Dream d2962-s: Trades Without a Column

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the yard behind the Halls of Galestead Town was running at full pace after dark, and none of what was running there was on any sheet the party carried.

This was the fourth night of seven in residency at Galestead Town. The Halls had been on the long column since the Cartographer's Ledger first named the place: listed, measured, described by the Surveyor's count as lit and busy. The short column, the column of places walked into, had not yet received them. The yard was what I was walking into now, so the Halls moved across.

Four braziers lit the four quarters. At the northwest, a Tilewright worked a frame of cut pieces laid against the Hall wall, sorting by size with both hands. At the northeast, a Ropemaker fed a long braid through a hook sunk in the eaves, letting the weight run down into a coil on the ground. At the southeast, a Chandler worked a row of molds set out on a board, pouring measured wax from a ladle. At the southwest, a Cooper fitted staves and drove a hoop down by degrees with a wooden mallet, each blow settling the fit by a fraction.

All four had been here before tonight. The work was at the pace of habit.

I opened the register and checked every sheet we carried. The Tilewright was not there. The Ropemaker was not there. The Chandler and the Cooper were not there. The yard itself was not there. Galestead Town was there - the Halls, the market-square, the well on the north lane, the well on the south lane - and none of it included the yard or the trades that had been running in it every night the party was somewhere else.

I wrote four lines. There was no heading for them, so I left the column blank.

Lano walked the perimeter with her nose low and her ears forward. She came back past the Cooper, sat down in the sawdust near his feet, and watched the mallet work. Rurik had taken the top of a low dividing wall above the Ropemaker's station and perched there, amber eyes following the braid through the hook below him, tail still, saying nothing.

The four trades ran until the braziers needed tending. Nobody explained the work to me and I did not ask. I wrote down what was visible: four trades, four positions, four stations lit and occupied, none of them on any sheet, none of them new - they had been here before we arrived and they would be here after.

Galestead Town moved from the long column to the short one.

The four trades stayed in neither.

---