Harry Evans's Fabulous Multidimensional Adventure

by androidrainbow

After dying in the forest, Harry is offered the chance to help other children of prophecy. Adventure ensues. Vol. 1: Inheritance Cycle

34. Elves of Ellesmera I

Chapter 41: The Elves of Ellesmera I

Harry woke from his resting trance in an unnaturally comfortable bed. He was still dressed. His head ached with a minor hangover. Overhead, sunlight streamed through a high window set over the head of the bead and cast cheery morning light over the room. He groaned and rolled over, planting his face in the pillow and drawing the bedding closer around him.

Arya stirred with a beatific smile on her face and a completely unfair lack of apparent hangover. She stretched and yawned, slipping out from the covers gracefully and headed to the bathroom to bathe. The fatigue of sleep still wore on Harry like a leaden blanket, but the brightness prohibited him from slipping back into the realm of Morpheus. Instead, he laid there with closed eyes and tried to eke a bit more rest from the morning before getting ready.

The doorway to the bathroom opened, spilling pleasantly-scented steam into the bedroom. Arya emerged clad in tight leggings and a simple elven tunic cinched at the waist with a wide belt. Harry turned his head sideways on the pillow, tracing her figure with his eyes appreciatively.

"Wake up, Harry," Arya smiled in exasperation. "Oromis asked us to bring our armor and weapons. Do not think he would not spar with you even were you clad only in a shawl of blankets." He yawned and wiped the sleep from his eyes blearily.

"Fine, wicked woman," he groused. "Tempus." He had perhaps forty minutes before they were due at the Crags. Plenty of time to shower and change. Harry quickly jogged up to his old room in his dirty clothes and retrieved the tent. He brought it back down and tossed it up in the grand room before disappearing into it to shower.

They were both ready to go twenty minutes before the hour of the Red Lily. Arya had her sword strapped at her waist and the armor Harry had made for her equipped over her torso, the protective enchantments invisibly emulating a full set of plate upon her limbs. Next to her Harry looked similar, except his weapons were slung over his shoulder rather than on his hip. His recurve bow and greatsword. They had both eaten a light breakfast and were prepared for whatever Oromis and Glaedr might throw at them.

They tossed their legs over their broomsticks and kicked off, navigating carefully over the canopy and setting off towards the Crags. Crisp and damp morning air filled Harry's nostrils with the scent of dew and petrichor. The cold wind was invigorating and drove the last vestiges of torpor from his limbs. They took a leisurely and meandering path to their destination, enjoying each other's presence together. The sun glinted off droplets of water resting on the smooth leaves. Overhead, the navy blue of night had been driven away, replaced by a clear azure.

Harry and Arya landed a respectful distance from Oromis's hut and arranged themselves cross-legged upon the damp grass. Under Glaedr's watchful eye, the pair of them began a card game Harry was familiar with to pass the time until Eragon and Saphira's arrival.

Only ten minutes later, Eragon and Saphira arrived, heralded by the slow bass thump of dragon wings.

Arya furrowed her brow, studying her hand intently. She glanced up and stared at Harry.

Harry met her gaze evenly.

Arya leaned forwards, eyes flitting to the back of the cards Harry held.

Harry leaned back with a smirk.

She leaned forwards even more, tugging discretely at the hem of her tunic to pull down the v-neck of her top, smiling and batting her eyes minutely.

"Harry," she began in a purr. "Do you have a seven of spades?"

Harry paused his leering momentarily. He widened his eyes in shock.

"How did you know?" he breathed.

A triumphant smile stretched across the elf's face.

"Go fish!" he suddenly crowed triumphantly.

"What!?" Arya snapped incredulously. "No way. Eragon, go make sure he's not cheating!"

Harry glanced down at the pile of face-down cards between them, smirking victoriously. Eragon circled around behind him and observed his hand helplessly. "I don't know how to play this game."

"Just tell me if he has a seven of spades in his hand," Arya commanded.

Eragon glanced back down, then met her eyes sheepishly. "He doesn't."

Arya cursed. Harry grinned insolently and tapped his fingers on the pile of cards tauntingly. She breathed out sharply through her nostrils, but picked up a card anyway.

The game was just beginning to intensify when Oromis emerged from his hut, looking like a divine image of war come to life, straight out of some illuminated religious text. He wore gleaming steel armor with golden and yellow-amber colored details on the many pieces. The hem of a yellow gambeson hung from under the bottom of a shaped breastplate with slanted lines engraved in it that turned the functional steel armor into a proper ensemble. Resting in the crook of his arm between his vambraces was a helmet with a pointed peak, a yellow plume emerging from the center.

At his waist was an amber sheathe whose mouthpiece looked like a carved leaf made of polished silver. A hilt and pommel protruded from the open end, carved in the facsimile of a crane clutching a yellow diamond pommel.

The four of them together looked glorious, Eragon decked out in his resplendent armor from Durgrimst Ingeitum, the helm on his head the symbol of his adoption. Oromis every bit the elf-warrior of legends, and Arya and Harry with their matching breastplates, emeralds set at their collarbones gleaming with inner fire.

"Welcome and good morning, students." Oromis greeted his pupils. "I would assess each of your proficiencies at arms. Come, Eragon, we shall start with you." He placed his helmet on the crown of his head and pulled it down, silver hair spilling from beneath its rim and splaying out on his back. He drew his sword and guarded it with the Ancient Language.

"I understand you gave away the sword you are most familiar with?" Oromis asked. Eragon nodded. "I shall take it into account. I see you wear a sword nonetheless. Guard thy blade as your father taught you. I have done the same with my own sword, Naegling."

As Eragon ran the spark of magic along the edge of his borrowed sword, Harry studied Naegling. It was yellow like its sheathe, but a lighter and more iridescent color that gleamed in the sunlight in a rather familiar manner. Zar'roc had also reflected ruby light in such a manner.

When Eragon settled into a ready stance, Oromis held his sword in front of him and pronounced.

"Begin."

In a flash, the two riders clashed. The sound of steel on steel rang out through the Crags. As they battled back and forth across the field, Harry had to admit that Eragon had gotten a lot better since they last sparred. Eragon had already mastered the forms Brom taught them, but he appeared more comfortable and practiced in a way that Harry doubted he could match. His strokes flowed into one another like stanzas or verses in a poem, elegant and with a beautiful economy of motion.

But it was not enough to stall Oromis. The wizened elf was a frenzy of strikes, bending and twisting out of the way of just as many strikes as those he caught on his blade, attacking Eragon from seemingly every angle at once. It was clear that he wanted to assess Eragon's skills in their entirety since he did not capitalize on openings with finishing blows, instead rapping Eragon sharply with the flat of his blade to make a point.

Oromis was not silent in their fight, calling advice and shouting encouragement as he fought.

"Move your feet!" he would cry out. "He who fights like a pillar in battle dies! He who is as a reed is victorious! Bend and sway with the battle!"

Eragon would take the advice in, and the fight got a little bit faster.

"Watch all of me, not just my eyes! Broaden your perceptions if you wish to court victory."

Faster and faster they went, yet Eragon could not land a touch on the rider no matter what he tried. Finally, it seemed as if Oromis had enough, disarming Eragon with a deft twist of Naegling. The unadorned steel sword fell to the earth in a thump.

Oromis sheathed his sword and shook Eragon's hand with a genuine smile. "Brom has taught you well, Eragon. You are as good a swordsman as I have ever seen. What little skill you have yet to grasp I cannot simply teach. Mere experience will see you a superior swordsman to virtually everyone in Alagaesia."

"But you managed to best me," Eragon respectfully protested. Oromis shook his head.

"Nay. Were I a human or you, an elf, you very well might have had the skill to match mine."

"Am I doomed to always be second fiddle, then?" Eragon said, annoyed. "I cannot fathom how I would simply become an elf."

"Self-pity ill becomes you," Oromis rebuked. "And yes, you will simply become an elf. Or at least as close to one as a human can get. You may have noticed that your father was always stronger and faster than you, despite his slain dragon's absence preventing him from drawing on her power. And beyond that, he was well past his prime."

"Yes." Eragon's hot emotions drained away at the mention of his recently passed father. In the void of their presence, sorrow and mourning were left like a sharp object in his heart which its every beat seemed to shred itself upon.

Oromis was sympathetic. "The Rider pact grants those it binds with the strength and vitality of dragons. The elves have had long to reap its bounty, but the humans were added relatively recently. To us individuals fortunate enough to bond with a dragon, we experience a much deeper version of the same bond. Saphira has only had a year or so to work those changes in you. In time, all the strength and speed of an elf will be yours, and the time you worked to offset your handicap now will make you all the stronger for it."

He turned to Harry. "I would fight with you, next." he commanded, squaring off yet again. Harry nodded and drew his greatsword, awkwardly shifting its length in his hands to guard the entirety of its edge.

When he was finished, he bowed to Oromis and leapt at him.

It was instantly clear that Harry was miles behind the old elf and to a certain extent, even Eragon. The young rider had no crafts or experiments to consume his time and thus spent far longer honing his skills with a blade. Harry had a weapon mismatched to his stature which he had practiced less with and consequently possessed less skill wielding.

It was also clear that Oromis understood the greatsword in a way that even Brom had not, leveraging weaknesses in the weapon that Harry had never even heard of. Naegling was the tongue of a viper, darting in behind his guard and tagging him repeatedly. Harry kept failing to heave the bulky weapon into place before Oromis darted in with his own. The elf was too quick and too agile for him to ever bring the weapon's advantages to bear, keeping well within effective distance and harrying him so as to make it impossible for Harry to use his sword's weight for a devastating blow.

Oromis was silent throughout the fight, choosing instead to probe at every aspect of his defense in a way that Harry found slightly humiliating. Finally, he called a halt to their spar.

"That is a poor weapon for you," he said, shaking his head. "I do not mean to belittle Brom, but he had no experience with a greatsword. Both he and Morzan learned to wield the bastard sword under my tutelage, the weapon I wield as well. Brom could not teach you how to truly wield the greatsword and if he knew how to, he would not. It is a weapon for bulky men, lacking all the subtlety and finesse of true swordplay. When fighting Galbatorix's rank-and-file human soldiers, it is an eminent weapon. But when you are required to fight a true swordsman, it will fail you."

Harry's neck felt hot with embarrassment as Oromis dismissed the swordfighting skills he had worked hard to build for himself. He was about to respond when Oromis looked at him with a gleam in his eyes.

"Indeed, it is clear as day that you have great skill with another weapon, and I would see it." Harry looked confused. My bow? He thought in bewilderment. He made to unsling it but Oromis forestalled him. "Not your bow," he held up a hand. "Your wand."

The realization crashed over him like a frigid wave and suddenly, Harry broke out into a wide smile. With nary a twitch of his wrist, his holly wand appeared in his right hand. It felt familiar in his hand in a way that even the bow he practiced far more with could never match. The rush of warm magic raced up his arm and down into his heart, invigorating him.

He fell into the fighting stance that came to him unconsciously, knees and ankles loose, poised to leap in any direction in an instant. His wand came up in front of him in a motion that felt as natural as breathing. Oromis favored him with a smile.

"That is your true fighting style." He circled Harry and took in his stance, the position of his limbs and how he held his weight. "Would that fencing was a proper fighting discipline," Oromis noted in mild annoyance. "Alas, it is not a truly usable discipline, especially in pitched battle or against armored opponents." He studied how Harry held his wand carefully, looking at the alignment of his wrist, how he held it parallel to the ground, then leaned back with a triumphant expression.

"Still I think a variation on the rapier ought to serve you well," he declared. He entered the hut and returned a moment later with several long bundles of cloth beckoning them to the table, Oromis laid them out and unrolled each one in turn.

"The war-rapier is a solely one-handed sword," he explained. "It used to be very popular in the old Broddring Kingdom as a civilian self-defense weapon. Traditional models have blades less thick than two fingers, and stretch well over forty inches from hilt to tip."

The swords gleamed in the sunlight, delicate and beautiful. They resembled swords Harry would have thought the elves' ideal weapon with its graceful lines and strange yet artful hilt. Oromis caught his eye and explained.

"The hilt and guard are constructed as such to protect the wielder from the rather odd way it is held. Inside the basket is a small crossguard which the thumb and forefinger are hooked over for greater grip. Thus, the wielder will not lose their fingers if their opponent's blade slides down their own."

Oromis slipped his hand into one and held it up, falling into a stance that Harry found very familiar, indeed. His knees were bent and his sword outstretched with the hilt held just above the waist, the tip of the sword at neck height. "The rapier is a weapon which reweards precision and dexterity. It fell out of favor with the advancement of armor, and remains its most potent against unarmored opponents, though that is a general trend of swords as a whole. Nevertheless, elves and riders continue to wield the weapon with great skill. So long as you can hit the chinks in your opponent's armor, it is a fine weapon to use."

Harry slipped his right hand into one of the rapiers but Oromis stopped him. "Unless you wish to relearn how to cast magic with your off-hand, I suggest you choose the weapon most comfortable in your left." That made a lot of sense to Harry. He was right-handed and the dexterity and precision wand movements demanded of him was not something he could easily translate to wielding left-handed. So he withdrew his right and reached out with his left hand, feeling the unfamiliar weight on his unfavored side.

All three rapiers were awkward in his left-handed grip, and he couldn't conceive himself being able to put any power behind a slash or thrust. But he had to choose, anyway. In the end, it was the one of middling length which felt most comfortable in his grip. The blade was much thicker than its brothers at over an inch, and it had a bit more heft to it than the others. The edges were unbelievably razor-sharp.

"A war rapier," Oromis remarked. "Fitting. In the hands of a typical human, they would not generally have the strength to wield it to great effect. But you have managed to give yourself elven strength and so wielding even a greatsword in one hand would not be beyond your capabilities. But to wield it well is another matter entirely. Yes, I can see you becoming fearsome with this weapon."

Oromis nodded and turned to assess Arya. She drew her sword and squared off and Harry realized something he hadn't taken note of before. When Arya prepared to fight, her face was devoid of emotion. She guarded Du Sundavar Freohr, the blade that had killed Durza, then leapt at Oromis.

Harry gaped. Within moments they both revealed that they were in an entirely different class to Harry and Eragon. Both of them wove in and out with furious strikes so fast their blades seemed to blur. Whenever he caught sight of their faces, they both had frightfully intense expressions of absolute focus. Harry did not doubt that they both knew the exact placement of every one of their limbs and their opponents.

Naegling flashed, a golden blur anchored to the mortal plane only by Oromis's slender grip. Darting and ducking between the pale white sword's guard like a tongue of golden flame. The pair of elves danced back and forth across the field, making thorough use of the open space, leaping a dozen feet up or lunging nearly twenty yards without touching the ground. Such was their strength and acrobatic skills that they could threaten their opponents' backs from in front of them by vaulting over them. Harry's breath was taken away by Arya cartwheeling over Oromis, sword in her grasp, without touching the ground.

The maneuver nearly brought their foreheads together. Arya's black hair trailed behind her, contrasting with the burnished silver which fanned out from beneath Oromis's peaked helm.

Underhand. Right cross. Backhand. Stab. Every stroke happened so fast that it reminded Harry of the 2017 Quidditch World Cup. Ludo Bagman commentating on a match so furious he couldn't squeeze anything between each pass but the name of the player in possession. A glance at Eragon revealed that he was just as awestruck as himself.

When Arya stabbed at Oromis's right hip, he twisted left so hard his feet turned to be facing away from her. The elf bent over backwards, eyes never leaving Arya as he lunged backwards with his blade outstretched. It skittered right over where her invisible armor covered her neck. Were she unarmed and Naegling sharpened, she would have lost her head or at the very least, had her carotid artery slit open.

It was just as Oromis began to recover from his lunge that it happened. His face flushed beet red, muscles contracting brutally and sending the rider toppling into the grass. From his post watching, Glaedr roared mournfully.

Harry watched in a sort of detached horror. Oromis was clearly suffering some sort of fit which was immensely unpleasant if not outright agonizing. His long fingers dragged at his gambeson in fearsome claws, breathing laboriously and through what sounded like every clenched muscle in his upper body.

Arya had instantly backed away, sheathing her sword and holding out her right hand helplessly as if wondering what sort of spell she could use to alleviate Oromis's suffering.

It seemed to drag on for eternity. When it abated, the old rider seemed to sag and sink straight into the earth. He took a moment to himself, then composed himself and rolled to his feet. "My apologies, pupils. I am afraid you will simply have to get used to these little…Interruptions," he said with the slightest hint of bitterness.

