Sect Year 2 · first month · the twenty-third life: the Reincarnation Hall, Qiao’s twelfth year
Wind came over the roof-walk, cold and wet. Qiao was twelve, and for the length of one breath he couldn’t tell which year he was in.
The roof-walk ran round the top of the Hall like the rim of a bowl. It was flagged in grey stone, worn into shallow dips where the copyists had stood for ages to look down at the valley. He lay on his side with his cheek against the flags. The stone was wet, and the wind came over the eastern ridge and found the gap at his collar. A thin green line of light lay along the tops of the mountains. Below it the valley was still dark. A single crow lifted off the ridge, turned once above the roof, and went away down the valley without a sound.
He sat up slowly. His left hand was cramped. He opened it and closed it, and the fingers would not uncurl all the way. He remembered a copy-table. A line of crooked strokes that had gradually stood up straight, and a column of names he had been writing for three days without stopping.
