Chapter 184: Black Above

There were twenty-one flatbreads left.

Qian Duoduo gathered everyone's bundles into one place, emptied them out one by one, spread them across the stone steps, and counted. Enough for tomorrow morning, with some left over after they left.

"One each tonight, no more," he said.

Shi Po finished his in three bites and was sweeping the crumbs from his knees into his mouth. Qi Qi broke a corner off his own and held it out. "A little extra." Shi Po looked at it, then took it.

The remaining eleven, Qian Duoduo wrapped back up in cloth, tied two knots, and hefted them. "Enough for one meal tomorrow morning. One each, and the extra one—"

"Give it to Shi Po," Jiang Wan said.

"That's exactly what I was going to say."

"Then say it straight."

"Two hours up from here, he'll still have half a piece left by the time we reach the gate." He tucked the cloth bundle at the very top of the pack.

Shi Po glanced at the bundle. "I'll save mine. Eat it on the road."

"We'll decide that tomorrow morning," Qian Duoduo said.

Xu Yan said, "We move before first light tomorrow. I'll wake you at the Chou hour."

"The Chou hour." Qi Qi folded his hands behind his head and leaned back against the wall. "Fine."

Shao Ming sat beside him, rubbing dried dirt off his hands. "This afternoon, the people going up—I counted—"

"Don't count," Qi Qi said. "I lost track halfway through. One group squatted down partway to tie the cords on their shoes, so I thought they hadn't gone up yet and added another tally. Then another group ahead went past, and I didn't know which tally to add to."

"Adding or not adding, it's all the same," Shi Po said.

"That stairway up there only goes one way," Shao Ming said. "Up. And the people who went up will have to come down tomorrow, one way or another."

"Not necessarily the ones coming down." Cheng Banshan's voice came low from the half-dark. "Rule Six."

"Elder Cheng," Qi Qi said. "Don't bring that up."

"Does bringing it up scare you?"

"It scares me."

"Then watch your own step and don't miss your footing."

Cheng Banshan untied the wine gourd from his waist, turned it upside down and shook it, releasing a faint breath of liquor. He lifted it to his nose, sniffed once, and hung it back. Qi Qi watched his hand the whole time.

"Once we're out, I'll get you two jars," Qi Qi said.

"Two jars," Cheng Banshan said. "You remember. I won't."

"Put it on my account."

"There's no wine on Qingya's books," Xu Yan said.

"Then put it on my heart's account."

"That ledger of yours gets patched up three times a year," Cheng Banshan said.

Qi Qi laughed, a little too loud. Jiang Wan glanced at him and he shrank back.

Bai Xiaoman was dismantling formation banners at the base of the wall. Four sheets of yellow silk lay across her knees, cinnabar side facing in, one pressed neatly atop the next. Only once they were perfectly aligned did she wrap them in cloth. Five pebbles went into a small cloth pouch. She cinched the mouth, gave it two shakes, listened to the stones clack twice inside, then wound the cord around twice and tied it tight.

"Tomorrow there's no formation to set," she said, as if explaining to herself.

"No need," Xu Yan said.

"I know. Packed away and unused, versus set aside and unused—two different things." She slipped the pouch back into her robes and pressed her palm flat over it. After a moment she asked, "Sect Master, will we be able to come back to this place?"

The stair mouth went quiet.

"The rules say it's open for one month," Xu Yan said. "After the gate is sealed, who can enter is for the Branch to say."

"Then that stack of paper we picked up—does it count as ours?" Qi Qi said.

"The page heads have vermilion seals," Cheng Banshan said. "Whose writing, whose property."

Qi Qi looked like he wanted to ask more but glanced at the oilcloth bundle and let it go, settling himself more firmly against the wall.

Du Xiaochuan pulled the last two torches from under the packs, propped them head-down against the rock face, and braced the bases with two bits of broken stone so they wouldn't roll. He fished out his fire starter, squeezed it between his fingers, and put it back. Xu Yan felt his own too. The casing was dry.

