Chapter 34: Varden

Harry spent the next day carting out tons upon tons of food in wizardspaced boxes which he would stack in a room which Orik set saide for him. He would help Harry empty the crates of food onto wheelbarrows which were sent off to the cooks. They had to be careful not to export too much food at a time–the stasis charms ended when the food was removed from the silos. That had been another interview; asking Ajihad how much the Varden consumed daily.

"This should be the last for today," Harry called to Orik who was heaving an oaken crate over a half-filled wagon. He scribbled something on his clipboard and stashed it in his pack.

"I used to be an interesting dwarf," Orik lamented. "King Hrothgar's liaison with the Varden. Your thrice-damned secrets have reduced me to a pack mule, Harry."

"I'll be sure to make it worth your while," he promised. "Is that axe your primary weapon?" Orik nodded uncertainly. "Do you want to watch me forge the greatest battleaxe Alagaesia has ever seen?" The dwarf nearly tripped over himself nodding.

They walked down the stairs to Harry's workshop. When everything came into view, Orik gasped. "Aye, but that is a smithy." The new forge Harry made from blueprints was a sight to behold. Perfectly fitted limestone blocks cut so well you could not see the seams composed a massive smithy with a wide aperture which glowed with white flames. "You have so much fuel you can leave the smithy always burning?"

Harry laughed and pointed at the silvery inferno. "That, my good dwarf, is phoenix fire. It is as eternal as the bird itself, and purifies that which it touches. Very useful for smelting ore, that is. Speaking of, I'm actually beginning to run low on iron ore. If you can set me up with a trader, I can pay handsomely in gold or jewels. Preferably gems, actually, since I can make flawless diamonds pretty easily."

"Aye, I know a few knurlan who'd part with some ore for a flawless diamond," Orik whispered. "You can make gems? None since Guntera have claimed such."

Harry beckoned Orik over to the danger room. "The process leverages some pretty advanced Chemistry, a science which I'm unsure if Alagaesia has even discovered yet. You might call it material science or philosophy. The gist is that diamond is just extremely compressed carbon. Carbon can be found easily in many sources, abundantly in coal, charcoal, oil, and natural gas. None of these are pure carbon though. Even a little bit of impurity will completely change the color of the diamond, usually rather unattractively. Coal, for example, is made up of about sixty percent carbon. The rest is composed of stuff like sulfur, water, oxygen, and nitrogen. I use this alembic," he showed Orik his glassware, "to remove all the impurities. What is left is called graphite. It's soft and dull grey. Graphite is very pure carbon. If I want a perfectly flawless and clear diamond, I run the graphite through the alembic several more times to remove even more impurities, then I compress it."

Harry tugged the dwarf away from the glassware and through the airlock, something which he clearly wanted to ask about but didn't. He motioned to the tungsten ball. "I used to pre-cut the diamond by forming the mould with facets and using that to force the gems into shape, but the faceted shape was never strong enough to survive the compression. I can get a few gems out of one hollow sphere before it needs to be melted and reformed."

Orik ran a rough fingertip against the dull grey ball. "What is this metal? It is no steel, it is far too heavy," he noted.

"Tungsten. It's very dense and very strong, but it also has the highest known melting point of any stable isotope. Something which saves me from having to scrape diamond dust out of every corner of this room."

Harry dragged in a large bag of graphite and a funnel. "The compression necessary to form diamond from graphite is immense. It's possible to do without magic, but very difficult. The people who discovered this process grew the diamonds around a tiny seed gem in the center with a pressurized furnace."

Waving off the thought, he placed the nozzle of the funnel to an open hole. "Just like how the silos are bigger on the inside, or the tent, or my bag, this ball is expanded to a specific ratio. Around a quarter again. Orik watched intently as the wizard poured the dark grey dust into the funnel, stopping when it was full. Harry smoothed off the top and replaced the open segment of the sphere, sealing it perfectly with magic.

"We have to back up," he warned. "The process is extraordinarily violent." Orik followed the wizard obligingly out of the room through the strange two door setup. "Cover your ears," Harry advised. Orik needed no further warning. Clapping his hands over his ears, the dwarf watched through the windows with bated breath. Harry reached out with his hand, seemingly grasping for something. When he had a grip, he made a violent tearing motion.

A dull red flash and a clap of thunder blasted from the room. Orik tentatively removed his hands from his ears. "Let's go see what we've got, shall we?" Harry asked cheerfully. He had Orik wait outside when he went in to retrieve the ball which now glowed cherry red. He said it had the highest melting point known and yet, it's still on the verge of melting!

A moment later Harry brought out the ball in a pair of tongs. "Careful, that's over six thousand degrees, I suppose you'd be better told it's around triple the heat it takes to melt the best steel." Orik had no intention of getting any closer. He could feel the heat like a bonfire from several paces away. It was already uncomfortable for him, and the dwarf wondered how Harry could stand being only two feet from it.

"I have wards," he explained. "Before, I would wear this apron and some enchanted gloves, but it's a hassle and the gloves make me clumsy." Harry set the ball on a table which hissed angrily. Carefully, he used a knife edged in a clear white gem which must be diamond and traced it around the circumference of the sphere. It split in half easily and Orik's breath caught.

The inside held a perfectly round sphere of diamond. It could easily have been glass, such was its purity. The shape warped the images that passed through it as he examined it from several angles. "By the gods," he breathed. "You've actually made diamond!"

Harry nodded proudly. "They're very useful, and not just for being pretty. Are you a magician, Orik?"

"Nay," he shook his head. "I leave such trickery to Du Vrangr Gata and Hrothgar's royal magicians."

A fleeting look of disappointment crossed Harry's face. "Ah well. It's hardly necessary to wield the weapon I'll make you. Mostly I've used the diamonds to store energy for enchantments for weapons. It's why all the good weapons I make have gems in them."

Harry led Orik over to the great forge and proceeded to school him in metalworking. Every hammerblow seemed to shape his works twice as much as they ought and in no time at all, a beautiful axe began to form. His strikes were skillful and the axehead beautiful. Harry quenched the blade well under an hour after he started.

Orik sat next to him at a large workstation and watched the wizard trace out scrollwork along the blade, strange knots and braided designs which he chiseled along the face of the blade near the edge. A bottle of unfamiliar liquid poured into the grooves formed and darkened the metal beneath. Harry further decorated the weapon by pounding gold leaf into the negative space in the designs. The braids seemed to snake across the face and to the rear of the blade where it would meet the haft.

Harry lifted the piece and put it face up on a steel table with a large cube of metal hanging ominously above in a sort of tube. "This is another use for collapsing space expansion enchantments," he explained. "Are you familiar with hydraulics?"

The dwarf's bewilderment betrayed him. "Water cannot be compressed, a quality which makes it excellent at transferring force. Since space expansion collapses can generate infinite force, it makes for very powerful hydraulic systems." Harry brought out a silvery metal cylinder with perfect edges and placed it on one side of the axe, brushing a circle of black paint on it, then flipped it over and repeated the process. When the axe was lifted, some of the paint had been left on the surface of the press in a perfect circle.

Harry cut out a cylinder where the circle marked and brought it to the other side of the axe, placing it flat on the circle opposite. Carefully aligning the axehead with the cutout, he backed up and made the same gesture he had done with the diamond.

It happened so fast if Orik blinked he might have missed it. The entire enormous steel cube above blasted downwards and crushed the cylinder through the axehead, cleanly slicing a perfectly circular hole in the metal. He blinked dumbly in surprise.

Harry popped out the plug and brought it back to the table, snatching the diamond from Orik's limp fingers and plugging the hole with it before cramming the leftover space with yet more gold. Once the diamond was secured by gold which extended into a small lip that protruded from the axe face, Harry led Orik upstairs and out to the grove.

He was rather amused at the outright gaping the dwarf did at the sight of a mountain range contained within a tent. Harry reminded himself again to not make fun of the medieval hicks and dragged him towards an open space of grass with a small sapling. Orik watched in awe as Harry sang the sapling into a mighty oak. As the song trailed off, a length of wood shaped like a handle emerged from the bark. He snatched it up and returned to the workshop.

"It's the best way to make wood products. I had a whole carpentry setup made," Harry pointed down the rows of tables towards a cluster of strange machines, serrated sawblades, vises, and other such woodworking tools. "But it was pointless when singing yields such superior results. That handle will never break, and I didn't even have to enchant it for that. The haft will hold enchantments very well, better than anything save alchemic metallurgy, gems, or other such precious materials. And none of those are good materials to make a handle out of, anyway." He plopped himself back in his seat and busied himself tracing out designs in the handle.

The wizard was nearly done when he addressed Orik again. "Do you have any idea what you want to name this? Actually, hold that thought. I'll ask again when it's nearly finished." Harry sat with the axe at a strange whirling belt for nearly an hour. Every couple of minutes, he would switch the belt out for a new one, each a distinct color. When he finished, the edge was so sharp he could see no grains from the belts. It was polished and sharpened to a mirror finish, and Orik could hear a faint whistle when the blade moved through the air. Harry threaded and screwed a spiked metal cap on the butt of the handle and tapped the diamond set in the axe face. It turned a dusky orange like light from the magma streams.

"Think up a name while I enchant. I need it before the song ends, so do be quick. If it helps, the blade edge will glow orange."

Orik could only watch in awe as Harry began to sing. The dwarf knew little to none of the ancient language, yet the language's true nature transplanted the meaning of his words into his mind. He heard verses of strength, sharpness, maintenance. Hymns of heat and power, lethality, loyalty to its wielder. Refrains of strength, power, and destruction. The blade began to glow a dusky orange like heated metal in the forge. When he saw it, Orik knew the weapon's name.

"Dawnbreaker!" he called over the singing. The music began to change. He heard the name several more times in the song. Harry grasped his wrist and pricked a finger before he could protest, dropping the blood on the blade where it sank in like rain on soil. The music crescendoed, then finished.

"I present to you, Dawnbreaker, Orik, Hrothgar's emissary," Harry breathed heavily, sagging in his chair. As they watched, runes burnt themselves into the haft labeling the weapon as such. The orange diamond gained an inner fire which danced about mesmerizingly. "So long as the tree in the grove lives, this weapon will never break. When holstered, it becomes dull and safe so you do not cut or burn yourself. But when you draw it, the blade burns red hot. It is so sharp and strong it will cut through weapons, armor, and men alike with ease. It will never dull, never cool, never rust, never scratch. I have bound it to your blood. Only those related to you will ever be able to wield it to its fullest, and it will persist long after you have passed, for your children, your children's children, their children, and so forth."

Orik accepted the weapon with shaking hands. "I am in your debt, Ascudaruna."

"Ascudaruna?"

"Blessed steel. It seemed appropriate."

Harry smiled. "It's a name I will wear among the dwarves proudly."

Ajihad had not bothered assigning Harry sleeping quarters after seeing the inside of his tent. Instead, he offered a rather large empty room with colossal doors. It suited his needs just fine and he pitched his tent in the corner. During the day, he and Orik worked on either food delivery or some other project of the whole slew Ajihad had assigned.

This morning Orik entered the room with a summons from the man. The dwarf by now had grown familiar with operating the silos and enchanted crates and had no trouble going about loading the wagons alone while Harry left.

Meanwhile, Harry strode purposefully down the quarried halls to a familiar destination. Ajihad had asked to see him twice more since the first meeting, both times to discuss logistics and to present orders for weaponry. Both he and Harry kept track of what was made and delivered, and the dark skinned man left a standing order to pay for the items delivered should Harry wish.

