Chapter 33 — Yongzhou at the Lintel
Yongzhou stood at the lintel of the shed at the south wall of Cloudreed at the third night's twelve-thirty-eight.
He stood in the plain gray robe of an order Lin Wei had — by his read at the chamber on the cone of the Sundered Peak at noon today — not known how to read, with the sandals of a senior of the order at thirty-three years of post, and the work-scarred hands of a man who had — at the moment at the chamber's threshold at noon today — stepped off a lintel he had stood at for thirty-three years.
The walking down had been, by Tao Lin's count at the bench, twelve hours.
Twelve hours of walking off a post.
Twelve hours was, by the courier's count at the trail, the count of a courier walking at the small clean courier's pace from the trailhead to the south gate of Cloudreed.
Yongzhou had walked at the courier's pace.
He had walked alone.
He had walked, by Tao Lin's count at the bench, without the standing protocol of his order's escort.
The standing protocol of his order's escort was, by the family's reckoning of the order's measure, the post's walking-off protocol at any post's first walk-off.
The escort, by the protocol, was the senior of the order at the post adjacent to the walking-off post.
The adjacent post to Yongzhou's was Wen's.
Wen was on the bridge.
Wen had, at noon today, been the second post.
She had — at her own count at the third log from the north at twelve-fifteen — walked off her post.
She was no longer of the order.
Yongzhou had at the lintel, walked off his post without the order's escort.
The walking off without the escort was, by the order's measure, the post's first defection from the order.
Yongzhou had defected.
He was at the lintel.
He was the line's eighth.
Lin Wei, at the pine boards three paces from the bench, did not — for one breath after Tao Lin had said Brother. Eighth. — file.
He had no files.
He looked at Yongzhou.
He looked, for one count, at the yellow paper square of the inner library's office's standing seal on the punch mark on the underside of the lintel above Yongzhou's head. The seal had, by the great-uncle's reading at the cell door at twelve-thirty-six, settled into the recording of the chord. The seal was the seat's seal.
Yongzhou, at the lintel, looked at the seal.
He did not, by the brief pause of one breath, touch.
He looked at Tao Lin on the bench.
Tao Lin said, in the dry voice of the choreographer on the bench: "Yongzhou."
Yongzhou said, in the dry voice of a senior of an older order who had — at the moment in the third night's twelve-thirty-eight — *walked twelve hours to a lintel he had read once at his thirty-third year of post: "Choreographer. Eighth."
She said: "Eighth. By the family's reckoning of the line's reckoning, the line after the eighth is the line's record's first eight-member line in two centuries. By the line's measure, the eighth member is the body the order's standing protocol has, by the second post's defection, not been prepared to admit existed. By the line's reckoning of the eighth, the eighth's standing protocol at the family's count is the eighth's office's last work at the order's count. By the eighth's last work at the order's count, the eighth walks to the line."
He said: "Yes."
She paused.
She said: "I have, in nineteen years of choreography, not choreographed for the eighth. The eighth is, by my count at the bench, not my work. Who choreographed."
He paused.
He said, in the dry voice of a senior of an older order at thirty-three years of post who had, at the moment at the lintel of the second tuning chamber at the third night's twelve-thirty-eight, stepped through the lintel he had read once thirty-three years ago at the smith's forty-year forging of his fortieth year: "The chamber."
Tao Lin, on the bench, did not, by the bone's read at the lantern's thin light, check.
She said: "Yes."
He said: "The chamber, by my count at noon today at the chamber's lintel, read the boy. The reading was, by the chamber's reckoning of the chamber's protocol, the chamber's first reading of a body the chamber had been built for in two centuries. The reading was, by my count at the lintel, the chamber's last reading. By the chamber's last reading, the chamber's standing protocol of two centuries closed. The chamber, at noon today, became the chamber."
She said: "Yes."
He paused.
He said: "By the chamber's last reading, the lintel of the chamber, in the closing, became the lintel of the second chamber. The lintel I stood at for thirty-three years is, at the closing, the smith's shed's lintel. I walked down because the lintel walked down."
She said: "Yes."
He paused.
He said: "I am at the lintel. By the eighth's last work, I stand at the lintel. By the eighth's last work's standing at the lintel of the second tuning chamber, I am the second tuning chamber's lintel."
She said: "Yes."
He paused.
He said: "The seal at the punch mark on the underside of the lintel is, in the eighth standing at the lintel, the eighth's seal. The seal is, by the eighth's standing, no longer the inner library's office's seal. The seal is, by the eighth's standing, the chamber's. The chamber's seal at the lintel of the second tuning chamber is, by the smith's lineage of forging at his fortieth year, the second tuning chamber's lintel's first seal in fifteen years. The chamber, at the sealing, is the chamber."
