by Cara Wylde
She started sobbing. This hadn’t been her intention. Come to think of it, she hadn’t had any particular intention. Maybe, to draw the dragon’s attention, make it come to her and finish what it started before she lost her mind. Anything was better than a slow, painful death. Even to be burnt to a crisp, or eaten alive. She sniffed and tried to control the tremble in her voice.
“If you can hear me, if you understand what I’m saying… please let me go. Please. I-I have nothing to offer you. I will leave and never look back. No one will know you’re still here. No one will know you ever existed. Please…”
Still holding on to the bars, she fell to her knees. She couldn’t hold back her tears anymore. She couldn’t remember when it had been the last time she had cried so badly, with full wails, hiccups, and snot running down her nose and upper lip. She used her sleeve to wipe the tears regularly, but they soon soaked the top of her blouse, where they stopped after rolling down her cheeks and neck. She was a mess. A hopeless mess who was just as good as dead. Every time she had fantasized about what she would do if she was ever faced with certain death, Aileen had envisioned herself as a confident, level-headed warrior. First, she would try to find a way to save herself. If that wasn’t an option, then she would welcome her own demise with utmost dignity.
“Yeah, right,” she said between wails.
She had never felt so lost and miserable in her whole life. She was no warrior. She was just a silly woman who had thought she could change the world by going on an impossible quest and finding a long-lost artifact no one even believed in anymore. Everything had gone so well. Last night, before falling asleep, she had imagined herself in this very cave, studying her surroundings, looking for traps, trying to figure out who or what the Guardian was. Much like Lara Croft. What would Lara Croft do if she found out the Guardian of the treasure was, indeed, a very real, very much alive dragon? She could fight robots. Surely, a dragon would be piece of cake to her.
Aileen was too dehydrated to continue crying. She hadn’t let all of it out, but the thirst was becoming too much to bear.
“Please… just do something, okay? Don’t leave me here.”
She was giving up. No matter how hard she cried or called, the dragon wouldn’t come. It probably didn’t understand her, anyway. It was a beast, after all. Unless…
Aileen wiped her face as best as she could, then rubbed her sweaty, dirty palms on her pants. Carefully, she took the scroll out of her bag, and smoothed it before reading the prophecy for the thousandth time in her 29 years of life.
“In his lair, he never slumbers.
How long he’s lived, he never wonders.”
“It’s he,” she whispered. “Never slumbers, never wonders… The first two verses talk about the Guardian as if he’s a man, not a beast.”
She stared at the scroll for a full minute before tucking it back inside its pocket.
“The story… The real one, the version my grandmother and my mother used to tell me… The Guardian is a man. That’s why Medea betrayed Jason. Because she saw a man guarding the Golden Fleece, not a beast.”
Her brain was functioning at full speed. Finally, after allowing herself to cry and release some of the fear and frustration, Aileen could think again. She had known these things all along, but she was just putting two and two together now. She still wasn’t sure what this meant. Medea might have seen a man when she had arrived in Colchis with Jason and the Argonauts, but Aileen could only see a dragon. A golden dragon with faded blue eyes, so pale that they could as well be white.
“Where is the man?” Aileen stood up and stepped away from the iron bars. “Where is the man you fell in love with, Medea?”
She barely finished her sentence when she heard thundering steps down the hall to her left. Her heart started beating faster, and adrenaline rushed through her veins. She had to force herself to calm down. After all, that was what she had wanted: to draw the dragon to her cell. It came into view, towering over her small frame, and it was all she could do not to scream.
The beast had its wings tucked on its back. Its chest was rising and falling steadily with every breath, and Aileen was enveloped in scorching heat again. It was enough for the dragon to be a couple of steps away from her, and she could feel drops of sweat coming up to the surface of her skin. Great! Even more dehydration! Its large, flaring nostrils released thin threads of smoke, and when the dragon bent its neck to meet her gaze, Aileen had to take another step back. The smoke alone could burn her face. The skin on her cheeks and neck was beet red, and she felt even thirstier than before.
