monstrous barbaric mace. One even had fallen on top of some other trees, cracking a few over until one was strong enough to hold the weight.
The road lets out of the forest momentarily, into a small valley covered with bushes and some flowers of varying reds, purples, whites, and yellows. Pines grow only on the sides of the valley, but not inside it. Then we are plunged back into the mountainous forest.
Always we can hear the roar of the river.
The road, rather than simply going straight, follows the contour of the mountains. It goes up and down and left and right, but the river is always down in the gulf to the right.
At about midday, we come to Highrock Lookout. The road takes a sharp left turn around the mountain, but at that point the trees to the right recede from the path and create a clearing to the right of the path. A flat rock, about the size of my home, sticks straight out of the mountain side like an enormous shelf, with only cliffs below and to its sides. In ancient days it was used exactly for what the name implies. It’s the highest point the road reaches on the way to Terrace, so all can be seen for miles.
I can’t resist the urge to stop here and enjoy the view. It’s almost a rule to me; I must stop here.
We must be at least a few hundred feet up from the bottom of the valley. Mountains roll into the distance and out of sight, reaching to stroke the underside of the passing clouds. Forests of pine cover them like a fur coat. The sun shines brightly in the middle of the sky, almost directly above. Sheer rock faces decorate the mountains. At the very bottom runs the Fravora River, which is still both visible and audible.
Here we eat lunch. James says something about how it’s hot, and Ethan tells a fascinating story about how he once convinced Nicholas that a goose had passed loud gas. He and James continue to trade stories of such nature, but I sit next to Percival who doesn’t say much of anything until he’s finished. Even then he’s silent, staring out across the mountains until I ask what he’s thinking about.
“I wonder what’s beyond them,” he says. “I’ve never been on the other side. What other people are there? What’s their culture like? One day I think I’ll get courageous enough to leave Gilgal and go on my own adventures.”
“Why?”
He pauses. “I want to see the world.”
I nod. “Me too, Percival. But for now I guess the view from this rock is what we’re gonna have to deal with.”
He nods and gets up. He walks to the edge and holds his hands clasped behind his back as he observes the world.
I look over at James and Ethan, who are both recovering from a joke of some kind or another. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s see if we can get there before dark.”
I walk next to Percival, with the other two close behind. Birds consume most of the silence with their call-and-response tactics, calling with higher and responding with lower pitches.
The road slopes down the mountainside, cutting across the face. It’s a gradual descent, but it means that we’re almost there.
Eventually the road evens out and the forest clears for the most part. We’re still about a hundred feet up from the bottom of the gorge. Both sides of the canyon below us seem impossible to navigate, as they are strewn with boulders, trees, and intense overgrowth. Everything is very green.
We’re standing in a large clearing similar to Highrock Lookout, but an enormous bridge spans the gulf from the tip of the clearing to the other side, where sits a great stone wall with a wooden gate in the center. The wall is short; it spans the small distance between the cliffs of two different mountains, with an arch placed over the gate. The bridge and the wall are ancient and somewhat mossy. Terrace lies in the vale behind.
It’s a beautiful scene. Another branch of the road, instead of turning right to the bridge, curves left and around the mountain to head south. Eventually it leads to Kera, but that’s another week’s worth of travel. The mountain peaks to the sides of the wall are impenetrable, with cliffs leading into the gorge below. Their tops are round and dull. Fire pits sit on either side of the bridge and the gate, both on