Dream d3117-s: Stone Behind Stone

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the ridge path narrowed toward evening and the second rim became visible for the first time since the last visit, pale and distinct behind the first, offset by what the Horizon-Surveyor later measured as eleven degrees of arc. We had not noted that gap before. The Tally-Reader walked the path from the eastern notch to the cairn at its center and returned with a count of forty-three paces, then walked it again and returned with forty-three again, which she said was the first time the count had held on two passes.

Rurik went ahead at the fork where the path split below the iron armature. He sat at the lower branch and stared down the slope, unmoving, until the Relic-Watcher had passed him, then followed without sound. The armature overhead had a joint I had not noticed before: a flange bolted across where two vertical members met, the bolt heads squared and not hexagonal, dark with something other than rust.

Lano padded to the outer edge of the path, nose down, and stopped at a pale seam running diagonally through the stone. The Anomaly-Hand crouched beside her and traced the seam with one finger without touching it, and the cyan light was not bright - it was the kind of brightness that is only brightness compared to the stone around it. Lano carried a small flat pebble from that place for the rest of the walk.

The Bedrock-Reader found a place where the upper foundation stones did not sit flush with the layer beneath them, and she knelt and read the gap, not the surface. She said nothing to us but her hand stayed flat against the lower stratum for a long time. The Warden of the Deep Stratum noted the position on the sheet without interpretation.

When we reached the overlook the second rim was plainer - higher than the first by perhaps the width of a fist held at arm's length, and behind it a third darkness that may have been sky or may have been stone. The Horizon-Surveyor marked the line where the first rim ended and noted it as an open question. Kestrelfall lay below in the hollow, its roofs catching the last horizontal light. Lano sat beside me and her tail moved once. Rurik found the highest stone on the overlook and cleaned a paw in the cold air.

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