The Genie King Read online

  “O city of danger!” said Keeah, scanning its tilted towers and leaning bridges. “We have to be careful every moment we’re inside Ut. Everyone up the walls and over!”

  Together, the four friends scaled the walls, hand over hand, from ledge to rampart, from foothold to parapet, all the way to the summit.

  With a final gesture, the princess tossed her hands up, and the magical shield she had been summoning expanded over their heads like a giant umbrella. “No one can enter Ut as long as this shield is in place.”

  But there was a moment as she tossed the glittering shield from her fingertips, just a moment, when Neal saw a streak of light cross the sky.

  An instant later, a twinkle of light skittered along a far wall. It was there for only a second before it turned toward them and vanished.

  “I think someone entered the city with us,” said Neal. “I didn’t see who or what it was.”

  The princess breathed deeply. “I saw it, too. Magic isn’t perfect, even magic performed by great wizards, and I’m still a student.”

  “Could it be an intruder?” asked Julie.

  Max grumbled. “Perhaps we are not alone in seeking the Medallion. I predict we’ll meet up with this intruder before our day is over.”

  “I predict a lot will happen before our day is over,” said Julie, peering at the teeming streets below. “We have six hours before sunset. Maybe we should disguise ourselves as locals so we can move among them unnoticed.”

  Keeah pointed to a crowded alley below. “That market will have clothing.”

  “I have a pouch of coins,” said Max. “We can outfit ourselves. Everyone for dress up?”

  “How’s this for some genie fashion?” said Neal. He removed his turban and refashioned it into a small hat. It was still blue and dotted with jewels, but no longer bore the slightest resemblance to his usual genie headgear.

  Together, the four friends made their way down from the wall, dropping finally into the alley of shops, where they kept to the shadows until they came to a shop festooned with robes, scarves, shirts, hats, and capes.

  The frog-faced, three-eared shop owner smiled as they tried on this and that. Neal slipped a blue tunic on over a pair of silky orange boots, while Keeah found a rose-colored cape and Julie a lilac gown trimmed with silver fringe. Max wrapped himself in a cloak of pale blue with a matching feathered hat.

  “Ah, the traditional look,” said the frog-faced creature, holding up a single paw with every finger extended.

  “Seven coins, Max,” Keeah said. “Plus tip.”

  Max drew ten coins from his pouch and left them on the counter. The seven-fingered stall owner smiled from ear to ear to ear.

  “Let’s circle the outer streets first,” whispered Keeah. “If we sense nothing, we’ll know Galen hid the Medallion in the heart of the city.”

  “Agreed,” said Max. “We’ll make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands —”

  “Or the wrong claws,” said Julie. “I sense Gethwing’s presence wherever we go. He may even count Snorfo among his subjects.”

  “And his guards,” whispered Neal. “I think I hear them stomping this way. Into the shadows, everyone. Let’s not tangle with them until we have to.”

  Sure enough, a band of tall guards swept into the alley, sending citizens crowding into the shadows. The guards’ hooded cloaks hid their faces entirely, except for the glow of their searching eyes. Each carried a large net woven of iron thread.

  “The collectors,” Julie whispered as the guards pushed their way through the alley.

  Soon, the stomping boots of the guards faded, and the alley bustled noisily to life again. To Neal, though, one sound remained constant: the unmistakable patter of footsteps moving behind them.

  Not too close, not too far.

  Thip … thip …

  The children moved on to another alley and then another, when suddenly, Keeah stopped. She narrowed her eyes at a street curving away on their left.

  “What is it, Princess?” asked Max.

  “I feel something,” she said. “A kind of tug on my mind. I feel as though the Medallion is there, hidden down that little street.”

  “Wait a second,” said Julie, turning away and stepping to the right. “Isn’t it this way?”

  Max trembled. “With all due respect,” he said, peering into the crowd ahead, “I think you’re both wrong. It’s obviously hidden beyond the main square!”

  Neal felt the same thing, a pull on him, almost as if the Medallion had a voice and it was calling him. But the voice wasn’t coming from any of the places his friends had indicated.