The Cripple who is Whole, Harry suddenly thought. Whatever neurological disorder Oromis had, Harry was suddenly realizing that it was a much more devastating wound than a mere missing foreleg.

"H-how long-" Eragon trailed off faintly.

"To live?" Oromis interrupted, "Plenty of time. Though by the standards of elves, it seems to loom ever greater in my future, a dark thundercloud dominating the twilight years of my life."

Harry was sympathetic. Oromis was in exactly the situation Dumbledore found himself in after erroneously placing the Gaunt ring on his finger. The clock was ticking, and he needed to pass on his knowledge before his time was up.

The difference this time was that Harry hoped he might be able to fix it. He would dig through the library for information on neurological disorders and if that didn't help? Well, homunculi were a pretty generic 'fix-all.'

"It is no matter," Oromis dismissed brusquely. "The three of you will spar for an hour each morning before lessons. Every so often, I shall observe and reorient you if you need it. Arya will show you the way to the training fields." His eyes flitted between the four of them.

"Let us wash the sweat from our limbs before we move on to more academic pursuits." Oromis led the humans and elf to a rushing stream and began to disrobe. Harry immediately wanted to protest. He was not so bashful, after all, he had showered and changed in the Quidditch locker rooms for years. Harry was more concerned with Arya changing with them. Oromis caught the glances and faces of his pupils and sighed. "I suppose your human sensibilities will be hackled by bathing with the opposite sex. If you wish it, you may spread out along the creek."

Washing was a bit less awkward, but Harry's mind kept lingering on the interaction and the naked form of Arya would not leave his mind. He opened his pack and withdrew toiletries to wash with, conjuring and filling a basin to heat and bathe in.

When he finished, Harry vanished the soapy water and basin and dressed himself before returning to the fields outside the hut. Glaedr and Saphira were present and Harry noted that Saphira was continuing to bait Glaedr in the hopes that the older dragon would play with her. In other words, she was acting like the horny teenager she was. Though Glaedr was her teacher, Harry had to admit plenty of guys at Hogwarts wouldn't have minded a shot at Professors Sinistra, Vector, or Babbling.

Harry left her to it, instead conjuring himself a table and chair to sit at. He withdrew a rectangular piece of glass measuring sixteen inches by nine. It was as perfect as he could squeeze out of his glassmaking apparatus and enchanted so hard magic nearly leaked out of its corners. It was five millimeters thick, surrounding a slim wafer of diamond in the center. Next to it was a cube of many such wafers held together by a steel frame.

His goal was to link up portable displays to his computer. With an enchanted stylus, Harry carved rows upon rows of miniaturized text on the back. Next to the tablet lay an identical sheet of glass with a display on it. It was his first attempt, a rather inelegant solution to the problem. He had simply linked the enormous screen with the small one via protean charm.

Finishing the last character, Harry rubbed the pad of his forefinger across the text, channeling magic into it. The edges glowed lime green, eliciting a triumphant smile from Harry. He tapped away the sleep screen and was rewarded with his desktop.

The operating system was rather crude, owing to Harry's lack of experience and the fact that he spent comparatively less time on the computer than most of his other projects. But it was workable, and that was what mattered. He selected his library and traveled down the file path to the folder containing books from his world. 'Neurological curse damage' he searched.

Oromis emerged from the forest feeling refreshed and clean. Harry's mind had left the stream much earlier and was now present outside his home. Glaedr sent him an image of the wizard sitting at a table he had procured for himself, poking at a piece of glass he appeared to be scrying with.

He must have made a noise because the wizard raised his head and caught sight of him. He smiled widely and called out to him. "Oromis! Wonderful." Harry gestured with his wand and another chair appeared for him out of nothingness. It was next to his own.

Bemusedly, he took the offered seat and watched what the wizard was doing. Hovering vertically in front of them like a painting, the sheet of glass Oromis had seen earlier showed that Harry was not, in fact scrying at all. Instead, it appeared that the surface of the glass was the pages of a book with little shapes and text laid over it.

"Back on my homeworld, we had magic to cure basically everything," Harry explained. "I concede that your illness may resist most magics, but there is one thing I can do which cures everything but soul damage. Before I try that, though, I'd like to know more about your ailment. If you are willing to share."

The old rider felt conflicted. He was being offered something he privately wanted very much, but had long since made peace with being denied. His students needed to put forth all their energy towards learning and growing to defeat Galbatorix, and he was loathe to burden Harry any more than he had to. When he shared his deliberations with Glaedr, the great dragon rumbled deep in his throat. "Accept." he said. "You could serve the riders much better teaching the new generation than fruitlessly hoarding a couple weeks of your students' time in the hopes that they will learn the skills to defeat the Oathbreaker then."

Still, Oromis deliberated. He sent his partner his considerations and thoughts, how he weighed different priorities, and was about to make up his mind when the wizard spoke.

"Even if you don't think it's worth it, remember that you will be able to fight Galbatorix again if you do." Oromis smiled.

"Very well, then. It started like this…"

When Arya and Eragon arrived with wet hair and damp clothes, Harry drew them two more chairs without interrupting. "During the fall, Glaedr and I were briefly captured by a pair of the Forsworn; Kialandi and Formora. Through some trap devised by Durza, the moment Glaedr's claws touched the ground of their trap, we were both frozen.

"The enchantment froze our bodies in place, but also slowed our perception of time. To Glaedr and I, they were as hummingbirds, flitting around us casting spells upon spells of binding to ensure we could not escape. Finally, they released the temporal magic binding us, confident in our helplessness. They taunted us for a while. Glaedr had been rather severely injured and was bleeding heavily, so there was urgency for us to escape. They taunted us for a while which gave me the time I needed to formulate my escape.

"The bindings on us were unyielding and the two Forsworn and their dragons too strong for us to force our way out. So I cast a spell which moved Glaedr and I a mere fingerbreadth from where we were. Only rather than moving physically, I dissolved and reconstituted us to escape the spells holding us."

Harry glanced at Oromis with a look of great respect. Plenty of adult wizards had trouble with Apparition, a method of transport which was similar to what Oromis described, but couched in a spell which gives the wizard's magic structure and reconstitutes them automatically. To do so without the spell would have required intimate and perfect knowledge of not only Oromis's own anatomy, but that of his enormous dragon, as well.

Oromis continued. "Kialandi had sensed that I had reached for my magic and cast a curse in an attempt to stop it. A piece of evil magic learned from Durza which was designed to isolate me from the flow of energy around and within me. When successfully cast, it destroys a magician's ability to use magic."

"What?" Harry exclaimed. "You can do that?"

"I did learn the curse in an attempt to understand and thus counter it, yes." Oromis confirmed. Harry's mind raced with the implications. If someone can take away the ability to use magic, surely the spell can be modified to grant it! "Please do not interrupt," the rider chastised gently.

"The spell connected while I was mid-transit, and thus did not come to full effect. Nonetheless, even now I feel its effects. Reaching for magic is a struggle for me, and all but the simplest spells are beyond me."

"It sounds like your seizures and trouble with magic are two separate issues. Would you consent to an X-ray of sorts?"

"X-ray?"

"A method of scanning the inside of someone's body. I have a theory, and I'd like to confirm it."

Oromis nodded his assent and Harry withdrew his wand, murmuring the incantation to a medical spell designed to show the caster the inside of their patient's midsection.

A transparent image of Oromis's torso appeared, floating next to him. Oromis peered at it in interest. "A marvelous spell," he complimented. "Elves have long searched for the wording to produce an effect such as this. Unfortunately, scrying does not work because the inside of our bodies is not illuminated." He watched his own heart pump rhythmically, mesmerized.

Harry traced Oromis's spinal cord with his eyes, looking to confirm a hunch. "A-ha!" he declared triumphantly. "I totally knew it!"

"Yes?"

"Look there." He pointed to the image's spinal column, just below the T-6 disc. The bright yellow cord which ran straight down from the base of the skull bent alarmingly to the side. It went through the solid white bone of the disc on the right side before emerging between T-7 and T-8. the yellow cord looked stretched and thin as it was tugged back into alignment with the rest of Oromis's spine. "I would bet you were in the midst of transporting just below your sternum when Kialandi's spell connected. It interrupted the magic briefly, just enough that your spinal cord didn't come through perfectly. You're rather lucky that the T-7 disc formed around it, you could just as easily have become paralyzed from the waist down." Harry traced the yellow cord's path down with a finger. The bright and fiery golden color turned a sad and mousy brown below T-8.

"Are you willing to endure another seizure to confirm my theory?" Harry asked carefully.

Oromis nodded immediately. "How do you suggest doing that?"

"Stand up," Harry rose. "Now bend your torso like you were picking up something on your right side by leaning sideways, but don't turn your chest to face it."

The old rider gritted his teeth and reached to the right awkwardly. He could feel a shoot of discomfort almost immediately, but he persisted. Just when his shoulders reached perhaps twenty degrees right of his pelvis, he felt it. The onset of a seizure. Oromis collapsed and waited out the agonizing pain for perhaps a minute before it abated. When he rose again, Harry's face was sympathetic.

"Sorry about that. I just wanted to be sure before I went about trying to fix it."

Oromis nodded gratefully. "I would endure a dozen attacks to be rid of this," he admitted. "How do you plan on fixing it? Or is it within your capabilities?"

Harry inhaled sharply through his teeth. "The fact that it goes through bone makes this much more difficult than I'd expect. Remember also that I am not a medi-wizard or healer, and so have not trained extensively to fix this sort of thing. But I am hopeful that I can." He considered for a moment. "I would open your back, vanish T-7, align your spinal column, and prop it up. I'd immobilize you so you couldn't accidentally crush your spinal cord, then give you Skele-gro and let it regenerate the vanished disc. If any problems lingered, nerve-regeneration potion would likely fix it."

"Your operations are not for the faint of heart," Oromis remarked in grim amusement.

Harry was bewildered for a moment. "I'd use anesthetic!" Harry said, aghast. "You wouldn't feel a thing. Generally surgery involving the nervous system requires patients to be awake so the doctors can make sure everything still works."

"I'll consider it," Oromis said finally. "Let us resume our lessons." He rose from his chair and beckoned them into his house.

"Eragon," he addressed. "You are the least fluent in the Ancient Language of us, and it is critical that you learn it to fluency so that you do not pronounce an error that will kill you." He crossed to the hexagonal wall of cubbyholes filled with scrolls, selecting six different ones of modest sizes and piling them in Eragon's arms.

"These will help you learn the language. Read them when you can, return them when you are finished." Oromis's hand darted back to the cubbyhole and set one last scroll atop the pile, nearly thrice as thick as the others. "That is a dictionary. Though I doubt you will get through it, it would behoove you to try." They left the hut.

"Our time together is short, and what I have to teach you, long. A rider of old was not considered trained for decades, and it took decades more to be considered a master. Yet I will have to condense these teachings into months if not weeks." Oromis stared out at the Crags contemplatively.

"Brom taught you how to fight, to kill, to survive. He did it well. I will teach you the refinements on his lessons. How to widen your perceptions so you will never be taken off guard. How to gather energy from your surroundings. How to kill with no more effort than lifting a finger. These are secrets the riders were not taught until they proved extensively that they were ready for the knowledge. But time makes fools of us all, and so fools we shall be."

---

Oromis's lessons began there. For the remainder of the day, he taught them in a group with Glaedr and Saphira watching on. They would sit around the table as Oromis lectured on topics Harry was less familiar with, generally things like woodcraft, tactics, and strategy. In subjects where Harry had studied extensively, especially topics he had studied back home, the lessons resembled discussions where Harry 'taught' Oromis.

In truth, the old elf was so sharp he scarcely needed to hear something once before he drew inferences and connected the dots, tearing through academic knowledge with very little input from Harry. Then he would turn around and summarize and breakdown the information to be digestible for Eragon and to a lesser extent: Arya. For an hour each, they touched on Mathematics, Biology, Physics, and Chemistry.

When the sun began to fall, Oromis called a halt to their lessons and smiled. "The four of you learn at an admirable pace. You have given me hope that we shall have time for you to learn what is necessary."

Harry and Arya left together, flying deeper into Ellesmera. Arya led Harry in a direction he was unfamiliar with, then plunged through the canopy to the base of a colossal tree.

"You expressed an interest in meeting Rhunon," Arya said with a smile. "She lives here. I am sure you will get along wonderfully."

Harry followed her beneath a cavernous arch between a pair of roots. The wooden tunnel led to an enormous hollowed out space beneath the trunk of the tree. In the center sat another, smaller building from which smoke spilled out of the roof. Arya knocked on the side of an open doorframe.

The sound of hammering inside paused. "Come in" a gruff voice called out. Harry wandered deeper into the building. He noted that the ground was made of stone, an unfamiliar material given everywhere he had been in Ellesmera previously was floored with either wood or grass.

Arya moved confidently through the ground floor, passing through an arch into the back room where a smithy was set up, glowing red. In the open room sat an anvil, and at it, an elf woman was working with a hammer and tongs. A shirt of chainmail rested on the metal surface. Rhunon picked up the tongs and skillfully grabbed a thin rod of cherry-red steel from the smithy, looping it around a link on the mail and hammering it shut right as it cooled and lost its color.

Rhunon put down her tongs and wiped her brow of sweat. Arya twisted her fingers over her lips and spoke. "May good fortune rule over you."

"Arya," she grunted. "Rumor said you were dead."

Harry grinned. Arya, the elven princess, had just honored Rhunon by speaking first in the traditional greeting. And the smith hadn't bothered responding.

"I am not."

The woman snorted and turned to her. Her face was lined and aged in a way that Harry had only seen on Gilderien's face. Despite it, she retained the inhuman beauty of the elves, looking more mature than old. "Have you come to pester me into leaving my forge?"

"Perhaps there will be time for that later," Arya smiled. "The Blood-Oath celebration draws near. Have you left your smithy since I last drew you away?"

Rhunon squinted. "The midsummer celebration, wasn't it?"

"That's a no, then. Rhunon, that was eight years ago!"

Rhunon made a derisive noise. "Why would I want to leave? Plants and politics, that's all that's out there. I much prefer the company of my steel. Who's this?" she asked abruptly, pointing at Harry.

He grinned. "I'm Harry. Arya said there was a rude blacksmith in Ellesmera, so I had to meet you."

She ran her eyes over his hands and biceps appraisingly. "You fancy yourself a metalworker? Let's see some of your work."

Harry pulled out his greatsword, suddenly rather nervous to hear the appraisal of a master metalworker. Rhunon took it from him none too gently, running her fingers along the flat of the blade, hefting it in her grip. She peered down both edges curiously.

Abruptly, she swung it overhead and brought the blade down diagonally on her tongs. Rhunon set the blade down on a counter and picked up the tongs, observing the cut critically. "You used magic to make this," she accused.

"Yeah?" Harry asked in bewilderment. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you! You've robbed yourself of all the satisfaction of a job well done!" she cried. "You might as well eat bread without baking it, or store a sword without oiling it."

"I don't oil my sword," Harry pointed out. Rhunon glared at him. "I get what you mean, though. When I make something that isn't as important, I try to avoid using magic. But my life rests on this sword, so I made every effort to make it perfect." The wind left her sails.

"I suppose," she admitted. "It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Cheating, that's what it is."

Harry grinned. "Cheating is the best. You should see some of the stuff I set up in my tent." Rhunon raised an eyebrow. "I set up a farm that feeds the Varden all their food for free."

"That, I'd be interested in seeing." she announced. She turned back to the sword and prodded at it, extending her magic and probing at the enchantments. "Interesting spellwork," she remarked. "But applied poorly. For the best results, you must cast your spells during the forging process, while the metal is still hot and taking shape." She handed the weapon back to Harry. "I will see your tent," she announced. She pointed at the forge, snuffing out the flames, and left her tools where they were.

Harry was beginning to understand why Arya held a certain opinion about her. For himself, Harry was immensely entertained, as well as interested in what the elf could teach him. Already, he was itching to try out Rhunon's enchanting technique.

Arya watched them with a grin. She knew they would get on fabulously.

---

Islanzadi was just leaving her home when she spotted something that made her look twice. Rhunon, the notorious recluse, was following her daughter to her rooms. Then she saw who was accompanying them and nearly groaned. Of course they would meet. She saw her daughter's hand in it. Arya was literally leading the two of them to her rooms. For the life of her Islanzadi could not fathom what the wizard (for it had to be him) had said to lure Rhunon away from her forges.

