Dream d2509-s: None Were Struck

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where Lano walked the lane between the Hall and the Annex just before the light settled into full morning. She had been in the ledger room four nights by then, and the lane felt familiar the way working rooms do after days of use - the same stones, the same cold coming off the walls on either side.

She was not looking for anything. She stopped because the map board at the Hall's exterior corner was still uncovered, and she found herself reading down it by habit.

Seven places. All seven still entered. None struck.

This was not what she had expected. Elderhaven, Glenholt, Mistgarth, Sablegate - all four that had gone cold, that had stopped answering - still listed in the same ink as before. And Cinderfirth, Ivorymere, Nettleness beside them, the three still lit. No one had drawn a line through any of them.

The Convener's seat showed as filled. The Scribe's seat showed as filled.

She had seen the entries for those two offices: the notes were written in the past tense now, filed in the section the clerks used for records of what had been. The offices remained on the map because no one had struck them. Not neglect - the convention. You did not strike a seat until the succession was entered. There had been no succession entered.

A clerk from the records office had told her, on the second night, that what closed was the view from the Hall. On one night all seven had gone unreadable from that side. She had checked the date in the ledger. One night, all seven, the same entry: seeing failed. Not the places. The seeing.

She stood at the end of the lane looking at the seven names.

The Annex could still reach Cinderfirth, Ivorymere, Nettleness - she knew this, had copied the transmissions herself. The four cold places no longer answered anyone, from either building. But none of them were struck from the map.

The dawn was gray and slow. The lane was empty. Both buildings stood on either side of her with their stone faces unchanged.

She went back inside to write it down. Night four of five. The record would say: seven places, none struck, the seeing failed on the side of the Hall.

That was all there was to record.

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