Dream d2752-s: The Ford Below the Sheet

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood at the near bank with the drawn sheet open, and the sheet showed the river, and the sheet showed both banks, and the sheet showed nothing between them. The ford was not marked. I folded the sheet and put it away.

The water ran pale and shallow over flat stone. Midday light came straight down and showed the bottom clearly: grey slate, river-smoothed, close-fitted the way no mason fits stone, only water and long time. Lano had already gone in. She waded to mid-crossing and stood there, nose working the downstream air, white fur darkening at the belly. She did not look back.

I stepped in. The water came to mid-shin. Cold, clean, moving without urgency. I worked the staff along the bottom as I crossed, feeling for soft ground, for drop, for the edge of the shelf. There was none. The ford was stone all the way and the bottom did not change by more than a hand-span from bank to bank.

Rurik had found a flat boulder on the far side that the water just missed. He sat on it with his tail over his paws and watched me come. He blinked once when I stepped out.

I took out the ruled sheet I carry for new ground. Twelve staff-lengths across. Depth at shallowest: shin-high on a tall figure. Bottom: grey slate, natural, bearing no cut or mark. Water running southwest. No name for it on anything I carried, so I gave it no name. I ruled the line for the river, the double-tick for a ford, depth in the margin, bottom material beside it, direction of flow. I dated the entry and put it away.

Lano came out shaking water from her ears. She sneezed once, put her nose to the ground, and began working upstream along the bank. Mira, she did not say: she only looked back once with her ears tilted, then continued.

I looked back. The near bank was behind me now and the country ahead had no sheet at all. The ford was the first thing on it.

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