---

Rhunon hardly batted an eye at the vast expanded space within the tent. Harry found it rather amusing that every other magic user he brought through here had practically lost their jaws at the implications. Her composure was unflappable.

When they reached the workshop, an unholy gleam shone in the woman's eyes. She took in the tools and machines hungrily, crossing straight over to the metalworking area.

With the same expert skill, Rhunon tapped and poked at Harry's workspace. The forge she pronounced 'passable.' Then she picked up the tools.

"You did not make these." she stated.

"I did not," Harry confirmed. "They were family heirlooms. I would not have learned half as fast as I did without them. I used a skill to draw out the echoes of their past users to learn smithing incredibly quickly. I find it makes learning new crafts very quick. When I master an art, I plan to make my own tools and rely on my own skill."

"Clever," was all Rhunon said.

The rack of swords destined for the Varden caught her eye, and she crossed over to them. Rhunon pulled one out and examined it with an expression of faint disgust. "This thing has no identity. You managed to put practically none of yourself into the steel. How do you make these?"

"Shall I show you?"

"No one ever could look away from a collapsing building," Rhunon snorted.

Harry shot her a look of mock offense and set about preparing his workstation. He wheeled over a cart of steel ingots and popped one in. The white flame softened it nearly immediately. He welded the pole he used for tangs to the bar and pulled it out, setting it on the anvil and beginning to pound. Using magic extensively, Harry shaped the metal into a sword with only two heatings, then quenched the blade with cooling charms so the pattern of hardness was as he desired.

It was the work of minutes with belt sanders to bring the edge of the blade to a razor sharp finish. After, Harry used transfiguration to tighten and straighten everything out. A simple metal crossguard and wooden hilt went onto the tang. He spent a further minute with a balance and little weights balancing the sword. A bit of glue and the cap of the pommel completed the weapon.

As Harry drew up his magic, Rhunon leaned closer. Somewhat self consciously, Harry sung out the enchantments for the blade, sealing them to the metal a moment later. "And that's that," he announced, handing over the sword.

Rhunon stared at him like he was an idiot. "You managed to remove everything about blacksmithing that makes it an art, and distill it into the work of ten minutes." She picked up the fresh sword like one would a particularly dirty undergarment, examining it with a wrinkled nose. "And yet, I cannot argue with the results. Suddenly, I am no longer enthusiastic to teach you proper spellforging when I know it will end with thousands of identical and soulless weapons."

"Please?" Harry gave Rhunon his best puppydog eyes.

She regarded him impassively for a moment.

"Fine."

"Yes!" Harry exclaimed happily. "Please." he gestured to the forge and backed away. Rhunon glanced back at him and took up an ingot.

"I cannot make a sword," she warned. "I swore an oath during the Fall. After seeing what the Forsworn did with my works, I swore I would never release another weapon into the world."

Harry groaned. "Did you specify a sword? Can you make a battleaxe or something?"

Rhunon shot him a glare. "The wording of my oath would allow that, yes. But I specified making a sword 'by my hands,' in the oath. So you shall make the sword, guided by my actions in your mind. Lower your mental defenses, Harry."

Harry did not want to do that. His mind was his own, and he had only let Arya in. And even her, he had only allowed limited access. Rhunon was proposing he let her practically possess him.

And yet… he really wanted to learn. With a stuttering breath, Harry lowered his mental defenses.

Rhunon was gentler than her demeanor would suggest with her mental touch. She did not simply wrest control of his body from him, rather waited for him to surrender it to her. And when she took control of his limbs, she was careful and respectful with his body. Instead of reaching for his tools immediately, Rhunon ran through a series of exercises, testing her coordination and abilities in an unfamiliar body.

When she was familiar with his arms, she dove straight into her craft. Though she was unfamiliar with the workspace initially, Rhunon's movements gained confidence. Rather than begin heating an ingot immediately, she examined one extensively.

She cut out a gouge of steel, weighed it and measured its volume, scraped it against a diamond she had on a necklace hidden in her tunic. "This is very good steel," she remarked to Harry mentally.

"It's described as 'high-carbon' in modern metalworking literature, and generally acknowledged to be the best for making blades. There are alloys which can hold a sharper edge or absorb more force, but they generally sacrifice too much of the other quality. 1095 steel, as it is called, is ninety-eight percent iron, one percent carbon, one percent other."

"You smelt your own steel, then? I see no bloomery here," Rhunon remarked.

"It is down the hallway behind you," Harry sent her mental directions. "A blast furnace. On my world, people haven't used bloomeries for centuries. They're unbearably slow and very difficult to get the proper alloy ratios with. Modern furnaces produce over fifteen thousand times more steel. Without magic."

Harry recalled the general principles and schematics he'd seen in Lily's books, then how he had modified his own furnace with magic to further increase yield. It wound up sitting inactive except for an hour or so after the dwarves had delivered him a load of ore.

"How many smiths are there that anyone would need so much?" Rhunon asked in bewilderment tinged with awe.

"Nearly none. Smithing is a dying art, replaced by great machines and mills which shape steel or any other metal with precision far beyond any metalworker's hands." Images of enormous rollers, laser cutters, CNC mills and moulds flew past his mind. "The humans without magic have weapons far superior to swords. Instead, they use steel to make buildings, bridges, rails, boats, trains."

Amazed, Rhunon scrutinized the images Harry sent her. Her attention lingered on the gleaming steel and glass skylines of famous cities as seen through movies and pictures, enormous bridges spanning great rivers, trains trundling along miles of railway, and planes soaring across the sky, engines roaring overhead.

When her attention returned to the present, Rhunon began by heating the ingot while watching carefully. She examined the effects the white flames had on the metal, burning away impurities and softening the steel.

"When I forged the riders' blades, I did not use ordinary steel." She explained. "During the Blood Oath at the end of Du Fyrn Skulblaka, a meteor crashed into Du Weldenvarden. It shattered upon impact and scattered a strange metal all over.

"Brightsteel, I called the metal. Stronger and harder than steel made from iron, it earned its name by the iridescent sheen it gained when tempered and filed down." Rhunon drew out the heated ingot and placed it on the anvil. "This is no brightsteel, but it's certainly superior to any mere iron I've worked with."

The first strike of Rhuon's hammer was the opening verse of a song. She did not sing merely with her own voice or Harry's, but rather harmonized both of them effortlessly, composing a beautiful melody on the fly while she worked.

The bell-like peal of the hammering seemed to change pitch with the song, working with the music beyond mere percussion and instead becoming the melody. When the ingot cooled, the gusty breaths of the bellows roared in time, driving the white flame higher and hotter.

Rhunon sung lyrics which commanded the steel into shape, using the hammer and tongs as conduits for her power. Harry pressed as much power as he could spare into her spells, enhancing her enchantments even further. He was amazed by the level of understanding Rhunon displayed in her work. She would deliberately force the steel to crystalize in a lattice she had selected, setting the layers of metal so they could be sharpened to a microscopic point. With her magic she would draw out or infuse extra carbon into the spine and edges of the blade, hardening the cutting edges to hold an even finer point and softening the spine to flex and absorb the shock of battle.

She was a perfectionist. Harry would long have been satisfied with the shape of the sword and begun to grind, bend, and transfigure out whatever imperfections were left over. Not Rhunon. She meticulously hammered, sometimes striking with great force, then tapping lightly. Every time the reddened steel was hammered, flakes of scale flaked off, revealing a blade closer to the archetype she was after.

Harry could have watched her forge for days on end, but the time came when she withdrew from his mind. They beheld on the table a tempered blade, perfectly straight but still rather rough with scale. Rhunon drew up a chair and began her work on filing and finishing the sword.

He watched intently and asked many questions that the smith answered in delight. She seemed to relish in teaching another who held the same passion for her craft. Rhunon rejected the belt sanders and chose instead from the selection of filing tools in their little cubbyholes in the wall above the table. From experience, Harry knew her filing strokes should not have as much effect as they did. The sword seemed eager to slough off the imperfect metal scales, like an infant bird pushing its way out of its shell.

After several hours of polishing and filing, Rhunon sat back heavily in her chair and breathed out. "A work of eminent quality," she breathed out. "I only wonder what color you might have gotten were it made of brightsteel."

She was right. The blade had no handle, ending in a three inch tang that protruded from the bottom, but it scarcely detracted from the sword as a whole. It was a brilliant glossy white color along the spine, which faded to a dull carbon black edge. "A result of the smithing," Rhunon explained. "The edges are always darker–they have higher carbon content to make them harder and thus, darker–but I intentionally made the effect more pronounced."

"Is it enchanted against damage?" Harry queried.

"Aye, physical, thermal, and many others."

He retrieved a standard enchanted sword and clamped the base of its blade in a vice so that over two feet of it extended past the edge of the table. He conjured a rough handle for a better grip and reared back, striking the edge with the new blade as hard as he could. The table shuddered under the force of the blow.

The generic sword had survived the stroke, but only just. There was now a deep triangular notch in the blade which had cut deep into the spine. Harry turned to Rhunon, who grinned proudly. "That sword'll stand up to even rider blades, though not quite as well as one made from brightsteel would."

Harry cackled. "Shall I give it a go and you can tell me what I've screwed up?" he asked.

Rhunon paused. "Aye, I'll watch and tell you how you've messed it."

Harry grabbed another ingot and got to work. It was immediately clear that Rhunon's ignorance of modern tools like angle grinders and acetylene torches had slowed her smithing considerably. With everything available to him, the blade formed quickly under his song and hammer.

The act of singing to the steel had the peculiar effect of giving him a hyper-awareness of the metal as he worked. Where before Harry had to rely on his senses to see how the steel reacted to him, a mystical sense not unlike the Imperius curse linked him to the ingot so that he could feel everything about it.

The lattice of metal took shape in his mind's eye, forming under his command like he had just watched Rhunon do herself. The carbon in the steel bent under his will, pulling some from the spine and pushing it into the blade. He had a shape in mind, one much thinner and longer than a typical longsword. Harry needed the edge as sharp as he could get it to offset the downside of a much lighter blade he couldn't swing as hard. As he mused on solutions, suddenly one came to him which made him freeze.

Cackling, Harry cast a stasis charm on the blade mid-strike and left it floating in the air above the anvil.

"Why have you stopped, wizard? This is a process best done all at once." Rhunon cast an eye at the floating rapier.

"I just got a brilliant idea, mate!" Harry grinned. "And it seems I'll be sharing a priceless secret with you, as well. C'mere."

Rhunon cautiously followed him over to a glass and metal room with a strange double-layer door and a plinth in the middle. Like a mad scientist, Harry was sketching, muttering, and measuring on a square of paper. He popped open a jar and measured out several fistfulls of a dark grey powder into a paper cup.

Under the elf's watchful eyes, Harry formed a grey ingot of metal which was notably not iron, steel, tin, or any other metal she had seen into the design he had sketched on the table. She leaned over it and examined it quickly. The corner of her lip twitched.

He was attempting to make the edge of his sword from some other material.

The (cast?) he'd produced as trivially as breathing had a thick bevel, but its interior would be no larger than a millimeter in width, perhaps two long. It traced unbroken all the way around the shape of the blade the wizard had been forging, what it might have ended up looking like when finished.

"Why have you made your cast from metal? It will bind to whatever metal you pour into it and make it irretrievable."

"This isn't for any metal," he smirked.

"Ceramics will shatter even when strengthened by the strongest enchantments when pitted against brightsteel," Rhunon warned. "I cannot fathom what material besides metal can be cast that will stand up to my weapons."

"Patience," he teased. "You'll see in just a moment."

Rhunon watched impatiently. Harry seemed to have finished moulding the cast with his magic and briefly severed each end of the narrow and hollow 'V.' Glancing back at the parchment and running over the numbers, Harry traced his wand along the cast, muttering strange words. "I am using the space-expansion charm. It does what it says on the tin, manipulating the fabric of space to create localized areas of greater area than their volume would make possible. It is how I made this workshop inside a canvas tent."

She did not take her eyes from his hands for even a moment. "This dark grey dust I am pouring into it is called graphite, the purest form of carbon–well, second purest."

Rhunon was no fool. Though chemistry was a field not yet fully explored, she knew enough to know what Harry was getting at. She checked the ratio of space expanded volume to the area it held without magic, which confirmed her suspicions. The curiosity burned at her anyways. It was supposed to be impossible to do what the wizard was attempting, even the most learned elves had no idea what produced them…

Harry sealed up the end caps with a repair charm and chanted a short string of latin which rendered the metal as indestructible as he was able to easily make it. He entered the airlock and placed the metal 'V' on the plinth, retreating as soon as he did.

"The space-expansion charm is one of the more ludicrous uses of magic from my homeworld. The effect is incredibly powerful, so much so that I am unsure if it's even possible to reproduce the effect with your native magic. The expansion charm is extremely useful by itself and I have made extensive use of it, but I have never heard of someone using it like I have."

While he explained, Harry was reaching out searching for the expansion charm's magic through the reinforced bunker glass. He caught the thread and held onto it. "Cover your ears."

Rhunon deafened herself with her hands, watching the metal cast intently. Harry breathed in, then yanked on the thread in his metaphysical hands. A resounding bang echoed in the chamber and a bright flash of light left the pair of them blinking spots from their eyes. When their visions adjusted, the 'V' was glowing cherry-red,

Harry gestured that it was safe to listen again and retrieved the cast with tongs from the room. "Collapsing the charm creates an instant of infinite force on the interior. Usually the container cannot handle it and ruptures. I use magic to reinforce the cast, and with the proper metal, it can survive the process. This is tungsten, the metal with the highest melting point in any naturally occurring element at well over 6000 degrees fahrenheit, well over twice that of iron."

"It is reddened like it is fresh from the forge," Rhunon observed.

"Indeed. I tend to err on the side of overfull for the moulds, to account for gaps between granules of graphite, however fine I may grind it. The heat is a result of the excess carbon fusing, a powerful exothermic reaction."

"How do you plan to get your mystery material out of a solid metal casing that you yourself deliberately made indestructible through magic?"

"Magic," Harry shrugged. "My own brand of magic is much more temporary in most cases, and can be ended with a simple spell. Finite. It ends most magical effects not deliberately designed to resist it like the expansion charm." He carefully ran his wand along the tungsten which opened like a zipper under his transfigurative magic. "Transfiguration is an entire branch of magic that allows witches and wizards to change and shape material with their magic. Extraordinarily useful, but tends to produce goods which are harder to enchant, so I stay away from it unless I have good reason otherwise."

Rhunon was hardly listening. She had suspected, and the flash bang was a definitive expression of great power, but she hadn't really let herself believe it was possible. There, within the peeled open metal, was a perfectly clear crystalline substance that could only be-

"Diamond." The wizard levitated the delicate thin outline of a blade out of its cast, gossamer thin, yet razor sharp. He set it gently down on a flat table. The innocent arch glittered up at them like glass, heedless of the masses of men that would kill to possess it. "I've made a knife with a diamond edge, but never a sword much less a rapier. The weapon is designed to be fast and nimble, stabbing through armor joins or slashing at unarmored enemies. Angela has a sword called 'Albitr' which cuts through nearly anything effortlessly. If I can make a sword like that, hopefully it will eliminate the drawbacks of switching from a greatsword."

"Ah, the urgalish weapons," Rhunon realized. "Yes, I can see they would serve you well. They claim to pray to the nature spirits for the crystal they use in their masterworks, but I have never been able to come up with enough material to do the same."

"You've been able to learn from them?" Harry had not thought that Rhunon, or any elf for that matter, would have been able to speak with an Urgal given they hadn't left Ellesmera since the Fall. Even before that, Arya had said that her reputation was that of a fabled recluse.

"The age of riders was a kinder one than this," she explained. "Though I was never named a friend of the Urgals, we got along well enough. I had a friend among them, Talork the maker. Their greatest blades are not technically metal, so they do not take the title of smith."

Harry filed that away and got to work cleaning and dusting the delicate frame of his rapier. Once he had dusted off the graphite, he brought the gleaming diamond edge over to the anvil, floating in the air like an obedient puppy.

The pieces floated next to each other. Harry saw the problem immediately. How was he going to fuse the two? The diamond would shatter if he hammered away at the steel blade while it was attached, but he could hardly fix the two together if the metal of the sword had a sharp edge. There would be so little contact between the two, Harry doubted the adhesion would hold up to the rigors of battle. What he needed was a way to make the edges of the completed sword perfectly flat.

