Shades of Grey

SHADOWS TRIBAL CAMP— APRIL 1844

As we trekked into the heart of the city, soft thudding of tribal drums began to fuse with the shrieking banshee wails of the citizens behind me, wailing even louder when they noticed our approach. I began to panic at the quickening succession of noise, fearing that I had unknowingly become the subject of some sort of black magic ceremony.

The warriors soon led me to a very high wooden platform encircling a large bonfire in the city square. I was thrown to the top of the platform where the chief awaited me, standing beside a very old man with many coloured beads in his white beard and thick cataracts in his eyes. He was hunched over, carrying a large staff made of redwood with three garnet stones embedded in the top of the bark. I took this man to be a witch doctor of sorts and I began to tremble as the warriors forced me to my knees in front of the shrieking, dancing throng.

The chief simply smiled and the witch doctor began to shuffle forward on his frail legs. The crowd that had gathered around the podium below instantly fell silent as the witch doctor began to mutter some sort of incantation while sprinkling a black dust on the ground next to me. He made three rotations around my restrained form and then nodded to the warriors holding my arms. They roughly yanked my hair back and pulled down the collar of my coat, exposing my Hunter’s mark.

The tribal drums began once more and the witch doctor started to throw various powders into the bonfire, causing it to belch and change colours dramatically. The crowd began to cheer before joining in the witch doctor’s dark incantation.

“Please!” I shouted over the chanting, trying to sound authoritative. “We mean you no harm! Release us!”

The chief showed no signs of sympathy. He merely stepped to the side and allowed the witch doctor to approach me. The witch doctor stood very strongly on his thin legs and touched the garnet tip of his staff to my Hunter’s mark.

The garnet lit up vividly and I felt a rapid fire tear through my body. I screamed and began convulsing so violently that the warriors restraining me were thrown backwards into the crowd.

After a moment, the heat of the fire dulled and my violent convulsions became mild muscle spasms. I turned over and tried to stand, but something went wrong with my vision — the clear faces of the crowd began to morph and change going from cloudy to clear, from green to red, from skin and faces to bones and organs. They were changing so quickly and so vividly that I lost my balance and fell to my side.

I covered my eyes and grunted as a strange sickness began to grip me. The chanting and drumming of the citizens rose in volume and intensity, as did my nausea. I dared to open my eyes again and saw the witch doctor looming over me with his multi-coloured scarves and shawls hanging loosely over his thin body. He leaned down and whispered into my ear.

“Nangani.”

A sudden ringing rose in my ears, climbing in both volume and pitch until it became unbearably loud, drowning out the chanting and drumming. However, as it passed, I found that the guttural language of the tribe was slowly becoming comprehensible words and the now English words I heard chilled me to the bone as I passed into unconsciousness.

“Awaken the dragon…awaken the dragon…awaken the dragon…”