Dream d2551-s: Ink Settles the Year

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the ledger room was narrow and the shelves rose to where the light did not reach, and I sat at the long table with the book open before me and a straight-edge waiting. Lano was already there, curled beneath the table, her nose on her paws, her breathing slow and even. She did not stir when I drew the lamp closer. She stirred only when Rurik came in through the gap in the door-frame, and then she lifted her head and watched him cross to the far shelf, where he found a ledge between two bound volumes and settled himself there, blinking once, tail looped over the edge.

The instrument for reading the seven places was not working. I had known this for some time without naming it plainly, and naming it plainly was the first work of the night. The mechanism by which the places reported themselves - the measure by which the Hall knew a place was lit or cold or merely silent - had given a bad reading on the last count, and a count taken on a bad reading cannot stand. I set the instrument on the table beside the book and worked through it by its parts: the register arm, the calibration notch, the contact points. Two of the contact points had fouled. I cleaned them. I reset the notch. Lano padded out from under the table and pressed her side against my leg for a moment, then went back beneath it. Rurik did not move from his ledge.

When the instrument was clean I held it still and counted to seven without moving my lips. The register arm settled. That was enough.

The column was the second work. I had carried the question through the last phase without an answer: where in the book does a place that is quiet but still standing belong? Not among the lit ones - Cinderfirth, Ivorymere, Nettleness, each of which had returned a reading before the instrument failed. Not among the cold ones - Elderhaven, Glenholt, Mistgarth, Sablegate, where the instrument had returned nothing, not even interference, only the particular flatness that means a place has gone. A place standing silent is a third thing, and a third thing requires its own column.

I took the straight-edge. I took the pen. I ruled the line - one stroke, left to right, parallel to the columns already standing - and where the ink dried the question dried with it. The column had no entries yet. It had a heading: STANDING, UNREAD. I wrote the heading in the same hand as all the other headings and closed the book.

Lano emerged again when I capped the pen. She sniffed the edge of the table, found nothing of note, and sat looking up at me. I looked back. Rurik's amber eyes had not moved from the lamp flame.

The seven places were all of them unreadable tonight - the instrument corrected but the distances still closing off in the dark. I wrote that in the column for remarks, in smaller characters: SEVEN PLACES, INSTRUMENT CORRECTED, FIRST READING DEFERRED. Then I straightened the book and set the straight-edge beside it.

Lano had gone back under the table. Rurik had not moved. The shelves held their shapes in the near-dark, and the new column stood dry on the page.

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