Here's an early Christmas treat for you.
Multiple stars began twinkling in and out of existence on the azure sky hued with laces of orange and pink on the west, and dominated by the night's dark reign on the north, where Saphira was forcefully heading. Her hard, strained wing beats were but a glimpse to how tired she really was. A thin layer of froth formed around her mouth, as no rivers flowed through the plains to quench her thirst.
In her saddle, Eragon tried his best to restrain his stiff muscles from stretching and awake the sleeping elf whose petite head rested on his shoulder, her silken hair caressing his face when a gust of wind would ruffle it. Angela and Solembum were unusually silent, save for the purr of glee coming from the werecat.
Only Eragon seemed to mince his mind with dilemmas and divergent thoughts that would come and go like the silvery moon that shone with sparkling glory on the night sky. With a plan beginning to take form, he was more worried than ever. The safety of the ones he loved rested on his shoulders, and a mistake, as tiny and insignificant as that may be, would deny him of the possibility to vanquish the usurper king.
His weary eyes fell on the sapphire form of his dragon, whose muscles rippled under the scaly hide. Saphira's state worried Eragon a great deal, but stubborn as she was, the dragoness, in an act of desperation to escape his pleas to stop, closed her mind and pressed onwards since the sun had settled, taking no breaks, as it was intended.
Such recklessness angered Eragon slightly, making him feel guilty for her unneeded titanic effort. If he wouldn't have pressed her so hard the day before, maybe she wouldn't try to make amends by pushing her body to its limits. Has he become such a sadist, through which his opinions would turn into demands into the minds of the beings that cared about him? He refused to think of it, leaving the answer lost among the whispers of the night.
"We're there!" Angela suddenly shouted, rudely jolting the numb Rider and the elf from their relaxed state. "In the distance, look!" She continued on the same alarmed voice, as if he and Arya were not sitting next to her.
"I see it," Eragon mumbled silently, steadying his body into the saddle. Frowning slightly, he looked below for a closer inspection, but only a miniature landscape of nothingness entered his field of vision.
"You really do?" Angela inquired curiously.
"Of course," Eragon said dryly, doing everything in his power to escape this pestering herbalist. Angela sighed, reassuring him that his gambit paid off. Playing her game was something which seemed to work, and Eragon almost felt proud of himself for finally earning her approval. Out of a sudden, something slapped him on top of his head, a yelp of pain and surprise escaping him.
"There is nothing," Angela yelled with indignation, offended by his treacherous act. "What do you see, when we aren't there yet?"
Eragon tried to defend himself against her accusations, to prove that he indeed saw something, but the harsh reality backfired at him. With only a weak stutter shielding his mischievous act, he looked at Angela with a confused gaze.
"Then why did you say we're there?" He asked in a low voice, trying to reconcile with her by smiling meekly.
"I was testing your reactions, silly," Angela laughed, preparing to slap him once again before a slender hand blocked her arm in mid air.
"Stop that," Arya demanded on a serious voice, blinking a few times to adjust her vision.
Angela looked at them sulkily, "your behavior is abnormal and inadequate." Withdrawing her arm slowly, she placed it on Solembum's head, petting hastily, probably nervous because of Arya's intervention. "If you are sleeping, who will spot the crumbled tower?" She asked quizzically, throwing both of them a look of enmity.
As fast as it happened, she lowered her head, whispering to Solembum, "We're the only ones rational beings. We and Saphira."
"I heard that!" Eragon cut in, but Angela kept her composure, her eyes drifting towards her left.
"It's there!" She exclaimed with excitement, drawing both Eragon and Arya's attention from her. This time, her words spoke the truth, as Saphira in turn began her descent to an acceptable height before landing at a suitable distance from the crumbled outpost of Edur Ithindra.
The shock suffered at landing rippled through her muscles as the powerful legs dug into the soil for extra balance. In her tired state, even staying on her feet was an achievement for Saphira, and Eragon felt a surge of remorse washing through him the moment he rushed to her snout, jumping down of the saddle before anyone else.
Saphira, you can rest, he pleaded, stroking the smooth scales of her neck with his hand. Please do not do this again, not when we can rest as much as we want.
Saphira shifted her head, fixing one sapphire eye on him, that's nothing, little one. I am strong enough to do it. Eragon knew in an instant that this journey had really taken its toll on Saphira, but proving her different in such moment was a bad choice. Smiling, he hugged her neck lovingly and allowed his gratitude for her effort to flow through their link.
Arya and Angela were already on the ground, discussing about something apparently uninteresting. It was only when Angela beckoned Eragon to join her when he abandoned the leather satchels attached to the saddle and joined her, looking at Arya pleadingly. Her emerald eyes did not betray any hint of amusement, suggesting a possible serious matter.
