upon a second dragon like the first, unable to turn
his head to the rear. I didn't like it at all. I continued to the top of the hill on the south side of the ravine and saw, ahead, the white bones of death. A bit of careful scouting found a line of dragons extending along the top of the ridge, and, before night fell and forced me to return to a worried Mar, I had determined that on all the hills surrounding my valley there was a line of the footless dragons, all facing outward, as if to protect the valley. Another day's scouting made me realize how lucky we were to have approached the valley through the dragon's hole in the mountain, for everywhere else the approaches were guarded by dragons which had, this proved by testing, an ample store of teeth to spit. It was a puzzle, but the abundance of game proved to me that the dragons did not spit teeth into the valley. «It is not all for the bad,» I told Mar. «We will be assured of our privacy. It is unlikely that anyone will be dropping in unexpectedly over the hills.» «But why are there so many?» she asked. «Who knows, with dragons?» I asked. «What do they eat?» «Dragons slay for malice or sport or for some dragon reason unknown to man,» I said, «not for food, for when they kill, the food is wasted.» «We must go and find a place without dragons,» she said. «Soon it will be winter and soon you will be very large. I like this valley and it is safe.» «Perhaps they are only toying with us,» she said, «and will turn their deadly mouths on us without warning.» «I have examined them closely. They seem to be rooted to the ground like large trees. I dug half my body length beside one and found only more hide hidden below the ground. No, they cannot turn.» So the hidehouse took shape. And soon the cold came with the nights, and Mar was growing larger. We ate of the plenty of the hunt and of the dried meats and nuts and spent the last summer nights with our fire vented through the roof of our hidehouse talking of what we would teach our son. Mar was restless and liked to walk about. She liked the stream, and we spent lovely days exploring it, wading in the rapidly cooling water, lying in hiding to observe the swimmers at their task of storing branches for their winter food. Their dam had created a sizable but shallow lake near the valley's center, and there was thick growth along the margins of the lake. We penetrated the bogs looking for frogs one day and made another discovery. There, hidden from view by the dense growth encouraged by the shallow water, was an island. We gained the dry ground and walked through a lovely glade shaded by tall trees, and suddenly there was something ahead. I pushed Mar into cover behind a tree and waited for movement. Then I went forward, crawling from tree to tree, and saw a low mound of strange material, with no eyes and no mouths on the side from which I approached. Now if there was so huge a dragon in the center of my valley that was something entirely different. I crawled closer and saw that creepers and underbrush concealed a thing much like the shape of the dragons on the hills around the valley, but as I circled it I still saw no eyes or mouths. Not until I was all the way to the other side did anything come into view, and then it was a plate much like the plates on dragons or on the dragon's cave far to the east where the small dragons ate grass, mended broken eyes and put out fires. I had often thought of that wondrous cave and the treasures therein and my greed sent me forward to examine the plate close up. It was sunken into the skin of the thing. I threw stones at it and nothing happened. I went back for Mar. Mar did not feel adventurous and wanted to leave. I reminded her of the treasures—I still used the dragonskin knives—we'd left in the dragon's cave to the east. I stood before the plate and nothing happened. I felt it with my hands. It was cold and bloodstained. When I touched a place, a sort of pimple at the height of my head, there was a hum and I leaped away. The plate swung inward slowly, making a creaking noise like a moving dragon, letting dirt and roots tumble inward as it opened. We watched for a long time, and the plate began to close, but was prevented from closing entirely by the dirt and roots which blocked it at the bottom. I ventured forward and peered within. It was black inside. I touched the pimple again and the plate swung open and the sun came out inside. I was startled, but remembered the same magic in the dragon's cave to the east. I peered in. Inside was a cave, round, clean, the air smelling fresh, well lighted. I stuck my head in farther, looking for treasures, and saw disappointingly little. The floor was smooth and warm to my feet, but the room was without treasures, barren. The walls were of the same material as the floor and felt warm to the touch. In fact, the entire cave was pleasantly warm with the temperature of a fine day at the start of the growing season. I tried to get Mar to join me, but she refused. I stepped inside. The plate closed behind me, but I was not concerned, for the dirt and roots blocking it left enough space for me to escape. The sun stayed out, lighting the cave. I put my hands on a pimple on the inside of the plate and it swung open. Since there were no treasures, we left the place, but it remained in my thoughts as the days grew chill and Mar's belly swelled. We awoke one morning to find a covering of snow. «I will see the warm cave again,» I told Mar. She went with me. The place was the same, the plate still blocked by dirt and debris. A