There was an ancient belief shared throughout the kingdoms.
Everything, it was said, travelled along the Great Road.
The Road stretched from the Land of Beginnings to the Country of Memory.
No one had seen either end.
Yet everyone knew they journeyed upon it.
Children would point to grey-haired elders and whisper,
"They have travelled farther."
Mourners would say,
"He has passed beyond us."
Parents would tell their children,
"Do not hurry. The Road is long."
No one doubted the Road.
How could they?
Everything seemed to pass.
One autumn morning, a traveller climbed the mountain to visit the Keeper of the Many Fires.
"I have walked many roads," she said.
"But I wish to see the Great Road."
The Keeper nodded.
"So do most who come here."
He led her to a hill overlooking the valley.
Below them, merchants crossed bridges.
Shepherds climbed winding paths.
Children chased one another through fields.
"What do you see?" he asked.
"People travelling."
"And the roads?"
"They remain while travellers pass upon them."
The Keeper smiled.
"Good."
They descended into the forest.
Leaves drifted from towering trees.
Mushrooms emerged from damp earth.
A fallen log slowly surrendered itself to moss.
"What passes here?" he asked.
The traveller looked carefully.
"The leaves change."
"The trees change."
"The forest changes."
"And the Road?"
She searched among roots and stones.
"I cannot find it."
The Keeper said nothing.
For many days they wandered.
They watched dawn become noon.
They watched rivers swell after rain.
They watched lambs grow into sheep.
Everywhere there was transformation.
Everywhere there were new relations among old things.
Yet nowhere did they discover the Great Road.
At last the traveller protested.
"But surely everything passes!"
The Keeper stooped to lift a smooth stone.
He held it in the palm of his hand.
"What has this stone passed?"
"It has endured many years."
"I asked what it has passed."
The traveller hesitated.
"It... has changed."
"Has it travelled?"
She could not answer.
The Keeper placed the stone back upon the earth.
"Perhaps we have mistaken change for journey."
That evening they rested beside a stream.
The traveller watched the water hurry past.
"Now this truly passes," she said.
"Yes."
"Because it moves."
"Yes."
"It moves relative to the bank."
"Yes."
She smiled.
"So now I understand passing."
The Keeper tossed a leaf into the current.
"It is easy to recognise a journey when there is both a traveller and a path."
He looked toward the stars.
"When people say that time passes, which is the traveller?"
The traveller followed his gaze.
Silence.
"And what is the Road?"
Only the sound of water answered.
Long after darkness had fallen, she spoke.
"Perhaps we are the travellers."
The Keeper nodded thoughtfully.
"So many believe."
A little later she frowned.
"But others say that time itself travels while we remain where we are."
Again the Keeper nodded.
"So many believe that also."
She laughed softly.
"Both cannot be true."
"No."
"And yet everyone speaks as though both were obvious."
The Keeper smiled with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had heard the right question.
The next morning they reached the summit where the oldest sayings of the world were carved into weathered stone.
One inscription read:
Everything changes.
Another, carved much later by another hand, declared:
Everything passes.
The traveller stood between the two.
At first they had seemed identical.
Now they no longer did.
One described what she had witnessed throughout the valley.
The other invited her to imagine a hidden road, unseen travellers, and a mysterious destination.
Neither inscription was ugly.
The second possessed a beauty that had comforted generations.
It gave shape to longing.
It lent grace to memory.
It softened loss.
The Keeper rested his hand upon the older stone.
"There are stories that help us live."
He rested his other hand upon the newer one.
"And stories that help us imagine."
He smiled.
"Sometimes they are the same story."
As the traveller began her descent from the mountain, she no longer wondered where the Great Road lay.
Instead, she found herself asking a different question whenever someone said that time had passed.
"Who," she wondered,
"is travelling?"
And each time she asked it, the invisible Road became just a little more difficult to see.
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