Chapter 3: Riddles at the River of Glass

The road to the Burning Peak ran through three days of forest and ended at a river that looked like molten glass. It was so hot it shimmered, and no boat could cross it.

On the far bank sat a small grey heron, the guardian of the crossing.

"Answer my riddle and I will show you the stepping stones," said the heron. "Answer wrongly and you go home."

"All right," said Arjun, climbing off Biscuit.

"What grows bigger the more you take from it?"

Arjun frowned. He was not good at riddles. He thought about bread, and debts, and his uncle's temper, none of which seemed right.

Biscuit, who was bored, began digging at the riverbank with one hoof. The hole grew wider. And wider.

"A hole!" Arjun said. "The more you take away, the bigger it gets."

The heron looked faintly disappointed, the way guardians always do when someone gets it right. With a flick of its beak it tapped the water, and a line of flat black stones rose to the surface, cool enough to walk on.

Halfway across, Arjun stopped and offered the heron a samosa.

"Why?" asked the heron, suspicious.

"You must get hungry, guarding a river all day."

The heron ate the samosa in one gulp. Then, after a long pause, it said, "The dragon sleeps from noon until the second bell. Everything he loves, he keeps in the east cavern. Good luck, small knight."

It was, Arjun later learned, the first time the heron had ever given anyone advice.