Note: Both Chapters 12 and 13 occur at the same time. Faolin does not know what is going on with Arya and vice versa.
Disclaimer: Inheritance is not mine.
"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." -Charles Du Bos
Chapter Fourteen: The Tale of Caspar
"You cannot seriously be considering this," Islanzadí said, her face shrouded in shadow. "This is a new height of foolishness, even for you."
Arya watched her mother's face impassively, ignoring the anger and scorn in the Elf Queen's words. "How is it foolish?" She challenged. "If I succeed we will have our greatest champion returned to us."
"If you succeed. I have no doubt in your abilities, Arya, but the task before you is impossible for one sole person, even a Rider, even an elf, to complete. You are talking about leaving the known boundaries of Alagaesia, alone, without anyone except your young dragon to rely on. Do you realize how dangerous it is?"
"More so than you," Arya retorted, grabbing the edges of the mirror. "Griffin has told me all he knows about the lands beyond, and what I might find there. I'm perfectly prepared to go on this journey, Mother."
"Ah yes, the Gray One," Islanzadí said. "Of course he knows. Tell me, has he ever been there? Has he seen the places he's sending you off to?"
"Well, no, but—"
"Exactly," the Queen snapped, her eyes flashing fire. "This is a fool's errand, Arya. There is a reason we don't know what lies beyond the eastern borders, a reason why the Mad King of Alagaesia himself does not dare try to reach past the Hadrac. Those lands are wild, untamed. You will not find a friend there, or any sort of civilized life at all. There is nothing but animals and magic, magic enough to drive even an elf mad."
Arya frowned. "How do you know this, Mother, if you have not been there yourself?"
"I am the Queen of the Elves," she replied dryly. "The knowledge of our people has been passed down to me from the very first of our Kings, through memory and through writings in the Great Library. If I so chose, I can know all, perhaps as much as these Gray Folk claim to know, perhaps more."
"What are you saying?"
Islanzadí almost smiled. "I am saying, Arya, that there have been journeys into the east before, and none of them have ended well."
"When was the last journey?"
"When my grandmother was a child, over five thousand years ago. She remembered it clearly, and passed the memory down through the family. They looked so grand, the army, and it was said that they could reach the edges of the world."
"An army was sent to the east?" Shock colored Arya's voice imperceptibly.
"A host of five hundred, yes. We called them the Army of Leaves and they were the best of that generation, the greatest warriors, the bravest young men and women. The elves watched them march off into the east proudly, and they thought they would return before the next summer. Vigils were kept for them and epic poems were written, and some of the soldiers even sent messages back, describing the wild wonders that lay beyond."
"Why were we not told about this, in our history lessons?" Arya asked. She had never heard of the Army of Leaves before, which was troubling. History was prized among the elves and passed down to the next generation with great care.
"We are ashamed, I think," Islanzadí said. "Five hundred of our strongest warriors went off into the east, my daughter, and not a single one returned."
Arya stared.
"The messages stopped coming two months into their journey. It was imagined that they had encountered trouble, perhaps a magical barrier like the one surrounding Du Weldenvarden, or that the distance was too great to send letter-carriers over. The elves were not worried. But months passed without word, and then the summer came. And then another summer, and another. Soon a decade had passed and the Army of Leaves had not returned, and it was concluded that they had all been lost."
"Five hundred elves," Arya murmured.
"Lost," Islanzadí said softly. "Two Dragon Riders, Melchior and Dresden, were sent to the east to find the army. Neither returned, and to this day we do not know where they went or if they found the Army of Leaves at all."
Arya was silent, thinking. She could feel Faolin at the edges of her thoughts, and he was a hundred different emotions at once, fear, anger, love, pain. Her heart ached. She wanted to reach out to him, comfort him, take his mind into her own and soothe his fears, but she couldn't, not now. Now she was talking to her mother, and Islanzadí would take any emotion as weakness.
Arya could not be weak, not now.
"Surely not all of the expeditions have ended in such tragedy," Arya murmured. "We know a little of the lands beyond—the stories must come from somewhere. Someone has to have returned."
Islanzadí hesitated, and Arya suddenly knew that yes, someone had gone past the borders and returned, and her mother did not want to say because she didn't want to give her daughter ideas.
"Who," Arya said fiercely, drawing herself up. She almost wished she was speaking to her mother in person, but her mother was with the elves in Teirm. "Who has gone and returned, Mother?"
Islanzadí made a frustrated sound in her throat and tossed her hair, much like a wild horse.