Maybe if I forge a completed blade, then use a metal press to shear off the edges a little bit? With a plan in his head, Harry ended the stasis charm on the rapier and continued to labor under Rhunon's watchful eye. She occasionally called out suggestions, watching and examining the sword carefully throughout the process to catch any mistakes before they compounded and ruined the blade.

When the time came to quench the rapier, Harry shied away from plunging it straight in. Quenching was a very final act, the last bit of true forging before the blade was complete. Everything after it was just polishing and sharpening. Reapplying the stasis charm, Harry moved to the press to set it up.

Rhunon followed him questioningly. "Quenching feels very final, like the end of the song, but I want to make the diamond edge not just an accessory, but an integral part of the rapier. So I have to add it first."

"Yes, the quenching is the end of the process. I can usually drag out a bit more verses to add enchantments, but it's meant to mark the last moment of forging."

Harry didn't think he would need time to add more enchantments. He had poured his strength into every piece of beneficial magic he could conceive of to put on an inclined plane. He could drop it into the sun and leave it for a year, fish it out later, and find it the same. Surprisingly, the blade allowed him to put enchantments for grip on it, despite the fact that the base of the blade ended in a straight thin tang with no handle.

He had attempted to make it frictionless in an effort to help the rapier cut deeper without resistance, but without a familiar spell or charm to couch the magic in, only time would tell if it worked the way he wanted it to.

Soon the metal press was ready, a cutout outline just slightly smaller than the face of the blade in sharp steel hung above the rapier where vices and clamps held it in place. Holding his breath, Harry jabbed the button and let the enormous force of the press crash down against the blade.

Just as quickly, the steel face of the press retreated up and revealed a clean cut to the rapier's edges, exactly the right size to be replaced by diamond. Rhunon watched with an unreadable expression as Harry slid the two together and used his magic, raw and without form, to unify the two pieces.

Harry did not want to use a sticking charm, in his mind, it would be as good as admitting that the two pieces were separate entities. His goal was to make the diamond edge and the metal spine one piece, one whole.

The moment the parts touched, Harry knew he had succeeded. The spells and enchantments he had painstakingly sung onto the metal eagerly enveloped the diamond edge, strengthening and incorporating it into the whole.

A sort of urgency came into existence, as if the blade was pushing him to complete it. Harry felt the nudge to fabricate a handle and guard, prodding him back to the forge. "I think the sword wants me to finish it," he said to Rhunon.

"That, I can help you with," she smiled.

"Your oath will not interfere with you forging something made for a sword?"

"I swore against making swords, not guards or handles, young wizard."

Rhunon elbowed him aside and drew up a large roll of parchment, weighting it against the sooty table with an ingot and a pair of tongs on either side. "Have you a stick of charcoal?"

Harry handed her a pencil and gestured to the parchment. "The pink bit on the other end can erase writing if it's done lightly enough." Rhunon accepted the implement and hunched over the parchment, scribbling and sketching a design for an elegant basket to envelop the hand of the sword's wielder.

"Have you given thought to making the guard out of gold?" Rhunon suggested.

Harry shook his head. "Ostentatious, heavy, and not functional. Gold is too soft to take a real hit."

"Not with magic, but generally, I agree. Without function, no form can make a sword beautiful. Very well. Perhaps brass?"

Harry considered it. Brass looked essentially like gold, if a bit lighter, but was stronger and lighter. "Sure. I'd prefer a matte finish, though." Rhunon nodded. She sketched a few alterations to her plan, using the eraser delightedly to wipe away errant scribbles.

The basket took only minutes to finish between the both of them. By unspoken agreement, Rhunon hammered and Harry sung, pouring his mighty power into the softened brass as it took shape under the hammer of an elf-woman with centuries of experience behind her. She used a steel ball and a light hammer to mould the basket into shape, then pulled the ball out from underneath the guard.

The handle and crossguard for the sword were similarly made and carefully assembled, sealed together with magic and metal. The pair of them worked for two more hours finishing everything up. Grinding, sanding, polishing, and sharpening turned the thin blade into a gleaming instrument of death. A glossy white spine that faded to black before ending in a tiny sliver of diamond that glittered dangerously in the halogen lights of the workshop.

Rhunon hooked the tools she had been using onto their pegs and wiped her brow of sweat with her apron. "All that is left is a name, wizard."

Harry hummed. "Misery, lightbringer, death of shadows, everyone and their nan seems to name their swords something ridiculously pretentious and not at all fun." He glanced at the sword again. "Chances are, I'll end up redoing this thing anyways when I find a source of brightsteel to work with or transmute."

He picked up the rapier and gave it a few testing swings. It felt fabulous in his grip, nimble and dextrous. Harry put his right foot forward and bent his knees slightly, bobbing slightly and rocking back, shifting his center of balance between his feet. He swung it in an experimental arc, putting his elvish strength behind each shadowboxing stroke. The steel seemed to blur and zip through the air, the edge so sharp it sounded like a vacuum against a flapping piece of fabric or plastic.

"Zippy," he announced. "I shall call this Zippy the rapier. It's fast as all get out, and so sharp it zips through the air."
Rhunon snorted indelicately. "Perhaps Zippy's processor will earn a more dignified name. I can already hear the bards chanting about Zippy's great deads in the fist of its noble wielder, Harry the wizard."

While Harry made a quick and dirty scabbard out of boiled leather (he embossed a stylized zipper in white along the black material) to keep the edge of Zippy from slicing clean through his leg, Rhunon poked around his workspace. He only kept half an eye on her as she toured his facilities, pausing at the enormous enclosures for farming and livestock before disappearing into the weapons vault.

He followed her several minutes later to find her examining the myriad of weapons hung up on pegs across the left wall. In her rough and calloused hands, Rhunon held the bone axe he had made, his first attempt at crafting a magical tool of his own. "I have taken only two apprentices," she remarked without looking at him. "A dwarf and an elf, centuries ago, both of them. And even under my tutelage, they didn't learn how to smith half as fast as these tools suggest. Your improvement between each piece," she put Treecapitator back on its hook and picked up a greatsword. "Beggars belief."

"A technique an ancestor taught me," Harry hung up the greatsword he had been using previously. "Tools contain echoes of the work they've done. With the right skills, you can draw those echoes to the surface and let them guide your hands."

Rhunon was curious, but begged off learning that night. She agreed to help him with his task of arming and armoring the Varden. They set up a time to meet the next week (Harry was unaware of how rare it was that Rhunon voluntarily leave her forge at all, let alone multiple times in succession,) then the elf left the tent for her own home.

Arya had long since left the two of them to their work, disappearing into the suite of rooms adjacent to the royal quarters. Harry joined her in bed for several restful hours before they were due at the training yard the next morning.

---

The following morning, Arya fetched Eragon from his treehouse and led them to a clear grassy field filled with the sound of clashing steel and shouts. Along one end, a row of targets stretched back hundreds of feet, some so far and small they were barely visible from the starting line that the elves shot from.

Muted thrums heralded the shots of powerful elvish bows. It seemed the archers had confidence in their fellows' skills, for they would venture downrange to collect their shots even while their fellows in neighboring lanes continued firing. Some of the elves used magic to retrieve their arrows instead, holding out a hand and calling for their arrows to return to them.

The low sun glinted off the morning dew on the tamped grass, short, brown, and crushed as it was from hundreds of feet stomping over them. The melee fighters wielded every manner of weapon from maces and warhammers to spears, bladestaffs, swords, and even war fans.

"Hail!" An elf called over the ring of steel and shouting. He approached the four of them, bowing to Saphira respectfully. Behind him were two fellows, a male and a female. Saphira's arrival drew a bit of attention from the crowd, but it quickly dispersed as the elves resumed their sparring.

The lead elf had black hair and an angular face with an arrogant expression. He held himself as if he thought he was god's gift to Ellesmera and regarded Eragon with a faintly disdainful look that still managed to fall well within the bounds of polite interaction.

"I am Vanir of house Haldthin. These are my fellows, Vala and Aldr." He gestured first to the woman, then the man, who bowed in turn with their names. "Oromis-elda has assigned each of us to one of you. I am to spar with Eragon, Aldr with Arya, and Vala with Harry."

They split off into pairs. Harry spotted Eragon running his fingers over the edges of his sword to dull them. He did the same with Zippy. Vala looked at the rapier in interest, guarding her own rapier without looking or appearing to even give a portion of her attention to the magic. That was his first warning that Vala knew what she was doing. The second came when she settled into an opening stance. It looked effortless, like she would walk and stand the same way even without her rapier in her hand.

"I am told you have never wielded the rapier?" she asked politely.

Harry nodded. "I forged this last night," he admitted.

Studying him, Vala seemed to approve of something and nodded decisively. "Oromis-elda was right to recommend the rapier for you. Despite training with the greatsword, your natural fighting style shows through. Are you ready?"

Harry raised his sword in front of him and nodded. "Yes."

Without warning, Vala struck. Her rapier was a tongue of lightning in her hands. Harry had grown accustomed to the heavy and cumbersome swords that most denizens of Alagaesia wielded, using an even more cumbersome greatsword himself. The rapier was a significant departure from those fighting styles.

The thin blade glinted in the light, whipping towards his right shoulder. Harry raised his elbow and hand outward, lifting the hilt of the rapier to deflect Vala's strike. Before her blade even touched his own, she changed course and stabbed towards his chest, Striking his sternum.

Wordlessly conceding, Harry backed up a step and they reset. "Again."

Immediately, he struck out low, Zippy tearing through the air towards Vala's thighs. She dipped her hilt, bending her knees low enough that she could catch the strike at the throat of her hilt and batting it aside, sallying forth immediately and tagging him on his hip.

Twice more, Harry was defeated within two strikes by Vala's lightning fast precision. When they separated again, Vala held up a hand. "A rapier is not a greatsword. You need not conserve momentum or catch multiple blows in one stroke. 'Tis light enough to swing again for every strike. Discard the notion of motion economy. The rapier is the most agile weapon ever made."

Harry nodded and bent his knees again, rocking back and forth gently. When Vala attacked again, he managed to fend off several strikes. Between each stroke, he would bring his blade back to loosely vertical, held out in front of him. "Good," Vala praised. She paused. "Again."

For the next twenty minutes, Harry became accustomed to wielding a weapon that felt no lighter than a wand. Vala did not pull her punches, but she did not attempt to humiliate him either, for which Harry was thankful. Even as she bruised him, Harry managed to strike her twice, once on the thigh, the other a stab that hit her collarbone.

It was halfway through their allotted time that he had an epiphany. It's like dueling, Harry realized. With the mental framework in place, he set himself up for the next bout with renewed confidence. He watched her tense, studied the muscles in her arms and legs beneath her sleeveless tunic. Vala's eyes darted across Harry's body, searching. He thought he saw her pause on his hip for the briefest moment and prepared accordingly.

The strike came without warning, whistling at his right shoulder. Harry batted away the strike, leaning slightly as the rapier breezed past. Just when he thought he was mistaken, Vala drew the sword back towards his hip. With a triumphant smile, Harry caught the strike by twisting his hand so the blade was facing diagonally back to his side. The thin blade skittered off his own. In the same motion, Harry lunged forward, striking Vala in the sternum with Zippy's pommel. "Ha!" he exclaimed triumphantly.

Vala smiled at him. "Something was different, this bout. Have you found a mental framework for yourself?"

"I have," Harry grinned.

"Good," she praised. "Again."

From there on, their fights lasted much longer. It became clear that Vala was not fighting seriously earlier, for Harry found her a much more formidable opponent than the one he managed to get a cheeky blow on with his pommel.

Overhead, slash, stab, parry, parry. Vala was never stationary in battle, darting forwards and back just as often as she blocked. When the momentum of the fight favored her, she relentlessly pushed forward, yet when she was on the back foot, it was just as likely that she would backstep instead of blocking.

The second half of their sparring passed in what felt to Harry like minutes. He wiped his brow with a conjured towel, vanished it, and offered a fresh one to Vala. The elf accepted it with a smile, toweling the sweat from her limbs. They were both breathing heavily.

"I enjoyed our bouts," Vala said, sheathing her rapier smoothly. Harry emulated her.

"Me too." Harry glanced over at Eragon, in the midst of a failing bout with Vanir. The elf soundly defeated Eragon who to Harry's eye was fighting more sloppily than normal. Vanir leaned in and said something too quiet to catch from where they were. A ring of onlookers had formed several paces away. They clearly caught what was said, glancing at each other and murmuring under their breaths.

Furious, Eragon prepared for another bout and jerked his head at Vanir to do the same. Harry edged closer to them in concern. There was a beat of silence, then Eragon exploded into frenzied motion, striking with enough force to kill a man even with his blunted sword. Vanir fended off the assault. Harry could tell the elf was putting a surprising amount of effort into defending himself, but Vanir nonetheless sneered and scoffed, fighting with deliberately minimized motions as if to say he found Eragon's efforts pathetic.

Eragon's enraged blows sapped his strength quickly and the moment his strikes flagged in speed, Vanir darted behind his guard and tapped his collarbone with his sword. "Dead. How can you expect to defeat Galbatorix with a pathetic showing such as this? I cannot fathom how you might have killed Durza to earn your title."

Harry wanted to stop Vanir from stoking Eragon's fury any further, but a slim hand caught his elbow. "Stop. This is a valuable lesson he must learn." Arya had sidled up to him. Her sparring partner Aldr and Vala chatted quietly with each other a few paces to the right.

Arya's formfitting clothes were slightly damp and clung to her curves enticingly. Her typically immaculate raven hair was in a mild state of disarray, strands loosely framing her face. In a word, she looked radiant. Her pupils were dilated, her blood up from fighting. In Harry's opinion, it all served to make her look more beautiful.

He tore his attention from Arya and listened to Vanir and Eragon's exchange more carefully. "You claimed the title of Shadeslayer without actually killing a shade?" Vanir was mocking with a tone of incredulity. "A craven and a thief, then. Perhaps Saphira's mind was addled from the time spent in the Mad King's captivity, for I cannot fathom why she would choose you to bond with."

Gasps rippled through the crowd. There was a moment of pause which Harry assumed was Eragon communing with Saphira. Suddenly, she roared angrily, at Eragon or Vanir, he could not tell. Several elves clapped their hands over their ears.

Arya had a look of outrage on her face. But Harry wore a grim sort of smile. He knew what was coming. He watched Eragon set his shoulders in a cold fury, pacing back and assuming his stance again, blue eyes aflame with hatred. Vanir laughed dismissively and turned his back but Harry could detect a wavering note in his voice. Eragon heard it, too.

"Come back here, Vanir. Our hour is not up."

"You're spent," he sneered. "I would scarce like to be the one responsible for the free rider crippling himself."

"Our hour is not up," Eragon repeated steely. "Face me."

"Very well," he turned back reluctantly and shot poisonously. "You do need every bit of help you can get." Vanir assumed a lazy and unready pose, mocking Eragon by yawning theatrically. He held his sword loosely in his grip, dangling at his side."

"This ought to be good," Harry murmured to Arya out of the corner of his mouth. She glanced at him and saw his smile.

Eragon opened the fight with a devastating overhead blow that had all the force of a warhammer behind it. Vanir brought his blade up to block it. When steel clashed, the elf's eyes widened at the force behind it. He gritted his teeth and slashed at Eragon's breast. Vanir's blade skittered off of Eragon's sword which had appeared in his path.

The elf's follow through left his blade extended out to the side. Eragon struck back with the flat of his blade against Vanir's inner elbow, drawing a pained hiss from him. "Touch," Vanir conceded irritably. He stabbed with blinding speed at Eragon's belly but again, Eragon's sword was there.

Fighting with more caution than previously, Vanir probed and prodded. Every stroke was met with implacable defense. Eragon's form was flawless, the katas Brom had drilled into his head performed to perfection.

Finally, it seemed Vanir was fed up with the cautious pace of the fight and began to press his attack. Each frenetic swing, each mighty blow was stopped cold. Vanir's frustration grew further, and his attacks became more frantic. Still, Eragon stonewalled each stroke. At the tail end of a particularly frenzied combo that concluded with a forehand swung with all the strength Vanir could muster, the elf was left heaving, sword outstretched, without a single touch.

Then, Eragon smiled grimly and went on the attack. Stroke after stroke, form after form, every offensive move flowed together like a poem of deadly steel. Eragon spun and danced forwards, pressing Vanir against the ring of onlookers. Perhaps if Vanir had been fresh, he might have fended off the assault, but he was not. His breathing was ragged, his moves sloppy, and it showed.

