"Morgan! How do I stop this?"
Harry pulled out his broom and circled over the fiendfyre. The blaze had grown out of control within moments. The second the last Urgal was out, Harry sealed the doors again.
Morgan's spirit was faded. She floated far from the snarling beasts of flame below, shying away as if afraid of being burned.
"You don't," she called. The fire danced in her eyes, mesmerizing her like a bad memory.
"That can't be the only answer," Harry insisted. He grasped the Elder Wand. It had shot a stream of golden sparks and begun working for him again. That had to mean it was his, right? Surely it knew how to combat this.
But when he willed it to solve his problems and waved it at the fiendfyre, rather than fighting the growing inferno, more fiendfyre poured out of the tip, falling through the air.
"What the fuck?" Harry shook the wand and set his mind to blasting deluges of water at the inferno. All it seemed to accomplish was sending curtains of boiling steam rising up at him. Harry covered his face with his arm and cast a bubblehead.
Dragons and phoenixes began circling up towards him. Harry blasted them away with torrents of water from the tip of the Elder Wand.
"Tell me something!" Harry begged Morgan. The spirit remained transfixed by the inferno. Stone had begun to slag, pillars, arches, and balconies sagging as they liquefied in the heat. The fiendfyre didn't give off much smoke, yet the heat was unbearable.
"I–" she floated even higher. "I don't know!" she cried.
Harry wrenched his broom upwards and soared up higher, over the heat and away from the beasts. A massive serpent had formed on the ground level, coiled around the outside of the room. It raised its reddish black head, fanning out its hood. The enormous cobra hissed, slithering up the outside of the hall.
If he couldn't beat the fiendfyre, Harry would flee. He bent low on his homemade broomstick, hurtling up and up towards the glittering red roof of the star sapphire atop Tronjheim.
He looped over the dragonhold and dove towards the command tent. King Hrothgar was outside of it speaking with his dwarves. Harry dropped out of the sky to cries of amazement and alarm. No point in hiding his broomstick anymore; the Urgals that escaped Tronjheim would spill much bigger secrets of his.
King Hrothgar, to his credit, spent hardly a second awestruck before reassuming the role of a leader. "You called for an evacuation," he said. "Why?"
"Extremely nasty fire curse," Harry rushed, propping himself up by the handle of his broom. "Is every dwarf out?"
"To my knowledge, yes," Hrothgar confirmed.
"Good." Harry sagged in relief. "What part of Tronjheim is most important to the dwarves? What would you save if it was going to, er–" Harry winced. "Burn down."
King Hrothgar's eyes widened in horror, along with about half the dwarves in earshot – everyone who understood English, Harry supposed. The horror spread as dwarven chatter surrounded them.
"Isidar Mithrim," the dwarven king said immediately. "The star sapphire."
"And then?"
"The library," Hrothgar answered after only a moment of hesitation. "Do you mean this, wizard?"
Harry nodded. "I have no idea how to stop it. Nobody does. Fiendfyre is the most destructive piece of magic I've ever heard of. Durza cast it as a final 'fuck you' before getting stabbed through the heart."
Hrothgar understood. "Then go, do what you will. The star sapphire is the soul of our race. Save that, and you will have unending favors from any dwarf you might encounter."
Harry nodded sharply and mounted his broom. "Get everyone far away. This stuff doesn't act like normal fire. I don't know what it counts as fuel." Then he kicked off.
The wind raced against his robes as he ascended, soaring back up to the colossal red sapphire. It was too big to move as it was. Harry doubted he could set it down without shattering it, even if he could cast a levitation charm powerful enough.
Staring down from the top, Harry saw reddish black firelight dancing within the fractals underneath. He made up his mind and raised the Elder Wand.
"Reducio."
The colossal gem began to shrink. It took two precious minutes to get it small enough to manage, another few seconds to shrink it down to a size that would fit in his palm. Harry dove and caught the glittering red jewel in his fist, stuffing it in his pocket.
Tronjheim's central hall was now a gateway to hell. The fiendfyre serpent had grown and grown, coiled around the lowest dozen levels, its body thick and scaled with checkered dark colors that wavered in the heat haze.
Harry took a deep breath, recast his bubblehead, and dove into the inferno.
"Point-me, dwarven library!"
