Chapter 10: Alone
"You were standing in the wake of devastation
And you were waiting on the edge of the unknown…
You were there, impossibly alone"
Alone. So alone. Forever alone. Empty, broken, destroyed.
He was cold, so cold and alone. He knelt before the king but didn't see the room. He was somewhere else really. Back in the air where he was happy and free. He could never be there again. Galbatorix spoke but the words were unknown to Murtagh. All he knew was that Galbatorix was disappointed. He was too.
xXx
The king studied the boy before him. He was a boy now. Lost and hurt. His hair was ragged and blood clotted, his eyes were hollow and lifeless. Murtagh, once strong and alive, was gone. He had changed. Changed far too much. Galbatorix knew what he was feeling. The pain and abandonment; he, too, had felt these once before many years ago.
xXx
Murtagh was dead inside. He couldn't feel anything, just empty. It was finally over. He had reached the end and he couldn't be more desperate for it. He wanted the feel of that last breath. He longed for the last view of the world he had grown to hate. Deep inside of him he could feel the life in him but the emptiness left behind by the life lost was too much to ignore.
xXx
Galbatorix looked at Murtagh in disdain and hatred. This boy had caused so much trouble and had failed too many times. The king cared nothing for feelings. They were pointless and hindered ones abilities. He hated feelings. He dove into Murtagh's mind and pulled forward memories. Pain is always the best punishment, and nothing hurts more than loss.
xXx
Murtagh howled out in pain. Images of his past flashed past his mind. There he was in his father's study, bleeding to death at the age of three…His mother was leaving; he knew she wouldn't return… Now Tornac was dying on the ground, blood pooling in the dust…Nasuada…Thorn hatching…Their first flight…
"Stop!" Murtagh shouted. He hadn't meant to but it came out. His face was wet from tears, and his breathing caught in his chest as his body racked with sobs.
"And why should I," Galbatorix asked, his voice a cold snarl. He made his way to the dark haired boy on the floor, knelt down, and pulled his head back so their eyes met. "Why should I stop my punishment? There was never any end to your betrayals or failures, so why should I stop the punishment for those crimes?"
Murtagh tried to wrench himself away from the man's grip but his body refused to follow his mind's commands. The king brought his fingernails up the side of Murtagh's face tracing thin lines in the gore soaked skin.
Murtagh's mind was met with another bought of painful memories that he had long forgotten. The king had full control of his mind right now. Murtagh didn't care.
His back arched and he dug his fingernails into his palms as he let out a long scream. He had forgotten these things for a reason and now the king pulled them forward turning them into rotten bits of torture, meant to only turn the world against him more. Murtagh pushed the king out and retched on the floor. He was dizzy and couldn't see anything straight and he wished the King would get on with killing him. But then again, he supposed the King wasn't going to kill him.
xXx
Galbatorix studied the boy before him. The young man was changed and the King knew he should force him to swear fealty again, for even now he could feel the binds breaking, but something stopped the cold man from forcing such things on a person so torn to pieces. Murtagh wouldn't think of leaving, he wouldn't be able to think of anything through the loss. Galbatorix signaled to two of the guards and instructed them to take Murtagh to his quarters.
xXx
Murtagh didn't remember most of the last hours. It didn't seem important enough to bother his mind with those hours, so he was living in the moment. The room was silent and empty, everything untouched since this morning. The bed was a shambles, the desk was as ink stained and scratched as ever and the fire had long since burned out. He glared at the fireplace and lit it from his position in the middle of the room. Flames sprang to life and crackled jovially. He watched the flames for an undeterminable time. He couldn't do anything except just to stand in the center of the room and study the familiar landscape. In that moment he realized that the room wasn't familiar to him at all. It was as though everything here belonged to a close friend he hadn't seen in a long time. It was the same as it always was, but underneath he could feel the unwelcoming coldness that everything brought. He was angry; he didn't realize it until then, but his mind was searing with a primal loathing.
He moved toward the desk and stared down at all the battle plans he'd drawn. He'd worked on them for months, planning complicated military maneuvers for any situation. He could remember the late nights bent over these papers, but they seemed so long ago. He hated that he was going to help the mad King. He swept everything off the desk with a yell, sending ink bottles breaking over the floor, walls and the bed. The papers fluttered to the floor among the quills and ink spills. He burned everything.
