Chapter 212: Knuckles

The plane slid forward, and a wood shaving curled into a strip, hung off the edge of the worktable, and shattered when it hit the floor.

The seventeenth day of the First Month. On the table by the window in the Medicine Hall's outer room sat a section of sawn hardwood, plus the plane and chisels left over from when Shao Ming had repaired the storehouse. Bai Xiaoman sat on a stool with her feet propped on an empty medicine crate—without it, she couldn't reach the tabletop. The wood was wedged between two broken bricks. She pushed the plane with both hands, took a few passes, then held the piece up to the window light to check the line, and planed again.

Frost still clung to the outside of the window paper. Cold seeped through the seams, and every so often she'd stop and stretch her hands toward the wood stove to warm them. The stove sat farther inside, where Cheng Banshan tended a small pot of Qi-Gathering Powder: one hand worked an iron hook through the ring on the pot lid to lift it aside, then a bamboo slip scraped the powder from the bottom of the pot. Each time the lid came off, the bitter smell filled half the room.

"Too much warming and the wood will swell," Cheng Banshan said.

"I'm warming my hands." Bai Xiaoman pulled her hands back and rubbed them together.

The palm bone came first, from the thickest section. The silk diagram lay pinned at the corner of the table, its four corners weighted with broken bricks. The drawing showed a palm bone joined to five finger joints. She compared them one by one: the middle finger's joint was the longest, the little finger's the shortest, and the thumb's had to attach to the side of the palm bone, angling outward.

Cheng Banshan finished a batch, moved the pot off the stove, and came over to look. He picked up a finished joint with one hand, held it to the window light, and set it back down.

"This one's planed too thin. Thin at the edge—it'll snap under load."

"If it's thin, can it be patched?"

"Patch it with what? Start from the other end." He withdrew his hand. "There's wood to spare."

Bai Xiaoman flipped the block over and started from the other end. She didn't throw away the two ruined joints; she set them at the corner of the table to be swept out with the shavings later.

On the afternoon of the 18th, he came by again. He pinched one joint between his fingers to gauge its length: "This section's too long." Bai Xiaoman marked a line on the table with a charcoal stick and cut that joint down by half a finger's width.

The 19th brought good sun, and the wood on the table dried out. She pressed her palm to it to test; it left a sweat print that faded after a moment.

Over those seven or eight days, the lamp in the Medicine Hall's outer room burned every night until Hai hour. Du Xiaochuan swept a basket of shavings from under the table every two days; Qian Duoduo took them for kindling, saying they caught better than dry firewood.

The fair on the 20th went on as usual: one pot of spirit food and ten bottles of Qi-Gathering Powder per fair; the Market opened at Chen hour and closed at the end of Wu hour. Bai Xiaoman didn't go down the mountain. She laid the five finger joints out on the table, counted them left to right, then right to left, and marked a line at the root of each with charcoal, labeling which joint connected to which.

When she finished, she still wasn't satisfied. She arranged the five joints into the shape of a hand, fingertip to fingertip, to check if they lined up—they didn't. She shaved a little more off the longest one.

The 21st: carving the palm bone. The palm bone had to be thick—thick enough to grip the copper wire—but too thick, and the wrist end wouldn't fit into the arm sleeve. She held the two pieces together and compared them for half a shichen, then planed a line off the back ridge of the palm bone.

Shao Ming came by at noon and said there were two chisels—one wide-edged, one narrow; the narrow one was exactly right for cutting grooves. He left both, and on his way out added that if the plane went dull, she should bring it to him for sharpening. Bai Xiaoman chose the narrow one. Its edge bore a trace of old rust; she worked it on the whetstone until a bright line showed.

Before lamp-lighting, Jiang Wan came over from the kitchen and stood in the doorway looking in. She still held her sword, no tassel on it. After studying the wooden joints on the table, she said only: "Carving this is hard on the eyes. Once it's dark, stop."

"One more joint," Bai Xiaoman said.

Jiang Wan didn't argue. She left.

