Dream d2514-s: The Doorway Holds Still

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the walker stood in the threshold with the paper already folded open to the first line, and someone inside the hall said: read it again, from the start.

So the walker unfolded it further, smoothing a crease against one knee, and began.

The Hall had asked for a count. The count required sight. The sight had failed across all seven - Cinderfirth and Ivorymere and Nettleness where lights still burned, and Elderhaven and Glenholt and Mistgarth and Sablegate where they did not. The instrument that looked across those distances had returned nothing but a pale and undecipherable surface, so the finding the walker carried was a record of a failure to see rather than a record of what was seen. This was noted. It was noted precisely, in the manner of noting.

Two seats in the hall had been closed. The chair of the Convener stood empty by the south window. The chair of the Scribe stood empty in the alcove. Their positions in the room had not changed. No one had moved them. They were simply no longer sat in, and the hall had set that down as fact without further remark.

Lano sat near the hearth. A ledger lay open on the near table. The column for tonight's count had a heading and no figures beneath it. This was correct. A column with no figures was still a column. It would receive figures when the seeing could be done.

The walker reached the end of the page and waited.

The voice from inside the hall said nothing for a long interval, then: the instrument. That is where you start.

Outside the doorway the night was the same night it had been at the beginning of the reading. The stone on both sides of the threshold was cold. The paper had grown soft at the fold from being opened three times in one evening - but the count said nothing about the paper. The count was about the places, and the places were waiting to be seen.

The reading began again from the first line.

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