The approaching age

Roran looked around at the destruction that the soldiers had wrecked on the town, there was nothing left. Piles of burnt timber could be seen scattered everywhere, although nature was quickly reclaiming the valley. Packs of wolves could be seen roaming across the fields and there were was little evidence that a hearty community had once stood here. As the rest of the villagers came up behind him, in their flimsy horse drawn carriages, which they had bargained for from Nasuada, they uttered gasps at what happened to the place where they were born. Coming to the realisation that they would have to build the town from scratch, they earnestly started working on setting up a makeshift camp. After arranging the wagons in a protective circle to shelter from the wind, they proceeded to start to unpack their supplies. Working with the dedication unrivalled by anyone throughout Alagaesia, for the sun was dwindling in its strength and the prospect of an open night in the chilly night air was dismal, they quickly erected two small huts. One for the carpenters, for they would be most valuable in the reconstruction of the town, and another for supplies that would not survive the open air, whether it be food or priceless gifts given to them during their stay in the Varden.

Roran himself had only been recently aware how much things of value he possessed. The casket of gems that Eragon had given him, an enchanted scrying mirror, the gold rings which he wore on his finger, a magically strengthened hammer and a small crown and token that Nasuada had given to him to accompany his title of Earl. His wife, Katrina, was also quite well off, she had been given an enormous dowry by Nasuada. His most prized possessions, apart from the rings that were enchanted to locate Katrina, was the scrying mirror that Eragon had given him. It would allow him to contact Eragon even though he might be thousands of miles away. As of yet Eragon had not initiated contact, although there might have been a small possibility that he had missed him. As he thought about this his mind returned to that night when Eragon had boarded the Talita. At the time he was sad about the fact that he would probably never get to wrestle with his cousin, but gradually as he kneeled there, on the shoreline of the Edda River, he was comforted by the fact that he might still be able to talk to his cousin on rare occasions. This thought had boosted him out of his mournful state, and while he waited for Arya to return, and even as they picked him up and flew off, he thought about what sort of life his cousin would have.

As they flew over Hedarth, they could see evidence of the Dwarves packing up from their feasts and celebrations, as Firnen swooped over the town, he saw a solitary dwarf waiving at him, smiling at seeing Orik again, he returned the wave. But they did not stop, for Arya and Firnen, he knew, had much to do. After they had passed over Hedarth he thought he saw a small tear glinting in the moonlight on Arya's high-boned cheek, but just as quick as he noticed it, it was gone. This had set him thinking and after flying for so long, they stopped over at Ceris. Where they took a short rest, and amid the joyous expressions of the elves he told them of some of the battles that he had fought in. Although the elves were not deferential to him, he had realised that tales of the battles he had fought in had reached their ears, and they had thus treated him with respect. After taking a drink of Faelnivr, which had induced perplexing hallucinations, he had retired for the night, or so he thought when he walked into his accommodation and promptly tried to lie down in the bed but fell on the floor. The Faelnivr had created an illusion of a bed and he had literally, and metaphorically, fell for it.

That incident had him laughing for hours the next day. At first Arya had been puzzled about what was making him laugh, but then eventually he explained it to her and he saw a small little smile crease her lips, the first one he had seen since Eragon had left. Below them, Firnen, he could feel although he was trying to contain it, was chuckling at the event. Thankfully, the effects of Faelnivr had worn off by morning, as it would have otherwise made riding a dragon extremely dangerous. Oh what a sorry tale that would have been, the first earl of Palencar valley, falling off a dragon, not even his own, on the way to his kingdom and dying. It took about a week for them to cross Du Weldenvarden, by this time he had firmly entrenched in his mind the ideal castle in which he aimed to build. Even though it would probably be a year before he started to build it or even consider starting, it was a useful tool to combat the hours of silence they had spent on dragon back. He and Arya shared little in common, plus the fact that they were both recovering from the fact that one of their best friends had just left the known world, meant that there was not a lot of talk exchanged between them. However this had probably been best as they both needed time to think before they cast their selves once more again into the maw that was everyday life.

However, things lightened up considerably after they picked up Katrina from Ellesmera, and conversation had begun, and by a few hours, they were chatting merrily and normally, well as normal as you can have a three-way conversation on a dragon-back a few hundred feet in the air. As they flew out over Du Weldenvarden they considered their options of what to do. At first Arya wanted to drop them off at Carvahall directly, and they agreed, but her elven eyesight had caught of a large group of humans. Deducing that this was the villagers on their way back to Carvahall, she enquired if they had wanted to be dropped off among them. To which, after a few seconds of conversing with Katrina, he had agreed too, and it was settled. Half an hour later they dropped out of the sky amidst the delight of the villagers. Soon after everything was settled on the ground, Firnen took off, but just before he did, Arya shouted out, the wind catching most of her words. But he could hear "Fare thee well, Roran, cousin of Eragon Shadeslayer, I shall return." Nodding in a gesture of understanding, he signalled goodbye and then Firnen took off, the ground shaking as he did.

