by Tony Abbott
And right there, not ten yards away, trapped up to his frost-white beard in a mound of green glop, was Galen Longbeard, first wizard of Droon.
“My poor master,” chirped Max, scampering over to the old wizard. “You’ve been slimed!”
“Dear friends!” cried Galen, a huge smile on his face. “I was hoping you would come!”
Galen was nearly covered in green oozy goo. It was thick, sticky, and it smelled very bad.
“Ha!” Old Rolf laughed, slapping Lunk on the arm. “Look at our old friend, boys! His beard’s a bit longer and whiter, but he’s still messing up his spells! Well, well, after all these years!”
Galen narrowed his eyes at his old companions. “Yes, well, you could help get me out!”
“How did you get so tangled up?” asked Keeah, a smile creeping over her face.
The wizard groaned. “You see, I was trying a spell to steal Ko’s magic sword from Sparr, and at the very second I did the spell, well, that snake of his — Kahfoo — spat at me!”
“Ha! That’s the problem with Goll, isn’t it?” said Lunk. “The Dark Realm and all that. Good spells just go pfft!”
Old Rolf was still quaking with laughter. “We’d better get the old fellow out before the goop hardens. Otherwise, he’ll be stuck here forever!”
While Lunk and Smee unleashed their axes on the hardening slime, the wizard spotted the wand in Eric’s belt. His forehead wrinkled slowly. Suddenly, his old dry eyes were moist.
“So, Eric, you found it, after all this time.”
Eric nodded, removing the wand from his belt.
“We found the Moon Scroll,” he said. “That’s how we located Ko’s palace. Here, it’s yours.”
The moment one of Galen’s arms was free, he reached for the wand.
Fwoot! As before, it shot right back to Eric.
“Oh, man! I’m sorry,” he said. “Here —”
“No.” The wizard shook his head, smiling. “You hold it for me. I have a feeling it likes being where it is, at least for now. Besides — oh, dear!”
“What is it?” chirped Max.
Galen pointed with his one free hand at a ruined wall across the cavern. A band of grunting Ninn warriors stomped out from behind it.
“Them not escape!” one Ninn growled.
Neal groaned. “Can’t Ninns ever lighten up?”
“Keep working, knights,” said Keeah. “We’ll handle them. Eric, Julie, Neal — come with me!”
The biggest Ninn, who wore a thick belt of green fur, grunted happily and started whirling a giant club over his head. “Ninns, charge!”
“Eric, double wizard blast — if we can!” said Keeah. The two wizards linked arms.
Zzz … zzz … pfft! A pale blue stream of light drifted toward the Ninns, then vanished.
“Spell no good!” said the Ninn with the club.
But Julie and Neal ran at him from the side, knocking him into two other Ninns. When he fell — clack — something slipped out of his belt and spun across the rough stone of the cavern, all the way over to Eric and Keeah.
Whirrrr-eee-ooo-eee-rrrr!
“Gimme!” yelled the Ninn, rushing at them.
Eric gasped. “It’s a toy! An Orkin toy!”
The Ninn stopped and looked at Eric.
“Or-kin?” he grunted. A quizzical expression shot across his face from his thick red brow to his pointy red chin. “Orkin?”
Keeah nodded. “You found this in the mine!”
“Mine? No! It mine!” The Ninn pushed Eric and Keeah aside and closed his giant six-fingered claw around the spinning top.
Kla-bam! Galen finally burst free of the goop. The Ninns took one look at the wizard storming at them and dashed out the way they had come.
Eric turned to Keeah. “Did you see the way he looked at us? It was weird.”
“It’s almost as if he remembered the Orkins,” said Keeah. “It’s like he knew the name….”
Galen headed back to the busted doorway. “The Ninns will warn Sparr that we are here and that I am free. He will act quickly —”
The mountain trembled around them.
“And we must act quickly to defend Silversnow!” said Old Rolf, scooping up his giant shield.
Eric turned to face the knight. “Defend Silversnow? Why?”
Old Rolf shot a look at Galen. The wizard nodded.