She said: "Yes."
He paused.
He said: "I am the lintel. I stand."
He stepped through the lintel.
He stepped two paces inside the lintel and stopped at the pine boards two paces inside the door. He did not, by Lin Wei's read at the pine boards three paces from the bench, walk further.
He stood with his back to the pine boards of the lintel's inner threshold and his hands flat against the wall on either side of the small punch mark on the inner side of the lintel.
The wall, under his hands, settled.
The settling was the wall's first work in fifteen years of the smith's two centuries of forging at his fortieth year.
The wall, on the inner side, had been forged by the smith for an eighth.
The eighth was Yongzhou.
The eighth was, by the smith's count, the chamber's last seat at the lintel before the chamber's first seat at the bench.
Yongzhou stood at the lintel.
He was, by his own count, the lintel.
The seal of the inner library's office, on the yellow paper square on the punch mark on the underside of the lintel above his head, anchored once at the chamber.
The chamber, in the anchoring, answered.
The answering was the dry sound of the inner library's office's standing seal, in the long dry watch of the third quarter at the third night's twelve-forty, being unmade by the chamber.
The seal unmade.
The unmaking was the seal's banking against the chamber's seal at the lintel.
The two for one breath, did not chord.
The chamber's seal was the larger.
The seal of the inner library's office, on the punch mark, thinned.
In the count of three breaths, the seal peeled off the punch mark.
The peeling was the dry sound of yellow paper, in the long dry watch of the third quarter at the third night's twelve-forty, being separated from cracked iron by a senior of an older order at the chamber's last reading.
The paper, on the punch mark, fell.
It fell at the pine boards inside the lintel.
It lay at Yongzhou's foot.
Yongzhou did not, by the brief pause of one breath, look at the paper.
He looked at Lin Wei on the pine boards three paces from the bench.
He said, in the dry voice of the chamber's lintel at the third night's twelve-forty: "Boy. By the chamber's reading at noon today, the boy is the chamber. The boy's body is the chamber's body. By the chamber's body's read at the body's reading, the body holds the Stillness Posture for the count of nine breaths."
Lin Wei said: "Nine."
Yongzhou said: "Nine."
Lin Wei paused.
He said: "Senior. The Stillness Posture is, by Master Yuan's count at the closet office at the second bell two nights ago, the count of seven."
Yongzhou said: "Yes. Seven is the count of the body in the green outer robe of an outer disciple at three days of practice. Nine is the count of the chamber's body. The body, at the chamber's reading at noon, crossed seven into nine. The crossing is the chamber's gift. The body holds nine."
Lin Wei said: "Nine."
Yongzhou paused.
He said: "The body, at nine, holds the Posture against any reader at the standing protocol of nine. The senior reader of the inner library is, by his office's standing protocol, the count of nine breaths. At nine, the senior reader reads. At the count of nine, the body the senior reader is reading is — by the standing protocol — registered. The registration is, by the standing protocol, the body's first standing in the inner library's office. The standing, by the office's count of two centuries, is — after the body's reading at the chord — the body's protection from the office's cast for the count of one bell. One bell from one-sixteen is two-sixteen. By two-sixteen, the elder of the third sect is at the lintel."
Lin Wei said: "Yes."
Yongzhou paused.
He said: "Boy. By the chamber's gift, the body, after nine, is not at seven. The body, after nine, is — by the chamber's gift's count — no longer at the Stillness Posture. The Stillness Posture is, by Master Yuan's count, the body's old hiding. By the chamber's gift's count, the body is, after nine, at the chamber's hiding."
Lin Wei paused.
He said: "Senior. The chamber's hiding."
Yongzhou said: "The chamber's hiding is, by the chamber's measure of two centuries, the chamber. The body, after nine, is — the chamber."
Lin Wei paused.
He said: "Senior."
He paused.
He said: "I am the chamber. By the chamber's first reading at noon today, I am the chamber. The senior reader, at his ninth breath, reads me at the tone of the chamber. The chamber is the inner library's office's standing protocol's first reading of a chamber in two centuries. The registration is the inner library's first registration of a chamber. The office, by the registration's standing protocol of the office's two centuries of registrations, does not have a folder for a chamber. The office, in not having a folder, files the registration under unread. The registration is unread."
Yongzhou said: "Yes."
Lin Wei said: "By the inner discipline ward's standing record of one hundred and forty years of unread slips, unread bodies are not, by the standing protocol, cast at. I am, at one-sixteen, protected from the office's cast for the count of the office's two centuries of unread registrations. By two centuries, the office has not, in two centuries, cast at an unread body. The office cannot cast at me. Hai cannot cast at me."
