The Moon Dragon Page 4

  There was the sudden sound of marching feet outside the window. The waves on the Pearl dissolved, and the inside of the tiny orb was filled with swirling black flakes, falling and falling.

  “Black snow!” murmured Eric. “That’s what Sparr talked about —”

  At that moment, a boy’s wild shout echoed through the streets. “Signal! Signal! Hey, everybody — this is the SIGNAL!”

  Eric and Keeah looked at each other.

  “Sparr’s back —” said Eric.

  Keeah nodded. “And Gethwing can’t be far behind!”

  “Let’s go!”

  Sliding the Pearl securely into his pocket, Eric drew his sword, and ran with Keeah straight for the school. The moment they got there, the two friends came to a dead stop.

  “Holy cow!” gasped Eric.

  “You can say that again,” added Keeah.

  “Holy cow!” Eric repeated.

  The mass of people they had seen before had changed. Now the parking lot in front of the school was filled with townspeople standing side by side at attention. Each man, woman, and child among them was armed like a warrior. They held bats, hockey sticks, tree branches, rakes, brooms, and mops. They wore bike helmets, football helmets, and hockey masks. They carried trash-can lids like shields.

  King Zello, Queen Relna, Julie, Neal, Khan, and Max were facing the crowd from the school’s front steps.

  “Eric,” said Keeah. “This is amazing. These are your parents, neighbors, teachers, friends. They really are an army.”

  “They … they … love our town,” Eric said, barely getting the words out.

  As they wormed their way to the front of the crowd, the two kids passed Mrs. Tracy and Mr. Frando, Eric’s teachers. They passed Mrs. Kroger, Neal’s mother, the town librarian. Finally, they found Eric’s parents in the front line of defenders.

  “Mom, Dad, you’re safe!” he said.

  They hugged him tightly.

  “Eric, that dragon called you a wizard,” said Mrs. Hinkle.

  Eric gulped. “Oh, Mom,” he said. “You know you can’t trust dragons!”

  His father gave him a smile, “I don’t know what’s going on, son,” he said. “Maybe you do. But we’ll fight to protect our little family and save our town.”

  Eric smiled back. “Thanks, Dad.”

  He turned to his mother. His hand went to the Pearl in his pocket. “Mom —”

  Just then, Sparr broke through the crowd. Eric and the others rushed to him.

  “You’re okay!” said Keeah.

  “Barely,” said Sparr, out of breath. “I stayed inches ahead of Gethwing. And I mean inches. Look!” He swung his cloak around. There were claw marks down the back of it. “I held him off for as long as I could. But there he is! And he’s mad!” He pointed up. The moon dragon was circling very high over the school.

  “He figured out that I was tricking him,” Sparr added. “I’m sorry —”

  “No,” said Relna. “You gave us time to escape and to arm for battle.”

  “And you gave me time to find it,” added Eric quietly.

  Sparr turned. “You found the Pearl Sea?”

  For an instant, Eric imagined that he saw Sparr’s fins turn from purple to black. He opened his palm. The Pearl sat in the middle of it.

  Sparr stared openmouthed at the gem, but the swirling shapes Eric had seen before were frozen and unmoving on its surface.

  Before they could say more, there came the sudden sound of feet thundering in step from inside the school.

  “Steady!” boomed Zello. “Here come the knights!”

  Eric gave Sparr the sword from his belt, raised his own, and joined the others in the front line.

  “Son, you be careful with that sword,” said Mr. Hinkle. “It looks very dangerous.”

  “The moon dragon is dangerous, Dad,” Eric replied. “But yeah, I’ll be careful —”

  Thump! Thump!

  Everyone backed away as the first black-armored knights burst out the doors and assembled on the front steps. The knights seemed more fearsome than ever.

  “Be ready,” whispered Keeah, looking right and left. “We can do this.”

  “Together,” said Queen Relna, standing next to the king.

  Khan unwound the gold cord that decorated his shoulders. Holding it in his hands, he leaned toward the spider troll. “What do you say, Max? A little contest to see who can stop more knights?”

  Max looked grim as he spun a stout rope with a loop on one end. “The loser treats both to a full Jaffa City breakfast?”

  “With gizzleberry muffins?”

