The yellow glow of the relit brass oil lamp spread across the wet flat stone slabs around the wellhead, lighting up the broken curved shards of Pera’s red clay bowl, the dark puddle of well water soaking the toes of Seyun’s boots. The white wool padding lashed around the resting tip of Bel Sar’s seven-foot pole.
Kes held the lamp up at shoulder height. His eyes were wide in the warm light as he looked from the shattered bowl on the stones to Seyun’s calm face and the plain ash staff resting in his right hand.
“Three unscripted changes in the dark, Seyun!” Kes said, his voice tight with genuine awe. “First I shut the lamp and reversed eighty degrees toward the wellhead while Pera kept going north. Then my heel caught the drain groove, Pera dropped the bowl to grab my elbow, and Bel’s third sweep came down across both of us from the blind side. And your staff plane stayed fully clear through all three! Your shoulder didn’t hitch once. You didn’t push either of us an inch off our feet! That held past the second exchange and the third—is that Early Jade?”
Beside the wellhead, Pera wiped the cold water splashes from her leather gaiters and looked up at Seyun with keen interest. Even Bel Sar leaned on his padded pole, blowing out a long plume of white steam in the frosty air. He waited to hear what the younger man would say.
