The Stone Road by Trent Jamieson

Author:Trent Jamieson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Erewhon

The road that lay before us was wide and pale as the belly of the moon. You could have had fifty men walk it shoulder to shoulder. It was ageless, in the way Nan was ageless.

Nan didn’t let go of my hand. She tapped the road with her stick, and the sound rang out hollowly. Somewhere, something dripped. We were outside—a few stars shone above us—but it was like we were inside, too, deep within a mountain or the earth. The sky had a weight to it, enough that my back bent beneath it.

“This is the Stone Road,” Nan said. “This is where the dead walk, and have since the Years of Heat and Sadness. Those that don’t cling to life find it easily—or they used to, before Furnace—but we have to work at it. I wouldn’t take you here, except you need to know this way, you need to walk as the dead walk, or you will not understand their power. Should you meet anyone here—and there are some dead who linger—don’t talk to them. Be polite, listen, nod, but be as though tongueless. Words are a nourishment to the dead, and a goad. Silence is your only shield here.

“It wasn’t always this way,” Nan continued. “These roads weren’t always so quiet. Once, before the Years of Heat and Sadness, they shivered with the thunder of carriages and engines, and the only death upon them was what the vehicles themselves made. I’ve seen them in visions; they were cruel and wondrous machines. But then the world shrugged, and they were shrugged from it. Roads, however, have utility. All roads can be repurposed. The dead called out for service, something ancient listened, and this became their road.”

The slap of our feet echoed ahead and behind us. Away from the road, grey lands stretched featureless; then they would take on a haunting shape—a fist of rock, a burning tower, a giant dog—only to fade when I tried to take a closer look. It was as if the sun didn’t burn here. What was revealed to us was through the memory of light, and that memory shifted.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.