Author's note: Woo! 100 favourites! Thanks, guys! Okay, so Eragon, Saphira, Amara and Murtagh are going to arrive next chapter, and then there'll be the battle in the chapter after that. I think. That schedule seems likely to me. And the snapshot with Paddles is a reference to the 'I am the captain now' meme for those who didn't get it. It's probably considered dead by now, but when I'm putting out chapters this fast, it's hard to get a truly funny snapshot in, so I just thought 'oh well' and added it. As for the end of this chapter, I've got a completely scientific explanation for what happened and why for you guys, but it'll be the start of the next (tomorrows?) chapter.
With thanks to my Patrons:
Regal Eagle
In response to reviews:
TOGDESTROYER: Thank you very much! That soundtrack will now make an appearance in the battle of Farthen Dûr!
Daniel Clausen: Yeah, I struggled with Hrothgar a bit. I realise that he wasn't very 'him', but it's hard with some characters. They don't get much… page time? It's not screen time, so page time it is. Hmm, Cade and Nasuada. I haven't thought about how they'd act around each other. I'll figure it out. And no, you aren't spoiling anything. I've read all the books at least three times by now. As for Roran… you probably won't like this, but he probably won't pop up until nearer the end of Eldest. Sorry!
HalflingHobbit: Yep, Paddles had a snapshot! The snapshots are basically my way of expanding the Riftiverse in a quick, funny way, and I thought I wasn't giving some of the other Bluepeak Riftwalkers enough love, so they're going to pop up now and then. And Cade can't be you. I based him largely on me. Well, me combined with the person I want to be. And I have missed meals by reading. (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix made me miss both breakfast and lunch. I was 13 at the time and almost collapsed by the time dinner rolled round.) And yes, the Twins suck. However, the Plainswalkers shall have their revenge!
D8rkforcenligh7: I think you meant the Star Rose, but sure. I just thought it would be a good concept. After all, Saphira says 'It's no ordinary gem'. And wow, Paddles is getting a lot of love from you guys!
Ashkeras: Thank you!
Blaze1992: Yeah, I think that meme's severely dead by now. Sorry.
Disclaimer: I do not own the IC.
Thanks to Wizz, Regal Eagle and Slack Frost for beta reading. And that ghost that cropped up as a 4th reader in the google doc.
Chapter 31: Debating fate.
We were given a hero's dinner that night, and we enjoyed it. We'd returned to our regular size, despite everyone wanting to see us at our largest. It was easier on the cooks that way. Ajihad and Hrothgar personally gave us their thanks for saving everyone who had been with us, and we told them that the narrowly averted disaster was caused by magic. They both tensed at that.
"There had always been the possibility that Galbatorix had spies in the Varden." Ajihad said. "I shall have the Twins see if they can root out who is responsible."
"Really?" Sparta deadpanned. "You're going to leave it to two magicains to find a magic user. What if they were responsible? No, there are only two people in Tronjheim that we trust to root them out, and one of them is healing from being poisoned."
"And the other?" Hrothgar questioned.
"She comes from where we come from." Driscol explained. "We'll meet with her and ask her to weed out the traitors."
Of course, we were talking about Angela. However, we weren't going to ask her to take care of the Twins for us. Unfortunately, they had plot armour. Still, we could ask her to make their lives miserable, which was what we were going to do. After all, they'd tried to kill us. A little revenge was called for.
However, our evening was full of rather drunk men and dwarves singing praises to our taken name, and a lot of people coming up to offer their thanks. The longer the night wore on, the more we realised that the Twins' plan had completely backfired. They'd upped our reputation and standing while casting suspicion on themselves and their group of magic users. The dwarves were a lot more accepting of us, a very drunk one even challenging us to a drinking contest.
Of course, we didn't take him up on his offer. He was already very unstable on his feet, and it wouldn't have been fair on him. Anyway, back to the Twins and almost getting assasinated. The only downsides we could see were Galbatorix now knowing about two of our abilities; our size-changing, and our gravity beams. Of course, he'd know of them from the Twins reporting back to him after the battle, so it wasn't too much of a downside, but still. We weren't happy with the way things had gone. This hadn't been in the books, so we hadn't been able to plan for it.
