Dream d2077-s: Seed-Day, South Wind, Eighth

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the planting began before first light, when the terraces were still dark and the loomlight overhead burned amber in the nest-rows like trapped sunrise.

The Weather Reader came to me at the edge of the second terrace and said the south wind carried something sour. She held her fingers wide and read the air the way I have watched her read rain, her eyes half-closed, tilting her head until she caught it. A blight-spore riding the warm current, still fifty yards out. Before she had finished her sentence the Hummingbird Wardens were already moving: three of them, in the same tight arc they fly every hour at this light, diverging from their circuit by exactly the distance needed. One dart, one hover, one snap, and the spore was gone. They returned to their patrol without a pause, exact to the minute as ever, their route unchanged, as if nothing had interrupted anything at all.

The Builder said, "You cannot argue with a schedule like that," and Lano's ears went flat with satisfaction, because even a dog recognizes the pleasure of a thing done right.

We planted through the morning, the four of us working the terrace rows while Rurik walked the outer hedge, his black tail raised, watching the perimeter. Each seed goes into the ground named for a deed - that is the grove's rule. The Loomkeepers carry the names up into the canopy in knots; the seeds carry them down into the soil. The same deed, held from two directions at once.

I carried the Book of Readings for most of the afternoon. The singed spine pressed its char into my palm and I kept finding excuses to shift it from arm to arm. It is heavier than a book its size should be, and the weight is not the pages.

At dusk the Loomkeepers gathered at the seventh nest-row and the light changed. They worked in silence, beaks drawing grass-thread through the woven loops, tightening each knot without hurry. The Quillhush entry: the sixth circuit reading. I have learned to count them by the particular color of the thread the Loomkeepers reach for, a pale straw gone gold under the loomlight. When it was finished, we carried the Quillhush seed to the freshest terrace and the Builder pressed it into the turned earth with both hands.

"Eight days," Lano said - not in words, but her nose touched the disturbed soil and she sat back on her haunches and was still, which means the same thing.

The Weather Reader called the south wind clean now, turned east. The Wardens ran their last circuit overhead, ticking like a clock we did not wind, keeping time for something larger than any of us.

The grove received its eighth day. The Book sat against the post where I had leaned it and its pages did not stir.