Writers of the Future, Volume 30 by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction & Fantasy
Publisher: Galaxy Press, L.L.C.
Published: 2014-03-26T00:45:34+00:00

Amba lay awake, her heart slowing to normal before she got up. The gray light of dawn was just easing into the sky. She tiptoed into the main room of the house, listening, but heard no sound. This was the time of day that she and Father usually arose, but she suspected he had worked late into the night and had not yet woken.

She had to make the ship leave, had to tell the ginger-haired man that she would not do the things he wanted, and she had to do it when her father wouldn’t see her talking to the air. She eased from the house still in her nightdress and still barefoot. The tilled soil was rough and uneven under her feet. One hand clutched near her throat and she realized that she was gripping the necklace, though she didn’t remember putting it on.

Amba knew what she meant to say, but her mind remained half in her dreams and the place beneath her breastbone felt full and heavy and warm. It was confusing. Like being two people at once, the girl of the storms and the girl of the farm.

The ship was bobbing at anchor in the first field, as she had known it would be. She neared the ship, and the ginger-haired man came to the railing. He smiled. “You have awoken your birthright, Storm-bringer. I can feel it.”

“I can’t do it,” she said. “I know what you want, and I can’t do it to Father. I can’t do it to any of them. We need the sparkers more than we need the rain.” Perhaps he was an old spirit, and didn’t understand the world as it was now. If the sparkers died, people would starve.

“You can’t decide the fate of the world until you have knowledge of the world. Use that power of yours. Feel what’s going on around you, and then make up your mind what you will and won’t do.”

“It won’t matter. I can’t bring the rain if it hurts the people.”

Amba turned to walk back to the house when a jolt shocked through her bare feet. Father must have moved the larger grubs to the first field, and one lay beneath her now. Everything about the creature felt wrong in a way that made her stomach clench as if she might vomit. Almost without thought, she tapped her power.

It swept through her—just as it had in her dream—out the top of her head to the sky and down through her feet into the earth. Her legs were on fire with energy, and her scalp prickled as her hair lifted. Her entire body became a conduit.

Unlike her dream, this time she truly connected to the earth and sky. And suddenly she understood. Everything.

She felt the energy of the sparkers moving through the soil and that of the heat lightning above. She understood the dry earth and the perpetually angry clouds. She understood that people farming more and more of the sparkers kept lightning from reaching

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.