by Tony Abbott
With a wave of the prince’s hand, the serpent uncoiled itself. Its massive wings lifted and stretched with a span so broad that they nearly touched the sides of the great room.
“Roooo-ooooo!” it cooed.
Eric gaped at the man, his mind reeling. “The last time we met, you had no memory of who you were. Do you even remember me? Do you still remember nothing?”
“I am a man,” the cloaked figure said with a shake of his head. “A prince, they say.”
“A prince with magic,” said Eric, “who made all this, who can speak without making a sound, who flew a serpent from the Upper World — my world — all the way to Droon!”
The prince breathed slowly. “A wizard, then, cursed to remember nothing. For years, I wandered Droon until I found my serpent here. I knew it was mine. Alas, it could not fly until what it had lost was found.”
A thousand questions flooded Eric, and he wanted to blurt them all out at once. How exactly had the prince come here? Where had he been since they last saw him? How could he fly a serpent from his world to Droon a century ago when there were no serpents in his world?
But Eric could not utter a word.
For the sky cracked and crashed so violently above him that the whole dome shook. The next moment, Galen was there, his staff blazing. Keeah, Neal, Julie, Max, the Orkins, and the snowfolk were with him.
“Prince of Stars!” Galen said. “We cannot stop Ko’s advance. We have little time. The passage between the worlds will open soon. You must return to your home —”
And then they heard it.
Tap … slish … tap … slish …
The sound came nearer with each passing moment until it was in the room with them.
Tap … slish …
A tall figure draped in filthy rags appeared at the far end of the chamber. He stabbed the earth with a sword, then pulled himself forward, detached the sword, stabbed it, and pulled himself forward again.
When he raised his cloaked head, they saw a gray face, a pointed gray beard. The man’s eyes were dark, hollow, his ears … finless.
“Lord Sparr!” said Eric.
“Brother!” said Galen, rushing to the figure’s side. Sparr now seemed far older than his older brother. “Why … why are you here?”
“I came as if driven by a force. I came … to atone for my sin,” Sparr said. His voice was no more than a hoarse whisper.
“What sin?” asked Keeah.
“Long ago … I fought a noble brother. I stole from him. I escaped like a dog in the night. He followed me into a storm … the snow, the wind!”
The children knew what he meant. A long time before, Sparr had fought his brother Urik for the Moon Medallion and had stolen it.
“I do not see him,” Sparr said, his head moving this way and that, blindly searching the room. “And yet I feel him. Is he here? Is it Urik, my brother?”
“No, no,” said Galen. “It is not Urik. Because of the prophecy, I, too, feared it was so. But it is not he. It is the Prince of Stars. Your enemy once, but no longer.”
“The prophecy …” said Sparr.
“Is unfulfilled,” said Galen. “Unfulfilled! Our mother’s sons are not all here —”
Ko’s yells resounded outside the dome as blast upon blast struck the chamber door.
“Ko coming! Will not stop!” cried Baggle.
“I must go now,” said the Prince of Stars. “Thank you all. Thank you, snowfolk, for caring for us all these years.”
The prince climbed onto the serpent’s back, touched the treasure, and grinned at Eric. “Thank you, Eric, for this. I may not know who I am, but I know I love to fly.”
Eric saw a flicker of remembrance in the smile on the man’s worn face. His emerald eyes, sad and dark, lit for a moment.
He whistled, and the three birds alighted on the saddle. “Serpent, imagine yourself a bird and fly, fly us back home!” With a tug on the reins, the serpent lifted into the air.
Eric stared at the prince.
Terror struck him.
Thunder crashed, and the sky tore in two.
“The passage!” cried Keeah.
Ka—boooom! The dome’s door shattered into nothing. Ko burst into the room at the head of a great band of ice warriors.
“Fly, Prince!” shouted Eric. “Fly now!”
“The prophecy!” boomed Ko. “The sons of Zara! Strike down the wizards! One shall fall!”
“But the prophecy is untrue!” yelled Galen. “Your prophecy has failed —”
It made no difference. At Ko’s cry, three daggerlike icicles shot across the room.
Keeah and Galen together blasted the one aimed at the Prince of Stars. Relna destroyed the icicle winging its way at Sparr. The third dagger shot across the room at Galen.
Eric tried to blast it, but nothing came from his fingers. “No!” he yelled.
He ran to Galen as fast as he could. He leaped to push the wizard clear, and the flying icicle pierced him in the shoulder.
Eric cried out and fell heavily to the ground. Pain surged through him like ice and fire.
“Eric!” cried Keeah. Wheeling on her heels, she blasted the Yug who had thrown the ice dagger, shattering him into pieces that would not combine again.
Ko’s face showed shock. “The boy?”
