Needing help to free her creation, Rain turns to an agricultural specialist who has more than furrows on his mind.

After centuries of waiting, Rain has an opportunity to retrieve a creation that she designed and it means far more than a simple machine should. Her memories are wound around the weather machine and it has been used to destroy the natural order of Jarko.

When she completes her introduction to the local mayor, he ends up leaving office suddenly and his replacement is first a member of the Citadel before he is acting mayor. He is more than willing to help her with the weather machine. Of course, being from the Citadel, there will be a price, but Rain has learned that there always is when it is for something she really wants.

Excerpt:

She shook her head. “Take me to your controllers, mayors or whatever you have this time around. Touch one more traveller and I will bring clouds, I will bring wind and there will be lightning through this city until everyone runs.”

The announcer looked confused, but she quickly gathered a cloud and brought a crack of lightning down in the arena, causing an explosion of the wall and sending dozens scurrying for their lives.

“Now, please. I am running out of patience, and I have offered you a lot already.”

She started to raise the wind. Dirt kicked up in the arena and the guards who had led her to be killed now bowed and offered to show her where she could meet their leaders.

Jarko turned but the stuffed idiots at the top remained the same. She followed the men to their mayor.

“Rain, you have come at last.”

The mayor of Nekahar was a gusher. He offered her a glass of water, and she deliberately picked her canteen off her belt and drank.

“Your little show in the arena would have killed me, as it has so many others.”

He winced. “Ah, that. Well, the populace needs to see that we are trying everything.”

“Why not hire a repair crew from one of the passing ships?” Reyan looked at the opulent surroundings.

“We have nothing to offer them. There is no bank left, no city coffers.”

Reyan looked over his clothing and noted that it was not frayed but neat and new. No stains, no tears and no marks of the endless dust that had worn its way into the clothing of almost everyone in the city. “I see. What do you expect me to do?”

He blinked at her as if she was an idiot. “Bring the rain.”

Her laugh was derisive. “If I bring the rain in the current state, the soil will wash away. All of the ditches have filled in with dust, the farms are empty and I doubt that you have any seeds left. What good would it do?”

He stiffened. “We have seeds. We have carefully tended our seed stocks, and we still have enough left to plant enough crops to feed half the current city.”

She paced and sat on the edge of his desk, flicking a button on her leather coat. “So, you have withheld planting stock on the off chance that murdering travellers would get my attention. What happened to the money?”

“We don’t need to get into that.”

“Oh, we do. Your clothing is pristine, none of the marks of prolonged exposure to dust are visible. Your office is opulent, and the water tanks hidden in the walls are completely full. Where has the money gone, Mayor Tethnib?”

“None of your business. Help us! Bring the rain!”

She picked up a paperweight and wondered how long it would take for him to hear his own voice echoing across the city through the loudspeaker system. “Why the sacrifices?”

He snorted. “To be honest, the first ones we drowned were researchers from other cities that told us the weather system should never be repaired. How could they say that when their own crops were fine?”

“I went to them to keep the balance. Your city has been messing with the natural order of things, and unless your people impeach you or dismiss you and bring someone practical to the table, I will not help to restore balance.”