The Riddle of Zorfendorf Castle Page 3

  Each channel was rushing with water.

  “The four rivers we saw!” said Julie.

  All of a sudden, a blinding silvery light burst in the dark room. The children froze.

  “And the rivers meet there,” said Sparr.

  Eric staggered back. “There …”

  The rivers met in the center of the room at the base of an enormous fountain. The fountain was made of brilliant white stones carved into fantastic shapes. It rose from the floor all the way to the ceiling.

  “This is what Galen wished to hide forever?” said Max. “A big fountain?”

  “A big, dry fountain?” said Neal.

  For the fountain was dry. Even though the water rushed violently into its base, the fountain itself was covered with a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs were draped across it like ghostly curtains.

  Eric estimated that the strange sculpture was at least fifteen feet high. On the ceiling directly above it was a wide ring of white stars.

  “Weirder and weirder,” he muttered.

  “A fountain right under the castle,” said Khan, his hands on his hips. “Who would have believed it?”

  Keeah turned to Sparr. “Do you know why Ko would want to find this?”

  Sparr closed his eyes, then shook his head. He looked confused, troubled. “I almost remember. But no. I don’t….”

  “Writing!” said Max excitedly. “There’s writing on the fountain. But not Galen’s writing. I’ve never seen this kind before!”

  Everyone gathered around the row of carvings that twisted and coiled around the base of the fountain.

  The more Eric stared at the figures, the more he imagined he could see the shapes of animals, trees, people, stars.

  “Maybe it comes from the time when Ko first ruled,” said Khan, sniffing the strange writing. “Sparr, is it beast language?”

  Eric turned. Sparr wasn’t looking at the fountain. He was wobbling back and forth, his head hanging down, his eyes closed.

  “Well, this is no language I’ve ever seen,” said Keeah. “How are we going to read it? Maybe it’s impossible —”

  Sparr raised his head slowly, opening his eyes. “Not quite impossible,” he said. “I can tell you what it says….”

  The fins behind Sparr’s ears were getting redder by the moment. They almost glowed with their own deep fire. His eyes darkened and he seemed smaller than just minutes before, as if he were crouching under some heavy, invisible weight.

  He knows the language! thought Eric.

  Sparr looked at the others. “I guess no one else understands this. So I’ll read it.”

  He knelt on the floor and, beginning with a word that looked like four snakes arched and fighting, he slowly began to read.

  “‘Four rivers, one from each of the four seas of Droon, meet here and form a … fifth.’”

  “The Fifth River!” said Max, looking around. “But where is it? It’s not even here.”

  “There’s more.” Sparr moved to the far side of the fountain and kept reading. “‘Its journey is for one alone. Speak only this last word, and the Fifth River will come. …’ ”

  Eric stared at the symbols as Sparr spoke each one. Then he looked ahead to where a single character stood by itself.

  It looked like a sun with wavy lines coming from it. Inside it were two crescent moons back to back. Crossing from left to right was a snake dotted from head to tail with stars.

  Eric thought it looked like something he had seen somewhere a long time before.

  Sparr frowned, closed his eyes, opened them again, and shook his head. “I don’t know this word yet. Give me a minute —”

  A distant shriek echoed in the chamber. Then a low gasp came from behind them.

  Thog filled the doorway. His huge eyes widened when he saw the fountain. “The guards asked me to find you. Lizards. Lots of them. With wings of fire —”

  “Wingsnakes!” said Sparr, rubbing his head suddenly. “I thought I smelled them on the ship. Ko always starts battles with them. We need to … need to …”

  The sound of shrieking came again — louder this time. The wingsnakes were approaching.

  “Oh, I’m coming! I know how to fight them!” Sparr joined Thog, then turned back to the others. “Guard this room until I come back. I don’t know what the last word is, but I’m sure I can read it. Ko won’t get his ugly claws on our fountain. This is amazing. Amazing!”

  The shrieks grew louder, and Sparr rushed from the chamber with Thog. The children listened until the sound of their footsteps could no longer be heard.

  “This is great,” said Julie. “We find the big riddle of Zorfendorf, and it has to wait.”