Well, the dragon was here now, staring into her green eyes and waiting. Aileen tried to remember the rest of her plan. Oh, right! There was no “rest of the plan”. She cleared her throat and tried to keep her voice steady.
“Water,” she said. “I need water.”
The dragon blinked unimpressed.
“Right…” She looked down at herself. She was so dirty and smelled so badly that she could barely stand her own body. “I would really like to wash. I can hear water flowing somewhere in the distance…”
The dragon puffed and stepped closer to the bars, its huge nose pressed against the cold iron now.
Aileen studied its face, trying to figure out what was going through its head. When its golden eyes sparkled with something between lust and hunger, a chill ran up her spine, making the little hairs on her nape stand on end. This was bad. She didn’t want that kind of attention from her captor.
“Please? I-I don’t know what you’re thinking… I don’t know how to communicate with you. But if you understand me, then please… just let me go. I’m of no use to you.”
The dragon did the unthinkable: it licked its thin, scaly lips with the tip of its forked tongue.
“Oh shit… you’re not thinking. No!”
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself, stepping farther away from the bars. From the way it was looking at her now, it was clear the beast was contemplating turning her into a gourmet lunch. Or dinner. She couldn’t be sure what time it was. A couple of minutes ago, Aileen had thought she was ready to die. Burnt, eaten… it didn’t matter, as long as it was fast. But that was before she had realized that the prophecy and the story of Medea said the Guardian was supposed to be a man, not a dragon. Maybe, it could be both?
“Listen to me. I-I didn’t know you were here. I mean, I knew the myth was real, but I didn’t expect the Guardian to be… well, you. I thought the Colchian Dragon was a metaphor for something else. The tears… they could have been just drops of water from… from that river or waterfall I can hear from here. The Golden Fleece… I never expected to find an actual piece of golden fleece. It had to be a metaphor, too, right? But now that you’re here and I’m actually looking at you, I don’t know anymore. It’s like everything I learned about the myth of the Golden Fleece was wrong. Both the textbook version and my family’s version. Or… not completely wrong, but so, so muddled.”
The dragon blinked patiently, as if it was listening to her. Seeing some of the hunger in his eyes was gone, Aileen took a deep breath and continued.
“On the one hand, the textbook version says Medea helped Jason get the Fleece by putting the Colchian Dragon to sleep. On the other hand, my family’s version says that, yes, Medea did put the Guardian to sleep, but the Guardian was not a dragon, he was a man she had fallen in love with. And because she loved the Guardian, she tricked Jason into giving up on the idea of killing him. She put him to sleep, but didn’t take the Fleece. Instead, she used her magic to create an artifact similar to the Golden Fleece and gave it to Jason. He never knew it was fake. But, you see… these two versions are so different, yet they have enough things in common to make you think…”
The dragon’s eyes turned to slits as it studied her carefully. Aileen risked taking a step towards it. The heat of its body almost knocked her back against the cave wall. The thing was more of a living furnace than anything!
That was the wrong thing to say. Apparently, the dragon didn’t like the idea of a man who died a long time ago. Or, maybe it didn’t like the fact that Aileen’s intention was to steal his treasure.
“No!” She waved her hands in front of her as a sign of surrender. “No, I don’t want to steal the artifact, whatever it is. I… I know that in order to get to it I would have to kill you. I don’t want to kill you, really. I wouldn’t even know how.”
That didn’t seem to convince the beast. It rose on its hind legs, spread its wings, then fell back on its front legs and blew red, scorching fire through the iron bars.
Aileen was present and fast enough to run to the farthest corner of the cave and curl up in a ball against the cold wall. She covered her head with her arms, and made sure only her back faced the dragon. She couldn’t know if this position would protect her, but that was her survival instinct kicking in. The flames licked at her back, setting her blouse on fire. She screamed and hurried to take it off. Only in her sports bra, she couldn’t tell how bad the burn on her back was. All she knew was that she could feel nothing but pain. She threw the blouse she had been wearing as far away from her as possible, then looked into the dragon’s eyes.
