Thief of Time

distance.
    “Nothing seems to be on fire,” said Lu-Tze calmly. “Besides, if we wait a little then by the time we get there everyone will have stopped shouting and perhaps they will be making some sense. Let us take the Clock Path. The display is particularly fine at this time of day.”
    “But…but…”
    “It is written, ‘You’ve got to learn to walk before you can run,’” said Lu-Tze, putting his broom over his shoulder.
    “Mrs. Cosmopilite again?”
    “Amazing woman. Dusted like a demon, too.”
    The Clock Path wound out from the main complex, up through the terraced gardens, and then rejoined the wider path as it tunneled into the cliff wall. Novices always asked why it was called the Clock Path, since there was no sign of a clock anywhere.
    More gongs started to bang, but they were muffled by the greenery. Lobsang heard more running feet up on the main path. Down here, hummingbirds flickered from flower to flower, oblivious to any excitement.
    “I wonder was time it is?” said Lu-Tze, who was walking ahead.
    Everything is a test. Lobsang glanced around at the flower bed.
    “A quarter past nine,” he said.
    “Oh? And how do you know that?”
    “The Field Marigold is open, the Red Sandwort is opening, the Purple Bindweed is closed, and the Yellow Goat’s Beard is closing,” said Lobsang.
    “You worked out the floral clock all by yourself?”
    “Yes. It’s obvious.”
    “Really? What time is it when the White Waterlily opens?”
    “Six in the morning.”
    “You came to look?”
    “Yes. You planted this garden, did you?”
    “One of my little…efforts.”
    “It’s beautiful.”
    “It’s not very accurate in the small hours. There aren’t too many night-blooming plants that grow well up here. They open for the moths, you know—”
    “It’s how time wants to be measured,” said Lobsang.
    “Really? Of course I’m not an expert,” said Lu-Tze. He pinched out the end of his cigarette and stuck it behind his ear. “Oh well, let’s keep going. Everyone may have stopped arguing at cross purposes by now. How do you feel about going through the Mandala Hall again?”
    “Oh, I’ll be fine, I’d just…forgotten about it, that’s all.”
    “Really? And you’d never seen it before, too. But time plays funny tricks on us all. Why, I once—” Lu-Tze stopped, and stared at the apprentice.
    “Are you all right?” he said. “You’ve gone pale.”
    Lobsang grimaced and shook his head.
    “Something…felt odd,” he said. He vaguely waved a hand in the direction of the lowlands, spread out in a blue and gray pattern on the horizon. “Something…over there…”
    The glass clock. The great glass house and here, where it shouldn’t be, the glass clock. It was barely here; it showed up as shimmering lines in the air, as if it was possible to capture the sparkle of light off a shiny surface without the surface itself.
    Everything here was transparent—delicate chairs, tables, vases of flowers. And now he realized that glass was not a word to use here. Crystal might be better, or ice—the thin, flawless ice you sometimes got after a sharp frost. Everything was visible only by its edges.
    He could make out staircases through distant walls. Above and below and to every side, the glass rooms went on forever.
    And yet it was all familiar. It felt like home.
    Sound filled the glass rooms. It streamed away in clear sharp notes, like the tones made by a wet finger around a wineglass rim. There was movement, too—a haze in the air beyond the transparent walls, shifting and wavering and…watching him…
    “How can it come from over there? And how do you mean, odd?” said the voice of Lu-Tze.
    Lobsang blinked. This was the odd place, the one right here, the rigid and unbending world…
    And then the feeling passed and faded.
    “Just…odd. For a moment,” he mumbled. There was dampness on his cheek. He raised his hand, and touched wetness.
    “It’s that rancid yak butter they put in the tea, I’ve always said so,” said Lu-Tze. “Mrs. Cosmopilite never—now that is unusual,” he said, looking up.
    “What? What?” said Lobsang, looking blankly at his wet fingertips and then up at the cloudless sky.
    “A Procrastinator going overspeed.” He shifted position. “Can’t you feel it?”
    “I can’t hear anything!” said Lobsang
    “Not hear, feel . Coming up through your sandals? Oops, there goes another one…and another one. You can’t feel it? That one’s…that’s