The Dragon Guild

Everything tastes like salt here.

Marston is a salt mining town run by the Lion Salt Works. It’s about as exciting as it sounds. Nothing happens here. And when I say nothing, I mean it. Not in Marston, and not in all of Northwich.

Until the day he trundled into town with his brightly-colored wagon that jingled and rattled with every step of the black and white draft horse that pulled it. One look at him told us he wasn’t from here-- from his long, dark hair tied back in intricate braids to the dragon tattoos that covered his forearms. 

Sharp fingers suddenly dug into my shoulder and I blinked, realizing  I’d been staring. “You stay away from that gypsy devil.” The speaker --Ethel-- hissed, shaking a gesture meant to ward off curses in the newcomer’s direction. It didn’t pass his notice. He chuckled and boldly winked at us as he rolled by. That only caused the old woman to toss him an obscene hand-motion this time. I smothered a laugh. 

“Stay away from him; you hear me, Merideth?” 

I wanted to remind her that I was a grown woman who had seen marriage and widowhood all in the same year, and that I could do as I pleased. 

“You hear me?” she repeated. 

I nodded just to appease her.

***

For the next week, I kept my distance from the peddler, but my eyes continued to find him as if drawn. His name was Gareth, and he made camp at the edge of town near the only stand of trees not cleared away by the mining. During the day, he sold wares out of the back of his wagon to those who didn’t mind gypsies. At night, he would tell the most amazing stories, complete with fire-breathing. Some village folk were mesmerized, especially the children. Some thought he was the devil. And me, I was certain that at night, his dragon tattoos came to life. They danced through the shadows, shimmering in the firelight. My curiosity was captured and finally got the better of me. 

I strolled around his wagon, eyeing the bright copper and silver cookware that caught the sunlight. Hammered windchimes swung in the breeze, laughing musically with one another. 

“Would your grandmother approve of you being here?”

I glanced over my shoulder at the voice. Gareth sat at a workbench in the shade of the treeline. He stood and stepped forward to greet me. He was darker up close with his jet black hair and dark brown eyes. And handsome. I found my words. “She isn’t my grandmother, but she still wouldn’t be pleased.”

“You must really want a new pot or pan.”

“Actually, I am more interested to know if your stories are true.” 

He rested a hip against the work table, the surface littered with the shards and pieces of a half-constructed windchime.

“Does it matter if they are true?”

“So they aren’t?”

“They probably were at one point, but most have become so embellished they are nothing more than fairytales. To me, what matters more than whether the stories are true is how the stories make you feel.”

“And what feelings are those supposed to be?” 

“You tell me.”

What did I feel? I picked up a triangle of copper from the table, fiddling it between my fingers. I had felt so very little in the past six months. Except when I heard his stories. It stirred a part of me back to life, a part that I was certain I had lost with Richard’s death. “Magic and adventure. Two things you will never find in this town.”

“I think you would be surprised. I have found that not every adventure starts with a knight or a damsel in distress.”

“Sometimes they begin with dragons.” My eyes wandered to his tattooed arms crossed over his broad chest. The blue, black, and green dragons were intricately entwined from elbow to wrist. “Do they really come to life at night?”

“Do what come to life?” Even as he asked, he gave a small smile as if he knew that I knew but wanted me to ask anyway. 

I humored him. “Your tattoos? I’ve seen them come alive-- ” My next words still sounded ludicrous to my own ears. “--during your storytelling.”

Something glinted in his eyes. “Come tonight and I will show you.”

My hands found my hips. “That wasn’t an answer.”

“You seem like the woman who needs to find her own answers.”

*****

“And, in a flash of smoke, she vanished!” 

There was a burst of smoke and light, causing the children to jump and gasp. The adults who stood in the background chuckled at the theatrics. I blinked the stars out of my eyes and when my vision cleared, Gareth truly had disappeared. The children’s gasps turned to shrieks as they scrambled around in search. I glanced around the clearing, eyeing the shadows cast by the campfire. Even the adults traded looks of surprise at the turn of events. 

“Looking for someone?”

Gareth’s voice above their heads caused the mass of small bodies to freeze and look up. There, perched on the roof of the wagon a few feet away, sat the gypsy. 

“How did you get up there so quickly?” The cobbler’s son, Arthur, demanded with just a twinge of envy in his small voice.

“Lots of practice and a good amount of smoke.” Gareth jumped lightly to the ground. “Best to leave the smoke out of it when you practice, though. Wouldn’t want to catch anything on fire.”

The cobbler’s wife looked pained at Gareth’s words.

“Well, what happened to the princess?” Arthur’s sister, Anna, chimed in, elbowing passed her older brother.

“You will have to come back to find out.”

She pouted and folded her arms. “But what if you leave before we find out?”

