Eragon hesitated, unsure what to do. Then he thought, Why should I be afraid of an old hermit? and walked over to the garden. “I’m Bergan.… Bergan, son of Garrow.”
The man grunted. “Tenga, son of Ingvar.”
The armor in Eragon’s pack rattled as he dropped it to the ground. For the next hour, he labored in silence along with Tenga. He knew he should not stay for so long, but he enjoyed the task; it kept him from brooding. As he weeded, he allowed his mind to expand and touch the multitude of living things within the glade. He welcomed the sense of unity he shared with them.
When they had removed every last bit of grass, purslane, and dandelions from around the peas, Eragon followed Tenga to a narrow door set into the front of the tower, through which was a spacious kitchen and dining room. In the middle of the room, a circular staircase coiled up to the second story. Books, scrolls, and sheaves of loose-bound vellum covered every available surface, including a goodly portion of the floor.
Tenga pointed at the small pile of branches in the fireplace. With a pop and a crackle, the wood burst into flame. Eragon tensed, ready to grapple physically and mentally with Tenga.
The other man did not seem to notice his reaction but continued to bustle about the kitchen, procuring mugs, dishes, knives, and various leftovers for their lunch. He muttered to himself in an undertone while he did.
Every sense alert, Eragon sank onto the bare corner of a nearby chair. He didn’t utter the ancient language, he thought. Even if he said the spell in his head, he still risked death or worse to start a mere cookfire! For as Oromis had taught Eragon, words were the means by which one controlled the release of magic. To cast a spell without the structure of language binding that motive power was to risk having a stray thought or emotion distort the result.
Eragon gazed around the chamber, searching for clues about his host. He spotted an open scroll that displayed columns of words from the ancient language and recognized it as a compendium of true names similar to those he had studied in Ellesméra. Magicians coveted such scrolls and books and would sacrifice almost anything to obtain them, for with them one could learn new words for a spell and also record therein words one had discovered. Few, however, were able to acquire a compendium, for they were exceedingly rare and those who already owned them almost never parted with them willingly.
It was unusual, then, for Tenga to possess one such compendium, but to Eragon’s amazement, he saw six others throughout the room, in addition to writings on subjects ranging from history to mathematics to astronomy to botany.
A mug of ale and a plate with bread, cheese, and a slice of cold meat pie appeared in front of him as Tenga shoved the dishes under his nose.
“Thank you,” said Eragon, accepting them.
Tenga ignored him and sat cross-legged next to the fireplace. He continued to grumble and mutter into his beard as he devoured his lunch.
After Eragon had scraped his plate clean and drained the last drops of the fine harvest ale, and Tenga had also nearly completed his repast, Eragon could not help but ask, “Did the elves build this tower?”
Tenga fixed him with a pointed gaze, as if the question made him doubt Eragon’s intelligence. “Aye. The tricky elves built Edur Ithindra.”
“What is it you do here? Are you all alone, or—”
“I search for the answer!” exclaimed Tenga. “A key to an unopened door, the secret of the trees and the plants. Fire, heat, lightning, light … Most do not know the question and wander in ignorance. Others know the question but fear what the answer will mean. Bah! For thousands of years we have lived like savages. Savages! I shall end that. I shall usher in the age of light, and all shall praise my deed.”
“Pray tell, what exactly do you search for?”
A frown twisted Tenga’s face. “You don’t know the question? I thought you might. But no, I was mistaken. Still, I see you understand my search. You search for a different answer, but you search nevertheless. The same brand burns in your heart as burns in mine. Who else but a fellow pilgrim can appreciate what we must sacrifice to find the answer?”
“The answer to what?”
“To the question we choose.”
He’s mad, thought Eragon. Casting about for something with which he could distract Tenga, his gaze lit upon a row of small wood animal statues arranged on the sill below a teardrop-shaped window. “Those are beautiful,” he said, indicating the statues. “Who made them?”
