“She’s got us again,” Keeah groaned.
“She keeps doing that!” said Eric.
“It’s because we have feelings and friends,” the princess replied.
Keeah, Gryndal, and Eric landed the giant birds nearby.
“You’re just in time for the grand opening of Mokarto,” said Ving. “The terrible city of thieving thieves will be open for business! Ming, would you care to do the honors?”
The pirate princess grinned. “I would.”
“Oh, this is terrible,” said Max. “No, no, you can’t do this!”
“Tut-tut,” said a voice. “Let her pass!” There was a puff of smoke and a shower of sparks, and Galen appeared among them.
“Galen!” Julie shouted.
“The one and only!” said the wizard. “Let Ming open the gate. Let her!”
“You can’t!” cried Keeah, struggling. “There are thousands of terrible creatures in there waiting to wake. They’ll overrun Droon!”
“Let her pass,” the wizard repeated, laughing to himself.
Her outstretched claw nearly at the lock, Ming paused. She glared at the wizard. “Why aren’t you trying to stop me? What are you laughing about?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just that part of the wall is made of Portentia. And she told me a legend I’d never heard. It’s funny!”
Ming snarled loudly. “I hate legends. What was it? Portentia, speak!”
All of a sudden, the wall seemed to talk.
“Sorry to darken your bliss,
But the ancient legend goes like this:
‘Whoever opens the door to Mokarto,
Will be blasted completely apart-o!’??”
Ming stepped back, the key quivering in her claw. Turning to her brother, she said, “Ving, how about you do the honors?”
He didn’t move. “Oh, let me think about that. Mmm, no.”
“Perhaps Mokarto will not open today,” said the wizard, still chuckling. “How’s that for a sting, Ming? Who has tricked who?”
Ming’s eye grew steely cold. All at once, she began to smile. “Except that Mokarto’s gate will open. And you will open it! Or rather, Gelna will open it!”
The wizard gasped. “No! Not her!”
“Gelna?” said Keeah. “Who’s that?”
They soon found out. Ming produced a silver amulet from amid her feathers. The moment the wizard saw it, he grew pale.
“You wouldn’t dare!” he said.
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” She gave it a flick, and a sharp purple beam shot at the wizard.
“Noooo!” Galen yelled.
As the purple smoke enveloped him, the blue-cloaked, white-bearded figure spun and spun. He cried out, and his cry went higher and higher, until when the smoke cleared, he was no longer a figure in blue and white.
He was not even a he!
Standing before the Mokarto gate was none other than a white-haired wizard with a pretty face, red lips, and long eyelashes.
“Gelna!” cried Max. “Oh, dear. Not her!”
“Who is she?” asked Neal.
“Gelna is Galen as if he were his own sister,” said Max. “And she’s a silly sister, too! She does whatever you tell her to! Making Galen into Gelna is how Ming tricked him the first time!”
“One trick after another!” groaned Eric.
The pink-cloaked wizard rearranged her robes and smiled a glittering smile. “Hello, everyone! It’s been such a long time!”
“Plus, she talks strangely,” Max added.
Ming stepped slowly over to her. “Gelna, dear, open the gate to Mokarto, would you? We’ll just stand back a little bit.”
Gelna clapped her hands together as if it were her birthday. “Oh, may I?”
Ming handed her the golden key. “Opening that gate will begin a new Shadow Time for Droon. A time of pirates!”
“And bandits,” said Ving.
“A time of raiding ships!” said Ming.
“And castles,” added Ving.
“A time for pretty princesses like me!”
“And me!” said Ving. “Except for the pretty princess part. Gelna, open that door!”
Gelna approached the door and rapped on it. “Hawky hawks, get ready to wake uh-up!”
Humming, she put the key into the lock.
Giggling, she began to turn it.
“Ho-ho-ho!” Ving laughed. “Such a party we’ll have!”
Eric couldn’t believe that there was nothing they could do. There were so many hawk creatures, and his friends were so mixed up with them, he couldn’t blast them free even if he wanted to. He watched Gelna begin to turn the key in the lock. “Stooopppp!” he yelled.