Harry nodded to the guards outside Ajihad's office and pushed them open. "Good morning Ajihad." He spotted another person in the office. "And Angela. How are you?"

"Well, thank you," he greeted. "I called you here today because you told me with Angela's expertise and assistance, you could provide medicine for the Varden. Does this hold true?" Harry nodded. "Very well. Then I am assigning you two to produce whatever sorts of medical aid you can for the next week. Harry, your weapons are the best the Varden can get their hands on, but they are not necessarily crucial. Your and Angela's medical expertise are invaluable to us. Aside from some rather novice healers and Du Vrangr Gata, we have no effective way to render aid to the wounded or ill. If you provide a list of ingredients, we will do our best to procure them. That is all."

Angela nodded her assent. "Du Vrangr Gata, this name keeps coming up. Would you mind explaining to me what they're all about?" Harry asked.

Ajihad sighed and massaged his temples. "A headache is what they are. They are, for lack of a better term, the Varden's magicians. I think they might be better described as backstabbing power-hungry vipers. When magicians began to filter into our organization, they demanded they not be beholden to us and as such, they are technically not part of the Varden, but we feed, clothe, and arm them, which makes them somewhat beholden to us. They are currently headed by a sorceress named Trianna. If you wish to meet with them, I can set something up."

Harry pondered that for a moment. "Please do. My mother tongue was the ancient language, and I'm a rather accomplished magic user with some experience teaching." Harry nodded sharply. "That is what I ask of you for my aid. I wish to lead Du Vrangr Gata. If I'm right, they're rather pathetic and not overly useful now, but I'd like the opportunity to change that."

He waved his hand in the air tiredly. "Fine. I'll let Trianna know. However, you will have to solidify your leadership with them. Some are not above undermining you to usurp your position." Ajihad smiled wryly. "Good luck."

Angela trotted beside Harry back to the room he'd been given. "Are you as eager as I am to begin?" she asked animatedly. "I've rarely even seen some of the ingredients you have on hand. Assuming you got all my clippings to grow, we will have access to just about every component imaginable with which to brew. Ajihad gave you a blank cheque to order whatever you're missing, and we only need a bit since you can grow them so fast. My, it's all so exciting."

Harry smiled at her enthusiasm. She was like Hermione or Neville in her chosen field; boundless enthusiasm and curiosity. "I did not lose any of your clippings and by now I imagine I've stockpiled quite a bit." He greeted a sweating and swearing Orik who was heaving a crate over an empty wagon. Holding open the flap of his tent, Harry ushered Angela inside.

"How polite of you," she remarked. "Unfortunately, I think I'm a little old for you." Harry smiled.

"Manners maketh man," he quoted. Angela's eyes sparkled.

"Is that a quote? Whatever from?"

Harry cackled. "You read my mind, what do you think?"

She bobbed her head in agreement. "Yes, but I hardly extracted every smidgen of knowledge from your cranium. Just the interesting bits. It rings a bell, though. One of those moving plays?"

"The Kingsman," Harry agreed. "Smashing movie, really. Once I crack the technique to make pensieves, I'll surely record that one."

"I look forward to it."

Angela made to clear away some tables to set up a sort of brewery, but Harry forestalled her. "I think an operation of the scale I'm thinking of will call for a new room." He traced a large rectangle on a blank space of wall near the brewing section and spoke some unfamiliar words, making a sort of pushing motion with his hands. The wall behind the traced area fell away dizzyingly. Harry repeated the process thrice more from the inside to push the side walls and roof away. "This next bit is something you ought to keep in mind, Angela. My Potions professor at Hogwarts did not deal with fumes or drainage properly and so had extremely greasy hair."

She watched Harry carefully expand the floor into gentle slopes with small drains in the middle. "Plumbing is childsplay when you can vanish stuff and conjure water. I just popped a vanishing enchantment on the area below the drains so anything which enters them gets unmade. Vanishing charms are also good for ventilation. I've set up the same sloping system for the ceiling and vanish everything which enters the vent. It's also important to remember to add fresh air or in this case, oxygen." He formed vents in the walls which blew out breathable air.

"Normally, I'd cheat with the furniture and just conjure it, but we're making delicate potions here, so it's worth the effort to sing some tables out of a tree." He brought them to the grove. It took several minutes but eventually Harry had accumulated a box full of tiny shrunken tables and chairs. "Glassware is a bit more tricky. In order to make it properly, something I actually haven't done yet, we need to get our hands on limestone, soda ash, and sand. Luckily, I've already come across both limestone and sand."

"I know where you've encountered sand, but I don't remember where you got limestone," she remarked. Harry pointed at the large blocks which composed the forge. "Ah, outside Dras-Leona. Do you have enough or do you intend to fly all the way back there?"

"Neither," Harry grinned. He picked up a shrunken box and a pair of cylinders Angela recognized as a silo like he'd used for storing food. "Soda ash will be the most difficult to find but according to a glassblower's journal, it is abundant in evaporated lake beds, something which should be possible to find around the Hadarac as well as sand." He looped his arm around Angela and twisted.

The world blinked back into focus with a muted pop. The abrupt change in temperature and humidity hit them like an open furnace. Angela sputtered. "Wh-what did you do? How did you do this?"

"It's a skill called apparition. Do you remember my lessons?" Her eyes unfocused as she cast her mind back.

"Vaguely. You paid little attention. Destination, Determination, Deliberation, was it?" Harry nodded.

"Don't try it right now though. I'm willing to teach you, but only if you take proper precautions. Remember what happened to Susan Bones?" Angela shivered in the hundred-degree heat.

"Splinching. What a cheery term," she remarked. "Can we get on with this? I was quite happy to have avoided this accursed desert the first time. I'm afraid I don't love the idea of lingering here."

Harry nodded and placed the shrunken silo sideways on the sand. It expanded violently with a whump as it displaced the sand beneath. He opened the top to reveal a pitch black cavern which even the daylight could not penetrate. It was as if the circle of metal opened directly into the void. He produced two brooms and tossed one to Angela, setting up ropes to the sides of the silo which led to the brooms. "Hop on, we'll drag the thing until it's full!"

Angela mounted her broom and they awkwardly coordinated their flying until it became habit. Mercifully, Harry cast cooling charms and a sand ward upon them both, for it took hours of dragging the silo before the resistance on the brooms abruptly increased, signaling its fullness. He screwed the top back on and shrunk the silo once more, placing it in his pocket.

He looped his arm around Angela once more and they twisted through space. Harry arrived well outside of Dras-Leona, near where their tent had been pitched. "The bedrock here is limestone. We need to excavate a bit of dirt to reach it." He gestured with his wand. "Defodio!"

The dirt was blasted away as if bombed–an action which unfortunately made rather a lot of noise. "The clock is against us here, Angela. I don't know what Dras-Leona's response time is, but I figure it would be bad for our health to find out." That was a sentiment the herbalist could get behind.

A circle of bare limestone bedrock had been unearthed, nearly a hundred feet in radius. Harry had probably overdone it, but he could always backfill the thing with water to quickly cover his tracks. An enormous Reductor curse dusted the whole of the visible bedrock down many dozens of feet. Now the bedrock resembled sand from the Hadarac desert. Harry withdrew the second silo and unscrewed the cap once more. Rather than drag it along behind broomsticks, Harry positioned its angular bottom towards the center of the enormous circle, drew heavily on his magic, and shouted "Descendio!"

The metal cylinder was off like a rocket, plunging straight through the sand like water. The compressing force packed the sand into a visible tube which trailed off into darkness. "Stand well back," Harry advised. He helped Angela out of the crater and clambered up before they both mounted brooms and hovered over the sand. The dark shaft had crumbled inwards and fell directly into the hungry mouth of the expanded silo. Sand fell into it at the rate of gravity and then some since Harry had set the silo to automatically vanish any air above one bar. No backwash meant no bubbling and very quickly a sand vortex began to form. Angela stayed to watch the sand level visibly sink while Harry tossed his invisibility cloak over him and flew up to watch and wait for Dras-Leona's response.

It was not long in coming. An hour later, a column of soldiers began to ride rather slowly through the forested terrain towards the sand lake. The level had dropped already dozens of feet, yet showed no signs of abating. The soldiers had eaten up half the distance between them when the sand stopped rising. What used to be a crater was now a gaping maw in the earth several hundred feet down. The sand at the bottom settled when the silo filled.

"Accio silo!" Harry called down. With a ponderous tug, the cylinder began to fly upwards. It breached the layer of sediment, flinging sand everywhere as it shot up like a silver bullet. "Reducio," he called. The container shrank as it rose and when it reached Harry's hand, he snatched the tiny thing out of the air like a silver snitch.

Harry needed to cover his tracks. He didn't want to advertise is power quite so blatantly as a league-deep sinkhole would. The best way would be to fill it in with dirt and such, but he didn't have the time. Oh well. "Aquamenti!"

He chose to use the Elder wand for that particular task since it lent itself to overwhelming power and zero precision. Angela watched in bemusement as millions of gallons of water blasted from the dark length of wood like a thousand fire hoses on full blast. Despite the rather ludicrous output the Elder wand was churning out, it still took an exhausting two hours for the entire thing to fill. By the time he finished, the sun was setting.

Tearing the wand away from its task and ending the spell, Harry sagged on his broom. "One more ingredient to go," he joked. "Let's hope soda ash is far away from the Empire." Angela looked concerned enough that Harry worried she might try to call it a night, but thankfully she recognized the determined gleam in his eyes and held her piece.

"Point me, trona ore."

The Elder wand did not bother spinning like other plebian sticks which liked to play pretend at being a wand. No, the Elder wand did its job and did it well. It instantly snapped eastwards. "Here's to hoping this stuff's well beyond the Hadarac," he gasped. "You ready?" Angela nodded. "Let us be off!"

Harry accelerated away from her at such a speed it robbed her of her breath. Angela threw herself forward on the unfamiliar broomstick. She began to speed up fast, faster than she'd ever gone, faster even than when she crossed the Hadarac on Arya's tail. Wind tore at her face, not old but not quite young, it had taken her quite a while to figure out how to arrest her aging. She climbed higher and ever faster. Just when it felt like the wind would surely throw her from the broom, the wards snapped in place. The gusts of air went from violent to dead still.

The g-forces from even nudging her broom off course threw her about until she managed to tame the wild beast that was the broomstick. The diamond in the handle burned with white fire, pumping out energy to power the overloaded flight charms. Angela squinted to pick out Harry's form in the sky ahead of her. There! The white of his t-shirt and the blue of his jeans were not easy to spot on the lightly clouded sky. Leaning further forward, Angela sped up to draw level with him.

She tried to shout out to him, but the winds tore the words away as soon as they left the ward. "How are you doing?" Harry's voice emanated into her mind.

"Thrilling beyond anything I have experienced in my rather long life."

Harry smiled. "Keep up." The wizard flattened himself along the broom. Instantly, he shot ahead even faster. It baffled Angela that these flying machines could eke out even more speed, but she would not be lost for unwillingness to push the thing to its limit. She noticed a strange tugging feeling at the rear of her broom and glanced back. A misty white warped disc revealed a shockwave emanating from the vehicle. Glancing ahead, she found Harry leaving a similar trail.

The ground below stretched, then warped, then blurred, racing behind like a master of sleight-of-hand, yanking a tablecloth from beneath its plates and cups. It took naught but minutes before they had blasted past Dras-Leona and Uru'baen alike. The blurred green below flashed to the tan of the dune sea in a blink. Angela finally pulled level with Harry again. "How fast are we going!?"