Somebody shouted out his name, derailing his train of thoughts. It was Horst, "Get over here Roran, just because you're an earl doesn't mean you don't have to do any work." Recognising that he was being playful he shouted back in return "Nasuada states on this piece of parchment" he pulled out a random piece of parchment out of a nearby wagon and waved it in the wind, "that I no longer have to do any work, and I have the right to work you all to death building my castle." Horst chuckled and returned the jibe with "You bet you do, Lord Roran is getting mighty high on his horse, I say, why don't we bring him back down to good old solid ground." To which the villagers all laughed. Knowing that he should help out he headed over to the trees and started picking up logs to bring to the carpenter shop, which already had a massive pile of wood outside.

By nightfall, a protective barrier from the wind had been constructed, tents assembled, two small huts had been built and a rough plan for the village had been drawn upon one of the many pieces of parchment they had. In the centre of the town they would construct a bell tower, and then there would be a courtyard/marketplace surrounding this, radiating outwards from the city centre would be streets and houses and finally once they had done this they would find a way to get enough stone to build an outer wall. The town would be constructed in a way that there would be plenty of room for growth but also easy to defend. This is where elements from other cities came in. The gradually descending height of houses and slots for barriers were borrowed from Tierm, the numerous trees and rooftop gardens in the town from the elven cities and from human cities, stone walls offering protection to those who resided within them. This he thought, would be the building blocks for a great town where all could prosper.

As they flew towards the ruins Eragon could not help but feel a sense of uneasiness, even though he was the most powerful known person he was still hesitant about venturing into unknown places full of unknown dangers. Saphira, he could feel from his bond with her, did not share his uneasiness but then again she was a dragon, and dragons have little to fear from anybody except other dragons. Plus if she did feel uneasy she would probably not share it with him, even though they were destined to be lifelong partners, a dragon, well at least according from Saphira, would and should never be scared of anything. The ruins lay next to the mouth of the river and sea shore. As of yet he did not know whether the sea was salty or not but they would soon find out. As he tightened his grip on the saddle as Saphira went into a dive, he turned around to see where the Talita was and saw that it was just over a few miles away.

As Saphira touched down he glanced around at the ruins at the centre of what must have been a lively town. Although it had been long since abandoned a sense of sadness crept into Eragon. The stones were inscribed with stories ranging from the building of the town to its finest heroes coming back from wars, laden with gifts of precious value. Nowhere could he see why the town had declined although many of the stones inscribed with illustrations of the stories were broken in many places. After much scrutiny of the ruins and deep pondering thoughts he eventually moved on, perusing through the things that Saphira was seeing, for she was circling above, he eventually caught sight of something interesting. Out near the edge of town, the furthest point from both the river and the shoreline, there was three big stone structures. Setting out towards them, he noticed that the style of the town was based on Tierm, or more likely the other way around. The height of the buildings gradually got shorter and shorter the further he ventured from the town while in the streets there were places for barricades to be slotted in.

After a few minutes of walking through the street he eventually came across the buildings he was searching for, arrayed in a triangle they were the few buildings that still had their roofs partly intact. Feeling slightly foolish, for want of a better word, he cast a few spells to see if there was any magic imbued in the structure. After several minutes of chanting he had concluded that the spells cast on the three buildings were only designed to support it, nothing else. Casting aside his worries, although he could sense Saphira was ready to help him if need be, he ventured inside the first of the three buildings. It was utterly unspectacular, it appeared to be a storage building and there was nothing of interest in it. The second building he entered appeared to be a prison, with a few cells on each of the two floors. The third building he entered was much more exciting; in one corner there was a bookshelf, although this had been emptied to some unknown place, one side of the hall contained a stone throne, still standing strong, and in the last corner lay a big stone block next to another slap leaning against the wall.

