Official Description
Official Description 1
Way up north in the ice caves of Droon lives a nasty, snowy beast. Krog has just woken up from a long nap, and boy, is he grouchy! Eric and his friends have to stop the monster from causing too much trouble. But when they reach the magical ice caves, they discover that Krog is not exactly the beast they were expecting....
Official Description 2
Forget Frosty... there's a new snowman tromping through Droon! An ancient snow beast named (sic) Murn has woken up from a deep sleep, and he is NOT a morning person. In fact, Murn is destroying villages all over Droon! Eric and his friends must journey up north to the mysterious ice caves to stop the beast. Finding the cave entrance is tricky, but that's nothing compared to what they find deep inside. Surprise! The "ice beast" is not at all what they expected...
Chapters
- The Blizzard Wizard?
- Of Harps and Happenings
- Whispers Without Words
- A Torch at Midnight
- The Iceman Comes...and Goes
- Palace of Doughnuts
- Lots of Loot
- I Only Have Ice for You
- Racing the Wraiths
- Star Sparkle
Plot Summary
The book starts with Eric using and detailing his new magic powers to Julie and Neal. Although he can (and automatically does) send out silver sparks instead of blue now, he currently has huge trouble controlling them, and he had pulled doors off hinges and turned food to ash by accident before entering school. Eric's wish to show off his new powers to Princess Keeah suddenly brings in so much snow that school is dismissed early. Of course, the threesome immediately head for Droon.
Eric, Julie, and Neal enter Keeah's cottage in northern Droon, where they meet Keeah, Queen Relna, Max, and the three Knights of Silversnow: Rolf, Lunk, and Smee. They report that they have to face two threats simultaneously now--Lord Sparr and his wraiths and a newly awakened monster called Krog. Keeah reports that her magical harp started singing strange, riddle-like songs yesterday, with one of them being about Krog.
Wraiths attack the place soon afterward, though, so Relna, Lunk, and Smee stay behind to defend the house while Eric, Julie, Neal, Keeah, Max, and Rolf run onward to hunt down Krog.
The party arrives at a ruined village that Krog attacked very recently. There, they meet a black-robed girl called Motli, who says that an emerald green-eyed person called the Prince of Stars had cornered Krog into the Ice Caves. As the six wonder where the Ice Caves are, Keeah's harp plays another riddle that Neal solves. Motli listens to Neal's solution, then leads everyone to a river with a water-calming raft. While the group floats on the raft, more wraiths attack and force Max and Motli out of the party.
Eric, Julie, Neal, Keeah, and Rolf land on a mountainous island. Just as Neal snaps and wants to give up, the harp sings another riddle that Eric solves. They head for a fragile ice bridge that is their only path to the Ice Caves of Krog. However, a furry iceman blocks the way and demands that Neal solve his riddles.
Neal solves two of the riddles with Keeah and Rolf's help, but is stumped by the third riddle, a math question. Rolf defends the children from the iceman's wrath and chucks them across the bridge to safety, but falls and breaks the bridge afterwards when the iceman lunges at him.
Forced to leave Rolf (and the iceman) behind, the four children head for a warm, inviting castle. A red-garbed man invites them in. When Keeah tries to say that she and her friends are after Krog, the man interrupts, saying that the beast had fought the green-eyed Prince of Stars. He recommends that everyone eat, then find Krog.
At the castle's main table, everyone sees and eats the food they like the most. Eric notices that the red-dressed man is gone, but Neal changes the subject. Julie and Keeah soon fall asleep from the enchanted food, and Keeah's dropped harp sings another riddle. Neal and Eric manage to solve and act upon the riddle together as they start to fall asleep, and Eric casts a spell that eventually leads to everyone being jolted awake.
The castle disappears in front of everyone's eyes, only to be replaced by the Ice Caves of Krog. The friends walk in and pick up makeshift weapons as Krog approaches. Julie, Neal, and Keeah's weapons soon prove ineffective against the ferocious beast, and Krog isolates itself and Eric with a wall-shattering attack.
Eric finds, suspiciously, that Krog is a telepath who claims to have only two very small weaknesses. After a short magical conversation, Eric gains the height advantage by climbing onto an ice bridge. There, he dislodges a boulder with an icicle he creates from his weapon, a sack of water. This boulder stuns Krog, and Eric corners the beast and leaps onto it.
Just when he is about to down Krog for good with his magic, Eric suddenly notices Krog's eyes--they are emerald green, the precise same colour as the Prince of Stars' eyes. Eric realizes the full implications of this and "recognizes" Krog as the fallen prince. With those words, the Prince of Stars breaks out of Krog's possession, returns to his original form, and thanks Eric for saving his life.
Eric asks the Prince of Stars who he is, but the prince admits he does not fully know, as he lost his memory long ago. He does detail Krog's curse, though, saying that it would not have been long before the monster would have fully possessed him.
Eric and the Prince of Stars unite with Neal, Julie, Keeah, Rolf, and Max, then the prince summons his friends--magical, shapeshifting crows called Otli, Jotli, and Motli. The crows reveal themselves to have been the iceman, the red-clothed man with the sleep-inducing food, and the black-garbed girl, respectively. After introductions, the Prince of Stars implies that he was the one who created the harp riddles and suggested the test at the castle in an attempt to take down Krog from within.
Wraiths attack the party yet again, and this time, they succeed in taking Keeah's harp. The group then heads back to Jaffa City to fend off the wraiths and Sparr's looming threat. King Zello, Queen Relna, the other Knights of Silversnow, and Galen are already there, and together, everyone fights off the shadowy army.
Relna notices that Sparr has arrived on his Golden Wasp, though, which makes Keeah fearful, as Sparr also has her Wasp-controlling harp (courtesy of the wraiths). The Prince of Stars, taking on Krog's form, offers to fight the evil wizard with Eric's help.
In an aerial dogfight, the two manage to knock the harp from Sparr's hands, but they lose control of it and it falls to the snow. Luckily, Neal picks it up and plays it by Keeah's suggestion. The harp's notes make Sparr lose control of the Golden Wasp and force him and the wraiths to retreat.
After the Prince of Stars shifts back to his human self, the King and Queen of Droon make an offer for him to stay with the rest. The prince refuses, as he reports that he needs to track one of the few memories left to him--that of a golden-haired child on a silver tree. He does not depart without giving the party a mysterious bottle from Krog's hoarded treasure, though. (The next book in the series, Flight of the Genie, reveals that the bottle contains the fabled City of Ut, with Hoja the genie stuck inside.)
Eric, Julie, and Neal, seeing the Rainbow Staircase, part from the residents of Droon and head back to the Upper World.
Trivia
- As seen in the Official Descriptions above, the title monster's name was changed from Murn to Krog before the book's release.
- This book contains the first appearance of the Prince of Stars as well as that of his friends, Otli, Jotli, and Motli.
- This is the first book where Eric has the power to wield silver sparks; previously, he was only able to send out blue ones. Hilariously, he cannot control his silver sparks well in this book.