Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary

Seth grabbed his suitcase and took it into his room. It was a mirror image of the first room, minus the rollaway. As he heaved his suitcase onto the bed, he caught a flicker of motion in the far corner by the window.

He turned, staring at the empty corner. Was the window open? Had the curtain blown sideways? Everyone else was in the other room.

Staring hard, he abruptly caught another flicker, a hand flashing briefly into view along with part of a leg. The body parts appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly. Seth cried out and stumbled away from the corner.

Warren raced into the room. He stopped short, looking around. "Was that a drill?"

Seth narrowed his eyes, staring hard. "I think there’s something in the corner."

"That corner?" Warren asked.

A full body pulsed temporarily into view–a tall, thin goblin with a knobby head, a shriveled nose, and jutting tusks. His skin was all shiny pinks and oranges, like burn scars. "See!" Seth yelled, jumping back again.

"I didn’t see anything," Warren said, producing a pair of knives, one longer than the other.

Tanu stood in the doorway, a blowgun in his hand. "I don’t see anything either."

"Either there is a goblin standing in that corner, or I’m going nuts," Seth insisted, voice quavering. The goblin was not currently visible.

Holding both knives ready, Warren advanced toward the corner. The goblin flashed back into view, irregular nostrils flaring, glaring at Seth. "I see him again," Seth announced, pointing.

Warren hurled the smaller knife at the corner. Twisting, the goblin sprang sideways, barely dodging the blade. The knife lodged in the wall. Wrenching the knife free, the goblin charged Warren.

"The knife vanished!" Warren said.

"Here he comes!" Seth warned. The goblin no longer pulsed in and out of view. Seth saw the creature clearly.

Tanu came up beside Seth. "Where is he?"

Warren backed away, blindly swinging his long knife.

The goblin avoided the desperate swipes and slashed Warren across the chest. Warren lunged forward, but the goblin sidestepped the knife thrust and used Warren’s momentum to hurl him to the floor.

"There," Seth said, pointing.

Tanu exhaled powerfully.

The goblin paused, staring at the small feathered dart protruding from his wrist. He staggered, swayed, steadied himself, then toppled to the floor, landing hard.

"Is that Vanessa’s blowgun?" Seth asked.

"Yeah," Tanu said. "1 sweetened the sleep potion on the darts to a nearly lethal dosage."

Seth gestured at the fallen goblin. "Can you see him now?"

"Nope."

Warren staggered to his feet, probing the bloody stripe across his chest.

"Deep?" Tanu asked.

"I have leather armor under my shirt," Warren said. "The freak still gave me a good scratch. I keep my knives sharp." Warren crouched, recovering his throwing knife from where it had fallen.

Vicious snarling erupted out in the hallway. Tanu tossed Seth a potion. He pulled out two more potions and stepped into the adjoining room. "Go gaseous!" he instructed Grandma and Kendra.

Seth had used the gaseous potion over the summer. It would transform him into a vaporous version of himself. As a gas, nothing that he knew of would be able to harm him, but he would also lose the ability to assist Warren and Tanu.

Instead of drinking the potion, he knelt beside the goblin. What was making it invisible to the others? Seth guessed it had to be some sort of magical item, like Coulter’s glove. The goblin wore simple clothes: a black silk shirt, loose black shorts, and sandals. Tucked in his belt were a pair of long, sharp knitting needles and a strangle cord. A conspicuous silver bracelet adorned one sinewy forearm.

Seth tore the bracelet free and put it on. The goblin remained visible, as did his own body. In the past, when Seth had worn Coulter’s magic glove and held still, his body had become transparent, even to himself. But since his eyes somehow saw through the goblin’s trick, he had no way to gauge whether he had cloaked himself from view or merely stolen a gaudy piece of jewelry.

Warren and Tanu had charged into the hallway, and Seth heard more snarling, fie raced out of the room and gawked at the scene down the hall where Tanu and Warren were confronting a gray wolf nearly the size of a horse. The overgrown canine already had three feathered darts visible in its fur, along with Warren’s throwing knife. The ferocious wolf snapped repeatedly at Warren, who was barely holding the animal at bay by gradually retreating and slashing its muzzle with his long knife. Tanu fired another dart from the blowgun, then dropped the weapon to scrabble through his potion bag.

Grandma emerged from her room, crossbow in one hand, the potion Tanu had given her in the other.

[drawing: Grandma is pointing a crossbow at a large, winged creature at the end of a long hall.]

Seth grinned. Apparently he wasn’t the only person unwilling to go gaseous and miss the action. Grandma stared right through Seth at the combat with the wolf, then raised her weapon, taking careful aim. Seth lurched aside. Behind Grandma, the window at the end of the hall exploded in a shower of jagged shards as a muscular, winged creature crashed through it.

Grandma whirled as the horned gargoyle, body scratched and bleeding, scrambled to its feet and raced down the hall, trident in hand, wings folded. She held the crossbow level and let a quarrel fly. When the projectile disappeared into the creature’s head, the gargoyle lurched backward and collapsed to the floor as if he had bashed his face against an invisible beam.

Seth turned around to see the wolf backing away from Warren, legs wobbly, muzzle torn and wet. Tanu held a potion near his lips. Warren brandished the long knife. The wolf’s legs buckled and it slumped heavily to the floor, a motionless heap of fur and blood.

The bracelet on Seth’s arm felt steadily warmer. He removed it just as it was becoming unbearable to touch. Tossing the bracelet aside, he saw it disappear in a flash before hitting the floor.

"Seth?" Grandma exclaimed. "Where did you come from?"

"The goblin had some kind of invisibility bracelet. It got hot and disintegrated."

"It may have run out of energy," Grandma said. "Or it may have been protected by a self-destruct spell in case it was stolen."

Warren and Tanu conferred briefly. Warren trotted down the hall toward the lobby, while Tanu came toward Grandma and Seth. "Thanks for dropping the gargoyle, Ruth," Tanu said. "It must have tracked us from the air when we left Fablehaven. We aren’t safe here. We should collect our things. Warren is going to make sure the coast is clear."