Brannoc had spent three nights at the gate and six in the dream, and he had stopped being able to tell the nights apart.
At the gate there was the windlass and the chain, the leaf on its pin, the grey wrist resting on the crank. There was the wind from the Caul, which moved the leaf a finger’s width each time it leaned, and the watch calling down from the wall, and the sound of the Sallow going past the wicket at the foot of the water-stair, low and steady and unhurried. He knew all of it. He could have walked the gatehouse blind and touched every fitting, and he had done so, once, in the second night, because the bloom made his eyes unreliable and he had wanted to be sure of his own hands.
In the dream there was the stair.
It went down into black water. He knew it by its steps, which were worn and slightly hollow in the middle, as though a great many feet had gone down them before his and had carried a little of the stone away. The water came up over the lowest of them at a slant. It was cold. He knew its cold in his mouth before he touched it, a taste like a coin held too long between the teeth, and the rope that ran beside the steps went down into the water and did not come out again. Every night he went down a few more…
