Heh, almost everyone has automatically assumed the explosion was caused by Mercury, it amuses me to witness your opinion of him to be this...oh, and to those I have written to, know that I never actually de- or confirmed Mercury' part in the explosion.
A light in the night
Eragon POV
Upon seeing the explosion Eragon quickly jumped to his feet followed swiftly by Arya. The explosion looked like it had originated in the outskirts of camp, the very same outskirts where Mercury resided. Eragon worried whether his friend was hurt, as he and Arya started running towards where the explosion had been, now there was simply a small fire lighting the night.
"I think Mercury might have been near the explosion", Arya said as they ran, "I can feel my wards have lost almost all their energy".
In the small time it took to run from their small campfire to Mercury's tent; Eragon was contacted by Trianna, Blödhgarn and Saphira. They had all asked where he was, if he was all right and whether the Varden was under attack.
Upon arriving at the sight of the explosion Eragon noticed that the Varden soldiers where either in a state of panic or were trying to organize a defence against an ambush. The only damage Eragon could see so far was Mercury's tent burning and a small sod covered crater just outside Mercury's tent. Eragon guessed that the explosion had occurred right outside Mercury's tent, and praised luck for the fact that Mercury had placed his tent so far out of camp, because if he had placed it inside the middle of the camp, like he had been offered, the fire might have spread to the rest of the Varden.
Arya seemed to have noticed the origin of the explosion too, because as she started running towards Mercury's tent, Eragon could hear her muttering a silent curse. Eragon quickly followed Arya, and as they ran towards Mercury's tent, they noticed Mercury running in and out of his burning tent, trying to rescue his belongings.
Eragon could not stop himself from asking, despite his mind telling him to look for injuries on Mercury and extinguish the fire, "what happened here?"
"I will tell you in a moment, if you help me rescue my belongings before they burn to a crisp", Mercury said, as he ran back into the tent to fetch more of his belongings.
Eragon and Arya quickly extinguished the fire with magic, but before they could ask Mercury what had happened a company of fully armed Varden soldiers arrived. Although they appeared ready to fight any unknown enemy, Eragon could still see the fear in their eyes.
"Where are our attackers Shadeslayer?", the commander asked.
Eragon took a quick look at Mercury, who was busy assessing the damage to his belongings, and then a look towards Arya for confirmation, which she replied with a small bird-like nod, before he replied to the commander, "There are no attackers tonight commander. I am sure the explosion was an accident, but I have yet to learn what has happened myself. You may return to your tents and rest, and please try and spread the message that the Varden is not under attack".
The commander took a quick look at the small crater and then at Mercury before he complied and ordered his men to return to camp. Eragon spent the next 30 minutes explaining with his mind to Nasuada, Trianna, Blödhgarn, King Orrin, King Orik and various commanders, who brought their own troops to help with the apparent ambush, that there was no immediate threat to the Varden. Almost all of the leaders wanted an extensive report on what exactly had happened and how it had happened, but Eragon merely promised that as soon as he found out himself, he would give a proper explanation.
As soon as he was done speaking with the leaders, Eragon turned towards Mercury, who was currently sitting on the ground, while Arya probed him for injuries and healed the minor bruises and burns that had formed despite of her wards.
"I believe you owe us an explanation", Eragon said in a strict but not unfriendly tone, the discussions with the various leaders had left him in an irritated mood.
"Aye, I believe I might", Mercury said, as he looked down into the ground for a moment before looking back at Eragon, who now sat besides Arya on the ground, "I trust that Arya has explained the idea, I had of using salt as a new storage system instead of gems and the problems I have encountered with this?"
"She has", Eragon confirmed, despite a sense in his mind telling him that Mercury already knew of this.
"When I told her about my problems, and how I had encountered them, she said it reminded her of how you broke a magic lantern in Farthen Fur", Mercury continued.
Eragon took a quick glance at Arya, who faintly nodded, before he interrupted Mercury's tale, "is that what happened here? Did Orik lend you a magic lantern, which you then broke?"
"No, but the story did give me an idea for my empowered salt", Mercury continued, before stopping for a moment to search for the right words, "I figured that if I could just stabilize the energy in the salt, and have it attach to the chemical structure instead of the...never mind, but safe to say that I wanted to bind the energy in the salt more permanently. The energy would have been bound so tightly that you could not take it out of the salt again with your mind or if the salt crystal broke, but it would release itself if a specific fuse was used".
