Dream d3053-s: Rows the Tally Did Not Reach

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the loft was higher than I remembered, the ceiling lost somewhere above the hanging lamp chains, and the vents in the slats let in a steady draw of mountain air that made the castings sweat a fine dull condensation. The Tally-Reader stood at the far end of the row with a cloth and blotted the flanges of each piece, calling a number, then moving on. The Relic-Watcher sat cross-legged on a timber brace and made no notes, only looked.

Lano moved along the row ahead of me, nose low, pausing at each casting as though something residual clung to the metal. At one she sat and her ears pricked forward and she held very still.

The Bedrock-Reader came up beside her and crouched. Running a finger along the base of that casting, she said only: the pour was not local. The alloy carries something from below the surveyed line. She did not say what.

Rurik had found the highest crossbeam and lay there pressed flat against it, amber eyes tracking the lamp swings. When the Anomaly-Hand moved a lamp closer to examine the flange seam the Relic-Watcher had been watching, Rurik's head turned and his tail moved once.

The Warden of the Deep Stratum carried a long hook used for shifting castings and walked each row before the Tally-Reader, not counting, only looking for any piece that did not match the lot around it. He found three. He moved them to a corner and set the hook down and stood back. He wrote nothing.

The Horizon-Surveyor was at the east vent, looking out through the slats into the dark below the forge hill. She said the line from here ran further than the sheet showed. She did not say what lay past it.

Lano padded back to me and set her chin briefly on my boot and exhaled. Outside the vents the wind came steadier now. The castings cooled in their rows.

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