Returning to the center flat stone slab while Kes and Pera retook their starting marks at the south curb, Seyun planted the tip of Nara’s plain ash staff on the dry mortar seam between his boots. Then they closed his eyes fully for three slow foundation breaths.
With his eyelids shut against the bright yellow cone of Kes’s oil lamp ten paces away, the courtyard right away reorganized itself around a different set of facts.
The visual hierarchy—where the three-foot circle of rapeseed light claimed ninety percent of the world and the thirty-seven feet of surrounding darkness vanished into nothing—disappeared at once. In its place stood a sound and tactile map whose proportions were fully honest.
Through the soles of his boots, resting flat and balanced so his stitched left calf carried forty percent of his weight and his uninjured right leg carried sixty, he could feel the faint, gritty shaking of the river flat stone slabs whenever Bel Sar shifted his heavy stance on the western margin.
Through his ears, cleared of the visual distraction of the flame, he could distinguish four separate, clear sounds in the freezing yard: First, ten paces south-southwest, the light, quick breathing of nineteen-year-old Kes and the tiny metal tick of the brass lamp cage in his hand. Second, ten paces south-southeast, the deeper, slower nasal breathing of Pera and the soft, wet slosh-lap of cold water inside the ten-inch clay bowl. Third, twelve paces due west, the rhythmic leather creak of Bel Sar’s…
