"Kushner,.Donn.-.A.Book.DragonUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

was no possibility of a mistake.

What could have caused this? We will never know for cer-
tain, but in time Nonesuch became convinced that the great
heat to which he had been exposed while following his grand-
mother down the tunnel had worked a change in all his tissues,
so that their overall dimensions altered with his food supply.
As far as we know, he was the only dragon to whom this
happened, for no other dragon went so close to the molten
rock at the core of the earth, and then returned in a fleshy
form.

But Nonesuch found that as he grew smaller, he grew
livelier, more alert. It wasn't only his fighting skill that improved:

the air tasted better, colors looked brighter, he breathed more
quickly and thought more quickly too.

He had already come to the conclusion that there was little
profit in being a very big dragon. Now, he realized, nothing
stopped him from becoming a small one. Perhaps then he
would find the world more to his taste.

Since neither hunger nor weakness troubled him when he
went without food, he decided to forgo eating altogether; just
a quick snack now and then so he wouldn't forget how. Other-
wise, he would continue fasting until he reached a size that
really suited him.

CHAPTER V

POOL IN THE
FOREST




47

WHAT A STRANGE IDEA, YOU
WILL SAY: WHAT A DIS-

L grace for a dragon to choose to grow smaller!
At first it appeared so to Nonesuch himself.
A short way into his change, he did not
seem to fit into any dignified description at
all. He was just a large dragon, still the
largest creature around, but smaller than
he should be, considering his age. If he had
not been even more obstinate than most