Zayan of the Stormclouds

The story of Zayan of the Stormclouds is a narrative tradition well-known and retold in most of the Eleven Cities; it is particularly prevalent in Pholyos, Chogyos and Loros, the cities on the southern shore of the Sea of Jars. The tale is of interest to thaumatologists as one of the central components of the tradition surrounding the goddess Ynglyas and her famed capacities as a goddess of both weather and prophecy.

Birth of Zayan

The story invariably begins with Yanlyas, the young daughter of farmer who lived somewhere in the northern environs of the Alluvial plain. Devoted to the gods, Yanlyas wished deeply to travel to Pholyos and join the clerisy of Hayan, but her father instead planned to make her the spring princess, and by doing so curry the favour of Dahan. As she walked on the wolds near her father's farm, lamenting this fate, stormclouds gathered and a torrential thunderstorm began, drenching her to the bone. In the sound of the rain and thunder she heard the voice of Ynglyas, foretelling that she would serve neither Hayan or Dahan.
Returning to her father's home she discovered she was pregnant, disqualifying her from the services of either god. The pregnancy ran its appointed course and the labour was uncomplicated and merciful; the result was a daughter, who she named Zayan.

Childhood of Zayan

Zayan's divine ancestry was obvious due to her blue hair, which her grandfather shaved off until one summer morning, when he had finished the shaving, she turned to him and announced he would not be doing so again. The grandfather scoffed at this assertion and went about hi day's work on the farm, but a sudden thunderstorm broke and he was killed when he was struck by lightning. The storm dissipated immediately thereafter.
Zayan's uncle inherited the farm and treated Zayan with more respect and care, allowing her to grow out her hair. He also allowed her to accompany him to the city (Pholyos in some versions; Loros in others) where he aimed to sell his goats at an autumn market. They arrived late and had to wait while various other goatherds sold their animals, and the uncle was amazed to find that Zayan accurately predicted the prices every other farmer received before it was offered. When he asked how much he would receive for his goats, she looked at the stars beginning to shine in the twilight sky and stated he would receive a very high price, but not for his goats. The uncle was struck by this, and went about his business, during which the blue-haired girl came to the attention of Sphay, the then head of the temple of Ynglyas, who asked to take custody of Zayan and offered him a huge sum of silver for his role in the upbringing of the girl. The uncle accepted, and Zayan passed into the custody of the temple of Ynglyas.

Dynamism of the Zodiac

In the temple Sphay taught Zayan the Yglyan Code, which the girl learned with a speed that frightened her teacher. She would often begin tutorial sessions by informing Sphay what she would be learning today and how quickly she would master it. When Sphay eventually asked how Zayan knew these things, the girl explained she could read it in the stars that came out at twilight the previous evening. Sphay, asked her student to teach her some of these skills, and over the next year of evenings Zayan explained what each of the asterisms meant as it rose over the twilit horizon. These asterisms only spoke to her in the hour after sunset, Zayan explained, and Sphay, fascinated anew by the unique precognitive nuances her student perceived in this particular hour of the night, began relating what she was told to what she already knew about reading the stars. Much of the subsequent research of the cult of Ynglyas - of such interest to thaumatologists - stemmed from this discussion, and thus to the partnership between these two women.
Towards the end of this year of partnership Zayan informed Sphay that she would soon be leaving the temple to study the stars by herself. Sphay protested, asking her to stay and continue working with her, but Zayan explained that the future was hers to know and not to change, and that the elder woman would find the strength to bear the parting, even if it felt otherwise to begin with. Shortly thereafter a group of four mariners from Oluz, hearing of a blue-haired witch with an ability to read the future, broke into the temple at night and stole the teenage prophetess from her bed, with the aim of spiriting her back to their city to harness her gifts for commercialgain. Sphay, who had come to love Zayan like a baby sister, climbed to the highest chamber of the Star Tower intending to leap to her death on the rocks at its base, but remembered Zayan's words about strength and found it in herself to carry on their work alone.

