Dream d3173-s: Cyan at the Missing Span

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the terrace came into view from the waterward path, its stone ribs stepping down through the reeds in a long descending series. The air carried the smell of cold water and iron, and the reeds on either side stood motionless.

The Anomaly-Hand crouched at the topmost rib and pressed a palm flat against the stone. I watched from a few paces back. The cyan came first as a low seam along the joint, a thin line of emission no wider than a thumbnail, and then it traveled. It moved the way water moves under ice, keeping to the mortar between rib and terrace floor. Lano sat beside me, ears pricked, nose working the cold off the water.

The pulse reached the fourth rib and stopped. Not dimmed, not faded. Stopped, as though the material had simply ended. The Tally-Reader moved alongside the line of ribs, counting each one in a low voice, marking the total in the ledger. The Relic-Watcher crouched where the emission ended and looked at the gap in the stonework: a missing span of perhaps three hand-widths where something had been seated and removed, or had fallen and not been recovered.

Rurik had come ahead of us along the terrace edge. He sat at the gap now, amber eyes on the water below, tail curled around his forepaws. He did not move when we gathered near him.

The Warden of the Deep Stratum knelt beside the gap and examined the exposed cut face of the stone, the rusted iron tang still mortared into the far side with nothing fitted to it. I wrote down what I observed. I did not write what it had been for.

The Horizon-Surveyor stood at the far end of the terrace, at the point where the surveyed sheet ended, measuring the angle to a distant marker post. The Bedrock-Reader had her hand in the water at the base of the terrace stairs, reading the sediment depth against some earlier figure.

The cyan was still there when we finished. It had not resumed and it had not spread. Lano padded to where it ended and sniffed the stone, then sat with her flank against it.

Rurik blinked once and walked back along the terrace toward the inland stairs.

The Tally-Reader closed the ledger. Six ribs present, one gap. I carried the figure forward in the record without settling the gap into anything more than itself.

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