A Scholar's Journey: The Divine Tempest Excerpt

The city was built near the side of a white mountain almost level with the clouds at its peak. A cave-like tunnel wound through the mountain to the top and ended in a ledge that protruded tenaciously into the brutal winds.

A woman was standing on the ledge, dressed from head to toe in the finest silvery silk. Her pristine clothes shone like platinum in any kind of light. Even flecks of dirt from the stone floor of the cave could not stain the fine fabric.

She was blessed with long platinum hair that complemented her clothes elegantly, and they fluttered together, streaming in the damp wind. Her face was angular and strikingly beautiful, with delicate cheekbones and a chiseled nose, flawed only by the sharp lines of anguish that clouded her countenance.

She stared out into the distance as if watching a sight beyond reality, and it caused her face to tighten even further in pain. The wind sent a warning with howling urgency, and she wiped her hair from her eyes to clear her vision.

Something was amiss. There was a wrongness in the air. The sixth sense in her mind knew what it was long before it was fully evident. A familiar thought wracked her heart with sharp pangs of unease, an ominous forbearance that preceded a vision.

Before her, the clouds roiled and beat together in a heated battle that was moving inexorably closer. The great bellies of the clouds were ever fuller and darker, precursors of the rain to come. They huddled together and then broke apart. They collided and clashed with one another to set forth their wet gift upon the land.

From within the clouds, shapes began to appear, augurs of the future, given to the woman as preludes to events to come. The clouds moved and shifted, and an image appeared from the chaotic masses. It was a denser column, shaped roughly into the form of an oval. At first it was no more than a stark sliver amongst its gray brethren, but as the storm moved closer it was beginning to become more prominent and showed itself fully as the storm formation covered the city.

The sliver widened and became taller and larger than the cloud in which it had originated. It was pushing every competitor out of the way with a force that was immeasurable. From within that mass something new was stirred, moving and shifting outward, and as the oval widened, new shapes were birthed from the curves of cloud.

A doorway formed, and from within it emerged unspeakable horrors. Grasping claws and gnawing teeth reached toward the woman on the ledge, threatening to consume both her and the city nearby. Then, surpassing the hunger of the lesser creatures within the doorway, another more powerful presence began to emerge.

At first it was just a feeling in the pit of the woman's chest, but slowly it became something far more terrifying. Her breath quickened even more, and she forced herself to remain standing under the pressure of its aura.

Huge, smoldering, sapphire-hued eyes appeared and resolved within the doorway of what must be their owner's cage. Great indigo claws grabbed the threshold and pried it even wider. Slowly it thrust its presence from within its prison into the open. As it did, its eyes glowed brighter and sparked with luminescent lightning, and a dangerous maw opened below them. Long, dagger-like teeth glinted harshly in the pale light of the storm, malicious things that threatened to tear at the fiber of her soul.

Slowly that great fanged mouth opened wider and wider till it was larger than the city and the mountain. Ready to descend upon the land, it encompassed the sky as far as the eye could see. Long, jagged lines of otherworldly cobalt lightning arced through its teeth and eyes and then struck the ground.

The woman could feel that there was an undeniable simplicity to its wants and needs. It wanted only to take and consume, break and destroy everything.

Then, as the great evil was about to fall on the land and take its very essence, the clouds broke into rain, and the vision dispersed.

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