Chapter 31: Dras-Leona
Harry slept fitfully. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see were those children dying to his sword. He blamed himself for their deaths. Of course, he intellectually knew that Durza was just trying to hurt him, but he could not reconcile that with the visceral image of piled entrails and pigtails too far apart to be a hairstyle choice.
He woke with a ragged gasp, breathing harshly. Hedwig sang him a comforting song, but he could not get back to sleep. The horror had been suppressed only temporarily. Instead, he went down to the workshop to hammer steel until he forgot.
Curiously, Angela was present and awake. The mysterious woman expressed her curiosity about every little thing and only Arya's vouching for her saved the woman from Brom's crotchety wrath. She was examining Harry's running potions with interest. "Couldn't sleep?" she commiserated. "Damn Durza to a million fiery deaths. I saw what he was doing."
Harry did not trust himself to respond, instead opening the vault and wheeling out a cart of steel. He shoved a billet into the forge and waited impatiently for it to heat, nudging and fidgeting with his tools. Finally, the steel was hot.
The clang of steel filled the air. Every strike was cathartic, feeling soft metal give way under his hammer. Angela silently watched him churn out twelve blades, observing the process curiously. She asked some quiet questions which he muttered answers to, but they were short and to the point.
When the motions of forging swords got too boring to continue, Harry switched to spearheads, then arrowheads, then dagger blades, then huthvir blades. He simply hammered relentlessly, pausing only for the metal to reheat or to enchant the naked blades. He'd sing them handles later.
His hands were bleeding on the handles of his tools, but Harry could not bring himself to care. He could heal them with a word, but what was the point? Some things magic just couldn't fix. Or at least there were things he didn't know how to do yet. Whatever. Harry missed home right then. He even missed Privet Drive. Sure it was terrible for the formative years of his life, but Vernon laid off him once the letters arrived, and it became a safe place away from the mortal danger of Hogwarts. He missed music, the radio, cars, supermarkets, actual paved roads, friends he could speak candidly to–all of the above.
Alageasia was a brutal place sometimes. He knew that magicians were vanishingly rare and medical technology at this time was somewhere from terrible to nonexistent. He pounded harder on the second huthvir blade in the set in frustration. Whatever injuries or infections the peasants got, they kept. So why then, were people so eager to fight and die? If the Varden wanted to win this war, they would have to carve a bloody swath from wherever they hid through to the heart of Uru'baen. Did he really want to do that? Why should he help some group of rebels murder uncounted thousands of soldiers to kill one madman and his more evil servants?
He struck even harder, and the blade shattered into a million pieces, shards of burning metal flying everywhere. A few grazed him and burned where they touched, but Harry relished the pain, the feeling of being alive. He welcomed the suffering as atonement for the kids his sword killed, even if he did not swing it at them.
"Come, you're not going to accomplish anything with this," Angela gripped his arm gently and led him away. "Heal." His bloody and flayed palms sealed over without blemish. There was very little reaction from the herbalist, only a slight tightening of her eyes at the effort.
Angela tugged him over to the grove of trees he had begun to grow to feed the enchantments of his weapons. "Let us sing together, strange wizard, and forget about the horrors of war."
He wanted to resist, he really did, but Harry could not. Angela's singing voice was compelling and nurturing. She sang a nursery rhyme which was unfamiliar to him, repeating slightly altered verses and feeding the grove her energy. The arbors swayed in an invisible breeze and almost invisibly brightened. Harry made to sing, preparing to summon handles, hafts, bows, and arrow shafts from the tree when Arya came up behind him.
"This is not an art made for war, Harry."
He startled slightly, but refrained from producing any more weaponry with the trees. Instead, he just sang about growth. Growth and new life. When he added his voice to the chorus, the trees began to visibly spiral higher. Tiny saplings poked their green stems from the earth and curled outwards, spreading their leaves to catch the sunlight generated by the sky enchantments.
The three of them sang for hours, feeding power recklessly from their limbs into the grove. And slowly, Harry began to relax.
Harry woke not in his bed as he was used to, but in a hammock woven from willowy branches and leaves which hung from the trees he nurtured. Arya slumbered in her own hammock. Angela sat in a gnarled root chair, idly clacking away with knitting needles, producing a hat with a pom-pom on top.
"Good morning, Harry."
"Good morning, Angela." The night was cathartic. He felt a weight removed from his shoulders and stood straighter at the feeling. "Where's Brom and Eragon?"
"They rode into Dras-Leona yesterday morning. I believe Saphira is claiming a cave for herself atop one of the mountain peaks," she said quietly.
Arya stirred and sat upright. "Perhaps you ought to sit this city out, Harry," she suggested kindly. "Dras-Leona is not like Teirm or Carvahall. Much of it would charitably be called slums."
Harry wanted to protest, wanted to claim that no, he was fine, but he couldn't bring himself to. If he was so bad at staying unnoticed, keeping his mouth shut, then let him be locked up in the tent he himself made. He did not care, he told himself. I can work on my projects in peace. They were feeble excuses, but he needed them.
He, the most powerful member of the team, was being benched. In the middle of a dangerous city. You're a liability, a voice whispered in his head, one which sounded suspiciously like the Other, but it couldn't be, for he had taken a killing curse to the head to silence it. They don't want you around, Harry Potter. What have they done for you but sent suspicion and sneers your way? "Shut up!" he exclaimed angrily.
Angela and Arya looked at him concerned. By some unspoken communication, Arya split off from the Herbalist and led him to his bed. Hedwig and Blinky were still there, waiting. "Drew the short straw, huh?" Harry asked her bitterly. "You get to babysit the crazy one."
Arya did not rise to the bait. "There are stories among men, especially in the Varden, about the Living Dead. Men who have fought so much they do not know how to do anything else. Their eyes lack the spark of life and they move dully and restlessly. Worse, they cannot abide stopping fighting, for the monsters do not come for warriors in the day. They are cowards, and wait until men are at their weakest, asleep and vulnerable to strike, whispering poisoned lies in their ears." She led him to his own bed, and with some difficulty Harry managed to swallow the indignity.
"Then why are you leading me to sleep?" he challenged,
"Because the Living Dead do not rest, they fight and fight until someone kills them-" she paused, "or they do themselves. Harry, if you do not rest and work through your monsters, they will consume you. And we cannot afford another enemy like Galbatorix."
Harry climbed into his bed, fatigued. "If you cannot do it for yourself, then do it for me." Arya said. "I'd not like to see you dead at the hands of Durza for seeking vengeance or some other fell decision which leaves you dead. Alagaesia needs you, and for more than killing."
Harry rolled so he was facing away from Arya. He relaxed in the bed and prayed she did not see the tears falling from his eyes.
