"Storm Tamer" by Jessica Lyn Thurber

Storm Tamer

The unforgiving wind had blown through this barren land since the beginning of time.  No hills or mountains interrupted its determined course.  The only obstruction was a tall stone tower that had been built by some stubborn pioneer, but the structure had been long forgotten.  The thing was unnatural, like a moss covered dagger buried to the hilt in the flesh of the earth.  It never should have been built here.  Nature rebelled against it and had been trying to destroy it for centuries.  The wind screamed around the tower’s walls and wailed up the many flights of stairs through the narrow windows to cry to the strange, pale girl who stood precariously on the battlements.

            The wind did not bother her.  She stood unmovable as the stones beneath her bare feet.  Her dark cloak matched the angry grey sky above her.  The wind pulled it and whipped it brutally around the girl’s thin body.  She stared off into the distance, her eyes burning like midnight embers, watching something so far in the horizon that no mortal could have seen what she did.  Her face was young, and yet no so.  It held the wisdom of many years, more than such a face should.  Her hair, whiter than new fallen snow, lashed about her face wildly.

            The sky snarled suddenly with thunder, drawing her attention.  She looked up at the roiling clouds, black now and heavy with rain.  A long claw of lightning snapped across the sky, illuminating her delicate features for just a moment.  The air crackled with the still restrained force of the storm and her blood surged in response.  The thunder roared this time right above her head, and the rain began.  As the first few drops fell, she reached one hand out of the folds of her cloak and turned her face upwards, expectantly.  The sky unleashed its fury with another blinding flash of lighting, and the rain pounded earthward.

            Within moments, the ground beneath turned to mud and water streamed from the stone tower.  The girl’s cloak made some brief pretense of shielding her from the rain, but it surrendered to the rivers pouring from the sky.  She threw it off as useless.  Beneath it, she wore a thin, gauzy white dress that clung to her body as the rain soaked it.  Her sodden hair became whip-like, flinging around her face in wet cords.  She held her arms out wide in sudden exultant joy.  The wind threw stinging, pebble sized rain at her, but she ignored it and let the storm do what it would.

            She laughed and closed her eyes for a moment to feel the raw power all around her, to let herself join it for just a moment.  The whiteness of her hair and her dress glowed against the dark sky and dingy stones of the tower.  She lifted both hands up to the sky like a child reaching out to her mother and the thunder rolled out threateningly.  At almost at the same instant, lightning flashed.  The bolt flew straight for the tower and struck the girl’s upturned hands.  She laughed again, delighted and the lightning infused her body instead of consuming her.  Her pale skin lit with a divine, unearthly radiance. 

            The thunder roared at her, enraged, and hurled another bolt of lightning at her.  This one wrapped down her arms and around her body, caressing and touching like a cautious lover.  She pressed her hands together and then took hold of the bolt, sparks jumping from fingertip to fingertip and encircling her wrists.  The bolt shortened until it was just taller than her, and she ran her hands up and down it, smoothing it and thinning it into a slender but sturdy rod.  It solidified into an elegant ivory staff.  The tip formed an elaborate teardrop shaped cage with tiny chains of lighting dancing around inside.

            She lifted the staff high and slammed it down onto the battlement.  Light shot from the staff, enveloping her and swallowing the entire tower in a huge globe.  The ground shook and rolled and the light suddenly contracted to surround only the girl.  The tower trembled and then, as if the very mortar that held the stones together had vanished, it came ponderously apart, tumbling to the ground with a mighty crash.  Not one stone remained atop another, leaving nothing but a pile of rubble and a cloud of dust that was quickly washed away by the rain.

            The bright ball of light that was the girl hovered in the same place she had stood upon the battlements.  As the dust cleared, she started to descend.  The rain lessened, and the thunder gave a feeble growl, but it faded.  She stepped onto one of the fallen stones and the light retreated into the head of the staff and the rain ceased.

            “I am Ashaya’ai!” she cried triumphantly, lifting the staff again to the sky from whence it came.  The thunder rumbled a sullen response.  “And I claim the lightning.”  She surveyed the ruined tower around her and smiled to herself.  She lowered the staff and stepped off the stone.  The clouds above her began to shift and clear as she walked slowly away from the destruction in her wake.