On the 22nd, during Wei hour, Cheng Banshan turned from the wood stove, pulled the half-sleeve tucked into his waistband free, and faced the stove opening. Bai Xiaoman fitted the arm sleeve onto him, laced a leather cord at each end, pulled it tight, then tugged his sleeve down over it, hiding the arm sleeve so only the palm bone showed.

"Move it around."

Cheng Banshan raised his shoulder, pressed it down, and tilted his head, trying to see—he couldn't.

"It rubs."

"Where?"

He pressed a spot through the fabric with his other hand. "Here."

Bai Xiaoman pulled the sleeve out, carried the arm sleeve back to the table, and planed for another half day, shaving a line from the inner ring. The leather cord chafed; she twisted two strips of old cloth to pad under it.

The 23rd, morning, she fitted it again. Cheng Banshan moved his arm for a while. "No rubbing this time." When she reached to take it off, he stopped her: "Leave it. Don't go planing it back down."

During Shen hour, Qian Duoduo came in carrying two bowls; he set one at the corner of the table and held the other himself. He crouched down to study the wooden joints on the table for a long while. "Are these fingers?"

"These are fingers." Bai Xiaoman picked one up to show him. "The little finger."

"Something that thin—you really carved it out?"

"I ruined two before I got this one."

Qian Duoduo nudged the bowl toward her hand and said it wouldn't taste as good cold. At the door he looked back. "Elder Cheng, once this hand's done, will you be able to hold your own bowl?"

"I've held my own bowl for decades," Cheng Banshan said.

Qian Duoduo left, grinning.

On the night of the 23rd, A He and A Sui came with Qian Duoduo to collect the bowls. The two of them stood by the worktable and wouldn't leave. A Sui reached out to touch the palm bone, but A He caught her hand. Bai Xiaoman picked a ruined piece from the table corner and gave it to her. "This is for you." A Sui turned the piece over and over in her hands, then asked, "Will Grandpa Cheng use it to hold his bowl?"

"Hold bowls, lift lids, carry trays," Bai Xiaoman said. "But he can't pinch up medicine seeds."

"Why not?"

"There's no strength in the fingers."

The two children thought that over for a while before Qian Duoduo shooed them out.

On the night of the 24th, she was refining the little-finger joint when the chisel tip slipped and opened a cut across the web of her left hand. There wasn't much blood, but it stood out against the wood. Cheng Banshan saw it from the stove, came over, picked a pinch of powder from the medicine pouch on the shelf, and pressed it onto the wound. "Rushing is the worst thing when you're carving wood. You've cut your hand—stay away from cold water for the next two days."

"Then how do I wash my hands?"

"The kitchen has hot water." He tied the pouch back up. "It's fine if you can't finish it. I've spent decades brewing medicine; one hand was enough all along."

Bai Xiaoman swapped out the bloodstained piece of wood. Head down, she said, "I'll make it work."

Cheng Banshan didn't reply. He turned and went back to the stove.

The 25th: carving the formation lines. Bai Xiaoman followed the five thin lines on the diagram with the narrow chisel: five shallow grooves on the palm bone, each running to one joint; a round socket in the palm center; four round sockets at the wrist. The socket floors had to be flat; on both sides of each socket mouth she carved a shallow ledge—the ledge was what the cover plate would catch on.

She carved the characters beside the sockets one by one: Wood, Fire, Metal, Water, Earth. On the stroke for "Metal," her hand slipped and the line ran half a finger's width too far. She sanded that spot flat and recarved it. The character still came out crooked.

Cheng Banshan came over and bent down to look at the characters. "Crooked."

"As long as it's legible."

"As long as it's legible." He handed the phrase back to her, then added, "Don't cut the cover plate too tight. Wood swells when it takes on moisture."

The fair on the 25th went on as usual. She didn't go down the mountain then, either. For the next two days, it wasn't shavings falling to the floor anymore—it was sawdust, fine as sand and impossible to sweep. She wiped it up with a damp cloth.

