Dream d2637-s: First Returns by Hall Window

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the returns table stood by the hall window, and the window was dark, and outside it was darker still. The lamp on the table made a small circle. I sat behind the circle and waited.

The courier came in from the east passage at the third hour. She set a packet on the table and named the place it came from: a settlement in the middle ground, one of the thirty-five with only a few hands still working in it. The mark on the outer sheet was in a hand I did not recognize, which was correct. The hands that returned marks were not the hands that had first taken the count.

Lano padded in at the courier's heels and settled under the table. I heard her lie down. Rurik came later and took the warm spot on the high shelf above the register, where he sat with his paws tucked and watched the lamp.

I opened the packet. Three sheets, folded once. The first two carried place-marks in ink, each one a short column: the settlement name in the header, a count below it, a date below the count, and below the date a name of office. Not a person's name. An office. I copied both columns into the register.

The third sheet was different. It carried two marks, but one of them was crossed out, and below the crossed-out mark a note had been added in smaller letters: this mark was made in error; the correct count is the second. I copied the second mark. I did not copy the note.

The courier waited while I worked. When I finished I told her the receipt number and she wrote it on her own record. Then she left.

Lano's tail moved once against the floor.

The register held two settlements now. There were sixty-three still to come, though not all of them would come. Twenty-seven of the places had nobody left to send anything, and the largest pile of unanswered letters in the whole count sat at the Ruins of Mistthwaite, growing taller in the dark by no one's hand.

I wrote the date at the top of the page. Night one of eight. The lamp held.

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