In his eighteenth year on the mountain, the liquid in Pei Jing’s brass barometer fell three inches in twenty minutes. He took it off its hook, held it level, and watched it fall again.
Outside, the white cloud sea had turned black. From the eastern horizon to the western desert, the sky was the color of bruised iron. Wind had blown over the summit almost every day he had been there. Now there was none. He could hear water dripping off a glacier ledge two miles down.
Far above him, the clouds had begun to turn around a point over the summit. Fine blue sparks rose from the rock and caught in the eyelets of his boots. The hair on his arms stood up.
The Nine-Nine Heavenly Trial was gathering. He had faced nine bolts at Iron Rift Basin. This storm would send eighty-one.
He went back into the cave and took his things down from their hooks. The flax rubbings of the Precursor Tablet went into waxed leather tubes. He put the tubes into the space in his marrow with his spare clothes, his tools, and the slates he’d written on since he came. He left the bed slab bare.