Brom sighed and relaxed heavily into the ratty mattress. He was getting too old for all this. Eragon had taken one glance at the likely bedbug-ridden bed (he was correct, Brom extended his mind and found it teeming) and chosen to sit on the floor. Thankfully, the ruse was up and he had been revealed as a magician, so he did not feel guilty in the slightest extinguishing the lives of the pests with a spoken word.
He had led his son into the city using the names he was going to use back in Teirm; Neil and his grandson Evan. Brom didn't like having to pretend to be his boy's grandson, but he was no spring flower.
"Be very careful, Evan. I cannot emphasize enough how disastrous it would be should the king find us here. The speed of our travel is an enormous advantage that I would not see revealed soon if ever. In a few weeks we can relax our guard slightly–but remember," he said warningly, "we are in the heart of the Empire. This land is uncontested and belongs to the king. His servants do not have to follow laws, will be well rested and fully supplied wherever they go. The Ra'zac are likely here, but we are just as likely to be hunters as hunted."
Eragon shivered at his father's tone. The atmosphere in Dras-Leona did not help, either. Streets were cramped and crooked, blocks and buildings cramped and crushed without pattern in random locations. The roads were filled with holes and cracks and he had nearly twisted his ankle setting his foot wrong while walking in. The inn they were staying at–the Golden Globe–was in a nicer area of the city, though none were actually nice like Teirm.
Leona lake lined nearly half the city's boundaries, a wall demarcating the bounds of the city proper. The smell of waste and misery hung heady over Dras-Leona, like a miasma of misery which attempted to choke all residents. The citadel was a bit nicer, gleaming gold and turreted like a palace of sorts, but it was overshadowed like the rest of the city by an ominous monument.
Helgrind. Spires of jagged rock which had burst from the ground like an angry fist of the gods. It was black and foreboding, and ill omens emanated from it. Brom followed his gaze.
"The gates of the damned," he observed. "They are the reason I was so quick to accept our little friend's conclusion. If our prey is hiding anywhere, it will be there. It is a fell monument to an ugly religion, whose cathedral we passed on the way here."
That set his teeth on edge. The church was enormous and well-constructed, arguably the most sturdy building in the city. Yet for all that, it was a grisly sight. Enormous stained glass windows depicted gruesome scenes of self-mutilation and bloodletting. Bells occasionally tolled ominously from a turret which jutted from the center of the gabled roof. Blackened iron braces held thick doors barred tightly shut. Eragon felt a thrill of fear at the idea of a religion who not only barred outsiders out, but followers in. What sort of bloody acts happened within that even the devout were terrified.
"Yes, an ill omen. Why the monument was never torn down in my time, I'll not know. Regardless, it is time for us to 'get the lay of the land' so to speak, and I've found there's no better place than a tavern to start." Brom scooped up his leather bag and rose from the bed with creaky joints. "Bring your arms; this place is not a kind one."
Eragon strapped Zar'roc to his waist and strung his bow before slinging it over his shoulder next to the endless quiver. They locked the room behind them and set out to get drinks and information.
"Arya, can I get a muscle tissue sample?"
"Why?"
"Well, I'm planning to fix up my body, and I'd rather improve it rather than make it just okay. Elves are stronger and faster than humans, and I want to know why."
She regarded Harry sourly. "Very well. But you will be careful and the sample miniscule."
He held in a cheer and eagerly withdrew tools for a biopsy. "Put your arm here." Arya laid her arm across a table with a clean white sheet of linen atop a plastic sheet. Harry flicked on an overhead light and drew the focus to her arm. He washed his hands and arms thoroughly and rubbed alcohol swabs across Arya's bicep. "Drink this."
Carefully, Harry sliced open her arm with a word. "Keep the blood in." only a bit of the red liquid spilled out. He stashed what did in a plastic container. Arya observed her own bare muscle morbidly. Curiously, she watched it contract tightly when she flexed her arm. How strange.
With a scalpel, Harry excised a tiny wedge of the tissue and preserved it in a plastic box enchanted to keep cool. "Muscle, heal. Skin, heal." The wound sealed quickly, leaving no evidence of the open wound it had been just seconds ago.
He quickly stripped off his gloves and cleaned the equipment, sending it all to where it belonged with the packing charm. "All done," he patted Arya on the back cheerfully. "Thanks!"
Angela glanced over in curiosity. She was tending to a row of cauldrons bubbling away merrily. Blinky slithered up around her chair and up a table leg to the top. The herbalist spotted her and nearly jumped out of her skin. "Harry?" she asked in a choked voice. "Are you aware you have a basilisk infestation!"
"Say hi to Blinky, Angela!" he said cheerfully.
"Hello, strange woman," the serpent projected. The Herbalist choked.
"You are intelligent?"
"I like to think so, yes."
Angela turned to Harry. "This is exactly why I was trying to prove toads were a lie," she snapped. "I'm honored to meet you," she greeted the snake.
"Likewise. You are more than you seem."
"Why thank you, you've got quite a bit rattling around in that head of yours as well!"
Harry placed the tissue sample on a glowing white square light which glowed gently. He had made a microscope with transfiguration and tinkered with it until he liked the magnification, but after understanding the underlying principle, Harry preferred the spell he made to mimic the zoom function. It eliminated the need to fiddle with the focus distance and get eyeball cramps from squinting into a tiny lens for extended periods of time.
§Zoom§ Harry hissed. He would choose incantations in parseltongue for simplicity. He could use the words he wanted since they hardly came up in conversation and virtually nothing was taken already as an incantation. Plus, it had the added security of locking his spells to his bloodline–assuming they inherited his parseltongue–and no one but him and maybe Voldemort could use the spells.
The magic worked as expected and projected the view into the air like a hologram. He could have sent the image directly to his mind, but this way was more spectator-friendly. The other method was still available, he merely needed to modify his intent when casting the spell. Arya watched over his shoulder while he manipulated the view.
Harry indicated a group of tiny little dots. He zoomed in further yet, peering in interest at the images and comparing them to an open textbook with stylized drawings which looked similar, as well as black and white pictures which looked nearly the same. "Those are cells, apparently the building blocks of all living things. There are slight differences between animal and plant cells, but every other one is virtually the same. They group together to make tissue–generic biological material–which in turn groups together to make organs like your heart, lungs, brain, and such. And I'm pretty sure…" he trailed off.