“Please don’t… Please…”
The beast’s chest rumbled, and Aileen understood it was getting ready to blow fire a second time. And this time, it had actually stepped even closer to her cell, and its nose was peeking between two bars.
She had to do something. Anything. But what? By now, she had a vague feeling that the dragon understood her perfectly. Otherwise, why had it listened patiently when she spoke about the myth and its two versions, and why had it gotten angry when she hinted at the possibility of her stealing the fleece? But what could she tell it so it would spare her life?
The dragon drew a deep breath.
Aileen unzipped her hip bag and, with trembling fingers, took out the tear-shaped bottle. She squeezed it in her sweaty palm.
The dragon pushed its nose father between the bars, apparently to make sure the fire got to her this time.
“Wait!” Aileen screamed, holding the bottle in the air. “You saved my life! Your tears saved my life!”
The clear liquid at the bottom of the bottle sparkled in the dark.
The dragon blinked in surprise, closed its mouth, and withdrew.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“All right, all right,” Aileen whispered more to herself than to the dragon. “This is good. We’re getting somewhere.”
She gasped when the dragon turned to his left and walked away, only to reappear and walk ahead, down the corridor.
“What the…?” Aileen took a tentative step towards the iron bars. The dragon turned around, and walked to the other side of the cave again. “You’re pacing. I can’t believe you’re pacing!”
She almost laughed. It was another sign there was more to this beast. Much, much more. It acted… like a human.
“You. Are. Pacing.”
The dragon stopped, fixed her with its pale gaze, and huffed.
Aileen furrowed her brows. It looked like it had given up on the idea of roasting her, and she believed she was quite safe for now. When it tucked its wings along its back and leaned on its hind legs as if it was sitting, she understood the dragon probably wanted to hear her whole story. It wanted her to explain herself. She looked at the bottle she was still clutching in her hand.
“You want to hear about this?”
To her utmost surprise, the dragon moved its head as if to nod.
“This is insane.” As the words escaped her lips, she smiled. “Okay, I’m going to tell you… the real story. I’m going to tell you what my ancestor made sure would be passed from one generation of Callas women to the next.”
It seemed like the dragon wasn’t releasing smoke through its nostrils anymore, and not even his body sent the scorching waves of heat that could make Aileen sweat her soul out. Its broad chest was emanating soothing warmth.
“Medea is my ancestor. The powerful, dangerous sorceress of the Ancient Greeks, who traveled with Jason and his crew, who helped them reach Colchis, and helped Jason fulfill the three tasks which were supposed to bring him the Golden Fleece. The last task was to defeat the Guardian of the Fleece, you…” she pointed towards the dragon. “So far, so good. Everyone in the modern world knows this part of the story. We learn it in school, read it in books. But the second part we learn and read about is not true. The books say Medea put the dragon to sleep so Jason could kill it and steal the Fleece. There are other versions in which Jason kills the dragon without Medea’s help. None of them is true. My version comes from my mother, and from her mother. My version comes from Medea herself, and it survived through the ages because the secret was kept by the women in our family. And my version says that the sorceress, Medea, met the dragon and saw it was no beast. What she saw was a strong, handsome man, and that man stole her heart. Medea fell in love with the Guardian and saw how selfish Jason was. He only wanted the Golden Fleece so he would become king, thinking that was what he needed for the people to recognize him as their ruler. The sorceress saw the artifact and understood there was more to it. Someone was supposed to have it one day, but that someone wasn’t Jason. His goals didn’t match the real purpose of the artifact.”
The dragon was listening intently. Aileen paid attention to its every move and gesture, and she realized it was barely moving, barely breathing, completely entranced by her story.
