A Song of Askaldenfirsts and Dragons. Book one: The outlanders (Part I-IV)

Ingerbert and Arngalda finally reached Hoogmeerfall. The town looked abandoned, but when they approached the first house, an old snunorf emerged from it; his beard was braided like a tonnebeard beard, only it was significantly shorter, his long white hair fluttering in a light breeze. It was Ikhagatber, an old hermit. However, the name did not fit the truth, such old people rarely lived alone, more often they formed small groups and lived together far from any other ermirians.

“Now if he starts greeting us in his language, ” Arngalda said, “then we will listen to his greeting until sunset!”

“We have been waiting for you,” the old man said in the union language. “My name is Eickshamweit, and I know where your cousin is, Ingerbert. But I know his doppelganger as well, and they’re both not who they are.”

“I don’t understand,” Ingerbert was taken aback. “Do you know Edelmer? And what kind of doppelganger are you talking about?”

Suddenly, six more northern elders came out from different houses.

“I’ll tell you now if the elder agrees,” Eickshamweit replied.

The tall old man decided to speak the ancient language of the Ikhagatbers, which was so complex that no one knew it except the Ikhagatbers themselves. The elder looked like Eickshamweit, only he was, one might say, neater, his long hair was gathered in a ponytail, and his medium-length beard was braided into not one, but three braids. And the elder began to speak,

“Ekvertipvilangifirairmerhversuretiagfeerasammalaapleymoghunirsamtvandegrokinmegodamotikemstagpeirrinigustodikanskeeliturpessihugmindekkiskritinutogpaderohetasegraasvoseparseemagersangriogvirdulegurmidadvidipthinaaimsuroksemdaeretadaliktaaksakomulagetimuntrigyapaderugoofarastanduurfirpvioggredakiruteemluskogundanaenahugameroumegtakvilpaskirtframaydvilinemintilakvaroskardinperraogastofdunaastoteeviretstafesfureenvilgraanfaadensakihuugaadurtekenvalengaonsamthalastfegurdleydarinnarsembentarekvirsditveralofarokkurodakvedsovoogsaampikkuriensimibeelsvarmityatandireyr.”

Eickshamweit nodded.

“What did he say?” Ingerbert asked.

“He said he agreed.”

Arngalda leaned over to Ingerbert and said quietly, “Something too short he did, more like ‘no’,” and the girl smiled.

“Arngalda Berartadgen,” Eickshamweit said to her, “don’t you know the Ikhagatbers have an excellent hearing?” and without waiting for an answer, he continued, “We know everything about you, even what you don’t know. A child grows in your womb, and his father is Haemner Hochdeforthskar.”

Horror froze on Arngalda’s face, she instinctively reached under her clothes and touched her belly. Suddenly she rushed to the Ikhagatbers.

“You have to remove it!” she said in an orderly tone! “And he’s not the first who… who did this to me, maybe this baby of that stinking fat man!”

“No, the father is definitely Haemner, and the child must be born!” Said Eickshamweit. The other ikhagatbers remained silent and calm. Eickshamweit watched Arngalda’s tears welling up. “Just because his father was a murderer doesn’t mean the child will inherit his father’s cruelty. Rapists, murderers, and marauders have had children who were kind and caring afterwards. You can abandon him when he is born. But for now, we need all the snunorfs we have! What you’re about to learn will affect generations! But let’s go into the house and while you are resting I’ll tell you everything.”

Ingerbert walked over to Arngalda and hugged her, she cried in his arms. The Ikhagatbers went into the house, while Ingerbert and Arngalda stayed behind.

“You know that I will accept any decision you make, ” Ingerbert said. “They are right, a child cannot be blamed for what his father did.”

“I can’t! I don’t want to… You have to understand!”

“I understand and will accept any decision you make! I don’t care what elders think, if we find a quick way to get rid of the baby, and you want it, then I’ll help you. Or if you want to give birth to him and give a baby away, or even if you change your mind and want to keep him, I’ll be here for you. I don’t know what kind of parents we would be for him, because we can both can see the features of his vile father in him! If it is a boy, then love for him can fade away as he grows up. I think that blood often affects the fate of any child, but not always! I promise to try to love him with all my heart if you want to keep him.

Arngalda wept even more. The ikhagatbers were all in, except for Eickshamweit. He waited patiently, not far from the entrance.

“All right, let’s go,” Arngalda forced herself to calm down and they walked in the direction of the house.

When everyone had settled down, Eickshamweit began,

“At the dawn of time, Ermir was seething with life and the struggle for survival, the planet was inhabited by many animals that appeared and disappeared, but then intelligent beings came up who also fought for the right to live and reproduce on the planet, but they evolved slowly. About three thousand years ago, outlanders, invaders moved to our world through the portal, they called themselves the First. They needed a certain mineral, an important energy resource that allowed and allows them to be strong. There are many deposits of such a resource on our planet. In a union language, the First call it alanjruon. The First has done many amazing things. Truly, we admire them ourselves,” the elders nodded in agreement. “But the goal of the invaders was the maximum extermination of sentient beings since it is difficult to create holes in the surface by special drill animals, which they call verlaweiners when the sentient races control the territory,” the old snunorf paused. “Shall I pour you some ravithlef?”

