Auron didn’t know how to feel about that, so he went back to his bits of dwarf lore. “You were created by the Earth spirit, and made determined hunters of my kind, so we have little choice.”

“Who told you this?” Djer said, sounding more awake.

“You’re woven into the dragon legend that way.”

“Ahhh, I see. Spirits, eh? Dwarves don’t hold with spirits. We believe only what we can see, or hear, or touch. We’re a literal-minded people. We have legends, and some chants that speak of a creation. Would you like to hear my favorite?”

“Yes, please,” Auron said.

“Can I tell it in Dwarvish? You’ve improved enough with the tongue so I think you might follow it.”

“Yes, try me.”

“One says that Dwar, his sons, and their wives were riding in a ship. A great storm threw them off course, and they became lost in a mist. Dwar had a vision of a land promised to them, if they could just free it of a curse of ice and snow, and told his steersman where to take the ship. His sons despaired, and their wives said he was raving, for they headed north where there was little to eat, snow so bright it blinded in the day, and winds so cold they froze the blood at night.”

Auron understood his words well enough. The drake relaxed and tried to make the Dwarvish words bring forth the pictures in his mind, rather than translating into Parl or Drakine.

“They fetched up against a continent of ice. Ice mountains, ice fields. They went into an ice cave, but they began to freeze. They burned everything, even the ice-locked ship. Dwar’s tinderbox was empty, so he went to a mountainside and began to dig through the ice. All the others grew weary and faltered, but Dwar did not stop.

He ignored fatigue, hunger, thirst, because he knew they had to find fuel or die. He found a golden tree in the ice, the Sun-Tree. Once there had been many, dropping jewels and nuggets to the earth like apples and pears each season. But it was life and death for his people, so he took his ax and broke off a limb, then another, then another, and started a fire. The tree was indeed magic, and when its wood was burned, it called to the Sun, and She came and warmed the land and melted all the ice. They were in a beautiful vale. Dwar commanded his kin not to touch the tree, but to take only the gold and jewels that would grow like fruit on the two remaining limbs. Dwar’s heart gave out from the strain of his digging in the ice, and as he died, he bequeathed the mountains and valleys to his people, but the tree to just his sons.

“Dwar’s sons noticed that the trunk and roots of the tree were made of gold. They did not want to wait for tiny nuggets to drop, when they could get so much gold just by chopping down the tree. They cut it down and dug up some of the roots and got enough from the tree to all become kings, but the easy-gotten wealth brought only unhappiness. There were intrigues and plots, double-dealings and waste in the family. Money that came quick was spent quick, and their great-grandchildren knew poverty. But they heard stories and learned the lessons from the spendthrift sons; they knew there were other Golden Trees out there if they looked and worked, for its roots ran through the mountains everywhere. I’ve shortened it, but the chant ends thus:

A Golden Tree awaits the son

Of Dwarkind, each and every one

So dig your mines, harden your hands

Mind your trades, work your lands

Dwar’s bounty waits just out of sight

For the faithful in labors right.

“We have many other stories and proverbs, parables and aphorisms. Some of the ones about warfare and revenge have been expanded upon until they are a way of life, and you get groups of dwarves like the Wheel of Fire. We in the Chartered Company like to think of our own firm as a Golden Tree, of a sort. I just hope the Partners take better care of it than Dwar’s sons did.”

Auron thought of Djer’s words until he fell asleep, and then at dawn they came to the Delvings at Waterfall Mountain.

Auron got a prime view from Djer’s cart. Though the barge pulled for the landing on the south bank, where the “iron road” Djer spoke of would haul the cargoes destined to go upriver past the falls along the quivers of rails, he still saw the mountain when the barge turned for the docks. A waterfall poured down on either side of it: a great rock slope that divided the wall of water cascading from above, the last of the six falls of the Falnges. Auron saw galleries and balconies, dozens of them, cut into the side of the rock, some hardly more than an arm’s length from the falling water to either side. A tower stood atop the mountain—or perhaps the top of the mountain was shaped into a tower—with sculpted walls that narrowed to a bell shape, red-and-gold pennants fluttering from the peak.

