Sect Year 1 · seventh month · night of day 13 · Azure Stream Sect, Outer Court herb beds
The sound reached the ridge cave a little after the night bell, carried up the path on the cold air. Lin woke to it before he knew he was awake. It was a drum, or something with a drum’s skin in it: a soft, damp beat, struck in no hurry. One blow, a pause, and one blow again. He lay on the cot and listened for the pause, and in the pause he could hear his own heart, which was not calm, and the fire bowl’s dead ash, and nothing else.
For a month and more the Wheel had kept its silence. Lin had learned to hear that silence the way he heard a bad pin, by what failed to ring. Every night since the strain came back he had lain on the cot and waited for the question, and every night it had failed to come, and every night he had slept without asking for anything. That was not the same as sleeping calmly. Tonight the silence had something in it. It was made of wood and damp skin, and it was coming up the path.
