Inheritance Cycle Omnibus

by Christopher Paolini

  He traced the ants underground into their complex matrix of warrens and studied how they cared for a certain member of their species that was several times bigger than a normal ant. However, he was unable to determine the insect’s purpose; all he could see were servants swarming around it, rotating it, and removing the specks of matter it produced at regular intervals.

  After a time, Eragon decided that he had gleaned all the information from the ants that he could—unless he was willing to sit there for the rest of the day—and was about to return to his body when a squirrel jumped into the glade. Its appearance was like a blast of light to him, attuned as he was to the insects. Stunned, he was overwhelmed by a rush of sensations and feelings from the animal. He smelled the forest with its nose, felt the bark give under his hooked claws and the air swish through his upraised plume of a tail. Compared to an ant, the squirrel burned with energy and possessed unquestionable intelligence.

  Then it leaped to another branch and faded from his awareness.

  The forest seemed much darker and quieter than before when Eragon opened his eyes. He took a deep breath and looked about, appreciating for the first time how much life existed in the world. Unfolding his cramped legs, he walked over to the rosebush.

  He bent down and examined the branches and twigs. Sure enough, aphids and their crimson guardians clung to them. And near the base of the plant was the mound of pine needles that marked the entrance to the ants’ lair. It was strange to see with his own eyes; none of it betrayed the numerous and subtle interactions that he was now aware of.

  Engrossed in his thoughts, Eragon returned to the clearing, wondering what he might be crushing under his feet with every step. When he emerged from under the trees’ shelter, he was startled by how far the sun had fallen. I must have been sitting there for at least three hours.

  He found Oromis in his hut, writing with a goose-feather quill. The elf finished his line, then wiped the nib of the quill clean, stoppered his ink, and asked, “And what did you hear, Eragon?”

  Eragon was eager to share. As he described his experience, he heard his voice rise with enthusiasm over the details of the ants’ society. He recounted everything that he could recall, down to the minutest and most inconsequential observation, proud of the information that he had gathered.

  When he finished, Oromis raised an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

  “I …” Dismay gripped Eragon as he understood that he had somehow missed the point of the exercise. “Yes, Ebrithil.”

  “And what about the other organisms in the earth and the air? Can you tell me what they were doing while your ants tended their droves?”

  “No, Ebrithil.”

  “Therein lies your mistake. You must become aware of all things equally and not blinker yourself in order to concentrate on a particular subject. This is an essential lesson, and until you master it, you will meditate on the stump for an hour each day.”

  “How will I know when I have mastered it?”

  “When you can watch one and know all.”

  Oromis motioned for Eragon to join him at the table, then set a fresh sheet of paper before him, along with a quill and a bottle of ink. “So far you have made do with an incomplete knowledge of the ancient language. Not that any of us knows all the words in the language, but you must be familiar with its grammar and structure so that you do not kill yourself through an incorrectly placed verb or similar mistake. I do not expect you to speak our language like an elf—that would take a lifetime—but I do expect you to achieve unconscious competence. That is, you must be able to use it without thinking.

  “In addition, you must learn to read and write the ancient language. Not only will this help you to memorize words, it is an essential skill if you need to compose an especially long spell and you don’t trust your memory, or if you find such a spell recorded and you want to use it.

  “Every race has evolved their own system of writing the ancient language. The dwarves use their runic alphabet, as do humans. They are only makeshift techniques, though, and are incapable of expressing the language’s true subtleties as well as our Liduen Kvaedhí, the Poetic Script. The Liduen Kvaedhí was designed to be as elegant, beautiful, and precise as possible. It is composed of forty-two different shapes that represent various sounds. These shapes can be combined in a nearly infinite range of glyphs that represent both individual words and entire phrases. The symbol on your ring is one such glyph. The symbol on Zar’roc is another.… Let us start: What are the basic vowel sounds of the ancient language?”

  “What?”

