The Final Bend

Polly woke early with her heart already racing ahead of her. Around her the canyon tightened and darkened, the walls drawing so close overhead that they very nearly touched.

And then she saw it. At the final bend, a thin blade of light stood upright between the dark walls, like a door left open exactly for her.

She hopped around the bend, and the mountain simply stepped aside. Before her rose a great temple cut directly into the cliff face, rose-red and luminous in the morning light, its tall columns climbing the rock. People call it Al-Khazneh, the Treasury.

No one stacked a single brick here. Workers carved the entire building out of the living cliff, beginning at the top and sculpting their way down to the floor. And it was here, she noticed, that the little water channel ended. It had led her the whole way, faithful to the last bend. Polly sat down in the sand and looked up for a long, long time.