Inheritance

PROMISES, NEW AND OLD

From Ilirea, Saphira flew to the nearby estate where Blodhgarm and the elves under his command were packing the Eldunari for transport. The elves would ride north with the Eldunari to Du Weldenvarden, and thence through the vast forest to the elven city of Silthrim, which sat upon the shore of Ardwen Lake. There the elves and the Eldunari would wait for Eragon and Saphira to return from Vroengard. Then together they would begin their journey out of Alagaesia, following the Gaena River as it flowed eastward through the forest and onto the plains beyond. All of them, that was, save Laufin and Uthinare, who had elected to stay behind in Du Weldenvarden.

The elves’ decision to accompany them had surprised Eragon, but he was grateful for it nevertheless. As Blodhgarm had said, “We cannot abandon the Eldunari. They need our help, as will the younglings once they hatch.”

Eragon and Saphira spent a half hour discussing the safe transport of the eggs with Blodhgarm, and then Eragon gathered up the Eldunari of Glaedr, Umaroth, and several of the older dragons; he and Saphira would need their strength on Vroengard.

Upon taking their leave of the elves, Saphira and Eragon set off to the northwest, Saphira flapping at a steady, unhurried pace compared with that of their first trip to Vroengard.

As she flew, a sadness fell upon Eragon, and for a time he felt despondent and self-pitying. Saphira too was sad-she because of having parted from Firnen-but the day was bright and the winds were calm, and their spirits soon lifted. Still, a faint sense of loss colored everything Eragon beheld, and he gazed at the land with renewed appreciation, knowing that he would likely never see it again.

Many leagues across the verdant grasslands Saphira flew, her shadow frightening the birds and the beasts below. When night came, they did not continue onward, but stopped and made camp by a rivulet that lay at the bottom of a shallow gully and sat watching the stars turning above them and talking of all that had been and all that might be.

Late the next day, they arrived at the Urgal village that had sprung up near the lake Flam, where Eragon knew they would find Nar Garzhvog and the Herndall, the council of dams who ruled their people.

Despite Eragon’s protests, the Urgals insisted upon throwing an enormous feast for him and Saphira, so he spent the evening drinking with Garzhvog and his rams. The Urgals made a wine out of berries and tree bark that Eragon thought was even stronger than the strongest of the dwarves’ mead. Saphira enjoyed it more than he-to him, it tasted like cherries gone bad-but he drank it anyway to please their hosts.

Many of the female Urgals came up to him and Saphira, curious to meet them, as few of the Urgal women had joined in the fight against the Empire. They were somewhat slimmer than their men but just as tall, and their horns tended to be shorter and more delicate, although still massive. With them were Urgal children: the younger ones lacking horns, the older ones with scaly nubs upon their foreheads that protruded between one and five inches. Without their horns, they looked surprisingly like humans, despite the different color of their skin and their eyes. It was obvious that some of the children were Kull, for even the younger ones towered over their compatriots and, sometimes, their parents. So far as Eragon could tell, there was no pattern that determined which parents bore Kull and which did not. The parents who were Kull themselves, it seemed, bore Urgals of ordinary stature just as often as giants like themselves.

All that evening, Eragon and Saphira caroused with Garzhvog, and Eragon fell into his waking dreams while listening to an Urgal chanter recite the tale of Nar Tulkhqa’s victory at Stavarosk-or so Garzhvog told him, for Eragon could understand nothing of the Urgals’ tongue, other than that it made the dwarves’ sound as sweet as honeyed wine.

In the morning, Eragon found himself blotched with a dozen or more bruises, the result of the friendly knocks and cuffs he had received from the Kull during their feasting.

His head throbbing, and his body as well, he and Saphira went with Garzhvog to speak with the Herndall. The twelve dams held court in a low, circular hut filled with the smoke of burning juniper and cedar. The wicker doorway was barely large enough for Saphira’s head, and her scales cast chips of blue light across the dark interior.

