Discworld – Thief of Time (Terry Pratchett)

* * *

'... and then I thought, what's a job that really needs someone with my talents?' said Ronnie. 'To me, time is just another direction. And then I thought, everyone wants fresh milk, yes? And everyone wants it delivered early in the morning.'

'Got to be better than the window-cleaning,' said Lu-Tze.

'I only went into that after they invented windows,' said Ronnie. 'It was the jobbing gardening before that. More rancid yak butter in that?'

'Please,' said Lu-Tze, holding out his cup.

Lu-Tze was eight hundred years old, and that was why he was having a rest. A hero would have leapt up and rushed out into the silent city and then-

And there you had it. Then a hero would have had to wonder what to do next. Eight hundred years had taught Lu-Tze that what happens stays happened. It might stay happened in a different set of dimensions, if you wanted to get technical, but you couldn't make it un-happen. The clock had struck, and time had stopped. Later, a solution would present itself. In the meantime, a cup of tea and conversation with his serendipitous rescuer might speed that time. After all, Ronnie was not your average milkman..

Lu-Tze had long considered that everything happens for a reason, except possibly football.

'It's the real stuff you got there, Ronnie,' he said, taking a sip. 'The butter we're getting these days, you wouldn't grease a cart with it.'

'It's the breed,' said Ronnie. 'I go and get this from the highland herds six hundred years ago.'

'Cheers,' said Lu-Tze, raising his cup. 'Funny, though. I mean, if you said to people there were originally five Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and then one of them left and is a milkman, well, they'd be a bit surprised. They'd wonder about why you...'

For a moment Ronnie's eyes blazed silver.

'Creative differences,' he growled. 'The whole ego thing. Some people might say... No, I don't like to talk about it. I wish them all the luck in the world, of course.'

'Of course,' said Lu-Tze, keeping his expression opaque.

'And I've watched their careers with great interest.'

'I'm sure.'

'Do you know I even got written out of the official history?' said Ronnie. He held up a hand and a book appeared in it. It looked brand new.

'This was before,' he said sourly. 'Book of Om. Ever meet him? Tall man, beard, tendency to giggle at nothing?'

'Before my time, Ronnie.'

Ronnie handed the book over. 'First edition. Try Chapter 2, verse 7,' he said.

And Lu-Tze read: ' "And the Angel clothcd all in white opened the Iron Book, and a fifth rider appeared in a chariot of burning ice, and there was a snapping of laws and a breaking of bonds and the multitude cried 'Oh God, we're in trouble now!' " '

'That was me,' said Ronnie proudly.

Lu-Tze's eyes strayed to verse 8: ' "And I saw, sort of like rabbits, in many colours but basically a plaid pattern, kind of spinning around, and there was a sound as of like big syrupy things."'

'That verse got cut for the next edition,' said Ronnie. 'Very open to visions of all sorts, old Tobrun. The fathers of Omnianism could pick and mix what they wanted. Of course, in those days everything was new. Death was Death, of course, but the rest were really just Localized Crop Failure, Scuffles and Spots.'

'And you-?' Lu-Tze ventured.

'The public wasn't interested in me any more,' said Ronnie. 'Or so I was told. Back in those days we were only playing to very small crowds. One plague of locusts, some tribe's waterhole drying up, a volcano exploding... We were glad of any gig going. There wasn't room for five.' He sniffed. 'So I was told.'

Lu-Tze put down his cup. 'Well, Ronnie, it's been very nice talking to you, but time's... time's not rushing, you see.'

'Yeah. Heard about that. The streets are full of the Law.' Ronnie's eyes blazed again.

'Law?'

'Dhlang. The Auditors. They've had the glass clock built again.'

'You know that?'

'Look, I might not be one of the Fearsome Four, but I do keep my eyes and ears open,' said Ronnie.

'But that's the end of the world!'

'No, it's not,' said Ronnie calmly. 'Everything's still here.'

'But it's not going anywhere!'

'Oh, well, that's not my problem, is it?' said Ronnie. 'I do milk and dairy products.'

Lu-Tze looked around the sparkling dairy, at the glistening bottles, at the gleaming churns. What a job for a timeless person. The milk would always be fresh.

He looked back at the bottles, and an unbidden thought rose in his mind.

The Horsemen were people-shaped, and people are vain. Knowing how to use other people's vanity was a martial art all in itself, and Lu-Tze had been doing it for a long time.

'I bet I can work out who you were,' he said. 'I bet I can work out your real name.'

'Hah. Not a chance, monk,' said Ronnie.

'Not a monk, just a sweeper,' said Lu-Tze calmly. 'Just a sweeper. You called them the Law, Ronnie. There's got to be a law, right? They make the rules, Ronnie. And you've got to have rules, isn't that true?'

'I do milk and milk products,' said Ronnie, but a muscle twitched under his eye. 'Also eggs by arrangement. It's a good steady business. I'm thinking of taking on more staff for the shop.'

'Why?' said Lu-Tze. 'There won't be anything for them to do.'

'And expand the cheese side,' said Ronnie, not looking at the sweeper. 'Big market for cheese. And I thought maybe I could get a c-mail address, people could send in orders, it could be a big market.'

'All the rules have won, Ronnie. Nothing moves any more. Nothing is unexpected because nothing happens.'

Ronnie sat staring at nothing.

'I can see you've found your niche, then, Ronnie,' said Lu-Tze soothingly. 'And you keep this place like a new pin, there's no doubt about it. I expect the rest of the lads'd be really pleased to know that you're, you know, getting on all right. Just one thing, uh ... Why did you rescue me?'

'What? Well, it was my charitable duty-'

'You're the Fifth Horseman, Mr Soak. Charitable duty?' Except, Lu-Tze thought, you've been human-shaped a long time. You want me to find out... You want me to. Thousands of years of a life like this. It's curled you in on yourself. You'll fight me all the way, but you want me to drag your name out of you.

Ronnie's eyes glowed. 'I look after my own, Sweeper.'

'I'm one of yours, am I?'

'You have... certain worthwhile points.'

They stared at one another.

'I'll take you back to where I found you,' said Ronnie Soak. 'That's all. I don't do that other stuff any more.'

The Auditor lay on its back, mouth open. Occasionally it made a weak little noise, like the whimper of a gnat.

'Try again, Mr-'

'Dark Avocado, Mr White.'

'Is that a real colour?'

'Yes, Mr White!' said Mr Dark Avocado, who wasn't entirely sure that it was.

'Try again, then, Mr Dark Avocado.'

Mr Dark Avocado, with great reluctance, reached down towards the supine figure's mouth. His fingers were a few inches away when, apparently of its own volition, the figure's left hand moved in a blur and gripped them. There was a crackle of bone.

'I feel extreme pain, Mr White.'

'What is in its mouth, Mr Dark Avocado?'

'It appears to be cooked fermented grain product, Mr White. The extreme pain is continuing.'

'A foodstuff?'

