The Fortress of the Treasure Queen

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1: Mission of Mystery

  2: Enemies New and Old

  3: Dragon Eyes

  4: Little Sparr, Big Ninn

  5: Traders or Raiders?

  6: Memories of the Future

  7: Sparr Plus Sparr

  8: The Great Escape!

  9: Hands of the Sorcerer

  10: All of Droon

  The Adventure Continues …

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Eric Hinkle wasn’t alone as he hopped around his room, trying to pull on his left sock.

  “That might be easier if you sat down,” squeaked a high voice.

  Eric flopped on his bed and stared.

  On his dresser stood a small bird carved of black wood. Its wings were folded. It had two green dots for eyes.

  It was talking to him.

  “I still can’t believe it,” said Eric. “A magical bird is talking to me!”

  “Droon has lots of magic,” said the bird.

  Eric knew that, of course.

  Droon was a vast realm of magic, a land of wizards and sorcerers, of enchanted castles and floating cities, of serpent-filled seas and misty islands. Droon was the secret world Eric and his friends Julie and Neal had discovered one day under his basement stairs.

  On their first adventure there, the three friends had met Keeah, an awesome princess just learning her wizard powers.

  She had become their best Droon friend.

  Since then, Eric and Julie had gained powers of their own. Julie could fly, and Eric could shoot silver sparks from his fingers, speak silently to his friends, and even cast weird ancient spells.

  And Droon was where Eric had found the strange talking bird.

  “If you’re magical, do you know the future?” he asked it.

  “I don’t even know the past!” said the bird. “Someone must have put a memory spell on me. It’s all a mystery. I think I’m on a mission, but I know only two things about it —”

  “My name,” said Eric. “You called to me.”

  “Yes. Your name,” said the black bird.

  It had happened in a place called the Isle of Mists. Eric remembered how stunned he had been when the bird had first spoken his name. Then he remembered how he had slid the bird into his pocket without telling anyone and how he had brought it home.

  “And one other thing,” said the bird. “ ‘The hands of the sorcerer.’ I have no idea what that means!”

  “It sounds to me like a warning,” said Eric, sliding his feet into his sneakers. “ ‘The hands of the sorcerer?’ It probably means Sparr. Sparr is the worst sorcerer I know!”

  That was true. Since just about forever, Keeah and her parents, King Zello and Queen Relna, along with their spider troll friend, Max, had been trying to keep Droon free from the clutches of the wicked and powerful Lord Sparr. Eric, Julie, and Neal had joined them many times to battle the sorcerer.

  Then, on their latest adventure, while Sparr was using his Coiled Viper to wake the Emperor Ko from his ancient sleep, something unbelievable happened.

  Ko, the four-armed, bull-headed ruler of beasts, did come alive and was now back in modern Droon. But Sparr himself got zapped back to when he was a child.

  The sorcerer was now their age!

  “Talk about mystery,” said Eric. “Sparr is now in Jaffa City. With Keeah! He asked us to help him. But maybe it’s a trick. Maybe your mission is to warn us — to warn me — against him.”

  “That would mean I’m on a dangerous mission!” said the bird.

  Eric frowned. “We’re all pretty much in danger now, since I broke the first rule of the stairs.”

  That was true, too. From the very beginning, the wizard Galen had told the kids not to bring anything from Droon into their world. If they did, things would start moving between the worlds.

  Things.

  Or people.

  “That rule was broken once before,” said Eric, shivering to remember it. “And my dad got zapped into Droon! I have to take you back before something like that happens again. And as soon as Neal and Julie get here, I will —”

  A sudden burst of laughter came from outside. Running to his window, Eric saw Julie and Neal heading across his backyard.

  “Finally!” he said, his heart thumping. “Come on, mystery bird!” He slipped the small figure carefully into his pocket and ran downstairs.

  When he got to the kitchen, his mother was stirring something in a mixing bowl. His father was bending over, peering into the oven.

  Eric stopped. He sniffed. “I smell —”

  “Cookies!” said Neal, bursting in the back door and sticking out his hands. “Two, please!”

