The proper way to make an impression on a prisoner is to receive him in your own inner sanctum. Bring him to a place so sacred to you, and only you, that his own self flickers like a candle in the face of the sun. The King of Alagaesia was one of the few fortunate enough to be able to construct his own self in the form of a room: a long narrow hall paved and lined with black stones that somehow managed to hold a glimmer of red in them, a hall where the fire illuminated spots of gilding that shone like stars in corners, a hall where shadows had lives and danced for the King's own private amusement.
Unfortunately, the throne in this room was just a bit uncomfortable.
Galbatorix began to notice this as soon as he sat down. The chair had an awkward curve in its back, so the King's normal relaxed posture (he refused to call it a 'slouch') caused the red-leather coated wood to dig into his back, and soon began to cut off all feeling in his lower body. This didn't do much for a mood that was not very light in the first place, and when the ebony doors flew open he sighed with a sort of relief.
The King stood as two figures marched through the doorway, dragging a third with them. The Twins hadn't bothered to change into ceremonial robes, and they trailed the dust of their travel behind them. Galbatorix decided to ignore that.
The prisoner fell to his knees as soon as they stopped long enough to allow him to do so, nearly pulling the Twins down with him. This was obviously not in a show of homage to Galbatorix, but rather because no force on earth could have kept him standing any longer. Murtagh's face was pale and hollow, his eyes bloodshot, his lips chapped and bleeding and his hair matted with blood. The back of his shirt was also soaked with blood. The King's lips thinned and he turned to the Twins.
"I hope those wounds are superficial."
"Of course." The bald man bowed. "We reopened the scar on his back with illusion only."
"Have you entered his mind?"
The Twins glanced nervously at each other. At last one of them said, "No."
"Good." The King placed a finger beneath Murtagh's chin and brought the youth's face into the sickly light of the chamber's lamps. "I plan to do that myself.
"Go." After a moment's reflection, he added, "A rich reward awaits you both."
The Twins bowed themselves out of the room, smiling. Galbatorix returned his attention to Murtagh.
"Morzan's son," he said. "It has been a long time since we last spoke."
"I heard enough the last time," Murtagh replied, spitting blood onto the glossy black floor.
"Too much for your stomach, was it?" The King regarded the defilement of his floor with disgust.
Murtagh wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing blood over chapped lips. "I will not serve a madman."
"Then you need not worry, for I assure you I am not mad," Galbatorix said in a voice both smooth and chill as ice.
"Your actions say otherwise."
"Only to cowards." The King's voice rose. "Only to those who don't have the strength to see my reasoning. And there are far, far to many of those.
"I had hopes for you. I never expected you to rise as high as your father, to be sure, but I thought you had strength. I was certain of it when you first agreed to serve me. Then when I asked but one service of you, you turned from me. I saw it in your eyes. Do you think you were the first person I entrusted with my dream? I've tried before. None of them could handle it. They had that look- the one you had then, the same one you have now- fear. Disgust. Contempt." Galbatorix's own voice was heavy with contempt now; he pulled his hand away. Without its support, Murtagh's chin dropped to his chest.
"I knew you were going to run." The King took a few steps away, and he began to hope that Galbatorix was leaving him, at least for now. "But I will ensure that you never run again."
The King's fists were clenched; he was breathing heavily. "But first you can tell me about the Varden."
"I could, but I won't."
"I'm sorry that you prefer to make things difficult." Galbatorix sent out tendrils of thought, studying Murtagh's defenses. The youth's mind was ringed with a wall like polished steel, strong but not complex. The King would admit it was initially daunting. If the defense had taken another form he might have circumvented it, sliding through cracks and warps so subtly that Murtagh wouldn't realize what he was doing until it was too late. This mental wall couldn't allow that.
So with a tiny sending of power, Galbatorix shattered it.
Murtagh's scream rent the chamber. The mental violation was painful, certainly; but there was a note in the cry that even Galbatorix had rarely heard before.
Despair. As if the most precious thing in Murtagh's world had been taken out before his eyes and trampled into dust. It was the cry of someone who has lost something irreplaceable, and who realizes it with an utter certainty that few men can withstand even in normal life.
It struck something frighteningly familiar in Galbatorix. With his soul ringing and sore from it, the King realized that his grip on the prisoner's mind was slipping; he strengthened his hold and examined his catch.