Yongzhou said: "Yes."
Lin Wei paused.
He breathed.
He said, in the small still voice: "Senior. Thank you."
Yongzhou said: "Boy."
He paused.
He said: "I am the lintel. I will, in the senior reader's arrival, read the senior reader before the senior reader reads you. The reading, by my count of senior readers' standing protocols, is — at the chamber's lintel — the chamber's read. The senior reader, at the chamber's lintel, cannot, by the chamber's read at the lintel, read into the chamber. The reading by the senior reader will be of the lintel. The lintel reads at the bar of the chamber. The senior reader, at the lintel, reads the chamber. The chamber, at the reading, files at unread."
Lin Wei said: "Yes."
Yongzhou paused.
He said: "Boy. The senior reader does not, in the reading, see you. By the senior reader's reading of the chamber, the body inside the chamber is at the chamber's count. The chamber's count, by the chamber's in standing record of two centuries, is the chamber. You will, by the senior reader's arrival at one-fifteen, be invisible. You will, at the senior reader's reading at one-sixteen, be registered as unread. You will, after one bell after the registration at two-sixteen, be protected from the office's cast for the count of one bell. By one bell after two-sixteen at three-sixteen, the third sect's elder will be at the lintel."
Lin Wei said: "Yes."
Yongzhou paused.
He said: "Boy."
Lin Wei said: "Senior."
Yongzhou said: "The third sect's elder is, by my count of his standing protocol at the cairn flat at noon today, the body that walked up the mountain to the seal of the first chamber. The body, by his standing protocol of his order's reading of the four-breath read he carried at the cairn flat, read the chord-chart in Master Yuan's robe at noon today at the lintel of the first chamber. The body, at the reading, learned the chord. The body, at two o'clock at the smith's shed's lintel, is the body that has, in the count of fourteen hours since the first reading at the cairn flat, been carrying the chord in his rib for fourteen hours."
Lin Wei said: "Fourteen hours."
Yongzhou said: "Fourteen."
Lin Wei paused.
He said: "Senior. Fourteen hours of carrying the chord at the register of a body whose fundamental was, by the chord's read at the chamber's lintel at noon, one bar above the chord's body's fundamental. The body has carried at one bar above for fourteen hours. By meridian shear at one bar above for fourteen hours, the body's meridian shear is in fourteen hours of one bar above's cost. The cost is, by the standing protocol of meridian-shear at one bar above for fourteen hours, the body's fundamental. The body, at two o'clock at the lintel, is — carrying at one bar above the body's fundamental at the cost of the body's fundamental. The body is, by two o'clock, at his fundamental's last breath."
Yongzhou said: "Yes."
Lin Wei paused.
He said: "Senior. The body is casting his fundamental at the cost of the count of fourteen hours. The casting is, after fourteen hours, the body's first cast on the chord. The body has been casting the chord in his rib for fourteen hours since the first reading at noon. The body, at two o'clock, has no fundamental. The body is, at two o'clock, Foundation 0."
Yongzhou said: "Yes."
Lin Wei paused.
He said: "Senior. The third sect's elder, at two o'clock, is Foundation 0. By the line's record of bar-against-bar engagements with a body at Foundation 0, Foundation 0 is the count of an unread body. The elder, at two o'clock, is unread. The elder is, by the inner library's office's standing protocol, the same standing as me. The elder, at two o'clock at the lintel, is not, by the standing protocol, a body cast at by the office or by the chamber or by the line. The elder, at the lintel, is — a body the line does not, by the standing protocol, cast at."
Yongzhou said: "Yes."
Lin Wei paused.
He said: "Senior. Why does the elder come."
Yongzhou paused.
He said: "Boy. By my count at the cairn flat at noon today, the elder of the third sect carries, in his rib, the chord at one bar above his fundamental, at the cost of his fundamental, for fourteen hours. By fourteen hours, the elder is, at two o'clock, the body that has — through fourteen hours of his fundamental's burning at the chord — chosen the chord at the cost of his fundamental. The elder is a body that has chosen the chord. The elder, at two o'clock, comes to the lintel because the chord is at the lintel. The elder comes not as an antagonist. The elder comes as the ninth."
Lin Wei did not move.
The chord, in his rib, deepened a finger.
The deepening was the quiet private thing the chord did when the chord found another body, in another sect, at fourteen hours of the body's burning at the chord one above its own, choosing.
The choosing was, by the smith's reckoning at his fortieth year, the chord's first new member in two centuries.
The chord had been seven, then eight.