  Julie closed the door behind him, laughing.

  “Sorry, kids,” said Mrs. Hinkle with a smile. “These cookies aren’t for us.”

  “We want to welcome the new family up the street,” said Mr. Hinkle. “They’re moving in today —”

  Neal grinned. “Then I’m just in time. You can’t give new neighbors bad cookies. As the person with the most cookie experience, I have to test them.”

  Eric felt the bird flutter in his pocket. “Guys,” he said, “I really need to show you something.”

  “And what I really need,” said Mrs. Hinkle, “is the big cookie jar from the attic. Can you kids run upstairs and find it?”

  “Upstairs?” said Eric. The bird was still fluttering.

  “Our first mission of the day,” said Julie. “I mean … wow! A mission? Great!”

  “All right,” said Eric with a low grumble. He quickly led his friends upstairs, past his room and up a second set of steps to the top of the house. The attic was filled with dusty cartons, old suitcases, exercise equipment, bags of clothes, and lots of baby toys.

  “Kind of a mess,” said Julie, looking around.

  Eric drew in a breath. “Guys, we’ll hunt for the jar in a minute. First, take a look at this —” He pulled the bird from his pocket. It sat in his hand for a second, then flew up to the rafters.

  “Holy crow!” Neal gasped. “It looks like a toy. Where did you get that?”

  “Eric!” said Julie, her eyes wide. “Don’t tell me that bird is from Droon! You shouldn’t have —”

  “I know, I know. I broke the rules,” said Eric. “But I couldn’t help it. The bird spoke to me!”

  “I did speak to him!” chirped the bird. “I’m on a mission. But I can’t remember anything, except that I was sent to get Eric to help me.”

  “And something about ‘the hands of the sorcerer,’ ” said Eric. “I’m pretty sure it’s a warning about Sparr —”

  “Uh-oh.” Neal’s eyes were fixed on a round brown jar next to a stack of suitcases. Written in big blue letters on it was the word COOKIES.

  The jar was wobbling back and forth, ever so slightly. Then it began to spin faster and faster until, with a quiet plink, it vanished.

  The three friends stared at the spot.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have come?” said the bird.

  Julie put her hand out to where the jar had been and waved it around. “It’s gone. The spell has already started. Guys, we need to —”

  “Right now!” said Neal.

  “Oh, this is not a good thing!” said Eric.

  “Don’t forget me!” cried the bird. It flew down, Eric slipped it carefully into his pocket again, and they charged downstairs together.

  When they got to the kitchen, Mr. Hinkle was stacking cookies on a plate. “Did you find the jar?”

  “Uh, I think we’ll look in the basement,” said Julie.

  “Yeah, maybe the jar is under some stuff down there,” added Neal.
br />   Yeah, Eric spoke silently to his friends. Under the house. All the way — in Droon!

  They jumped down the basement steps and quickly pushed away some cartons stacked in front of a door under the stairs. Opening the door, they crowded into a small closet and turned on the light dangling from the ceiling.

  Eric shut the door behind them.

  “Guys,” he said, “I know I broke a major rule. But maybe we can stop stuff from moving between the worlds before anything else goes. Just let me tell Keeah, all right?”

  “Of course,” said Julie.

  “You bet,” said Neal. He switched off the light.

  An instant later — whooosh! — the floor vanished, and the kids found themselves on the top step of a staircase curving away from the house.

  Twenty steps below drifted the gauzy pink clouds of the sky of Droon.

  Together the three friends circled down the steps, slowly at first, then more quickly.

  When they pushed through the clouds, they spied a patch of dark woods surrounded by fields. Far in the distance rose the bright towers and gleaming walls of Jaffa City. The afternoon sun shone orange on the palace’s great dome.

  “It’s always amazingly beautiful here,” said Julie. “Keeah is so lucky.”

  “I hope we’re lucky,” murmured Eric.

  Suddenly — shoooom! — a bright green carpet darted down through the clouds and flew toward them.

  On it sat Keeah herself, clutching the carpet’s front edge. Next to her was their spider troll friend, Max.

