A Misspelling

"Wither and die
Weather to try
Souls sand dry
Harsh as lye
Soak the tears she does not cry"

Wand tip taps upon the archive glass lightly
Once
Then twice
And after a pause of looking around for results
A third time with a little more force and an audible "Clack!"

With a derisive snort
Grand Wizard Gilly Grundlestein rubbed his forehead and bent back over the grimoire
Re-reading the spell
Looking for an inflection he may have missed
For clearly he had missed something
As what he had wanted to have happen
Had most certainly not

Though half a world away
On a continent yet to be discovered by the depravity of man

A family of beaver  stepped cautiously out of their lodge
Onto what really ought to at least be wet muddy bottom silt
From the lower entrance of their home
That traditional home of all beaver everywhere
Which ought to be sitting in the center of a well stocked beaver made pond

The water was nowhere to be seen
With no trace to be found even if one were to dig down into the river bottom
As one intrepid river otter tried to do just now
Coming up frustrated and dusty
Like a refugee from the all-animal cast of The Road Warrior: The Musical

Salt water flowed backwards into the river mouth many leagues away
Till it finally reached the foot of a formerly great misty waterfall
Now just a rocky cliff face stretching up eighty-five feet
With a lone bear cub peering over the edge
Chewing on a dried up piece of salmon

While high upon the side of the tallest mountain in the distance
Goats walking sideways upon rocky flanks
Nibbling delicately upon mosses and lichens
A blue-white glacier stood literally frozen in place
All movement stopped mysteriously
The constant surfing of gravity upon the mountainside halted

Ice at the lower end down in the valley below stoically braving the sunshine
Weeping no more upon the smooth rocked streams projecting from it like veins to an artery
Cold and uncaring
Giving no more to the earth before it