The Sword Pouch

**Lanruo Temple Night Watch · Night of the 18th, 9th month**

(Night. One lamp. The bolt drawn. Tonight, I do not intend to sleep.)

Last night the voice behind the hall called all night long. "Xiao — qian——" — three words, called up from beneath the earth one by one, until it stopped late in the night. I did not sleep, nor did I rise. I lay and counted that voice — it called eleven times. The last time, the sound broke off, as if someone had seized it by the throat.

This morning, I went to the east wing.

Yan Chixia's door was open. In all my days in this temple, this was the first time I had seen his door open in broad daylight. He sat in the doorway, a sword across his knees, whetting it.

I walked over and stood watching. He did not look up: "Did you sleep well last night?"

"Well."

"Good, then."

He whetted the sword, not looking at me. The blade was black, like iron that had been burned, and each stroke on the stone raised a film of ash. He whetted it very slowly — one stroke, then a pause, as if afraid of startling something. I watched a while and asked: "This sword — is it for your protection?"

"Yes."

"Against whom?"

He stopped his hand, glanced up at me once, and bent to the stone again: "Against what should be guarded against."

"How many years has this sword been whetted?"

"I do not remember."

"A sword has years?"

"A man has years," he said. "Why should a sword not." He finished one side, turned the blade, and whetted the other. The water on the stone was black. The daylight lay on his hands — the knuckles coarse, the nails cut short, the hands of one used to a weapon. I stood a while and asked again: "Last night, there was a sound behind the hall. Did you hear it?"

"I heard it."

"What was it?"

He whetted the sword and did not answer. After a good while he said: "You need not know."

There it was again. In all my days in this temple I have heard him say many things — "this temple is unclean," "if you sleep well, all is well," "once the door is opened, it is not easily closed." But this one sentence he says most of all.

"You need not know."

I stood in the doorway, watching him whet the sword. The daylight fell on the blade, a black gleam, one flash, one flash. I felt suddenly that the sword was alive — that it was waiting for something.