by Tony Abbott
Galen watched his little brother helplessly. Heaving a deep sigh, he said, “Perhaps it’s not our hatred for Shadowface but our love for Sparr that may save even a small part of him. My mother hoped it would be so. Maybe it’s our only hope, too —”
Boom! Splash! The battle on the Serpent Sea raged all around the island now. The Skorth vessels sank ship after ship of the royal fleet, while Relna sent charms from the shore and brought the Droon ships bobbing quickly to the surface again.
“But unless we stop Shadowface, Sparr won’t survive!” cried Julie.
“He may,” said Galen as the sorcerer’s blasts continued to explode over them. “He may. But only as part of the greater sorcerer. I fear the time of young Sparr is ending. Evil must win. At least for now.”
Galen lowered his sparkling staff.
Keeah let her hands fall to her sides.
Their attack on Shadowface ended.
Seeing this, the sorcerer’s skin flushed with new life, and he began to laugh.
Second by second, the Viper did its work, and young Sparr faded. His older self, towering over the quivering heap, became younger. He was nearly as young as he had been on the Isle of Mists.
The sorcerer snapped his fingers, and no fewer than fifty Skorth warriors emerged from the depths of the island. They took their place in front of him.
“I can’t stand it!” said Eric, his chest heaving. He turned to Galen. “Isn’t there anything we can do to help our friend? Anything at all?”
Galen looked at his younger brother and closed his eyes briefly. When he did, Eric thought the wizard looked as old as he ever had. And he knew why. He was losing his brother to evil once again.
Galen reached out and took Eric’s hand, wrapping his own fingers firmly around it. “Perhaps there is one hope,” he said. “One hope … if you …”
“Yes.” Eric pulled his hand away from Galen and turned to Sparr. Even in the few seconds he hadn’t been watching, the boy had become nearly invisible.
Grasping Galen’s staff, he hurled himself over the ridge of stone right at the Skorth warriors, swinging in a blur of colored light.
Flang! Crack! Whump! Plong!
Skulls fell, bones toppled as the warriors whirled away from him. All the while, the sorcerer, cackling more loudly by the minute, grew into himself again. The purple fog was nearly gone now. His black cloak shimmered in the blue light showering from the Viper.
With one final swing, Eric pushed the last warrior behind him and knelt next to the boy and to the small dog that lay still beside him. Galen’s staff deflected the Viper’s light from Eric, but not from Sparr. It cast its glow through him to the ground below.
“Sparr …” he whispered.
The boy shook his head. “Save yourselves. I’m going pretty quickly now….”
Sparr’s skin was almost translucent, his cloak as white and thin as gauze.
“You can’t go, you can’t leave us,” Eric said, barely able to get the words out. “All this time we needed you … we still need you! You’re … good….”
“Yeah, well,” the boy faltered, “all good things … must end….” He coughed and seemed to begin sinking into the ground itself, as the last bit of color that remained in him bled away.
Eric took Sparr’s pale hand and pressed his own firmly around it, as if he never wanted to let go. “I hope …” he started to say, his eyes welling with tears. “I hope … you’ll …”
He couldn’t go on.
“Eric, don’t ever stop hoping,” Sparr said feebly. He writhed in pain for a moment. Then he managed one last smile and said, “Hey, it’s been fun.”
With that, the Viper’s glow penetrated the boy completely, settling over him like a shroud. Sparr grew whiter and blurrier, and finally drifted away into the dark lord himself.
The Viper’s brilliant light vanished.
Lord Sparr grinned. He had returned.
“Well, lookee here!” he said, flicking his jagged fins playfully. “I’m back!”
Eric stood and turned to the new Lord Sparr. He didn’t know what to think or how to feel. The boy who had helped them for so long, the boy who had become their friend, was no more.
And the boy’s older self had killed him.
Without knowing why, Eric took a step toward Lord Sparr. Trembling, almost crying, his heart exploding in his chest, he spoke.
“Why the Skorth?” he asked.
Lord Sparr glared down at him. “Eh, boy?”
