Thief of Time

According to the First Scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised, Wen stepped out of the cave where he had received enlightenment and into the dawning light of the first day of the rest of his life. He stared at the rising sun for some time, because he had never seen it before.

He prodded with a sandal the dozing form of Clodpool the Apprentice, and said: "I have seen. Now I understand."

Then he stopped and looked at the thing next to Clodpool.

"What is that amazing thing?" he said.

"Er . . . er . . . it's a tree, master," said Clodpool, still not quite awake. "Remember? It was there yesterday."

"There was no yesterday."

"Er . . . er . . . I think there was, master," said Clodpool, struggling to his feet. "Remember? We came up here, and I cooked a meal, and had the rind off your sklang because you didn't want it."

"I remember yesterday," said Wen, thoughtfully. "But the memory is in my head now. Was yesterday real? Or is it only the memory that is real? Truly, yesterday I was not born."

Clodpool's face became a mask of agonized incomprehension.

"Dear stupid Clodpool, I have learned everything," said Wen. "In the cup of the hand there is no past, no future. There is only now. There is no time but the present. We have a great deal to do."

Clodpool hesitated. There was something new about his master. There was a glow in his eyes and, when he moved, there were strange silvery-blue lights in the air, like reflections from liquid mirrors.

"She has told me everything," Wen went on. "I know that time was made for men, not the other way around. I have learned how to shape it and bend it. I know how to make a moment last forever, because it already has. And I can teach these skills even to you, Clodpool. I have heard the heartbeat of the universe. I know the answers to many questions. Ask me."

The apprentice gave him a bleary look. It was too early in the morning for it to be early in the morning. That was the only thing that he currently knew for sure."Er . . . what does master want for breakfast?" he said.

Wen looked down from their camp, and across the snowfields and purple mountains to the golden daylight creating the world, and mused upon certain aspects of humanity.

"Ah," he said. "One of the difficult ones."

Light thinks

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

The universe

The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.

who smiles all the time

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.

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"Good morning, Your Grace," said the industrious treadler.

The voice was higher pitched that Vimes expected and he realized that, most unusually, the young man in the pit was in fact a young woman. It wasn't entirely unexpected -- the Assassins' Guild was aware that women were at least equal to their brothers when it came to inventive killing -- but it nevertheless changed the situation somewhat.

"Good grief, why not?"

"Couldn't say, sir," said Miss Wiggs. Her patient struggles had brought her to the edge of the pit, and now she was finding that the brickwork was in very good repair, quite slippery, and offered no handholds. Vimes knew this, because he'd spent several hours one afternoon carefully arranging that this should be so.

Light Fantastic