I do not own the Inheritance Cycle.
Edited 1/30/22 -
Please let me know your thoughts throughout the story, I'd love to hear from you :)
Enjoy,
The Wanderings
Rose did not voice what had happened in the ruins of the city, something within her seemed to forbid it. Thorn knew and for a time they talked it over before their conversation shifted elsewhere and soon camp was broke and they resumed their journey south towards the flatlands of Surda. All of them were anxious to leave the reaches of the Empire far behind and so they traveled at a harder pace than the days before.
The next day they stepped off the broken road into forest and bent their way eastward meandering through the trees for some days towards an isolated village that stood at the edge of the woodland. There they had stayed one night, replenishing their supplies and poured over the map, deciding the best route to take and then moved on.
Selena suggested that the party should travel through Melian towards the border of the Empire, which would merely be a matter of following the road south. She knew that there was a Varden outpost somewhere within the city and guessed that if there was any news about the dealings of the Empire, Melian would be as good as place to hear it. After discussing various alternatives, Brom had grudgingly agreed that they might as well go to Melian as anywhere, and folded up the map and returned it to their bags.
Brom could not tell Selena of his real despair of going to the Varden, nonetheless Surda, that the chances were too high that news would get out about dragons and their Riders causing a power struggle between the king of Surda, Islanzadí (if she was still the elven queen), and the leader of the Varden. He also kept to himself his concerns about traveling the roads south: from what he had heard, there was a very real danger of encountering bandits, rogue soldiers, Urguls, or worse. But it was the fastest route to Farthen Dûr and, once there, he and Selena could decide what to do next.
It hadn't escaped his notice that over the last few days, it seemed as if Eragon was troubled by a deep unease that no one could quite identify. Often times he would stare off into the air as if he seeing something no one else could, and he did not sleep at night. Brom soon became aware of the dark half-moon shadows forming beneath his eyes, and when the boy looked at him it seemed as if he was looking right through him as if he weren't there but then he would blink and focus in on what he was looking at a distance in him seemed to form, an anxiety now distressed Brom that perhaps his and Rose's adventure into the abandon city had awoken something that was meant to sleep for an age longer.
Meanwhile, they traveled with no sign of trouble. The weather held crisp and fine, and after stopping there was plenty of food, so they only made hasty stops at nightfall, where they would eat dinner and practice swordcraft. When they reached the South Road and turned toward Melian, Brom insisted that dragons stay out of sight; keeping away from them until well after nightfall. Here they traveled briskly as they were on proper road again, but everyone kept oddly alert. Once Rose caught sight of Brom casting a veiling spell over the dragons, so that they would not be seen by passersby, when no one else was paying him any mind.
Despite the suspicion, the travelers rested inside the local tavern- in any case it was certainly better than camping beneath a dripping tree. The town that they were now staying in even had a name, Tońun, and not far from its limits was a stinking roadhouse that doubled as the village forge.
Rose had been trying to drink from a mug of mulberry very slowly, savoring the warmth of the tavern and perhaps even the noise of the townspeople after so many nights in the isolating wilderness, talking lightly Thorn. She looked the people over and sent him a picture through their mindlink to keep herself, and him, preoccupied. He sent her an image of a man wearing a fur-lined hat and sheep-hid jerkin, and she looked over the crowd to find him, and once she had, another image was sent his way.
What did you fear most as a hatchling, Thorn asked as they grew tired of the game.
Rose took a long sip from the mug, and pulled her hood closer to her head. The Platnak, she told him. He is a faceless shadow creature with long, spindly limbs who searches for nasty children to snatch up in their sleep and bring to his mountain lair. There he fattens them up with sweets and custard tarts and once they're nice and fat, he eats them. I once believed that he lived the shadows and if I did not behave that I would become his next prey. I was once so frightened that I made Tornac sleep on the divan in my rooms to protect me.
Thorn's laughter echoed in her mind, and she smiled into her mug. He must not have liked that, the dragon responded.
No, he did not, Rose told him. She set her glass in the table with more force than necessary, it clinked lousily against the wood, and she noticed with some regret that some of the wine slipped over the edge of the mug. The door opened and the smell of rotting fish and parsley blew through the tavern, and Rose hid her face with her sleeve.
A silent formed between them, though it was not unpleasant, and Rose finished her wine. She had no taste for mead, sticking to tart wine that the keeper also stocked. Despite it being a light wine, she discovered after finishing her first mug, it was much stronger than it looked.
The tavern grew louder and louder as the room grew stuffier, and soon the stank of the tavern was giving her a headache. She looked up and caught Eragon's eye; he was being pestered by a young lass, who had trapped him in conversation, clearly curious about his travels. He looked away, and she straightened herself, untangling her conversation with Thorn, and turned herself in her chair to face him.