Julie gasped. “Wait a second. The big door! You said Galen built Silversnow to keep Sparr from going home. There’s something behind the door. Something we need to protect, isn’t there?”
Galen breathed out deeply. “Yes,” he said. “It is what Sparr has been seeking for a long time. It is ancient and terrible. It is … the Dark Stair.”
Eric’s mind reeled. “The Dark Stair? Is that what I’ve been seeing in my visions? But if Ko built it with the stone from this mountain, and if Zara and baby Sparr came down the Stair, then where does it … I mean … what’s at the top?”
“Cities,” said Galen, casting his eyes slowly from Neal to Julie to Eric. “Houses. People … like you.”
“Like us?” said Neal. “What do you mean?”
Galen said nothing. He didn’t have to.
Eric knew. He searched for a way to put it all together, to say what he was thinking.
But it was almost too unbelievable.
“The Dark Stair leads … to our world!” said Eric. “It connects Droon and the Upper World.”
Galen nodded as the mountain quaked again.
Keeah’s eyes grew as wide as moons. “Then … Sparr was born … in the Upper World?”
Galen hung his head for an instant, then raised it again. “Now you know the truth about him.”
Everyone stared at the old wizard.
“Zara, Queen of Light, had great power for good,” he told them. “Ko heard of her. He built the stairs to the Upper World to steal her and bring her to Droon. With these knights, I defeated Ko and destroyed Goll. Then I hid those awful stairs and created Silversnow to guard it.”
Old Rolf scratched his beard. “But now Sparr has Ko’s magic sword. And it can open any door.”
“Try as I might, I could not keep Sparr from finding the sword,” said Galen. “It was created of the most powerful old magic — magic that Sparr now has. My friends, what he may do could mean the end of both our worlds.”
Eric looked at Keeah, then at his friends. “It sort of keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?”
“That’s why we have to stop it,” Keeah said.
Galen smiled. “Then let us be about our business swiftly. Time is wasting. Stand close!”
He whirled his long blue cloak around them all. Then with a great flourish and lots of arm waving, he mumbled strange words, and everyone began to rise — up through the Darky Darkness — and up through the icy mountain itself!
“How are you doing this?” asked Keeah, turning to the wizard. “I thought our power —”
“You thought our power was gone here?” said Galen with a sly smile. “If you think a thing, it can happen. Everyone’s real power lies in their minds. For me. For you. For all of us. And now, hold tight!”
Up, up, up they went until — ka whoom! — they burst wildly out through a silvery peak, a sudden roaring fountain of crystals and snow and glistening frost.
“Here we are at Silversnow!” boomed Galen.
With quick strides, he pounced across the summit to the bottom step of the castle.
“My friends!” he said. “The time has come to free Droon of Sparr’s evil ways!”
“Free Droon!” everyone cheered. “Free Droon — forever!”
But even before the echo of their words died, the snowy air was filled with the harsh flapping of wings and shrieking. “Har-har-rrr-rrr-ooo!”
Max jumped. “That sounds like — haggons!”
And there they were — the three terrible hag sisters. They shrieked once more, circled the castle, then dived.
As the haggons dived, Old Rolf planted his big feet on the cas
tle steps. “Knights of Silversnow, in position! Haggons are our specialty!”
Lunk and Smee quickly turned, unslung their giant axes, and began tossing them to each other.
Fwish-fwish! Sling-sling! Fwap-fwap!
The silvery blades flashed and twinkled to and fro across the castle steps.
Julie blinked. “They’re, um, juggling!”
“I love juggling,” said Neal. “Cool!”
“Sisters, don’t look!” shrieked the largest haggon. “Those silly old knights are trying to trick us! Sparr has sent us to conquer them! Don’t look!”
But the flash and twirl of the shiny blades caught the haggons’ dim eyes. They hovered above the knights, their wings fluttering slowly.
“And now for me!” Old Rolf boomed. He pulled his giant snowflake shield around, and with one powerful stroke he set the shield spinning.
Whoo-oo-oo-oosh! The silver shield spun around and around in a hypnotizing motion.