"Stand tall, you hunchbacked mushroom!" Angela commanded, a serious look on her face. Her hazel eyes sparkled vividly, a flame which was previously not there ignited in the lustrous gemstones. Her new, imposing look made Eragon feel uneasy as he shifted his body correspondingly, waiting for her to speak her piece.
Pleased with the attention and keen stares diverted at her, Angela opened her mouth, "Saphira will have to stay here for obvious reasons." She then beckoned the confused group to follow, no questions asked. With utmost bewilderment, Eragon obeyed and said to himself, mentioning the obvious, how suiting.
"Eragon, keep up!" Arya whispered to him, a bit worried because of his absent minded attitude. "It's better to stay near her, as we don't know who this Tenga is," she advised as soon as Eragon joined her, his eyes fixed on her slender form.
"He's an old hermit," he complemented her. "Albeit a very strange one."
"You know him?" Arya asked, a curious look on her face.
"I think I do," Eragon whispered briefly, measuring with his eyes the distance until they would reach the crumbled outpost. Its slightly imposing structure towered above the plains, an old reminder of the elven power which kept peace and serenity throughout the land for centuries in a row.
Taking his eyes off the dilapidated structure which was almost conquered by the nature's forces, Eragon said, "I already told you about him. It was before you found me after I left Helgrind."
Arya nodded with uncertainty, apparently surprised in a negative manner by her memory lapse, "Yes you did, it's just that…" her voice trailed off for a second before she acquired the same stout resolve that was always present in her words.
"In light of the recent events, I forgot."
In that moment, Eragon felt encouraged to funnel confidence into her, to prove her that she was no longer alone to her dark past and sorrowful memories. After shuffling closer to her, he extended his firm and rough palm slowly, grabbing her petite yet strong hand.
"That doesn't matter," he said soothingly, maintaining eye contact with her as she turned her head brusquely the moment he touched her soft hand, looking at him with bewilderment.
"You remained true to yourself, no matter how long fate crashed its gloomy and full of misery waves repeatedly against you."
Arya didn't know what to say. Her sparkling emerald eyes switched towards Eragon's hand, looking at it fixedly.
"That's something I couldn't do alone, not without Saphira" he continued with the same calm and full of compassion voice, releasing her hand slowly, his fingers barely leaving the warm confines of her hand.
"I could never be as strong as you," he concluded.
Arya shook her head vehemently, "You are wrong." Her strong yet caring voice took Eragon by surprise. Smiling sheepishly, he found himself staring into her eyes, searching for the ounce of truth that could strengthen her affirmation.
Feeling a bit uneasy because of his perplexed stare, Arya switched her gaze towards the elven outpost. "My strength of will was built upon pain and suffering, while you were still untainted by the viciousness of fate."
Eragon said nothing as Arya paused for a second.
"You can understand me now, Eragon." Suddenly, her voice acquired smoothness and compassion, contrasting the seriousness which permeated moments ago. "You can understand me because you were lacerated by the same pain. It's this feeling that keeps you away from forming bonds, out of fear that they might dissipate like dust upon the winds of war."
"Is that why you slowly started to accept me?" Eragon asked fearfully, hoping that this boldness will not summon an inappropriate reaction. Still, he needed to know, he had to find out.
"You might say so," Arya said curtly, increasing her pace slightly. Doing the same, Eragon caught up with her and tried to find the right words for the next question, but a voice he knew all too well interfered with the silence of the night.
"What are you mumbling, you two?" Angela asked sharply, signaling them to hasten their pace. "If Tenga goes to sleep, we will have to wait until morning!"
"That would be a tragedy," Eragon whispered to Arya, hoping to raise her mood a little. Sadly, his words did not fulfill their task as she merely threw him an awkward look.
"At least Saphira would get a proper rest," he tried to fix his little escapade. This time, his trick worked, and Arya's face lightened a little bit because of his caring nature.
"Come near me, confused little kittens," Angela demanded in her specific straightforward manner. Without questioning her motives, Eragon and Arya joined the now still herbalist, who looked at them both with her absent minded stare.
"We're looking for the Tome of Theldurin the Oracle. Both of you are unable to decipher it, and I don't expect you to." She suddenly paused, looking at Eragon with an incredulous expression. Her eyes, her mangy and uncombed brown hair, even her fervent attitude made him feel uneasy under the power of her gaze. Just when he was about to give in and say something, she switched her eyes towards Arya, who seemed unaffected by this mysterious power she possessed.
"Good, now listen carefully, like I always do, especially you," she said to Eragon, smiling a wide smile at him.
"That tome is precious. It speaks about the rise and fall of great races. I would tell you more, but you don't care or don't understand, especially you," she interrupted the flow of the story once again, chuckling at Eragon. Her attitude was really starting to irk him, yet Eragon did nothing to show his displeasure.
