Final Quest

  Keeah gasped. Sparr froze where he stood. Eric couldn’t breathe.

  The Dream Tree was enormous, far larger than any tree they had seen before. It towered above the friends, above the forest, even above Droon.

  At its roots stood the ancient temple. One of its most arresting features was the great stone face of the queen who lay entombed inside and whose image Eric had last glimpsed on the figurehead of the stone ship.

  Perhaps most astonishing, however, was the building itself.

  The wood of the tree and the stone of the temple blended in such a way as to become one, and whether roots grew from the temple or the temple had set out roots was unclear. The two things — tree and stone — were so twined into each other as to become a single living thing.

  “The Dream Tree and the Temple of Zara,” said Max softly.

  Sparr sank to his knees at the sight of his mother’s burial place. “I must enter the deepest chamber of her temple,” he said. “I must see her.”

  In the silence that followed, and slowly, as slowly as the moon moves across the open sky, Sparr rose to his feet.

  Raising his head, he stepped toward the crumbling temple stairs.

  Silently calling the others to him and raising the glowing Wand of Urik, Lord Sparr ascended the ruined steps.

  Drawn by the almost hypnotic way Sparr moved, the children slowly mounted the temple steps and passed behind the great, carved face of her to whom it was dedicated.

  At first, all was dark.

  Then, as if the old stones gave off their own dim light, the children began to see.

  What they saw were walls broken by roots, smudged black with mold, and stained by five centuries of rain. Here and there a column that should have supported the high ceiling was cracked. In many places, the ceiling itself had fallen in, and debris was piled beneath its openings like so many altars of rubble.

  Yet they, too, were beautiful. For the moonlight that penetrated the tangled tree branches overhead fell onto the crumbled stones with a silvery sheen.

  “It’s like entering a house of prayer,” Julie whispered.

  “I feel we are going back in time,” said Keeah, “stepping hundreds of years into the mysterious past.”

  Hearing Sparr’s unseen footsteps in the darkness before them, the children continued toward the inner court of the temple.

  The past? thought Eric.

  Of course.

  Queen Zara was at the heart of the Droon adventure, just as her temple was at the heart of the Dream Tree and her Dream Tree at the heart of the forest.

  It’s right that we should be here, Eric reflected. One last time.

  Ahead of them, they spied torches of silver flame, which must have been burning for years and years.

  “The crypt,” said Keeah, her voice hushed.

  While they stood on the top step of a narrow staircase leading down, the children heard a terrible thrashing in the high trees above the temple.

  “The wingwolves are outside,” said Julie. “It sounds like a lot of them.”

  Hearing the slow progress of Sparr’s footsteps below, the children hurried down the stone stairs. They crouched through a low tunnel and out into a room with a high, vaulted ceiling.

  In the center, on a raised platform, stood a crystal coffin. Inside, like a fallen statue — silent, lifeless, unmoving — rested the body of Queen Zara.

  As if made of stone himself, the gaunt sorcerer stood motionless over her.

  “Sparr … ,” Keeah whispered.

  He did not stir.

  “Look around,” murmured Max, waving at what appeared to be curtains hanging down from the broken ceiling. They were not curtains but living things!

  Spiders had woven webs all over the crypt. But each web was intricate and beautiful, undulled by the dust of ages, but quavering in the moonlight from above.

  “Like jeweled necklaces,” whispered Keeah.

  “They are!” said Jabbo.

  The webs were like jeweled necklaces, constructions of impossible complexity and strung from wall to wall to wall around the glass coffin like garlands of honor, casting a silvery glow upon her face.

  Her face.

  In the silence, Eric moved close enough to see the queen clearly. His heart fluttered and skipped. Under a length of sheerest fabric, a shroud no thicker than a glaze of frost, her features were pale, young, beautiful, and unmoving.

  Eric drew in a long, silent breath.

  The long-ago day when Julie was scratched by the wingwolf in the upper limbs of the Dream Tree was the same day he had descended to this very crypt.

