'Oh, well, in that case,' said Lu-Tze, 'is it not written, “If you want a thing done properly you've got to do it yourself”?'
'Yaas, it is,' said the yeti. Lu-Tze took the sword out of Lobsang's hand. He held it carefully, like someone unused to weapons. The yeti obligingly knelt. 'You're up to date?' said Lu-Tze. 'Yaas.'
'I cannot believe you're really doing this!' said Lobsang. 'Interesting,' said Lu-Tze. 'Mrs Cosmopilite says, “Seeing is believing,” and, strangely enough, the Great Wen said, 'I have seen, and I believe"!' He brought the sword down and cut off the yeti's head. Tick There was a sound rather like a cabbage being sliced in half, and then a head rolled into the basket to cheers and cries of 'Oh, I say, well done!' from the crowd. The city of Quirm was a nice, peaceful, law-abiding place and the city council kept it that way with a penal policy that combined the maximum of deterrence with the minimum of re-offending. GRIPPER 'THE BUTCHER' SMARTZ? The late Gripper rubbed his neck. 'I demand a retrial!' he said. THIS MAY NOT BE A GOOD TIME, said Death. 'It couldn't possibly have been murder because the...' The soul of Gripper Smartz fumbled in its spectral pockets for a ghostly piece of paper, unfolded it and continued, in a voice of those to whom the written word is an uphill struggle, '... because the bal-ance of my mind was d ... dess-turbed.'
REALLY, said Death. He found it best to let the recently departed get things off their chest. 'Yes, 'cos I really, really wanted to kill him, right? And you can't tell me that's a normal frame of mind, right? He was a dwarf, anyway, so I don't think that should count as manslaughter.' I UNDERSTAND THAT WAS THE SEVENTH DWARF YOU KILLED, said Death. 'I'm very prone to being dess-turbed,' said Gripper. 'Really, it's me who's the victim here. All I needed was a bit of understanding, someone to see my point of view for five minutes...' WHAT WAS YOUR POINT OF VIEW? 'All dwarfs need a damn good kicking, in my opinion. 'Ere, you're Death, right?' YES INDEED. 'I'm a big fan! I've always wanted to meet you, y'know? I've got a tattoo of you on my arm, look here. Done it myself.' The benighted Gripper turned at the sound of hooves. A young woman in black, entirely unregarded by the crowd, who were gathered around the food stalls and souvenir stands and the guillotine, was leading a large white stallion towards them. 'And you've even got valet parking!' said Gripper. 'Now that's what I call style!' and with that he faded. WHAT A CURIOUS PERSON, said Death. AH, SUSAN. THANK YOU FOR COMING. OUR SEARCH NARROWS. 'Our search?' YOUR SEARCH, IN FACT . 'It's just mine now, is it?' I HAVE SOMETHING ELSE TO ATTEND TO. 'More important than the end of the world?' IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD. THE RULES SAY THAT THE HORSEMEN SHALL RIDE OUT . 'That old legend? But you don't have to do that!' IT IS ONE OF MY FUNCTIONS. I HAVE TO OBEY THE RULES. 'Why? They're breaking the rules!' BENDING THEM. THEY HAVE FOUND A LOOPHOLE. I DO NOT HAVE THAT KIND OF IMAGINATION.
It was like Jason and the Battle for the Stationery Cupboard, Susan told herself. You soon learned that 'No one is to open the door of the Stationery Cupboard' was a prohibition that a seven year-old simply would not understand. You had to think, and rephrase it in more immediate terms, like, 'No one, Jason, no matter what, no, not even if they thought they heard someone shouting for help, no one - are you paying attention, Jason? - is to open the door of the Stationery Cupboard, or accidentally fall on the door handle so that it opens, or threaten to steal Richenda's teddy bear unless she opens the door of the Stationery Cupboard, or be standing nearby when a mysterious wind comes out of nowhere and blows the door open all by itself, honestly, it really did, or in any way open, cause to open, ask anyone else to open, jump up and down on the loose floorboard to open or in any other way seek to obtain entry to the Stationery Cupboard, Jason!'
