Sect Year 2 · sixth month · day 2 · the rim of Sallow Basin · dusk
Su walked with them as far as the lip, and not one step farther. She carried the lamp in one hand and the bound book wrapped in oilcloth under the other arm, and she stopped where the cracked slope gave way to the white crust of the basin floor. The wardens had made the rope fast to a stake of iron driven into the rock. It hung down the slope in a loose curve and ended in the salt below, where no one was holding it.
“Here,” Su said. “I can see the bottom from here.”
“You said you would,” said Pei.
“I said it so you would believe I would stand here.” Su set the lamp on the rock at her feet. “Go on. The light is going, and I want you down before the dark has settled into the salt.”
Pei went first. She had the tablet in both hands, held out in front of her the way she had carried the lime bucket through the Outer Court, level and careful, with her elbows locked. Lin followed a pace behind, testing each step on the crust. It broke under his boots with a sound like thin glass, and the white flakes lifted and drifted and settled on his sleeves. At the foot of the slope the ground went soft, and then it was mud, cracked into plates that curled up at…
