Moon Magic Page 3

  “The Moon Medallion is finished,” she said. “Its true power can only be revealed to my sons and their sons and their sons. Let’s hope it never falls into the wrong hands.”

  It came to Julie then with the force of a tidal wave. She pulled Neal aside. “Oh, my gosh! This is why we’re here! Salamandra said to put it all together. The Moon Medallion is made of four parts. But maybe Zara doesn’t know that yet. We have to collect the parts. Salamandra said it will save Droon!”

  Neal’s eyes bugged out. “Zara has to know, but we can’t exactly tell her. It has to be her idea. Also, Galen and Urik don’t know they’re supposed to make them, right?”

  “Right,” said Julie. “We have to tell her secretly. And cleverly.”

  Neal grinned. “Leave it to me!”

  While Urik and Galen patrolled the grove around them, the children went to the queen.

  “Uh, you know, that Medallion is great,” said Neal. “All silver and stuff. But wouldn’t it be even better with some, you know, attachments on it?”

  “Attachments?” asked Zara.

  “Parts,” said Julie. “Like a part from Galen, and one from Urik. That kind of thing.”

  They looked at the queen.

  “I like it the way it is,” she said.

  Neal grumbled. “Okay, clever didn’t work. Queen Zara, with all due respect, there are actually four parts to the Moon Medallion.”

  Zara frowned. “Four parts?”

  “Neal’s right,” said Julie. “What you’ve just made is the first part. Galen and Urik will make their own parts, only they won’t know it until the time is right. Even baby Sparr will one day make something. Only when the pieces are united does the Medallion reveal its true power.”

  Zara’s face beamed with silver light as she held the Medallion in her hands. “To bring my sons together when they are needed! To unite them and their magic, no matter where or when they are. Yes, what a great idea!”

  “And, PS?” said Neal. “It’s your idea.”

  All at once, the walls of the grove quaked.

  A sudden wind swept around the trees.

  “He’s back!” yelled Galen, bounding back to his mother and the children.

  Saba burst violently into the grove, sending trees flying in every direction. It was clear that he sensed great magic. With a speed that startled everyone, the phantom flew at Zara, knocking her down. The Moon Medallion fell from her hands and rolled across the ground.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” shouted Urik. He dived and snatched up the disk. “That’s ours!”

  “This is yours, too!” Saba boomed. “I searched and searched and discovered its hiding place.”

  He pulled something out from behind his back. It was a tiny bundle. It squeaked.

  “Sparr!” Zara screamed. “You wicked beast! Give me my son!”

  “Give me your magic!” shouted Saba.

  “You want it?” said the queen. “Jump for it!” She threw the Medallion up into the air, and the grove exploded in silver light.

  Neal shielded his eyes, but between his fingers he glimpsed amazing things.

  Shapes flew out of the Medallion like fleeing ghosts. A shape like the Ring of Midnight flew around and around until it struck Galen and vanished. The Pearl Sea did the same over Urik’s head. Something that looked like a many-pointed star, beaming and glowing from its blades, shot up in the air and fell on the bundle that Saba held in his hands.

  “Ko wants your magic!” boomed Saba. He threw the bundle high, and a soaring snake swooped through the trees, grabbing it and flying away with it.

  “A wingsnake!” cried Julie.

  “Sparr! No!” cried Galen.

  Saba wrenched the Medallion from the air. The moment his claws wrapped around it — boom! — the grove exploded in smoke, and Saba vanished, leaving a weaving trail of smoke behind him.

  “Where is he?” said Zara.

  “Gone into his own stinky smoke!” said Urik.

  Galen flicked his fingers, and the flames subsided. Zara jumped up, clutching her arm.

  “You’re hurt,” said Julie.

  “Not enough to stop me!” said the queen. “Galen, you and I will find Sparr. Urik, go with the children. Save the Medallion. Julie, Neal, if you find it, take it back to Droon with you. You need it now. Return it when you can. Go!”

  As quickly as they could, the queen and her son raced after the wingsnake that had kidnapped Sparr, while Urik, Neal, and Julie dashed away through the forest after the phantom thief.