  “Sorry, people. It’s there!” He pointed to a tall turret coiling over the center of the city.

  Max blinked. “Oh, please! How can one thing be in so many places at once?”

  Keeah laughed. “But of course it can! To keep the Medallion safe, Galen divided it into its four parts and hid each one in a different location. Each of us senses a different part of the Medallion.”

  She whispered a spell, and an image of the Moon Medallion hovered in the air before them. Flicking her fingers at the image, she made it split into its four parts.

  The silver frame of the Medallion was shaped like a full moon. It moved toward Keeah. Floating out from its center was the Pearl Sea, a tiny glimmering globe whose milky interior ebbed and flowed like waves. That hovered near Julie. Next to it was Galen’s Ring of Midnight, as large in circumference as a door knocker. It went to Max.

  And spinning slowly in the air, its points flashing with light, was the Twilight Star, fashioned only recently by Lord Sparr. It whirled over Neal’s head.

  “There are four parts and four of us,” he said. “We can each find one.”

  Julie smiled. “Your math skills have improved since class this afternoon.”

  Which only made Neal think of pie, and he saw once more the bakery counter of his mind, but he quickly brushed it away and focused on the Medallion again.

  Or tried to.

  Thomp! Thomp!

  The narrow street echoed with the sound of heavy boot steps. Before the kids could move, the guards were there.

  “Halt!” boomed a voice.

  Everyone froze where they stood, and the guards’ deep hoods swiveled slowly from right to left and back again as they scanned the crowd.

  Neal felt the guards’ eyes penetrate his very bones. He was ready to cast an invisibility spell over himself and his friends when, one by one, the guards’ heads stopped moving.

  With a single motion, the crowd shifted away until the children stood alone in the center of the street.

  “Uh-oh,” Neal whispered.

  “Intruders!” the voice cried. “Get them!”

  “Split up!” shouted Keeah. “They can’t catch all four of us at once!”

  “We can try!” yelled the leader of the guards. “Split up and follow them!”

  With a squeak, Max clambered straight up a wall to a rooftop and scrambled away. Keeah dived through the crowd and raced down a side alley, while Julie launched herself and flew across the street to a nearby bridge.

  Neal glanced in every direction, then dashed to the nearest corner and concealed himself behind a crooked pillar. Retying his hat into a long cape and wrapping it around himself, he sucked in his stomach to make himself as thin as he possibly could.

  He waited for the guards to leave. And waited. And waited. Then someone kicked his foot. He looked down. Julie’s face glanced up at him.

  “How did you get here?” he whispered.

  “Me? What are you doing here?” she said, kicking him again. “Playing hide-and-seek with your guards?” She kicked him again.

  “Julie, cut it out,” he whispered. “And what do you mean, my guards?”

  “Julie?” she said. “I’m not Julie.”

  “If you’re not Julie …” Neal stared at Julie’s face until his brain clicked. “Dumpella?”

  “Nealie?”

  All at once, a voice bellowed
down from above. “GUARDS, FIND THOSE KIDS!”

  “Get down,” whispered Dumpella, pulling Neal to his knees. “Here comes my brother. Wait till you see him!”

  Duke Snorfo did come. But instead of his usual ornate carriage and pilkas — whoosh-voom! — the boy with the face identical to Neal’s flew overhead on a big red genie urn.

  “Whoa!” Neal said. “How can he do that?”

  “Magic,” said Dumpella. “And look what he’s got on.”

  Duke Snorfo, scowling under a too-large purple crown, was wearing a wild suit and cape that looked as if he’d raided his sister’s dress-up box. At Snorfo’s loud command, his dog-faced guards began searching every nook and cranny in the alley.

  “Guards, FOLLOW the bouncing URN,” Snorfo snarled. “If you CAN!”

  Watching Snorfo hover over the streets, Neal knew that Dumpella was right — only magic could give him power over a genie urn.

  Has he already found part of the Medallion?

  “Nothing here,” Snorfo shouted. “SEARCH the MARKET!” Both the urn-riding duke and his guards moved to another part of the city, and the street filled with people once more.

