The Colorless Land

Chapter 18: Bitter Frost

By the time the passage ended, Maithea had noticed a number of changes in the villagers.

Her notion from that day had turned out right. The people were acting off. At first it had only been a hunch, a general sense of eeriness that seemed to surround them, barely strong enough to be noticeable. Then the distortion had grown, and by now it was impossible to overlook. The people of Rivertown were no longer themselves.

A calm had fallen on them, one that had nothing to do with resignation. They were simply blank. As if their journey did not matter to them anymore. As if they had already given up and decided that they had nothing to lose anymore, not their loved ones, not their lives. In some this might be a natural reaction, Maithea thought. But not in so many. Not in almost everyone.

And was it her imagination, or were they slowly beginning to fade?

It could be natural, of course. They might simply be pale from the march, the fear and the lack of food and rest, or perhaps it was the sickly white light of the tunnel playing a trick on her eyes. Perhaps the burden had given them gray hairs where there had been none before. All that might be. But that would not explain the fading color of some of their eyes.

Nellary, at least, had not changed as much. Ever since the incident with the leader she had been quiet and grim, more careful but no less angry. She spoke little and breathed through her shawl whenever she could, and maybe that was why her eyes were no less hazel, her hair no less brick-red than when they had started their journey. Maithea was glad. If she had to watch her wife fade into apathy along with the others, she did not know if she could bear it.

The last day of the march was eerily silent. No one spoke anymore. There were no wails, no cries, none of the sounds that had accompanied them on the first few days. Only silent marching and the undying echo of their own footsteps.

Then, finally, the mountain opened in front of them, and they came out into the snow and the bitter cold.

Outside winter had fallen. An icy wind beat mercilessly against their faces, carrying a flurry of snowflakes that caught on their clothes, their hair, coloring them white within minutes. The sky was white, and the air was white with snowflakes, and everything was blindingly bright with a light that cast no shadows. All around them the snow lay for inches and inches, thick and perfectly white and too smooth to be natural, forming no waves, no bumps. Only ahead of them the path was free from snow, white and paved and straight as a ruler, leading ahead into a cold nothingness.

"What is this?" Nellary whispered, shivering in her thin jacket that was not made for the dead of winter. "Where the hell are we?"

Maithea breathed into the air, watching as it formed a cloud that transformed into tiny crystals of ice and was borne away by the wind. Snowflakes caught in her eyelashes, obstructing her vision. "This must be the Colorless Land," she whispered and coughed at the biting cold air.

"It's so cold," Nellary replied, inching closer. "How does anyone live here?"

"No chitchat. Keep walking," said the guard next to them. "You have not yet reached your destination."

Maithea wanted to ask where they were going, then she remembered he mist and kept silent. Not that any mist could stay in the air in this cold, she thought. But the Colorless People's fog was no ordinary one, and the sorcery within could still work in other ways.

They walked on. The wind brought tears into their eyes, tears that froze as soon as they fell on their lashes. The snow blasted into their faces. The cold crawled under their flimsy clothes, unprepared for such winter, gnawing and biting until they could not feel their own bodies. There was no sign of the passage of time. The snowstorm continued. The white light was unchanging.