  Eragon’s ignorance of the underpinnings of the ancient language quickly became apparent. When he had traveled with Brom, the old storyteller had concentrated on having Eragon memorize lists of words that he might need to survive, as well as perfecting his pronunciation. In those two areas, he excelled, but he could not even explain the difference between a definite and indefinite article. If the gaps in his education frustrated Oromis, the elf did not betray it through word or action, but labored persistently to mend them.

  At a certain point during the lesson, Eragon commented, “I’ve never needed very many words in my spells; Brom said it was a gift that I could do so much with just brisingr. I think the most I ever said in the ancient language was when I spoke to Arya in her mind and when I blessed an orphan in Farthen Dûr.”

  “You blessed a child in the ancient language?” asked Oromis, suddenly alert. “Do you remember how you worded this blessing?”

  “Aye.”

  “Recite it for me.” Eragon did so, and a look of pure horror engulfed Oromis. He exclaimed, “You used skölir! Are you sure? Wasn’t it sköliro?”

  Eragon frowned. “No, skölir. Why shouldn’t I have used it? Skölir means shielded. ‘… and may you be shielded from misfortune.’ It was a good blessing.”

  “That was no blessing, but a curse.” Oromis was more agitated than Eragon had ever seen him. “The suffix o forms the past tense of verbs ending with r and i. Sköliro means shielded, but skölir means shield. What you said was ‘May luck and happiness follow you and may you be a shield from misfortune.’ Instead of protecting this child from the vagaries of fate, you condemned her to be a sacrifice for others, to absorb their misery and suffering so that they might live in peace.”

  No, no! It can’t be! Eragon recoiled from the possibility. “The effect a spell has isn’t only determined by the word’s sense, but also by your intent, and I didn’t intend to harm—”

  “You cannot gainsay a word’s inherent nature. Twist it, yes. Guide it, yes. But not contravene its definition to imply the very opposite.” Oromis pressed his fingers together and stared at the table, his lips reduced to a flat white line. “I will trust that you did not mean harm, else I would refuse to teach you further. If you were honest and your heart was pure, then this blessing may cause less evil than I fear, though it will still be the nucleus of more pain than either of us could wish.”

  Violent trembling overtook Eragon as he realized what he had done to the child’s life. “It may not undo my mistake,” he said, “but perhaps it will alleviate it; Saphira marked the girl on the brow, just like she marked my palm with the gedwëy ignasia.”

  For the first time in his life, Eragon witnessed an elf dumbstruck. Oromis’s gray eyes widened, his mouth opened, and he clutched the arms of his chair until the wood groaned with protest. “One who bears the sign of the Riders, and yet is not a Rider,” he murmured. “In all my years, I have never met anyone such as the two of you. Every decision you make seems to have an impact far beyond what anyone could anticipate. You change the world with your whims.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Neither, it just is. Where is the babe now?”

  It took a moment for Eragon to compose his thoughts. “With the Varden, either in Farthen Dûr or Surda. Do you think that Saphira’s mark will help her?”

  “I know not,” said Oromis. “No precedent exists to draw upon for wisdom.”

 
; “There must be ways to remove the blessing, to negate a spell.” Eragon was almost pleading.

  “There are. But for them to be most effective, you should be the one to apply them, and you cannot be spared here. Even under the best of circumstances, remnants of your magic will haunt this girl evermore. Such is the power of the ancient language.” He paused. “I see that you understand the gravity of the situation, so I will say this only once: you bear full responsibility for this girl’s doom, and, because of the wrong you did her, it is incumbent upon you to help her if ever the opportunity should arise. By the Riders’ law, she is your shame as surely as if you had begotten her out of wedlock, a disgrace among humans, if I remember correctly.”

  “Aye,” whispered Eragon. “I understand.” I understand that I forced a defenseless baby to pursue a certain destiny without ever giving her a choice in the matter. Can someone be truly good if they never have the opportunity to act badly? I made her a slave. He also knew that if he had been bound in that manner without permission, he would hate his jailer with every fiber of his being.

  “Then we will speak of this no more.”