'Yes, Mr White. The sensations of pain are really quite noticeable at this point.'

'Did I not give an order that there should be no eating or drinking or unnecessary experimentation with sensory apparatus?'

'Indeed you did, Mr White. The sensation known as extreme pain, which I mentioned previously, is now really quite acute. What shall I do now?'

The concept of 'orders' was yet another new and intensely unfamiliar one for any Auditor. They were used to decisions by committee, reached only when the possibilities of doing nothing whatsoever about the matter in question had been exhausted. Decisions made by everyone were decisions made by no one, which therefore precluded any possibility of blame.

But the bodies understood orders. This was clearly something that made humans human, and so the Auditors went along with it in a spirit of investigation. There was no choice, in any case. All kinds of sensations arose when they were given instructions by a man holding an edged weapon. It was surprising how smoothly the impulse to consult and discuss metamorphosed into a pressing desire to do what the weapon said.

'Can you not persuade him to let go of your hand?'

'He appears to be unconscious, Mr White. His eyes are bloodshot. He is making a little sighing noise. Yet the body seems determined that the bread should not be removed. Could I raise again the issue of the unbearable pain?'

Mr White signalled to two other Auditors. With considerable effort, they pried Mr Dark Avocado's fingers loose.

'This is something we will have to learn more about,' said Mr White. 'The renegade spoke of it. Mr Dark Avocado?'

'Yes, Mr White?'

'Do the sensations of pain persist?'

'My hand feels both hot and cold, Mr White.'

'How strange,' said Mr White. 'I see that we will need to investigate pain in greater depth.' Mr Dark Avocado found that a little voice in the back of his head screamed at the thought of this, while Mr White went on: 'What other foodstuffs are there?'

'We know the names of three thousand, seven hundred and nineteen foods,' said Mr Indigo-Violet, stepping forward. He had become the expert on such matters, and this was another new thing for the Auditors. They had never had experts before. What one knew, all knew. Knowing something that others did not know marked one as, in a small way, an individual. Individuals could die. But it also gave you power and value, which meant that you might not die quite so easily. It was a lot to deal with, and like some of the other Auditors he was already assembling a number of facial tics and twitches as his mind tried to cope.

'Name one,' said Mr White.

'Cheese,' said Mr Indigo-Violet smartly. 'It is rotted bovine lactation.'

'We will find some cheese,' said Mr White.

Three Auditors went past.

Susan peered out of a doorway. 'Are you sure we're going the right way?' she said. 'We're leaving the city centre.'

'This is the way I should be going,' said Lobsang.

'All right, but I don't like these narrow streets. I don't like hiding. I'm not a hiding kind of person.'

'Yes, I've noticed.'

'What's that place ahead?'

'That's the back of the Royal Art Museum. Broad Way's on the other side,' said Lobsang. 'And that's the way we need to go.'

'You know your way around for a man from the mountains.'

'I grew up here. I know five different ways to break into the museum, too. I used to be a thief.'

'I used to be able to walk through the walls,' said Susan. 'Can't seem to do it with time stopped. I think the power gets cancelled out somehow.'

'You could really walk through a solid wall?'

'Yes. It's a family tradition,' Susan snapped. 'Come on, let's go through the museum. At least no one moves about much in there at the best of times.'

Ankh-Morpork had not had a king for many centuries, but palaces tend to survive. A city might not need a king, but it can always use big rooms and some handy large walls, long after the monarchy is but a memory and the building is renamed the Glorious Memorial to the People's Industry.

Besides, although the last king of the city was no oil painting himself - especially when he'd been beheaded, after which no one looks their best, not even a short king - it was generally agreed that he had amassed some pretty good works of art. Even the common people of the city had a keen eye for works like Caravati's Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze or Mauvaise's Man with Big Figleaf and, besides, a city with a history the length of Ankh-Morpork's accumulated all kinds of artistic debris, and in order to prevent congestion in the streets it needed some sort of civic attic in which to store it. And thus, at little more cost than a few miles of plush red rope and a few old men in uniform to give directions to Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze, the Royal Art Museum was born.

Lobsang and Susan hurried through the silent halls. As with Fidgett's, it was hard to know if time had stopped here. Its passage was barely perceptible in any case. The monks at Oi Dong considered it a valuable resource.

Susan stopped and turned to look up at a huge, gilt-framed picture that occupied one whole wall of a lengthy corridor, and said, quietly: 'Oh...'

'What is it?'

'The Battle of Ar-Gash, by Blitzt,' said Susan.

Lobsang looked at the flaking, uncleaned paint and the yellow-brown varnish. The colours had faded to a dozen shades of mud, but something violent and evil shone through.

'Is that meant to be Hell?' he said.

'No, it was an ancient city in Klatch, thousands of years ago,' said Susan. 'But Grandfather did say that men made it Hell. Blitzt went mad when he painted it.'

'Er, he did good storm clouds, though,' said Lobsang, swallowing. 'Wonderful, er, light...'

'Look at what's coming out of the clouds,' said Susan.

Lobsang squinted into the crusted cumulus and fossilized lightning.

'Oh, yes. The Four Horsemen. You often get them in-'

'Count again,' said Susan.

Lobsang stared. 'There's two-'

'Don't be silly, there's fi-' she began, and then followed his gaze. He hadn't been interested in the art.

A couple of Auditors were hurrying away from them, towards the Porcelain Room.

'They're running away from us!' said Lobsang.

Susan grabbed his hand. 'Not exactly,' she said. 'They always consult! There have to be three of them to do that! And they'll be back, so come on!'

She grabbed his hand and towed him into the next gallery.

There were grey figures at the far end. The pair ran on, past dust-encrusted tapestries, and into another huge, ancient room.

'Ye gods, there's a picture of three huge pink women with only-' Lobsang began, as he was dragged past.

'Pay attention, will you? The way to the main door was back there! This place is full of Auditors!'

'But it's just an old art gallery! There's nothing for them here, is there?'

They slid to a stop on the marble slabs. A wide staircase led up to the next floor.

'We'll be trapped up there,' said Lobsang.

'There're balconies all round,' said Susan. 'Come on!' She dragged him up the stairs and through an archway. And stopped.

The galleries were several storeys high. On the first floor, visitors could look down on to the floor below. And, in the room below, the Auditors were very busy.

'What the hell are they doing now?' whispered Lobsang.

'I think,' said Susan grimly, 'that they are appreciating Art.'

Miss Tangerine was annoyed. Her body kept making strange demands of her, and the work with which she had been entrusted was going so very badly.

The frame of what once had been Sir Robert Cuspidor's Waggon Stuck In River was leaning against a wall in front of her. It was empty. The bare canvas was neatly rolled beside it. In front of the frame, carefully heaped in order of size, were piles of pigment.

Several dozen Auditors were breaking these down into their component molecules.

'Still nothing?' she said, striding along the line.