Quickly, Harry rather sloppily repeated the biopsy process on himself and compared them. "Do you see any difference?" He showed Arya the second view. She shook her head. "And now?" Harry zoomed out dramatically on Arya's sample. "Your cells are way denser. It means everything is in higher detail. The rods and cones in your retina which process light into visual data, there are more tinier ones, which means your eyesight will naturally be more detailed. Your muscles are denser and stronger. Every organ will work faster and better for that density. I have no idea if that contributes to elven agelessness–by your own admission, they used to be mortal–or if the density is a side effect of that immortality, or if it's just a natural elven trait."
He strode over to a counter atop rows and columns of drawers and yanked one open, pulling out an enormous sheaf of actual paper. He did not want to deal with curling edges in the middle of reconstructing his own body. Harry's eyes flicked over a page with large font bold lettering, what Arya thought might be a poem or song. Muttering to himself, Harry crossed out and ticked a few words, shuffling phrases carefully. He nodded decisively and stuck it back into the bundle of papers.
Diagrams and equations filled entire reams of the stuff. Little plastic tabs in bright colors stuck out the sides denoting segments and sections of importance or changes in topics. Harry's eyes sparkled as he retrieved a black circle with a rough surface. He wheeled out a corkboard and tacked up certain diagrams before retrieving a transparent glass cylinder capped on both ends with metal brackets. It was filled with a clear liquid and a detached human arm hung floating suspended in the fluid.
Harry wheeled over a cart with rows upon rows of liquids in tiny vials, bottles, flasks, and test tubes. They all had vibrant colors and behaved strangely in their containers. Some had glowing glyphs floating around inside them, some seemed to swirl themselves, others clung to the top of their containers like they were straining against gravity.
Harry cleaned the operating theater harshly with a powerful scouring charm and shooed Arya out of the area announcing, "let's get this party started!" He shimmied the metal top of the arm cylinder off a rubber rim with a popping noise and transfigured the horizontal table into a sort of chair. "Releashio!"
He winced as the silver arm he'd grown so accustomed to detached painfully from his shoulder. At a gesture, the black disc started rotating and a tiny brass floating needle floated down to drag lightly over the surface. A scratching noise sounded. Angela left her brews and watched curiously as Harry took a deep breath.
Feet tapped on the ground, establishing the rhythm. Arya gasped when suddenly, a chorus of invisible magicians began playing their instruments through that tiny bronze needle. Harry began to sing.
The suspended arm emerged dripping from the open cylinder and floated over to Harry's stump. It was the result of many hours poring over unbelievably complex Alchemy primers and more advanced tomes. He'd been forced to jump straight over transformation and to human transmutation, a literal forbidden art because of how lethal and dangerous it was. Thankfully, he was not trying to create a full homunculus, simply a living arm without a soul.
Amniotic fluid dripped on the laminated floor over the operating theater as the limb floated to his stump. Harry's voice stayed steady even as his face betrayed the pain the reattachment was causing him. Slowly, fleshy tendrils extended and linked the arm with his body. Bone and sinew bridged the gap, filling in voraciously and sealing the limb to him like it was never lost.
Harry instantly knew something was wrong when he linked neurally to the limb. It felt sickly and wrong. There was a weakness and tremors which would not abate. He plowed onward regardless. Knocking back a Skele-gro dose and generic healing draught, Harry continued the song, keeping the density and formation of Arya's cells firmly in mind.
The song began to sap his energy at an alarming rate. Starting from his fingers and toes, Harry's skin took on a much healthier sheen, filled with vitality and power. Despite that, his still very human brow beaded with sweat and breathing got harder. Harry's vision began to tunnel. "Diamond," he mentally gasped out while maintaining the stanzas. Thankfully, someone understood because he felt a cool faceted sphere pressed into his hand. He reached out and latched onto the energy like a drowning man would a piece of driftwood.
The refreshing surge of power invigorated him. Harry reached the end of the opening lines and noted that the healthy sheen had covered his entire body. When he began the chorus, Harry felt his magic being dramatically empowered, further even than the buff he felt upon the death of the Horcrux. There was a section of instrumental measures intentionally left in so Harry could down some potions. He used the break well, downing a massive dose of nutrient potions and a myriad of healing brews. The gnawing feeling in his stomach abated when he provided the fuel to continue growing his body.
He sang through the next set of verses, acutely feeling the changes. Inefficient and undergrown organs filled out and grew to peak human performance, then surpassed it. He felt a thousand aches and pains he'd not even noticed vanish like ice in the summer sun. The slight scraping feel of moving his limbs vanished and he marveled silently at the smooth motion. When the chorus came around again, he felt the magic hit him like a lorry. The feeling of raw power flooding his veins was incredible. It felt like an adrenaline rush times a thousand. He felt invincible.
When he reached the final verses, Harry experienced the curious feeling of cramping, but rather than the cramps stopping, they got deeper. The contraction he felt kept going as his cells miniaturized and duplicated at mach speed. The muscles beneath his skin itched and seethed urgently. But Harry soldiered on, the only hint of the agony he was feeling was a few slightly sharp or flat notes.
He began the bridge to the final chorus–which had a key change. He was a bit nervous. The tingling feeling of the change had reached his chest. Harry felt a tightness as his heart and lungs grew denser and more powerful. The build of the music was getting unbearable–the density of the magic swirling around rising right alongside it. The tingling crept up his neck and by some miracle, Harry was able to keep singing as his vocal cords shifted around.
Then the drop hit.
It was like his entire head was dunked in icy cold water that soaked right through his skin and directly into his eyes and brain. Harry had no hope of keeping the song up. He faltered, and felt the magic almost warning him, regarding him dangerously.
Someone else took up the song. Arya held his hand, eyes fixed on his song sheet, completing the song. Harry was aware at that moment of dozens of beings watching him in hopeful curiosity. Thankfully, he passed out.
Brom pushed the tavern door open and entered confidently. His eyes flicked rapidly about the dingy room, taking everything in. Eragon followed him sedately, rather nervously fingering Zar'roc's pommel. The barkeep behind the bar glanced up at them and grunted before returning to the task of berating a serving barmaid for dropping a wooden tankard.
The patrons were rowdy and hostile, glaring at the newcomers with ill-disguised distaste. Some skilled fiddler played a pleasant tune with a bow in hand. Low warped wooden floorboards and a pair of heavier beams braced the upper levels of the building over the tavern on the ground floor.
Dras-Leona was so dense that its residents were forced to build up instead of out. When they were approaching the building from the outside, Eragon had marveled at the architecture the way someone would look at an especially tall pile of manure; impressive, but disgusting. Buildings leaned ominously over the crooked alleys like jagged wooden fingers reaching to pull them down into the earth. In many places, ramshackle bridges spanned the small gap between one row of buildings and the next.
Eragon did not like Dras-Leona one bit. Thousands lived in unimaginable poverty and squalor, begging helplessly for food against alley walls. Children fought viciously for scraps of food, and he had already spotted two childrens' corpses in the city.
