Eldest

BROKEN EGG AND SCATTERED NEST

“Concentrate, Eragon,” said Oromis, though not unkindly.

Eragon blinked and rubbed his eyes in an attempt to focus on the glyphs that decorated the curling parchment paper before him. “Sorry, Master.” Weariness dragged upon him like lead weights tied to his limbs. He squinted at the curved and spiked glyphs, raised his goose-feather quill, and began to copy them again.

Through the window behind Oromis, the green shelf on top of the Crags of Tel’naeír was streaked with shadows from the descending sun. Beyond, feathery clouds banded the sky.

Eragon’s hand jerked as a line of pain shot up his leg, and he broke the nib of the quill and sprayed ink across the paper, ruining it. Across from him, Oromis also started, clutching his right arm.

Saphira! cried Eragon. He reached for her with his mind and, to his bewilderment, was deflected by impenetrable barriers that she had erected around herself. He could barely feel her. It was as if he were trying to grasp an orb of polished granite coated with oil. She kept slipping away from him.

He looked at Oromis. “Something’s happened to them, hasn’t it?”

“I know not. Glaedr returns, but he refuses to talk to me.” Taking his blade, Naegling, from the wall, Oromis strode outside and stood upon the edge of the crags, head uplifted as he waited for the gold dragon to appear.

Eragon joined him, thinking of everything—probable and improbable—that might have befallen Saphira. The two dragons had left at noon, flying north to a place called the Stone of Broken Eggs, where the wild dragons had nested in ages past. It was an easy trip. It couldn’t be Urgals; the elves don’t allow them into Du Weldenvarden, he told himself.

At last Glaedr came into view high above as a winking speck among the darkening clouds. As he descended to land, Eragon saw a wound on the back of the dragon’s right foreleg, a tear in his lapped scales as wide as Eragon’s hand. Scarlet blood laced the grooves between the surrounding scales.

The moment Glaedr touched the ground, Oromis rushed toward him, only to stop when the dragon growled at him. Hopping on his injured leg, Glaedr crawled to the edge of the forest, where he curled up beneath the outstretched boughs, his back to Eragon, and set about licking clean his wound.

Oromis went and knelt in the clover by Glaedr, keeping his distance with calm patience. It was obvious that he would wait as long as need be. Eragon fidgeted as the minutes elapsed. Finally, by some unspoken signal, Glaedr allowed Oromis to draw near and inspect his leg. Magic glowed from Oromis’s gedwëy ignasia as he placed his hand over the rent in Glaedr’s scales.

“How is he?” asked Eragon when Oromis withdrew.

“It looks a fearsome wound, but it is no more than a scratch for one so large as Glaedr.”

“What about Saphira, though? I still can’t contact her.”

“You must go to her,” said Oromis. “She is hurt, in more ways than one. Glaedr said little of what transpired, but I have guessed much, and you would do well to hurry.”

Eragon glanced about for any means of transportation and groaned with anguish when he confirmed that none existed. “How can I reach her? It’s too far to run, there’s no trail, and I can’t—”

“Calm thyself, Eragon. What was the name of the steed who bore you hence from Sílthrim?”

It took Eragon a moment to recall. “Folkvír.”

“Then summon him with your skill at gramarye. Name him and your need in this, the most powerful of languages, and he will come to your assistance.”

Letting the magic suffuse his voice, Eragon cried out for Folkvír, sending his plea echoing over the forested hills toward Ellesméra with all the urgency he could muster.

Oromis nodded, satisfied. “Well done.”

Twelve minutes later, Folkvír emerged like a silver ghost from the dark shadows among the trees, tossing his mane and snorting with excitement. The stallion’s sides heaved from the speed of his journey.

Throwing a leg over the small elven horse, Eragon said, “I’ll return as soon as I can.”

“Do what you must,” said Oromis.

Then Eragon touched his heels to Folkvír’s ribs and shouted, “Run, Folkvír! Run!” The horse leaped forward and bounded into Du Weldenvarden, threading his way with incredible dexterity between the gnarled pines. Eragon guided him toward Saphira with images from his mind.

Lacking a trail through the underbrush, a horse like Snowfire would have taken three or four hours to reach the Stone of Broken Eggs. Folkvír managed the trip in a bit over an hour.

