Chapter 145: The Line Before the Gate

By the time the sky above the stone gate had lightened to a strip of gray, Jiang Wan and Bai Xiaoman were already coming up the mountain path. As they climbed the last stretch of slope, that gray had spread past the tops of the two stone slabs. Dew clung to the tips of the grass on the cliff face, trembling whenever the wind passed.

Jiang Wan walked in front, her sword at her waist. She stopped two paces short of the three-step line and pushed her sleeves up her forearms. Bai Xiaoman came up behind her, both hands feeling around inside her sleeves until she found the cloth-wrapped end of the formation banner. She pressed it once, then tucked it back.

"Mao hour," Jiang Wan said.

Xu Yan stepped back half a pace from the three-step line. After standing through the night, the bottoms of his boots were soaked clean through, and the tops of his feet were cold. Qi Qi blew out the lamp, leaving a faint red glow on the wick.

"The gate hasn't moved," Xu Yan said, for the benefit of those who had come to relieve them.

Jiang Wan walked up and stood on the three-step line, then looked back. "Bai Xiaoman."

Bai Xiaoman shifted in half a step to her right, and the two of them took over the watch.

"Nineteen days," Qi Qi said, setting the lamp down at the base of the rock and crouching to massage his legs. "The seal went up the sixteenth day of the Fourth Month. Count to today."

"Yeah," Xu Yan said.

"Handing it off?" Qi Qi meant the gate-watch itself.

"At the Dragon hour," Xu Yan said.

The seal strip on the gate crack was still there. The wind lifted one edge of the paper, and it settled back down. The ink read "Alliance Year 301, the sixteenth day of the Fourth Month" across the strip, all four corners pressed flat.

The packs came up the path from behind the Ancestral Hall.

Qian Duoduo was in the lead, a bundle of flatbread on his back, both hands bracing it from behind. He stopped twice on the final slope, his breathing louder than his footsteps. Shi Po followed, two bundles bound to his shoulders with square, tight knots. Du Xiaochuan carried four torches, cloth strips wound around them three times, the torch heads jutting up behind his shoulder. Cheng Banshan climbed with one hand against the rock face, his medicine pouch at his left hip, the wine gourd slung a little further back, knocking against his leg with every step. Shao Ming walked a half-step behind and to his side, one hand hovering near his elbow—Cheng Banshan shook it off, neither roughly nor gently. Huo Qing came last, his sword belt slung across his left shoulder, his left hand hanging at his side.

The ten of them spread out in front of the gate, forming a small cluster.

Xu Yan counted them, from front to back, then back to front. Including himself, ten.

"Where do we stand?" Shao Ming asked. The way before the gate was kept clear; the two sides were where the Eight Sects' people, not yet arrived, would stand.

Xu Yan swept his gaze around and pointed west of the three-step line. "Over there. Don't crowd the clerk's table, and don't stand in the middle of the path."

The ten of them moved over. Shi Po untied his ropes and took the two bundles in his hands, looking around. "Where do these go?"

"Against the cliff face. Lay them flat," Xu Yan said. "We carry them once we're inside."

Shi Po set the two bundles against the rock, one on top of the other, patted them twice, and rejoined the group.

"When do we eat the flatbread?" Qian Duoduo asked.

"Now," Xu Yan said. "Once we're through the gate, there's no fire. Cold flatbread goes down fine. Hot food's not an option."

Everyone untied their own bundle and pulled out a piece. Qian Duoduo took out several extra and offered them first to Cheng Banshan, then to Shao Ming. Cheng Banshan accepted but didn't eat; he tucked it into his robe. Qian Duoduo glanced at him, said nothing, and passed the rest to those nearby.

Cheng Banshan pressed down on the medicine pouch at his waist, then raised his eyes to the group, finally settling on Qian Duoduo. "How much have you eaten yourself?"

"Half a piece," Qian Duoduo said.

"A day's walk ahead, and you've eaten half a piece," Cheng Banshan said. "That meat on your bones didn't grow there on its own. It's not going anywhere."

Shao Ming laughed. Qian Duoduo opened his mouth, then broke off another half piece from his own bundle and shoved it in, chewing as he glared at the wine gourd on Cheng Banshan's hip.

Bai Xiaoman smoothed the cloth end in her sleeve flat and said quietly to Jiang Wan, "The formation banners are in the outer layer of the pack. Once we're inside, one flick and there's four surfaces."

"Once we're through the gate," Jiang Wan said.

The Eight Sects entered through the Mountain Gate at the Mao hour.

On the far side of the Mountain Gate, eighty people came in sect by sect. Nie Bo stood by the gate with his broom, drawing it in and stepping half a pace to one side to let them pass one by one. On the stone steps behind the Ancestral Hall, A He and A Sui stood watching Qingya's people carry their packs up the back mountain.

By the end of the Mao hour, the Eight Sects had come up before the gate, one sect after another.

The Heavenly Sword Sect came first—ten people, standing at the spot nearest the gate. Wei Changge was at the very front, both hands empty, his eyes sweeping from the tops of the two stone slabs down, then back up, coming to rest on the paper in the gate crack.

Xuanshui Palace took the east side. Lin Lian walked to the front of her group, crouched down, and peered at the base of the crack under the gate. When she straightened, she wiped her hands on her clothes. Pang Ce's ten from Jinding Pavilion filed along the west cliff wall; he stood a half-step ahead of his own disciples, both hands hanging at his sides, not lifting them. Wanshou Mountain was diagonally across from the gate. Xiong Dai crossed his arms, his gaze drifting over Qingya's group and back again, pausing a moment longer on the two flatbread bundles at Shi Po's feet. Shi Po stood ramrod straight and looked right back at him. Lihuo Hall's Tan Shuo stood in front of his disciples, hands folded. Taiyi Temple's Ke Wujiu wore his Daoist robe, both hands tucked into his sleeves. Zixia Palace's Qin Ruo stood at the outermost edge, a clump of grass at her feet; she glanced down at it and didn't move. Zhenyue Sect's Gan Ren was six or seven paces from the gate—not the nearest spot, not the farthest.

