Sect Year 9 · third month · day 24, dawn · Azure Stream spring, beside Shen Mo’s grave
Lin climbed the terraced path before the lamps on the lower terraces had gone out. The stones were wet from the night, and in the grey light each step held a little shine, the way a river stone shows after rain. He took the path at his own pace, which was slower than it had been in the first month. He no longer tried to hurry it. Nobody was waiting at the top with a count, and the water would be at the top notch when he reached it, as it had been every morning since the reading began.
On the lower terraces the bean rows were dark and heavy with dew. A dog barked once behind a wall and stopped. Someone’s shutter rattled open and closed again. The path climbed in short flights between the cut walls, and at each landing he stopped to let the cold leave his knees before he went on. The left arm held its weight against his side. It didn’t swing with the rest of him, and he had quit expecting it to.
Halfway up the third flight a woman came down toward him with a basket on her arm and a cloth over the top. For a moment his breath stopped on the step. She was only a neighbour from the lower terraces, bound for the Lower Market with beans or eggs, and she nodded…