  Julie waved. “Keeah, Max —”

  “Hurry!” said Keeah, slowing the carpet next to the stairs. “It’s Sparr. He’s gone!”

  “Gone?” Eric shot a look at his friends. “Oh, no!”

  Without another word, the kids leaped from the stairs to the carpet, and it lifted up and away over the shadowy woods.

  Whoo-shooom! The carpet dipped between the trees, circled a broad clearing, then climbed up again.

  “We have a missing sorcerer on our hands!” chirped Max. “Actually, he’s not on our hands. In fact, he’s not anywhere!”

  Eric swallowed hard as they skimmed the high trees. “Keeah, maybe it’s my fault that Sparr vanished. Look —”

  When he pulled the little bird from his pocket, Keeah nearly fell off the carpet. “Eric —”

  “I had to take it,” he protested. “It spoke to me!”

  “I really did!” said the bird. “I’m on a mysterious mission. So mysterious, not even I know what it is!”

  As they swooped over a field rolling down to the coast, Eric told how he had taken the bird from Droon and what it had said to him.

  “It involves me,” he said. “Sparr, too, I think.”

  “But the spell has already started,” said Julie. “Mrs. Hinkle’s cookie jar got zapped here.”

  “A cookie jar?” asked Max.

  Neal nodded. “I know what you’re thinking, but no, it didn’t have any cookies in it.”

  Aiming the carpet at a distant beach, Keeah sighed. “Okay. We have to find the jar and get it back to your mom. But I don’t think Sparr is in the Upper World. This morning we found him studying maps in Galen’s tower. The next thing we knew, he was gone —”

  “Until now!” gasped Neal. “There he is. He’s still in Droon!”

  Neal pointed at the white beach ahead. There, huddled behind a row of jagged rocks, was a small boy in a long black cloak.

  The bird’s green eyes glowed. “Sparr? The sorcerer? We’re flying to him?”

  Eric gulped. “Right. The warning. I’d better hide you!”

  As he hid the bird again, Keeah banked the carpet into a slow circle over the beach. Woven of rich green threads, the carpet was decorated with stars and triangles. From each corner dangled a silky purple spiral.

  “I remember this cool carpet,” said Neal. “Some dude named Pasha made it. Way back on our first adventure, we used it to escape the creepy city of Plud.”

  “We used it to escape, all right,” said Eric. “From Sparr, remember —”

  Keeah swung the carpet carefully down behind a grassy dune some distance from Sparr. Together, the five friends got off and peered over the crest of the dune.

  The moment they did — pooomf! — a sudden blast of sand sprayed up at them, tumbling them back down the dune. Before they could get to their feet, Sparr leaped like a blur across the sand toward them.

  “What are you doing here?” he hissed. “I almost zapped you!”

  “You left the palace!” snapped Max.

  “I had to,” he said. “And there’s the reason — take a look!”

  As he said this, the clouds suddenly tore open above them, and two large creatures flapped down toward the beach.

  “Holy cow!” gasped Julie, crouching behind the dune. “Flying beasties!”

  “Pretty ugly ones!” said Neal.

  “Exactly,” whispered Sparr. “Now watch —”

  While everyone else peeked over the dune, Eric studied Sparr out of the corner of his eye. The boy was young, like them, with a normal enough face, except that behind each ear grew the little nub of what looked like a fish fin. Even if Sparr was young, Eric thought, those fins marked him as a sorcerer.

  Thwapp! Thwapp! The two dark creatures approached, and the kids saw that they were covered with ragged gray scales. Curled spikes stuck out of their heads in every direction. Their eyes were darting, small, and red.

  Scanning the beach but seeing no one, the beasts thudded to the ground. The larger of them clawed the sand while the other made squealing and hissing noises.

  “They’re plotting something,” said Sparr.

  Eric shared a look with Keeah.

  Plotting? he said to her silently. I wonder if Sparr is plotting right now. Against us —

  Shhhh! Keeah grabbed Eric by the arm.

