Final Quest Read online

  Stepping carefully across his backyard, he saw the apple trees — three of them — that grew outside his room. They were shorter, too. The tallest branch of the tallest tree was still several feet below his bedroom window.

  “I’ve gone back in time,” he whispered. “But to when? How long ago is this?”

  He stopped moving.

  There was a child sitting on a low branch in the tallest of the three trees. It was a little boy with golden curls. He wore blue pants and a blue jacket. As morning light glinted off the damp bark, the tree had a silver cast.

  Eric knew that his own hair turned from blond to brown before he entered school.

  “It’s me. I must be … three years old.”

  Words came back to him that he had heard so long ago.

  “A child with golden curls, sitting alone in a silver tree.”

  Who had said those words?

  His heart nearly stopped when he remembered.

  There was movement in the house, and he crouched quickly behind a bush. Peeking up, he saw a young woman’s face peer out of a nearby window.

  “Mom!” he gasped softly. His mother smiled at his younger self and then turned away, but only for moments before looking out and smiling again.

  Eric knew what she knew. The tree’s lower branches twisted together to make a clever little seat and a safe spot to sit, even for a boy so young.

  With a fluttering of wings, a plain white bird settled in the top branch of the tree. Young Eric looked up and smiled. A second bird came, this one black. Then a third. Its feathers were red.

  Eric trembled. Three small crows, one red, one white, one black. He knew them, and breath left his lungs. His head felt light. He felt like he was falling a great distance.

  “Can it really be true?”

  A brittle leaf crackled behind him.

  Eric turned in his hiding place.

  An old man — older than old and dressed in white — took a step and paused. The boy sitting in the silver tree saw him. “Hello there,” he said.

  “Hello,” said the old man.

  “Who are you?” asked the boy.

  “Your great, great … great grandfather,” said the man. “People call me … Eric.”

  “That’s my name!” said the boy.

  “I know,” said the man. “I’m pretty sure your mother named you after me.”

  “You’re old,” said the boy.

  “You have no idea,” said the old man, with a soft chuckle. “I was born about … six hundred years ago. A long way from here.”

  The boy laughed. “Silly. You fly planes. Mommy said so.”

  “I do,” said the man. He took a step toward the tree and put his hand on a silver branch.

  Eric could not breathe when he saw the man’s fingers on the tree. Like a lightning flash, the word returned to him.

  Reki-ur-set.

  And a kind of smoky ink magically seeped from the wand’s blossom and spelled the word in the air before him.

  “My favorite was a blue plane,” the man said. “I built it myself and called it the Blue Serpent.”

  “Why did you call it that?”

  “It had curved wings and flew fast,” the man said. “Very fast. Until it crashed.”

  “Were you hurt?”

  The man nodded. “I lost my memory. For a long while. But I always remembered you. And look. I brought you something. You might need it later.” He placed an object in the boy’s palm and closed his hand over it.

  Little Eric peeked into his hand and squealed. “Oh, wow! Is this for me?”

  “I’ve carried it around for a long time,” said the man. “Now it’s your turn. Keep it safe. You’ll need it someday. We all will.”

  “You bet I’ll keep it safe!” said the boy.

  There was a noise from inside the house, and the sound of a door opening. The old man shrank back behind a bush as Mrs. Hinkle appeared. “Eric. Time to come in now.”

  Little Eric leaped down from the tree. “Mommy, look what I have. There was a man!”

  His mother looked across the yard but saw no one. She closed the door behind them.

  Eric stood, looking from the man, who saw him now, to the tree, to the house, and back, and he was overwhelmed with the memory of what his little palm had closed over. “The Pearl Sea! You gave me the Pearl Sea!”

  “And … ,” said the man, wiping his cheek.

  “And … you’re … Urik,” said Eric. “My great-great-great grandfather!”

  The old man bowed his head for an instant. With a curious smile on his lips, he lifted a finger and drew it across the air. The letters that had lingered there since Eric first thought of them — Reki-ur-set — drifted like smoke, then rearranged themselves, vanishing here, reappearing there.

