Thief of Time - Identity

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.

***

The Thief of Time - p291-292