Gareth knelt down so that he was eye to eye with the little girl. The other children pressed closer, hanging on his every word. “I promise to finish the story before I decide to leave.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.” He repeated, as if the words were a solemn vow.

That seemed to satisfy her because she took the offered hand of her mother and they trotted off back toward town. Arthur led the way at a skipping run, yelling. “I am going to practice my climbing.”

“Yes, as you climb straight into bed, young man.”

“Will you keep that promise?” I left my spot to join Gareth by the fire, pulling my shawl closer around me against the night chill.

He added a few logs to feed the flames. “My word is good, and as long as people want to listen to me spin tales and buy wares, I’ll stay.”

I imagined that there was more to him being here than that. But he didn’t give me a chance to question.  

“Are you ready for some magic?” 

I was equal parts intrigued and skeptical. “I don’t know if I would call it magic. I want to know how you make the tattoos look like they come to life.”

“Trust me, it’s magic.” He shed his coat, the flickering light playing across his arms.  Pulling a small pouch from a cord around his neck, he dumped the contents into his palm and edged closer so that I could see what he held. It was nothing more than a simple, white crystal. 

“What’s this?” I don’t know why my voice came out in a hushed tone.

“Just watch.” Gareth whispered back. Slowly, the crystal began to emanate a soft glow. But the light didn’t remain in his hand, it worked up his arm and ignited the tattoos until they shimmered within his skin. One by one, they peeled off his arms, morphing into miniature draconic forms that skimmed above our heads. One tangled its talons into Gareth’s hair and he grimaced. 

I lifted a hand as if to touch one, not trusting my eyes. “They look so real; how did you do it?”

“They are real.”

I scoffed and expected my fingers to skim right through the dragon. Instead, the creature’s rough scales brushed against my skin. I recoiled, bumping into Gareth with a gasp. He chuckled and steadied me with a hand on my shoulder.

“I told you.”

“That’s not possible.”

The same dragon landed on my knee, little claws digging through the fabric of my dress. The pinpricks felt very real. I glanced at Gareth who now sat completely wreathed in bat-sized dragons. He smiled.

“All right, how? Because this is unbelievable.”

“The story to explain this might be more unbelievable.”

“I am a little more open-minded than usual at the moment.” I ran a finger over the dragon’s scales on its chest and it chirped. I felt Gareth watching me as if searching. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but he must have found it, because he took a deep breath as if to plunge into icy waters.

“There is a guild of people tasked to protect dragons.”

“These dragons?”

“Unborn dragons-- dragon eggs to be exact.”

“There are no dragons, they are myths and legends.” I protested out of habit. The dragon on my knee reminded me just how real dragons were with its claw and a squawk of defiance. “Fine! But these dragons didn’t come from eggs, they came from tattoos.”

Silence met my statement and I realized that it sounded just as crazy. I fell quiet and he continued. 

“It takes hundreds of years for an egg to hatch, so it is passed down the line in a protector’s family. It is our job to make sure the egg stays safe. As the ages passed and the original protectors died, some of those entrusted with the eggs didn’t believe in our cause to protect the species.”

“They destroyed their dragons?”

“Protectors cannot personally destroy them, but they can send them off and someone else will. The guild has tasked me and a few others to find the eggs and get them to the Nest for safety.”

Something clicked in my mind. “Is that why you are here? Is there an egg here?”

“There was, but I don’t feel it’s presence anymore.”

“Then, why haven’t you left to find other eggs?”

“There is a chance that the protector is cloaking the egg and that they could slip up. But, honestly, I have felt drawn to stay for a reason I can’t explain.”

He couldn’t mean me? We barely knew one another. Still, I felt a blush rise in my cheeks. “So you don’t know who the protector might be?”

“No. The guild was once a closely knit group, but now we barely know one another’s names.”

“Are all protectors Welsh, like you?”

“We are all over Europe, but most are from the British Isles and Ireland.”

I nodded, trying to soak in all the information. “What are the significance of the tattoos?”

“Every protector has at least one. You receive more with each egg that you save.”

I counted eight little dragons. By now, most of them had fallen asleep where they perched. Gareth sat as still as possible as not to disturb them. I paused as his words made it through my overflowing brain. 

Every protector bore a tattoo. Ethel. My husband. 

Dozens of emotions suddenly stormed through my body, leaving me breathless. All the secrets that I never knew existed, now unknowingly ripped wide open. Trying to steady my hands, I lifted the sleepy dragon off my lap and tucked it into the crook of Gareth’s elbow. 

“Meredith, is something wrong?”

“I should go. Goodnight.”

****

My heart pounded faster than my feet. The cold, night air did little to whip away the blazing, rage of emotions that seared in my chest. 

My husband had a single, dragon tattoo on the base of his neck. And, the inside of Ethel’s elbow sported the similar pattern as both men - worn and wrinkled with the passing of time. I had never taken the time to put it all together or even ask. Now, I couldn’t even ask my husband, since the salt mine took him away from me. And, Ethel. She hated Gareth with an unmatched venom. 

