Don't Read Without Reading Eragon
In the world of Alegasia there are many towns, cities, and villages. The majority of these settlements are located within the wicked rule of King Galbatorix. However there is hope on the horizon, in the dragons that were thought to be extinct. King Galbatorix wiped out the entire dragon species because of a grudge and he became the wickedest person to walk these lands. There were however three dragon eggs that survived and one had been captured from King Galbatorix's castle.
Where you will start today is with a young man named Eragon who has found a stone peculiar stone in the dreaded mountain range known as the spine. Eragon foolishly sold the egg to the traders that come yearly. Eragon's mistake caused a boy of equal age in the port city of Tierm to acquire it.
It had been a long day, a good day but none the less quite long. Eragon wasn't used to dealing with the traders but he didn't care he finally got something good for that stone.
The stone had been plaguing him ever since he found it in the much feared peaks and valleys of the spine. Eragon was the only person in Carvahall that knew how to go through them unharmed. This was needed for the food that he needed to kill in the mountains.
However Eragon had felt the stone had been meant for something more, more than a couple of crowns and thanks for his business. He had a feeling that it was important for some unknown reason. He was more right than anyone knew.
Torim enjoyed the winter it had brought him solace when nothing else would. The ocean constantly bringing waves of icy frost that chilled to the bone made him shiver with the thought of being caught in a storm. Not many people this time of year enjoyed living in Teirm due to its blankets of snow and relentless storms, but to Torim it was better than the sunshine. He enjoyed sliding down hill and he always, always, had snowball fights with the neighborhood kids.
But winter wasn't the reason today was so special to him, today the traders came. His father Tarmick wouldn't let him go to them for fear that they would take advantage of a young impressionable mind. But his father had promised him something spectacular when he finished with his routine business with the nomads.
His father walked in the door and instantly Torim had a jolt of excitement.
"How was your day son?" asked his father
His father walked to the counter to put the items he traded for in there places. He was truly a great actor, pretending as though he had never promised Torim anything. Torim knew that his father was as excited as he was.
"It was wonderful I've read quite a lot today. Darmin and I went to Angela's shop to learn some more cures for illnesses." Torim said playing along.
Then, slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled out a brown cloth that was wrapping something, something about the same size as his head, just more oblong. After that he unwrapped the mystery object with what seemed like reluctance. At first Torim only had fleeting glances but as he continued he saw more and more of a beautiful blue stone. This stone looked to be more valuable than chest of the dwarves red gold. He lifted the stone to hand to Torim, and as Torim took it he realized how light it was, almost as if it was hollow or empty.
This idea struck him like a rhino and immediately he tried to locate the source of the weight (or lack there of). His spectacular surprise was not short lived; he seemed to have never seen a stone of this beauty before in his life. He wanted to test it but he didn't want to harm it, it was just too beautiful to even think about harming. He couldn't even tell if it was a gem stone or a regular rock.
The stone was beautiful beyond measure it was a deep sapphire blue with blinding white veins running down it. At had a perfectly smooth texture with a deepness that surpassed anything he had ever seen. He felt like he was staring through the stone when gazing upon it.
For nights and nights on end he tried to place the type of stone with his father's numerous books on rocks and minerals. Unfortunately, he couldn't place the rock, every time he tried it slipped away, like nailing Jell-o to a wall. He couldn't conclude the type of rock but he sure placed some conclusions about. Like that it was hollow. He found out when testing the hardness with a small hammer and by trying to chisel off a piece that it was hollow, completely empty.
He couldn't help but notice that by accounts in every book he checked this rock was either brought about by magic or extraordinary circumstances. How else could a rock with such a perfect shape be formed? It was also amazingly hard, as hard as dragon scales he imagined.
This was one of the most perfect stones he had ever seen in his life, perfect in color, nearly indestructible, light weight, and absolutely fascinating. Torim wondered whether this stone had come to by mere happenstance or if it was fate that brought them together. There was one person whom he trusted to help him, Angela the herbalist.
Torim walked through his narrow street towards Angela's shop wondering if she could help him. The street was padded down heavily from all of the years of travel. However, the air was fresh and tasty smelling near herbalist shop, unlike the rest of the town.
Upon his arrival Angela hailed him, "Hello Torim. What brings you down here today?" she asked jovially.
"I actually came here to see if you could help me with a problem I have recently acquired," he answered in turn.
"Yes, I can," she said still writing furiously.
There was a long pause as Torim waited and Angela seemed as though she didn't even have the short conversation.
"Will you?" he asked testingly remembering how the herbalist reacted when she was angry.
"I hate to disappoint, but I'm afraid I'm quite occupied right now, how about coming back in the morning?" she said slightly less gleefully.
"Oh, okay. But what are you doing?" he queried.
"I just had a crazy idea that maybe there's no such thing as toads," she answered with the appearance of wanting to go on.
"Well that sounds strange," Torim remarked slightly skeptical.
"Don't worry darling it will be," she said.
On his way home Torim was walking through the same heavily trodden streets and walked passed Jeod's house. Now Jeod wasn't what you would call the luckiest man. As of late all of the ships from his business would be sunk. Whether they sunk from bandits or robbers no one but the dead knew, and unless you were supremely confident, they would hold there secret.
"Torim my young man how are you?" Jeod said from behind him, his wisp of hair waving in the slight breeze.
"I'm doing well sir, how about yourself?" Torim shot back at this kind, but clever old man.
"I'm doing just fine. What brings you here young man?" Jeod asked again.
"I came to ask Angela about this strange blue rock my father bought me."
"Well let me have a look," Jeod said enthusiastically. Slowly Torim unwound the cloth from his stone and gently gave it to Jeod.
Upon holding it Jeod's eyes lit up in a astonished face, one Torim rarely saw from this seemingly all-knowing man. He then immediately gave the stone to Torim and shot for the market place.
"Where are you going?" Torim called.
"To see the traders that gave this to you," Jeod yelled back in between strides.
Torim couldn't work out what had provoked Jeod to do this; he didn't even think the old man could run. As he walked in his door it was getting late and his father was already in bed so he could wake up for work the following morning. Torim followed suit getting into bed with his stone on a bookshelf in his room.
Shrieking woke him from his pleasant sleep in the middle of the night. He rolled out of bed and searched his room for the source of the intolerable noise. It was the stone. He pleaded with it to stop and when that didn't work he hit it on the ground, after a few minutes it stopped and he slipped into sleep again.
The shrieks woke him a second time and he kicked the stone punched the stone and flung the stone on the ground to no avail until he sat on his bed covering his ears.
Then the stone made a curious thunk and another and another, getting higher and higher pitched until there was a crack on the egg. Then it split even more, and more, and more, until the egg was a spider web of cracks.
Then as proof that this was indeed a very strange occurrence, the egg that was thought to be a stone split and out walked a sapphire blue dragon…