Chapter 109: The Fifth Stone Dropped at His Feet

The ring judge held out his hand. "Hand."

Bai Xiaoman turned over the fist she had been clenching and opened it in front of him. Five stones lay in her palm—one in the center, four around it—red marks pressed into her skin where they had dug in.

The judge didn't take them, and he didn't tell her to put them away. He laid two fingers on her wrist, held them there, then switched to the other wrist. He looked at her face, at the side of her neck, then pulled his hand back. "Pass."

"What's in your hand?"

"Formation anchors," she said.

The judge's brow twitched. He opened his mouth, said nothing, and raised his head to look north.

The judging stand sat north of the four rings, at the center. Wen Su had a register open on her lap. She closed it and stepped to the edge of the platform. Two town locals had come to watch and were crouched by the base of the stand, one of them resting two spirit stones on his knee. They turned their heads now too.

Someone from Ink Pool Gate laughed first. "Stones. She's using stones."

More than one was laughing now. The two disciples squatting by the wall were doubled over; one mimed scattering something with his hand, the other copied her crouching and pressing into the dirt. The man holding the blade had already stepped outside the lime line, shifting his feet twice to test the ground. Now even the corner of his mouth lifted.

The Ink Pool Gate steward stepped forward half a pace, his voice pitched not high and not low, just carrying enough for the judge and the stand to hear: "Rank Evaluator, the rules list magic implements, talismans, and formation banners. Which one of those is a stone? If stones count, next time I'll bring a basket of dirt and that'll count too."

Over at Ring Three, weapons were clashing in a hurry. Here at Ring Four, everything went quiet. The clerk on the east side, holding his paper-clip board, lifted his brush and let the tip hover over the paper.

The Ring Four judge retreated half a step, over to the stand side, both hands hanging at his front. This one he couldn't rule on. He looked to the judging stand.

Wen Su spoke from across two rings, each word bitten clean: "Rule Eight: magic implements, talismans, and formation banners are permitted. A formation banner is a formation anchor. Stones serving as formation anchors—counts the same."

She paused, then added one line, this time for the clerk: "Enter it into the file copy."

The brush came down. It wrote slowly, stroke by stroke.

The Ink Pool Gate steward's face tightened. "Then what she's carrying isn't one item. It's five."

"Five," Wen Su said. "The rules don't state how many."

The steward said no more. He stepped back to the front of his own people, one hand resting on his waist.

The judge shifted the fire starter up on his knee. "Set it out."

The man with the blade came over first for inspection. He pushed his sleeves up to the elbow, palms up. There was an old knife scar on his forearm. The judge pressed his wrists, looked at his face, at his neck, then passed him. The man pulled his sleeves back down and looked over at Bai Xiaoman—no heat in the look, just an ugly remark hanging at the corner of his mouth, one he ultimately didn't say.

Bai Xiaoman moved the stones one by one from her palm to her fingers, pinched them, and stepped into the ring.

She walked to the center first and stood there, looking down at the dirt. The dirt was hard—hard enough to ring. A stone set on it only caught a point. Earlier, Shi Po had stomped through this patch and left a pit a finger deep, right at the ring's center.

Outside the ring, Xu Yan smoothed the old ledger slip in his sleeve. It already had one entry crossed on it: First round, Shi Po, lasted a full incense stick, incense burned out, judged victor. The numbers for the second round he had worked over beneath the lamp in the guest quarters on the night of the nineteenth—one incense stick, two quarter-hours. If she pressed all five stones in, she could hold not quite half an incense stick, and half an incense stick wouldn't burn to the stub. This round wouldn't wait for the incense to burn out. It would wait for that man to stop on his own.

The Ink Pool Gate man stepped across the lime line.

This time the blade was in his hand, back edge outward. He went two paces east after entering, saw she wasn't moving, then two paces west. He was looking for her feet.

Bai Xiaoman retreated half a step.

"She retreated," Qi Qi said outside the ring, voice low.

"Let her retreat," Xu Yan said.

Huo Qing stood behind Qi Qi, not watching Bai Xiaoman but the man's wrist on the blade and the toe of his forward foot.

The man stopped testing and came in fast, blade sideways.

Bai Xiaoman stepped back—the step landing her on the east side—one knee half-bent, right hand pressing into the dirt. The stone wouldn't go in. The dirt was too hard; only a point went in. She brought her heel down after it, stomping it half in.

"East," she murmured, so quiet only she could hear.

The blade swept past behind her shoulder. She rose and pushed forward two steps, clearing it, the wind off the blade stirring the end of her hair.

"One," Qi Qi counted under his breath.

The man followed. He wasn't chasing her; he was hacking at the places where she stopped. She circled around that center patch, retreating south, stepped back, crouched, pressed the second stone in. There was a small pebble under it; it wouldn't go down. She switched fingers, shifted it a finger's width over, brought her heel down again.

"South."

"Two," Qi Qi counted.

The third stone went in on the west side. This one ran half a breath slow. By the time she crouched, the man was already on her. The blade slashed down diagonally at her head and split into the dirt where she'd just been crouching, leaving a white line across the soil. She twisted aside, knee braced against the ground. In her palm, the stone she hadn't yet set pressed into her flesh and left a white mark. She didn't fall—she pushed up and scrambled away, a smear of dust across one knee.

Outside the ring, those two spirit stones were being squeezed so hard they creaked.

The man saw his strike had missed and laughed once, glancing back at his own people with a lift of his chin.

"West," she said.

"He switched hands," Huo Qing said suddenly.

Xu Yan looked. The man's blade moved from right hand to left, just for an instant, then back again—he wasn't a lefty; that last chop had gone wide and jarred his hand.

"Three," Qi Qi counted. "Two to go."