But they were here for a reason, he reminded himself. To avenge Garrow. His fingers shook nervously, drumming a frantic beat on the pommel of Morzan's–now his–sword. They were within the city, he thought with a thrill. Even the tenebrous shadow Helgrind cast upon the cursed city could not dull his eagerness and nervous energy.
Brom gestured him to a table against a corner which Eragon sank into gratefully. He returned a bit later with a round of drinks. "Shall we?"
The young rider drank gratefully. He wanted nothing more than to get sloshed to forget the horrifying events of the past few days. He had heard a fell prophecy, watched a shade slay three children with impunity, and been thrust into a vile city whose buildings were only a thin veneer over the anarchy and desperation bubbling beneath the surface.
"What's got you so desperate to fall into your cups?" Brom asked gently.
"A long and terrible week," he sighed. "I'm very glad our little friend chose not to come to Dras-Leona. I imagine he would have obliterated the place already."
His father nodded. "He's a good man, just used to living in kinder times, Evan. It's not a bad thing, just a liability here where even the kids would put a knife in your back for a loaf of bread."
Eragon scowled. "This place his horrible!" he exclaimed. "We don't even treat our livestock like this, how can the king justify leaving the place as it is?"
"He's never been overly concerned with the plight of the people. Why, the Surdans live like kings compared to this place." Brom lowered his voice. "This is why we fight, the difference you can make. The difference we're trying to make." He straightened. "Now come! Let us learn of the gossip and intrigue in the city, and see if we can't puzzle together what makes this manure pit tick!"
They chatted with patrons and drank and ate until Eragon was sure his belly would burst if he drank anymore of that watered down piss the bartender called beer. Fresh food had spoiled him, and this place's food would only charitably be called stale. Rotten's more like it, he grumbled to himself.
Brom was talking to a reedy man with thinning blonde hair and a lazy eye who gripped a long curved knife in a deathly grip. His father laughed raucously and slapped the man on the back. The patron's eyes darted around shiftily and he laughed nervously, but Brom was already moving on. He made his way around the room thusly, interrogating everyone under the veil of jokes, stories, and japes which rarely failed to elicit some laughter or smiles.
Just then, the creaky wooden portal slammed open and three big men strode in arrogantly. "The usual, dog!" the middle one hollered at the barkeep. His buddies laughed uproariously and shoved each other around.
"Come, Ryden," one of them said, "If you antagonize the barkeep, he's likely to piss in your drink."
Ryden, the one in the center, guffawed. "As if we'd be able to tell the difference!" His friends laughed again, though Ryden gave a menacing look at the barkeep, who now resembled a frightened rabbit.
He led them unheeding of the patrons he shoved past straight to the back corner, right at Eragon. The man noticed him. "Oho! Lads, would you look at this? Someone's in our seat." His buddies cracked their knuckles menacingly. Eragon noticed rather nervously that they were carrying proper swords on them and wore boiled leather armor. He spotted the golden twisting flame of the Broddring Empire sewn on them. Galbatorix's men!
"Get up, cur!" Ryden shouted. "Unless, you're looking for a fight?" he tapped his finger meaningfully on the pommel of his sword. Eragon felt hot fury swell in him, burning the back of his neck and head with its intensity. But he knew he was not to draw attention, so he stiffly stood and made to pick up the food.
"Ah ah ah," one of his buddies stopped him. "Dogs don't get to take food from their masters. Leave it, boy."
With an immense effort of will, Eragon managed to refrain from slaying them where they stood. His every tendon was stretched to the breaking point as he turned abruptly on his heel, beginning to walk away. He heard jeers and lewd insinuations behind him, but Eragon managed to ignore them.
Something wet hit his ear.
Eragon spun in fury on the three. His sword inching out of its sheathe without meaning to. Ryden looked at him mockingly. "Go on then, dog." Brom stopped what he was doing and watched in concern. "Whoever bred you was a fool, you obviously should have been drowned at birth. The bitch, too."
Even a deaf man could hear the scrape of steel on steel. Eragon lunged furiously at the soldier. To Ryden's credit, he managed to loose his sword and block before Zar'roc shortened him by a head, but it was clear from the first engagement that he was no match. The rider was a whirlwind of flashing red and fury, engaging all three soldiers simultaneously. He managed to restrain himself from using the edge of his blade, instead dispatching them by bashing each with the flat of his blade so hard he knocked a few IQ points off them.
The bartender cowered behind his bar as the patrons cheered and stomped their feet. Only Ryden was still in the fight. He desperately interposed his sword between every lazy looping strike as Eragon toyed with him. He soon grew bored and reared back, kicking him squarely in the breastplate. The man flew backwards and shattered the table he landed against, spilling the drinks and food on the rickety piece of furniture all over its occupants. "Oi!"
The charged atmosphere further electrified when the food and drink covered man leapt to his feet and raised his fists. "Fight me like a man!"
Eragon shrugged and sheathed his sword, forming fists himself. The man juked him out and hefted a broken half of the table, heaving it overhead at him. He shouted angrily when it broke against him.
All hell broke loose in the tavern. The fiddler ducked behind the counter with the barkeep, but did not cower. Instead, he began to play an urgent song with a powerful rhythm. Men fought with fists, broken table limbs, and empty tankards. Eragon flipped a man over his shoulder who approached swinging his fist wildly. Brom–despite his efforts to wordlessly chastise him–was clearly enjoying himself. Eragon whirled around and knocked the thick skulls of two men together, laughing with glee. He leapt over a standing table and dropped his knees heavily into the back of another in fisticuffs with his father. "Come on, Neil! Let's fight!" Eragon bared his teeth in a gleeful smile.
Brom's composure cracked. "Let's fight!" A flailing body flew overhead. The old man seized it and slammed it against the warped and stained floorboards, whooping in glee. "It's been too long since I've been in a bar brawl!"
"I've never been in one!" Eragon shouted back, kneeing a man in a tender place. Someone charged him with a half-broken glass, wielding the sharp and broken end like a dagger. He laughed gleefully and gripped the man's wrist and elbow, swinging him around and around dizzily before tossing him bodily against the bar where he flew over and smashed into the barrels of drink.
Brom grabbed a glass and hurled it like a baseball pitcher. It blew up on some poor sod's skull while the old man laughed maniacally. "This is the best fun I've had in years!" he cackled. "Since the last bar fight!" He leaped into a flip over the table behind him, landing both his feet on the man's shoulder.
"How the hell did you do that?" Eragon exclaimed.
