Thief of Time

because this was the abbot, after all.
    “And you know then that when the messenger’s horse threw a shoe he espied a man trudging beside the road carrying a small portable forge and pushing an anvil on a barrow?”
    They knew.
    “And you know that man was Lu-Tze?”
    They did.
    “You surely know that Janda Trapp, Grand Master of Okidoki, Toro-fu, and Chang-fu, has only ever yielded to one man?”
    They knew.
    “And you know that man is Lu-Tze?”
    They did.
    “You know the little shrine you kicked over last night?”
    They knew.
    “You know it had an owner?”
    There was silence. Then the brightest of the novices looked up at the abbot in horror, swallowed, picked up one of the three brooms, and walked out of the room.
    The other two were slower of brain and had to follow the story all the way through to the end.
    Then one of them said, “But it was only a sweeper’s shrine!”
    “You will take up the brooms and sweep,” said the abbot, “and you will sweep every day, and you will sweep until the day you find Lu-Tze and dare to say ‘Sweeper, it was I who knocked over and scattered your shrine and now I will in humility accompany you to the dojo of the Tenth Djim, in order to learn the Right Way.’ Only then, if you are still able, may you resume your studies here. Understood?” *
    Older monks sometimes complained, but someone would always say: “Remember that Lu-Tze’s Way is not our Way. Remember he learned everything by sweeping unheeded while students were being educated. Remember, he has been everywhere and done many things. Perhaps he is a little…strange, but remember that he walked into a citadel full of armed men and traps and nevertheless saw to it that the Pash of Muntab choked innocently on a fish bone. No monk is better than Lu-Tze at finding the Time and the Place.”
    Some, who did not know, would say: “What is this Way that gives him so much power?”
    And they were told: “It is the Way of Mrs. Marietta Cosmopilite, 3 Quirm Street, Ankh-Morpork, Rooms To Rent Very Reasonable. No, we don’t understand it, either. Some subsendential rubbish, apparently.”
    Tick
    Lu-Tze listened to the senior monks, while leaning on his broom. Listening was an art he had developed over the years, having learned that if you listened hard and long enough people would tell you more than they thought they knew.
    “Soto is a good field operative,” he said at last. “Weird, but good.”
    “The fall even showed up on the Mandala,” said Rinpo. “The boy knew none of the appropriate actions. Soto said he’d done it reflexively. He said he thought the boy was as close to null as he has ever witnessed. He had him put on a cart for the mountains within the hour. He then spent three whole days performing the Closing of the Flower at the Guild of Thieves, where the boy had apparently been left as a baby.”
    “The closure was successful?”
    “We authorized the run time of two Procrastinators. Perhaps a few people will have faint memories, but the guild is a large and busy place.”
    “No brothers, no sisters. No love of parents. Just the brotherhood of thieves,” said Lu-Tze sadly.
    “He was, however, a good thief.”
    “I’ll bet. How old is he?”
    “Sixteen or seventeen, it appears.”
    “Too old to teach, then.”
    The senior monks exchanged glances.
    “We cannot teach him anything,” said the Master of Novices. “He—”
    Lu-Tze held up a skinny hand. “Let me guess. He knows it already?”
    “It’s as though he’s being told something that had momentarily slipped his memory,” said Rinpo. “And then he gets bored and angry. He’s not all there, in my opinion.”
    Lu-Tze scratched in his stained beard.
    “Mystery boy,” he said thoughtfully. “Naturally talented.”
    “And we ask ourselves wanna potty wanna potty poo why now, why at this time?” said the abbot, chewing the foot of a toy yak.
    “Ah, but is it not said ‘There is a Time and Place for Everything’?” said Lu-Tze. “Anyway, reverend sirs, you have taught pupils for hundreds of years. I am but a sweeper.” Absent-mindedly, he stuck out his hand just as the yak left the fumbling fingers of the abbot, and caught it in midair.
    “Lu-Tze,” said the Master of Novices, “to be brief, we were unable to teach you. Remember?”
    “But then I found my Way,” said Lu-Tze.
    “Will you teach him?” said the abbot. “The boy needs to mmm brmmm find himself.”
    “Is it not written: ‘I have only one pair