Thief of Time

herself.
    “It is.”
    They stared up at the shelves behind the counter.
    “Myria…Myria,” said Susan, speaking only some of her thoughts aloud. “From the Ephebian word myrios , meaning “innumerable.” And LeJean as a crude pun of ‘legion’…oh dear.”
    “We thought a name should say what a thing is,” said her ladyship. “And there is safety in numbers. I am sorry.”
    “Well, these are their basic assortments,” said Susan, dismissing the shop display with a wave of her hand. “Let’s try the back room—are you all right?”
    “I am fine, I…fine…” murmured Lady LeJean, swaying.
    “You’re not going to pig out on me, are you?”
    “We…I…know about willpower. The body craves the chocolate but the mind does not. At least…so I tell myself. And it must be true! The mind can overrule the body! Otherwise, what is it for?”
    “I’ve often wondered,” said Susan, pushing open another door. “Ah. The magician’s cave…”
    “Magic? They used magic here?”
    “Nearly right…”
    Lady LeJean leaned on the door frame for support when she saw the tables.
    “Oh,” she said. “Uh…I can detect…sugar, milk, butter, cream, vanilla, hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, raisins, orange peel, various liqueurs, citrus pectin, strawberries, raspberries, essence of violets, cherries, pineapples, pistachios, oranges, limes, lemons, coffee, cocoa—”
    “Nothing there to be frightened of, right?” said Susan, surveying the workshop for useful weaponry. “Cocoa is just a rather bitter bean, after all.”
    “Yes, but…” Lady LeJean clenched her fists, shut her eyes and bared her teeth, “put them all together and they make—”
    “Steady, steady…”
    “The will can overrule the emotions, the will can overrule the instincts—” the Auditor chanted.
    “Good, good, now just work your way up to the bit where it says chocolate, okay?”
    “That’s the hard one!”
    In fact, it seemed to Susan, as she walked past the vats and counters, that chocolate lost some of its attraction when you saw it like this. It was the difference between seeing the little heaps of pigment and seeing the whole picture. She selected a syringe that seemed designed to do something intensely personal to female elephants, although she decided that here it was probably used for doing the wiggly bits of decoration.
    And over here was a small vat of cocoa liquor.
    She stared around at the trays and trays of fondant cremes, marzipans, and caramels. Oh, and here was an entire table of Soul Cake eggs. But these weren’t the hollow-shelled, cardboard-tasting presents for children, oh no—these were the confectionery equivalent of fine, intricate jewelery.
    Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. One of the statuelike workers bent over her tray of Praline Dreams was shifting almost imperceptibly.
    Time was flowing into the room. Pale blue light glinted in the air.
    She turned and saw a vaguely human figure hovering beside her. It was featureless and as transparent as mist, but in her head it said, I’m stronger. You are my anchor, my link to this world, can you guess how hard it is to find it again in so many?…Get me to the clock…
    Susan turned and thrust the icing syringe into the arms of the groaning Myria. “Grab that. And make some kind of…of sling or something. I want you to be carrying as many of those chocolate eggs as possible. And the cremes. And the liqueurs. Understand? You can do it!”
    Oh, gods, there was no alternative. The poor thing needed some kind of morale boost. “ Please , Myria? And that’s a stupid name! You’re not many, you’re one. Okay? Just be…yourself. Unity…that’d be a good name.”
    The new Unity raised a mascara-streaked face.
    “Yes…it is…it’s a good name…”
    Susan snatched as much merchandise as she could carry, aware of some rustling behind her, and turned to find Unity standing to attention holding, by the look of it, a benchworth of assorted confectionery in…
    …a sort of a big cerise sack.
    “Oh. Good. Intelligent use of the materials at hand,” said Susan weakly. Then the teacher within her cut in and added, “I hope you brought enough for everybody .”

    “You were the first,” said Lu-Tze. “You basically created the whole business. Innovative, you were.”
    “That was then,” said Ronnie Soak. “It’s all changed now.”
    “Not like it used to be,” agreed Lu-Tze.
    “Take Death,” said Ronnie Soak. “Impressive, I’ll