Rainmaker

It was in an age long past, a time when our people were very young and our land was lush with water, a paradise to men and animals alike, and the world was new and fresh, before the time of turmoil, before the time of the storyweaver, in whose footsteps I tread so cautiously, so that I might not make a new cataclysm.  The land, which gave of itself so plentifully, supported great beasts which dwelt on the land itself, in the great rivers, which flowed across the land's great expanse, and also in the air, which stood blue above the land in the sky.  This story is about such a creature.  One which soared above our lost fertile land, as a gentle gust and also as a great gale.  A bird so large that when he hunted, his wings toppled the great trees which then grew in our lands.

And yet this creature also yearned to be loved by our ancestors, the men and women of these lands.  So, he roosted in the trees near their camps, gently flapping his wings to provide cool breezes in the moist heat of the summer.  The bird would help when there was a drought and the people had too little water for their crops and would soar high into the blue sky, flapping his wings fiercely until great rainstorms were formed and gave the people respite.  And so the people began calling the bird Rainmaker and all in the land rejoiced at the friendship the people had with the skybeast.

But unfortunately, this friendship could not last.  It was not long before the people began to take Rainmaker for granted, and he, too, grew tired of constantly helping the people with little given to him in return.  His heart longed for more.

It was on one summer day when Rainmaker was gently flapping his wings to provide a cool breeze, when he spotted with his great eyesight a young maiden who was taking a rest from the afternoon heat, washing herself in one of the cool streams which then littered the land.  He was at once filled with longing and knew that he was in love.

With love in his heart, Rainmaker flew to the maiden, causing great distress to those in the camp whose tents he had accidentally toppled over in his haste.  But the great bird did not notice the destruction he had caused for his eyes were fixed on the beautiful maiden and he did not look behind him.  Rainmaker perched in a great oak tree which overlooked the calm stream where the maiden bathed and to her he said, "My heart aches so for your beauty.  When I look upon you my eyes can see none other.  Please will you return my affections and fly with me to the sky?"

The maiden, though flattered by Rainmaker's advances, had no choice but to refuse, for she was promised to another and if she broke her vow there would surely be war between her tribe and that of the one to whom she was betrothed.  The great bird felt sorrow and desperately pleaded with the maiden to change her mind, promising to protect her tribe, to give them all the rain they needed, all the wind.  But still the young woman refused and so Rainmaker's heart was broken.

He flew into the blue sky, higher than he had ever flown - so high that he touched the great blanket of stars which is said to have been beyond the blue heavens in those days, a great cloth woven of dark silk which had holes through which the light of the afterlife could be seen.  But Rainmaker had never been so high and did not know that the blanket of stars was a cloth which would stick to his feathers.  He soared and soared, twisting and turning in the air in his grief, shouting, "Why do they make war?  Is it not to destroy my love?"  Rainmaker was unaware that with every turn he made the fabric tangled him up tighter in its grasp until it was too late.  He found himself no longer able to remain in the air, his wings now pinned to his sides by the dark, silken sky.

Rainmaker screeched as he fell, unable to flap his great wings to save himself.  He plummeted to the land below, pulling the sky down with him and with a final howl hit the ground with such force that he was buried under the land, all but his beak, which now sticks out of the sand as a great monument to Rainmaker and the beautiful blue and black skies, which we have now lost forever.

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The storyweaver looked up, opening his eyes as if from a trance.  He looked around the circle of us, his eyes stopping on me.  "And that is why the sky now shines down upon us in the day with only the pale light of the afterlife and not the beautiful blue described to us in the stories of ages past.  It is why at night we cannot see the pinhole dots of stars in the black blanket beyond the blue.