Eragon did not know his True Name. Somehow, the words surfaced in his mind, emerging on their own accord. They stood in his faded memory, trapped, waiting for his calling.
"The antechamber," Angela said sternly. "Crolis-Vaden has its own history, but Solembum and I called it the Vault of Souls for you."
Eragon blinked, puzzled. He had been teleported somewhere after speaking a True Name he never knew. For the first time since Saphira's departure, he felt overwhelmed.
The chamber they were in glistened with the faint azure light of what Eragon assumed to be crystals. They pulsed with magical energy, a source of power greater and wider than Glaedr's eldunari.
As Eragon's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was able to distinguish the shapes on the smooth, rocky walls. There were strange drawings and runes. And statues.
Eragon did not notice them before, but each of the five corners held a statue. At their feet rested patches of crystals, shining in different colors. There were blue, yellow, green, orange. The one in front of him sparkled with an ominous grayish light.
Puzzled, Eragon looked around. It wasn't the permeating penumbra that unnerved him, or the strange drawings.
The answer came to him when he glanced behind. Doors were conspicuously missing.
"Eragon."
Eragon quivered when he noticed Angela's hand on his cheek.
The merriness he grew accustomed to was gone, replaced by a severe voice and an austere gaze. "Since I cannot let you die, I feel we need to settle certain precautions."
Eragon frowned. He did not like that word, not when it meddled with his recent experience and the veiling darkness that revealed nothing to the eye.
"We will face certain obstacles, ones that I alone am going to handle. To put it short, you are simply too weak."
Eragon nodded dumbly, accepting her claims halfheartedly. The Void encouraged him. Gave him strength. Much of his previous life was gone. It had flown away on Saphira's wings. Yet the Void had not betrayed him so far. It wanted not to harm, but to help.
Eragon followed Angela to a darkened section of the wall. No strange crystals coated its indecipherable surface.
"Karthin," Angela said, pointing at something Eragon could not see or read. "The rune for might."
The room suddenly dispersed and reformed before his eyes, only that something was different. The yellow crystals glowed with a strong, garish light, their energy engulfing most of the chamber.
When Eragon looked up, he noticed that this room—like its predecessor—had a ceiling sprinkled with crystals of the same color as the rest, each spreading rays only lesser than the sun. Not to the point where Eragon had to squint, but powerful enough to reveal the whole room to him. The same encasing emptiness.
And a thick pillar in the middle.
"Stay next to me," Angela said from his left, her eyes analyzing the pillar with inward satisfaction. A trace of familiarity with this place rested on her smooth features. No herbalist—not even a mad one—could speak with unyielding certainty like she did.
"We have to cross four of these testing rooms," she said. "Their purpose is to test the capabilities of beings such as me. There is no need for selfless displays."
Crossing implied being in different rooms. Eragon assumed that the room had not changed, that they merely changed one room for another by teleporting. Like they did before.
Many questions swarmed through Eragon's mind. Instinct urged him to wash away his confusion, to talk to Angela.
It does not really matter, the Void said. She knows what she is doing. You are in no danger as long as you listen to her.
A thunderous sound put Eragon on guard. His frame tense, he squinted through some strange, irritating fog to determine the source of the commotion. He saw Angela moving towards the middle. She beckoned at him.
The room suddenly felt smaller. As Eragon crossed the dense fog, he realized that it did not block the light of the upper crystals. Most of it chocked the ones protruding from the floor by settling on them.
When Eragon reached Angela's side and glimpsed a large, circular rune underneath their feet, he realized that they stood where the pillar should have been. That thick cloud was not fog, but dust.
Angela reduced a tall, thick pillar to fine powder.
"Mursvr," Angela said, pointing below. "It means acuity."
Again, the room changed. Unlike the previous two, thin columns decorated it, apart from the gleaming yellowish crystals. Spread throughout the cubic room, the columns were too tall to climb and thin enough to support a single person. Eragon was bewildered.
"In a place without doors, all that you can do it teleport," Angela said, eyeing the pillars. "No wonder they included a test for it."
Eragon knew not who 'they' were. It was irrelevant, despite the vague clue circling in his mind.
"Lack of precision killed certain dumb mages," Angela noted. "Quick reflexes could have saved them, yet brawn alone wins nothing."
Angela glanced at Eragon, then vanished into thin air.
Eragon watched her as she skillfully teleported from one column to another, pausing for a few moments between attempts. A single teleportation would kill him before the plunge, yet she hurdled from one pillar to another with eerie precision.
After teleporting from the fifth pillar—the last—Angela scuttled to a section of the wall where no crystals tarnished its surface.
Angela was already leaning towards the wall, drawing over the smooth surface before Eragon arrived. The darkness concealed her tool that seemed to turn its tough surface to dust before its wake.
"One of the pillars had this object," she said, standing. The tool disappeared before Eragon had the chance to glimpse it. "The others showed which section to mark."
Peeking around the room, Eragon noticed several areas devoid of crystals, each a perfect replica of the one Angela drew her rune on.
A nudge in the ribs brought forth a groan from his parched throat.
"Zriss. It means reflexes."
The room changed before Eragon had the chance to dwell on Angela's power. Locked in a new room—with a new test awaiting—Eragon relinquished his stubborn curiosity.
It happens without your accord, the Void said. Might as well give up. The outcome remains the same.
The orange light revealed some sort of square shaped object, surrounded by an imperfect circle made of crystals.
"Hmm," Angela grunted, approaching the conspicuous object. While she mumbled to herself, Eragon looked inside.
A strange, glowing surface covered the mouth. Its texture and orange light was similar to that of the crystals, only that it had round holes in it.