'No, Miss Tangerine. Only known molecules and atoms so far,' said an Auditor, its voice shaking slightly.

'Well, is it something to do with the proportions? The balance of molecules? The basic geometry?'

'We are continuing to-'

'Get on with it!'

The other Auditors in the gallery, clustered industriously in front of what had once been a painting and in fact still was, insofar as every single molecule was still present in the room, glanced up and then bent again to their tasks.

Miss Tangerine was getting even angrier because she couldn't work out why she was angry. One reason was probably that, when he gave her this task, Mr White had looked at her in a funny way. Being looked at was an unfamiliar experience for an Auditor in any case - no Auditor bothered to look at another Auditor very often because all Auditors looked the same - and neither were they used to the idea that you could say things with your face. Or even have a face. Or have a body that reacted in strange ways to the expression on another face belonging to, in this case, Mr White. When he looked at her like that she felt a terrible urge to claw his face off.

Which made absolutely no sense at all. No Auditor should feel like that about another Auditor. No Auditor should feel like that about anything. No Auditor should feel.

She felt livid. They'd all lost so many powers. It was ridiculous to have to communicate by flapping bits of your skin, and as for the tongue... Yuerkkk ...

As far as she knew, in the whole life of the universe, no Auditor had ever experienced the sensation of yuerkkk. This wretched body was full of opportunities for yuerkkk. She could leave it at any time and yet, and yet... part of her didn't want to. There was this horrible desire, second by second, to hang on.

And she felt hungry. And that also made no sense. The stomach was a bag for digesting food. It wasn't supposed to issue commands. The Auditors could survive quite well by exchanging molecules with their surroundings and making use of any local source of energy. That was a fact.

Try telling that to the stomach. She could feel it. It was sitting there, grumbling. She was being harassed by her internal organs. Why the ... why the. . why had they copied internal organs? Yuerkkk.

It was all too much. She wanted to... she wanted to... express herself by shouting some, some, some terrible words...

'Discord! Confusion!'

The other Auditors looked around in terror.

But the words didn't work for Miss Tangerine. They just didn't have the same force that they used to. There had to be something worse. Ah, yes...

'Organs!' she shouted, pleased to have found it at last. 'And what are all you... organs looking at?' she added. 'Get on with it!'

'They're taking everything apart,' whispered Lobsang.

'That's the Auditors for you,' said Susan. 'They think that's how you find out about things. You know, I loathe them. I really do.'

Lobsang glanced sideways at her. The monastery was not a single-sex institution. That is to say, it was, but corporately it had never thought of itself like that because the possibility of females working there had never crossed even minds capable of thinking of sixteen dimensions. But the Thieves' Guild had recognized that girls were at least as good as boys in all areas of thieving - he had, for example, fond memories of his classmate Steff, who could steal the small change out of your back pocket and climb better than an Assassin. He was at home around girls. But Susan scared the life out of him. It was as if some secret place inside her boiled with wrath, and with the Auditors she let it out.

He remembered her hitting that one with the wrench. There had been just a faint frown of concentration, as if she was making certain the job was done properly.

'Shall we go?' he ventured.

'Look at them,' continued Susan. 'Only an Auditor would take a picture apart to see what made it a work of art.'

'There's a big pile of white dust over there,' said Lobsang.

'Man with Huge Figleaf' said Susan absently, her eyes still intent on the grey figures. 'They'd dismantle a clock to search for the tick.'

'How do you know its Man with Huge Figleaf?'

'I just happen to remember where it is, that's all.'

'You, er, you appreciate art?' Lobsang ventured.

'I know what I like,' said Susan, still staring at the busy grey figures. 'And right now I'd like quite a lot of weaponry.'

'We'd better move-'

'The bastards get into your head if you let them,' said Susan, not moving. 'When you find yourself thinking "There ought to be a law" or "I don't make the rules, after all" or-'

'I really think we should leave,' said Lobsang carefully. 'And I think this because there are some of them coming up the stairs.'

Her head jerked around. 'What are you standing about for, then?' she said.

They ran through the next arch and into a gallery of pottery, turning to look only when they reached the far end. Three Auditors were following them. They weren't running, but there was something about their synchronized step that had a horrible we'll-keep-on-coming quality.

'All right, let's go this way-'

'No, let's go this way,' said Lobsang.

'That's not the way we need to go!' Susan snapped.

'No, but the sign up there says "Arms and Armour"!'

'So? Are you any good with weapons?'

'No!' said Lobsang proudly, and then realized she'd taken this the wrong way. 'You see, I've been taught to fight without-'

'Maybe there's a sword I can use,' Susan growled, and strode forward.

By the time the Auditors entered the gallery there were more than three of them. The grey crowd paused.

Susan had found a sword, part of a display of Agatean armour. It had been blunted by disuse, but anger flared along the blade.

'Should we keep running?' said Lobsang.

'No. They always catch up. I don't know if we can kill them here, but we can make them wish we could. You still haven't got a weapon?'

'No, because, you see, I've been trained to-'

'Just keep out of my way, then, okay?'

The Auditors advanced cautiously, which struck Lobsang as odd.

'We can't kill them?' said Lobsang.

'It depends on how alive they've let themselves become.'

'But they look scared,' he said.

'They're human-shaped,' said Susan over her shoulder. 'Human bodies. Perfect copies. Human bodies have had thousands and thousands of years of not wanting to be cut in half. That sort of leaks into the brain, don't you think?'

And then the Auditors were circling and moving in. Of course they would all attack at once. No one would want to be first.

Three made a grab at Lobsang.

He'd enjoyed the fighting, back in the training dojos. Of course, everyone was padded, and no one was actually trying to kill you, and that helped. But Lobsang had done well because he was good at slicing. He could always find that extra edge. And if you had that edge, you didn't need quite so much skill.

There was no edge here. There was no time to slice.

He adopted a mixture of sna-fu and okidoki and anything that worked, because you were dead if you treated a real fight like the dojo. The grey men were no contest, in any case. They just attempted to grab and hug. A granny would have been able to fend them off.

He sent two reeling and turned to the third, which was trying to grab him around the neck. He broke the hold, spun around ready to chop, and hesitated.

'Oh, good grief!' said a voice.

Susan's blade whirled past Lobsang's face.

The head in front of him was parted from its former body in a shower not of blood but of coloured, floating dust. The body evaporated, became very briefly a grey-robed shape in the air, and vanished.

Lobsang heard a couple of thumps behind him, and then Susan grabbed his shoulder.

'You're not supposed to hesitate, you know!' she said.

'But it was a woman!'

'It was not! But it was the last one. Now let's go, before the rest get here.' She nodded at a second group of Auditors that were watching them very carefully from the end of the hall.

'They weren't much of a contest anyway,' said Lobsang, getting his breath. 'What are those doing?'

'Learning. Can you fight better than that?'

'Of course!'

'Good, because next time they'll be as good as you just were. Where to now?'

'Er, this way!'