“Medea spent days in the Guardian’s lair.”
While saying those words, Aileen looked around her cell. Even for her, everything was falling into place as she spoke. Her story made more sense than ever, and it was because it had all happened here, thousands of years before.
“They fell in love,” she continued, her voice gentler now. “The Guardian begged her to stay, but she had no choice. Jason was waiting for her. And yes, she was a powerful witch, but not even she could stand in the way of Jason and his men. She devised a plan: she would use her powers to create something similar to the Golden Fleece, and bring that to Jason. What she didn’t expect was for her lover to refuse to let her go and carry it out. The Guardian said he would imprison her if he had to, only because he couldn’t and wouldn’t live without her. Medea had to come up with a second plan, then. With a spell, she put the dragon to sleep. But just as she grabbed the fake artifact, getting ready to leave, she saw three tears fall down the sleeping dragon’s cheek. Carefully, she caught them in a bottle and hid it under her robe.”
Aileen made a pause. With slow, careful movements, as if to show the dragon she meant no harm and had no hidden agenda, she placed the tear-shaped bottle on the floor. Then, she dug her right hand inside her hip bag and took out the scroll. She unfolded it and read the words out loud.
“In his lair, he never slumbers.
How long he’s lived, he never wonders.
His eyes let fall three healing tears:
The first can soothe all hidden fears,
A troubled mind the second mends,
The third, the body’s pain transcends.
A time will come to pay the price,
The Guardian’s tears - a sacrifice.”
She set the scroll down, next to the bottle, then closed the distance between herself and the iron bars. The heat radiating from the dragon’s body didn’t make her sweat anymore. It was as if the beast used this ability to either tell its enemies they were in trouble, or let its friends know they were safe. It was odd, but Aileen felt safe now.
“This is Medea’s prophecy. Each of your tears could heal something in a human, but that miracle came at a price. The women in my family passed the story, the prophecy, and the healing tears from one generation to the next, but fearing the
sacrifice mentioned in the last verse, they never dared to use the tears. Not even when they could have saved someone from certain death.” She paused and looked at her own hands clutching the bars. The iron was still warm from the dragon’s fire. She smiled. “Until I was born.”
The beast leaned in. To her surprise, Aileen didn’t back away. All she could see in its eyes was the desire to hear the end of her story.
“I… I was not a healthy child.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I was born with what we call Level 3 Autism Spectrum Disorder. It’s the most severe level of autism.” She opened her eyes and looked up at the dragon. A dark chuckle escaped her lips. “Of course, you wouldn’t know what that is. Probably, in your time, children suffering of something like that would either be left to die, or seen as messengers of the gods. Let me try to explain some of the symptoms I had… I can’t remember having them; I was too little. But my mother told me when I grew up.” She counted them on her fingers. “I could barely speak, I was very moody, couldn’t sleep, people couldn’t deal with me most of the time, I was sensitive to everything… noises, more than two or three people in the room… I couldn’t stand their presence. I was very aggressive and would sometimes attack my mother, or anyone who tried to get close to me. With my teeth, my nails… anything. My parents and my grandparents tried to help me, took me to doctors, did everything in their power. The truth was… I was never going to have a normal life. Even if they poured money into various treatments, I would never grow up to be a normally functioning adult. My mother told me she wanted to heal me with the tears… your tears… many times, but my grandmother said ‘no’ every time. She was afraid the sacrifice would be too great, and she was sure I would be the one to pay it one day. She didn’t want me to be healed only to suffer even more later in my life. Then… something happened. I injured myself for the first time. I don’t remember it, but my mother told me she had been gone from the room for a few minutes, and when she came back, blood was oozing from a deep gash on my forehead. She didn’t even consult my grandmother. She went straight to the safe where she kept the tears and the prophecy, opened the bottle, and forced me to drink the first two tears. The next morning, I felt like I was a new person. And I continued to be that new person until this very day.”