  The shadows of four black wings fell over Eric, Keeah, and Sparr as the moon dragon bounded into the ring of stones.

  “Gethwing!” said Sparr. “You vile thing! Children, now!”

  While the sorcerer charged with his sword raised high, Keeah blasted purple sparks at the dragon’s wings, and Eric ran at his chest with his own jagged blade. Their assault was strong, but it was Kem’s two sets of teeth nipping at the dragon’s feet that sent the beast fleeing back up into the air.

  “Good work!” said Sparr with a laugh. “The first round goes to us! He’ll return. Luckily, this ring of stones is like a hand. A hand that can become a fist. Watch closely!”

  With a nod, he spoke words to the stone. “Prostoh-selat-nefna-zarak!”

  Obeying his command, the stone walls rang with music and grew together into a formidable fortress of stone with a dome for a lid.

  “Amazing!” said Keeah.

  “A trick I learned long ago,” said Sparr. “The better to protect my creation.”

  Eric turned to the anvil. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the gleaming object that sat there. It was a small, star-shaped object made of silver.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I call it the Twilight Star,” said the sorcerer. “An image lived indistinct in my mind for many years. Only lately have I seen it clearly enough to forge it.”

  Sparr gazed at the Twilight Star, spoke a soft word, and immediately the object lifted into the air and began to spin.

  As it spun, the Star sometimes seemed to have three points, sometimes thirty. Sometimes it paused in its own radiant glow, while at other times it spun so swiftly that it beamed like a solid disk of silver light.

  As Eric beheld the Star, his mind whirled. Since he had first realized that he and Keeah were in the Underworld, he had wondered if Neal and Julie were together, too.

  He had wondered if, in fact, his friends had gone into the past seeking the base of the Moon Medallion and Urik’s Pearl Sea.

  Then he no longer wondered if they were.

  He knew they were.

  “She came to you,” said Eric. “Zara came to you. She guided your work.”

  Sparr looked at Eric for a long moment, then turned to the fire. “I know my brothers each made parts of the Medallion. These parts have been safe at Jaffa City these fifty long years. Now my Star can be added to them to create the greatest magic known to either world.”

  The children shared a look.

  “You don’t know, then,” said Eric.

  Sparr turned back. “Know what?”

  “Ko attacked Jaffa City,” said Keeah. “Fifty years ago. Back in our present. We weren’t there to help Galen and my parents.”

  “We fear the worst,” said Eric.

  Sparr’s eyes flashed, and he ran his fingers behind his ears where his batlike fins used to be. “Then you must return to your present, return to Jaffa City. You must take my Star —”

  With no warning, the dome of rock quaked with a thunderous explosion, and suddenly Gethwing stood among them, laughing.

  “And now — you perish!” cried the dragon. “Princess, I will take you first. And throw in the powerless little boy for free!”

  Gethwing charged at Keeah and Eric with arms extended.

  “Not so!” Sparr yelled. As old as he was, he flew between the children and the dragon, hacking with his sword while blasting repeatedly with beams of red sparks.

  Gethwing tried to press forward, but Sp
arr drove him back outside the broken ring.

  Wailing, the dragon once more took to the skies and circled high overhead.

  Eric got to his feet and helped Keeah up. “You saved us!”

  The sorcerer smiled. “Many is the time I would not have, Eric Hinkle.” He snatched the Twilight Star from the fire pit. It blossomed with silver light in his hand.

  The moon dragon dived once more into the ring. His eyes flamed with desire and rage.

  “From the moment Salamandra betrayed me and sent me here, something drew me,” he snarled. “I knew not what it was, until I saw the children seeking this place. Long ago, I tried to steal the Pearl Sea. You defeated me then. Let me now return the favor. If I am to rule over Ko, over Droon, I need this magic. Give me the Star!”

  With a suddenness that made Eric reel, Gethwing leaped across the fire and flung out his massive arm at Sparr, throwing him to the edge of the peak. Sparr teetered on the edge for a moment, then fell to the ground like a dead weight.

  Then, with blow after blow, the moon dragon tore down the fortress of stones, toppling the giant rocks one after another.