“My sentiments, exactly!” boomed a voice from atop the great wheel. “Gelna dear, stop.”
Gelna stopped turning the key. “Okay!”
Ming squeaked. “What? What? What!”
Everyone looked up. And there, his familiar midnight-colored cloak flying in the wind from the sea, stood Galen himself. His fabulous staff shot sparks of every color from its flaming tip.
Keeah gasped. “But … but …”
Galen grinned from ear to ear. “Simple, everyone. Ming charmed the wrong man!”
Twisting her bird head one way, then another, Ming stared at Galen, then at Gelna. “So if he’s Galen, then who are you?”
“Allow me, dearie!” chirped Gelna. The pink wizard spun on her high heels for a second and — whoomf! — vanished. Nelag stood there instead, wearing his usual blue cloak and hat.
“Sorry, pirate lady,” he said with a chuckle. “This time, we tricked you.”
Without another word, Nelag popped the key under his hat, his favorite pilka flew down the hill, and he was on it —backward — in an instant.
Flink joined him and sang, “Fly, pilka, fly!”
Ming yelled, “This makes me want to —”
“Have a big battle!” shouted Ving.
“Then a battle you shall have!” said Galen.
The hawkmen charged at once.
“We have our own army!” cried Gryn-dal. “Hee-ya, elves!”
The hog elves leaped into action. They were everywhere at once. Some of them were no taller than bowling pins, but they were brave.
At the same time, a horn sounded, and the Ninns appeared, rushing up from the shore and into the fray.
“Now that the Ninns are here,” boomed the captain, “this battle really begins!”
“Pirates, with me,” shouted Ming. She opened her wings and took to the air after Nelag and Flink. “Follow that twinkly light!”
“To the soarwings!” yelled Eric.
Neal snatched his turban back from Icthos and raced for the soarwings with his friend.
“Dogfight!” he said. “Against the birds!”
In seconds, the two friends were up in the air after Ming. Eric felt complete again for the first time in hours. His full self was back.
It felt good.
The white birds dived as Ming swooped after Nelag and Flink.
“Faster! Faster!” Eric cried.
Neal zoomed next to him. “I love this!”
Meanwhile, Ving flew up to the mill wheel with a single bound, but Galen was on him in a moment. Laughing, the wizard whipped his staff around and hammered Ving’s legs. The magic staff whistled and shimmered with light. Together the two foes fought claw to staff all the way down and right back up to the top of the giant wheel.
Keeah and Julie were their own army. The princess blasted violet sparks here and there, driving the bandits farther back from the golden walls. Julie zoomed over their heads, herding them into a crowd.
Max scurried around at the foot of the giant walls. “Hurry, everyone, the sun is going down. Mokarto will stand forever a silent city of magic stones!”
“There’s still time,” said Gryndal. “Elves! Put the stones in and turn the wheels the opposite way! Hurry!”
With one great blow of his staff, Galen toppled Ving to the ground. “A
nd the bird falls!”
“This bird is out of here!” said Ving, leaping into the air.
“Oh, no you don’t!” cried Julie. She shot after him like a rocket and leaped on his back, forcing him to the ground.
Eric and Neal flew between Nelag and Flink and Ming. They swung the soarwings around and flew straight into the pack of flying pirates.
“Arrrh!” The pirates tumbled to earth, too.
Galen hurled his magic staff once more. It tangled in Ming’s wings as she tried to escape. The pirate princess was hurled into a groaning heap with her twin brother.
“Ahh! Get off me!” cried the prince.
“You get off me!” shouted Ming.
“Why don’t you both get off?” boomed Galen. “Right back to where you belong! As long as we’re doing tricks, here’s a final one!”
He pulled out the little blue bottle he had hidden in his cloak that morning and uncorked it. All at once, the giant wave blew out of the bottle’s spout and covered the sky.
“Water? I hate water!” cried Ving. “Fly! Ahhhh!”
