by Tony Abbott
“Get ready to — ahhhh!” screamed Neal.
PLOP!
The four friends landed together as softly as they had before. Bouncing to their feet, they found themselves before the gates of Jaffa City. To Eric’s and Keeah’s relief, the city gleamed and glittered as it always had.
“Have we got stories for you!” said Julie.
“That makes four of us!” said Keeah.
“We were in the Upper World,” said Neal. “We saw Zara and Urik in the past! We got the base of the Medallion and the Pearl Sea!”
“We saw Sparr in the future!” said Eric. “And we have the Ring of Midnight and Sparr’s Twilight Star!”
“Uh … guys,” said Julie. “Take a look.”
In the east was a moving cloud of dust.
The children knew what it was.
Wielding torches and spears, Ko’s armies of beasts were marching toward Jaffa City from the distant Dark Lands.
“This is why we’re here, after all,” said Keeah.
Julie turned to her friends. “I never thought I’d say this, guys, but I’m glad the beasts are on the march. It means they haven’t taken over yet. We came before the battle started. We still have time.”
“But not much. They’re really moving,” said Neal. “Come on, Galen, wherever you are. Pedal to the metal!”
Eric felt his heart pound.
The Twilight Star in his hand pulsed with waves of cold and heat. Julie held the base of the Medallion. Its markings sparkled in the setting sun. Keeah wore the Ring of Midnight like a bracelet on her wrist. Neal had set the Pearl Sea as a jewel in his turban. Its hazy insides moved like drifting clouds.
Looking east, Eric saw Ko’s armies spilling toward them like a black cloud. The emperor marched at their head, his twin horns spouting green flames.
Looking south, Eric watched the mounted forces of King Zello and Queen Relna gallop toward them at full speed. The king and queen were carrying Droon’s banners high.
Many miles away on a mountain peak in Panjibarrh, Salamandra stood, her thorn staff burning with a bright flame.
Thank you! Eric said silently to her.
Eh, don’t mention it, was her response.
For Eric to have his powers back was a feeling more welcome than he could ever have imagined.
All of a sudden — whoosh! — a flying carpet landed nearby. Galen and Max jumped off and ran to the children.
“Ah, just as I had hoped,” said Galen. “Do you have the Medallion and its parts?”
“We do,” said Keeah. “But how will we stop Ko?”
“It took me fifty years to figure that out,” said the wizard. “And yet it came to me in an instant. We will trick the emperor as he has never been tricked before.”
“I like tricks,” said Neal. “Especially when they’re played on evil beast emperors.”
“Just how I feel,” said Galen, turning to the approaching armies. “Now, I would say good luck in the coming battle, but we need more than luck, and I’m not sure that what happens here will actually be a battle. But give me the items, stand back, and behold real power!”
As the beasts marched ever closer, Julie handed Galen the base of the Medallion. When the wizard took the silver disk in his hands and kissed it, it chimed as if it were a bell.
“The foundation of my mother’s magic,” he said. “Next …”
Keeah slipped the Ring of Midnight from her wrist and gave it to him. Galen smiled at his own creation. When he locked it into place, it began to hum. “Next.”
Neal plucked Urik’s Pearl Sea from the folds of his turban. Galen took it and placed it in the center of the Medallion. It beamed as if lit from inside.
When it came time for Eric to hand over the Twilight Star, his fingers burned as they never had before. “Zara helped Sparr make this.”
Letting go of the Star made Eric’s chest ache, as he had so often ached when he spoke Zara’s name. He also grieved for the loss of Sparr and could not forget the sight of the sorcerer falling, falling into the black abyss.
Galen held the Star high before attaching it to the center of the disk.
“Now the Medallion is complete.”
He walked solemnly away from the children and turned his face to the skies.
The thundering armies marched closer.
When Galen murmured a word, the Twilight Star began to spin. Light shot from its points and from the Pearl Sea, while the Ring of Midnight hummed and the whole Medallion beamed.