  “All clear,” Dumpella said.

  Emerging from behind the column, Neal and Dumpella hugged, which so surprised them that they both jumped back.

  Nervous, Neal spoke before he thought. “So, Dumpella, what’s been going on?”

  Then he remembered something about Dumpella that he had forgotten.

  She talked.

  Nonstop.

  “Aren’t you a dear for asking!” she began. “Let me tell you, it’s been some roller-coaster ride since you were last here. My brother, Snorfy, says there is a kind of new magic in Ut and it’s calling to him and he’s searching everywhere for it but he can’t find it all. I think he’s flipped his crown. And don’t get me started on his outfit. His magic suit, he calls it. It clashes with everything. But does he care? Not a bit. All that matters to him is finding whatever magic stuff he’s talking about —”

  The more Dumpella chattered on, the more Neal realized that Snorfo must already have found a piece of the Medallion.

  “— the whole thing is dumb,” she went on. “Snorfo just wants me out of the way so he can do his magic quest, but you know me, I’m not that kind of duchess, so I say to him, listen, brother, I tell him —”

  “Dumpella,” Neal interrupted, “we only have until sundown. I’m pretty sure my friends and I are searching for same thing your brother is.”

  “Really?” said the duchess.

  “And it’s way too powerful for Snorfo,” Neal said. “Will you help us find it first?”

  She grinned, then blushed. “You bet, Nealie! But we’ll have to lie low. With that crazy urn, Snorfo gets everywhere fast.”

  “Let’s collect my friends,” said Neal.

  Within a few minutes, they had found Keeah, Max, and Julie all hiding safely out of sight under a footbridge.

  “The duke sounds quite obsessed,” said Max after he heard Dumpella’s story.

  “Tell me about it,” the duchess said. “Magic is all he ever talks about. And our poor people. Boy, have they been grumbling. It’s a lot for a poor duchess to handle….”

  As Dumpella rambled on — and on — Neal realized that their search for the pieces of the Moon Medallion was going nowhere fast.

  “Excuse me, Dumpella,” he said. “Do you recall a wizard being here a few days ago?”

  The duchess frowned. “Red suit. Snow on his boots. Sack of toys over his shoulder?”

  The children looked at one another.

  “No,” they said together.

  “How about a guy with a long cloak of stars and moons on it? He was with a lady —”

  “That’s Galen!” said Julie. “Only that was no lady. It was an impostor! A kidnapper!”

  “Our friend Galen managed to hide four very powerful magic things in Ut,” said Max.

  “I’ll show you what we mean,” said Keeah.

  The princess whispered her spell, and the image of the Moon Medallion hovered in the air once more. As before, its four parts separated themselves. The moment the Twilight Star spun and flashed over Neal’s head, Dumpella jumped.

  “Snorfo has that one!” she said.

  Neal nodded. “No wonder he can make the urn fly. Its magic is very powerful.”

  “Where does he keep the Star?” asked Julie.

  “In his secret room in the palace,” said the duchess. “Up there.” She pointed to the highest point of the royal palace, where a tall purple tower jutted out crookedly.

  “I felt it was up there,” said Neal.

  “All of us together should be able to find the Medallion before sunset,” said Keeah.

  “And if we don’t?” asked Max.

  “Start looking for a place to stay,” said Julie. “Because we’ll be here a hundred years.”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” said Dumpella, smiling at Neal.

  “Gulp,” he said.

  “You’re just saying that!” Dumpella said. “Come!”

  Pressed close against the walls so that the guards crisscrossing the streets couldn’t find them, the friends turned the corner and went down the street. They were as quiet as they could be.

  Which was how Neal managed to hear that sound again. Thip … thip …

  Glancing behind him, Neal tried to catch sight of their pursuer, but whoever it was stayed cleverly out of sight.

  From street to street the children scurried. They soon found themselves on the north side of the vast main square. What the kids saw there made them shudder.

  Lying flat in the very center of the tiled plaza was a giant stone disc. In its center stood a needle-shaped tower, pointing directly up. Neal remembered what had happened there during their first time in Ut.