The next day, we used one of Omen's abilities for the first time. Sight beyond sight. It was basically just enhanced scrying. One of us looked through these holes in Omen's crossguard formed by these curling spikes, and saying what we wanted to see. We could view places we'd never been to, although we got an annoying blue ring around the image, fading into it slightly. Still, it allowed us to see Amara as we were talking to her, even though she couldn't see us.
"I'm feeling this kind of itch." She complained, furiously riding on Snowfire as Eragon was flying with Saphira. "It's all over my back, and scales start to appear on my arms if I don't concentrate on staying in this form. It's like my body wants to revert back to my draconic majesty."
"Try and hold it." Kevin said chuckled. "If you have to, go off on your own at night, then transform into dragon form for a few hours. Then rejoin the group in the morning."
"I'll do that. This thing is driving me crazy!"
"How's Murtagh taking things?" Driscol asked. "He has to come to the Varden, remember?"
"I punched both him and Eragon in the face last night." Our cousin confessed with a hint of pride. "Murtagh is really against going to the Varden. Eragon didn't understand what was wrong, and the idiots got into a fight. I decked both of them and Saphira held them down until they settled their differences."
"Did you say something like 'Don't worry, Ghidorah will sort everything out'?" Kevin asked.
"I did. Murtagh seems to trust you more than anyone else here."
"That's weird, but as long as they're headed our way, sure." Driscol said.
"Are you being pursued yet?" Sparta asked.
"How did you- oh right, that happened in the books. Yes, we are. Urgals are after us. After this is over, remind me never to sleep in a saddle again. Even with armour, my neck hurts. Saphira misses you by the way. A lot."
"I imagine she does." Sparta said. "We- or at least I can tell that she likes us."
Amara laughed. "Oh, you three are so emotionally blind that it's funny."
"Huh?"
Our evil cousin laughed, hard. "Oh, I'm not telling. This is gonna be funnier if I just let it unfold and survey the chaos."
We mentally shrugged and changed the topic by saying "Someone tried to assassinate us yesterday."
"...WHAT?!" Amara roared. "What happened?! Are you okay?! Who did it?!"
We relayed what had happened with the stalactite, how we'd saved loads of people, the advantages and disadvantages of the situation, and what we were going to do next.
Amara was quiet for a long time. "Well… you're in control, I guess. But you never told me that there was another Plainswalker here."
"Oh." Kevin said. "That must have slipped our mind. But you remember Angela, the herbalist?"
"You mean my second favourite character?" Amara said.
"She's one of us." Sparta explained. "I don't know how she replaced the actual Angela, and frankly, I don't want to know. But we're going to get her to make the Twins' life hell."
"Good." Our cousin said. "****, I've got to go. Stay safe, cuz."
"You too." Driscol replied. "Oh, hold on, you just dropped a waterskin."
"STOP WATCHING ME WITH YOUR FREAKY MAGIC SWORD!" Amara said, sticking her middle finger up in completely the wrong direction as we laughed and cut the connection.
At that moment, Jasmine jogged into the dragonhold, and we lowered Omen from Driscol's face.
"Why do you have a sword?" She asked, stopping in her tracks as we sheathed our blade.
"Because it makes us look really cool." Kevin smirked as Driscol rolled his eyes and suppressed the urge to smack our left head.
"Because it's magical." Sparta explained. "We're fairly good at using it- at least on the defence. We really need more training."
"So, back to the training fields where magicians try to drop rocks on our heads, then?"
"Maybe tomorrow." Driscol said. "For now, you don't know how to get to a certain herbalist, do you?"
Jasmine smirked. "Of course. Follow me."
A few minutes later, we were at Angela's door. It slid open automatically, and we glanced up at some kind of sensor. That was modern tech, no doubt about it.
Shrinking down so we could fit through the door, we asked Jasmine "Do you mind waiting out here? We have sensitive topics to discuss with Angela, and a lot of secrets to talk about."
"I understand. Take all the time you need."
We nodded our thanks before entering the room. The door slid shut behind us, closing us in a large, two roomed apartment. Vines and plants clung up the walls, and bright lights filled the room. Locostral tech filled the corners; a MultiFrom, a holo-projector, a case filled with parts for a gun, grenades, a panic bubble force-field, and even a few drones. Various books and potion ingredients were piled all over the place.
Angela herself was sitting in front of a cauldron that hung over a roaring fire. A few holograms clustered around her as the liquid in the cauldron bubbled a cheerful yellow. The werecat Solembum was nowhere to be seen, although we knew he'd be out and about somewhere in Tronjheim.