The dams were exceedingly old, and several were blind and toothless. They wore robes patterned with knots similar to the woven straps that hung outside each building, and which bore the crest of the inhabitants’ clan. Each of the Herndall carried a stick carved with patterns that held no meaning for Eragon but which he knew were not meaningless.

With Garzhvog translating, Eragon told them the first part of his plan to forestall future conflict between the Urgals and the other races, which was for the Urgals to hold games every few years, games of strength, speed, and agility. In them, the young Urgals would be able to win the glory they needed in order to mate and earn a place for themselves within their society. The games, Eragon proposed, would be open to every race, which would also provide the Urgals a means to test themselves against those who had long been their foes.

“King Orik and Queen Nasuada have already agreed to this,” said Eragon, “and Arya, who is now queen of the elves, is also considering it. I believe that she too will grant the games her blessing.”

The Herndall consulted among themselves for several minutes; then the oldest, a white-haired dam whose horns had worn away to almost nothing, spoke. Garzhvog again translated: “Yours is a good idea, Firesword. We must speak with our clans to decide upon the best time for these contests, but this we will do.”

Pleased, Eragon bowed and thanked them.

Another of the dams spoke then. “We like this, Firesword, but we do not think this will stop the wars between our peoples. Our blood runs too hot for games alone to cool.”

And that of dragons does not? asked Saphira.

One of the dams touched her horns. “We do not question the fierceness of your kind, Flametongue.”

“I know that your blood runs hot-hotter than most,” said Eragon. “That is why I have another idea.”

The Herndall listened in silence as he explained, though Garzhvog stirred, as if uneasy, and uttered a low grunt. When Eragon finished, the Herndall did not speak or move for several minutes, and Eragon began to feel uncomfortable under the unblinking stare of those who could still see.

Then the rightmost Urgal shook her stick, and a pair of stone rings attached to it rattled loudly in the smoke-filled hut. She spoke slowly, the words thick and muddied, as if her tongue was swollen. “You would do this for us, Firesword?”

“I would,” said Eragon, and bowed again.

“If you do, Firesword and Flametongue, then you will be the greatest friend the Urgralgra have ever had, and we will remember your names for the rest of time. We will weave them into every one of our thulqna, and we will carve them onto our pillars, and we will teach them to our younglings when their horns bud.”

“Then your answer is yes?” asked Eragon.

“It is.”

Garzhvog paused and-speaking for himself, Eragon thought-he said, “Firesword, you do not know how much this means to my people. We will always be in your debt.”

“You owe me nothing,” said Eragon. “I only wish to keep us from having to go to war.”

He talked with the Herndall for a while longer, discussing the particulars of the arrangement. Then he and Saphira made their farewells and resumed their journey to Vroengard.

As the rough-hewn huts of the village shrank behind them, Saphira said, They will make good Riders.

I hope you are right.

The rest of their flight to Vroengard Island was uneventful. They encountered no storms over the sea; the only clouds that barred their way were thin and wispy and posed no danger to them or the gulls with whom they shared the sky.

Saphira landed on Vroengard before the same half-ruined nesting house where they had stayed during their previous visit. There she waited while Eragon walked into the forest and wandered among the dark, lichen-encrusted trees until he found several of the shadow birds he had encountered before and, after them, a patch of moss infested with the hopping maggots Nasuada had told him Galbatorix called burrow grubs. Using the name of names, Eragon gave both of the animals a proper title in the ancient language. The shadow birds he called sundavrblaka and the burrow grubs illgrathr. The second of the two names amused him in a grim sort of way, as it meant “bad hunger.”

Satisfied, Eragon returned to Saphira, and they spent the night resting and talking with Glaedr and the other Eldunari.