"Mother," Arya said lowly. "I will ask Griffin, if I must."
"Fine," the Queen snapped, and Arya could see her anger and once again wondered about the sudden emotions running deep in the elves. "His name was Caspar the Wanderer."
Arya frowned again. She had not learned of him in her history lessons either, and she wondered if the elves were ashamed of him also.
"He was a warrior of high status during Du Fryn Skulblaka, much revered and respected by our people. He slew many dragons and protected our people as best as he could, with fury and fire unmatched by all others. When Eragon the First urged the elves to bind themselves with the dragons, his voice spoke against it the loudest. He hated the dragons, for they had killed his parents and his sister, as well as his eldest son. When the pact was sealed and our fates forever entwined with that of the dragons, he withdrew from the public and spent his days in his home, in Ilirea.
"One day, he vanished. Many thought that he was unable to bear the way dragons and elves were comingling, both in magic and in mind. The land was searched for the people still loved and respected him, but he could not be found. The trackers followed him to the Hadrac desert and then lost his trail. It was assumed that he simply walked into the east, and it was decided that he was dead."
"But he returned," Arya said.
"Yes," Islanzadí murmured. "Five years later Caspar returned to Ilirea a changed elf. He no longer hated the dragons and the Riders; he accepted them with open arms. He called them his brothers and spoke to them of their gods, which stunned the dragons because they shared their gods with no one. Caspar claimed that one night alone in his home he had been overcome by a longing so great he couldn't resist, and he followed a call he heard in his soul to the east.
"He walked for many months through the lands east and told of his experiences there, and then he reached the end of the world, a place he called the Forest of the Mother. He stayed there for two years, eating nothing, drinking nothing, only basking in a river of faces, talking to those he called gods, learning all they had to teach." Islanzadí fell silent for a moment, her face closed off.
Arya's mind whirled. Someone had been to the golden forest, someone had paved the way. It was possible.
"It is said that Caspar journeyed to the Realms of the Dead," the Queen continued, so quietly Arya could barely hear her. "That he spoke with those he had loved and lost, and they told him many things those in the living world could not know or understand. When he returned to the living world, this knowledge drove him… mad, more or less."
"He was insane?"
Islanzadí shook her head. "Not in the way you think," she said. "He was no Galbatorix, no rabid animal, but he wasn't normal, not anymore. Harmless, but not normal."
"Did any others believe him?" Arya murmured, thinking.
"No. Most thought him mad. They thought he had simply wandered into the desert and gone insane from loneliness and thirst, and that his adventures in the Realms of the Dead were a crazed dream. Even his family, his old friends, rejected him and forced him to live on the outskirts of Ilirea. No one listened to his stories, and crazy old Caspar, the only being to go into the east and return, faded into anonymity.
"Caspar lived alone for many years, and then one day he vanished."
Islanzadí paused and Arya thought she looked tired, incredibly, thoroughly tired.
"They followed his trail into the Hadarac once again, but he was gone, and no one has seen him since."
Arya was silent, pondering, turning it over and over again in her head. "Caspar the Wanderer," she said. "We did not learn about him either. I suppose we were ashamed?"
"No," said the Queen. "It is not shame the elves feel for Caspar. It is fear."
"Fear?"
Islanzadí smiled faintly. "Fear," she said, "that we will lose our young people like we lost Caspar, to things that don't exist, and if they do, that have no business in the lives of the elves."
"Caspar returned," Arya said.
"Not the same Caspar. The elves lost a great, fearless warrior and received a madman raving about gods and ghosts and Death. The elves lost a leader, and when we sent the Army of Leaves in his footsteps we lost a fighting force that could have won us the first war against Galbatorix. Do you understand, Arya? Caspar's path is ruinous. You will either die or return to us mad, and I absolutely forbid you to go."
Almost at once anger flared in Arya's gut, old and familiar. "You cannot forbid me, Mother. You tried it and it didn't work."
"I forbade you from joining the Varden," the Queen said lowly. "I forbade you from becoming Saphira's carrier. I forbade you from becoming attached to Eragon, and look what has happened to you since. Every step you have taken away from your people has wounded you, my child. You're hurting. You mingle willingly with people who will kill you, Arya."
Arya stared at her mother through the mirror, her skin prickling uncomfortably.
Islanzadí looked softer and sadder than Arya had ever seen her. "You are my daughter," the Queen of the Elves began. "My only child, my heir. You remind me of your father in so many ways, and I love you with all of my heart."
Arya was stiff, frozen, waiting.
