Dream d3027-s: The Range Stood Taller

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the first range of Fennmoss stood where I had been told to look, and it was taller than any number I had carried in my pocket.

The account described a collapsed settlement, stones spread and low, a field of them. I had the paper in my bag. I did not take it out yet. Lano went ahead a few steps up the slope, her nose down, her tail moving, and I followed.

The stones were standing. Most of them. The account had been written from the road below, by someone who reached the turn and did not go further. I could see the road from where I stood. I could see where you would stop.

I wrote in the field register: the range is standing, mostly upright, seven stones visible from the south face, two fallen. The account says collapsed. The account was not wrong from where it was written. Both are entered.

Rurik had come through the gap in the perimeter wall before I reached it. He sat on a broad flat stone just inside, watching me cross the threshold, then turned to look at the center of the place as I entered. He did not move.

The interior was drier than the approach. The ground between the stones had good grass, short and even, the kind that means grazing still passes through. Someone uses this. The account says abandoned. I wrote that too.

Lano sat down at the base of the tallest stone and pressed her side against it, looking back at me. I put my hand on the stone. Cold, the way stone is cold when it has been standing in its own shadow. Not the cold of ruin. Just stone.

I wrote: the near condition contradicts the far condition on three counts. The range is standing. The site is grazed. The stone is intact. The account was made at the road's end. This one is made from inside. Neither is corrected.

The Recorder stood a few steps back and said nothing, which is what the Recorder does. I read back what I had written. Lano sniffed the base of the stone, sneezed once, and trotted to the next one.

Thirty-three places in this country have been called on in the record and never named aloud from inside. This is now thirty-two.

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