  The sender of dreams to all of them over the whole of their time in Droon, Zara — or her spirit — had spoken to him then, one-to-one, and given him the clearest vision of the future he had ever had.

  It was a vision that overwhelmed all others.

  In it, he saw a vast desert at dawn.

  And they were there, all four of them, Julie, Neal, Keeah, and him. They rode four pilkas side by side at the head of a long, twisting caravan of hundreds.

  Glistening on the horizon far, far in the distance stood a fabulous city bathed in golden light.

  “It looks like a long journey,” he had said to Zara then. She had not responded to that, and now, perhaps, he knew why.

  The vision wasn’t real. The journey would not happen, the quest was ending.

  The final days had become the final day.

  In a few short hours, it would all be over.

  The golden light of his vision faded in the cold air, and everything was as before.

  “Eric, hold out the Medallion,” Sparr said. “It is time.”

  Eric did as he was asked, and the Medallion’s light fell on the crystal coffin.

  Raising the wand of his brother high overhead, Sparr spoke. “O, thou, youthful in age, unchanged since the instant of your passing, breathe … breathe …”

  Softly at first, then more loudly, he spoke the words. He spoke them again and again until his voice rose to a crescendo, ending with the command, “Breathe, Mother! Breathe!”

  Silence followed.

  His vigor spent, Sparr collapsed. His hand fell to his side, and the wand slipped from its holder’s fingers for a second time that day.

  Also for the second time, Eric saved it at the last instant from striking the wet stone.

  A single petal, loosed from the blossom at its tip, floated as though in an updraft of wind and settled ever so lightly on the queen’s pale forehead.

  Sparr drew in a quick breath and went still.

  All went still in the cold stone room.

  No one breathed.

  Moments passed that seemed like hours.

  All was silent.

  Then … the fabric stirred.

  The fabric stirred, and Eric felt ice run through his veins. The spiderwebs radiating from the coffin trembled like so much lace, and in that trembling made a sound like the chiming of tiny bells.

  This music echoed in the stony room, and the fabric drew close over Zara’s face.

  Then it billowed out. In. Out.

  “She’s … breathing!” cried Keeah.

  Zara stirred and rose at the same moment that Sparr raised his head. Their eyes met for the first time since her death five centuries before.

  Eric and his friends were frozen where they stood. They watched Zara step from her crystal case and raise her arm to her son.

  Without a pause, Sparr drew his mother close, and they embraced as they had not for centuries. Sparr fell to his knees a second time. “Mother — I —”

  “Rise, son,” she said, her voice as strong as it was tender, as full of power as it was gentle. “The hour has come for us to fulfill our ancient destiny — all of us. All of my sons.”

  Collect the magics …

  Zara turned to the children, who one by one bowed to her. It was only then that Eric realized he was still holding Urik’s wand. Hastily, he offered it to Sparr.

  The sorcerer could not tak
e his eyes from his mother. He did not seem to notice the wand.

  “Queen Zara,” said Eric, his heart stinging once more. “The wand of your son …”

  She seemed about to say something, then simply smiled. “Eric, take it. For now.”

  “You sent us dreams,” Keeah said. “Every single one of us had your dreams. Those dreams took us on a quest.”

  Zara nodded. “All of you — and others, too. Galen, for one. But that quest is not finished. We must find Galen now. Eric, you came here once. I spoke to you.”

  “I remember every word.”

  “Your stone in the great mosaic of wizards,” she said.

  “I remember that, too,” he said, seeing a stone on the wall bearing his name in the old Droon language.

  He touched the stone. Electricity coursed through his cold veins, warming him.

  “And Urik’s stone?” she said.

  He touched it, too. It had the same effect.

  “And mine,” said Sparr, his eyes fixed on the stone with his symbol engraved upon it.

  Zara moved her finger to another position on the wall. “And Galen’s. Eric, touch it.”

