73: The Cell

The third corridor's fourth cell was small.

It was perhaps four paces by three. The walls were plain pale-yellow plaster that had darkened in the years of disuse to the color of weak tea. The floor was wood. The ceiling was low. There was a small careful preceding small private narrow bench against the eastern wall, a small careful preceding small private wooden basin on the floor near the door, and — at the western wall — a small careful preceding small private writing-table that the Hollow Veil's preceding small private regional protocol had, by every standing record, provided to its longer-term subjects.

The careful preceding small private writing-table was empty.

But the substrate-sight — at its working calibration — *read* the small careful preceding preceding small private *traces* of what had been there.

Su Yan stood at the cell's threshold.

He inhaled, slowly.

He let the silver-gold lattice in his chest *open*, very gently, into the cell's preceding small private interior substrate.

The cell — by the careful preceding small private hour of three years of careful preceding small private decay since the facility's preceding small private abandonment — *carried*.

It carried his mother's preceding small private substrate-trace at the bench. Her form had pressed there, by Su Yan's careful preceding small private read of the substrate-decay pattern, for perhaps four hours per day, every day, for the seven months she had been held. She had sat there reading — the bench had not been a sleeping bench; it had been a reading bench. The careful preceding small private substrate-trace at the bench's western end was *strongest*, where she had laid her hand on the wood while reading in the small careful preceding small private dim of the lantern she had been allowed.

It carried her preceding small private substrate-trace at the writing-table. She had *written*, by the careful preceding small private hour of the substrate-decay pattern, for perhaps two hours per day. The writing-table's surface — by the careful preceding small private hour of the substrate-sight — registered the careful preceding small private *outlines* of what she had written. Not the words. The substrate-trace was not capable of preserving the careful preceding small private words. But the careful preceding small private *quantity* of her writing — by the small careful preceding small private hour of the substrate-decay pattern — was, by Su Yan's careful read, *substantial*. She had written, in seven months, perhaps *six hundred pages*.

Six hundred pages.

The Hollow Veil's preceding small private regional protocol had, by its own preceding small private bookkeeping, *taken* every page.

The pages were — by the careful preceding small private hour of every standing record — *not* at this facility. They had been *transferred* with her to the eastern continent's central facility, where the Veil's preceding small private central archive had — by Wei Mingfan's preceding small private quarterly file — kept a meticulous record of *Subject Aleph-One's preceding small private writing output*.

Six hundred pages from this facility's preceding small private seven months. By Wei Mingfan's preceding small private most recent quarterly file, *eleven thousand four hundred pages from the central facility's preceding small private nine years and five months*.

His mother had, in her ten preceding small private years of captivity, *written twelve thousand pages*.

Su Yan held very still.

He had not, by his careful preceding small private bookkeeping, calculated that figure before. He had known the careful preceding small private outline. He had not — until the cell's preceding small private substrate-sight read — calibrated the careful preceding small private *volume*.

She had been busy.

She had been busy because she had — by the careful preceding small private hour of her own preceding small private preference, by the careful preceding small private hour of ten years of preceding small private patient careful preceding waiting for her son to come find her — *prepared* him.

He inhaled.

He inclined his head, in the dim of the cell, in the direction of the bench.

"Mother."

The cell did not, by any of its preceding small private substrate, *register* the address.

But the careful preceding small private *substrate-trace* at the bench — by Sebastian Yan's careful preceding small private read — *settled*, very small, by the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding small private son's preceding address, in the small careful preceding small private precise unhurried preceding way an old letter that had been preceding-time waiting for nine years to be read settled when its addressee at last unfolded it.

Linglong, at his side, inclined her head.

"Sister-brother. By my own preceding read, the careful preceding small private trace will, by the careful preceding small private hour of the substrate-anchor stones' preceding small private resonance pattern, be — *gathered now*. The trace's preceding small private decay rate is, by my read, *increasing* with each careful preceding small private year. By the careful preceding small private hour of one further year, the trace will be — *no longer gatherable* by any preceding small private calibration."

Su Yan inclined his head.

He drew, from the inner pocket of his outer robe, the small lacquered traveling-case Master Qing had — by the careful preceding small private hour of three quarterly meals — *given* him three substrate-anchor stones from. The case held the three. He set it on the floor of the cell, beside the bench. He opened it.

The three stones — by the careful preceding small private hour of being out of his preceding small private inner pocket — *resonated* with the careful preceding small private substrate-traces of the cell.

