There were brooks to be crossed; there were streams larger than a pace-long slab could span, but the builders knew how to combine them. There were rivers, in which the slabs had to be stacked. In summers when they built through hot lowlands, they worked by night and made love and music in the days. At the joint of these times they held their only festival, for the Change of Seasons.
     When this roadguider had owned the road's growth for many seasons, he experienced another surprise. He followed his colored stone to the top of a low grassy pass. He could have noticed immediately what was ahead, and did, but for a moment his attention was delayed by his search for his stone among the grasses. He had located it but not quite picked it up when he stopped and gazed at what was ahead. It was water, stretching to the horizon.
     At first he thought he could descry distant plains and rivers, but they were fields of the sea. He had seen lakes, but infinite water never. The road had to slope down to this coast and deflect along it. Something might be wrong, but stone slabs of the right kind were still being found. They occur in nature, in or near the road's route, luckily.
     Then the road found itself at the end of the land. Water was not only to the left, but in front, though other land could be seen across it. The road had to turn again. Then there was more water, though, again, land could be seen on the other side of it. They were on a ness, of squarish shape, hemmed by water.
     Someone suggested that this was a pleasant fertile place and perhaps they should cease to be roadbuilders and settle here. But the road had to go on. What seemed certain was that the roadguider had been wrong. He argued that no one had his feeling for the design and that the pace slabs were still being found. But he was replaced.
     In disgust he decided to leave the roadhead and travel back to the empire.