  “At least Sparr knows this wacky language,” said Neal. “We’d be sunk otherwise.”

  Eric followed the strange carvings from the beginning all the way to the large symbol at the end. He remembered the first few words his parents had ever taught him to read.

  Staring at the sun, moons, stars, and that strange snake, his heart pounded in his chest.

  If it did form a word, it was a word so different from every other he had ever learned.

  “Wacky is right!,” he murmured. “Too weird …”

  And yet, as strange as the symbol was, some part of his brain tingled when he saw it.

  Without thinking, his lips formed a word.

  “Ythra —”

  Everyone looked at him.

  “Eric?” said Keeah, moving to him. “Did you just say something?”

  He glanced at his friends, then back at the fountain. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just … that word … I mean … it’s …”

  Tracing his fingers slowly over the carving, he said the word again.

  “Ythra.”

  Neal squinted at Eric. “Even supposing you’re right, do you have any idea what it means — whoa!”

  They all noticed it at the same time. The circle of stars on the ceiling had begun to spin. As it did, the stones inside the circle spiraled away until the ceiling was completely open. The children looked up. They could see right up through the Great Tower to the blue sky above.

  Keeah gasped. “Look at the fountain!”

  At that moment, the rivers thundering beneath the floor suddenly burst up into the fountain, sloshing and crashing all the way up to the top.

  “My goodness — look!” cried Khan.

  A thin stream of water spurted noisily from the top, coiling like a thin rope up into the air.

  But instead of falling back down again, the stream kept moving up. It flowed through the hole in the ceiling and straight up through the center of the tower, gaining power and speed as it went.

  “The Fifth River!” Julie yelled over the roar of the water. “That’s the Fifth River! Eric, you did it! Ythra is the magic word!”

  With each passing second, the stream grew and thickened, first into a flow, then into a rush, streaming up the tower to the sky above.

  Max staggered into Khan. “Oh, marvelous!”

  “Eric!” said Keeah, transfixed by the rushing water. “It must mean something. Where does the river go? What does Ythra mean?”

  Eric didn’t know how he knew, but he did know. “The Upper World,” he said.

  Suddenly, the fountain began to change. All the stones moved at once — foom-foom-foom! — shifting up, dropping down, turning, refitting themselves into new positions. Finally, a long, sleek shape burst up from inside the fountain and bobbed on the surface of the river.

  “What is that —” Eric started, but when the thing moved forward on the water, he knew what it was.

  “A boat!” he said. “A boat made of stone!”

  “This is unbelievable magic!” said Keeah, unable to take her eyes off it.

  “Amazing!” gasped Julie. “Impossible!”

  And yet there it was, right before their eyes: a long, hollow vessel, rounded in the back and tapered to a point on the front end.

  It faced the sky above and bobbed up and down, as if begging them to
climb aboard.

  “This is what Ko is after,” said Keeah. “The Fifth River goes to the Upper World! Ko wants to invade the Upper World!”

  No sooner had she said that than a flock of snakelike beasts soared over the tower above them. The snakes were long and thin, with ash-gray scales running from their flat heads to their spiked tails. Their wings were ragged and dark and tipped with bright red flames.

  “Ko has begun his attack!” said Khan.

  The shrieking snakes swarmed around the place where the river burst from the tower. Eeeee! Eeeee!

  “We can’t let Ko win!” said Keeah. “We have to … we have to … get in! Everyone! Climb the fountain. Get into the boat!”

  “Sparr will be mad we left him!” said Neal.

  “Ko can’t have that boat!” said Eric. “All aboard, before it leaves. Hurry —”

  He scrambled up the fountain, sloshing through the water and into the stone boat. Keeah staggered up behind him. Julie and Neal helped each other up and together pulled Max and Khan after them.

  As soon as they were in — vooooom! — the boat leaped up and away from the fountain.

  Eeeeee! Eeeeee! The flying beasts shrieked and swarmed around the tower’s top.

  But the boat kept going. It gathered speed as it raced up the inside of the tower. It was heading right for the fiery wingsnakes.

