Based on characters from Fablehaven© by Brandon Mull. The original characters and plot details are my property. No copyright infringement intended.
Once he was in the cave, he followed the map they sent him until he found the large cavern. He swept his light over the large cave room and was astonished. The pile of treasure and gold was staggering but most arresting of all was the skeleton of a huge dragon sprawled across the treasure. Its bones and faded scales littered the glittering floor. He stood on a ledge overlooking a dragon hoard, the first he had ever seen.
He spent the first day just rummaging through the treasure and artifacts wearing his enchanted gauntlets. If he touched anything magic, they vibrated but also protected him from any spell his touch might release. When he found something that he classified as 'his' he moved it aside.
Seth was an honest treasure hunter but not because he wanted to be. Certainly he was coveting some of the magnificent gems and outrageously beautiful gold jewelry but he was dealing with dangerous individuals. They doubtlessly would know if he had taken something he shouldn't. The consequences would probably be fatal or worse, so it didn't pay to cheat. What he had already set aside for himself looked pretty impressive so he didn't feel slighted on the receiving end.
He spent the night curled up in a sleeping bag next to the opening to the treasure room. He could have gone back to town and slept in a nice comfortable bed but the allure of the treasure was too much and he feared someone would get it. Although he knew the fear aura would keep anyone out, he still decided to stay thinking he would get an early start on the next morning.
It took him three days to sort the treasure. He wondered how much of it he could get into his pickup at a time. The gold was heavy. It would take him many trips to get it all to the client.
His pile was small in comparison but it also included the skeleton of the dragon. The skull alone was worth millions in the sanctuary network. He wondered who the dragon had been, how it had died and how long it had been dead.
The morning of the fourth day he ate the last of his food. He needed to contact his client so he drove back into town. His client was thrilled at his success. They informed him there was an armored truck leased in his name back in town. He would need the truck to transport the 'product' safely to them. They gave him a delivery address across the state line in Arizona.
The rental agent didn't even ask to see his driver's license, handed him the keys and told him the tank was full of gas. Seth didn't know that they made armored trucks so large. He had never driven a big truck but found it easy to handle.
He drove out of town with food for several days and two ten gallon jugs of water in the cab of the truck. He turned off the main highway to the lesser traveled road and soon realized that two pickup trucks filled with rough looking men followed him down the caliche road.
He was worried for about two seconds when he realized where he was going and what awaited the men who tried to follow. He started laughing as he turned on the dirt track. Ten miles into the desert, he turned due west.
The two pickups followed his westward turn off the track. Seth watched through his right side mirror as a man jumped from the front pickup truck. Rolling in the sand, bouncing off of a cactus, he scrambled up and started running back the other way.
Shortly the lead truck screeched to a halt and the following truck crashed into it pushing it forward. The driver lost his footing on the brake and the truck idled slowly forward until it came to a stop against a large rock. The truck had moved so far into the aura of dread and fear that terror paralyzed the four remaining men.
Seth stopped the truck and watched through his left side mirror laughing as the angry driver of the following truck wrestled with his air bag and got out of the truck but as he took a few steps toward the leading truck his eyes got wide and he screamed. He turned and ran due east. The passengers of the second truck watched as their driver ran away. They got out of the truck confused and walked toward the other truck. Seth watched as fear overwhelmed them their faces contorted terror. They panicked, turned and ran following their driver due east as fast as they could.
Still laughing, Seth started the truck moving again. He drove the last miles to the mesa. He opened the rear door of the truck and saw that it held a cargo of empty medium size heavy-duty plastic crates and a large hydraulic moving dolly. This would make moving the treasure much easier. He was grateful that it was early spring and that the cave was cool inside. The air outside the cave was hot and dry. He unloaded the first empty crate and even with the dolly it was hot hard work.
It was getting so hot he realized that the paralyzed men could die of heat stroke in their truck if he didn't do something to help them. Seth actually felt sorry for the poor jerks that had tried to hijack him so he drove the armored truck back to the pickups.
