Thief of Time - Flight

The stick swooped down towards the plains, and levelled off a few hundred feet above the ground.

'We're on our way now!' shouted Lu-Tze, pointing ahead. Lobsang looked down at a slim wooden tower hung with complicated boxes. There was another one in the far distance, a toothpick in the morning mist.

'Semaphore towers!' Lu-Tze shouted. 'Ever seen them?'

'Only in the city!' Lobsang shouted above the slipstream.

'It's the Grand Trunk!' the sweeper shouted back. 'Runs like an arrow all the way to the city! All we have to do is follow it!’

Lobsang clung on. There was no snow beneath them and it looked as though spring was well advanced. And therefore it was unfair that here, that much nearer the sun, the air was frigid and was being driven into his flesh by the wind of their travel.

'It's very cold up here!'

'Yes! Did I tell you about the double-knit combinations?'

'Yes!'

'I've got a spare pair in my sack. You can have them when we stop!'

'Your own personal pair?'

'Yes! Second-best but well darned!'

'No, thank you!'

'They've been washed!'

'Lu-Tze?'

'Yes?'

'Why can't we slice when we're on this thing?'

The tower was well past them. The next one was pencil-sized already. The black-and-white shutters on the boxes were twinkling in the sunlight.

'Do you know what happens if you slice time on a magically powered vehicle travelling at more than seventy miles an hour?'

'No!’

'Me neither! And I don't want to find out!’

***

The Thief of Time - p213-214