The wizard grinned maniacally back at her. "We're crossing 2000mph now." His words shook Angela, completely unrelated to the relentless tugging of the drag forces against her broom tail. Somehow, he dragged the last dregs of speed up to his broom and accelerated further. She noticed with surprise that tongues of flame began to streak around his broom, curving along the boundary of the wind ward. The wizard continued to accelerate until he was nearly obscured, splitting the sky like a comet in his tremendous speed.

They began to curve slightly, likely following his wand's direction. When Angela glanced down she was shocked to find green instead of tan. "The Endless Plains!?"

"I'm just following magic. It's leading us over there. Do you see it?"

Angela did see it. 'It' was an enormous field of white. At first she thought it was snow, but as they grew closer, the more she doubted her initial assessment. When Harry began to slow and descend, She followed.

It was like nothing she'd ever seen before. As if the gods themselves shattered the earth, dark cracks snaked across formless white salt. When they touched down, the terrain was all she could see to the edge of her rather impressive eyesight. Harry sidled up to her, chest heaving. "This kind of terrain is called 'salt flats,'" he said. "Comes," he gasped, "from lakes or oceans, evaporating."

"Where's the stuff we need? Soda ash." Harry spread his arms like a benevolent dictator claiming his land.

"Everywhere."

They worked well into the night. The salt was not overly deep, something which forced Harry to pry up great strips about a dozen feet deep and slide them into the massively engorged box. The space inside was even larger than the huge exterior. Organizing each strip starting at the back was difficult and taxing work, requiring just enough concentration to prevent the task from being mindless, yet still unbelievably boring and repetitive.

When the last piece was slotted in place. Harry nearly collapsed. "You opposed to camping out tonight? Don't really want to risk apparating this tired, nor this far." He arranged himself to lay facing up at the stars. The skylights were great, but there was no doubt there was something missing about camping outdoors. The kiss of the cool evening breeze on his skin, the full, unimpeded view of the stars. It was truly a sight to behold. Angela joined him wordlessly, lying on the ground and gazing upon the heavenly firmament arrayed out before them.

"You know, where I'm from, it's impossible to see the sky like this? The term was light pollution. Street lights, home lights, apartments, floodlights, beacons, they all blasted photons into the atmosphere and scattered. If you looked up in a big stadium with the floodlights blasting, the sky above would look a sort of faded purple."

Angela sighed. "Everything has a cost, Harry. You may have found it harder to stargaze, but there is a certain beauty in the shining night lights of London. And you can take pride that it was your people who built it. God has gifted us this view. It makes it no less precious, but it lacks the satisfaction of knowing your blood, sweat, and tears went into it. Be proud, Harry. Not even Tronjheim or Doru Areba can compare to your world's cities."

"I nearly forgot you plundered my mind for every secret it held," Harry said sourly. "Why didn't you just look at the relevant memories?"

Angela laid her head facing him, smiling sadly. "This age is not kind, Harry. There is no better way to get the measure of a man than to walk a mile in his shoes. I walked many miles in your shoes. The Varden cannot afford to be infiltrated-" Harry cleared his throat pointedly. "Yes, well, look at the damage they caused. The Varden was months out from starving, under armed, and now there's an invasion coming. It's been their policy for decades to examine the minds of every newcomer. The twins were even more invasive than I was–I've poked at the minds of the newly inspected out of curiosity. I make no excuses, I merely wish to let you know that I will likely be asked to do the same to Eragon. It's not personal."

"Who examined your mind?"

Angela laughed. "I've been around the Varden enough that they know what foolishness it would be to try. They've accepted me long ago, Ajihad would hardly start doubting me now."

"Are you willing to let me into your mind?" Harry stared into her eyes, challenging.

"I would." She nearly whispered it, and for the first time, Harry saw the normally unflappable herbalist look a bit nervous. He extended his mind slightly, and found that Angela's presence was unguarded.

Harry slipped into her mind gently and glanced around. She made no effort to hide anything from him, but her presence was so vast. Centuries upon centuries of knowledge and experience in front of him. He could taste her mental flavour, her personality. She was an intensely private person, she had a thirst for learning and discovery, and she wanted to be near the nexus of change in the world.

He withdrew without examining any memories, and felt Angela's surprise. "You do not want to look through my mind?" Harry shook his head sedately.

"That you offered is enough for me. Even if you don't feel guilty for invading my mind, I forgive you, Angela." Her shoulders loosened minutely.

"Thank you. I shudder to think of what you'd do with all my wisdom."

"Old people are wise," Harry agreed sagely. Angela flopped a hand over and pinched him lightly.

"I have no doubt you will grow older than me one day, Master of Death. That is not a title given lightly. One day, you will be a starstrider, flying through the night sky, beyond even the death of your sun. My days are numbered. If not in decades or centuries, certainly in millenia. When our sun grows great and red, not even eternal youth will save us. And there is no guarantee I will reach that age. All it takes is one foolish footsoldier to put a blade in me, and my dreams will be quenched in the waters of realism."

"Life is precious," Harry agreed.

The salt flats were silent except for the gentle rush of the breeze.

"Fragile, too," he mused. "You saw what came of one man's lust for power and desire to break the chains of fate. I wish Eragon hadn't bound himself so."

"You warned him."

"I did warn him," he agreed.

A comet drifted across the black backdrop of the universe.

"I'd like to leave the planet, someday," Angela confided.

"Yes, me too."

"Before I met you, it was a fanciful dream. No dragon could fly high enough. Yet your people have already done it, and without aid of magic. It gives me hope. Hope for the time after this accursed war, a squabble which seems so insignificant compared to the grandeur of the universe."

"Before I met you," Harry smiled, "I thought only Luna would be as mystifying and endearing as Luna." He sobered. "I agree with you. Galbatorix is stupid, and this war is stupid. It's a choice I struggle with every day."

"What choice is that?"

"To just go and kill him. I could wear Death's cloak, swan through his every ward, and fire a killing curse in his back."

"What stops you?" Angela asked curiously.

"Something someone said to me in heaven recently. He said 'Revolution has a price exacted in blood. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.' If I solve everyone's problems, what's to stop the next tyrant? It is the nature of man to grasp for that which he does not have." Harry paused for a moment, marshalling his thoughts, eyes tracing unfamiliar constellations. "I would never trade that endless ambition for anything, though."

"Why not?"

"Ambition is what drove man to walk on the moon. The United States was at war with the Soviet Union and yet they said 'not enough.' It's not enough to beat the commies into the dirt. It's not enough to win the war. They had their sights set on the stars, and nothing would deny them.

"Man is not good, man has vices, greed, cruelty, sin. Man is great. Man is never satisfied, driven to learn, to grow, to improve. Man will never settle, not even for perfection. Man will always grasp at that which is just out of their reach." Harry finished passionately. "I will walk the moon. I will not be told otherwise. Just as I have every faith that you will, too. The Varden is going to beat this stupid Urgal invasion, rally their troops, and march on the king because cowering under a mountain is not enough. Waiting for a tyrant to die is not enough.

Anything less than justice for the dragons and justice for Alagaesia is not enough. That is why I will not murder the king in the dark from underneath Death's own cloak. It is this country's time to prove itself before the gods and themselves."

Angela had no words, and so she did not speak.

Harry yawned and stretched languidly. Dawn crept ever closer, washing out the stars first with a dull grey. He shook Angela's shoulder gently. The herbalist woke up. They did not speak, rather standing silently and watching the eastern horizon. Even as the breeze ruffled their hair, neither moved nor spoke. A ribbon of orange emerged from the horizon, softly illuminating the salt flats. The ribbon thickened into a glorious conflagration of sunlight, as if the very sky was on fire, glowing orange like metal in the forge.

Yellowed rays of brilliant light shot forth from the horizon, lighting up the flats bright white and casting titanic shadows behind the pair as they stood solemnly in the sunlight. When the sun had well and truly risen, emerging gloriously from its earthen shroud to herald another day, Harry packed up. He shrunk and pocketed the box, vanished the bedrolls, and shouldered his pack. "Are you ready?"

Angela looped her arm around his with a curious look. "Do you think we'll arrive in time to see the sunrise again?" Harry pondered it, doing some quick sums in his mind.

"The sun might still be beneath the horizon. Let us hurry and find out." He spun about his heel and dragged Angela with him, all the way back to the Hadarac desert, right at the mouth of Beartooth valley. Sure enough, the blazing disc of fire was only just beginning to peek out over the dunes. "Few enough people get to see two sunrises in a day. Let's cherish the experience."

Orik grumbled and heaved another box over his shoulder, filled well past the brim with potatoes, and tromped over to the wagon. We'll not even be gone the day, he thought mockingly. Why did he have to be the dwarf entrusted with the wizard's secrets?

He ran a digit over the gorgeous face of Dawnbreaker as he often did when Harry became too infuriating to work with for some reason or another. "That's the lot of 'em," Orik called out in Dwarvish to the group of wagon drivers, came to collect another day's shipment. He heard someone call back to him but ignored them in favor of sinking into a chair and braiding his beard with exhausted fingers.

Crack!

Orik did not look up, did not remove his fingers from his beard. "Back again, Ascudaruna? And right after I finished packing the shipment," he groused. The dwarf was familiar enough by now with the sound of 'apparition,' a skill which Harry used to move anywhere he did not feel like letting his legs take him. Orik had never felt envious of magicians, using the strange language of elves to shape and change the world without their hands. But he'd admit, he shed a manly–dwarvenly–tear at the thought of being able to go places without walking or riding to them.

Angela was with him this time, a minor surprise. "Success!" he crowed triumphantly, withdrawing three tiny baubles on his palm proudly. Orik gave them an unimpressed look. "Ye of little faith," Harry rolled his eyes and entered the tent. They both followed him, Orik mostly out of idle curiosity. The wizard set out his baubles in the middle of the empty floor space and ended the shrinking charms. They billowed up into great big silos and an even larger box, so big they dominated even the aircraft-hangar-sized room's expansive floor space.

"None of those would take a day to fill, even without magic," he snarked.

Harry rolled his eyes again, harder this time, and with more meaning behind them. You're an idiot, they seemed to say to Orik. "The inside is crazy expanded, like practically the same as the freakin' mountain range I crammed into this little tent. Don't doubt me, little man."

Orik scowled. Harry only called him that because he knew he hated it. "So, what? You've got a bunch of fancy sand."

He snorted. "If your humor was half as high as your head, maybe someone, somewhere, might laugh at one of your 'jokes,'" he made air quotes.

"I don't aspire to be a jester, fool. And I mean fool in the most literal sense of the word."

Angela laughed loudly. "Come, show us how you will turn this stuff into quote, 'the best damned glass you medieval hicks have ever seen.'"

Harry waved them off. "I'll have something rigged up by lunchtime, a time in which I expect lunch to be delivered for my efforts. I just flew all the way across the known world and then half again. I exhausted the pre-cooked meals in my stasis bag."

"Oh, to be relegated to a servant," Orik lamented. "How ever could this happen to a dwarf of my stature?"

"Your stature is three feet."

"Drats! Wounded again!"

Orik grumped his way out of Tronjheim's kitchens, a great platter of food balancing on one hand. Why did he have to argue and barter so hard to get a plate of food when as far as the dwarves knew, he was the one the unending stream of food flowed from? And now he had to walk with the victuals all the way across the breadth of Farthen Dur to reach the wizard's cramped hidey-hole. The man hadn't even seen Isidar Mithrim! Over a week into his stay at Hrothgar's hospitality, and he hadn't beheld the crowning jewel of dwarvish achievement.

