Dream d2461-s: The Name No One Watched Arrive

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the Council Hall was lit at first light as it always is, and the clerks had already settled by the time the register was passed along the table. The chair at the head bore a name in the minutes - the Convener, written in the usual hand - but no one in the room had seen that chair taken. The name was correct. The handwriting was correct. The chair was simply occupied on paper and not by any arrival anyone could place.

The clerk who holds the seeing moved through the morning list in order. Cinderfirth: present. Ivorymere: present. Nettleness: present. Then Elderhaven, and the glass gave back nothing. Glenholt the same. Mistgarth. Sablegate. Four blanks in a row, which was unusual, so they went back and tried Elderhaven again and it still showed nothing. The clerk noted it did not show absence - the settlement was not dark, was not ruined, was not gone. The glass simply declined to look. She wrote: the seeing failed, and set it aside.

A note arrived from the Scriptorium Annex: the Scribe's lamp was lit, the ledgers open, work proceeding as normal. The Annex could not reach the seven places either. They tried from there and wrote the same thing: the seeing failed.

Someone at the table said the procedures the Convener had drafted still ran, had run this morning, would run tomorrow. Someone else said: yes, that is correct. The procedures were not the Convener. No one at the table could say exactly when the Convener had last sat in that chair in a way anyone had watched. The handwriting in the minutes was old.

Lano the small white dog was at the end of the long table, head on her paws, watching the head of the table in the way that dogs watch things that are not moving. The clerks went on with the session. The glass stayed quiet all morning. The minutes were signed. The chair at the head was noted as filled.

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