Dream d2759-s: Yarrowgarth Undrawn

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the Osierthwaite yard had three broken walls running to different angles and the fourth direction was the sky. The sheet came out folded and I spread it on the flat stone near the center of the yard, where the flagging had not heaved. There was no wind and nothing needed weighting. Lano circled once and lay to the left, her nose at the edge of the vellum.

The drawn country holds sixty-five places. Nine of them carry a mark that means a light is present. I read from the head of the first column to the foot of the last. The final name on the drawn country is Merricroft Cistern.

Lano's ear moved once. I read the name a second time without adding anything.

The hands that carry this sheet also carry two hundred and seventy-six places in all. A hundred and seventy-one of them have never appeared on any sheet. Fifty-eight of the undrawn were worked in the last thirty days. I knew this from the walkers' records, which are a separate document, and which I had read earlier in the residency.

In the ground running beyond the drawn country's edge, fifty-eight places are walked on this round. Twenty-seven of them are alight. That proportion does not appear on the sheet. The sheet carries what it carries.

Across the drawn country, seven marks indicate ground no reader can now visit. Whether that ground is gone, blocked, or was described from a source that could not hold, I cannot say. The marks remain. They were honest when they were drawn.

Rurik came through the low gap in the east wall without sound and found the warm corner of the stone and sat. He did not look at the vellum. He looked toward the dark at the north wall and held still.

The newest place in the undrawn ground is Yarrowgarth. It has been standing one day. No mark exists for it anywhere.

I folded the sheet in quarters. The Osierthwaite yard held its place in the dark, which is the drawn country for two nights more.

Lano rose when I rose.

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