Problems and Surprises
Rhunon gruffly walked to the edge of the forest, which was less than a league away. She wondered how she could have gotten dragged into elven politics so easily. It was not like she liked it, she wondered why they couldn't just try to explain to Eragon that they needed an extra Eldunari. It was not that much too ask for, after all if her sources were correct he would have over half a thousand, if not more.
She couldn't understand why she had to do it; it was not like it would take that long for Arya to convince Eragon to deliver an Eldunari by flying back all the way from wherever he was. She was not naïve and she had heard the rumours that Eragon loved Arya; Arya would be able to convince him to return to Alagaesia in a jiffy, but then again maybe the war had hardened him against such endeavours. After all, pretty much every woman in Alagaesia would be happy to marry him. His status, what she supposed were his looks, his wealth and the fact that he was a dragon rider, meant that many people were all too happy to fall head over heels for him.
(Time change)
After musing over her less than satisfactory situation among other things for an hour, she eventually reached the Hardarac desert and for the last 20 minutes she made sure that she was far away enough that the magical influence of the wards in Du Weldenvarden would not disrupt her communication. Muttering in the ancient language, she caused the water to rise from the ground and form a pool at the base of her feet. She kneeled down and leaned over the rim of the pool of glassy water, for there was no wind.
She intoned the words for scrying and then at the end, for Eragon's scrying mirror. She waited a few moments for the magic to take effect; in the meantime the only thing she saw in the bowl was her reflection, and set in the background was the wide open desert sky, with the sun shining behind her back. It was actually quite a nice day, the temperature was pleasant, the wind wasn't blowing, which meant that there was no sand stinging her skin, and the sun was out, casting a golden glow on everything.
After a few seconds, there appeared a whirl pool effect and eventually an image of a male elf lying on a wooden chair became visible. As soon as her face should have appeared on the scrying mirror, the elf leapt up,
""Rhunon" he shouted merrily, his face showing a carefree smile.
"It's Rhunon" he shouted again, forgetting the traditional elvish customs, none of which she was very fond of. As soon as the elf calmed down a bit, and she was able to find out his name, which was Eystein, she asked him whether Eragon was currently available. The elf walked off for a bit, in which time the view of the scrying mirror was of an elven ship, bobbing up and down gently with the ebb and flow of the tides, and a brilliantly blue sea. If she didn't know better, or rather trusted them less, she would have suspected that they hadn't even left Alagaesia yet, such was the likewise of the scenery.
After what seemed eons, but was probably just a minute, he walked back into her view. He bowed deeply, before exchanging the traditional elven greetings, which he had forgotten in a spur of the moment decision before. She responded to these futile attempts at civility with her usual rough grunt and a dismissive wave of her hand. "Eragon" he said, "has just finished his training for the day, he will be with us soon." She was taken aback by this news, why on earth would he need to train, he had already trained under Oromis, the mourning sage, and his deeds proved that he truly was a dragon-rider in full.
After a few minutes, where Eystein plied her with questions and she did her best to answer them as well as she could, Eragon finally arrived in lieu of the scrying mirror. He looked much the same as before, except his shoulders had broadened out a little and he appeared slightly bigger. She wondered what this meant, and what type of training he was doing, but she refrained from questioning him until he had dismissed Eystein and they had exchanged their usual greeting.
"So" Eragon said, his mouth playing up at the corners, "humour me … how did they get you do this?"
"Well" she answered, with a slight grimace, "it was partly my fault. I wanted to talk to you, and then Arya got me side-tracked, which means I now have an obligation to go and talk to you at the earliest possible point in time, which would be now."
"Oh" crowed Eragon, while maintaining a serious demeanour, "and why would you need to talk to me."
She was about to answer him straight out, but then she remembered the confidentiality of the subject of the Eldunari. She muttered under her breath a few words, and soon a spell to discourage eavesdropping was in place. She saw that he was looking at her strangely, so she said "Eavesdropping spells, you would do well to put them up as well," answering the unasked question, prominently shown on his face.
He did the same, and after a few moments they were able to talk in relatively safety and privacy. "Back to my original query" he reminded her, "why would the great Rhunon-elda need to talk with a simple farm boy."
She frowned at his statement, didn't he realise how important he was, but then she realised his joking tone. She was slowly adopting the customs of her people, whether she liked it or not; laughter was becoming less and less sporadic and she couldn't tell the difference between a joke and a serious statement. Although to be fair, she talked mostly in the ancient language with the other elves, in which it was very hard to joke and laugh, probably because of the fact that they were most-always speaking the truth in one form or another. Elves, she reflected, were not very funny people and despite their enormous spans of life, they probably didn't laugh as much as humans in their relatively short lifespans.