Walking over to investigate the stone block, he passed by the stone throne and looking down he noticed that his feet had passed right through the back of the throne. Crouching down he examined the base of the throne, but could see no faults, extending his arm he reached down to touch the throne but his fingers passed through the throne as if it was insubstantial. Realizing that it was an illusion he went around to the front of the throne and knelt in front of it trying to see how much of the throne an illusion was. To his surprise, and annoyance at stubbing his fingers on the stone, he realised that the front was as solid as the stone found in Tronjheim. Extending his arms on each side of the stone he felt where the stone was present and where it was an illusion. Puzzled, he realised that it was only the back of the stone that was an illusion, the rest he had discovered, through jarring his fingers, was real. Still crouching he glanced around the room until his eyes rested on the stone slab resting against the wall, he realised that it roughly matched the height and width of the throne. He strode over to it, taking care not to trip on the many hazards that lay between him and the item of his pursuit, picked it up and carried it back to the throne. He slotted it in the back of the throne and it fitted perfectly. A small finger hold at the top of the back of the throne would allow people to extract the slab and enter the secret domain.

After much effort and a broken fingernail he had successfully had once again extracted the stone slab and now was leaning against the wall again. Gripping the edge of the floor, and casting a werelight below him, he slowly lowered himself into the chamber. The first thing he noticed was that the room was quite small and singular. The second, more obvious, pressing feature was that every spare inch of wall was blocked by bookshelves which in turn contained numerous pieces of parchment. Glancing down at his feet he noticed that there were steps below, and he let go. Breathing a sigh of relief at not finding an ancient horror, for Umaroth had warned him that dark things lurked in abandoned places, he asked Saphira "Bring me Blodhgarm and his two wisest elves, for I need their advice and knowledge." A few moments later Saphira contacted him saying "It is done little one, they have just touched down at one of the wharves, the rest of the elves are staying aboard the ship, but Blodhgarm and two two-legged ones are approaching you, they will be there in a few moments." He took the opportunity to flick through one of the nearest bound piece of parchment and saw that it contained a map of the surrounding land as well as an unknown kingdom, which was at least three times as big as the area the old riders had held influence over before they were slaughtered by Galbatorix and his cursed Forsworn.

He was interrupted in his deeply immersed state when Blodhgarm arrived in the room above, deduced in no time where Eragon was and dropped through the back of the throne, however the other two elves stayed above. Greeting Eragon with his usual inclined nod of his head and "Shadeslayer" he glanced around until his eyes rested on the bound pieces of parchment held in Eragon's hand. When he examined Blodhgarm's face he was surprised to find that the elf, instead of showing an expression devoid of emotion, was instead grappling with something perplexing, and his inner thoughts had spilled out as he looked troubled. He tore his eyes from the parchment that Eragon held and focused so intently on Eragon that he had felt the need to turn away and shield himself from Blodhgarm's fierce gaze. Instead he quelled the feeling as Blodhgarm started to slowly talk "A long time ago, when the dwarven race had been settled in the mountains for only a few thousand years, the humans, Urgals, raz'ac and elves were still to set foot upon the lands that we now know so well, we elves made a terrible mistake in a far off land. What we did we cannot tell you for it is beyond our understanding, we also no longer have the knowledge, time, strength or willingness to examine what went wrong, but in summary we created a monstrosity. We had to abandon Alalea because of this, although a few of the braver, stronger elves thought this was foolish and decided to stay in the land that had been their home for so many years. Although it broke the hearts of our ancestors to say goodbye to them, we knew it was necessary and thus we departed. What happened to the rest I cannot say as we have not had the courage to return there and it is debated whether they received immortality as they were so far away. Anyway I digress; we wished them well upon their endeavours and then we sailed away in our ships. This journey was not for the faint of heart though; there were many deaths on the high seas, it was a time of great sorrow for our people and behind us, we saw that there was an Urgal fleet following us. Do not ask me how they got enough ships; it is one of the enduring mysteries that time has left us. Perhaps they have some record of it but I doubt it. Eventually we came across the land we now know today as 'Alagaesia,' we quickly settled and the rest of our history Oromis would have covered. Although we bought many records of Alalea over here count yourself lucky, as a human has never seen the records before because there are so few of them left, and the ones that are left are not entrusted lightly."

As his gaze alighted on Blodhgarm's face he noticed a solitary tear, reflecting the red light emanating from the werelight, on an otherwise unemotional face. Realising the story had ended he thanked Blodhgarm most sincerely and then placed the bound pieces of parchment back on one of the shelves. Just before Blodhgarm was about to protest, he muttered "Reisa" and all of the parchments rose into the air, he then cast another spell for the parchments to follow him, the drain on his strength was so negligible he almost didn't notice. Motioning for Blodhgarm to follow him he exited out of the chamber and walked towards the Talita, the parchment tailed him in a long line, which according to Saphira, was quite amusing. Once Blodhgarm had finished seeing if there was anything Eragon had missed, which there wasn't, he pushed the stone slab back into place and then followed Eragon out of the building.

