Dream d2906-s: The Candle and the Charter

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the smell of tallow reached me before I could see who was seated. I walked to the head of the table. Lano padded beside me and settled against the leg of the chair, still.

Nineteen guests sat along the table's two sides. The Charter hung behind the head chair on its iron rod - seven rulings, each in the Registrar's plain hand, each sealed with the house mark. I did not read them. The Registrar stood to my right with the reading book held closed.

Rurik had found a high ledge at the room's edge. He sat with his tail tucked under him, amber eyes moving once across the table and then holding somewhere in the middle distance.

The Reader of Faces took the lectern at the far end. She set her hands flat on the rail and waited. The room found its silence on its own - a chair stilled, a breath held, the last low word settling like wax in a cooling press. She did not call order.

She said: The reading of the first ruling has begun.

The Registrar opened the book to the first column: medal counts, nine hundred and fifteen across nineteen guests, in nine orders of deed, not one line struck through. The second column: seven fitted faces, one for each order of task, each a tally from the last trial's measure. Six ran flush with their count. One did not - four trials passed of eight, one station now closed to it, the others at a higher number. The Registrar had already entered it as written. The disagreement was recorded and left standing.

No one spoke. Lano's ear turned once toward the Reader's voice and lay flat again.

The first ruling was read aloud. The Registrar marked: heard.

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