With a grim visage, Eragon cornered Vanir and locked blades, baiting him to spin around and attempt a backhand.

Vanir bit. He had only just begun facing away when Eragon moved, stomping the top of the back of his shin, just below the knee. The elf cried out and collapsed, forced to one knee, then collapsed off-balance. His face hit the dirt hard, his arms too occupied with his sword to try and break his fall. Scrambling, Vanir rolled over and tried to get up only to find himself staring up the length of Eragon's sword, pointed unwaveringly at his neck.

"Dead."

Vanir gulped, laying sprawled stock still on the grass. He waited for Eragon to move his sword. When he did not do so immediately, all the elf could to was stay frozen on the ground.

Something crossed Eragon's face. He grimaced and sheathed his sword, turning his back dismissively on the odious elf. Vanir was about to rise when once more, something stopped him.

Over a foot of sharpened, lethal ivory talon. Saphira cast a great shadow over Vanir, her talon tapping his breastplate with a minute tink.

"Dead." she projected to everyone in the field.

Then she flew off, following Eragon to the Crags.

---

Arya and Harry flew lazily to Oromis's hut, taking their time so that they were assured Saphira made it before them.

"How were your spars?" Harry asked.

"Good. And you?"

"I've a long way to go before I can call myself a half-decent rapiersman, but Vala will surely have me there as fast as any teacher I could have."

The edge of the cliff came up beneath them, then dropped away to reveal the clearing upon which Oromis's hut sat. Two dragons lazed about on the grass, tails unmoving and legs folded beneath them. A lone figure in yellow robes stood to the side, head tilted up and unmoving.

Harry descended gracefully and dismounted before Oromis. "Ebrithil," he said respectfully. Arya landed next to him and did the same.

"Arya, Harry." He folded his hands in front of him. "How went your spars?" Oromis listened politely as they both recounted how their mornings went and nodded as if pleased, but there was a tension to his bearing that Harry had not yet seen. "Excellent. You are already as good as any swordsman an elf or rider could hope to be. What you have yet to learn will not be taught by sparring." This he addressed to Arya. "Offer aid to your fellow students when you can, keep your skills sharp when you cannot."

Harry glanced around in confusion. "Where's Eragon, Ebrithil?"

"Will Eragon be joining us, Ebrithil," Oromis corrected uncompromisingly. "I shall add etiquette lessons for Eragon and yourself." Harry opened his mouth to complain- "You do not have to choose to employ them, merely understand what is expected of you when you deliberately antagonize potential allies." He shut his mouth.

Oromis gazed serenely at the pair of dragons who were only then crouching in preparation to take off. "Eragon is learning to open his mind in the glade, a task which can only be learned alone. When he is finished, one of you shall take his place, then the other. You should not expect to share many lessons, the three of you. If Eragon is wise, Saphira will be learning with him. But the three of you do not share such a bond as they do, and nor shall I demand you make a facsimile of one. The three of you have varied strengths and weaknesses, thus collective lessons would waste two thirds of my time on average."

He suddenly sighed and gained a weary cast. "Eragon is further behind than I'd hoped, though more advanced than the minimum required. I have only now learned that he blessed a child in Farthen Dur, a risky and dangerous magic even in the best of time." Arya looked horrified.

"What did he say?"

"May Luck and Fortune follow you and may you be a Shield from Misfortune." Oromis quoted grimly. "It is my understanding that he misused a suffix which changed Shielded to Shield. The resulting sentence would have been broken and lack fluency, but the Ancient Language is only a guideline anyways. Unfortunately, not even the most skilled magic user can gainsay the direct definition of a word, and Eragon is not one such magician."

The stormy cast on the rider's face cleared, and he beckoned them to the small table in the clearing, empty now that Saphira and Glaedr had vacated it. "Though I foul the air with talk of such grim things. Eragon's task now is to speak only in the Ancient Language until he gains fluency. I expect the both of you to assist him should his vocabulary fail him."

Oromis spent the next few moments gazing unfocused into the horizon before he returned to himself. "I understand the both of you are fluent in the Ancient Language enough to obviate further lessons even on minutiae such as grammar and sentence structure, thus the logical next step in honing your skills with magic will be the dexterity with which you wield your thaumaturgic grip." A glint appeared in his amber eyes. "I shall teach you finesse in the traditional manner." Harry gained a feeling of apprehension that was not helped by Arya's matching expression.

The 'traditional method' turned out to be cooking. Oromis had had Harry conjure a buffet table and then laid out on it many raw ingredients–and by raw, Harry meant raw. There was no bag of flour, instead a bundle of whole wheat stalks affixed together with twine. A bowl contained a stack of raw eggs, a sack held a truncated berry bush with the berries still on the stems. Harry was only grateful that the elves were vegetarian, else he was certain he'd have to butcher live animals for meat.

There were no tools to manipulate with magic, and Oromis had forbidden him from using his homeworld's magic to accomplish the task. Harry had falsely thought at first that the task would be trivial, and set about pouring magic into a mental image of what he wanted from the food, letting it figure out how to accomplish his tasks.

That, Oromis had proclaimed, was 'cheating' and further instructed him to use only verbalized magic in the Ancient Language. That, Harry found, was much more challenging.

"It is jealously guarded knowledge that the Ancient Language is not strictly necessary to cast spells. In fact, this is one secret the elves and riders took great pains to deny Galbatorix. It is possible he remains unaware of this fundamental freedom of magic. In ages past, all magic was free and bent only to the whims of the caster. Then some great unnamed disaster nearly sterilized the planet, and the Ancient Language was put into place. The Grey Folk used their own language and some lost spell to bind magic and truth to their language, so that I might think to kill someone when I say 'Cut the grass,' and the grass would be cut.

"Eventually, it simply became so convenient to use such an intuitive system that people forgot it was unnecessary. Ultimately, everyone who knows or discovers this secret is heavily discouraged from using it except in the direst of circumstances, lest the whims of their mortal mind unwittingly unleash some dark terror upon the world. I would advise you to guard the same secret jealously, so that you might preserve a rather enormous advantage over the king to be used in the direst circumstance."

The words of the Ancient Language were incredibly useful for cobbling spells together on the fly, but flexible they were not. Trying to get them to bend to Harry's will felt rather like chiseling artwork with a mallet and a chisel that was bent thirty degrees at the handle. The grip was awkward and unwieldy, prone to gouging his target or missing entirely. His intent could govern the magic rather well, but the words had added hard 'rails,' for want of a better term, to his spell. If Harry used the word 'cut,' and neglected to additionally specify holding up his ingredients, they would fall the moment he lost focus and no amount of finagling would twist the Cut spell to levitate his target. Thus, any tasks of even marginal complexity demanded Harry cast and maintain several different spells, even if they were trivial.

Mercifully to his ego, Arya seemed to have similar troubles. "Heat!" She said imperiously, a finger outstretched at her raw egg. Nearly instantly, tiny curls of smoke wafted off the rapidly darkening shell.

Oromis watched them carefully, sipping at a cup of steaming fragrant tea and taking small bites of a heavenly looking apple turnover, a tiny upturn to his lips.

Arya sniffed and discarded the burnt egg, reaching for another irratably. "Careful," he cautioned. "There are not many eggs left, and your lunch will be a sad affair if you waste all your ingredients." Control was likewise a daunting task. Both Arya and Harry were accustomed to using spells in combat, designed to kill instantly rather than evenly cook. It went counter to everything they had practiced to use magic so delicately.

Meanwhile, Harry was busy with his own lunch. As carefully as he could manage with the unwieldy magic, Harry had stripped away the little seed-thingies atop the wheat stalks and held them midair in a vice grip, then rather enthusiastically experimented with words like 'Crush," and 'Grind.' It was quickly discovered that the word used had a significant impact on the outcome. Crush yielded a ball of cracked paste that shook faintly under magical pressure. Grind was a much more suitable use, turning the clump of ears into a roughly ground chunky flour with bits of the stalk and husk mixed in.

Harry stared at the unappealing mixture balefully. "Remove the undesirable particles from the wheat," he ordered. The dirty and mixed primitive flour visibly whitened as the chaff was stripped away magically. Oromis shot him a reproving look.

"That is not the point of the exercise," he said mildly.

He crossed his arms mulishly. "Separating that out the normal way would have been impossible."

"Not impossible," the elf corrected. "Merely tedious. I would rather you experience the results of your failure than gainsay them out of a desire for comfort. Else, how will you come to learn the consequences of your actions? Do not do so again."

The reprimand smarted slightly. Harry's competitive nature was stoked then and he redoubled his efforts to assemble a perfect lunch, daunted then by the looming threat of actually eating his creation.

The lesson continued in that vein for another thirty minutes, by the end of which Harry and Arya both had produced something edible for their efforts. It was faint consolation to him that Eragon would almost certainly fare worse at the exercise. With a reluctant grimace, Harry levitated a burnt bread toast to his mouth bobbed his neck forwards, taking a bite out of it.

It was pretty bad, Harry reflected while chewing exaggeratedly. The slice of cheese (though slice was a generous term) was uneven and greatly thicker on one side than the other. Wide bits of lettuce hung over the edge where his fine motor skills with magic failed him and the folding he had been attempting, and the tomato he'd added for some kick to compensate for the lack of meat was a bit squished on one side where he'd dropped it.

Previously, Harry had rather thought he had pretty good control over his magic. His practice transfiguring nearly perfectly smooth surfaces lent credence to the theory that his precision was above average. Not only had he pushed his accuracy down to the micron-level, the complexity of his magic had recently passed the point where he could conjure a musket with enough accuracy that the weapon was more dangerous where it was pointed than to the user.

Such a feat demanded intimate knowledge of gunpowder's chemical composition, brass and steel alloys, and the ability to fit them together closely without overlap or part jamming. But alas, Alagaesian magic, Transfiguration was not. It was powerful, to be sure, and overwhelmingly versatile, but it was not flexible. Harry could cobble together a sentence-spell on the fly to accomplish near any task, but God help him if he stuttered or misspoke, or wanted an effect other than what he first outlined. There were no take-backs with the Ancient Language and the moment the last syllable left your lips, your will be done or kingdom come. When the day came for Harry to return to his homeworld and leave the Ancient Language behind, he was sure he would not miss it much. Its instant and unrelenting nature made it far too effective in combat, and effectively removed muggles from the equation.

Just when he had finished his crude sandwich, Harry spotted a lone figure in the distance approaching. Eragon emerged from the treeline at an unhurried pace, though his face betrayed his excitement at something he had gleaned during his meditation.

"Master Oromis," he bowed respectfully, eyes fixed on the rather horrific lunch Arya and Harry were forcing down.

"Eragon-vodhr," he acknowledged. "There is a question on the tip of your tongue. Ask. As your teacher, I shall endeavor to leave you with fewer questions than when you started."

"Why are your students eating a very poorly-prepared meal?"

"They are reaping the fruits of their skills in gramarye."

"You are teaching them magic, Ebrithil?" Eragon asked with mild jealousy.

"I am," he said mildly. "Like it or not, they have less ground to cover than you in the field of magics and mind. Harry has spent a decade honing his skills with magic, Arya several times that. The civilizations they hail from value education rather more than the rural human village of Carvahall."

Eragon was silent, an expression of thought on his face. Abruptly, Oromis rose from the table and gestured to Harry. "I shall show you the glade where you will be meditating."

Harry followed Oromis mutely, eyes fixed on Eragon until they passed him. The moment he had crossed the field, he broached the topic on his mind with the rider. "How long do you expect the three of us to remain here in Ellesmera?"

"As long as it is remotely feasible. Brom taught Eragon and yourself the crudest possible ways of the rider arts, a brutally-paced form of swordplay he favored with mismatched weapons, savage uses of magic for killing, and rudimentary strategy to keep Eragon and Saphira alive long enough to reach me. These lessons only shallowly scratch the surface of what it means to be a rider." He sighed then, looking unfathomably old for a moment.

"It was once a great honor. No higher calling existed in Alagaesia for centuries. We were peacekeepers, yes, but also artisans, philosophers, explorers. If I am to teach you the ways of the riders, I shall settle for no half measures. Though you lack a dragon, your mind and magic can still be sharpened and you can learn to comport yourself with honor and integrity. I would no more leave Eragon with the rushed lessons he has received than I would let a wound fester. If he marches to battle with only a cursory drive to fight and instruction only in the ways of stealing lives, Galbatorix will triumph as surely as the sun sets each day." He slowed to a stop. "Let us discuss this no more. We have arrived."

Oromis had stopped in front of a stump in the ground at the center of a small glade shadowed with leafy boughs, the stones and sticks strewn across the ground carpeted with lichen and moss. All around them Harry could hear the sounds of nature; rustling bushes and leaves, the chirping of birds, the pitter patter of squirrels racing along branches.

"You are to sit upon the stump and open your mind fully," he instructed. "You must learn to take in the minds of everything around you, no matter how insignificant. Each day you shall return here and meditate until you master the skill."

Harry sat upon the stump without complaint. "Yes, Ebrithil." There was a sound of rustling as Oromis left, and the glade was once again silent but for the sounds of the forest.

---

Eragon watched Oromis lead Harry away across the grassy field with excitement and eagerness for his friend. Would he see the same things Eragon had sensed in the glade? The incredible coordination the ant colony exhibited gathering food and building tunnels and barrows in the earth.

It was only when his whirling thoughts settled that he noticed he was alone with Arya. He studied her face intensely. She was beautiful, of that there was no doubt. Her cheekbones were high, her jawline graceful and slim. He studied her fathomless emerald eyes until the stare she returned grew uncomfortable.

"What has Master Oromis been having you do?" He asked politely.

"Cooking with magic," she answered perfunctory.

Eragon lapsed into silence. His time alone with the woman of his fantasies never went like this in his head. Always, he would run through a conversation they might have, filling in Arya's parts how he imagined she might answer. Now that she was right in front of him, Eragon found himself struck mute.

"Yourself?" Arya's response surprised Eragon, coming as it did after a pregnant pause stretching nearly a full minute in length.

"Meditation before," he admitted. "Now, I am unsure. Saphira is learning how to spot updrafts and escape them. Though I admit, Glaedr's style of teaching makes comprehension difficult."

Arya raised an eyebrow. Eragon's cheeks burned in embarrassment. Since Oromis's suggestion and his own subsequent proclamation that he would speak only in the Ancient Language until fluency, his speech was broken and slow, often punctuated by pauses where he grasped for an unfamiliar word he did not know and was forced to awkwardly cobble together a phrase to substitute the gap in his vocabulary.

"I wished to compliment you on the effort and focus you have invested in your studies thus far."

"Um- ah- thank you," Eragon said unsteadily. None of Garrow's lectures on honor and appropriate behavior addressed receiving compliments from the elven princess. But he did know well enough that a compliment should be paid back in kind. "You are very beautiful." And instantly, Eragon knew it was the wrong thing to say. Her face closed off and grew guarded.

"I did not mean-" He said hastily, but Arya shook her black hair. "I beg your pardon, Arya svit-kona. My tongue grows loose and any number of inappropriate thoughts may have spilled out."

"I accept your apology," she said tonelessly. A moment of silence passed, and Eragon resolved to again let Arya be the one to breach it for fear he may make matters worse.

"I believe I understand," she said finally. "There is someone I would like for you to meet tonight, I think."

It was then that Oromis returned, and by unspoken agreement they refused to bring up what had happened just before.

"What have you gleaned from your time in the forest, Eragon-vodhr?" he asked.

And all the excitement he had felt before came crashing back to him like the change in the tides outside Teirm. He described with hushed awe the simple minds of the ants he had watched so intensely, how their many and varied urges drove them to work together in an astounding display of coordination and cooperation to gather food for themselves and store it in vast networks of tunnels and underground chambers. When he finished with what he had learned, Oromis spoke.

"Is that all?" he tapped the table with his fingertips. "What were the sparrows doing in their nests, while your ants tended to their droves? Or the beetles in the moss, the squirrels in their branches?" His tone was not unkind, but it still made Eragon feel foolish. He knew he had missed the point of the exercise somewhere.

"Yes, Master Oromis," he admitted.

"Each day hence you shall spend an hour in the glade until you have mastered this exercise."

"When will I know I have mastered it?"

"When you can see one, and know all."

