I am learning to write better and more concurrently ... so this chapter is an example of that. I want his own story like how Eragon and Roran both have independent moments... and how Saphira's story isn't the same as Eragon's...
'Little Bird, you are gaining much of their trust. Good...' It was to this thought, drifting from his evil master Durza, that awoke Yomir from his deep sleep. He saw Brom carry the saddle to Saphira, and saw a lack of ease cross over Eragon's poor handsome face. By the time breakfast was ready, Brom had strapped the saddle onto Saphira and hung Eragon's bags from it. Yomir felt his own unease fill him at the notion of his friend being so high in the sky, barely held there by the saddle Brom had apparently created.
Brom said, "Now remember, grip with your knees, guide her with your thoughts, and stay as flat as you can on her back. Nothing will go wrong if you don't panic."
Eragon nodded, sliding his unstrung bow into its leather tube, and Brom boosted him into the saddle.
Saphira waited impatiently while Eragon tightened the bands around his legs. As soon as he was finished she crouched. Her powerful legs surged and the air whipped past him, snatching his breath away with a hiss Yomir could clearly hear. With three smooth strokes of her wings, she was in the sky, climbing rapidly. Leaving the earthbound Yomir and Brom in their wake, alone with only each other and the horses.
Yomir sighed, climbing onto the Cadoc, happy that Eragon had taught him how to ride a horse during their travels. It was uncomfortable on his lower half, but he managed to endure it as they moved forward and away.
They had made it a few miles, maybe three or four, when Brom finally spoke up. "Now that we are alone, I have a few answers that are needed from you. I know you have not been entirely honest with us, with what you remember. I can see it in your face. Eragon is too friendly with you to see it, but I can. So, since we are alone, you will tell me the truth and why you have hidden it."
So thrown by this, Yomir actually had no words for the man... but slowly, a lie crossed his lips bidden by the sudden return of Durza's cold, vile presence in his mind strengthening his mental barriers ever so subtly. "All I can remember is being chained... and sold. I know my name has never changed, I was Yomir before I was sold. I lived somewhere with many injuries, people missing limbs and pieces of flesh. I remember feeling awe... with every injury I saw..." The lie shifted and slowly he started to feel numbness over take his mouth as words, truer and as weighty as the Ancient language, spewed forth. "Like a shrine, each body was sacred and to see it defiled was as uplifting as it was scary..."
With awe and pain in his voice and eyes, Brom let out a single word. " Dras-Leona... " the word was filled with a pain that Yomir didn't quiet comprehend. "It is a vile place, where many people suffer. The Priests there believe that the less bones they have, the closer they are to the Gods. Self multination of their priests is practiced... and they do own slaves. You have come a long way from such a place... I am sorry to bring up such memories, even for answers... it could not have been easy to bear to live in such a place."
"It wasn't..." And it was here that Yomir felt the presence of Durza pushing against him, and he knew why his lie had changed. His master had decided to give him his memories back, at least in pieces. "I was worked to the bone, even a child, given little to eat. Endure and prosper, preparing the body to accept suffering and pain for the Gods... I... I had forgotten that. Until you asked... I ..." he swayed and memories flooded his heart.
"Endure and prosper!" The matron's words, heavy on his aching back, filled Yomir's ears as he shook and lifted the barrel of oil, carrying it slowly to where the caravan was waiting. It took him nearly five minutes to move a mere one hundred feet but so heavy was the barrel, and so delicate was the oil within it.
Sharp pain cracked against his head as the matron rapped her knuckles against him. "Faster!"
"Yes, Mistress." He called out, before rushing over, still aching and shaking and starving, to the new barrel. He slipped on the moist earth, but did not falter in his speed for fear of mutilation was greater then the new pain blossoming on his knees.
"This Setihr Oil will not carry itself." She croaked out loudly, like a dying animal.
The memory shifted and he was in a dark cave, with Durza ahead of him. The Man's crimson hair all but glowing in the lantern light.
"From this point on, you will be working for me as my assistant. Carrying my scrolls, writing notes, tasting my food to prevent poison on my person. Your a smart boy, little bird, you'll pick it up quickly."