breath of pleasantly warm air came from the opening. Inside it was the same, and the temperature was delightful, a pleasant warmth after the cold of the outdoors. I cleared away the dirt and roots from the plate and experimented with it repeatedly. It always opened to the pressure of my hand from within or without. «I will sleep here,» I said. «No,» she said. «Just me, at first, to be sure that it is safe in the night.» «If you will be so foolish I will come with you,» she said, and I could not convince her to spend the night in our hidehouse. We slept. An amazing thing happened. The sun shown brightly until we were cuddled in our sleepskins and our eyes closed, and then it dimmed until there was only a glow, as on a night of the full moon, but if we arose the sun came out again. After a while we tired of testing the magic and slept, warm and comfortable. Not even Mar, after that night, protested when we moved into the cave on the island in the middle of the swimmer's lake. I left the hidehouse, flap closed, in case of future need, but moved our food supplies and possessions into the cave. The first big snow of the winter came, and we had no need for fire, except in the outdoors, where I built a lean-to against the side of our cave for cooking. We did not make the mistake of building a fire in the cave, remembering the white rain which fell and clung to us in the other cave far to the east. Soon Mar was coming and going with confidence, the plate always opening when a hand was placed on the pimple inside or out. With no need to gather firewood for warmth, only for cooking. I had little to do except hunt in the snow for fresh meat, which remained plentiful. Inside it was cozy and we were never wet and we played the game of feeling baby kick. I would place my ear on Mar's belly and my son would oblige by punching a knee or an elbow against the skin, and I'd find myself laughing in delight. I had only one concern, and that was the lack of a woman to aid when the time came. Mar said not to worry. She had aided in the delivery of many babies and would tell me what to do, doing most of it herself. I wanted to journey out the dragon's hole and find a family and borrow a midwife for the necessary length of time, and she protested. «It is our valley,» she said. «Ours and ours alone. I don't want others here.» To while away the long winter days I started the construction of wings. In that remote place, flying from the top of one of the hills into the center of the valley, I estimated, could be done without attracting a killbird. Mar had never seen wings and was fascinated but fearful when I told her my plans to celebrate the birth of our son with a praise, a flight dedicated to God and the gods of man. It was a long project. The hollowed wood had to be properly dried. The hides had to be scraped and scraped to a thinness. But there was plenty of room inside our house. (We had come to think of it as ours and were quite at home there.) Snow lay deep in the valley, and I had to chop holes in the ice to get water. I carried it in a pouch made of leather. Mar's time was near. I began to spend more and more time with her inside the house, and thus quite often I became bored as she napped to prepare herself for her trial. One day, out of sheer idleness, I began to measure the distance around the house, using my hands, counting as I palmed my way along the wall, my hands at the height of my face. It was then that I noticed, for the first time, little protrusions on the wall at a height just above my eyes. They were spaced here and there and were, I decided, much like those which caused our plate to open and close. Of course, Eban the curious had to investigate. I put my palm on a protrusion and pushed, leaping back with a cry of alarm when a plate opened in the seamless hide and left me expecting to see the eyes of a dragon or worse inside. Mar was still sleeping. I lived. I crept back and looked into the hole and saw a curious bowllike thing of some hard material. I felt it and as I extended my hand over it a stream of water gushed and gurgled into the bowl. After I recovered from my shock I tried it again. It was wondrous. The water was warmer than the waters of summer, as warm as the water of the hot spring of the mountains from which the family of Strabo had moved into the Valley of Clean Waters. I tasted the water and it was good, but warm. Not really pleasant for drinking. It was, however, lovely for washing. I dawdled my hands into an accumulation of it in the bowl and when I took my hands out the water drained away with a gurgle and a rash of warm air came, startling me, but drying my hands when I had courage to go back and try again. So. Our house had hidden treasures after all. I moved to the next protrusion, pushed it, watched a plate slide back into the skin, and there was a fountain of clear water jetting into the air and falling back into a bowl. I tested this water and it was icy, like the waters of a mountain stream, and quite delicious. Unable to contain myself any longer, I woke Mar and showed her the wonders, coaxing her into washing and drying her hands at the bowl and tasting the cool water of the fountain. The next plate was much larger, almost as large as the plate which gave access to our house. It opened into a small cave which contained things we did not understand. There was a strangely shaped chair which had a hole in it and contained water, and there was a little cave closed off by eyes which moved as I touched them to reveal a place of hard material. I stepped in and was