"Congratulations on surviving your first assasination." Angela said as we padded round to the other side of the cauldron. "Yes, of course I know it was the Twins. I'm already boiling up a potion of infernal skin rash to get them back for it. If someone goes after one of us, they go after all of us. And that always ends badly for them. I'd also like to point out that I predicted that you'd lose your grip on reality when we first met. Happily, I was right."
We snorted, half in annoyance, half in anger, but we kept a lid on our emotions. We wouldn't attack one of our comrades again. Not after what happened between us and Felix.
"Of course, you three must be supremely ****ed, about that, so I'll move on." Angela said. "And I know that you said that you'd ask me to lead the 'search'." She put finger quotations around the word. "Rest assured, I've tacked on to what you want to do. I will procrastinate for as long as possible."
We smiled. "Thanks Angela."
She sprinkled some pepper into her potion and stirred it. "Well, we need to have a talk, so let's do that while I concoct the instrument of our revenge. What have you done to influence the storyline?"
"Well, we're mostly on track." Driscol said. "We've changed or done a few things for convenience, and other things have happened that we have no control over. Everything up to Gil'ead happened the same way as in the books, or as close as we could get. You might have seen our cousin, Amara?"
"I am aware of her existence, yes. Tiamat, isn't she?"
"Yeah." Sparta said. "And she found out that she had a human form the night the Urgals took Eragon. We were pretty jealous at the time, so we just left her to go help zap urgals. As a result, both she and our young Rider got captured. We then broke her out along with Arya and Eragon, and delayed Durza while they escaped thanks to Murtagh and Saphira."
"You mean you ripped his arms off and kicked him off a roof." Angela smirked.
"You know what, we're not even going to ask how you know." Kevin said. "But yes."
"Good on you three. I hate Shades! They're like a watered-down version of Shadows!"
"Yep. And we're going to make his death painful." Sparta promised.
Driscol got the conversation back on track. "So anyway, that happened. We also bugged Murtagh, so when he gets enslaved by Galbatorix, we can keep track of every single conversation they have."
"Clever." Angela smirked. "Very clever. The Mad Monarch won't see that one coming! You three have an excellent mental cocktail. You're intelligent, you can adapt to situations, and you have very little ego. Of course, jealousy and envy of your cousin stain the batch-"
"We're trying to fix that." Kevin said. "Moping around doesn't help anyone, and *****ing about our unsolvable problems just makes us want what we can't have. Then we get disappointed when we don't get it."
Driscol nodded and continued. "So we got Arya here early, and we're waiting around for the others to arrive. And… we think that's it."
"Good to see that you haven't mucked everything up." Angela said, taking a moment to scratch at Kevin's chin, making our left head dissolve into metaphorical mush. "Now, I want to talk to you about Elva."
We froze at that name. Eragon's biggest blunder in the books, and the reason that we got halfway through Eldest before ditching the Inheritance Cycle for a few years. The girl who was forced to feel the pain of others. The girl who could see your fears. The girl who had the intelligence of an adult in the body of a child who should have been an infant.
"I want to stop her blessing from happening." Angela said after the silence had dragged on long enough. "Nobody should be forced to live through what that poor girl does.
Our brains switched into calculation mode. What events would be affected by this? Could the storyline recover from this decision? Could we live with what we decided?
"Okay, as much as we agree with you, there's an instant problem." Kevin said, having recovered from his scratches. "Elva saves Nasuada from quite a few assasination attempts. Who will stop that?"
"I will, of course." Angela said, her tone making it seem like we'd asked the dumbest possible question ever. "I practically have the books memorised. How else am I supposed to know the lines I'm supposed to speak?"
"Okay, but what about the invasion of Urû'baen?" Driscol pointed out. "There's countless traps in Galby's castle, and only Elva could sense them. How do we dodge that bullet?"
"With a certain dragon who has armour that is resistant to magic and a knack for regeneration." Angela said, brushing a stray line of hair behind her ear. "You'll be their meat shield."
Sparta considered it. "Fine. I'm not happy with that, but it's the best alternative we can get. And an innocent life won't be tainted by war, so there's that."
"A little poetic for a teenager, don't you think?" The herbalist asked, raising an eyebrow.
In sync, we rolled our eyes and said "Blame the natives."
Angela laughed. "That's my excuse. Now off you pop. I need to attend to this potion before this entire mountain becomes a quarantine zone."