Everything in the room was destroyed, as he settled down on the floor where he had been standing earlier. The anger had passed and a new wave of sorrow swept over him. Little charred bits of paper fell to the ground like black snow, from the fireplace. Murtagh closed his eyes, laying his head on his knees, pulling his mind deep within himself. He was meditating so deeply any healer would have proclaimed him in a "death sleep."
xXx
Months passed since the day of Thorn's death. The late harvest rains turned to the first snows, blanketing the lands in white. Most of Murtagh's time had been spent in his destroyed quarters, in the coma like trances. When he was comatose he couldn't feel the pain or the loss, like he did when he was awake. This was everything he was now; a broken shell of a man. He felt nothing anymore except the emptiness. He had lost weight over the months from the nearly constant fast he put himself under. Every couple of weeks he would eat just enough to keep himself going, and even that was just an instinct. He never really meant to eat he would just forget he wasn't supposed to.
xXx
The deep winter had set in and the world was a frozen place; still, quiet, and cold. The winter winds that blew through the windows of Uru'baen wrapped icy fingers around Murtagh, freezing him to the bone. Sometime between the autumn and now he found that when he went into his self inflicted comas he could remember more of his past. He did his best to remember the happy moments of his life. He liked to think of his mother. He never really remembered her before, but now he could remember the exact color of her hair and the way her eyes sparkled as she looked down at him. He remembered the feel of her shirt beneath his small hands and the sound of her heart beating when she held him close. He could feel the warmth of her salty tears on his face when she kissed him goodbye for the last time. No one had ever loved him like that since.
This time he closed his eyes and thought of dragons.
xXx
It was cold when he woke. His flesh was icy and numb, but he wasn't thinking of that. There were no stars, and no moon shone through the window. It would snow later he knew. Murtagh glanced at the fireplace to his right: the fire was out. He didn't feel the need to light it as he wasn't going to be here much longer. He looked at the window again. The sky was a deep grey past the black of the stone in the dark. He gripped the fabric of his torn pants tightly, holding his knees to his chest as a shiver ran through him. The shiver wasn't from the cold though; it was in anticipation of what he was going to do. He glanced down at his hands. They were scarred from the years and they were filthy from the mud and blood still left from the battle with Eragon. He was sure the rest of his body had weathered the months just as badly. The gore coating his face had mostly been washed off by tears or had just fallen off, but he could still feel it clinging to his neck and hair. His clothes weren't much better; he could feel the stiffness of the fabric against his skin. He flexed his fingers slowly; they were stiff from the months of disuse. He grimaced at the thought of standing, but he had to. He stretched his legs out in front of him and every muscle he felt protest. As he stood his head swam and he lost his balance. The desk was just behind him and as he reached his hand out he found purchase on the sturdy wooden surface. This was going to be impossible. He had neglected himself too long to survive the hardships head of him. His weakness almost got the better of him, nearly convincing him to sit back down and wither away on the floor. Inhaling deeply, he made his way to the door.
There was no one in the hall when he opened it so he sneaked out of the room and made his way slowly to the throne room. Galbatorix wouldn't be there at this time of night, or at least he hoped he wouldn't. Much to Murtagh's surprise there were no guards, no soldiers; there was no one in the castle. He secretly wondered if he had missed some great advance in the war. If that was true then there would be no point to his venture tonight. He set aside that thought.
He turned a corner sticking close to the walls both for concealment and support. There were no guards by the throne room either. Something was up. He ducked into a crevasse and extended his mind out to feel life. There was nothing other than a few vermin in the kitchen and horses in the stables. If he hadn't been by the wall when he ended the spell he would have collapsed. He swore quietly. He'd forgotten that he was so weak. Not only was he half starved, but the loss of Thorn weighed heavily on his mind and heart, and the Eldunari were no longer connected to him through Galbatorix's bonds. It was odd to feel so powerless.
The great doors to the throne room were a few paces away and he slipped quietly through them. The room was dark in the starless night. The stone floor was icy cold even through the soles of his leather boots. The throne sat empty at the far end of the room. It seemed oddly unimpressive and benign without the King present. He walked slowly towards it, ascending the steps to the platform it sat upon. The wood it was made of was deeply stained. It seemed almost warm in the cold dark room. He reached out a hand to touch it, tracing his fingers over the intricate details. He'd never really noticed them before, but tonight they stood out in sharp relief. Inlays of stones circled the two entwined dragons that had been carved out of the back of the chair. The stones refracted what light there was in the room making them appear to be emanating light themselves. There were so many different colors in the stones, colors he didn't know how describe. Some were paler than others, and some held no color or light at all. It was a few moments before he realized the stones were dragon scales. He could feel the energy they emanated. He followed their path as they spiraled out from the dragons all the way to the edges of the wood. There had to be hundreds of scales inlaid into the throne. The thought gave him chills.
The door to the anteroom behind the throne was closed as always. Murtagh hoped it wasn't locked. Using too much magic would be a waste of energy. He tried the door and it swung open with a soft creak. The council table was centered in the room and upon the table sat Zar'roc just as he had hoped it would. He belted the sword around his waist quickly and turned to the suit guard's armor he knew would be in the corner. The heavy pitch colored cloak hung around the empty suits shoulder as faithfully useless as it always was. Murtagh unclasped the cloak and swung it over his own shoulders. It was old and dusty and a bit moth eaten, but it was warm and darkly colored so as to not stick out in the dark. He strode back out of the room and glanced around the cavernous room.
