"Why aren't you choking?" Siletta asked.

"We're not in the mood," Seth replied. "We were wondering if you could give us directions to a dragon named Glommus. All we could find was a big stupid gray dragon with its head chopped off."

Siletta gave a rattling snarl. A purple fog filled the air. The particles smoked when they touched Kendra's skin. Again, Seth led the way as they ran to the next pillar. Squinting through the purple haze, Kendra could barely make out the dragon crouched only two pillars away.

"What counter spell are you using?" Siletta accused.

Seth peeked around the pillar, raised his crossbow, and fired.

The dragon roared. They could hear her scuttling toward them. Peering around the pillar, Kendra saw that instead of coming straight at them, the dragon was looping around to a neighboring pillar.

Seth and Kendra adjusted to keep their pillar between themselves and the dragon. "Stop slinking around," Siletta hissed, her voice thick with irritation.

"We'll stop hiding when you stop being poisonous," Seth called. "Seems like you're the one stalling. Come on out so we can get our photo and go home."

They heard Mendigo jingling nearby, then the great head of the dragon came around the side of the pillar not ten feet away. Kendra had heard no hint of Siletta's stealthy approach. Apparently the dragon could move silently when it suited her. The huge mouth opened and a geyser of warm sludge sent them sprawling backwards. Kendra clung desperately to Seth and the horn as they fell. The tarlike substance spat and sizzled, vaporizing off of their skin and clothes. Kendra used her free hand to wipe the sludge away from her eyes as Seth hauled her to her feet.

Sword in hand, Mendigo was hacking at the dragon just behind the head. Twisting and snapping, Siletta trapped the limberjack in her mouth, leaving only the wooden legs hanging out.

Holding the horn out in front of them, Kendra and Seth charged. The mouth opened again, regurgitating more inky liquid. Mendigo flopped out onto the floor, but this time there was not as much pressure behind the foul outpouring. Keeping their footing, Kendra and Seth sloshed forward, the horn outstretched, reaching for the dragon's snout.

As the tip of the horn drew near, Siletta reared away. They charged her, but her long body flexed and twisted away from them. Dozens of squishy, webbed feet backpedaled. Even as the front half of her sinuous body curved out of reach, her tail swung around and whipped Kendra and Seth across the ankles, sweeping their feet out from under them. They hit the floor hard.

"Now I see," Siletta hissed angrily. "Yes, yes, the wicked children brought a nasty thorn to prick me."

Rising together, Kendra and Seth chased the retreating tail. The front of Siletta went behind a fat pillar up ahead and seemed to disappear, her tail the last part of her to vanish. Heedless of the danger, Kendra and Seth raced toward the dragon, coming around the pillar in time to see that Siletta had been climbing the far side. Her head and front legs had already reached the top and started across the ceiling. Leaping forward, Kendra and Seth raised the unicorn horn and pressed it to the end of the dragon's tail just before it rose out of reach.

The tail froze and went rigid. Kendra heard a wet, tearing sound. Looking up, she saw splayed feet peeling away from the wall. The dragon was starting to fall! Breaking contact with the tail, Kendra yanked Seth sideways. They lunged to the other side of the pillar as Siletta slapped heavily to the floor. Coming back around, they found her flapping and flailing. Pouncing toward her rear section, they stabbed the horn against her gummy body.

The writhing stopped. Siletta held very still. The horn grew hot in Kendra's hand. As the dragon began to vibrate, the horn became scorching, but Kendra and Seth kept it firmly in contact with the dragon, even after her legs went limp and her head drooped to the floor. Underneath the translucent skin, the black lines of her veins spread into inky clouds. The strangely visible organs lost their shape and blurred together. Her insides began to boil, and her skin split open, emitting rank plumes of the deepest blues and purples.

Kendra covered her mouth with her free hand and pushed the unicorn horn against the dragon. As Siletta started to shrink and wither, she and Seth adjusted to keep the horn in direct contact. After a few moments, they held the horn against a dry, shriveled husk not a tenth of the dragon's previous size. After Siletta had remained brittle and motionless for a long minute, with no new vapors steaming out of her, Seth said, "I think we're good."