  Reki-ur-set

  became

  Urik’s tree

  Like lightning shooting from place to place to place, Eric’s mind connected all the thoughts he had carried with him since that day so many years before.

  The old man, the precious gift in the tree, the moment Sparr said that Eric was “one of us,” the pain in his chest whenever he spoke the name of Zara, the fragments of memory, the movie of the old pilot, the leather-bound book written by Urik that happened to be in his town’s library, his powers, the names Urik and Eric, the silver tree itself …

  “But how is this possible?” said Eric.

  Urik bowed his head for a moment, wiped his eyes, and spoke. “I followed my brother Sparr from Pesh in Salamandra’s Portal of Ages. From here to there, from then to then, I turned up in various centuries at various places, and always fought him for the Moon Medallion. Until once, catching me off guard, he got the better of me.”

  “Sparr took it,” said Eric. “I remember that. At the airfield in the old movie. Later, he asked Demither about its power.”

  Urik nodded. “After Sparr stole the Medallion from me, I built an aircraft that could fly from the Upper World to Droon,” he said. “As you can guess, it was a rocky ride. My plane, the Blue Serpent, crashed in the snows of northern Droon.”

  “I was there,” said Eric. “It’s where I was wounded.”

  “I was hurt, too,” Urik said. “I lost my memory. I wandered Droon, kept to the shadows, took different guises, different names, some of them quite funny. Birds were my friends from ancient times. These three stayed with me the whole way.”

  The three birds in the tree nodded as if they understood, and Eric knew they did. In fact, the birds could talk. Their names were Otli, Motli, and Jotli.

  “You were the Prince of Stars,” said Eric.

  “I was.”

  “You said you were searching for a child with golden curls sitting in a silver tree,” Eric said. “It’s the only thing you remembered.”

  Urik smiled. “You’re a memorable kid.”

  Blushing, Eric smiled, too. “It makes sense now. Ko’s curse on the sons of Zara would only happen when all three of you were there, and you were there: you, Galen, and Sparr were in the same place at the same time.”

  “You were there, too,” said Urik. “You’re also a son of Zara — hundreds of years later. That’s why you were struck and cursed.”

  “And why I’m here now,” said Eric. “But how are you related to my mom?”

  Urik smiled. “I told you Sparr caught me off guard? Well, there was a reason. A sweetheart.”

  “Really?” Eric asked.

  Urik nodded. “Unable at first to get to Droon, I stayed here after my fight with Sparr and married her. We had a child who had a child and so on, until your mother. All the way from my mother to you.”

  Eric wondered what his mother would say when he told her. Then he realized that there was something he needed to say. “It always hurt when I spoke Zara’s name, but maybe not so much now, because … your mother is alive again.”

  Urik went pale. “I hoped with all my heart that it might happen. So. I have to return. I know Droon is going dark. I am a son of the Queen of Light.
I think I can help a little.”

  “You can help a lot!” said Eric. “Droon needs you more than anything!”

  “You, too. So I guess we’d better get going. And I think I know a good way.” Urik held up a small, curved brown object.

  Eric blinked and took the object into his fingers. “Are you serious? Is this one of Salamandra’s thorns?”

  Urik grinned. “I snitched it from the last time portal I was in. Maybe we can make a little portal right now. One just big enough to get us to Droon in time to save it.”

  “A mini Portal of Ages?” said Eric. “I love it! Let’s take it right to Plud. That’s where everyone is.”

  “Reunion time,” said the old wizard.

  “Here,” said Eric. “Your wand. It belongs with you.”

  “Thanks,” Urik said. “It feels good to hold it again.”

  With his wand in one hand and Salamandra’s magic thorn in the other, Urik drew a wide circle around them. Instantly, the air grew dark, wind began to blow, and they were lifted up from the ground.

  “Droon — ho!” they cried together.

  No sooner had the thorny portal begun to spin than Eric’s backyard, his house, and his town all vanished.

