Dream d2898-s: The Seventh Face

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the gallery was long and cold, lit by sconces set far enough apart that the coats between them went into partial shadow. I came in at the east door, where the Charter hangs framed under glass, its seven rulings written in ink gone brown at the edges. Lano came in beside me without being called, her claws quiet on the stone, and she did not rush ahead.

My office tonight is Registrar. I walk the gallery, read what is fixed and what is fitted, and mark any disagreement in the book.

The coats hang in order on numbered hooks, nineteen of them, each with its face pinned above at eye height. The medals are fixed to the coat itself, never to the face. That is the first of the Charter's seven rulings: a medal is struck on witnessed evidence and attached to the garment. It does not travel when the face is re-cut.

I walked the first section without finding anything. The faces sat level with their medals, all seven orders matched. Lano padded behind me and paused once to press her nose to the hem near hook seven, then moved on.

Hook fourteen is where I stopped.

The coat is dark wool with a wide lapel, and it carries medals across all nine orders of deed. I counted them slowly, using my thumb as a marker, order by order. The Registrar's method is not fast. I counted the subset that falls in the seventh order, the order called station-keeping, and wrote the number down.

The face pinned above it is the seventh fitted face. I read the trial card beside the hook: eight trials conducted, four passed. The Charter's second ruling states the minimum for the current fitting is five passed of seven run. Four of eight is below that line. One station is marked closed to this face on the card.

The other eighteen faces: most showed five of five, or seven of eight, or six of six. This one is the single face in the gallery that has moved since the last fitting cycle. The others are flush with their coats. This one is not.

I wrote the entry. Hook number. Count of medals by order, including the station-keeping column. Trial record: eight conducted, four passed. Station status: one closed. I wrote nothing further. No explanation attaches to a Registrar's entry in this house. The Charter's fourth ruling is brief: record what is, nothing more. The face cannot be re-cut without a trial not yet scheduled. The medals cannot be altered under any condition. The disagreement is therefore written down and left standing between them, which is all that can be done.

Lano sat beside my feet while I wrote. Her ears were forward, her attention on the coat.

Rurik had come in at some point. He was on the high shelf across from the wall of hooks, amber eyes open and still, his tail wrapped around his paws. He did not move while I finished the entry.

I closed the book. Fifteen coats still ahead of me, seven rulings on the Charter over the door, and the night not yet half done. I moved to hook fifteen. Lano followed.

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