Journey to the Volcano Palace

  Then he marched up to the sorcerer, stood right in front of him, and made a fist. “Now, I’m going to punch right through your bogus self!”

  “Neal, don’t,” Keeah said. “It’s really —”

  Smack! Neal’s fist stopped at Sparr’s arm.

  Neal frowned. “It’s supposed to go through.” He turned to Julie. “It went through for you.”

  “Neal …” Julie said.

  Neal punched Sparr again. Smack!

  “Oh, now I get it.” Neal said quietly. “Ouch.”

  “NINNS!” the sorcerer shouted at the top of his lungs. The passageway filled with red-faced warriors.

  The kids were surrounded.

  Keeah’s eyes burned with anger. “We know your secret, Sparr. You’re a monster!”

  “A creepy one!” said Eric. “Much creepier than you are now. Which is pretty creepy!”

  The sorcerer’s lips curled into an evil snarl. His eyes darkened. His purple fins began to curl.

  “Now you can never leave!” he said. His muscled hand clamped down on Neal’s shoulder.

  Neal screeched. “It’s because I did hands behind the ears, isn’t it? You didn’t like that.”

  “You leave my best friend alone!” Eric yelled. He jumped as hard as he could on Sparr’s feet.

  “Ahhh!” The sorcerer released Neal.

  “I sniff an escape this way!” Khan yelled.

  The six friends shot away down the narrow passage. They were still going deeper into the volcano.

  Sparr leaped into the air after them. He flew like a bullet, swooping through the tunnels, screaming strange words. “Selam! Ala! Kwitt!”

  “Same to you!” Julie shouted back.

  Eric and Keeah were in the lead, threading through the curving passages.

  Suddenly, the passage split before them. Two tunnels lay ahead. Both were dark.

  “Left! Left!” Keeah cried.

  Eric flashed a look at his hands. He couldn’t decide. Left? Left! He kept running toward the passages. He ran faster.

  “Hurry!” the princess shouted.

  Right? Left! Huh? This is so dumb! With all the smoke and darkness, he couldn’t even see!

  Eric picked one dark passage, running into it as fast as he could. He wanted to get as far as possible from Sparr. He’d discovered his secret.

  But now sounds were swirling all around him.

  Hissing and bubbling. Clomping and stomping. Eric stole a quick look backward.

  It was dark. He couldn’t see Keeah anywhere.

  He slowed to a stop. “Guys? Are you back there in the dark? Oh, man, please answer!”

  No answer.

  Eric swallowed hard. “Sp-Sparr? Please don’t answer….”

  No answer. Eric was alone in the dark.

  He couldn’t tell front from back. Right from left. Up from down.

  “Where am I?” he breathed.

  Splurt — ssss! A sudden fiery splash of lava burst from the volcano floor. It flashed against the walls of a vast cavern. Smoking red lava bubbled and hissed away into the far distance.

  “It’s a lake,” Eric gasped. “A lake of lava!”

  He knew right away where he was.

  He had found it.

  The Room of Fire.

  Splursh! The fiery column spurted again. It was coming from a strange fountain on a small island in the center of the lake. The fountain was formed of craggy, hardened lava.

  Then Eric noticed something else.

  Near the top of the fountain, and sheltered from its spray, was a dome of glass.

  Inside the dome was a strange black object.

  An armored glove with a red jewel on it.

  “The Eye of Dawn!” Eric said to himself. “Just like Demither said.”

  But the fountain lay in the center of a lake of burning, bubbling lava. He would burn to a crisp if he took one step into it. Then he remembered what else Demither had told them.

  Cross the Bridge of Ice.

  Eric circled the shore of the lava lake. Something about the lava’s surface seemed strange.

  Some parts of it didn’t move the same as in other places. He bent down at one spot and gazed across the top of the lava.

  A narrow strip of something clear lay just above the bubbling surface. It looked like a strip of glass, stretching from the shore to the island.

  “The Bridge of Ice!” he said.

  Carefully, he stepped onto the bridge. It held him. He took another step. He felt as if he were walking a tightrope. But he kept going.