  “Hold — tight!” shouted Urik.

  With no warning, the pair spun around like figure skaters, then tumbled down in a frightening free fall until the thorns cleared and they saw the crooked black tower of Plud.

  It was coming up fast.

  “Uh-oh!” cried Eric. With both hands extended, he blasted the air below them, slowing their fall.

  At the same time Urik waved his wand. A sudden updraft of wind pushed them sideways onto the tower. They rolled to a stop inches from the edge.

  Urik laughed. “Not bad.”

  “No, it’s bad,” said Eric. “We’re not alone.”

  A band of enraged wraiths burst from their guard posts, and sizzling laser-sharp beams exploded at Eric and Urik. They ducked behind a battlement and answered with their own barrage of sparks. A swarm of sword-wielding wraiths roared up from below to aid their friends.

  “Wraith sandwich,” Urik said, firing a wide spray of blue sparks. “Sometimes escape is the boldest course of action! Shall we flee?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Eric.

  Linking arms, the two raced to the edge of the tower and jumped.

  Wham! They landed on the roof of the tower just below them. It was steeply pitched, and they slid off and landed even harder on the balcony beneath.

  Though Eric knew exactly how old Urik was, their travel in the Portal of Ages seemed to have made him younger. As soon as they had landed on the balcony, Urik leaped to his feet and scanned the jagged walls below.

  “Roof by roof to the ground?” he said.

  “Good plan,” said Eric. Then he heard the clash of weapons far below and spied a handful of tiny shapes race down the black stones of a narrow alley.

  “It’s Galen,” he said. “He and the others are making for the rear courtyard, and so should we. Strength in numbers, I always say.”

  “A good saying,” said Urik. “And one our enemies seem to know, too. Another band of wraithy guys just appeared on the north wall. The next roof looks like our only hope.”

  “In my mind I’m already there,” said Eric.

  But their escape was suddenly blocked when a fourth squad of wraiths poured out from the tower and onto the roof below.

  The two wizards spun on their heels. Across the balcony stood two doors leading inside. Pointing to one then the other, Urik mumbled something, then nodded.

  “This one!” Urik lunged at the door, flung it open, and pulled Eric inside.

  It was dark and quiet.

  Until there was a sudden flash of steel.

  “Please don’t tell me we picked the wrong door,” said Eric.

  “Okay,” said Urik. “But I really hate to lie.” He yanked Eric back out the door, and they jumped again and landed hard again.

  “Children, behind us to the chamber!” Sparr yelled below. He and Kem stood fast at a corner, facing a dozen charging wraiths.

  “I guess it’s too much to hope that we run out of tower soon,” said Eric.

  “They build them tall in the Dark Lands,” said Urik. “Going down again!”

  They clambered down the face of the tower until they saw a slender opening in the wall.

  “Our escape route?” asked Eric.

  Arrows flew at them from above and below, pinging the stones around them.

  “I’m willing to think so,” said Urik.

  Together they squeezed through the opening and somersaulted into a dark room, tumbling over objects until they came to a complete stop.

  “I think we did it,” whispered Urik.

  “You did it, all right,” growled a low voice.

  Eric groaned. “Can’t we catch a break?”

  Torches flared to reveal a roomful of vicious snakelings.

  “Apparently not here,” said Urik.

  The two wizards backed up step by step, until they felt the wall behind them.

  “We get you,” said one snakeling.

  “We get you good,” said another.

  “Droon will fall,” said the first.

  “Droon will fall good,” said the other.

  “You talk too much,” Urik said, then he whispered out of the side of his mouth, “On the count of three, ready?”

  “Three!” shouted Eric.

  The two wizards plowed right through the crowd of snakelings and out the door into the inner castle. No sooner had they slid down a banister onto the floor than the surrounding walls started to move. Toward them.

  “Are those walls trying to crush us?” asked Urik.

