by Tony Abbott
Every cheerful Orkin had become a very uncheerful Ninn.
That’s how the Ninns came to be.
“The village looks deserted,” said Julie.
“But if Kem is tracking Salamandra, why would he come here?” asked Eric. “Once Salamandra stole the Droon flag, she could fly anywhere. She said so herself. Why come to the little Orkin village?”
Keeah turned. “I don’t know. Maybe she saw something in the future that made her fly here. Let’s find out.”
“On foot and quietly,” added Max. “Remember, Kem has four ears!”
The children slid off their pilkas and crept down toward the village. When they got there, the two-headed dog was padding softly between the towers, both heads still searching the sky.
“This place is so strange,” whispered Julie. “I know we’re following Kem, but suddenly I feel like playing!”
Neal darted up to a house and peered around it. “When I play with Snorky he doesn’t find flying ships, just creepy old bones! He’d love this funny village, though.”
Keeah smiled. “The Orkins aren’t really magical, but visitors here always feel happy.”
Eric remembered the first time he and his friends had ever seen an Orkin. They were surrounded by a bunch of angry Ninns, when all of a sudden, the red warriors discovered their past.
What happened was amazing.
Ploink! A fierce Ninn became a playful Orkin, right before their eyes. Then another changed, and another. A whole troop of Ninns returned to their true Orkin selves. When they went back to their village, it rose from ruins to become beautiful and happy again.
“It must be something in the air,” said Eric.
Max chuckled. “But hush, please, or Kem will start hunting us!”
Sparr’s dog slowed in the main square. The five friends huddled quietly at the base of the tallest tower and peeked around.
Kem was pointing again.
“That pointing creeps me out,” whispered Neal.
There was a sudden noise behind them, and a voice said, “All of you are it!”
Spinning around, the children saw the round face, soft chin, and large smile of a plump blue creature floating just above them.
Eric gasped. “An Orkin!”
“Welcome to our village, everyone!” the Orkin said. Letting go of a long springy rope that hung from the tower’s top, he landed with a soft plumf!
“My name is Djambo! All my brothers and sisters are playing hide-and-seek. They’re doing the hiding part, of course, and I’m doing the —”
“Shhh!” the children hissed, and yanked Djambo behind the tower.
“We’re trying to hide, too!” whispered Keeah. She quickly explained how Kem had tracked Salamandra to his village.
His eyes widening, Djambo peered around the tower. “I love doggies! And this one has an extra head to pet —”
“Don’t pet either one,” said Neal. “He’s Sparr’s dog —”
Roowwwooo! Kem howled loudly.
“And here it comes,” said Eric. “Here comes the ship!”
The sky crackled, a giant ring of flame appeared, and the dragon ship spun wildly out of it. At the same time, a bolt of red lightning exploded over the ship’s bow — ka-blammm!
“Red lightning?” cried Julie. “Sparr must be here, too!”
Rocked by the blast, the ship dropped to the ground, thudding down in a nearby yard. Salamandra spilled out.
“Well, that was rough —” she said.
Clack … clack …
Lord Sparr himself stepped from behind one of the other towers and made his way slowly across the square. A cloak as black and glistening as a crow’s feathers was wrapped around him. The jagged fins behind his ears glowed a brilliant red. In one gloved hand, Sparr held a smoking red jewel. It was the Red Eye of Dawn, the first of his magical Three Powers. He raised his other hand to Kem.
“Who’s a good Kem to find Daddy’s dragon ship?” he asked.
“At least he is nice to his doggy,” whispered Djambo.
Salamandra sneered. “And who’s a bad Sparr to knock me out of the sky?”
Sparr laughed. “Princess Salamandra! The last time we fought, you had me trapped. Now it looks like the shoe is on the other foot.”
“Speaking of shoes,” said Salamandra, “you’re in the same moldy outfit as always. Is it what they’re wearing on … the Isle of Mists?”
At the mention of the Isle of Mists, Sparr grinned icily. Then he opened his cloak and removed from it a large golden crown.
“The Coiled Viper!” whispered Keeah.
