A Song of Askaldenfirsts and Dragons. Part seven: Gaaldalksirin

“Noooo!” shouted Gaal seeing how in the blink of an eye only the bones of his mother remained, which fell into a gray cloud. The dragon flew up to the smokes and began furiously pouring fire on any movement he could see. Hatred raged in him, his eyes saw the slightest fluctuation of shadow-smokes, despite various illusions and reflections of light of the star. The dragon flew up to each of the smokes and if he didn’t burn them with fire from his mouth, he burned them with his body and the shadow-smokes disappeared, touching the very essence of the fire! Several smokes flew towards the planet to enter the clouds. Gaal began to dive, not letting them get lost in the smoky-ash sky.

He flew and dived into the clouds several times, and then flew over them again, peering into the ashen haze. After a while, he decided that all the smokes seemed to have been destroyed. He felt as if a part of Lisandra’s essence was with him, as if a piece of his mother remained in him that merged with his kilelkilaar.

Gaal flew over the ash clouds for a long time, watching the star move away from him. He tried to find the shadow-smokes, fearing that he had missed at least one. Then he flew to look for the tukhtaashes left on the planet.

A few hours later he found them. The tukhtaashes found a place as far away from lava and volcanoes as possible. They were exhausted and sat on a ground, almost without clothes. When Gaal flew up to them, one of them had already cast a protective dome spell, and when Gaal flew closer, there were already two domes.

“Today you will die!” Gaal said, filled with hatred. He didn’t forget how the tukhtaashes ordered him to kill his mother, he remembered how the other tukhtaashes controlled him and he chased his brother Erbalar... And Gaal spewed a huge stream of fire, breaking through one magical dome. The stream was so long that it continued to melt the second protective barrier.

“Wait, wait!” the skinny tukhtaash cried out, and those were his last words. Gaal completely incinerated him, so that his charred body was pressed into the ground and before the eyes turned into dust. Gaal inhaled and opened his mouth again, and the giant stream of flame ate away the tukhtaash woman as if she had been killed by shadow-smoke, only this time there was no skull or bones left. She turned into pieces of ash. And the fire dragon turned to the last one, who was about to turn into a dragon, but he didn’t have time…

Then he saw another protective dome in the distance, illuminated by a bluish light. Gaal was about to fly there when suddenly a hooded old man appeared next to him.

“You must have killed everyone. Oh, stupid animal!” the old man said and threw off his hood.

“Animal?! Who are you to talk to me like that?” and Gaal spewed a stream of flame without waiting for the old man’s reaction, but the old man jumped back and quickly cast a four-sloped protective dome.

“Gaal? Have you regained your memory and consciousness?” the old man asked. The old man looked like an old forest elf.

“Yes, arqilunian,” Gaal said. “How did you get here?”

“Gaal, I’m not an arqilunian, I am the First, I came for my… mmm… daughter, for Lisandra and her sons.”

“The First? The same First who created the mothers and the falsalvgudinas for a meaningless confrontation?” Gaal asked.

“So you’ve met Lisandra after all,” the old elf smiled, “and where is she?”

“My mother is dead!” Gaal growled angrily.

“How? Who killed her? You?” the old elf asked in surprise.

“How dare you think that I could hurt my own mother!”

“Well, maybe you were still in your animal form of a fire beast,” the elf reminded Gaal of who he was recently. “You’ve burned many of your brothers–”

“I know!” the dragon growled. “I have no excuse! But I want one thing now! I want revenge! Vile smokes! I’ll destroy every single one of them!”

“Hmm, so Lisandra was killed by the greyskuggies. I’m pretty sure we destroyed them all.”

“They came from a planet satellite,” Gaal said, trying to calm himself.

“Hmm, how many were there?” old elf asked.

“Hundreds, probably,” Gaal answered. “I destroyed them all. I hope so!”

“And here, you killed three tukhtaashes, didn’t you?”