  “I hate when that happens!” said Eric. “Sparr rigged Plud to trap his enemies. And in those days everyone was his enemy —”

  All at once, the walls jerked to a noisy stop, one shifted aside, and there were Kem and Sparr, grinning at Eric and Urik.

  “Come with me if you want to live!” Sparr said.

  “That’s my line!” said Urik. The two brothers slapped each other on the back and laughed until Eric pushed them both into the hallway. “Party later, guys. We gotta move.”

  “There,” said Sparr. “To the secret chamber!” And he zigzagged through the castle’s passages as if threading an incomprehensible maze only he knew the plan of.

  Soon they were in a room with Galen, the children, Max, and Queen Zara. Urik’s homecoming brought an explosion of cries and hugs.

  “My son!” cried Zara.

  “My brother!” said Galen.

  They clutched one another, howling and weeping. When Urik broke away long enough to tell everyone who Eric really was, Eric felt his heart rise into his throat, and he began to cry himself.

  His friends and family instantly wrapped around him, nearly knocking him to the floor with weeping and laughing.

  The reunion didn’t last long, however. It couldn’t last long, for the room echoed with the sudden flutter of bird wings.

  “Danger!” said Otli. “A fresh squad of wraiths is on its way.”

  “Hurry to the secret chamber!” said Jotli.

  “We think now is a good time!” said Motli.

  “Roooo!” said Kem.

  With Sparr in the lead, the band of friends rushed through the passages from one level to the next and finally met a wall in which there was no door. It was not, however, a dead end.

  Speaking soft words once, twice, three times, Sparr stood back. The wall slid aside soundlessly.

  “Handy if you know the combination,” said the sorcerer. “Step inside, if you please.”

  The children had seen the secret chamber once before. Like that first time, they stood before a magical horse-drawn chariot made entirely of hammered silver.

  “I fashioned this long ago,” said Zara, running her hands along its railing, “for you and me together, my youngest son. Little did I know that neither of us would eve
r ride in it.”

  “Until now,” said Sparr. He helped his mother climb aboard her magical chariot, then slid a sword from a crest on its front. It made a clean whistling sound when he twirled it.

  “Armed and ready,” he said.

  Galen and Urik took their places with their mother. The children, Max, and Kem leaped in last.

  “And now to Parthnoop,” said Neal. “I hear the bad guys coming —”

  Wham! Stone blocks blew aside, and the room filled with wraiths and snakelings.

  “No time to lose!” said Galen. “Eric, the Medallion!”

  Eric drew the silver Medallion from his cloak and inserted it into the chariot’s crest.

  At once, the horse came alive. Its great wings swept wide. On Zara’s command, the creature raised its front legs high and clawed the air with a flash of hooves. The wraiths fell back for only an instant, but it was long enough.

  With a swift shoosh! the chamber walls separated, and the chariot shot out to the cobblestones of the courtyard. The horse leaped for the sky, and the chariot flew.

  The friends zoomed up through the silver air, heading directly for the distant moon. But before they had flown far, the air shuddered with angry wings.

  “The Hakoth-Mal,” said Keeah.

  “And their big, bad friend,” said Julie.

  Amid the swarm of flying wolves Gethwing flapped slowly on his ragged wings, closing the distance inexorably between him and the friends. His red eyes seethed with anger.

  Urik nudged Galen, and together they sent a multicolored blast of sparks at the oncoming swarm. The wolves dispersed for a moment, then resumed their pursuit.

  “We shall outrun them!” said Sparr. “We must get to the moon before the dragon. His wheel of life must be halted!”

  The chariot sped ahead, but no matter how much the sorcerer and his mother urged the silver horse, the beasts continued to gain on them.

  “Children, help me take the reins,” said Max. “Wizards, fire. Slow him down. Take him out!”

  Round after round of sizzling blasts exploded at the moon dragon, wounding him. At the same time, the chariot entered the darkening clouds, higher and faster toward the silver orb of the moon.

  Time after time Gethwing faltered and dropped back, but each time he shook the blasts off and quickly regained his speed.