"Well" she began, "you made me a promise."
She changed tact as soon as she saw his frown, "Well," she began again, "rather, you mentioned something to me in the passing and I wanted to make sure you followed up on your idea."
He looked confused at the mention of something he intended to carry out for herself, "and what idea is this," he asked, in a slightly bemused manner.
"The search for Bright steel" she said simply.
"Aah," he gasped, "I remember, it's all coming back to me now." She waited for him to get back on track as he spent a few seconds floundering in the revelation.
"But" he said, with a slight frown, "There is a slight problem. If I am remembering correctly, which I think I am, you never actually taught me the spell." She waited for a few moments for a forthcoming question, but apparently the cogs in his head were still turning, rather slowly she thought. She breathed a sigh of impatience.
"That is why I am here, speaking to you, duff head" she slandered, groaning at the rate at which he took things up. She thought that he noticed this, for his excuse himself for his slowness.
"Sorry" he said, in a very sorry-sort of way, "it's just that I am extremely tired since I have been doing my training, please forgive me Rhunon."
"Oh, yeah" she remembered, "I have to ask you about that."
"What" he said, just as she was about to remind him he continued "Oh yeah, my training.
I am actually quite slow off the block today" he remarked.
"Before I tell you about my training, can we just get the spells sorted" he asked, in a rhetorical kind of tone. Just as she was about to open her mouth, he cut her off,
"And before that, even, can I go get a scroll to write down the spell," he asked, this time actually meaning for the question to be answered. But he was not yet done, for he said
"Because, in the hazy state at which I am in, I am sure to forget about the spell, especially the proper wording, sooner or later."
She answered with a non-committal jerk of the head, which he took for a 'yes,' and he walked away from her field of view. A few seconds later, after rather a lot of ruffling and the sound of things being thrown away, he returned triumphantly with a single piece of parchment in his hand.
"Now" he said," let's get started." It took them about half an hour for Eragon to write down the spell, and for Rhunon to properly communicate it. Eventually, with only a few minor stuff ups, they finished running over the spell and both of them simultaneously leaned back with relief, if only for a bit on Rhunon's behalf, as if she leaned too far back, Eragon would not be able to see her.
"Seeing as" she remarked, "you still haven't answered my original question, let us do that, before many more grains of time slip through our fingers.
"Well," he started, in an annoyed tone, "The Eldunari thought that I wasn't strong enough and so I had to do some more training. End of story, good bye."
"That's not all that there is too it, is it" she guessed.
"No, that's the whole truth," he finalised, but she noticed how he avoided the ancient language. She thought he realised that she was thinking along the same lines that he was, because a few seconds later he relented.
"Ok," he compromised, "It's quite a bit more complicated than what I said earlier. Listen carefully" he advised, "because I am probably not going to repeat this. At first, I thought it was a bad idea, but then gradually as I considered the matter overnight, not that my opinion mattered anyhow, I realised it was probably the smart thing to do. Yet gradually, as we progressed throughout the month, I began to reach the state where, when I had training on, afterwards I could do nothing but lie on deck staring at the sky. That would have been manageable, after all, there is not much too do on a ship except that" he said wistfully, "but then came the extra stuff. "
"What extra stuff" she said, breaking his tale for the first time.
"Some of it was my doing, some of it was not. First, well not technically because I hadn't started my training by then, but I proposed to build a smallish settlement –"
"What smallish settlement" she queried. He waved the question away with a wave of his hand,
"Never mind that for now, I will talk about that later, for now just listen" he said gruffly, she grimace as she waited for him to regain his momentum.
"Where was I" he said rhetorically, "oh yes, I proposed to build a smallish settlement" he said, this time she did not interrupt.
"The main thing was, was that it took a lot of energy to build. This would have been fine, if I had been allowed to count on a lot of rest days, where I would be able to do nothing but sleep and eat, but low and behold, I was thrown into some new training."
He waited a few moments to regain his breath, and then plunged right back into the story.
"Secondly" he continued, "we had paddle up a river, in which I had to do my training as well as have my fair share of time at the oars. This further drained my already depleted energy levels, and meant that I had no chance of recovering to full strength for the duration of the training."
She was now starting to sympathise with him, it actually sounded like he was doing a lot of work, but just when she thought he was finished listing the reasons why he didn't like the training so much, he continued on.
"Thirdly" he said, "I have started an extra piece of training to do with using magic without words. Not too hard, you would think, but it was like starting to learn about magic all over again. Because, in the way I see it, I am so tuned to using magic with the Ancient Language it was difficult for me to channel the magic without words."