The next gallery was full of stuffed animals. There'd been a vogue for it a few centuries before. These weren't the sad old hunting-trophy bears or geriatric tigers whose claws had faced a man armed with nothing more than five crossbows, twenty loaders and a hundred beaters. Some of these animals were arranged in groups. Quite small groups, of quite small animals.

There were frogs, seated around a tiny dining table. There were dogs, dressed in hunting jackets, in pursuit of a fox wearing a cap with feathers in it. There was a monkey playing a banjo.

'Oh, no, it's an entire band,' said Susan in tones of horrified astonishment. 'And just look at the little kittens dancing...'

'Horrible!'

'I wonder what happened when the man who did this met my grandfather.'

'Would he have met your grandfather?'

'Oh, yes,' said Susan. 'Oh, yes. And my grandfather is rather fond of cats.'

Lobsang paused at the foot of a staircase, half hidden behind a luckless elephant. A red rope, now hard as a bar, suggested that this wasn't part of the public museum. There was an added hint in the shape of a notice saying: 'Absolutely No Admittance'.

'I should be up there,' he said.

'Let's not hang around, then, eh?' said Susan, leaping over the rope.

The narrow stairs led up onto a large, bare landing. Boxes were stacked here and there.

'The attics,' said Susan. 'Hold on... What's that sign for?'

'"Keep left",' Lobsang read. 'Well, if they have to move heavy items around-'

'Look at the sign, will you?' said Susan. 'Don't see what you expect to see, see what's in front of you!'

Lobsang looked.

>> KEEP LEFT >>

'What a stupid sign,' he said.

'Hmm. Interesting, certainly,' said Susan. 'Which way do you think we should go? I don't think it'll take them too long to decide to follow us.'

'We're so close! Any passage might do!' said Lobsang.

'Any passage it is, then.' Susan headed for a narrow gap between packing cases.

Lobsang followed. 'What do you mean, decide?' he said, as they entered the gloom.

'The sign on the stairs said there was no admittance.'

'You mean they'll disobey it?' He stopped.

'Eventually. But they'll have a terrible feeling that they ought not to. They obey rules. They are the rules, in a way.'

'But you can't obey the Keep Left/Right sign, no matter what you do... oh, I see...'

'Isn't learning fun? Oh, and here's another one.'

DO NOT FEED THE ELEPHANT.

'Now that,' said Susan, 'is good. You can't obey it...'

'... because there's no elephant,' said Lobsang. 'I think I'm getting the hang of this...'

'It's an Auditor trap,' said Susan, peering at a packing case.

'Here's another good one,' said Lobsang.

IGNORE THIS SIGN. By order

'Nice touch,' Susan agreed, 'but I'm wondering... who put up the signs?'

There were voices somewhere behind them. They were low, but then one was suddenly raised.

'-says Left but points Right! It has no sense!'

'The fault is yours! We disobeyed the first sign! Woe to them that stray onto the pathway of irregularity!'

'Don't you give me that, you organic thing! I raise my voice at you, you-'

There was a soft sound, a choking noise, and a scream that dopplered into nothing.

'Are they fighting one another?' said Lobsang.

'We can only hope so. Let's move,' said Susan. They crept on, weaving through the maze of spaces between the crates, and past a sign saying:

DUCK

'Ah... now we're getting metaphysical,' said Susan.

'Why duck?' said Lobsang.

'Why indeed?'

Somewhere amongst the cases a voice reached the end of its tether.

'What organic damn elephant? Where is the elephant?'

'There is no elephant!'

'How can there be a sign, then?'

It is a-'

... and once again the little choke, and the vanishing scream. And then... running footsteps.

Susan and Lobsang backed into the shadows, and then Susan said, 'What have I put my foot in?'

She reached down and picked up the soft, sticky mess. And as she rose, she saw the Auditor come round the corner.

It was wild-eyed and frantic. It focused on the pair of them with difficulty, as if trying to remember who and what they were. But it was holding a sword, and holding it correctly.

A figure rose up behind it. One hand grabbed it by the hair and jerked its head back. The other was thrust over its open mouth.

The Auditor struggled for a moment, and then went rigid. And then disintegrated, tiny particles spinning away and disappearing into nothing.

For a moment the last few handfuls tried to form, in the air, the shape of a small cowled figure. Then it too was dragged apart, with a faint scream that was heard via the hairs on the back of the neck.

Susan glared at the figure in front of her. 'You're a... you can't be a... what are you?' she demanded.

The figure was silent. This might have been because thick cloth covered its nose and mouth. Heavy gloves encased its hands. And this was odd, because most of the rest of it was wearing a sequinned evening gown. And a mink stole. And a knapsack. And a huge picture hat with enough feathers to make three rare species totally extinct.

The figure rummaged in the knapsack, and then thrust out a piece of dark brown paper, as if proffering holy writ. Lobsang took it with care.

'It says here "Higgs & Meakins Luxury Assortment",' he said. 'Caramel Crunch, Hazelnut Surprise... They're chocolates?'

Susan opened her hand and looked at the crushed Strawberry Whirl she had picked up. She gave the figure a careful look.

'How did you know that would work?' she said.

'Please! You have nothing to fear from me,' said the muffled voice through the bandages. 'I'm down to the ones with the nuts in now, and they don't melt very quickly.'

'Sorry?' said Lobsang. 'You just killed an Auditor with a chocolate?'

'My last Orange Creme, yes. We are exposed here. Come with me.'

'An Auditor...' Susan breathed. 'You're an Auditor too. Aren't you? Why should I trust you?'

'There isn't anyone else.'

'But you are one of them,' said Susan. 'I can tell, even under all that... that stuff!'

'I was one of them,' said Lady LeJean. 'Now I rather think I'm one of me.'

People were living in the attic. There was a whole family up there. Susan wondered if their presence was official or unofficial or one of those in-between states that were so common in Ankh-Morpork, where there was always a chronic housing shortage. So much of the city's life took place on the street because there was no room for it inside. Whole families were raised in shifts, so that the bed could be used for twenty-four hours a day. By the look of it, the caretakers and men who knew the way to Caravati's Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze had moved their families in to the rambling attics.

The rescuer had simply moved in on top of them. A family, or at least one shift of it, was seated on benches around a table. frozen in timelessness. Lady LeJean removed her hat, hung it on the mother and shook out her hair. Then she unwrapped the heavy bandages from her nose and mouth.

'We are relatively safe here,' she said. 'They are mostly in the main streets. Good... day. My name is Myria LeJean. I know who you are, Susan Sto Helit. I do not know the young man, which surprises me. I take it you are here to destroy the clock?'

'To stop it,' said Lobsang.

'Hold on, hold on,' said Susan. 'This makes no sense. Auditors hate everything about life. And you are an Auditor, aren't you?'

'I have no idea what I am,' sighed Lady LeJean. 'But right now I know that I am everything an Auditor should not be. We... they ... we have to be stopped!'

