Why does everyone think that the story ended in the last chapter? I am pretty sure that I said that it would be 31 chapters long, and besides, who would end a story without some sort of aftermath/epilogue chapters?

But here you have a unique view into Mercury's mind, as I believe that a lot would probably need to be explained. Enjoy.


At the journey's end

Mercury POV
Mercury was floating aimlessly around in the strangest of places, but for how long he had done so, he knew not, because days seemed the same as seconds in this place. Floated around might have been too simple a term, but it was the best Mercury could come up with, as he had no body of any kind in here, and yet the entire place felt like it was part of him. He viewed everything from almost every angle possible at once, which would have normally been a quite confusing and terrifying experience, but right now it seemed almost natural.

Mercury felt complete serenity in this place, where no distractions such as smell, taste or anything else existed. Nothing could worry him here, and every single one of his previous worries seemed like nothing more than dust in the air; blowing away as soon as they were noticed. All in all, it was far more peaceful than anything Mercury could ever remember experiencing.

The place did not seem all that vast, but at the same time, Mercury had not found any borders or limits to the place. Direction was an impossible concept in a place like this, as he was everywhere and nowhere at once, combined with the fact that everything seemed exactly the same. The place was filled with a strange floating multicoloured substance of sorts, which to Mercury seemed to resemble plasma, and it was in and from this substance that Mercury experienced everything, like the substance was a part of him, but not the entirety of him.

Mercury had originally thought that the colours of the substance were merely random, but at some point, he had been able to distinguish a picture in the colours of a tiny part of the substance, before it faded away or changed into something, which he did not know what was. After this realization, Mercury had more often spotted images, and even sometimes feelings like smells, touches, sounds or any of his other senses, although he failed to understand how, as he did not have any of those anymore.

He had immediately recognized some of the sensations from the substance, while he could only faintly recognize others, but they all somehow seemed familiar to him.

Mercury had no idea of how he had ended up in this place or where this place even existed. He knew that he had died, of that there could be no question, because if his impact on the rock cliff had not killed him when it had, then the damage from Shruikan's tale would have a few seconds later.

Is this death?, Mercury mused to himself, but although the fact that he had no mouth, the sentence reverberated everywhere in the place, like he had spoken it out loud, no, death is supposed to simply be the stop of one's existence, where every thought and every memory is wiped away from the now dead individual.

But by this definition, I am not dead, and yet I clearly remember dying. How can this be?, Mercury mused to himself, as his previous serenity was wiped completely away by his natural inquisitiveness and his determination to solve this puzzle, even if it was the last thing he would ever do.

Everything has a solution, so like a regular jigsaw, I just have to lay down my known pieces and then start building around them, Mercury thought to himself in an effort to try and look at this in as logical a way as one could possibly do in a situation such as this, I know that I died, and I know that I have no body in here, so my mind must either have been ripped from my body and placed in here, like an Eldunarí, or my mind has found some other realm to exist in, although I do not understand how, as my mind is supposed to be connected to my body. I know that this place is either infinite or is of such a construct that it has no ends and merely converges in on itself at every point. I furthermore know that the substance in here is a sort of collection of images and other senses, which somehow seem familiar to me.

Mercury thought about his possibilities for a little while, or quite a long while, as he did not have any sense of time in here, before he started to get an idea to build around one of the puzzle ends, perhaps the reason for the substance's familiarity to me is that the substance is actually all of my collected experiences. It would solve the issue of why I seem to at some degree recognize all of the sensations, combined with the fact that I also seem to exist everywhere in this substance, which leads me to conclude that this substance is me...or at least my entire collected existence.

Perhaps I can combine this new knowledge with the fact that no other sentient beings seems to be here, which would mean that this is my private plane of existence, Mercury euphorically thought to himself, but it would seem almost impossible if each and every being in each and every universe was somehow given their own private plane of existence to exist eternally in after death, so that might mean that this is only a temporary sanctuary.