The men were so still he opened the door of the truck to check on them. The smell of urine was intense as the overheated air escaped. Their eyes were wide and they quivered in their seatbelts but they didn't appear to know he was there. He thought the fear must be awful for these poor jerks. He saw a gun in the waist band of one of the men so he searched the others. He found five guns on the four men.
He went to the other truck and found one more gun in the dashboard. The men in that truck must have run off with their guns. Seth was now worried that they could come back and shoot at him.
He was glad he had the armored truck. He took all the guns. Once back in the truck he put them on the passenger seat. Slowly he pushed the pickup truck backward and watched as the paralyzed men started to move in their seats. He continued to push the truck but stopped when they started unbuckling their seatbelts. As soon as they could they bailed out of the truck and started running due east, some of them screaming.
Seth laughed as he returned to the mesa, even though he felt a little sorry for them. It was chafing to run in wet jeans, they were going to be sorry for a long time that they ever followed this armored truck. They could run for miles before they had a self-possessed state of mind to stop. It would take a while for fear this powerful to leave them.
Seth took his time filling the crates with the treasure. He found a shovel in the house and actually used it to fill the crates. The treasure didn't care and he couldn't do much more damage to it. The weight of the dragon laying on it had smashed much of the gold into larger solid chunks anyway. At the end of the day the truck was only a quarter full but he was satisfied with his progress.
That evening before he went to sleep he took the guns deeper into the cave and threw them into a hole. The long silence followed by a splash was reassuring.
It took two more long hard days to fill up the truck. On his way out of the desert he pushed the pickups off the trail, if someone came looking they wouldn't see them unless they got right on top of them.
He was glad that bullets did not hit the truck on his way through the desert to the highway.
He got on the highway headed for his client's address three hundred miles away when his cell phone rang. It was his mother.
"Hi mom, I can't talk. I'm on the road. I've only gotten part of the job done so it will take longer than I thought. I'm safe, so don't worry. I'll be home soon." Seth rushed through the words.
"Seth, you should be on your way..." she started to fuss at him in her angry voice.
"I have to finish this. I'll get my school work done when I get home. I'll keep in touch," he interrupted her rant and hung up. He turned the phone off, he knew he would be in big trouble when he got home but he had to get the job done.
It took Seth the rest of the day to get to the client's drop off point in Arizona. Fortunately, they had a forklift that quickly emptied the truck and refilled it with more of the plastic crates.
He returned to the cave early the next morning. Still afraid of the possibility of the men returning with long range weapons, he backed the armored truck up to the door of the house. It took two more trips filling the truck each time to deliver all the treasure to his client. Each time he left for Arizona he turned on his phone and sent a text message to his mother letting her know that he was safe and not to worry he would be home soon. He refused to look at the number of missed calls or unread messages in his inbox blinking on the screen. He turned the phone off as soon as he finished sending the text.
On the final trip to Arizona, the client's agent was satisfied with his statement that they had received all of the treasure. They graciously filled the truck with additional crates for his share of the treasure and gave him an extra large crate instead of medium ones and a few smaller ones.
Seth packed the magical items and artifacts carefully, which made the process take even longer than packing the treasure.
He carefully packed the dragon bones and scales. He was surprised at how the huge dragon skull separated along the bone seams and also how light was. He had been afraid that he wouldn't be able to move the imposingly large multi-horned razor-toothed skull. He thought that maybe he could get in good with Raxtus' father if he just gave him the bones. You never knew when having a good relationship with a fearsome dragon might come in handy. Especially since he was the nearest thing to a king the dragons had. Raxtus was his friend but he wasn't even close to being a fearsome dragon.
The previously unknown cave was open to discovery now. When hikers found the cave behind the house and he knew they eventually would, there would be no clues that a dragon or anyone had ever been there.
He had carefully packed the artifacts that maintained the powerful fear and dread. Together they created a spell more potent than dragonfear. As soon as he separated the two items, he noticed the effect was gone. He packed them separately and marked them as extremely dangerous.
It was twilight once he reached the highway. It was his last trip in and out and he remembered he had to re-latch the gate. No courtesy light came on in the truck when he opened the door and hopped out. He closed the door and looked around.