Auron had seen some towns of men, but this topped even the mind-pictures of distant cities he had received from his parents.

“How will we get there?” Auron said. “Can a boat make it through that boiling water?”

Djer laughed. “There’s a landing at the upper part of the mountain, but it’s a brave captain who tries for it, with the current running the way it does. We’ll get there by going underground. Just a moment—I’ve got to sign over my pack train to the warehousers.”

Auron caused a stir at the gates as he padded up to the underground entrance at Djer’s side. The guards at the gates, clad in golden mail under red capes, red leather boots set solidly on the doorstep, and layers of chain and woven cord shielding their eyes, crossed their pikes as the unusual pair approached. The gates were covered by curtains of some kind of thick material, emblazoned with the many-faceted diamond design of the Diadem.

“Tradesdwarf, you know that’s a dragon,” one of the door wardens said. Auron now knew Dwarvish well enough to comprehend the talk.

“I didn’t think it was a dog. I’ve sent a messenger to the Partners. I’m Djer, on Sekyw’s staff, just returned from the northlands. There will be a pass for me, I expect.”

One of the wardens pulled aside the curtain and rapped on the door of iron. He spoke through a sliding slot to someone within.

“You’re to wait. Sekyw is coming for you,” the warden said, sticking forward his silver-sparkled beard as if it were a weapon to keep them from the door.

“Hmmph,” Djer said, and walked over to a stool set under a canopy.

They were offered no food or drink, and sat and watched other Company dwarves pass in and out of the gates. Some stopped and gaped at Auron, but most passed the pair with nothing more than a glance from mask-shuttered eyes.

Until one dwarf, an exceptionally stout one with a gold-dusted beard that not only extended down from his chin but out from the sides, as well—so that it seemed to Auron that he held a hairy shield under his nose—came from the iron door with a nod toward Djer. The tradesdwarf stood up and took his hat in his hands, wringing it.

“My apologies for keeping you waiting, Djer,” Sekyw said, glancing at two sheets of paper, one with many lines of closely written columns and the other nearly empty save for a few bare lines. “I hold in my hands two items: a report of your summer’s trade in the northlands that is most unsatisfactory, and some wild proposition involving a dragon. We’re going to discuss both before seeing a Partner, so which shall it be first?”

“The dragon and I are weary with travel. Might we take some refreshment in a warm hall?”

“First I want to hear why you had such a poor season up north,” Sekyw said, inspecting the paper, then its blank other side, turning the sheet back and forth as if expecting something else to have appeared there while they talked.

“Some villages refused to even trade with me. They said that they would only buy human goods. I picked up a little money doing some blacksmithing and ironmongery—”

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard stories of dwarvish prejudice before. A good tradesdwarf wins through nevertheless. I had a mind to revoke your charter, even after I read this. What are you trying to pull off here, Djer? Hunt up some oversize lizard and call it a dragon?”

Auron liked Djer, and couldn’t stand to see him upbraided any more. “Lizards don’t talk,” he said, in his best Dwarvish.

“I wasn’t speaking—,” Sekyw said, then caught himself. “I beg your pardon, uh, young drake.”

“His name is Auron. Auron, this is my superior, Sekyw. Auron seeks passage eastward. I thought we might help him, and he us.”

“I’ve never seen a dragon up close, but I’ve been told their scales gleam like polished metal.”

“He’s a gray. That’s what allows us to use him in this capacity—he has no appetite for gold.”

“A dragon that doesn’t eat gold? Preposterous.”

“Djer speaks the truth,” Auron said. “I’m not sure I like you. I think I’ll find my own way east. Thank you, Djer.”

“Auron, wait!” Djer implored, but Auron winked at him with one eye. He squeezed his chest muscles and spat a mouthful of fire next to Djer’s stool. “Some warmth on the cool morning, since your superior offers none.”

The guards at the door startled, but Sekyw just rolled an appraising eye at Auron. “Perhaps you are worth going to the Partners for,” Sekyw said. “Open the gate!”