A Song of Askaldenfirsts and Dragons. Part eight: The New Queen

“It was on fire here recently,” Tulvarick said, shivering. It was snowing and they were having a hard time getting through, because no one drove on the roads anymore and the roads were starting to turn into snowdrifts. They were lucky that the winter in the north, though long, was half over, and there wasn’t much snow after all. But Henriker sometimes worked wonders, creating self-propelled skis that helped them traverse the snowiest spaces. The skis were such thick, wide planks that could move an ermirian through water or snow for some time. But they disappeared after every two hundred yards, and new ones had to be conjured. Therefore, most often the group chose the path through the smallest snowdrifts. The men periodically dragged the Shagri in their arms. Henriker also kept the women warm, but he said that the spell used up his strength, just like the self-propelled skis, and in case of an attack he might not even be able to cast a protective dome...

“And this is the capital of Norvinoria?” Isliya asked.

“Yes,” Tarrick answered her, standing beside the king.

“There’s some kind of a glow behind the king’s castle,” Henriker said.

“Perhaps a winter illusion because of Silenta,” Tarrick suggested.

They were making their way toward the open gate. Suddenly they saw something huge and fiery fly over the royal castle. It was a fire dragon.

“We have company!” The dragon rumbled to someone and flew in the direction of Tulvarick and his group.

“Run,” Tulvarick shouted. He stopped himself and decided to cast the spell of the illusion of bifurcation. It was the tonnebeard spell, but they didn’t bifurcate completely, and their image became a blurred bifurcation, a little more than that of ghosts when they took on a blurry form.

Henriker had already cast a protective dome spell, realizing that he couldn’t get far from the dragon through the snowdrifts, and that it would take too long to create self-propelled skis.

The dragon flew up.

“Mother,” Shagri shouted in fright.

“I’m not your enemy!” the dragon thundered. “My name is Gaaldalksirin.”

“We’ve heard much about the fire dragon,” Tarrick shouted. “A good dragon who burned thousands of innocents!”

“Why do you provoke him?” the king asked quietly.

“Your Majesty, he’ll kill us anyway,” Tarrick replied quietly.

“I am Tulvarick VI Molotildar! The king of Farderland,” Tulvarick said. “What happened here? Who now rules Norvinoria?”

“A tragedy has happened here, Your Majesty,” Gaal said. “And I’m guilty of it too. But I killed the smoke creatures that could have destroyed the whole of Ermir!”

“The smoke creatures?” Uldra suddenly asked.

“Yes, they are alien creatures that devour the flesh of almost anyone, simply by penetrating it in the form of a stream of smoke,” the dragon explained. “As for who rules,” the dragon decided to answer Tulvarick’s question, “we have lost Queen Nulara.”

“Nulara!“Uldra shouted, “Is she alive?”

“Queen Nulara?” the king wondered, too. “We are talking about Nulara Tossed from the Larmar Islands, and she is now the queen of Norvinoria?”

“Yes, she was alive and disappeared. We don’t know where she’s gone. And we have one king here who has lost his memory–”

“Disappeared?” Uldra had tears in her eyes, she seemed to realize only now that Nulara had disappeared.

“A king who has lost his memory?” Isliya wondered. “What king?”

“Yashkirran Vindrick,” Gaal said.

“What?! Where is that bastard? Tarrick, you stay out of this, I’ll go and take the bastard’s head off, just as I took Melkath’s head!” Tulvarick flared up.

“He’s lost his memory!” Gaal roared. “But there are more important matters than vengeance! I have killed the smoke shadows, and I take it you have not encountered them. But there are also the Firsts!”

“The Firsts? Children of the gods? The Barzandakors?” Henriker asked.

“Everything you have read, larmarian, is probably a lie,” the dragon said quietly. “The Firsts are aliens, but they’re not like the smokes, they’re more like arqilunians, and they’ve lived among the arqilunians and other ermirians for several thousand years, creating false legends and rumors, the false mothers and the dragons. These Firsts need a mineral here that helps them regenerate their energy.” Gaal paused. “I was here guarding the memory-lost ermirians, but you came, and now I’ll fly to find my brothers and our surviving mothers, so that together we can fight the Firsts, our alien creators! And you take care of the restoration of the kingdom until I return. And don’t kill those who have lost their memories, including Yashkirran, they couldn’t be killed by the smokes, which means they can be useful. If they have committed crimes, condemn them later, after defeating the Firsts!” Gaal said and flew south.

“You can take your time,” Tulvarick shouted to him, digesting the information.

“Did you understand what he was talking about?” Isliya asked Henriker.

“Partly,” Henriker replied.

“Well, let’s go, let’s execute Yashkirran!” the king said, and his spell stopped working, and he took on his natural shape.

“Don’t be afraid, Shagri,” Uldra said to the girl, “I once talked with dragons, they are not so scary and not so evil, you can get through to their minds.”

“That’s reassuring!” Isliya said, holding her daughter in her arms. Shagri was heavy and mother put her down.