  The stone and the obelisk stood in the very spot where the magical Red Eye of Dawn had exploded into Ut from the Doom Gate on the other side of Droon.

  “That disc must cover the hole through the earth to the Doom Gate,” said Keeah.

  Dumpella nodded. “It took us a long time to build that thing to cover the big hole.”

  The obelisk atop the disc was carved from a single length of stone fifty feet tall. At the top was a sculpture of Duke Snorfo.

  “Don’t get me started about that thing,” said Dumpella. “He spent half our treasury having it built. But let’s keep on. Your friend Galen traveled in the northern parts of the city.”

  “The Ring of Midnight is there,” Max said, his eyes moist. “I sense Galen in every cobblestone in this square, in the wood of that doorway, in the canvas of that awning. Galen was here. And my heart trembles.”

  “Tremble it this way,” said Dumpella, edging her way into the streets. “The guards will be back. And so will urn-boy.”

  Dumpella led them off, but Neal couldn’t tear his eyes away from the obelisk.

  Remembering the struggle for the Red Eye of Dawn, his mind went back to the very beginnings of his time in Droon. It was Lord Sparr’s search for the Eye that first introduced him and his friends to Keeah. It was in the Doom Gate that Eric first received his powers.

  Now here they were again.

  Will being a genie be enough? he wondered. I hope so. I hope so.

  “We’re entering the northwest part of Ut now,” said Dumpella, walking briskly out of the main square. “Nice houses on curving lanes. Notice the lawns. Very pricey.”

  Neal glanced from house to house, lane to lane, always looking behind him.

  And there it was again.

  Thip … thip …

  The barely audible sound of footsteps.

  They were getting closer now.

  And closer still.

  “There!” said Max. “There! I feel it!” He led them down a lane on their right.

  Neal knew that the hooded guards marched loudly to proclaim their power. Snorfo flew his urn noisily all around the city searching for more magic.

  But someone else was
simply walking.

  Just walking slowly behind them.

  Neal turned and turned again.

  Who is it? A spy? For whom? Gethwing?

  All at once, Max stiffened. His legs went rigid; his orange hair stood on end.

  “What is it?” asked Julie.

  Slowly, Max’s head turned to the left and his eyes fixed on a purple split-level house with a round purple door and a freshly cut lawn.

  “Aha!” he exclaimed with a jump. “What a sly wizard our old friend is. I’d know his handiwork anywhere.”

  The little spider troll darted up to the front door. On it stood a silver door knocker.

  Flashing a big grin, Max lifted the silver object in his paws. “It looks like a door knocker. It feels like a door knocker. Only it’s not a door knocker, is it?” He tugged it once, and the object came away from the door.

  “The Ring of Midnight!” said Keeah.

  “One down, three to go. Only five hours until sunset,” said Keeah. “We have to hurry.”

  “The Pearl Sea is this way,” said Julie. “I’m pretty certain we’re near.”

  Side by side with Dumpella, Julie led the friends down a series of narrow curving streets. “Here,” she said, stopping short.

  Neal looked into a curving alley, then turned completely around, listening. Nothing.

  Had the footsteps passed, or faded, or simply stopped?

  Keeah took his arm. “I hear it, too,” she said. “We have to hurry. Sunset comes in a few hours. We don’t want … complications.”

  Hearing voices squeaking, the children and Max crept down the alley to a corner and peeked around. Two small furry creatures were crouching next to each other on the sidewalk.

  Julie slumped her shoulders. “I thought I felt something. But they’re just children playing with marbles.”

  “Uh … no,” said Dumpella. “Those aren’t children. And those aren’t marbles. They’re thieves, and they’re trading stolen objects.”

  “Perhaps one of the objects is the Pearl Sea?” asked Max. “Shall we investigate?”

  “Be careful,” said Keeah as they approached.

  What looked at first like children turned out to be a pair of stubby old men with hairy faces and furry cloaks. One had ears like a dog, one ear up, the other down. The other wore a mustache that entirely obscured his mouth. The one with the ears looked up.