Dream d3418-s: The Long Approach

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the track went out ahead of me across ground so flat that Ironspire seemed to hang rather than stand, a grey tooth at the far edge of the day. Lano walked a little ahead, nose down, reading whatever the grass held. The relay clerk moved beside me at the same unhurried pace, not speaking.

The notebook was in my bag. I had stopped taking it out to see if anyone might ask about it. Nobody had asked. Nobody would. The track was the kind that does not narrow or widen; it holds the same width all the way.

We passed a marker stone, one of the low flat ones with no writing. The entry-keeper stopped and made a note without saying what. I watched but did not ask. Lano sniffed the base of the stone and moved on. The tower was still far.

A keeper came out from a low building set back from the track, not to intercept us but because it was time to walk around the building, which was what the keeper did at this hour. We crossed paths and did not stop. The keeper looked at the tower the same way we did, which was without urgency.

There was no shade. The light was mid-afternoon and flat, the kind that makes distances uncertain. Ironspire did not grow closer at the rate walking should produce. This is a quality of open ground: the eye expects the far thing to come nearer and the far thing declines.

Lano circled back to me, pressed briefly against my leg, and went ahead again. She found a hollow where water had been, crouched, and drank the small amount left. Then she looked up toward the tower, ears loose. "Vamos," she said, very quietly, and started walking again.

The relay clerk made no note of this.

By late afternoon the tower had grown to the size of a finger held at arm's length. Dormant, the account had said. I could see no movement at that distance. The entry-keeper walked and the record was carried and nothing was demanded of the tower and the tower offered nothing. The ground went on under us. The track went on. The place was going on in its own time, which was longer than the day, and the notebook stayed in the bag, and I walked.

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