“She did … before she left. She was always making things.” Tenga bounded upright and placed the tip of his left index finger on the first of the statues. “Here the squirrel with his waving tail, he so bright and swift and full of laughing gibes.” His finger drifted to the next statue in line. “Here the savage boar, so deadly with his slashing tusks.… Here the raven with …”
Tenga paid no attention as Eragon backed away, nor when he lifted the latch to the door and slipped out of Edur Ithindra. Shouldering his pack, Eragon trotted down through the crown of oak trees and away from the cluster of five hills and the demented spellcaster who resided among them.
Throughout the rest of that day and the next, the number of people on the road increased until it seemed to Eragon as if a new group was always appearing over a hill. Most were refugees, although soldiers and other men of business were also present. Eragon avoided those he could and trudged along with his chin tucked against his collar the rest of the time.
That practice, however, forced him to spend the night in the village of Eastcroft, twenty miles north of Melian. He had intended to abandon the road long before he arrived at Eastcroft and find a sheltered hollow or cave where he might rest until morn, but because of his relative unfamiliarity with the land, he misjudged the distance and came upon the village while in the company of three men-at-arms. Leaving then, less than an hour from the safety of Eastcroft’s walls and gates and the comfort of a warm bed, would have inspired even the slowest dullard to ask why he was trying to avoid the village. So Eragon set his teeth and silently rehearsed the stories he had concocted to explain his trip.
The bloated sun was two fingers above the horizon when Eragon first beheld Eastcroft, a medium-sized village enclosed by a tall palisade. It was almost dark by the time he finally arrived at the village and entered through the gate. Behind him, he heard a sentry ask the men-at-arms if anyone else had been close behind them on the road.
“Not that I could tell.”
“That’s good enough for me,” replied the sentry. “If there are laggards, they’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get in.” To another man on the opposite side of the gate, he shouted, “Close it up!” Together they pushed the fifteen-foot-tall ironbound doors shut and barred them with four oak beams as thick as Eragon’s chest.
They must expect a siege, thought Eragon, and then smiled at his own blindness. Well, who doesn’t expect trouble in these times? A few months ago, he would have worried about being trapped in Eastcroft, but now he was confident he could scale the fortifications barehanded and, if he concealed himself with magic, escape unnoticed in the gloom of night. He chose to stay, however, for he was tired and casting a spell might attract the attention of nearby magicians, if there were any.
Before he took more than a few steps down the muddy lane that led to the town square, a watchman accosted him, thrusting a lantern toward his face. “Hold there! You’ve not been to Eastcroft before, have you?”
“This is my first visit,” said Eragon.
The stubby watchman bobbed his head. “And have you family or friends here to welcome you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“What brings you to Eastcroft, then?”
“Nothing. I’m traveling south to fetch my sister’s family and bring them back to Dras-Leona.” Eragon’s story seemed to have no effect on the watchman. Perhaps he doesn’t believe me, Eragon speculated. Or perhaps he’s heard so many accounts like mine, they’ve ceased to matter to him.
“Then you want the wayfarers’ house, by the main
well. Go there and you will find food and lodging. And while you stay here in Eastcroft, let me warn you, we don’t tolerate murder, thievery, or lechery in these parts. We have sturdy stocks and gallows, and they have had their share of tenants. My meaning is clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then go, and be you of good fortune. But wait! What is your name, stranger?”
“Bergan.”
With that, the watchman strode away, returning to his evening rounds. Eragon waited until the combined mass of several houses concealed the lantern the watchman carried before wandering over to the message board mounted to the left of the gates.
There, nailed over a half-dozen posters of various criminals, were two sheets of parchment almost three feet long. One depicted Eragon, one depicted Roran, and both labeled them traitors to the Crown. Eragon examined the posters with interest and marveled at the reward offered: an earldom apiece to whoever captured them. The drawing of Roran was a good likeness and even included the beard he had grown since fleeing Carvahall, but Eragon’s portrait showed him as he had been before the Blood-oath Celebration, when he still appeared fully human.
