as they grow up, things that never get written down. And Unity had never grown up.

  “What are you going to do now?” she said.

  “I do not know.”

  “Well, if I can help in any way . . .”

  It was, she realized later, one of those phrases like “how are you?” People were supposed to understand that it wasn’t a real question. But Unity hadn’t learned that, either.

  “Thank you. You can, indeed, help. I wish to do something human.”

  “Uh, fine, if—”

  “I wish to die.”

  And, galloping out of the sunset, some riders were approaching.

  Tick

  Small fires burned in the rubble, brightening the night. Most of the house had been completely destroyed, although, Soto considered, the word “shredded” was much more accurate.

  He was sitting by the side of the street, watching carefully, with his begging bowl in front of him. There were, of course, far more interesting and complex ways for a history monk to avoid being noticed, but he’d adopted the begging-bowl method ever since Lu-Tze had shown him that people never see anyone who wants them to give him money.

  He’d watched the rescuers drag the bodies out of the house. Initially, they’d thought that one of them had been hideously mutilated in the explosion, until it had sat up and explained that it was an Igor and in very good shape for an Igor, thank you very much. The other he’d recognized as Dr. Hopkins of the Guild of Clockmakers, who was miraculously unharmed.

  Soto did not believe in miracles, however. He was also suspicious about the fact that the ruined house was full of oranges, that Dr. Hopkins was babbling about getting sunlight out of them, and that his sparkling little abacus was telling him that something enormous had happened.

  He decided to make a report and see what the boys at Oi Dong said.

  Soto picked up the bowl and set off through the network of alleys back to his base. He didn’t bother much about concealment now; Lu-Tze’s time in the city had been a process of accelerated education for many citizens of the lurking variety. The people of Ankh-Morpork knew all about Rule One.

  At least, they had known up until now. Three figures lurched out of the dark, and one of them swung a length of wood that would have connected with Soto’s head if he hadn’t ducked.

  He was used to this sort of thing, of course. There was always the occasional slow learner, but they presented no peril that a neat slice couldn’t handle.

  He straightened up, ready to ease his way out of there, and a thick lock of black hair fell onto his shoulder, slithered down his robe, and flopped onto the ground. It made barely a sound, but the expression on his face, as Soto looked down and then up at his attackers, made them draw back.

  He could see through the blood-red rage that they all wore stained gray clothes and looked even crazier than the usual alley people; they looked like accountants gone mad.

  One of them reached out toward the begging bowl.

  Everyone has a conditional clause in their life, some little unspoken addition to the rules like, “Except when I really need to,” or “Unless no one is looking,” or, indeed, “Unless the first one was nougat.” Soto had for centuries embraced a belief in the sanctity of all life and the ultimate uselessness of violence, but his personal conditional clause was, “But not the hair. No one touches the hair, okay?”

  Even so, everyone ought to have a chance.

  The attackers recoiled as he threw the bowl against the wall, where the hidden blades buried themselves in the woodwork.

  Then it began to tick.

  Soto ran back down the alley, skidded around the corner, and then shouted, “Duck!”

  Unfortunately for the Auditors, alas, he was just a tiny, tiny fraction of a second too late—

  Tick

  Lu-Tze was in his Garden of Five Surprises when the air sparkled and fragmented and swirled into a shape in front of him.

  He looked up from his ministrations to the yodeling stick insect, who’d been off its food.

  Lobsang stood on the path. The boy was wearing a black robe dotted with stars, which blew and rattled its rags around him on this windless morning as if he was standing in the center of a gale. Which, Lu-Tze supposed, he more or less was.

  “Back again, wonder boy?” said the sweeper.

  “In a way, I never leave,” said Lobsang. “Things have gone well with you?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “I could. But part of me has to do this the traditional way.”

  “Well, the abbot is mighty suspicious and there’s some amazing rumors flying around the place. I didn’t say much. What do I know about anything? I’m just a sweeper.”

  With that, Lu-Tze turned his attention to the sick stick insect. He’d counted to four under his breath before Lobsang said: “Please? I have to know. I believe that the fifth surprise is you. Am I right?”

  Lu-Tze cocked his head. A low noise that he’d heard for so long that he never consciously heard it anymore had changed its tone.

  “The spinners are all winding out,” he said. “They know you’re here, lad.”

  “I shall not be here long, Sweeper. Please?”

  “You just want to know my little surprise?”

  “Yes. I know nearly everything else,” said Lobsang.

  “But you are Time. What I tell you in the future you’ll know now, right?”

  “But I’m partly human. I want to stay partly human. That means doing things the right way around. Please?”

  Lu-Tze sighed and looked for a while down the avenue of cherry blossom.

