“Do they have mines in these mountains? It seems an inhospitable spot, and cold!”
“I imagine so. I’ve visited only a tower or two, and the Titan-bridge. They’re descended of warrior-dwarves settled in here to guard the three passes through the Red Mountains, enjoying the patronage and protection of the Hypatian Empire in Masmodon’s time, but it doesn’t do to mention that now, for now they tell stories of the prophet Thul who led them here.”
“Why are they called the Wheel of Fire?”
“Let us hope you never learn this the hard way! Oh, don’t look at me like that; I don’t mean to be mysterious. It comes from their banners and war formations. I can’t explain it—I’m no tactician.” He lowered his voice. “To be honest, other dwarves call them the Appeal of Gold, for they fight not for defense or honor or justice, but sell their axes and bolts for money. Shameful.”
“Is it?”
“Death is too serious a matter to be a subject of commerce, don’t you think?”
They set up camp as they always did, though under the direction of Wheel of Fire road guides. The dwarves dyed their leathers and face-masks a dull red, and black were their flared helms—how ugly the memories associated with that shape!—and cloaks. Wistala found Intanta playing with Rayg, showing him her glowing crystal, and asked for a favor.
“What’s that, me scaly student?”
“I would like to handle the dwarves by myself.”
The toothless lips formed a perfect o. “Now ye have the courage to do so, but skill lackin’. Still, I’ve no love for t’ dwar beggars and would be happy to have my ease. Let’s see to t’ tentin’.”
Wistala begged a few extra candles from Ragwrist, who sighed about expenses. Lada installed them around and behind the spot where she was “chained” so their shadows played across her face and body in an intimidating manner. Lada did many of her tasks with a happier, more confident air these days, and anything that didn’t involve the routine of cleaning, feeding, or sleeping her baby made Lada break into quiet song. She had an eye for artistry, and costume, and pleasing arrangements of even the most mundane candlestick.
Though she still stuck her tongue out at Wistala when she thought she wasn’t being watched. Hominids underestimated the sweep of a dragon’s gaze.
The first day she had many visitors to her tent, but few of the dwarves asked to have their fortunes read. Wistala wished for Intanta’s crystal . . . perhaps that would invite the dwarves to have a peek and ask a question. Instead they peered from their heavy masks into her eyes, or muttered to each other in the dwarf tongue about she knew not what. They left as soon as she invited them to have their fortunes read.
At last a young dwarf—or one who had lost his beard, for he had but a grassy fringe on his chin—came into the tent and flung himself on his stomach before her, a gesture she wasn’t sure how to interpret.
“Oh great daughter of dragonkind,” he said in rather glottal Parl. “I crave your advice. What do you ask?”
She used the speech she’d long rehearsed, a variation of Intanta’s invocation when she sat in the tent. “Rise and place a coin upon my tongue; the quality of the metal brings quality of insight.” She extended her tongue a short distance.
“I’m poor . . . but I have a ring of my granddame,” the dwarf said, coming up to bended knee. He reached into a pocket in his leather vest and extracted a short chain with a few pierced coins and a ring with a shining green crystal at the end. He placed it on her extended tongue—she took the opportunity to smell his hands—and she brought it to her mouth and pretended to swallow. The ring she tucked into her gumline.
“You are troubled. Desperate,” Wistala said, which was evident enough.
“Yes!” the dwarf bubbled.
What would a short-bearded dwarf be troubled about? Love or his position, she expected. Perhaps both. The other dwarves smelled of goose grease or salted pork and beer, but this one’s hands only had a faint floury smell to them. His eyes looked tired.
“You labor hard. Something to do with wheat.” A miller? In the mountains? No! “A baker.”
“Truly!” the dwarf said, his mouth dropping open.
“You love what you do?”
“Nothing is better than the smell of rising dough, or the steam from a freshly baked bun just opened.”
She shut her eyes. Did his family not want him to be a baker, or was it someone else? “I see a problem. You fear you are not loved and respected by those you wish to keep close to your heart. It is hard to put your images and impressions into words.”
