by Tony Abbott
“Where are you going?” Eric called.
Sparr said nothing, but rushed into the darkness of the castle. He continued without stopping, through corridors, this way and that, straight to the royal library.
Entering the high-ceilinged room with Sparr, Eric heard a hushed fluttering of wings near the uppermost bookshelves. Three disheveled birds had lighted up there and peered down. Poor frightened creatures, he thought. Maybe birds will be the only ones to survive this war. Maybe not even them.
Sparr did not stop. He tore across the library to a far door, whispered a word, and disappeared through it.
The whispered word was a name Eric had not expected to hear from Sparr.
“Oh, dear!” groaned a low voice.
A shape moved behind a wide marble column, and Eric raised his sword instinctively. “Who’s there? Come out. Now!”
“Oh,” came a second groan, as the familiar floppy-eared giant and caretaker of Zorfendorf’s priceless library stepped into view.
“Do not hurt me —”
“Thog! Don’t be afraid,” said Eric, yanking his helmet off. “It’s just me.”
The shy-eyed giant searched Eric’s face, blinked, and jumped. “It is you!” he said. “But your armor —”
“I’m in disguise,” said Eric. “What are you still doing here? The gates have fallen.”
“Words, words, words!” said Thog, gathering an armful of scrolls. “I must save them from the Ninns. There is never an end to the words.” He reached past the perching birds. “Even now, these silly creatures have brought more words! Look at this scrap of paper.”
Eric took a small piece of parchment from the giant. A single line was penned on it.
His heart skipped as he read it.
Collect the magics.
“But that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking!” he said. “The only real way to win this war is to …” He stopped. “Wait a second. I know this handwriting. These words were written by Quill, Galen’s feather pen.”
“Quill!” said Thog. “That clever little pen vanished from this library just days ago. The very same day as Galen …”
“Galen?” said Eric. “Do you think Galen is using Quill to tell us things? Do you think … Quill is actually with Galen?”
“They are the dearest of friends,” said Thog. “Oh, the birds!”
Eric looked up in time to see a streak of feathers disappear through an upper window.
As if their work here was done!
Eric read the parchment again. If it really was from Galen, then his mission was clear. The quest he had imagined was the same as Galen’s. It was set in three simple words.
Collect the magics.
He knew more than ever that this was what he had to do. And Sparr was his first goal.
“Surround the tower!” came a cry from inside the castle.
Thog shivered. “I must save what I can before the Ninns find this room. These scrolls are some of the castle’s most prized possessions. Look. A map to the Seven Cities of Gold!”
Eric stared at the door Sparr had gone through. “I have to go. But … I’ve never heard of the Seven Cities of Gold. Where are they?”
Thog shrugged his massive shoulders. “The map is blank! But precious all the same. Prince Zorfendorf collected it long before I came here.”
“I have to go,” Eric repeated, remembering that the castle was named after the mysterious — and never seen — Prince Zorfendorf.
But the blank map intrigued him. On its corner he spied a silver stamp of a bare tree. The tiny emblem reminded him of the apple trees near his house, and of how his world was in as much danger as Droon.
The castle doors shuddered.
“I have to go!” Eric said for the third time. Stuffing Quill’s mysterious message into his cloak, he whispered the name Sparr had uttered and entered a dim passage. He made his way down a flight of very dark stairs until an object swung down suddenly in front of his face.
Eric screamed. “Ahhh!”
The object screamed, too. “Ahhh!”
Jumping back, Eric flicked a spark from his fingertip and saw, dangling from the ceiling, a plump creature with orange hair.
It was Max the spider troll.
“Max! What are you doing here?”
The spider troll grinned. “When Gethwing flew you away, we had no choice. We all followed you!”
“We?” asked Eric.
“All of us,” said Max. “Keeah, Neal, Julie. But we were separated in this battle. I’m all you have now.” The spider troll paused. “Eric … it’s happening, isn’t it? The end of days?”
