Sarros let out a bellow of pain and clutched at his left elbow, which was bent at an unnatural angle.
“Essie,” said Mama. “Stay behind me.”
Essie had no intention of doing otherwise.
The few remaining guests edged away from Tornac as he planted a foot on Sarros’s chest. “Now then, you bastard,” he growled. “Where did you find that stone?”
Papa left the bar and staggered across the room to where Mama and Essie stood. They didn’t say anything, but Mama put an arm around Papa, and he did the same to her.
A burbling laugh escaped Sarros. There was a wild note to his voice that reminded Essie of Waeric, the madman who lived under the bridge by the mill. Sarros licked his sharpened teeth and said, “You do not know what you seek, Wanderer. You’re moon-addled and nose-blind. The sleeper stirs, and you and me—we’re all ants waiting to be crushed.”
“The stone,” said Tornac between clenched teeth. “Where?”
Sarros’s voice grew even higher, a mad shriek that pierced the night air. “You don’t understand. The Dreamers! The Dreamers! They get inside your head, and they twist your thoughts. Ahh! They twist them all out of joint.” He started to thrash, drumming his heels against the floor. Yellow foam bubbled at the corners of his mouth. “They’ll come for you, Wanderer, and then you’ll see. They’ll…” His voice trailed off into a hoarse croak, and then with one final jerk, he fell still.
For a moment, no one in the common room stirred.
All eyes remained on Tornac as he yanked the amulet off Sarros’s neck, retrieved his cloak, and walked back to the table by the fire. He pocketed the stone with the inner shine, picked up his pouch of coins, and then paused, considering.
Bouncing the pouch in his hand, he came over to where Papa and Mama stood shielding Essie.
“Please…,” said Papa. Essie had never heard him sound so desperate, and it gave her a sickening ache in her stomach. More than anything, his fear made her realize that the world was far scarier than she had originally thought. Their home had always felt like a safe place to Essie, but no longer. Neither her father nor her mother could protect her, not in the face of swords, and certainly not against magic.
“My apologies for the trouble,” said Tornac. He stank of sweat, and the front of his linen shirt was splattered with blood. Nevertheless, he seemed calm again. “Here, this should make up for the mess.” He held out the pouch, and after a moment’s hesitation, Papa accepted it.
Papa licked his lips. “The Watch will be here any minute. If you leave out the back…you can make it to the gate before they see you.”
Tornac nodded. Then he knelt and yanked the fork out of the head of the ruffian lying on the nearby boards. Essie shrank back as Tornac looked straight at her. “Sometimes,” he said, “you have to stand and fight. Sometimes running away isn’t an option. Now do you understand?”
“Yes,” Essie whispered.
Tornac shifted his attention to her parents. “One last question: Do you need the patronage of the masons’ guild to keep this inn open?”
Confusion furrowed Papa’s brow. “No, not if it came to such. Why?”
“That’s what I thought,” said Tornac. Then he presented Essie with the fork. It looked perfectly clean, without so much as a drop of blood on it. “I’m giving this to you. It has a spell on it to keep it from breaking. If Hjordis bothers you again, give her a good poke, and she’ll leave you alone.”
“Essie,” Mama said in a low, warning voice.
But Essie had already made her decision. Tornac was right: running away wasn’t always an option. That wasn’t her only reason either. While their home might be safer than elsewhere, she couldn’t count on her parents to ward off danger. The fight in the common room had proven that. Her only real choice was to learn how to defend herself and her family.
She took the fork. “Thank you,” she said, solemn.
“All good weapons deserve a name,” said Tornac. “Especially magical ones. What would you call this one?”
Essie thought for a second and then said, “Mister Stabby!”
A broad smile spread across Tornac’s face, and all hints of shadow vanished from his expression. He laughed, a loud, hearty laugh. “Mister Stabby. I like it. Very apt. May Mister Stabby always bring you good fortune.”
