Thief of Time

specks of matter, which poured together and filled a shape in space, slowly at first, and then…someone was there.
    She was a tall woman, quite young, dark-haired, in a long red-and-black dress. By the look of her face, Susan thought, she had been weeping. But she was smiling now.
    Wen took Susan by the arm and gently pulled her aside.
    “They’ll want to talk,” he said. “Shall we walk?”
    The room vanished. Now there was a garden, with peacocks and fountains, and a stone seat, upholstered with moss.
    Lawns unrolled toward woodlands that had the manicured look of an estate, which had been maintained for hundreds of years so that nothing grew here that was not wanted, or in the wrong place. Long-tailed birds, their plumage like living jewels, flashed from treetop to treetop. Deeper in the woods, other birds called.
    As Susan watched, a kingfisher alighted on the edge of a fountain. It glanced at her and flew away, its wingbeats sounding like a snapping of fans.
    “Look,” said Susan, “I don’t…I’m not…look, I understand this sort of thing. Really. I’m not stupid. My grandfather has a garden where everything is black. But…Lobsang built the clock! Well…part of him did. So he’s saving the world and destroying it, all at once?”
    “Family trait,” said Wen. “It is what Time does at every instant.”
    He gave Susan the look of a teacher confronted with a keen but stupid pupil.
    “Think like this,” he said at last. “Think of everything . It’s an everyday word. But ‘everything’ means…everything. It’s a much bigger word than ‘universe.’ And everything contains all possible things that can happen at all possible times in all possible worlds. Don’t look for complete solutions in any one of them. Sooner or later, everything causes everything else.”
    “Are you saying one little world is not important, then?” said Susan.
    Wen waved a hand, and two glasses of wine appeared on the stone.
    “Everything is as important as everything else,” he said.
    Susan grimaced.
    “You know, that’s why I’ve never liked philosophers,” she said. “They make it all sound grand and simple, and then you step out into a world that’s full of complications. I mean, look around. I bet this garden needs regular weeding, and the fountains have to be unblocked, and the peacocks shed feathers and dig up the lawn…and if they don’t do that, then this is just a fake.”
    “No, everything is real,” said Wen. “At least, it is as real as anything else. But this is a perfect moment.” He smiled at Susan again. “Against one perfect moment, the centuries beat in vain.”
    “I’d prefer a more specific philosophy,” said Susan. She tried the wine. It was perfect.
    “Certainly. I expected that you would. I see you cling to logic as a limpet clings to a rock in a storm. Let me see…defend the small spaces, don’t run with scissors, and remember that there is often an unexpected chocolate,” said Wen. He smiled. “And never resist a perfect moment.”
    A breeze made the fountains splash over the sides of their bowls, just for a second.
    Wen stood up.
    “And now, I believe, my wife and son have finished their meeting,” he said.
    The garden faded. The stone seat melted like mist as soon as Susan got up, although up until then it had felt as solid as, well, rock. The wineglass vanished from her hand, leaving only a memory of its pressure on her fingers and the taste lingering in her mouth.
    Lobsang was standing in front of the clock. Time herself was not visible, but the song that wove through the rooms had a different tone now.
    “She’s happier,” said Lobsang. “She is free now.”
    Susan looked around. Wen had vanished along with the garden. There was nothing but the endless glass rooms.
    “Don’t you want to talk to your father?” she said.
    “Later. There will be plenty of time,” said Lobsang. “I shall see to it.”
    The way he said it, so carefully dropping the words into place, made her turn.
    “You’re going to take over?” she said. “ You are Time now?”
    “Yes.”
    “But you’re mostly human!”
    “So?” Lobsang’s smile took after his father. It was the gentle and, to Susan, the infuriating smile of a god.
    “What’s in all these rooms?” she demanded. “Do you know?”
    “One perfect moment. In each one. An oodleplex of oodleplexes.”
    “I’m not certain there’s such a thing as a genuinely perfect moment,” said Susan. “Can we go home