Eragon felt a lot of questions enter his mind, but unlike before he kept them at bay and did not interrupt Mercury's tale.
"I spent almost all of last night and today to come up with the right way to do this", Mercury said, as he started scratching letters, numbers and symbols, that made no sense to Eragon or Arya, in the ground, "I tried to make some right after we made camp, and I actually succeeded, the fuses where much simpler to make than the salt, and later I decided a small test would be in order".
I told you he would find a way to kill himself before we even reached Belatona, Arya said in Eragon's mind, her voice was half full of anger and half full of mirth.
Eragon had a hard time fighting a chuckle before he responded with a voice completely full of mirth, so you think he is worse at attracting trouble than myself?
At least with you, I can rest somewhat assured that either Saphira or your guards are with you to stop you from your own foolishness, Arya said in playful voice.
Oh, I did not know my safety kept you up at night. Perhaps I should just start taking a run alone once a week, to show you that I don't always get into trouble when I am alone, Eragon answered in a slightly teasing voice.
Before Arya could respond, they were interrupted by Mercury, who had noticed that his audience was not paying attention anymore, "do you want me to finish my account on the events...or should I just leave you two alone for the night".
Eragon immediately brought his attention back towards Mercury, where he responded in a slightly higher voice than he intended, "I am sorry for the interruption, but we were discussing something of great importance". It was not a complete lie; to Eragon the conversation with Arya had been very important.
"Right", Mercury said in a voice that clearly showed he did not believe Eragon, before he continued in his normal voice, "as I said earlier, I wanted to make a small test, but as you can see, the test did not exactly go according to plan." As Mercury said the last part he released a small chuckle before continuing, "I thought I had full control over the size of the explosion. According to my calculations on how much energy, that had been locked in the salt, the explosion should have only filled the width of a bowl, but I guess that somewhere in the process of making the salt or perhaps the process that released the energy, there must have been some energy transferred from my materials".
Neither Eragon nor Arya said anything for a full minute, both contemplating Mercury's discovery and its implications. Finally it was Arya who broke the silence, "you are saying that, you have made a substance that makes an explosion the size of that crater despite being given far less energy?"
Mercury seemed to consider his next words carefully before replying with a simple, "Aye".
Eragon noticed, that Arya had clearly noticed Mercury's short pause before replying, an act he had not given that much thought, but he could see Arya gave it great significance. Eragon's own head swam with possible uses for this new invention; they could use it to open every gate, throw a lit bag with it at the enemy and bring down entire castles, but to his surprise, Arya said in a voice, that Eragon had never heard her use before with anyone, it was soft and had a special tone to it, which to Eragon almost seemed like she was asking permission for something, "will you teach the Varden to make more?"
Eragon had no idea how Mercury had obtained such a high standing with Arya, but all his speculations were swept aside, as Mercury uttered his answer in a strict but not unfriendly voice, "No, it would be wrong".
No, Eragon thought angrily to himself, how can he say no? The entire Varden would be kissing his feet for this weapon, we could overthrow Galbatorix and bring peace back to Alagaësia, and he says no.
Before Eragon had a chance to vent his anger, Arya said in the same voice, "could you please tell us the reasons for this?"
Eragon was now almost exploding with anger, how can Arya be so composed to this? She surely has seen the possibilities as well as I have, but she remains calm.
Mercury interrupted Eragon's thoughts as he started talking in a compassionate voice, which showed he knew how they must be feeling right now, "Remember when I first came before your leaders and they asked me to make weapons for them? The weapons I denied them all had at their core one simple thing, which unified them and made them work. In my world it is called gunpowder, and its function is to create a small controlled explosion, which then powers the weapons. If I were to teach the Varden to make more of my explosive salt, which is much more potent than gunpowder, then I might as well teach them how to use it properly, because those weapons would not be far behind. And since my reasoning for denying the weapons in the first place still stands, I see no other option, but to deny them again".