And Essie smiled as well. The world was big and scary, but now she had a magical weapon. Now she had Mister Stabby! Maybe if she did poke Hjordis, Carth would forgive her. Essie could just see the expression of outrage on Hjordis’s face….
Then Mama said, “Who…who are you, really?”
“Just another person looking for answers,” said Tornac. Essie thought he was going to leave then, but instead he surprised her by putting a hand on her arm. He spoke words she didn’t understand, and she felt them deep inside herself, as if he had plucked a string attached to her bones.
“Leave her be!” said Papa, and pulled her away, but Tornac was already moving past them, his cloak spreading like a dark wing behind him. As his footsteps faded out the back, both Mama and Papa ran their hands over her head and arms, checking for injuries. “Are you hurt?” said Mama. “What did he do to you? Are—”
“I’m okay,” Essie said, although she wasn’t sure at all. “I, ah!” A burning, tingling feeling swept through her left arm, and she cried out with pain. It felt like hundreds of ants were biting her.
She tore at the cuff of her sleeve, pulled it back, and saw—
—the top of her forearm crawling with a life of its own as the long, puckered scar smoothed over and began to fade into normal, healthy skin. The scar shrank and shrank, until only a small red S-shape was left. But it didn’t vanish entirely: a remembrance of past pain. Of survival.
Essie stared, hardly able to believe. She touched the new skin, and then looked at her parents. This time, she made no effort to stop the tears that rolled down her cheeks.
“Oh, Essie,” Papa said, his voice thick with emotion, and he and Mama folded her into a warm embrace.
* * *
Outside the Fulsome Feast, Murtagh lifted his head and took a deep breath of the night air. Soft petals of snow fell around him, and the whole city felt still and quiet, muffled beneath a low layer of clouds.
His heart was pounding; it had yet to slow after the fight in the tavern. Stupid. He should have realized that spending so much gold might cause a problem. It wasn’t a mistake he would make again.
How long had it been since he’d last killed a man? Over a year. A pair of bandits had jumped him as he was heading back to camp one evening—foolish, uneducated louts who hadn’t the slightest chance of taking him down. He’d fought back out of reflex, and by the time he knew what was happening, the two unfortunates were already lying on the ground. He still remembered the whimpers the one kid had made as he died….
Murtagh grimaced. Some people went their whole lives without killing. He wondered what that was like.
A drop of blood—not his own—trickled down the back of his hand. Disgusted, Murtagh scraped it off against the side of the building. The splinters bothered him less than the gore.
Even though he hadn’t gotten a location from Sarros, at least he now knew that the place he was looking for existed. The knowledge left him feeling uneasy. He would have far preferred disappointment. Whatever truth lay hidden beneath the field of blackened earth, he doubted it would herald anything good or pleasant. Life was never so simple. And who were the Dreamers Sarros had mentioned? Always more mysteries…
A questioning thought reached him from outside Ceunon: Thorn worried for his safety.
I’m fine, Murtagh told him. Just a bit of trouble.
Do I need to come?
I don’t think so, but stand by in any case.
Always.
Thorn subsided with a sense of cautious watchf
ulness, but Murtagh felt the ever-present thread of connection that joined them: a comforting closeness that had become the one unchanging reality in their lives.
He started through the alley. Time to go. It wouldn’t be long before the city Watch arrived to investigate the disturbance in the tavern, and he’d lingered long enough.
A flicker of motion high above caught his attention.
Murtagh stopped to look. At first he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.
Sailing down from the underside of the firelit clouds was a small ship of grass, no more than a hand or two in length. The hull and sail were made of woven blades, and the mast and spars built from lengths of stem.
No crew—if however diminutive—was to be seen; the ship moved of its own accord, driven and sustained by an invisible force. It circled him twice, and he saw a tiny pennant fluttering above the equally tiny crow’s nest.
Then the ship turned westward and vanished within the veil of descending snow, leaving behind no trace of its existence.