At dawn, they went to the Rock of Kuthian. They spoke their true names, and the graved doors within the mossy spire opened, and Eragon, Saphira, and the Eldunari descended to the vault below. In that deep-set cavern, lit by the lake of molten stone that lay beneath the roots of Mount Erolas, the guardian of the eggs, Cuaroc, helped them place each egg into a separate casket. Then they piled the caskets near the center of the chamber, along with the five Eldunari who had stayed within the cavern to help protect the eggs.

With Umaroth’s help, Eragon cast the same spell he had once before and placed the eggs and hearts into a pocket of space that hung behind Saphira, where neither she nor he could touch it.

Cuaroc accompanied them out of the vault. The metal feet of the dragon-headed man clanged loudly against the tunnel floor as he climbed to the surface alongside them.

Once they were outside, Saphira grasped Cuaroc between her talons-for he was too large and heavy to sit comfortably upon her back-and she took flight, rising above the circular valley that lay in the heart of Vroengard.

Across the sea, dark and shining, flew Saphira. Then over the Spine, the peaks like blades of ice and snow, and the rifts between them like rivers of shadow. She diverted north and crossed over Palancar Valley-so that she and Eragon might have one last look at their childhood home, if only from high above-and then over the Bay of Fundor, which was scalloped with lines of foam-crested waves, like so many rolling mountains. Ceunon, with its steep, many-layered roofs and sculptures of dragon heads, was their next landmark of note, and soon afterward, the leading edge of Du Weldenvarden appeared, the pines tall and strong.

Nights they spent camped by streams and ponds, the light of their fires reflecting off Cuaroc’s polished metal body, while frogs and insects chorused about them. In the distance, they ofttimes heard the howls of hunting wolves.

Once at Du Weldenvarden, Saphira flew for an hour toward the center of the great forest, whereupon the elves’ wards stopped her from proceeding any farther. Then she landed and walked through the invisible barrier of magic, Cuaroc striding alongside her, and again took flight.

League after league of trees sailed by underneath them, with little variation save for clusters of deciduous trees-oaks and elms and birch and aspen and languorous willows-which often lined the waterways below. Past a mountain, the name of which Eragon had forgotten, and the elven city of Osilon, and then trackless acres of pines, each unique and yet nearly identical to its countless brethren.

At last, in late evening, when both the moon and the sun hung low upon opposing horizons, Saphira arrived at Ellesmera and glided down to land amid the living buildings of the elves’ largest, and proudest, of cities.

Arya and Firnen were waiting for them, along with Roran and Katrina. As Saphira drew near, Firnen reared and spread his wings, uttering a joyful roar that frightened birds into the air for a league around. Saphira answered in kind as she settled onto her hind legs and gently placed Cuaroc on the ground.

Eragon unbuckled his legs and slid down off Saphira’s back.

Roran ran up, grasped him by the forearm, and clapped him on the shoulder while Katrina hugged him on the other side. Laughing, Eragon said, “Ah! Stop, let me breathe! So, how do you like Ellesmera?”

“It’s beautiful!” said Katrina, smiling.

“I thought you were exaggerating,” said Roran, “but it’s every bit as impressive as you said. The hall we’ve been staying in-”

“Tialdari Hall,” said Katrina.

Roran nodded. “That. It’s given me some ideas as to how we should rebuild Carvahall. And then there’s Tronjheim and Farthen Dur …” He shook his head and uttered a low whistle.

Eragon laughed again and started walking along the forest path toward the western edge of Ellesmera, they leading him. Arya joined them, looking every bit as much a queen as her mother once had. “Well met by moonlight, Eragon. Welcome back.”

He looked at her. “Well met indeed, Shadeslayer.”

She smiled at his use of the title, and the dusk beneath the swaying trees seemed to grow brighter.

Once Eragon had removed Saphira’s saddle, she and Firnen took flight-although Eragon knew Saphira was exhausted from their journey-and together they disappeared in the direction of the Crags of Tel’naeir. As they departed, Eragon heard Firnen say, I caught three deer for you this morning. They are waiting for you on the grass by Oromis’s hut.

