by Larry Crow
The desert lay silent, its surface an inferno. The sky was dark and cloudless. Nothing stirred.
If anything was alive in the waste, it was unlikely it would survive for long. No creatures roamed this plain, except in haste; it was lifeless and threatening.
The air was dead.
From somewhere, a high keening sound shrilled at the open space. It increased in volume, each moment more piercing.
Above the beaten desert, dust began swirling upward, forming a great funnel, growing until it stood from sky to earth. The baked soil tore from the land, lifted and flew into the winds.
The swirl expanded, its girth soon stretching as far as one could see. Blackness flowed into the cyclone, blotting the moon. The desert became darker, dense with the impenetrable dense mass of dust and debris drawn into the storm.
To the south of the desert, a great mountain range stood, blocking the storm from the southern regions. Across the face of the mountains, escarpments slowly disintegrated under the ferocity of the wind lashing against them. Massive stone fragments hurled outward and into the vortex, whipped away into dust.
The wind devoured the mountains' vaulted face.
A magnificent and ornate mosaic etched deeply into the cliff face began to show, ancient beyond the known history of Aerolan.
Great sculptured heroes of ancient wars holding aloft beautifully wrought gables spread across the face of the bared wall. Chiseled in the ebony marble beneath the surface, the bold venue seemed blasted from the cliff.
On the face were two massive doors, many times taller than any man. One opened slowly against the storm's onslaught.
From the face of Esclar'e, a massive and bold mountain rising into the clouds above, a sudden glow invaded this miasma. A single beam sliced through the blackness of the crushing darkness, flaring against the whirling stream of the cyclone, rippling with the change in the texture of the immense funnel.
A man, a specter, floated into view; his face hidden beneath a black hood. He glowed with an aura as he moved across the great plateau, unaffected by the wind. The swirling cyclone seemed to wrap away from him, to avoid him as though he was death.
He stood tall, strong. His long white hair did not move as he traveled across the prominence. His robe, black with a wide golden band circling the neck and slashing diagonally across the front of the robe to the hem, hung loosely though not touching the ground beneath.
He stopped at the edge of the precipice, glared out at the darkness with eyes that seemed endlessly deep, raised his arm and held it aloft for only a brief moment.
From the black crystal in his hand, a slashing light struck across the land and into the skies above. A tearing sound, ripping the air, inundated the land with thunder echoing across the prairie. The ground drummed in a low rumble.
Suddenly, the ferocity of the storm abated; it stumbled. Slowly it vanished, drawn into a crease in the sky. With a groaning anguish, its life force eroded and extinguished.
It had served its one purpose.
Turning he watched the sun just moving above the horizon. Light spread across the flat expanse, brightening the skies.
Within moments, the heat baked the land more than before; any moisture gathered in the night was parched from the air.
He turned and walked into the mountain.
SUMMONS
