The Tower of the Elf King Read online

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1: Dream Pictures

  2: The Ceremony of Truth

  3: The Plundered Village

  4: In the Company of Ninns

  5: Voice of Thunder

  6: The Story on the Stones

  7: Ninns with Hammers

  8: King of the Hog Elves

  9: The Magic Words

  10: A Wizard’s Journey

  The Adventure Continues …

  Also Available

  Copyright

  “Hey, Eric! Watch me!”

  Eric Hinkle looked up in time to see his friend Neal do a cannonball into his backyard pool.

  Splash!

  It was hot and sunny in Neal’s backyard. His parents were having a big cookout. Everyone was laughing, swimming, and eating.

  But Eric couldn’t get into it. All he could think about was a dream he’d had last night.

  A dream about … Droon.

  Ssss! Neal’s mother set a pot of bubbling chili on the grill. Then she loaded on some hot dogs.

  Droon was the magical world Eric and his friends Neal and Julie had discovered while cleaning up Eric’s basement one day.

  They’d found a small empty closet. As soon as they went inside — whoosh! — the floor vanished and a staircase appeared.

  A staircase to the wonderful world of Droon.

  Droon was a land of awesome adventure. A land of excitement.

  And sometimes danger. But Eric loved it.

  He, Julie, and Neal had made good friends in Droon. One was a princess named Keeah. Another was a wizard named Galen. Together, they were fighting a wicked sorcerer named Lord Sparr. The kids were helping them make sure Sparr didn’t take over Droon.

  After each visit, the kids couldn’t wait to go back. Sometimes, when Keeah needed help, she sent a message through an enchanted soccer ball. Other times, the kids dreamed about Droon. That’s how they knew when to return.

  But this time, Eric wasn’t so sure he wanted to return. He’d seen a face in his dream.

  The face of something terrifying.

  The first thing he did when he woke up was draw a picture of it.

  Now he had to show the picture to his friends. But no one else could see. Droon was a secret.

  “Hey, Neal!” Eric called out. “Where’s Julie?”

  “Coming soon!” Then Neal did a goofy dive and flopped into the water on his stomach.

  Eric looked around. No one was watching, so he pulled out the picture and stared at it.

  It stared right back.

  With three angry red eyes.

  “Not even Sparr has three eyes!” he mumbled.

  “Chili dog?” asked a voice over his shoulder.

  Eric quickly covered the paper. “No, thanks,” he said. Then he looked up. “Julie!”

  Julie was in a T-shirt and shorts. She sat down at the picnic table and began chomping on her hot dog. “Why aren’t you in the pool?”

  “I dreamed about Droon last night,” Eric said. “But the only thing I remember is … this.”

  He showed Julie the drawing.

  Julie nearly dropped her food. “Oh, my gosh! You made a drawing, too?”

  She pulled a sheet of paper from her pocket and placed it on the table next to Eric’s picture.

  Eric blinked. “And I thought mine was scary!”

  Julie’s drawing showed a mouth with two rows of long teeth sticking out. But the teeth weren’t the worst part. The worst part was the fire pouring out between them.

  Neal came splashing over to the table, drying himself with a towel. “What’s this, art class?”

  “Scary art class,” said Julie. “Take a look. Here’s what we’ve been dreaming about.”

  “Whoa, a three-eyed monster eating my mom’s extra-hot chili!” said Neal with a laugh.

  “Yeah,” whispered Eric. “All we need is a nose and we’ve got the creepiest monster ever!”

  Neal stopped laughing. “You know what’s weird? I dreamed about a nose last night.”

  Eric jumped up from the table. “Draw it right now. This is important. It could be a clue to what’s happening in Droon!”

  “I don’t draw too well,” said Neal. He looked around. “But the nose looked like … this!”

  He took four chocolate chip cookies from the dessert plate and stacked them between the drawings. “That’s the nose.”

  Eric frowned. “It looks like a pig nose.”

  “Exactly!” said Neal. “With three nostrils. It was huffing and puffing. It sneezed a lot, too.”