  “It’s not breakfast without gizzleberries,” chirped Max. “You’re on, Khan!”

  There was a terrible moment of silence, when the knights and the townspeople stared at each other. An instant later, the parking lot was a battlefield.

  Clang! Boomf! Clonk!

  Zello bolted forward first, single-handedly flinging a troop of knights into the bike racks. Relna led a wave of broom-wielding townspeople after a squad of knights pushing toward the playground.

  Keeah blasted with her sparking fingers, then charged. Eric’s blade flashed brightly as he swung it, sending knights retreating through the school doors. “Save our town!” he cried.

  Sparr waded through the attackers, his own sword blazing against their shields. Clank! Bong!

  Julie and Neal battled forward together with their parents, forcing more knights back into the school.

  “Yes, push them inside!” cried Relna, as she and Zello charged with the rest of the townspeople. They were soon through the doors.

  “Ha-ha!” cried Max as two knights got their feet tangled in his rope and fell outside the main office. “Four and five!”

  “Sorry, Max, but you’re already behind!” said Khan as he whipped his golden cord around the knees of a trio of growling knights. “This makes eight for me!”

  From one hallway to the next, from one classroom to the other, the brave townspeople swatted with mops and battered with brooms. The entire high school softball team clobbered the knights’ shields with aluminum bats, sending them deeper into the school.

  “Fourteen!” Max yelped, tangling three large knights in a sticky web.

  “We’re tied!” cheered Khan, whipping his tasseled cord back into his hand. “Keep going!”

  The battle raged into the gym, where a troop of knights had cornered some parents. Neal and Julie charged in to help, only to find the parents swinging tennis rackets and lacrosse sticks and pummeling the knights with volleyballs and tennis balls.

  “Score!” yelled Mrs. Kroger, as the knights fled into the halls.

  Neal grinned. “Let’s win this game!”

  Grabbing the equipment, he and Julie helped their parents push the knights all the way up two sets of stairs to the roof.

  As the battle poured across the rooftop, Julie flew overhead, pelting the armored troops with volleyballs, while Neal slammed tennis balls at them. Keeah joined in, blasting at the knights with Relna and Zello by her side.

  All of a sudden — whomp! whomp! — the sound of giant wings filled the air, and Gethwing landed atop the school.

  Silence fell over the rooftop, first here, then there. The battle stopped.

  Eric and Sparr stood side by side, breathless, swords raised at the moon dragon.

  “Gethwing, leave our town alone,” said Eric. “You don’t belong here —”

  “He doesn’t belong anywhere!” snapped Sparr.

  Gethwing glared fiercely at the two boys. Then, moving his eyes from Sparr to Eric, he rose suddenly to his full height. “You, Eric Hinkle, have the Pearl Sea! Give it to me!”

  Eric trembled under Gethwing’s fiery gaze. The moon dragon had never seemed so huge or so cruel before. Even with the sword in his grip, even with the army behind him, his parents and his friends, Eric felt that Gethwing might actually win. “Uh, well, I … that is … no?”

  “Then perish!” Gethwing roared. He raised his claws. His jaws
burst with flame. Then he leaped at Eric.

  “You stay away from my baby!” cried Mrs. Hinkle. “Come on, honey,” she called to Mr. Hinkle, “that thing is after little Eric!”

  “Little Eric?” said Sparr.

  “Oh, Mom!” said Eric, blushing even as the moon dragon charged.

  But his parents were fierce. Before Gethwing reached Eric, they were across the roof with twenty other parents. With rakes held high, they swatted Gethwing in mid-leap. The dragon tumbled head over heels and crashed to the roof, scattering a troop of dark knights.

  “And here’s a little dessert!” said Sparr, charging with his sword raised.

  But Gethwing leaped up again and — kla-bammm! — leveled a blast at Sparr. The fiery beam glanced off Sparr’s sword, but exploded near Eric and sent him reeling into Keeah. They both skittered to the edge of the roof in time to see Meredith run into the gym below, a dozen knights right on her tail.

  “Keeah, we have to help her!” said Eric. As the battle resumed across the roof, he and Keeah jumped down the stairs and into the gym.