Cuaroc set off in pursuit of Saphira, for the eggs were still with her, and it was his duty to protect them.

Through the great boles of the city, Roran and Katrina led Eragon until they arrived at a clearing edged with dogwood and hollyhocks, where tables sat laden with a vast assortment of food. Many elves, garbed in their finest tunics, greeted Eragon with soft cries, mellifluous laughter, and snatches of song and music.

Arya took her place at the head of the banquet, and the white raven, Blagden, rested upon a carved perch nearby, croaking and spouting occasional scraps of verse. Eragon sat by Arya’s side, and they ate and drank and made merry until late in the night.

When the feast began to draw to a close, Eragon snuck away for a few minutes and ran through the darkened forest to the Menoa tree, guided more by his senses of smell and hearing than by sight.

The stars appeared overhead as he emerged from beneath the angled boughs of the great pine trees. He paused, then, to slow his breathing and collect himself before picking his way across the bed of roots that surrounded the Menoa tree.

He stopped at the base of the immense trunk and placed his hand against the creviced bark. Reaching out with his mind toward the slow consciousness of the tree that had once been an elf woman, he said:

Linnea … Linnea … Awake! I must needs speak with you! He waited but detected no response from the tree; it was as if he were attempting to communicate with the sea or the air or the earth itself. Linnea, I must speak to you!

A sigh of wind seemed to pass through his mind, and he felt a thought, faint and distant, a thought that said, What, O Rider …?

Linnea, when last I was here, I said that I would give you whatever you wanted in exchange for the brightsteel under your roots. I am about to leave Alagaesia, so I have come to fulfill my obligation ere I go. What would you have of me, Linnea?

The Menoa tree did not answer, but its branches stirred slightly, needles fell pattering onto the roots about the clearing, and a sense of amusement emanated from its consciousness.

Go …, whispered the voice, and then the tree withdrew from Eragon’s mind.

He stood where he was for another few minutes, calling her name, but the tree refused to respond. In the end, Eragon left, feeling as if the matter was still unsettled, although the Menoa tree obviously thought otherwise.

The next three days, Eragon spent reading books and scrolls-many of which had come from Galbatorix’s library and which Vanir had sent onward to Ellesmera at Eragon’s request. In the evenings, he dined with Roran, Katrina, and Arya, but otherwise he kept to himself and did not see even Saphira, for she remained with Firnen on the Crags of Tel’naeir and showed little interest in anything else. At night, the roars and bellows of the dragons often echoed across the forest, distracting him from his studies and making him smile when he touched Saphira’s thoughts. He missed Saphira’s companionship, but he knew that she had only a short time to spend with Firnen, and he begrudged her not her happiness.

On the fourth day, when he had learned all he could from his reading, he went to Arya and presented his plan to her and her advisers. It took him the better part of the day to convince them that what he had in mind was necessary and, moreover, that it would work.

Once he had, they broke to eat. As dusk began to creep across the land, they assembled in the clearing around the Menoa tree: he, Saphira and Firnen, Arya, thirty of the elves’ oldest and most accomplished spellcasters, Glaedr and the other Eldunari that Eragon and Saphira had brought with them, and the two Caretakers: the elf women Iduna and Neya, who were the living embodiment of the pact between the dragons and the Riders.

The Caretakers disrobed, and-in accordance with the ancient rituals-Eragon and the others began to sing, and as they sang, Iduna and Neya danced, moving together so that the dragon tattooed across them seemed to become a single, unified creature.

At the height of the song, the dragon shimmered, and then it opened its jaws and stretched its wings and leaped forward, pulling itself off the elves’ skin and rising above the clearing until only its tail remained touching the intertwined Caretakers.

Eragon called to the glowing creature, and when he had its attention, he explained to it what he wanted and asked if the dragons would agree.

