The Colorless Land

Chapter 12: Fog and Flame

Behind her Edmian followed, scrambling, a little slow but holding on. He had just made it into the branches when the tree's foot was enveloped by mist. The forest was enveloped in an unnatural glow. The pale moon looked too large and too bright, almost blinding in the eyes. No wolves howled in the distance.

From tree to tree Jolette made her way, slowly but steadily climbing through the forest as below her the fog rose higher and higher like an incoming tide. The pale, glowing figures hadn't seen them yet. They were all headed single-mindedly for the deserted town, and in their hands were weapons.

Jolette listened for any noises, anything that might tell her what had become of their friends. Nothing. The forest was silent. The shining figures below were moving without a noise.

How many were there? Had any reached the town yet? The house?

How were they going to get back out if the fog kept on rising?

Jolette pushed back that thought. Later. They would take care of it later. Right now they should focus on the first part of their errand. The rest could wait.

Were they still on the right way?

Jolette looked right and left, but all trees seemed to look the same. The street was invisible below. She could not even tell where it was supposed to be. Everything under their feet was swallowed in mist.

"Damn that fog," she whispered, scrambling higher up in her tree, ignoring the way the stem and branches bent under her weight. "What is wrong with it?"

"I don't know," Edmian answered behind her. "It shouldn't be acting like that. It should be weaker in the dark...and it shouldn't form people and move!"

"I dunno what it shouldn't, but it does!" Jolette shot back in frustration. "Dammit! Which way is the stupid town?"

Edmian pointed ahead. "That way."

"How d'you know?"

"I...just do." He glanced down. "Aithal is that way. I can sense it."

"Just gonna believe you," Jolette answered and climbed on. "Can you sense anything else?"

Edmian shook his head. The fog began to pool around their feet.

Jolette scrambled on. It was too bright for a night, too blinding. The mist wrapped everything in its soulless white glow. The moon was too large and too white, the familiar dark patterns on it paling and disappearing until it was only a white shining circle above a sea of shining white, a cheap mockup of the sun without any of its life or warmth.

How much further could they climb? And how much higher? The fog had almost reached them, but the trees were too thin here to climb any higher and too far apart to make a path. What would happen when they entered the mist? Would they still see anything? Would they get lost?

A vision entered Jolette's mind, unbidden. She saw herself and Edmian swallowed up by the pale nothingness, glowing white engulfing them until they saw nothing and heard nothing and knew nothing, all their thoughts and feelings dissolving until fog filled them and turned them into two more of the colorless figures below. She shook her head, shuddering. The image persisted.

Then, suddenly, stone roofs rose up from the mist, and muffled sounds reached her ears from below. Voices. Familiar voices, distant but vibrant and alive in the midst of the pallor.

Without thinking she shifted her balance and bent her tree into the next, swinging on faster and faster as she followed the voices. She was plunging into the fog, but right now she did not care. "Aithal!" she called. "Saryana! Can you hear me?"