Eight groups, each in its own place, leaving a path down the middle leading to the gate.

Wen Su came up last with the two clerks. The one in front carried a low table, the legs knocking against the stone twice with two hollow thuds; the one behind hugged a wooden box containing nine rosters. The two set the table down just west of the gate, leveled the legs, and wedged a small pebble under one of them.

The clerk with the box lifted the lid and took out the nine rosters one by one, stacking them in order on the tabletop—Qingya's copy at the very bottom.

"Qingya last," he murmured, as if reminding himself.

Wen Su took her place before the gate and folded her sleeves up once, just as she had on the sixteenth day of the Fourth Month.

At the Dragon hour, she spoke.

"The seal strip was placed by me on the sixteenth day of the Fourth Month," she said. "It has not been touched."

She walked up to the gate crack and stood very close, her toes less than a foot from the threshold. She didn't reach out at first—she looked. Four edges, from top to bottom, from left to right. The bronze seal mark pressed across the seam in the middle of the paper strip, half on the left panel, half on the right. She brought her eyes close to that spot and studied it for a while, then stepped back half a pace to view the whole strip. Only then did her fingers slide in between the paper's corner and the stone, moving down inch by inch, stopping halfway, then switching to the other end. The peeled section curled over her finger; the paste on the back had dried white, and a scratch of her nail brought away a fine powder.

No one from the Eight Sects made a sound. Wei Changge stood nearest, his eyes tracking her fingers; Xiong Dai dropped one of his crossed arms. Behind Jiang Wan, Bai Xiaoman rose briefly onto her toes and settled back down. Xu Yan stood beyond the three-step line, watching her two fingers travel to the bottom corner of the seal strip—the corner he'd lit with his lamp more times than any other through the night. How many times exactly, he'd lost count.

The seal strip came away without a sound. She pinched it by two corners, smoothed it flat, held it up once more against the gate crack, then folded it along its original creases into thirds and tucked it into her sleeve. She stepped aside, and the eight team leaders and Xu Yan could all see the crack: the stone on both sides was clean, without a single fresh mark. Only then did she lay her palm flat in front of the crack, two inches from the stone, and hold it there. The wind through the crack raised the fine hairs on the back of her hand. She withdrew it, pressed it once against her cuff—inside, the folded paper sat stiff, silent.

"Read the regulations," Wen Su said.

No one responded. The Eight Sects straightened their backs; Qingya's people stood taller too. Bai Xiaoman brought both hands up in front of her, one pressing down on the fingers of the other.

Wen Su read slowly, line by line, the same words she'd read in Qingya's Main Hall on the sixteenth day of the Fourth Month, the same words the clerk had read outside the Luoxia Inn on the twenty-fifth:

"One: Any old Hidden Realms or old storehouses revealed within the bounds of a Mountain Gate deed, not recorded in the deed, are unclaimed secret realms. The sect whose grounds they lie on reports them to the Branch."

Bai Xiaoman pressed down one finger.

"Two: The opening date is set by the Branch. The gate stays open one month. At the month's end, the Branch seals it."

Second finger.

"Three: Each of the Eight Great Sects may send ten people inside. Whichever sect's four boundaries contain the gate is the landlord sect and also sends ten, with the duty of watching the gate. Only those below Foundation Establishment may enter."

At this line, Xu Yan lowered his head and looked at the ground under his feet. Rough stone, with dirt and bits of dry grass wedged into the cracks—the very spot where he'd stood for nineteen days. The gate lay within Qingya's four boundaries. Qingya was the landlord sect, and so Qingya's people waited outside this line for the clerk to finish reading the names before entering.

"Four: Within the Hidden Realm, each keeps what they gain. No one may seize what another already holds, and no one may take another's life. At the gate, only the count is checked—nothing is verified, nothing reported."

"Five: Any old items bearing a particular sect's name or mark belong to that sect."

"Six: Anyone still inside when the gate is sealed will not be let out."

All six fingers pressed down. Bai Xiaoman lowered her hands and realized she'd been holding her breath the entire time.

Wen Su folded her hands in front of her and raised her head. "For any dispute over gains, file a petition at the Branch after the gate is sealed."

At the low table, the clerk flipped open the first roster, anchored it with a table corner, and pulled out a brush, tapping the tip twice against the rim of the ink box.

"Sect Master," Qi Qi said in a low voice, not looking that way. "We go last."

"Yeah," Xu Yan said.

Jiang Wan glanced back at the low table, then turned to the gate again.

There was nothing on the crack now. The seam between the two stone panels ran from top to bottom, a finger's width, black—impossible to tell whether it opened onto stone or open space.

Wen Su turned to face the crack and raised her left hand.

The wind came out through the crack, blowing the loose strands from her forehead, pressing her sleeve against her wrist.

"Alliance Year 301, the fifth day of the Fifth Month," she said. "Open the gate."

She placed her palm against the left panel and pushed.

The two stone panels didn't move at first. Then something deep below loosened, and a muffled sound rose up through the earth. The stone underfoot trembled, and the front ranks of the Eight Sects all shifted their footing. The left panel swung inward, the right panel following. Halfway open, the wind through the crack surged, whipping the front hem of the nearest people's robes backward.

Inside the gate, steps descended, one after another.

The first few were visible—pale gray stone, sharp-edged. Further down, they darkened into a single mass of shadow, impossible to tell where the last step was. The wind rose from below, cold, carrying the smell of earth, striking every face.