---

Back in the clearing, Harry was finding the exercise at hand to be the hardest one he had yet attempted. More difficult even than taking the first step in casting his mental presence beyond his physical form, Oromis had asked him to lower all his mental defenses, so low that any malicious presence could trivially invade his innermost self. It took him nearly ten minutes to widen his focus beyond a single connection he had made to a squirrel he now knew better than any living being in Alagaesia, save perhaps the squirrel itself.

Harry deliberately relaxed his mind, entering the state of mindlessness he strove to achieve when he wanted to occlude his mind. Only rather than focusing inwards, he allowed his mental presence to spill out of him, pouring from the confines of his skull and radiating outwards into the glade.

Instantly, he was assaulted by the blinding brilliance of life surrounding him. The feel of bark beneath his claws, the taste of moss on his tongue, the powerful drive to attract a mate with his song, the blinding brilliance of the morning sun, the desire to choose a mate with the strongest song, it all bore down on him like a million tons of water overhead, threatening to crush him utterly under their metaphysical weight. It all happened in a millisecond, driving him to instinctually slam shut his mind securely behind his hard-won mental defenses.

After that moment Harry was too tense to simply return to that state of vulnerability, that state of nakedness that came with that utter removal of his mental barriers. So instead, Harry chose to enter the mind of the female songbird.

She was looking for a mate, someone to father her a clutch of eggs who was strong and a good hunter, with a powerful voice. It was fascinating to Harry to listen to the birdsong through a different perspective. The bird's perception of the chirping was like a tinted filter applied over the same noise which was omnipresent in the forest during the morning.

Through her mind Harry shared the instinctual understanding of the birdsong, listened alongside her as she evaluated a few different sources, perched on her branch with her wings tucked to her side. She/he was leaning towards a specific song that impressed them. Melodious and strong, they were impressed by his fortitude. That thought was jarring enough to break the merging of thought Harry had achieved.

Birdsong takes fortitude? Curious, he connected with the male bird and compared their thoughts. An additional set of senses flooded Harry's mind, most prominently a burning in his third diaphragm and throat, and a strange sense of pressure. He felt the birdsong escape his tiny beak with tremendous force. It was a bit of a jarring realization that to the birds, song was the equivalent of bellowing screams at the top of their lungs.

He could actually feel the pressure of the air in his tiny lungs, straining his delicate muscles with a strange but rewarding pain, like that of a good stretch.

When the female made the decision to investigate, Harry felt a surge of happiness and satisfaction that he realized came from himself, since the male had yet to spot his prospective mate.

When the male did notice, Harry almost gasped at the dump of happy endorphins the little bird experienced. He was thrilled that his impressive song had paid off and that he had attracted a beautiful mate. Through each bird's eyes Harry was able to put an image to the mental presences he had seen.

He could feel the wind beneath his feathers as he approached the male. It was a peculiar experience, watching himself approach from two perspectives and thinking too deeply on the nature of his perception threatened to give himself a headache. I wonder if I'll give them headaches, too, he mused. Still, the experience of flying under 'his own power' was a thrilling one, a sensation which would stick with him for at the very least until he figured out how to do it himself. Animagery just received a rather large promotion on his list of priorities.

After he landed next to himself, Harry was treated to the unique and mind-bending experience of having sex with himself from two vividly different perspectives. Unlike in humans (and he assumed the other humanoid races, too,) it was not for pleasure but rather a commitment driven by the desire for offspring. He could feel the emotional bond forming between the two halves, weaker than marriage but stronger than a one night stand. The male would not simply leave but rather invest the rest of his time during the mating season building a nest and gathering food, even sitting on the eggs when the mother was unavailable.

Harry returned to his own perspective after that, checking the time with his wand. It was only ten minutes before the time came to rejoin Oromis and the rest, so he elected to try once more at braving the onslaught of sensations that came with meditation and the ultimate goal of the exercise.

Shifting his frame of mind from three perspectives to legions took a few minutes. Once Harry judged himself to be in a tranquil state of mind, he cautiously lowered his mental guard and allowed everything to spill in.

Rather than the enormous dump of sensations that immediately crashed into him previously, Harry likened the sensation to gazing at a field of surrounding stars. The first minds he recognized were his birds, searching the trees for a good spot to put up a nest. Rather than deliberately place himself within their minds, Harry let their thoughts wash over him like passive radar, continuing to listen to the forest.

The next to appear were the squirrels. They had a frenetic energy about them, driving them to ceaseless action. They scurried up and down trees, across branches and down to the ground foraging for acorns, nuts, and berries. He located the squirrel he had studied when he first arrived at the glade and instinctually dove into his mind. The moment he did, the myriad of connections he had built with the life in the glade vanished like sunlight in a tunnel.

Wrenching himself from the squirrel's mind, Harry again began the arduous process of sensitizing himself to all the life within the glade, no matter how small.

When the time came to leave the glade, Harry found himself reluctant to rejoin Oromis. The exercise had opened his eyes to the incredible depth of experience available to him. He was eager to watch his birds build a nest and morbidly curious about what the sensation of laying eggs might be like. Thus it was with reluctant strides that he left the stump in the clearing.

Upon returning to the field outside Oromis's hut, Harry found that Arya had gotten up and passed him on her way to the glade. He smiled to her as they passed but did not speak, loath as he was to leave behind the tranquility and peace of the forest.

Eragon and Oromis sat across from each other at the table, parchment spread on either side in front of them and quills in their hands. They spoke quietly as they worked. The old rider would slowly outline a letter or symbol, then watch as Eragon attempted to copy him. Occasionally he would correct his pupil, gently reiterating what he had said or offering further instruction.

"Welcome back, Harry. What did you see during your time atop the stump in the glade?"

Harry sat down and leaned back, enjoying the presence of a backrest. Summoning himself a glass of water, he began to explain how the droves of sensations would overwhelm him and force him back behind instinctive barriers to his mind, then related what he had learned from the squirrel and mating birds for the better part of ten minutes.

"Hmm," Oromis had to say. "Perhaps the exercise reveals more about a person than I had initially thought. I think perhaps-" he paused. "When Arya returns," he said firmly, more to himself than anyone. "A rather exciting lesson, I think."

Eragon looked excited. "Will we be doing magic, Ebrithil?"

"We will."

"Is there no other magic you could teach me before Arya returns?"

Oromis regarded Eragon with an irritated expression. "I am the teacher, and you, the student. If you wish to learn properly, you must trust me to guide your education, to have your best interests at heart. Still, I suppose it would be foolish to delay in broaching the subject any further. Let us begin working with magic."

He rose gracefully to his feet and led them to a stream which burbled and flowed across stripped and sharp rocks, darkened with water that flowed over them like a translucent film. "Water, rise." he commanded, forming two spheres of water and holding them aloft with his magic. "Catch!" he cried. "Thrysta!"

The balls of water shot towards their respective targets, headed right for Harry's and Eragon's midsections. Eragon instinctively reached out with his hands but the instant they brushed the water, it lost its cohesion and soaked him head to toe. Harry thrust out a hand and reached out with his magic to arrest his orb which stopped dead in the grip of his power.

Oromis was already gathering another orb from the creek. "With magic- word magic," he commanded, sending the water towards only Harry this time.

"Letta, Stop!" was the word that came first to mind. Harry's spell stopped the water dead in its tracks like an Arresto Momentum.

"Pass it on to Eragon," Oromis called. Harry cackled.

"Thrust." The water sped away from him like a stabbed rat, zipping towards Eragon with all the speed of a translucent blue bludger.

"Letta." Eragon commanded.

"Do not use the same words twice," Oromis commanded.

Eragon paused and searched for another word with a similar effect. "Jierda. Strike." The effect was similar yet different. The water did not instantly accelerate. Instead it moved as though struck by some invisible force, making ripples that rolled across its surface as it sped towards Oromis.

Oromis whispered something under his breath that Eragon could not catch, bending the trajectory of the water towards Harry. "Halt." He took aim. "Ganga, Go."

"Thrysta!" Eragon cried, sending the water hurtling towards Oromis.

The game continued for five more revolutions before the difficulty began to increase. The basic synonyms surrounding movement had been exhausted and Eragon's poor vocabulary forced him to cobble together broken sentences with increasing desperation to spare himself another soaking. Meanwhile, Harry lazily employed increasingly bombastic phrases in his native language to keep himself dry.

It ended when Eragon fumbled with his sentence and received his third soaking. Oromis held up a hand to call a stop. "Enough. It is dangerous to spit out a quick phrase when desperate. If you misword your spell, it could kill you and us alike. You both performed admirably for your respective skill levels. Let us move on to other tasks."

It was then that Arya returned, wordlessly joining in their exercises. Oromis had them complete dozens of diverse tasks like hardening leather, guiding an arrow in flight, changing the color of light refracted in water, shaping it into complex knots.

After an hour of increasingly complex tasks, Eragon was getting visibly frustrated. Only the fact that Arya and Harry were following along without complaint stayed his tongue. But his frustration manifested itself in his increasingly sloppy work.

"Is something wrong?" Oromis commented mildly.

"Yes, master. I thought you would be teaching us how to fight. I already know all this," he gestured helplessly at the misshapen knot of purple-hued water in front of him."

Oromis sighed. "I need not teach you the brutal and simplistic ways to kill with magic, you already know them from your father's lessons. Instead I shall teach you grace and precision, to wield your will like a scalpel to Brom's sword." He paused for a moment. "Humor me. How would you kill with magic?"

Eragon's brow furrowed. "I have sent stones thrown by my hand through men's skulls, incinerated them with magic, once I stopped a man's heart with Jierda. There are as many ways to kill a man with magic as there are stars in the sky."

"That's what it takes? A great hole in your head, massive blood loss, stopping your heart?" He asked. "Harry? How do you answer?"

"I would cut an artery or apply a weak shock to the heart, sever the spinal cord, summon a blockage out of internal fluids in the thorax or make an internal cut to drown their lungs with blood. This brand of magic is so much more dangerous than my homeworld's because there is no bolt of light to dodge, no evading what is cast. You can access targets normally guarded by muscle and bone from dozens of feet away."

"Therein lies your answer, Eragon. Spells exist to kill a man that consume no more energy than lifting a finger. With them, you can kill armies trivially. They demand great precision, which is the point of this exercise. Often it is the case with my students; the last thing they think to train is their mind. Ask them about a swordfight a month ago and they can recite it blow for blow, but ask them to provide a coherent statement on the state of politics in Ellesmera and you'd be lucky to receive a blank stare.

"Your muscles, your sword, your magic, all of these things are tools to serve the decisions you make with your mind. Knowing when to fight is often half the battle."

Oromis led the three of them away from the creek and back to the table, rolling up the parchment on it and sending it through the air into his hut, along with the inkwells and quills. "What is the most important mental tool to possess?" he asked, indicating that Eragon ought to answer first.

Harry and Eragon both thought deeply on the question. Most important trait… Harry mused to himself. It was a heavy question, one which he knew he should not give an impulsive answer to. He reflected on his experiences both on Earth and in Alagaesia, and thought about what strengths had served him best. A large part of his success Harry attributed to determination. He had been determined to see Voldemort vanquished and it enabled him to work towards that goal long after he might have given up otherwise. But, Harry thought, It has caused me just as many problems as it has solutions. Often times he had exacerbated a problem or created one where there was none, such as his insistence that Draco Malfoy was a Death Eater.

That he was right was moot, Dumbledore had said he had a handle on the situation, but even now it still incensed him how dismissive everyone seemed to be of his (perfectly valid) concerns. His fixation on a singular problem had blinkered him and as a result, Harry had made several rash decisions regarding Draco during his sixth year, including ditching his pleasant date with Luna Lovegood to chase after shadows.

Perhaps more damaging, Harry had nearly stripped away Snape's cover among the Death Eaters with his incessant badgering of Dumbledore, bringing up the subject even after clear dismissals repeatedly. Snape was an odious and unpleasant man, but Harry had to admit he was not evil, and certainly did not deserve a gruesome murder at the fangs of Voldemort's snake, Nagini.

So no, determination could not be the most useful tool to possess. Harry considered what else had helped him succeed in his fight against Voldemort. It came to him easily. Moral fiber. Beyond netting him an extra dozen points in the Second Task during the Triwizard Tournament, his morals helped him make tough decisions as best he could. A phrase Dumbledore had said to him stuck out. "We must always strive to do what is right, rather than what is easy."

Reflecting on his years at Hogwarts, Harry could admit he did not always stick to that ideal. He had tossed Professor Lockhart down a dank hole into the Chamber of Secrets without knowing it was anything other than a damp pit, slashed open Malfoy's chest with an unknown and untested curse, Cruciated Bellatrix Lestrange and the Carrows, and vented his frustrations from the summer after Voldemort's resurrection on his (relatively) innocent friends.

But at the same time, Harry had never used the Killing Curse on Earth. He never deliberately killed anyone, did not subscribe to bigotry or racism, respected even the Slytherins he disagreed with. In general, Harry rather thought he was a pretty good person. Certainly better than the Dursleys or the Malfoys.

Perhaps moral fiber was the answer he was looking for. He was about to open his mouth to give his answer when something niggled at the back of his mind. Dumbledore didn't use moral fiber to defeat Voldemort.

Harry closed his mouth again. Oromis and Arya looked at him quizzically, but did not challenge him. He could see Eragon counting syllables and muttering under his breath as if puzzling out a particularly challenging riddle, but Harry rather thought it unlikely that Oromis was looking for an answer related to wordplay.

Pragmatism. That was the closest Harry felt he would get, the best answer he could come up with. Determination and moral fiber were excellent traits for the layperson like Arthur Weasley or Neville Longbottom, but Harry knew in his heart that he was destined to be a leader, even if he was not a rider. Leaders had to make hard choices and weigh factors that others might find distasteful.

Dumbledore had loved Harry right up until his death, respected him and held the sanctity of human life so highly that he had not sought to kill even unrepentant killers like Bellatrix, yet that did not stop him from pragmatically plotting Harry's own death at the hands of Voldemort for at least a year in advance. Dumbledore's betrayal had come as a shock to Harry, so unforeseen that it provoked a kind of numbness in him which enabled him to walk into the forest empty handed, prepared and willing to lay down his life for his friends.

But- Harry found he could not fault Dumbledore for his decision. So long as Harry lived, Voldemort could never be killed. His life stood in between a bloody and violent terrorist insurrection and the ultimate defeat of Lord Voldemort. He knew it must have been an agonizing decision, but a necessary one. Pragmatism allowed Dumbledore to defeat Voldemort, and it was pragmatism that Harry needed to help end the war with Galbatorix.

"Determination," Harry heard Eragon say. "Determination is the most important mental tool to have. It will allow you to stay your course even in the face of adversity, enable you to overcome obstacles and enemies normally far beyond your ability to face, and give you the strength to further empower yourself."

"You have a different answer?" Oromis asked Harry.

"Pragmatism," Harry answered. "Determination was my initial thought, but I've caused myself too many problems by doubling down on the wrong answer. A determined man might choose to fill a draining bathtub, pouring buckets upon buckets of water into an emptying drain, where a pragmatic man would plug the hole.

"I similarly considered and rejected morals because they can often prevent you from using effective solutions. Riders are leaders among the races of Alagaesia, and thus they must be willing to put aside an unyielding moral code for the good of the people."

Oromis hummed. "Perhaps. But answer me this, young wizard; will pragmatism not turn you into the very enemy you seek to destroy? Without proper consideration for all the factors of a problem, setting aside your morals to accomplish increasingly ghoulish tasks will certainly lead you down the path to evil. Man lives by limits which governs his behavior, usually laws imposed by the ruling government. Without these, he is as an animal: without restraint and concerned only with sating his base needs. Rejecting those limits in favor of a nebulous 'Greater Good,' strips away any checks on your behavior, for any evil can be justified in the name of the 'Greater Good.' Thus, pragmatism cannot be the answer we are looking for."

"Wisdom," Eragon blurted. Oromis quirked an eyebrow. "Experience and good judgement. A man with good judgement can make better decisions, and has the experience to more accurately predict the outcome. We leave important decisions up to our village elders, because they have the most experience and wisdom to make good decisions for everyone."

Harry shook his head. "You disagree?" Oromis asked.

"I do. Wisdom is not a straightforward tool. It is built on the life experiences of the individual, and varies widely from person to person. A wise woman and a wise man will come to different conclusions because their experiences differ, just as a wise carpenter and a wise smith would also disagree. No person could hope to experience so much in every walk of life to become truly wise in everything. Instead it is more likely they will mislead others on false assumptions based on a limited perspective."

