Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary

"I'm not worried about that. I just want the team to stay cooperative and focused. Your appearance could be divisive.

You'll be safer in here than anywhere, and once we leave the keep, you'll always be with us. I think we might be smart to quietly hold you in reserve. If we get into a jam where you can help, you can be our reinforcements."

"Okay. I guess that makes sense."

Warren stooped and picked up the red dice. He shook them in the brown cup and dumped them into the box lid. "Look at that. Large straight." He straightened up. "I've never felt more over my head than with this one. I'm tempted to try hiding the knapsack in some obscure corner of the keep, then hunkering down in here with you and your sister."

"Why don't you?"

"Agad is a wizard, and he can't have us here. He'd get wise to us if we tried to stash the knapsack. Camarat, that dragon at the entry gate, sniffed out the knapsack as soon as he met us. I don't think there's a safe place to hide in the whole stinking sanctuary. We need to achieve our objective and get out."

Warren went to one of the supply boxes and took out a granola bar. He tossed a second one to Seth. They peeled the wrappers and started munching.

"Whatever you do," Seth said around a chewy mouthful, "try not to leave me down here too long. You can only play a certain amount of Yahtzee games in a row before you become a lunatic."

"I'll keep that in mind."

* * *

The night was still and not nearly as cold as Kendra would have expected. She doubted that the temperature had even dipped below freezing. Overhead, stars glittered in such quantity that even the most familiar constellations became lost in the abundance.

The gravestones in the churchyard behind the keep's modest chapel stood in various states of disrepair. Many were cracked or chipped. Some had been worn smooth. Some leaned drunkenly. Several graves were simply marked by piles of stones. Three were designated by rough-hewn granite spheres the size of beach balls. Kendra could see well enough to read most of the headstones without light, so Trask and Gavin followed blindly, trusting her eyes.

The headstone for Patton Burgess was more solid and legible than many of the others. It rose to her waist and read:

Patton Burgess

Word to the Wise

Tread Lightly Among Dragons

Kendra read the words aloud, then walked around to look at the other side. "Nothing on the back." It was strange to think that in her hometown, she had her own false headstone. Her parents still believed she was buried there. But it was for the best. If it would keep them safe, it was worth it.

Trask and Gavin Crouched and began scraping at the hard earth with spades. Kendra surveyed the churchyard. Mara, Dougan, and Tanu were keeping watch somewhere, while Warren kept the lights burning in some of their sleeping quarters.

"This is like digging through iron," Gavin complained.

Trask paused, uncapping a vial Tanu had lent him and sprinkling some of the contents on the ground. After a moment they resumed digging and seemed to make faster headway. Kendra felt tense. The keep had an oppressive atmosphere. Designed to house a small army, the sturdy complex felt too large and too empty. There were too many parapets, too many obscure windows and alcoves, too many places to hide. She could not help wondering who might be watching. As her friends chopped deeper into the defiant earth, the sounds of their excavation were magnified by unnatural echoes. Kendra scanned the surrounding walls for unfriendly eyes.

Simrin came to mind. Earlier in the day, she had glimpsed the snake woman climbing straight up a wall to a catwalk, palms flat against the stone instead of gripping, moving up the vertical surface like a gecko. Was Simrin spying on them right now, peering down from a gloomy perch, ready to convey information to the dragons?

During the day, Kendra had run across other creatures besides the minotaur, the snake woman, and the alcetaur. She had seen a huge hunchback ogre with meaty forearms and a pruned face crossing a courtyard with an anvil under one arm. The lumpy brute had one eye larger than the other, and a scabby bald head fringed by thin yellow hair. She had also noticed a small man no taller than her waist springing around on slender legs like a grasshopper. Who knew what other unusual assistants Agad had enlisted?

"This headstone does reach deeper than one would suspect," Trask panted.

"Any words yet, Kendra?" Gavin asked.

Kendra crouched and saw the first lines of a message. "Yes." Kendra got out the pen and paper she had brought. They had decided to have her write down the inscription to avoid discussing the clue out in the open.