As they watched, a sudden dark wind whirled out from the Medallion’s center and roared across the plains. It completely hid the great royal city and the friends from the approaching armies.
“Master!” cried Max. “What’s happening?”
Galen smiled when he raised his arms.
“Do not worry, my valiant friend,” he said. “All is safe. Now behold Queen Zara’s legacy as we have never witnessed it before!”
Whether the moon overhead chose that moment to reveal itself, or whether the Medallion summoned it from the dark sky, the children could not tell.
All they knew was that a column of brilliant silver light shot between the Moon Medallion and its namesake in the sky. It pulsed and vibrated. It hummed a note of increasing pitch that grew louder and louder.
Eric’s ears perked up as Galen whispered words that he read on the Medallion.
I know those words!
Brilliant light shot out in every direction, then the ground flattened in front of them like dough under an enormous rolling pin.
The plain filled with water that immediately turned to frosty blue ice.
Then — whooom! — the earth cracked open along the edges of the frozen lake, and light burst up from it. A pink wall exploded upward from below. Another wall emerged, then another. Pink and tall, the walls were bathed in silver light.
“It looks like Jaffa City!” said Keeah.
Towers came next, here, there, everywhere. Then the great golden dome of the palace appeared over them all.
Galen smiled. “An illusion caused by the Medallion’s magic. We shall defend not the real city but these imaginary walls! Thus does my mother set a trap for Ko, whose strength of will and the power of his dark desires are not matched by his intelligence.”
Neal snickered. “Yeah. His parents probably named him Ko because they knew he wouldn’t be able to spell a longer name.”
“Ah, but the emperor is a brute who stops at nothing,” said the wizard. “We must put up a fight or he will sense a trap, and Droon will truly be lost!”
At that, Galen waved his hand over the Medallion, the dark wind dissolved around the friends, and the moving sea of enemy torches came within striking distance of the city.
“To your places, everyone!” shouted Max.
Galen drew a deep breath. Keeah clasped Eric by the hand, then let go and aimed her hands at the beast armies.
Ko was first over the hill. He stopped when he beheld what he believed was Jaffa City. He threw his massive arms out on both sides, and squads of enormous lion-shaped beasts and many-tusked dragon warriors flanked him. The ground shuddered as the first wave of beasts rose over the ridge. The line of his armies extended across the plains for miles in each direction. With one stomp, they stood at attention, and the night went still.
“Oh, boy, oh, boy …” Neal grumbled.
“Are we ready? Yes?” said Galen, echoing Sparr’s words at the forge.
“Yes!” said Eric.
“Yes,” they all cried.
Ko cast a smoldering glance from one side to the other, then howled. “Burn Jaffa City!”
And the battle began.
The battle before the gates was an inferno of clashing iron and steel and wood and the sizzling of wizard staffs.
Eric, Keeah, Neal, and Julie were like their own little army. On Eric’s signal, they charged the beasts from the side. Blasting and flying, they managed to send hundreds in retreat. Meanwhile, great lion-headed warriors circled behind the child
ren to surprise them. Only Neal’s genie sense alerted them in time to run to safety.
Galen waded into the attacking forces, his sparking staff flying in every direction at once, while Max, Zello, and Relna became a wall of fury, driving the beasts backward.
In this way, everyone fought to keep Ko from the gates of the city.
But the beasts numbered in the thousands. They poured across the plains in wave after wave. They pushed their way yard by yard to the city gates. Finally, they wheeled forward a giant battering ram. Its head was a great iron bust of Ko. Its horns spouted their own fire.
“Pull back, everyone. We have lost the city!” cried Galen.
At the wizard’s command, the children and all the king’s troops fell back behind a high ridge on the southern plains.
Ko bellowed, “They have retreated! The city is ours! Burn it! Burn it to the ground!”
Wham-wham-wham! The battering ram pummeled the gates time and time again. On the tenth blow, the gates split apart, and the beasts flooded in, torches raised high.