"I hope you are not planning to drink all of those," she said, looking at the mugs sitting in front of him.
The lass asked Eragon a question, one he politely answered, flouting her for a short moment. He sighed and turned to her, giving her a bleary look. "Why shouldn't I?"
Rose shrugged. "It's getting late, and we're to leave not long after sunrise," Rose said. "I'm actually thinking of retiring for the night myself but I'm hoping that you would escort me. I do not wish to walk back to our charming abode alone."
Eragon nodded dolefully, looked to the lass, and after a moment, he said, "I'll walk you back. Just give me a moment."
"I thank you very much," she replied as Eragon turned back to the young woman, and after a short time, he pulled away from her and beckoned Rose to the door, looking very much annoyed. She didn't ask about it, eager as she was to have a roof over head as she slept.
She squinted up the road, trying to see through the pall and darkness. It was pitch black, but after a moment her eyes adjusted, black shapes of the other buildings could be made lined the streets would be made out. Eragon looked up and down the street, and then stepped out from under the roofing. The road was empty. "Let's go," he said.
Rose followed after him, eager to get away from the stinking pub and the watchful eyes within. They silently made their way down the road to the inn. The street broken and clogged with dead weed and dark, stinking pools liquid but still it was very much passable, if slightly perilous.
"Where would Galbatorix keep his prisoners if he wanted to interrogate them?" Eragon asked suddenly, his words slightly slurred.
Rose was stilled for a heartbeat. "Why ask me?" she said, her voice sounding small in the night.
"I thought that because of the man who raised you-" he paused for a moment as if he were searching for the name "-Tornac, wasn't it? Since he was in the Empire's army, I thought that he might have told you."
"Tornac was never part of the King's army." Rose frowned, looking down the road, silently praying she wouldn't trip. They had no lantern, and she was uncertain about their footing, fearful even that one of them might stumble and fall into the filth. "He worked with the army, even fought beside an distinguished general but never was he in it."
There was a short, heavy silence. They passed a large building, its windows dark and blink as if it was abandoned.
"How would that work?" Rose heard him say, after a shuffling sound. Perhaps he had found a giving in the road and his had caught on its edge, or perhaps they were not the only one roaming the streets. She glanced behind her but saw no one.
"I never asked." Rose rubbed her hands together, willing that the feeling return to them. "But, yes, he did tell me about the prisons." It seemed likely to her now that he had told of these horrible places to scare her into behaving and listening to him.
Eragon was silent as if he were waiting for her continue. "What did he say?" he asked when she did not. "Where are they at?"
She huffed. "Why do you wish to know?"
"I'm only curious."
Rose kept silent, having arrived at the inn. The roadhouse was a small building, once a divided home that had been abandoned by the family who owned it. After a time, the family turned the small building into a roadhouse, allowing the occasional stray traveler to stay if the need arose. It seemed however that it was a rare thing, the floorboards were dusted over by soot and the roofing in disrepair; water dripped down from the ceiling, hitting the tin bowls rhythmically below, teeming over the edge and pooled onto the floorboards, streaming towards a fissure in the wood. Rose wondered why the building was kept around at all, wouldn't it be easier to let it go?
"No doubt," Rose said dryly as she glanced at him, suspicion growing in her mind. She saw that there was a fire laid but no one and lit it, the wood sat there gloomily in the overshadow of the chimney, nor had anyone yet lit the lamps, and the hallway was almost completely dark. Eragon walking up the flagged hallway that ran from the back door to the front, leaving behind him a trail of wet footprints.
"It's likely that any prisoners are in Gil'ead or Cellwair, though the capital would be my best guess," Rose said as she followed him to the room they were staying in. Eragon knocked on the door, the sound echoed eerily though the hall and was silenced the muffled voices inside. "But, I'm warning you, Eragon, if you're looking for someone, it'd be pure madness to go after them. The King prefers to keep close console, and it'd be a grueling escape once you're within his grasp. Whatever it is that you're thinking about doing, you'd best forget about it."
"I wasn't thinking about doing anything," he grumbled lowly.
Choosing to say nothing more, Rose waited until Brom unhinged the door and allowed them inside. The man overlooked them gruffly, his beard frizzled and in a hostile disarray. He caught her gaze, and looked away sharply. "I was wondering if you two were lost," he said, turning around and walking back into the room. "It's a cold night."
"Not lost yet," Eragon said, plucking at his sleeve. "Where were you? We ate supper without you."
"I had business of my own to attend to." The old man waved him away, and stepped around the pile of their bags in the center of the room.