Ingerbert looked at Arngalda, who shook her head.

“No thanks, go on, ” Ingerbert replied.

“The First created askaldenfirsts, mothers of dragons, who bore monsters for them, but since all these creatures were highly intelligent, the First had no choice but to come up with a legend and create enemies for them. Consistency and determination are very strong sides of the First, but even they began to get confused in their lies, although maybe this was their goal. We, Ikhagatbers, trained our skills in magic for years and communicated in an extremely complex language, as you know, which allowed us to retain the original ideas about the world, knowledge that unfortunately was distorted in the ancient snunorf language. And we stopped sharing with everyone except our Order. We waited, we hid in two cold spots on the planet, in the north and not far from the Belt of Twilight. Arngalda was too small when there were still two stars, and you Ingerbert remembers them, and they have always been there. And so, more than two and a half thousand years ago, we created two ghosts who were able to live in the mountains and put everyone who came there to sleep, as well as take possession of any awakened one. We created two more heroes with high moral convictions. Unfortunately, all four ghosts were too kind and didn’t understand the point of holding someone, so we began to create ghosts from evil snunorfs, from rapists and murderers! At last, thanks to magic, we were able to create eleven ghosts, and the First were able to create eleven mothers of dragons and the same number of falsalvgudinas, false mothers, whose goal was to fight the askaldenfirsts, maintaining an imaginary confrontation. The First were able to understand part of our magic of creating ghosts, so the falsalvgudinas are such intelligent creatures that can take any form, but often appear in the form of copies of the askaldenfirsts. Gradually, we were able to push dragons and askaldenfirsts to the Wall of Ghosts, known to you as the Belt of Twilight, and falsalvgudinas to the west, far into the Outland Sea, to the islands, much further than the Larmar Islands. And then a certain peace came. If someone entered or flew into the Belt of Twilight, then he fell asleep, being guarded by ghosts who could not possess the body of dragon mothers or the dragons themselves but could maintain their sleep, like the sleep of any travellers who happened to be in the mountains. Perhaps it was unfair to the ermirians that we were hiding such knowledge, but we could not control the lies that the First were constantly making, putting it in books and legends. In hopes of awakening the dragons, they concocted lies about an incredible treasure, about secrets, about wisdom and wealth that lay outside the chain of mountains in the Belt of Twilight. We did not have the resources to prevent the spread of false information. But the dragons and their mothers, as well as the falsalvgudinas, were almost undisturbed thanks to constant sleep. Over the past two and a half thousand years, the First tried several times to awaken dragons and mothers in our Wall of Ghosts, and they succeeded! Then one ghost went beyond the mountains and tried to prevent them, albeit without realizing it and even doing terrible atrocities. Also, the dragons themselves, the majestic Gaals of the Ksirin clan, sometimes either refused to fly to the star and die or flew and did not return. The First spent a lot of effort and energy on creating the mother who gives birth to the Gaals, and now she is awake, she also gave birth to twelve sons of the Talanjir clan, her name is Lisandersterna Forbrandermedlis, and she will try to wake up her sisters. And we believe that the First does not know, for some unknown reason, that Lisandra is Gaal’s mother. We sincerely believed that we would come up with a way to destroy the First, or at least we would hold them back throughout the entire life of our planet, but we were wrong. Twenty-one years ago, Gaal flew to the star, and we thought that he would not return, like all the other Gaals, but he returned! Their magic worked. His soul, as the ermirians call it, the kilelkilaar, was revived and Gaal turned into a fiery dragon, which is now doing what the First have planned, destroying all life on Ermir. But they, creating intelligent beings, underestimated their own willpower and intelligence. Lisandersterna wants to confront Gaal, not knowing that he is her son, but, having found out, she can still go against the fiery madness, but we can’t be sure. The children of the askaldenfirsts have also come to their senses and do not want to burn the planet! Every time Gaal woke up, one ghost went beyond the wall; others for some reason did not leave the Belt of Twilight. Now the one has awakened and he is not our best creation, in truth, the worst. Dombard Krachtvensen that’s his name. A rapist, a murderer and a thief. But he is necessary for the fight against the First, like every ermirians, every creature, who’ll join us! We will have to unite everyone! We will have to use the beings created by our enemies against them! We must unite askaldenfirsts, dragons, falsalvgudinas and the ghosts!” the ikhagatber paused and took a sip of the ravithlef. “As for Edelmer, I think you have questions, Ingerbert. And I’ll tell you everything right now. Edelmer you knew as a child was never a simple snunorf. He is a dragon!”

“What?!” Ingerbert exclaimed. “What are you talking about? He doesn’t even look like a dragon!”

“He’s a dragon, trust me, Ingerbert. But that’s not all that matters. The matter is that he has a doppelganger, our creation! A snow argiphone. Askaldenfirst, who is with him now, mistakenly thinks that he is Nordavindurrin, her dragon brother. Her real brother is now sleeping in the mountains, along with other transferred snunorfs.”

Suddenly they heard the flapping of wings, one of the ikhagatbers went outside. After he return, he called the others with a gesture. And everyone left the house.