How things have changed, thought Eragon.
Moving on, he slipped through the village until he located the wayfarers’ house. The common room had a low ceiling with tar-stained timbers. Yellow tallow candles provided a soft, flickering light and thickened the air with intersecting layers of smoke. Sand and rushes covered the floor, and the mixture crunched underneath Eragon’s boots. To his left were tables and chairs and a large fireplace, where an urchin turned a pig on a spit. Opposite this was a long bar, a fortress with raised drawbridges that protected casks of lager, ale, and stout from the horde of thirsty men who assailed it from all sides.
A good sixty people filled the room, crowding it to an uncomfortable level. The roar of conversation would have been startling enough to Eragon after his time on the road, but with his sensitive hearing, he felt as if he stood in the middle of a pounding waterfall. It was hard for him to concentrate upon any one voice. As soon as he caught hold of a word or a phrase, it was swept away by another utterance. Off in one corner, a trio of minstrels was singing and playing a comic version of “Sweet Aethrid o’ Dauth,” which did nothing to improve the clamor.
Wincing at the barrage of noise, Eragon wormed his way through the crowd until he reached the bar. He wanted to talk with the serving woman, but she was so busy, five minutes passed before she looked at him and asked, “Your pleasure?” Strands of hair hung over her sweaty face.
“Have you a room to let, or a corner where I could spend the night?”
“I wouldn’t know. The mistress of the house is the one you should speak to about that. She’ll be down directly,” said the serving woman, and flicked a hand at a rank of gloomy stairs.
While he waited, Eragon rested against the bar and studied the people in the room. They were a motley assortment. About half he guessed were villagers from Eastcroft come to enjoy a night of drinking. Of the rest, the majority were men and women—families oftentimes—who were migrating to safer parts. It was easy for him to identify them by their frayed shirts and dirty pants and by how they huddled in their chairs and peered at anyone who came near. However, they studiously avoided looking at the last and smallest group of patrons in the wayfarers’ house: Galbatorix’s soldiers. The men in red tunics were louder than anyone else. They laughed and shouted and banged on tabletops with their armored fists while they quaffed beer and groped any maid foolish enough to walk by them.
Do they behave like that because they know no one dares oppose them and they enjoy demonstrating their power? wondered Eragon. Or because they were forced to join Galbatorix’s army and seek to dull their sense of shame and fear with their revels?
Now the minstrels were singing:
So with her hair aflying, sweet Aethrid o’ Dauth
Ran to Lord Edel and cried, “Free my lover,
Else a witch shall turn you into a woolly goat!”
Lord Edel, he laughed and said, “No witch shall turn me into a woolly goat!”
The crowd shifted and granted Eragon a view of a table pushed against one wall. At it sat a lone woman, her face hidden by the drawn hood of her dark traveling cloak. Four men surrounded her, big, beefy farmers with leathery necks and cheeks flushed with the fever of alcohol. Two of them were leaning against the wall on either side of the woman, looming over her, while one sat grinning in a chair turned around backward and the fourth stood with his left foot on the edge of the table and was bent forward over his knee. The men spoke and gestured, their movements careless. Although Eragon could not hear or see what the woman said, it was obvious to him that her response angered the farmers, for they scowled and swelled their chests, puffing themselves up like roosters. One of them shook a finger at her.
To Eragon, they appeared decent, hardworking men who had lost their manners in the depths of their tankards, a mistake he had witnessed often enough on feast days in Carvahall. Garrow had had little respect for men who knew they could not hold their beer and yet insisted on embarrassing themselves in public. “It’s unseemly,” he had said. “What’s more, if you drink to forget your lot in life and not for pleasure, you ought to do it where you won’t disturb anyone.”
The man to the left of the woman suddenly reached down and hooked a finger underneath the edge of her hood, as if to toss it back. So quickly that Eragon barely saw, the woman lifted her right hand and grasped the man’s wrist, but then released it and returned to her previous position. Eragon doubted that anyone else in the common room, including the man she touched, had noticed her actions.