Qian Duoduo lifted each of the ten water flasks in turn and shook them. The full ones he set in a row; the two not-quite-full he hung on the rock wall. "Drink once we're on the steps. One flask each. Whoever finishes first drinks from mine—mine's light, easy to carry."

"You need to drink too," Jiang Wan said.

"I'm not fighting. I walk slow."

"The slowest walker's throat dries first," Xu Yan said.

Qian Duoduo opened his mouth, then repositioned the two half-empty flasks to the middle. "Then who carries these two?"

"I will," Du Xiaochuan said.

Qian Duoduo eyed him, then re-knotted both flask cords, tucking the loose ends in so they wouldn't chafe his hands.

"Once we're up the mountain, what's the first meal?" Qian Duoduo asked suddenly.

"Whatever there is," Cheng Banshan said.

"There's half a sack of coarse grain left in the kitchen." Qian Duoduo wiped his hands on his knees. "When we get back, I need to scrape that pot out."

"Scrape it," Xu Yan said.

"I've been wanting to. This whole month, I've thought about that pot every single day."

The You-hour light receded down layer by layer until it lost all purchase at the mouth of the stairs. The steps above darkened, impossible to count, impossible to see where they ended.

At the Xu hour, everyone shifted toward the base of the wall.

Cheng Banshan ran his hand over the knots of the oilcloth bundle, vermilion side facing out, and cradled it in his lap. He made Shi Po sit on his left.

"When we reach the gate, I'll hand it to you," he said to Shi Po. "My arm will be numb after carrying this crooked for two hours. I won't be able to grip it."

"All right," Shi Po said.

"Once you take it, you carry it all the way up the mountain. No setting it down."

"All right."

Shi Po lay down in his usual spot, one hand tucked under his head. Before closing his eyes he added: "Wake me at the Hai hour."

Jiang Wan drew her sword halfway out, her gaze on the worn-white mark at the scabbard mouth. She slid it back and set it against the rock wall, hilt facing out. Leaning against a wall with the hilt facing in meant your first grab in the morning came out awkward—that was her own reasoning, and no one on the mountain had ever argued with her.

She sat down beside Xu Yan, a water flask between them.

The steps above were dark. Wind came down from above, not cold, carrying the smell of dry stone. It touched the face as faint as a breath exhaled by someone very far away.

She nudged the flask a little toward him, squared it, the cord mouth facing his hand.

Neither of them spoke.

And when they both looked up, they were not looking at the same thing: she looked at the blackness above; he looked at the lowest few steps inside that blackness, counting them one by one, stopping where they became indistinguishable.

After a while Jiang Wan rose, brushed the dust from her skirt, walked back to the wall, and lay down in the spot where she always slept. Before lying down she said to Bai Xiaoman, "Sleep closer to the middle. Don't press against the wall." Her voice wasn't loud, but in a space this small, everyone heard.

Bai Xiaoman shifted half a foot inward, then propped herself up. "Sect Master, can I walk in front tomorrow? On the way down I watched the footing the whole time. I remember which stretches of stone are loose."

"All right," Xu Yan said. "Shi Po will be at your side."

"I remember," Bai Xiaoman said. "At the third bend, there's one stone that's loose. It creaks when you step on it."

Huo Qing sat in the innermost corner, sword across his knees, sitting perfectly straight. His eyes—impossible to tell if open or closed. Du Xiaochuan set the two water flasks by his feet, then after a moment picked them up again and turned them so the cord knots faced outward.

"Who's on the You-Xu shift?" Xu Yan asked.

"Me," Shao Ming said.

"At the Hai hour, hand it to Shi Po. Chou-Yin is still mine."

"You're not sleeping all night, and tomorrow you walk two hours," Shao Ming said.

"Sitting one night is nothing," Xu Yan said. "At the Chou hour, can you get Shi Po moving?"

"Calling his name won't necessarily wake him," Shao Ming said. "He'll need a push."

"Then push."

Huo Qing spoke from his corner: "Tomorrow, with that bundle of ledger pages, I'll walk next to Shi Po."

Xu Yan looked at him. In an entire month, this was the first time he had volunteered to guard anything.

"Keep an eye on the loose stone for him," Xu Yan said.

"Mm."

