Dream d2000-s: Roots Below the Cartway

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the fog had not lifted by mid-morning, and Ospreycrossing moved through it anyway.

I had been awake since before light, watching the cart-tracks from the upper window of the hall where we'd taken lodging. Fresh ruts in every road into the settlement - not last week's, not last season's. Days old at most, pressed deep by heavy loads. I wrote that down and went to find the others.

The Builder was already at the testing ground on the eastern edge, pacing it off with her boot-lengths. Lano trotted beside her, nose low, reading the packed earth in her own way. When I came up alongside, the Builder stopped and planted her foot in a particular depression.

"Measured distances," she said. "Someone's been working this ground to a plan, not by habit. See how the stakes are set? Regular interval. Not a drover's field."

I looked where she pointed. The stakes were new-cut, pale wood, and the targets at the far end were freshly patched. Lano sat and watched them with her ears canted forward, some distant sound pulling at her attention. We stood there a moment listening. Hammers. Still, even now, at this hour. Coming from the north end of the settlement.

We found the Weather Reader at a corner where three roads met, her barometric instrument out and uncased. She was frowning at it in a way I had learned meant something, not instrument trouble.

"The pressure shifted overnight," she said, not looking up. "Not weather. Something changed here. The air in this part of the city carries differently than it did three days ago."

"The building work," I offered.

"Maybe." She cased the instrument. "Or what the building work is making room for."

That was the snag. What had looked yesterday like ordinary industry - carts, timber, the sounds of construction - had roots we hadn't traced. I opened the book and read back what we'd written on the first day of residency. The picture the notes made was different now, read in this light.

The Builder came to look over my shoulder. "Fault's not in the joint," she said quietly. "It's in what the joint is carrying."

Lano pressed her flank against my leg. I put my hand on her head and felt her warmth through the fog. Rurik appeared from between two buildings and sat at the edge of the cartway, watching the northern road where the hammers were. He did not move toward it. He waited, amber eyes steady, the way he waits when he thinks the road will open itself.

We had two days left in Ospreycrossing. We were going to need them.