“My name is Releksdalfiaks,” said the brown dragon with blue lines, “and this is my brother, Hafronsilorush. We’ve come with peace.”

“My name is Eickshamweit,” the old snunorf introduced himself, “and this is Hekkiskelumen, Tillehugskar, Fermardreit, Hugsurfaneit, Eimsamader, and our leader, Adalfreer.” The old snunorf took turns introducing the Ikhagatbers, and each time they bowed to the dragons without much desire. “And this is Ingerbert Ragnwaldskar and Arngalda Berartadgen,” Eickshamweit pointed to the snunorfs, frozen more by surprise than from fear.

“Our brothers’ mother sent us here,” Releks said.

“Yes, we know, stralandir, and she is in trouble now, but I promise that we will rescue as many mothers as we can, and will wake up your brothers.”

The dragons looked at each other.

“You want an alliance after everything we’ve done?” Releks wondered.

“I was just telling Ingerbert what you should know too, stralandir. It is shocking, but I can use the magic of telepathic knowledge transfer if you agree.”

The dragon hesitated.

“I agree,” he said, and he and his brother landed near the Ikhagatbers. Then he turned to Hafron and nodded to him. “If something goes wrong, you know what to do brother.”

The purple-red dragon with blue-green stripes nodded in response.

“Pak Gen Kun Fur Man Tir Kin,” Eickshamweit cast an ikhagatber spell, that telepathically transmitted knowledge.

And the dragon, it seemed that he was about to lose consciousness, he rolled his eyes, and then began to shake his head, and threw out a stream of fire into the sky.

“I… I don’t understand, I’m trying to understand what you showed me, Eickshamweit. If that’s true, then our whole life is a lie, but what about the prophecy?!”

“Fuck the prophecy!” Eickshamweit said, “I showed you the truth, and what to do with it is up to you, stralandir. I will show your brother too, but first, I will heal his throat so that he can speak.”

Hafron looked incredulous but hopeful, and Releks nodded to him.

“Lan San Gro Ok Ver Tur,” Eickshamweit cast the healing spell. And then, almost without stopping, he cast the knowledge transfer spell again.

“I can speak, brother, but I have nothing to say. I can’t believe it, as if they’re trying to deceive me now, and all this knowledge is just another magic trick!“Hafron said.

“If the truth is unpleasant, then any intelligent creature wants to reject and forget it,” Eickshamweit said, “but enough talk, now that you know the truth, then fly after your brothers, and return here with them.”

“But our mother’s sister asked us to wait for her here,” Hafron said.

“We will tell her that you flew after your brothers. Do you think Lisandra will be unhappy with your new quest?”

“All right,” Releks suddenly put in, and he and Hafron exchanged glances and took off and flew southwest.

“And you, ” Eickshamweit turned to the snunorfs, “move toward Queen Nulara’s army.”

“Queen Nulara?” Arngalda was surprised.

“Yes, you saw the death of king Ganrikter, but with the death of the king, our country did not lose everyone else. Carlfrig Wulfrongson made a reasonable decision, although we know that the girl has suffered many losses and her grief overshadows the strength of her mind... But it doesn’t matter right now. You will meet her when you get to them. The army is heading from the southeast towards the Norvinoria capital, and I know that you are driven by vengeance. We are not interested in the fate of Haemner Hochdeforthskar. He is lost as a member of society, as a subject of the kingdom, and as a person. But, Arngalda,” suddenly the old snunorf came up to her and grabbed her hand, “please don’t kill the child that’s growing inside you!”

Arngalda pulled her hand away forcefully and walked away without saying anything.

“We’ll give you karkhashes,” Eickshamweit said, “your goal is to convince the queen, after capturing the capital, to move not only to Talashgeflerwall, where she wants to, but also to leave the borders of Eileenelia and get to the Greywind Forest, from there the elves will move towards you, together with the tukhtaashes and others, and you must convince them to join us, and send the whole army here, but avoid meeting with Gaal. And, by the way, when you’ll be near Frostgarstrad, don’t enter the capital from the west, go around it from the east.”

“It seems that you want Haemner to escape after all. But if Queen Nulara is moving with an army from the southeast, as you have noticed, then the northwestern part of the city may not be surrounded, and the criminals will try to break through there.”

“And who will stop them? You? Ingerbert, who knelt and watched as Echtersom Grinningen raped your beloved, the one who later sent her to the bed of another rapist, you will stop them?” The old snunorf raised an eyebrow.

Ingerbert flared up, but as always, restrained his anger, and looked at the Eickshamweit.

“If you are so powerful, ikhagatber, why don’t you protect and save those who need help?” with these words, he took the girl by the hand and went to the karkhashes, and then they untied the animals, climbed on them and galloped away.

The ikhagatbers watched them go.

“Maybe you should have told him that he is also a dragon? Still, where the arqilunians are, there is Lisandra nearby, she can feel him.”

“They would have to negotiate with Nulara, Tillehugskar, and you are already thinking about what they will do when they get to Kaushmanashtoon.”

The other ikhagatbers were silent, and then, after escorting Ingerbert and Arngalda with a glance, they each went off to their homes.