The Enchantments: Book 4 - The Key of Mulastef

Chapter 25: A Twinge of Fear

"Echo thirty please respond, over." Arian Sallo asked into the microphone. "Do you read, over?"

Static filled the small aircraft as he clicked the mic again. "Echo thirty please respond over?"

"This is Echo thirty, over." The static-filled voice said in response.

"Give me your vector, over."

"Ten minutes out, over."

Arian peered out the side window to the small island that was coming into view in the distance. The unnatural fog that enveloped the island would make the observation that much more difficult, and he cursed under his breath. His vision caught sight of the turmoil on the small beach just below

"I see you in my view and from what's going on in on the island better make haste, crank it up to full speed ahead! Over."

"Cranking it up to full, E.T.A six minutes over." The voice crackled.

Arian put the mic back in the cradle and turned to Marlanda sitting uncomfortably beside him.

"You OK there?" He asked an amused smirk on his face.

"Does it look like I'm doing alright?" Marlanda had retained her slight fear of flying over the past few months but sitting in this small plane over the ocean put her on the breaking point. She peered around nervously waiting for the something to break apart and send them to their death below.

"You're in an Aeronca 50 Chief, at twenty-one feet long and a wingspan of thirty-six feet you're in one of my favorite and most reliable aircraft. It has a Continental air-cooled flat-four piston engine spitting out almost fifty horse-power, and we can cruise at almost ninety miles per hour." He said proudly.

Marlanda slowly looked at the man her face showing the same scared look. "That's great when we go down we can put that on our gravestones."

Arian laughed, "When we finish this operation we'll be back on the ground in no time."

Marlanda sighed deeply and peered away out the window to the may lay below. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the ground below. "That's the most unusual fog I've ever seen, isolated to an area around the island. It's almost like it's hiding something..."

Her words trailed off as what looked like lightning erupted in the fog. She moved closer to the window and stared down in horror as the part of the fog cleared and what she saw made her stomach churn.

"My god there's hundreds of portals opening up down there!" She gasped.

Arian grabbed the mic again in urgency. "Echo thirty this is eye-in-the-sky, the operation has started, I repeat, the operation has started, get in there. Get in there NOW! over." He yelled.

Marlanda viewed the island then looked just beyond as the convoy of boats were just entering the small bay. Her nerves on extreme edge she stared back at the fog and froze. "What the hell is that?"

Below them, the fog had started to rotate ever so slowly like the view of a hurricane from above. Flashes of electrical energy whipped and thrashed below and before she could think about what it meant a bolt like no other, she could remember shot forth catching the tail section and slashing through it like butter. The effects were immediate, the plane once smoothly flying was rocked and battered now and with the vertical stability of the tail section gone it the nose pointed the one way no one wanted to go with water below, down.

Marlanda was plastered against her seat as Arian tried in vain to bring the plane at least to a horizontal position.

"Brace for impact!!" He screamed.