"I guess the Rimgar is used for something!" he cackled. "I guess I'll just have to teach you!" Brom made to tip off the guy's shoulders, crouched as he was to fit underneath the ceiling. Instead, he shoved both legs out violently, sending the man flying back. Brom rolled off the drop and leapt to his feet eagerly.
Eragon used a fallen chair as a springboard to land between two groups of fighters, scything his leg and causing four men to tumble to the ground. "Beat four at once," he hollered over the frantic fiddling.
"Learn from your elders, boy!" Brom grinned and sprinted at the largest congregation of fistfighters left. He slammed his pointed shoulder into a man who nearly went flying. Brom seized his shoulders with unrelenting fingers and slung him around behind his neck. The old man began to spin. Eragon watched gleefully as the centrifugal force stretched his limp limbs into a line.
Brom did a complex maneuver which appeared to let the man fly out of his grip, but he caught the guy's wrists just before they were out of range. He had to lean back nearly forty-five degrees to counterbalance the spin of the outstretched ragdoll, but the rate of spin only increased. Every patron not part of the moshpit stopped to watch.
The old rider whooped and swung his battering man into the crowd, mowing down everyone indiscriminately. "Let's gooooo!" He crowed triumphantly. The men fell like wheat beneath the scythe, collapsing from heavy blows to the head and upper body. When the last man fell, Brom released his smashing tool at the apex of a swing. The man flew across the bar and fell on his back against the far wall. "That's how it's done."
Every conscious patron, the bartender, and the fiddler all cheered loudly. Brom's breast heaved up and down. Eragon was also breathing heavily, but made his way to the bar, regardless. He withdrew a fistful of gold and slapped it loudly down on the counter. "For you and the fiddler, sir. A good fight, and even better music!"
The barkeep–resembling a frightened hare–swept up half the gold. The fiddler popped up with a smile and a salute. "Cheers, mate!" He grabbed the rest and vaulted the bar, striding purposefully out onto the streets. Eragon wiped the sweat from his brow, grinning.
"Well, that was fun."
Harry's dreams were strange and alien. A kaleidoscope of faceted gems swum before his eyes. An enormous gnarled tree stretched up to the sky with unfurled limbs, seemingly gripping the entire forest with its enormous roots. And at its base, a tiny star shone brightly. He saw a lone man with bizarrely familiar features, urgently swimming against a river's powerful current. His back held an enormous ropey scar which stretched from one shoulder to the other hip. Downstream, a grey horse with full saddlebags was swept along. "Tornac!" the man called desperately, but took in a mouthful of foam before he could shout again.
Groggy eyes blinked blearily. Harry stretched his limbs in habit. Rather than the strange comfortable-uncomfortable feeling of strain and stretch, he felt amazing. Harry bent further, stretching his limbs yet more. He took in the world around him with awe. Everything looked a thousand times sharper. Harry could pick out individual threads in the sheets of his bed. He could hear the clack of knitting needles and glanced over.
Angela was knitting again, still working on her previous project; a strange pink bonnet with psychedelic embroidery. "Good morning!" she beamed cheerfully. "Feel any different?"
"Yeah," Harry rolled his shoulders. "Yeah, loads!" He dressed quickly, marveling in the feeling of fabric rubbing across his hypersensitive skin. Sharp eyes picked out miniscule errors in the transfigured garments, and Harry reached out to his magic to fix it. The power came to him even more eagerly. It felt like he had to leash it, lest it blow his target apart. Gripping his wand, Harry flicked it at himself and envisioned the changes.
Every thread and seam shivered. They tightened and straightened like writhing snakes, composing themselves into neat little rows. He whistled. That was an extremely complex transfiguration, one which felt as natural as breathing. Harry extended his mind and found he could connect to every enchantment in the cabin at once—even the ones in the lab.
Walking was effortless. Descending the stairs Harry hardly even noticed the slight impacts each step generated. Arya was already cooking in the kitchen, a vegetarian affair which looked good enough to kill for. "Good morning."
"Hi."
"You look different. Better." Arya scrutinized him, nodding sharply. "'Tis for the better."
Harry smiled. "Thanks. I feel amazing." he flexed his fingers carefully. "Every sense is much sharper. I'd already experienced something similar when I evicted an unwanted guest in my head, but this is so much more," he breathed in awe. "I could smell your cooking from my room, I can easily pick out each stitch and thread in my clothes, and my magic is so much more responsive. And it was incredibly responsive already!"
The elf smiled. "I am glad." Harry scarfed down the food like a starving man and dashed down to the lab to observe his projects with new eyes.
"I totally see what Hephaestus meant," he exclaimed excitedly, peering at the smithy. "It's not quite real–like it's got a foot in this realm and a foot out. Arya, I'm going out!" Harry announced. She made to protest, but when she spotted the gleam in Harry's eyes, Arya wisely held her tongue. No need to waste breath, after all.
Harry sprinted up the stairs at a speed which even Arya had to put in some effort to match. The wizard flew across the pine floorboards and out the tent flap. "You didn't move the tent?"
Arya shook her head. "Brom and Eragon decided simply to ride the rest of the way. 'Tis not far, maybe six hours on horseback." Harry rubbed at his chin, absently bringing a depilatory charm to his fingertips. The stubble simply vanished.
Harry shrugged. "All the better, I guess. We hardly need an audience. Defodio!" A crater dropped dizzyingly from in front of their feet, gouging deep into the earth. The gray of bedrock lightened from direct sunlight it had not seen in likely millions of years. He leapt down with catlike agility, heedless of the twenty foot drop. Arya cautiously followed him.
By the time she landed, he already had his wand out, marking a grid pattern in white along the uneven stone. "Diffindo!" The white lines suddenly had deep yet needle-thin cuts in them which went down an unknown depth. Harry fired a more sedate Defodio and slid down to the bottom about six feet down. "Diffindo!" his muffled voice echoed from the vertical stone tube.
Clambering up from the hole, Harry began to levitate the enormous stone blocks. Apparently the second hole was much deeper than Arya initially judged, for the wizard was lifting rectangular blocks thrice as tall as they were wide–no slight amount. The behemoths were about five by five by fifteen meters and caused the air to reverberate with the displacement they caused.
"Um." Harry stared at the rather small entry flap to the tent. Fifteen titanic quarried blocks drifted idly behind him like strange petrified balloons. Arya rolled her eyes at him.
"You can shrink them, can you not?" Harry blushed and gestured obligingly. Said balloons deflated rapidly, becoming somewhat Jenga-block-shaped. He led them back down to the forge and spread a fresh sheet of parchment, weighing down the curled edges with the miniaturized blocks. An old book zipped over to Harry's outstretched hand and obligingly opened itself, flipping to a complex blueprint to a smithy.