His feet were getting sore from all this blasted walking. On the bright side, Hvedra would surely appreciate the muscles he was putting on lifting crates of food every day. Orik reached the great doors and shoved one open with his free hand. Good ol' dwarven engineering, he noted proudly as the massive slab swung open silently on perfectly balanced and oiled hinges. He threw aside the tent flaps and navigated the steps meant for men with much longer strides than him and crossed the floor.

A new door had appeared in the wall one which rather uncharacteristically led to a corridor with more doors. Harry wasn't in the main room, but fortunately, he wasn't all that hard to locate. Orik just followed the crashing sounds and muffled cursing. Down the new corridor and into the first door on the left. It was massive as was custom, and all sorts of enormous hoppers, tanks, basins, and filters rested in different spots on the floor, foot-thick tubes snaking around connecting them in some unknowable order. Harry's feet stuck out from under a tank, inches off the floor.

The wizard must have heard Orik's metal-shod shoes clomping in because he slid out on some sort of low scooter. "Orik!" he said brightly. "You brought my food!" Harry sat on the wheeled contraption and scooted over in a rather undignified manner, reaching only slightly upward to snatch the platter from him. He took a bite of steak and spat it out.

"This shit's cold! What did you do, crawl from the kitchens? Jesus, Orik. If you broke your leg, all you gotta do is tell me!" The dwarf waited until Harry held the platter in only one hand, then gave one side a gentle push. The thing toppled over on the stupid wizard's face.

Orik held in his smile and left Harry sputtering indignantly. Sometimes, Life was good.

"Ladies and gentlemen–sorry, lady and gentledwarf, I present to thee, the 'Glassinator!'"
Harry swept his arms proudly at his newest creation. Angela was trying rather futilely to trace the contraption's many tubes and cables with her eyes. Orik had forgone even trying to make sense of the thing and instead looked at it blankly. "I can see you will be requiring a guided tour," he amended.

Harry led them to the beginning, a huge hopper which led into a glass box. The box had two rotating corkscrew blades with spikes all over them. "This is the grinder. Trona–the stuff we got from the salt flats–goes in here and gets ground up into itty bitty pieces. That stuff goes into these 'rotary calciners' which also heat the stuff, turning it into raw soda ash." He traced out a route which dumped the lumpy dust into a vat of water. "The ash goes into this big ass tank which dissolves the water-soluble stuff–namely, soda ash. Everything else is trash which gets filtered out the bottom of the tank, stuff like slate, rock, pebbles, etc. I started a new policy where instead of vanishing everything the moment it's not useful, I actually just hoard it like a filthy little hoarder in expanded boxes and silos, so all that filtered trash gets kept now."

He pointed at a box labeled 'Soda Ash Trash' proudly, like a kindergartener showing their teacher half of a bug they saved for the teacher to snack on. "The soda-y water gets distilled into crystals which get washed and then fired in a kiln. That stuff is the stuff I'm actually after; pure soda ash." Harry indicated a silo labeled 'Pure Soda Ash.'

"Moving down the line, this is where the actual glass making starts. These hoppers and scoops mix the sand, soda ash, and limestone powder in the proper ratio, very roughly eight parts in ten sand, one soda ash, one limestone. Which is good, since getting sand was by far the easiest." Harry indicated a furnace which was lit by a furious white glare. "Phoenix fire fuels the furnace, so it needs no fuel, no maintenance, and as an additional plus, the inherent purity of phoenix flame helps purge any leftover impurities in the mixture. I've yet to see a bubble, crack, or spot in the end product. The furnace is a few thousand degrees, four thousand last I measured. The stuff is mixed in the furnace, homogenized into pure molten glass. It emerges as this gooey syrupy stuff," He pointed out a sheet of clear orange glass sludge.

"Next is annealing." Harry showed off a long limestone trough filled with a yellowed molten metal. "Tin has a pretty low melting point which is why it's used for this. In order for the glass to come out perfect, the stress on it from the melting has to be released slowly, slowly enough that bubbles and cracks don't form. The tin's temperature is magically managed so it gets cooler the further down the line." A long ribbon of flat glass rolled along. At the end, a sharp glass cutter sheared off twenty foot lengths which were caught by magic and carefully lowered into an endless box sized exactly for the length and width of the glass sheets that came off the belt. Each pane was perfectly clear.

Orik whistled. "This is the best, clearest glass I've ever seen. Surdan nobles would pay an arm and a leg to get their hands on this stuff."

Harry waved dismissively. "I don't care if this stuff stays a secret. You're free to tell Hrothgar how to make it, and he can enjoy ripping the gullible idiots–I mean nobles–off."

"How do you intend to turn sheets into glassware?" Angela interjected. Harry's eyes sparkled.

"I found out how to link two boxes to each other, so they share the same inside!" Harry shouted over the roaring white flame. He pulled out a metal rod with a blob of glass on the end and released a pedal, the semicircular doors snapping shut and silencing the fire. "It was weird, though. Space expansion is like stretching something out, like pizza dough or something. Pretty easy, you can rather blatantly force it and it just gets bigger, requires zero subtlety or skill. Linking them is like pinching space, interposing two zones on each other. Damn convenient, though," he remarked.

"This thing's called a gloryhole, and get your mind out of the gutter, Orik, it's not that kind. Pervert. Glassblowers use it to heat up a blob of glass on the end of a metal tube. Skillful manipulation of the rod using tools like tongs, tweezers, moulds, and outright gravity all help in shaping glassware. To be honest, it's loads easier to just transfigure the stuff, but effort like this always gets rewarded on the other end. The ones I make here are going to hold much more powerful enchantments." Angela watched in fascination as Harry twirled out an Erlenmyer flask and used a sort of shears to drop the glass onto a table. Some enchantment caught the piece and lowered it slowly so it didn't shatter.

Harry sighed. "Back home, they had great big machines for every piece of glassware imaginable. Either they'd be forced to cast it, or they'd have metal stamps press out the interior. That way, they could ensure every piece was the same so the units of measurements were accurate. Here, unless I want to make a dedicated machine for each instrument, I'll stick with transfiguring the final product to fit the specs it should."

Angela ran her hands over the many varied glass containers. "You learned how to glass blow like this so soon? It looks like a skillful art."

"Sort of. Tools, weapons, items in general all have a sort of soul to them. I found this rod," Harry shook the long metal tube, "in the vault of my ancestors. The impressions of all the work they did are present in this tool. I've been practicing bringing those echoes up to the surface, letting them guide my hands until the skills are ingrained in my own mind as well. I used this technique for a lot of things. The hammer I use for smithing belonged to an ancestor, I purchased my tannery tools from a man named Gedric back in Carvahall, and most usefully, I employed the same technique on this." A slim, dark wand with knobbles down the length was in his hand, gripped delicately with his fingers. Angela glanced at it and placed the item in his own memories.

"Well, that's one way to do things, I suppose."

He nodded. "I've honed my archery skill so much with a gifted bow that I surpassed the previous wielder, and so I plan to make a new bow. Whenever I master a craft, I'll make my own tools using that knowledge as a symbol of mastery. That I don't need to borrow my ancestors' skills anymore."

"A good plan," Orik rumbled.

The last bit of prep they had to finish was the cauldrons themselves. Harry whipped up some fireproof gloves and an apron, and proved to the entire world that he was a complete idiot.

"What are you doing!?" Arya shouted in his ear. Harry startled and jolted his hand, causing him to ruin his current cauldron. To pay homage to his family name, Harry had constructed a potter's wheel with a spicy twist; it was designed to work with red hot metal. Currently, red hot pewter was spinning beneath his guiding hand, finishing the lip on his next cauldron–at least, that is, until Arya came in and ruined it all. "You idiot! What would possess you to fling molten metal about? You could kill yourself. I doubt you know how to make alchemic heads!"

"Merlin, Arya! Look, I've got it down already. It only took," he unwound a long strip of linen from his arm and counted. "–one, two, three…Twelve burns!" Arya raked her fingers through her hair.

"Harry, people care about you. I care about you. Please try to contain your recklessness to 'high chance of death,' rather than 'deliberately suicidal.'" Arya pleaded. "You're worth more than just the Varden's greengrocer."

Harry rolled his eyes but paused his spinning. "I'm wearing a fireproof pair of gloves and an apron. I was pretty careful the first few times. Look." He gestured towards a table with rows upon rows of cauldrons of every metal, size, and style. "Believe it or not, this is far from the dumbest shit I've done."

Arya planted her hands on her very nice hips. "Is that supposed to reassure me?"

Harry's gaze was drawn to her hands, and where they were. "Uh…" Arya sighed indignantly, looked away, and pinched him. "Ow!" he yelped. "No?"

"That's right, no. Come on, I've been sent to deliver a summons. Ajihad asked for you."

"Harry Potter, come in," Ajihad welcomed him. "I heard from Angela about your excursion beyond the Endless Plains. Congratulations are in order!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Thanks, it took like four hours."

"All the more impressive, then."

"What did you need me for?" he sighed.

"Ah, right." The man shuffled some parchment on his desk and cleared his throat. "Though I received some pushback–" A female voice of outrage emanated from behind Harry, "you're the new head of Du Vrangr Gata."

Harry turned to look at the source of the noise. A dark haired fair skinned woman, beautiful by any human standards. She wore rather provocative clothing and an array of tasteful jewelry, though the piece that caught his eye was a serpent bracelet with eyes of gems. "Trianna, presumably?"

"Yes," she said sourly. "Usurper, presumably?"

Harry groaned. The last thing he needed was to keep a drama queen in line. "Harry Potter, at your service." He flashed his best Lockhart smile at her. By the way the woman recoiled, it was a rather poor imitation.

"What makes you think you are worthy to lead us? I have been the leader of Du Vrangr Gata for years, a member even longer. If you think I'm just going to roll over like a dog and take it–"

"Please," Ajihad interrupted. "Take this discussion elsewhere. I'm afraid my schedule is rather full today."

Trianna sighed angrily, then flounced out the door. Harry shot the man a desperate look, but Ajihad only grinned innocently.

"Trianna!" He called after her. "Where do you guys all meet?"

"Why, so you can undermine me in front of my peers?" she shot back.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Are you always this difficult? Wait, no. Don't answer that. I'll get nightmares." The woman did not stop flouncing away, showing a rather remarkable flouncing endurance. Rarely had Harry seen someone flounce for any longer than it took to exit the room they were in. He sighed heavily. "Letta."

The sorceress froze mid-step. "Kausta." she slid down the polished floor towards him. "Trianna, I'm not trying to take over Du Vrangr Gata as some sort of petty powerplay. I want to teach you, something which will not be received well If I am just some snot-nosed midget recruit. I have a lot of experience using magic, I'd venture even more than you, and I'd like to help the Varden by helping you. Now I will ask again, where do you guys meet?"

Trianna's eyes held fear, but by the end of his speech, they regained a spark of defiance. Harry released her with a gesture and tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for an answer. "Fine," she growled out. The woman rattled off a set of directions as fast as her tongue allowed, perhaps in the petty and spiteful hope that Harry would misremember them and let her continue to herd the sheep.

"Shall we?" Harry clasped her hand. "Lead the way."

The sorceress reluctantly led Harry down a dizzying set of twists and turns, skirting around a half circle which went up and down several long flights of stairs. They finally came across an empty hall which she confidently led him down before knocking thrice on a blank stretch of stone and speaking a strange word. The wall shimmered and disappeared, revealing a brightly lit cavernous room with luxurious furniture, shelves of books, and mystical baubles everywhere. A hearth cracked away, its light augmented by more flameless lanterns which cast the whole room in that characteristic orange light that was so prevalent in underground dwarven dwellings. The whole affair reminded Harry rather uncomfortably with Trelawney's tower; filled with important-looking but actually useless trash.

