Calling Up the Storm

Once upon a time there was a small village on the edge of a great desert, just beyond the mountains where the dragons live. The wind always blew out of the desert, bringing hot, dry air and no water. So the villagers dug deep wells and pumped water from deep within the earth. But the water in the earth was limited, and after some years they ran out.

Then one day a traveler came out of the mountains and stopped in the little village. She had with her a very strange dragon, and told stories and performed little magic tricks. By these signs the elders saw she was a witch, and demanded that she summon rain to save their town. To this the traveler replied that her magic was meant to save those in need, and the townspeople could easily get up and move into the mountains, where there were many rivers and rain fell more often. The next day she left, setting out across the desert.

Not far from the village she found a lone tree standing bent and withered in the sand. It was an old tree, and before the town had been built it had lived off the water buried in the ground, but since then the people and pumped it all out and it was slowly dying.

So the traveler spoke to the dragon, and the dragon nodded. Taking to the sky he opened his mouth and called, as only a dragon can call, on the sky and the clouds and the wind. And from over the mountains and the hills came a great storm cloud, bearing down on the desert like an ocean wave. It covered the entire town and all the land around the lone tree for many miles, and there is stayed for forty days, while it rained and blew and thunder cracked in the heavens. The townsfolk at first rejoiced at the water, but soon became frightened of the unending storm and left, disappearing into the desert beyond the rain.

Today the little village is an empty, dead town of sand and wind and shadows, but the tree remains. It stands in view of the ruins and the mountains, and sometimes, in the evenings when the wind is just right, the sound of its leaves rustling is more like the patter of raindrops, and the creak of its branches is like the booming of distant thunder.

My latest pencil piece, featuring non other than Jeiko and Karo. Hope ya like it!

Prismacolor pencils on 9"x12" illustration paper. Art and related prose © myself, some rights reserved. This picture appears on page 95 of my Black Book.
Enjoy.