Text Key

"Audible speech."

'Directed thought, telepathic speech.'

Chapter 4 - Rider Reveals

Horst, in contrast to his wife, was a large man - a good handful of inches over six feet tall, broadly built with muscle to spare, and very invested in trying to turn all of that to being casually intimidating.

I wouldn't be telling him that I'd fought lots of things a lot stronger and scarier than him - that was rude -, but I think my lack of reaction was communicating it all the same.

"Seems you came down from the Spine. Interesting place for a stranger to be," he said from his place at the head of his table, where we sat.

"I've been informed that I'm a rare combination of very smart and very stupid," I replied from where I was sitting, primly composed despite this being an - admittedly very informal - interrogation.

'Most often by me,' Selby interjected, to the unseen audience in my mind, who tossed in their own amusement.

The crowd in person was much tougher. "How did you know to come here?" Horst asked. "Besides your… magic."

Distrustful. But again, magic was hardly the work of common hands, and it was ill-trusted for good reason, given how many magic users in the setting had very little compunction about invading the mind of any and all that they encountered.

"Well, I was in the area on other business, and happened to recognize that my other skills were needed at this particular location thanks to an… interesting curse. It pushes me towards those in need…" I said, before Horst's raised eyebrow begged further clarification. "It makes me experience their pain until I relieve it. It starts at about a… oh, a few miles' distance and with injuries as small as a bruise. So you can imagine that it didn't take a whole lot of effort to find this place."

That got the appropriate wince from the man; even now, I could tell where three of his toes hadn't healed properly from an old break, along with which houses in town were dealing with colds, chills, and the general winter anxiety over supplies.

It was almost nostalgic, going back to a version of my first life's chronic pain problems… if not for the fact that it sucked just as bad now as it did then.

"How does that even happen? As far as curses go - it, it just seems rather specific," Elain added.

"To make a long story short; never ask a beginner magician to bless your baby, lest a lousing of grammar ruin their life - while becoming a shield from misfortune is a worthy task, it is one that should be undertaken willingly, not thrust upon a child who should have been among the first to be shielded."

"Ah."

"Yeah. If you must ask a magician for something, make sure you trust them to deal with you honestly… and to have attended their studies diligently." I sighed.

People thought that having high empathy made you caring. Gentle. But really, even in the best case scenario, what it did was turn the initial impulse to care into a deep bitterness the longer you couldn't 'fix' something - and your first impulse was always an immediate fix to symptoms, not a lasting one for the actual problem - and that you'd carry a little bit more of that bitterness with you every time you got to move past a patient. Never mind that the original person you were nominally trying to 'help' was still suffering more often than not and wasn't asking to be a burden in the first place.

"But that's probably not what you wanted to talk about, is it?" I asked.

Horst nodded. "Can you tell what happened to Garrow from his injuries?"

"Sure. I already explained it to Elain and Gertrude, but given that you weren't listening in with Eragon…" I said. "He was tortured. Combination of knife work and one of the most virulently corrosive agents you can find in this world," I said, setting the cup I'd borrowed and filled with seithr oil down on the table. "I'm probably one of the only people who has the application of knowledge and power needed to deal with it, so they were intending for him to die, regardless of what information they got. And with this stuff? The interrogator is in the employ of the king."

Everyone pulled away from the table, as if the contents of the cup were capable of rearing up and biting them like some sort of venomous snake. "You can tell that by the use of that…"

"Seithr oil. It's rare, expensive, and - in this form, which is even rarer and more expensive, for how it needs to be treated to make it like this - very, very nasty stuff. It won't eat metal or glass, but anything organic - eh, anything that was at any point, 'alive'," I corrected. Medieval vocabulary. "Be it leather, wood, flesh, bone… it'll eat right through. It's not a painless or clean tool, as far as assassination goes, but it is unquestionably effective. And between that and the price, if you know what you were got with, you can usually pin down who hired your killer in the time it takes to kill you. Not that it helps, but y'know."

"And what of Eragon? Was he tortured?"

"No. He fell afoul of friction and something rough. Likely the dragon he hatched; those scales are tough business."

There was a noise from the stairs. "You know?" Eragon asked, stumbling into the room.

Of course he'd still be eavesdropping. How else was a teenage protagonist supposed to learn things except by overhearing whispers and private conversations?

