Dream d2468-s: What the Lamps Still Know

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where a small white dog sat on the lowest step before anyone else arrived, and she did not move when the lamps were lit one by one along the approach.

The Convener came out first, as was his office, and stood at the top of the steps with a list that had seven entries - not names of people but names of places. He did not read them aloud. He folded the list and held it.

Others came in the cold. The Scribe carried nothing, which was unusual. A clerk from the lower rooms brought a stool and set it aside without sitting on it.

What had happened was this: on the same night, without pattern, all seven places had gone dark to the Hall's sight. Not one after another, which would have suggested weather or a gap in the road. All seven, at the same hour. The seeing had failed, not the places - this was agreed without anyone explaining how it was agreed.

Cinderfirth had not answered in four days. Ivorymere had gone quiet two nights before that. Nettleness, still lit on the map, had sent nothing since the month turned. The other four - Elderhaven, Glenholt, Mistgarth, Sablegate - had been dark longer, and the list was older there.

The Scribe said the Scriptorium Annex held correspondence going back far enough to show what the places had once been and what had been carried on there. The records were the Student's work, she said. Past tense, without further remark. The Convener nodded once.

What the Hall agreed to, slowly and with little argument, was to send a walker. One person, no office attached, no mandate beyond returning with a plain account of what was visible. Nobody called it an inquiry. A walk was the word that was not said but was understood. A looking. A return with notes.

Lano sat on the step throughout. When a wind off the hill made the lamps gutter, she lifted her head and watched them settle back. When they did, she lowered it again.

The clerk folded the stool under one arm and went inside. The Scribe left to find the records. The Convener stood a moment longer at the top of the steps, looking not at the map but at the dark between the lamps, where the places should have shown, on another night, before the seeing stopped.

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