Wonse gulped. "Yes," he said, "but you mustn't…"

The silent roar of fury spun him around.

There is nothing I mustn 't!

"No, no, no!" squeaked Wonse, clutching his head. "I didn't mean that! Believe me! This way is better, that's all! Better and safer!"

None can defeat me!

"This is certainly the case…"

None can control me!

Wonse flung up his finger-spread hands in a concil­iatory fashion. "Of course, of course," he said. "But there are ways and ways, you know. Ways and ways. All the roaring and flaming, you see, you don't need it . . ."

Foolish ape! How else can I make them do my bid­ding ?

Wonse put his hands behind his back.

"They'll do it of their own free will," he said. "And in time, they'll come to believe it was their own idea. It'll be a tradition. Take it from me. We humans are adaptable creatures."

The dragon gave him a long, blank stare.

"In fact," said Wonse, trying to keep the trembling out of his voice, "before too long, if someone comes along and tells them that a dragon king is a bad idea, they'll kill him themselves."

The dragon blinked.

For the first time Wonse could remember, it seemed uncertain.

"I know people, you see," said Wonse, simply.

The dragon continued to pin him with its gaze.

If you are lying ... it thought, eventually.

"You know I can't. Not to you."

And they really act like this?

"Oh, yes. All the time. It's a basic human trait."

Wonse knew the dragon could read at least the upper levels of his mind. They resonated in terrible har­mony. And he could see the mighty thoughts behind the eyes in front of him.

The dragon was horrified.

"I'm sorry," said Wonse weakly. "That's just how we are. It's all to do with survival, I think."

There will be no mighty warriors sent to kill me? it thought, almost plaintively.

"I don't think so."

No heroes?

"Not any more. They cost too much."

But I will be eating people!

Wonse whimpered.

He felt the sensation of the dragon rummaging around in his mind, trying to find a clue to understand­ing. He half-saw, half-sensed the flicker of random images, of dragons, of the mythical age of reptiles and-and here he felt the dragon's genuine astonish­ment - of some of the less commendable areas of hu­man history, which were most of it. And after the astonishment came the baffled anger. There was prac­tically nothing the dragon could do to people that they had not, sooner or later, tried on one another, often with enthusiasm.

You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape-the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of its eyes-we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

The dragon stretched its wings again, once or twice, and then dropped heavily on to the tawdry assortment of mildly precious things. Its claws scrabbled at the pile. It sneered.

A three-legged lizard wouldn't hoard this lot, it thought.

"There will be better things," whispered Wonse, temporarily relieved at the change in direction. There had better be.

"Can I-" Wonse hesitated-"can I ask you a ques­tion?"

Ask.

"You don't need to eat people, surely? I think that's the only problem from people's point of view, you see," he added, his voice speeding up to a gabble. "The treasure and everything, that doesn't have to be a problem, but if it's just a matter of, well, protein, then perhaps it has occurred to a powerful intellect such as your own that something less controversial, like a cow, might…"

The dragon breathed a horizontal streak of fire that calcined the opposite wall.

Need? Need? it roared, when the sound had died away. You talk to me of need? Isn 't it the tradition that the finest flower of womanhood should be sent to the dragon to ensure peace and prosperity ?

"But, you see, we have always been moderately peaceful and reasonably prosperous…"

DO YOU WANT THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS TO CONTINUE?

The force of the thought drove Wonse to his knees.

"Of course," he managed.

The dragon stretched its claws luxuriantly.

Then the need is not mine, it is yours, it thought. Now get out of my sight.

Wonse sagged as it left his mind.

The dragon slithered over the cut-price hoard, leapt up on to the ledge of one of the hall's big windows, and smashed the stained glass with its head. The mul­ticoloured image of a city father cascaded into the other debris below.

The long neck stretched out into the early evening air, and turned like a seeking needle. Lights were coming on across the city. The sound of a million peo­ple being alive made a muted, deep thrumming.