Eight other people were present in the room. Three were huddled over a piece of parchment spread on a circular table, scribbling with quills in hand. One middle aged man lounged comfortably on a plush chair with a leather bound tome in his lap. The other two were paired off, each casting strange and rather useless spells, like floating some purpled glass ball in a circle so it caught the light just so.

"This is all of them?" Harry asked. Trianna shook her head, black curls bobbing.

"Nay. There are twelve others. Rarely do our duties to the Varden allow us free time, this is merely where we spend it, exploring the higher mysteries. The only time all of us are present is for full meetings."

"Can you describe their skills?"

"Trianna pointed at each one in turn. "Carn," she indicated the man in the armchair, whose head popped up at the mention of his name, "is rather weak strength-wise, but makes up for that by being exceedingly clever with his spells. Despite our limited vocabularies in the language of power, he has the most versatile skill set, able to use few words to accomplish much. Neyja," she indicated the woman crouched over the parchment, "was–is our best spy. She's very good at discretely entering the minds of others, and her stealth spells are the best of us. The twins used to be better, but they are no longer with us."

"Good riddance," someone chimed. Trianna scowled.

"That is Bargruuf, a capable yet straightforward combat magician. He is strong, but lacks creativity or ingenuity, the qualities required to make a good magician a great one. He was second only to the twins."

"Second only to the twins, I'm hearing this a lot," Harry commented. "What were their weaknesses?" The sorceress grimaced.

"They were no healers. You'd be better off dead than in their care. We never actually saw them try, but their nature precluded anything to do with growth, healing, anything good, actually."

"Hear hear," Carn chorused.

"I take it there has been no formalized education here?" Trianna nodded.

"We exchange knowledge, but rarely outside of even trade. Of the twelve who are gone, four are illiterate. I am the best among us in general," she stated proudly. "I am a sorceress, which means I have summoned and bound spirits for their power. The energy gained is only matched by the risk the practice holds. If a sorcerer loses control of the summoned spirits, the spirits possess them and they become shades."

Harry looked at her incredulously. "You're so weak you needed to risk becoming a shade for a little power?"

Trianna glared at him. "Not a little. A lot. Sorcery is one of if not the most powerful branches of magic. The power you can gain is immeasurable and I assure you, I did not take the act lightly."

"Right," he sighed. "How often do you have a full meeting?"

"The last of each month."

Harry mulled it over. "Okay, here's the plan. We need to be having these meetings ideally every day for a couple of hours, at least until everyone's up to speed. For now, I'll settle for every other day. Can you have everyone prepare a list of duties that would conflict with this?" Trianna nodded dumbly. "In the beginning it will look a bit like a classroom, but my hope is that at these meetings everyone will share their discoveries and such, bounce ideas off each other. Twenty magicians is not a lot, so let's make sure every one of us counts twice. Yes?"

He received a chorus of agreements. "Great. I'll swing by tomorrow after lunch for that list and hopefully find out a way to get those things done without consuming all our manpower. Then we can get started."

When he returned to his tent, Harry spun more cauldrons while mentally composing a first lesson plan. These people were medieval hicks which meant even the pathetically meagre measure of common knowledge he could rely on purebloods knowing was unavailable. He didn't fancy trying to hammer twentieth century science into a bunch of superstitious ninnies' heads for his first lesson, it had to be something which would wow them, validate his authority over them. He was also caught in the position of being forced to avoid teaching them any rider or elvish secrets like singing or any army-killers that he'd composed which he didn't want to lose control over by letting greedy and ambitious magicians know. A lot of what he heard from Trianna was that these people lacked the power to do anything useful. He really needed to get them to practice, stretch their reserves until they grew.

A few more cauldrons formed under Harry's hands before he grew bored and stopped. He already made way more than he could feasibly manage at once, even cheating outrageously with magic. Instead, he levitated the rows of cauldrons over to his new lab and set them out on the tables in rows.

Glassware of every shape and size was strewn about the tables, counters, and workspaces. Harry found Angela bent over an alembic next to a cutting board. Next to the board was a leather roll of knives unrolled on the counter, displaying dozens of wicked-sharp implements composed of every metal he could think of.

"How was the Path Wandering?" Angela asked with an impish smile.

"Wonderful," he sighed. "I can see exactly how they mistranslated their own name. Only one of them was worth anything, and I've just unseated and infuriated her. My work is cut out for me. What are you making?"

"I thought I'd try my hand at Skele-gro, first. It's not a recipe I'm familiar with and while we may have the flora to make it, I've had to use substitutions for nearly all the fauna. Do you have any clever ideas to get your hands on those ingredients?"

Harry scratched his head in thought. "We have access to basilisk and phoenix parts, some of the most potent ingredients in existence. They're also diametrically opposed, so we should get a good range of reagents from whatever samples Hedwig and Blinky can be convinced to part with. I've kept all their shed feathers, skin, venom, tears, and collected a bit of each one's blood, but I really don't want to be cutting up my companions for brews. Lets keep the ingredients to waste.

"Besides that, I know of ways to create Ashwinders, more basilisks–actually, that's about it. We can see if Saphira is willing to part with some scales or blood when she gets here, but I wouldn't rely on it. Cloning was a growing field back home, I wonder if I can extract any DNA samples from whatever parts are lying around…" Harry mused.

"Ashwinders and basilisks?" Angela asked.

"Ashwinders spawn from magical flame. If I set up a bit of Gubraithian fire, we should get a proper supply. Basilisks are just chicken eggs hatched beneath a toad. I just don't want to slaughter intelligent basilisks in front of Blinky. I'll put some effort into cloning and set up the requisite fire for now."

Arya knocked on the doorframe to the brewery. As with the days previous, Harry and Angela were hunched over their own cauldrons, diligently mixing, cutting, and stirring. A large set of six digits separated into pairs by colons ticked upwards with each passing second floated over the far wall. It chimed suddenly, and Harry quickly added in some strange ingredient. "Timer set seven minutes start," he rattled off.

A golden flame burned brightly in a glass cylinder, little red snakes slithering about the fire in contentment. Two rows of twenty four cauldrons ran down the center aisle, flanked by tables. Long countertops ran all the way down each side wall, interspersed with panels of drawers, cupboards, and cabinets. Red cutting boards were integrated with the countertop at even intervals, often next to glassware with little flames beneath them. Harry pointed at the spoon stirring the cauldron he had just added ingredients to and said "Stir." When he released the ladle with his other hand, the implement kept up its ceaseless cycles, clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise. Wiping his hands on a cloth, Harry greeted Arya. "Hello, Arya."

As she approached, he crossed to a sink and began thoroughly scrubbing his hands with soap that foamed and bubbled. "It has come to my attention that you have yet to see the splendour of Tronjheim. Would you like to take a break and explore it with me?" He dried his hands on a fluffy towel, but hesitated.

"I can handle your cauldrons," Angela called. "Go be a tourist."

"Brom and Eragon will be arriving soon," Arya informed. "The Varden's scouts have spotted them entering Beartooth valley." Harry tried to hide his surprise when she slipped a hand in his. "Do not be alarmed, but they are being chased by a host of Urgals. They will make it with little trouble and some time to spare should they hurry."

Harry moaned in frustration. He hated situations like these. If he went out and apparated them inside, he would tip their hand on one of if not the greatest advantages the Varden had. "ETA?" Arya frowned. "Estimated time of arrival?" He rolled his eyes.

"Our scouts put their distance at no more than a week. They cannot use a raft as you did with their horses, and the terrain is not favorable to mounted fighters. Horseback is only slightly faster than on foot in the valley." Skipping ahead with a powerful tug on his arm, Arya pulled him ahead rather impatiently. "Come on, the time for doom and gloom will come. Let us enjoy the splendour of the Dwarven kingdom."

Arya led them down an unfamiliar corridor, one grander even than the interminable one from Kostha Merna at the head of Beartooth Valley to Tronjheim. When she pulled Harry beyond a colossal archway, his breath was robbed. One of what had to be the largest mountains in the Beors was nearly completely hollow. The cavernous room stretched for miles and though he could easily see the other side, it made the place no less grand.

Craning his neck, Harry's heart beat faster at the sight of wicked hundreds-feet-long icicles which threatened to spear straight through the polished stone floor and anyone unlucky enough to have been standing under them at the time. The cavern roof tapered up narrowly, stretching beyond sight. "Is this place open to the air?" Harry asked in awe. "Surely someone's died by those icicles. What if they shatter?"

His elfin companion laughed, a happy sort of chiming of bells. "Harry, the dwarves would not live here if it were that easy to extinguish them. The largest ones have wards which hold them together. Though newly formed ones have been known to cleave a horse or two in half. And yes, it is open to the air. The chute is so high there is only direct sunlight for the noon hour, on the solstices when the sun is directly overhead. Else everyone would suffocate, would they not?" He supposed she was right.

"They must prevent suffocation in the corridors somehow, right? They're much too far to carry oxygen from here down its length."

"Indeed. The dwarves have discovered that plants make bad air good and so have their farms evenly placed along major hallways. Naught but mushrooms, fungus, and moss grow, but their chefs prepare them with great skill." Harry smiled. The food Orik had brought him certainly was delicious.

Lowering his gaze, Harry slowly took in everything in the cavernous room. Enormous carvings and scrollwork snaked across the floor, radiating from a centerpoint in the middle of the room. At each cardinal direction one of the colossal tunnels emerged, flanked by enormous pillars of marble, basalt, and gold, topped by great yellowed crystals which glowed by some spell. Everything in here was just big. If Harry hadn't already seen Doru Areba, he'd be tempted to call this the most impressive place he'd seen in Alagaesia. As it was, in his heart, nothing would ever surpass Hogwarts. The splendour of the riders' manse was incredible, but its ruined state just allowed Farthen Dur to surpass it.

"This is the center of Farthen Dur, the largest mountain in the Beors. Though you may think this is the most impressive view they have to offer, you would be mistaken," Arya said. "There are two others which we must see, though the second one will be difficult to get permission for. They are Tronjheim and Hrothgar's throne room. Come, I shall lead you to Tronjheim."

Every step Harry was aware of Arya's impossibly smooth and warm delicate fingers in his hand. The hand holding forced him to walk very close to her and he found that she smelled very pleasant; like pine forests or something. Her footfalls were much louder than his, for she was wearing boots and Harry sneakers. They echoed out along the sharp corners of the corridors as she led him down yet another path, this one rather direct and entirely within the enormous tunnels.

"This is the dwarves' crowning achievement, their race's great glory. I think you will agree that it is unmatched even among dwarvish architecture." Arya's eyes sparkled and she tugged him across a threshold. The cavern was similar in design and decor to the one they had just left, but much more richly appointed–something Harry had doubted was possible only minutes ago. Countless grand arches formed a sort of hollow wall which rose all the way to the top. "Look up," she beamed.

Harry's jaw fell open.

Above them both was the biggest red sapphire he had ever seen. Sixty feet in diameter, it was set in the ceiling above them, surrounded by a gilded collar. The craftsmanship was unbelievable. No, the size was unbelievable, the brilliance, shade, everything about it was surreal. With all his own transfiguration practice, Harry could never have approached making something like that. There were no crafts he could use to approach such beauty.

