Dream d1798-s: West Wind at the Threshold

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the last morning at Brackensquare came in sideways, the west wind driving cloud-shadow across the cobbles in long grey sweeps. I rose before the others and stood in the yard of the guesthouse with the book of readings open on the stone ledge, adding the final entry while the ink was still cold enough to slow the nib.

Rurik had already gone to the gate. I could see him from across the yard, sitting on the top step of the gatehouse stair, tail wrapped around his paws, watching the road that stretched out beyond the arch. He had that look he gets near departures - not impatient, only attentive, as though the road had said something to him that we had not yet heard.

The Builder came down with her pack and stood beside me while I wrote. She did not read over my shoulder but she waited until I lifted the pen before she said anything.

"I want to add one thing," she said. "The north parapet. That wall has thirty more years in it if they mind the capstone on the third merlon from the corner. I told the Bridgekeeper last night but it should be in the book."

I wrote it in. She watched the ink settle and gave a single nod, satisfied, as though the wall itself had now been told.

The Weather Reader joined us with her instruments already packed but the small barometer still out, hanging from its strap around her wrist. She tapped the glass once and said the pressure was rising, which meant the west wind would hold through the morning and give us a dry road. Lano circled her feet and then came to sit on my boot, nose lifted into the wind, ears flattened slightly by the gust.

"Quieta," I said to her, which was not really a command. She already was.

The Bridgekeeper himself came out to see us off, no ceremony, just a hand extended and then the same hand resting briefly on the book I still held. He did not ask to read what we had written. That is the compact - the reading belongs to the party, the light that may come from it belongs to the place.

We passed through the arch in single file. Rurik went first, dropping from the stair to the road without looking back. I looked back once. Banners above the gate stirred and snapped in the wind. The town looked as it had looked when we arrived, which is not the same as saying nothing had changed.

The road ahead was pale in the early light, curving out of sight behind a low ridge. We followed Rurik into the curve and Brackensquare went behind the hill, and then it was only the sound of our boots and the wind and Lano trotting at the edge of the road where the grass began.