'With chocolate?' said Susan.

'The sense of taste is new to us. Alien. We have no defences.'

'But... chocolate?'

'A dry biscuit almost killed me,' said her ladyship. 'Susan, can you imagine what it is like to experience taste for the first time? We built our bodies well. Oh, yes. Lots of tastebuds. Water is like wine. But chocolate... Even the mind stops. There is nothing but the taste.' She sighed. 'I imagine it is a wonderful way to die.'

'It doesn't seem to affect you,' said Susan suspiciously.

'The bandages and the gloves,' said Lady LeJean. 'Even then it is all I can do not to give in. Oh, where are my manners? Do sit down. Pull up a small child.'

Lobsang and Susan exchanged a glance. Lady LeJean noticed it.

'I said something wrong?' she said.

'We don't use people as furniture,' said Susan.

'But surely they will not be aware of it?' said her ladyship.

'We will,' said Lobsang. 'That's the point, really.'

'Ah. I have so much to learn. There is... there is so much context to being human, I am afraid. You, sir, can you stop the clock?'

'I don't know how to,' said Lobsang. 'But I... I think I should know. I'll try.'

'Would the clockmaker know? He is here.'

'Where?' said Susan.

'Just down the passage,' said Lady LeJean.

'You carried him here?'

'He was barely able to walk. He was hurt badly in the fight.'

'What?' said Lobsang. 'How could he walk at all? We're outside time!'

Susan took a deep breath. 'He carries his own time, just like you,' she said. 'He's your brother.'

And it was a lie. But he wasn't ready for the truth. By the look on his face, he wasn't even ready for the lie.

'Twins,' said Mrs Ogg. She picked up the brandy glass, looked at it, and put it down. 'There wasn't one. There was twins. Two boys. But...'

She turned on Susan a glare like a thermic lance. 'You'll be thinking, this is an old biddy of a midwife,' she said. 'You'll be thinking, what does she know?'

Susan paid her the courtesy of not lying. 'Part of me was,' she admitted.

'Good answer! Part of us thinks all kinds of things,' said Mrs Ogg. 'Part of me is thinking, who's this haughty little miss who talks to me as if I was a kiddie of five? But most of me is thinking, she's got a heap of troubles of her own and has seen plenty of things a human shouldn't have to see. Mind you, part of me says, so have I. Seeing things a human shouldn't have to see makes us human. Well, miss... if you've any sense, part of you is thinking, there's a witch in front of me who's seen my granddad many times, when she's sat by a sickbed that's suddenly become a deathbed, and if she's ready to spit in his eye when the time comes then she could probably bother me considerably right now if she puts her mind to it. Understand? Let's all keep our parts to ourselves,' and suddenly she gave Susan a wink, 'as the High Priest said to the actress.'

'I absolutely agree,' said Susan. 'Completely.'

'Right,' said Mrs Ogg. 'So... twins ... well, it was her first time, and human wasn't exactly a familiar shape with her, I mean, you can't do what comes naturally when you ain't exactly natural and ... twins ain't quite the right word ...'

'A brother,' said Lobsang. 'The clockmaker?'

'Yes,' said Susan.

'But I was a foundling!'

'So was he.'

'I want to see him now!'

'That might not be a good idea,' said Susan.

'I am not interested in your opinion, thank you.' Lobsang turned to Lady LeJean. 'Down that passage?'

'Yes. But he's asleep. I think the clock upset his mind, and also he was hit in the fight. He says things in his sleep.'

'Says what?'

'The last thing I heard him say before I came to find you was, "We're so close. Any passage might do,"' said her ladyship. She looked from one to the other. 'Have I said the wrong thing?'

Susan put her hand over her eyes. Oh dear...

'I said that,' said Lobsang. ' Just after we came up the stairs.' He glared at Susan. 'Twins, right? I've heard about this sort of thing! What one thinks the other thinks too?'

Susan sighed. Sometimes, she thought, I really am a coward. 'Something like that, yes,' she said.

'I'm going to see him, then, even if he can't see me!'

Damn, thought Susan, and hurried after Lobsang as he headed along the passage. The Auditor trailed behind them, looking concerned.

Jeremy was lying on a bed, although it was no softer than anything else in the timeless world. Lobsang stopped, and stared.

'He looks... quite like me,' he said.

'Oh, yes,' said Susan.

'Thinner, perhaps.'

'Could be, yes.'

'Different... lines on his face.'

'You've led different lives,' said Susan.

'How did you know about him and me?'

'My grandfather takes, er, an interest in this sort of thing. I found out some more by myself, too,' she said.

'Why should we interest anyone? We're not special.'

'This is going to be quite hard to explain.' Susan looked round at Lady LeJean. 'How safe are we here?'

'The signs upset them,' said her ladyship. 'They tend to keep away. I... shall we say? ... took care of the ones who followed you.'

'Then you'd better sit down, Mr Lobsang,' said Susan. 'It might help if I told you about me.'

'Well?'

'My grandfather is Death.'

'That's a strange thing to say. Death is just the end of life. It's not a... a person-'

'PAY ATTENTION TO ME WHEN I AM TALKING TO YOU...'

A wind whipped around the room, and the light changed. Shadows formed on Susan's face. A faint blue light outlined her.

Lobsang swallowed.

The light faded. The shadows vanished.

'There is a process called death, and there is a person called Death,' said Susan. 'That is how it works. And I am Death's granddaughter. Am I going too fast for you?'

'Er, no, although right up until just now you looked human,' said Lobsang.

'My parents were human. There's more than one kind of genetics.' Susan paused. 'You look human, too. Human is a very popular look in these parts. You'd be amazed.'

'Except that I am human.'

Susan gave a little smile that, on anyone less obviously in full control of themself, might have seemed slightly nervous.

'Yes,' she said. 'And, then again, no.'

'No?'

'Take War, now,' said Susan, backing away from the point. 'Big man, hearty laugh, tends to fart after meals. As human as the next man, you say. But the next man is Death. He's human-shaped, too. And that's because humans invented the idea of... of... of ideas, and they think in human shapes-'

'Get back to the "and, then again, no", will you?'

'Your mother is Time.'

'No one knows who my mother is!'

'I could take you to the midwife,' said Susan. 'Your father found the best there's ever been. She delivered you. Your mother was Time.'

Lobsang sat with his mouth open.

'It was easier for me,' said Susan. 'When I was very small my parents used to let me visit my grandfather. I thought every grandfather had a long black robe and rode a pale horse. And then they decided that maybe that wasn't the right environment for a child. They were worried about how I was going to grow up!' She laughed mirthlessly. 'I had a very strange education, you know? Maths, logic, that sort of thing. And then, when I was a bit younger than you, a rat turned up in my room and suddenly everything I thought I knew was wrong.'

'I'm a human! I do human things! I'd know if-'

'You had to live in the world. Otherwise, how could you learn to be human?' said Susan, as kindly as she could.