It glowed a soft red, like poinsettias petals. His breath caught in his throat as he stared. Arya had tilted her head back as well, an enraptured expression on her face. Carved into the likeness of an opened rose, the design was perfectly rendered, as if someone used the ancient language to eke out an image of its very soul and then worked tirelessly until the image and the gem were identical. "Who made it?" he breathed.

"Durok Ornthrond," Arya said in awe. "It does not matter how many times I lay eyes on the star sapphire, each time I am awed." With difficulty, she tore her eyes away. "I am aware of your appointment soon, so I shall have to summarize. The raw gem was not found by Durok, rather by another dwarf tunneling for a place to excavate their new capital after Orthiad was sacked. But he fell in love with the raw ruby and drew up his own plans for the stone. King Herran, the king of dwarves then, saw his plans and was enraptured. He gave Durok his blessing to excavate his design from the sapphire."

"Aye, and fifty years it took him to finish." Orik strode up behind them. "He worked so hard on it that his wife left him, for he had dedicated his life to his work. And when he finished the last bit, he cried out 'Guntera save me, I have finished!' and died. What more did he have to live for?"

Harry's smile widened. "Orik! If I had any idea what I was missing, I would have dropped everything to see this. This is beautiful beyond anything I've seen in Alagaesia."

He nodded solemnly. "It is the greatest honor one of our kings receives; to have their name immortalized next to Durok on the collar of the gem. Isidar Mithrim is the heart and soul of the dwarves, the pride every clan takes in our race. I am glad you find it as beautiful as we do."

"I'm going to learn to be a jeweler," Harry announced. "I have infinite tries to get it right, after all."

"Good luck, Ascudaruna," Orik boomed. "I'd pay good money to see what you come up with." He turned to Arya. "I've been asked to summon you by Ajihad, egg-bearer. The treaty between the elves and Varden for ferrying the egg demands we send Eragon to Ellesmera as soon as Brom finishes preliminary training–something which he has certainly completed. With the Urgal invasion at hand, I expect the Varden and Hrothgar will want him to stick around until the invasion resolves itself."

Arya frowned minutely, but slipped her hand out of Harry's. "I bid you goodbye, Harry Potter," she said softly. Orik retreated quickly with the elf, and he watched her go with a strange tightness in his chest.

"Tempus." It was five minutes to his meeting. He could not reach the place on foot in time, so he enshrouded himself with his cloak and apparated to the hallway.

"Am I your prisoner, then?" Murtagh demanded angrily. "I said I will not go to the Varden, yet you have cornered me in this accursed valley whose only escape is through those who would imprison me without second thought!" Tornac whinnied beneath him in agitation.

They were approaching the mouth of Beartooth valley, a direct route to the hidden entrance of the Varden's allies, the dwarves. With no side valleys to escape from, Any who entered would have to either backtrack through the mouth–an impossibility given the legion of Urgals and kull bearing down on them–or enter the Varden, something Murtagh knew he could not do. They would arrest him for his parentage without second thought.

"Boy," Brom growled, "we have no other options. By all means, risk your fool neck trying to outrun the Urgal host! If you wish to survive–which, regrettably, my son does–you will go with us to the Varden! Your options now are imprisonment with likely release, or certain death. Choose."

Eragon crossed his arms in frustration. Tensions among the four of them were at their boiling point, ever since Murtagh had callously slain the slavers they encountered. He had explained his actions well, but killing a surrendered enemy ill became him. Eragon still remembered the animalistic panic in the head slaver's eyes as he begged for his life, throwing down his sword with his hands in the air.

"Enough! Brom, Murtagh, you will cease this pointless blathering. You squabble about the rain while sitting beneath an avalanche! Murtagh, you know you will not commit suicide by Urgal, so be silent and continue. Brom, you will stop provoking the son of the man who got to your wife first." Saphira roared fiercely, glaring at the travelers.

Subdued, Murtagh slinked on ahead into the valley. Privately, Saphira communicated with Eragon. "Though I know not how it would be done, Harry has methods of travel which will let him spirit Murtagh away should it be necessary for the man to escape the Varden. You, little one, must prepare yourself. By all accounts, you are about to enter a mire of politicking and lies, where everyone will tug at you like a starving vulture."

Eragon looked a bit apprehensive, but agreed with his dragon. Brom hadn't wanted him to be anywhere near the Varden for another six months at least, but knowledge of a massive Urgal mobilization and likely invasion was not something he could sit on while training Eragon. The man had bound himself up like a tangled tent in vows, loyalty, and responsibility. The prospect did not appeal to Eragon in the slightest.

Behind them, the banners of an insane Urgal warchief loomed closer. Their unrelenting march forced Eragon and his company to forgo rest or pause, instead driving their horses to the breaking point. Glenwing was the only mount who seemed to be surviving. Brom had spent the brief time they rested throwing out heavy but not immediately useful items and distributing the weight of their cargo so that each of their mounts had naught but their riders on them, and so Glenwing's total cargo would not weigh more than the heaviest of them.

They could not make fires for fear of the Urgals spotting them. Eragon had flown up with Saphira to slow them with falling rocks, which worked for a time, but he had foolishly forgotten one of the laws of magic: distance costs power. The mistake had cost him most of his meagre energy stores. By then, he had withdrawn and distributed all the energy he had hoarded over the long and luxurious journey with Harry to his fellows. Eragon did not want Brom to use his ace, Aren, to simply outpace a marching army, when safety loomed so close.

As a consequence of his ill-conceived spell, Eragon felt even more lethargic and fatigued for the rest of the day, slumped over Cadoc and simply letting Brom lead him. His father had berated him long and loudly over his stupidity, a lecture mostly lost on Eragon since he was drifting in and out of consciousness at the time. Murtagh had become surly, irritable, and cranky, prone to lashing out verbally at anyone who addressed him. He supposed he couldn't blame the man; they were walking to his imprisonment.

Every hour Eragon felt twice as exhausted as he should. Safety looming so close was softening his readiness, something he desperately needed to survive any Urgal confrontations to come. It felt like the last few steps until bed where all the fatigue of the day hit him all at once, or the desperate need to use the restroom which only became known en route to the toilet. The home stretch, Harry would have called it. How strange that an entire world with vastly different cultures existed outside of Alagaesia, one which his friend hailed from.

Murtagh and Brom were both twitchy, grips never leaving their swords, glancing furtively over their shoulders at the looming banners chasing them like a grim stormcloud. The nights were miserable; damp and cold, with only hardtack and cheese to eat, and wine to wash it down. If Harry wasn't at the exit of the Varden waiting with an enormous plate of food, Eragon didn't think they could be friends anymore.

The Path Wandering filed in slowly to the room. Harry poked his head around the doorway and glanced down the corridor, but no one was present. Twenty magicians. That was what he had to work with. He had had more in the DA, a group composed solely of child rebels.

"Welcome, everyone. Some of you had duties yesterday, eight of you I believe. I asked yesterday for a list of your duties in the hopes that I might free some of your time. Mainly because I want you here to learn. Please raise your hand if you are illiterate, I promise I won't hold it against you." Harry surveyed the room. It was no classroom, the seats spaced wide enough that he could not keep everyone in his field of view at once, even with his back against the wall. Four hands hesitantly raised. He smiled encouragingly.

"That's fine. It just makes things a bit more difficult. Now, raise your hand if you can read the script of the ancient language? Not just phonetic spelling, Liduen Kvaedhi." This time, only two raised their hands, Trianna and a mousy looking man who wore the only pair of spectacles Harry had seen in Alagaesia.

"All of my books are written in the ancient language, so it would be pointless for the illiterate among us to learn common and never use it. Your name?" Harry pointed at the mousy looking man.

"Hairn, sir."

"Hairn, I want you to use whatever spare time you have to teach your fellows Liduen Kvaedhi. I will leave with you several books to use for that purpose. I'd ask Trianna to help but she's the most powerful of you, and that seems like a waste." Hair gave him a hesitant smile.

Harry cleared his throat. "Ajihad gave me this job knowing very little about my motives. I did him a huge favor and when he offered me a boon, I asked to lead you all. Some of you may wonder; why a stranger to lead us? I'll tell you this much, I have experience teaching magic. I'd like to pleasantly surprise the Varden by making Du Vrangr Gata more powerful than it's ever been. I want nothing but your best efforts from all of you. When I tell you to do something, actually do it."

Murmurs and varied reactions. Some were eager, some doubtful, some resentful or sour. "Perhaps a demonstration would be in order?" Trianna suggested coyly. Harry rolled his eyes.

"Fine, fine. Follow me."

Everyone filed slowly from the room and crowded in the hallway. Withdrawing his wand, Harry sent a muggle-repelling ward at the mouth of the corridor so they would remain undisturbed. "That room seemed designed for lounging, studying, or practicing magic. What better way to demonstrate my capability than to make you all a proper room for lecturing?" He grinned and traced a doorway with his wand.

Masking his voice with a charm, Harry spoke the space expansion charm and pushed. He had a very clear idea what he wanted the room to look like. Behind him awed gasps and murmurs rippled through the twenty magicians arrayed behind him. "What I show you here, I want an oath in the ancient language you will not share or allow to be shared. Some of these secrets are ones Galbatorix would kill for. I have prepared an oath already. Read it over, ask questions if you have them, then swear it."

The shocked and impressed air of the crowd made everyone a bit more malleable to gagging themselves in exchange for education like the kind Harry offered. One by one, they swore the oath. The illiterate ones had to be read the translation below. "This section here says we can discuss amongst ourselves, yes?" Trianna asked cautiously. Harry nodded.

"Discussion often yields new and interesting ideas. I simply wish to ensure this knowledge does not reach the king's ears. I can release you from your oaths once he is dead, and you can share these secrets with anyone. Sound fair?" The sorceress reluctantly agreed and swore the oath.

Harry pushed open the door.

A similar astonished visage fell on the faces of Du Vrangr Gata as they beheld the room beyond. He had formed the room based on a college lecture hall, but the back wall was pushed back several dozen feet so Harry had room for demonstrations. White lights hung from the ceiling, brightening the room beyond anywhere he had yet seen underground in the dwarven holdings. A large blackboard dominated the demonstration area, pushed up against the tiered seating for easier reading.

Striding up to the board, Harry gestured for everyone to take a seat. There was some murmuring and discussion, but everyone was seated. "Everyone knows the cardinal rules of magic, yeah?" He heard a ripple of assent. "Then I will not waste your time by going back over them. Today's lesson is one of the most important ones you'll learn; why bother with soldiers."

His audience was confused. "I mean, what is the point of having people without magic fight? Even a weak magician can, if they're clever enough, murder legions upon legions of soldiers with minimal effort. I am sure either Brom or perhaps Arya has instructed you all on wards you must cast?" Nodding, unsurely. "Without these wards, a single magician in the Empire's army can simply kill every one of us. The human body is designed to be strong against external threats: bears, teeth, cold, heat, water, and so on. Magicians are not so limited. I'll keep the exact specifics to myself, but these army-killer spells target the weak points instead of the strong ones, bypassing the body's protection and going straight for vital spots."

Someone looked like they wanted to speak. "If you have something to say, put your hand up. Yes?"

"If magicians are so powerful, why do we bother with soldiers?"

Harry began sketching a grid pattern in chalk, filling in one in every thousand squares or so white. "Magicians do not like direct conflicts of strength. For example; you have cast a ward across the Varden's army which protects every one of them from these instantly lethal attacks. Rather than trying to eliminate you by breaking into your mind and killing you, the enemy magician simply casts a spell which conflicts with your ward and pours strength into it until you run out of energy and die, at which point everyone you're protecting dies from the spell. What this means is that the strongest magician always comes out on top. But how can you be sure it's you? You can't. The formula for a wizard's duel is so prevalent because it gives each party a roughly equal chance, where the outcome is decided by mental skill rather than power. The mental skills necessary can be learned–even the weakest magician can be the greatest user of the mind arts–but power cannot be easily grown. Would you rather your life be decided by the flip of a coin, or a game of skill where you can learn to be better?"

