Legends IX – The Tower of Abandoned Ways

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It is said that the tower stands where roads cease to remember destinations. No sign leads to it, no path begins near it. And yet those who have traveled too long find it. It calls them not loudly, but with an echo that comes from the mist, like the echo of a step not yet taken. Those who see it at first believe it to be a mirage of stone. It grows not from the earth, but from stacked paths—cobbled alleys, bridge arches, staircases clinging to one another like drowned bodies. The streets that compose it originate from villages that disappeared, from cities that were erased, from paths no one wanted to walk anymore. Every step, every slab bears the traces of the feet that once left them. The walls of the tower are not walls, but street sides leaning against one another. There are no windows, only doorways—and each leads out, never in. Hikers who enter it say that at first they were only looking for a shortcut, a transition between two paths. But as soon as they crossed the threshold, they heard the sliding of stones behind them, the slow closing of a direction. Inside, it smells of rain on pavement, of dust and a distant time. The light comes from above, but never from the sun. Some say it is the memories of the paths themselves, glowing like old limestone. As you climb, footsteps resound twice – one belongs to you, the other to someone who once left the same path. The stairs lead not upwards, but to possibilities. You climb until your breath thins and you think you are almost at the top, but the view below shows no end, only more arches, bridges, and fragments of streets that wind like intertwined thoughts. There is a story of a hiker who reached the top. He found no door, no platform, no railing, just an open expanse of pavement with a circle of stones in the center. In this circle, the wind was still, and whoever entered heard all the voices that had ever taken a wrong path—a chorus of apologies and promises. Legend says that if you listen long enough, you'll realize that all the voices are the same: your own. For the Tower of Forsaken Ways is not a building, but a memory. Everyone who enters it adds a path—the trace of the decision they never took, the crossroads they avoided, the destination they betrayed to arrive somewhere else. After a while, the tower's streets begin to rearrange themselves. Some wind outward, others disappear. No traveler climbs the same tower twice, for with each entry, its foundation changes. It grows from what people leave behind when they think they're moving on. Some say you can leave the tower when you recognize your own footstep—the sound that belongs only to you.Then a crack of light opens between two cobblestones, and the wind carries you out in a direction that didn't exist before.