Sect Year 8 · third month · night of day 3 · the silent life: the third terrace’s retaining wall, his fifty-second year
The storm came up the valley in the wet season, and at the second watch of the night the third terrace wall went.
Ossel heard it through the shutters before he understood it. It was a long low sound, lower than thunder and slower, like a great weight settling into mud. Anwen sat up in the bed beside him. “What was that?”
“The wall.” He was already reaching for his coat.
Anwen was already on her feet. She didn’t ask him to wait, and she didn’t argue about the rain. She took the second lantern from its hook and lit it from the first, and she stood in the doorway with the light in her hand while he pulled on his boots. “Go on,” she said. “I’ll hold the light.”
The rain came sideways off the cliff. The first lantern went out twice on the path, and each time he struck it again with his back to the wind, and the third time it held. Below the house the ledges were a black slope with water running down it in sheets. A fan of loose stones had come down across the path from the cliff’s foot, and he had to climb over it with the lantern in his teeth. The sound of the river had risen to fill the valley.
