Murtagh

The black veil of peaceful sleep suddenly lifted and Murtagh found himself in a vault. He soon recognized it as the place where the King hid his dragon eggs; or the remaining two at least. A dais was set in the middle of the room and upon it were three pedestals with thick cushions on top of them. Each stand and pillow corresponded in color to the Dragon Egg sitting on top of the - or in the case of the blue one the egg that had been sitting on it.

The rest of the room was rather plain. There was a fire burning in three small alcoves in the wall across from the gigantic door.

Murtagh was curiously wondering at where the tiny wisps of smoke went and how it was that no one had conceived entering the vault through the chimneys that had to exist - unless magic was involved in the removal of the smoke - when people suddenly materialized in the room.

Shock and a slight amount of horror froze Murtagh in place. The beautiful woman - standing closest to the dais of the four occupants of the room - with the long golden blonde hair was immediately recognized as his mother. She was wearing a red dress that looked like cascading blood.

Behind her, near the door, the King stood arguing with a demon of a man. He was tall and broad through the shoulders. His mane of raven black hair fell to his shoulders and he starred at the room with anger filled blue and black eyes.

"Morzan…father…." Murtagh gasped as he found his legs had fallen out from beneath him and he was upon his knees.

It was a dream it had to be. Two of the three people in the room were dead. There was no way…no way… Yet the dread in his heart would not leave him. Something terrible was going to happen. He knew it he could feel it.

"What is it momma?"

A child stood beside Murtagh's mother. At first he couldn't make sense of who the child was then he acknowledged the familiar black hair and silver eyes. It was him back when he must have been three or four years old.

This is a memory! Murtagh thought as he looked around the room with renewed eyes.

"What is it child?" his mother asked. Oh how he had missed her soothing voice. It almost brought tears to a matured pair of silver eyes.

Murtagh's eyebrows creased in confusion or frustration or perhaps both. "You called my name."

Selena shook her head. "No I didn't baby," she said. "No one did."

The boy frowned and looked to the eggs once again. Seconds passed before fear took place of his confusion and he hid behind his mother's skirts with a cry. "Momma it's in my head. It's talking to me in my head."

The woman looked down at her son with utter concern in her eyes. "Murtagh, what is it what's wrong?" The King and his servant had stopped their arguing and were gazing intently at the boy.

Murtagh reached around his mother and pointed at the red dragon egg. "It's in my head. It's saying my name!" Murtagh cried as he buried his face in her skirts.

Before Selena could react Morzan raced forward and grabbed Murtagh's arm jerking him around. "You're lying," he snarled at his son.

"No, father, please…" Murtagh began to beg…for what his older counterpart observing this mess unfold could not tell.

The back of Morzan's hand cracked across Murtagh's face with enough force to knock him several feet away from his mother. The boy fell to the ground in a heap. A moment later he sat up and pressed a hand to his blazing red cheek as tears fell from his eyes. "Father…" the child moaned.

Murtagh, the one witnessing the memory unfold, clutched at his chest. A deep ache had suddenly sprung up there as if a deep wound had been opened and laid bare for the world to see. Awful visions of his father sprang up. Most of which were mere images of him that had been posted upon the walls of Galdbatorix home as the searing agony of the scar on his back opening again and again under the blade at his waist filled his body. Above this all he felt the despair of wasted love and the utter hopelessness of paternal betrayal.

"Morzan!" Galdbatorix exclaimed making Murtagh raise his tear stained back to the scene before him.

The King was standing beside his servant holding the man's shoulder as if he were afraid that the Forsworn might launch himself at his son and brutalize him.

"If the child says he's not lying then I am inclined to believe the young man. After all why would he have a reason to tell us falsehoods," Galdbatorix said as he advanced toward the crumpled figure. "Which you know as well as I means only one thing…" the King said as that evil glint that the observer of these atrocities knew to be his madness showing through.

"No!" the child screamed as the King dragged him to his feet and led him toward the dais and the red stone. "No. Majesty, please!" the boy begged.

"Stop!"

Selena had strode forward and snatched his son from the Kings grasp. Galdbatorix spun and stuck her across the cheek but unlike her son she did not fall.

"I will not allow this. He's a child and a terrified one at that. That dragon has waited this long for him. He can continue to wait at least until he's twenty one and properly trained for it," she said as she held her sobbing son close to her bosom.

Galdbatorix glared at her. For the longest time no one moved. Murtagh - both of them - waited, trembling, knowing the King surely lash out at their mother. But against all logic the Kings face calmed.

In the ancient language he said, "I swear to you these eggs will never leave this room and your son shall not see the inside of this room again until his twenty first year."

As the last word resounded through the room everything faded away. The darkness swallowed him for a moment before he woke up, covered in sweat and gasping for air back in the cave far beneath the dwarven city of Farthen Dur.

A voice horrible and bitter sounded in the back of his mind. Happy twenty-first Birthday.