Yomir, young and frail, nodded. "Yessir."
"Don't be timid boy, I have no time for it." Durza turned to him, a heavy growl on his lips. "Be quick about what I need and you will live."
"Thank you, my Lord."
"I was sold to Durza..." He shook..." When I was a child, younger then I am now... I... I used to load caravans for the Matron of the Orphanage, we were more slaves then anything else. Free labor only we'd get paid through food... But when Durza bought me I would act as his slave. Carrying his scrolls, Tasting his food for posions... reporting anything I had seen, monitoring his experiments ..."
"Why you? You were too young to be much help." Brom's eyes were actually very warm, cautious, but warm none the less.
The answer came directly from his vile master. "I was expendable and smart. The matron taught me to read, to make me more valuable to sell. I wanted to work indoors, I was always too weak for physical labor... this seemed the best option for my path in life. I learned quickly and took to reading often for the Matron to sharpen my skills. I think my youth made it easy to mold me, to make me less sensitive to the dark sights I saw..."
And see them he did... vague and shadowy memories, more taunts then actual visions...
" And what did you see, help him with..."
"He was interested in twins... and babies... and mothers... connection... was... everything to him..." The words were not from Durza but carved from his own memories and with them came a weight of honesty. "He needed to study to connection to understand-" His words stopped there as understanding filled him.
And it did not make Durza happy. 'You speak too much!' Cold, like liquid ice, shot through his mind and he buckled, desperate to stay afloat on his own consciousness.
"Please no more, the memories... they hurt me..."
"You are right... it is enough... and for what little it is worth, I am sorry." Brom reached over, placing a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it tightly for a moment... allowing a whiff of his scent to trickle into Yomir's nose.
Enough for him to realize something. "You smell like Eragon... a lot like Eragon." He focused his energy into his eyes, seeing lower allowing magic and heat to become visible...and it was here that he saw something Brom had clearly not wanted him to see...
His palm, glowing a deep silverish color... the same color Eragon's palm did.
"The tracks... their gone." Brom suddenly said, knocking Yomir back to reality with his relevation and he turned to see that the old man was right.
The tracks no longer existed near the river, there was simply an absence... and then he saw a massive series of mismatched tracks, many of which were very much not the Ra'zac.
"What could have happened?"
"""
When Eragon and Saphira finally reached them, after hours in the sky, they acted as if they were being attacked. Saphira landed, and Eragon jumped off her and looked for danger. The horses were tied to a tree on the edge of the clearing, but there was no sign of danger as far as Yomir could smell.
Eragon, clearly confused, trotted over and asked, "What's wrong?"
Brom scratched his chin and muttered a string of curses. "Don't ever block me out like that again. It's hard enough for me to reach you without having to fight to make myself heard."
"Sorry."
He snorted. "I was farther down the river when I noticed that the Ra'zac's tracks had ceased. I backtracked until I found where they had disappeared. Look at the ground and tell me what you see."
Eragon knelt and examined the dirt and saw what had thrown off Brom and Yomir. A confusion of impressions that were difficult to decipher. Numerous Ra'zac footprints overlapped each other. Superimposed over them were long, thick gouges torn into the ground.
He stood, shaking his head. "I don't have any idea what …" Then his eyes fell on Saphira and he realized what had made the gouges. Every time she took off, her back claws dug into the ground and ripped it in the same manner. "This doesn't make any sense, but the only thing I can think of is that the Ra'zac flew off on dragons. Or else they got onto giant birds and disappeared into the heavens. Tell me you have a better explanation."
Brom shrugged. "I've heard reports of the Ra'zac moving from place to place with incredible speed, but this is the first evidence I've had of it. It will be almost impossible to find them if they have flying steeds. They aren't dragons—I know that much. A dragon would never consent to bear a Ra'zac."
"What do we do? Saphira can't track them through the sky. Even if she could, we would leave you far behind. Yomir, can you track their scent?"
"I cannot track their scent, they left nothing behind and I cannot scent something so far gone... they left no heat to track either, nothing that lingers. Too much time has passed for me to be of any help here. My skills are great but they are limited... the fact that there is a river between us hasn't helped either. No, I have no ideas as to how we can find these beings."
