BEFORE I GET TO THE CHAPTER RESPONSES I WANT TO SAY THIS!
ALL OF YOU HOW HAVE LIMITED ACCESS TO NEWS AND ALL THOSE WHO ARE NOT YET AWARE, THIS GOES TO YOU!
AS OF TODAY, MARCH 23 OF 2011 CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI HAS ANNOUCED THE TITLE, COVER, AND RELEASE DATE FOR THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE INHERATENCE CYCLE. I WILL REVELVE NO MORE ABOUT IT; I'LL LET YOU DO THAT, I'M JUST PHSYCED!
Owltalon: :) Thank you very much. I have worked very hard on it.
Aiedail94: :) I'm glad you spent that much time reading and enjoying, and hope that your expectations will continue to be met. :)
R0xas The Destroyer of Worlds: :) I know; right? I'm the Supreme Chancellor! You'd think they'd tell me these things. :)) Well, I guess if you liked the old ones better that's your prerogative (love that word). I just like this one better.
Daxxx: :) There will be two more stories to follow and the final battle is far in the future. :) I love Aesire too. Maybe it's because he's based on my brother, but that's just one possible explanation.
FlexManSteel: That will be explained as well. :)
Prince of Madness 54: :) I wonder if Old Zealand got destroyed because it was full of Siths. Yeah, I had to chuck out one of my better ideas for a scene during the Uru'baen fight because I didn't want to copy Lelouch in so many ridiculous ways. :(
Valkyrie-chick: I feel your pain about the sick thing. As for Aesire's Lunarmist question; no. His Lunarmist can only read the book of Lunarmist. In order to read the other two you would have to have to have fully mastered those spells as well. She is; she really just is. Getting mad at Eragon for killing the Ra'zac; who more or less built the storyline.
Oblit1519: Have no fear, they will come up. Just not in this book. In CP's books it never said that Eragon would need either to kill of Galbatorix; although it is heavily implied. I am staying within most of the established cannon.
Alice Prince: YEAH IT IS! :)
Antclift: :( Then it saddens me to have had to write this chapter.
First part of your question; he read them because the full strength of his Lunarmist came out. And he knew were they were because he had tried to read them earlier in the story, when they first found them.
Like a black cloud of dread fate, Shruikan rose from the citadel's top and floated up to their level without apparent effort. On his back sat Galbatorix. Black shoulder length hair tumbled down like a net of raven feathers. Black armor inlayed with red veins of transparent crystal was tied down to his form. A sword was sheathed at his side, the color pitch black. His eyes, when Eragon looked into them, seemed endlessly deep and dark.
Shruikan stopped when he was level with Saphira. There he stayed while Saphira growled at him. A deep boom came from the ground below as the Varden's battering ram began to break down the main gates of Uru'baen. Galbatorix raised his hands out to either side and said, "Welcome to Ilirea, Eragon Shadeslayer, and Saphira Brightscales. Long have I waited for you to enter my domain once again. It is an honor to know that a Rider of such renowned was under my very nose for nearly twenty years."
"Look," Aesire said, pointing down to the main gate. Just inside the Black Gate stood so many men that Eragon could hardly comprehend how they stood in such a relatively small space. "Whatever you do, do not think of the trap," Aesire said.
"I know," Eragon said.
"Tell me, O Honored Rider, have you yet learned the truth of the Three Great Spells?"
"You will get no answers from me, Galbatorix."
"Then perhaps I will get an answer from Aesire. After all, he and I do go back quite some time."
"I have set those days far in my past," Aesire said, eyes narrowing.
"Does a sword cut hurt any the less because you cannot go back and change it? How Wolf Ears loves someone that has done what you have is far beyond me."
Aesire's hand tightened around his sword. "You are trying to engender anger from me so that your Futurestar can be more effective."
Galbatorix's eyes brightened. "Ah, so you have learned of them. Then you have learned of Futurestar, my own crafted power, and thus of the impossibility of this venture." He reached out with one arm as the battering ram of the Varden collided with the gates once more. "Rider Eragon, Dragon Saphira; long have I waited for your safe arrival. I have done everything in my power to assure your safety until you arrived here."
"For example," Eragon cut him off. "You send the Ra'zac to murder my uncle and father and then you send them to destroy my home? Is that how you protect someone?"
"But the Ra'zac did that of there own free will. Do not you recall the younger of the two telling the older that they could tell me that Brom was killed when they were capturing him?"
Eragon thought of the time when he had killed the last remaining Ra'zac; when it had tried to tell Eragon something about Galbatorix but could not. "Perhaps when you sent them to find me they had something that could be called free will. But when you sent them after Roran and to destroy Carvahall they had no more free will then the tightest bound slave."
"And is that a bad thing, Eragon, that such vile creatures be bound in chains? I rather thought you would thank me for sending them to Helgrind so that you could dispose of them. How thankless the Riders have become since the Fall."
"A Fall made by your own hand," Eragon growled.