There were three doors in the Throne Room. One was the entrance, the second lead to the Council Room, and the third lead to the keep. There had to be another room somewhere. He wouldn't keep something so important away from him. He'd keep it very close to him. Galbatorix was an untrusting man and wouldn't trust anyone else with it. Murtagh heard a quiet squeak of a rat as it ran across the other side of the room. He pushed into its mind and rifled through its memories. The memories were primitive, mostly about food and shelter and other rats, but he felt an underlying fear in the rats mind. It didn't like the Throne Room.
He searched for another animal and found a small bird in the rafters. It also held a fear for the room. He reached into its memories as well. He watched it fly around the large room in great lazy circles. He studied its flight patterns. The bird never flew in the front left corner of the hall. Through the bird he watched several rats as they avoided the same area as well. That had to be it.
He withdrew his mind from the bird's and it took off in flight. The freedom of flying he had felt inside the bird's mind had reminded him so much of flying with Thorn. A bitter sadness pitted itself in his heart. He killed the bird. It landed softly on the floor. He didn't feel any better and he had wasted energy. He cursed himself and went to the corner. He couldn't feel anything odd about the corner. He felt the walls and the floor; he even went so far as to scan the area with magic. There was nothing there, only about seven feet of stone and then the hallway that he had come down earlier. He swore again, this time out loud. This was going to take too long. There was no way he could search the entire castle. God only knew where Galbatorix kept it.
He looked at the wall again. He tried every spell and wording he could come up with to open a hidden door. He scanned the area for magic. Nothing worked. He was going to kill himself of exhaustion before he found what he was looking for. Out of frustration he slammed himself into the wall, which only helped in tearing his shirt more and bruise his shoulder badly. He hadn't honestly thought it would help but it was better than giving up.
For several more minutes he stood there attempting to track down what the animals found disturbing about the corner. He traced all the cracks in the wall following them as far as they extended, in a desperate attempt to find meaning in something. Most of the cracks ended within eyesight, but a few stretched up to the ceiling. He looked across the wall towards the door and watched the concentration of the cracks decrease. It was the same on the other wall. It wasn't unusual to find cracks in stone used in buildings. Pressure and foundation changes often put stress of the stones causing them to crack. The cracks in the corner weren't just from that though. What could crack stone? The only thing he could think of was heat.
"Brisingr," he muttered. Nothing happened. The wall was warm, but not hot enough to crack it. He needed something hotter, something like…dragon's fire. He swore loudly. A door that opens only by a dragon's fire was a perfect system when you are the only one who has a dragon. At least Murtagh knew this was definitely where the Galbatorix kept it.
It was hopeless, though. Without a dragon he had no hope of opening the secret room. All the energy in the world would not allow him to sustain a flame long enough for it to compare to dragon fire. He had to try though, after all, if he died who would care? He reached out and drained the energy from any animals in the room. He didn't expect there to be many but it was worth trying. He was sure that wasn't enough. He glanced at the throne again. The dragon scales were emanating with energy.
He took all the energy out of five of them. He hoped that would be enough. The scales turned colorless and dull as the energy flowed out of them into him. Returning to the corner, he thought how he would do this. He didn't want to waste the energy.
He finally decided that the simple word for fire would work, "Brisingr," He said aloud. The flames cracked to life and grew, levitated off the floor several feet. He fueled the fire with the energy from the scales, the heat growing and heating his skin. The intensity of the flames was so bright that he had to close his eyes. When he could feel the energy waning he pushed the fire at the wall and at the same time broke the spell. The room returned to darkness and while his eyes adjusted and could feel the cold return to the room. Sections of the stone glowed red from the heat and where there had been solid stone before stood a crumbling archway.
He glanced inside: a set of narrow, steep stairs followed the path of the wall and then disappeared around a corner. The wall must be hollow. He took a torch from the wall and lit it.
The stairs were steep and by the time he reached the top he was out of breath and his legs were aching. He looked around him but the only way to go was forward. There was no way of telling where in the castle he was. The stairs had made so many turns he was lucky that he even knew right from left. He assumed the passage would go on for as long as the stairs had but after only a few steps there was a wooden door in front of him. For cautions sake he put the torch out of the wall and darkness overtook him. In the windowless room it was impossible to see anything, but a sliver of flickering light could be seen under the door. Murtagh took a deep breath and opened the door.
….To Be Continued….
A/N- Chapter ten done! Never gotten to chapter ten of any story ever! Gosh those reviews you guys are giving are wonderful! All zero of them. *-_-* Please review. Thanks for reading. Also I'm pretty sure this is the longest chapter I've ever written. Clocking in at around 3,300 words!
MG7