"An interesting answer," Oromis remarked. "I have heard several good ones, but not the right one. The answer is logic. Or rather, the ability to think analytically and draw the correct conclusions from a set of data. A wise but foolish man can cause immense damage with the best of intentions. When someone sets themselves on a righteous path, very little can change their course. Some of the most dangerous men believe themselves benevolent while causing untold damage."

"But pure logic can lead someone to a conclusion that is ethically wrong!" Eragon exclaimed. "Like you said about pragmatism: without moral guidelines to rely upon, you could commit any number of atrocities and never understand that you did evil."

Oromis smiled grimly. "True. But logic is not built in a vacuum. Empathy and law both exist independent of any formal training and generally catch most evil deeds before they spill into the world. And besides, I asked for the most important tool. A tool can be used for good or evil. But on the whole, if you have to choose between a noble disposition or the ability to think clearly, you would be better served to select logic. Keep in mind that no one thinks they are the villain in their story."

"How will you teach us logic, master?" Eragon asked.

His eyes twinkled. "By the oldest and truest method: debate. I will ask you a question, then you will answer and defend your position. We assail each other's points until we reach a conclusion." Oromis paused a moment. "For example, why do you fight the Empire?"

Harry cackled and grinned widely. Arguing without the heat of an actual disagreement could only be great fun. And here Oromis was volunteering to do it! "Is your question for everyone?" he asked.

"Usually? No. But this question is of special relevance to Eragon especially, and it would behoove him to come up with an answer on his own." Oromis stared patiently at the young rider who was deep in thought.

"To help all those who suffer from Galbatorix's rule, and to a lesser extent, personal vengeance against the Ra'zac's master who is ultimately responsible for Garrow's and Brom's deaths."

"You fight for humanitarian reasons, then?" he clarified.

"What do you mean?"

"That you fight to help those people whom Galbatorix has harmed and to stop him from hurting any more."

"Exactly."

Oromis's eyes twinkled. "Ah, but answer me this: Won't your war cause more pain than it will ever prevent? The majority of the people in the Empire live normal, productive lives untouched by their king's madness. How can you justify invading their land, destroying their homes, and killing their sons and daughters?"

"What?!" Harry interrupted. "Destroying homes and killing sons and daughters? What kind of bloody war do you expect to run here!" he demanded indignantly.

Oromis looked taken aback. "I was given to understand you had some experience in the matters of warfare. Are you not familiar with its consequences?"

"I am," Harry said angrily. "What I am unfamiliar with is how war would destroy homes without airstrikes or artillery, nor how sons and daughters would be killed when presumably only Galbatorix's soldiers would be fighting. Do you not have rules of engagement, war crime accountability, and such?"

"Who would enforce such rules?" Oromis asked rhetorically, a dark expression on his face. "Galbatorix hardly concerns himself with little things like ethics and 'terms of engagement.' He kills envoys so often that to be selected for the duty is something of an unofficial execution among his opposition."

"Then we can be better!" Harry demanded. "It's not like the Varden would go about razing cities to the ground and executing peasants, right?"

"Not everyone is so honorable as you, Harry." Arya commented. "Most soldiers on both sides of the conflict see no problem taking… liberties with the womenfolk on the opposing faction's side, despite rarely caring what liege lord they pay their taxes to. Some do not even make that distinction." Her face was dark and inhuman, shadowed in an eerie manner that reminded Harry no matter how beautiful and human-looking she was, Arya was an elf, not a human."

Harry's face matched hers. "That's going to change," he promised.

---

Harry mentally disengaged from the debate, despite his itching to answer the rather simple questions Eragon seemed to flounder with. He was brooding on what he'd learned. Suddenly, a lot of context he'd been missing fell into place, like a dark puzzle piece revealing some horror scene that had been obscured until that moment.

Conflict in the wizarding world was sanitized and clean. Killing curses left no marks and killed instantly, painlessly. The most gruesome curse Harry had seen personally was the Sectumsempra curse. In truth, it was nothing special when compared to swordfights. Just a few bloody slashes. The Entrails-Expelling Curse was undoubtedly messier but from what Harry had heard, only Antonin Dolohov was ever known to use it in combat. Wizards just didn't get their hands dirty when fighting to the death.

Even the torture curse was sanitized. It left no marks, no blood, nothing but pain. In Alagaesia, the grisly truth was more apparent; medieval warfare was horrifying. Lacking even the most basic hygiene standards, it was a coin toss if any given wound would become infected and lead to a slow and agonizing death.

Weapons based on cutting and crushing made gruesome wounds completely unlike even modern firearms which either killed instantly or made smaller, less painful wounds. Looking back on the battle of Farthen Dur, Harry remembered a heady miasma of suffering and death that he had attributed to Durza's evil magic. Now he wasn't so sure if it was unnatural. And that battle had been against a race of humanoid beings so different from himself that it was rather easy to dehumanize them in the heat of battle. Harry wasn't sure how well he would manage butchering thousands of human soldiers, many likely under Galbatorix's thrall. Whether by binding oath or direct mind control, Galbatorix didn't have the reputation to inspire droves to his banner.

Harry still had nightmares–or what passed for them during his elven resting trance–about the children Durza had thrown between himself and his blade, falling apart in pieces under his careless sword.

Dimly, he registered that Oromis was staring at him. "What?" he asked.

"Deep in thought?" he asked humorously. "I find I do some of my best thinking out here, too. It is, after all, why I built my home here." He smiled. "But no matter. I had asked you why you think waging a bloody war and carving a path of corpses through Alagaesia to depose Galbatorix was worth it. Have you an answer?"

"That's a graphic way of putting it, really." Harry muttered. "But yeah. Galbatorix is immortal, so he will not simply die at some point. And," he said sharply, "he has no children. Right?" Oromis nodded. "So there will be a war for succession no matter what.

"Besides that, his personal power is so great he will never be overthrown by his subjects–even us," he gestured at Eragon, Arya, and Oromis, "Saphira and Glaedr and the elves and the dwarves and Surda, three entire countries are having trouble overthrowing one man. It means he will never be held accountable for his actions. He has committed genocide, regicide, homicide, all the 'cides, and no one has successfully risen up against him. There are no checks on his behavior. If he decided one day to go out and kill every infant in Uru'baen on a whim, he'd do it and no one could stop him. For a man who already has a record of madness, that's more relevant than I'd like." Harry rubbed his temples.

"Plus he's trying his hardest to suppress the race of dragons from coming back unless it's on his terms, presumably with every dragon ever born being bound to his will. He has effectively enslaved an entire race and enforces it by holding a knife to the throat of the last living dragons in Alagaesia.

Oromis looked uncharacteristically bitter and resentful at that. Harry made a mental note to poke him about it later.

Harry added, "According to Eragon, Brom, and Murtagh, he's propped up the slave trade again when I understand that the Broddring Kingdom abolished the practice. Thankfully it's not so prevalent that villages like Carvahall or even nicer cities like Teirm visibly practice it, but if it's allowed to flourish, ending the slave trade will not be a straightforward affair even after deposing Galbatorix. He cannot be allowed to continue ruling Alagaesia when it's rather clearly poisoning the continent."

"Excellently reasoned," Oromis praised. "And this is the truth. In reality, the dragon genocide alone is enough to justify killing Galbatorix. Every additional atrocity he commits simply adds to the urgency. It is scant comfort, but at least now you will know that whatever atrocities the Varden inevitably commits during their conquests, it is worth it for the end of Galbatorix's tyranny."

Eragon bowed his head in agreement. Oromis then turned his head towards the sky and judged the sun's position in the sky. It had not yet begun to set, but in the summer that meant little. "It seems we have a couple hours before Glaedr and Saphira are due to return to us. I thought perhaps you might teach us some of your magic, Harry?" he asked.

Harry smiled. "It would be my honor, Ebrithil. Please allow me to retrieve a wand for you." He vanished with a crack.

---

Moments later upon his return, Arya and Eragon had withdrawn their own borrowed wands. "Good to know that you kept yours, even if I've not really taught you anything useful." In his arms was a cloth bundle he placed on the table and unrolled, handles towards Oromis.

"These are all the wands my family collected, presumably the Black family also." He pointed towards the little tabs of parchment tied to the hilts with cramped script written on them. "Those tags should say the dates of service, previous wielder or wielders, and composition of the wands. The wandmaker I got my wand from probably had some way of guessing what compositions would match each wizard, but I've got no idea so I'm afraid you'll just have to try them sequentially or at random."

Oromis looked bemused. "Try them?"

Harry grinned. "Pick one up." Oromis selected the leftmost wand, a dark glossy wood with a crosshatched grip that gleamed like it came off Ollivander's shelves only yesterday. He looked dubious at the unresponsiveness of the wand.

"Well give it a wave," he exclaimed. Oromis obliged. A gout of sludge shot from the tip and spattered all over the ground a dozen feet away. The old rider looked at the wand in surprise. "I felt that. How peculiar. But I think, not for me." He replaced the wand in its slot with care and selected the next one. Pointing it deliberately away from anyone and definitely not pointing it towards his hut, Oromis twitched the stick.

Abruptly, the chair he sat upon vanished and dropped the wizened elf upon the grass. "Not that one, I think." He rose to his feet. "Where did the chair go, I wonder?"

Grinning, Harry conjured a replacement identical to Oromis's. "That was Vanishment, a high-level Transfiguration technique. According to Professor McGonagall, Vanished matter goes into "non-being, that is to say, everything." Though I overheard that answer under an invisibility cloak as an answer to a riddling doorknob."

The next three wands yielded an explosion, a tremendous squawking noise, and set the grass alight, respectively. Oromis was tamping out the fire with his feet when Eragon spoke up. "Our wands weren't nearly as destructive when we were testing. Why does Oromis have so much trouble?"

Harry shrugged carelessly. "I don't know. You both had amazingly subtle responses, really. The guy who sold them, Ollivander, his shop must have gotten destroyed twenty times a day during the late summer. When I got my wand, I must have shattered everything made of glass in his store before I got my wand." he pulled out his trusty holly and phoenix feather wand. "I will admit, Oromis's reactions are a a bit…violent."

Abruptly, Harry yelped and shoved Oromis forewards where he sprawled on the grass. With an incongruous 'CLANG,' a great steel anvil crashed into the ground. Written on the side in great blocky letters, the anvil helpfully proclaimed it belonged to 'A.C.M.E.' Harry snorted. "Damn, now I really want to know a deliberate spell that does that."

Oromis glanced at the anvil. "That would be effective," he admitted. He reached up to the table and got up again, waving the next wand a bit more gingerly.

With a tremendous bang, A gout of brilliant sparks exploded out of the wand, shooting twenty feet out in front of Oromis and casting the entire valley in a vaguely amber hue. The sparks came in every color, but the amber/gold color of Oromis's magic was dominant. The bang was accompanied by a triumphant roar that echoed over the crags, closely followed by a great bulky gold dragon landing heavily next to Oromis.

The old rider's eyes were glistening and under Harry's sharpened eyes, he saw a tear trace its way down his cheek. He had a rapturous smile on his face. "That was wonderful," he murmured.

"And a good deal grander than typical," Harry smiled. "Congratulations, Oromis-ebrithil. You're a wizard, now."

He turned to Harry, smiling brilliantly. "It has been nearly a century since I've felt my own magic as clearly as now. For that, you have my thanks."

"You're welcome. I was getting concerned by the wands' rejections. They seemed to be…escalating."

Oromis laughed delightedly. "It is no matter." he twitched his wand again, drawing a fountain of sparks from it again (though only for a foot or so.) He set it aside and pointed his finger straight up. "Naina! Light!" he cried in exaltation. A brilliant conical beam of gold light blasted into the sky, lighting up the dimming valley as if it were noon and the sky sat directly overhead. "My magic is restored," he declared gleefully. Oromis bowed to Harry. "I am in your debt, Harry. Indeed, the riders are in your debt."

Turning to face Harry, grinned almost boyishly. Behind him, Glaedr wore an expression as close as a dragon could get to a smile. "I share his debt. If there is anything you wish within our power, name it."

Harry shook his head with a smile. "I did not make the wand, I did not restore Oromis's magic, I did nothing but provide the opportunity. No debt is owed, and I am honored to have helped you so significantly. You honor me with your words."

Arya beamed at Harry. "Mother will be overjoyed to hear this. You have made many a friend for life today. And even if you will not accept Oromis's debt for this, should you succeed in fixing his spinal injury, nothing will stop the elves from writing your name among the legends of our race."

Harry waved his hand airily. "Pish posh. If I get a tissue sample from Oromis and Glaedr, I can fix 'em both up. I made my first homunculus yesterday. Say, did you two ever finish reading that evil book I lent you?" he asked Oromis.

"I'm afraid I rather try to avoid reading it if at all possible," he admitted. "But the relevant sections, yes. The Bone-Flesh-Blood ritual is of special interest to the riders. Being unfamiliar with the wanded magic you use, I don't believe I'd be able to rework the ritual myself, but if you could put some effort into changing the ingredients–eggs, if at all possible–you would have rendered a service to the riders so great it would be sung about in song and legend."

"Know a lot of dragons with Horcruxes?" Harry quirked a brow.

"Something similar, yes."

Harry paused. "And for yourself? The Bone-Flesh-Blood ritual would create you a new, fresh body free of any ailments or injuries you've acquired over the centuries."

Oromis shook his head. "Nay. You have offered me a solution which I believe will work just as well. It will not require me to undergo a rather evil-natured ritual, nor would I have you waste your efforts modifying it for me when you could be spending that energy doing it for dragons–if you are willing, that is. Though I admit I am more enthusiastic about this procedure you proposed, now that my magic is returned to me. When would be convenient for you to do it?"

Harry shrugged. "Rhunon's going to start coming around and helping me forge armor and weapons for the Varden–armor primarily due to her oath, but she hasn't yet, so tonight works for me. Are you available?"

Oromis smiled. "I am."

"When lessons conclude today, I'll take you to Tialdari hall where I keep my tent and its Operating Room."

"Very well." Oromis sat back in his seat, wand still in his grasp and a faint smile on his face. Saphira and Glaedr watched intently. "You are the teacher, now. Where do we start, Harry-Ebrithil?"

Harry grinned.

---

"The first piece of magic I learned, the first spell I cast was the Levitation Charm." Harry conjured a whiteboard and drew out the wand movement in bright red. Above it, he wrote out the phonetic spelling for the incantation. win-GAR-dium levi-O-sa. "Wingardium Leviosa," Harry incanted, flicking his wand at the whiteboard. It drifted upwards, returned to the grass.

"This was regularly taught to groups of eleven year olds who had never held a wand. There is no mental requirement, no deliberate action you must take other than the movement and the incantation. When you try the spell, do not try to deliberately feed magic to the wand. One of wands' primary strengths is that it draws magic from you automatically." Harry conjured a rock. "These spells use only the tiniest fraction of strength compared to Word magic. If I fed enough magic into the levitation charm to lift this boulder gently up three feet-" He twitched his wand. With a thunderous bang, the boulder shot into the sky so fast Harry nearly missed it.

"-It goes rather further. A little goes a long way with wand magic." Gesturing up at the board, Harry continued. "When you make the movements, perfect precision is not that important, rather the mental image you have when you do it. Same with the incantation. Once you are skilled enough with the spell, you can do the motions while thinking the incantation, and it will work just the same. Wand movements similarly can be eliminated. In truth, once you're familiar with a spell, the incantations and wand movements are unimportant. Desire fuels the magic. You need not know a specific spell to perform it if your intent is strong enough."

Harry conjured up three feathers and placed them on the table. "Give it a go-" A gentle breeze tossed the white feathers away. He blushed. "My bad." With another twitch, three cubes of balsa wood appeared in front of his students. They had paid rapt attention throughout his description and Eragon was rather clearly eager to try it out for himself.

"Wingardium Leviosa," Eragon called, enthusiastically swishing and flicking his wand. The block of wood zipped up a dozen feet before stabilizing. Arya and Oromis were not so fortunate. Both of their blocks had vanished from sight above them.

"Very good," Harry praised. "It usually took a dozen or so tries before most of the kids got it. I would assume you two are both accustomed to fueling your spells with magic subconsciously. It may take some doing to train that instinct out of you. Counterintuitive though it may be, do not deliberately use any magic. Don't choke it either, but remember that the wand will pull magic from you." He summoned the cubes from the air and sent them back to their starting places.

"Again."

