Nameless Places

There are no maps of the City with no name. It is announced on no roadsigns, mentioned on no surveys. But it’s there, if you search for it, if you wander the strange and wandering paths and backroads of the untamed world, if you are prepared to find it.

The City is a mess of staircases and narrow streets. Buildings slim as buses press close together, towering into the sky. They lean a little in the wind, stone and wood groaning, floorboards shaking.

In the Underneath, below the bridges, the underdwellers gather, selling their wares: books from secret libraries written in inhuman tongues, potions to bring love or death or both at once, memories to make you weep and laugh.

To the north lies the base of the white mountain, a crag of ice and bitter stone. To the east, the flat of the unbroken desert. To the west, the grey-green sea and the lands of the unconquered sun. To the south, the jungles where still the predators of old roam, terrible kings of the long-past world.

This is the City of dreaming, of wanderers and wonderers, each morning different and yet always the same.

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Word Count: 195

This is for Sunday Photo Fiction. Thanks to Susan for running the challenge and John Brand for providing the prompt photo!