At the base of the basalt monolith—which ascended from the forest floor like a mottled green pillar and stood a good hundred feet higher than the trees—Eragon murmured, “Halt,” then slid to the ground. He looked at the distant top of the Stone of Broken Eggs. Saphira was up there.

He walked around the perimeter, searching for a means to achieve the pinnacle, but in vain, for the weathered formation was impregnable. It possessed no fissures, crevices, or other faults near enough to the ground that he could use to climb its sides.

This might hurt, he thought.

“Stay here,” he told Folkvír. The horse looked at him with intelligent eyes. “Graze if you want, but stay here, okay?” Folkvír nickered and, with his velvet muzzle, nudged Eragon’s arm. “Yes, good boy. You’ve done well.”

Fixing his gaze on the crest of the monolith, Eragon gathered his strength, then said in the ancient language, “Up!”

He realized later that if he had not been accustomed to flying with Saphira, the experience might have proved unsettling enough to cause him to lose control of the spell and plunge to his death. The ground dropped away beneath his feet at a swift clip, while the tree trunks narrowed as he floated toward the underside of the canopy and the fading evening sky beyond. Branches clung like grasping fingers to his face and shoulders as he pushed through into the open. Unlike during one of Saphira’s dives, he retained his sense of weight, as if he still stood upon the loam below.

Rising above the edge of the Stone of Broken Eggs, Eragon moved himself forward and released his grip on the magic, alighting upon a mossy patch. He sagged with exhaustion and waited to see if the exertion would pain his back, then sighed with relief when it did not.

The top of the monolith was composed of jagged towers divided by deep and wide gullies where naught but a few scattered wild-flowers grew. Black caves dotted the towers, some natural, others clawed out of the basalt by talons as thick as Eragon’s leg. Their floors were blanketed with a deep layer of lichen-ridden bones, remnants of the dragons’ ancient kills. Birds now nested where dragons once had—hawks and falcons and eagles, who watched him from their perches, ready to attack if he should threaten their eggs.

Eragon picked his way across the forbidding landscape, careful not to twist an ankle on the loose flakes of stone or to get too close to the occasional rifts that split the column. If he fell down one, it would send him tumbling out into empty space. Several times he had to climb over high ridges, and twice more he had to lift himself with magic.

Evidence of the dragons’ habitation was visible everywhere, from deep scratches in the basalt to puddles of melted rock to a number of dull, colorless scales caught in nooks, along with other detritus. He even stepped upon a sharp object that, when he bent to examine it, proved to be a fragment of a green dragon egg.

On the eastern face of the monolith stood the tallest tower, in the center of which, like a black pit turned on its side, was the largest cave. It was there that Eragon finally beheld Saphira, curled in a hollow against the far wall, her back to the opening. Tremors ran her length. The walls of the cave bore fresh scorch marks, and the piles of brittle bones were scattered about as if from a fight.

“Saphira,” said Eragon, speaking out loud since her mind was closed to him.

Her head whipped up, and she stared at him as if he were a stranger, her pupils contracting to thin black slits as her eyes adjusted to the light from the setting sun behind him. She snarled once, like a feral dog, and then twisted away. As she did, she lifted her left wing and exposed a long, ragged gash along her upper thigh. His heart caught at the sight.

Eragon knew that she would not let him approach, so he did as Oromis had with Glaedr; he knelt among the crushed bones and waited. He waited without word or motion until his legs were numb and his hands were stiff with cold. Yet he did not resent the discomfort. He paid the price gladly if it meant he could help Saphira.

After a time, she said, I have been a fool.

We are all fools sometimes.

That makes it no easier when it is your turn to play dunce.

I suppose not.

I have always known what to do. When Garrow died, I knew it was the right thing to pursue the Ra’zac. When Brom died, I knew that we should go to Gil’ead and thence to the Varden. And when Ajihad died, I knew that you should pledge yourself to Nasuada. The path has always been clear to me. Except now. In this issue alone, I am lost.

What is it, Saphira?

Instead of answering, she turned the subject and said, Do you know why this is called the Stone of Broken Eggs?

No.

