Thief of Time

by his ear, “that no one ever believes in Rule One?”
    Above him, the sky began to burn blue.

    Susan sped up the street to the clock shop.
    She glanced sideways, and Lobsang was there, running beside her. He looked…human, except that not many humans had a blue glow around them.
    “There will be gray men around the clock!” he shouted.
    “Trying to find what makes it tick?”
    “Hah! Yes!”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Smash it!”
    “That’ll destroy history!”
    “So?”
    He reached out and took her hand. She felt a shock run up her arm.
    “You won’t need to open the door! You won’t need to stop! Head straight for the clock!” he said.
    “But—”
    “Don’t talk to me! I’ve got to remember!”
    “Remember what?”
    “Everything!”

    Mr. White was already raising the ax as he turned around. But you just can’t trust a body. It thinks for itself. When it is surprised, it does a number of things even before the brain has been informed.
    The mouth opens, for example.
    “Ah, good,” said Lu-Tze, raising his cupped hand. “Eat this!”

    The door was no more substantial than mist. There were Auditors in the workshop, but Susan moved through them like a ghost.
    The clock glowed. And, as she ran toward it, it moved away. The floor unrolled in front of her, dragging her back. The clock accelerated toward some distant event horizon. At the same time it grew bigger but became more insubstantial, as if the same amount of clockness was trying to spread itself across more space.
    Other things were happening. She blinked, but there was no flicker of darkness.
    “Ah,” she said to herself, “so I’m not seeing with my eyes. And what else? What’s happening to me ? My hand…looks normal, but does that mean it is? Am I getting smaller or bigger? Does—”
    Are you always like this? said the voice of Lobsang.
    “Like what? I can feel your hand and I can hear your voice—at least, I think I can hear it but maybe it’s just in my head, but I can’t feel myself running—”
    So…so analytical ?
    “Of course. What am I supposed to be thinking? ‘Oh my paws and whiskers’? Anyway, it’s quite straightforward. It’s all metaphorical. My senses are telling me stories because they can’t cope with what is really happening—”
    Don’t let go of my hand.
    “It’s all right, I won’t let you go.”
    I meant, don’t let go of my hand because otherwise every part of your body will be compressed into a space much, much smaller than an atom.
    “Oh.”
    And don’t try to imagine what this really looks like from outside. Here comes the cloooccckkkkkkk—

    Mr. White’s mouth closed. His expression of surprise became one of horror, and then one of shock, and then one of terrible, wonderful bliss.
    He began to unravel. He came apart like a big and complex jigsaw made of tiny pieces, crumbling gently at the extremities and then vanishing into the air. The last piece to evaporate were the lips, and then they, too, were gone.
    A half-chewed chocolate-coated coffee bean dropped onto the street. Lu-Tze reached down quickly, picked up the ax, and flourished it at the other Auditors. They leaned back out of the way, mesmerized by authority.
    “Who does this belong to now?” he demanded. “Come on, whose is it?”
    “It is mine! I am Miss Taupe!” shouted a woman in gray.
    “I am Mr. Orange, and it belongs to me! No one is even sure that taupe is a proper color!” screamed Mr. Orange.
    An Auditor in the crowd said, rather more thoughtfully: “Is it the case, then, that hierarchy is negotiable?”
    “Certainly not!” Mr. Orange was jumping up and down.
    “You have to decide it among yourselves,” said Lu-Tze. He tossed the ax into the air. A hundred pairs of eyes watched it fall.
    Mr. Orange got there first, but Miss Taupe trod on his fingers. After that, it became very busy and confusing and, to judge from the sounds from within the growing scrum, also very, very painful.
    Lu-Tze took the arm of the astonished Unity.
    “How quickly they learn, eh?” he said. “And so do I, I’m pleased to say. Ever heard of yetis, miss? I was desperate enough to see how much I’d really learned. And they were right…it does sting a bit…”
    There was a scream from somewhere in the mob.
    “Democracy at work,” said Lu-Tze happily. He glanced at the sky. The flames above the world were dying out, and he wondered who’d won.

    There was bright blue light ahead and dark red light behind,