Thief of Time

the boy. “But we’ve never found a way of detecting which way —”
    He stopped, and rummaged in his sack. Then he used the sack to sweep snow off a flat boulder.
    “We’ll see what—”
    Glass house.
    This time Lobsang could concentrate on the tones that filled the air. Wet finger on a wineglass? Well, you could start there. But the finger would have to be finger of a god, on the glass of some celestial sphere. And the wonderful, complex, shifting tones did not simply fill the air, they were the air.
    The moving blur beyond the walls was getting closer now.
    It was just beyond the closest wall, then found the open doorway…and vanished.
    Something was behind Lobsang.
    He turned. There was nothing there that he could see, but he felt movement and, for just a moment, something warm brushed his cheek…
    “—the sand says,” said Lu-Tze, tipping a small bag onto the rock.
    The colored grains bounced and spread. They did not have the sensitivity of the Mandala itself, but there was a blue bloom in the chaos.
    He gave Lobsang a sharp look.
    “It’s been proved that no one can do what you just did,” he said. “We’ve never found any way of detecting where a disturbance in time is actually being caused.”
    “Er…sorry.” Lobsang raised a hand to his cheek. It was damp. “Er…what did I do?”
    “It takes a huge—” Lu-Tze stopped. “Ankh-Morpork’s that way,” he said. “Did you know that?”
    “No! Anyway, you said you had a feeling things would happen in Ankh-Morpork!”
    “Yes, but I’ve had a lifetime of experience and cynicism!” Lu-Tze scooped the sand back into its bag. “You’re just gifted . Come on.”
    Four more seconds, sliced thinly, took them below the snowline, into scree slopes that slid under their feet and then through alder forests not much taller than themselves. And it was there they met the hunters, gathered around in a wide circle.
    The men did not pay them much attention. Monks were commonplace in these parts. The leader, or at least the one who was shouting, and this is usually the leader, did look up and waved them past.
    Lu-Tze stopped, though, and looked amiably at the thing in the center of the circle. It looked back at him.
    “Good catch,” he said. “What’re you going to do now, boys?”
    “Is it any business of yours?” said the leader.
    “No, no, just asking,” said Lu-Tze. “You boys up from the lowlands, yes?”
    “Yeah. You’d be amazed at what you can get for catching one of these.”
    “Yes,” said Lu-Tze. “You would be amazed.” Lobsang looked at the hunters. There was more than a dozen of them, all heavily armed and watching Lu-Tze carefully.
    “Nine hundred dollars for a good pelt and another thousand for the feet,” said their leader.
    “That much, eh?” said Lu-Tze. “That’s a lot of money for a pair of feet.”
    “That’s ’cos they’re big feet,” said the hunter. “And you know what they say about men with big feet, eh?”
    “They need bigger shoes?”
    “Yeah, right,” said the hunter, grinning. “Load of nonsense, really, but there’s rich old boys with young wives over on the Counterweight Continent who’ll pay a fortune for a powdered yeti foot.”
    “And there was me thinking they’re a protected species,” said Lu-Tze, leaning his broom against a tree.
    “They’re only a kind of troll. Who’s going to protect them out here?” said the hunter. Behind him, the local guides, who did know Rule One, turned and ran.
    “Me,” said Lu-Tze.
    “Oh?” said the hunter, and this time the grin was nasty. “You don’t even have a weapon.” He turned to look at the fleeing guides. “You’re one of the weird monks from up in the valleys, aren’t you?”
    “That’s right,” said Lu-Tze. “Small, grinning, weird monk. Totally unarmed.”
    “And there’s fifteen of us,” said the hunter. “ Well armed, as you can see.”
    “It’s very important that you are all heavily armed,” said Lu-Tze, pulling his sleeves out of the way. “It makes it fairer.”
    He rubbed his hands together. No one seemed inclined to retreat.
    “Er…any of you boys heard of any rules?” he said after a while.
    “Rules?” said one of the hunters. “What rules?”
    “Oh, you know,” said Lu-Tze. “Rules like…Rule Two, say, or Rule Twenty-Seven. Any kind of rules of that sort of description.”
    The leading hunter frowned.
    “What in damnation are you talking about, mister?”
    “Er…not so much a