Dream d2614-s: Cold Is Not Age

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where we walked the road between Pewterlow Town and the Ruins of Sableholt as the light went flat and orange, and the Recorder walked beside me with the ledger tucked under one arm.

Lano moved ahead on the road, then doubled back, then pressed against my leg for a moment before moving forward again. Rurik had taken the ditch to our left and was picking his way through the dry grass at his own pace, amber eyes forward.

The Recorder said: forty-seven cold, forty-three ruined. Are those the same count?

I said: no. They are not the same count.

The Ruins of Sableholt rose ahead of us in the last of the light, its walls still holding warmth from the day, the stone slow to release what the sun had given it. Old, but not cold, not tonight. The Ruins of Frosting were different - I had walked them and they were cold even in the afternoon, the kind of cold that lives in the ground and does not leave when the season turns. Cold is a condition. Age is a measurement. You cannot subtract one from the other.

The Recorder made a mark in the ledger. Pewterlow Town behind us still showed lit windows, but they were few. Most of the town was dark by occupation, not by ruin. That was the column we had cut to fit seven last phase and were now carrying outward: neither running nor gone. Neither lit nor fallen. The column had no word of praise in it and no condemnation. It was a third measurement, set between the other two.

Lano sat down in the road and looked back the way we had come. Rurik came up from the ditch and stopped at the edge of the road. I looked at both of them. Then I looked back at Pewterlow Town and wrote the number in the margin. Then I looked ahead to Sableholt and wrote what it was: ruined, not cold, left in uncertain order. The Recorder countered it against the running tally.

Forty-three places ruined. Forty-seven cold. Forty-one left in good order. Three not. The lit cities lit. The rest: some dark by damage, some dark by departure, some dark by the slow drawing-in of things that once were open.

We were not here to say which was worse. We were here to say which was which.

Lano rose, shook herself, and walked on toward Sableholt. Rurik followed at a different angle. The Recorder and I followed last, and the light finished going and the night came in flat and still over the road.

---