The crown was shaped like a snake twisted upon itself and ready to strike. Its arched head was made to hold two blue jewels.
Only one of them was in the Viper’s head.
Galen had hidden the other jeweled eye.
Salamandra squinted at the crown. “You’ve been testing the Viper, haven’t you? You want to see if it really works, don’t you?”
“Testing? What does she mean?” whispered Keeah.
“Soon, my little tests will be over, and you’ll see my crown complete,” said Sparr. “Or maybe you won’t — if you aren’t here!”
He snapped his fingers and a high-pitched buzzing sound filled the air — zzzzzt! A few moments later, the bright gold wings and stingers of a giant flying creature appeared over the nearby hill.
“The Golden Wasp!” gasped Max. “Ugly bug! Sparr has all Three Powers now!”
At Sparr’s command, the Wasp swooped quickly at the princess and forced her away from the ship.
The sorcerer laughed. “Buh-bye, Salamandra!”
“You think you’ve seen the last of me?” snarled the princess. “Well, nunh-unh!” She ran from house to house, chased by the Wasp, finally disappearing over the hill.
Sparr turned. “Now, Kem, our own journey begins! On board!”
Together, they hopped onto the dragon ship. Holding the Red Eye high, Sparr mumbled a few words. A red wind spun out of the jewel and filled the great flag of Droon. The ship rose up.
“He’s getting away!” cried Max. “We have to follow him —”
Djambo grinned. “I know a way! The Orkin Wonder! It’s so much fun!”
As the dragon ship stretched its wings and sailed higher, Djambo jumped up and grabbed the rope hanging from the tower’s top.
“Behold the Orkin Wonder,” he said. “Cheese!”
The kids stared at the long rope of cheese dangling down.
“String cheese?” said Neal. “String cheese will help us?”
Djambo laughed. “We prefer to call it spring cheese! Grab hold, pull hard, and boing you go. Up, up, up to the dragon ship!”
Max jumped nervously. “Sparr is nearly gone!”
Keeah frowned, then shrugged. “All right, everyone, grab some cheese!”
Each of them took hold of the Orkin Wonder and pulled away from the tower.
“More … more … and more!” said Djambo, tugging the cheese with all his might. “Even more!”
They pulled the cheese until it became very thin.
Finally, the cheese began to pull back.
“Oh, man!” cried Eric. “Here — we — go!”
Fwing! The Orkin Wonder shot them up from the ground, right over the tower, and straight through the air.
Ploing … oing … oing … oing-g-g-g!
All the way through the wispy pink clouds they flew.
And right up to the dragon ship.
The six friends were flung into a heap at the back of the ship. Plop-op-op-op!
Sparr and Kem didn’t turn from the wheel.
“They didn’t even hear us!” whispered Keeah, huddling low. “The storm was making too much noise.”
“And now we’re stowaways!” chirped Max.
Crouching as low as possible, they hid from sight. The Wasp was back from chasing away Salamandra. It weaved back and forth behind the ship, searching the skies.
“That Wasp totally creeps me out!” whispered N
eal.
Julie frowned. “What doesn’t creep you out?”
Neal licked his fingers. “Well, the cheese —”
Sparr spun the wheel and drove the ship lower, circling over a great desert. Sand dunes rolled on and on below them, ending finally at the foot of a pink mountain range.
“I thought this was a nonstop flight to the Isle of Mists,” said Eric. “But we’re going down. It looks like Sparr’s getting ready to land.”
The monster dog strained its necks over the bow, pointing to more than a hundred Ninns in black battle armor tramping across the sand.
“Ninns,” whispered Djambo. “They look tired. Do you think Sparr will give them a ride?”
Keeah grumbled softly as the ship flew lower. “That’s not even the worst part. Sparr said the Viper would soon be complete. Well, what’s the one thing he still needs?”
Eric turned to her. “You mean the Viper’s other eye?”
Max nodded. “The last thing my master told us was to keep the jewel moving so Sparr wouldn’t find it. Well, Sparr has found it.”
Keeah pointed to a caravan of pilkas snaking its way over the dunes not far away. As everyone watched, the caravan looped once, backtracked, went sideways, then circled some palm trees near a camp of colorful tents.