Do as you will, Kingkiller, said the spectral creature. If it will help ensure peace throughout Alagaesia, we do not object.

Then Eragon read from one of the books of the Riders, and he spoke the name of the ancient language in his mind. The elves and the dragons who were present lent him the strength of their bodies, and the energy from them coursed through him like a great whirling tempest. With it, Eragon cast the spell he had spent days perfecting, a spell such as had not been cast for hundreds of years: an enchantment like unto the great old magics that ran deep within the veins of the earth and the bones of the mountains. With it, he dared to do what had been done only once before.

With it, he forged a new compact between the dragons and the Riders.

He bound not just the elves and the humans to the dragons, but also the dwarves and the Urgals, making it so that any one of them could become a Rider.

As he spoke the final words of the mighty enchantment, and thus sealed it into place, a tremor seemed to run through the air and the earth. He felt as if everything around them-and everything in the world perhaps-had shifted ever so slightly. The spell exhausted him, Saphira, and the other dragons, but upon its conclusion, a sense of elation filled him, and he knew that he had accomplished a great good, the greatest, perhaps, of his entire life.

Arya insisted on throwing another feast to mark the occasion. Tired though he was, Eragon participated with good cheer, happy to enjoy her company and that of Roran, Katrina, and Ismira.

In the midst of the feast, however, the food and music suddenly became too much for him, and he excused himself from the table where he sat with Arya.

Are you all right? asked Saphira, looking over from her place by Firnen.

He smiled at her from across the clearing. I just need some quiet. I’ll be back soon. He slipped away and walked slowly among the pines, breathing deeply of the cool night air.

A hundred feet from where the tables lay, Eragon saw a thin, high-shouldered elf man sitting against a massive root, his back to the nearby celebration. Eragon altered his path to avoid disturbing him, but as he did so, he caught a glimpse of the elf’s face.

It was no elf at all, but the butcher Sloan.

Eragon stopped, caught by surprise. In all that had gone on, he had forgotten that Sloan-Katrina’s father-was in Ellesmera. He hesitated for a moment, debating, and then with quiet steps walked over to him.

As he had the last time Eragon had seen him, Sloan wore a thin black strip of cloth tied around his head, covering the empty sockets where his eyes had once been. Tears seeped out from under the cloth, and his brow was furrowed and his lean hands clenched.

The butcher heard Eragon approach, for he turned his head in Eragon’s direction and said, “Who goes there? Is that you, Adare? I told you, I need no help!” His words were bitter and angry, but there was also grief in them such as Eragon had not heard from him before.

“It’s me, Eragon,” he said.

Sloan stiffened, as if touched with a red-hot brand. “You! Have you come to gloat at my misery, then?”

“No, of course not,” said Eragon, appalled by the thought. He dropped into a crouch several feet away.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you. It’s often hard to tell if you’re trying to help or hurt a person.”

“That depends on your point of view.”

Sloan’s upper lip curled. “Now there’s a weaselly elf-answer, if ever I heard one.”

Behind him, the elves struck up a new song on lute and pipe, and a burst of laughter floated toward Eragon and Sloan from the party.

The butcher motioned over his shoulder with his chin. “I can hear her.” Fresh tears rolled out from under the strip of cloth. “I can hear her, but I can’t see her. And your blasted spell won’t let me talk to her.”

Eragon remained silent, unsure what to say.

Sloan leaned his head against the root, and the knob in his throat bobbed. “The elves tell me that the child, Ismira, is strong and healthy.”

“She is. She’s the strongest, loudest baby I know. She’ll make a fine woman.”

“That’s good.”

“How have you spent your days? Have you kept up with your carving?”

“The elves keep you informed of my activities, do they?” As Eragon tried to decide how to answer-he did not want Sloan to know he had visited him once before-the butcher said, “I guessed as much. How do you think I spend my days? I spend them in darkness, as I have ever since Helgrind, with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs while the elves pester me about this and that and never give me a moment’s peace!”