'A loophole,' said Susan. YES. 'Well, why can't you find one too?' I AM THE GRIM REAPER. I DO NOT THINK PEOPLE WISH ME TO GET... CREATIVE. THEY WOULD WISH ME TO DO THE TASK ASSIGNED TO ME AT THIS TIME, BY CUSTOM AND PRACTICE. 'And that's just... riding out?' YES. 'Where to?' EVERYWHERE, I THINK. IN THE MEANTIME, YOU WILL NEED THIS. Death handed her a lifetimer. It was one of the special ones, slightly bigger than normal. She took it reluctantly. It looked like an hourglass, but all those little glittering shapes tumbling through the pinch were seconds. 'You know I don't like doing the... the whole scythe thing,' she said. 'It's not- Hey, this is really heavy!' HE IS LU-TZE, A HISTORY MONK. EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS OLD. HE HAS AN APPRENTICE. I HAVE LEARNED THIS. BUT I CANNOT FEEL HIM, I CANNOT SEE HIM. HE IS THE ONE. BINKY WILL TAKE YOU TO THE MONK, YOU WILL FIND THE CHILD. 'And then what?' I SUSPECT HE WILL NEED SOMEONE. WHEN YOU HAVE FOUND HIM, LET BINKY GO. I SHALL NEED HIM. Susan's lips moved as a memory collided with a thought.
'To ride out on?' she said. 'Are you really talking about the Apocalypse? Are you serious? No one believes in that sort of thing any more!' I DO. Susan's jaw dropped. 'You're really going to do that? Knowing everything you know?' Death patted Binky on the muzzle. YES, he said. Susan gave her grandfather a sideways look. 'Hold on, there's a trick, isn't there... ? You're planning something and you're not even going to tell me, right? You're not really going to just wait for the world to end and celebrate it, are you?' WE WILL RIDE OUT . 'No!' YOU WILL NOT TELL THE RIVERS NOT TO FLOW. YOU WILL NOT TELL THE SUN NOT TO SHINE. YOU WILL NOT TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD AND SHOULD NOT DO. 'But it's so-' Susan's expression changed, and Death flinched. 'I thought you cared!' TAKE THIS ALSO. Without wanting to, Susan took a smaller lifetimer from her grandfather. SHE MAY TALK TO YOU . 'And who is this?' THE MIDWIFE, said Death. NOW... FIND THE SON . He faded. Susan looked down at the lifetimers in her hands. He's done it to you again! she screamed at herself. You don't have to do this and you can put this thing down and you can go back to the classroom and you can be normal again and you just know that you won't, and so does he- SQUEAK? The Death of Rats was sitting between Binky's ears, grasping a lock of the white mane and giving the general impression of someone anxious to be going. Susan raised a hand to slap him off, and then stopped herself. Instead, she pushed the heavy lifetimers into the rat's paws. 'Make yourself useful,' she said, grasping the reins. 'Why do I do this?'
SQUEAK. 'I have not got a nice nature!' Tick There was not, surprisingly, a great deal of blood. The head rolled into the snow, and the body slowly toppled forward. 'Now you've killed-' Lobsang began. 'Just a second,' said Lu-Tze. 'Any moment now...' The headless body vanished. The kneeling yeti turned his head to Lu-Tze, blinked and said, 'Thaat stung a biit.'
'Sorry.' Lu-Tze turned to Lobsang. 'Now, hold on to that memory!' he commanded. 'It'll try to vanish, but you've had training. You've got to go on remembering that you saw something that now did not happen, understand? Remember that time's a lot less unbending than people think, if you get your head right! Just a little lesson! Seeing is believing!'
'How did it do that?'
'Good question. They can save their life up to a certain point and go back to it if they get killed,' said Lu-Tze. 'How it's done... well, the abbot spent the best part of a decade working that one out. Not that anyone else can understand it. There's a lot of quantum involved.' He took a pull of his permanent foul cigarette. 'Gotta be good working-out, if no one else can understand it.'[14] 'How is der abboott these daays?' said the yeti, getting to its feet again and picking up the pilgrims. 'Teething.'
'Ah. Reincarnation's alwaays a problem,' said the yeti, falling into its long, ground-eating lope. 'Teeth are the worst, he says. Always coming or going.'
'How fast are we going?' said Lobsang. The yeti's stride was more like a continuous series of leaps from one foot to the other; there was so much spring in the long legs that each landing was a mere faint rocking sensation. It was almost restful. 'I reckon we're doing thirty miles an hour or so, clock time,' said Lu-Tze. 'Get some rest. We'll be above Copperhead in the morning. It's all downhill from there.'