'And my brother? What about him?'

Here it comes, Susan thought. 'He's not your brother,' she said. 'I lied a bit. I'm sorry.'

'But you said-'

'I had to lead up to it,' said Susan. 'It's one of those things you have to get hold of a bit at a time, I'm afraid. He's not your brother. He's you.'

'Then who am I?'

Susan sighed. 'You. Both of you... are you.'

'And there I was, and there she was,' said Mrs Ogg, 'and out the baby came, no problem there, but that's always a tryin' moment for the new mum, and there was ...' she paused, her eyes peering through the windows of memory, 'like ... like a feelin' that the world had stuttered, and I was holdin' the baby and I looked down and there was me deliverin' a baby, and I looked at me, and I looked at me, and I remember saying, "This is a fine to-do, Mrs Ogg," and she, who was me, said, "You never said a truer word, Mrs Ogg," and then it all went strange and there I was, just one of me, holdin' two babies.'

'Twins,' Susan said.

'You could call them twins, yes, I s'pose you could,' said Mrs Ogg. 'But I always thought that twins is two little souls born once, not one born twice.'

Susan waited. Mrs Ogg looked in the mood to talk.

'So I said to the man, I said, "What now?" and he said, "Is that any business of yours?" and I said he could be damn sure it was my business and he could look me in the eye and I'd speak my mind to anyone. But I was thinking, you're in trouble now, Mrs Ogg, 'cos it'd all gone myffic.'

'Mythic?' said schoolteacher Susan.

'Yep. With extra myff. And you can get into big trouble, with myffic. But the man just smiled and said that he must be brought up human until he's of age and I thought, yep, it's gone myffic all right. I could see he hadn't got a clue about what to do next and it was all going to be down to me.'

Mrs Ogg took a suck at her pipe and her eyes twinkled at Susan through the smoke. 'I don't know how much experience you have with this sort of thing, my girl, but sometimes when the high and mighty make big plans they don't always think about the fine detail, right?'

Yes. I'm a fine detail, Susan thought. One day Death took it into his skull to adopt a motherless child, and I'm a fine detail. She nodded.

'I thought, how does this go, in a myffic kind of way?' Mrs Ogg went on. 'I mean, technic'ly I could see we're in that area where the prince gets brought up as a swineherd until he manifests his destiny, but there's not that many swineherding jobs around these days, and poking hogs with a stick is not all it's cracked up to be, believe you me. So I said, well, I'd heard the Guilds down in the big cities took in foundlings out of charity, and looked after them well enough, and there's many well set-up men and women who started life that way. There's no shame in it, plus, if the destiny doesn't manifest as per schedule, he'd have set his hands to a good trade, which would be a consolation. Whereas swineherding 's just swineherding. You're giving me a stern look, miss.'

'Well, yes. It was rather a chilly decision, wasn't it?'

'Someone has to make 'em,' said Mrs Ogg sharply. 'Besides, I've been around for some time and I've noticed that them as has it in them to shine will shine through six layers of muck, whereas those who ain't shiny won't shine however much you buff' em. You may think otherwise, but it was me standing there.'

She investigated the bowl of her pipe with a matchstick.

Eventually she went on: 'And that was it. I would have stayed, of course, because there wasn't so much as a crib in the place, but the man took me aside and said thank you and that it was time to go. And why would I argue? There was love there. It was in the air. But I won't say that I don't sometimes wonder how it all turned out. I really do.'

There were differences, Susan had to admit. Two different lives had indeed burned their unique tracks on the faces. And the selves had been born a second or so apart, and a lot of the universe can change in a second.

Think of identical twins, she told herself. But they are two different selves occupying bodies that, at least, start out identical. They'don't start out as identical selves.

'He looks quite like me,' said Lobsang, and Susan blinked. She leaned closer to the unconscious form of Jeremy.

'Say that again,' she said.

'I said, he looks quite like me,' said Lobsang.

Susan glanced at Lady LeJean, who said, 'I saw it too, Susan.'

'Who saw what?' said Lobsang. 'What are you hiding from me?'

'His lips move when you speak,' said Susan. 'They try to form the same words.'

'He can pick up my thoughts?'

'It's more complicated than that, I think.' Susan picked up a limp hand and gently pinched the web of skin between thumb and forefinger.

Lobsang winced, and glanced at his own hand. A patch of white skin was reddening again.

'Not just thoughts,' said Susan. 'This close, you feel his pain. Your speech controls his lips.'

Lobsang stared down at Jeremy.

'Then what will happen,' he said slowly, 'when he comes round?'

'I'm wondering the same thing,' said Susan. 'Perhaps you shouldn't be here.'

'But this is where I have to be!'

'We at least should not stay here,' said Lady LeJean. 'I know my kind. They will have been discussing what to do. The signs will not hold them for ever. And I have run out of soft centres.'

'What are you supposed to do when you are where you're supposed to be?' said Susan.

Lobsang reached down and touched Jeremy's hand with his fingertip.

The world went white.

Susan wondered later if this was what it would be like at the heart of a star. It wouldn't be yellow, you wouldn't see fire, there would just be the searing whiteness of every overloaded sense screaming all at once.

It faded, gradually, into a mist. The walls of the room appeared, but she could see through them. There were other walls beyond, and other rooms, transparent as ice and visible only at the corners and where the light caught them. In each one another Susan was turning to look at her.

The rooms went on for ever.

Susan was sensible. It was, she knew, a major character flaw. It did not make you popular, or cheerful, and - this seemed to her to be the most unfair bit - it didn't even make you right. But it did make you definite, and she was definite that what was happening around her was not, in any accepted sense, real.

That was not in itself a problem. Most of the things humans busied themselves with weren't real, either. But sometimes the mind of the most sensible person encountered something so big, so complex, so alien to all understanding, that it told itself little stories about it instead. Then, when it felt it understood the story, it felt it understood the huge incomprehensible thing. And this, Susan knew, was her mind telling itself a story.

There was a sound like great heavy metal doors slamming, one after another, getting louder and faster...

The universe reached a decision.

The other glass rooms vanished. The walls clouded. Colour rose, pastel at first, then darkening as timeless reality flowed back.

The bed was empty. Lobsang had gone. But the air was full of slivers of blue light, turning and swirling like ribbons in a storm.

Susan remembered to breathe again. 'Oh,' she said aloud. 'Destiny.'

She turned. The bedraggled Lady LeJean was still staring at the empty bed.

'Is there another way out of here?'

'There's an elevator at the end of the corridor, Susan, but what happened to-?'

'Not Susan,' said Susan sharply. 'It's Miss Susan. I'm only Susan to my friends, and you are not one of them. I don't trust you at all.'

'I don't trust me either,' said Lady LeJean meekly. 'Does that help?'

'Show me this elevator, will you?'

It turned out to be nothing more than a large box the size of a small room, which hung from a web of ropes and pulleys in the ceiling. It had been installed recently, by the look of it, to move the large works of art around. Sliding doors occupied most of one wall.