Varden. Eragon. Saphira, he ordered, and watched images, thoughts, memories rise to the surface. He studied them, then started as a separate knowledge drifted past him in a sea of thought. It was Eragon and the Ancient Language, and as he followed it he found more thoughts joined together like a shoal of fish. More words in the Language. And one, bright, vibrant and alive, that struck a chord with everything around it.
He studied the word a moment, then said it aloud.
Murtagh gasped, perhaps in preparation for another scream, but he didn't have the strength to carry it out. Galbatorix withdrew from his mind quickly to avoid the turmoil that was sure to come with the realization of Murtagh's true name.
Then he remembered what he had seen in it.
"You have a Rider's name," he said.
Though he remained kneeling, Murtagh appeared to have curled up. He had to choke out words to speak.
"I what?"
"Your true name. It says you are a Rider." Galbatorix turned from Murtagh and walked to his throne. The carved black stone chair was set a little before the wall; he slipped into the space between and whispered, Open.
The wall behind the throne began to roll up into the ceiling, revealing a space the width of Galbatorix's shoulders and of unseen depth. A block of black stone was within, waist-high, with a round hollow carved and polished into the top surface. Two round objects rested within. Bearing one reverently in each hand, the King brought them back to Murtagh.
The youth stared at the eggs. They were each vibrantly colored one the green of spring moss and the other the red of sunset, with a web work of white over each.
"Touch one," Galbatorix commanded.
Murtagh had already reached out, curiously, to the red egg. Now he pressed his palm against the smooth, warm surface.
"Nothing's happening," he said.
"It doesn't react immediately," Galbatorix growled. "Try the other one."
The green egg was totally inert. Murtagh was reaching out to the red one, just to compare, when it began to rock, making a nerve-racking clatter against the flagstones. Galbatorix stared at it in- what? Shock? Perhaps anger, as if the egg had committed a personal offence, perhaps even fear. The King snatched up the green egg and returned it to the safe.
"I'll not bother to stay for the hatching," he said in a carefully casual voice. "It can take hours."
There was longing in his voice, and a strange tone Murtagh couldn't identify. He had never heard the King sound like that- almost as if he were in pain.
Or jealousy.
The thought gave Murtagh enough courage to call, "Rider or not, I'll never serve you!"
"We shall see," Galbatorix said. The King added a whispered word, the one he had discovered in the youth's mind only minutes before, and added, "Do not disappoint me."
He left the room.
The egg continued to rock on the uneven paving stones. Murtagh watched it, suddenly afraid. He dreaded the moment he knew was coming, as a web of fractures spread over the red shell-
Then suddenly the porous surface was lifted and slid aside, revealing a small, pointed, red snout. The baby dragon's scales were just a little darker than the shell itself, and the creature was coated with a dark, sticky fluid from inside the egg. It widened the hole it had made for itself, then rolled out, flailing a spiked tail barely the length of Murtagh's longest finger.
It crept towards him, damp small claws scratching the stone floor. When it came within reach he stretched his hand to it, with a combination of fear and worship, like a worshipper coming before a newly-embraced god...
The dragon opened its mouth and bit him.
He pulled back his hand and leapt to his feet in the same motion, and almost fell to the floor again. The creature leapt back, obviously as startled as he was. And his hand hurt. Murtagh could handle pain, had handled it for as long as he could remember, but this stinging numbness made him want to rip off his burning skin and swear.
"What'd you do that for?" He asked the dragon.
It didn't answer.
"Not very talkative, are you?" Well, it did just hatch. He looked down at his hand. The imprints of the dragon's teeth were visible but fading and the skin within the marks...
The skin was growing silver.
"Huh." Murtagh was surprised how close his voice sounded to laughter, but he looked down at the dragon and said it again. "Huh."
The baby scratched the side of its body with a wingtip and yawned, revealing teeth like small white thorns.
"Thorn," he said. "I think I'll call you Thorn."
The dragon said nothing to protest or applaud this revelation. But it allowed Murtagh to come closer, and when the new Rider picked Thorn up and cradled him in his arms, the dragon curled against the warmth of the human's body and slept, as if nothing was wrong. As if nothing had ever been wrong, or ever would be. As if they had not just ventured on a nightmare.