  “Yes, Ebrithil.”

  Eragon was still subdued, even depressed, by the end of the day. He barely looked up when they went outside to meet Saphira and Glaedr upon their return. The trees shook from the fury of the gale that the two dragons created with their wings. Saphira seemed proud of herself; she arched her neck and pranced toward Eragon, opening her chops in a lupine grin.

  A stone cracked under Glaedr’s weight as the ancient dragon turned a giant eye—as large as a dinner platter—on Eragon and asked, What are the rules three to spotting downdrafts, and the rules five for escaping them?

  Startled out of his reverie, Eragon could only blink dumbly. “I don’t know.”

  Then Oromis confronted Saphira and asked, “What creatures do ants farm, and how do they extract food from them?”

  I wouldn’t know, declared Saphira. She sounded affronted.

  A gleam of anger leaped into Oromis’s eyes and he crossed his arms, though his expression remained calm. “After all the two of you have done together, I would think that you had learned the most basic lesson of being Shur’tugal: Share everything with your partner. Would you cut off your right arm? Would you fly with only one wing? Never. Then why would you ignore the bond that links you? By doing so, you reject your greatest gift and your advantage over any single opponent. Nor should you just talk to each other with your minds, but rather mingle your consciousnesses until you act and think as one. I expect both of you to know what either one of you is taught.”

  “What about our privacy?” objected Eragon.

  Privacy? said Glaedr. Keep your thoughts to thyself when you leave here, if it pleases you, but while we tutor you, you have no privacy.

  Eragon looked at Saphira, feeling even worse than before. She avoided his gaze, then stamped a foot and faced him directly. What?

  They’re right. We have been negligent.

  It’s not my fault.

  I didn’t say that it was. She had guessed his opinion, though. He resented the attention she lavished on Glaedr and how it drew her away from him. We’ll do better, won’t we?

  Of course! she snapped.

  She declined to offer Oromis and Glaedr an apology, though, leaving the task to Eragon. “We won’t disappoint you again.”

  “See that you don’t. You will be tested tomorrow on what the other learned.” Oromis revealed a round wood bauble nestled in the middle of his palm. “So long as you take care to wind it regularly, this device will wake you at the proper time each morning. Return here as soon as you have bathed and eaten.”

  The bauble was surprisingly heavy when Eragon took it. The size of a walnut, it had been carved with deep whorls around a knob wrought in the likeness of a moss-rose blossom. He turned the knob experimentally and heard three clicks as a hidden ratchet advanced. “Thank you,” he said.

  UNDER THE MENOA TREE

  fter Eragon and Saphira had said their farewells, they flew back to their tree house with Saphira’s new saddle dangling between her front claws. Without acknowledging the fact, they gradually opened their minds and allowed their connection to widen and deepen, though neither of them consciously reached for the other. Eragon’s tumultuous emotions must have been strong enough for Saphira to sense anyway, though, for she asked, What happened, then?

  A throbbing pain built up behind his eyes as he explained the terrible crime he had committed in Farthen Dûr. Saphira was as appalled by it as he was. He said, Your gift may help that girl, but what I did is inexcusable and will only hurt her.

  The blame isn’t all yours. I share your knowledge of the ancient language, and I didn’t spot the error any more than you did. When Eragon remained silent, she added, At least your back didn’t cause any trouble today. Be grateful for that.

  He grunted, unwilling to be tempted out of his black mood. And what did you learn this fine day?

  How to identify and avoid dangerous weather patterns. She paused, apparently ready to share the memories with him, but he was too busy worrying about his distorted blessing to inquire further. Nor could he bear the thought of being so intimate right then. When he did not pursue the matter, Saphira withdrew into a taciturn silence.

  Back in their bedroom, he found a tray of food by the screen door, as he had the previous night. Carrying the tray to his bed—which had been remade with fresh linens—he settled down to eat, cursing the lack of meat. Already sore from the Rimgar, he propped himself up with pillows and was about to take his first bite when there came a gentle rapping at the opening to his chamber. “Enter,” he growled. He took a drink of water.