Mercury mulled over a thousand and one different possibilities, which all seemed to be equally farfetched, before he remembered a small detail from his biology class: clinical death is the failure of one's heart and lungs to provide blood circulation and oxygen to the cells, whereas brain death does not usually occur before some time after.

Hmm, I know that I died a clinical death, Mercury mused to himself, but perhaps my brain has yet to die, which would mean that all of this is still in my head. It would certainly fit with some of the 'life passing by' tales, as I keep experiencing small sections and portions of my life.

Wait, if this is just an apparition of my own mind, then..., Mercury suddenly excitedly thought to himself, as an idea sprang fourth in his head.

Mercury had originally not been particularly bothered by the complete disorder in this world, as the evenly distributed disorder had made everything seem like it was in their place, but after he realized that the substance was actually fragments of his own memories and experiences, which he was now slowly experiencing, he had had a slight but growing annoyance with the complete disorder.

A thought from one memory would mingle with the image of another and/or the sound of a third at once, which was a quite confusing experience to Mercury's mind, as it preferred a great deal of order to it, but it was a confusion, which Mercury now intended to change, because if this was to be his last moments of sentient thought, then he wanted to at least experience his life with some sort of coherence.

Slowly but certainly, the substance, which had previously filled the place like an all encompassing fog, began to condense into more structured and firmer materials. Numerous aisles began to appear, with the substance between them condensing into a floor of sorts. As the aisles formed, books began to form from them, and when all was done, a massive library filled with every part of Mercury's life in numerous aisles, which all had different parts and sections, which to some might have been considered disorderedly, as they were not chronologically lined, but rather after the system in which Mercury himself used to keep track of everything in his mind.

It took very little effort on Mercury's part to form and maintain all of this, but Mercury was not finished yet, as he still saw everything from inside all of the substance. With quite a lot more willpower and effort, he managed to extract his entire understanding of the senses of sight, touch, hearing, smelling and taste from all of the substance, and form them into an avatar of himself, except that this avatar was dressed not in any clothes that he had ever worn, but rather in robes, which were befitted to an elder of great knowledge and wisdom...or at least how Mercury imagined that one such would look like in fairytales.

Mercury beheld his new avatar for a moment. He still saw everything from every possible angle from his new avatar, but it was a clear improvement from before. It will do, Mercury thought to himself, as he finished his examination of his new avatar.

Examination done, Mercury's avatar gently strolled towards the maze of aisles, where he instinctively knew what way to take; he had after all created it all. He passed several aisles, which all had different labels on the end, so that one would know what the aisle contained; not that it mattered to Mercury, as he knew the exact place of everything, but he had thought that it fitted very well with his imagined library.

Finally he came to an aisle labelled: Alagaësia, which he then strode down at, until he found the shelf labelled: Alagaësia contingency plan. Mercury pried a book loose from the shelf, which he then opened, but instead of it simply being a book full of letters, it contained every thought, sound, smell, touch, image and taste from that particular set of memories, which was then absorbed by the avatar, which Mercury controlled.

After viewing his entire plan like an outside observer would have, Mercury found a few minor and some major errors in it. His biggest error in his plan had been to be too sure of himself and his ability to not only keep alive, but also fool Galbatorix for the three decades, which he had estimated that the plan would take to be completed.

Why did I not just train a successor?, Mercury thought to himself, but it was a question, which he already knew the answer to. Mercury had never been a particularly trusting person, but his entire plan revolved around the knowledge from his own world, which would have not only been catastrophic for Alagaësia to encounter at this point in development, but would have been close to impossible to teach to another in such a short time span, as Mercury had had.

Now that he thought of it, another problem raised itself to Mercury's awareness. Mercury had completed the plan's initial stages when he had secured the position as the new head of the Black Hand, which he would need to move around Alagaësia and make requests and orders, which no one would dare to refuse or talk about to others. He had finally found a way to circumvent Galbatorix's oaths, which had taken quite a few months of twisting and turning every meaning and word to its limits, so that he would be able to deny Galbatorix when needed and kill him when Mercury was ready to do so.

