See the Canyon for the Trees
Kaelyn awoke and dressed in the predawn light. It was two days tot he new moon but this was when they were ready and earlier felt safer than later.
Kaelyn put a few things in her satchel, fully aware of the fact that she was a healer, not a warrior or a cunning...person. Strand didn't have a police force per se, just the mayor and the city council and their families. Force was rarely required, and when it was you could generally rely on a few people from around town to help out. It was in everyone's best interest to keep Strand safe, after all.
But this time it was pretty much just Kaelyn. Mason would be in his workshop, administering the spell that would weaken the illusory shield enough that Kaelyn's trick would work. With luck they could drain Brant's power enough that he would be unable to really resist.
Kaelyn headed towards the ravine where they had found the cave. she had been there so many times it felt like a second home almost. But a very terrible one where her best friend was trapped.
When she got to the mouth of the canyon she saw the stream was stronger than normal, flowing and burbling in its rocky bed, far wider and more energetic than normal. Kaelyn started up the south side of the stream, figuring she would be able to cross when it was a little narrower farther up. Apparently there had been snow melt in the mountains, to put this much water into the riverbed. And it really was almost a full fledged river.
At length she found a place where she could cross, but it ended in a boggy area and she had to pick her way through the tangle of trees and downed branches. It was odd, the river made this entire canyon seem like an entirely different place. She threaded her way upstream to find dry ground, figuring that she had probably gone a little farther up than she meant to, but coming back down would be easy once she was on the right bank. She started back down stream, coming around a corner and almost yelled in frustration. A large tree had fallen its root spread wide, blocking her progress unless eh scrabbled up the outer wall, a good twenty feet, or wen down into the river. This whole thing was starting to take on surreal proportions.
Or unnatural ones. Ellis had said that Chaos was good at lies, and this was starting to feel like a well orchestrated, but chaotic lie. but which parts were the lies? If she got swept away in an imaginary river would she still drown? That river water looked real enough. She dipped her hand in the stream. It felt like real clear cold water, when she drank a little it tasted like water. So maybe the water was real but the trees and rocks and swampy land were the lies? How do you cope when nature is lying to you? Kaelyn had a brief moment of empathy for Brant, this must be costing him so much, illusions were rarely cheap, nature doesn't like lying.
She wandered a bit more, the sun getting high and hot. her spirits fell, this wasn't supposed to be how this went. Mason was waiting for her to signal him with the “spark”, a small metal device that would illuminate a glass sphere on his workbench when she struck it with a flint. Magister Sonja had measured and cut the flint carefully; it was a precious commodity this far from chalk country. Not it seemed that it would be wasted because Kaelyn couldn't find a simple cave entrance. She considered going all the way back down tot he mouth of the ravine, but she soon found that any supposed straight line was a dead end. She considered just walking along the shallow edge of the river; after all she was wearing wool socks and knew good drying spells...that required ingredients she hadn't brought from home. She was determined to walk in the river anyway when it passed through a narrow crack that she was sure hadn't been there the day before, running wild and turbulent between two rock walls. If the river was real it would bash her to pieces against the rocks. instead she climbed on top of one of them, which took longer than it should, was very difficult in her dress, and scraped up her arms. She clambered down the other side of the boulder, still lower, reasoning that whatever power this was, it couldn't make the bottom of the canyon feel higher than the top.
But the canyon was narrow and clogged with weeds and brambles at the base of that rock.
the worst part was that everything looked normal and natural, everything looked...right. It was dissonant and jarring in her head to think of such a beautiful forest and sparkling river being used against her in this way. It was like a clear blue sky dumping rain while at the same time remaining clear and blue.
She was picking her way around another outcrop of rock when she hard something through the trees. It sounded like another person, walking slowly up the path. She looked for it source and was astonished to find Ellis standing behind her as he had just walked out of the cliff face.
“Ah, Sojourner, hello. Are you coming back down? Is there a problem?” Ellis said.