Dream d3192-s: The Record Rides Unopened

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I walked the first league of Thornhollow before first light, the record sealed in my pack, Lano quiet at my left heel. Her nails ticked against the paved stones near the south gate, then fell silent when the road turned to dirt.

The pack rode heavier than its weight warranted. Not the bundles themselves, which were flat and light, but what they contained: two full accounts, one of objects unreckoned and one of intervals inhabited, both dated, both signed, neither touching the other. I had read neither since they were handed to me. That had been the instruction I wrote for myself the night before, on the back of the relay slip: do not unseal. Do not read forward. The record is not yours to carry as meaning. Only as weight.

The road opened through elm stands and into Thornhollow's flat middle quarter. A milepost stood at the road's edge, six furlongs from the south gate. Lano put her nose to its base, circled it once, and came back.

The relay office sat at the edge of a small square, up three stone steps. A candle burned in the window at an hour past when anyone would light a fresh one. I climbed the steps and went in.

A figure sat at the narrow desk with their back to me. I set the pack down on the counter and drew out the sealed bundle, the wax still intact, the cord untouched. Then the figure turned.

Rurik sat on the desk, black and still, amber eyes finding mine. He blinked once, slow, and looked past me toward the door. I heard footsteps on the stone steps.

The absent witness entered. I did not know their face. I had not expected to. I held the bundle out across the counter. Both accounts, the objects and the intervals, exactly as given to me. Nothing added. Nothing struck out.

They took it in both hands and stood with it for a moment. They did not open it in the room. They looked at me, then down at Lano, who had settled on the floor beside my foot. Then they turned and went back out, down the stone steps, into Thornhollow's early grey.

Rurik stepped from the desk to a high shelf above the window and curled into the corner there. His eyes stayed open.

I waited. I did not know what I was waiting for. Lano shifted beside me, lifted her head, and said: "Ya."

I did not know what she meant. I did not try to decide. I went back out into the morning with the empty pack and the dog, and we walked the road south in the same silence we had come in.

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