Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Tangled Web–Introduction

Introduction

They were the wind on your face and at your back on whimsy.

The summer breeze and desert zephyr held spirit but not spirits, and while those things were ephemeral, they had not stopped moving since they had been given life. They circled the globe and were the trade winds as well as the monsoon and gale of the hurricane, when power of the wind must be shown they were its manifestation. Uncontrolled by all they were the last breath of life and the first breath of a new dawn and through it all they remained the Wind.

In their long life they had learned of other Winds, and the first they had to learn was that Wind between them and other Places. Nothingness, or so it would seem, but there was Wind between the Worlds and they learned how to talk with it and through it. From that they learned of Other Winds that were not of air nor rock nor water but something else and it was the living Wind of the Sun that taught them to converse, albeit slowly, with their Kin of the Stars. With that they learned of the voices stronger than theirs but still weaker than the Stars, and talked to those Winds as well and learned that while they were not the strongest nor the most powerful, they were of great importance as they were the last Wind of Death.

Ages passed beneath them, land came and went, bodies went through their realm and unleashed Fury which was, after all, just their unleashed spirit when given voice. Other Winds had that, as well, and all came from the breathing of that which formed them so long ago it was but a distant memory to all Winds. They could feel the body, however, even when hidden by layers and layers of time and debris, it was still there and from its now covered mouth they had emerged some time after other Winds had been born. A last breath and they were it, the last exhaling of that body, slain cruelly by its kin. All other things dwelt upon that body, be it the blood that rushed between basins or the rock covered skin, they all lived on something far greater than any of them and their source.

As Wind they had no hands or eyes nor legs nor body, but others that dwelt upon the dead skin and rock sought affinity with the Wind to become its servants. Over time the servants had changed but their nature of service remained the same, and when the True Wind was present they could also be there to work the Will of the Wind. These servants did just that, and if the Wind could bring them food or show them treasure, it would do so out of thanks for such service. Some of those servants sought to wrest their own bit of Wind's power for themselves and often paid a horrific price to move from servant to Avatar, and none lasted long, at all. The Wind did not need Avatars, of course, and even servants were a minor part of their outlook and they could do without those as well.

What the Wind had come to understand in all its parts and places, was that they were the promise of new life to that which had created them. As the last breath out they would become the first breath in if the body was remade, reborn. They would then fit in with that body and become the conduit for the next breath and the one after that, amongst the Stars and Places and Empty Spaces, that body would reclaim itself in full. This understanding had taken countless ages for them to understand and while they were in constant motion they also knew of patience beyond all other things.

It was when a Wind of Dream slid out and quietly came to rest to create an Avatar of that body's spirit did the Wind finally take notice. It could be felt, even as that Wind of Dream died out that there was the promise of more like it and the final inhaling that would mark the end of the Dead's Dreaming and the renewal of that which had given life to All in her Space and Time. That being was not alone but in that Space and Time it was separate and when the body had recovered then Spirit would renew and fully itself would that being have power.

Yet, even though it lacked much, the Wind could be many places and learned of the scheme to stop the Wind from Dreams. It was not something obvious, to the Wind, and no Wind could comprehend it nor could all of them do so because of its subtlety. What the Wind could not do in understanding it could, with the merest and basest of understandings, was recognize that it could be stopped by them. For they were, after all, the Wind of pleasant distraction when they merely drifted past.

And the Wind of Destruction and Fury when given voice.

They had not the ability to call Fury from Space or the rock of the body, and in the coming season for their needs it could not be Destruction by hurricane, although similar kind was theirs to create.

What they had left was the North. The Arctic. And it promised a Destruction and Fury all its very own.

The Wind did not need to blow you away to stop you.

Merely freeze you solid with the icy touch of Space called down by the North.

It took time to prepare for that and a most subtle plot, indeed, needed to be thwarted.

They were the Wind.

Their Time had Come.

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