VI

They jogged down the tunnel, echoing with the sounds of clanking metal and heavy breathing.  Another tremor rippled through the island and dropped dust and pebbles on them.  Kaspar ran in the lead.  “There’s light up ahead!  We’re almost out.”

Miah ran a few feet behind him, holding her quarterstaff up for light.  “All right, I’m not sure what they’re doing but I can guess.  The structures I saw are probably holding sky shards.  There should also be a series of wizards casting some kind of ritual spell to bring everything into harmony or whatever.  We stop them or bring down the structures and that should do it.”

Caelian was behind her, mace and shield ready.  “Why didn’t we head back to the skyship and our darts?  Seems like they’re the best chance at getting off an island before it breaks apart and drops us into an ocean of boiling acid.”

“The Shattered Sea isn’t acid,” lectured Miah.  “We currently think it’s the remains of--”

“Focus, Miah!” shouted her brother, bringing up the rear.  

Miah gulped in some air.  “Didn’t you see the buried Eldar’ai portal back there?  It’s different than all the others.  Maybe from an earlier age.  We have to stop this island from breaking up and dropping it into the Abyss.”

They all saw the opening ahead of them growing closer.  The talking stopped and they slowed to a rushed walk, each of them taking long and deep breaths, preparing for whatever was beyond it.

Kaspar didn’t stop at the edge.  He just jumped down into a large, brightly lit stone room.  The floor was covered in dead grass and animal bones, one wall was open to the sky at the edge of the island, and the whole place stank of wyvern.  

As the others filed in, Kaspar jumped up onto some stone steps and ran up to a rusted metal grate.  He looked back and saw Isiah motioning him to keep going.  The fighter nodded and looked through the grate.  “Wait a second and I’ll see what’s up there.”

Kaspar pushed and the grate swung upwards, creaking on its hinges and clanging loudly when it dropped back on some stones.  Kaspar half climbed and half walked up through it

The others waited at the base of the stairs, looking up.  Isiah leaned over towards his sister.  “So what was Jo talking about when we came along.”

Miah didn’t look at him.  “The same thing he always talks about.  Himself.”

“Any grand revelation of his evil plan?  What’s he going to do with the runic portal?”

“He didn’t really get to that,” she said, looking uncomfortable.  “I assumed he was going to do something with it in the ruins of Pillars Reach.  Do we have to talk about this now?”

Isiah let it drop as Kaspar appeared at the open grate and motioned for them to follow.  They all climbed up and came out into a patch of broken stonework and a jumble of toppled columns.

The wind had picked up and was coming from the south.  About fifty feet away from them started the curving structure of posts and walkways.  It curved away from them along the edge of the island and reached about thirty feet in height at its center.  About one hundred feet from them sat a semicircle of men and women in loose fitting grey clothing, moving their arms in a coordinated fashion.  They appeared to be out in front of the structure at its mid-point.  Every fifty feet along the walkways was another man who also seemed to be part of the ritual making the same movements. 

It was Isiah who looked around and noticed what was happening.  “Holy Light, we’re moving.  Look at the clouds.”

They all looked out and saw that the cloud deck below them was shifting.  The entire island was moving southward.

“They’re doing it,” whispered Miah.

Kaspar climbed up over a column.  “Kill people and break things.”

Caelian placed a hand on Kaspar’s shoulder before he could charge forward.  “They might all be charmed.  They might not know what they’re doing.”

The fighter nodded slightly and turned his attention to the structure.  “Right, then.  Break things.”  He moved his head side to side, cracking his neck.  Then he jumped up and started running towards the nearest ramp leading to a walkway.  Two bounds took him up to the nearest pole with a fist sized sky shard tied to the top.  It was even with his head and he grabbed it and ripped it out of its fitting.  He looked back at the others coming up the ramp.  “Easy so far,” he said, tossing the shard over his shoulder.

Caelian caught it and handed it back to Miah.  Kaspar moved a few more feet down the walkway and had to reach up for the next shard.  He tossed that one to Isiah.  Isiah caught it while pointing down the walkway.

Kaspar turned to see the closest adept running at him and waving his hands.  The man started shouting something about how he should stop.  Kaspar stepped in and punched him in the face.

The adept flew off the walkway and went sprawling on the grass, unconscious.  Kaspar barely watched him fall before heading to the next post.  

From the center group of adepts a bearded man looked over and saw what they were doing.  He shouted something and started running across the field towards them.  Isiah slid the sky shard into the pouch at the small of his back and waved for Miah to come with him.  To Kaspar and Caelian he called out, “Keep going, we’ll handle the diplomacy.”  He turned with his sword in hand and stalked after the approaching adept.   Miah took a position slightly behind him and to his left. 

Isiah assumed the man running at them was a spellcaster and watched closely for any magical attack but none came.  The group of people he left back still appeared to be working on their ritual.  The distance closed between them and the adept called out, “What are you doing?   You have to stop!   You can’t do that!”

Isiah still couldn’t tell if the man was evil or stupid so he kept his sword lowered.  “I’m pretty sure that we can, my friend.  We sort of need this island to not crash into a city.”  He glanced over at Miah.  She gave a quick shrug which meant she didn’t know if the man was inherently evil or not.

The man practically shrieked.  “No!  They have to stop!”

Isiah looked back to see Kaspar and Caelian hacking and smashing the posts and their supports.

Miah stepped closer.  “You don’t understand!  You’re ripping the island apart.  If you don’t stop we’re all dead.”

“No, you don’t understand!  This ritual replaces the natural balance of sky shards within the island with our harmony.  We’re the only thing keeping this island afloat now.”  

“What?” asked Isiah.  To Miah he said, “Is that possible?”

She shrugged.  “How would I know?  I suppose so.  Sky shards can be affected by other sky shards.”

The three of them watched as Kaspar and Caelian pushed over a fifteen foot tall post with multiple sky shards attached to it.  It fell away from the structure and tumbled over the edge of the island.

They all felt the ground tilt to the left.