Thief of Time - Odd

'Really? And you'd never seen it before, too. But time plays funny tricks on us all. Why, I once-' Lu-Tze stopped, and stared at the apprentice. 'Are you all right?' he said. 'You've gone pale.'

Lobsang grimaced and shook his head.

'Something... felt odd,' he said. He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the lowlands, spread out in a blue and grey pattern on the horizon. 'Something over there...'

The glass clock. The great glass house and here, where it shouldn't be, the glass clock. It was barely here: it showed up as shimmering lines in the air, as if it was possible to capture the sparkle of light off a shiny surface without the surface itself. Everything here was transparent - delicate chairs, tables, vases of flowers. And now he realized that glass was not a word to use here. Crystal might be better; or ice - the thin, flawless ice you sometimes got after a sharp frost. Everything was visible only by its edges. He could make out staircases through distant walls. Above and below and to every side, the glass rooms went on for ever. And yet it was all familiar. It felt like home. Sound filled the glass rooms. It streamed away in clear sharp notes, like the tones made by a wet finger around a wineglass rim. There was movement, too - a haze in the air beyond the transparent walls, shifting and wavering and ... watching him ...

'How can it come from over there? And how do you mean, odd?' said the voice of Lu-Tze.

Lobsang blinked. This was the odd place, the one right here, the rigid and unbending world... And then the feeling passed, and faded. 'Just odd. For a moment,' he mumbled. There was dampness on his cheek. He raised his hand, and touched wetness.

***

The Thief of Time - p116-117