Trask and Gavin grunted as they prodded and scraped deeper into the ground, revealing more of the deeply rooted tombstone. Trask sprinkled more of the potion Tanu had provided, and Gavin began attacking the soil with a small pickax. A flare of light made Kendra glance up, and she caught the end of a shooting star streaking across the sky.

By the time the entire message was exposed, a ring of rocks and dirt surrounded the sizable hole. Perspiration glistened on Trask's hairless head. Although the inscription was written in small letters, Kendra could read the message without difficulty. Sitting at the edge of the hole, she copied the words.

The object you desire is an iron egg the size of a pineapple, the top half crowned with protuberances, hidden inside the treasury of the secret Dragon Temple, alongside other items sacred to the dragons. Access is heavily guarded. Success is unlikely. Retrieve no extra items. Ignore the gauntlets. Enmity with dragons is no minor concern. Tell no dragon you seek the temple, including Agad. Directions to the temple can be had at the Fairy Queen shrine near Split Veil Falls.

"Got it," Kendra said, folding the note.

Trask and Gavin set about refilling the hole, packing the rocks and soil back into place as best they could. While she waited, Kendra reread the message several times. Kendra had not suspected the Fairy Queen would have a shrine here at the sanctuary. She hadn't seen a single fairy. Apparently Kendra would have been joining the others whether or not Agad had allowed them to stay. If the Fairy Queen shrine at Wyrmroost was anything like the shrine at Fablehaven, Kendra was the only person who might survive trespassing there.

She tried not to imagine what obstacles might await if they managed to locate the Dragon Temple. It was already clear that when Patton had set out to make the Translocator hard to find, he had meant business.

* * *

Seth tried to resist, but the voices were so insistent. He hung near the top of the ladder for several minutes, listening to the whispery pleas, trying in vain to stifle his curiosity. The gibbering chorus reminded him of the Hall of Dread. The indistinct voices overlapped so much that most words were hard to catch--he most frequently heard "hunger,"

"thirst," and "mercy."

Warren had trusted him to stay put. Seth didn't want to make a stupid blunder, not here at Wyrmroost, with so much at stake. But once the whispers had begun, he had found them impossible to ignore. What if the hushed voices led to important secrets that only he could uncover? This could be his chance to prove he belonged on the adventure.

Pushing up the leather flap of the knapsack, Seth climbed out into the guardhouse and crouched in silence. The dark, still courtyard awaited beyond the door. Outside of the knapsack, he could discern that the babbling whispers originated from a single direction, reaching his ears from a source deeper inside the keep.

Keeping to the walls, Seth crept out into the gloomy courtyard, eyes wandering up to the starry firmament. Considering the lack of light, his shade walking abilities should make him nearly invisible to onlookers. Leaving the knapsack was a risk, but the possibility of gaining useful information about the sanctuary was too attractive. He might even be able to create an alliance with a powerful being. Desperate situations sometimes called for extreme measures.

And to be honest, if nothing else, it was a reasonably good excuse to get out of the stuffy storage room. The crisp mountain air was already rejuvenating his spirits.

Closed portcullises and a raised drawbridge barred an excursion beyond the wall. Across from the gateway, the main building loomed, dimly visible by starlight, accessible by a single heavy door. Staying near the walls, tense and watchful, Seth took the long way around the courtyard before reaching the iron-bound door. To his delight, he found it unlocked.

In the cavernous room beyond, Seth debated taking out his flashlight. It was too dark to see, but he decided that even a muted glare would be too risky in such a prominent room. Instead of navigating by sight, he followed the confused babble, the voices increasing in volume as he inched across the room, shins, toes, and outstretched hands occasionally bumping against unseen obstacles.

Finally Seth reached a wall and then a doorway. Briefly risking his flashlight with a hand cupped over the bright side, he found a stairway that went up and another that went down. The whispers were definitely coming up from a lower part of the building. Maybe the stronghold had a dungeon like the one at Fablehaven.