  “That’s not very scary,” said Julie.

  “Did I mention the nose was drippy?” he added.

  “That’s it!” said Eric. “We need to go to Droon right now!” He stuffed the pictures in his pocket.

  Neal snatched the cookies.

  “Don’t hog the food, son!” his father called.

  “I’ll share!” Neal said. Then he ran into the house to change. Two minutes later they were all at Eric’s back door.

  “You know what I think is cool?” asked Julie as they entered Eric’s house.

  “That we can spend all day in Droon and still be back in time for chili dogs?” said Neal.

  “Besides that,” said Julie. “It means we’re a team. It took all of us together to figure out that there’s some kind of monster in Droon.”

  “And that we need to go back,” Eric added, charging through the kitchen and down to the basement. It was still pretty messy there. They never did finish cleaning it up.

  Someday we’ll get to it, Eric thought. Then he grinned. But not today!

  They quickly pulled aside the cartons that blocked the little door under the basement stairs.

  Neal opened the door. Inside was a small closet, completely bare except for a single light hanging from the ceiling. The three kids piled in.

  “Ready to face the monster?” Eric asked.

  Julie smiled. “Ready.”

  Click! Neal flicked off the light.

  Whoosh! The floor below them vanished. They were standing on the top step of a long, glimmering staircase. The staircase to Droon.

  As they started down, Eric recalled that Droon and his world — the Upper World — were connected by more than a magical staircase.

  On their last adventure, Princess Keeah had come into Eric’s basement for a minute. Then she said she had been there before!

  Talk about secrets!

  Galen had told them the staircase had been sealed for many years before the kids found it. So what did Keeah mean that she had been to the Upper World before? When? How? Why?

  This time, Eric would ask her.

  The stairs curved through a thin layer of pink clouds. The sky below was turning purple. It was the end of the day in Droon.

  Neal peered down the stairs. “Hey! I should have kept my trunks on, after all. There’s a swimming pool down there —”

  Suddenly, the stairs began to wobble.

  “Uh-oh,” said Julie. “Should we go back up?”

  The stairs shivered and quivered.

  “We can’t!” Eric said. “Hurry, or we’ll fall off.”

  They rushed down the steps two at a time.

  “Prepare to dive!” said Neal.

  Then Eric squinted over Neal’s shoulder.

  “Wait! That’s not a swimming pool,” he said.

  “It’s not?” said Neal, leaning forward.

  Below them sat a giant cauldron, boiling fiercely. Red and blue flames licked up the sides.

  “It’s more like … a pot of chili!” cried Julie.

  “I hope the cook isn’t Lord Sparr!” Neal said.

  Then — whoosh! — the stairs vanished.

 
The three friends fell through the air, straight toward the boiling pot.

  “Help!” Eric screamed.

  Hiss! Bubble! Splort! went the pot.

  Zamm! A sudden blue light sizzled over the kids. They stopped falling. They stopped moving. They hung just inches above the hissing pot.

  “Are we … cooked?” asked Neal.

  “I don’t think so,” said Julie.

  “This cauldron is on some kind of balcony,” said Eric. “And it looks like there’s a castle behind us —”

  “My friends!” called a bright voice.

  It was Princess Keeah. She ran across the stone balcony toward the kids. She was dressed in a blue tunic with a golden belt. A crown circled her head.

  “You nearly became part of our spell!” she said. “I stopped you with only seconds to spare.”

  “Hey, I was just hoping we weren’t the secret ingredient in Sparr’s evil soup,” Neal said.

  A roar of laughter came from the castle. It was the warm voice of Galen Longbeard, first wizard of Droon. “It’s not soup,” he said. “It’s not Sparr’s. And it’s certainly not to be eaten!”

  Together with Keeah, Galen raised his hands and — zzz! — more blue light fell over the kids. They floated to the ground beside the pot.

  Eric looked around. “We’re in Jaffa City.”

  Keeah nodded. “This is the balcony outside my room. Galen and I are in the middle of an ancient spell called the Ceremony of Truth. We’re using it to find out what happened to Sparr.”

  Eric glanced at his friends. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Is Sparr … missing?”

  Keeah nodded slowly. “For nearly a whole moon no one has seen him. We’re hoping that he won’t bother us anymore. But we can’t be sure until we find out where he is.”

  Eric remembered the last time he’d seen the wicked sorcerer. Sparr had been lying on the frozen lake near his evil fortress of Plud. He had been hurt.

  But even in his pain, Sparr had stared up at Eric with eyes that said, It is not over. Not over.

  Hsss! The cauldron began to hiss wildly.

  Galen leaned over and sniffed the pot. “It is ready. Keeah, as part of your wizard training, would you do the honors?”

  “Yes, sir!” she said brightly.

  “Ready, Max?” Galen called over the side of the balcony to his assistant.

  Max, an orange-haired spider troll, stood on the ground below. With his eight legs, he was holding up a large round board painted with brightly colored circles like a target.

  “Ready, master!” he chirped.

  At once, Keeah took a large ladle and thrust it into the boiling pot. When she lifted it out, it was thick with long white strands.

  Julie nudged Eric. “That looks like spaghetti!”

  Keeah went to the edge of the balcony and flung the goop off the ladle.

  It fell through the air and — splat! — struck the target in the center.

  “Direct hit!” Max chirped.

  “Everyone, hurry!” said Keeah excitedly.

  They all raced down to the courtyard.

  Galen peered at the target. “Is he there?”

  Julie asked, “Is who there?”

  “Lord Sparr,” Keeah said, leaning over. “Galen is looking for his face in the strands.”

  “There! A shape!” Max chirped. “I’d know those ear fins anywhere!”

  Galen squinted at the blob. Then he sniffed it and walked completely around it. “Yes, it is Sparr,” he said finally, poking the white stringy strands. “He is somewhere in the dark lands. But it’s not clear what he is up to.”

  Neal nudged Eric. “A spaghetti Sparr? Makes me think of meatballs….”

  “Those are the Ninns!” Julie said with a laugh.

  The Ninns were Sparr’s plump, red-faced warriors. They were slow-witted and always angry.

  “Is this actually magic?” Eric asked.

  Galen laughed. “An ancient form of it, yes. You make a mess, but sometimes it works.”

  “If we learn that Sparr is gone, I’ll happily clean up!” added Max as he pulled some white strands from his thick orange hair.

  “Wow,” said Julie. “What if it is true? If Sparr really is gone, wouldn’t Droon be at peace?”

  Galen smiled sadly. “So you would think. But the Ninns are leaving his dark lands in vast numbers. Something is up.”

  “Also, we’ve heard rumors about dangerous new creatures roaming Droon,” said Keeah.

  Eric looked at Julie and Neal. “New creatures? I almost forgot!” He pulled the drawings from his pocket and held them together. “Something like this?”

  “How scary!” said Keeah.

  “It has a nose, too,” said Julie. “Neal, show them the cookies. We need the whole picture.”

  “The cookies?” Neal grinned. “Well, I, uh, sort of ate them. On the stairs. I was hungry!”

  Julie narrowed her eyes at him. “Anyway, the monster had a pig nose.”

  “A pig nose …” Galen said. He gave the pictures, then the kids, a quizzical look. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Not in all of Droon.”

  “And that,” Max chimed in, “is saying a lot! My master Galen has seen nearly every beast —”

  Blam! Blam! The giant gates of Jaffa City rocked. Someone was pounding on them.

  “Help!” came a cry from outside the walls.

  The palace guards opened the gates at once. Before them stood a small purple creature that looked a lot like a pillow.

  “It’s Khan!” said Max. “King of the Lumpies!”

  Everyone ran over as Khan staggered in.

  “M-my … village …” he stammered. “It’s been robbed! By a fire-breathing monster! A monster with … three eyes!”

  Eric and Julie rushed to show Khan their drawings.

  “It’s him!” said the Lumpy king as he rested on the palace steps. “I saw the monster for only a moment. But those eyes! I’ll never forget them!”

  “Calm yourself, my dear Khan,” Galen said.

  “I can’t be calm!” he replied. “Even my beautiful crown was stolen. The legendary treasure of the Lumpies is gone. All the gold and jewels passed down from Lumpy to Lumpy since the beginnings of Droon. All of it, stolen in the dead of night.”

  The tassels on Khan’s shoulders slumped as he spoke. Eric had never seen Khan so sad.

  “We’ll help you find your treasure,” Eric said firmly. “I think it’s why we’re here. We dreamed of this monster. So we’ll find him and get your treasure back. Right?”

  Julie and Neal nodded.

  “Galen?” said Keeah. “May I go, too?”

  The wizard stroked his beard. “Yes, all of you should go. Keeah, take your magic harp. But be careful. We still don’t know all of its powers.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  Galen turned on his heels. “Max, get the target. We’ll try the Ceremony of Truth again. We will get to the bottom of this problem yet!”

  As Galen and Max strode away, the princess called out, “Magic harp … come to me!”

  Instantly, a dark shape flew out from her window high above them. It circled the balcony once, then landed gently in Keeah’s arms.

  “Awesome!” said Eric. “Now that is magic.”

  The instrument was called a bowharp. Shaped like a U, it bore two sets of strings crossing each other. It had once belonged to Keeah’s mother, Queen Relna. But Keeah hadn’t had it for long, and she still didn’t know every­thing it could do.

  “Galen told me that the harp was made by someone called the Maker,” said Keeah as she slung it over her shoulder. “No one has seen him for years. But I’ll show you one thing I discovered. Is everyone ready to go?”

  Khan and the kids nodded.

  “Then hold still,” said Keeah. She spoke some strange words, then plucked the harp strings — pling! blong! Suddenly a rosy light beamed from the harp and fell over them all. The air quivered around the children.

  “It feels like we’re m
oving,” said Julie.

  “We are!” said Keeah. Then plang! — the song ended, the rosy light vanished, and they found themselves at the walls of a village surrounded by sand.

  “Awesome!” said Neal. “Where are we now?”

  “The deserts of Lumpland,” said Keeah. “The scene of the crime. Where we might find clues to where the monster went next.”

  Khan led them into the village just as the sun vanished below the horizon and the first stars began twinkling in the sky.

  The Lumpies’ houses were made of dried mud and were stacked one on top of the other.

  “The robbers came while we were sleeping,” the king said. “They stole every­thing. Jewels, gold, silver. Even our kitchen utensils!”

  “How greedy can a monster be?” asked Neal.

  “Indeed,” Khan went on. “Try cooking without pots and pans! Very messy business!”

  They passed down one narrow street after another. Here and there were broken windows. Even the street lamps were dark.

  “They stole your streetlights?” asked Julie.

  “The silver lamps of my grandmother once used to light our way,” Khan said. “But not anymore!”

  Finally, the king brought them to his own house. He called it his palace, but it wasn’t much larger than the other Lumpies’ homes.

  Khan pointed to a hole in the front door. “Look, even my copper doorknob was taken!”

  Inside, Khan showed them his sleeping chamber, then turned away.

  “The sight of it makes me weak,” he said.

  A small stand next to the bed lay empty.

  “I took off my crown last night and put it there, as I always do,” Khan said. “Later, there was a noise and I awoke. It was dark, but I saw the monster. We tussled, but he took the crown. Then he and his helpers raced away.”

  “You’re sure the Ninns didn’t do this?” Eric asked. “Galen said they’re popping up all over Droon.”

  Khan shook his head. “The Ninns have simple minds,” he replied. “They need someone to lead them. Besides, no Ninn has three fiery eyes. This creature was different.”

  “Speaking of different,” said Julie, “what’s this?” From the floor she picked up a flat green object the size and shape of a coin.

  “It looks like a scale from the monster’s skin!” said Khan. He sniffed it. “Yes! I know the smell! Good work, Julie. We can use this scale to track him down!”