"If you choose this journey, if you choose to follow Eragon into the east, you will no longer be a member of our people."
Arya suddenly couldn't breathe. "What?"
Islanzadí's face seemed to be carved from stone. "If you take this journey, you will no longer be an elf. You will not be our Princess, my heir; your people will not acknowledge you as more than a Dragon Rider. You will be barred from entrance into Du Weldenvarden; Ellesméra will reject you. Your name will be struck from the Book of the People and you will lose your inheritance. You will no longer be my daughter, and your people shall treat you as one dead."
Arya stared at her mother, bewildered, and her heart screamed, sharp and sudden, before she smothered it. Faolin did not need to know; he was only a child, he had been through enough pain, this, this wasn't his to carry.
"Mother," she whispered, and agony ripped a new hole in her chest. "How could you?"
The Queen of the Elves did not look her daughter in the eye. "It is better," she said lowly. "For me to strike you from my heart than to lose you to the east."
"I'm your daughter," Arya snarled, anger welling to accompany the pain. "Your only daughter, the heir to your kingdom. If you die, who shall lead?"
Islanzadí smiled a bit. "Arya," she said. "You were never going to take my place as Queen. You're heart isn't made for it. I realize that now. So tell me, will you go east? Or will you stay, where you belong?"
Arya stared at her mother, shocked, furious. Her mother—no, the Queen—was exiling her. Removing her from her people, her home, because she wouldn't obey. Islanzadí wouldn't accept her daughter, that much was clear.
Maybe, if Arya looked deep enough, it had always been clear.
Her path was obvious.
"Queen Islanzadí," she said stiffly, hiding her pain, her anger. "I am going east. You cannot stop me; if I am exiled, so be it. Eragon is more important than any title, any inheritance."
Islanzadí bowed her head. "You have always been a stubborn child," she murmured. "Very well. You have chosen your path, as we all must. From this day forth, Arya Drottningu, Daughter of Islanzadí, you shall be Daughter of None. The elves will no longer call you sister; you are not welcome in our lands. Our people will not bow to you. They will not greet you. You shall walk among the elves as one dead to us."
Arya's eyes stung and her heart throbbed, but she would not weep, not here, not in front of the elf-woman who was so easily dismissing her.
"You shall find yourself a new race to belong to," the Queen continued, and her voice shook slightly. "For you are called elf no longer."
Arya closed her eyes. "I hear and accept," she said, and her own voice was remarkably steady. "From this day I am not a princess, nor am I an elf. I shall not call myself Drottningu, nor the daughter of Islanzadí."
"It is done," Islandzadí whispered, and the two women stared at each other through their mirrors, no longer mother and daughter, queen and subject. "For what it's worth, I hope your task is possible. I would hate for all this pain to be for naught."
Arya kept her shoulders straight, her spine stiff. "Goodbye," she said, reaching for the flow of magic to severe the connection.
Islanzadí's eyes glittered, almost as if they were wet. "I shall mourn you," she said, and then she was gone.
The mirror was blank and cold, and all Arya saw was her own face, pale, sharp-eyed. Pain bloomed hot and ragged inside and she fought it down again, hiding it from Faolin, from herself.
She hurt.
She had just lost her entire people.
And over what? A soft, traitorous little voice whispered. Legends? Fairy tales? The fragile string of hope you cling to, even when all else denies it?
Over Eragon, she thought, extinguishing all the light in the room. He is worth it. He is worth more; if I had more to give, I would do so, if it would bring him back.
And she knew it to be true. Eragon—even the slightest chance of bringing him back from the Vault of Souls—was worth entire kingdoms.
She loved him.
And even if her own people rejected her, Arya knew Eragon never would. He was too kind, too noble, too friendly to ever betray her. He loved her.
It would have to be enough.
Arya squared her shoulders, walking from the room. I will not hide, she vowed. I will not sit here wallowing in my misery. The elves have rejected me; I cannot rely on them any longer.
But I cannot go into the east alone, and I can't afford to wait much longer.
Arya stopped at the edges of the Burned District, her feet sinking into the snow. Belatona was asleep, dark, smothered by the clouds. With her sharper eyes she could make out the shape of the city, the sloping roofs, the sharp rise of the keep.
She closed her eyes.
The elves had rejected her.
But the Dragon Riders would not.
And one of them would go with her to the ends of the earth itself if it meant saving Eragon.
With her eyes still closed, Arya steeled her heart and reached out with her mind, forming a clear image behind her eyes.
Murtagh?
~WSS