He followed the Elder Wand, clearing a path through the non-living fire, beating back the smaller beasts with icy spears.
The enormous serpent turned its fiery, malevolent eyes upon Harry. He heaved himself to the left and rolled under its darting tongue, swerving over a balcony and plunging into a tunnel headed east, following the direction of the Elder Wand.
Harry hurtled along the low tunnel, the stone ceiling speeding by inches from his hair. Behind him, the serpent jammed its head in the other end in relentless pursuit. He slashed the Elder Wand over his shoulder, conjuring a several feet thick tungsten plug.
He swung a hairpin turn down a side hall, kicking off the far wall. He threw up another plug in the hallway and stopped to recast the point-me. The wand directed him down, now.
With a shrug, Harry pointed the wand down. "Reducto!"
Harry blasted a path down into an apartment, then a hallway, an office, another hallway, a meeting room, before plunging through a cloud of rubble and debris into a massive, three story library with stacks that stretched all the way to the vaulted, painted ceiling.
He started conjuring boxes, chucking an expansion charm on them, filling them with books taken at random, and stacking them in a pile near the center of the room. As he cleared a shelf of books, Harry vanished the empty shelf.
It had already begun to get hot in the room. He scrambled to finish stack after stack, the pile of filled boxes growing where the central stacks had been.
He wasn't even done with a tenth of the library. There were entire other halls surrounding the hall he was in, halls he hadn't a chance of rescuing at his current pace.
Harry needed something to enchant. Something real he could work with, not some conjured thing that sucked at holding magic. A cart abandoned by an end stack caught his eye. He summoned it over to himself and shrugged off his robe, draping it over the top level and sticking it around the edge and the bottom with a charm. Harry cast the expansion charm as powerfully as he could on the inside of the cart, then waved the Elder Wand in a wide circle over his head.
"Accio books!"
A whirlwind of bindings and pages hurtled towards him. Harry pointed the Elder Wand at the cart and conducted the storm into the expanded space. Streams of books came flying in from all sides.
Long, tense minutes passed as Harry oversaw the torrent of dwarven knowledge. The temperature in the room steadily climbed. When the tide of books finished, Harry glanced around at what was left on the shelves.
Scrolls were the most common, followed by tablets. When they were done, Harry picked up the cart and dangled it beneath his broom while he took one last lap. Paintings, statues, and art decorating the library remained hung on walls or in alcoves.
The heat was becoming unbearable. Rather than look for a way out, Harry apparated straight to the dragonhold with the cart and soared down. The command tent had been evacuated. There was nobody left there. He coasted towards the east tunnel, flying over miles of dotted battlefields. Piles of Urgal bodies were scattered around islands of old violence, spread out between abandoned command posts and empty garrisons.
He soared over to the east tunnel and found King Hrothgar waiting at the gate.
"We saw Isidar Mithrim disappear," he said. "What happened?" His eyes were on the cart.
Harry fished through his pocket and pulled out the little red gem. King Hrothgar accepted it with the gentleness of a mother holding her newborn, mesmerized by the tiny, utterly impossibly detailed work of art. He rolled the cart over to Hrothgar as well.
"I didn't have time to save the statues or paintings in the library," he apologized. "It was getting too hot to tolerate even with magic
"No matter," King Hrothgar said, transfixed with the sapphire rose in his palm. "This is enough."
A tremor ran through the floor. Tronjheim rumbled in the distance, beginning to sag in on itself like a giant, melting wedding cake. Dwarves around Hrothgar fell to their knees, crying out for several different deities to save them or save Tronjheim. Helzvog and Guntera were the two Harry picked out of the murmuring.
Harry could not tear his eyes away. Tronjheim was so massive that it dominated the vista, even though they were so far that it took several seconds for the sound of what they saw to reach them.
Before their very eyes, the bottom tier of Tronjheim glowed a livid red. The uppermost tiers began falling in on themselves faster and faster, the tip of the mountain-within-a-mountain imploding.
The rumbling grew louder. Sides drooped and sloughed off the city, pooling within the walls.
A massive, baleful red serpent burst out from the top, a thousand feet tall, shimmering in the heat haze. Rubble and molten rock erupted into the air. The glowing base of Tronjheim brightened, turning from cherry red stone into the crimson and black hellfire of the enormous cobra's coils. It reared its head, spreading its hood and hissing. Its fathomless black eyes glared across miles of empty space, straight at Harry.