"Tenga is a simple man. You only have to distract him well enough until I steal the tome. Careful though, as he can turn you both into redcap fungi if you don't succeed," she laughed and crouched to pick Solembum, who was brushing his lean body against her left leg. After one brief inspection, she nodded to them and pointed towards the elven outpost.
Mention not something about what I or Solembum told you. Tenga is crafty, and should he obtain a particular piece of information, we would not be friends anymore. Eragon was stunned in his tracks when Angela contacted him mentally. Unlike a few moments ago, her voice was stern, devoid of the usual playfulness that characterized her.
"Eragon, what are you doing?" Arya asked, breaking his musings. Shaking his head to remove his peculiar thoughts about Angela, he did as Arya asked. Still, he couldn't feel that there was something hidden from him, something involving Angela.
Or maybe that's how she is when she is serious, he thought, alleviating his unfounded worries. The walk towards the crumbled outpost of Edur Ithindra was like an eerie dream. No words were exchanged between anyone as they made their way towards the central hill.
Near the summit, the ground leveled off underneath his feet and the thicket opened up, and he entered a large glade. The lower part of the tower was wide and ribbed, like the trunk of a tree. Then the structure narrowed and rose toward the sky for over thirty feet, ending in a sharp, jagged line. The upper half of the tower lay on the ground, shattered into innumerable fragments.
The group advanced slowly and carefully as to not trip and fall in one of the loose remnants of the once solid tower. Making use of the gleaming light provided by the moon, Angela moved in front of the narrow door, stopping by its side.
With a wary voice, she whispered, "Behind the tower, Tenga has a garden, but it's night and cold, so he will most likely not plant anything." Satisfied with her miraculous finding, she nodded with delight and continued.
"You will have to distract him in some other way."
"And how can we do that?" Eragon asked in a low voice.
"Use your intuition, cute fungus," she smiled before pushing the old door open. Its age was proportional to the unpleasant creak that irritated Eragon as it opened, revealing the central room. Even from his position, he could see the same coiling staircase that he remembered when he last visited the hermit. It seemed that filling his precious space with tomes, scrolls and different scribing tools had finally made him understand that he still needed a bit of empty room.
On both sides, two crude bookshelves long enough to stretch from one end to another occupied a good part of the room. Numerous scrolls and tomes erratically arranged occupied the shelves, resembling the inner disorder or the owner whose jittery attitude never left room for tidy rooms.
"Take one more step and you will be forced to undergo the same tedious cleaning I applied to this place!" came a hasty reply from somewhere nearby.
Eragon gulped emptily, retracting his foot from the clean carpet he unknowingly stepped onto.
A harsh slap on the back of his head made him turn his head backwards. Angela chuckled silently before whispering into Eragon's ear.
"Tenga doesn't like dirt in his room. Remove your boots." Confused and slightly irritated because of her methods to get her point across, Eragon slowly removed his boots, placing them right where the carpet ended. From a closer inspection, the carpet wasn't that clean, small pebbles and several grass blades littering its surface.
"What is an elf doing here? And…" the voice suddenly ceased, as if a powerful spell shackled the rough words coming from the man's mouth. Before Eragon could break out of his confusion, the same man of medium stature, pearl white hair and a shaggy, short and disheveled beard appeared from behind the bookshelf to his left. Long has passed since he had last seen him, yet time did not ravage him in any form.
"What's this…this woman doing inside my house?" He stuttered angrily, scowling at Angela. His facial expression, the bulged blue eyes and the overly fast breath rate were obvious signs that he wasn't quite in good terms with Angela, yet there was nothing Eragon could do about it.
"I want you out!" he commanded, pointing towards the exit. "Else I will…" suddenly, he stopped, looking towards a blank spot on the floor. To Eragon, it seemed weird, a fact that only strengthened his earlier conclusion about this man and his frail sanity. But in the next moment, a hiss permeated the silence in the room, a sound strangely familiar to Eragon. Looking with the corner of his eyes towards the source of the sound, he saw the lithe, elegant form of Solembum who appeared from behind the bookshelf to the right, his feet barely making any noise as he neared Angela's legs.
"Listen," Eragon interrupted unsurely, trying to find a way around his inner defenses, "We have questions, important questions."
"Your questions can wait for as long as you would clean up the mess you made!" Tenga almost shouted with his powerful and deep voice. "and…", he continued, gesturing incoherently towards the werecat "That bundle of fur will shed hair all around my magnificent well of endless dilemmas."
Eragon raised an eyebrow quizzically, trying to comprehend the meaning behind his words. Maybe he referred to this place? Whatever it was, this was one type of person Eragon barely suffered.