  “The knights!” said Keeah. “Fire —”

  “Too late!” said Eric. He rushed ahead, his sword swinging. Fwing! Thlong! The knights howled and fled, stumbling quickly away.

  “Cool!” he said, looking his sword up and down. “This works well!”

  “Nice swordplay,” said Keeah, her violet sparks fading back into her fingertips.

  After the knights had gone, the two friends paused and looked around the gym. It was quiet and empty. Meredith was nowhere to be seen. The next room was large and tiled and had a giant swimming pool in the middle. It, too, was empty. The cool blue water of the pool was still and unmoving.

  Eric sighed. “She comes, she goes. You see her, then you don’t. I almost wonder …”

  “Yeah, me, too,” said Keeah. “She seems a little, you know, magical.”

  The sounds of battle echoed into the room.

  “They need us back,” said Eric. “Who knows what my parents are up to now?”

  Suddenly, ripples danced across the surface of the pool. For the next few minutes, Eric and Keeah watched the water move, as if stirred from below, until — splash! — the surface broke and Meredith climbed out.

  “Thanks for sending those knights away,” she said, shaking the water from her hair. “We weren’t really getting along.”

  The two wizards stared at her.

  “But … but …” said Eric. “You were just underwater for, like, ever!”

  “I like to swim,” Meredith said simply. Then she turned serious. “So, Eric, you found it, didn’t you?”

  He looked closely into the girl’s dark eyes. “You know about the Pearl Sea? But how? And how did you know to lead me to the tree outside my house? You’re, like, everywhere today!”

  The girl breathed deeply. She didn’t seem ruffled by Eric’s questions. “I was at the coast before, too. I think I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see. I saw Sparr with Gethwing.”

  “You saw them?” said Keeah.

  The girl’s face was grim. “It wasn’t good.”

  “Tell us,” said Eric.

  “I’ll do better than that,” said Meredith. “I’ll show you.” Turning to the pool, she waved her hand over the water. Ripples moved across it, and the pool grew dark. A moment later, they could see shapes moving in the water.

  Keeah’s eyes grew wide. “How are you doing that?”

  “Just watch,” said the girl.

  As the two friends stared down into the water, they saw Sparr and Gethwing standing alone on the rocky coast of the black sea in Calibaz.

  “So, are we fooling them?” asked Gethwing, his claws raised slightly. They reminded Eric of when he made the old knights young again.

  “I have their trust,” said Sparr. “They think you and I are enemies. Silly, isn’t it?”

  “Good,” the moon dragon replied. “So a new Empire of Goll will rise from the ashes of the Dark Lands. The throne of Ko will be mine.”

  “It will,” said Sparr. “But Eric is clever. I won’t find the Pearl Sea, so it must be him. But don’t worry — I’ll get it from him.”

  Staring down into the pool, Eric trembled. “I can’t believe it….”

  Gethwing eyed Sparr. “Can I trust you to make this happen?”

  The boy grinned. “Can you trust me? They didn’t call me Lord Sparr for nothing, you know!”

  The moon dragon’s eyes glowed red hot, even as he lowered his claws. Then he began to laugh. The sound of his laughter grew until the scene faded away. But before it did, Eric saw Sparr turn and touch his fins. They began to change color.

  What are his fins doing? I can’t see! Wait — But the scene was gone.

  Eric’s heart thundered in his chest. His blood raced through his veins. “I still can’t believe it. Gethwing didn’t have to turn Sparr. Sparr was evil the whole time! He’s going to betray us. He’s going to betray everyone and everything. Kid Sparr? I don’t think so. He’s … Lord Sparr again!”

  “I’m only showing you what I saw,” said Meredith quietly.

  Keeah stared at the water for a long time. “I’ve seen only one person do this before. Regular people can’t do that with water. They can’t.” She looked Meredith right in the eye. “Who are you?”

  The dark-eyed girl smiled at the princess. Then, kneeling down, she drew her finger over the surface of the pool and spelled a word that remained visible in the rippling water.

  M … E … R … E … D … I … T … H …

  “Okay, your name,” said Keeah. “But how are you doing that?”

  The letters lingered for a moment, quivering on the pool’s surface. Then, just before they vanished, they rearranged themselves one by one until they spelled another name.