“Why not the Ninns? I mean, they’ve been waiting for you to come back for ages. There are thousands of them. They would follow you anywhere! Why are you using the Skorth warriors now?”
The eyes that he had known as a friend’s for so long stared back at him now, fiery and dark.
“Because …” said Lord Sparr, turning away. “Because the Skorth have no souls.”
At that moment, Ko’s bellowing echoed up the side of the island to its summit.
Sparr grimaced. “It seems I have more enemies than just you today. Now you know why I had to steal the Viper. But I should go. I’ll leave you to mourn the passing of … oh, wait … I’m not dead! Sorry we can’t finish our little battle. But as someone once said — all good things must end. For now, anyway!”
Eric stared at Lord Sparr, searching for a sign that he understood what he had just said, but the sorcerer turned away too swiftly.
Suddenly, the rumbling that the children had been hearing all day grew to a deafening roar.
“What —” Keeah gasped.
A shape rose up in the air over the summit of the island. It was an enormous golden creature, with giant wings flapping so quickly they couldn’t be seen.
“The Golden Wasp!” cried Galen. “Sparr has found him!”
Buzzing and spitting, the huge Wasp lowered to the ground next to Sparr. Holding the Coiled Viper tightly in his left hand, the sorcerer climbed up onto the Wasp’s back. Kem, restored to healthy middle-age, leaped up next to his master. A moment later, the Wasp lifted from the island.
As it turned and swept away into the dark sky, Eric spotted Sparr’s right hand. Clutched in it was the small object that Galen had given to Eric and Eric had given to young Sparr.
It was the black stone that Sparr’s mother had always wanted him to have.
The sorcerer’s hand closed around it tightly, even as he laughed a cold, cruel laugh.
“Buh-bye, all!” he shouted.
In a flash, the Wasp soared up into the black clouds.
No sooner had Sparr gone than the fleet of ghostly ships began to sail after him. But now the decks were jammed with thousands of skeleton warriors, armored pirates, a vast multitude of the fearless Skorth.
At Emperor Ko’s command, the beasts leaped from the vessels and into the churning Serpent Sea below.
Fuming and yelling from atop a gargantuan finned serpent, and shaking his four fists at the sky, Ko now uttered a chilling curse.
“Beasts, everywhere, follow me! Sparr! Traitor! Liar! I shall hunt you down across the length and breadth of this world. Aye, across every other world, too! You shall never escape me! I will have the Coiled Viper again. I will have you — Lord Sparr!”
Bowing to the emperor’s words, Gethwing swept after Sparr, too, a massive swarm of wingsnakes flying in formation behind him.
The Droon royal fleet docked at the island, and the fearful battle was over.
Gathering together on the summit of Kahfoo Mountain, the friends were quiet for a long time.
Finally, Julie spoke. “We lost … we lost a friend today,” she said, faltering once, then again before she continued. “Sparr was our only hope….”
“Perhaps he still is,” said Galen, scanning the distant sea. “Droon is poised in a fearful balance. It may all depend on that little black stone. But time is not on our side —”
Whoosh! A shining light appeared over the children. The magical staircase had returned.
Keeah looked at her friends. “It’s time for you to
go. But if I know anything, I know that we’ll soon be following Sparr.”
“Deeper into the Dark Lands?” asked Neal.
“And beyond,” said Galen, his eyes still fixed on the horizon. “If I am right, we’ll see parts of Droon we’ve never seen before.”
“Until then, we shall think and plan,” said Max. “Hurry now, everyone. Quickly!”
Waving good-bye to their Droon friends, Eric, Neal, and Julie ran up the staircase.
Halfway up, they paused and looked down. The royal fleet was already heading back toward the Horns of Ko.
“What if our time with Sparr made no difference at all?” said Julie. “Looking at his face at the end, I’m not sure. Maybe there is no hope for Droon. What if it only gets worse?”
Neal hung his head, shaking it from side to side. “This is the worst. I feel empty. Sick. I don’t care if I ever eat again.”