“Were they your friends, First?” Gaal asked.

“No, they were not. I’m glad they’re dead. Imagining themselves liberators, they are turning our continent into ruins even more–”

“Our continent?” Gaal interrupted him. “Ermir is not your planet, First.”

“Well, it’s not yours either, dragon. There were no dragons on Ermir at all. The biggest natural flying creatures on it are argiphones,” the old elf remarked and grinned.

“Don’t tease me, First. I won’t hesitate to destroy a ‘grandfather’ like you. We’re probably not even related.”

“I think it’s pointless to argue about anything now, Gaal. How about I open a portal to Ermir to your surviving brothers?”

“Hmm, First… All right,” Gaal agreed.

Ansell opened the portal, and Gaal and the First entered it and exited immediately near the Belt of Twilight, where the other dragons and ermirians were.

“Beware, mad miralfaran!” one dragon growled.

Gaal recognized them all at once, but did not understand who it was growling. The dragons soared into the sky, all except Dukeil.

“I’m not mad!” Gaal shouted. The ermirians took up fighting poses, even those who were wounded.

“Miralfaran?” the wounded Dukeil walked up to the fiery dragon and looked at him. Gaal gave him a kindly fire look, as far as it was possible to understand and feel.

“Yes, it’s me, Dukeil. I hope your injury has nothing to do with me, brother,” Gaal said sadly.

“No, miralfaran. But we’ve been told what you have done! Perhaps someday someone will sing here about the great battle of dragons in the Farderland. But I, Erafner, Stellar, Darlat and Lanmeit were asleep. Askaldenfirst Lisandra woke us up. But Releksdalfiaks, Ashneer, and Halicksimonish–”

“Lisandra... mother... Brothers, forgive me. Erafner and Stellar, our mother is dead!”

“Who killed her?” Dukeil asked as the two Talanjir flew up to Gaal.

“The smokes. The First called them greyskuggies. They also killed our brothers Daervar and Erbalar,” Gaal answered.

“Madness!” Ashneersimonish roared, his head, neck, and body were burned.

“What happened to you, Ashneer?” Gaal asked.

“Don’t you remember, miralfaran?” Ashneer asked and looked into the eyes of the fiery dragon more with regret than with hatred.

“I’m sorry, brother,” Gaal said, “I hope that someday we can find a suitable punishment for my misdeeds–”

“You didn’t know what was going on,” the old elf interrupted him.

“It’s better to punish those who made us, those who invented the prophecies,” Ashneer said and cast a contemptuous glance at the First.

The ermirians began to move closer to Gaal and the First.

“Stop, Laylith, wait!” the tukhtaash woman shouted to the half-elf.

The half-elf woman approached the dragons. She was overcome with grief.

“Ansellellor, please open the portal to Malderfir right now. I must find my father, though he has abandoned me twice already... But I must!” she held back tears and anger.

“What is your name, child?” Gaal asked.

“Laeltilat Arnwaldskar, Laylith, and I’m not a child anymore,” Laylith replied.

“Speak to Gaaldalksirin respectfully, half-elf, call him miralfaran,” Dukeil said.

“That’s not necessary,” Gaal said. “I take it that you knew my mother, Laylith? Her name was Lisandersterna Forbrandermedlis.”

“Yes, she was…” Laylith held back her tears. “I recently found out that I had lost my mother, also I had lost the one who had been raped to save me. It was the tukhtaash woman from Itskel-taash, a friend, though we were not friends, but I suppose we could be–” she broke off. “And now I’ve lost another close... friend. Lisandra, she was…”

“I can feel her inside me,” Gaal said.

“You can feel her?” Ansell interjected.

“Yes, as if my kilelkilaar had merged with her essence... I don’t know,” Gaal replied.