The hood collapsed around her neck, and Eragon stiffened, astounded. The woman was human, but she resembled Arya. The only differences between them were her eyes—which were round and level, not slanted like a cat’s—and her ears, which lacked the pointed tips of an elf’s. She was just as beautiful as the Arya Eragon knew, but in a less exotic, more familiar way.
Without hesitation, Eragon probed toward the woman with his mind. He had to know who she really was.
As soon as he touched her consciousness, a mental blow struck back at Eragon, destroying his concentration, and then in the confines of his skull, he heard a deafening voice exclaim, Eragon!
Arya?
Their eyes met for a moment before the crowd thickened again and hid her.
Eragon hurried across the room to her table, prying apart the bodies packed close together to clear himself a path. The farmers looked askance at him when he emerged from the press, and one said, “You’re awful rude, barging in on us uninvited-like. Best make yourself scarce, eh?”
In as diplomatic a voice as he could muster, Eragon said, “It seems to me, gentlemen, that the lady would rather be left alone. Now, you wouldn’t ignore the wishes of an honest woman, would you?”
“An honest woman?” laughed the nearest man. “No honest woman travels alone.”
“Then let me set your concern to rest, for I am her brother, and we are going to live with our uncle in Dras-Leona.”
The four men exchanged uneasy glances. Three of them began to edge away from Arya, but the largest planted himself a few inches in front of Eragon and, breathing upon his face, said, “I’m not sure I believe you, friend. You’re just trying to drive us away so you can be with her yourself.”
He’s not far off, thought Eragon.
Speaking quietly enough that only that man could hear, Eragon said, “I assure you, she is my sister. Please, sir, I have no quarrel with you. Won’t you go?”
“Not when I think you’re a lying milksop.”
“Sir, be reasonable. There’s no need for this unpleasantness. The night is young, and there’s drink and music aplenty. Let’s not quarrel about such a petty misunderstanding. It’s beneath us.”
To Eragon’s relief, the other man relaxed after a few seconds and uttered a scornful grunt. “I wouldn’t want to fight a youngling like you anyway,” he said. Turning around,
he lumbered toward the bar with his friends.
Keeping his gaze fixed upon the crowd, Eragon slipped behind the table and sat next to Arya. “What are you doing here?” he asked, barely moving his lips.
“Searching for you.”
Surprised, he glanced at her, and she raised a curved eyebrow. He looked back at the throng of people and, pretending to smile, asked, “Are you alone?”
“No longer.… Did you rent a bed for the night?”
He shook his head.
“Good. I already have a room. We can talk there.”
They rose in unison, and he followed her to the stairs at the back of the common room. The worn treads creaked under their feet as they climbed to a hallway on the second story. A single candle illuminated the dingy, wood-paneled corridor. Arya led the way to the last door on the right, and from within the voluminous sleeve of her cloak, she produced an iron key. Unlocking the door, she entered the room, waited for Eragon to cross the threshold after her, and then closed and secured the door again.
A faint orange glow penetrated the lead-lined window across from Eragon. The glow came from a lantern hanging on the other side of Eastcroft’s town square. By it, he was able to make out the shape of an oil lamp on a low table to his right.
“Brisingr,” whispered Eragon, and lit the wick with a spark from his finger.
Even with the lamp burning, the room was still dark. The chamber contained the same paneling as the hallway, and the chestnut-colored wood absorbed most of the light that struck it and made the room seem small and heavy, as if a great weight pressed inward. Aside from the table, the only other piece of furniture was a narrow bed with a single blanket thrown over the ticking. A small bag of supplies rested on the mattress.
Eragon and Arya stood facing each other. Then Eragon reached up and removed the cloth strip tied around his head, and Arya unfastened the brooch that held her cloak around her shoulders and placed the garment on the bed. She wore a forest-green dress, the first dress Eragon had seen her in.
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