Again laughter sounded behind them. Within it, Eragon could make out the sound of Katrina’s voice.

A fierce scowl contorted Sloan’s face. “And then you had to go and bring her to Ellesmera. It wasn’t enough just to exile me, was it? No, you had to torture me with the knowledge that my only child and grandchild are here, and that I’ll never be able to see them, much less meet them.” Sloan bared his teeth, and he looked as if he might spring forward at Eragon. “You’re a right heartless bastard, you are.”

“I have too many hearts,” said Eragon, though he knew the butcher would not understand.

“Bah!”

Eragon hesitated. It seemed kinder to let Sloan believe that Eragon had meant to hurt him rather than to tell him that his pain was merely the result of Eragon’s forgetfulness.

The butcher turned his head away, and more tears rolled down his cheeks. “Go,” he said. “Leave me. And never trouble me again, Eragon, or I swear one of us will die.”

Eragon poked at the needles on the ground, then he stood and stared down at Sloan. He did not want to leave. What he had done to Sloan by bringing Katrina to Ellesmera felt wrong and cruel. Guilt gnawed at Eragon, growing stronger second by second, until at last he reached a decision, whereupon calm settled over him again.

Speaking no louder than a whisper, he used the name of the ancient language to alter the spells he had placed on Sloan. It took him over a minute, and as he neared the end of his incantations, Sloan growled between clenched teeth, “Stop your accursed muttering, Eragon, and begone. Leave me, blast you! Leave me!”

Eragon did not leave, however, but began a new spell. He drew upon the knowledge of the Eldunari and of the Riders whom many of the older dragons had been paired with, and he sang a spell that nurtured and fostered and restored what had once been. It was a difficult task, but Eragon’s skill was greater than it had once been, and he was able to accomplish what he wished.

As Eragon sang, Sloan twitched, and then he began to curse and scratch with both hands at his cheek and brow, as if an itch had seized him.

“Blast you! What are you doing to me!”

Ending his incantation, Eragon squatted back down and gently removed the strip of cloth around Sloan’s head. Sloan hissed as he felt the strip being pulled away, and he reached up to stop Eragon, but was too slow and his hands closed on empty air.

“You would take my dignity as well?” said Sloan, hate in his voice.

“No,” said Eragon. “I would give it back. Open your eyes.”

The butcher hesitated. “No. I can’t. You’re trying to trick me.”

“When have I ever done that? Open your eyes, Sloan, and look upon your daughter and granddaughter.”

Sloan trembled, and then, slowly, ever so slowly, his eyelids crept upward and revealed, instead of empty sockets, a pair of gleaming eyes. Unlike those he had been born with, Sloan’s new eyes were blue as the noonday sky and of startling brilliance.

Sloan blinked, his pupils shrinking as they adjusted to the meager light within the forest. Then he jolted upright and twisted to peer over the top of the root at the festivities taking place between the trees beyond. The glow from the elves’ flameless lanterns lit his face with a warm light, and by it, he seemed suffused with life and joy. The transformation in his expression was amazing to behold; Eragon felt tears in his own eyes as he watched the older man.

Sloan continued to stare over the root, like a parched traveler seeing a great river before him. In a hoarse voice, he said, “She’s beautiful. They’re both so beautiful.” Another burst of laughter rang forth. “Ah … she looks happy. And Roran too.”

“From now on, you can look at them if you want,” said Eragon. “But the spells upon you still won’t let you talk with them or show yourself to them or contact them in any way. And if you try, I’ll know.”

“I understand,” murmured Sloan. He turned, and his eyes focused on Eragon with unsettling force. His jaw worked up and down for a few seconds, as if he were chewing on something, and then he said, “Thank you.”

Eragon nodded and stood. “Goodbye, Sloan. You’ll not see me again, I promise.”

“Goodbye, Eragon.” And the butcher twisted round to gaze once more into the light of the elven feast.