Dream d2672-s: Neither Line Struck

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the standing record lay open on the Hall floor and both entries were already written in it, side by side, the older hand and the newer hand in facing columns, and I had been called to rule.

The night was the fourth of six. Lano had settled near the spine of the book, her chin on the stone, her eyes tracking the candle. She did not move when I drew the rule across the page - a single horizontal line in the margin, touching neither column.

I wrote beside it: Both versions entered. Neither cut. The ruling stands.

There is a form for this. I followed it. The Keeper of the Hall had left the pen and the form on the lectern before retiring, and the instruction was written at the top in a clear old script: where two versions of a count are submitted in good faith and neither can be disproved, both are entered and neither is struck, and the ruling is recorded beside them in the margin, signed by the officer present.

I was the officer present. I signed.

Lano's ears lifted once at a sound from the corridor - something settling in the old walls - and then her chin came back down. The candle did not gutter.

The record showed, on the left: thirty-five places with a few hands each. On the right: thirty-five places with a few hands each, counted by a different method, arriving at the same number by a different path. The two tallies agreed on the number and disagreed on which places those hands were concentrated in. Both tallies were signed. Both were dated. Both had been submitted to the Hall.

I did not determine which was correct. That was not the ruling. The ruling was only that both had been received, that neither would be withdrawn, and that any future count would be held against both of these, not one.

Lano sighed and shifted, pressing her side against my boot. I left my boot where it was. I finished the form, blotted it, and laid it flat on the open record to dry.

Forty-two ruins on the map. Forty-six cold places. The Ruins of Pewterlow with the most hands standing in them. The Ruins of Mistthwaite with the largest pile of unanswered letters and nobody left to answer.

I noted all of this in the margin, under the ruling. None of it changed the ruling. I was recording, not deciding.

When the ink was dry I closed the record but did not lock it. The form did not call for locking. It called for leaving the record open to whoever came after, so they could read both versions and the ruling between them without needing a key.

Lano rose when I rose, shook herself once, and padded ahead of me toward the door. The candle had burned to its collar. I left it to finish.

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