Shades of Grey
Chapter 27: The Swamp Land

CRONAMIA— MARCH 1843

The road was long and insipid. I have never found myself quite as sleepy as I did on that trek.

“This road is endless!” I exclaimed in exasperation after three irritating days of travel. Rodag laughed.

“We’re almost there, I swear it. The land should turn ugly within the next mile.”

Until that moment, the scenery had been quite beautiful. We had gone over waterfalls, run through endless fields of flowers and scoured through rolling green hills. I couldn’t imagine the mythically monstrous landscape of Cronamia after the Garden of Eden we had been traversing up until then.

“What exactly does Cronamia look like?” I asked.

“A Hieronymus Bosch painting,” Rodag answered simply. “With more stink pits.”

“Are there any fortresses or secret bunkers that could hold a queen?” I asked.

“They have only one real structure to speak of: the palace of Prince Lanark, but I do not think that is where he would tke a prisoner. He is proud of his rich home and wants to keep it pristine, if you can believe it. The rest of the country is made up of caves and tents where the civilians live, if you could call them that. Nasty, stinking creatures...”

“Have you had many dealings with them?” I asked cautiously.

“Yes. They are dirty, swindling monsters—”

“Ssh!” Forma interjected under a low growl. “Can you hear that?”

I sat up and listened. Soft bubbling and a dull thudding of tribal drums could be heard over the gentle rushing of the river to our right. Cronamia was just over the hill, waiting for us.

“Is that it?” I asked rhetorically. I knew very well that it was.

“Yes. Go, Forma,” Rodag urged her gently.

She was motionless for a moment, then seemed to replace her courage and began leaping from rock ledge to rock ledge as we ascended the last bit of greenery we would see for several hours.

“Oh...” I exhaled quickly once we had crossed over the acme of the cliff. My breath was almost forcibly knocked out of me by the odour and sheer ugliness of the land.

It was like entering Gehenna itself. The sky was an ugly shade of reddish orange and the landscape was blackly barren; only misshapen stink pits and geysers bursting with black smoke remained. I saw small animals that had lost their way trying to cross the treacherous lands, worn and weary from the many difficulties the landscape presented, fall in exhausted desperation. All beauty and peace seemed to stop right where we stood, on the very brink of Hell.

“Must we go?” Forma asked.

“Yes. We swore to the steward that we’d retrieve Anesthia,” I said, trying to ignore the garbled spits of the frightening language I heard from the dark shadows.

“Even though we’re suspicious of him?” Forma asked.

“We’ll deal with that when we get back. Let’s retrieve the queen first.”

“Easier said than done,” Forma scoffed as she changed from a stallion into a Serqua, a huge scaly creature with long, muscled legs designed for navigating through a tough landscape such as Cronamia.

“Where are we going?” I asked Rodag.

“Straight. Enter the tunnel at the base of the mountain.”

Forma and I both looked straight ahead down a long path that ended in a dark, foreboding tunnel at the base of a large fiery red mountain.

“Grey, I don’t want to go in,” Forma said recalcitrantly.

“Neither do I, but we don’t have a choice. Rodag knows where we’re going,” I replied.

“How are you so sure? How do you know he isn’t planning something?” Forma replied with unwarranted anger.

“Because I trust my instincts and since you are my Fairy, you need to trust them too.”

“Grey, ours is not an absolutist relationship: we are partners and there will be times you have to let go of your foolish Hunter pride and listen to me.”

“I know, but this isn’t one of those times. Why are you so passionately against Rodag?”

“I’m not against him, per say. I’m just frightfully aware of the fact that he’s a Nemorosa and I suppose I’m much more disgusted by his Creature aroma than you are.”

“Don’t give me that rubbish. You nearly killed him at the Trenstor camp!”

Forma was quiet for a moment.

“Grey, don’t get upset, I just don’t trust him. I haven’t liked him since we met him, you know that.”

“I know, but why would you torment me so harshly about him? I felt as if I was being questioned by Torquemada himself.”

“I had to make the other Trenstors believe I was one of them. Whatever I did to you, I had to make it harsh enough to draw a strong reaction. And I did. So shut your mouth.”

“Forma, you really hurt me.”

“When I threatened him? Why? Would you have cried if the roles were reversed? If Rodag had a sword to my throat, would you have reacted the same?”

“Of course! If anyone threatened you, I would kill them!”

“Even if it was Rodag?”

I locked Forma out of my head, shocked that she would suggest such an idea. She misread my annoyed silence as confirmation of her preposterous notion and snarled in dark exasperation.

The cave loomed over us and I then tried to focus my acute senses to identify any large obstacles that could possibly lie ahead of us. However, after several moments of focusing, I found I could not see or hear anything, as if the tunnel had no end…

“How long is this tunnel?” I asked in frustration

Rodag didn’t get a chance to answer for suddenly the floor gave way beneath us and we all fell into a pitch-black vertical chute.