'Coming back from the dead...' Lobsang murmured. 'It's more like not actually ever going in the first place,' said Lu-Tze. 'I've studied them a bit, but... well, unless it's built in you'd have to learn how to do it, and would you want to bet on getting it right first time? Tricky one. You'd have to be desperate. I hope I'm never that desperate.' Tick Susan recognized the country of Lancre from the air, a little bowl of woods and fields perched like a nest on the edge of the Ramtop mountains. And she found the cottage, too, which was not the corkscrew-chimneyed compost-heap kind of witch's house popularized by Grim Fairy Tales and other books, but a spanking new one with gleaming thatch and a manicured front lawn. There were more ornaments - gnomes, toadstools, pink bunnies, big-eyed deer - around a tiny pond than any sensible gardener should have allowed. Susan spotted one brightly painted gnome fishi- No, that wasn't a rod he was holding, was it? Surely a nice old lady wouldn't put something like that in her garden, would she? Would she? Susan was bright enough to go round to the back, because witches were allergic to front doors. The door was opened by a small, fat, rosy-cheeked woman whose little currant eyes said, yep, thars my gnome all right, and be thankful he's only widdling in the pond. 'Mrs Ogg? The midwife?' There was a pause before Mrs Ogg said, 'The very same.'
'You don't know me, but-' said Susan, and realized that Mrs Ogg was looking past her at Binky, who was standing by the gate. The woman was a witch, after all. 'Maybe I do know you,' said Mrs Ogg. 'O'course, if you just stole that horse, you just don't know how much trouble you're in.'
'I borrowed it. The owner is... my grandfather.' Another pause, and it was disconcerting how those friendly little eyes could bore into yours like an auger. 'You'd better come in,' said Mrs Ogg. The inside of the cottage was as clean and new as the outside. Things gleamed, and there were a lot of them to gleam. The place was a shrine to bad but enthusiastically painted china ornaments, which occupied every flat surface. What space was left was full of framed pictures. Two harassed-looking women were polishing and dusting. 'I got comp'ny,' said Mrs Ogg sternly, and the women left with such alacrity that the word 'fled' might have been appropriate.
'My daughters-in-law,' said Mrs Ogg, sitting down in a plump armchair which, over the years, had shaped itself to fit her. 'They like to help a poor old lady who's all alone in the world.' Susan took in the pictures. If they were all family members, Mrs Ogg was head of an army. Mrs Ogg, unashamedly caught out in a flagrant lie, went on: 'Sit down, girl, and say what's on your mind. There's tea brewing.'
'I want to know something.'
'Most people do,' said Mrs Ogg. 'And they can go on wantin'.'
'I want to know about... a birth,' said Susan, persevering. 'Oh, yes? Well, I done hundreds of confinements. Thousands, prob'ly.'
'I imagine this one was difficult.'
'A lot of them are,' said Mrs Ogg. 'You'd remember this one. I don't know how it started, but I'd imagine that a stranger came knocking.'
'Oh?' Mrs Ogg's face became a wall. The black eyes stared out at Susan as if she was an invading army. 'You're not helping me, Mrs Ogg.'
'That's right. I ain't,' said Mrs Ogg. 'I think I know about you, miss, but I don't care who you are, you see. You can go and get the other one, if you like. Don't think I ain't seen him, neither. I've been at plenty of deathbeds, too. But deathbeds is public, mostly, and birthbeds ain't. Not if the lady don't want them to be. So you get the other one, and I'll spit in his eye.'
'This is very important, Mrs Ogg.'
'You're right there,' said Mrs Ogg firmly. 'I can't say how long ago it was. It may have been last week, even. Time, that's the key.' And there it was. Mrs Ogg was not a poker player, at least against someone like Susan. There was the tiniest flicker of the eyes. Mrs Ogg's chair was rammed back in her effort to rise, but Susan got to the mantelpiece first and snatched what was there, hidden in plain view amongst the ornaments. 'You give that here!' shouted Mrs Ogg, as Susan held it out of her reach. She could feel the power in the thing. It seemed to pulse in her hand. 'Have you any idea what this is, Mrs Ogg?' she said, opening her hand to reveal the little glass bulbs.
'Yes, it's an eggtimer that don't work!' Mrs Ogg sat down hard in her overstuffed chair, so that her little legs rose off the floor for a moment. 'It looks to me like a day, Mrs Ogg. A day's worth of time.' Mrs Ogg glanced at Susan, and then at the little hourglass in her hand. 'I reckoned there was something odd about it,' she said. 'The sand don't go through when you tip it up, see?'
'That's because you don't need it to yet, Mrs Ogg.' Nanny Ogg appeared to relax. Once again Susan reminded herself that she was dealing with a witch. They tended to keep up. 'I kept it 'cos it was a gift,' said the old lady. 'And it looks so pretty, too. What do them letters round the edge say?' Susan read the words etched on the metal base of the lifetimer: Tempus Redux. ' “Time Returned”,' she said. 'Ah, that'd be it,' said Mrs Ogg. 'The man did say I'd be repaid for my time.'