The fourth stone went in on the north side. This one she didn't crouch for. Two fingers set the stone upright on the soil, she lifted her foot and stomped it down—fast and hard. He was on her by then, but she'd already pulled back two paces. The blade point stopped just inside the lime line.

Four stones in the ground now, only their heads showing. They made a small ring—ten feet across or so—and it circled exactly that center patch, the one with the pit Shi Po had stomped in.

Before winter set in, she'd tried four stones. The formation wouldn't rise. Five would raise it. The fifth stone had never left her palm.

The man stopped. He looked at her, then at those four shallow white marks on the ground, and suddenly stopped circling.

He came straight through the middle.

Bai Xiaoman retreated three quick steps to the edge of the ring, her heel scraping the lime line, shaving off a streak of white. He stepped into the ground the four stones enclosed, his foot landing at the edge of the caved-in pit, and was just pressing forward when she threw the last stone.

It struck the upper of his shoe, bounced, and settled between his feet.

The man looked down.

A wind rose inside the ring. Very slight—it stood up from the four stones, swept low around the circle once, carried the hem of his clothes to one side, then settled back down.

He lifted his foot and stomped down at the nearest stone.

His toe reached the stone, turned aside, and landed a hand's width away.

He stomped again. This time his whole body lurched forward half a step. He looked up—the stone was still where it had been, and he was farther from it.

"Five," Qi Qi said. "All set."

The man raised his foot and walked toward her.

One step. Two. Three. She was only five or six paces away—her clothes, her braid, the sweat on her face, all clearly visible. On his seventh or eighth step, the ground underfoot went wrong. He looked down: it was the caved-in pit. He was back in the center.

He paused, then turned and walked again. This time to the west, taking small steps, measuring one at a time.

Ten-some measured steps, and what lay ahead wasn't her—it was the lime line on the west side of the ring. He stopped, looked up. She was still in the east, both hands raised in front of her, not moving at all.

"Don't look at her!" someone shouted from the Ink Pool Gate side. "Close your eyes and walk straight!"

The man really did close his eyes. Blade crosswise, he charged straight ahead. On the fifth step, his feet turned beneath him, and he was standing on the collapsed dirt again.

For a moment no one outside the ring made a sound. A cheer went up from Ring One, but no one at Ring Four turned their head.

The Ink Pool Gate steward moved forward two steps, then stopped.

"She can't hold it," Jiang Wan said at Xu Yan's right. "If that man in the formation doesn't accept it, she empties first."

"I know," Xu Yan said.

"How long can she last?"

"Until that man stops on his own," Xu Yan said. "Holding one breath longer than him is enough."

Jiang Wan said nothing more. Her eyes dropped to Bai Xiaoman's raised hands.

The incense had burned half down. Ash broke and fell into the bronze holder.

Bai Xiaoman's shoulders sank inch by inch. Her face, pale already, took on a greenish tint. Holding a formation meant dredging out spiritual power, inch by inch, dredging it faster than the incense burned. Her fingers began to shake—shaking visible even from outside the ring. She bit down, still murmuring, the words fast and fragmented, counting for herself.

The incense tip bent down another notch.

The man standing on the caved-in dirt lowered his blade. The point sank slowly to the ground, met the dirt, halted.

He drew two breaths, looked up, and said to the judge: "I concede."

The judge pressed out the incense ash and raised his head. "Qingya wins."

No one on the Ink Pool Gate side was laughing now. The man with the blade lifted it from the ground, walked to the steward's side, and stood there, shoulders still rising and falling. He put the blade back into its sheath—it took him three tries.

Bai Xiaoman lowered her hands and crouched to pull out the stones. One, two, three, four. The fifth was in the center, where she'd thrown it. When she dug it out, dirt packed every nail.

All five clenched in her hand, she stepped over the lime line.

Three steps out, her legs went soft and she sat down hard.

Shi Po came over from the ring, crouched, draped her arm over his shoulder, and half-carried, half-lifted her to the base of the wall outside the ring. There was a half-patch of shade there, against the rear corridor of the guest quarters.

Jiang Wan followed and crouched down beside her, looked at her face, and didn't ask about injuries—only: "Can you catch your breath?"

"I can," Bai Xiaoman said, voice very light. "Did he concede?"

"He did," Xu Yan said.

He took the old ledger slip from his sleeve and drew a second line with his fingertip. Two to nothing.

The two townsmen by the wall murmured to each other. One said, "How many times did she press those down?" The other said, "I lost count. Anyway, that man spun around in there for a long time. I figured he'd work it out—but he never got out."

Bai Xiaoman set the five stones on her knees and pulled out that washed-out handkerchief, spread it open. Her hands wouldn't obey; she tried to knot one corner of the cloth, and the knot came loose three times.

Shi Po took the kerchief from her, gathered the five stones into the middle, wrapped them, tied it twice, and handed it back.

"Ground was hard," she said. "Pressed forever, each one only went a point in."

"Going in is enough," Jiang Wan said.

"That one I threw." Bai Xiaoman looked down at the kerchief. "Thrown counts too."

Xu Yan crouched down. The white had receded some from her face. "Rest. We'll see on the twenty-second."

"I can still go on the twenty-third," she said.

"Then you'll be last in the lineup."

Over at the judging stand, Wen Su waited until the round was cleanly settled before returning to her seat. She opened the register and put down a line.

The Ink Pool Gate steward walked up to the judge and said something low. The judge nodded, pulled the Qingya sheet out from under the stone, and tapped the line for the third round: "Third round. Both sides into the ring. Inspection."

Qi Qi was already at the ring's edge. He shifted his feet twice outside the lime line, testing the ground the way that man had earlier, then looked up:

"Me? I'm fast."