  Soon he was halfway across. Halfway to the island. To the stone fountain itself. To the Eye!

  Splursh! The fountain exploded with a giant spurt of molten rock. Fiery spray shot to the ceiling and showered back down to the giant lake.

  Tssss! The rocks hit the surface all around him.

  But Eric kept going. He couldn’t turn back. Not until he got what they had come for.

  “We have to stop Lord Sparr,” he said firmly.

  Splursh! The fountain went off again. Tssss!

  Eric timed it to see how long he had until the next eruption. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi —”

  Splursh! Tssss!

  “Four seconds,” Eric told himself. He took a deep breath, ran to the end of the bridge, and sprang off. He landed at the base of the fountain.

  One Mississippi …

  In two quick moves, he was up to the top of the fountain. Using a rock, he broke the glass dome and grabbed the black glove.

  Two Mississippi …

  He jumped down to the base of the fountain. But the rocks were covered with a thin layer of ashes. His sneakers slid on them. He tried to steady himself. He hit the ground. “Ooof!”

  Three Mississippi …

  Plonk! The glove fell from his hand.

  “No!” Eric yelled out. He reached out wildly for the glove. His fingers fumbled for it.

  Four Mississippi!

  SPLURSH! Molten rocks exploded up from the fountain to the ceiling. Then they began to fall.

  Eric grabbed the glove and pulled it on.

  The fiery rocks seemed to aim right for him.

  “Nooooo!” he screamed, throwing his arms up to shield himself from the burning rocks.

  Suddenly, the Eye of Dawn began to glow.

  Blam! Blam! Blam! Flashes of red light shot from the glove’s fingertips. The molten rocks blasted apart in midair. One after another, the chunks of molten stone exploded to nothing.

  Eric’s hand was going crazy. He couldn’t control the Eye. It blew up everything in sight.

  Blam! Blam! The fountain itself shattered into a thousand pieces.

  “Whoa!” Eric cried. “Glove, stop! Eye, stop!”

  But the Red Eye of Dawn wouldn’t stop.

  Eric struggled to his feet and rushed onto the bridge of ice. Then the Eye forced his hand around and blasted the bridge! Ka-whoom!

  He dived to shore as the bridge exploded into a million little pieces.

  The walls of the cavern were starting to quake. The volcano floor was rumbling. The lava lake swelled. Waves churned and splashed.

  “Uh-oh!” he gasped, scrambling up. “I think I started something! And it’s not good!”

  “Eric!” someone shouted.

  He turned. It was Keeah, running into the cavern. Behind her were Julie, Neal, Khan, and Max.

  “I’ve got the Eye!” Eric shouted to them. “But I can’t control it too well!”

  Blam! Blam! The glove blasted the black walls two feet away from his friends’ heads.

  “We get the idea!” Keeah shouted. She ran over and grabbed Eric’s hand. Suddenly, the glove became steady. It seemed as if a power moved through Keeah’s hand to his own.

  “Good work, Eric!” Julie cried. “You did it!”

  “Save the praise for later,” Max chirped. “Here comes Lord Sparr!”

  “Grab Eric’s hand,” shouted Keeah.

  Neal, Julie, Max,
and Khan put their hands over Keeah’s and Eric’s. Keeah focused the glove toward the far wall.

  KA-WHOOM! The Eye blew a hole clear through the volcano wall! Daylight shone through the hole.

  The force of the Eye pulled the kids from the ground. It shot them through the rocky passage like a rocket.

  “I will follow you — forever!” cried Lord Sparr, charging in as the black walls of his volcano home began to crumble.

  “Whoaaa!” Eric shrieked as the six friends barreled out through the volcano at top speed.

  Then — splat-at-at-at-at-at!

  They hit a wall. Luckily, it was a soft wall. It was a wall made of sand. It was a sand dune.

  “We’re outside!” Julie yelled. “Yahoo!”

  “There they are!” cried a voice. Galen rode up quickly. Behind him, the Lumpies had just finished tying the fire monsters in a giant knot.

  “Yes!” Max chittered. “My master is safe!”

  “We have the Eye!” Keeah called out.

