Dream d2620-s: Answered to the Edge

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the map room held its own quiet and every mark on the wall waited for what I had come to bring it.

The column question was simple: does the place sit in neither column, the running one nor the gone one? That was what the last phase had cut a space for. Seven places had answered it. Fifty-eight more were left.

I worked down the list. Lano moved when I moved and sat when I stopped; the only sound in the room was the pen.

The lit cities went first - Emberford, Frostridge, Osierlow, Willowholt, Willowhythe. These five answered the running column without dispute. I marked each one and moved down.

The ruins gave easier answers. Frosting, Mossness, Zephyrden had not been left in good order, and the gone-column held them. Mistthwaite carried the largest pile of unanswered letters in the world; the letters did not change what the place was. Gone. I wrote it.

Then Eldergate Town, the one with unfinished roads, and here the column question had weight. The roads were present. Work had begun and had not ended. The town was not gone. It was not running. I wrote the mark in the new column and let the pen rest a moment before moving on.

Down through the cold places: forty-seven by the full count, and most of them took their answers easily. A few held in the same suspension as Eldergate - present without moving, not ended, not arriving. The column held for each of those too.

By the time the wall ran out, every mark had something beside it. I read the column from top to bottom. The number was larger than seven now.

Then I ruled the second mark. Not for a new kind of place - the first column had shown what it needed to show. The second was for what comes after: a space to the right of the first, blank, the ruler lifted away and the pen capped. Not yet used.

Lano raised her head once, then put it down again. The room stayed still.

---