There was a little pause after this, where she deemed it appropriate enough to consider asking a question.
"But haven't you done or covered wordless magic, in detail, before" she asked, "wasn't your spell that weakened Galbatorix wordless magic."
"Done, yes," he answered, "covered, no, well at least not in detail. Oh, and yeah, the spell that weakened Galbatorix was wordless magic" he finished, in answer to her last question.
"Well I must say," she said, placating him, although she did feel rather impressed by the feat he was undergoing, "it does sound awfully tiring."
"Are you just saying that, or do you actually believe what you just said," he questioned, glaring at her. She was surprised at how good he was at picking up on things, but before she could reply she was interrupted.
"Never mind," he said, full well before she could even start to answer his baleful question, "now that I have found about why you want to speak to me, and since we have resolved that issue, let us speak about this thing Arya wanted me to know or do. What is it and why could she not have done it herself?" he said, with only the slightest trace of pining in his voice, although he was unsure whether Rhunon was able to pick it up.
"Well" she said mysteriously, "it involves the transport of something incredibly valuable, and something which is found on your ship in huge quantities."
His mind immediately leapt to the Eldunari, but how could Rhunon know about them, only the most important elves knew them, although then again, after all she was pretty important, and she would have been around for a long time. But he still had his doubts, so he said
"Name them, and I will discuss it with you, name it wrong, and I will not" he stated cautiously.
"They are the Eldunari, and Arya, well the elves, needs them to complete the spell ringing their forest" she said. At this last bit, Eragon stopped dead in his tracks. He slowly back-tracked his thought for a minute, until he was level with that last bit of conversation, the bit about the forest being ringed with spells.
"What do you mean, ringing the forest with spells" he said in a confused tone, "I thought that they had already ringed it so."
"Well yes and no" she said indignantly, realising that he hadn't paid as much attention to elven history as she thought he had, "The forest is ringed with protective spells, but is not yet truly the elves domain like Ellesmera is. So what they did to Ellesmera a long time ago, they are now doing to the whole forest. Only this time, they don't know all the spells, and their wording. That is why they need the Eldunari; they are hoping that some of the older dragons have memories of the spells that were constructed. Or, that on board the Talita, you have the missing manuscripts.
"There are certainly old enough dragons here; the problem is will they remember what happened back then and were they even present at the event," he remarked sadly, "however, I will definitely enquire into the manuscripts. I think it may be possible that we have them, but we will have to wait as we are a little busy at the moment, and I need to think about something. " he finished, just after an idea had lit up his face. "Oh, and by the way," he added as an afterthought, "I intend to discuss with Arya, at a later date, why this is so, and who was the driving force behind this idea."
She wondered what his objection was, but that was for later. She rewound to an earlier little bit in his spiel, which was important at the moment. They certainly didn't look that busy she thought, with one elf, probably Eystein, lounging around in the backdrop, but she kept that thought to herself.
"Why" asked Eragon sadly, startling her and interrupting her train of thought, "was Arya unable to do this?"
"Because she was busy with her people" she said simply, "You are not the only thing in life that warrants her attention, always remember that."
Eragon blushed at this statement, "It's just that" he started, before he faltered a few seconds later.
"It's just that- what" she asked, not too unkindly.
"It's just that-nothing. Don't worry, it's fine" he said, leaving the sentence hanging the air for all too see, all meaning Rhunon.
She didn't press it further, but instead chose to change the topic to the necessary arrangements, that needed to be made.
"We can't do it now" she started, and before she could continue it was Eragon's turn to interrupt her.
"I wasn't planning too" he said. Looking at her with the utmost attention he could muster, in his otherwise dreary and befuddled state.
"I was thinking maybe in three weeks. That is probably the best date as I will be able to find Silvari before then and it will still be a week before they need the documents" she said.
"I will also probably have crossed the sea by then, so I will be able to devote all my attention to sending the manuscripts or Eldunari on their way, by the spell of instant teleportation" he interjected. "Just as a matter of curiosity is Silvari, Silvari the Enchantress by any chance, and did she fashion Cuaroc. "
It took her a while to respond but eventually she said "yes to all, except I also helped her with Cuaroc, but I only played a minor part in building Cuaroc, Silvari did the majority."
"Interesting" he said simply, another idea crossing his mind.
At her curious glance he decided to direct the conversation away from his far-fetched ideas,
"So" he said, "in three weeks, by which time I will have crossed my sea, you will have found Silvari and brought her to the small settlement and Arya will be a week away from finishing her spells, I will transport the necessary knowledge, assuming that we have it, on to you" he finished, slightly pleased with himself.