Inside, there was water, the shimmer of the light above reflecting on its crystalline surface.
"This one is tricky," Angela looked up at him, smiling.
"They want us to get what is in the water and place them there," she said, pointing at a round surface carved into the stone not far from them.
"I have my means, unlike their apprentices."
A shudder ran through Eragon's body when a square shaped block of ice appeared on his left. Feeling the urge to inspect it, Eragon approached it warily.
"There is nothing to see boy," Angela said from behind.
The surface of the ice was punctured with small, round holes, left behind by the same objects Angela mentioned. Smiling wryly, Eragon made his way towards Angela, ending her furious beckoning.
"Fraav," Angela said. "Endurance."
Before being teleported, Eragon scarcely glimpsed the pile of round stones that made up the rune by joining their scribbled surface together.
"You stay near me," Angela demanded, jerking him forward. The clutch on his wrist was strong enough to force Eragon grit his teeth.
"A lurch on every side, and your lungs burn."
Eragon's eyes narrowed. The light came not from glowing, colored crystals, but from bubbling lava. If Angela's grip failed to stop him, a step forward would have sent Eragon plunging into the molten rock before him.
"Wrap your arms around me," Angela said. "Push me forward, and I swim. Fall, and you roast."
Eragon gulped emptily, his body invaded with apprehension. The narrow ledge they sat on barely allowed him to do Angela's bidding. By now, he was well aware of her powers.
"Keep your body next to me after I enter," Angela said, not turning around.
Before he could confirm with a useless nod, Eragon felt himself dragged forward.
The thick, viscous lava was unlike any water Eragon met. It was hard enough to force them wade through it by shuffling maladroitly, thin enough to threaten balance and way too bright and dense. No matter how hard he tried, Eragon could see nothing.
It was not an environment where he was supposed to be. Angela's spells provided mysterious, powerful wards that kept them from burning, but they did not help with sight.
Kicking at the lava frantically, Eragon managed to stay near Angela. The brightness forced his eyelids shut. All that remained for him was the strong grip around her waist.
The heat tugged at his meat. Suddenly, it felt warmer, more powerful. Suffocating. Sweat cowered before it, air seethed and churned. What was happening? His grip was still strong. Angela's slender body still leaned against his chest.
The wards, Eragon forced himself to think. Angela was weakening. Because of her, he would die.
Desperately, Eragon reached inside the well within him, drawing energy. The magic churned expectantly, waiting for his command. But what was he to do? Oromis himself would perish instantly. No spell could discourage such intense heat.
Eragon erected wards. They dissipated in an instant, weakening him in the process.
He could not breathe. The skin burned, flesh shriveled. Without Saphira, he was nothing. A Rider that died because of fire.
Eragon collapsed on the floor, groaning sickly.
Powerful energy resided near him. He could feel it, tap into it. Use it. Eragon fueled his strength and erected wards. Unlike before, they lasted.
"Come on, come," a voice said urgently.
Eragon forced his eyes open. There was no brightness. Only a deep darkness.
Eragon pushed himself upwards. A strange dust coated his hands and clothing, and there was no lava. What happened to it?
He felt an unyielding grip on his wrist. So powerful, that his legs shuffled forward on their own. The same invigorating energy washed over Eragon, clearing his mind, pushing cold air into his nostrils. Lifting his ache.
The energy belonged to Angela.
"Gravs," Angela said, even though Eragon couldn't see it. "It means grey."
"Don't fall," Angela said curtly, almost impatiently. "Come here, to this upper one."
Eragon's mind stirred, threatening to erupt. So many things happened. Too much for his hazy comprehension.
He almost died. Saphira betrayed him. Arya lost her beauty.
Do it, the Void encouraged him. We've been through much already. What matters an extra task?
Eragon carefully approached Angela. She sat on the rim of the strangely shaped rift, pointing at something the size of a pebble. It looked like a crystal, but something twirl and churned inside it, and its light was too dim.
The indistinctly shaped rift was not deep. It had layers decorated with the same strange things Angela insistently pointed at. Some small, others bigger.
None shone intensely like the crystal sitting at the bottom. Its light was powerful enough to reveal the grey, smooth ceiling of the chamber and hint the similar nuance of the walls. No crystals pierced this room.
"Stop looking around," Angela pressed her words. "Touch it."
Eragon learned not to argue. Angela brought him here safely. If this was the Vault of Souls, then the little pebble held the power to defeat Galbatorix.
Eragon shuffled towards it and extended a hand towards the pebble.
He touched its surface.
Waves upon waves of foreign words converged on his unprepared mind, each more tempting, more resonant than the other. They flowed tumultuously, an organized river of enticement ancient and potent in power. Confusion only restrained Eragon from thinking that word.
Eragon's lips parted involuntarily. He tried to whisper something. It was a shackled force, trying to come out when mind refused to allow it.
His hand suddenly flared with pain. Reacting to it, Eragon stood up, glancing at the scratch curtly.
My spell will prevent magic from reacting to the words you think, but it does not last forever, Angela said. You better learn to control yourself, or search for the only Rider capable of controlling the same power.
Eragon looked to his left, where Angela was.
There was no Angela.
Eragon looked down. Instead of Angela, a tawny cat with green eyes stared at him intently. It was slightly bigger, with a clean fur streaked with white, uneven lines. Apart from her different coloring, she was quite similar to Solembum.
A werecat.
The words you hear are the spells of the grey folk, Angela said. Their power remained untarnished.
Angela inspected her body while Eragon stared at her dumbly. There was much he did not know, yet one question had to find its answer.
Why are you a werecat?
I was born this way, Angela said, meeting his eyes.