They passed through the open city gates, and then Tulvarick slipped and fell, his axe surging upward and nearly cut his arm as it fell, but the king managed to dodge.

There was hardly any snow in the capital, but there were icy puddles.

“Fucking dragon! He lay here everywhere, melted everything! And then everything was covered in ice!” Tulvarick cursed.

Isliya carefully led her daughter by the hand, trying not to slip.

Four wayfarers were running toward them.

“Who are you? Where did the dragon fly off to?” the isters asked.

“Yashkirran!” the king shouted. “Now I–”

“We’ll arrest him now, Your Majesty,” Tarrick decided to take the initiative, stopping the king.

“Arrest me? For what?” Yashkirran was indignant. The azdairik woman who was with him drew her sword. The other two were northerners, and one had her arm wrapped in something.

“How many of you are there?” Henriker suddenly asked.

“Four of us, there’s no one else here,” the northerner woman shouted, clinging to the one with her arm wrapped around her.

“Is that all?” Tulvarick wondered.

“The larmarians are gone, the snunorfs are gone, Nulara is gone. The gods have cursed us,” Uldra said, and she sank to the frozen, icy pavement of the city.

“Don’t give up, Uldra,” Isliya said to her. “We are alive and we are together! Not all is lost, and not all the snunorfs were dead, and–”

“So where did Gaal fly to?” Yashkirran interrupted her.

“You have no right to ask questions, you wilfhayers shit!” Tulvarick shouted.

“Your Majesty!” Tarrick’s eyes sparkled, and he was clearly thinking of something. “If Nulara is gone, Suljan is gone, the entire royal family of Chrisskarson is gone, all the other noble families of the snunorfs are also unknown where, then it turns out that Uldra of the noble house of Farniss is the only pretender to the throne of Norvinoria!”

“Oh, you son of grigratta! I know what you’re up to! Let me guess,” Tulvarick said, “you mean that since we’re in the territory of Norvinoria, then I cannot execute Yashkirran without the permission of the king or queen of Norvinoria.”

“Yes, Your Majesty, that’s right!” Tarrick said with undisguised joy. “We have committed many murders during this time, and almost all, if not all, were just. But to kill an ermirian who has lost his memory and who might know something important would not be very smart and fair decision, Your Majesty.”

“All right,” Tulvarick said and looked at the stunned Uldra. “Your Majesty, do you grant me, your friend and King of Farderland, the right to perform an act of justice by beheading the former King of Kaushmanashtoon, Yashkirran Vindrick?”

“I can’t remember anything, damn your god or my god, whose name I can’t remember either! The name Yashkirran makes me shiver already! Even the sound of it makes me associate it with something evil and unpleasant!” Yashkirran shouted. “But I’ll fight, I don’t want to die without understanding for what and why, and what exactly I’ve done! I need to remember all!”

“I... Your Majesty... I don’t know,” Uldra hesitated.

“Eh, Uldra... I mean, Your Majesty,” the king remarked sadly. He had already examined the axe, which had cut through the ice and almost got stuck in the stone of the sidewalk. It didn’t appear to be blunted or chipped.

“Uldra, now order me to put Yashkirran and his companions into jail just in case,” Tarrick coached her.

“Ah, well, yes,” Uldra agreed. “I, the Queen of Norvinoria and the Larmar Islands, Uldra Farniss, order that these ermirians be detained and placed under arrest in order to investigate their crimes, if any have taken place.”

“But we didn’t do anything!” said the snunorf woman with strange arm.

“How will you determine our guilt if we remember nothing and you have no witnesses?” the azdairik young woman suddenly asked. “Will you invent crimes, and then condemn us?” she played with her eyes and the sword she had in her hand.

Suddenly Henriker cast the larmarian binding rope spell, and four ropes appeared in the air, which instantly bound all four of the memory-lost ermirians in the chest area.

“Wow, you can do that too!” once again Tulvarick marveled at Henriker’s level of skill. “When we were on the river and almost drowned because of the ashklahars, and then we had to tie up those northern bastards, too bad you weren’t there!”

The northern woman with strange arm, because of the slipperiness and inconvenience of keeping her balance, slipped and fell, hitting her head.

“Ah,” she cried out.

“Annie, are you all right?” the other northern young woman approached her.

“I think so,” she said.

Tulvarick went over to her, and tried to grab her wrapped hand, but the girl cried out when he touched her.

“Untie the northerners, Henriker, I think they may have been held hostage by these two,” and he pointed to Yashkirran and the azdairik woman.

“Your Majesty?” Henriker asked, looking at Uldra. Uldra nodded.

Henriker walked over and cut the rope with a knife.

“Well, well, that’s even more surprising than the spell itself,” the king said. And then he turned to the girl without an arm, “How are you, not badly hurt?”

“No... I don’t know, Your Majesty, my head hurts and is spinning,” Annie answered.

“Well, let’s go to the castle, um, if it pleases Her Majesty,” Tulvarick said and looked at Uldra.

“Yes, of course, let’s go,” said the new Queen of Norvinoria, and they moved into the castle.