Dream d2554-s: The Fourth Mark

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the ledger room was cold by the time I lifted the chalk. It was the fourth night of the residency, and the slate had three marks already, and the fourth was mine to make tonight. I set the chalk against the stone and drew a vertical line, then stepped back. Lano pressed against my leg, warm, her breath slow. Rurik sat on the high shelf above the slate, watching.

The four names were already written in the column beside the marks. Elderhaven. Glenholt. Mistgarth. Sablegate. Cold, standing, dated, present. That was what the count required: not whether anyone remained inside them, but whether the walls still held and the roof had not come down. All four had that, at last verified reading. But that was last season.

Tonight the instrument had given me nothing. Every recorded location was outside its reach, or it was outside theirs. I did not know which. The line of sight that normally carried the readings had not closed at the appointed hour. The parchment in the collection slot was bare.

So I had done what the count permits when the reading fails: I carried forward the last verified observation, dated it, marked it secondary, and set it in the column. Four marks. Four forward-carries. The chalk was dry and left a clean line.

Lano moved to the door and sniffed at the gap beneath it. Rurik's tail flicked once, slowly. I set the chalk on the ledge and looked at the slate. The four marks were not a conclusion. They were a record of what the instrument had last seen, held open until I could repair the seeing. Secondary marks. Honest marks.

The other three, Cinderfirth, Ivorymere, Nettleness, were in the column but unmarked. Still lit, or reportedly so. I left their rows blank. Blank was not the same as absent. Blank meant the reading had not come.

I wrote in the margin: instrument repair, morning. Then I set the pen down. The two closed seats, the Convener's and the Scribe's, had no column at all. They were entered on a separate sheet, settled. I did not open that sheet tonight.

Lano came back from the door and lay down at my feet, and the room was quiet.

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