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“You are growing. That’s your foua. Perhaps four more seasons, and your fire bladder will be able to turn that into real dragon flame—as long as you eat properly. Fatty flesh brims the bladder, the old red used to tell me.”
Auron knew about the fire; his mother said breathing his first would mark his passage into drakehood. His body would put a special kind of liquid fat in his fire bladder, ignited when he spat by the substance he was already producing. Mother knew everything.
Father pushed the boulder aside.
“How do you climb down that, Father? It’s too small.”
“My neck fits. That’s all that has to go there, really. It is only a short distance. Climb down and look.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Yes, but not in the way you think.”
Auron sniffed the air wafting up the sink, but smelled only the congealed blood in his nostrils. He shifted back and forth at the rim of the shaft in uncertainty.
“Would a little light help?” Father asked. He coughed, and a gob of flame struck the dead moss hanging there.
The blazing light revealed a narrowing shaft, so even if Auron fell, he would not fall far.
“I don’t see anything, Father.”
“Get under the overhang. It’s not far—my neck isn’t that long.”
Auron tested his wounded leg and decided it would not hold his body weight. He went down the shaft tailfirst.
Something gleamed under the overhang, reflecting the light from the burning moss. Auron entered the alcove and stopped breathing, amazed.
A cascade of silver covered the floor, flowing out of rotting containers like the tent he had seen earlier. Shining golden-colored disks filled little fashioned chambers. Here and there, colored stones like the ones his sisters played with lay amid the metal.
Father peeked in. “Overwhelming, isn’t it? It isn’t much, as hoards go. I’d rather eat the gold than keep it to look at. You may have a mouthful or two, if you wish. If you haven’t sneaked some already, that is.” Father chuckled at unvoiced memories.
Auron took a mouthful of the coins. They had no taste, and he spat them out again.
“Why—” Father exclaimed. “Oh, of course—scaleless. That would explain your docility. When my father first showed me his hoard, I actually attacked him when he came near it.”
“Why won’t I grow scales?”
“Grays are different, my son. It means you must be careful: your skin will be pierced more easily. But on the other sii, having no hunger for gems and gold will allow you to live in the Upper World and far from men if you wish. Other dragons must seek heavy metals out in the Lower World, where there are dwarves and blighters to deal with—or steal it from men or elves above.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Towns, caravans . . . Some came from your Mother. She once did a favor for some dwarves, and cleared out a cavern of blighters. They gave her the silver you see in return. Pretty, isn’t it? Reminds me of moonshine.”
“The dwarves didn’t kill her?”
“She was careful. She met them only in pairs, well above ground. Her gift with languages, you see.”
“Why do dragons help hominids who will try to kill us?”
“ ’The enemy of my enemy is my friend, until my enemy is dead,’ ” Father quoted. “But while helping clear out the blighters, she found this cavern. She decided it would make a good nesting chamber. She knocked off two riders with one tailswipe, you might say.”
“I shall remember that, Father.”
“That’s my drake.” Father chuckled. “Clever little blighter. You think, don’t you? Like your mother. They’ll have a time of it, hunting you, once you put on some size.”
“Hunting me? Does something want to eat us?”
Father extended his neck, and Auron shrank back, afraid of the great crested-and-horned head. Father always looked angry, but perhaps it was just the ridges of his brow.
