Dream d3000-s: No Water Ever Entered

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the Deputy Registrar of Kestrelhush led me down a passage at the back of the residency house on the fifth evening of the stay. The passage was stone-flagged and the lamp she carried made the walls press close. Lano came after, her nails quiet on the flags, nose down and tracking something cold and old in the air. Rurik had gone ahead at the fork and was sitting in the doorway when we arrived, amber eyes forward, tail wrapped around his feet, not moving.

The door had been left unlocked. It opened onto the store room.

I had the filed account in hand. Two years of quarterly entries, each one noting standing water to the depth of eight centimeters, pervasive damp, shelves unfit for use, access discouraged. The account had been kept faithfully. I could see that in the handwriting, which was steady and unchanged across all eight quarters.

The room was dry to the floor.

The Deputy Registrar held the lamp out. We both looked along the ground. There was no water line on the walls. There was dust on the lower shelves, the kind that only accumulates in still, dry air. Lano moved past Rurik into the room, pressed her nose to the corner where two walls met the floor, and lifted her head. Her ears did not go back. No reading of wet.

I wrote: Present condition: dry throughout. No visible water damage to walls, floor, or lower shelves. Dust accumulation consistent with extended dry period. Then I wrote: Quarterly entries, dated across eight quarters, record standing water to eight centimeters. Source of those entries: the Premises Steward, position now vacant. I wrote both lines. I did not cross out either.

Rurik blinked once and washed a paw.

Two years is not nothing. Someone stood here with a lamp and wrote down water they did not find, or found it and wrote faithfully, or could not enter and described what they expected. I did not know which and did not write which. I wrote: Discrepancy noted. Both accounts kept. Not settled.

Lano set her chin on the low shelf and breathed out.

The Deputy Registrar asked if I needed anything further from her tonight. I said I did not. She left the lamp with me and went back through the passage.

I stayed another quarter of an hour. I read the entries again. I looked at the ground again. The ground did not change.

I wrote: Kestrelhush store room, night five. Record contradicts condition. Condition written down as found.

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