Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett [118]
War nodded at Death.
And now you must all go and bring terror and destruction and so on and so forth, said the Auditor. Correct?
Death nodded. Floating in the air above him, the Angel of the Iron Book slammed the pages back and forth in an effort to find his place.
EXACTLY. ONLY, WHILE IT IS TRUE WE HAVE TO RIDE OUT, Death added, drawing his sword, IT DOESN’T SAY ANYWHERE AGAINST WHOM.
Your meaning? hissed the Auditor, but now there was a flicker of fear. Things were happening that it didn’t understand. Death grinned. In order to fear, you had to be a me. Don’t let anything happen to me. That was the song of fear.
“He means,” said War, “that he asked us all to think about whose side we’re really on.”
Four swords were drawn, blazing along their edges like flame. Four horses charged.
The Angel of the Iron Book looked down at Mrs. War.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but do you have a pencil?”
Susan peered around the corner into Artificers Street, and groaned.
“It’s full of them…and I think they’ve gone mad.”
Unity took a look.
“No. They have not gone mad. They are being Auditors. They are taking measurements, assessing and standardizing where necessary.”
“They’re taking up the paving slabs now!”
“Yes. I suspect it is because they are the wrong size. We do not like irregularities.”
“What the hell is the wrong size for a slab of rock?”
“Any size which is not the average size. I’m sorry.”
The air around Susan flashed blue. She was very briefly aware of a human shape, transparent, spinning gently, which vanished again.
But a voice in her ear, in her ear, said: Nearly strong enough. Can you get to the end of the street?
“Yes. Are you sure? You couldn’t do anything to the clock before!”
Before, I was not me.
A movement in the air made Susan look up. The lightning bolt that had stood rigid over the dead city had gone. The clouds were rolling like ink poured into water.
There were flashes within them, sulphurous yellows and reds…
The four horsemen are fighting the other Auditors, Lobsang supplied.
“Are they winning?”
Lobsang did not answer.
“I said—” Susan began.
It’s hard for me to say. I can see…everything. Everything that could be…
Kaos listened to history.
There were new words. Wizards and philosophers had found Chaos, which is Kaos with his hair combed and a tie on, and had found in the epitome of disorder a new order undreamed of. There are different kinds of rules. From the simple comes the complex, and from the complex comes a different kind of simplicity. Chaos is order in a mask…
Chaos. Not dark, ancient Kaos, left behind by the evolving universe, but new, shiny Chaos, dancing in the heart of everything. The idea was strangely attractive. And it was a reason to go on living.
Ronnie Soak adjusted his cap. Oh, yes…there was one last thing.
The milk was always lovely and fresh. Everyone remarked on that. Of course, being everywhere at seven in the morning was no trouble to him. If even the Hogfather could climb down every chimney in the world in one night, doing a milk round for most of a city in one second was hardly a major achievement.
Keeping things cool was, however. But there he had been lucky.
Mr. Soak walked into the ice room, where his breath turned to fog in the frigid air. Churns were stacked across the floor, sparkling on the outside. Vats of butter and cream were piled on shelves that glistened with ice. Rack after rack of eggs were just visible through the frost. He’d been planning to add the ice cream business in the summer. It was such an obvious step. Besides, he needed to use up the cold.
A stove was burning in the middle of the floor. Mr. Soak always bought good coal from the dwarfs, and the iron plates were glowing red. The room, one felt, ought to be an oven, but there was a gentle sizzling on the stove as frost battled with the heat. With the stove roaring, the room was merely an ice box. Without the stove…
Ronnie opened the door of