SWNOVELS Chapter 12: Lisandra
“My dinadam,” Dukeil said to Lisandra, “I won’t be able to fly.”
“I’ve decided that you’ll all stay here, Dukeil,” Lisandra said.
“But why, marthedraar?!” Erafner’s voice changed, “We can’t leave you alone with Gaal!”
Arel and Arinella and one arqilunian man cast spells that created water, scones and sets of clothing for the surviving ermirians. Another arqilunian man approached the wounded and used wound healing magic, but the arqilunians could not grow limbs, so one tukhtaash young woman was left without a hand, and the arqilunian only used magic to heal the wound and reduce her pain.
“I don’t know how to stop Gaal,” Ansell said suddenly to Lisandra, “we’ve never reached the stage of his rebirth. Moreover, it was a mystery to me that you are Gaal’s mother until I met you.”
“You, the Firsts, gave me life, and I’ll be grateful to you for that, but only for the life itself... There’s no excuse for what you did next. No minerals should be the reason for the beginning of an artificial war of beings. I died, my children died, other mothers died, falsalvgudinas died, and we were reborn and died again. The endless cycle of death and rebirth without any reasonable purpose or justice speaks more about cruelty than about reason.”
“Well, I want to point out that I was involved in this quite indirectly,” Ansell said.
“I shall never know the truth or the extent of your participation, creator... And now I’ll ask you only two things, Ansell,” Lisandra said quietly, “open the portal to Kaartarnar. And you stay here to protect my children and my sisters’ children.”
“But marthedraar,” Erafner said as he listened to their dialogue, “I must fly with you! I can’t let you go alone, mother!”
“No, my son, protect those we were meant to destroy! We were born to destroy this world, and now we must save it!” and she turned to the First, “Ansellellor, open the portal, I must find my sons!”
“All right,” Ansell said and began to cast the spell. The portal opened. “Remember, Lisandra, there are not only Gaal, but also three powerful tukhtaash-outlanders, though they are clearly weaker than you,” he paused, “but the worst thing is that there really may be more greyskuggies.”
“I’ll be fine, First,” and Lisandra headed for the portal. She stepped in, turned around and looked at the anxious faces of the dragons, and the portal closed.
The orange lava flowed slowly, it was viscous and thick. Lisandra could feel the heat coming from the ground. She walked over to the lava, bent down and ran her hand over it, then touched the surface. It was hot, but there was no burn left on her hand. Lisandra took off. Clouds of smoke rose over some of the volcanic hills, creating huge clouds of ash in the atmosphere that mixed with other clouds.
Lisandra strained her senses. She tried to feel any connection with Daervar and Erbalar, but nothing came out. “Are they really dead?” The thought stuck in her mind.
Flying high, she looked around. There was nothing around but orange lava and sluggishly erupting volcanic mountains. Despite the ash in the atmosphere, it was quite light. Suddenly she saw a fireball flying at her. She looked to where it was flying from and saw three tukhtaashes. She purposely let the fireball crash into her body, and it did her no harm, and the askaldenfirst flew toward the tukhtaashes. They were standing under a protective magical dome.
“My name is Lisandersterna Forbrandermedlis, I am the daughter of the Firsts, the mother of dragons. And I am the mother of Gaal. Did you think a fireball could hurt me?” Lisandra asked.
“How naive for the daughter of the Firsts,” the tukhtaash-outlander woman grinned, her eyes were half-closed, as if she wanted to sleep. “You don’t think we cast that fireball to hurt you, do you, Lisandersterna? We wanted to get your attention and–”
“We’re stuck here,” the thin, middle-aged tukhtaash man with large brown eyes and gray short hair interrupted her. “We understand, mother of dragons, that we are not friends. You, light-skinned barbarians, seized our lands millennia ago, established your own rules and laws, and now we have come to reclaim our lands and you consider us invaders. We understand that. But now we offer a truce and a treaty, because my friend Karash,” the short-haired man pointed to the tukhtaash standing beside him, “is also a dragon.”
