Dream d2553-s: All Seven Out of Reach

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood at the foot of the long table in the ledger room, the third night of ten, and before any mark was made I read the definition aloud.

"A place that is quiet but still standing is counted among the lit. A place gone cold is counted among the cold. The instrument that sees is consulted first, and if the instrument cannot see, the count waits."

Once, and no more. That is the rule.

Lano pressed against my leg, then walked to the far edge of the room and sat facing the window. Rurik had taken the warm spot near the oil burner; he did not stir when I entered, only lay with his amber eyes half-open, watching the door.

The ledger was open. The seven names were already entered in their columns, though unmarked - Cinderfirth, Ivorymere, Nettleness on the left; Elderhaven, Glenholt, Mistgarth, Sablegate on the right. Below them, in a narrower column, the two closed seats: the Convener's, the Scribe's. The Council Hall. The Scriptorium Annex.

I reached for the instrument - the seeing-glass that reads a place's warmth from distance, that we have kept and used since the Hall first took these records. It was dark.

The Recordkeeper crouched at the junction box where the cable ran from the old network routing we had never replaced. The connection was loose - not broken, but loose in the way of something long worked free, giving only now. They were trying to seat it back when the sound came.

Low. A long settling note, like a building releasing held breath. Then a crack, slow and deep.

Lano's ears went flat. She was on her feet before I turned - body rigid, weight forward, a warning bark, one note, sharp.

Rurik lifted his head from the warm spot and did not move from it. He sat up straight, eyes full open, watching the wall.

Through the high window I could see the settlement's oldest quarter: the row of reclaimed structures that had been first built on foundations we did not lay, that came from the network that was here before us. The tall building at the corner of the row - the one we have not yet touched, have been saving for the next season's work - leaned.

Not far. A hand's-width, perhaps less. But it had not leaned this morning.

The cables that crossed from it to the adjacent structure - old network cabling, left in place because the routing still served - hung differently. One had gone slack. Severed somewhere in the wall, or the anchor had shifted with whatever moved underneath.

The Recordkeeper stood and went to the corridor to call for the building warden. I stayed at the window. The building did not move further, not while I watched, but I could not tell from here whether it had stopped or was only pausing.

I went back to the table. The seven names were unmarked. The instrument could not see them, and now there was a reason that ran deeper than a loose connection. The count could not be taken on a reading this uncertain - the definition I had read aloud said so, and I had read it first.

I did not close the ledger. I left it open at the seven names, with the pen resting across the column and no mark made. Through the window the building stood at its new angle in the dark, and the slack cable stirred once in the air coming through the gap in the old foundation wall, and then was still.

Lano sat beside my chair and did not lie down.

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