Keeping their hands on the horn, they stepped back. The grotesque dragon husk did not twitch. Kendra looked over her shoulder. Some distance away, a pool of black liquid covered the ground, but she did not see Mendigo.

"Where's our puppet?" Seth asked, voicing her thoughts.

Kendra walked to the black pool, crouched, and dipped the tip of the unicorn horn in the foul fluid. Bubbling and smoking, the tarlike puddle turned to vapor. On the bare floor rested the sword, a flashlight, and numerous small golden hooks.

"What the heck?" Seth exclaimed. "He's gone!"

Kendra considered the evidence. "That black sludge must have dissolved the wood."

Seth picked up a hook, examining it closely. "Not even a splinter left." Tears shimmered in his eyes. "That sort of takes the fun out of everything. Think we could rebuild him?"

"With only hooks left? I guess we can gather them up, just in case."

Maintaining his grip on Kendra and the horn, Seth crawled around the area, meticulously collecting every hook and clasp he could find. Kendra gathered hooks as well. She told herself not to cry, that Mendigo was not a person. The puppet had no identity, no will; he was just a tool. A mindless wooden robot. When he had worked for Muriel, Mendigo had put Kendra and her family in grave danger. But since his loyalties had been altered by fairies, the puppet had saved Kendra's life multiple times. And now he had been destroyed trying to protect them. He may have only been a mechanical servant, but he had been reliable and true. She and Seth would be less safe without him. Kendra found herself wiping moisture off of her cheeks.

"Kendra!" a voice hollered from outside the chamber. "Seth? Are you all right?" It was Tanu.

"Think we got them all?" Kendra asked.

Seth scanned the floor. "Looks like it. We'd better go let them know what happened."

Together they walked to the top of the stairs. Their companions waited not far from the bottom step.

"We killed Siletta," Kendra announced. She and Seth started down the stairs.

The others cheered and shouted congratulations. At the bottom of the steps, she and Seth had to recount all the details. Everyone kept hugging them and clapping them on the back. By the exuberant expressions of relief, Kendra could tell that most of her comrades had doubted that she and her brother would succeed. They were all saddened to hear Mendigo had been disintegrated, but no further tears were shed. Tanu said that the magic animating Mendigo had most likely been in the wood, but that he was no expert on such things, and keeping the hooks couldn't hurt. The Samoan used a key to remove the handcuffs.

"Do you think the horn sanitized the air in there?" Seth asked.

"Touch a unicorn horn to a pond and the whole pond will be purified," Tanu said. "I'm not sure how the horn would affect a gas. The vapors you saw rising from the dragon and the poison pool would be harmless, but the preexisting gasses in the chamber might still have potency."

"We'll take no needless risks," Trask said. "Three of us will proceed to the treasure room, each with a hand on the horn. Kendra should be one, to be certain the horn remains active. She should also be there in case Patton left another message."

"I want to come too," Seth said. "I remember the descriptions of the figurines."

"And I'll come for protection," Trask said.

"I'm going to head back to the hydra," Gavin announced.

Trask shook his head. "We'll face Hespera together once we retrieve the key."

"No, I have a p-p-p-p-plan," Gavin insisted. "Let me borrow Seth's crossbow. I'm going to visit the corpse of Glommus and dip my spear and some quarrels into his vital juices. I may be able to put the hydra to sleep."

"You'll probably just fall asleep yourself when you return to the area where Glommus lies," Tanu cautioned.

"If I do, you guys can wake me," Gavin insisted. "I'm inspired by Kendra and Seth. A small, focused attack has advantages. If I approach the hydra alone, I think I can soothe her and get close enough to prick her. Don't worry, I won't throw my life away. But if I can clear the path for our escape, why not?"

"I'll trust your judgment," Trask said. "You don't want somebody to accompany you?"

"My best chance of getting close is to go in alone," Gavin said. "If I succeed, you'll find me waiting. If I can't pull it off, I'll come back. Or you'll find me unconscious near Glommus. If you don't find me at all, you'll know what happened."

"I don't like this," Kendra said.

"I feel good about it," Gavin replied.

