Guild Meisters & Dragon Riders | Book 1: The Vygerists

01 Storms Brewing

    Taran heard rumours about the Guilds. Meisters who promised riches and miracles; who called down storms, drew life into stone, and promised freedom from ignorance. They who dazzled the fool-hearted hopefuls and took their life in exchange right from under their noses. Of course, by then you were too awed to ever notice the price. Who cared if it cost half your life or your daughter's? The Meister chose you from all the others begging for their aid.

Taran flinched as his mother's bedroom door clattered against the stone wall.

A portly shadow lingered in the doorway, watching the boy hunched on the top step of the staircase. Charged crystal lights flickered, waned, from the fixture above their heads; clinging that little bit longer.

"Your crystals need charging, boy." The Meister's voice was as disarming as the smile he sent Taran's way. No matter their profession, Meisters wore benevolence like you would a hat easily cast aside. "I can do it before I go, if you wish."

For a Guild Meister never stole, only took what you owed.

Taran coiled tighter. He tasted vygr on his teeth, the Meister gluttoned upon it as his mother laid in the aftermath. His dark eyes looked beyond the Meister's figure, glimpsing nothing more than condemned shadows. The faint hiss of shifting limbs beneath sheets made his cheeks burn.

"It's not everyday you can claim a Meister Hexxomancer like myself offered you a gift," the Meister persisted, stepping now into the light. His discipline bloated his jowls and drew green veins across his skin. The toxicity and venom he poured with a mere word or touch was legendary this side of the Thymeth River, the black waters curling through Luxdon city as surely as Imperial skysailers saturated the skies. So infamous, Taran's mother had asked for a favour.

Then another and another.

Whimpers called Taran, from a door further down the hall. He half stood, torn between passing the Meister and leaving him unattended or finally seeing him out the door.

The Meister's eyes gleamed beneath his heavy set brow. "Your sister's health wanes, even after all your mother offers me." His expression turned coy, regarding Taran as if they were sharing a badly kept secret. "But we both know her plague is the product of no curse or ill intent inflicted upon your family."

Taran's jaw throbbed. Still he refused to utter a word. He stood and met the Meister's gaze with what he hoped was a blankness that rivalled an Imperial soldier's. The faint uptick of the Meister's brow was a small victory.

"A few more sessions should snuff the illness from your darling sister." Like a curse, the illness filled Seriel's lungs with water and drowned her slowly if it were not for the Meister Hexxomancer's efforts. No healer dared touch those struck by this illness and many Guilds saw it for a bad omen. Those who courted poisons saw it as an opportunity.

The Meister moved whilst Taran gathered his composure. Like sickly fruits and rotting things, he crowded the boy and spoke in conspiratorial tones. "Of course, if your mother wavers before your sister is well, I will need another source ..." His fingers brushed over Taran's brown hair. "My, you have quite the potential, a pity you were born to the wrong class."

Taran lurched back as those fingers tickled his ear. His heart pounded against his ribs, gasping for breath. Louder still it thundered until he realised the noise came from below.

The Meister's eyes remained on him as he fled down the steps and wrenched open the door into the night.

Two people in white jackets and boots stood on the front step. Red lapels and collars stood out just as severely as the blank, ebony masks upon their faces. Taran noted through an adrenaline haze one wore their copper hair in a braid, whilst the other had the most piercing blue eyes.