"Stop being so tense, you old willow," Angela cut in, calmly as ever. "You know how seriousness affects your life, especially when you search for answers which are far beyond your capabilities of comprehension." The corners of her lips stretched into an almost wicked smile, as if she expected the right opportunity to pounce like a cat onto the unsuspecting mouse.
"You speak nonsense!" Tenga shrugged off her claims, inspecting his guests with enmity present in his eyes. When his stare reached Angela, a deep frown engulfed his face, a warning that this man was pushed to the limits by her daring attitude.
"I know what you are," he said, gesturing in strange patterns while moving around impatiently, "I know that, oh yes I do…" he trailed off, looking towards Eragon " and that ugly, skinny elf and shaggy, stupid looking boy have no idea."
His voice suddenly died down, acquiring calmness similar to a flowing river masked by the stillness of the serene night. At no point had his body betrayed any hint of regret for allowing certain words to escape his mouth unscathed by the repercussions of decency. Arya was already fuming by now, and Eragon almost feared that she would do something reckless to end this pitiful squabble.
"Tenga," she began on a serious, commanding tone which sent shivers down Eragon's spine due to its intensity under such pressure, "we came here to warn you that Galbatorix had sent his henchmen to steal your knowledge."
The old man's face immediately acquired a confused, almost terrified expression when Arya's warning reached his ears. "Is that true?"
Everyone, including Angela, nodded curtly, and Arya resumed, "fortunately, we managed to catch them unawares and dispatch them."
A great relief washed over Tenga, who exhaled loudly. His posture relieved part of its tension, yet he was still far from abandoning his protective nature.
"Good, then leave with my gratitude, for I have nothing else to offer," he said, beckoning towards the exit hastily.
"Not just yet," Angela interrupted with a sinister voice which was laced with satisfaction, like she merely awaited for this very moment. "Slitha," she whispered.
Tenga immediately looked towards Arya for some reason and shouted, "Deflect the spell!" In an instant, the unaware elf collapsed to the floor like a lifeless plant, caught in the fetters of Angela's spell. Eragon gritted his teeth, his fists clenching tightly.
"You vile wretch! I knew that the likes of you would never allow me to live in peace!" He yelled at Angela, his face contorting with anger. "Engulfing nightmares!"
Eragon felt his mind being torn to shreds, raked by the power of that incredibly powerful spell. Without any hope to fight it, his vision turned black and he felt his conscience being ripped from his body as he dropped on the ground. A few incoherent words, soft mutters coming from Angela caressed his ears, and the veil of darkness lifted from before his eyes, feeling invigoration seeping through him.
"You…that was…" Tenga began to stutter frightfully, his jittery stare unable to settle on Angela's frail structure.
"But…it doesn't matter," he tried to regain his composure, "As I have powers of my own." His now restored solemn voice began weaving words Eragon had never heard before. They didn't seem to belong to any language, yet he could feel the malice, the hatred, and most of all, the power of these words. It was as if the sound itself was some sort of spell meant to confuse and weaken the opponent.
Out of a sudden, the strange string of words stopped, a loud thud announcing the downfall of the old hermit. Dizzy, with his mind working excruciatingly slow after the uncanny moments when he felt his senses increase to vast proportions, Eragon got up with a groan, unable to comprehend what just happened.
The form of Tenga materialized before his eyes, offering him only a little insight about the outcome of his duel with Angela. With worry surging through him, he glanced with uncertainty towards Arya, her raven hair covering her facial features.
"She's only asleep," Angela intervened, moving in front of Eragon for a better look. Her curious hazel eyes inspected him with haste before she gave him a soft, reassuring slap on his cheek. "Stand tall like a poplar! You don't want to be a hunchbacked mushroom for the rest of your life!"
After giving him this most useful advice, apparently not concerned, or ignorant, to what happened, she glanced at Arya for a short while before her eyes fixed on the staircase.
"Let's steal what rightfully belongs to us my beloved," Eragon heard her faint voice, followed by a purr as Solembum jumped from an empty shelf and disappeared through the spiraling stairs.
I love this chapter so much. If there's something that can rival the Galby battle and the cute little Thorn chapter, it's definitely this one, along with the following chapter. Now, I know most of you will have questions related to what on earth has happened at the end, but that matter is partially addressed in the following chapter. Mind you, I say partially because certain mysterious content has to remain hidden. Sure, you can come up with theories, but I'm not going to tell you whether they are right or wrong. That would mean providing spoilers, and nobody likes spoilers.
The next chapter will obviously be a continuation to this one, and after that, Saphira will get a bigger role and we'll find something quite interesting about her. So, tell me if you liked this chapter, what you liked, and feel free to show us your awesome theories