  “Maybe now’s the time to tell you all,” yelled Neal. “I’m not really a boat guy!”

  “You are now!” shouted Julie. “Hold on!”

  Up through the Great Tower they splashed, nearly sinking time and again into the rushing river, but popping up at the last second.

  “Who’s driving this thing?” cried Neal, holding tight.

  “Not me!” said Julie.

  “Not anyone!” shrieked Max. “The boat is driving itself!”

  “Excuse me, but nobody likes a soggy pillow!” squealed Khan. “Getting wet here!”

  When they shot up from the tower, they saw Sparr atop the castle wall below.

  The boy jumped when he saw them. “Hey, wait! Wait for me!”

  “We can’t!” cried Eric. “We —”

  Eeeee! The swarm of wingsnakes attacked.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” shouted Sparr. He ran across the wall, firing sizzling blasts at the flying snakes, from one hand first, then the other, then both. Blam! Blam! Blam!

  “Stay away from my friends!” he yelled.

  And the flying snakes did, fleeing back to Ko’s palace while the boat shot into the clouds, leaving Zorfendorf far behind.

  “Ha!” Neal yelled. “Thanks to Sparr, those overheated earthworms will never find us!”

  The fluffy pink clouds turned black as the children sped higher and higher.

  “Even we won’t find us,” said Keeah.

  Darkness surrounded them like a tunnel. The boat dipped and twisted, flying faster and faster over the rushing water. Waves surged over the bow and sprayed up over the sides.

  “Ohhh!” groaned Khan. “I smell danger and it’s coming from — everywhere!”

  Suddenly, the dark water ahead of them began to turn light blue. Eric felt his heart thump suddenly. It was a color, he thought, that reminded him of … sapphires.

  “Oh, no!” he said. “The pond! We’re coming up in our pond! Mr. Frando will see us! The lifeguard will see us. That girl will see us!”

  “We need a distraction!” said Neal.

  “I have an idea,” said Julie. “Eric, Keeah, blast now!”

  Just as the boat broke the surface, the two wizards aimed blasts at the water.

  At the same moment, Julie jumped up and out of the boat.

  Only it was no longer Julie that anyone saw, but a dazzling orange fish, spinning up as if it had leaped right out of the water!

  As Mr. Frando, Meredith, and the lifeguard gaped at the big fish, the kids, Max, and Khan jumped from the boat and scrambled to shore.

  By the time Julie dived back into the pond, the rest of the kids were safely behind a cluster of pine trees. The stone boat sank under the surface of the pond and disappeared. A moment later, Julie was running toward them. She was soaking wet.

  “Julie, thanks, that was amazing,” said Keeah. “And beautiful, too!”

  Julie blushed. “Hey, I try.”

  “I wish I could change into a fish,” grumbled Khan. “It’s less noticeable than a pillow-shaped king. We have visitors!” He pointed to the people coming toward them.

  Eric glanced at his wet friends: a Droon princess in a turquoise-blue tunic, an eight-legged spider troll, and a purple pillow, wearing a big gold crown.

  “I think we have a problem,” he said.

  Keeah chuckled. “I know what to do!” She whispered something quickly, and everyone jumped into position.

  In a blur, Max found a long stick, poked it into the sand, climbed up, spread out his eight legs, and whipped his cape over him. Khan plopped facedown, hiding his arms and legs, while Keeah twirled.

  When Mr. Frando, the lifeguard, and Meredith finally reached them, they found Eric and Julie relaxing under a big green umbrella. Neal was leaning back on a big pillow, while Keeah was covered with a bright blue beach blanket.

  Julie smiled at Keeah. “So, cousin Kee-Kee, how do you like our pond?”

  “Nice,” said the princess. “Big waves, strange fish, but nice.”

  Mr. Frando squinted at the kids. “Strange fish, all right. I’ve never seen anything like that before!” Then he squeezed the water from his hat and tramped away with the lifeguard.

  Meredith frowned. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were all up to something.”

  “Up to something?” asked Eric as he put his hands behind his head. “Like what?”

  The new girl looked from one to the other. “I don’t know. You seem a little too goofy.”