I don’t understand!

The ground seemed to heave beneath me. 

I had meant to head back to my own cottage, but instead, my legs carried me to Ethel’s small dwelling near the heart of town. I went to the back entrance and knocked. The window curtain twitched and the door creaked open a fraction. It didn’t look as if I had woken her, which meant she was waiting for me. 

She knew that I knew. 

She grabbed me with gnarled fingers and pulled me inside. “He told you.” She spat out the words. 

“About the dragons? Yes.”

“I told you to stay away from him.”

“Why? So that I wouldn’t find out about Richard?” I grasped her arm, baring the faded tattoo to the light. “So that I wouldn’t find out about you?”

Ethel hissed and yanked free. “It is beyond your understanding.”

“So tell me! Because the other person that I could ask isn’t here!” My voice cracked. I rarely spoke of Richard and now he was in the middle of everything. 

“For starters, that gypsy is the devil!”

“He is one of you!” I countered. 

“He is not. We do not believe in the same cause.”

“I don’t understand.” I wanted to scream the words out in frustration, but I refrained.

“Of course you don’t. You cannot take his word as truth. He believes in protecting the eggs.”

“And-- and you don’t?”

“That egg almost got my father killed. Those beasts don’t deserve to live and that man goes about trying to save them all. As soon as my father gave me that egg, I got rid of it.”

“You destroyed it?”

“It was the right thing to do.”

For some reason, I felt ill. “What did Richard do with his egg?”

Ethel’s eyes softened for a moment. “I don’t know. I couldn’t feel it after he died.”

I spun on my heel and headed for the door. My mind roared. The air swirled hot and oppressive around me. 

“Who are we to decide if they live?”

“Who are we to decide that they die?” He kept his egg alive. I had to find it.

*****

I tore my cottage apart from floor to ceiling, working my way through every room. I pulled out every drawer, every book, every scrap of clothing. I shoved furniture out of my way. Nothing. If anyone saw me, they would think I had been possessed. 

I finally slumped against the living room wall, noticing the morning light creeping past the curtains. I was bone-weary-- no, soul-weary. 

“Where is it? Why didn’t you tell me?” I didn’t know why I needed to find the egg so badly, but I did. 

I leaned my head against the wall with a thud. I froze for a second before turning and pressing a hand to the wood. My heart thundered. Moving along, I rapped my knuckles on each panel, until a knock echoed back hollow beside the fireplace. I dug my fingers into the seam, trying to pry the board loose. It wouldn’t budge. My nail bent and broke and I swore, pounding my fist against the wall. 

“Why?!”

Something clicked. I gently pushed the panel and it easily slid to the side. I bent lower and, holding my breath, I reached inside the hole until my fingers brushed over something rough. I withdrew  an object wrapped in a burlap cloth and eased aside a corner. A section of green glass shone dully back at me-- cold and lifeless. I pressed my palm to it, but it didn’t even warm to my touch. Something was wrong. Without a second thought, I wrapped it back up, tucked the egg into a basket, and took off for Gareth’s campsite. 

*****

Gareth cradled it in his hands, as carefully as he would a newborn baby. The large object looked small in his grasp. He looked awed and saddened at the same time. 

“What’s wrong with it?” I inched closer in the cramped quarters of his wagon, not wanting it out of my sight. 

Like a mother hen. Or a mother dragon, I supposed. 

He rubbed a thumb over the green shell and shook his head. “It’s dead. When a protector passes, so does its egg, unless it is already in the Nest.”

“No-- you can fix it!” For someone who believed dragons were nothing more than legend less than twenty-four hours ago, I felt a panic in my chest at the thought of the egg dying. A tear trickled down my cheek; it tasted of salt.

“How long has he been gone?”

It took me a second to realize Gareth spoke of Richard. I swallowed reflexively. “Six months.”

“There is one way the egg may revive.”

Hope sparked. “How?”

“It needs a new protector.” Gareth locked eyes with me, the depths almost swallowing me. My own eyes widened at the implication.

“Me?” I gasped.

He nodded. “You were close to its original protector. It may accept you.”

The words sunk in. I had a chance to continue something that Richard believed in. “How does it work?”

Gareth handed me the egg and I nestled it in my lap. Next, he extended the pouch that had fallen from the burlap blanket when he had uncovered the egg.  I untied it, sliding a green crystal into my palm. 

He placed his hand over mine. “Are you sure?”

I nodded, wrapping my fingers around the stone. It instantly warm. A white, hot pain seared along the arm of the hand that held the crystal. I glanced down through watering eyes as a swirling dragon tattoo burned its way across my wrist. 

 “And, you said no adventure ever happens in this town.”   

The egg began to glow a soft green light, pulsing across our faces. I smiled. 

“I was wrong.”