Double lives – the multiverses collide

Chapter 4

After much debate, the council had not gotten far. Eragon's patience was being drawn thin. "Enough." He said, interrupting the current speaker, a human Hendrik. "Let us look at what we do know, we can talk to the stranger in person to find out more, instead of speculating, which gets us nowhere.

"John Avner is young, a teenager, and thus can't pose much of a threat. He is most certainly not from Alagaesia, as far as we know. He does not have magic abilities, although some of the things I have seen in his memories seem magical. One, for example was a massive frame or box like thing that ha moving pictures. It couldn't have been scrying. He merely used a rectangular object to change the moving pictures. That brings us to the other problem. Wherever he is from, although apparently not magical, is much more advanced than us.

"Along with their apparent lack of magic, we also have many creatures they don't know. John was having a panic attack when he saw the dragons. That is all I was able to discern. The rest escapes our collective understanding. Any questions or factual information to add?"

One of the council members, an Urgal named Telankus, cleared his throat then said "And by many creatures, you mean by extension the races of the Urgalgra, Elves and Dwarves? Obviously they have humans. He is one."

"Yes, you are correct, as far as I know. I didn't search his mind too deeply, as his surface memories were confusing enough."

The other elf in the room, Svendör, nodded, then he spoke "Wouldn't it be best to bring him here, you keep just enough mental contact with him to know when he lies, and we ask him ourselves?"

"Yes, I was planning to suggest that after all the questions had finished. Are there anymore?" He paused, and when the room stayed silent, he said "Ok. I shall go get him. Now, he is probably going to be easily startled, so try not to scare him."

John had no clue what time it was. He was very tired, but sleep eluded him. The days inexplicable events bounced around inside his head. He had no idea what to do or say. So, he lay sleepless on his new bed, staring at the ceiling in his otherwise nondescript room, bed and table aside.

His reverie was broken when he heard a voice outside said something in that strange language again, then the lock of the door slid back. The door was opened and the same voice from earlier said "Come, the council and I need to speak to you?" So now mad scientists have councils? he thought. He didn't bother waiting to be asked the second time. He still remembered what happened last time he had ignored the man who called himself Eragon. Spelled remarkably the same as Dragon, what a coincidence he thought, wordlessly getting up and walking to Eragon.

He followed the man outside the building, walking through an apparently abandoned town. That would explain the room. They merely took an abandoned medieval town. he thought. But that didn't explain the sheer massiveness of many of the buildings, nor the doorways.

Little did he know, there were riders and dragons all around, watching him. Eragon had asked them to keep quiet while he took the strange person to the council room. His invisibility spell didn't stop sounds, well, this one at least.

John saw the sun. It was clearly past noon. He had never been good at guessing the time from the sun, but he thought it was between 3 and 5 PM. After walking past many impressive, and surprisingly not run down, buildings, John and the man arrived at another, rather grand looking building. They walked in and John saw three of each of the types of people that he had seen in the forest. Maybe they did that to distinguish between their job or professions or ranks? There were the normal humans, the dwarves, the plastic-surgery humans and the big… horned ones... They were all watching him, and he felt rather uncomfortable.

There was an empty chair at the centre of the circle, and another in the circle that the one at the centre was facing. Eragon went and took the one at the edge of the circle. It was slightly more elevated than the others. So, apparently this Eragon was their leader.

John presumed the chair at the centre was for him, so he went ahead and sat down. If automatic seatbelts popped out and grabbed him and held him there, he wouldn't have been surprised, but they didn't, of which he was glad.

It was then that he realised that since the blurs, he had not seen any others of those creatures. Dragons, they were called. It also occurred to him, that since these people seemed to be trying to imitate a medieval fantasy land, they plastic-surgery ones could be aiming to be those humanoids called Elves.

Eragon nodded and allowed the council to begin their questions, on at a time. Svendör started with "Hello John, we are just going to ask you a few questions. We don't mean you any harm."

"Uhh…ok…" said John, nervous.

"Where do you come from, as in where do you live?"

"Silveredge, in South Africa." When all John got as a response was confused stares, he added "Earth?"

"So you are from another continent?"

"Well, which continent is this?"

"Alagaesia."

"Never heard of it." Said a very confused and creeped out John.

Svendör glanced at Eragon, who nodded his head. John was not lying. Svendör decided to let someone else try ask.

A dwarf lady leaned forward and asked "How did you get here?"

"I don't know…until you asked that question I thought you had kidnapped me from home!"

"Now why would we do that?"

"I don't know. What's with all the fancy stuff? Is this some top secret research lab or something?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Nevermind" John was angry and wanted to shout at them about his rights and how they should respect them and how they had no right to hold him there. From what he had seen already, they could get rid of him easily. Even make him do stuff, like that Eragon fellow had. Were they doing this to try mind control him? Was he their Guinea pig? Were they going to try take over the world? I read too many fiction books. He thought. It was almost as if he was in one. But that was not possible, right?

"Ok then…" said the Dwarf and sat down again, confused.

This question and question, and occasionally an answer, session went on for what felt like hours, perhaps it was, but due to both parties' misunderstanding of each other, they did not get very far. Eventually Eragon decided this was in vain, and asked Arya to take John to a decent guest room. She nodded and took him back towards the building that he had come from originally, but this time to a different room. One much more… homey. It had a much more comfortable bed, a fireplace, tapestries on the walls and a carved roundtable at the centre of the room. Eragon had also organised that there would be a decent dinner for one on the table.

Eragon sighed and waited for Arya to come back, then said to all those in attendance "It seems he is not going to speak. I sensed a lot of distrust and anger from him. He thinks we are lying and keeping him captive against his 'rights', whatever those are. I ask if Arya and Tasoula could accompany him tomorrow. You must allow him to get used to the place and not feel threatened, if we are to get any answers out of him. Also, don't introduce him straight away to dragons, make it gentle. I leave the planning up to you two." The elf and human ladies nodded and then Eragon said "Council dismissed." They dispersed to their separate houses for the night.

John enjoyed the meal. The food seemed less processed than at home. It seemed natural. He started to wonder if these people were in fact not lying about not being scientists, and they were actually medieval, though they had not known what that term meant. He lay down in the bed after having washed himself in the non-modern wash tub in a section of his room. After a while he fell asleep, despite his head not wanting to quiet all the thoughts floating around in it. But he managed to sleep, after some time.

He awoke to a familiar smell. Different to the one he had fallen asleep to. He was in his bed, in his room, in his home. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What a dream…" he mumbled to himself.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed my 4th chapter. The 5th will be up roughly tomorrow. Please review! I want to know what you guys think of my story! Oh, and for those of you who are going to go to google maps, Silveredge doesn't actually exist irl. Note: Chapter 1 has been updated and lengthened.