Shades of Grey

JZASACH— NOVEMBER 1843

I opened my eyes sometime later and saw that Forma was no longer flying but trotting on the ground as a white mare. I blinked my eyes in the harsh day light, rubbing them in somnolent annoyance.

“What is it?” I asked sleepily. “Why have we stopped flying?”

“There’s a city ahead. Do we stop or do you want me to go around? Please tell me we can stop. I really want to stop. I’m so tired…”

I looked at the upcoming city more closely and gasped at its beauty: a virtual Celestial City. The buildings seemed to be made of geodesic liquid metal, resplendently luminous in the midday sun. I heard the musical tones of an active city as the people lived their lives. However, something else hung about the entrance to the city, a foul stench not unlike that of biblical Ninevah: a stench of corruption and deceit.

“Forma, are you getting a strange feeling about this city?” I asked, mildly intrigued.

“What do you mean? It’s beautiful! What could possibly arouse your suspicion?” she marvelled.

“I don’t know; I just feel a sort of foreboding sense…as if there’s something taking place here that we need to investigate.”

I pulled out my Pallitus and wrapped it around myself, concentrating on the form of a tall, robust young man, after which Forma gave me an equine shrug of approval and we confidently approached the city border where two very large patrolmen sat at posts on either side of the gate. They looked me up and down with solid eyes and then exchanged an anomalous glance as though wondering why I was there.

“What is your name?” asked the patrolman on my right in a voice that was deeper than any I had ever heard.

“Jacob Keller,” I replied, my voice sinking three octaves to compensate.

“What is your business in our city?”

“I am travelling to Romania to search for my kidnapped sister but I am weary and need to restock my provisions.”

The patrolmen turned to each other and exchanged a knowing glance, nodding curtly in agreement.

“You may pass, but be warned, young lad, it would be prudent for you if you gathered supplies and left hastily.”

I frowned.

“What do you mean? Why?” I asked.

“Just know that there is more to Jzasach than meets the unknowing eye...”

The gates swung open and I gave a nod of thanks to the patrolmen, who looked at me as if I were someone who had inadvertently walked into the pits of hell.

“Forma, something strange is undeniably happening,” I marvelled.

“I think you’re right, this could possibly be bigger than what happened in Aumtomne de Fleure!” Forma replied in a dangerous voice.

Little did I know how right she was and how I should have listened to the two patrolmen and heeded my instinctual unease.