"Was it?" Galbatorix asked in a placating voice. The air vibrated as the Varden sent their battering ram against the Black Gates again. The doors showed no sign of breaking. "Think back to your days in Ellesmera, Eragon Shadeslayer. How little did your Elven mentor tell you about the Fall? How much more time did he devote to the study of Urgals than the blood that flows through your veins as a Rider? Answer truthfully, Rider Eragon. How much did Oromis and Glaedr tell you of the Rider's Great Fall? How much did they hide?"
"They would never withhold the truth from me," Eragon said vehemently.
"No? Your father, your brother, the Eldunari? It seems to me that the only thing they were truly truthful about was things of the least importance. Did not they withhold the truth from you about your family and the source of my power?"
"You are a vile abomination," Eragon growled. "And Saphira and I will see your blood spilled." The battering ram of the Varden slammed into the Black Gate with enough force to generate a long crack in the doors. Arrows and spears began jabbing through the gap. But the Varden would not be stopped.
A smile spread on Galbatorix's lips and he uttered one fell laugh. "Aesire; you never told him, did you?" A look of comic hysteria came onto the King's face and he began to laugh.
"Told me what?" Eragon asked, looking back at Aesire.
"Nothing," Aesire said harshly.
"Nothing?" Galbatorix said and fell into a fit of laughter once more.
"What did you not tell me?" Eragon demanded to Aesire.
"Let me tell you, Shadeslayer," Galbatorix said. Another boom echoed in the air as the Varden's battering ram bashed the Gates again. "Do you believe that when Durza emerged from the dark caverns below Dras'Leona after his three day long experiment with Aesire I forget he existed? No. I watched him as closely as I had once watched the Foresworn. And so it came to pass that on Aesire's fourth birthday, the power of Lunarmist awoke inside of him. It wasn't until the age of fifteen that it had ripened to the point of usefulness."
"Stop it," Aesire said softly with downcast eyes.
"A week before he was fifteen I sent one of the Ra'zac to his home and bargain for his services. Oh, the offer was rich. His family and who would follow in his line would be immune from taxes and they would live in the finest of conditions. No member of his family would ever be conscripted to my army. But no; though the rewards would have been great, and Aesire refused."
"Stop this," Aesire said. Eragon saw a drop of liquid fall from his face.
"And this is the best part of it," Galbatorix said with an insane sneer. "On the day of his fifteenth birthday his father sent him and his brother out to decide which one would get his fortunes. And when Aesire went to his wagon would you care to guess who was waiting for him?"
"Hola," Eragon said, remembering Aesire's account of his life with her.
"One name to name her," Galbatorix said snidely. "Another is an assassin hired by myself to either recruit or kill Aesire." Eragon was dumbfounded. His jaw sank down and he looked from Galbatorix to Aesire and back again. "The little merchant fell in love with her and so accepted my offer of servitude. He was one of the commanding officers of both the Urgal army and the army on the Burning Plains. It was he who ordered the Twins to kill Ajihad and Murtagh to kill Hrothgar. Of course he, to this day, remains convinced that she loves him in return." Galbatorix's words were punctuated by the boom and crack of the Black Gates as they continued to break.
Eragon looked back at Aesire. "Is it true?" Drops of liquid fell from his downcast eyes.
"Parts of it; yes. Parts of it; no. I was the commander of his armies after you killed Durza and I did order the deaths of Ajihad and Hrothgar. But Hola would never have killed me, even if I did not accept Galbatorix's offer."
"And as I said he remains convinced that Wolf Ears returns his affections," Galbatorix said with a sneer of derision.
Aesire took one short breath and said, "Galbatorix."
"Hmm?"
Aesire raised his head with the left side of his mouth perked up in a vicious grin and locked gazes with the King. "Strike one," he said in softly. "Now!" he said to Eragon.
Eragon opened his palm to the Black Gates below as the Varden's ram began to open the doors. "Jierda!" A series of explosions echoed throughout the surrounding area. For a split moment the solders waiting to combat the Varden stood; oblivious to the fate that the word Eragon had uttered had doomed them to. Then the ground for three hundred feet imploded in on itself and the innumerable solders fell into the gapping maw of the tunnel that awaited them. As Aesire raised his head fully he showed the small vile of liquid Zodion had given to Nasuada slowly dropping water to fake tears.
Within a minute, the Elves had reformed the ground over the hole and the Varden poured into Uru'baen. Galbatorix looked down at his Gates with an expression of dethatched interest. "The both of you planned that ahead of time to delay me until this could happen?"
"Indeed," Aesire said, sitting up right and activating his Lunarmist. "With the power of Futurestar at your disposal, you would soon learn of this trap. So the obvious answer was to convince you there was nothing to be concerned about. To make you look to your next move and not you're last," he said with satisfaction.
Feel like a shaved off chapter? Not exactly what you were expecting and/or hoping for? The first thing I'd like to point out is that I've never been what you'd call awesome with battle scenes; I don't know anyone who can give me advice on them is why, but that will hinder me not! The second thing I'd like to point out is that CP PUT A RELEASE DATE ON HIS FOURTH BOOK AFTER, LIKE, FOUR YEARS! I was excited and my Countdown Clock for chapter updates was getting mad at me.