  “When the pupil can beat the master, there is nothing the master cannot tell him,” he said. “Remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. The Iron Dojo should be free.”

  Lobsang looked surprised.

  “Uh . . .the Iron Dojo . . .isn’t that the one with all the sharp spikes in the walls?”

  “And the ceiling, yes. The one that’s like being inside a giant porcupine turned inside out.”

  Lobsang looked horrified. “But that’s not for practice! The rules say—”

  “That’s the one,” said Lu-Tze. “And I say we use it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Good. No argument,” said Lu-Tze. “This way, lad.”

  Blossom cascaded from the trees as they passed. They entered the monastery and took the same route they’d taken once before.

  This brought them into the Hall of the Mandala, and the sand rose like a dog welcoming its master and spiraled in the air far below Lobsang’s sandals. Lu-Tze heard the shouts of the attendants behind him.

  News like this spread throughout the valley like ink in water. Hundreds of monks, apprentices, and sweepers were trailing the pair as they crossed the inner courtyards, like the tail of a comet.

  Above them, all the time, petals of cherry blossom fell like snow.

  At last Lu-Tze reached the high, round metal door of the Iron Dojo. The clasp of the door was fifteen feet up. No one who did not belong there was supposed to open the door of the dojo.

  The sweeper nodded at his former apprentice.

  “You do it,” he said. “I can’t.”

  Lobsang glanced at him and then looked up at the high clasp. Then he pressed a hand against the iron.

  Rust spread under his fingers. Red stains spread out across the ancient metal. The door began to creak and then to crumble. Lu-Tze prodded it with an experimental finger, and a slab of cookie-dough-strong metal fell out and collapsed on the flagstones.

  “Very impress—” he began. A squeaky rubber elephant bounced off his head.

  “Bikkit!”

  The crowd parted. The chief acolyte ran forward, carrying the abbot.

  “What is the wanna bikkit BIKKIT meaning of this? Who is wozza funny man this person, Sweeper? The spinners are dancing in their hall!”

  Lu-Tze bowed.

  “He is Time, Reverend One, as you have suspected,” he said. Still bent in the bow, he looked up and sideways at Lobsang.

  “Bow!” he hissed.

  Lobsang looked puzzled. “I should bow even now?” he said.

  “Bow, you little stonga, or I shall teach you such discipline! Show deserved respect! You are still my apprentice until I give you leave!”

  Shocked, Lobsang bowed.

  “And why do you visit us in our timeless valley?” said the abbot.

  “Tell the abbot!” Lu-Tze snapped.

  “I . . .I wish to learn the fifth surprise,” said Lobsang.

  “—Reverend One—,” Lu-Tze supplied.

  “—Reverend One,” Lobsang finished.

  “You visit us just to learn of our clever sweeper’s fancies?” said the abbot.

  “Yes, er, Reverend One.”

  “Of all the things Time could be doing, you wish to see an old man’s trick? Bikkit!”

  “Yes, Reverend One.” The monks stared at Lobsang. His robe still fluttered this way and that in the teeth of the intangible gale, the stars glinting when they caught the light.

  The abbot smiled a cherubic smile.

  “So should we all,” he said. “None of us has ever seen it, I believe. None of us has ever been able to wheedle it out of him. But . . .this is the Iron Dojo. It has rules! Two may walk in, but only one can walk out! This is no practice dojo! Wanna ’lephant! Do you understand?”

  “What? I didn’t know—” Lobsang began, but the sweeper jerked an elbow into his ribs.

  “You say, ‘Yes, Reverend One,’” he growled.

  “But I never intended—”

  This time the back of his head was slapped.

  “This is no time to step back!” Lu-Tze said. “You’re too late, wonder boy!” He nodded to the abbot. “My apprentice understands, Reverend One.”

  “Your apprentice, Sweeper?”

  “Oh, yes, Reverend One,” said Lu-Tze. “My apprentice. Until I say otherwise.”

  “Really? Bikkit! Then he may enter. You too, Lu-Tze.”

  “But I only meant to—” Lobsang protested.

  “Inside!” Lu-Tze roared. “Will you shame me? Shall people think I have taught you nothing?”

  The inside of the Iron Dojo was, indeed, a darkened dome full of spikes. They were needle-thin and there were tens of thousands of them covering the nightmare walls.

  “Who would build something like this?” said Lobsang, looking up at the glistening points that covered even the ceiling.

  “It teaches the virtues of stealth and discipline,” said Lu-Tze, cracking his knuckles. “Impetuosity and speed can be as dangerous to the attacker as to the attacked, as perhaps you will learn. One condition: we are all human here. Agreed?”

  “Of course, Sweeper. We are all human here.”

  “And shall we agree, no tricks?”