Rose walked into the room, ignoring the conversation between Brom and Eragon, and sat down on a bed near Selena. The bed lurched dangerously, and shuttered but it held firm. Selena looked up at her, a soft smile playing at her lips. "Thank you," she said.
Rose nodded, and pulled her cloak tightly around her. "Why are you thanking me?"
"You have given me the time I requested," the woman said. "There were quite a number of things Brom and I needed to talk out. Had you not stayed with Eragon, we wouldn't have been able to. It appears, however, that your brother is stewed."
Rose shrugged, looking down at her feet, as she fought back a grin. "So it seems," she said, with wry mischief. "I'm thinking that he is going to pay for it, twice over, come tomorrow."
He did not see strange creatures walking in the green lands around them, nor was it that he saw the woman from his dreams in the daylight's hours, but sometimes when he looked out of the corner of his eye he could a shifting the air, or he would hear his name or some weird unclear snatches of noise. It was a shadow of neither light nor dark, form nor shape. What he thought he saw was an endless twisting of obsolete dim beings in ceaseless motion, stepping out of the silence like a young fowl following after its mother in the winter snow. Whatever it was, it followed quietly behind him, sending him haunting visions and wan echoing cries from things that could not quite be seen. Everywhere there seemed to be shifting grey veils of light and shadow, moving and changing so that the eye could fix on nothing. At these times the earth no longer seemed solid, that mists that mingled in the air, and shapes and sounds seemed not as they should be, and an urgent calling blazing inside him like a burning hunger. And then there were thin moments when everything seemed tangible, real and clear, and the veils stilled and what was truly there could be seen. Sometimes he found that this reality to be difficult because Eragon found that it was hard to adjust to the sudden clarity. Everything seemed, in those rare moments, too real and too detailed. Often this left him wondering which was worse; seeing horrors that he knew were not truly there or witnessing ones that were.
Eragon awoke with a start, feeling cold sweat sliding down his back and forehead. He turned his head, and groaned as his stomach protested. He choose, without much remorse, to keep his eyes closed. He would be forced to get up soon enough.
After a moment, when he was on the edge of sleep, he felt the cool fingers ran though his hair to his forehead, and then a hand rest against his skin as if to feel for a tempter. He jumped slightly and his eyes opened on their own accord, the light blinded him momentarily. "You shouldn't drink so much," a voice said. He blinked and his vision cleared. He saw Selena seated on the edge of his bed, a mug of steaming liquid in her hand. "You'll make yourself ill. Here, now, sit up and drink this." She waited until he sat until she placed the heated mug in his hands.
He looked at the liquid inside, it was yellow and steaming. Its warmth seeped through the mug and into his skin. "What is it?" he asked, closing his eyes. If he kept staring at it, would it shift into something more and show him an image that was not there? He didn't want to know.
"A tonic. It'll help clear your head." She stood up, he could hear the bed groan as she moved. "When it's emptied come out and join us."
Eragon hunched over and tightened his grip of the mug, the after cautiously sipping from it he reached out his mind to Saphira. She didn't miss a moment to her mind touched his. Eragon felt her emotions flood into his being, utterly confusing his senses.
How did you sleep? she asked.
Well enough, he said, taking a sip from the mug. What about you? What did you do?
I waited, she said sending him a tendril of impatience. You need to tell someone, Eragon. It's getting worse.
With a scoff, he took another sip of the tea. It tasted poorly; extremely bitter, leaving his mouth dry and tingling, but it calm the twisting in his stomach. I know it is. He groaned, and leaned forward. But who can help me? Let alone believe me? They'll all probably believe that I've mad, and I'm not completely sure that I'm not.
Someone might be able to help, little one, she purred. You do not know unless you seek the help.
There are some things that cannot be said and this is one of them. He drained the last of the yellow liquid from the mug and stood up. I'm going to see what Selena wants, he said.
He stretched, savoring the moment to himself, the walked to the door and out into the hall. Pulling his jerkin closer to him, he listened to the voices talking. What words were being said, however, Eragon did not know. He let the words wash over him, instead focusing on the curling puffs of white vapor that formed each time he breathed.
That night before, he found that the thin walls brought very little shelter, and the wind blew through the gaps in the walls in thin, high whistles. Noises of the night echoed in the hallway, whether it be people's throaty snores or scratches and calls of the nightlife. It seemed as if neither his mind nor nature wished for him to sleep.
