Dream d3128-s: Beside the Open Page

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the sunken court held its cold long after sunset. I came down the worn steps with the Tally-Reader behind me, both of us speaking nothing. At the base of the court, where the iron armatures rose from the slate floor like ribs of an unfinished sentence, the Relic-Watcher sat curled against the lowest tier, the field page open across her knees. She slept. I could see the slight rise and fall of her breathing, and the page did not move in the still air.

The Anomaly-Hand was already at the far wall, tracing the pale cyan seams with one finger held a careful distance from the surface. Not touching. Only following. The seams ran in long diagonals across the cold stone, and where they crossed at the lower corner, Rurik sat. He had taken the warm spot. His amber eyes were open, watching the crossing point, his tail folded around his feet. He did not look up when we arrived.

Lano padded ahead of me down the last three steps, nose working at the damp air. She circled the sleeping Relic-Watcher once, close, then settled a short distance away and faced the armatures. Her ears were up.

The Bedrock-Reader was already below us, somewhere in the lower level I could not see, because the sound of slow footfalls came up through the grating at the court's center. The Warden of the Deep Stratum had stationed herself at the grating's edge and stood looking down through the iron lattice without speaking. What was below, I did not know. She did not say.

The Horizon-Surveyor came in last, later, her tools still at her belt. She crossed to the far side of the court and turned to face the direction we had come from, measuring nothing. Just looking at where the court's walls ended and the open dark began.

This was the carried interval. The Relic-Watcher slept beside her page and we kept the next vigil for her. The cyan lines held their cold glow. Rurik blinked once, slow, at the crossing point. Lano stayed low.

I counted nothing. The Tally-Reader did that, quietly, in her own way, the road's true length held somewhere she would not share until the time was right.

The court did not change. It waited.

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