  At once, he realized that Sparr might understand their magical silent talk. After all, Sparr was the son of a great wizard and the brother of Galen.

  But the boy’s expression didn’t change. Looking over the rock as if he heard nothing, he said, “The beasts are finished. They’ll circle, then go.”

  Sure enough, flapping their heavy wings, the two beasts lifted up, circled the beach once, then set off across the sea.

  “What are they up to?” asked Julie.

  When it was safe, Sparr climbed the dune and gazed at the beasts. “Ko has lots of plans and servants on lots of missions all across Droon. If one plan messes up, another might not. But every plan has the same purpose —”

  “To take over Droon,” grumbled Max.

  Sparr nodded.

  “You know those creepy guys pretty well,” said Eric, watching the two beasts fly farther and farther away.

  Sparr’s fins turned redder as he spoke. “I grew up with them.”

  From his cloak, he removed a rolled-up map.

  “Princess, he did steal a map!” said Max.

  “I was going to give it back!” protested Sparr, glancing from the map to the sea. “I don’t know how, but since this morning I knew beasts were coming. I had to find out where they were going and why. What’s out there across the water? Is it Mikos, by any chance?”

  Keeah looked over the waves, then traced her finger across Galen’s old map. “Yes. The island of Mikos. The fortress of Queen Bazra.”

  “She steals treasure and collects magic there,” said Julie.

  Sparr began to smile. “I should have known. Bazra may have lots of magic in her treasure fortress, but those beasts are after only one thing.”

  The children stared at the boy.

  “Are you going to make us ask?” said Eric.

  Sparr took a breath. “Long ago, Ko built something. Lightning Blade, he called it. Or King Stinger. But mostly he called it the Sword of Jaffa.”

  Max shuddered. “I don’t like that name.”

  “What is it, like, a big sword?” asked Neal.

  Sparr shook his head. “I saw it once. It’s a sh
ip that moves under the water.”

  “A submarine?” asked Eric.

  “Ko’s big war machine,” said Sparr. “His plan was — and is again, I guess — to attack Jaffa City. From below.”

  Keeah looked down the beach at the faraway port of the royal city, then back over the water. “We would never let him —”

  “You don’t know Ko like I do,” said Sparr. “He wants … everything.”

  “Then why did you bring him back?” asked Eric.

  Sparr turned to him. “I … I don’t know. The grown-up me did it. All I know is that maybe all of us … together … can stop him. Don’t you think we should try?”

  He raised his sparking hands. “I mean, I could help —”

  Eric remembered the bird’s strange words.

  The hands of the sorcerer.

  “Uh, I’m not so sure,” said Eric. “Maybe we should vote or something. Guys, team huddle. All of us except you, Sparr.”

  Grumbling, Sparr paced away behind the dunes.

  “Can we trust him?” Eric whispered. “I know he’s a kid. Like us, even. But he’s Sparr. Does everybody remember when the Moon Scroll led us to Ko’s palace? We saw young Sparr there. He wasn’t so nice. And he already took Galen’s map. And the bird gave me that warning, too —”

  “Right,” said Julie. “But Eric, you took the bird….”

  Eric sighed. “Okay. I took the bird. That was wrong. But ‘the hands of the sorcerer’ sure seems like a warning about Sparr. He really worries me —”

  “But he looks younger this time,” said Neal, glancing at Sparr. “His fins are smaller.”

  “And he says he’s afraid of Ko,” added Max. “I know I am.”

  Keeah watched Sparr staring out to sea, then kicking the sand. “I don’t know. But I remember something Galen always told us. He said that nothing is evil to begin with.”

  “Right,” said Julie. “And Sparr’s mother was Queen Zara, don’t forget. He’s Galen’s brother.”

  Eric glanced at Sparr. He looked so small, staring across the sea toward the island of Mikos. Watching, Eric found that he wasn’t sure about the boy. Maybe Sparr really was afraid of Ko. Maybe he did want to stop the beast’s plans. Maybe …

  Finally, Eric nodded. “All right. Maybe we do need him. But if what my bird said really is a warning, we need to be careful. Uh, Sparr —”