The dragons trumpeted their anxious queries. Thymara felt their longing for the precious stuff. It was like a thirst for water, only deeper.

‘NO!’ Spit’s furious roar drowned out all others. ‘Must have the Silver! We must! Kill you if you stop trying!’

Mercor slowly moved until he stood between Spit and the keepers. He favoured him with a long, black stare. The small silver dragon lowered his head until his muzzle pointed at the ground. He hissed low but he also stepped back.

‘Dragons don’t just want the Silver. They need it,’ Thymara said quietly. The knowledge had simply risen in her, some common bit of Elderling lore. But her words were spoken into the shocked lull that followed Spit’s outburst, and all seemed to hear them. The keepers waited, bewildered by the intensity of the dragons’ response until at last Mercor spoke, his words measured and slow. As he often did, he ignored Spit’s outburst.

‘Once, there were places in the river where the Silver ran just beneath the water. And dragons could get what they needed for themselves. There were seasons when it ran shallow, and sometimes, after an earthquake, one place would lose its Silver, but we would scent it out in another. It was precious stuff, and the best seeps were protected jealously by the strongest drakes.’

He was silent for a time, as if he sought the most ancient of memories. Kalo made a deep chuffing sound, a territorial warning. Thymara had never heard any dragon make such a sound before but instantly recognized what it was. Baliper, who so seldom spoke, added, ‘Many a bloody battle was fought for a Silver seep. Dragons were less touched by humans then. We were different creatures.’

‘A savage time,’ Mercor agreed, but he sounded almost wistful for such conflict. ‘We made few Elderlings then … only singers, I think. But some settled here, brought by their dragons. They made a little village. They did not go near the seeps or know of Silver. It was not for them. But then, after a quake much stronger than any we recalled, Silver rose in one of the human-dug wells. The first humans who discovered it died from touching it. But the dragons that ate their bodies became powerful of mind. It was a pure, true flow of Silver, much better than any we had ever tasted. All learned to drink long and deep of the pure Silver pulled up from that well. We began to speak with humans and to use the power of the Silver to shape them into forms more suitable to attend us. They became true Elderlings. From dragons, they gained the power of the Silver, and they built this place, a city for dragons and Elderlings to share. When another quake closed that well, our Elderlings found other sources for us. Some lasted a long time, while others failed quickly. I do not have a memory of how or when this Silver well was dug. But I do have ancestral recollection that once this well near brimmed with Silver.

‘Here a dragon could come and drink his fill. And that was well, for the Silver seeps grew less predictable and harder to find. At great risk to themselves, our Elderlings dug this well bigger and deeper, and built a kiosk to shelter the well. As the Silver receded, it became more and more difficult to bring it to the surface, but they found ways to manage it. Wells were made deeper, this one in particular. The Silver from this well seemed to ebb and flow with the seasons, sometimes shallow, sometimes flowing. Other, lesser Silver wells in this area eventually went dry. But this one remained, always, and so it became our treasure.’

Mercor paused. Thymara heard only the breathing of dragons and Elderlings and the distant whispering of the river. He spoke again. ‘We were not the only dragons then. There were others, but without the pure Silver, they were not clear-minded as we were. Sometimes, they were little better than the lions and bears they hunted in their own lands. When we encountered them, in mating flights or migrations to the warm lands, they could smell the Silver on us. They wanted it. And sometimes they followed us back here, to the source, but we stood them off. They came, sometimes in droves, but always we prevailed against them and sent them back to their own regions.

‘As Kelsingra prospered, we made many Elderlings, to tend the wells for us, and to make places of warmth and comfort for us in the winter season. And to help us guard this, the best source of Silver in the world. And so our city grew around it. The Elderlings quarried stone that had threads of silver running through it, and found many uses for it for themselves. We used Silver to change our Elderlings, and in turn, they used what they learned from us to change this part of the world. The Silver remains here, in threads in the stones, and it speaks to us of those days. But dragons cannot drink stone. And if this well has failed, and we have found no more seeps …’