Cars flashed by him on the highway too fast to be a threat. Still guarded against the gun toting hi-jackers, he shade walked to the barbed-wire gate. To his relief the flash of headlights from an occasional passing vehicle did not reveal his shadow on the ground. This far from the roadway and this time of night he was in complete shade walking.
He found the slack wire gate, tugged it into place and latched it closed.
As he walked back to the cab of the still running truck a pickup skidded to a stop blocking the dirt roadway in front of the armored truck. Five men jumped out with guns drawn pointed at the cab of the truck.
Seth slowly backed into the deeper shadow of the mesquite tree lined fence and watched. He wasn't afraid of the men with the guns. He didn't know fear or react to it anymore but he wasn't stupid. He knew it was a dangerous situation and he was cautious. What would they do if they found no one in the truck? He couldn't let them drive off with it.
The men surrounded the truck, swinging their guns around like TV cops. He half expected them to yell out 'clear' when they didn't find him.
"He's not out here, but the gate's closed," one yelled from the gate. He was only about five feet from where Seth stood, invisible in the shadows.
"He's not over here," another yelled from the far side of the truck.
Seth recognized the truck rental agent as he and two others passed in front of the pickups headlights converging on the dark cab of the truck. They held their guns on the door as he pulled it open.
"I'll shoot you if you jump out at me. Come out slowly," he said nervously, his voice was trembling. He was holding a gun but he was shaking.
The man on the far side of the truck opened the other door. "Come on out, you little freak," he yelled uneasily. "Get out of there."
Seth noticed they were all shaking. They still hadn't gotten completely over their fear. It had been a very powerful spell. They were either really greedy jerks to come back after him as scared as they were or they knew something of his mission and they desperately wanted what he had.
Just a tiny bit more fear and they wouldn't be able to do much of anything, he thought. Mostly they wouldn't be able to shoot me or take my truck.
He closed his eyes and pushed out a wave of revenant style fear. The clatter of guns falling to the caliche covered ground made Seth open his eyes and watch as the men threw up their arms over their faces, fending off the horrible hallucinations their minds were creating in reaction to the fear. They backed away from the truck, yelling at whatever was frightening them.
Seth almost laughed out loud, as the man nearest him yelled, "No, Mama, No" and backed into the barb-wire fence. He screamed as the barbs bit into his skin but he did not attempt to move away, the fearful unseen image completely dominated him.
Seth move stealthily to the pickup and crouched down as the light flashed on when he opened the door. He didn't want the light to expose him. The men were probably too involved with their own hallucinations to notice but he didn't want to take a chance. He killed the lights, shoved the gear shift into neutral and grunted as he pushed their truck into the ditch.
He pushed the guns they had dropped next to the truck into the ditch with his foot. Then with a good swift kick, he sent each one flying into the culvert under the roadway. He heard them tumble along the dirty concrete, far under the road. He hoped that if they saw the guns were missing they wouldn't even look for them.
He jumped back into the cab of the armored truck noticing the men were all cowering in various positions along the ditch. He drove down the road a mile, stopped on the shoulder and turned on his phone. He sent a text to his mother that he was heading home and should be there in three days. He also made a call to the highway patrol and told them he saw a truck in a ditch they should check on. He gave them the highway mile marker number and hung up. Immediately his phone flashed with an incoming call. Without looking at the number, he turned it off again.
When he arrived at the rental agency to drop off the armored truck, Kendra and Bracken were there waiting for him. Though Seth was happy to see them, he also knew what it meant, his mother was very mad. They came to get him to pacify her before she did something drastic.
"Hi Kendra, Bracken. What brings you here? As if I didn't know," he said sarcastically as he jumped out of the big truck.
"Seth, you are in so much trouble," Kendra said walking up to him shaking her head. Seth thought she looked tired and definitely unhappy.
"Hi Seth," Bracken said with a smirk leaning on the door of Kendra's car. Standing under the bright lights of the parking lot Bracken's pale skin and white blonde hair seemed to glow.