Eragon's anger lifted somewhat, but now that he had seen the possibilities of the weapons; he wanted to have more of an explanation to why Mercury would not allow these weapons in Alagaësia. In a stern but still friendly voice Eragon said to Mercury, "the first time you refused to make the weapons and was asked why, you said that Alagaësia was not at a high enough level of development. What did you mean by that and when will it be?"
Mercury looked Eragon straight in the eyes as he said, "I meant that because these weapons are so much more deadly, the amount of people in Alagaësia needs to correspond with that. As it is now, Alagaësia would be vastly depopulated if a war was ever fought with these weapons. The most important factor in when Alagaësia is ready... if ever... to have this kind of weaponry is your food and medical development. To put it simply: your farms don't produce enough crops to sustain a population that could survive fighting with these weapons".
Eragon's anger dissipated after hearing Mercury's reasons and as he looked at Arya's face, he could see she clearly understood the ramifications as well.
"I understand", was all Eragon could manage to say.
"Good", Mercury said simply, "I will however concede to make a small amount of the explosive salt, but I will be the one who safeguards it, and I will only concede to use it if no other way is possible".
Mercury's statement had caught both Eragon and Arya off guard, Eragon could not find heads and tails in why he would make it and yet not make it, but it was Arya who asked the question, which troubled Eragon's mind the most, "why would you concede to make a small amount of this explosive if you would not do the same with your gunpowder?"
Mercury had clearly been expecting this question, because he responded immediately, "the reason is simple: Gunpowder is easy to make, and if I were to request the necessary ingredients, then I might as well give its recipe away, but this new explosive salt is harder and more difficult to make. I have actually written the formulae to make it on the ground before you, but no one in Alagaësia would know how to replicate it simply from looking at the required ingredients, and therefore I don't have to worry about someone learning its secrets".
Eragon could see his point; he certainly did not understand any of what Mercury had written on the ground and he was pretty sure none in Alagaësia would. Mercury then surprised Eragon by asking a favour, "that reminds me, I would be happy if either of you taught me how to extend my mind, so that I do not require the aid of magicians. I have been trying to do so for a while, but it has had no effect".
"I do not know whether a non-magician human can even learn to extend their minds", Arya said as she looked at Eragon for confirmation.
"Brom said that everyone could learn to do it with the right training", Eragon said to Arya and then to Mercury he said, "Aye, I will help you extend your mind, I suggest we do it at the same time as the mental defence lessons".
"Thank you very much", Mercury said to Eragon, "by the way, how much of the empowered salt did you two eat?"
Confused by the sudden change of topic Eragon responded, "only a single salt crystal each, why?"
"Oh good, then your sleeping habits should return to normal in a short while", Mercury said mysteriously.
"What do you mean by our sleeping habits?", Arya asked in an inquisitive tone.
"Well...I discovered that if you eat the empowered salt, it will make you feel like you have just slept. I believe it is the energy stored inside the salt that does this, which also means that the more you eat of it, the longer it will take before you will be able to sleep again", Mercury explained.
"And how did you discover this?", Arya asked in a tone, which clearly showed, that she already had her suspicions and would not be happy if they were confirmed.
"I...accidently used some of the empowered salt as seasoning on my dinner last night", Mercury said, as he looked to the ground like a boy who was about to get yelled at for doing something, he was not allowed to do.
In a voice completely devoid of emotion Arya said, "since it does not seem to make any impact, when I continuously warn you not to do anything stupid, I will just say good night. Come Eragon, we are leaving".
Eragon bid Mercury a good night and followed Arya away from the tent, but to his surprise they were not going back to the Varden, but rather away from them. Eragon followed Arya as she strode into a forest glade, where she quickly cast a few spells to ensure privacy, before she turned towards Eragon and said, "we need to talk".
Eragon and Arya spent most of the night discussing what tonight had meant, and what they would do about it in the future. They both agreed that tonight had been nice, but they also agreed that they would not take the next step and become mates. In the end they agreed, that when time and place permits, they would take a walk together and talk, like back in Ellesméra, but that no one could know about this. In order to secure their secret, they would have to be spotted at different ends of camp, and then meet somewhere away from prying eyes and ears.
Know that this is NOT them agreeing to be a couple, this is merely an arrangement like the one in Ellesméra, but because people would be talking about them and their wish for privacy, they need to keep it quiet.
