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Clubs and Rings
Dragon RPGDragon RingDragon Tales
Story1Story2Story3Story4Story5|
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| The Adventures of Eustace |
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| from Voyage of the Dawn Treader(The Narnia Chronicles) |
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| Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon's lair, but, Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about dragon exports and imports and govermnets and drains, but they were weak on dragons. That is why he was so puzzled at the surface on which he was lying. Parts of it were too prickly to be stones and to hard too hard to be thorns, and there seemed to be a great many round, flat things, and it all clinked when he moved. There was light enough at the cave's mouth to examine it by. And of course Eustace found it to be what any of us could have told him in advance-treasure. There were crowns(those were the prickly things),coins, rings, bracelets, ingots, cups, plates, and gems. Eustace (unlike most boys) has never thought much of treasure but he saw at once the use it would be in this new world which he had so foolishly stumbled into through the picture in Lucy's bedroom at home. "They don't have any tax here," he said. "And you don't have to give treasure to the government. With some of this stuff I could have quite a decent time here-perhaps in Calormen. It sounds the least phony of these countries. I wonder how much I can carry? That bracelet now-those things in it are probably diamonds-that's easier than gold. I wonder when this infernal rain's going to let up?" He got into a less uncomfortable part of the pile, where it was mostly coins, and settled down to wait. But a bad fright, when once it is over, and especially a bad fright following a mountain walk, leaves you very tired. Eustace fell asleep. What woke him was a pain in his arm. The moonn was shining in at the mouth of the cave, and the bed of treasures seemed to have grown much more comfortable: in fact he could hardly feel it at all. He was puzzled by the pain in his arm at first, but presenly it occured to him that the bracelet which he had shoved up his elbow had become strangely tight. His arm must have swollen while he was asleep (it was his left arm). He moved his right arm in order to feel hisleft, but stopped before he had moved it an inch and bit his lip in terror. For just in front of him, and a little on the right, where the moonlight fell clear on te floor of the cave, he saw a hideous shape moving. He knew that shape: it was a dragon's claw. It had moved as he moved his hand and became still when he stopped moving his hand. "Oh, what a fool I've been," thought Eustace. "Of course, the brute had a mate and it's laying beside me." For several minutes he did not dare move a muscle. He saw two thin columns of smoke going up before his eyes, black against the moonlight; just as there had been smoke coming from the other dragon's nose before it died. This was so alarming that he held his breath. The two columns of smoke vanished. When he could hold his breath no longer he let it out stealthily;instantly two jets of smoke appeared again. But even yet he had no idea of the truth. Presently he decided that he would edge very catiously to his left and try to creep out of the cave. Perhaps the creature was asleep-and anyway it was his only chance. But of course before he edged to the left he looked to the left. Oh horror! There was a dragon's claw on that side,too. No one will blame Eustace at this moment he shed tears. He was surprised at the size of his own tears as he saw them splashing on to the treasure in front of him. They also seemed strangely hot; steam went up from them. But there was no good crying. He must try to crawl out from between the two dragons. He began extending his right arm. The dragon's foreleg and claw on his right went through exactly the same motion. Then he thought he would try his left. The dragon limb on that side moved, too. Two dragons, one on each side, mimicking whatever he did! His nerve broke and he simply made a bolt for it. There was such a clatter and rasping, and clinking of gold, and grinding of stones. He daren't look back. He rushed to the pool. The twisted shape of the dead dragon lying in the moonlight would have been enough to frighten anyone but now he hardly noticed it. His idea was to get into the water. But just as he reached the edge of the pool two things happened. First of all it came over him like a thunderclap that he had been running on all fours-and why on earth had he been doing that? And secondly, as he bent towards the water, he though for a second that yet another dragon was staring up at him fron the pool. But in an instant he realized the truth. The dragon face was his own reflection. There was no doubt of it. It moved as he moved: it opened and shut its mouth as he opened and shut his. He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep. Sleeping on a dragons' hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself. That explained everything. There had been no two dragons beside him in the cave. The claws to his right and left were his own right and left claws. The two columns of smoke had been coming from his own nostrils. As for the pain in his left arm (or what had been his left arm) he could now see what had happened by squinting with his left eye. The bracelet which had fitted very nicely on the upper arm of a boy was far too small for the thick, stumpy foreleg of a dragon. It had sunk deeply into his scaly flesh and there was a throbbing bulge on each side of it. He tore at the place with his dragon's teeth but could not get it off. |
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