“No!” said Eric abruptly, even though the end of days was all he could think about. “I won’t believe it. I refuse to believe it.” He slipped his hand into his cloak and touched the Moon Medallion and the parchment next to it. Collect the magics. “Max, I’m on a quest to do what I can. Maybe it’s my final quest, the biggest thing I’ve ever been called on to do, but Droon won’t fall. I won’t let it!”
Max tried to smile. “I will help you.”
“Good.” Eric placed his hands on the panel in front of him.
“Zara,” he whispered for the second time. The panel slid aside. As always, his heart felt a pang of pain at the mention of her name.
“But why?” asked Max. “Why her name?”
Eric shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Look, you can help me. Take this.” He withdrew the Moon Medallion from his cloak. “I’ve got to turn Sparr to our side. But if I can’t, and he senses that I have this, he’ll overpower me and steal it.”
Max’s face dropped as he took the powerful object. “I will protect it with my life.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Eric. “The moment I find out what he’s up to, I’ll want it back, so stay close, all right?”
“I’ll be right here,” said the spider troll.
Eric nodded once, then headed down the black staircase two steps at a time, smelling the damp of the earth behind the walls.
“Sparr?” he called. “Are you down here?”
The only answer was the sound of murmuring below.
The narrow stone stairs looked as ancient as Droon itself. But they were not.
The giant white castle of Zorfendorf was in fact only a few years old, conjured by Galen to hide the location of the legendary Fifth River, a magical waterway connecting Droon to the Upper World summoned long before by Zara herself. Using a spell as strong as his mother’s original, Galen was later forced to bury the mystical river and seal forever the fountain through which it flowed.
Sparr can’t be searching for the Fifth River … can he?
Stepping off the bottom stair, Eric sensed a thick, earthy aroma. He was far beneath the castle courtyard. Above him, he knew, stood the great white tower that Zorfendorf was famous for. It was in many ways like the tower over Jaffa City. Two cities. Two towers. Both under siege.
He listened. At first he heard only the beating of his heart. Then a quiet footfall, then another. He turned left toward a passage barely tall enough for him to walk upright and soon came to a solid wall of white stone.
The sorcerer emerged from the shadows. He was pale and trembling from head to foot.
“Sparr, what’s wrong with you?”
“Never mind,” said the sorcerer. “I have tried to open the door I know stands here, but I cannot. My mind is … Open this wall, Ungast. I know you know how. Do it!”
Good or evil, Sparr had a power over Eric that few possessed.
“Sure,” he said. “But what are we —”
“Do it,” Sparr repeated softly.
Eric nodded. Raising both hands to the wall, he searched his mind and was amazed to come up with the words — and amazed again when they tripped off his tongue like honey.
“Selit-ka-fassa-noha. Zeetha-pa-koam!”
“Ah, yes, yes,” murmured the sorcerer.
Eric stood back as his words had their effect. The air rippled from ceiling
to floor, and an arched entrance shimmered into view.
“And the quest continues,” said Sparr.
“Quest?” Eric said. “What quest?”
Sparr moved ghostlike under the arch and stepped deliberately across the small chamber, his fingertips sparking. He paused once, twice, as if to listen, then moved on.
“What do you hear?” Eric asked.
Again, no answer. Sparr was leaden-faced, his eyes milky white, his arms rigid, as if in a world of his own. Yet Eric tried to reach him.
“Sparr, I need to talk to you. Really. It’s about Gethwing. And his plans. For you.”
Sparr walked silently around the pyramid of collapsed stone that was all that remained of his mother’s magical fountain. Circling the stones, Sparr seemed unaware of the shouting of Ninns on the floors above.
Not knowing exactly what to say, but afraid that time was slipping away, Eric spoke.
“Lord Sparr, you need to know something … you call me Ungast, but … look, Droon will fall. And Gethwing’s plans don’t involve … all of us. He’s got this prophecy, and I think we need to find out what it means. We can only do this by …”
He drew Quill’s parchment from his cloak. “I don’t know what you hope to find here, but I think Galen is trying to tell us —”
A blast thundered through the rooms above, followed by shouting and thudding footsteps. A moment later, the archway filled with a brigade of breathless Ninns.