Sparr, too, spoke. “The boy?”
Full of rage, Galen thrust his sparking staff at Ko again and again, hurtling the beast back beyond the chamber to the edge of the chasm. With one enormous blast, Galen sent Ko into the dark hole. The emperor of beasts, howling at the top of his lungs, fell and fell and fell until he could be seen no more.
Eric lay on the ground, dazed, growing colder by the instant. Even as the dome’s ceiling began to close above him, he glimpsed the blue serpent entering the crack in the sky.
What he saw then was that the serpent was not a serpent at all, but a thing of metal and cloth and wood, of wires and dials and bolts and rivets, of struts and wheels and wings, all curved and painted blue.
It was an airplane.
It was a very old plane from long ago, but not from the long ago of Droon.
It was an airplane from his own world.
At that moment Eric knew that a serpent never did fly to Droon from his world. He knew that the serpent master, the Prince of Stars, the … man he saw was … an aviator.
An aviator whose plane reminded him of one he had seen in an old photograph of his mother’s.
“No … no …” he breathed. “It can’t be … it can’t be …”
Eric saw the faces of his friends — Keeah, Galen, Neal, Julie, Max — hovering over him, their mouths moving but making no sound.
Then, whether their faces went away from him or he from them, he didn’t know, for there was nothing.
* * *
For seconds, there was no sound. Then the rainbow staircase — the staircase from the Upper World to Droon — rippled into the dome, and Galen shouted, “Friddle! The Dragonfly! Neal and Julie, you must take the staircase home —”
“No way!” said Neal. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving my best friend!”
“You must go!” said Max. “The icemen will find the stairs. You must close it from above.”
Julie shook her head over and over. “No … no … no …”
Together, the Orkins hustled Julie and Neal toward the staircase. The two friends didn’t take their eyes off Eric for an instant.
“He’s not moving!” said Julie.
“Come, come,” said Djambo. “They will do what they can. Galen is the greatest of wizards. But he must take Eric to Jaffa City —”
Neal and Julie started up the stairs, keeping their eyes fixed on their friend.
Keeah held Eric’s hand all the way to the airship. Her face was ashen, her cheeks wet. “Eric, say something. Speak to me, please —”
Galen touched his fingers to Eric’s forehead and trembled. “He is cold, cold. Eric is not with us right now.”
“Oh …” Ma
x whimpered.
Lord Sparr hurried with them, too, his own dark eyes moist with tears.
Moments later, the two planes had vanished on their separate journeys into the snow, one carrying a long-lost son of the Upper World to his destiny, the other hurrying Eric Hinkle to an uncertain fate.
As Julie and Neal approached the door to Eric’s basement, their hearts were heavy with fear about the time ahead.
“Eric Hinkle?”
Mrs. Michaels peered down from the auditorium stage at the students sitting in the front row. “Eric, are you there?”
No answer.
“Where in the world is Eric?” Mrs. Michaels asked her students.
While her classmates turned and looked around at one another, Julie Rubin whispered to her friend Neal Kroger, “That’s just the problem, isn’t it? Eric isn’t in this world at all!”
It was true. Eric wasn’t in this world.
For the past three days he had been far away in the mysterious land of Droon.
Droon was the secret world the kids had discovered under Eric’s basement. It was a marvelous land of fantastic creatures, adventure, and magic, both good and bad.
Eric had fallen to bad magic.
“Can someone run back to the classroom and see if Eric is there?” asked Mrs. Michaels.
Julie raised her hand eagerly. “I’ll go!”
“Me, too!” said Neal. “We’ll also check the cafeteria. Eric might be sneaking crackers from the kitchen closet … or wherever they hide them.”
“Thank you,” said the teacher. “We need to start rehearsing this play.”
As Julie and Neal hustled out to the hall, they recalled the frightening events of three days before. The friends had been far in the snowy north of Droon, when Eric was wounded by an ice dagger aimed at the wizard Galen Longbeard.
Hurled by one of Emperor Ko’s fiendish Nesh warriors, the ice dagger carried a dangerous poison intended to fulfill a prophecy — to strike down one of the sons of Zara: Galen, Lord Sparr, or Urik.
While Galen and Sparr had been present, the man thought to be Urik had turned out to be the mysterious Prince of Stars. But that didn’t matter, because when the poisoned dagger was thrown, Eric thought only of protecting the wizards.
He threw himself in the way.
Galen was saved, but Eric was hit.
Within seconds, he grew icy cold and slipped into unconsciousness.
Galen hurried Julie and Neal home to the Upper World, then rushed Eric to Jaffa City to try to reverse Ko’s dark magic.
That was three very long days ago.
Neal and Julie had heard nothing since.