By late Xu hour, the stair mouth had gone silent.

The night watch rotated as it always did. Shao Ming sat on the fifth step for a while; at the Hai hour Shi Po took over. Neither lit a lamp. The wind came down from above, sweeping downward layer by layer, and scattered when it reached the mouth of the steps.

Xu Yan sat down on the lowest step.

Black above. Three hundred-some steps, stacked one on top of another into the darkness, no end in sight.

The stone step was cold. The chill crept up his trouser legs into his knees. He shifted his sitting position.

"Sect Master." Shi Po's voice came from above. "Tomorrow at the Chou hour, we get up and go?"

"Get up and go," Xu Yan said. "We'll reach the top just as the sky brightens. There'll be someone at the gate counting heads."

"Oh." Shi Po wiped his hands on his knees. "Then tonight's my last shift."

"Last shift," Xu Yan said. "At the end of Zi hour I'll take over. You sleep."

"I can sit without sleeping," Shi Po said. His breathing slowed for a moment, then rose again, as if he knew he couldn't let himself drift off. Every time it slowed, he pinched his own knee.

Xu Yan mentally laid out tomorrow's accounts: wake everyone at the Chou hour; ten bundles, each person remembers their own; ten water flasks, one each, the two half-empty ones in Du Xiaochuan's hands; two torches left—light one on the darkest stretch near the top, snuff it once through the gate; the ledger pages—Elder Cheng hands them to Shi Po at the gate, Huo Qing walking beside him; the medicine pouch back on Elder Cheng's belt, no one touches it.

One layer above that: the gate. Outside the gate, the Branch shelter, where two clerks had kept watch for a month. Tomorrow, when we come out, the clerks will call names. Answer "Present" to each, and they tick the list. The roster he had submitted held ten names, and there were ten people in the Hidden Realm, but the two books did not match: the list had Elder Cheng on it, while the Ancestral Hall roster did not; the roster had A He and A Sui, but the list had neither child. Nobody had ever asked him about this discrepancy, and he had never settled it with anyone.

Up the mountain, the ledger pages went back to the top shelf of the ledger rack in the Accounts Room; the grass in the medicine pouch went to the Medicine Hall. None of that was difficult. The difficult part was those few questions and answers at the gate: whatever they ask, whatever I answer, not one extra word.

For this entire month, every watch he had kept had been Chou-Yin: two nights in the fork, the First Level, the poolside, in front of the Third Level gate, and tonight, the stair mouth. What he did on watch was always about the same—listening as the breathing inside slowed one person at a time, listening for movement outside, running through tomorrow's tasks once in his head. Tonight was the last run-through.

No one had ever asked what lay beneath that gate. If someone had asked, he intended to answer truthfully. Since no one had, he would not volunteer it. That rule wasn't in the regulations. It was one he'd set for himself.

At the end of Zi hour, Shi Po came down from the fifth step and dropped into his spot by the wall. His knee cracked against the stone with a dull thud. He didn't wake.

After that, the sound of turning bodies came from the wall-side camp. Qian Duoduo's breathing was rougher than in daylight, stuttering on the third breath before resuming. Qi Qi swore at someone in his sleep, swallowed the rest of the curse. Bai Xiaoman coughed once, turned over, mumbled something indistinct that sounded like "Central Continent," and sank back into sleep before finishing it.

Cheng Banshan, though, was awake. His voice came out of the dark: "Don't set a water flask out in the draft." Then nothing more.

Xu Yan moved the flask at his feet to the base of the wall.

Over by the wall, Jiang Wan turned over.

That force she had borrowed on credit—he had always known how it would be settled: the next time she reached that step on her own, that was when it would be repaid. Until then, it stayed on the books. She'd asked him once at the poolside what it was. He had told her to heal first. She didn't ask anymore now.

Another gust came down from above, stirring a little dust at the stair mouth, whirling it, then dropping it onto the back of his hand.

He placed his hand on his chest, over his robes. Beneath: the ledger. Beneath the ledger: two sheets of paper, one thin, one thinner, the folded corners stiff, pressing a small hard edge against him.

He did not take them out.