A Desert Dilemma

Photo by Tijs van Leur on Unsplash
Photo by John Fowler on Unsplash
Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

The landscape spread out below me, barren and seemingly lifeless. A harsh wasteland of rock and sand, someone that didn't know the landscape as I do might draw hope from the occasional patches of twisted shrubs and cacti. I know better. There is more death and danger to be found in the rare green parts of this ruthless desert than anywhere else. I am glad to be on bare rock, high above the dangers, though still not completely safe.

The hot wind buffets me, pulling at my sleeves, urging me out into the open air. Despite its heat it cools me, despite its seductive pull I resist and remain still as the stone upon which I sit.
Everything here is deceptive, even the air would trick me to my death
The thought flashes abruptly through my skull like lightning, leaving the afterimage for me to parse apart. I consider it for a moment. In a landscape such as this everything must kill in order to live. Perhaps this is true for the wind and sky in this place as well. I know it for a fact. No creature survives here that does not kill- whether for food or liquid or self defense. Even the cacti jealously guard the water they store with vicious spines and they are far from the most dangerous plant here.

My reverie is disturbed by a blast of heat from below. Air rushes up the rock face and once again I feel the open air beckoning to me, the wind pushes at my back insistently. This time I oblige. I lean forward to peer directly down the jagged cliff to discover what could have made such a blast.

I can see nothing, though I know what it must be. Fear stirs in me. I do not have much time. That wave of heat streaming up the rock face tells me I have stayed far too long. I am confused by the position of the sun still high overhead for a moment before I remember the ward I placed above me when I first sat here at midday. The power is new in me and the thrill of what I am learning to do is fresh but wards in particular are easy to forget in their subtlety. This one simply set a field of slowed time above me, in order to lessen the effect of the sun on me as I sat to observe and meditate. In truth the sun was close to setting- a fact that registers instantly simply by looking once more at the landscape below and paying closer attention to the shadows.

A stupid mistake, and a foolish one. All that time observing and I did not notice something so simple. If I make it back to the Library alive this will need to be explained. I banish the ward with a thought and the sun appears in its true position, just high enough above the horizon to be covered by my ward. Just low enough for me to be in real danger of being exposed on these rocks when true night falls and the temperature shifts. That alone is worrying enough- though with magic I can survive the cold for a while. It is the beasts that come with the frost of the night time that concern me more. I stand.

I must be swift