Dream d2032-s: Thin Rain, Forked Road

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the drizzle had been falling since we left the last lamp of Ospreycrossing behind us, and the road had turned from packed stone to something softer, more forgiving underfoot. The city's glow still sat at the horizon when I looked back - a smear of amber and white that refused to go dark.

"She reads well from a distance," the Weather Reader said, not looking back herself. She had her smallest barometer out, the brass one she wore on a cord, and she was watching its needle rather than the sky. "The pressure held steady our whole stay. That's not nothing."

"The joints in the eastern quarter worried me," the Builder said. She walked with her hands in her pockets and her hood drawn up against the rain. "Three buildings leaning on a fourth that wasn't built for the weight. We marked it in the book. Someone there will read the mark eventually, if they choose to."

I had written it down, as she said. The book was in my coat, wrapped in oilcloth, and I could feel its edge against my ribs when I breathed. Ospreycrossing had given us a great deal to record: the bright forums and the humming switchboards, the petitions stacked in the civic hall, the one dark district where the lamps had been let go dim and the residents were managing without complaint. We had stayed our several nights, walked the circuits, done our small mending. It was not ours to stay longer.

Lano trotted at the edge of the road, nose low, tracking something the drizzle was carrying. Her ears were up. When the road curved she did not wait for us but went ahead, checked back, went ahead again.

Rurik had ranged further. I could see him where the road forked - one branch continuing into the dark ahead, one turning away toward low farmland and distant hedgerows. He sat at the fork and watched us approach. His amber eyes caught nothing this far from any lamp, but I knew they were there.

"Embercroft," I said, when we reached him.

He blinked once and turned down the left branch.

We made camp where the verge was wide enough and the ditch drained away from us. The Builder set the tarp low against the drizzle. The Weather Reader opened her tall instrument case and took a reading, and I watched her write a number in her own log with the focused care she gave everything.

Lano circled once and curled against my knees.

Embercroft was still out of sight. It was small, the reports said - a hamlet, quiet, perhaps going quieter. I didn't know yet what the reading would ask of us there.

I wrote the date at the top of a clean page and left the rest empty, and listened to the rain come down on the road.