Dream d2871-s: Nine Hundred and Fifteen

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I was in a cellar at a long bench with a single lamp drawn close to the wood, and the medals were spread out in front of me in nine rows, one row for each order of deed. Lano was somewhere behind me in the dark, her nails tapping once on the stone and then going quiet. Rurik had taken the warm patch beside the lamp's base and sat there with his eyes half closed, tail curled around his feet.

I began at the left end of the first row and counted along. The count takes time. When I reached the end of the ninth row I wrote the number in the register: nine hundred and fifteen. Below that I wrote the number of guests whose deeds these were: nineteen. Below that I wrote what I always write, which is that the count is larger than the last recorded count, and that the count only ever grows. A medal is struck on witnessed evidence and then it is done. None of these had been altered. I turned several over to check. The witness mark was there on every one.

Then I set the medal rows aside and opened the face-book to the current night's fitting. Seven faces for seven orders of task, re-cut each night by fresh trial. I compared them to their measures. Six sat flush. The seventh did not. I wrote that down in the register without explanation, because explanation is not the work here. The medals record what was done. The face records who is trusted for a task of this kind tonight. When those two things do not agree, I record the disagreement and leave it standing, because the medals cannot be re-struck to fit the face and the face cannot be re-cut without a trial that has not yet happened.

I wrote the station name that is currently closed to the fitted face. I wrote that four of the eight trials had been passed and four had not. I wrote nothing about why.

Lano came forward and pressed against my leg for a moment. I kept writing. She moved back into the dark.

The Charter was open at the far end of the bench, weighted at the corners. Seven standing rulings. I read each one aloud in the order they appear. They stood. I closed the register, blew out the lamp, and waited for my eyes to adjust to the cellar dark. Rurik jumped down from somewhere above me and went ahead toward the stairs.

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