Eragon pinched himself to chase away his thoughts. If he thought of her, the woman in his dreams, he was certain the tonic would revisit him. As he walked into the main room of the inn, he thought instead of what he would be doing if he were still at his uncle's farm if nothing had changed. He would with no doubt be ploughing through the fields. Uncle Garrow had been complaining for the last few years that his back could no longer handle the task, and since then Roran and Eragon had taken it over. Now that Roran was gone, the task would fall on Eragon's shoulders' alone. While he labored in the fields, Garrow would be mucking the pigs' pen, setting aside what he collected for fertilizer. Later they would lunch on the thin fare they had left over from the winter's stock, to hold them over until that evening. He could almost taste the soil on his lips, collected there from the overturned earth, and the salt of sweat.
These thoughts entertained him until he entered the den and saw Rose, furiously combing through her hair as if it had insulted her. In front of her was a small fire, looking fragile and weak in the depths of the fireplace. The reality of Garrow's death hit him anew, and with a strangled gasp he collapsed onto the cushioned seat near him. Better the cushions than the floor, he thought as he listened to the struggle that Rose's hair put up.
"Wouldn't it be easier to cut it off?" he suggested after a time, when his breathing returned to normal.
She startled slightly and turned, pinning him with a look that made him wonder if he had implied her chopping her head off instead of her hair. "I beg your pardon?" she said, her voice hard.
Eragon knew she had heard him so he shrugged. He suddenly didn't want to talk with her. "Are Brom and Selena outside?"
She nodded and told him they were in the barn. "They've been out there for an age," she said as she yanked on her hair.
"I'm going to see if they need help." Eragon stood up and pulled his cloak around him. The floorboards creaked underneath him as he walked to outside. It didn't surprise him much when he was greeted by a cold slap of wind. The strength of wind nearly knocked him over. It reminded him a little of the storm in Palancar Valley. As wind cut through his cloak again, he understood why Rose remained in the roadhouse. It was a deathly cold outside, like ice being driven through his body.
He sighed with disappointment. He had hoped the last of the cold weather was over.
Brom and Selena did not want help, or at least that's all that Eragon could guess since he couldn't find them anywhere. Not being able to find them, or having something to do, he wondered into the barn and took a seat on an old stool. He unwrapped a brush and set to work. His horse stood patiently chewing on chaw as he brushed the dust out of its coat. The brush scraped rhythmically through Cadoc's rough fur.
Eragon leaned his forehead against Cadoc's warm flanks, as the horse came to greet him. Nearing the brink of sleep, his mind drifting and unclear. The sounds and smells of the barn mingled with the ones he grew up to.
He felt the desire for sleep swarming through his body, like the murmur of hives in summer, and his mind unfocused. As his eyelids grew heavy he found that he was able to lie to himself; he was still in the barn near Carvahall. It was easy to pretend such a thing was possible. Too easy. He could lose himself in this dream-state as easily as he did in the shifting veils of reality.
A cock cawed in the distance, and the dust from the straw made his nose itch, but a deep unsettling feeling within him lifted just lightly. It was as if someone had pulled away a stiff board bound to his back, and he was again able to move.
A breeze blew through the boards of the barn.
There was a thin whistling.
He sat abruptly still in the agony of listening, and as he did he felt an overwhelming sensation of suffocation, as if he were being enclosed in a small tomb. His sight went dark. An unreasonable terror possessed him, as if his life were directly being threatened. That the threat was a mere arm's length away.
Cadoc nickered and Eragon drew his head away from his flanks.
He opened his eyes, and rubbed them, before looking around blinkingly. The air about seemed to crackle with something, a silhouette of what he guessed to be a woman, and Eragon knew he was seeing something that was not completely there. He called out once, just to be sure, but there was no answer. For a moment he felt as if a wave of cold pass through him. It shook him to the core, leaving him shivering from the phantom cold. He backed away, and blinked again, and found with a mixture of dismay and pleasure that barn was empty apart from him and the horses.
Saphira, what are we going to do?
Do? I already told you what I think you should do.
That won't help any, he said. We have to find out if there's a way to help her. I think she might be hurt.
You no longer believe that you're going mad? Saphira asked her tone grave. Or that perhaps Galbatorix is tricking you? Making you see and hear what is not there so you will be drawn into a trap.
No. I don't think so. Eragon shuttered as he remembered the last weeks. He couldn't coherently tell Saphira why he had to find that woman, only that he knew, with an iron certainty, that he must.
It'd be easier to decide if you talked to someone. Ask about this, Eragon, or I will. I will not take you into a risk, Saphira said. I'll have you tied you to my saddle if I must.
Then you'll have to carry me all the way to the Varden fighting you all the way, he said, squatting on the ground, spinning a piece of straw between his fingers. I have to go. I can feel it. It's the only thing I'm certain of right now.
Saphira was silent for a time, likely considering her next words. I love you, little one, she said. It goes against my counsel, but if this is something you're certain must be done, I'll do what I can to help. But before that you need to talk to Brom. He might be able to give you some answers that I cannot.
