Thief of Time

And we would not want his trousers falling down at a time like this, would we?” He sniffed and added, “ Especially at a time like this.”
    He patted the shrinking man on the shoulder. “Just you recall the rule your teacher here taught you on day one, eh? And…why don’t you go and clean yourself up? I mean, some of us have to tidy up in here.”
    Then he turned and nodded to the dojo master.
    “While I am here, master, I should like to show young Lobsang the Device of Erratic Balls.”
    The dojo master bowed deeply. “It is yours, Lu-Tze the Sweeper.”
    As Lobsang followed the ambling Lu-Tze, he heard the dojo master, who like all teachers never missed an opportunity to drive home a lesson, say: “Dojo! What is Rule One!”
    Even the cowering challenger mumbled along with the chorus:
    “Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man!”
    “Good rule, Rule One,” said Lu-Tze, leading his new acolyte into the next room. “I have met many people who could have heeded it to good advantage.”
    He stopped without looking at Lobsang Ludd, and held out his hand.
    “And now, if you please, you will return the little shovel you stole from me when first we met.”
    “But I came nowhere near you, master!”
    Lu-Tze’s smile did not flicker. “Oh. Yes. That is true. My apologies. The ramblings of an old man. Is it not written ‘I’d forget my own head if it wasn’t nailed on?’ Let us proceed.”
    The floor in here was wood, but the walls were high and padded. There were reddish brown stains here and there.
    “Er…we have one of these in the novices’ dojo, Sweeper,” said Lobsang.
    “But the balls in that are made of soft leather, yes?” said the old man, approaching a tall wooden cube. A row of holes was halfway up the side that faced down the length of the room. “And they travel quite slowly, I recall.”
    “Er…yes,” said Lobsang, watching him pull on a very large lever. Down below there was the sound of metal on metal, and then the urgent gushing water. Air began to wheeze from joints in the box.
    “These are wooden,” said Lu-Tze calmly. “Catch one.”
    Something touched Lobsang’s ear and behind him the padding shook as a ball buried itself deeply and then dropped to the floor.
    “Perhaps a shade slower…” said Lu-Tze, turning a knob.
    After fifteen random balls, Lobsang caught one in his stomach. Lu-Tze sighed and pushed the big lever back.
    “Well done,” he said.
    “Sweeper, I’m not used to—” said the boy, picking himself up.
    “Oh, I knew you wouldn’t catch one,” said Lu-Tze. “Even our boisterous friend out there in the dojo wouldn’t catch one at that speed.”
    “But you said you had slowed it down!”
    “Only so that it wouldn’t kill you. Just a test, see. Everything’s a test. Let’s go, lad. Can’t keep the abbot waiting.”
    Trailing cigarette smoke, Lu-Tze ambled away.
    Lobsang followed, getting more and more nervous. This was Lu-Tze, the dojo had proved that. And he knew it, anyway. He’d looked at the little round face as it gazed amicably at the angry fighter and known it. But…just a sweeper? No insignia? No status? Well, obviously status, because the dojo master couldn’t have bowed lower for the abbot. But…
    And now he was following the man along passages where even a monk was not allowed to go, on pain of death. Sooner or later, there was surely going to be trouble.
    “Sweeper, I really ought to be back at my duties in the kitchens—” he began.
    “Oh, yes. Kitchen duties,” said Lu-Tze. “To teach you the virtues of obedience and hard work, right?”
    “Yes, Sweeper.”
    “Are they working?”
    “Oh…yes.”
    “Really?”
    “Well…no.”
    “They’re not all they’re cracked up to be, I have to tell you,” said Lu-Tze. “Whereas, my lad, what we have here,” he stepped through an archway, “is an education!”
    It was the biggest room Lobsang had ever seen. Shafts of light speared down from glazed holes in the roof. And below, more than a hundred yards across and tended by senior monks who walked above it on delicate wire walkways…
    Lobsang had heard about the Mandala.
    It was as if someone had taken tons of colored sands and thrown them across the floor in a great swirl of colored chaos. But there was order fighting for survival in the chaos, rising and falling and spreading. Millions of randomly tumbling sand grains would nevertheless make a piece of pattern, which would