  D … E … M … I … T … H … E … R …

  Keeah sank to her knees. “Oh, my gosh! Demither? Aunt Demither? You! But … how is it possible? I mean … how?”

  Meredith helped the princess to her feet. “Keeah, you freed me from Sparr’s spell. You destroyed the chain that was forged the day I saved your mother —”

  Eric remembered how, long ago, Sparr put Demither under a curse when she saved Relna, her sister. He also remembered the awesome moment when he joined with Keeah and Relna to free the Sea Witch from Sparr’s curse.

  “When that happened,” the girl went on, “I fell under a spell more ancient than I knew existed. At first, I didn’t know who or where I was. But somehow, like Sparr himself, I had become a child. I had no memory. I found myself here. With a different life. And still you helped me. You, Eric …”

  When she paused, they could all hear the sounds of battle coming closer.

  “How did I help you?” Eric asked.

  “When I heard you and your friends talking about Droon, I began to remember my past,” said Meredith. “I also began to understand my mission in the Upper World.”

  “Your mission?” asked Eric.

  The girl nodded. “I knew you had to find the Pearl Sea and that the future of Droon rests on keeping the Pearl safe.”

  After a moment, Keeah spoke. “Are you really free?”

  The girl smiled. “I am. Thanks to you.”

  “Will you come back to Droon with us?” Keeah asked.

  Meredith shook her head. “There are more things I have to do in this world before I come home. I can’t tell you any more, yet. It may be a while before you see me again.”

  “But where will you go?” asked Eric. “And how?”

  Meredith smiled. “All water connects,” she said. “When your little pool here overflows, it drains into pipes under the school, then into the sewers, and bit by bit into a river that winds down from the mountains to the sea. Everything connects. I’ll find my way. And, Keeah, just know this. From one girl to another, I’m pretty proud of you.”

  With that, she dove under the water, and the surface of the pool turned sparkling silver. When it cleared again, the girl was gone.
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  “I can’t believe it,” murmured Eric, astonished. “The Sea Witch. In my town!”

  “You can’t believe it?” said Keeah, staring into the pool. “That girl … was my aunt!”

  The hallway erupted with the sound of clashing weapons.

  “Retreat!” echoed the voice of King Zello. “We’re getting whooped —”

  “Come on, Eric. They need us!” said Keeah, running out of the gym and into the hall.

  But just as Eric was about to follow, something moved behind him. He whirled around, and there stood Sparr, his sword raised high.

  “You!” said Eric, feeling his anger rise. “You heard that? You saw?”

  “I saw,” said Sparr. “So, Demither became young. Like me. That’s weird —”

  “What’s weird is that I ever believed you!” snapped Eric. “You betrayed us. You’re joining Gethwing!”

  “Eric, no,” said Sparr urgently, shaking his head. “Gethwing hopes I’ll help him defeat Ko and raise a new empire from the ruins of the Dark Lands. A new Goll is what he wants —”

  “I know what he wants,” said Eric. “But what do you want?”

  Sparr lowered his eyes. “I can’t tell you everything yet.”

  “Yeah? And why not?”

  “Because I don’t know everything yet!” said Sparr. “I know I used to be bad. Really bad. But I’m trying to be good now. Why do you think I stopped Gethwing from questioning your mother? She might have told him something, and he would have found the Pearl Sea before you did. Can’t you give me a chance? Haven’t I helped you over and over again? Why don’t you trust me?”

  Eric wanted to believe him. He felt he needed to believe him. But the memory of Sparr’s meeting with Gethwing was fresh in his mind. “I don’t know,” he said, raising and lowering his sword again and again.

  Sparr smiled at the blade. “Besides, you could fight me. But you wouldn’t win. I remember now what makes these swords so special. They used to belong to my mother.”

  “Queen Zara?” said Eric.

  Sparr nodded. “She made four altogether — two for my brothers, Galen and Urik; one for me; and one for her. They were to protect us against evil magic. The blades even glow when they protect us. Except that Ko kidnapped my mother and me before she could give me mine. I was still too young. The Ancient Knights of Pim must have found them after we were taken to Droon.” Sparr sighed. “Zara died before passing on everything I needed to protect myself against dark magic.”