"Doh! Really? I never would have guessed. Are you alone or just the advance guard?" he snapped back at her but he waved at Bracken.
"We are here to make you come home," Kendra told him with a sigh.
"How did you find me?" he asked, interested. They would have known what city he was in and his hotel but not the truck rental location. He hadn't even known about this place.
"Your truck's anti-theft tracker," Kendra said smugly.
"I forgot my truck had a tracker on it," Seth shrugged. "But I was coming home. I just sent a text to Mom," he said defending himself.
"Yeah, she called me about it. Why did you turn off your phone?" Kendra asked exasperated.
"You know why! I had a job to do and it took longer than it should have but she would have bugged me to death and it would have taken even longer," Seth retorted. "I texted her every other day. She knew I was okay. I'll make up the school work. What's the big deal?" Mom got worked up over the stupidest things, he shook his head.
Seth was through talking about it, Kendra could see it in his face. He was ignoring her and focusing on Bracken. He had something exciting to tell someone and she wasn't 'the someone' he wanted to tell.
Seth walked over to Bracken and Kendra followed.
"Bracken, you should have seen what I found. It was fantastic," Seth whispered. "A huge dragon hoard!"
"Really?" Bracken said shocked, that was a dangerous place to be. "Where was the dragon?"
"Dead, just a skeleton on the piles and piles of treasure," Seth said with a nod and raised eyebrows. "Got the skeleton and scales in the truck," he admitted proudly with a big smile.
Bracken immediately began to think of what dragons were missing and couldn't think of any. He was woefully out of touch. Now his focus was elsewhere and long missing dragons just weren't as important to him as they used to be.
A bell rang and they looked toward the sound. A rental agent came through the door of the building headed toward them with a flashlight and a clipboard.
"I guess I need to take care of this and I have to unload some crates into my truck," Seth said. "I've got cool stuff, our grandparents will be impressed," Seth reassured them with a smile. He turned and walked toward the agent who had just reached the truck.
They transferred the large crate (the dragon skull, horns and bones), two medium crates and four small crates into his pickup bed. When that was loaded, he crammed the last two small crates in the back seat of the truck. He stuffed the ice chest and sleeping bag in the passenger seat and his dirty clothes in the floorboard.
He was glad that Doren and Newel hadn't come. They wouldn't have been any use because of the fear spell. He would have had to leave them in town. It would have cost him a fortune in hotel charges and the snack bill – well, he didn't want to think about that. He was glad it didn't happen.
When he asked the woman behind the desk about the rental agent who gave him the keys to the truck him she said he had disappeared. The police were trying to find him and several of his friends. Seth chuckled to himself, they would find them soon enough.
Reluctantly he turned on his cell phone and called his mother. The call wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. He knew she was waiting to get him in person before tearing into him.
When they got home, all the crates were unloaded into the storage area. Grandma Ruth was the first to go over the mass of items he brought back from his trip. She was amazed that there were so many items made either from dragon bones or in the shape of dragons. Even wearing the protective gauntlets, she could feel each item vibrating with its own magical quality.
Seth's parents grounded him for the rest of the school year and half the summer. The fact that they grounded him for only half the summer was because Ruth told his parents that he had found some amazing items. Seth also had to give up the dragon bones to the dragons. They forbid him to take on any jobs that weren't Sanctuary related for the rest of the year. Additionally, Agad needed to assure them that he was the only person who could do the job.
After all that the drama wasn't over and done, Seth dreaded the overload of school work his mother dumped on his table. She was mad and gave him extra work to do.
Following a quick survey of Seth's 'reward', Ruth and Stan were unsure of the true significance of his discovery. They called Agad the new head of the sanctuary network. Once upon a time, he was a dragon now he was a wizard. Ruth was hoping with his background that he would know what to do with all of the magical dragon artifacts. She was afraid that some of them might injure or kill someone.
Agad arrived with no expectations but all of the items were a shock to him. Some of the magical artifacts had been stolen and missing for centuries, the rest were unknown and would take careful study to figure out what they were.