“Lord Sparr!” one grunted. “The main rooms are taken. Shall we destroy the tower?”
“No!” cried Sparr, coming out of his trance for a moment. “No … no … I will deal with it myself. Leave us!”
“Yes, commander!” said the Ninns, climbing clumsily back up the stairs.
And Eric knew.
You are going to try to create the stone boat, aren’t you? Your mother’s boat? But what quest are you on? It can’t be the same as mine … can it?
As Sparr gazed upon the rubble of the fountain, the three birds were suddenly there again, circling the ceiling. One was the color of rust, a second filthy white, and the third as black as oil. Eric watched their short, scuffling flight from stone to stone, his memory alive with birds he had seen long before.
“Shield your eyes,” said the sorcerer. “The air now turns as silver as a new blade!”
Eric stepped back as the sorcerer raised his arms to the ceiling.
Moments later, the fountain’s rubble jostled and quaked and shrieked.
And it began to move.
Sparr’s fingertips flamed with black sparks as he urged the stones to come together. “Scene of sorrow, scene of loss, become a scene of triumph! Come, ship, come!”
Eric knew what had happened in that deep chamber. It was a sad scene, a scene of bitter loss, full of painful memories for Sparr.
The sorcerer’s mother, Queen Zara, had built the fountain and the ship that grew out of its stones for one purpose only: to send her infant son to the Upper World, freeing him from Emperor Ko’s ruthless rule.
But Ko tracked her down, and she collapsed before she could send her son into the freedom of his brother Urik’s arms.
“Ship, I command you, come!” Sparr cried, urging the stones to take their magic shape.
But they would not.
“I must! They must!” he shouted. “She … she …”
As Eric watched, Sparr raged and coaxed. He chanted and shouted, he whispered and sang out, but the stones did no more than tremble in place.
“Fly, stones, fly!” he cried.
As Eric saw tears of anger rise in the sorcerer’s eyes and felt his pain, he remembered his first time in the room and the single word that had caused the fountain to rise.
But Galen had uncharmed the fountain. He had buried the river. That word surely would not work anymore. Would it?
“O, tender face, face of sorrow, face of truth, mother, queen — take me to the Upper World,” Sparr said. “My quest to find it must continue. I must bring it to you.”
“What quest?” asked Eric. “To find what?”
Sparr swung around to him. “That which was lost, of course! Before they find it.”
“But who? What are you talking about?”
Sparr narrowed his eyes at Eric. “Do you not see? This great world lies in tatters around us. Hours remain before Droon collapses, never to be seen again. It will happen soon unless I heed her command.”
“What command?” Eric cried.
“To collect the magic that is lost!”
Eric staggered to hear those words again. “Collect the magic? From the Upper World? But what magic is there?”
“The castle is moments from falling,” said the sorcerer. “Stones, fly! Fountain, appear!”
Eric’s mind reeled. If I help him, if I join my power to his, will Sparr join us again? Will he be the first of the magics? Is this my command, too?
As Eric set his feet firmly apart, he knew he had answered his own questions. Secretly directing his fingers at the base of the crumbled fountain, he silently spoke the word he knew, the word set there by Sparr’s mother.
Ythra!
At once, the stones obeyed. They began to swivel and roll across one another, round and round, thudding one after another into place.
Unaware of Eric’s involvement, Sparr laughed. “Look! I am doing it! Ungast, tremble before my awesome power!”
“I’m trembling, all right,” said Eric, using all his might to move the giant stones.
“Now, watch this!” said Sparr.
Eric mimicked every twist of the sorcerer’s hand to urge the frozen stones to join.
And they did.
The stones hung together in the air as if suspended by the power of Sparr’s magic alone. Stone by stone, Zara’s fountain grew, while Eric strained his powers to their limit.