  Galen’s eyes lit up. “My friends, you have done well!” Carefully, he took the glove from Eric. He closed his hands around it and put it safely in a golden box in Leep’s saddlebag.

  “We must leave Kano at once,” the wizard said. “Keeah, your father’s ship is waiting at the coast. The stairs to the Upper World have appeared there, too. Max, come. Hurry, everyone. Hurry!”

  Max jumped up on Leep’s head. “The way out is in the West! The old riddle says, it cannot be seen where it is!”

  Eric sighed. “Another riddle? Can’t anything in Droon be easy?”

  “This will make it easier,” Khan said. Flump! He tossed something heavy on the sand. “A carpet from Pasha.”

  “A flying carpet!” Julie exclaimed.

  “The perfect escape vehicle!” Neal added.

  “Better hurry,” Khan cried, sniffing the smoky air. “Groggles — lots of them. Coming fast!”

  Out of the smoke came dozens of Ninns on their ugly flying lizards called groggles. Huge flapping wings darkened the dark air even more.

  Kaww! Kaww! the groggles cried.

  “Let’s see how fast this baby can go,” Julie said. “Everybody on Pasha’s rug! Now — fly!”

  Whoosh! The carpet lifted into the wind and soared up over the volcano. As Galen, Max, Khan, and the Lumpies galloped away, Julie tugged at a corner, and the carpet shot out across the dunes.

  But the flying groggles were fast, too. They chased the kids for mile after mile, getting closer and closer.

  Eric scanned the desert ahead. In the middle of the dunes was a single rock. It was tall and wide and stuck straight up from the desert floor.

  “Watch out for that rock,” Keeah said.

  “Yeah,” Neal added, “we definitely don’t want to crash into that!”

  “Right …” Eric began. Then he shook his head. “No, head for it! The riddle says that the way out cannot be seen where it is. The way out is through the rock!”

  “Are you sure?” Julie asked.

  “Trust me!” Eric said.

  Kaww! The groggles were right behind them.

  The rock was right ahead of them.

  “It sure looks solid!” Neal cried, shutting his eyes and clutching the carpet tight. “I hope this works!”

  Around the rock was open air, stretching into the distance. Still, the kids dove for the rock.

  They went … into the rock.

  Whoosh! At the moment the carpet hit the rock, the rock became an opening. At the same moment, the air around it became solid rock.

  “Agh!” the Ninns cried. Their groggles lurched away, nearly smashing into the wall of rock.

  “Hooray!” Eric held on tight as they swept into a world of trees and rivers and meadows.

  The air was clear and fresh. It smelled sweet.

  “We’re out of Kano!” Keeah said, pointing to the distance. “And heading for the coast.”

  Minutes later, they landed on a sandy shore. A blue ocean rolled gently to the distant horizon.

  And the stairs back to Eric’s house glittered nearby, hovering inches above the beach.

  A grand wooden ship was floating in a peaceful bay. It had white-and-pink sails and a blue smokestack. The ship’s sides swept back from a sharp point in front to twin wings in the rear.

  “Today, we won,” Keeah said. “We learned that Sparr is some kind of — creature.”

  “He turns back into it sometimes,” Eric said. “And he needs to drink from the witch’s pool.”

  “It’s weird,” said Neal. “How all our dreams sort of came true….”

  Eric shook his head. “I guess there are still lots of secrets about Droon we don’t know.”

  “Like the whole story about the witch, Demither,” Julie added. “She was strange. Kind of sad, too.”

  Keeah breathed in, smiling. “She said my mother is alive, under a curse somewhere. If she is, I’m going to find her and set her free.”

  “We’ll help you,” Eric said. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  “Definitely,” Neal said. “Count me in!”

  “Count us all in,” Julie added.

  As the kids made their way to the magic stairs, a pilka whinnied behind them. Hrrr!

  They turned to see Galen, Max, and Khan riding down the beach toward them. They waved.

  “You’re safe now,” Eric said to Keeah. “I guess we’d better go before the stairs fade.”

  “The magic of Droon goes with you,” Keeah said, waving. “It will tell you when to return!”