Mercury had reasoned that since the oath to not let any harm befall to Galbatorix whether through action or inaction also meant psychological harm, which he theorized that Galbatorix suffered from to a great extent, which he would then need to eradicate due to his oath, which in Mercury's mind meant that he would perform less harm on Galbatorix by killing him than by letting him live. This had been augmented by Mercury's belief that Galbatorix had a death wish, as he had openly challenged the riders of old with only a handful of servants to aid him, and thereafter declared war on most of Alagaësia, and in Mercury's mind, a death wish was just an unspoken command, which he had been most willing to oblige.

Mercury's plan for killing Galbatorix had involved having to serve him faithfully for at least a decade to elude suspicion, before his research could be initiated. He had estimated that the research would take perhaps another decade to complete, and that it of course would have to remain a complete secret through all of those years.

The research would have been on how to properly create a nuclear bomb, which Mercury knew how worked in theory and had a few simple designs from the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs, but he did not know exactly how to build it, so he needed to perform tests and a lot of calculations on that.

After he had finished his research, he would begin to secretly gather enough materials, which was the problem that had aroused itself in Mercury's mind, as he did not even know whether Alagaësia had the required Uranium and/or Plutonium in its underground.

Mercury had not deemed it likely that he would find a way around Galbatorix's wards, so he had planned to simply overpower them with brute force. Several nuclear bombs would be distributed throughout Urû'baen, with the main part being near and in the keep. Mercury would rig them, so that the first would detonate the next and so on, but he had always planned on manually detonating the first, as he was pretty sure that he could not get a proper detonation system to work without magic.

The entire city of Urû'baen would have no doubt been completely obliterated from the explosions, and the nuclear fallout would have decimated much of the surrounding landscape, but Mercury had planned on timing his detonation, so that the wind would be blowing towards the unsettled Hadarac desert at the time, and that Eragon and most of the new dragon riders to come would be out of the city, so that they could rebuild the world after he had destroyed it.

Mercury had no doubt that for countless of generations to come, he would be seen as a mass murderer, who not only betrayed the Varden, but also committed the biggest genocide in recorded history, but he did not care, as he knew that he would be dead at the time and that they would finally be free from Galbatorix's rule, whereas if he had not committed the atrocity, then they would forever be slaves to him.

Oh well, there is nothing I can do about it now, Mercury thought to himself with the mental equivalent of a sigh, before he placed the book back onto the shelf and began to walk further into the maze of aisles. He only stopped once in a while to look at books, which held particular importance to him, but bypassed the mostly empty shelf labelled: Friends.

As he walked past one of the aisles furthest away from his starting point, he noticed how the aisles were slowly but surely losing their colour and glow, which left only dark structures behind. The process seemed to spread to the nearby aisles at a steady pace, which would no doubt encompass the entire library at some point.

It must be my brain dying, Mercury reasoned to himself, while he walked away from the decay at a brisk pace, at least this solves the issue of whether I would know when the time to truly perish would come.

Before long, Mercury deemed that he was far enough away from the decay to resume his leisurely walk, when he noted that he had arrived at an aisle-area, which was surrounded by transparent walls. The only access inside was a door, which had a key card scanner next to it, and a sign above it, which read: Restricted.

Mercury did not have to look at the labels on the aisles to know what dwelled in here, because he had personally locked it all away, although he had not anticipated that it would be quite so literal. In there was not what he did not wish for anyone else to know, but rather what he did not wish for himself to remember.

From a pocket in his robes, he drew a small key card, which he knew could open the door, but still he hesitated, despite the fact that he would never again be able to look upon them. Finally after much hesitation, he threw the key card towards the area, where he knew the decay was spreading, and began to walk away. He would not, could not, face those memories again. He did not wish to experience his first memory from childhood again, where he had as a mere 3-year old witnessed his parents' suicide by order of a cult leader, which they had been a part of.