Adventures at Sea

One twilight, as the mariners sailed north-west across the Sea of Jars with their prize, they questioned her closely about the nature of her gifts and ordered he to teach them her methods of prognostication. After initially refusing she eventually showed them the twilight sky and explained how the stars showed her that a major storm was brewing, and that only one of the five people on the ship would ever reach Oluz. Her captors, being experienced seamen, scoffed at her prediction, noting that it was not storm season. She shrugged and observed that the stars stood above the winds, and the winds would do their duty by a daughter of the stars.
Over the course of the night the ship was indeed caught in a fierce unseasonable gale; no sudden squall, the storm ran all night and blew the ship off-course. When two of the sailors went aloft to shorten sail, the ship was struck by a large starboard wave and suffered knockdown, and one of the men aloft was tossed into the sea, never to be seen again. His fellow, clinging to the yard, saw Zayan standing calmly, her hair hanging to the side, on the vertical deck.
When the storm broke the following morning the three remaining mariners angrily confronted Zayan about the night's events. Antagonised further by her indifference one struck her with a heavy coil of rope, knocking her to the deck. As he moved closer to continue the beating she held out her hands and a bolt of lightning struck him, blasting him to ashes. Zayan stood, straightened her raiment and calmly observed that the stars also told her that only one of the four would ever strike her.
The remaining two sailors quarreled over what to do with their troublesome captive; one advocated throwing her into the sea while the other insisted she be kept and coerced into using her powers for their benefit. Eventually the man in favour of keeping Zayan took to standing watch over her during the night lest his mate murder her while he slept. The two conversed during these watches and Zayan became fond of him, reassuring him regularly that his death would not come as a result of her powers and that his family missed him. After several such nights, however, his mate stealthily approached the pair and attempted to cut his colleague's throat. During the ensuing fight it was the antagonist who was killed, falling on his own knife. Zayan then reminded the survivor of her earlier prophecy, that only one occupant of the ship would reach Oluz alive, and asked which it would be. The sailor understood and put her off the ship on the island of Jorandayn.

Time on Jorandayn

On Jorandayn Zayan was fed fruit by partridges sent by her divine mother. Thusly sustained she founded the Oracle of Jars, one of the great precognitive institutions connected to the pre-Wesmodian worship of Ynglyas. As well as working to provide prophecy to those who sought it, Zayan wrote books about and of prognostication in the Ynglyan Code and corresponded with Sphay, sharing important secrets with her, though she never returned to the mainland.
Zayan lived to a great age, declining all inquiries about her own death, and her hair never greyed. One twilight, however, she read the stars closely until clouds rolled in to obscure them, retired to bed, and died in her sleep in the midst of a nighttime downpour.

Historicity and thaumatological research

There is no hard evidence that a girl such as Zayan ever existed, but the tale of her time in one of Ynglyas's southern temples appears to have been very prevalent in the southern cities, and indeed within the Ynglyan cult throughout the Eleven Cities. Sphay is a semi-historical figure, a priestess of Ynglyas claimed as a citizen by Chogyos, Loros and Pholyos; she may or may not have existed, though the notion she did appears to have been very common, particularly in Pholyos, where she is sometimes credited with the construction of the Star Tower. One interpretation of the story, expressed in the surviving correspondence of the Lunar Society of Pholyos is that she is a composite character representing several colleagues or proteges of Sphay, with whom the more concrete individual developed some important breakthroughs of Ynglyan lore.
The Oracle of Jars is a well-attested pre-Wesmodian institution. Its ruins lie in the hilly interior of Jorandayn, and goatherds will lead interested parties there for very modest fees. Whether the oracle was in fact founded by an abductee from the southern cities is as yet unknown.
Zayan's attributed ability to control the weather and call upon it for personal defense is of great interest to many thaumatologdts. Like the girl's miraculous conception it plays clearly to Ynglyas's older capacities as a goddess of weather. The Lunar Society discussed the matter at length and its members wrote several books on the topic. Some of the group's correspondence implies that they enjoyed some success in speculatively assembling rituals to summon mist and even generate small anbaric charges. Like the original literature of the Ynglyan cult, however, the records of this research are today widely scattered and reconstructing the reconstruction is likely to occupy any given thaumatologist for years on end.

Date of First Recording

c. 500 BWR