Dream d3036-s: Both Versions Survive

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the Recorder of Roads laid the eight doorway accounts end to end on the long table in Brackenbrook and I walked their length twice before sitting down to read.

Each account was opened to the page of entry: the line written at a distance, and below it, pressed in a different hand, the line written from inside the door. Eight places, eight pairs of lines. The Recorder stood at the far end and did not speak. Lano nosed the edge of the table, found nothing there for her, and settled under the near chair.

The first pair: a settlement called Coldmere, described from the ridge as four collapsed rooftrees, likely uninhabitable. The entry line, written from inside the first building: two of the four are standing, fire laid this season. The Recorder made no mark beside the pair. Both stand.

The second: a trading junction called Threepenny Cross, described from a half-hour out as seven stalls working, road in use. Inside the door: three stalls. The road in use is a different road than the one we came by. Both stand.

I walked the length of the table again. Lano rose when I rose, padded behind me, sat again when I sat.

The count at this road's turning is 128 places in the country's record. Forty-nine walked into and written from inside. The remaining seventy-nine are still only what they look like from the ridge. Of those seventy-nine, thirty-three have been called on in the record - named, given numbers, given conditions - and never had a person stand in their doorway and write from there. The account of thirty-three places is a ridge account only, and a ridge account is not wrong, but it is one account.

The Recorder of Thresholds came in at the second bell and set a ninth document at the far end of the row. It was not a doorway account. It was a list of the thirty-three still-unstepped places, their ridge descriptions only, no entry line beneath any of them. He weighted one corner with an inkwell and left without speaking.

Rurik came in after, which no one had asked him to do. He walked the full length of the table without touching any paper, stopped at the ninth document, and sat in the inkwell's light. He stared at the list a long time with his amber eyes. No one moved him. He was not reading. He was doing what he does.

Brackenbrook itself appears in the eight: the third account, placed between Coldmere and Threepenny Cross. Described from a distance as a market town with a long room used for grain storage. Entry line: the long room is used for records now. The grain moved out years ago and no one put that in the far account because no one who wrote the far account knew.

I am on night three of seven here. The far account and the near account of Brackenbrook disagree on what the long room holds. Both are written. Neither is settled. The eight open books take up most of the table and I leave them open when I go.

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