Whoosh-shoosh-splooosh! The storm scooped up the hawk bandits and their fellow pirates and hurled them, heaved them, threw them up into the purple sky.
“Back to Tarkoom!” yelled Keeah.
“For another four hundred years, I hope!” said Galen, shaking the last drops from the little bottle.
The hawk creatures were swallowed up in the purple cloud like water down a drain. The whole cloud dissolved behind them.
Before twilight had settled over Droon, every last bandit and pirate was gone.
Everything went still and was quiet except for the sound of the huge wheel turning backward. Now when the stones slid onto the earth, they were back to their old selves again. The white tower of Zorfendorf, the Ring of Giants, the age-old cobbled walls of Doobesh, the chunk of Galen’s tower, even Portentia herself sat on the dusty plain.
When the sun finally set, every stone was as it was before.
“Gryndal, you did it!” cried Keeah.
“You don’t work in Feshu for a full year and not learn something!” the king of the hog elves explained proudly.
“We did it,” said Galen. “All of us together. A very successful day, I think. A challenge met in triumph!”
Under Gryndal’s direction, the elves loaded up the soarwings and began the massive job of returning the stones to their original places all over Droon. Over Max’s objections, even the frightening white tusks from the Horns of Ko went back to where they belonged.
Because, as Galen said, “Fair is fair.”
The Ninns gazed out to the churning black waves of the Serpent Sea.
“We go in search of Sparr again,” said the captain, adjusting his armor. Without another word, the red warriors tramped to their ships and took to the icy waters once more.
A few moments later, the stone mills of Feshu went still, and the plains were silent and empty as before.
Galen sighed. “And so, the trickster has become the tricked.”
“You tricked us, too!” said Keeah.
“Sorry, friends,” he said. “It was essential that you be fooled, too. Ming is so clever, only this could fool her.” He turned to Portentia. “Quite the little actress you are, as well.”
The stone seemed to beam. “Thank you much, my friendly wizard. Being a wall beats being a lizard!”
Eric finally got his chance to ask the oracle about his vision. “Portentia, who visited me?”
The stone was quiet a moment, then said, “I see not a face, not a nose, not an ear. But the figure moves closer. Soon all will be clear!”
Flink twinkled in to say that she had taken the key safely to Galen’s tower, that the tower was back again, whole, in Jaffa City, and that the magical staircase had just appeared behind the mill.
As the friends gathered together at the bottom of the stairs, Flink whispered a final word in Galen’s ear, and he began to smile.
“A message from the king and queen,” said the wizard. “They’ve discovered the long-lost forests of Jabar-Loo! Neal, tighten that turban of yours. I smell a new adventure. It won’t be long before you join us again!”
“Now those are really good words!” said Neal.
When the three friends said good-bye and started up the stairs, Eric’s skin tingled like it had in Mokarto. He stopped and turned.
“Holy cow, you guys. Look!”
In the distant sky, swirling over the farthest reaches of the Droon Sea, was a patch of moving cloud. Only this time it wasn’t purple.
It was a bright silvery green.
“Another rift in time?” asked Max.
“That was in the red book, too,” said Keeah. “It’s called the Green Twilight. It happens when someone comes into Droon … from the future!”
“Another guest,” said Nelag.
“And another new adventure!” said Julie.
Waving good-bye once more, the three friends raced up the stairs for home.
Just before they stepped into his closet, Eric turned and sniffed the air one last time.
Drifting in the wind and up the stairs was the scent of apples.
Eric smiled to himself. “Soon,” he whispered.
Soon he’d know who the dark figure from his vision was.
“Habba … habbza … snkk … snkk!”
Eric Hinkle woke up with a start and blinked his eyes open. “Mom? Dad?”
No one answered.
Then he saw the poster of “Sandwiches of the World” on the wall, and he remembered he wasn’t in his own bedroom. He was sleeping at his friend Neal’s house.
And Neal was snoring — snkk! — again.