The spirit copper wire started from the base of the palm-center socket, ran through the five grooves on the palm bone, and traveled all the way out to the finger joints. She drilled a hole at the root of each joint, and the wire passed through—the short length that came out the other side cradled the joint where the two pieces of wood met.

At the third joint, the wire snapped.

The break was clean. One end was stuck in the joint's hole and wouldn't come out. Bai Xiaoman bit her lower lip and probed at it with a needle. Three tries, and her fingers were sweating; the fourth try got it out.

Cheng Banshan heard the chisel handle rapping against the table from over by the stove. He came and stood on the other side of the table. "Broke."

"It broke."

"Then splice it. If the splice won't hold, run it again. There's more wire."

She aligned the two ends and twisted them into one strand. The twisted section was a hair thicker than the rest—too thick to pass through the hole, so she tapped it gently with the chisel handle until it went through. She hid the splice under the groove in the palm bone, where a layer of wood pressed down on it so it couldn't lift. Whether spiritual power could pass through it or not, she didn't know—and she didn't dare test by running the remaining wire a second time.

She straightened the wire, held it to the window to inspect it, warmed her hands at the stove, and came back to thread it through. She had less than half a spool left. She wound it back onto its wooden spindle, neat, and placed it in the small wooden box at the table corner. The box already held two needles and the two ruined joints.

The 27th and 28th: all five lines reached the finger joints. The last one—the shortest wire, for the little finger—should have been the easiest, but she spent half a shichen on it. When it finally went through, her hand trembled, and the wire made a faint sound scraping against the hole, as if something had bitten down on it.

On the night of the 28th, Xu Yan came over from the Accounts Room, set the lamp at the corner of the table, looked at the pieces spread out there and at the broken bricks weighing down the diagram, and asked, "What are you still short of?"

"Needles," Bai Xiaoman said. "The thick ones won't fit through the holes."

"The town has some."

"This one came out of Huichun Hall with me. I'm used to it." She smiled at her own words. "Once the carving's done, I won't need needles anymore."

Xu Yan didn't push. He trimmed the wick up a little and left.

The fair on the 30th went on as usual. Qian Duoduo counted out the Second Month rations behind the grain shop: fifty spirit stones, two sacks of spirit rice and one of coarse grain. Shi Po went down the mountain with him and carried all three sacks back, laying them in a row against the kitchen wall, straightening them before he left. A Sui crouched down and felt them, and came away with a palmful of bran. She asked if the rice hadn't been sifted clean.

All day on the first day of the Second Month, Bai Xiaoman sanded. She cut five cover plates, each shaped to its socket mouth, trimmed to the exact point where it would click in and hold fast but not split the socket. Two ruined ones went to the table corner. In Shen hour, she wiped the wooden hand clean and set it in the center of the table: wrist opening inward, palm up, the five finger joints linked by copper wire. Press it down and it sprang back—the return force was small, just enough to close the fingers. The five sockets sat empty.

Darkness fell. Xu Yan brought the lamp over from the Accounts Room and set it at the head of the table. He stood looking for a while—at the seams in the wood, at the shallow ledges on either side of the socket mouths, at the floors of the five sockets.

"Tomorrow's the 2nd."

"Mm," Bai Xiaoman said. "First, seat the four at the wrist."

"Four stones—how many days?"

"Have them all seated by the 4th."

"The fifth?"

"The fifth needs the qi from all four to reach it at once before it'll hold," she said, looking at the palm-center socket. "How many days that takes, I can't say."

"What do you need from me?"

"Ask Elder Cheng to channel the qi in himself." Bai Xiaoman said, "The qi can't be substituted. If someone else channels it for him, the fingers won't recognize it."

Cheng Banshan came over from the wood stove, picked up the wooden hand and turned it over, examining the socket floors and the shallow ledges. When he finished, he set it back on the table, level.

"I know how to channel qi," he said. "Tomorrow at Chen hour, I'll be here, wearing it."

A stir of air moved through the lamp flame, and it wavered. The five sockets sat empty; the copper wire ends showing at their floors gleamed yellow in the lamplight, like five unlit lamps.