Xanda The Wyndmahn

This is a short story inspired by the AWESOME art of Phandigrams

Xanda the Wyndmahn

He left the golden hall, turning his back on the Golden Empress of Padush. 
His robes billowed and his ebony wood staff hummed as he walked, the resonant sound echoing off the marble walls of the long hall. Colossal, white terraces opened up on either side, bathed in sunlight and arched to overlook the city below. The city cascaded off into the open blue sky along the jagged mountainside. 
He left the massive terraces behind and entered a long room that bottle necked into the High Stair. Sunlight shot into the enclosed space through slit windows where nothing but the sky above could be seen. The sound of his hard, calloused feet against the cold black marble boomed in his ears like a heavy war drum, as he ruminated on what the empress had said. 
He descended the High Stair and reached the White Courtyard. 
Pale pink, shimmering gold, and dazzling white leaves shone bright in the sunlit courtyard as rainbow trees waved in the soft breeze. He passed the ivory guards who stood to either side of the entrance. The two guards; who seemed to be in a sort of trance, suddenly stood at attention and gripped their spears tightly. 
As if his passing had awoken them from the stupor. 
One wiped his mouth free of spittel and yelled, “Yeah, and we don’t wanna see you here again, ya damned tramp!”
A more hollow being, might have given the insult some attention but the guard might have as well have shouted at a stone or a tree; for he was more like one of those. He continued down the Golden Stair and into the Lord’s district. He stopped and stroked his nappy beard as he looked back and reflected on the long and pointless walk up and down the Golden Spear of Padush. His jaw clenched and he ground his teeth. 
He thought about all the places he’d been since the deep season of cold and now the trees along the road of the Lord’s District had begun to transmute once again. He’d ridden through the desert, to warn the kings of Kruul.
 He’d sailed to the far isles to speak to the Lord of Liedy. He’d descended the deep crater to converse with the elder of Jashish. Even flew to the cloud peaks to plead to the Council of Lovak. 
But no matter the language, the culture, or species; they’d all said the same thing. The Kings had whispered it. The Lord had painted it out. The Elder expounded upon it. And The Council… The council would still be talking about it even now and no closer to coming to a decision. 
He wondered if they’d even truly heard his warning.
 
 “The soil of Orb is dying.” 
He’d said. 
And each of Orb’s fairweather leaders had replied, 
“What am I to do?”
Why lead if you see and think in the same way as those around you?
He chewed on the thought.
Useless!
He spat upon the cedar street.

He descended into the city proper, from the Golden Stair. 
He was deep in thought when the pitter-patter of small feet emerged from the hustle and bustle of the lively city road and caught up to his long, single minded strides. The presence said nothing but he felt the anticipation emanating beside him. 
The intensity grew and built before the high musical voice said, 
“Well? What’d she say?”.
He was muttering to himself; a bad habit, he stopped and turned, looking at the little one. 
Her huge frog-like eyes stared up at him in wonder. His apprentice hailed from the brown bogs of Eteey and had the beautiful look of those folk. 

He had expected no more from the empress than he’d gotten from any of the others but even so, he could not say it aloud. His anger was building and if he spoke now… he simply shook his head. Her eyes dissolved into wells of disappointment at the realization.
“But our leaders are supposed to lead us gently into change. That’s why they have the power of the people!” She said, her innocence pried the words free from his mouth, 
“They will do nothing!”
The anger was rising in him as the words flowed.
 “It seems, elected or born into the station; these so-called leaders hold no respect for life and only seek to please the ones who secure their seat to power.”
His staff began to emanate waves of heat and bent the air around him. 
“They will not suffer the consequences of their own actions and so they do not care!” 
His dark fathomless eyes lit with a fiery shock of orange. 
His anger was upon him now and would only grow, deepening its roots into his power. 

Smooth sailing clouds suddenly slowed, bulked, and began to grow dark in the midst of the clear and beautiful day.
 “Do the fools think the seats they sit upon were built in a day?! The cities? The roads?! The very fruit that hangs from the trees of plenty?! Did Orb herself sprout all these things in a day!?” 
Passers by and folk bustling about their business had begun to stop and watch or else walk widely around the odd pair. Some were pointing, making correlations to the storm brewing directly above and the ragged stranger’s anger. Wind howled, whistling through the streets and alleys as the crack of lightning split the blackening clouds with purple and white veins. 
People fell to kneel and pray, some others ran and hid inside of buildings, abandoning carts, goods, and crying children. 
No one stood near Xanda the Windman, as his deep echoing voice boomed;each word bludgeoning the air itself. 
“Why have power if you will not use it!” 
He cried to himself or maybe… to someone else who wasn’t there: or else was all around. 
“We’ll all die for fear of action like FOOLS!”

Thunder shook the mountainside-city and the streets began to rumble and shake. A sound like the tearing of roots echoed across the mountain range as his anger threatened to tear the city off its foundations. The wind whipped through the open road and sent debris careening through the air. His dark eyes were flaming with anger. Anger led to madness, a quenchless, hungry, frenzy of flame. 
He’d break this world wide open. He’d tear it all down and have the people start again. 
Maybe the next time they’d get it right. 
He held his staff aloft and gripped it tightly in both of his big calloused hands and at the precipice of smiting the ground beneath his feet, he felt a soft tug on his robe. His eyes flicked down to the forgotten Eteeyan, her huge brown eyes and innocent face filled with the beauty of clear and conscious ignorance. She saw him, through all of his maddening fury, she saw him and her eyes seemed to say; 
“What is the use of great power if you use it to expedite the destruction of all you love?” 

Then she said, with a smile as soft and gentle as a dreamless sleep, 
“What can we do Xanda?”
The wild and twisting flames in his eyes guttered, then died and fell from his eyes in a blink, as liquid gold tears. His dark eyes stung and his fingertips threatened to burst with black electricity. 
But her clear presence and musical voice had cut a silver lining into the dark sky. Light began to bleed through the darkness and fell in sheets onto the street. 
Xanda only stared into those huge eyes full of wonder and possibility and those eyes looked to him for guidance. 
Him, who was ready to destroy everything to start anew, even her.
He would be no different from the leaders of Orb, he saw reflected in those eyes.

He sighed and steam and smoke ran from his mouth like a great white river and flooded the streets with a dense smog. He sighed again and closed his eyes. 
Rain began to fall, pebbling on the girl’s hood and gently washing the smog from the streets.
 It cooled his wrath and soothed his pain and shame of anger. 
A final grace-filled sigh sunk deep into his body, grounding him to Orb in all her beauty and power.
He placed his staff onto the ground, so gently, and knelt.
“We will do what is needed,” he said.

She searched his eyes then and asked.
“Will there be joy?”
“There will be. And pain and loss.”
“Then why should we do anything about it?” she asked, with all of the purity of Orb and beyond.
A corner of his mouth slid upward as he said,
“Because we love.”
She let the words sink in. “Because we love.”, she repeated and the rain stopped. Giving way to calm, clear, open skies once more. 

The sun rose from behind a cloud, as did Xanda the Windman and he said, 
“Come Yiri, we have much work to do.”
“Then we shall do it joyfully!” 
She gave him a huge smile.
He smiled back, his white teeth shining as bright as the sun. Then he heard the clanking of metal feet marching down the market street toward them. 
He picked up his staff, his smile had fallen, as a troop of ivory soldiers came closer to surround them.
“Because we love…” 
He said, closing his eyes. And when he opened them again he said, as if to someone who wasn’t there: or else was all around him.
“Because we love.”