Murtagh smiled. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t know who had made the ship or what it signified, but the fact that something so whimsical, so singular, could exist filled him with an unaccustomed sense of joy.
He thought back to what he’d told the girl, Essie. Perhaps he should take his own advice. Perhaps it was time to stop running and return to old friends.
The prospect filled Murtagh with a mess of conflicting emotions. Wherever he’d gone, he had heard the venom in people’s voices when they spoke his name. No matter how vigorously Eragon or Nasuada might defend him in public, few there were who would trust him after his actions in service to Galbatorix. It was a bitter, unfair truth—one that circumstances had long ago forced him to accept.
Because of it, he had hidden his face, changed his name, and kept to the fringes of settled land, never walking where others might know him. And while the time alone had done both him and Thorn good, it was no way to live the rest of their lives. So again he wondered if perhaps the time had come to turn and face his past.
But first…Murtagh looked down at the object he was holding: the bird-skull amulet he’d taken off Sarros’s neck.
What sort of enchantment had been placed on it that could withstand the Name of Names? Magic without words was a wild, dangerous thing, and rare was the spellcaster brave or foolish enough to tamper with it. He had not even dared use it himself in the Fulsome Feast, not with so many innocent bystanders nearby.
No, before anything else, Murtagh decided he would like to find the witch-woman Bachel and ask her a few questions. The answers, he suspected, would be most interesting.
CHAPTER III
The Hall of Colors
It was night when Eragon returned to himself, and the only illumination in the Hall of Colors came from the flameless lanterns on the walls and the inner radiance of the Eldunarí themselves.
He sat staring at the floor while he regrouped and recovered. A smile spread across his face. Murtagh! Eragon hadn’t heard anything from his half brother since they’d parted outside of Urû’baen, now Ilirea, after the death of Galbatorix. Rumors of a red dragon seen flying here or there throughout Alagaësia had been the only clues that Murtagh was still alive. It was good to know he was doing well—or at least better than before.
He deserves to be happy, Eragon thought.
Then he paused to consider the subject of Murtagh’s search, as well as the witch-woman Bachel. Both concerned him, for they reminded Eragon of how much he still didn’t know about Alagaësia and its denizens. Ignorance wasn’t a flaw he could afford anymore; it could too easily prove fatal for those he and Saphira had sworn to protect.
He hoped Murtagh would be careful. Wherever he was going, Eragon felt sure it would be dangerous in the extreme. Murtagh was plenty capable, but he wasn’t invulnerable. No one was.
Again, Eragon heard Murtagh’s advice to Essie: “Sometimes you have to stand and fight. Sometimes running away isn’t an option.” And Eragon knew then why the dragons had shown him that particular vision.
His smile returned, and he let out his breath. If a girl like Essie could stand her ground and face the difficulties of her life, so too could he—and with good grace. He was a Dragon Rider, after all. It was what he was supposed to do.
Besides, none of the problems he was wrestling with were half so unpleasant or daunting as that nasty Hjordis. Eragon chuckled and shook his head, glad he wasn’t the one having to deal with the spoiled girl.
Did that help? Glaedr asked.
Eragon nodded, although the dragon couldn’t see, and stood, stretching his sore legs. Yes. It did. Thank you, Ebrithil….All of you, thank you.
A chorus of answering thoughts was his reply: You are welcome, youngling.
One day the dragons would no longer consider him an unseasoned whelp, but today was not that day. A wry expression on his face, Eragon took his leave and climbed back up the ramp of stairs to the eyrie.
Outside, cold stars shone down upon Mount Arngor and the lands below. The sight reminded Eragon of the grass ship Murtagh had seen—the same ship Arya had made one night by a fire, when she’d come to help him escape on foot from the Empire. That had also been the night when a group of wilding spirits had emerged from the dark and, during a visitation, transformed a lily into a flower of living gold.
