Dream d2531-s: The Road at First Light

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the walker left the tower before the sky had agreed on its color, and the instrument carried on their back - newly mended, each joint re-seated, the lens cleared of what had clouded it - gave off a faint warmth through the canvas that held it.

Seven places were on the ledger. Three were still lit: Cinderfirth, Ivorymere, Nettleness. Four had gone cold: Elderhaven, Glenholt, Mistfarth, Sablegate. The two offices - the Council Hall and the Scriptorium Annex - had been entered in their own column, which was a different matter from a place going cold. Closed was closed. The column held it without remark.

The failure before had been in the seeing. The instrument could not read from the Hall, and a count taken on a broken instrument was worse than no count at all - it produced a number and called it fact. So the first work had been repair, and the repair was now done, and tonight whatever was found could be sent back the same night.

Lano walked alongside while I carried the ledger open at the correct page. The road was empty. The tower shrank behind them the way towers do when you do not look back.

Elderhaven was the first of the four cold houses. The subject was not what had made it cold. The subject was only whether the instrument could take a reading, and whether that reading matched what the ledger already held. If it did, the entry would be confirmed and returned before the candles in the Hall burned down. If it did not, that too would be written - only the figure, and the date, and the name of the place, in the column that asked for nothing more.

The road ahead was long and the night was clear and the mended sight was warm against its canvas, ready to be used.

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