Author's introduction:
The idea for this story came from reading the original. In short, I felt that there were some very cool ideas in the original, but that they had often been poorly thought out; included solely because they were cool, without any real attempt to justify them in-universe.
This story started out as an attempt to rationalise these ideas in a way that makes sense from an in-universe perspective. It has since grown into a very different beast, as shall be seen as it develops.
The best way to describe this would be as a re-imagining of the original. It is a different take on the same general idea, with the same characters and basic premise.
PS. I like reviews. Reviews make me happy and a happy Hamillo is a quick-updating Hamillo. ;-)
Disclaimer:
Copyright to the Inheritance Cycle is owned by Christopher Paolini etc etc, blah blah blah, you get the picture.
I hope that you enjoy it.
Prologue: A Fly in the Ointment
It was just before dawn. The land was dark, with that strange lightness in the night time sky that appears in the east just before sunrise. A last few stars were still visible, defying the dawn, as Eragon slipped out of the cottage that he shared with his father and brother. Leaving before dawn would allow him to be well into the woods by sunrise, make some kills and get back to help with the farming. Out of the three of them, he was the best shot and over the years had started to account himself a fair hunter.
He was still a boy, tall and skinny, not yet fleshed out. His hair was brown and his eyes green; just a hint of fuzz decorated his chin, marking his increasing maturity. Although it was spring-time, he wore his extra shirt; the mornings still being cold. In his hand he held a longbow, and over his shoulder he carried a sackcloth bag which contained a few sundries, including a hunk of cheese, some bread and a few arrows; simple sharpened sticks with fire-hardened points and some feathers for fletching. The bow and arrows he'd made himself, although he'd persuaded his friend Bengil, apprentice to old Master Altard, the bowyer in the village, to give him an old bowstring from a broken longbow. The bow wasn't very powerful, nor the arrows very straight, but he could hit and kill a rabbit with them, even a deer, if he got close.
A few years ago, his hunting trips had merely been an amusement; done occasionally to supplement his family's rather boring farmer's diet with some rabbit or pheasant. Now though, they were becoming more essential. First there had been a famine, six years ago; that had wiped out a fair portion of their seed stores. They'd just started recovering from that when the tax gatherers started getting more demanding, taking a larger and larger proportion of the crop every year.
He made his way into the woods, moving stealthily between the trees. They were mainly pine, with little undergrowth. As he got higher, the trees started to thin out and the undergrowth. He did not move fast, animals noticed quick movement; but he went quietly, testing the ground for dry twigs or leaves that might give him away. As he went he laid down snares in likely spots; he would check them on his way back for catches.
Soon, he found his favourite spot. On one of the foothills, the trees stopped growing just before the summit. On the summit itself was a large stone outcropping, like a giant tooth growing out of the top of the hill. Eragon scrambled up it until he was perched on top. This gave him an unrivalled view of the whole valley and he got there just as the sun came up.
The valley was an odd shape. A few miles across at its widest point, it reduced down to a pass about a mile wide that lead down to the lowlands. Steep hills surrounded it on all sides. The village of Carvahall lay in almost the dead centre and various farmsteads were scattered around it, with his family's small one on the side nearest him, tucked against the hills on the side opposite the pass. The pale morning sunlight reflected from the mist that shrouded the floor of the valley, lending the view an ethereal air.
After his short rest he started to return the way he had come. Lots of wildlife was up and about now that the sun had risen and he soon came upon a rabbit in a small clearing, less than ten yards away, sitting there in the open. Eragon himself was still obscured by undergrowth and he froze, very slowly drawing an arrow and laying it to the bow. He raised it, drew and took aim.
A hundred miles away, another hunt was going on. A group of fugitives ran through the woods on the other side of the mountains. There were about two dozen of them and they were all dressed in breeches, boots and padded jackets and were armed with slings; except for one of them, a woman, who carried neither arms nor armour and had a cloth bag. Their apparent urgency was at a contrast to their measured pace.
