She Who Has No Nam by Michael Foster

Author:Michael Foster
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781466406681
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2011-10-27T17:00:00+00:00

They carried on for several more days without incident or any further sign of the Paatin. Travelling on foot was cruel and slow going, but they had little choice, given that their horses had been lost in the battle. Walking became even more difficult when the hard stones of the desert gave way to expanses of soft, white sand. Trudging up and down the great slipping hills of sand was exhausting, and they clambered over them for several more days, until some hard earth appeared under their feet once more. Finally, they saw some rock formations in the distance and Balten steered them towards the features, across the shimmering heat haze of the arid waste.

It was only when they neared the formations that they could see these were enormous pillars of pale stone, jutting from the ground. There was first one here and there, then more, then many—pressing in together—until the party was walking amongst a forest of towering, stone columns. It almost seemed as if a path led between them and some of the stones had markings or engravings on their sides, although they had been weathered away so as to be indiscernible.

They met an even greater surprise when the dense pillars abruptly ceased and the party found themselves in a vast, walled canyon, hidden away from the outside world.

‘What is this place?’ Eric asked, looking around with awe.

Balten replied without emotion, eyeing the high, natural walls around them, all formed of pale, weathered stone. ‘This is not our destination, but I wanted to stop here and show you something. I think you will find it very enlightening.’

They sauntered across the open bowl of the canyon, keeping close to the northern-most edge. Mounds of squared stone blocks were littered about here and there, but most of them had been weathered to the point of crumbling. It seemed that although the valley was natural, it had also been highly quarried, with sporadic cuttings marking the walls all over.

They continued on, following the walls of stone and they soon passed another mound of broken stones. Although this one was only about waist high, it was more than fifty paces wide at the base, as if a platform had been constructed in the middle of nowhere. And, in the distance, was another such construction.

It took them ten minutes to reach the next site but, when they did, they found it had been a building at one time, several storeys high in places, but now weathered away to almost nothing. Following that, they found another such ruin—little more than a mass of fallen pillars and dirt that had been blown in by the wind. These constructions seemed evenly spaced and each one seemed slightly grander—or perhaps merely more intact—than the last. Some were vast, still standing five or six storeys high, but all were broken in some way; worn down by the Ages.

‘What are these buildings?’ Samuel asked their guide.

‘This is the Valley of the Ancients,’ Balten replied, but he would say no more and led them on in eerie silence.

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