Guards Guards - Dragon space

This is where the dragons went.

They lie ...

Not dead, not asleep. Not waiting, because waiting implies expectation. Possibly the word we're looking for here is...

. . . dormant.

And although the space they occupy isn't like normal space, nevertheless they are packed in tightly. Not a cubic inch there but is filled by a claw, a talon, a scale, the tip of a tail, so the effect is like one of those trick drawings and your eyeballs eventually realise that the space between each dragon is, in fact, another dragon:

They could put you in mind of a can of sardines, if you thought sardines were huge and scaly and proud and arrogant.

And presumably, somewhere, there's the key.

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Guards Guards - p7