The woman, Arana by name, kept turning to look behind them. Any normal observer would have thought this out of place; only another magic user would have seen what she was up to. What looked like a small gust of wind followed the party, but there was no wind. To Arana's magical vision, golden lines, looking something like sunbeams, radiated from every object, connecting them to every other object. By using magic to make these connections stronger or weaker, she was able to move any object that she wanted to, in any direction that she wished. The result was the illusion of wind, throwing up leaves, twigs and small clumps of earth. She made them settle down in specific orders, and when the 'breeze' had gone past, no sign of their trail remained.
They ran into a gully, cliffs rising to either side of them. After a hundred yards or so the cliffs ended; being replaced by leaf-littered slopes, thickly covered in bushes and plant life. They halted, various group members loading slings and disappearing into the undergrowth surrounding them to keep watch.
Arana collapsed with exhaustion, sweat running through her short, ginger hair, leaving tracks in the dirt that covered her freckled face. The group leader, called Roshald, a tall, dark man with a weathered face, crouched down beside her.
"Are you ok?"
Between pants, she replied, "I'm...fine. Just...need...to...rest. For...a...bit."
"That's fine, but don't take too long. They could very well be tracking us."
She nodded, pulling a water-flask from her bag to take a drink. The rest of the group were also taking some rest, pulling out food or drinking from bottles. An observant watcher would have noticed that through all this activity, they never lost their alertness, and never talked in loud voices.
Their caution was understandable. It was easier to hide in the forest than back on the grasslands and amongst the farms outside the city they were fleeing from, but the Empire's foresters were well trained and disciplined. They were well equipped, and their powerful longbows had spelt death to many a brigand or raiding wolf pack. They were also extremely skilled trackers and stealthy ambushers. They would find it very difficult to escape once the foresters were on their trail; their only hope was to get out as fast as they could and hope their trail would be undetected.
Arana reached into her bag and touched the item that they had stolen. The City's governor would be foolish to send anything less that foresters after them, and as soon as possible. It would be his head if the theft was discovered by his masters. To her knowledge, it was the last of its kind in the entire Empire. The caravan carrying it had been on a lonely stretch of road, miles from the City; with any luck, it would be a day or so before the theft was discovered at all.
After a short time, they were ready to go. Roshald made a sound that was something like a woodpigeon, to signal the lookouts to return, while the rest of the group packed up and got ready to run.
Arana nodded to the thick undergrowth in their path. "I'll be able to magic us a way through that, so it shouldn't slow us down much."
Roshald nodded. "That'd be helpful, although the trees will get thinner as we head further up into the mountains. It'll get much worse."
"That won't be a problem, but I won't be able to cover our trail at the same time. If they're following, they'll be able to see where we went."
Roshald grinned. "Ah, but they don't have the best magician in the world on their side. They'll be fighting their way through bushes every step of the way. And anyway, Tali's group will be meeting us up at Carmadhras Pass, so when we go through there there'll be a nice little ambush waiting for any pursuit. You only need to get us that far."
Arana smiled at the compliment, but was suddenly hit by a feeling of disquiet. She looked around, trying to identify the source. Then it hit her. "That's odd," she said. "There's no sound. The birds have fallen silent and there's no rustling of animals anymore."
Roshald looked at her in surprise and listened for a second. "You're right, but–"
"And the sentries aren't back either," Arana over-rode him, worry rising in her voice.
Roshald's eyes widened. "But that would mean–" He didn't hesitate, "Troop! Run!", but before anyone could take a step, an arrow took him between the shoulder blades and he dropped. More arrows hissed out of the undergrowth, felling more men.
Arana responded immediately. Using her magic, she exercised the full extent of her skill. The bonds within the air itself became visible to her magical sight as a sort of golden haze as she put forth the full extent of her magical skill. She whipped the air surrounding the group into a dome that surrounded the remainder of them. Several more arrows struck it and stuck fast, held in place by a thin layer of air that was momentarily as hard as steel.
Modifying her shield, Arana began to open small holes in it, and her companions returned shots. Arrows whistled in, sticking fast to the shield. Salvoes of hard river stones shot into the surrounding forest, rattling off tree trunks and hidden logs. A well aimed arrow shot through a hole in the shield and took one of her companions in the throat. Arana risked a slight weakening of her shield to divert some power into flattening large areas of undergrowth attempting to drive the ambushers from cover. One flattened bush revealed a forester, who immediately took three slingstones; one shattering his bow, while two more striking together nearly took his head off.