  Kem leaped over to Sparr, but in the quickness of Gethwing’s attack he could do nothing. The massive stones collapsed on both the dog and his master.

  “No!” cried Eric.

  Only Sparr’s hand was visible. In it he held the silver Star.

  “So easy to take,” said Gethwing, eyeing the Star. “But first a little housekeeping. Eliminate the princess!” With a sudden, powerful blast, the dragon threw her outside the ring of fallen stones.

  Eric ran to help Keeah, but the moon dragon stepped in his way. “I have spared you often, boy,” he sneered. “Those days are at an end. Within my grasp is the power I have sought for ages. After all these years, these very long years, Gethwing will triumph!”

  With that, Gethwing knocked Eric to the ground. He landed hard, striking his head on the ground.

  “And now, with no wizards left to stop me, I finish the job!” snarled the dragon. He marched, step-by-step, toward Sparr.

  Eric climbed to his feet. It angered him to see Gethwing approach the fallen sorcerer so proudly.

  After all, Sparr was a son of Zara.

  Sparr was a brother of Galen and Urik.

  His life could not end this way!

  “No … you … don’t,” said Eric. In one swift move, he dived at Sparr and pulled the Twilight Star from his hand.

  He expected the Star to burn him, and it did. But not with heat. The silver Star was icier than he could have imagined.

  Its freezing touch burned his fingers.

  But he gripped it tight and whirled around to face the moon dragon. Even as he did, however, Gethwing’s powerful claws ripped the Star from him and hurled him across the peak. The moon dragon turned once more toward Sparr.

  The look in Gethwing’s eyes had always frightened Eric, but there was little more for him to fear now.

  If his powers were gone, then fine. He would perish right then and there, doing what he knew was right.

  It was in that hopelessness, in that despair, that he found himself moving toward the moon dragon, his fists hardening.

  “You — will — not — win!” he cried.

  And with that, Eric grabbed Sparr’s sword from the rubble and ran at Gethwing.

  With Sparr’s sword held high, Eric charged at the moon dragon, hacking at his wings, but Gethwing leaped away onto a pile of stony rubble.

  “You have annoyed me for the last time!”

  “Oh, really?” said Eric, raising the sword again. “Because I think I could go on like this for years!”

  The dragon’s face darkened with rage. His black wings filled the sky overhead.

  “Fight me!” cried Eric fiercely.

  Gethwing pounced at him. Eric fought the dragon — powerlessly, valiantly — raining blow after blow on the beast’s black scales. One after another he blocked the dragon’s swiping assaults with Sparr’s sword. He fought and he fought. And in his pain, he fought some more.

  Finally, the moon dragon flew up to the topmost of the collapsed stones.

  “Afraid?” said Eric, his chest heaving.

  Saying nothing, Gethwing raised a terrible clawed hand. An instant later — whoomf! — his hand glowed in flames.

  The flames grew to monstrous size until they formed a ball of raging fire.

  Gethwing’s massive leathery tail coiled and hissed through the air like an angry snake.

  “Eric Hinkle!” he boomed. “This is your last moment. Prepare to —”

  “You shall never!” cried a voice from the ashes.

  Gethwing turned as Sparr leaped up, fingers sizzling with sparks, and flew at him.

  Eric felt a hand throw him clear across the mountaintop into Keeah just as the fireball exploded.

  The mountain peak quaked.

  Eric thought he saw the fireball strike Sparr in the head. Then Gethwing lunged at the sorcerer, howling at the top of his lungs.

  “This — is — the — end!”

  “No … no!” shouted Eric. With his last ounce of strength, he dived across the peak at Gethwing. At the same time, Keeah leaped after Eric. They tumbled together to the edge.

  “Take my hand!” she cried.

  Eric took her hand and held tight.

  When he looked down, he saw the great, dark-winged shape of Gethwing plummeting off the summit into the abyss below.

  Clutching him in furious battle was Lord Sparr, finless, helmetless, silver-haired, his eyes filled with fire and courage, his sparking fists hammering the dragon’s chest. Kem was there, too, biting both of Gethwing’s ears from behind.