"She's the size of a small building, shiny, and flies; she's not exactly hard to miss," I pointed out. It wasn't even me bullshitting; I had caught sight of her from across the valley, glinting like a jewel between the moonlight and the glow of the snow beneath her as she anxiously circled the village. "Also, the list of things that could have done that to your legs is pretty short to start with and I'm pretty sure the odds of you getting your hands on a dragon egg and hatching it are ever so slightly higher than you somehow getting a hold of and deciding to mount a live shark while naked in the dead of winter."

'I mean…' one of the other Alters started, chiming in for the first time today.

Nathanael hmm'd in agreement. 'Teenagers are stupid, you know. It's one of those universal facts.'

'I'm putting way more weight on the logistics part of the argument rather than the intelligence and impulse control of a sixteen year old,' I pointed out before returning to the present, physical conversation. "How long did you really think you were going to be able to hide a whole live dragon? What was your plan?"

"I… um." Eragon's expression twisted into something equal parts sheepish to shamed. "I was… going to tell Garrow? Until Roran left."

'…teenagers.'

"Well, you're going to need a better plan than that, because - congratulations! You've put Carvahall on the map during a time where your local despot is cleansing northern villages and towns because he thinks they're colluding with the Varden," I said. "And worse yet; unlike them, you actually do pose a potential threat to him as one of the Last Free Riders. Which means that he's going to put actual effort in rather than just throwing conscripts and Urgals at the problem."

"Which will mean what for the rest of us?" Horst asked.

"Oh, besides burning, killing, and hostaging this town for the crime of 'collusion'… Galbatorix will be sending his finest dragon hunters. You've already met, back when they were just investigating. The Ra'zac."

"The ones in the cloaks and the masks," Eragon said, an angry understanding dawning. "They're the ones that attacked Uncle Garrow?"

"Yes, them. And those aren't masks; those are their faces. They're not anything remotely close to human. Which is probably part of why they're partial to eating human flesh." I cracked my neck, the sound almost oppressively loud in the fresh silence. "There are other parties to worry about as well, but that's the most immediately relevant to young Eragon here for the moment."

Horst humphed. "You know a lot about this business."

"It pays to be well informed, especially when you're in the business of hunting the hunters - I've already killed one, but like most insects, you never quite know when, how, or how many are going to come out of the woodwork once you get them stirred up… and leaving a job like that half done is the same as not doing it at all." I smiled thinly. Two Lethrblaka, another Ra'zac, and however many eggs there were waiting to hatch around the continent. It was a bit of a shopping list, but nothing that intimidating compared to some things me and my Alters had handled. "It's part of why I came this way in the first place; I heard that they had been sent… questing. And one of the important parts of hunting..."

"...is having a good idea of where your prey is going to end up," Eragon finished. "And do you know where they're going to end up then?"

"I know they hole up near Dras-Leona, but… their services are in demand from their king, so they travel and travel often. And they're not particularly slow at it either - they have ways of getting around most people don't."

"But you do?"

'You can tell them about me,' Selby said. 'I don't know why you're so cagey about it.'

'It's because nothing good ever happens to me when you end up in the spotlight, but fine,' I replied before sighing. "I have options not… dissimilar to what young Eragon here has, let's say."

"You have a dragon?" Eragon said, leaning forward, excited. "You're a Rider, I didn't know girls-!"

God, I did not want to get into teaching this kid about gender identity stuff, but it was likely to fall on me anyway if I wanted to just… avoid the grating sensation of being constantly misgendered. But it was a conversation I could put off for a bit.

"Men, women - anyone can be a Rider. Well, provided they're human or… elven? Elfen? Elvish? One of those 'elf' options," I said, pushing the linguistics to the side with a physical wave of my hand. "A bit discriminatory, but it'll get updated eventually to include the rest of Alagaësia's races, once someone bothers to get off their ass. But gender has never had any bearing on it. It's about who a dragon chooses on a personal level. And honestly, reducing someone to just being a dragon's chosen is a bit insulting. It's not even the fifth most interesting thing about me."

None of them seemed to believe me, least of all Eragon.

"Why don't you call your dragon then?" he said. "If everyone knows…"

"Everyone in this room. Which is- what? Three people? Four, if Gertrude has very good ears?" I scoffed. "You're really excited about scaring the shit out of the rest of the village who are just trying to get a decent night's sleep around here, aren't you?"