If the three flying sisters were entranced by the juggling axes, now their eyes were spinning as they followed Old Rolf’s twirling silver snowflake.
“You knights are awesome —” said Eric.
“But they are not!” boomed Galen, pointing to a flash of red against the white castle walls. “Ninns! Let Max and our noble knights deal with the haggons. We’ll follow these red fiends!”
Staying out of sight, Galen and the children pursued the Ninns up a set of coiling stairs and out onto the roof of the castle. The snow spun and the wind howled across the jagged summit.
“I count ten Ninns altogether,” whispered Keeah as they took cover behind a low wall. “Not too many. I wonder what they’re up to.”
“One is the same one we saw in Goll,” said Eric, pointing to the Orkin toy in a Ninn’s furry green belt. “He looks like the group leader.”
Even as the earth gave a powerful shudder and the castle walls shook, each of the Ninns drew an arrow, lit it, and shot it up. The arrows joined overhead to form a blazing beacon.
“Why are they doing that?” asked Julie.
Then they heard it — errrk-errrk!
“The tower!” said Keeah. “The Ninns are signaling the tower, to show where the castle is!”
A moment later, the wobbling shape of the Ninns’ crazy war tower appeared out of the whirling snow.
“There are hundreds of angry Ninns in there,” said Neal. “We’ll need an army to stop them —”
Eric blinked. Watching the tower approach, he suddenly recalled the toy tower in the Orkin mine. It was as sleek as the Ninn one was junky.
Remembering how the Orkins had vanished when the Ninns appeared, and seeing now the toy stuck in the Ninn’s belt, Eric was seized with a strange thought. “No. It’s not possible, is it?”
Galen turned. “Eric, what are you thinking?”
“Sir,” said Eric, “can you slow down the tower and keep the castle from crumbling around us, just for a little while?”
The wizard gave him a quizzical look. “Hmm. A double delaying spell? Well, I do have two hands. Yes, I can do that! But you …”
Galen looked so deeply at Eric, it felt as if the wizard were reading his thoughts.
“I sense what you are thinking,” said the wizard. “We must hope that it will work.” With that, he slipped away to a corner of the roof.
Neal blinked. “What might work? Tell us.”
“No time to explain,” said Eric. “Keeah, can you cook up one of those pink fogs, while I —”
Eric clutched the wand, closed his eyes, and murmured words that seemed to come magically to him.
As the wand glowed brightly in his hand, that hand began to change. And not only his hand changed. Eric grew taller. His clothes turned black and a cloak appeared around him. His face grew long, and fins sprouted behind his ears.
“Lord Sparr!” Julie hissed. “Yikes! Eric, I hope that’s still you under there —”
Eric chuckled. “Hey, I don’t like it, either, but we need to stop the Ninns somehow, and I have a plan. It’s crazy, but as Galen said — we have to have hope. And I’ve got plenty.”
“Me, too,” said Neal. “I hope this works!”
Eric breathed deeply and stomped out behind the gathered Ninns. “My warriors!” he sneered, sounding almost exactly like the evil sorcerer.
The Ninns whirled around. “Master Sparr!” They bent down on their chubby red knees.
“I command you to follow me!” Eric said in a snarly voice. At once, the red warriors obeyed. They rushed by the children, whom Keeah had already surrounded in a misty pink fog.
“What that cloud?” grunted the chief Ninn.
Eric gulped. “Uh … hair spray. You don’t think I look this good on my own, do you?”
“No, master. I mean, yes, master! I mean, we follow you now!” said the Ninn.
As Galen began his double spell, Eric stormed back down through the castle and across the clearing to the caves again.
Through the tunnels Eric led the Ninns and his invisible friends, until he reached the entrance to the mine. Entering, he trembled.
If this didn’t work, he and his friends were in big trouble. He pulled out his wand. Then he transformed himself back into his normal shape.
Pop! His friends were suddenly visible again.
The Ninns blinked once, then jammed their way into the small room, laughing and grunting. They raised their bows and arrows.
“We get you now!” said the large Ninn.
Eric raised the wand high.
