Sect Year 6 · first month · day 2 · the Hanging Reaches, the reading hall
In the morning the reading hall smelled of cold ink and the faint sweet dust that came off old paper. The twelve lamps were still dark. Su had moved the one lamp from the gallery door to the table and turned its wick up as far as it would go. The light lay across the open record where she had left it. She hadn’t slept. He could tell from how she sat, very upright, with one hand flat on the page beside the spine, as if she had been holding it down all night. Her eyes were red at the rims. She didn’t mention it, and he didn’t either.
She began at the top of the page. There, the date was written in her own small upright hand. The sixth day of the second month, in the fifth year. Ninth Knot Point. The Loom. She read in the level voice she used for the water count at Azure Stream, giving each line its own breath and no more. It was a list she meant to check afterward.
“The Loom stands on the north rim of the Point,” said Su. “The door-stone is worn in the middle by feet. Above the door a line is carved across the top door beam. Tie one knot that holds. In the knot-room a cord hangs on the wall, paid for and sealed. The keeper says a bond holds…