Because during the war between dragons and elves, the elves tracked us to this location and killed us while we slept. They tore apart our nests, then shattered our eggs with their magic. That day, it rained blood in the forest below. No dragon has lived here since.

Eragon remained silent. That was not why he was here. He would wait until she could bring herself to address the situation at hand.

Say something! demanded Saphira.

Will you let me heal your leg?

Leave well enough alone.

Then I shall remain as mute as a statue and sit here until I turn to dust, for I have the patience of a dragon from you.

When they came, her words were halting, bitter, and self-mocking: It shames me to admit it. When we first came here and I saw Glaedr, I felt such joy that another member of my race survived besides Shruikan. I had never even seen another dragon before, except in Brom’s memories. And I thought … I thought that Glaedr would be as pleased by my existence as I was by his.

But he was.

You don’t understand. I thought that he would be the mate I never expected to have and that together we could rebuild our race. She snorted, and a burst of flame escaped her nostrils. I was mistaken. He does not want me.

Eragon chose his response with care to avoid offending her and to provide a modicum of comfort. That’s because he knows you are destined for someone else: one of the two remaining eggs. Nor would it be proper for him to mate with you when he is your mentor.

Or perhaps he does not find me comely enough.

Saphira, no dragon is ugly, and you are the fairest of dragons.

I am a fool, she said. But she raised her left wing and kept it in the air as permission for him to tend to her injury.

Eragon limped to Saphira’s side, where he examined the crimson wound, glad that Oromis had given him so many scrolls on anatomy to read. The blow—by claw or tooth, he was not sure—had torn the quadriceps muscle beneath Saphira’s hide, but not so much as to bare the bone. Merely closing the surface of the wound, as Eragon had done so many times, would not be enough. The muscle had to be knitted back together.

The spell Eragon used was long and complex, and even he did not understand all its parts, for he had memorized it from an ancient text that offered little explanation beyond the statement that, given no bones were broken and the internal organs were whole, “this charm will heal any ailment of violent origins, excepting that of grim death.” Once he uttered it, Eragon watched with fascination as Saphira’s muscle writhed beneath his hand—veins, nerves, and fibers weaving together—and became whole once more. The wound was big enough that, in his weakened state, he dared not heal it with just the energy from his body, so he drew upon Saphira’s strength as well.

It itches, said Saphira when he finished.

Eragon sighed and leaned his back against the rough basalt, looking at the sunset through his eyelashes. I fear that you will have to carry me off this rock. I’m too tired to move.

With a dry rustle, she twisted in place and laid her head on the bones beside him. I have treated you poorly ever since we came to Ellesméra. I ignored your advice when I should have listened. You warned me about Glaedr, but I was too proud to see the truth in your words.… I have failed to be a good companion for you, betrayed what it means to be a dragon, and tarnished the honor of the Riders.

No, never that, he said vehemently. Saphira, you haven’t failed your duty. You may have made a mistake, but it was an honest one, and one that anyone might have committed in your position.

That does not excuse my behavior toward you.

He tried to meet her eye, but she avoided his gaze until he touched her upon the neck and said, Saphira, family members forgive one another, even if they don’t always understand why someone acts in a certain way.… You are as much my family as Roran—more. Nothing you can do will ever change that. Nothing. When she did not respond, he reached behind her jaw and tickled the patch of leathery skin below one of her ears. Do you hear me, eh? Nothing!

She coughed low in her throat with reluctant amusement, then arched her neck and lifted her head to escape his dancing fingers. How can I face Glaedr again? He was in a terrible rage.… The entire stone shook with the force of his anger.

At least you held your own when he attacked you.

It was the other way around.

Caught by surprise, Eragon raised his eyebrows. Well, in any case, the only thing to do is to apologize.

Apologize!

Aye. Go tell him that you are sorry, that this won’t happen again, and that you want to continue your training with him. I’m sure he will be sympathetic if you give him the chance.

Very well, she said in a low voice.

You’ll feel better once you do. He grinned. I know from experience.

She grunted and padded to the edge of the cave, where she crouched and surveyed the rolling forest. We should go. Soon it will be dark. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself upright—every movement costing him effort—and climbed onto her back, taking twice the time he usually did. Eragon? … Thank you for coming. I know what you risked with your back.

He patted her on the shoulder. Are we one again?

We are one.