Exhausted and sad beyond belief, Eric remembered over and over the image of young Sparr’s hand weakly but lovingly closing over his mother’s stone.
Don’t ever stop hoping, Sparr had told him.
Eric couldn’t help feeling that maybe there really was hope. But it existed in the unlikeliest of objects. And now that Lord Sparr was back, evil and powerful once more, that hope rested with the unlikeliest of people.
And still, he thought as he hurried home with his friends, I hope … I hope … I hope.
When Eric Hinkle found himself in a creepy tunnel, with weird, hissing noises all around him, he realized he would much rather be in school.
“Oh, yeah,” he said to himself. “I’d be at my desk, Neal and Julie would be just two seats away, with Mrs. Michaels up there, teaching stuff, maybe even giving us a quiz. Really, I’d be fine with a quiz! But no . . .”
No. Eric wasn’t in school.
In fact, he was as far away from class as it was possible to be. Jagged, rocky walls pressed on him from every side. He could barely see a thing. His feet hurt. His head throbbed. He felt sick.
“Yeah, and what’s that?” he wondered.
He could just make out an odd green haze drifting in the darkness ahead. And now and again he could smell something.
What was it? Apples?
“Apples! Like at my house!” he said, recalling the trees outside his bedroom window.
But Eric wasn’t near his house, either. He was somewhere else entirely. He was in the fantastic, magical, and secret world of Droon.
Of course, he was in Droon. Where else would a weird old tunnel be?
“But if I’m in Droon,” he asked, “where are Julie and Neal? They’re always with me.”
Just then, as if in answer to his question, he heard a whisper in his ear and felt a tap on his shoulder. But when he turned around, no one was there. “Okay, I really don’t like this place!” Eric said out loud.
When he turned around to face forward again, Eric was startled to see the shape of a tall figure moving toward him. The green haze poured from it like smoke from a fire. And the smell of apples was stronger than ever.
“Wh-wh-who are you?” he stammered.
In a low voice that sounded as if it could belong to either a man or a woman — or neither — the figure spoke. “Look here!”
A thin hand rose up from the silhouette and pointed behind it. Squinting into the shadows, Eric saw . . . a map?
It was a map, floating in the darkness. It appeared lit from within. It was the sort of living map he had seen before in Droon. Clouds and birds and the black waves of the Serpent Sea moved across its surface.
There was something else, too. Over the Dark Lands swirled a small purple cloud. As Eric watched, the cloud grew and grew until it finally engulfed all of Droon.
“What is that?” he asked.
The figure beckoned him closer. “You will know soon. For now, speak to me of Droon. Tell me everything. I must know!”
Eric didn’t know who the figure was, or what it wanted, but he felt compelled to answer, as if he was under a spell.
“Julie and Neal and I go down the magic stairs in my basement all the time,” he began. “Along with Princess Keeah, the wizard Galen, and Max the spider troll, we use our powers to battle the leader of the beasts, Emperor Ko, and his moon dragon, Gethwing.”
The green smoke reached at him like a hand, squeezing him, making him go on.
“Then there’s Lord Sparr. Everybody knows how evil he used to be. But one of his spells backfired, and he turned into a boy. He helped us a lot. After that, he became himself again. But he was different.”
“Different?”
“Sparr tricked Ko,” Eric said. “Then he escaped to a strange island where he jumped into a bottomless pit. Now he’s gone —”
“Gone! That’s what I needed to know!”
The scent of apples seemed to engulf Eric suddenly, then oozed back into the darkness.
“Wait!” he said. “Who are you? What’s that purple cloud — ?”
“A warning and a challenge for all wizards,” the figure said. “Are you up to it?”
“Warning? Challenge? Wait —”
The figure seemed to step away, and the smoky light began to fade. The apple smell drifted away, too. The tunnel grew lighter.
“Wait! Stop!” Eric insisted. “You had me under a spell. You’re planning something. Well, you won’t get away with it! Neal’s a genie and Julie can fly and I’m a wizard with visions and really powerful powers —”
He heard sudden wild chattering all around him and felt his fingertips grow warm.
