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Back Four Roads Cross Save as PDF
Chapters (75)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
  15. 13
  16. 14
  17. 15
  18. 16
  19. 17
  20. 18
  21. 19
  22. 20
  23. 21
  24. 22
  25. 23
  26. 24
  27. 25
  28. 26
  29. 27
  30. 28
  31. 29
  32. 30
  33. 31
  34. 32
  35. 33
  36. 34
  37. 35
  38. 36
  39. 37
  40. 38
  41. 39
  42. 40
  43. 41
  44. 42
  45. 43
  46. 44
  47. 45
  48. 46
  49. 47
  50. 48
  51. 49
  52. 50
  53. 51
  54. 52
  55. 53
  56. 54
  57. 55
  58. 56
  59. 57
  60. 58
  61. 59
  62. 60
  63. 61
  64. 62
  65. 63
  66. 64
  67. 65
  68. 66
  69. 67
  70. 68
  71. 69
  72. Acknowledgments
  73. Also by Max Gladstone
  74. About the Author
  75. Newsletter Sign-up

(Which should have been impossible. Sound had a finite speed, like light. The words her choir sang on earth ought to take a fraction of a second to reach the sky, and seconds more to return. But gods were outside time. And that thought, in turn, had implications she resolutely ignored for fear of going mad.)

She directed her choir, and her gods. Alex in the alto section wept, but her voice kept steady.

They sang truth, and the city listened.

49

49

The Godmountain had many names. Failfire, some Badlands tribes called it, and told its story. At time’s dawn, a tide of flame burned the green world to ash from sea to sea, burned the ash to bare stone, and would have burned the stone itself had not the Lady of the Plains challenged it. Proud, the fire came, and when it came the Lady wrapped it three times round: first in a cage of her hair, second in a lake of her blood, and third in a mountain of her bone. The fire, more fierce than clever, scorched her hair, and simmered her blood, and blackened her bone—but the hair, scorched, melted to wire, and the blood, simmered, thickened to lava, and the bone, blackened, fused to stone, and the more the fire burned, the worse it trapped itself.

Still, the Lady of the Plains knew one day the fire would burn free. So she wrapped it in a fourth and final maze made from her own mind: mirrors reflecting mirrors within, so the fire could burn and burn but only burn itself. Beneath Failfire, the Lady plays time’s game, deceiving, outracing a pursuing flame. Some holy men and women enter the Godmountain’s caves to chant old chants and eat certain mushrooms and hear her laughter and her cries.

Homesick, Drakspine fisherfolk called the mountain, for soil taken from its slopes pulls always toward the spot from which it came. The fisherfolk made necklaces from its stone in ancient days when their boats roamed the Kathic coast and crossed the ocean Old Worlders call the Pax, to Xivai and the archipelagic West. (Their descendants, who live in Kovak, claim their fathers and mothers even reached the Shining Empire, that those wandering weathered explorers were the Ocean Sages of Imperial legend—but tell that to an anthropologist and they’ll offer you a good deal on mousefeathers or the Camlaander Channel.) But this much is true: Homesick stone does always point toward home, and each piece of the mountain let off its chain will swim oceans and worm across earth until it returns to the face from which it was hewn.