Dream d2893-s: The Unmoved Medals

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the terrace steps ran down toward a valley that held the moon's light in it the way a bowl holds water, and I stood on the third step from the top as the trial's record was read out by the Tally-Keeper.

The guest had passed four of the eight measures put before them. The others who bore faces for their order had passed six, five, five, and seven. I watched each count set down in the ledger over the course of the evening, and no number had been erased or altered. The Tally-Keeper wrote each in the margin beside the order's name, closed the ledger, and set it on the stone table where the Charter rested under the lamp.

The Charter named seven standing rulings. I had read them when I arrived. None of them concerned the count itself. They concerned the record: that a face is fitted by trial and moves when trial demands, that the medals on a coat accrete and do not shrink, that a moved face does not unmake the deeds the coat carries. I read all seven before Lano had even come up the steps behind me, her nails small on the stone.

She settled at my ankle now while the Fitter crossed the terrace. Lano watched the Fitter's feet. Rurik had claimed a higher step; his amber eyes were just above the lamp's reach, two lit points in the dark.

The guest stood with their coat open to the night. The medals were on the inside of the lapel - nine orders, 915 strokes on the tally, not one of them altered since they were struck. The guest lifted the fitted face for this order with both hands and held it out, and the Fitter received it flat, carrying it across the terrace to the Receiving Table where the new holder stood waiting.

I wrote in the margin of the ledger, beside the order's name: face transferred; fourth trial mark against; station of this order closed to the surrendering holder from this night's reading.

The medals stayed. They stay. That is their nature: struck once on witnessed evidence, never reopened. I wrote that too: medals on the coat: unchanged, 915 standing.

Lano leaned against my leg. Below, the valley held the moon.

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