“What a fun way to travel!” said Djambo.
“That caravan is carrying the eye,” said Keeah. “And as you can tell from the way it travels, its captain is … Nelag.”
“Nelag?” Julie blinked. “Uh-oh.”
Nelag was the double of Galen, charmed to take his place whenever the old wizard was away. But Nelag had no real power. He turned out to be the opposite of Galen in every way.
Even his name was backward.
The dragon ship dipped once more, then skimmed along the ground, spraying sand behind it. The instant it stopped, Sparr charged from the ship. “I need the eye!” he shouted.
“Quick, everyone. This is our stop, too!” said Eric. “Get to Nelag before Sparr does!”
They jumped out and raced behind a giant sand dune, meeting Nelag just as his caravan entered the campsite.
“Ho-ho! Princess, children,” the pretend wizard giggled as he jumped from his pilka. “I’ve hidden the jewel. Now watch me fool Sparr!”
“But Nelag —” Max started.
Even as the sorcerer raced toward them, Nelag swished his robes in one direction, then another, twirled on his heels, dipped, jumped, and finally lurched backward between the tents.
Djambo laughed. “You’re already fooling us!”
But Sparr was too quick. He blasted the tents away one by one — blam-blam-blam! — until he trapped the friends under the high trees.
Raising his sparking hands to them, Sparr smiled coldly. “Junior wizards,” he sneered. “I wondered how long it would take before you got in my way.”
“Too long, Sparr,” said Keeah, standing firm.
“But better late than never —” added Eric. “Keeah, now —”
Bla-blam! Two blasts sprang from their fingers.
Sparr dodged the beams, then flung a powerful red bolt at the children, toppling them to the sand.
“Ninns!” he shouted. An instant later, his troop of red warriors clambered over the dunes. Each one pulled out a jagged sword and waved it fiercely at the friends, forcing them back.
“Nelag, give me the Viper’s eye,” said Sparr calmly.
“You’ll never find it here!” said the pretend wizard. At once, he fell to the sand and began digging a hole.
Sparr smiled. “You’re right, my opposite friend. I won’t find the jewel down there.” He floated off the dune and into the palm tree overhead. He came down clutching a small wooden box in his hands.
“Oh, no …” grumbled Max.
Nelag stopped digging and covered his ears. “Careful! That box is booby-trapped. With Fizzling Fizzler Fireworks!”
Sparr opened the lid anyway.
Zing! A single pink spark flashed up in his face, struck him on the chest, fizzled for a second, then went out. Phut-t-t-t-t-t-t.
Eric groaned. “Well, that didn’t work —”
“But Fizzlers worked when Galen made them,” said Nelag. “Four hundred years ago.”
“Fizzling Fizzlers, indeed. Nothing but a dud!” said Sparr. He plucked out a small blue jewel and flung the box to the sand. “Kem, look. The Viper’s eye is mine at last! Ninns, to the ship. You others — buh-bye!”
Blasting the sand once more, Sparr leaped back to the ship. His red warriors tumbled onboard after him. Whooom! The dragon ship lifted from the sand and began to rise toward the sparkling mountains.
“Ten degrees south!” Sparr cried. “Make a course into the flames! And to the Serpent Sea!”
“He’s getting away!” cried Neal.
“I can fly after him,” said Julie.
“Maybe one of Galen’s backward spells will stop him!” said Max.
Nelag took the scroll, then tucked it in his belt. “I have a better idea. Rockets for each of us. And they really work. Honest!” He emptied his pilka’s saddlebags and handed out rocket-shaped fireworks two feet long. “Come now. Sit on them. Keeah, a spark, if you please!”
After everyone sat on a rocket, Keeah sent a spark to each rocket’s fuse. “Okay, but …”
Fwooooosh! — the rockets shot up from the ground and zigzagged together to the dragon ship.
“Awesome!” yelled Neal, clutching his rocket tightly. “They actually work. We’re flying!”
Eric leaned into his rocket, urging it to go higher and faster. “And we’re gaining on him! Come on, rocket, to the ship! Fly!”
