The Chariot of Queen Zara Read online

  Stepping onto solid earth, Eric paused and sniffed in every direction. “It smells wet.”

  Neal slipped his turban on his head and moved forward in the dark. “I sense a stream of water very close. It’s five, no, six inches deep.”

  Julie peered over his shoulder. “Your genie powers can tell you how deep the water is?”

  “No, but my genie feet can,” said Neal, looking down. “I just stepped in it up to my ankles.”

  Sure enough, they could just make out the glinting surface of a narrow stream. It wove down a tunnel ahead of them. Bobbing next to the bank not far away was a small wooden boat.

  Julie gasped. “We’ve been in that boat before, guys. It sails to Agrah-Voor —”

  “Shhh!” Eric turned his head. In the distance, he heard an eerie humming sound. It echoed against the walls of the tunnel.

  Then something moved in the dark.

  Before anyone could speak, the tall, shadowy figure of a man appeared in the passage, dragging a dark sack on the ground behind him. The man wore a ragged black cloak from head to foot. A deep hood covered nearly his whole face, except for a pair of burning red eyes staring from beneath its quivering folds.

  Purple mist swirled all around him. It coiled about his cloak tails and fluttered around the frayed ends of his hood like smoke stirred by heat.

  He saw the children and kept coming.

  Tensing, Eric pointed his fingers at the man. They sparked with silver light. “Stop where you are,” he said. “I’m a wizard —”

  “And I’m Zabilac, the genie!” said Neal, frantically searching his scroll for a charm. “And I’m a really fast reader —”

  The man stopped and raised his hand toward the children. His fingers were thin and pale. In a faltering whisper, as if struggling to get even the smallest sound out, he spoke.

  “Ny … Ny … Nyora!”

  Then, in a breath, with no more than a tiny movement of the air, he was gone.

  “But … where did he go?” asked Eric.

  “Never mind — that sounded like a spell!” said Julie. “Brace yourselves!”

  Ten seconds went by. Twenty seconds.

  The boat bobbed in the stream. The black water lapped quietly against the banks.

  When two minutes had passed, Eric turned to his friends. “So maybe ‘Nyora’ wasn’t a spell after all?”

  Neal snorted. “I guess seeing the official First Genie of the Dove scared him. Even though I sort of lied about being a fast reader. He and his stinky purple cloud are long gone.”

  But Julie had already started toward the boat. “Guys, I smell something else — smoke. What if it’s coming from Agrah-Voor? What if Agrah-Voor is on fire?”

  “We should get down there!” said Eric.

  Without another word, the three friends raced down the bank and jumped into the boat. As it had done the first time they rode in it, the boat mysteriously pulled away from the bank and sailed swiftly down the river to the ghost city of Agrah-Voor.

  Text copyright © 2006 by Tony Abbott.

  Illustrations copyright © 2006 by Scholastic Inc.

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.

  SCHOLASTIC, LITTLE APPLE, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First printing, April 2006

  Cover art by Tim Jessell

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-41840-9

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.