Harry quickly unshrunk the colossal stones and began a frenzy of cutting, shaping, grinding, and fitting. The enormous forge took shape quickly under his eager pace. It took him scant hours to create and was obviously more advanced than the rather crude one he'd used before. Harry contemptuously vanished the entire old forge in one gesture, something which was certainly beyond him before.
For the first time since he woke, Harry felt a bit of strain moving the whole smithy into place in the alcove of the wall. An ugly scraping noise rang out from the stone bottom scraping across the concrete floor. An ominous thud signalled the thing was in place. A brilliant white flash forced him to shield his eyes and when he opened them, Hedwig was arrogantly preening in the center of a brilliant white fire in the middle of the forge. "Hed, the fire doesn't go there in this one. You gotta light it here."
Harry smiled and indicated an alcove beneath the spot where metal would be heated. She cawed angrily and in an even brighter flash, appeared beneath. The white flames roared higher, licking at the masonry without scorching it. He measured the temperature and whistled. "At least if I need to work with tungsten, I'll be set," he teased Hedwig.
Harry's greatsword clattered on the ground as he attacked the gem with a knife, prying it out of its setting. "Why are you doing that?" Arya was curious.
"I need to redo everything!" He exclaimed eagerly. "Here, gimme your sword," he opened and closed his fingers quickly. Arya shied away and grasped Du Sundavar Freohr protectively, as if hugging it would stop Harry from smashing it apart and making another. "Arya," he sighed, "amazing works are all about incremental improvements. Any old idiot can forge a sword with legendary materials, a true master has to incorporate every advantage possible into their works. If there's an auspicious date coming up, I'll have to do it all again anyways. Incremental improvements. If I find something better than steel or just outright better steel, that'll count too. I don't mind–I want everyone here to have the best equipment possible. I just don't want to have to replant a brand new tree to bind your weapon's enchantments to. So gimme!"
The weapon curved out of her arms and soared to Harry's outstretched hands and soon he had chiseled the gem out of its setting.
"New sword?" Arya nearly jumped out of her skin. Angela had silently approached and appeared over her shoulder. The crazy woman always managed to be wherever the most interesting things were happening. Unfortunately, that was nearly always around Harry–and by extension, her.
The sound of metal began to ring out. Harry is getting faster at this, Arya mused. He churned out her replacement in minutes. He used her old handle–she guessed correctly it was just because he didn't want to run upstairs all the way to the grove to sing a new one–and the same green gem as before. The greatsword took a bit longer to redo, but Harry did it. The new piece looked even more breathtaking, simply more. Whatever the old forge's problems caused, the new one damn well fixed. He was turning out masterpieces like nobody's business.
Angela's eyes sharpened when he began work on another huthvir. It was the longest process. The blades were forged quickly–after all, they were just two knife blades–but it was the poison veins which took the longest. The herbalist watched enraptured as Harry split each blade perfectly down the middle and began to chisel out the capillaries.
"Did you do this on the first one?" He nodded distractedly.
"Unscrew the halves and look carefully at where they join." Angela produced the huthvir from seemingly nowhere and broke it down, looking carefully at the two halves of the seam. "What is this?"
"It's for poisons and stuff. Y'know, for an herbalist? You can slot a little vial in there and the needle in the female half will poke through the cork or rubber or whatever and feed it to both blades. The whole handle has little veins to take it to the blades, which look like this on the inside." Harry gestured to the completed blades. All four halves had leaf-like vein patterns on them which spread to tiny capillaries along the edge. Angela took it in with a careful eye.
"Excellent!" she beamed. "Now how are you going to bind the halves together without molten metal sealing the channels?"
Harry cackled. "Vacuum welding!"
He crossed to the glass box and showed her the process, proudly handing over two blades. "I enchanted the huthvir, by the way. It's got the basic stuff–unbreakability, eversharp, etc–the standard suite, really. But I also made it so whatever vial of poison you put in the middle will be everfull and never run out. So you can use super rare poisons or whatever without worrying about waste–although you shouldn't worry too much anyways. If there are any rare ingredients which come from dangerous animals or plants which need specific conditions, we can try to set them up here and see if we can make it work."
"Why thank you! How does this 'vacuum welding' work?"
Harry gesticulated with his hands as he explained. "Air is just like water, except it floats on basically everything because it's not very dense. We can breathe because gravity holds a huge layer of the stuff all the way around the globe. It's just dense enough here on the ground for humans to both breathe and not be crushed by the pressure. Unfortunately, that pressure means like water, it gets between everything. That vacuum chamber is designed to be able to bear the weight of the atmosphere on it so when I vanish the air inside, no more can replace , the touching metal pieces just become one."
"But why?" Angela's eyes sparkled in curiosity.
"Why is something which is cut different from something which is not?"
"One is in two pieces?" she observed wryly.
"I mean, the building blocks of matter don't care about that. Glue works by bonding to materials. It sticks to something and when you put another something against the other side of the glue, the glue sticks to that, too. It makes two things act as if they are one. The reason swords don't fuse when they touch is because there's either air between them or only a tiny bit touches. If the cut isn't perfectly level, the halves will only weld together wherever they touch, often such a small amount as to be easily broken."
"So you made the cut perfect, and the two halves just naturally stick to each other. You got everything out of the way by using the vacuum chamber, and it just happened?" She toyed with the blades.
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Neat!" She replaced the huthvir's blades with deftness which betrayed her familiarity with the weapon. Angela tossed her curly hair over her shoulder. "So, are you going to do anything overly interesting soon, or shall I return to my knitting?"
Harry eyed her sourly. Angela rolled her eyes.
Eragon groaned and grabbed a fistfull of his hair, tugging it lightly. If he had to spend one more week in this cesspit, he was going to call Saphira to burn it down.
"I would gladly, little one." That was the only thing keeping him sane. Saphira could communicate with him from afar. She proudly shared images of her lair in the mountain range within the tent, particularly amusing memories, some of Harry's more interesting experiments, really anything interesting. Brom continued to make the 'circuit' around Dras-Leona, visiting every tavern he found along the way. Eragon was rather unfortunately banned from coming with him.
Apparently. "One crazy bar fight is an urban legend. Two is suspicious, three is a serious red flag. And we can't afford any suspicion." So he was benched. It was a term he'd learned from Harry. He puzzled together a strange game in between grumbled complaints about some inland whale called 'Dudley' who needed a 'tee' in middle school league. Apparently every single person in Harry's world was literate. How strange that such a rare skill be so common.
Eragon instead spent his days in their room in the Golden Globe or wandering the area of town surrounding it. Truthfully, he had no interest in straying any further than absolutely necessary. Who knew what he might see in a horrific place like Dras-Leona. Already he had seen some horrifying things; a woman being forced by a group of dirty men in an alley, numerous bodies with varying lethal injuries left to bleed out, and worst yet, a slave auction.