Upon hearing a gritty scrape from above, Seth extinguished his flashlight and backed against the wall. The scuffing sound had been unnatural. A moment later he heard faint footfalls carefully descending the stairs. The unseen person reached the bottom steps and then stopped. Seth could hear steady breathing.

"They were in the graveyard," a low voice said, "digging up Patton's grave."

"Did they take anything?" a quiet female voice answered.

"No. They seemed interested in markings on the headstone."

"They have returned to their rooms?"

"Far as I could tell."

"Keep an eye out. I'll check their wing."

Seth remained rigid in the darkness, an anxious hand squeezing his flashlight. From the timbre of the voices, he suspected the snake lady Warren had described and the minotaur. But there was no way to be sure. He heard soft steps shuffling away across the cavernous room.

Once he thought he was alone again, Seth considered returning to the knapsack. If he had expected the keep to be crawling with spies, he would have stayed in his hiding place. But the gibbering whispers persisted, and now that he was out and about, it would be a shame not to finish what he had started. It didn't sound like either of the speakers had descended the stairs, so Seth moved blindly forward to the vicinity of the downward staircase. Probing ahead with one foot, he found the lip of the first step and started down.

Advancing with as much stealth as he could manage in the darkness, Seth descended two long flights of stairs, passed through a door, down a hall, through a doorway, and down a winding stairwell. All the while, the volume of the whispers increased, until he worried whether he would be able to perceive any other sounds.

His hands found a door of solid iron, the surface rough and flaky with corrosion. His fingers located a catch, and with a clang the door squealed open, releasing an even more boisterous flood of cryptic whispers. The clangorous door made Seth uneasy. Others who were not saturated by the whispering might have heard the metallic racket from a considerable distance.

Heart hammering in his chest, Seth lingered in the doorway, working up the courage to proceed. The blackness ahead felt too ominous and too loud, so he took out his flashlight again. This deep below the keep, the light shouldn't glare out any windows. The glow revealed a short corridor that led to the curved wall of a partially visible chamber. Advancing cautiously, Seth emerged into an oval chamber with a circular hole in the floor, a shadowy mouth of unfathomable darkness. The babbling voices rose from the well, hissing and begging and threatening. A pervasive coldness in the air chilled Seth to his center.

No railing protected the hole. Had he failed to use a light, Seth might have stumbled into it unawares. The thought sent chills racing across his shoulders. The hole was perhaps ten feet across, the room no more than thirty. A single long chain snaked around the floor, forming several heavy piles of coils along the way. One end was anchored to the wall, the other ended near the circular well. Each oxidized link contained two holes, one for the previous link and another for the next.

Seth advanced to the brink of the hole, uncapped the flashlight, and shined the beam down. He could see a long way, but the light did not reach the bottom. As soon as he uncovered the light, the whispering rose to furious levels.

"Quiet," he muttered.

The whispering stopped.

The abrupt silence seemed much more unnerving than the prior clamor. A mild breeze wafted up from the depths of the hole.

Worried that the owners of the hushed voices could see him, Seth switched off the flashlight, plunging the room into impenetrable darkness.

"Help us," whispered a plaintive, parched voice. "Mercy."

"Who are you?" Seth whispered back, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.

"We are those confined to the depths," the thirsty voice answered.

"What kind of help do you--"

"The chain!"

A chorus of other ghastly voices repeated the request. "The chain, the chain, the chain, the chain."

Seth cleared his throat. "You want me to lower the chain?"

"We will serve you for a thousand years."

"We will fulfill your every wish."

"You shall never know defeat again."

"You shall never know fear."

"All will kneel before you."

More voices kept adding promises until Seth could no longer make out any specifics.

"Quiet," Seth demanded. The voices complied. "I can't hear you when you all speak at once."

"Wise lord," a raspy voice began, speaking alone, "we have lost all sense of time and place. We do not deserve this abyss. We need the chain. Send us the chain. Where is the chain?"

Other spectral voices took up the cry. "The chain. The chain. The chain..."