The only reason that Mercury had survived that had been that the police had stormed the building and just managed to shoot the person, who was about to make him drink the poison, right before Mercury's very eyes. After that he had been placed in an orphanage, where he had remained until he was allowed to move out at age 16.

Mercury had no wish to remember how he had been given the unusual name of Mercury, as none but his parents and the now dead cult members had known his true first name. He did not want to experience how he at age 8, finally had gathered up the courage to ask the head mistress of the orphanage, which had been drunk at that particular moment, which also was a major part in why Mercury had chosen this very moment to ask. She had in her drunken state told him of how they had had no idea of what he had been called, despite his parents' last name, but that they had just named him with the label, which had been stuck to his back when he had arrived. The label had been from one of the poison bottles, which Mercury had realized meant that his parents and their fellow cult members had killed themselves with the very thing, which Mercury had been named after.

A cruel joke by the staff at the orphanage, but one that would later come to benefit Mercury, as he had recorded the entire conversation. Mercury had confronted the head mistress with the recording a few days later, which had ended up in him being able to blackmail her or else she might not only lose her job, but perhaps get sued.

He had kept his demands to her at a relatively unimportant level, where he only demanded a few more liberties and for her to overlook some of his activities. With those liberties, he had been able to make a few intimidating threats to some of the older children at the orphanage, which had convinced them to not only leave him alone, but make sure that he was not picked at in school ever again.

The very first thing, which Mercury had done, when he had turned 18, was not to throw a birthday party, but rather to go down to the local government office and fill out a reform to change his last name. from what his parents' had been, to Iridium, which he had chosen because he thought it fitting to have both a first and a last name, which originated from the periodic table, which he had taken a liking to and had even begun to study towards becoming an engineer in chemistry.

Although his blackmailing, intimidation of the other children and the changing of his last name might have been considered something to be ashamed of, Mercury had not locked it away in his mind, like he had done with some of his other memories, but had merely filed them under various labels, just like most of his other memories.

While he had been walking, the decay had spread around him and encircled him. All the remaining aisles where either completely blacked out or in the process of being. Mercury slowly felt the decay spreading to his own avatar, which slowly started to erase his notion of smell. He looked upon his hand, and noticed how the fingers were beginning to darken in colour.

Faintly he thought that he had heard someone or something call his name and perhaps said something more, but he could not identify what had been said, if it was anything other than a hallucination, as he lost his understanding of hearing the moment after.

All my previous actions have led up to this final moment. This is my just punishment for the crimes, which I have committed and had planned to commit, Mercury mused to himself, as the avatar darkened until only the head remained lightly lit, I only wish that my dear hatchling will not be bound by his true name and stripped of his freedom, but rather that he finds the happiness in life, which I could never have.

Right before he finally lost his last notion of sight, he thought he saw a sea of silver-coloured light sweep through his mind, which enveloped and completely hid or destroyed, Mercury did not know which, all of his library of memory. And so combined with a small silent chuckle, his last thoughts, before his last light went out, were, here comes the light to sweep me away. If I was not about to die, I might have considered writing a thesis on my experiences in here, as it certainly would have been fascinating to read about what truly happens when one dies, instead of the mere guessing and religious babble.


First of all, how did you like my idea of giving Mercury this last chance to view his life again, and second of all, if anyone remembers Angela's prophecy to Mercury, she said that he would need to confront his past to move towards the future, which he has certainly not done so far, as he simply avoided the parts, which he did not like and kept to the parts, which he had already accepted.

Another thing that I feel like I want to point out: Mercury knows what good and evil are supposed to be from a society's perspective, which is why he says that this is his just punishment, but he is capable to turn off his empathy towards others at will, so he is quite capable of performing incredible evil acts, despite knowing that they are so. In layman terms such a person is called a temporary sociopath, as he does not have his empathy turned off at all times, but merely when the situation demands it.

Oh, and does it not make you reconsider Mercury's talk with Eragon about cults, from when they were in the tunnels of Dras-Leona, when you learn that Mercury's parents committed suicide because their cult leader told them to?