Dream d3311-s: Thread on Dark Stone

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where we came down into Umberfall by lamplight, and the gorge held us like a cupped hand that had dried out over a long season.

The falls were still there. That was the first thing to say about them: still there. But what once ran broad across the face of the stone had narrowed to a single line of water, no wider than a forearm, traveling from some ledge high above to a pool that no longer filled its own basin. Dark stone showed on either side of the thread. Moss grew where it could reach the wet, and did not grow in the dry.

Lano moved ahead of me on the path, her nose low, reading the stone before her feet confirmed it safe. The keeper stood to one side where the path widened at the basin, holding a lantern down near the ground. Nothing about the way the keeper stood was a greeting, and I did not make it one.

The surveyor came forward and looked at the dry stone beside the thread. Set the heel of one hand against it, held there a moment. I watched without asking what was measured. The clerk opened the ledger to the Umberfall entry and added a line. I did not see what the line said.

What I noticed: the sound. There was still a sound. Smaller than before, thinner, but the gorge gathered it and returned it from both walls so that you could not locate the water by ear - only by eye, the bright thread catching the lamp's amber. Lano sat beside the basin and looked into the water that remained. Her ears did not move. She was very still.

The stone was cold. The path continued through the gorge and came out the far side; I could see where the dark opened to something less dark at the far end. Nobody walked that way yet. The keeper had not moved.

The account had traveled. I knew that much without knowing what arrived or what was made of it. I set my hand against the same stone the surveyor had touched. Cold, faintly damp at the edge nearest the thread. Not dry all the way through.

The clerk closed the ledger. Lano looked up at me, then back at the water. Softly, into the stone sound the gorge kept returning to itself, she said: quieto.

We remained until the lamp needed trimming. The falls went on as they were. The keeper watched them too, from the other side.

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