Kem saw them first and howled. Rooo-oowww!
“Still there, troublemakers?” snarled Sparr. “Too bad it looks like stormy weather for you!”
As they approached the ship, the sorcerer raised the Red Eye of Dawn. A sudden stormy swirl burst from it, pouring torrents of rain over the friends.
“It’s raining, it’s pouring! And you’re falling!” laughed Sparr.
As the dragon ship wove up into the air and the rain fell harder, Nelag’s rockets flickered and sputtered. Then they died.
Almost the last thing Eric saw before the rockets fell was the Coiled Viper, both eyes gleaming, glowing with light from head to tail.
Almost.
The very last thing he saw was a puff of blue fog streaking out from the Viper’s eyes.
“Holy smoke!” cried Eric.
That’s when the rockets fell.
“Noooo!” cried Neal. “Somebody do something!”
Even as they dropped straight down, Max spun a tight silken web and flung it up. It filled with air like a parachute.
“Grab on!” he shouted. “It will slow our fall!”
Everyone jumped for the web and held tight. Nelag leaped from his falling rocket straight through a streak of blue fog.
By the time Max’s silky web floated onto the pink cliffs and the friends rolled softly to the ground, the fog had vanished.
And so had Nelag.
Plop! Plop! His two silver slippers dropped from the sky, one after the other. And that was all. Nelag himself was nowhere.
Keeah rushed to the slippers. “Oh, no. Nelag?”
“What happened to our friend?” cried Max. “Where did he go?”
“I hope he’s not hurt,” added Djambo. “I just met him!”
Eric stared at the slippers. “I think he’s okay.”
Everyone turned to him as the fog drifted away and vanished.
Eric took a deep breath. “Okay, look,” he said. “Nelag went through the blue fog. But so far, it hasn’t actually hurt anyone, right? I mean, it made you younger, Keeah. Your father, too. Maybe the Viper really just made Nelag younger, too. I mean, how old is he?”
“Of course!” said Keeah. “Galen created the charm for Nelag only a few years ago. If the blue fog turned him back even three years, he would vanish completely.”
“Poor guy,” said Neal, tuckin
g the silver slippers in his belt. “So young, he’s not even here. And since the scroll vanished with him, we can’t try a spell on him.”
Eric nodded. “Only the Viper can bring him back now —”
Kkkk-kkk! Bolt after bolt of lightning flashed, and the storm from the Red Eye of Dawn drove the dragon ship toward the distant clouds.
“All the more reason to follow Sparr,” said Julie. “I can still track him and make sure he doesn’t try any more tricks along the way. This is my chance to use my powers to help.”
With every passing second, the silvery glint of the dragon ship was getting smaller.
Keeah and Eric shared a look. Finally, Keeah said, “Julie, be really, really careful.”
Julie smiled. “Always!”
Putting her hands together, she launched herself into the air. She looped over the pink mountains like a bird and flew right toward Sparr’s ship.
Djambo watched her fly. “She’ll do it. I know she will.”
“I hope so,” said Eric. “If Salamandra is right — and she’s been right so far — Sparr will find the Isle of Mists.”
“If it exists,” muttered Neal.
“We need to pretend it does,” said Keeah. “Come on, everyone. Down the mountain, through the forest, and to the Serpent Sea. And the quicker the better!”
It took nearly an hour to slide down the pink cliffs. Next, they trekked into a jungle of giant trees. Finding a path at last, the friends wormed down the steep mountain. Suddenly, Keeah put up her hand and stopped.
A wild river crossed the path. It raced along for a while, then dropped off, crashing fifty feet to the open sea below.
“Waterfall,” Max grumbled.
Eric looked down at the raging water. White-topped waves rose and crashed loudly. “Uh … I’m not sure about this,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure about it,” said Neal. “I’m pretty sure we need to find another way down —”
Kawww! Kawww!
Without warning, two large birds flapped over the treetops. They had scales, and spikes sticking out of their heads. Their bright red eyes searched the ground below.
“Those are ancient birds, centuries old!” said Djambo. “Where did they come from?”