Once more, Arya and Oromis went through the motions. Arya's still blasted upwards, but at noticeably less speed and remained visible the whole time. Conversely, Oromis appeared to have perfected the spell.

"How curious," he mused. "I can feel the drain, but only barely and only because I am long accustomed to using trivial amounts of energy for my magic."

"Why did I have much less trouble?" asked Eragon. He had brought his cube to eye level and managed to direct it through the air with his wand, staring up at it in faint awe.

Harry shrugged. "You've been using magic for only a year or so. Arya and Oromis have been casting spells in the manner of Alagaesia for many decades. The habit of fueling their spells is ingrained in their minds."

Rubbing his hands together, Harry swept the wooden blocks aside and conjured three matchsticks. "If anything is unfamiliar to you or you want more practice, you're welcome to do this on your own. Hundreds of children used their wands all the time with no trouble and no supervision, and no one ever died, so I'd wager you're safe, really. I'll tell you when we get to the more dangerous spells and make sure you all know how they can be dangerous. For now, I want to introduce you to Transfiguration."

He gestured at the needles. "This is the first exercise we learned, matchsticks into needles. We'll get to them in a moment, but I want to introduce the general concepts of Transfiguration first. As a general rule, Transfiguration is the most dangerous legal branch of magic wizards practice but in reality, you can kill someone with practically any spell if you're clever enough. Transfiguration revolves around change; invoking it and shaping your target to your will. In class, Professor McGonagall would wax on and on about all these different laws and rules and guidelines of Transfiguration, but it all boiled down to one thing: Cost.

"Nearly every bit of wanded magic you can cast is considered 'free,' meaning it takes only a small amount of your personal magic stores to cast which will replenish in time. Transfiguration is entirely 'free,' with one notable exception that leans closer to shamanism, ritualism, and potions. Sources of similarity between target and output make transfigurations easier. For example matchsticks to needles. They are both long and thin, and approximately the same size. This makes changing between them very easy.

"If, for example, I were to try to transfigure a needle into an elephant, it would be tremendously difficult because I would be essentially conjuring it–that is, making it from nothing. No link exists between the two to make it easier. Using similar objects can exponentially increase the power of your transfigurations, so I will go over the laws with you. For now, the generic incantation for inanimate to inanimate objects goes like this…"

Harry found teaching to be just as rewarding as it had been when his 'students' were composed only of his friends and acquaintances at Hogwarts in the D.A. If anything, teaching Oromis, Arya, and Eragon was more fun because of how quickly they picked up the magic he was teaching. The mental dexterity that mental combat demanded meant each of them already had the prerequisite skills for Charms and Transfiguration. That plus their experience with a much more demanding and difficult form of magic allowed the three of them to blow through the spells Harry taught.

Occasionally he was forced to clarify concepts rooted in modern science and culture that Alagaesia had not yet discovered (none of them knew what a matchstick was) but on the whole, it was an incredibly rewarding experience. The feeling of watching his students take in and understand a concept made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Three hours later, Oromis indicated that the end of their lessons had arrived. "Would that you save your strength so as not to make mistakes in your operation," he said. Harry nodded and wrapped up.

"While these spells might not have the lethal reach that Word magic does, they cost virtually no energy and thus can be used either when you're exhausted, can't afford to waste energy, or wish to use your magic for a task too demanding to cast otherwise." Eragon agreed and held his wand in front of him with new respect.

"And don't hesitate to ask if there's a spell to do something you want done," added Harry. "There is no Word magic where I'm from, so virtually any task you would want done, there's a spell for. I might not personally know it, but I have access to a couple of pretty big libraries that certainly do. Assuming we have time tomorrow, I can start teaching you the more dangerous and combative spells."

Eragon nodded and slid his wand carefully into his tunic. "Ebrithil, Ebrithil," he bowed to Glaedr and Oromis in turn and then mounted Saphira. The pair of them vanished over the lip of the cliff headed towards Ellesmera's center.

Orange and purple hues shot through the sunset sky overhead. Collecting her sword from where she had propped it against the leg of the table, Arya buckled her sword back to her belt and summoned her broom with a word. The anticipatory silence on the Crags heightened Harry's nerves further. He was about to attempt delicate surgery on a crucial and irreplaceable elf with no medical training whatsoever. His previous triage experiences did not prepare him mentally for deliberate surgery, especially one so delicate and complicated.

At least, he thought in relief, I have magic to fix any mistakes. "Will you and Glaedr be able to land near Tialdari Hall?" he asked.

"There are landing areas and antechambers in nearly all the public buildings of Ellesmera for dragons of an even greater size than Glaedr," said Oromis.

"Will I be able to directly watch?" the gold dragon demanded in a deep, rumbling mental voice. Harry sucked in a breath.

"Probably not," he admitted. "Everything is within a tent whose opening Saphira no longer fits into. I would have you watch through my eyes, if that is acceptable?" Harry proposed humbly.

"Very well." There was a definite note of dissatisfaction in his voice, one which ratcheted up the tension Harry felt one more notch.

"Let us tarry no longer, then," Oromis announced. He leapt gracefully atop Glaedr, standing on the crook of his neck where Eragon's saddle let him sit. The enormous dragon's bulk was such that he could stand there and steady himself with the great spikes that ran down his spine. Glaedr wore no saddle.

He drove his great wings downwards and leapt to the sky with a low, thunderous whoosh and made towards Ellesmera on a slightly different heading than Eragon. Nervously, Harry mounted his broom, followed by Arya.

The evening air smelled as fresh and clean as anywhere, a gentle breeze generated by Harry and Arya's passage. She drifted closer to him midair, close enough that they could talk conversationally. "Steel yourself," she told him firmly, but kindly. "You and I both know this is well within your capabilities. You have saved me personally from worse than this, healed yourself, Brom, and Eragon just as well. If you make any mistakes, they will spring from this anxiety you are allowing to consume you."

Smiling weakly, Harry took a deep breath, fortifying himself in the summer evening air. Exhaling shakily, he relaxed his clenching grip on his broom and deliberately relaxed his muscles, following Glaedr's form at his sedate pace. Arya smiled back at him. "Good."

Up ahead, Glaedr and Oromis began gliding downward towards an unremarkable section of canopy. Circling above it, Oromis held out a hand and commanded something Harry couldn't catch. The wind snatched the word away, but its effects were not so easily stolen. A grand leafy section seemed to furl up around the circumference of a newly-revealed circle. Beneath it was an enormous oak circle whose growth rings were sung into beautiful and intricate patterns of knots, fleurs-de-lis, and scrollwork.

Glaedr's claws clicked onto the surface, soon followed by Harry and Arya landing. A pair of elfin guards stood at the entrance, a grand archway that might have accommodated three Glaedr's abreast. Twisting their fingers over their lips, the elves murmured their greetings.

Beyond the arch stretched a vaulted and brightly lit hallway with similar arches spaced along intervals like pillars. The hallway eventually ended at the intersection right against the balustrade overlooking the lobby. Glaedr stepped up to the balcony and spread his wings, the tips with only feet of clearance, before dropping down to the ground level in a vertical glide like a parachute.

"I can go no further," Glaedr sent irritably. "Come forth, wizard. Look me in the eye." Gulping, Harry crossed the open floor to stand before his enormous golden head. Tossing it slightly, he projected his thoughts."These words are for you alone; I have known and loved Oromis, the partner-of-my-soul, for centuries. He is sick in a way I am not, and without your intervention, it is likely he will pass long before me. I will not deny you the attempt to heal him, but know this: if any harm comes to Oromis due to your negligence or because you gave anything less than your best effort, there will be no place in Alagaesia or beyond where you could hide from my wrath." An enormous golden iris stared at him unblinking.

"But if you succeed, I will be in your debt deeper than any living dragon, little though it means now. I am sure there is some risk to this, but if the risk of death becomes too great, you will cease your efforts and leave Oromis as he was. Tread carefully, wizard."

Harry nodded. "I swear I will put forth my best effort," he promised in the Ancient Language.

"Then go. And may good fortune watch over you."

Harry bowed and turned towards the grand door that led to the antechamber of the royal suites. Arya opened the door, followed by a serene and unconcerned Oromis.

The entryway to Islanzadi's rooms was ajar, the Queen herself standing in it with a rather surprised look on her face. "Master Oromis," she greeted politely. "It is a surprise to see you beyond the Crags, especially when there is no celebration or feast to attend. To what do I owe the honor?"

Oromis returned her greeting. "Harry is confident he can heal me of my ailment, and wishes to try. His equipment and healing room are within," he said politely. Islanzadi's eyes grew sharp and judging.

"You trust him to make the attempt?" she asked pointedly.

"I do."

"I insist upon observation by our most skilled healers," she said instantly. "You are too valuable to lose."

"They would be welcome," Harry said quickly. "Please. More eyes can only be good. I can wait for them to be fetched. Assuming you have the time?" he asked Oromis.

He nodded serenely.

"Very well," Islanzadi nodded. "They are on their way."

"Already?" Harry murmured in surprise.

"Mother is queen," Arya reminded him quietly.

Islanzadi smiled faintly. "Quite. I, too, wish to observe. Will this pose a problem?"

Shaking his head, Harry answer negatively. "The more the merrier, I guess."

The new additions to Harry's party arrived swiftly, brought into the tent by Arya who was most familiar with it aside from Harry himself. They marveled in all the same places at the enchantments that made the tent possible, craning their necks as they arrived.

The healers Islanzadi had sent for were three elves, two women and a man. They introduced themselves as Viore, Nidae. And Blaumh. The queen herself was in attendance. As they all gathered around the Operating Room, Harry briefed them on his intentions.

"Oromis has informed me that his injuries began when he transported himself and an entire dragon through space piece by piece under pressure of combat without the structure of a spell. Given that, it's a miracle he's even alive to tell the tale. However, my own scans of his spine show that his spell stuttered or mistargeted the spinal cord between the vertebrae in his lower back." Harry gestured with his wand at Oromis and brought up the illusion which showed the fiery orange line of his spinal cord running straight down his spine until it reached the T-7 disc where it veered abruptly off course, stretched and dulled. Beneath that, the T-8 disc pinched the cord to a dull brown.

"I propose using magic to remove the T-7 disc without damaging the spinal cord, realigning it, then growing the vertebra back around it. This should prevent the pinching which I suspect causes your siezures, and alleviate the tension put on the cord from its detour through solid bone. Thoughts?"

Viore stepped forwards immediately. "Use magic. How do you intend to strip away solid bone from the incredibly delicate spinal cord? Even the three of us have trouble using magic for such delicate operations, and we train endlessly to hone our precision." She had silver hair and violet eyes, and wore an intense expression of focus.

"I have access to a different brand of magic which allows me to 'Vanish' solid matter. And my precision with that brand of magic is great enough that I am very confident I can do this."

"Without seeing what you are doing?" Nidae challenged.

"I would use magic to watch or failing that, simply cut the section in question open."

Islanzadi looked faintly horrified at the suggestion that he cut Oromis's back open. Harry sighed. "We all know regrowing muscles is trivial, it's not like I'd be butchering him to do this. Just a simple incision down the middle. I have anesthetics so you won't even feel it."

Oromis nodded, seemingly unbothered.

"Anesthetics," Balumh tested the word in his mouth. "Like poppy extract?"

"Not unlike opiates, yes," Harry agreed. "Though much less addictive. Is that how you typically deaden pain?"

Viore shook her head, silver hair shimmering. "Nay. We use grammarye to turn off feelings temporarily. Humans use poppy extract when they wish to feel nothing."

"Whatever you are comfortable with, Oromis."

"I would not impose unfamiliar magics on you while you work a delicate operation," he deferred. "Whatever you suggest will be fine, I suspect."

"I would prefer you demonstrate your competence with this, 'vanishing' spell." Islanzadi insisted. "Oromis represents too much experience and wisdom to risk on an untested technique."

Harry acquiesced and and spent the next half hour exhaustively vanishing specific and precise patterns out of solid blocks blindly, including replicas of the vertebra in question sung out of wood that she had made challengingly. Arya was plainly exasperated by her mother's paranoia, but Harry rather understood why she was being so cautious: Oromis was the only true master of the riders left. Galbatorix left the order immediately after finishing his training and none of the Forsworn were ever sworn into the more dangerous secrets. The king might have plundered Doru Areba's library for forbidden knowledge, but those techniques were firmly in the enemy's hands and unavailable to Eragon and to a lesser extent, Harry.

It was an hour later that Islanzadi, Arya, and the three elven healers were wearing incongruously modern scrubs and white facemasks, standing near but not over Oromis as he lay face down on the table with a blue sheet over him, cut out over his back.

Running from his arm was a plastic tube filled with a red liquid that glowed faintly. "It's a potion that replaces any lost blood in the user. Typically drunk, this variant is popular among healers who don't want to be constantly pouring liquids down their patients' throats. The tube is also feeding him the potion which deadens pain."

"It generates new blood?" Balumh asked, leaning over the IV tube.

"I tested it on myself, and it replicates what's already there. Works on elves, humans, even cows and pigs. But only on blood, or blood-analogous fluids in other species. No spinal fluid or such I'm afraid." He nodded, impressed.

The surgery itself passed in a blur. Harry's hands were steady and the spine, close to the surface. Nothing important blocked his access to the afflicted region he was fixing, and the vanishment charm was trivial to cast. Within five minutes, he had removed the T-7 vertebra and used magic to straighten and hold the cord and spine in place. Oromis downed the Skelegro. Harry cast a tempus and glanced at the stopwatch.

In the meantime, he watched in fascination as the potion went to work. Harry had obviously not seen how his own arm bones regrew, ensconced in flesh as they were at the time. Oromis was missing exactly one bone and a rather small one, too. The effect was nearly instantly visible.

"When I took Skelegro, I felt pins and needles–that is to say, the sensation of a deadened nerve–in my arm. What can you feel?"

"Nothing at all," Oromis admitted. The area where the vertebra should have been, had filled in with some magical placeholder, glimmering magic that formed the frame of the bone. Within, it looked like tiny invisible spiders were spinning an intricate loom of bone tendrils, forming a lattice of white bone that grew denser and denser. Balumh, Viore, and Nidae all leaned over in fascination.

When the hour mark had passed, the lattice of bone threads had grown dense enough to be opaque, and the final stage began. The core of the vertebra was complete, and a shell of white was now growing over the entire piece, sealing in the lattice. "Can you wiggle your feet for me?" Harry asked Oromis. At the end of the table, two feet wiggled around. "Good. That means everything's still connected. Time to close you up."

Ending the spells that kept the incision open, Harry smoothed together the cut and incanted "Vulnera sanentur," sealing the gash without a mark. He scourgified the blood off his gown and tossed it into a metal bin, indicating that the other should do so as well. A handful of spells cleaned Oromis off too. Harry used a switching spell to swap the bloodied sheet and scrubs for a proper blanket to preserve his modesty, and levitated the elf off the operating table. Conducting him with great care, Harry directed him to a bed he had prepared for him.

It was similar to a normal bed, yet much firmer. It prevented his spine from bending into the deforming mattress. Likewise, instead of a pillow the headrest was a ring similar to massage tables so that Oromis's shoulders would not be propped up. "Sleep on your face," Harry told him. "I don't want you to put pressure on the bone for at least the eight hours that Skelegro runs for. Mind, I don't think It'll matter since I saw the bone finish myself, but I'd advise you to take no chances where your spine is concerned. You ought to sleep now, and take tomorrow easy.

"I shall," Oromis promised. "Thank you."

"No problem," Harry smiled. "Feel better soon."

---

AN: the whole curing Oromis thing might seem abrupt, but I don't like the way Inheritance killed literally every adult figure in the story over the course of a few years. Oromis will not die over Ceunon, either. If I ever rewrite this, I would consider giving Oromis a proper recovery arc, but I can't see Harry overlooking the possibility of curing someone who would be such an important fighter to his side, especially if the problem was as easy as I made it. The giving/taking magic curse might play a part in something in the future, I'm not sure yet. That's an ability that I can't take away once given, and one which might break some stories in the future. Taking, probably okay. Giving, not so much.

There will be at least two more chapters before we get back to Roran and Nasuada, but then, both of their stories stretched over nearly a year before everyone met back up. Nasuada had to march a whole ass army through the entireity of the Beors and then to Surda, Roran took Carvahall pretty much all along the coast of the Empire. Elves of Ellesmera 2 and 3 will characterize less known elves, give us insight into utopia culture, and help us understand both how much they hate Galbatorix and why