They glowed, faintly, in the dim of the lantern Linglong had — by her preceding preference — quietly lit at the cell's threshold.

Su Yan knelt beside the bench.

He laid his right hand on the bench's western end, where his mother's preceding small private substrate-trace was strongest.

He let the careful preceding small private lattice in his chest *open*, very gently, into the bench's preceding small private substrate.

He let the three stones — by their preceding small private resonance pattern, by Master Qing's preceding small private second-meal teaching — *call* the trace, very gently, by the small careful preceding small private hour of one substrate-anchor pair's preceding small private gathering protocol.

The trace — by the careful preceding small private hour of the call — *moved*.

It moved slowly. It moved in the careful preceding small private patient unhurried way of a substrate that had been — by the careful preceding small private hour of three years of decay — *almost* lost, and which was now, by the small careful preceding small private hour of one substrate-anchor pair's preceding small private call, *gathered*.

It settled, in the count of perhaps three minutes, into the three stones at the open lacquered case.

The stones — by the careful preceding small private hour of the trace's preceding small private settling — *brightened*. They no longer glowed faintly; they glowed — by Linglong's careful preceding small private read — *steadily*, in the small careful preceding small private precise unhurried preceding pattern of three substrate-anchor stones that had — by the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding small private resonance gathering — *received* a small careful preceding small private substrate-trace of *exactly* the careful preceding small private signature the seventh book of his mother's preceding small private cellar set had calibrated for.

The careful preceding small private gathering had, by the small careful preceding small private hour of three minutes, *succeeded*.

Su Yan rose, slowly, from his knees.

He gathered the three stones into the lacquered case. He closed the case. He returned the case to the inner pocket of his outer robe.

He moved, at his unhurried pace, to the writing-table.

He laid his right hand on the writing-table's surface.

He repeated the careful preceding small private hour of the gathering.

The writing-table's preceding small private substrate-trace — by the careful preceding small private hour of the call — *also* moved. It settled, in the count of perhaps two minutes, into the three stones. The stones brightened *further*. They were now, by Linglong's preceding small private read, glowing in the small careful preceding small private precise unhurried preceding pattern of *substrate-anchor stones at the careful preceding small private hour of fifty percent calibration completion*.

Half done.

The remaining fifty percent — by the careful preceding small private hour of Master Qing's preceding small private second-meal teaching — would be — *gathered*, by the careful preceding small private remaining four substrate-anchor stones, at the careful preceding small private central facility on the eastern continent's central plain, by the careful preceding small private hour of one preceding small private *teleport*, in seventeen months and ten days.

Su Yan inhaled.

He inclined his head, in the cell's preceding small private dim.

"Linglong."

"Sister-brother."

"We have what we came for."

"Yes."

The two of them moved, at their unhurried paces, out of the cell, back through the third corridor, back to the western door's preceding small private threshold.

Linglong opened the door.

They stepped out.

The substrate-cloak's western face flickered. Linglong, on the threshold's outside, *closed* the door behind them — by the same small careful preceding small private hand-method she had used to open it.

The door sealed.

The cloak settled back into its preceding small private dormant baseline.

Su Yan stood at the cloak's western perimeter for a long count.

In his chest, the ember pulsed — slow, considered, *gentle* — and the dry voice, very quietly, said: *Half. The careful preceding small private hour of the second half is, by my preceding read, the careful preceding small private hour of the extraction itself.*

Su Yan inclined his head, in the preceding small private moonlight of the south-eastern foothills' careful preceding small private autumn night, in the direction of the ember.

He turned, at his unhurried pace, and walked — with Linglong at his side — back across the three hundred paces of preceding small private moonlit ravine to the careful preceding small private rendezvous with Master Mu and Hua Lin, where their horses waited and the careful preceding small private journey home would, by the small careful preceding small private hour of seven days, return them to the eastern wing of the eighth district of Cloud Sky City of the kingdom of Beicang.

The careful preceding small private hour of the City of the Voiceless — by the small careful preceding small private hour of one autumn night's preceding small private gathering — had, by the careful preceding small private precise unhurried preceding hour, *closed*.

The careful preceding small private hour of the eastern continent's central facility — by the small careful preceding small private bookkeeping of seventeen months and ten days from this preceding small private autumn night — had, by the small careful preceding small private hour, *opened*.