“I’m curious. I need to get a lot of alanjruon and then we’ll try something interesting. The Firsts created askaldenfirsts and falsalvgudinas with partially embedded memories and personality. We... I mean, they, the other Firsts, not me, told the creatures who they were and what they had done before, with various distortions, changes. And so now what you say, miralfaran, may help me to restore her personality completely and without distortion. But I still need either a pureblooded northerner, or any ermirian with snunorf roots,” Ansell said, and silence reigned for a few seconds.

“I’m ready!” Laylith said.

“What?!” Arel shouted and immediately ran up. Arinella and Slu, who had been watching, followed him, each immersed in their own suffering.

“Laylith, think about your father!” Arinella suddenly blurted out.

“About the father who left me twice!” Laylith shouted.

“Don’t do this, Laylith, please,” Slu said.

“Slu, we’ve been through a lot together, but don’t talk me out of it, please,” Laylith said.

“Your father recently found out that he lost his wife, whom he hadn’t seen for more than twenty years. The fact that he flew away was an emotion, a pain of loss. He’d definitely come back,” Slu said.

“When we fought on Malderfir,” Ansell put in, “Itullannoth said he’d moved the dragons to Kaartarnar. Gaal, did you happen to see a snow argiphone or a northerner there?”

“No,” Gaal replied, “maybe he was killed by those three tukhtaashes or greyskuggies.”

Laylith held back her tears.

“I think Itullannoth has captured him,” Ansell said. “Laylith,” he turned to the half-elf, “perhaps we should look for a northerner who agrees to become Lisandra, instead of using you, huh? Now let’s find your father, just like you wanted, all right?”

“He doesn’t need me,” Laylith said. “He left me then, and he did it again! What kind of father runs away or flies away when his daughter, his only daughter, finds out about the death of her own mother? If I’m gone, he’ll breathe a sigh of relief. I will be Lisandra, the great and powerful askaldenfirst, one he looked at, not like he looked at you, Arinella, no matter what he said about love,” she threw a victorious but sad look at the arqilunian, “and not like he looked at you, Slu,” she turned her eyes on the tukhtaash woman, “do you remember how surprised he was when you kissed him–”

“Kissed him?” Arinella blurted out in surprise, looking at Slu.

“Friends, let’s not waste time on these interpersonal squabbles right now!” Ansell said.

“Why?” Dukeil suddenly asked. “I’m so wounded that I can’t fly away, even run away from the greyskuggies, so I think I have only a few days left to live. And I’ve no other interests but to burn another tree, which, by the way, I don’t approve of, and there are almost no trees in this area, so the only thing left for me to do is to watch young creatures who express any emotions or feelings at all.”

“Behave yourself, Dukeil,” Gaal said, “you yourself have just made a remark to Laylith about the rules and customs of addressing me, and now you’re expressing the idea that we shouldn’t care about the future because there’s a great chance that we’ll be dead. But while I’m with you, the chance of you dying is diminishing. I’ve killed a lot of greyskuggies and I’m not afraid of them!”

“Yes, miralfaran, it is you,” Dukeil pointed out, “you’re not afraid of them, but not us. And it’s always the weak who suffer first, and I’m wounded and unable to fly, so the conclusion is obvious.”

“Do you want me to feel sorry for you, brother?” Gaal asked. “You are Dukeiltaavagan of the Taavagan clan. You’ve been living a false prophecy all your life, just like me, but has it corrupted your mind, reduced your dragon essence, can’t you spit fire?”

“I can!”

“Then show some willpower, Dukeil.”

“Enough!” Ansell said suddenly. “We can bicker and argue about insignificance until the greyskuggies turn us into a pile of bones! You stay here, and I’ll start by searching for Edelmer in the Zualafaran Kingdom on Malderfir. Laylith will you come with me?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes!” Laylith agreed.

“So will I!” Arinella said.

“Me too!” Slu said.

“Why do you want to go?” Arinella asked Slu with anger.

“Laylith will come with me alone, you will stay here,” Ansell ordered and walked over to Laylith. “I’ll move us this way,” he said, and grabbed her hand. And they disappeared.