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 to help them.
"Well," said Silver, rummaging through Badger's flattened remains as any good thief would, "there's nothing of value here." He slipped his former friend's purse into his own pocket and blew the dust of the crushed iron box and Malaeragoth's sapphire scale off his hands. "What have you got there, Nix?"
"It's the sign," said Nix. He called to the tavernkeeper trying to dig out his squashed coin box from the rubble. "Hey, Varney, do you want this?"
The sign's paint had been scraped away in several places, leaving the rearing white dragon without a head, showing only two of the three adventurers, and depicting just the remains of the painted dwarfs left boot. But the princess, with a tiny crown perched on top of her golden curls, was still smiling valiantly at her rescuers.
"Aww," said Nix, "it's a terrible shame that it's so ruined. It was a grand picture. Maybe you could have the painter woman paint it again. She said she was sorry for what happened, but Bates shouldn't have tried to cheat on a bet."
Varney shuddered. "Not her. I'll have nothing more to do with a woman who draws dragons," he said. "She's off to the east, says she wants to study landwyrms."
Varney took the sign from Nix and stared at it for a few minutes.
"I have an idea," Varney said, getting more and more enthusiastic as he talked. "I'll cut it down and just save the princess. We could call the new place something like the Royal Rescue and hire a bard to sing tales of royal ladies in love. Everybody likes a good love story in the springtime. Stories about princesses are much safer than letting people draw dragons on a wall."
But that princess idea, as Mrs. Varney would say in later years to friends and relations, was just the start of another of Varney's disasters.
THE HUNTING GAME
The caravan rolled along, the wagons creaking, the men coughing and cursing, and the horses whinnying, just as it had for miles and miles before across the Heartlands. The road to Baldur's Gate would be a long one, one that many of the gruff caravan guards had seen many times before. They were familiar with it, familiar enough to watch gullies, turns, stands of trees, and boulders that made up familiar ambush spots.
The scouts were so preoccupied with watching for trouble at their flanks, front, or rear, such that few paid attention to a dark shape in the sky.
Few except Alin Cateln.
Looking out the window, idly plucking at his harp as the wagon in which he rode jostled on, the young bard wondered absently if it was a wisp of cloud or some high-flying night bird. The trip had passed so uneventfully that he was eager to make up distractions for himself on this, the sixth day out of Hill's Edge. His seat tossed him up and down, but still it was more comfortable than a saddle.
"Say, what's that, do you reckon?" he asked the driver.
The gruff-faced man looked at the sky. "What?"
"That shape right there," Alin said, pointing.
"There? The only thing that ain't cloud?" he asked, and Alin nodded. "That'd be Selune, boy, on her nightly walk."
Alin rolled his eyes. Of course the man had not seen it. Just like that, the shape-if it had even existed outside his imagination-vanished.
The stopover in Hill's Edge had been entirely too long and torturous, for the warm Flamerule nights-especially in the hot Year of the Wave-had kept joviality and company outside the inns and taverns where he had needed to play for his lodging and meals. Dashing young men with songs on their tongues and blushing maidens with flaxen or dusky hair and faces tanned golden by the sun… too bad Alin had been trapped indoors.
The wagon gave a shake and disrupted his reverie. Tossing the dark hair that fell in spikes across his face, Alin plucked a sour note on his harp. Ever since that day when his father had sent him away for failing at the Cormyrean academy, Alin had always needed to sing for his supper, or for rides with caravans, and not make merry.
Even on the road, he had to compete with another, much more practiced minstreclass="underline" an adventuring bard by the name of Tannin, who traveled with the caravan along with his adventuring companions. The caravanners would surely put Alin off soon-he only hoped they waited until Triel.
There came shouts from outside, but he ignored them. Surely it was just another arguing match between two of the caravan guards.
Unbidden, the words of a song came to his lips, and he strummed a few notes on the harp.
"I walk the road both winding and true," he sang. "It leads to friends both old and new."
Alin was in the midst of remembering the third line when the front half of the wagon vanished in a flash of burning crimson fury. The force of the blast threw him back, shattering open the shutters on the wagon window as his body flew out. Immolated by flames spawned from the Nine Hells themselves, Alin screamed in pain and terror. Through the darkness, he could see only one thing-the flash of a terrible, dark eye wreathed in crackling flame.
Then he saw nothing.
When light came back into the world, Alin was aware of a sensation of softness surrounding his body. He wondered, for a moment, if he had made it to the Great Wheel and if he would see his mistress Tymora any instant.
Then, after a few happy breaths, Alin realized he was hungry-in fact, he was starving. A brief look around told him he was not quite in Brightwater yet. Instead, Alin was merely tucked under thick blankets and staring up at the ceiling of a bedroom.
He tried to rise, but his head exploded in lancing pain. At first, Alin was afraid his head had come free of his body, but he soon realized-by feeling with his fingers-that it was still attached to his neck.
What a terrible dream, Alin thought.
Finally, after many abortive attempts, Alin managed to lever himself out of bed. He was nude but he was not cold. The window, open to the night air, let in a pleasant breeze. The room was simple, bare, and small, with only a bed and a chair for furniture. His light tunic, indigo-dyed vest, and leather breeches, neatly folded, sat on the chair. Alin picked them up and inhaled their scent-not flowery, but clean.