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

At the very back of the heap, against the ca-
vern wall, were layers of stacked shields, elbow-
deep in tarnished silver coins, all resting on a massive carved
door that seemed to have been torn by its hinges from some

castle hall. Sometimes she dragged herself up on the pile of
treasure and thrust the door aside with her claws. Behind it
was a narrow tunnel that slanted steeply downwards. The
grandmother would stick her head into the tunnel and withdraw
it again. Rarely she entered as far as her shoulders; only once
with all her body but the tip of her tail. She let no one else
enter.

When she had looked long enough down the tunnel, she
withdrew her head, moodily thrust the door back in place,
weighed it down with the shields and coins, and spread herself
out so that a claw and a wing, at least, covered part of the pile
of treasure; then she would resume her thoughts, and her
slumbers, and her tales of the old days.

Almost always, when she had given her account of her
family's history and a catalogue of the rules by which they
lived, the grandmother would heave a sigh that made the
cavern's walls shudder, and remark that their race had declined.




For several generations now, they had lost the ability to
breathe fire. The only traces that remained of this once mighty
power were the internal fires that caused their eyes to glow
and to give forth enough light for the dragons to find their way
in pitch darkness. And, she added, that Kept their blood warm,
so that they were active in all weathers, not sluggish in fall
and sleeping in winter like the lowly reptiles that sometimes
dared to claim kinship with them.

More important, dragons seemed to have missed their
path in dealing with humans. The grandmother's words were
saddest when she spoke of these creatures. She had watched
them closely and felt that no good could come of them. They
were small, soft, fearful, but resourceful: capable of infinite
guile. Sometimes, she suspected, they regarded dragons only
as problems, not as catastrophes. She confessed to a terrible
foreboding that human cunning would finally triumph over the
dragons' strength and sinewy grace, over their fierce courage
and joy of combat.

And after a silence that might last half an hour, the
grandmother would declare that it was not through fear that