The chord, at two o'clock, would be nine.
Tao Lin, on the bench, smiled.
She smiled the choreographer's smile.
She said, in the dry voice of the choreographer at the bench at the third night's twelve forty-five: "Yongzhou. The ninth."
Yongzhou said: "Choreographer. The ninth."
Tao Lin paused.
She said: "By the line's measure of two centuries, the line at nine is the line after three of every standing. Three chord-bodies. Three witnesses. Three masters. By three of every standing, the line is, in the ninth, the line's first complete laying-in two centuries. The line at nine is the line. The line is the chord."
He said: "Yes."
She paused.
She said: "The boy. By the line at nine, the boy is no longer the chord's only body. The chord, by the boy's first cast, is at the bar of nine bodies. By nine bodies' carrying of the chord at the bell's first ringing, the bell's first ringing is at the pitch of nine bodies. By nine bodies' carrying, the bell rings at the bar of nine."
He said: "Yes."
She paused.
She said: "Yongzhou. By one body's bell at the line of nine, the casting at nine is, by the smith's years of forging at his fortieth year, the cast's amplification. The cast amplifies by nine. The cast amplified by nine is, by the smith's tally, the cast's first carry to the four continents. The cast is the broadcast. The broadcast at noon of tomorrow is, at the bar of nine bodies, the broadcast's first amplification. The body the bell rings for is Yuan."
He said: "Yes."
She paused.
She said: "By one body's bell carrying nine bodies' chord at the tone of the body the bell rings for, the body the bell rings for is, at the count, carrying for nine. Yuan, at the bell's first ringing, carries the bell for nine. Yuan, after the bell's first ringing, is — by the smith's year-on-year forging at his fortieth year — the body the broadcast carries."
He said: "Yes."
She paused.
She said: "Yongzhou. By Yuan's body in the bell, Yuan is, in the carrying, alive by the bell's first ringing. By the chamber's pay, Yuan is, at the bell's first ringing, the body that has just stopped breathing. The bell rings for the body one breath after the body's last breath. By the bell's first ringing on the body a breath after the last breath, the body, in the ringing, carries the chord for nine."
He paused.
He said: "Yes."
She paused.
She said: "By Yuan's last breath at the morning bell at seven o'clock, the bell does not, after the morning bell, ring. By the bell's ringing for the body, the bell rings when the body is the chord's body. By Yuan's body, Yuan is the chord's body in the next breath after the line's first complete laying-in. The line's first complete laying-in is, at the ninth's arrival, three-sixteen. The line is laid in at three-sixteen. By Yuan's last breath at seven o'clock, Yuan's last breath is in three hours and forty-four minutes after the line's first complete laying-in. The bell rings after one breath after the line's first complete laying-in at three-sixteen plus three hours and forty-four minutes. The bell rings at seven. The bell rings at the morning bell."
He said: "Yes."
Lin Wei, at the pine boards three paces from the bench, sat with the cracked-iron sword on his lap and the cracked-iron bell in the pocket of his green outer robe and the rib carrying the chord at the bar.
He did not, for one breath after Tao Lin had said the bell rings at the morning bell, move.
He thought, in the small still place under the rib's carry, the second-person voice the copyist year had given him.
You will cast the bell at the morning bell. You will not cast at the noon. You will cast for the master by the master's last breath. You will cast for the line.
He thought it once.
He breathed.
The bell, in the pocket of his green outer robe, banked once at gray-2.
The holding was the bell's check.
The bell was checking him.
He took back.
The bell, in the checking, settled.
The settling was, by his rib's read at the pocket, the bell's first acceptance of the body's read of the bell's first ringing's count.
The count was the morning bell.
Seven hours from now.
The lantern, on the anvil, ticked.
The wick had thinned to two fingers from the lantern's bottom.
Two fingers was, by Tao Lin's count at the bench, thirty minutes to the senior reader's arrival at one-fifteen.
Thirty minutes.
Outside the shed at the south wall of Cloudreed at the third night's twelve forty-five, in the inner courtyard, the bell-tower's bronze bell, on the breath after past the third quarter's noon-and-a-half-and-a-half quarter past the third bell of the night, rang a third time.
The third ringing was, by Lin Wei's rib's read at the pine boards, not the ward's call.
The third ringing was the inner library's array's first broadcast.
The two hundred and forty cultivators of the inner library's standing array, a moment later after the third ringing, heard the chord.
The third sect's elder of the boss tent four hours east, after a single breath after the third ringing, began walking.
The walking, by the great-uncle's count at the bench, was at the chord.
The chord was at the register.
The bar was at nine.
The line was laying in.