The Rainy Day Trip
Part X
By Saphron
A/N: A few things, one, it's west-northwest, my bad. One of my reviewers pointed this out, so I now officially apologize. I know nothing about navigation except that it is possible to have to wests. And that's bout it.
A/N/N: This next chapter is long and boring. Sorry, I'm just stating the facts. It's still in set up mode, only a bunch of description and no real action whatsoever. I'm sorry!! If it makes you feel any better, during Town Meeting today (our school assembly thing that we have twice a week) instead o paying attention like I was supposed to, I jotted down all the exciting parts into a ruff-draft outline thing. So I've got all the important fun stuff like the spideren attack-oops, wait that's not for another chapter or two…anyhow, I more or less got a plan for the fun stuff, if only I can get through the setup first. Believe me, this wasn't any fun to write. But alas, it has to be done. Sigh…onto the story, or rather, the disclaimer.
A/N/N/N: Sorry to interrupt again, but a quick note about Crown. Someone asked if the birds had come along, I guess I didn't mention it before, so I will now. Only Crown came along, that's it. She hasn't had a very big part until now though, so I guess I forgot about her, sorry. I know, I know, very unprofessional. I apologize.
Surrender: (ie: Disclaimer-I know, surrender isn't a very scary word, but my handy little thesaurus on Microsoft word said that it's another word for disclaimer…*shrugs* oh well, whatever) I, er, surrender all *my ideas* to Tamora Pierce, who rightfully belongs them in the first place.
They left camp the next day at dawn and hiked for a few miles west-northwest. Before they had thought that nothing important lay in this direction, only dry grass. How wrong they were.
The crossed the swaying grass that overlooked the lake. The land had gently been rising up, so it formed a sort of path about thirty feet away from the water's edge. The 'path' of grass lead past the cliffs and curved to the left, the party expected to reach the cliffs any moment, only they were a lot farther away then they looked.
They marched for a day and half before they reached the base of the cliffs. They all looked up and gasped at how tall they were, ten times as tall as the palace! It was amazing they looked so much smaller from far away.
They spent the next two days marching away from the cliffs and deeper into the mountains. Grass eventually gave way to spindly little trees and some more rocks. (I have an obsession with rocks, sue me.) They thought they saw some movement in the bushes a few times, but they doubted it was anything like spiderens so they continued on unalarmed. The going was slow because a sudden heat wave had arrived and it was hard to trudge up a mountain, when it's ninety degrees out, carrying weapons, bedrolls, pots, pans, food and salted meats, supplies, etc.
Soon they ran into a river fork. One way ran left, to the other side of the cliffs they presumed, and to the other side of the mountain. The other way ran off to their right, probably to a dead-end somewhere. And the middle ran west-to who knows where. The river was, well, it wasn't exactly normal. It shimmered and glistened, but seemed to do so much more intense then most normal rivers. As if the water was really liquid silver or gold.
So since they couldn't swim all the way up the river they crossed to the left, which seemed to be more shallow, without too much difficulty, and continued on. Following the river upstream had two advantages. One, the obvious, they could catch fish to eat and always have a freshwater supply. Two was that the direction of the river brought them ever closer to the ripples, everyday Michael felt them more and more. Always coming from the same direction.
Even the rest of the party began to feel something. Just a strange sense that wafted through the air and settled down to lay upon their shoulders, then being carried away like dust as a burst of wind would ripple by. Kel had neither gift nor any other type of magic, but sometimes she could've sworn that she had gotten 'a ripple.'
After two more days and nights of travelling, following the tinkling river, they finally reached somewhere. The river led right into a pool.
At first glance it was just an ordinary pool. There was water; the water was perfectly normal. Clear, clean, sparkling and silver. Well that was a big disappointment to the party. After all, they had climbed up a mountain, through forests and brambles and rocks, reached slat-lakes and had to go on temporary diets, followed a mysterious river, only to arrive at a pool of perfectly normal water.
Well everyone was now feeling quite discouraged. Raoul decided to boost moral by letting everyone take the rest of the day off to just relax by the pool and re-gather necessary supplies.
"Well, I guess we've been lead on a wild goose chase," Cleon said dejectedly as he sat down on the obnoxiously too-perfect/normal grass.
Joren piped up with; "you're all idiots. All of you, following some dumb river."
"Hey!" Cleon objected, "what about you, huh? You're on this little journey to y'know."
He snorted, "I didn't even want to come, nor let a stupid river misguide me,"
"Yeah well, if you'd stop complaining and help around a little-"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I dunno."
"You're stupid,"
"You're stupider,"
"You're the stupidest, ha!"
"Yeah, well, you're even, even more stupid! Right Kel?"
The last statement had obviously been directed at her, but she wasn't really paying attention to their little bickering. She was staring at the pool, Crown on her shoulder.
Something was wrong with it; it just had a bad feeling to it. She'd say she didn't trust it, but it's kind of hard to mistrust a pool of water.
Suddenly Crown leapt off her shoulder and flew towards the pool. Right before she reached the center of it she stopped in midair, as if she had run into a brick wall.
"Crown?! Crown, what are you doing you silly bird? Come back here," Kel called, but it was no use, Crown kept flying back a few feet, turning around, and then flying forward and suddenly stopping. It vaguely reminded Kel of when birds crash into windows because they don't know there is glass there.
By this time Kel had one helluv a migraine calling Crown to stop doing whatever she was doing, and Crown probably had a migraine too, considering she was ramming her head into the-air? Raoul and the other men stopped grumbling about wasted time long enough to look up and see the crazy bird. It kept dodging and filtering around the center of the pool.
Kel was so exasperated she was ready to dive into the pool and get the obnoxious little bird, but Raoul beat her to it.
"Wait-Kel, Crown is a very intelligent bird…She's helped us before." Kel thought back to her first year as a page, when she was still on probation. Crown had helped pull them through a tight spot by showing them the way. Could it be that the little bird could once again be of service?
Raoul then took off his knight's belt and stripped of everything but his breeches. He tested the water, found it to be deep, and dived in. All the men were watching, curious, had their leader gone mad?
When he reached the center he stopped, swam around in a circle and came back to shore. "As I thought," he said, "the water in the middle is just an illusion, there's something in the pool."
***
~*Saphron*~
A/N: Eh, well, the only remotely cool thing is the mystery illusion and what's hiding behind it. Now what could possibly be in the middle of a pool? Hmm, someone's mastered their invisibility spells…Anyhow, sorry this was so boring. It gets cooler. I have tons of pictures drawn of the pool and the----- in the pool. Anyone know how to break a *powerful* -stressing the word powerful, invisibility spell? I know what's going to happen to Kel and Co once they discover what's in the pool, but first they need to find out what it is! Oy, well, if anyone knows how to break powerful spells lemme know. Obviously this story is now more than 'oh let's go beast hunting, shall we? It'll be jolly!" Some other powerful force is coming into play…
A/N/N: Real quick again, the rest of the story gets kind of…'farfetched' a bit shall we say, well not really, but hey, you know, it's one of those anything can happen in fantasy land, stressing the word fantasy. I hope I haven't destroyed this story, I really want it to turn out all right.