Arya had imbued the ship with a spell to draw energy from the plants beneath so that it might always stay aloft and the grass would remain fresh and green forevermore. It gladdened Eragon to know the ship was still out there, sailing around Alagaësia upon waves of wind, and he wondered at everything it had seen in its wanderings. Just another mystery among so many others.
Saphira was waiting for him, curled in her nest. She opened an eye as Eragon undressed and crawled under her near wing. So? she said.
“You were right,” Eragon said, settling against the warmth of her belly. “I needed a break.”
A low humming formed in her chest. You’re much nicer when you’re not snapping like an angry fox.
He chuckled. “True.” Then he shared with her the vision from the Eldunarí.
Afterward, she said, I would like it if Murtagh and Thorn came to stay with us.
“So would I.”
Do you think we have another enemy hidden in Alagaësia?
“I don’t know. If we do, they’re just one more added to the lot. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
No….She took a deep breath and shuffled her wings as she readjusted her position. No more worries for tonight. Leave them for the morning.
“No more worries,” Eragon agreed with a smile. He closed his eyes and snuggled closer, and for the first time since they’d arrived at Mount Arngor, he put aside his concerns and slept without anxiety or interruption.
CHAPTER IV
Rhymes and Riddles
Eragon stared across his desk at Angela the herbalist, studying her.
She was sitting in the dark pinewood chair the elves had sung for him, still clad in her furs and travel cloak. Flakes of melted snow beaded the tips of the rabbit-hair trim, bright and shiny by the light of the lanterns.
On the floor next to the herbalist lay the werecat, Solembum, in his feline form, licking himself dry. His tongue rasped loudly against his shaggy coat.
Billows of snow swirled past the open windows of the eyrie, blocking the view. Some slipped in and dusted the sills, but for the most part, the wards Eragon had set kept out the snow and cold.
The storm had settled on Mount Arngor two days past, and it still showed no signs of letting up. Nor was it the first. Winter on the eastern plains had been far harsher than Eragon expected. Something to do with the effects of the Beor Mountains on the weather, he suspected.
Angela and Solembum had arrived with the latest batch of traders: a group of bedraggled humans, travel-worn and half frozen to
death. Accompanying the herbalist had also been the dragon-marked child Elva—she who carried the curse of self-sacrifice Eragon had inadvertently laid upon her. A curse instead of a blessing, and every time he saw her, he still felt a sense of responsibility.
They’d left the girl on the lower levels, eating with the dwarves. She’d grown since Eragon had last seen her, and now she looked to be nearly ten, which was at least six years in advance of her actual age.
“Now then, where’s the clutch of bouncing baby dragons I was expecting?” said Angela. She pulled off her mittens and then folded her hands over her knee and matched his gaze. “Or have they still not hatched?”
Eragon resisted the urge to grimace. “No. The main part of the hold is far from finished—as you’ve seen—and stores are tight. To quote Glaedr, the eggs have already waited for a hundred years; they can wait one more winter.”
“Mmm, he might be right. Be careful of waiting too long, though, Argetlam. The future belongs to those who seize it. What about Saphira, then?”
“What about her?”
“Has she laid any eggs?”
Eragon shifted, uncomfortable. The truth was Saphira hadn’t, not yet, but he didn’t want to admit as much. The information felt too personal to share. “If you’re so interested, you should ask her yourself.”
The herbalist cocked her head. “Oh, touchy, are we? I suppose I will, then.”
“What brings you here, and in the middle of winter, no less?”
She produced a small copper flask from under her cloak and took a sip before offering it to Eragon. He shook his head. “Now, now, Kingslayer, you almost sound as if you’re not happy to see us.”
“You are always welcome at our hearth,” said Eragon, choosing his words with care. The last thing he wanted to do was offend this quicksilver-like woman. “But you can’t deny it’s odd, venturing out across the plains in the dead months of the year. I’m just curious. You of all people should understand that.”
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