The Rock of Kuthian
On the other side of the mountain, the descent was far longer, since it was the last mountain before a mass of green, with fog rising from it, which turned out to be a vast marsh. As they flew to the base of the mountain, they were met by a woman presumably in her mid thirties, with a combination of great pain, unbound elation, and fathomless grief on her features. When Eragon saw her, he knew immediately who she was. They came lightly to a stop on the great plateu of grass that rose out of the swamp that surrounded them on either side. Oddly enough, the swamp was indiscernible from the mists that surrounded them. Eragon surmised that there was no growth in that stagnant water, only death. He dismounted from saphira, and turned to greet the woman. He performed the proper hand gesture, and said "Kvetha. Eku… Eku Ono Selena elda?" Greetings. Are… are you selena? The woman smiled a sad sort of smile, and said, in the language of men "yes, eragon. I am selena. But cut the formalities; you may speak to your mother in a manner that befits a human son." She held out her arms, and eragon ran to her, and hugged her tightly. "I always wondered…" "yes?" said selena, "what it would feel like to be held by my real mother." She smiled, and held him tighter. A short distance away, arya smiled at the reunion, and saphira cried the happiness she felt through the bond with her rider."
After a time, eragon led his mother to meet saphira, whom she spoke to in the manner of the elves, directly from mind to mind. Saphira seemed satisfied that this woman was fit to have sired eragon, and lowered her head in a bow. It is an honor, Wyrdkopa. At the mention of her title; Seer of Fate, the sadness returned to selena, and, as if reminded of her duty, she turned to eragon. "time is short, my son. If you wish to save arya from your brother, and your brother from himself, you must follow. First, however, yours and saphira's minds must go from two who share two, to one that is two. Only then, when speaking your true name, can you open the vault of souls." Eragon felt a chill at the sound of blagden, the raven's prophecy repeated. "I am sorry, but I know not how to meld my consciousness completely with saphira's." his mother smiled kindly. "you needn't worry about it until we get there. Now come." She turned and led him down the hill onto a grassy path that led between the death marsh that lay on either side, as saphira flew with them overhead, and arya awaited their return.
As they spoke, saphira thought it best to give mother and son their privacy. "So, you knew you had to marry morzan, in order to save the riders?" selena sighed. "I saw it, and, although I have never done it, it causes me great pain to even consider defying the fates, as it does elva to not be able to help people." Eragon hung his head in shame. "you must hate me, for what I've done." She shook her head, and looked at her son lovingly. "I cannot hate you for an ignorant mistake, anymore than I can love you for being a rider. I love you for being my son, and for that, I can never hate you. Besides, I did not mention it to criticize your decisions – only to give an example. But back to the topic. I forsaw your birth, and what was to come for you, and I knew if the balance of the three races was to have even a small chance of being restored, you had to come about, even if it was at the cost of my first son." He watched a single tear fall from selena's eye. A tear containing all the grief and pain the world had. Eragon put a hand on his mother's shoulder, and attempted to say, in the ancient language that he knew her pain, but he realized that he could never say that, because the pain she bore was that of one who had to choose between her sons lives twice. Because of this, he could only say "I am sorry." "it is all right. I have to suffer the future only a few short hours longer." Eragon felt a pang of fear for his mother's life. "what do you mean?" "no, don't worry, I'm not dying, it's just that, the closer time comes to the time when you go to the rock of kuthian, the foggier my vision of the future gets. When you reach it, I lose my foresight altogether. I know not what will happen when you get there, or even if you will survive the experience." The sadness returned to her eyes, and eragon knew she would say no more. The rest of the trip was walked in silence.
What they reached at the end of the path was what looked like a great rippling mirror, stretching as far as the eyes of any being could see in every direction. "there is no name for this place, and it is the reason why I cannot see beyond in time. This is the void. The gate between life and death. When you pass through the void, so will all the world. When, and if you return, the world will be born anew. If you return, I shall be blind to the future, once and for all. Only one can pass here. Only the one fated to have free will over fate. If you succeed, destiny shall be no more, and you shall decide your own fate. I wish you good luck, my son." She kissed him on the forehead, and turned away. "I cannot watch you go, for it is death to let your eyes follow another into the void. Remember to become one who is two, when you enter." He saw her tears fall to the grass at her feet, but he knew he had to leave her. He took a deep breath, and he and saphira pushed their thoughts together as far as they would go, and the two went through, simultaneously.
The twisting nether that was the void sucked them in with unparalleled speed. Eragon and saphira felt as though they were being twisted and stretched into thin strands less than a hairs width, and infinitely long. Within this void, their thoughts and minds melded still further. When they stepped through at the other end of the tunnel, it was as one being. Before them lay infinity, and behind them, the chaos that was nothingness. At the end of infinity, they saw a small speck of light. With the flick of a thought, they were upon the speck. As it turned out, they stood on a grassy patch surrounded by the abyss. On the grass in front of them lay a tremendous black stone, the stone, which could be the size of any one of the larger mountains in the spine, had a three foot wide white streak that ran all the way down its length. At the base, where they stood, wrought in the ancient language, were the words "speak your name, O Dragon-Rider, and be the key to the vault of souls" eragon and saphira, as one, spoke the name that linked them. "Sa'Rigon" the name, greater than any other known, had the greatest power known in existence. It was the true name of the Grey Folk, which meant those who are unbound by fate. There was a great rumbling within the great stone, and the white streak glowed, and dissolved, leaving a passage between the two halves of stone. "Enter" called a voice of tremendous power from within. Knowing that the only way to go was forward, Sa'Rigon stepped forward and was pulled through to the other side of the rock. There, several faceless shadows gathered. In the face of the power the two who were one now felt, they would have trembled, individually, but the one who they became knew no fear.
The shadows materialized before them, in the forms of several people they knew well. Sa'Rigon, garbed in the finest blue dragon armor, with the body of a human and the wings of a dragon, Saphira's blue eyes, and Eragon's brown hair, looked between the faces without emotion, nor did their voice, a cross of humanoid speech and the deep rumbling growl of a dragon, betray their emotion. Only the feeling he gave off expressed in it's greatest sense, the wonder and love that they felt for those before them. "Brom." They reached out, and clasped hands with their old teacher, as a part of themself felt the first Saphira reach out and greet them as well. "Oromis." They performed the traditional elven greeting to their second master, and his dragon. "Garrow, father." In this, they embraced the man eragon now accepted as his father. Five figures they did not know by face stepped out of the void. Although Eragon and Saphira knew them not, they introduced themselves. The first was Evandar, former king of the elves, and father to Arya, two were Faolin and Glenwing, Arya's companions in transporting saphira's egg, before being killed by durza, one was Carsaib, formerly the shade himself, and the last was Tornac, the man who taught Murtagh how to fight. They greeted them all with their respective proper greetings, and finally were met with a voice of such quiet power that it made even the fearless dragon-rider tremble. "greetings, to one who bears my name, and the dragon to whom he is bonded." Out of the shadows stepped a tall elf, his silver hair and gleaming white armor a perfect match for the dragon that followed in his wake. The tremendous white dragon was perhaps five times the size of Glaedr, and of such a bright white color that it nearly blinded even the keenest eye. Sa'Rigon got down on their knees, and attempted to perform the highest gesture of respect possible, but they found their hands caught in the grasp of the tall elf. The silver haired elf smiled down on Sa'Rigon, and spoke in the ancient tongue, "I come from a generation of elves that were mortal, and in my time, elves did not hold to the stuffiness of our descendants." The dragon-rider arose, and said "then I shall say greetings, eragon ebrithil, and greetings, bid'duam ebrithil."