It had tested his restraint to the limit as so many things were wont to do here. The slave auctioneers cracking lewd jokes about the females, including a vile imprecation about a young girl who was torn crying from her mother on the stage. Worse, the audience was unfazed. The people bidding laughed and joked, commisserating when they lost a slave to a rival or friend. The whole idea that the practice could be accepted caused Eragon's blood to boil in his veins.
Were there any doubt if Eragon would throw his lot behind the Varden, Brom's words that evening wiped them away like sand beneath the waves.
"The slave trade was abolished by the Riders, but it has flourished again under Galbatorix's reign," he'd said. That was all Eragon needed to hear.
To treat fellow humans like animals, pack mules whose deaths were unfortunate in the way that your favorite tool breaking was unfortunate, it made him want to burn and rip and tear until nothing but ash and blood was left. A sentiment Saphira rather heartily agreed with. "Do not tell Harry," He'd had to say. The wizard would likely level the city in his rage, draw the king's attention, and get them all killed–or worse.
Saphira's response was mutinous–she knew exactly how Harry would react, and very much wanted to watch the cesspit that was Dras-Leona burn. Fortunately, Eragon pressed her until she relented.
The city was never silent. Screams could be heard from alleys even within the inn during the night, and the Golden Globe was in one of the nicer areas of Dras-Leona. Soldiers marching on patrol were for once a welcome noise–it meant the violent crimes abated until they passed. The floorboards above and beneath Eragon and Brom's room often creaked and protested under the feet of the inn's patrons. Come daybreak, the hustle and bustle of carriages, wagons, and wheelbarrows drowned out the more horrifying noises of Dras-Leona, and Eragon would breathe a sigh of relief. He just wanted to get out of here.
Harry knew his friends were hiding something from him. Arya gave him sidelong glances when she thought he wasn't looking, but his new senses did not betray him and he easily picked up on little cues like that. It was easy to figure out what the treatment was about. Any time he asked about Dras-Leona, he got noncommittal details and quick subject changes. The wizard found he did not like being handled. It felt like what Dumbledore did, leading him down a path where he only lay the next paver when Harry's foot was above the empty ground before.
If he was honest with himself, it was probably for the best. After the fight with Durza, he was itching to slay some evil–to prove that he wasn't a monster. He itched to do something and channeled that energy into every task he could around the tent. One change which he was currently resenting from his recent transformation was his lessened need for sleep. Harry only really needed a few hours every other day, and sleep was not like it used to be. Rather than dreaming unconsciously, Harry found himself in a waking trance where he stared blankly at the skylight until he was rested again.
It meant he needed to fill more hours with menial tasks. He planted and grew trees, forged endless weapons and armor for the Varden, tended to the greenhouses and pastures, brewed with Angela, practiced real carpentry and his tanning skills, but it was never enough.
Harry tried to funnel his inferno of nervous energy into his experiments. He went through fourteen iterations of the flying broomsticks and there was now a numbered rack in the artifact vault which was numbered with each attempt. He tried to forge himself the least obstructive armor possible, starting with full plate, then reducing pieces until he felt comfortable. Unfortunately, Harry could only really stand to wear bracers, greaves, a breastplate, and shin and thigh guards. He felt claustrophobic in a helmet and lost too much maneuverability wearing pauldrons or epaulettes.
Harry managed to reduce the encumbrance of the armor with each generation until he could bear to wear fine mail beneath his breastplate, but that was as far as he had gotten. Any other defenses would have to be shored up with magic. How embarrassing would it be to die to a stray arrow because he refused to wear a helmet for comfort reasons.
It was two weeks into the eternal wait that Harry ran out of things to do. His magical computer had stalled–he needed silicon to make transistors, and the enchanted version seemed no different–and his other projects were likewise halted. He could not bring himself to read another book, and he'd browsed the family vault for interesting things for hours. Harry was sure if there wasn't such pressure to act on him, he'd be able to entertain himself indefinitely in the tent, but it was just so frustrating.
Elvish strength and speed meant any project he started finished far, far too quickly. Even after Arya relented and played Monopoly with him and Angela, he grew bored quickly. Is this what ADHD feels like? He'd mused. Harry even dared to play chess again (and got slaughtered for his troubles) but just couldn't wait any longer.
"Arya, what the hell is taking them so long?"
"Patience, Harry. Do you wish to have another treehouse competition?"
"No!" he retorted. "I want to leave this damn place well behind if it's so bad you won't even tell me what it's like."
Arya shook her hair out of her face and pinned him with a stare. "Killing the Ra'zac will be more than a blow to the Empire, it's something Eragon needs. He needs a victory of his own. You have been there every time, ready to intervene." Harry opened his mouth but she cut him off. "How can you expect Eragon to grow if you deny him challenges to overcome? He needs proof he's doing the right thing. If he did not already know woodsmanship, your tent would have denied him the opportunity to learn. If you introduced flying broomsticks before Saphira convinced him to ride her, he may never have learned. The only way to grow is to overcome challenges, challenges you seem determined to deny him. When Eragon slays the Ra'zac or the king himself runs us out of the city, we will leave. No sooner."
Brom opened the door and strode in, shedding gear on the floor as he crossed to the bed. "Well, I think I found them."
Eragon perked up. "Really? Where?"
He scowled. "I am fairly sure they live in or below Helgrind. I asked around about where shipments were routed through and it led me to a warehouse by the port. A worker there was able to point me towards a man who lived in the citadel. This man–you wouldn't believe, he has three mistresses, who all live in different wings of the castle–was in charge of incoming shipment routing. I snuck into the citadel as a bard and plied the women with wine and words-"
Eragon snickered at the idea of his father as a rake. The man was positively ancient. "C-continue," he stammered, grasping his composure like a greased pig.
Brom glared. "From there I learned the gossip; every full moon a pair of slaves are sent to the base of Helgrind with a crate of supplies. The slaves are never seen again."
Eragon rocked back. "Hmm. How long from now is the next full moon?" he wondered aloud.
"A little under a fortnight."
He hemmed and hawed for a bit. "We could follow the slaves, but if the Ra'zac spot us, the game is up. Suppose we searched around Helgrind for the entrance to their lair?"
"You're even more likely to be spotted then."
"True," Eragon agreed. "I suppose the most guaranteed method would be to take the slaves' places…"
Brom agreed. "It's the riskiest, but with the highest chance of success. I will return to the citadel tomorrow and see if I can't ferret out any more secrets. Most relevant, where those slaves come from."