However, the foresters were not alone. As their companion revealed himself, Arana felt her mouth go dry. A tall man, with shoulder-length blond hair, he wore long red and brown robes; a sign of his status as an adept of the Shadolach, the elite order of the Empire's magical enforcers.
At his appearance, a volley of stones met him, but he stopped them in mid-air with a wave of his hand. Arana felt his will working on the shield that she had erected. She held the air in as strong a grip as she was capable of, but against him it was useless. The shield dissolved, creating a small breeze that gently buffeted her. At the same time, she felt more bonds of air wrap around her, pinning her arms to her sides. Grunts of anger from around her signalled that the same thing was happening to her companions. The battle clearly over, the ten remaining foresters emerged from cover.
The mage spoke, contempt dripping from his voice: "Well done little hedge wizard," he said, "you managed to get quite far before I detected you. However, now I have you. I would prefer it if you'd just give me the egg. It'd save me all the hassle of having to take it and it isn't as if you have any chance of stopping me."
Arana feigned surprise. "Egg? What egg? I don't remember any egg."
The mage sighed and crooked a finger. Arana's bag lifted from around her shoulders and in front of her face. She threw her power against him, tried to resist, fought with all her strength to keep control of it, but she might as well have tried to fight the tide. The bag's motion stopped and it hung in the air. With a flash of heat, it suddenly dissolved into ashes. They fell away; the contents remaining floating. The egg, the item they'd stolen, hung in the air. About a foot long, it was translucent blue and crystalline in appearance. In the middle, just visible with the daylight shining from the other side, was the shadow of a creature curled up inside.
Again, she tried to break his hold, but could not. She could feel his control on it, all around it, but when she tried to exert her own will and lever in, she could get no purchase. There were no weaknesses. She could see that he could feel her resistance, that it amused him. "You're stronger than you look, but not strong enough," he said. "Now, just for the inconvenience that you caused me, watch your companions die."
He raised his left hand and clicked his finger. One of rebels fell, dead. He clicked again; another fell dead. Arana felt despair well inside her. A sob in her throat, she battered again and again at his control, again and again tried to struggle against the bonds that encircled her. Tears ran down her cheeks as around her, her comrades, men who were her friends, dropped like puppets with their strings cut. As her hope died, Arana felt a hand grab her ankle, Roshald was not yet finished.
She glanced down and saw his lips move, vaguely hearing his whisper.
"Take my strength, I'm dead anyway." She did not want to, but there was no other choice. Under her breath, she mumbled the necessary spell, tears flooding her cheeks as she did so. Power flowed through their connection and she felt Roshald's hand go limp as his last strength flooded into her.
She blasted at the mage's bonds, and felt them melt before her. In his eyes she read his surprise, followed by his realisation of what had happened. She had to finish this before he could recover. Even with her temporary boost, he was still stronger than her. She knew that she couldn't break his hold on the egg, but she wouldn't have to if she could force him to release it. Concentrating her power, she released a massive shock wave that blasted out at the surrounding rangers. The front ones were thrown backwards into the ones behind, and they all fell in a heap. The mage also was thrown backwards, and with his view of the egg temporarily broken his grip slipped. Arana focussed on it, forcing her will into the gap and levering with all her might. She felt his hold break and reached forward to catch the egg. She raised it above her head and spoke her focusing words, spending her last strength on the effort. A bright corona of white light erupted around the egg and seemed to contract into it. With a shriek of inrushing air, it disappeared and the egg was gone.
Arana collapsed, all strength gone. Looking up, she could see the foresters recovering, the mage approaching her. With a wave of his hand he lifted her upright and stared into her eyes with cold fury. Serenely, she looked back, far too spent to do anything else.
"You will very much regret doing that." he said through gritted teeth. He flicked his hand and she flew backwards, hitting a tree with punishing force. As she slipped into unconsciousness, she heard him shout at the rangers. "Bring her with us and keep her alive! Finish off the rest!" Then hearing faded.
Eragon sighted in on the rabbit, giving the bow an extra tug and loosed the arrow. Even as he did so, a bright light appeared from the ground in front of him. The light itself grew and grew, its brightness seeming to burn into his head. There was an almighty blast and he was thrown backwards. Everything went white.