Back on board the Talita, once they had cast off, he had handed the parchment brought from the throne room over to the elves. They would then spend the next few hours poring over the documents to see if they contained anything interesting, and if they did they would report Blodhgarm who would then report to Eragon. But as of now he was too tired to stay up any longer, so he plonked down on one of the mattresses, set up underneath an awning at the stern, and immediately fell asleep, ready for the challenges that the next day would throw at him.

Nasuada glanced around at the leaders arrayed before her; in other circumstance she would have been happy to see them, but not now. One raz'ac was still alive, a dwarven shade was on the loose, another even more powerful shade had yet to arrive and the dwarves had foreseen an unnamed shadow roaming the land. The situation had vastly improved from when Orik and then Arya had first told her what they knew. Since then one of the raz'ac had been killed, the other was injured and the unnamed shadow which Orik had told her about, was yet to be released upon the land. The dwarf, who had apparently seen the unnamed horror, was actually sleepwalking and in his dreams he matched what he was doing in reality, whatever that meant. Apparently that was why it had taken the dwarven magicians so long to determine whether dwarf had had a premonition or not. Although she was thankful for this because it meant she could prepare for it and there was one less thing to deal with at present now.

Among those layed out in front of her were Orrin, Orik, one of the dwarven Grimstborith whose name was on the tip of her tongue, Nar Garzhvog, he had finally acquired a scrying mirror, Vanir and the group of elves that had been appointed to carry out the task of finding the new dragon rider and a host of other important people. The only other person she wished was on-board this meeting apart from Eragon, was Roran, she had come to respect his opinion over the course of the war and he never hesitated to speak the truth or voice his thoughts. That reminder her, she needed to do two things, next time she contacted Eragon she would ask him about the scrying mirror he had given Roran, and she also needed to ask one of her advisors where the nearest source of stone was to Carvahall. As the meeting progressed their topics gradually changed, one moment they were talking about if the elves should continue to try and get the egg to hatch then the next they were talking about whether to hunt down the shade or let it come to them. The dwarves were of the opinion that they should hunt it out but the other races were not so sure, for it would take a while to send the troops and magicians necessary to deal with them. Slowly the hours ticked by until the sun was setting, then it was decided that they would need to deal their respective races and thus the meeting was finished.

Calling Jormundur she explained the situation to him and told him to arrange another meeting the next day with Orrin to discuss things in private, she then bade him goodnight and retired to her chambers, where Farica, her handmaiden, was waiting for her. Farica then helped her get ready for bed, while she was grateful for this she was even more thankful for the companionship she provided and the opportunity to talk to someone who wasn't trying to extort something from her. As much as she liked Orik, and to a lesser extent Orrin, they almost always had political agendas. Although this was not bad in its own right it just impeded having pleasant conversation about trivial things. After much talking, and outside the moon had risen well above the horizon, she resigned herself to the fact that staying awake any longer, no matter how nice a conversation they were having, would be doing herself a disservice. Dismissing Farica with a "Thank you" and a wave of her hand, to which her handmaiden responded with a bow before exiting the room, she collapsed on the bed. There she lay staring at the ceiling of the room, tracing the lines on the ceiling with her eyes just as she had done when she was a captive of Galbatorix in this very same city. Any other time of the day that thought would have given her the shivers but right now she was too tired to care and eventually she entered the dream world, where she forgot the troubles she faced in the waking world.

A/N Hello. I realise that I did not get the chapter by the end of the weekend but truthfully I have had a lot bigger things to worry about. I probably won't get another proper chapter up for another week/ week and a half, as I have a lot of stuff coming up. However instead of a proper chapter I might add a timeline of the POV's I have done so far, this will be helpful to me as well as probably you, the readers. I will also try and upload a bunch of images depicting what I meant for the places I have described, to look like. If anyone has read Mathew Reilly, simple drawings that illustrate complicated stuff make an easier read. As they say, a picture equals a thousand words.

I couldn't include Eragon and Saphira in the same chapter as that would be very hard to write, but I promise next chapter will include Saphira's POV instead of Eragon. My biggest chapter yet! Once I have gotten up to chapter 10 I will take a break to read over my chapters, correct the many mistakes that are obviously there and fix up the time of day. Anyway I will not take up anymore of your time with my problems. Thanks for reading and please review + Thanks to those who have favourited, followed, reviewed or supported me in any way.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Inheritance Cycle, those belong Christopher Paolini, and his publishers. I do however own the characters that I will come up with and the story (maybe stories) that are yet to follow.

Thus, do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself.