Thief of Time

the sight of the creature’s distress made her hesitate. All right, the thing was one of them, it was merely wearing—well, at least had started out merely wearing a body as a kind of coat, but now…after all, you could say that about everyone , couldn’t you?
    Susan had even wondered if the human soul without the anchor of a body would end up, eventually, as something like an Auditor. Which, to be fair, meant that Unity, who was getting more firmly wrapped in flesh by the minute, was something like a human. And that was a pretty good definition of Lobsang and, if it came to it, Susan as well. Who knew where humanity began and where it finished?
    “Come along,” she said. “We’ve got to stick together, right?”

    Like shards of glass spinning through the air, fragments of history drifted and collided and intersected in the dark.
    There was a lighthouse, though. The valley of Oi Dong held on to the ever-repeating day. In the hall almost all of the giant cylinders stood silent, all time ran out. Some had split. Some had melted. Some had exploded. Some had simply vanished. But one still turned.
    Big Thanda, the oldest and biggest, ground slowly on its basalt bearing, winding time out at one end and back on the other, ensuring, as Wen had decreed, that the perfect day would never end.
    Rambut Handisides was all alone in the hall, sitting beside the turning stone in the light of a butter lamp and occasionally throwing a handful of grease onto the base.
    A clink of stone made him peer into the darkness. It was heavy with the smoke of fried rock.
    There the sound was again, and then the scratch and flare of a match.
    “Lu-Tze?” he said. “Is that you?”
    “I hope so, Rambut, but who knows these days?” Lu-Tze stepped into the light and sat down. “Keeping you busy, are they?”
    Handisides sprang to his feet. “It’s been terrible, Sweeper! Everyone’s up in the Mandala Hall! It’s worse than the Great Crash! There’s bits of history everywhere and we’ve lost half the spinners! We’ll never be able to put it all—”
    “Now, now, you look like a man who’s had a busy day,” said Lu-Tze kindly. “Not got a lot of sleep, eh? Tell you what, I’ll take care of this. You go and get a bit of shut-eye, okay?”
    “We thought you were lost out in the world, and—” the monk burbled.
    “And now I’m back,” smiled Lu-Tze, patting him on the shoulder. “There’s still that little alcove around the corner where you repair the smaller spinners? And there’s still those unofficial bunks for when it’s the night shift and you only need a couple of lads to keep their eye on things?”
    Handisides nodded and looked guilty. Lu-Tze wasn’t supposed to know about the bunks.
    “You get along, then,” said Lu-Tze. He watched the man’s retreating back and added quietly, “and if you wake up you might turn out to be the luckiest idiot that ever there was. Well, wonder boy? What next?”
    “We put everything back,” said Lobsang, emerging from the shadows.
    “You know how long that took us last time?”
    “Yes,” said Lobsang, looking around at the stricken hall and heading toward the podium. “I do. I don’t think it will take me as long.”
    “I wish you sounded more certain,” said Susan.
    “I’m…pretty certain,” said Lobsang, running his fingers over the bobbins on the board.
    Lu-Tze waved a cautionary hand at Susan. Lobsang’s mind was already on the way somewhere else, and now she wondered how large a space it was occupying. His eyes were closed.
    “The…spinners that are left…can you move the jumpers?” he said.
    “I can show the ladies how to,” said Lu-Tze.
    “Are there not monks who know how to do this?” said Unity.
    “It…would take too long. I…am an apprentice to a sweeper. They…would run around asking questions,” said Lobsang. “You…will not.”
    “He’s got a point right enough,” said Lu-Tze. “People will start saying ‘what is the meaning of this?’ and ‘Bikkit!’, and we’ll never get anything done.”
    Lobsang looked down at the bobbins and then across at Susan.
    “Imagine…that there is a jigsaw, all in pieces. But…I am very good at spotting edges and shapes. Very good. And all the pieces are moving. But…because they were once linked, they have by their very nature a memory of that link. Their shape is the memory. Once a few are in the right position, the rest will be easier. Oh…and imagine that all the bits are scattered