Eragon scowled at the mention of the hated practice, but did not voice his complaint. "Saphira says Harry's about to storm the city himself, we'd better hurry. He's been driving Arya and Angela up the wall with his incessant tinkering."
"Well, it's nice to know if this all goes tits up, we'll have backup," Brom smirked.
"Yes, it is nice to have Harry in your corner," Eragon agreed.
The next morning, Brom left early in a rather ridiculous outfit with a lute slung over his back. "Stay out of trouble, Evan. We're almost there."
Eragon shot Brom a look, but ducked back into the inn anyways. His father left him with a bag of coin to whittle away the hours, and he put it to use playing cards and dice in the lobby. Despite the strict instruction to stay out of trouble, Eragon couldn't resist peeking into his opponents' minds to spy on their cards and cheat. He stopped when a crowd began to form and decided to explore.
Saphira watched through his eyes as he wandered further afield than he normally did. Instead of moving towards the poorer districts, Eragon made his way over to the upper ring, sneaking through a port in the yellow mud brick wall which separated the nobles from the slums.
It was a completely different city. Some things carried over like the crooked and disorganized roads and alleys, but everything else was a stark contrast to beyond the wall. The smell of fresh food baking floated on the air from bakeries, Streets were generally clean and Eragon spotted slaves sweeping the alleys under the whip of a cruel overseer. The buildings were sturdy and straight, in good repair. It was a place of opulence, detail work like window frames and door frames were made of exotic wood. Gold leaf details were pressed into trims and roofing.
He was grateful that he remembered to wear the spare set of nicer clothes Harry gave him. People in furs or skins were invariably slaves, though that too was rare–slaves often only wore loincloths or thin shifts. Nobles walked with their heads held high wearing silks and fine dresses, decorative jeweled weapons at their waists which they rather obviously had no idea how to use. Most if not all of them were flanked by hired muscle or rode in carriages.
Eragon wandered aimlessly for a couple hours, avoiding engaging the nobles for fear of giving up the ruse. When hunger gnawed at his belly, the young rider made his way to a bakery. A wide open window provided a clear view of the interior. He pushed open the door and noted that it rang a bell with the motion. Some attendant quickly emerged from the back room with a sugary smile plastered on her face. She wore an apron with a dusting of flour and looked too young to own the establishment, so she must have been hired help.
"Can I help you, milord?" Eragon nodded.
"I'd like some bread."
She giggled. "Well, that's what we sell. What kind?" He nearly cursed, mentally berating himself for the slip. Eragon scanned the displays, eyes catching on a strange circular roll which looked like it was made of swirled bread. White icing dripped down the sides and a strange dark brown spice was visible between the layers.
"I'll have that one, please." He pointed his finger at the roll. The maid giggled.
"So polite! One cinnamon roll for you, milord."
Eragon almost choked when she used paper to wrap it. How wasteful! Harry only does that because he can make more from nothing!" The girl bent over rather purposefully when she handed it over, causing the young rider to gulp nervously. She batted her eyes. "That'll be a crown, sir!"
Only his mental defenses kept Eragon from gaping. A crown! He withdrew the demanded change and handed it over, smiling weakly. "Thank you, milord." The girl curtsied as he strode out.
A minute later Eragon was rather grateful for the paper wrapping. He could eat without dirtying his fingers on the generous helping of icing. The treat was as good as anything Harry had made, a feat in and of itself. While he held the roll with his left hand, Eragon drummed his fingers on Zar'roc's pommel idly. "You could almost pretend you were in a different city," Eragon mused to Saphira. The sky above was a brilliant blue, and it was completely unobstructed by leaning buildings and shoddy bridges.
The smell of fear and death so prevalent in the slums was completely gone, replaced by noblewomens' perfumes and the smell of good food cooking. It was odd how people seemed to show deference to each other perfunctorily. Eragon tried to bow to the other nobles, but the awkwardness of the maneuver and the glares he received convinced him otherwise.
He finished the cinnamon roll with a pang of sadness. "That was excellent," Saphira remarked. "I shall have to make Harry bake those for us." Eragon heartily agreed. It was well past noon and he began to make his way back to the wall, ducking behind some crates and out of a guard's line of sight before dashing past the checkpoint and back out into Dras-Leona proper.
On the return trip, Eragon once again passed a familiar sight: the enormous cathedral. He traced the architecture with his eyes carefully, noting the similarities the spires had with Helgrind's blackened peaks. Curious, he judged the sun's angle and estimated he had time for a stop before Brom returned. Eragon pushed open the heavy enormous doors, somewhat surprised that they were not barred.
The church was quiet as the grave. Not a single soul in the enormous room. Rows upon rows of pews faced towards a raised dais with an obsidian altar. Gruesome tapestries hung from ornamental baubles which in turn hung from the roof. The stained glass windows glowed with an ethereal light now that he was viewing them from the darkness of the interior.
Eragon silently padded up to the altar, bowing for a moment. He paid homage not to the religion or whatever fell gods it worshipped, but rather the building itself, the suffering and death it had surely seen. He wandered up a set of alabaster steps to the dais and took everything in. Atop the altar was a cup with a rather suspicious dark red liquid clinging to the sides. He found a brazier which was hidden by metal ornamentation. When lit, the flames would emanate beyond the brazier and be visible to the clergy and church alike. A silver knife rested in a small alcove in the back of the altar. It was also bloodstained.
He felt Saphira's attention wane and the dragoness was about to extricate her gaze from his when he made to exit. There, at the entryway, two familiar cloaked figures stared silently.
AN: I'm trying for longer chapters less often. The story has hit its stride and the pace only gets faster for the remainder of the first book. We have three more to go afterwards, but they are all faster paced than the beginning of Eragon.
In other notes: Often fanfiction leans less towards storytelling and more towards wish fulfilment. Writers use the plot as a crutch and write what they wish happened, thus cornering themselves with established precedence and plot craters later in the story. I'll try to mitigate this and I have ideas for escaping the canon plot, but please bear with me when I make mistakes. This is my first fic and I expect my writing to improve as time goes on.
Also, on overpoweredness: Plenty of professional media features overpowered characters, something most often seen in anime and manga. It doesn't mean the story is automatically terrible. Inheritance magic is overpowered by every sense of the word, and the ability to store energy makes it even more so. Try not to hate too hard when Harry and the gang learn crazy stuff because in all likelihood, the skills are probably canon anyways. I don't mind overpoweredness in media, what really bothers me is inconsistent overpoweredness. (I'm looking at you, Voltron.) So if you want to hate on me, leave comments about inconsistencies. I'm not averse to rewriting chapters, especially after I finish the fic.
Cheers, androidrainbow