  The three friends raced up the magic stairs. At the top, Eric turned to look back at Droon.

  “I hope the adventure never ends,” Julie said.

  Eric smiled. “Something tells me it never will. There are too many secrets we don’t know yet.”

  “And too much work for us to do,” Neal said.

  Julie laughed. “There’s plenty of work for us up here, too. In our normal lives. We said we’d clean up the basement, remember?”

  They all stepped up into the room at the top of the stairs. Neal flicked the light switch.

  Click! The land of Droon vanished. In its place was the plain old cement floor.

  “We’re home,” Eric murmured. He put his hand on the doorknob and opened the door.

  The three friends went out into the basement.

  The messy, messy basement.

  They got to work.

  Keee-kkkk! Lightning crackled and flashed outside the windows of Eric Hinkle’s basement.

  But he and his friend Julie could only look at the soccer ball in the corner.

  Boooom! The thunder two seconds later told them the storm was only a couple of miles away.

  “Neal is going to freak out when he sees,” said Eric. Neal was Eric and Julie’s friend.

  Julie stared over his shoulder. “I’m freaking out already,” she said. “Let’s call him. His eyes will bug out. He’s got to see this — now.”

  The two friends ran up the basement stairs to the kitchen. Eric picked up the telephone and punched in Neal’s number. Another flash of lightning made the phone crackle in his ear.

  “Hello, Neal?” Eric said when his friend answered. “You’ve got to come over right away.”

  “Are you kidding? There’s going to be a humongous storm in five minutes,” Neal replied. “Besides, I’m getting ready to eat. It’s lunchtime.”

  “It’s always lunchtime for you,” Eric said. “Forget food, Neal. This is important.”

  Neal sighed. “It’d better be, for me to pass up one of my mom’s tuna fish sandwiches. I’m coming.”

  After Neal hung up, Eric and Julie glanced out the window. The sky was getting very dark.

  Eric began to smile. “Good day to hang out in my basement.”

  “You mean, hang out in Droon,” Julie added.

  Eric chuckled. “Of course that’s what I mean.”

  In Eric’s basement there was an entrance to another world.

  A world that Eric, Ju
lie, and Neal kept secret. The mysterious and magical world of Droon.

  Droon was a place where a good wizard called Galen Longbeard and a young princess named Keeah battled a very evil sorcerer by the name of Lord Sparr.

  Droon had all kinds of strange creatures, too. Galen’s assistant, Max, was a spider troll, half spider, half troll. He could climb up anything and spin sticky webs with his eight long legs.

  And then there were the Ninns. They were Lord Sparr’s nasty, red-faced warriors who flew around on big lizards known as groggles.

  And a witch named Demither. And —

  Boom-ba-boom! The sky flashed outside, and thunder boomed just as the back door opened.

  “Yikes!” Neal charged into the kitchen. “I think that storm followed me!”

  Eric opened the basement door. “No time for talk. Everybody downstairs.”

  The moment they got to the bottom of the stairs — kkkkk! — the basement flashed white, and — ba-boom! — the walls rumbled, and — splish! — rain splashed hard against the house.

  “Hello, storm,” Julie said.

  “All right,” said Neal, stepping into the basement. “What is more important than tuna fish sandwiches?”

  “That.” Eric pointed to a corner of the basement. The soccer ball — Julie’s soccer ball — was sitting on the workbench.

  Actually, it was sitting above the workbench.

  It was floating in the air.

  “Whoa!” Neal gasped. “I repeat — whoa!”

  “Not only that,” Eric said. “You remember the first time we went to Droon and the soccer ball came with us and then it did that magical thing when we came back? Well, Julie and I were looking at it before, and —”

  “Shhh!” Julie whispered. “It’s doing it again!”

  By the glow of the ceiling light they watched the ball begin to change.

  The black and white patches moved slowly across the surface of the ball. The patches became the shapes of countries. And the ball itself became a globe of another world.

  The world of Droon.

  “It means we need to go,” Julie said, looking at her two friends. “What else could it mean?”

  “Last time, our dreams told us to go to Droon,” Eric said. “But this is different. I think it’s a sign from Keeah.”