the Crumbling Steps

The Crumbling Steps are the mountain shortcut every guide warns against and every hurried traveller takes anyway: flights of old stone stitched across the high range, failing faster than anyone repairs them. Each flight holds until it does not, and the pass's whole craft is reading which step is bluffing. The crowns have proposed rebuilding it four times, and the surveyors return each time with the same finding: the Steps predate every kingdom, nobody can say what they were built to reach, since they climb past every sensible destination, and the stone does not match the mountain. The repairs are always declined. Some roads, the report concludes, are best left in a condition that discourages asking where they go.