“I can’t understand why Keeah doesn’t call us to Droon,” said Neal grimly as they walked down the empty hall. “We need to see our friend. But we’ve had no dreams of Droon. And the magic soccer ball hasn’t given us any messages. Should we be worried? I mean … really worried?”
Julie frowned. “I don’t want to think about it. Worrying about Eric isn’t going to help him. Besides, we’ve got enough to worry about here at home. Every time I pretend to be Eric, I feel like I’m lying. Being him — and me — for the last three days is more than I can handle. Our poor parents don’t even know!”
“At least you can change shape,” said Neal. “That scratch you got from a wingwolf lets you transform into anyone —”
Julie gave Neal a sharp look. “I’m pretty sure your genie magic lets you do the same. Why am I the one who always has to change?”
“Because Eric and I are always together,” said Neal. “It would be weird if Eric hung out with you. No offense.”
“Let’s just do it,” Julie grumbled.
Checking first that no one was watching, Julie twirled on one foot. When she stopped, she looked just like Eric.
“I wish you really were him,” said Neal.
“I know,” said Julie. “Come on. Let’s go back and do our best.”
The two friends, now looking like Eric and Neal, reentered the auditorium and took the stage.
“Good, you’re here,” said Mrs. Michaels. “Now, Eric, let’s rehearse your scene with Neal. Page one. Ready? Begin.”
And the two friends began to run lines.
As difficult as it was for Julie and Neal to pretend that Eric was with them, it was harder still being unable to get to Droon to see their friend.
Every afternoon after school, they had tramped down to his basement closet. They’d closed the door behind them. They’d switched off the light. And they’d waited.
The staircase to Droon had not appeared.
Each day, the two friends woke up more worried than the day before. Each day, they went to sleep not knowing.
Then it happened.
Just as they were finishing up the first scene of the play, Neal turned to Julie and said, “I think I see the moon —”
And something round and white dropped straight from the ceiling.
Whump! It struck Neal on the head.
“Owww!” he cried, falling to his knees.
Whump! It hit him again, and he fell forward onto his hands.
Whump! It smacked him a third time, and he dropped facedown onto the floor.
“Neal, are you all right?” called Mrs. Michaels, running over.
“I guess,” grumbled Neal. Then he saw what had struck him on the head.
It was not the moon.
It was a soccer ball.
Neal gasped. Julie! he said silently. The soccer ball. It’s our magic soccer ball!
Two hastily scribbled words suddenly seemed to float across the surface of the ball.
Ylkciuq Emoc.
They were the words, written backward, that both friends had been hoping for every moment of the last three days.
Ylkciuq emoc meant Come quickly.
Hooray! Julie said silently, looking at Neal. We’re going to Droon!
Mrs. Michaels helped Neal to his feet. “Everyone take a break while I try to figure out how that soccer ball got up there!”
“You bet!” said Julie, in Eric’s voice. “We’ll be outside, running our lines.”
“Or just plain running,” Neal whispered, scooping up the soccer ball.
Five minutes later, the two friends were dashing through backyards, across driveways, and straight up the sidewalk to Eric’s house.
Without being seen, the two friends slipped quietly through the side door and flew down the basement stairs. By the time Neal had safely stowed away the soccer ball, Julie had changed back into herself.
“We’ve never actually gone to Droon without Eric before,” said Julie, entering the closet under the stairs and reaching for the ceiling light. “It’s weird, you know?”
Neal nodded. “Let’s hope this is the first and only time.”
“And that Eric comes safely back with us,” said Julie. She tugged the chain on the light — click! — and the bulb went dark.
All at once — whoosh! — the floor of the closet vanished. In its place was the top step of a long, curving staircase. The wispy pink clouds of Droon’s sky swirled below.
“Eric, here we come!” said Julie as the two friends ran down the stairs together.
The moment they pushed past the clouds, they spied the familiar towers of Jaffa City.
But the closer they came, the more changes they noticed to the jaunty, springtime capital.
Gloomy pennants were draped on the city walls. Black flags flew atop the towers. And inside the gates, throngs of somber-clothed citizens streamed toward the royal palace.
“Oh, no,” said Neal. “Oh, no.”
Rushing down the stairs, the two friends hurried to join the crowd. Julie stopped a woman dressed in black, who was hobbling toward the palace. “Tell us, how is Eric Hinkle?”
The woman raised her eyes. They were moist. She tried to speak, then cupped her hand over her mouth and hid her face.
The two friends shared a frightened look.
“Come on!” said Neal, grabbing Julie’s han
d. “We can’t waste a second!”
Text copyright © 2008 by Tony Abbott.
Illustrations copyright © 2008 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, October 2008
Cover art by Tim Jessell
e-ISBN 978-0-545-41847-8
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.