“Yes, Eric, use it!” said Julie, huddling behind him. “Do something. Turn them into —”
“I don’t think I have to,” said Eric quietly. Instead, he let the wand’s light shine on the floor littered with the ancient Orkin toys.
“Ninns, look at these toys,” he said.
The largest Ninn squinted at Eric, then glanced at the floor. His beady eyes grew wide.
“Toys,” said Eric. “Remember? Like the one you have …”
The Ninn pulled the top from his belt, then stopped to pick up a shiny toy tower. In the light of the wand he ran his hard claws over the polished wood. Atop the tower were two tiny figures of chubby Orkins.
“Orkins …” the Ninn mumbled.
Suddenly, the Ninn’s face twisted in a way the children had never seen before. He looked at Keeah. “You are … Princess of Droon….”
Keeah’s mouth dropped open. “Um … yes!”
The Ninn motioned to the diary sticking out of her pouch. “Stories … I remember … stories.”
All of a sudden, the Ninn’s stern features, his sharp chin, and his pointed ears began to change.
Even as the children watched, the red warrior’s harsh expression dissolved into a softer face.
A rounder face.
A bluer face.
Ploink! The Ninn was no longer a Ninn. Just like the little figures on the toy tower, he was —
“An Orkin!” Julie gasped. “He’s an Orkin!”
Another Ninn stepped forward and picked up the tiny carriage with blue figures inside.
Ploink! He changed, too. Then another, and another. Finally, five of the ten Ninns stood there blue and soft and chubby and smiling.
The others drew back into the shadows. “Bad. Bad!” they said, edging away.
The first Orkin turned to them. “No, my brothers! Wait. The old stories were true. This is what we were before Ko made us work in the mine. Before Sparr made us fight for him. We became Ninns, but we were not born Ninns! Don’t you remember what we were famous for?”
“What were you famous for?” asked Neal.
Errrk-errrk! A squealing noise echoed into the mine shaft outside.
“Tower here!” grunted one especially stout Ninn. “You blue. You not right! Tower here!” He rushed from the mine with the other Ninns who hadn’t been transformed.
“The Ninns’ tower is nearly here,” said Keeah. “Galen gave us our chance. Now we’ve got to get back to the castle — fast!”
When they burst out of the cave, Old Rolf and the knights were finishing tying up the haggons in a net of spider silk supplied by Max.
Galen was on the castle roof, a blue glow shimmering down from his fingertips.
But a moment later — errrk-errrk! — the Ninns’ ramshackle wooden tower rolled right up to the tallest Ice Hill, and Galen’s spell ended.
The tower swayed back and forth, then suddenly the top opened and a ramp slammed down onto the mountainside — wump! — sending up a huge spray of snow.
“Here they come!” yelled Galen.
“Thanks, Galen!” said Eric. “Let them come!”
Whooping loudly, a horde of red Ninns rushed out over the ramp and leaped onto the mountain, grunting and growling.
“Are we going to fight them?” asked Julie.
“Not at all,” said the Orkin chief. “Allow me!”
Against that huge red army stood the five blue Orkins, weaponless, defenseless, and smiling.
The Ninns screeched to a stop. Some stepped toward the Orkins, curious. Others drew back.
The Orkin chief held up the toy top. “Remember what we were before we changed! Remember what we were in the time before!”
Eric jerked around. “The time before? Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Ploink! Ploink! Ploink! One red Ninn after another turned blue. The ranks of the blue creatures swelled, but not all the Ninns changed.
Galen came out of the castle, his eyes aglow. “Orkins! You have stopped the Ninns!”
Eric looked around. “So maybe there won’t be a battle after all?”
Then the ground quaked, the earth exploded with rock and ice, and the flaming head of a giant snake thrust up through the ground, hissing wildly.
Riding on its back was the sorcerer himself. The laughing, angry, wicked Lord Sparr!
“The battle,” cried Sparr, “begins — now!”
Lord Sparr leaped off the snake’s back, smoking and smoldering himself, but with a tight grin on his face. His eyes focused only on the castle.
“Don’t you dare enter this castle!” said Keeah, backing up the front steps next to Galen.
