Page 43 of Shinji Takahashi: Into the Heart of the Storm

“Something is wrong,” Lucy whispered. She raised an arm, fingers splayed, toward the center of the lava pool, where the boar waited. “I can feel the magic of the font, especially coming from the torches, but it stops when it hits the platform,” she said. “Like there’s an empty space where the magicshouldreach but doesn’t.”

Shinji narrowed his eyes, staring at the boar. For a moment, his vision blurred, and a shimmering dome of magic covered the platform, pulsing with energy. The torches at the edge of the platform flared and snapped, and each time they did, the dome flickered brightly.

“There’s a barrier,” Shinji muttered. “Covering the platform. I think it’s keeping the magic from the Storm Boar.”

The Storm Boar’s electric-blue eyes locked with his, and Shinji felt his stomach twist.Free me,a voice in his head rumbled.The barrier put here by the betrayers keeps me from the magic of the font. The idol calls me, and I will have its call returned. Break the seal, guardian. Snuff out the torches, and set me free.

Shinji took a deep breath. This was why he was here, why he had come. This was the moment he would prove himself worthy to be a guardian. Almost of its own accord, his hand raised toward the platform and the boar trapped within. He could feel magic everywhere, coming from the font, from the torches, from inside him.

“Clear your mind,” he whispered to himself. “Let the magic flow through you.”

A breeze began to swirl around his fingers, growing stronger and faster every second. His breath caught, and the magic sputtered a bit, but instead of trying to hold on to it, he simply let it go. The wind grew stronger, tugging at his hair and making the torches around the platform dance and snap. Inside the barrier, the Storm Boar bellowed with excitement.

“Shinji!”

Something grabbed his arm, making him jump. The magic fizzled, and the wind died away. Shinji blinked and turned on Lucy, who stared back with a half-fearful, half-worried look on her face.

“Shinji, wait. I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

He scowled at her. “What are you talking about? This is why I’m here.”

“Look at the pictures on the walls,” she said, pointing to the crude murals surrounding the chamber. “They tell a story. The people here, the Natia, once worshiped the boar.” She nodded to the first sketch, showing a crowd of people with their arms raised to a great boar overhead. “They had an idol of the boar that was kept in a special place in the village. See? That’s a picture of it on the pedestal.”

On the platform, the Storm Boar was growing angrier, snorting, tossing its head and pawing at the ground. Shinji could feel its impatience and felt his own impatience rise up in response. “What’s your point?” he snapped at Lucy.

“My point is maybe we shouldn’t mess around with things we don’t understand,” she shot back. “Maybe we should go tell Oliver, Phoebe, and everyone else, and see what they think about this!”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to agree with Snowflake,” Roux added, and the fear in his voice made Shinji pause. For the first time, he sounded terrified. His face was pale, his eyes wide as he stared at Shinji. “You know, I was okay with the talking sharks and mystical islands and ghost pigs and all the weirdness that’s happened ever since I snuck onto your crazy ship. But now we’re standing in the center of a volcano and Shinji is throwing around magic like a freaking Sith

Lord.” Roux scrubbed his fingers through his scalp, making his hair stand on end, and gave a sharp gesture with both hands. “I’m done,” he said. “I’m out. Weirdness level is max. Let’s get out of here and go get the adults before this pig decides it wants to eat us for lunch.”

Now even Roux was against him. Shinji clenched his jaw. “You don’t get it, do you?” he snapped at them both. “This is the reason I’ve been having visions. This is how we even found the island in the first place! The Storm Boar called me here because I’m a guardian and I’m the only one that can help it. The whole point of me coming to this island was to free the Storm Boar. There’s no way I’m stopping now!”

Yanking his arm from Lucy’s grasp, Shinji whirled back to the platform and raised an arm, calling his powers to life once more.

Wind swirled through the chamber, snapping at the torches, making shadows dance wildly along the walls. It tore at his hair and clothes, swirling dust and pebbles around the room. Lucy and Roux shielded their eyes, staggering away from Shinji as the gale whipped through the room and rushed along the walls.

With a howl, the flames atop the torches were snuffed out. Inside the barrier, the Storm Boar raised its head and roared as, with the sound of breaking glass, the shimmering dome of energy shattered, magic fraying apart and vanishing into the air. Shinji felt a rush of power flood the place as the

Storm Boar stood. For a moment, his vision went white, and he felt himself falling.

The soldiers pushed through the door, indifferent to the pleas of the gathered priests and worshipers. They had already finished with the rest of the town, breaking into homes, taking everything of value. But the temple should have been safe. The soldiers had been here before, treading upon the holy spaces with a casual disdain and indifference, but they had never given the relics of the people more than a casual glance.

This time was different. Something in the set of their shoulders, in the blend of determination and fear on their faces said louder than words that, as the soldiers made ready to depart the island for the final time, even the holy ground of the temple itself would not be spared.

An elder pushed himself to his feet and moved to block the door, placing his aged body between the soldiers and the sanctity of the temple. It was a wasted effort. A rifle butt rose and fell, and the elder crumpled, unconscious, to the ground.

Orders were barked, the foreign tongue that had become so familiar to so many of the islanders during the occupation, demanding payment, claiming that a debt was owed. Payment? For what? For a protection that was never asked

for? For building their supply depots on sacred ground and scaring away the fish with their massive ships and smoke-belching engines? For bringing the ugly realities of war to their shores?

Others were standing now, shouting angrily, but the headman was there, counseling peace, speaking against resistance. His passivity earned a sneer from the officer, and another order was barked. The men moved toward the alcoves where the sacred idols rested. They showed no sign of hesitancy, no sign of remorse as they grabbed the carefully worked statues—statues crafted of precious metals and glimmering stone—from their altars, shoving them unceremoniously into rucksacks. And then they were before the main altar, the altar where the idol of the Storm Boar rested. Where it had sat, going back longer than any in the room, or their grandparents, ortheirgrandparents before them could remember.

The soldiers hesitated now, and well they should, for even these soldiers, so out of tune with the island and its ways, even they could feel power radiating from the idol. The relic that represented the pact between the people and the island guardian. The headman stepped forward now, hand raised, pleading with the men not to take the relic. Tragedy would befall the island and everyone on it, he warned. If the idol was stolen, they were all doomed.

The soldiers hesitated, looking uncertain. But the officer shouted once more, and one man, perhaps braver, or maybe

stupider, than the rest, reached forth a trembling hand and tumbled the sacred icon into the open backpack of another.

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