"None of our options are pleasant," Trask said. "Gavin, I think this is worth a try. If you can get close and put the hydra to sleep, we might beat the odds and see daylight again. You're free to go. In case Gavin can't subdue the hydra, the rest of you should make ready to face Hespera and dash to our rendezvous with the griffins. Kendra, Seth, come with me."

Chapter 26 Ambush

The dragons had evidently placed a lot of confidence in their guardians. Beyond the chamber where Kendra and Seth had slain Siletta, a short, spacious hall led to the doorless treasure room. Trask took his time carefully probing and investigating, but detected no traps. With Siletta and Glommus dead, and the hydra pinned back near the entrance, the treasury was left unguarded.

Beyond the giant doorway, the treasury contained three wide aisles bounded by rows of stone tables. An endless variety of items cluttered the tables, ranging from the opulent to the primitive. Elegantly cut gemstones the size of billiard balls rested alongside rough-hewn stone mallets. Walking along one row of tables, Kendra noticed an elaborate pagoda carved from lucent jade, a rusted iron helm, a ten-foot ivory tusk inlaid with gold, a bucket of crude nails, delicate baubles of colored glass, ragged books decorated with arcane glyphs, a rotting leather birdcage, a collection of large lenses inside a compartmentalized wooden trunk, fanciful bronze masks, a tattered cape, a corroded candelabrum, and a pile of copper coins with holes in the center.

Trask, Kendra, and Seth each kept hold of the unicorn horn. Seth towed them across the aisle so he could pick up a gleaming sword.

"Pure adamant," Trask noted reverently.

"Can I keep it?" Seth wondered.

"We should take nothing more than we must," Trask admonished. "We don't want dragons after us to reclaim stolen treasure."

"They'll already be after me for killing Siletta," Seth said.

"We should still avoid causing any extra harm," Trask said. "Combating the guardian dragons was unavoidable. But we don't need to inflame the insult by pillaging their treasure. We owe Thronis the figurines, so we'll pay that debt. If the dragons want them back, they can take it up with him. The key was never theirs to begin with, so, in a sense, we'll have stolen nothing."

"All right," Seth conceded. He replaced the sword and they moved farther down the aisle.

A raised dais spanned the rear of the room, supporting an extra row of stone tables. Toward the center upon a pedestal higher than the surrounding tables rested a pair of gauntlets--lobstered steel embellished with gold and platinum scrollwork.

"Look at those gloves," Seth said.

"Almost certainly not the Sage's Gauntlets," Trask surmised. "On display so prominently, they must be decoys. I wouldn't be surprised if poisoned needles awaited unwary fingers."

"I don't know," Kendra said. "Aside from the dragons and the hydra, they didn't do much to guard the room. They may have been cocky enough to leave the gauntlets in plain view."

"Maybe we should grab the gauntlets," Seth proposed. "We can give them back in the end, but meanwhile we can use them to distract the dragons. If we get in a tight situation, maybe we could bargain with them."

"Not terrible thinking in principle," Trask acknowledged. "But to disturb the gauntlets would enrage the dragons beyond any hope of bargaining. I repeat, our best chance for success is to move quickly and take only what we came for. Kendra, did Patton leave any hint at the Fairy Queen's shrine concerning where in the room he hid the key?"

"I didn't see a hint," Kendra said, being deliberately vague about not having actually read Patton's message at the shrine. Her cheeks felt hot. She hoped she wasn't blushing. In hindsight, she should probably have fished the tablet out of the pool in case he had included any extra tidbits. "And I haven't noticed any writing here in the treasury either. Patton said the key looks like an iron egg the size of a pineapple, with a bunch of protuberances on the top half."

They climbed up onto the dais.

"The figurines," Seth said almost instantly. He led them over to where five statuettes were positioned on a circular mat. "Red dragon, white giant, jade chimera. Is onyx black?"

"Can be," Trask said. "And the blue fishy thing is the agate leviathan."

"Can I let go of the horn?" Seth asked.

Trask sniffed probingly. "I think so. If you start to feel ill, make sure you get a hand back on it."

Seth opened a pouch. "Thronis gave me this," he told Kendra. He pulled squares of silken fabric from the pouch and wrapped each figurine individually, then placed them together inside the small bag.