"There's no easy solution to this riddle," said Brom. "Let's have lunch while we think on it. Perhaps inspiration will strike us while we eat." When he had finished eating, he stood and threw back his hood. "I have considered every trick I know, every word of power within my grasp, and all the skills we have, but I still don't see how we can find the Ra'zac." Eragon slumped against Saphira in despair. "Saphira could show herself at some town. That would draw the Ra'zac like flies to honey. But it would be an extremely risky thing to attempt. The Ra'zac would bring soldiers with them, and the king might be interested enough to come himself, which would spell certain death for you and me."
"So what now?" asked Eragon, throwing his hands up.
"That's up to you," said Brom. "This is your crusade."
Eragon ground his teeth angrily and stalked away from Brom and Saphira. Less then a minute later he returned, jogging radiating pain and reeking of something cloying nad awful. A strong stench that made Yomir sway on his feet as horror washed over him, ,"Look what I found." Brom took the flask and examined it, then poured a bit of the liquid into the cap. Eragon started to warn him, "Watch out, it'll burn—"
"My skin, I know," said Brom. "And I suppose you went ahead and poured it all over your hand. Your finger? Well, at least you showed sense enough not to drink it. Only a puddle would have been left of you."
"What is it?" asked Eragon.
Yomir shuddered as the memories returned to him, memories stirred by Brom's earlier interrogation. "Seithr Oil, rare and refined it is used for preservation but with the right spells it is a terrible agent of torture... " He lifted his shirt, using his finger to point at six separate marks. "Durza treated me to it's effects as a Name Day gift... I took care of it's unrefined version as a child, moving it in barrels in Dras-Leona... It only burns flesh, nothing more or less. It's tremendously valuable and expensive due to the sheer difficulty in finding and crafting it properly."
"I wonder why the Ra'zac left it behind if it's so valuable."
"It must have slipped off when they flew away." Brom answered.
"But why didn't they come back for it? I doubt that the king will be pleased that they lost it."
"No, he won't," said Brom, "but he would be even more displeased if they delayed bringing him news of you. In fact, if the Ra'zac have reached him by now, you can be sure that the king has learned your name. And that means we will have to be much more careful when we go into towns. There will be notices and alerts about you posted throughout the Empire."
Eragon paused to think. "This oil, how rare is it exactly?"
"Like diamonds in a pig trough," said Brom. He amended himself after a second, "Actually, the normal oil is used by jewelers, but only those who can afford it."
"So there are people who trade in it?"
"Perhaps one, maybe two."
"Good," said Eragon. "Now, do the cities along the coast keep shipping records?"
Brom's eyes brightened. "Of course they do. If we could get to those records, they would tell us who brought the oil south and where it went from there."
"And the record of the Empire's purchase will tell us where the Ra'zac live!" concluded Eragon. "I don't know how many people can afford this oil, but it shouldn't be hard to figure out which ones aren't working for the Empire."
"Brillant you!" Yomir smiled at his friend. "I would never have considered that... hell if we can get a hold of the records I could sus out the place they are living. I handled the stuff enough to have some memories of where to get a good look."
"I suppose that Teirm would be the place to start, as it controls most of the trade." Brom paused. "The last I heard, my old friend Jeod lives there. We haven't seen each other for many years, but he might be willing to help us. And because he's a merchant, it's possible that he has access to those records."
"How do we get to Teirm?"
"We'll have to go southwest until we reach a high pass in the Spine. Once on the other side, we can head up the coast to Teirm," said Brom. A gentle wind pulled at his hair.
"Can we reach the pass within a week?"
"Easily. If we angle away from the Ninor and to our right, we might be able to see the mountains by tomorrow."
Eragon went to Saphira and mounted her. "I'll see you at dinner, then."
They ended up having their nightly fight, with Yomir claiming victory over even Brom that night but only as he was the only person to give the fight his all.
Chapter end, tell me what you think in the reviews.
This was fun to write,
Love, your Ninja Overlord,
Mika.