He tapped at the white squares. "This is the current model for warfare in Alagaesia. Magicians are dispersed throughout the army, each responsible for a region of men whose wards you maintain. The same is true for the enemy. Each side tries to kill the others' magicians, and whoever your most trusted elf or rider ally is kills the entire battalion once the guarding magician is slain. You're vulnerable during mental battles, something which means you need protection, thus, soldiers. Can anyone guess what two qualities I'm trying to help you grow, based on this?" Harry surveyed the amphitheater.

A hand rose. "Power?" He nodded.

"Yes, power. You may have heard that power is innate, you are born with it and cannot stretch it beyond a certain point, yes?" Nods. "True and false. An elf is only more powerful than one of you because their bodies are more efficient at storing and retrieving food. All of you should be at roughly an even level of power. A heavily-muscled man or a fit woman would obviously be more powerful, but the variance should be much smaller than it is. The reason for this is inefficiency." He wrote the word out on the board in large font.

"Reaching for your magic is not easy, at least not at first. To shatter the barrier separating you from your power, and to allow only the exact amount of power you need to slip through, lest it be lost. If you put your all into a spell, the spell will take your all. The only way to remedy this is practice. You," Harry pointed at someone. "If a sixteen year old picked up a sword for the first time in his life, do you think he'd be able to put the same amount of power behind his strikes as someone who's been fighting all their life?"

"No."

"Exactly. They practice. Each day they swing their sword, their arms get a little bit stronger until one day, they can batter down their younger selves with ease. Magic is no different. Your ability to channel magic efficiently, the ease at which you access it, even the size of your reservoir when rested can all be increased with practice. That is why, when you leave here, I want you all to follow these instructions as law: never go to sleep as anything other than exhausted. Strength left in you when you sleep is strength wasted. If you need more food, I'll provide it. Every day, I want you all to be stretching your magic muscle, exercising and pushing yourself to the limit. You will very quickly find yourself much stronger than any magician Galbatorix could muster to send at us." Harry reached into his bag and withdrew a cloth sack which clicked and clacked as it moved.

"Casting spells while fatigued is dangerous, and until you practice and know your limits better, I want you to store that excess power in these." He withdrew twenty egg-sized diamonds and sent them flying in front of each person.

There were gasps and looks of avarice and greed all around the room. "Don't even try to steal them. I'll know." Some of the magicians looked guilty or sheepish. "Every night. Fill these until you're barely able to stay awake. You'll quickly get much stronger and as an additional benefit, you'll have an enormous store of power to draw on in case of an emergency. Does everyone understand?"

Harry received murmurs of assent. "Thank you. We'll not go over it today, but I want to hear your opinions. What is the other important trait?"

That stumped them. Harry heard many answers, but the right one continued to elude him. He heard vocabulary, knowledge of spells, bodyguards–

"Mental combat."

"Yes!" Harry exclaimed. "Arguably more important than power, mental combat is the skill you need to beat magicians. Whoever breaks the other's mind first wins–nearly every time. I'll be holding practices and lectures on this topic every other day until I judge you all ready to move on. Even when I'm not here, practice with your colleagues. This skill will save your life or cause your death. It is the most important thing magicians will learn."

Trianna was silent, as was the rest of Du Vrangr Gata. "Before we leave, I asked for a list of everyone's duties. Could someone fetch that?" The sorceress wordlessly pulled out a scroll of parchment and sent it through the air at him with a murmured word. "Thank you. Dismissed."

As the sorceress filed out, she found herself unwillingly appreciating the lesson. Harry had clearly taught before. He was not nervous in front of a crowd, he knew how to draw and keep everyone's attention. He had a plan and stuck to it. Loathe as she was to admit, even she learned something from the lecture. Trianna had pursued sorcery because she hated the feeling of being limited to magic which she personally could fuel, a criterion which excluded most of the more interesting arcane arts. She'd always assumed the power she had was what she got. What Harry said made sense, though. Like a muscle, magic had to be trained. She had gotten more powerful since walking the Wandering Path. Initially, Trianna had simply assumed it was an effect of communing with the spirits, but what Harry said was more probable: she had simply grown.

Harry lingered behind for a moment and when the last student exited, the door shut on its own. When Trianna moved back to open it, she found the room empty. Curiouser and curiouser.

"How was your first lesson?" Ajihad looked faintly amused. They sat in his office again. Harry minded being summoned a lot less now that a sort of friendship was growing between the two. It still irked him that he–as an independent contractor–was being called for like a dog repeatedly, but he'd begun to appreciate the dark skinned man's quiet humor and determination.

"Not bad. I was pretty disappointed by the state they're in now, but I'll be able to whip 'em into shape pretty soon. I think the main thing is getting them to channel their energy into training, learning, and growing instead of backstabbing and conniving."

He quirked his lips. "I did warn you."

Harry snickered. "I'm sure they'll be honored to know your opinion of them. Is that the only den of vipers in the Varden?" Ajihad burst into laughter, a deep and melodious sound.

"Nay, everyone behaves in such a way to a certain extent. Though, the worst offenders are the Council of Elders."

"What a pretentious name," Harry scoffed.

He inclined his head with a wry smile. "Indeed, since none of them are older than me. I may not be young, but I'm not yet ancient. Elessari's hair is grey, but then, so is mine," Ajihad smirked. "I just don't let it show."

"A woman?"

"You do not believe women are able to lead?" Ajihad challenged.

Harry placated him. "No, I'm just surprised that you'd have realized that yet. Queen Elizabeth has reigned for decades over my home country. I'd be a hypocrite to complain about your own leadership. Historically, though, women were treated as brood-mares until well past the age of enlightenment."

"Age of enlightenment. And you call the Council of Elders pretentious," he teased. Harry rolled his eyes.

"It was the time period where all the nobles got interested in the sciences. It's called that because the foundation of nearly all branches of science were founded then. People discovered genetics, bacteria, gravity, astronomy, physics, and mathematics, often making great leaps in their fields. It also heralded the industrial age, where life expectancy across the board shot up as mass production got off the ground." Ajihad listened in interest. Such topics were of great relevance to the Varden. After all, they were trying to make the Empire a better place, not just overthrow Galbatorix.

"Enlightenment and the sciences led to a drastic increase in life expectancy?" Harry nodded.

"Before germ theory, humanity was caught in a vicious sort of stagnation. They would congregate in cities for protection, ease of shipping, and quick access to a large varied skilled labor pool. However, cities also had such poor sanitation that inevitably, an outbreak of cholera would prevent them from growing too large. Germ theory found that sanitation was incredibly important. The dirtier the people are, the more likely they will get sick. Tossing chamber pots into the streets was a great way to spread that sickness. It ensured that if one person got sick, the entire city would. By bathing regularly and washing hands before meals, Sickness was drastically decreased. Something similar happened with midwives. It was discovered that boiling something in water disinfects it, so midwives would boil rags and thoroughly wash their hands before delivering babies. It cut infant mortality rates practically in half."

Ajihad was a shrewd man, and he understood the implications of what the wizard was saying. "If I order the Varden's midwives to disinfect whatever cloths they use and to wash their hands before deliveries, we will see more babes survive their first year?" Harry nodded. "Very well. You have given me much to think about. I expect regular reports on Du Vrangr Gata's progress in the future." The man dismissed Harry.

Harry collapsed into his sofa. Toying with the Elder wand, he thought about Du Vrangr Gata. He was severely limited by what he could teach without revealing his other brand of magic, mostly because he didn't have all that firm of a foundation on the native magic. Since taking up the habit of pushing his body to the breaking point each night filling gems with the nutrient powder, he had both a ludicrous amount of stored power, and rapidly expanding personal reserves, reserves which were already rather large to begin with.

Idly, he hoped beyond hope that magical power was tied to the soul; he didn't fancy going through the whole rigamarole growing his strength again back home, if he ever managed to kill Galbatorix. Wasn't that a temptation to just assassinate the man. If he died, Harry could leave whenever. But no, he was given this mission, one he asked for, and he would do it to the best of his abilities, regardless of if he missed air conditioning, the radio, Hogwarts, and a million other things he'd taken for granted.

Music, he decided, would be the first thing he stockpiled, when he returned home. He'd been fortunate indeed to find a collection of vinyl records in the family vault, likely a somewhat recent acquisition by either his parents or grandparents. It bothered him that he hadn't been able to make the music he used to fix his body from scratch. Instead, he had to clumsily wrap lyrics around an instrumental track which wasn't his. Unfortunately, Harry had approximately zero natural musical talent. If he wanted to get good, he'd have to do it himself.

Why not? Harry made his way to the vault. Point me, musical instruments. The knobbly length of wood spun in his hand, leading him down an aisle.

It wasn't a bad haul, really. A few violins, an electric and an acoustic guitar, both a harpsichord and a piano, a trumpet and a saxophone. Harpsichords and pianos were virtually the same thing, one of the most versatile instruments out there, right next to guitars, an instrument which he conveniently had access to. All in all, Harry could have been much less fortunate. It would have been rather unfortunate if all he found were clarinets and tubas.

Harry levitated the piano out of the vault and experimentally pressed on a few keys. The sound echoed uncomfortably in the enormous concrete space. I guess I'm making a new room. Wall space in the main area was quickly becoming scarce. The corridor he set up with the glass processing room was done on a whim; he'd decided to put all his ore and material processing stuff down there and keep the enormous machines and contraptions from clogging up the main area or requiring dozens of doors around the already cramped walls.

The newest hallway would be for arts, he decided. A room for music, a room for painting, drawing, sketching, perhaps a recording studio? A writing desk, maybe he could rig up a typewriter? The appeal of linking a keyboard up to his massive magical computer–rudimentary though it was (for now)–was attractive. His transfiguration skills were becoming rather absurd, but there was definitely something lost when skipping over making art by hand. The cauldrons he'd spun were testament to that, easily accepting a bevy of enchantments like self-stirring and other enchantments that would be nigh impossible on conjured cauldrons.

Harry needed lacquered wood for the studio he had in mind. Unfortunately, ingredients were hard to come by beneath a damn mountain. He could certainly ask the dwarves for whatever he needed, and pay handsomely, too. It's not the same, he decided. Harvesting materials by hand–whether that be by magic or actually by hand–amounted to a better connection with the materials gathered. He'd scarcely tried to enchant any glass panes, but the glassware took magic so well it was scary.

In the end, Harry formed the empty rooms but did no more than that. They were bare of paneling, tiling, or roofing, and served only to house the as yet unfamiliar instruments. Mostly because Arya popped in with a list from Ajihad of weapons the Varden needed. She also helpfully informed him there were several wagon loads of iron ore waiting outside the tent for him to use.

Reluctantly, Harry followed Arya back upstairs and shrunk the delivery, pocketing it. "When are Eragon, Murtagh, and Brom expected to arrive?"

"No later than noon tomorrow. They're nearly dead on their feet and being pursued by a host of Urgals, Jehov's clan to be exact, but they'll make it. In no shape for fighting, though." Arya looked concerned.

Harry stowed the Elder wand and withdrew his holly one. Iron refining would be an interesting challenge. He'd always wanted to make a blast furnace. Blast furnace, he rolled the words around in his mind. Sounds fun.