“My son Erbalar,” Lisandra began quietly, “like his brother, Daervar, are lost here on this planet. Erbalar told me that he saw how you tukhtaashes were able to control Gaal. Could you restore his consciousness? If not, could you at least control him for a long time?”
“Unfortunately, no. We could only–” Karash began.
“I could try!” the tukhtaash young woman interrupted him.
“Traga, you didn’t want to become a datrevash tashdanart! You don’t know half of what you need to know!” the skinny tukhtaash resented.
“I could try!” Traga insisted.
“Yes, and you will soon have to,” Karash suddenly said, and ran out from under the dome and began to turn into a dragon.
Lisandra turned around and saw Gaal. A fiery, huge dragon was moving toward them like a soaring orange star. Lisandra flew up him.
“Son,” Lisandra said lovingly, “do you recognize me?”
Gaal was flapping his fiery wings in the sky, and something flashed in his fiery pupils. And then he spewed a giant stream of flame at Lisandra, but she dodged it.
Askaldenfirst looked at the tukhtaashes. The dragon Karash was flying low over the dome, looking at Gaal, and under the dome Traga began to cast some kind of spell… A new stream of fire distracted askaldenfirst and passed through her fiery hair, and Lisandra’s eyes flashed yellow.
“Gaaldalksirin,” she shouted, “if there is miralfaran inside you, that noble and powerful dragon whose mother I was lucky enough to become, let me know, let me feel who you are!”
The fire dragon spewed a stream of fire again, but Lisandra dodged. Gaal rushed after her, and she flew down, dodged and flew up again, trying to appeal to what was inside his mind.
Suddenly Gaal saw another dragon near the dome, and, losing interest in Lisandra, moved toward Karash. Karash instantly took the form of a tukhtaash and took cover under the dome. He began to cast a spell, and another slightly smaller dome was formed. And then the skinny tukhtaash strengthened and enlarged his dome.
Gaal began trying to break through the dome with his merciless fire. Lisandra flew up to him and stood in the path of his flame.
“My son!” she flew right through the stream of fire. She felt the flames like the strongest warm wind, or even a whirlwind, a hurricane. Lisandra flew straight to his muzzle. She wanted to look into his fiery eyes. Suddenly the dragon flew up sharply and grabbed Lisandra with his jaws, his teeth piercing her body, she screamed, and the fiery jaws continued to chew her… She felt something strange, an incredible heat, as if she was burning from the inside, and she lost consciousness.
When Lisandra woke up, she was lying on the ground, next to the lava. She saw a huge fire dragon in front of her. She stood up.
“Marthedraar!” Gaal exclaimed majestically, his voice ringing and resonating in her head. He recognized her, and he knows that she is his mother!
Lisandra looked around. The dragon sat right on the lava, it flowed to his paws, and because of this, a viscous dam formed there. Askaldenfirst saw the same glowing dome in the distance.
“Are you all right, Marthedraar?” Gaal asked.
Lisandra touched her head and ran her hand through her hair, she looked at the ends. They had turned light turquoise again, and she realized that the hair at the very roots had turned dark lilac. She looked at Gaal and flew to his head.
“Yes, I’m all right, son. And you regained your consciousness and memory, but you remained a fiery dragon,” she said. Lisandra looked at the dome again, Gaal noticed her gaze. She wanted to stroke his nostrils, but when she touched them, she burned herself.
“Those ermirians,” Gaal asked, ’who are they?”
“A forgotten tribe of tukhtaashes, not from our part of Ermir, but from Taashtar.”
“They tried to control my mind. They wanted me to kill you. But instead they accidentally revealed to me a lost memory of who I am,” Gaal said.
Lisandra smiled.
“It doesn’t matter, son,” she said, “what I’m going to tell you is far more important than three angry tukhtaashes. This is what will turn your mind upside down. All your life you thought that askaldenfirsts were the daughters of the Firsts, and that the Firsts descended from Sirridwyn, that our purpose was to fight the falsalvgudinas and protect Ermir. That after your self-sacrifice the dragons would awaken and bring fire to Ermir, so that the flame will revive you too. But it turned out that the askaldenfirsts and the falsalvgudinas were created by these Firsts, not born, but created. And the Firsts are not demigods, but some creatures from another planet, similar in appearance to the arqilunian old men, to a lesser extent to the oldenmessers. The Firsts needed to do all this on Ermir only because they needed to mine the mineral that sustains their magical power.”