Galen crowed from the top of the ridge, “And now we have them!”
With a twist of the Medallion, the moon fell behind a black cloud as swiftly as if a switch had shut it off. The silver light vanished in a twinkling, and so did the imaginary city itself.
Towers, walls, bridges, the great dome — the entire city collapsed upon itself, dissolving like snow on a summer day. The lake reappeared underneath, unfroze, and the beasts dropped into the water, splashing wildly up to their chins. Their torches hissed and fizzled in the water. The beasts erupted in shouts and cries that echoed across the plains all the way to the Dark Lands.
“I always knew beasts didn’t like baths!” said Neal.
Ko and his army floundered in the water. They were soon surrounded by the great forces of King Zello’s royal army.
“Ko, you have not conquered Jaffa City at all!” cried the king. “Our towers are as stately and beautiful as ever! Galen, show him!”
With a laugh, Galen waved the Medallion, and the real Jaffa City glistened in front of them, as splendid and majestic as its first day.
Ko stomped to the shore, the green flame of his horns sputtering. “Galen!” he boomed. “This battle is not over!”
“It is, actually,” said Eric, his heart thumping with pride. “The Moon Medallion will always overpower you. It did today. It will in the future! Believe me, I know!”
“Now, be gone, defeated emperor of beasts!” shouted Galen. “Before our true power falls on you!”
Ko howled. “You’ve not seen the last —”
“Blah, blah, blah,” said Neal.
“We shall rise again and —”
“Oh, you shall rise!” chirped Max. “Didn’t you know about the underground spring? Well, get ready, because here it comes!”
All at once, the lake exploded into an enormous spout of water. It hurled Ko and his beast army across the plains toward the Dark Lands until they could be seen no more. With that, the water vanished, and the plains rolled on and on as peacefully as they ever had.
For a long time afterward, Eric, Julie, Keeah, and Neal stood, staring out at the beautiful landscape of Droon.
“I wish somebody could tell me what actually happened today,” said Eric. “And what exactly we did.”
“You saved Droon,” said Queen Relna, riding up to them with King Zello by her side.
“I sense a new beginning for Droon,” said the wizard, smiling from ear to ear. “We have only begun to discover what real powers lie in the Moon Medallion —”
“Hold on,” said Max. “Look at that!”
The sky darkened with a sudden funnel of spinning air. It touched down with a tremendous crash, then vanished.
A moment later, Salamandra appeared, cradling her starfox in one hand and her thorn staff in the other. “Hey,” she said, “looks like you’ve done pretty well. But no, no, don’t thank me. I guess I’m just a generous sorceress.”
“You helped us today,” said Eric. “You helped me today. Lots.”
Salamandra shrugged. “It’s mutual.”
“What’s ahead for us now?” asked Max.
“One secret at a time, shorty,” said Salamandra with a laugh. “First, you gotta give up the Medallion. You know its pieces have to go back to where you borrowed them from.”
Galen grumbled. But he knew she was right and did as she asked.
Salamandra tossed the four parts of the Medallion into the air. The Portal appeared and sucked them away — the base of the Medallion to Zara to begin its long journey through time, the Pearl Sea to Urik in the apple grove, the Ring of Midnight to the time and place it was last seen, and the Twilight Star to the future when Sparr would create it.
But no sooner had the parts vanished than they reappeared in Galen’s hand — all except for the Twilight Star, which had not yet been made.
“They have come full circle!” said Max.
“We’ll need the Star to battle Ko again,” said Keeah.
“And … you … shall … have … it!” said a sudden voice.
Everyone turned to see a lone figure stumbling toward them in short, uneven steps.
It was a tall, thin man in a tattered cloak. His eyes were black, his face darkened by smoke and dirt. The edges of his cloak were frayed and glowed like embers. And his hair was as silver as the moonlight.
“Oh, my gosh! It’s Sparr! From the future!” said Eric, running to him.
Hearing his name, the sorcerer staggered over the ground toward them.