'There are capstans in the cellar for winching it up,' said Lady LeJean. 'Downward journeys are slowed safely because of a mechanism by which the weight of the descending elevator causes water to be pumped up into rainwater cisterns on the roof, which in turn can be released back into a hollow counterweight that assists in the elevation of heavier items of-'

'Thank you,' said Susan quickly. 'But what it really needs in order to descend is time.' Under her breath she added, 'Can you help?'

The ribbons of blue light orbited her, like puppies anxious to play, and then drifted towards the elevator.

'However,' she added, 'I believe Time is on our side now.'

Miss Tangerine was amazed at how fast a body learned.

Until now Auditors had learned by counting. Sooner or later, everything came down to numbers. If you knew all the numbers, you knew everything. Often the later was a lot later, but that did not matter because for an Auditor time was just another number. But a brain, a few soggy pounds of gristle, counted numbers so fast that they stopped being numbers at all. She'd been astonished at how easily it could direct a hand to catch a ball in the air, calculating future positions of hand and ball without her even being aware of it.

The senses seemed to operate and present her with conclusions before she had time to think.

At the moment she was trying to explain to other Auditors that not feeding an elephant when there was no elephant not to feed was not in fact impossible. Miss Tangerine was one of the faster-learning Auditors and had already formulated a group of things, events and situations that she categorized as 'bloody stupid'. Things that were 'bloody stupid' could be dismissed.

Some of the others were having difficulty understanding this, but now she stopped in mid-harangue when she heard the rumble of the elevator.

'Do we have anyone upstairs?' she demanded.

The Auditors around her shook their heads. 'IGNORE THIS NOTICE' had produced too much confusion.

'Then someone is coming down!' said Miss Tangerine. 'They are out of place! They must be stopped!'

'We must discuss-' an Auditor began.

'Do what I say, you organic organ!'

'It's a matter of personalities,' said Lady LeJean, as Susan pushed open a door in the roof and stepped out onto the leads.

'Yes?' said Susan, looking around at the silent city. 'I thought you didn't have them.'

'They will have them now,' said Lady LeJean, climbing out behind her. 'And personalities define themselves in terms of other personalities.'

Susan, prowling along the parapet, considered this strange sentence.

'You mean there will be flaming rows?' she said.

'Yes. We have never had egos before.'

'Well, you seem to be managing.'

'Only by becoming completely and utterly insane,' said her ladyship.

Susan turned. Lady LeJean's hat and dress had become even more tattered, and she was shedding sequins. And then there was the matter of the face. An exquisite mask on a bone structure like fine china had been made up by a clown. Probably a blind clown. And one who was wearing boxing gloves. In a fog. Lady LeJean looked at the world through panda eyes and her lipstick touched her mouth only by accident.

'You don't look insane,' lied Susan. 'As such.'

'Thank you. But sanity is defined by the majority, I am afraid. Do you know the saying "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts"?'

'Of course.' Susan scanned the rooftops for a way down. She did not need this. The... thing seemed to want to talk. Or, rather, to chatter aimlessly.

'It is an insane statement. It is a nonsense. But now I believe that it is true.'

'Good. That elevator should be getting down about... now.'

Slivers of blue light, like trout slipping through a stream, danced around the elevator door.

The Auditors gathered. They had been learning. Many of them had acquired weapons. And a number of them had taken care not to communicate to the others that gripping something offensive in the hand seemed a very natural thing to do. It spoke to something right down in the back of the brain.

It was therefore unfortunate that when a couple of them pulled open the elevator door it was to reveal, slightly melting in the middle of the floor, a cherry liqueur chocolate.

The scent wafted.

There was only one survivor and, when Miss Tangerine ate the chocolate, there wasn't even that.

'One of life's little certainties,' said Susan, standing on the edge of the museum's parapet, 'is that there is generally a last chocolate hidden in all those empty wrappers.'

Then she reached down and grabbed the top of a drainpipe.

She wasn't certain how this would work. If she fell... but would she fall? There was no time to fall. She had her own personal time. In theory, if anything so definite as a theory existed in a case like this, that meant she could just drift down to the ground. But the time to test a theory like that was when you had no other choice. A theory was just an idea, but a drainpipe was a fact.

The blue light flickered around her hands.

'Lobsang?' she said quietly. 'It is you, isn't it?'

That name is as good as any for us. The voice was as faint as a breath.

'This may seem a stupid question, but where are you?'

We are just a memory. And I am weak.

'Oh.' Susan slid a little further.

But I will grow strong. Get to the clock.

'What's the point? There was nothing we could do!'

Times have changed.

Susan reached the ground. Lady LeJean followed, moving clumsily. Her evening dress had acquired several more tears.

'Can I offer a fashion tip?' said Susan.

'It would be welcomed,' said her ladyship politely.

'Long cerise bloomers with that dress? Not a good idea.'

'No? They are very colourful, and quite warm. What should I have chosen instead?'

'With that cut? Practically nothing.'

'That would have been acceptable?'

'Er...' Susan blanched at unfolding the complex laws of lingerie to someone who wasn't even, she felt, anybody. 'To anyone likely to find out, yes,' she finished. 'It would take too long to explain.'

Lady LeJean sighed. 'All of it does,' she said. 'Even clothing. Skin-substitutes to preserve body heat? So simple. So easy to say. But there are so many rules and exceptions, impossible to understand.'

Susan looked along Broad Way. It was thick with silent traffic, but there was no sign of an Auditor.

'We'll run into more of them,' she said aloud.

'Yes. There will be hundreds, at least,' said Lady LeJean.

'Why?'

'Because we have always wondered what life is like.'

'Then let's get up into Zephire Street,' said Susan.

'What is there for us?'

'Wienrich and Boettcher.'

'Who are they?'

'I think the original Herr Wienrich and Frau Boettcher died a long time ago. But the shop still does very good business,' said Susan, darting across the street. 'We need ammunition.'

Lady LeJean caught up. 'Oh. They make chocolate?' she said.

'Does a bear poo in the woods?' said Susan, and realized her mistake straight away.^[16]

Too late. Lady LeJean looked thoughtful for a moment.

'Yes,' she said at last. 'Yes, I believe that most varieties do indeed excrete as you suggest, at least in the temperate zones, but there are several that-'

'I meant to say that, yes, they make chocolate,' said Susan.

Vanity, vanity, thought Lu-Tze, as the milk cart rattled through the silent city. Ronnie would have been like a god, and people of that stripe don't like hiding. Not really hiding. They like to leave a little clue, some emerald tablet somewhere, some code in some tomb under the desert, something to say to the keen researcher: I was here, and I was great.

What else had the first people been afraid of? Night, maybe. Cold. Bears. Winter. Stars. The endless sky. Spiders. Snakes. One another. People had been afraid of so many things.

He reached into his pack for the battered copy of the Way, and opened it at random.