"I suppose the boy is saying that it's easy enough to say you have a dragon," Horst said. "But seeing is an entirely different thing. Though I am more on the side of not causing a panic. People are worried enough with what happened to Garrow - a dragon dropping out of the sky without warning? That's much bigger and stranger. Not to mention a lot more immediate."

"You mean 'a lot easier to stab a pitchfork at'."

"Then go out of town to show me!" Eragon said.

"Fuck no," I growled at the kid before turning to Horst. "I suppose the best solution would be for you to gather up the town for a meeting tomorrow and we can do the reveal then. Fair warning for everyone and information can be exchanged so you're not blindsided by what the Empire will be throwing at you thanks to the whole dragon business."

Horst seemed almost surprised at my agreeableness. "You would be fine with that?"

"It's the fairest option to everyone involved. You and your community are going to be the ones dealing with the aftermath of Eragon finding that egg, they might as well know about it so they can prepare accordingly - and you should have a talk with your uncle about things as well," I said. "Now, if I am staying overnight, I would appreciate someplace to put my horse."

Brom had not spent the last few days worrying. He had simply been… considering the possibilities. Of when and how Eragon may choose to leave the town, how to get the boy to accept his aid, and so forth.

Of those possibilities, he had not considered that Horst would be calling a town meeting with Eragon at its center.

"Alright, everyone," the blacksmith said from his balcony, motioning for the gathered villagers to quiet down. "I know you've all been worried about what happened with Garrow."

Ay, they had. Brom had been… less, admittedly, but that was because he had seen the wounds and known death. Nothing healthy wept like that and, as talented as Gertrude was, she was not one to wrangle that manner of work into submission.

"Well, no need to fret," Horst continued, motioning for someone behind him to come forwqard. "He's going to be fine. He can tell you himself."

The door opened and Garrow appeared, carried in a chair by a girl, it looked like, not too far from Eragon's age to go from looks alone. Brom took note of her anyway, since hers wasn't a familiar face, and after over ten years as the local storyteller, he was very familiar with the children and teenagers of Carvahall, so there was no excuse for him not knowing anyone local.

Brom reached out to touch the mind of the stranger, only to find his attempt at contact swatted away with a singular respondent thought of 'rude'.

Which, fair enough, it was rude, but Brom hadn't lived as long as he had by being polite. Still, if there was to be no greater reprisal than that, he could play by those manners.

"Well, you can all see I ain't dead," Garrow announced with all the annoyance of a man who hated pageantry on principle. He was a bit worn looking, but hale enough. "So don't you get too excited about anything like funerals or- or some sort of retirement party. I wasn't hurt that bad. And I'll be fixing up the farm again as soon as the ground thaws. Don't mistake this for me quittin'."

Brom supposed that it would be too much to ask for a near-death experience to soften the old farmer's stubborn streak.

"You spent three days in a coma and required high end magical intervention not to die," the stranger said, the raspy, gravel voice unexpected from the youthful face. "I'd love to see what you consider 'bad' with that as a measuring stick."

Garrow humphed but didn't argue further.

"Anyway, as to what done it - apparently the Empire got it into their heads that young Eragon's shiny rock was important and sent themselves some torture agents to get answers out of people," Horst said, taking back control over the conversation. "And they saw fit to butcher up one of our people based on one fool's pointed finger."

"We didn't say nothing!" a member of the crowd shouted back as Sloan shifted awkwardly, his movements largely unseen by everyone except his daughter Katrina, who immediately began to hiss scoldings into his ear.

"I know! We don't got an excess of bad ones in our village - they can't take the cold," Horst agreed, to a cheer of approval at the display of local pride. "But that ain't the important part. The important part is that - yes, Eragon's rock was important! It had a dragon in it!"

…well, that hadn't been in Brom's list of possibilities either, he thought numbly as Saphira and another dragon made a slow descent from the sky to land next to Horst's house, far enough from the crowd to allow them a touch of perceived safety in distance.

That was one more dragon than there was supposed to be here, Brom thought numbly.

He hoped that Horst was going to explain that part, because the local storyteller didn't have the first clue as to how that was supposed to have happened.

Author's Notes

Brom's adventures in 'what the fuck is this shit' are just beginning. As are everyone else's - except Garrow and Eragon, because Eragon doesn't know enough about the lore of his own series to question it yet and Garrow converted the field where he used to grow his fucks into something more productive ages ago.