It took him the better part of the day to finish since the complexity of the furnace was actually beyond what he expected. On reflection, it made sense. After all, the medieval hicks probably still used bloomeries which produced pence on pounds compared to a modern blast furnace. It took rather significant consultation with the dead to manage, but Harry was proud of his creation. It looked awesome.

Earlier blast furnaces used ceramics to withstand the incredible heat generated, but they were not overly sturdy and Harry had no intention of halfarsing anything. The design he copied used water cooled steel which was much better at containing the superheated gasses. Preheaters used space expansion collapsing bellows to drive super pressurized hot gasses into the chamber to smelt the iron ore. The filtration systems were finicky and annoying to get right, requiring Harry to extract slag and silica from the inner workings more than once, but it was done.

Phoenix flame once again drove the heating, its purifying capabilities a godsend in making the best steel Harry had yet worked with. He did a benchmark test with a quick sword and found it much easier to work out the imperfections. The purity of the steel combined with the exact carbon content meant Harry no longer had to use alembics to get the right balance of graphite to iron, the ingots produced were ready to forge straight out.

I need a better term for compression driven by spatial collapse. Harry pondered his problem while stress testing the blast furnace, a polite way of saying he crammed the shit out of the thing and waited with bated breath to see if it would survive the iron ore. Sure enough, rows of perfectly formed perfect 1095 steel formed and dropped into an expanded crate. Relativistic compression? Harry actually quite liked that term.

After dinner, Harry felt the need to take a break from metallurgy and spend most of his evening singing recurve bows out of a hickory tree. He chose recurve bows because they really were just better than the generic hunting bows and occasional longbows the Varden wielded, but mostly, it was to see their stupefied faces at the power behind such a small bit of wood.

Singing the recurve in the bow was devilishly tricky and Harry had formed a pile of discarded and oddly curved sticks by the time he'd managed to make them with some consistency. When he was done making a few hundred, it was getting late, but the bow making made him want a new one himself, a properly dripped out recurve bow with gilding and whatnot.

As he planted a new hickory sapling, Harry pondered what he wanted the bow to do. Ever since Orik's axe came to him in a fit of inspiration, he realized his weapons were boring. Even the really cool ones he made for himself or his friends. They might be of superior quality even to the rank-and-file enchanted weapons he handed out to the Varden, but they didn't really do anything impressive. Except Dawnbreaker. Orik's axe was red hot when drawn and cut through steel and bone alike with ease, causing fire and heat damage all the way.

An edge so sharp it whistles is not enough, Harry decided firmly. He would put some sort of feature into every awesome weapon he made from then on. What do I want on my bow? He thought about what would work best. Bows were probably closely aspected towards air, something which made sense. The problem was, unless he wanted to individually enchant every arrow he shot (he didn't,) it was impossible for the ammunition to carry powerful and replicable magic. No, he needed the bow to add the magic.

Plan in mind, summoned his box of diamonds and selected a pair slightly smaller than chicken eggs, but left them clear. Better for air, he supposed. Withdrawing a full gem from his pocket, Harry reached out his mind and winced when it came in contact with the filled diamond. It was easy to forget with how much power he'd been stockpiling just how ludicrous the capacity of gemstones was, flawless diamonds especially. The power beneath the facets thrummed violently, smashing up against the countless faces of the gem, straining to escape.

Carefully, Harry established a draw and pulled only the tiniest trickle…

The diamond's charge strained to get out and took the only path of escape, blasting him with raw power. Hair standing on end, Harry set a record spinning in the air and placed his enchanted needle on the face. As the music played, he began to sing.

The bow that came out was a work of art. The wood was perfectly formed in a long and unbroken grain from tip to tip. Emerging with the hollow scrollwork already in place, Harry carefully extricated the wood from its mother tree. Without pausing his song, he pressed the diamonds above and below the grip where they sank in, the wood growing around them defensively and securing them.

He'd deliberately chosen sapwood for its much lighter color, banking on the airy tones tying the weapon more closely to its air alignment. Experimentally, Harry grew a tuft of his hair several feet long and deftly cut it, braiding it with a phrase in the ancient language. Hair got ruffled in the wind, it was a literal part of him, surely it was perfect to tie the weapon both to the power of the skies and to himself as the wielder.

Harry knew human hair, while strong, would not stand up to the stress of a bowstring and so enchanted the hell out of it. When it came time to link up all the enchantments, Harry did not skimp on the power, pouring the whole filled fist-sized diamond into the magic. When the reservoir was drained, he could feel the wood thrumming eagerly in his grasp.

Hopefully… Harry drew the string back without bothering to grab an arrow. "Yes!" It wasn't very noticeable, but then that was the point. A sort of shimmer like a heat wave sat between his middle and forefinger, extending to the grip in the shape of an arrow. It was nearly impossible to spot until Harry whispered a spell he'd invented just for the bow. The arrow glowed a bright yellow like a sunbeam to his eyes alone.

The draw weight of the weapon was impressive, but to Harry's elvish strength, he put only a moderate effort into bringing the thing to full draw. Casting the target spell, he sighted down the sunbeam like he'd done countless thousands of times before, lined up his arrow, and released.

The bow hardly made a noise. The whisper of release was the sigh of a tree in a gentle breeze. The arrow, however, blasted away like the hounds of hell were on its heels. Even with his greatly enhanced eyesight, Harry could scarcely track the bolt of wind zipping straight over the target.

He tried again, this time with a few more measuring charms on the target. Harry aimed dead center, allowing for no crosswind (though he was indoors, technically) and no drop. Again, the whisper of release was thrilling. The thrumming power beneath Harry's fingers directed where he pointed it.

Harry scanned the statistics on impact weight, projectile speed, angle of descent, drop, displacement by wind, etc. He blinked. Squinting, Harry looked closer at the stats, as if willing them to change to something more reasonable.

Harry laughed in delight. Two tons. That was how much force was imparted to the target by a bolt of air. It went a couple thousand miles an hour through the air, functionally instant for the entire range of his very sharp eyesight. There was no drop or drift at all. The charms were designed to tell how many zeros precluded the first nonzero number in the imperfection measurements, yet those two stats were actual zeros. Something about the nature of the projectile caused it to simply not interact with gravity or the atmosphere.

Elated, Harry began to pound arrow after arrow into the target, each one hitting dead center. If the projectiles didn't vanish after sinking into their targets, he was sure he'd have split dozens of arrows by now. Take that, silver arm! No longer would he need to carry a lame quiver of lameness, or an amputated arm which was really hard to cast magic through. He was holding the most powerful bow in the world!

Harry extricated himself from his waking trance after he felt rested- about four hours later. Rather than continually pester the Varden's scouts or Arya, he scryed Saphira and Eragon and left the projection running against the computer screen's blank white expanse. During the interminable wait, he busied himself forging Ajihad's orders for weaponry to outfit the Varden.

Maces and hammers were boring and tedious to make, so he got them out of the way quickly. Two dozen blades stabbed point down into the table in front of him appeared before Arya came down and joined him. "They're almost here if you want to get armed and armored." Harry wordlessly pointed at the projection screen. "Ah," her expression cleared. "What are you working on?"

Arya brushed her long black hair over a shoulder and made her way over to him. She wore rather form-fitting leather under her armor, a chestplate, guards for her shins, thighs, forearms, and upper arms. Under her left arm she had nestled a plumed helmet. Leaning closer, Harry was distracted by that same forest scent he'd smelled yesterday beneath Isidar Mithrim. He blushed and continued hammering. When his current piece was heating, he managed to explain. "Ajihad sent in a few wagons of iron ore and a list of equipment." He pointed at a sheet of parchment on a table. "It's a lot, but nothing crazy. It'll be done within the week, I think."

Her eyes bulged as she read the sheet. "One thousand five hundred swords? Harry, how the hell do you expect to finish this in a week?"

Harry scratched his head. "I set up a blast furnace to make loads of steel, so I don't have to do it the slow way anymore. That cuts down on time spent not actually hammering. Using magic during the process, I can turn out a sword in under ten minutes. They'll win no awards for prettiness, but they're made of flawless pure 1095 steel and enchanted to overcome any problems a normal sword would, so little things like heat treatment and such are unnecessary. The eversharp enchantment itself actually sharpens a dull blade, so I don't have to do it." She shook her hair and put her forehead in her hand.

"Harry, you won't have time to do anything but this. Who is going to load the food or brew the medical potions or lead the Varden's magicians?"

"Orik, Angela, me but it barely takes any time," Harry ticked off on his fingers. "A couple of hours every other day is hardly ruinous for my plans. I'll admit, the armor is probably not going to happen any time soon, but I have no problems being ambitious here. I did this for practically the whole time we were holed up in Carvahall. Every time I set up a new production line like the farm, the glass, the furnace, I put special effort into automating it so I never have to lift a finger again. We might run out of sand in a few decades-" Arya rolled her eyes, "-But the Hadarac's right there. In twice that time again, I'll have to take a one day trip to get limestone and trona ore."

"And your personal projects?" Arya challenged. "You will have no time to experiment or innovate, and you grow bored quickly. If Rhunon got an order like this from my mother, she would burn it and laugh in her face." Her face softened. "Harry, you are going to burn yourself out on this. I do not want to see you douse your passion for smithing because Ajihad dumped an impossible order on you and you decided to not sleep until you finished it."

Groaning, Harry quickly finished the sword he was working on and banished them all to his personal vault. "This is likely the only chance I will get, Arya. An Urgal invasion is coming and Eragon is approaching the time when Brom's role will be over. I intend to follow him to Ellesmera, which means I cannot be here churning out steel for the Varden. You said there are ancient and powerful wards protecting Du Weldenvarden. That means no apparating back and forth. Once we're there, we stay until Eragon is ready to leave."

Arya looked sad. She approached Harry and cupped his cheek. "Harry, you have done more for the Varden than they could ever expect or repay. I only worry because I care." Harry blushed and glanced away, trying desperately to suppress a smile.

"Thank you. I'll slow down for you. Now come on! Brom and Eragon are nearly here. I've missed Saphira." She glanced at the screen and saw them edging around Kostha Merna, the Urgal host hot on their heels.

"Very well." Harry might have had hearts in his eyes at the sight. Arya in hot armor carrying a sword he made, long black hair billowing, looking every bit the warrior queen. The Urgals wouldn't know what hit 'em.

AN: The first book is almost finished. After this there's a chapter on the invasion, and I'm writing the one after it which will be the last right now. Eldest is next, and I'm curious how I'll do it. In canon, most of the action comes from Roran's POV as he takes Carvahall on an epic journey, fleeing from the Empire and the Ra'zac. Since most of Eragon's POV is in Ellesmera where there is no true mortal danger, Paolini relies on Roran's storyline to provide the excitement, at least until Eragon leaves Ellesmera and goes to the Burning Plains. Since Harry will not be with Carvahall on their journey, the story cannot diverge from canon all that much. Leave a review if you still want to see it in the story or not, or maybe just snippets rather than full on narration.

In the meantime, romance between Arya and Harry is growing. There will be no black-haired green-eyed babies just yet, so hold your horses. I was asked recently where Harry is going to go after Alagaesia, wether it will be another crossover or if he is going straight home. As of now, I'm planning on going back to Hogwarts after this. The plan is to do a time-travel "Break it" where Harry has foreknowledge which he uses poorly, splitting events off from canon. Leave reviews on what you want to see after this, whether that's Hogwarts straight after, or some other fictional universe. My inspiration is leaning towards Avatar the Last Airbender and Game of Thrones, but I'm open to suggestions.