Koan 97: 'Do unto otters as you would have them do unto you.' Hmm. No real help there. Besides, he'd occasionally been unsure that he'd written that one down properly, although it certainly had worked. He'd always left aquatic mammals well alone, and they had done the same to him.

He tried again.

Koan 124: 'It's amazing what you see if you keep your eyes open.'

'What's the book, monk?' said Ronnie.

'Oh, just... a little book,' said Lu-Tze. He looked around.

The cart was passing a funeral parlour. The owner had invested in a large plate-glass window, even though the professional undertaker does not, in truth, have that much to sell that looks good in a window and they usually make do with dark, sombre drapes and perhaps a tasteful urn.

And the name of the Fifth Horseman.

'Hah!' said Lu-Tze quietly.

'Something funny, monk?'

'Obvious, when you think about it,' said Lu-Tze, as much to himself as to Ronnie. Then he turned in his seat and stuck out his hand. 'Pleased to meet you,' he said. 'Let me guess your name.'

And said it.

Susan had been unusually inexact. To call Wienrich and Boettcher 'chocolate makers' was like calling Leonard of Quirm 'a decent painter who also tinkered with things', or Death 'not someone you'd want to meet every day'. It was accurate, but it didn't tell the whole story.

For one thing, they didn't make, they created. There's an important difference.^[17] And, while their select little shop sold the results, it didn't do anything so crass as to fill the window with them. That would suggest... well, over-eagerness. Generally, W&B had a display of silk and velvet drapes with, on a small stand, perhaps one of their special pralines or no more than three of their renowned frosted caramels. There was no price tag. If you had to ask the price of W&B's chocolates, you couldn't afford them. And if you'd tasted one, and still couldn't afford them, you'd save and scrimp and rob and sell elderly members of your family for just one more of those mouthfuls that fell in love with your tongue and turned your soul to whipped cream.

There was a discreet drain in the pavement in case people standing in front of the window drooled too much.

Wienrich and Boettcher were, naturally, foreigners, and according to Ankh-Morpork's Guild of Confectioners they did not understand the peculiarities of the city's tastebuds.

Ankh-Morpork people, said the Guild, were hearty, no-nonsense folk who did not want chocolate that was stuffed with cocoa liquor, and were certainly not like effete la-di-dah foreigners who wanted cream in everything. In fact they actually preferred chocolate made mostly from milk, sugar, suet, hooves, lips, miscellaneous squeezings, rat droppings, plaster, flies, tallow, bits of tree, hair, lint, spiders and powdered cocoa husks. This meant that according to the food standards of the great chocolate centres in Borogravia and Quirm, Ankh-Morpork chocolate was formally classed as 'cheese' and only escaped, through being the wrong colour, being defined as 'tile grout'.

Susan allowed herself one of their cheaper boxes per month. And she could easily stop at the first layer if she wanted to.

'You needn't come in,' she said, as she opened the shop door. Rigid customers lined the counter.

'Please call me Myria.'

'I don't think I-'

'Please?' said Lady LeJean meekly. 'A name is important.'

Suddenly, in spite of everything, Susan felt a brief pang of sympathy for the creature.

'Oh, very well. Myria, you needn't come in.'

'I can stand it.'

'But I thought chocolate was a raging temptation?' said Susan, being firm with herself.

'It is.'

They stared up at the shelves behind the counter.

'Myria ... Myria,' said Susan, speaking only some of her thoughts aloud. 'From the Ephebian word myrios, meaning "innumerable". And LeJean as a crude pun of "legion" ... Oh dear.'

'We thought a name should say what a thing is,' said her ladyship. 'And there is safety in numbers. I am sorry.'

'Well, these are their basic assortments,' said Susan, dismissing the shop display with a wave of her hand. 'Let's try the back room- Are you all right?'

'I am fine, I am fine ...' murmured Lady LeJean, swaying.

'You're not going to pig out on me, are you?'

'We... I... know about will-power. The body craves the chocolate but the mind does not. At least, so I tell myself. And it must be true! The mind can overrule the body! Otherwise, what is it for?'

'I've often wondered,' said Susan, pushing open another door. 'Ah. The magician's cave...'

'Magic? They use magic here?'

'Nearly right.'

Lady LeJean leaned on the door frame for support when she saw the tables.

'Oh,' she said. 'Uh ... I can detect... sugar, milk, butter, cream, vanilla, hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, raisins, orange peel, various liqueurs, citrus pectin, strawberries, raspberries, essence of violets, cherries, pineapples, pistachios, oranges, limes, lemons, coffee, cocoa-'

'Nothing there to be frightened of, right?' said Susan, surveying the workshop for useful weaponry. 'Cocoa is just a rather bitter bean, after all.'

'Yes, but...' Lady LeJean clenched her fists, shut her eyes and bared her teeth, 'put them all together and they make-'

'Steady, steady...'

'The will can overrule the emotions, the will can overrule the instincts-' the Auditor intoned.

'Good, good, now just work your way up to the bit where it says chocolate, okay?'

'That's the hard one!'

In fact it seemed to Susan, as she walked past the vats and counters, that chocolate lost some of its attraction when you saw it like this. It was the difference between seeing the little heaps of pigment and seeing the whole picture. She selected a syringe that seemed designed to do something intensely personal to female elephants, athough she decided that here it was probably used for doing the wiggly bits of decoration.

And over here was a small vat of cocoa liquor.

She stared around at the trays and trays of fondant cremes, marzipans and caramels. Oh, and here was an entire table of Soul Cake eggs. But they weren't the hollow-shelled, cardboard tasting presents for children, oh, no - these were the confectionery equivalent of fine, intricate jewellery.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. One of the statue-like workers bent over her tray of Praline Dreams was shifting almost imperceptibly.

Time was flowing into the room. Pale blue light glinted in the air.

She turned and saw a vaguely human figure hovering beside her. It was featureless and as transparent as mist, but in her head it said, I'm stronger. You are my anchor, my link to this world. Can you guess how hard it is to find it again in so many? Get me to the clock. . .

Susan turned and thrust the icing syringe into the arms of the groaning Myria. 'Grab that. And make some kind of... of sling or something. I want you to be carrying as many of those chocolate eggs as possible. And the cremes. And the liqueurs. Understand? You can do it!'

Oh, gods, there was no alternative. The poor thing needed some kind of morale boost. 'Please, Myria? And that's a stupid name! You're not many, you're one. Okay? Just be... yourself. Unity... that'd be a good name.'

The new Unity raised a mascara-streaked face. 'Yes, it is, it's a good name...'

Susan snatched as much merchandise as she could carry, aware of some rustling behind her, and turned to find Unity standing to attention holding, by the look of it, a bench-worth of assorted confectionery in...

... a sort of big cerise sack.

'Oh. Good. Intelligent use of the materials to hand,' said Susan weakly. Then the teacher within her cut in and added, 'I hope you brought enough for everybody.'