Eric held his arm and helped him forward. “You fought Gethwing in the Underworld,” he said. “You fell thousands of feet. I was sure you died in that fall.”
“Perhaps I did,” said the sorcerer. His voice was faint, weak, barely a whisper.
“You should rest,” said Galen, taking his other arm.
“No … no …” he answered, turning toward his brother and handing him the Twilight Star, but still moving forward.
Eric thought it was odd how Sparr looked past Galen when he spoke to him. As if he didn’t know him. Sparr stumbled on a stone, but caught himself and kept walking.
Eric felt his chest ache as never before. He realized that Sparr couldn’t see Galen.
He couldn’t see anyone or anything.
Sparr was blind.
“Oh, my gosh!” said Eric. “Your eyes —”
Sparr took a step, then faltered. “I go north across the plains.”
Galen shook his head. “No, no. You cannot have returned to us only to leave again. You cannot. What is in the north?”
“Our mother is there,” Sparr said.
Galen hung his head. “Brother, she is not. The droomar buried her. Long ago. In Bangledorn Forest. You remember….”
“I … I know she is there in the north,” Sparr said. “She is calling me. I hear her voice in my mind.” He moved away from them.
“But there are rivers and mountains and forests every inch of the way,” said Eric. “You can’t see where you’re going!”
Sparr turned vaguely to him. “The mind sees, too, Eric Hinkle. It will guide me. Know, too, that Gethwing is not gone. I see in my mind his shadow lurking. He nurses his wounds. He will return. Until then, the silver waters of the north call me. My race is not yet run, my quest continues, my journey calls me forward. I go.”
He touched Eric’s arm once more for support and gripped it tightly. He patted Galen’s hand, which still clung to him, then removed it. “I go. Kem, my friend! Lead me!”
Grumbling and barking, Sparr’s two-headed pet tramped up over the ridge, shook himself, and took his place next to Sparr.
The sorcerer paused. “But … let me touch the Star once more.”
Galen guided the sorcerer’s white hand to it, and the man’s face shone in its glow as his fingers played over its markings.
“The Medallion’s great trial has not yet come,” Sparr said. “In the meantime, keep it secret. Keep it safe. Until we meet again
.”
Eric was on the verge of tears. “Will you come back?”
Sparr turned his face to Eric. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether there is anywhere to come back to.”
Kem nudged the sorcerer along tentatively, whispering to his master. And they made their way slowly toward the vast reaches of the frozen north. Soon Sparr and his dog disappeared over the hills and could be seen no more.
Eric felt a pain in his chest when he imagined the two alone on their long, dark journey, searching for someone who could not possibly be alive. He thought of Sparr grasping his arm for support, then wondered if that support was not so much for the wounded man as it was for Eric himself.
In that moment, he felt very close to the old sorcerer.
Galen watched his brother go, then attached the Twilight Star to the Medallion. “We have the whole Medallion now,” he said. “Will we ever have the brothers together — Sparr, Urik, and myself — as we were so long ago?”
No one answered the wizard.
No one could answer him.
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Salamandra. “Eric, in case you forgot. Reki-ur-set!”
“Okay, now what does that mean?” Eric demanded. “You always say it, then you go.”
Salamandra took a single step backward, and the Portal reappeared. “What a good idea! Besides, you’ve got your powers. You’ll figure it out. Buh-bye!”
With a brief wave, Salamandra jumped into the whirling Portal and was gone.
In the same moment — whoosh! — the rainbow staircase materialized before them, glistening in the silver moonlight from above.
“What a day!” said Julie. “I feel as if we’ve been everywhere and done everything.”
“Time for home,” said Neal, removing his turban. “Time to be normal again.”
Eric looked down at his fingers. They sparked softly. He smiled. “Being normal used to be easy for me. Not anymore. I’m glad.”
“Children, come back soon,” said Galen. “Something tells me that before long there will be a new quest for all of us. There are many more secrets to discover!”