Gaal tried to make sense of it.
“The ghosts we are also fighting were created by the natives, more precisely by the ikhagatbers, of whom you must also remember,” Lisandra continued, “and we are puppets in the game of our creators, the aliens. One thing I can tell you is that I am the mother of dragons, I gave birth to you and other sons! Except that the fathers were not you or your brothers, because the Firsts got the dragon seed from another planet.”
“I see, marthedraar,” Gaal said thoughtfully. “What is this place? How did we get here?”
“This is Kaartarnar, another planet. The Firsts can open portals to different planets.”
“So this is where the Firsts took the seed for our conception?” Gaal asked.
“I don’t think so,” Lisandra replied.
“Hmm...” the dragon drawled. “I never believed there was intelligent life in the universe, except for our planet,” Gaal admitted, and then his fiery eyes grew sad and pained. “Mother, tell me, what have I done on Ermir? Have I killed someone?”
“Yes, son,” Lisandra said sympathetically, “you’ve killed some of your brothers, thousands of ermirians, perhaps tens of thousands or more, and you have covered with fire the entire space from the Belt of Twilight to the north of Norvinoria, from the Outland Sea to the Daranfullash ocean. You carried fiery death on your wings, but it wasn’t your fault!
“Whose then?” Gaal roared, rose into the sky and unleashed a gigantic stream of fire that sliced through the ashy sky of the planet. And he flew even higher.
Lisandra flew after him.
“Son, wait,” Lisandra shouted, breaking through the ash clouds.
“I’m not worthy of you, marthedraar,” Gaal roared, but his words disappeared into the clouds.
Finally, Lisandra soared above the clouds, and the dim light of the star blinded her for a moment. She saw someone flying toward her from a large satellite of the planet.
“Erbalar!” Lisandra exclaimed cheerfully, recognizing him despite his distorted appearance due to the magic of the protective barrier.
“Marthedraar! Fly away now!” he shouted with all his might. Gaal was on the other side, but he heard and flew to his mother.
“Mother, look out, Gaal is near!” Erbalar shouted to her.
“It’s all right…” Lisandra said.
“Fly away!” Erbalar repeated.
And Lisandra saw Daervar flying after him. Gaal flew towards Erbalar, and the white dragon thought that Gaal wanted to attack him and spewed a stream of flame at Gaal.
“What are you doing, brother?” Gaal was surprised. Lisandra flew up to them.
“Miralfaran, have you become yourself again?!” Erbalar rejoiced. “Mother, mirafaran, there are these creatures in Daervar, the smokes, they control him!” Erbalar instinctively began to cover his mother, but Gaal flew forward to Daervar.
“Daervartalanjir!” thundered Gaal’s voice. As Daervar flew closer, his protective magic disappeared and his eyes turned black.
Suddenly several smokes flew out of Daervar’s mouth and ears and nostrils and flew toward Gaal. But when they flew close to the dragon’s fiery body, they began to turn around, and Gaal released an incredible stream of fire and several smokes completely vanished into the air. “Leave his body, and I’ll let you go,” Gaal’s voice thundered again.
“We’re hungry!” Daervar hissed strangely. And in a matter of seconds, his body was torn to pieces, and small wisps of smoke seemed to erase the dragon from space, and only the bones fell into the clouds.
“No!” Lisandra screamed. And Gaal began pouring fire on the smokes, and they dissolved in his flames. But a few dozen smokes managed to fly toward Lisandra and Erbalar.
“Marthedra...” Erbalar managed to utter, flapping his wings, and instantly hundreds of holes formed in him, blood gushed out, and the smokes seemed to suck on the streams of blood. The dragon didn’t even have time to fall into the clouds before all that was left of his body were bones.
Lisandra felt something move through her body.
“Gaal, son, I...” she managed to say, and after a few seconds only bones and a skull remained from her, as well as from Erbalar, and the bones instantly flew into the clouds…