Thief of Time

grant you, and who doesn’t look good in black? But, after all, Death…what’s death?”
    “Just a big sleep,” said Lu-Tze.
    “Just a big sleep,” said Ronnie Soak. “As for the others…War? If war’s so bad, why do people keep doing it?”
    “Practically a hobby,” said Lu-Tze. He began to roll himself a cigarette.
    “Practically a hobby,” repeated Ronnie Soak. “As for Famine and Pestilence, well…”
    “Enough said,” said Lu-Tze, sympathetically.
    “Exactly. I mean, Famine’s a fearful thing, obviously—”
    “—in an agricultural community, but you’ve got to move with the times,” said Lu-Tze, putting the roll-up in his mouth.
    “You’ve put your finger right on it. You’ve got to move with the times. I mean, does your average city person fear famine?”
    “No, he thinks food grows in shops,” said Lu-Tze. He was beginning to enjoy this. He had eight hundred years’ worth of experience in steering the thoughts of his superiors, and most of them had been intelligent . He decided to strike out a little.
    “Fire, now, city folk really fear fire,” he said. “ That’s new. Your primitive villager, he reckoned fire was a good thing, didn’t he? Kept the wolves away. If it burned down his hut, well, logs and turf are cheap enough. But now he lives in a street of crowded wooden houses and everyone’s cooking in their rooms, well—”
    Ronnie glared.
    “Fire? Fire? Just a demigod! Some little runt of a thief pinches the flame from the gods and suddenly he’s immortal? You call that training and experience?” A spark leaped from his fingers and ignited the end of Lu-Tze’s cigarette. “And as for gods—”
    “Johnny-come-latelys, the pack of ’em,” said Lu-Tze quickly.
    “Right! People started worshiping them because they were afraid of me,” said Ronnie. “Did you know that?”
    “No, really?” said Lu-Tze innocently.
    But now Ronnie sagged.
    “That was then, of course,” he said. “It’s different now. I’m not what I used to be.”
    “No, no, obviously not, no,” said Lu-Tze soothingly. “But it’s all a matter of how you look at it, am I correct? Now, supposing a man—that is to say, a—”
    “Anthropomorphic personification,” said Ronnie Soak. “But I’ve always preferred the term ‘avatar.’”
    Lu-Tze’s brow wrinkled.
    “You fly around a lot?” he said.
    “That would be aviator.”
    “Sorry. Well, supposing an avatar, thank you, who was perhaps a bit ahead of his time thousands of years ago, well, supposing he took a good look around now, he might just find the world is ready for him again.”
    Lu-Tze waited.
    “My abbot, now, he reckons you are the bee’s knees,” he said for a little reinforcement.
    “Does he?” said Ronnie Soak suspiciously.
    “Bee’s knees, cat’s pajamas, and dog’s…elbows,” Lu-Tze finished. “He’s written scrolls and scrolls about you. Says you are hugely important in understanding how the universe works.”
    “Yeah, but…he’s just one man,” said Ronnie Soak, with all the sullenness and reluctance of someone cuddling a lifetime’s huge snit like a favorite soft toy.
    “Technically, yes,” said Lu-Tze. “But he’s an abbot. And brainy? He thinks such big thoughts he needs a second lifetime just to finish them off! Let a lot of peasants fear famine, I say, but someone like you should aim for quality . And you look at the cities, now. Back in the old days there were just heaps of mud bricks with names like Ur and Uh and Ugg. These days there’s millions of people living in cities. Very, very complicated cities. Just you think about what they really, really fear. And fear…well, fear is belief. Hmm?”
    There was another long pause.
    “Well, alright, but…” Ronnie began.
    “Of course, they won’t be living in ’em very long, because by the time the gray people have finished taking them to pieces to see how they work there won’t be any belief left .”
    “My customers do depend on me…” Ronnie Soak mumbled.
    “What customers? That’s Soak speaking,” said Lu-Tze. “That’s not the voice of Kaos.”
    “Hah!” said Kaos bitterly. “You haven’t told me yet how you worked that one out.”
    Because I’ve got more than three brain cells, and you’re vain, and you painted your actual name back to front on your cart whether you knew it or not, and a dark window is a mirror, and K and S are still recognizable in a reflection even when they’re back to front, thought