  Neal grinned as he leaned back on Khan. “Hey, we try!”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. She stared at them for a long moment, then turned and walked back to the beach.

  When Meredith was gone, Khan bounced up and brushed sand from his face. Max wiggled all over and set his cape into place. Keeah gave the blanket a twirl, and it vanished.

  “Thanks,” said Eric. “We could have been in deep trouble.”

  “We’re already in deep trouble,” said Keeah. “If the boat returned to Droon, Ko could get it. We need to get back now.”

  “The staircase,” said Neal. “Let’s go.”

  Eric looked at Keeah, Max, and Khan. “Okay. But let’s go the back way.”

  The friends scurried deep into the woods and worked their way around the pond.

  “Ko’s not only after the boat,” said Eric as they darted behind a garage. “He’s after Sparr, too.”

  “And why does Ko want him back so bad?” asked Neal. “I mean, Sparr brought him back to life. Isn’t that enough?”

  Ever since he had heard Ko and Gethwing talking on the flying palace, Eric had been wondering the same thing.

  “Maybe Ko’s afraid of Sparr,” said Julie. “Maybe he’s afraid because with Sparr’s help, we might actually beat Ko.”

  Eric’s heart skipped a beat. If Sparr could help them defeat Ko, and he could grow up good, Droon might finally be at peace.

  Keeah would be so happy! he thought.

  But the princess was frowning.

  “Or,” she said, “what if Ko needs him for some big, dark magical thing? Maybe that’s why Ko kidnapped him from the Upper World in the first place. You know, back when Sparr was a baby. And now that Ko’s awake, he needs Sparr to help him put his evil plan into action.”

  Eric felt as cold as ice.

  “I guess that’s possible,” he said. “Either way, we have to be sure Ko never gets him.”

  Looking both ways, they dashed across one last street and up to Eric’s house.

  Breathing hard, Eric pulled his back door open, listened, then nodded. “It’s okay. No one’s home. Come on.”

  Neal led the way down to the base
ment.

  “How amazing!” whispered Khan as they crowded into the small room under the stairs. “Mrs. Khan and my little ones will not believe it! And you get to do this all the time!”

  Smiling, Eric closed the door behind them. “It is pretty cool. Is everyone ready?”

  “Ready!” said Keeah.

  “Next stop, Zorfendorf!” said Julie. She reached up and turned off the light.

  Whoosh! — the rainbow stairs appeared, right on cue. The six friends hurried down through a layer of wispy clouds. The stairs ended just above the plain in front of the castle.

  “Ko’s nearly here!” said Keeah. She pointed to the dark shape of the emperor’s palace only a few hundred feet away. The wingsnakes Sparr had chased from the tower were massing for another attack.

  “Oh, dear!” said Khan. “To the castle!”

  But the moment they left the stairs, they heard pilkas whinnying behind them. Two riders were galloping toward them.

  “I know those pilkas!” said Max, squinting.

  “And I know those riders!” said Keeah. “My mother and father. Hurry! We’ve got to tell them everything!”

  But the flock of wingsnakes was already overhead. They shrieked. They wailed.

  Then they dived at the king and queen.

  Eeeeee! Eeeeee! The flaming flying beasts swooped wildly at Keeah’s parents.

  “Eric, hurry!” shouted the princess.

  She sent two quick blasts at the beasts. Eric followed with more. Blam-blam! Blam-blam-blam-blam! When Relna joined in, the sky blossomed with sparks.

  The wingsnakes wailed and their red eyes burned, but they turned back to Ko’s palace.

  Keeah’s parents rode swiftly to the kids.

  “Mother, Father, are you all right?” asked Keeah, running breathlessly to them. “We’ve just been to the Upper World —”

  Queen Relna nodded. “We know about the Fifth River! The Ring of Midnight told us. But it’s not safe here. Quickly, to Zorfendorf!”

  The small band hurried across the plains to the castle. “Open the gates!” yelled the guards when they saw them coming.

  Sparr was waiting for the children inside. “Tell me everything!” he said. “Did the Fifth River really take you to the Upper World?”