The dark rock highway climbed with the stately, unbending confidence of an empire that believed it could chisel its will into the mantle of the world.
For one hundred and eighty paces past the junction monolith, the road kept its perfect sixteen-foot width. The black fiery flags, fitted so tightly that barely a blade of alpine fescue could root between them, rose at an even, gentle six-degree incline—the optimal grade for heavily laden freight wagons drawn by four-mule hitches. Along the outer edge, massive curb stones stood eight inches proud of the paving, grooved with drainage channels that still channeled the trickling meltwater from the upper snowbanks.
Kezra Venn walked in the center of the road, trailing her horsehair measuring cord. The rhythmic scuff of her iron-shod boots against the flat dark rock flags sounded loud and hollow in the thin air, like footsteps in an empty stone cathedral.
Then, at the two-hundred-pace mark, the royal road simply ceased to exist.
There was no gradual decay. There were no collapsed retaining walls, no frost-shattered potholes, and no tumble of fallen scree covering the flags.
The cambered dark rock highway, with its dressed gutters, curb stones, and polished wheel ruts, drove straight toward an upright cliff of pale grey biotite granite. And ended in a total, razor-sharp-angled line.
