Dream d2466-s: The Line Reserved for Now

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the painter came at night to the Council Hall, and the roll-board gave off a faint smell of old varnish as she lifted her brush.

I stood to one side with the ledger, calling names off in the order they appeared, Lano at my heel. The painter worked from the bottom. Elderhaven went first, covered in two passes. Then Glenholt, then Mistgarth, then Sablegate - all four cold now, all four painted over cleanly, the new layer pale as bone. There was no ceremony. The brush moved.

When the painter reached the Convener's line, Lano stopped in front of it and would not move. Leave it, I said.

The painter dipped her brush and waited.

Leave it exactly as it is, I said. For now.

So the Convener's line stayed, older paint under the new, the name still readable in the lamplight. Around it everything was fresh. The Scriptorium Annex held its place on the board. Cinderfirth was there, and Ivorymere, and Nettleness - all three still lit, though the Hall had stopped being able to see them on the same night the cold places went cold. That was the strange part. Not that the seeing had ever failed before, but that it had failed for all seven at once, the lit and the cold alike. The places had not changed. The Hall had.

The forms on the reading table were still the Scribe's hand. The ledger system was still the Convener's - the columns, the shorthand in the margins, the way the dates ran. Someone had been copying it for months without knowing who made the original. They would go on copying it.

The painter left at the third hour. The Convener's line dried unchanged.

I closed the ledger and did not write a note about the line, and Lano got up from the floor. Some things are held, not recorded.

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