“You can come and live with me if you want to,” Sarah said to Moki as she wiped tears from her eyes. “We’ll just have to have some rules about your tail.”
“I think it’s unanimous,” Max said. “Let’s go home.” His eyes drifted back to the small kitchen, where he noticed the “additional fee” sign had been removed.
“I heard about how you all saved the world,” Sumyl called back. “Help yourself to my kitchen—I figure it’s the least I can do.”
Dirk clapped his hands together. “Time to eat, people!”
Magar hurried and turned to Princess. “He means it’s time for everyone to eat. Not the other thing.”
Princess smiled. “Sometimes you’re not half-bad for a grumbling indentured wizard.”
“You know,” Glenn spoke up from Max’s belt, “a great adventure is like a glass half-filled with water: You may never know who put it in there and why they didn’t finish it. And that can be fairly annoying.”
Max put Glenn in a drawer as he made his way to the kitchen.
It was late the following day as they journeyed onward, a range of majestic mountains rising to the north. Max and his friends ate and laughed and slept, and were discussing whether or not they should spend the night at an inn when a mass of swirling lights entered the carriage.
Princess had her wand in her hand in a flash, but Max put his hand up. “Wait,” he called out. “I think I know who this is.”
The lights swirled about and gathered into the shape of Bellstro.
“Oh good, I’ve found you!” the old wizard announced. “You wouldn’t believe how much effort it took to uncover a secret to reveal to you, but I did it.”
“Is that Bellstro the ancient?” Princess asked.
Dirk nodded. “Yep. Now in postlife mentor form.”
“Of course it is,” Magar said with a shrug. He’d decided anything and everything was possible with this group.
Bellstro cleared his throat. “Max, you have done well and completed your hero’s task. You have gained a reward and now you must return to your home.”
“Headed that way now,” Sarah said.
Bellstro looked slightly irritated but continued. “Be that as it may, there is still a secret that I must tell you. And once I do, it will change everything!” He strung the last word out and waved his fingers in the air for dramatic affect. “Max, I am going to tell you who your father really is.”
“The World Sunderer and arch-sorcerer Maximilian Sporazo,” Max said, trying to match Bellstro’s dramatic flair.
“Wait, what?” the old wizard said, looking rather upset. “Seriously?”
Dirk nodded. “We totally got that information, like, yesterday. You gotta pick the pace up on this stuff.”
“You know what?” Bellstro said. “You guys really stink.” And in a flurry of light he disappeared.
Dirk lifted his arm and sniffed. “He might be right.”
A lone farmer worked near the road, gathering the last of his hay. He stopped and watched the beautiful carriage drive by—he’d never seen anything like it before. He might have even thought it was elven, especially given the coach’s driver, but that would have been impossible. From inside, he heard voices drifting out into the unseasonably warm afternoon.
“When are we going to let Ricky in?” somebody asked.
“Maybe tomorrow,” a second voice responded.
“Or the next day,” came a third.
Laughter broke out as the coach made its way past the field and around the bend.
Probably a bunch of teenagers up to no good, the farmer thought.
It was night in the city of Aardyre, and what had once been the Wizard’s Tower had been reduced to a pile of ruins. Over the days that followed many had come to see what remained, and many more wondered what had had the power to do such a thing. On this night, however, a sole figure moved past the sleepy guards and slipped into the Tower grounds. It walked upright in its hooded cloak, but when it reached the base of the former Tower it dropped to all fours and scampered across the rubble. It stopped and sniffed the air, catching the scent of something. It turned and deftly followed the invisible trail that led to a broken slab of marble. Even under the waning light of the moon, the creature could see the dark drops of blood that clung to its surface.
The creature extended its hand beyond the concealment of the black cloak—a hand taloned and inhuman and born of the Shadrus. It scraped at the remains, collecting the dark flakes within a silver vial. Its master would be well pleased—blood from the line of Sporazo had been found! And that was the thing the Lord of Shadows coveted most of all.
shares his first name with the midwestern Platte River, which he’s been told means “wide and shallow.” Despite that, he was able to find a woman to marry and produce seven offspring with. Platte graduated from college cum laude, with a BS in philosophy and an MS in English, and currently lives with his family in Utah.
Don’t miss how it all began:
ALADDIN
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALADDIN
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First Aladdin hardcover edition April 2014
Text copyright © 2014 by Straw Dogs, LLC.
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The text of this book was set in Bembo.
Full CIP data is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4424-5015-8
ISBN 978-1-4424-5017-2 (eBook)
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