Helping Sparr reminded him of the day he and his father had installed the swing set in his backyard. Sparr’s expression was full of glee, just as his father’s had been when they worked side by side.
Foom! Foom! The stones collided and hung together as if meant to be joined, never to be parted. Rock on rock, stone on stone, Zara’s mysterious creation rose before their eyes.
“Look how I reverse the old one’s magic with my own!” said Sparr.
Not your own, thought Eric, but he knew who Sparr meant. “Sparr, I think Galen is … I think he’s trying to communicate with me … with us …”
“Yes, yes,” said Sparr, “as you say. But look, the Fifth River comes! I know it —”
Sparr was right, for the floor beneath their feet had already begun to quake and the roar of water to fill the stony chamber.
“And more!” cried Sparr. “Fly, stones, fly!”
Then, with the thunderous roar of stone impacting stone, the fountain began to change itself into a ship.
A ship of stone.
The levels, the spouts, the rims, the angles, the pediment itself grew into decks and railings and masts. A prow emerged, needle sharp. Ghostly rigging, like cobwebs of iron, stretched from the top of massive masts to the deck railings below.
Great red sails, like the wings of an enormous jungle bird, billowed out, poised and waiting for flight. The scrollwork etched in the stone that made up the hull, the coiled railings, the tapered mast itself — all were crude and delicate at the same time.
All the while, the water beneath the castle thundered and roared, until the sorcerer stiffened. “The figurehead!” He breathed in mightily and made as if to pick up a massive stone.
Oh, not that one! thought Eric, trying to keep up. Using all his strength, he sent a beam of invisible energy across the chamber.
The heavy stone looked as if it weighed a thousand pounds, but Sparr “lifted” it as if it were no more than a pillow. Eric gasped in pain to keep so many things going at once.
“See there?” said Sparr.
“Right,” groaned Eric, barely able to stand.
Then he did see something.
A narrow ridge on the surface of the stone encircled a head like a crown. Before Eric could stop himself, he spoke the name.
“Zara!”
Sparr flew around and stared at Eric. “You see her?” he asked. “She speaks to you, too?”
But when Eric looked back at the stone, the image of Zara’s face, if that was what it was, had vanished. It was rough stone once more.
“How about we put it down now?” asked Eric.
“It’s as light as a feather!” said Sparr, showing no signs of fatigue. “And we finish!”
Sparr “hurled” the stone to the bow of the ship and — FOOOOM! — the vessel was complete.
Though the water continued to rush beneath the floor, silence seemed to follow the last tumultuous joining of stones.
Sparr relaxed. “It barely took anything out of me,” he said. “I must be getting stronger!”
“Oh, I’m sure,” said Eric, rubbing his arms.
“So. We are ready,” said the sorcerer. “Let us board, you and me.”
Not without the Medallion, thought Eric. “Okay, but first I need something,” he said hastily. “Some … supplies!”
Sparr turned. “Supplies? What supplies?”
“Stuff. Bows, arrows, food. You know. Stuff!”
“Be quick about it!” said Sparr. “We are in the presence of great power — mine!”
Eric scurried under the arch to the passage outside. Max, he said silently, if you can hear me, I need you now. Bring me the Medallion!
Slowly Sparr mounted the plank.
As the battle reached a crescendo in the passages above, a stone in the wall next to Eric squeaked aside. Max’s orange hair was just visible in the darkness. He handed the silver Medallion through, and Eric slipped it inside his cloak.
“I heard you ask for supplies,” whispered Max with a wink. “I found something better.”
The spider troll grunted as he pushed a large chest into the hallway. “Whew!”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything this big,” groaned Eric, trying to lift the chest.
“Are you done out there?” asked Sparr.
“Nearly,” Eric called back. “Max, what do you have in this trunk?”
“You mean who!” said a muffled voice.
The chest lid cracked open and a pair of eyes peeped out. Eric blinked. “Keeah?”