We nodded and rose. "Any last things regarding the storyline you want to discuss?"
"Oh! Just the one. When are you planning to tell your companions about the multiverse?"
"Erm… maybe at the Blood-Oath Celebration?" Driscol said. "Our plan was to not tell anyone if we could avoid it, but if we have to, it'll be then."
"Righto." Angela said. "Now, shoo before I accidentally unleash an itching plague! And beware of the cat that isn't a cat... or a big cat or a werecat! Just a cat that isn't a cat, okay!"
We got out of there pronto.
We spent the rest of the day at the training grounds, trying to improve our sword skills without having to resort to trickery. Naturally, everyone cheered as we arrived, and we got more than a few pats on the back for saving them all yesterday. We'd told Jasmine that she could take the rest of the day off, but she'd stuck with us. We decided not to question it, so she'd come with us.
Like usual, our defence was strong. But we still sucked at attacking. Three different guys tried to coach us on their different styles, but we just didn't get it. Whichever way we tried to thrust, stab or swipe, it always went wrong.
Finally, a cool, clear voice at our shoulder said "Given your physiology Gidorah-elda, I am not surprised you are having difficulties with your blade."
Turning, we found Arya there, bow on her back and sword at her hip.
"Good to see you're up and about." Driscol said.
"I am only 'up and about' because of you, Golden Guardian." Arya said. "It was your swift flight that prevented the Skilna Bragh from spreading too far through my body. After you arrived, the Varden's healers pulled the poison from my bloodstream. I have been recovering since then."
"Can you teach us how to swordfight properly?" Sparta asked eagerly. "Without having to resort to trickery, I mean."
"If you wish." Arya said, drawing her blade. "Prepare yourself."
We took a defensive stance, raising Omen to where we predicted Arya would be likely to strike. For a while, neither of us moved. Then Arya sprang forward in a blur of motion, almost too fast to see. Despite that, we parried her blade. She jumped back, surprised as we were.
"How the heck did we do that?" Kevin wondered, staring down at Omen.
Then Arya came at us again, her blade aimed at our chest. Something inside our heads sparked and time slowed down to a crawl. Or our perception of it did. Arya's sword was still coming towards us, and we raised Omen to deflect it as fast as we could. So at a snail's pace.
The two weapons collided in a shower of sparks, and we prepared ourselves for a strike. As slow as we felt everything was going, Arya barely parried our thrust, and her eyes widened comically slowly. We traded blows for what felt like hours, but was probably only minutes, both of us whirling around and guiding our swords through the most complicated patterns that we could remember.
Finally, we used Omen's crossguard to shove Arya's sword down and to the side. Both weapons stabbed into the ground, and time began working normally. At the same time, we felt a sharp stabbing sensation from inside our skulls and let go of Omen, pressing our hands to our heads. Stumbling backwards, we tripped over one of our tails and collapsed, groaning in pain as yellow spots filled our vision. We felt completely and utterly drained, and every part of our body felt like it was on fire.
"What… just... happened?" Driscol groaned, gritting his teeth through the pain.
"I think… some kind of... bullet time…" Sparta replied. "Like... in The Matrix. Question is… how?"
"Have you ever heard someone complain about their brain being fried?" Kevin asked. "I feel like that. Except literally."
"I… completely agree." Driscol and Sparta said simultaneously.
"...Are we going to get up?" Kevin asked after a few minutes.
"...No. Let's just… recover from whatever happened. We'll think about it later."
"...Okay. Do you think Arya will take us back to the dragonhold if we pass out?"
"...I don't know."
Snapshot #11:
"Do you ever wonder why we're here?"
"We're here because Lord Void made us. We realise his great vision of remaking the realms as one."
"...I was quoting a human data-net series."
"Why?"
"Because… I… I don't know."
"Go to Lord Void and get your head checked."
"But my current form doesn't have a head."
"Touché. However, it still doesn't change the fact that you need to be mentally realigned. We must not let ourselves be clouded by morals, empathy or any gooey emotion. Only through the harmony of darkness can we hope to triumph against the chaos of light. If you are not with the rest of us Shadows, you are against us, and you must be destroyed."
"I'll go get my head checked."
"Good. The more comrades we have to fight against the tyranny of the Plainswalkers, the better. Darkness conquers all!"
"Darkness conquers all."