  When he placed his finger on Galen’s stone, it loosened and fell into his hand. A small rolled sheet of parchment was hidden in the space behind it. He took it out.

  “Behold the first map Galen ever made in Droon,” the queen said.

  Scratched on the parchment was a drawing that again bore the unmistakable handiwork of Quill, Galen’s magical feather pen. Several Droon landmarks were clearly marked. The icy range of the Tarabat hills, the mountain of Silversnow, the deserts of Lumpland — all were there.

  At the far left edge of the parchment the western coast of Droon was sketched in, though sections of what would become the great royal capital of Jaffa City appeared as no more than meager settlements.

  “The Dark Lands were so much smaller than they are now,” said Keeah. “We’ve been losing the fight for Droon for a long time.”

  “As Galen searched for me,” Zara said, “he and Quill drew in the places of this beautiful world. This world, that is now overcome with darkness. The time has come to turn back the Dark Lands.”

  “But how?” asked Julie. “The royal armies are in disarray. The beasts number in the millions. Galen is lost. Urik is lost. Gethwing is immortal. We are only this many.”

  “Then we need more. We need everyone. We need to collect the magics,” Zara said.

  The very words Eric had had in his mind since riding on Gethwing’s back. “But how do we do this?”

  “Hold the map to the light,” said Zara. “Hold it up, and see a second map!”

  As Eric held one side and Keeah took the other, they held up the old map to the moonlight. Only when light shone through it did crisscrossing marks connecting distant places become visible. For an instant, Eric was reminded of the blank map at Zorfendorf.

  But here, hundreds of such lines were drawn all across the world of Droon, from desert to city, from mountain to valley, from the darkest lands all the way to Jaffa City. Under Jaffa City, barely legible, was a nearly perfect circle with vague lines running from the outside in.

  “What are all these lines?” said Julie. “What do they mean?”

  “They are the threads that connect all things,” said Zara, “no matter how distant in time or place they are.”

  “The Passages!” said Jabbo. “Of course!”

  The Passages were tunnels under Droon’s surface, connecting every part with every other part. They were magical, for one could enter a passage in one place and go almost instantly to a far distant part of the world.

  “But why do we need the map?” asked Neal.

  “Because deep in the Passages is where my lost son is,” said the queen.

  “Urik?” Eric said suddenly.

  Zara turned to him, a mysterious look in her eyes. “Urik is lost where I, for one, cannot find him. Perhaps he is lost beyond all hope of finding. No, long ago Galen used the Passages to search for me. We will find him there —”

  The howling of wingwolves came from nearby. It was answered with the clatter of sticks and the alarms of the tree monkeys.

  “To the surface, quickly!” said Sparr.

  As they hurriedly climbed the steps, Zara explained. “From my tomb, I sent Galen a dream. A thousand things must join to save Droon. In the Passages his quest takes place.”

  “So many quests,” said Neal. “I’ve counted about a dozen so far. And they all have to be finished by dawn.”

  “Are you saying that Galen wasn’t kidnapped?” said Julie. “That he vanished because of a dream you sent him?”

  The queen nodded. “Not long ago, I saw an image of horns aflame, an image that pains me beyond belief. I sent Galen to find Ko.”

  “Emperor Ko?” said Keeah. “But he’s … well, he’s … dead.”

  “Ko died when Galen pushed him from the precipice near Silversnow,” said Max.

  “Ko may have died,” said Zara, “but he is part of the battle for Droon, too. Ko has a vital piece of information we must know if we are to win back this world. Hurry, into the Passages. Time is leaving us. Droon is leaving us!”

  The battle had moved on by the time they emerged from the temple into the forest. The moon was directly overhead, and still their quest was unfinished.

  “Midnight,” said Sparr, looking at Eric. “Gethwing will surely return before dawn.”

  “And want me back,” said Eric.

  “Well, he can’t have you,” said Julie.

