Dream d2963-s: Garbled at the Long Table

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the terrace above Galestead Town was full and the sky above it was not yet dark. Long tables ran end to end and the party sat among strangers and was not remarked on. The Surveyor had the sheet open under the bread basket and ran a finger down the list. One hundred and twenty-nine places. Forty-eight with a mark beside them. Eighty-one without. Galestead was among the forty-eight now, after five nights, and its name in the short list felt different from its name in the long one, though it was the same word in both.

The strangers talked about things the party did not know. The party passed bread and listened and was not asked who they were. Rurik had taken the end of a bench and sat with his amber eyes half-closed and his tail wrapped around his feet. He was not remarked on either.

Lano lay under the table at the Surveyor's feet. Then she did not. She stood, ears flat against her skull, nose up, and when the Relay Keeper came through the terrace door too fast for the hour, her low bark cut under the noise of the meal and a few strangers turned their heads.

The Keeper stopped at the end of the table and said something to the Surveyor in a low voice. Across the rooftops, the beacon tower showed its light at the regular beat, then showed it again too soon, then twice more without pattern. A few strangers noticed it. None of them said anything.

The Keeper said the western relay had sent a garbled packet in the morning. The relay past the ridge had sent the same, or something like it - the confirmation had come in with pieces missing. The Keeper could not say where the corruption started. The Keeper had the reports and that was all.

Lano stayed standing. Her ears did not come up. The Surveyor put a hand down and she pressed against it but her nose kept moving.

The strangers ate. The long tables held their noise. The party sat in it and was not remarked on and was not known, and the difference between those two things was the same as it had always been. The beacon beat its light over the rooftops of Galestead Town in no order anyone could yet name.

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