“Oh yes! She jests with me almost every day when she comes for her order, and will speak not with the owner but only with me. But she’s from a house with a chair at the council table! And who am I?”
So that is it. She jests with him.
“But she smiles at you, good dwarf, every day that you meet?”
“Oh yes, but she’s famous for her disposition. She’s kindness itself! She laughs when I juggle buns and always buys extra for the poor.”
Wistala found herself liking this young dwarf. She’d been prepared to make him miserable, as a member of a clan who’d done murder to those dearest to her . . . but this fellow seemed so troubled, her heart pitied him. Then of course, he was a baker, who would probably not be foremost in a charge into a dragon’s cave.
She spat the ring out. “The stars and winds, waters and stones weep for your unrequited love, and will not have your offering. Take it back. Present the ring to her family, as a pledge of your love for her. Ask that you may borrow gold against the value of the ring and open a bakery of your own. If you prove yourself worthy of her hand, you shall have it.”
“How is—?”
Wistala bowed her head. “Do not question the workings of the Great Spirits. Ah, they’ve gone. I can see no more.”
The dwarf sniffled. “Thank you, thank you, great dragon!”
Ragwrist and Intanta were aghast. “You did what?”
They spoke to her in the wheeled cabin of the washerwomen and Intanta’s cronies that night by the light of a single candle.
“I couldn’t take the ring from one so earnest and desperate. Besides, he needed it as a pledge against borrowed money.” The last wasn’t quite true, since she’d suggested that the dwarf borrow.
“ ’Tis the most desperate that needs their fortunes told most,” Intanta said.
“Wistala, I cannot deny that you are a draw,” Ragwrist said. “Mostly to children who spend not a penny. I cannot pay for your upkeep, or take a percentage, on nothing. You see the position this puts me in? Why, Lada is worth more to the circus than you.”
Wistala didn’t give a dropped scale for Lada’s worth, though her hand had improved somewhat in the letters to Rainfall. “I will try again tomorrow.”
“No, Intanta will do the fortune-telling tomorrow. You may sit like a stone statue and keep silent.”
“Let her try again,” Intanta said. “I’m glad of the chance to mingle. She hurts none.”
“And helps none,” Ragwrist said. “But this is not the first time I’ve carried dead weight. Curse my soft heart! Sit in the fortune-telling tent again tomorrow, Wistala, and try not to give away my wagons.”
Her supper that night was a poor thin jelly of cooked-down horse hooves—remains such as these were sometimes used as waterproofing or to grease the wagon axles. Short of giving her dirt, she could not see how her rations could get worse.
After nightfall she gathered every particle of information from Brok and the other dwarves about the Wheel of Fire and their habits, then prowled the rocky slopes and managed to get a sick carrion bird. Then she sat and stared at the distant lights glimmering in the tall rocks that faced each other, mirrored in the surface of the Ba-drink. There were towers at the tops of the cliffs. No wonder Father had broken himself against them. Where was the Dragonblade now? In those rocks, or did he hunt her?
The next morning Ragwrist himself woke her, not through noise or touch but by the smell of a thick joint still sizzling on the platter he bore.
“Wistala, up and get to your tent and prepare yourself! There’s already a line outside the fortune-tent!”
She rushed her breakfast—meaning it took her three eyeblinks to eat—and hurried through the show preparations for the back flap of the fortune-telling tent. Lada was already inside arranging the candles; Brok stood ready with her chains and collar.
Brok spoke in her ear as he helped fix her in the false collar. “The dwarves all say an ambitious young dwarf named Stava demanded entrance to House Steelforge last night. He was so insistent, so fair-spoken, and so complimentary about their eldest daughter and plans for his betterment that Dwar Steelforge himself put their hands together, and the engagement party will last a week. There’s some talk of Stava being an unchaired member of the Wheel of Fire Council. A few say Dwara Steelforge just wanted her overripe eldest out of the way so the younger ones could marry, but there’s a sour belly at every feast. But all say it was our dragon’s doing, and that you bring fortune.”