The unique head spikes confirmed the identity of dead dragon. He was a renegade dragon that refused to live in a sanctuary. No one had seen him in many centuries. The black scorching on some of the scales meant that another dragon wounded him in battle. He must have died after returning to his lair. Another dragon would have claimed both the cave and the hoard if it had known of its whereabouts.
How Seth's clients found about it was a mystery. A few quick calls discovered that the phone numbers they had given Seth were no longer valid and the warehouse where he delivered the treasure was empty with no clue to the former occupants. Agad was not concerned though it was not a mystery. It was a way of doing business, dragon business in the human world.
He decided to take the most intriguing artifacts to Wyrmroost. Their apparent but unknown magical qualities fed Agad's wizardly curiosity. Raxtus and Seth were in the garden playing an outlandish version of soccer when he asked Raxtus to fly the more delicate artifacts to Wyrmroost. The other's he packed for the long trip by vehicle.
Seth was happy to find out that there was reward money connected to most of what he found. The monetary rewards for the return of known items had made his head swim. Now he felt rich and more money would be coming. The Dragon sanctuaries would compensate Seth properly when the uses and values of the unknown items were established.
Once in Wyrmroost, Raxtus watched Agad go through the unknown items to see what they were. Being a small dragon, he could enter the rooms where the wizard was studying the artifacts. Raxtus was curious, never having seen magical dragon artifacts before. He had treasure in his secret hoard but nothing magical.
During Agad's initial search, he found a secret compartment in one item that contained the scroll. Agad was afraid he would damage the tightly rolled scroll if he tried to pull it from its hiding spot. A probe or tweezers would tear it and magic would not work. So he was reluctant to remove it.
Raxtus realized his avatar was tiny enough to get his fingers into the case and ease the scroll out. He wanted to help so he swallowed his pride and invoked his avatar.
Agad had the good manners not to comment on the appearance of Raxtus' avatar. He was shocked, he knew the little dragon was extraordinary but until now he had no idea how strange he was.
Raxtus removed the scroll and unrolled the vellum. As he read the description of what the spell did he was immediately excited. The scroll held a description and instructions for a ritual device and an incantation that would dispel a dragon's avatar and leave the dragon ready to invoke a different avatar. Raxtus lay the scroll on the table and reverted back into his dragon form. He couldn't believe what the scroll said, a new avatar. Get rid of his old avatar and get a new one.
When Agad read the description, he was appalled, of course. Raxtus had to stop him from destroying it and made him take it to his father, Celebrant the Just.
Celebrant was the highest ranking dragon. Neither he nor Agad wanted anything to do with the scroll. Actually, they both wanted the thing destroyed. Thinking, rightly so, that messing with a dragon's avatar wasn't something they wanted anyone to be capable of doing. Why someone had written the spell in the first place was a mystery to them.
The few Wizards left were dragons who had given up their dragon shape permanently for their human form, making them very powerful sorcerers. Agad knew they also would want the scroll destroyed.
But Raxtus was different. He told his father he found the idea intriguing and wanted to pursue the possibility of using it on himself. Where most dragons in their natural form were fearsome creatures, he was the Fairy dragon, a dragon in miniature, a joke. That was bad enough but he felt his avatar was a horrible mistake. He indeed wanted to meddle with his avatar; to change it completely. His avatar, like his small size was a result of fairies infusing his entire body with their magic before he hatched and a total embarrassment for Raxtus. He only invoked his avatar in dire or extenuating circumstances and reverted back to his natural dragon state as soon as he could.
A very few knew what his avatar looked like. Working with Agad in his avatar form had been a duel edged experience. A nightmare of humiliation mixed with the thrill of finding something that could possibly relieve him of that humiliation.
The only reason Celebrant didn't have the scroll destroyed was because Raxtus was his son and he actually might be able to use the spell. They kept the scroll hidden and guarded until it could be determined whether it was even authentic. Only the three of them knew of its existence. There was dispute about the possibility even to construct the necessary ritual device described to invoke the spell. It seemed quite complex and required some very rare and unique components to make it work. Agad and Celebrant were hoping that the spell was worthless because of its complexity and antiquity.
