Dream d3134-s: The Beam at Rest

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the weighing room in Larkmarket smelled of iron and old grain, its walls close enough that sound arrived already softened. A single balance hung from a ceiling chain, the beam level, both pans empty and still. The Tally-Reader stood before it without marking anything yet.

The light at that hour came through one high window, touching the chain first, then the brass of the beam, and last the pans themselves, where it rested without emphasis. Rurik had taken a position on a broad ledge to the left, his amber eyes tracking the chain's faint motion as the building breathed around it. He did not move. His tail lay flat.

The Bedrock-Reader crouched along the far wall where the flags met the footing stone, pressing one hand to the joint. The Relic-Watcher stood near the closed door, her attention on an iron armature fixed above the lintel - brackets of a purpose no one named aloud. The Horizon-Surveyor had her back to the room, measuring the window's aperture with two fingers held at arm's length.

The Anomaly-Hand moved along the north wall in small steps, pausing at intervals. She stopped entirely at one point and did not write anything down, only stood with her palm near a seam in the cold stone where a faint pale emission showed - cyan at its edge, nearly nothing at its center.

Lano padded along the base of the balance's stand, nose low, reading something in the floor that only she could find. She circled once, then sat, and her ears came forward.

The Warden of the Deep Stratum arrived last, having been below. He stood in the doorway and looked at the balance the way one looks at something already doing what it does. He logged nothing and settled no explanation.

I watched the beam. It had come to rest before we entered - or perhaps the room had been long enough without us for it to arrive there on its own. Neither pan carried anything. The beam held its level position the way an answer holds before the question is finished.

The count stood where I had left it. The Tally-Reader did not add to it yet.

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