Wenceslaus the clumsy apprentice despairs of ever mastering smith-magic. His teacher, wicked Black Kaspar, mocks him, but Kaspar’s lonely young wife Kalyna breaks into a smile full of dimples whenever Wenceslaus is about.
None of them know that their mountain harbours a dragon—or that the gold of its tears, overspilling to surface on the mountain as raw nuggets and fragments, will wake a magic wild enough to destroy all three of them.