The soft tune drifted across the rocks and sand of the western desert.
The flitting female voice carried on the breeze accompanied by the sweet hint of desert flowers and distant rain.
She sat still on a large flat rock, clinging to the shadows of another larger boulder. Hardly sweating the dust didn’t change the soft texture of the skin on her bare tanned face. She licked her chapped lips and swallowed hard.
She pushed the hood back off her short thick dark hair. One would find it hard to guess her age. But she appeared a young thing, only 12 years or so.
Lighting appeared in the graying sky over the desert, she could see it striking the ground in the distance. Hot electric fingers stretching down to meet the earth. Leaving its black fingerprints in the crystal sand.
Her shadowy rock was fine for now. The sun disappeared behind darkening clouds. She would need a better shelter ...
If one were to approach the young thing you would expect to see a mother or other family close. Waiting out of sight... but no one appeared as she leapt down from her rocky perch.
She stumbled slightly as the sand shifted beneath her small body.
Cold and wet the wind blew as the storm clouds moved closer. Sand began to come to life. all over the flat desert land around her shifted and moved like waves on an ocean. The child wore long blue embroidered robes. Tugging her hood back into place she moved her palms and wrists together as if in prayer.
Her lips began to move. Soundlessly at first... Then a toneless whisper-like hiss.
Lightning and thunder cackled and cracked as if on command.
“Ol Sonf Vorsag Goho Iad Balt Lonsh
Calz Vonpho Sobra Z-Ol Ror I Ta Nazps” she chanted...
A tall man appeared suddenly silently blinking into being. Long white robes hugged his slender body. His eyes solid black. And his expression – absent, none. Black hair swirled around his shoulders as the desert wind grew faster - more violent. But the figure stood, unblinking, not making a move or even a breath.
“Qaa Nothoa Zimz Od Commah
a Nobloh Zien Soba Thil Gnonp Prge”
Another figure, same height, same build, slender and feminine. White robes churning in the strong wind. Short, blonde hair, black eyes, no movement, no breath...
“Aldi Ds Vrbs Obleh G Rsam
Casarm Ohorela Taba Pir Ds Zonrensg
Cab Erm Iadnah Pilah Farzm”
One by one she called them... the unborn. The all seeing eyeless. The lifeless immortals. Each different... all the same...
She was surrounded now, 12 figures stood around her in a perfect circle. 9 feet in diameter. The sand began to circle as if to form a sinkhole beneath them all.
But the figures stood unmoved.
The storm was on them now. Over and all around the rain began to fall in sparse torrents. Turning the dusty sand to mud. She shouted now to the figures who immediately became aware of her presence and listened...
“Ca Od Zamran Odo Cicle
Be friendly unto me - For I am The servant of the same
Qaa Zorge Lap Zirdo Noco
Your God, The true worshipper of The Highest.
Mad Hoath Iaida!”
Lightening shot down from the sky. Striking each of the figures on the crown of their head. Shooting down through their bodies and exploding the sand at their feet. It stayed. Not a single strike, but a flow...
Electricity was pouring down from the clouds in hot white veins through the white robed figures. Who never moved, never shifted, did not feel, and stayed like statues unafflicted.
The sand began to fill the electrified air –suspended, black from heat it formed a massive tunnel to the heavens. The young girl stood in the center of the electric vortex. Swaying gently from the force, she closed her eyes...
The next moment – gone. Empty. No lightening... though the clouds still hung heavy over the barren land. The winds softened and became silent. Only the boulder sat unmoved, the landscape unchanged – save the large symbols burned into the sand. Surrounding a charred black spiral.
