I turned the note over in my hand several times to feel the gruff velum on my skin. I wondered who still wrote letters with animal hide, perhaps they were simply of the old ways. Old fashioned described practically every facet of this place, though ancient fashioned might have been more apt. I suspected the roots grew deep through the muck, reaching ever further to escape the toxic stench.

I found myself constantly fanning my face with the correspondence. Its broad leathery surface providing fleeting moments of respite from the humid, repugnant, fly-bloated air. Each stride my shadow of biting insects peeled off me for just enough time to scan the path ahead. It was a tortuous gnarl of half-submerged Dusk Mangroves, but it was preferable to wading in the stagnant channels.

The chirps and chimmers echoed like prayer-songs emanating from the colonnade halls. Soprantic  serpents contested with steaming mud boils in a chor-hisssssss. Every so often I spied a shape in the fogs as I picked my way across chaotic roots. It would always appear just beyond the thick haze, shrouded faintly by stifling humidity. Sometimes it appeared as a ramshackle dock on the verge of collapsing into the croc-thick channel. Other times it would appear like a mossy house or cabin and I swore there was a lamp burning in one.

A bridge resolved out of the gloom and it traversed a dead still pond. Some planks were rotten or derelict and showed the crystal clear waters beneath. I carefully picked across the crossing for unknown hours, always feeling as If I was exactly halfway across its infinity. The corner of my eye caught movement and I dared only follow the creeping mass with my eyes. It swam just beneath the crystal smooth surface its dimensions horribly warped. Its scales wove a tapestry of unspeakable lore as its bulk sailed into the foggy obscurities. 

I let out a quivering breath and stared into the veiled distance as I continued on. The strange pulsing of the swamps ambient heartbeat encompassed my thoughts. Entranced I walked an unknown distance and time to reach the solid ground once one. Well mostly solid, with my senses returned to me I peered into the clearing before me.

The canopies monopoly on supremacy was thrashed aside to reveal these dreadful ziggurats. Like weathered fangs they lashed through the saturated firmament. Their tiers like puddles of venom weeping from their peak. My chest tightened as if being constricted, my hand losing its grip on the forgotten letter.

Suddenly the immense pressure withdrew and I dropped prone into the muck. As soon as feeling returned to my limbs I slid from my stomach back onto eager feet. Each step took me further from the throbbing vines choking hold on that place. I ran until my legs gave out for the final time, there would be no more delirious sprinting today. 

I huddled in a hollow trunk with a small fire keeping the languid cold away. Every whisper of a sound bounced to my weary ears for fear that the next may be sinister. With a pensive breath I exhaled

"Let this be the last message I deliver as the Courts' Courier."