Dream d2050-s: The Unlit Rim

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the fog came in low off the scrubland and Larkhush appeared through it like a diagram rather than a settlement - its halls spaced at regular intervals, its perimeter wall still standing, the banners on the corner posts stirring faintly with no enthusiasm. The lights were out. All of them. Not dark from the hour; dark from longer than that.

"Reads orderly," the Builder said, stopping beside me on the approach slope. She had her hand up shading her eyes from nothing in particular - a habit of looking. "The spacing on those halls is deliberate. Someone planned this."

Lano had already moved ahead of us, trotting through the wet grass with her nose low, reading the ground in her own way. She paused at a stone marker half-swallowed by scrub, sniffed it twice, then continued without barking.

The Weather Reader set down her case and unlocked the barometer. The needle held lower than I expected for the hour. She made a mark in her log but said nothing yet. When she has nothing to report, she saves it.

We entered through the main gap in the wall - the gate had not fallen, only swung open long ago and settled into the ground on its hinges. Rurik went first, as he always does at thresholds. He stopped in the center of the gap and sat, studying the courtyard ahead with the particular amber stillness that means he is measuring a place's character rather than any specific feature of it. We waited. After a moment he rose and walked through, and we followed.

Inside, Larkhush held its proportions better than most ruins we had read. The hall rooflines were intact. A cistern in the center yard still held water - clean water, from the look of it. The Builder crouched to check the flagstone joins near the cistern base and exhaled slowly.

"Built for keeping, not visiting," she said. "This was not a waystation."

Lano found a sheltered corner away from the breeze and circled twice before settling - tranquila, that particular patience she saves for places she has decided are safe.

I opened the book of readings to a fresh page and wrote: Larkhush. Lights out. Walls standing. The spacing is deliberate.

Then I closed it. That was enough for the first evening. The reading proper would wait for morning.

Rurik marked the threshold of our room with one slow pass of his cheek to the door frame, and we settled in with the fog sitting quietly outside and the dark halls arranged exactly as they had always been.