A hand grasped his shoulder from behind and another from the side.
“Get your beasts off me!” he cried, wiggling free. His fingers sparked wildly, and a beam of silver light exploded into the darkness.
BLAMMMM!
When the smoke cleared, Eric found that the mysterious figure had vanished entirely. Staring at him, her eyes the size of moons, was none other than his teacher, Mrs. Michaels. The hand on his shoulder didn’t belong to a beast, but to Neal. The voice in his ear was only Julie’s, and the chattering came from his classmates. Finally, the map in front of him wasn’t of Droon but of the regular world, and there was a big black hole in its center from the fiery blast he’d sent at it.
He was in school, after all.
“Uh-oh,” Eric whispered.
Mrs. Michaels stared from Eric’s sparking fingers to the map behind her and back again.
“Eric, did you blow up our map?”
His chest pounding, Eric realized he must have just had a vision. Someone wanted to know about Droon. About Sparr. And whoever he or she was, they were also trying to warn him about something.
Mrs. Michaels moved down the aisle. “What is a Gethwing? And who is Keeah?”
“Dude,” Neal hissed in his ear, “you told her everything, totally out loud!”
“Way to spill our secrets, Eric!” added Julie.
“And who is this Lord Spore person —”
“Sparr,” said Eric. “I mean . . . who?”
Mrs. Michaels stopped at his desk. “What is this place Droon you talked so much about?”
He tried to smile. “Uh . . . well . . . about that . . . you see . . . the thing is . . . could you please repeat the question?”
“No way!” said a girl jumping up from her seat. “Droon is some kind of magical world! I always knew there were magical worlds, and this proves it. Let’s go to Eric’s house now. Can we, Mrs. Michaels? Field trip —”
All of a sudden the door flew open —bang! — and a tall man in a cloak of midnight blue and a cone-shaped hat walked into the room.
Backward.
“It’s that wizard Eric blabbed about!” cried a boy. “It’s Lagen!”
Eric, Julie, and Neal gasped. They knew it wasn’t Lagen, or even Galen, the wizard’s real name. It wasn’t even a real wizard. It was Galen’s opposite, the “pretend wizard.”
It was Nelag!
Nelag didn’t have real powers. He often said and did the exact opposit
e of what you’d expect. He spoke in riddles, almost never got hurt, and was almost always funny.
“Good-bye, everyone!” said Nelag. “My name is not Nelag!”
Neal groaned. “And I thought it was bad when Eric told everyone we had powers. What is he doing here?”
Unrolling a little scroll with tassels hanging from each end, the pretend wizard cleared his throat, lifted four fingers, and said, “I have come for two reasons. First of all, the second reason is . . . Eric, Julie, Neal, I bring a secret message for you! We must go down the secret staircase in Eric’s basement. Another secret adventure awaits you secretly in Droon!”
For a moment, silence fell over the classroom. Then everyone exploded.
“Let’s go down those magic stairs!”
“There’s a shortcut through my yard!”
“This could be extra credit!”
“Wait!” said Mrs. Michaels, facing Nelag. “You said there were two reasons. What’s the first reason?”
Nelag looked at his four fingers. “I’m so glad you asked.” He stuck those fingers into his mouth and whistled as if he were trying to stop a truck. A tiny yellow bird shot out of the tip of his tall hat, flew to the ceiling, and sprinkled glittery dust over the class.
Everyone fell into a trance.
Mrs. Michaels blinked as the dust fell into her eyes. She spun around, went to the front of the class, turned, and stared into space.
“Eric, Julie, and Neal are dismissed!” she announced. “Everyone else is having a quiz. In science. And English. And social studies. And art. And recess . . .”
“And math?” asked Neal.
“Math, too,” said the teacher.
“Whew!” said Neal. “I’m glad I’m missing that one —”
“Neal!” said Julie, pulling him into the hall with Eric and Nelag. “Let’s get out of here before they all remember what just happened!”
The four friends shot down the hall. In no time, they were out the door and tearing across the parking lot toward Eric’s house.