"That might be all well and good for you Shadeslayer, but is there point of me going to your settlement specifically, why do I have to go there, and where is it," she asked, in a slightly aggravated tone.
"Just follow the river. The reason why you should go to my settlement is that it will make things go a lot more smoothly and you can fix up any mistakes we made" he answered.
"I would rather not tidy up after your mistakes, but I will if I have to. I think we have covered everything of importance, what do you say Shadeslayer" she asked.
"Yes," he said, in a pleased tone, "I think that does cover everything. I wish you best of luck, and good bye for now, Rhunon-elda."
"Goodbye" she said, cutting the connection short as soon as she had said goodbye. She relaxed in the comforting silence for a few moments, then she got up , her haunches slightly sore after being that position for a long time, and began a slow walk back to the forest, and a probably-slightly-impatient queen.
(Time Change)
"So" asked Arya, "what did you find out from your little jaunt, also, do know that it has been over 5 hours since you left?"
She looked up at the sky, and it was indeed true, the sun was pretty close to the Horizon, it would be about an hour before the sun disappeared from view and its rays of light left the land.
"I found out quite a lot," she said, in a bored voice. "What can I say," she started jokingly, "He seems to have taken an unusual interest in Silvari, maybe you have been replaced."
Arya laughed at this jest, he hasn't even met her, "It's not like Eragon to fall in love with a woman he hasn't met yet," she replied, "there must be another reason for this." She frowned slightly as she said this, her brow creased numerous times.
"Anyway" she said, shaking herself out of her reverie, "continue with tale."
Rhunon slightly paused as she gathered her thoughts, but a moment later she launched into a full-speed ahead explanation of what she had found out.
"In three weeks, by which time we shall have done everything we need to make this work, Silvari and I, probably with you flying us there, will go to a settlement that Eragon has built on his adventure," she stated. "Once there, we will await further instructions."
"Any idea where this settlement is" said Arya scathingly.
"Only that is beside the river that he left on" Rhunon said mischievously, "that is the only direction he gave us. He is turning into a true elf, you should be proud of him" she finished sarcastically.
Arya truly looked disappointed with the jest, although it was more than likely that this could have been at the lack of adequate directions.
"Well all-right" Arya said, in a slightly downcast tone of voice, "I suppose we can't ask him for any more directions, they are relatively clear. Meaning that they don't have any double innuendos" she added, in response to her querying glance.
"I suppose no-one can blame him for being unclear, he does have a lot of things going on" she said, to no-one in particular. Noticing that Rhunon was still hanging around, she bowed deeply and said
"Thank you for all your help, Rhunon-elda, much appreciated. Good luck with finding Silvari, I know how hard it will be to do so, and have a good-day."
Rhunon took this as a goodbye, replied in turn, except without the bow, and promptly departed. Following the game track that led deeper into the forest, in the general direction of Ellesmera, Rhunon quickly disappeared from Arya's sight, leaving only faint remnants of her smell behind. Arya, smiling, wondered what other surprises the rest of the quickly disappearing day would hold.
(Time change)
Rhunon looked at the extremely detailed map of Du Weldenvarden she was holding. It was going to be extremely difficult to find Silvari the Enchantress, especially when she didn't want to be found. The last time Silvari had decided she wanted a country retreat, she had hidden in the forest north-east of Osilon, and she couldn't be found for well over a year. Not that there were many elves trying too at the time.
The only reason they found her was because she got bored and decided to go back to her accommodation in Silthrim, where she continued to make all sorts of things of no particular use such as astrolabe's and eternally blooming flowers. Some of them which she still kept on one of the shelf's back at her forge.
After analysing the map for a few minutes, she came to the conclusion that Silvari would be hiding away somewhere north, most likely north of the halfway point between Nadindel and Lake Rona. Stowing the map into her long, narrow backpack, she wended her way through Ellesmera. She had to come back here when she done with all the politics, but that probably wouldn't be for a while, and it would only be for a brief stop. That was why she had taken the precautionary measure of packing away all her valuable stuff and put it into a special trunk that she had built a long time ago, for the sole purpose of securing valuable stuff.
Hopefully finding Silvari wouldn't be too much of a problem, she had a habit of predicting well where her friend was hiding away, and once she did, since Silvari shared the same sort of humour and mannerisms, she would give her one hell of a surprise.
A/N: Thanks for reading and please review. Next update: Probs. A week. Will have someone's POV other than Eragon's (I am a bit sick of him at the moment.) Next chapter will probably be shorter, but hopefully will still breach 3000+ words.
I have revised chapter 2 and PoV Timeline as well.
Hope you liked this chapter, I reckon this is one of my better ones. Have a good day
Yours Sincerely,
WiseBeyondYears