  The moon dragon howled and howled.

  Together, Eric and Keeah watched Gethwing and Sparr and Kem fall, fall, fall off the mountaintop, thudding from ledge to ledge, head over heels, striking one jagged stone after another, crying out until all that remained were the echoes.

  The two friends stared down into the darkness until they could see no more.

  “Oh, my gosh!” whispered Keeah. “What happened here? Did Sparr … is he … ?”

  Eric’s throat tightened. His chest heaved. He couldn’t believe what his eyes saw. Sparr was gone … lost…. Sparr was … dead?

  And then it came.

  No more than a tiny speck of light at first, an object came spinning up from the depths toward the two friends.

  Reaching his hands out, Eric leaped up and caught it.

  It was the Twilight Star.

  “The final piece of the Medallion,” said Keeah. “It’s what we need to save Droon!”

  “Sparr gave it to us,” said Eric.

  “To you,” said Keeah.

  “To Droon.”

  The Star’s silver light seemed to beam straight up at the single light in the Underworld’s sky.

  “And that’s just where we have to go,” said Keeah. “To Droon. To Jaffa City.”

  Eric looked up, too. “That’s the hole Sparr jumped through to get to the Underworld. It’s how we’ll get back up to Droon.”

  Keeah tried to smile. “Some quests never end.”

  For the next hour, the two friends climbed silently and quickly. From rock to rock, they scaled the tallest and blackest peak of the tall, black mountain, but their thoughts were far below in the abyss with Sparr.

  Keeah couldn’t believe she had seen the sorcerer plunge to his death. Eric kept thinking of how, even in death, Sparr had given him an object of wondrous power.

  Finally, they reached the mountain’s summit and stood directly below the opening between the Underworld and the world of Droon.

  Keeah turned to Eric. “It’s not far. I’m pretty sure I can fly us up there.”

  “But what will we find?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid to think,” she said. “Fifty years is a long time.”

  “I have a feeling it’s going to be bad,” said Eric. “Very bad.”

  The princess nodded silently. She was thinking
of her parents. Of Galen. Of Max. Even of her future self. What would she find?

  Eric wondered the same thing. Did Ko win his battle against the forces of good? If he did, Droon would be frightening. Unimaginable.

  He looked at the Star in his hand, then stuffed it into his pocket. He hoped he was up for the journey.

  “It’s time,” said Keeah. She put her hand in his. “Ready?”

  “What if I said no?”

  She smiled. “I’d say … that makes two of us. But we have to go anyway.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  With a quick crouch and a jump, the two friends leaped straight up through the ceiling of the Underworld’s black dome and toward the Droon of the future.

  It took Urik, Julie, and Neal little time to follow Saba’s smoky trail through Zara’s enchanted forest.

  Beyond the edge of the trees lay a round lake of twinkling blue water.

  But when Urik looked closely, he stopped dead. On an island in the center of the lake stood a vast, purple-walled palace.

  “I never saw that before!” said Urik. “I mean, that place doesn’t even exist!”

  “I bet it’s something like a phantom palace,” said Neal. “It probably travels between this world and Droon.”

  Julie and Urik shared a look.

  “You think?” asked Urik.

  “Not often, but I keep trying,” said Neal. “For instance, let’s say that maybe Saba can vanish because he’s really just a phantom. But the Medallion is a solid object. It needs an opening to get from here to Droon.”

  Julie turned to Neal. “Did you think of that all by yourself?”

  Neal grinned. “It must be the turban. I’m not usually this smart. Plus, look at the symbol on the palace gates,” he added, pointing to a triangle with horns carved into the purple doors. “That’s totally Ko’s sign. It’s like he can’t have anything that doesn’t have his name on it.”

  Urik scanned the high purple walls. “Well, I think sometimes, too. And I think I’m glad to have you two on this quest!”

  “Let’s get in there,” said Julie. “Before Saba takes off to Droon and it’s too late.”

  With a single fluid move, Urik swept his hands over the lake, and it froze, allowing the three friends to cross to the city quickly.