  “I have to go back to him,” Eric said. “Neal knows I do. He saw it in his vision. I’m with Gethwing at the very end.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” said Max. “In the next few hours the final assault on our beloved capital will take place. Our quest is far from over. As you say, we must collect the magics, and you are needed for that.”

  “Do you have to return to him?” asked Keeah, laying her hand on his arm.

  “Soon,” said Eric. “But not yet. We have Sparr, the wand, Queen Zara, but our quest isn’t done. Galen’s not here.”

  He knew another was not with them, either.

  A sharp pain not unlike the one he had for Zara struck his heart when he realized that Urik would not join them.

  Lost beyond all hope of finding.

  Clutching the wand tightly, Eric wondered, rejected the idea, then wondered again: Will I be called upon to play the part Urik would have played?

  And more than that — do I have any chance of succeeding?

  The deep forest was quiet, the air momentarily clear of smoke.

  “Where is the nearest entrance to the Passages?” asked Neal. “We need to get a move on.”

  Zara traced her fingers across Galen’s map. “A grove of ancient oaks northwest of here.”

  Threading the forest paths quietly and carefully, they soon found a tight clearing surrounded by immense oak trees. Set in the midst of them was a shadowed place that signaled an entrance into the earth.

  “In we go!” Max said.

  “Him, too!” said Jabbo.

  “Roo!” Kem added.

  Though at first it appeared no larger than a rabbit hole, the tunnel easily accommodated the entire group. Zara and Sparr quickly took the lead, Max, Kem, and Jabbo on their heels. Neal and Julie went next, followed at last by Keeah and Eric.

  Down, down, down they went. Before they had traveled far, they were met by a pair of heavily whiskered, four-footed creatures with pug noses and tufted brows.

  “Mooples!” said Keeah.

  “Friends!” the creatures chimed.

  “We’re happy to see you,” said Eric.

  “And you, too,” said one, looking Eric up and down. “Although your scary armor makes us fear.”

  “There is plenty to fear,” said Max, peering into the twisting tunnels ahead. “But not from Eric or Lord Sparr.”

  “Roo!” said Kem. “I mean, that’s right.”

  Sparr turned. “My mother and I shall searc
h the area ahead. One moment.”

  “We hear the most terrible things about the world on the surface,” whispered the first moople. “Icky things. War and such.”

  “But that’s not all,” said the second. “There have been noises down here as well. And messages!” He handed them a scrap of paper.

  It read: Join me now!

  “Quill again!” said Max. “Galen is near!”

  “Have you seen him?” Jabbo asked.

  The two creatures frowned, mumbled together, then one spoke. “Chubby fellow, red costume, white beard, sack of toys?”

  “Man, that guy gets around!” said Neal.

  “No,” said Keeah. “Cloak of midnight blue, tall cone hat, beard to his waist —”

  “We saw him, too!” said the other. “Come!”

  Joining Sparr and his mother, the little band followed the pair of mooples into the twisting depths. Scraping and scrabbling their way through the earthy tunnels, they came finally to a crossroads where three paths met.

  “Oh, dear,” whispered the pie maker. “Jabbo’s poor toes begin to tingle!”

  “What does that mean?” asked Julie.

  “That he forgot to powder his toes again,” said Jabbo. “But also — look there!”

  Eric raised Urik’s glowing wand toward the shadows when all at once the left-hand passage whirled with a storm of flying thorns.

  Sparr stood fast, his fingers spread wide, blue sparks sizzling on their tips.

  “Enemy or friend?” he demanded.

  “Is there a third choice?” came the reply, and out of the shadows stepped a young woman, her thorny hair in constant motion.

  “Salamandra! Ruler of Pesh!” shrieked Jabbo, huddling behind Max and Kem.

  “Queen of Shadowthorn, it is, my chubby pie maker!” she said with a deep bow as she clutched her thorn-tipped staff at her side. “Though after this, I’m thinking Empress!”

  Zara raised her eyebrows. “After what?”

  “After … this!” she said. “Oh, yoo-hoo!”