“Wake up, Noisy Nose,” said Eric. “I need to know if you dreamed about Droon last night.”
Neal sat up in bed, then flopped back down. “Huh? Yeah. What? Snkk …”
“Neal,” said Eric. “Your dreams. Droon!”
Droon, of course, was the magical world Eric, Neal, and their friend Julie had discovered under Eric’s basement.
It was a land of close friends, mysterious places, and dangerous enemies. It was a place of adventure and excitement.
One of the best things about Droon was that Eric, Neal, and Julie had developed powers there.
Magical powers!
Eric sat up in his sleeping bag and gently flicked his fingers. Zzzt! He smiled as they sent off a tiny spray of silver sparks. He loved his magical abilities. He couldn’t ever imagine being without them. Besides being able to shoot sparks, he had visions. He could also create charms and read old languages. He was becoming as powerful as his friend Princess Keeah. Maybe even more powerful!
His friend Julie could change her shape and had developed the ability to fly. She could also fly others around with her. Neal had recently been revealed as Zabilac, a time-traveling genie with quirky powers.
All that was amazing and wonderful and fun. But there was another reason Eric couldn’t wait to return to Droon.
“Neal,” he said. “Wake up!”
His friend yawned loudly. “Dude, it’s tough to remember stuff when your brain won’t wake up until your stomach does.”
“Well, wake up your stomach,” said Eric. “We need to get to Droon as soon as we can.”
Looking out Neal’s window, he saw the sun slanting across his house two streets away. His heart beat faster when he saw the apple trees in his yard.
Apples, he thought. They’re the reason I need to get back to Droon!
In a recent vision, a strange figure had appeared to Eric. It was hidden in green mist and smelled of apples. Its voice — which he did not recognize — warned him that Droon’s wizards would face a mysterious challenge.
Eric wasn’t sure, but he felt that because the figure had appeared only to him, it might have been a special message just for him. After all, apples were unknown in Droon, and he was the only one of his friends who had apple trees in his yard.
What he did know was what Keeah had told them
all. The green mist meant that the figure had just returned from Droon’s future.
The future!
Ever since then, Eric had tried to think of who besides genies could travel in time.
Only one name came to mind.
Salamandra, the Thorn Princess of Pesh.
Eric shuddered when he remembered her. Salamandra was a mysterious princess from his world who traveled through time in her city of Pesh. When Pesh was sent back to the ancient world, Salamandra fled into Droon, where she had immediately begun making mischief.
But no sooner had Eric thought of Salamandra than he dismissed the idea. The last time the kids had seen her, she was following Emperor Ko, the dreaded ruler of beasts. And Ko was all about the past, not the future.
So who? he wondered. Who could it be?
But if Eric didn’t know exactly who it might be, he was certain that the scent of apples meant something important.
Something … special … just for him.
If I go to Droon, I can find out! he thought.
But going to Droon was tricky. There were only two ways to get there. If he, Neal, or Julie dreamed about Droon, it meant that Keeah or the wizard Galen was calling them.
The other way to get there was if their magic soccer ball brought them a message.
But Eric had not dreamed of Droon since their last visit there. And the soccer ball was locked safely inside his house.
“So, Neal. What did you dream about?”
Neal sighed. “Mostly peanut butter,” he said. “But there were meatballs, too. And celery. That’s almost like health food, isn’t it?”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Meatballs? Peanut butter? Neal, you’re weird.”
“Thanks,” he said. “It’s what makes me special.”
Eric frowned when he heard the word special. He flopped back into his sleeping bag. “Well, we need to go back. So much is happening.”
“No kidding,” Neal agreed. “We have to rescue Keeah’s parents, for one thing.”
Eric was startled to realize that he had nearly forgotten about that. “Of course! That’s what I mean. We have to get them home safely.”
Keeah’s parents, King Zello and Queen Relna, along with the whole royal navy, had recently been shipwrecked by storms in a mysterious and distant land called Jabar-Loo. At the end of their last visit to Droon, Keeah had been preparing to go there in search of them.