Dream d2557-s: Cold and Still Standing

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the seeing had been bad for three nights running and I had noted in the margin each time that the reading was suspect. On the seventh night I put the ledger aside and opened the instrument instead.

Lano settled under the table while I worked. The trouble was in the connection between the outer ring and the reader plate - a loose seating that I had suspected since the fifth night but had not confirmed until I turned the lamp up and saw the gap. I pressed the ring down and held it while the contact reseated, and when I let go, the reading board lit with the full array.

Seven places. All seven now visible.

Three were lit: Cinderfirth, Ivorymere, Nettleness. Their marks held steady in the usual column.

Four were cold: Elderhaven, Glenholt, Mistgarth, Sablegate. Cold was not the same as gone - I had spent part of the previous night writing a note to myself about this distinction, and now I had the answer the Hall had left open. A place gone cold could still be standing. The question was not whether it stood but whether it gave light. None of these four gave light. So: cold.

The two seats were already entered as closures and had been for some time. The Council Hall, where the Convener had presided. The Scriptorium Annex, which had been the Scribe's room. These were not in the seven. The seven were the settlements.

I wrote out the wording for the painter. Not the count alone but the arrangement: three in one column, four in the other, and a line for the date of the reading. I wrote slowly because the painter would copy exactly what I gave her and I did not want a second amendment. Lano came out from under the table and pressed against my leg while I wrote. I kept writing.

When I sent for the painter it was late. She came without complaint, carrying her kit. I gave her the sheet. She read it without speaking, then set her stool against the wall under the roll-board.

Rurik was on the high shelf to the left of the board. He had been there most of the evening, sitting with his eyes half-closed. When the painter uncapped her brush he opened them fully and watched.

She lettered slowly, beginning with the heading and moving down to the columns. When she came to the cold column she paused once, brush lifted, and glanced down at the sheet. Then she continued.

I watched from the table. Lano sat beside me, ears up.

The painter came down from the stool when the board was done. I crossed the room and read what she had written. It was the wording I had given her, set cleanly in the two columns. I told her it was right. She capped the brush and left.

I wrote the date of the repainted board in the ledger. Then I wrote the count. Three lit. Four cold. Two seats closed.

Lano lay down beside the chair. Rurik dropped from the shelf without a sound and disappeared into the dark end of the room. The board dried slowly on the wall.

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