Petra mixed the colors on the lid of her paintbox, which unhinged to become a separate tray holding five colors and three brushes. At first, she painted with a broad brush, tipped with oxhair, and laid down large strokes of a deep sea blue.
Then she painted with a smaller brush, tipped with fox fur, the finer details of Malaeragoth's scales, claws, ears, and nose in ultramarine and turquoise. Last, she took up a tiny brush, tipped with squirrel hair, to add minute dots of lapis and gold dust to the dragon's form. Malaeragoth twinkled like a jewel upon the wall, and the sapphire scale in Bates' box shown with the same blue light. Looking closely at Malaeragoth's long throat, the crowd could even see where a single scale had dropped away and been replaced by a newer, lighter blue scale.
Petra painted very fast, something that she had learned from trying to draw pictures of dragons in flight, but dawn light was showing at the windows before she was done. Her audience stretched and shook some sleeping gnomes awake as she cleaned her brushes with quick economical moves.
Nix and Silver shoved and pushed other people aside to take a closer look at the dragon, but Bates remained in his chair, clutching his iron box in one white-knuckled hand.
While the crowd admired the vibrant sapphire dragon, Petra mixed new colors in her box lid and painted a smaller picture within the frame of the painted mirror. But no one except Varney looked at Malaeragoth's mirror, painted as floating before the dragon. In the painted mirror, Varney saw his own tavern with himself counting coins into his coin box behind the bar and others craning to look at a woman painting upon the wall a sapphire dragon looking at them. It was, thought Varney, a very clever conceit and he felt very pleased about the new mural decorating the wall of the Dragon Defeated. Unlike the sign creaking in the wind outside, he wouldn't even have to pay the painter in kind for the new decoration of his tavern.
'Well,' said Petra to Bates as she worked on the picture in the mirror, 'is that not Malaeragoth to the life?'
The dwarf had not moved, nor spoken, nor slept for the entire night. Instead, he'd sat on a stool watching the painter with his face growing redder and redder as she got closer to finishing her portrait of the sapphire dragon. Looking at the black anger in his scowl, Nix and Silver knew that the dwarf had lost his bet, but they winked at each other, sure that Bates would find a way to wiggle out of paying.
'Not to the life,' said the dwarf after a long, long pause. 'I'm an old dwarf and I know what I know. I'm not going to be tricked by some woman.'
The crowd murmured their disapproval. 'Why it's a fine picture,' said Nix, 'you can almost see the beast breathe!'
'Still,' added Silver for mischief's sake, 'the dwarf doesn't lie. What's wrong with the painting, Badger?'
'Malaeragoth had eyes,' said Bates pointing to two empty holes in the dragon's head where Petra had not laid a speck of paint upon the plaster. 'If she'd really seen him, she'd know what color they were.'
'As green as unripe plums when he's content, as bright as summer lightning when he's angry,' answered Petra.
'Show me!' challenged the dwarf.
'Best not,' said Petra, packing up her paints and all her brushes except one tiny brush tipped with golden hair. 'Better that you should pay me as you promised and leave Malaeragoth as he stands. Leave his eyes blind. The old wyrm doesn't like people spying on him. And' she added in an angry undertone, 'I don't like people trying to weasel out of a bet.'
'If you can finish it, and finish it right,' said Bates, 'I'll pay. But not a penny before that, and not the cup either. Don't you lads agree?'
'Well,' said Nix, who had a tingle in his big toe that reminded him of the time that a red hatchling had bitten him to the bone, 'I think the lass has done a very fine job. It's definitely not your ordinary blue dragon. It's a sapphire as sure as anything, and who's to say it's not Malaeragoth.'
'I do!' shouted Bates. 'I'm the last living person to see that dragon and only I know what his eyes look like!'
Since Silver loved to make trouble, he sided with the dwarf. 'An unfinished painting is like a tale without an end. We've never given the cup away to any story that didn't have a proper ending. Varney, what do you say?'
Varney made another mistake at that moment by saying, 'I say that you're the judges. If you don't think it's worthy of the cup, the cup and the coins stay here. Not a single button for the lady. And you, Miss Petra the Painter, owe me for your drinks and those eggs and water for your paints.'
Petra flushed as red as Bates. 'Have it your way,' she muttered, loud enough for Nix to hear and remember afterward. 'I warned you. But it's your wall. And your lives.'
She picked up the little brush tipped with golden hair and pulled a silk-wrapped jar out of the side pocket of her pack. She unscrewed the ivory lid of the jar and dipped the brush into it. Something sparkled on the tip of the brush but nobody could say for sure what color was the paint. With quick, deft strokes, Petra filled in the eyes of the dragon.
The dragon's eyes were beautiful, iridescent as pearls and green as new plums, and they sparkled in the pale winter sunlight shining through the cracks of the tavern's shutters. The play of shadow and light upon the dragon's head made the eyes look alive, thought Varney.
'I'll take my payment now,' said Petra, grabbing the cup off the bar and tipping the coins and buttons into her pack. She was heading toward the door as she talked.
To everyone's amazement, Bates did not protest. The dwarf let out a long, loud sigh.
'Yup,' he said. 'It's Malaeragoth!' And he added in a stubborn, angry tone, 'But it's not a very good likeness! He was much uglier than that.'
At the sound of its name, the painted dragon blinked and took a long, hard look into the painted mirror that floated in front of it. Varney stared at the painted mirror too. He saw the crowd within the mirror turn, and shove, and move in a swell of mixing painted colors, pushing away from the painted dragon staring at them with a malevolent gaze.
Varney saw his own painted jaw drop open in surprise. His painted wife rushed to his side. And he felt Mrs. Varney's hard grip upon his arm.
'Run, you old fool, run!' she shrieked.
On the wall, Malaeragoth's painted lips curled back from long, gleaming fangs.
'It moved!' cried Nix, diving for a window and tearing at the shutter as he spoke, years of dragon hunting propelling him away from possible danger.
Silver followed close upon his heels.
'No,' said Badger Bates, stubborn and argumentative to the last, 'it can't move. It's just a picture.'
But even as Bates spoke, the painted dragon coiled off the wall, leaving gaping holes in the plaster behind him. Stones and plaster crashed and ricocheted through the screaming, running crowd. Varney shoved Mrs. Varney behind the heavy wooden bar and threw himself over her.
'Ooof,' said Mrs. Varney.
'Hush,' said Varney.
The painting crumbled slowly like a dam dissolving before raging flood water. Plaster and stones, flecked with a blue rainbow of painted colors, washed across the floor.
Chairs and tables snapped like twigs beneath the dragon's great weight as he advanced into the room. Malaeragoth lashed his tail free of the painting and the roof beams cracked as he rose to his full height, pushing up against them. Malaeragoth roared, a psionic blast that blew through the crowd like a storm wind through a flock of birds. The sheer force of Malaeragoth's cry buckled the remaining walls and blew out the shutters. Nix and Silver leaped through the open window and ran as fast as they could, never stopping until they reached the edge of town.
But Badger Bates stood firm, rooted by the sheer shock of seeing the sapphire dragon again and frozen by the fury of knowing that he was not the last living person to witness Malaeragoth's fabled rage.
And Malaeragoth fell upon Badger Bates, crushing him beneath sapphire scales. The dragon raised itself off the dead dwarf, roared once more, and vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
When the dust cleared from the collapse of the north wall and the subsequent fall of the Dragon Defeated's roof, Varney and Mrs. Varney crawled out from their hiding place behind the bar and began to pick through the ruins.
Once assured that the sapphire dragon was gone, Nix and Silver, being very thankful to still be alive, returned