  Eragon nearly choked as Arya stepped through the doorway. She had abandoned the leather clothes she usually wore in favor of a soft green tunic cinched at the waist with a girdle adorned with moonstones. She had also removed her customary headband, allowing her hair to tumble around her face and over her shoulders. The biggest change, however, was not so much in her dress but her bearing; the brittle tension that had permeated her demeanor ever since Eragon first met her was now gone.

  She seemed to have finally relaxed.

  He scrambled to his feet, noticing that her own were bare. “Arya! Why are you here?”

  Touching her first two fingers to her lips, she said, “Do you plan on spending another evening inside?”

  “I—”

  “You have been in Ellesméra for three days now, and yet you have seen nothing of our city. I know that you always wished to explore it. Set aside your weariness this once and accompany me.” Gliding toward him, she took Zar’roc from where it lay by his side and beckoned to him.

  He rose from the bed and followed her into the vestibule, where they descended through the trapdoor and down the precipitous staircase that wound around the rough tree trunk. Overhead, the gathering clouds glowed with the sun’s last rays before it was extinguished behind the edge of the world.

  A piece of bark fell on Eragon’s head and he looked up to see Saphira leaning out of their bedroom, gripping the wood with her claws. Without opening her wings, she sprang into the air and dropped the hundred or so feet to the ground, landing in a thunderous cloud of dirt. I’m coming.

  “Of course,” said Arya, as if she expected nothing less. Eragon scowled; he had wanted to be alone with her, but he knew better than to complain.

  They walked under the trees, where dusk already extended its tendrils from inside hollow logs, dark crevices in boulders, and the underside of knobby eaves. Here and there, a gemlike lantern twinkled within the side of a tree or at the end of a branch, casting gentle pools of light on either side of the path.

  Elves worked on various projects in and around the lanterns’ radius, solitary except for a few, rare couples. Several elves sat high in the trees, playing mellifluous tunes on their reed pipes, while others stared at the sky with peaceful expressions—neither awake nor asleep. One elf sat cross-legged before a pottery w
heel that whirled round and round with a steady rhythm while a delicate urn took form beneath his hands. The werecat, Maud, crouched beside him in the shadows, watching his progress. Her eyes flared silver as she looked at Eragon and Saphira. The elf followed her gaze and nodded to them without halting his work.

  Through the trees, Eragon glimpsed an elf—man or woman, he could not tell—squatting on a rock in the middle of a stream, muttering a spell over the orb of glass clutched in its hands. He twisted his neck in an attempt to get an unobstructed view, but the spectacle had already vanished into the dark.

  “What,” asked Eragon, keeping his voice low so as to not disturb anyone, “do most elves do for a living or profession?”

  Arya answered just as quietly. “Our strength with magic grants us as much leisure as we desire. We neither hunt nor farm, and, as a result, we spend our days working to master our interests, whatever they might be. Very little exists that we must strive for.”

  Through a tunnel of dogwood draped with creepers, they entered the enclosed atrium of a house grown out of a ring of trees. An open-walled hut occupied the center of the atrium, which sheltered a forge and an assortment of tools that Eragon knew even Horst would covet.

  An elf woman held a pair of small tongs in a nest of molten coals, working bellows with her right hand. With uncanny speed, she pulled the tongs from the fire—revealing a ring of white-hot steel clamped in the pincers’ jaws—looped the ring through the edge of an incomplete mail corselet hung over the anvil, grasped a hammer, and welded shut the open ends of the ring with a blow and a burst of sparks.

  Only then did Arya approach. “Atra esterní ono thelduin.”

  The elf faced them, her neck and cheek lit from underneath by the coals’ bloody light. Like taut wires embedded in her skin, her face was scribed with a delicate pattern of lines—the greatest display of age Eragon had seen in an elf. She gave no response to Arya, which he knew was offensive and discourteous, especially since the queen’s daughter had honored her by speaking first.