He spent a moment watching, mesmerized, as Tronjheim melted into a puddle, splitting apart like a hatched egg, before his wits returned to him.
"Get back!" Harry urged, shooing the dwarves on through the tunnel. He threw up a shield just in time for the eruption's shockwave to strike. Harry's ears popped, the smell of sulfur and molten rock assaulting his nose.
Harry watched the serpent for mere seconds, staring into its eyes before realizing:
It wasn't satisfied.
"Go. RUN!" Harry shouted.
Miles away, the fiendfyre serpent coiled its enormous body. Harry started sprinting with the rest of the dwarves. Pouring from behind the drooping walls of the molten slag heap that had once been the pride of the dwarven race, a stampede of mythical creatures emerged.
He swiped the Elder Wand over his shoulder. The last thing he saw before a massive tungsten plug materialized in the mouth of the tunnel was the cobra, uncurling its city-sized body as it struck towards them.
All that could be heard in the tunnel was panting as everybody abandoned dignity and sprinted as fast as their legs could carry them. Harry did not stop with one massive plug. As they went, he filled the whole tunnel with solid tungsten. The first block had begun glowing cherry red around the edges not moments after he'd conjured it.
"That metal's melting point is twice as high as iron," Harry panted, throwing another massive block up behind them.
"Is that spell well known?" Hrothgar asked, terrified.
"Known of," Harry agreed, slinging his leg over his broom in stride. "It takes a madman or a death-wish to cast it; fiendfyre is known for killing its caster. The only guy I ever saw cast it before Durza died to his own spell as well. I don't know how to cast it."
"And Durza, you are certain he's dead?" Hrothgar asked.
Harry hunched over on his broom. The moment replayed in his mind. He had been distracted, and he didn't know what to expect of a Shade dying. He'd have to ask, but–
"He's more dead than if he'd been beheaded, but maybe less dead than 'permanently not our problem,'" Harry hedged. The dark mist rising from Durza's body had looked familiar. He would have to ask someone who had seen a Shade die, or find a written account somewhere to be sure.
King Hrothgar's fingers played on the hilt of his war hammer. "Pity the person who faces that Shade again."
Harry glided on in quiet reflection, very confident that if Durza was indeed still alive in some form, somehow, he'd end up being that person.
Soon Harry and the dwarven rearguard reached Arya, Brom, Eragon, and Saphira, still deep in the main tunnel, the better part of a day from the Beor valleys.
Harry saw relief on Arya's face when she caught sight of him. He waved and hurried over. King Hrothgar lingered, looking bemused. Harry reddened; he really needed to get used to being polite to kings and queens. Islanzadi and Hrothgar both had the dignity and good humor to tolerate him not really paying any mind to their titles, but Islanzadi was bound to be less gracious the next time Harry saw her, and he had no idea how thick-skinned the King of Surda was. It seemed inevitable that he'd meet him at some point, just given the role he'd assumed in the coming conflict.
"You must not have kings and queens where you hail from," King Hrothgar said.
Harry winced. "We have a queen, but she's more of an icon than a ruler. People vote for members of parliament, and they do the governance. And you have to keep voting them in every so often, so if they make promises to get in that they don't keep, they get chucked out in the next election."
"Dwarven governance is similar," King Hrothgar commented. "I wield more power than an icon, but I am beholden to the Grimstboriths of the clans, and they to their people. We vote for life, though nine of thirteen Grimstboriths can oust me, and certain powers are reserved for them that I cannot broach. Honor holds most to their promises. Violence, the rest. My reign may not survive this. For how few dwarves have rejoined Helzvog, this may be counted as among the greatest disasters to befall our race."
"Well, it wasn't your fault," Harry insisted firmly. The broad strokes of the defensive plan were his idea. Harry assumed any delegated tasks were carried out capably. And broadly, they had worked. Tronjheim's destruction laid at his own feet for failing to kill Durza properly, and for failing to stop the fiendfyre. "Most of this was my idea, and I was the one who failed to stop Durza from doing this."
"We failed to stop Durza," Arya interceded humbly. "I did not even contribute to the fight."
Eragon bowed his head. Brom was standing around with his arms crossed, looking exhausted.
"It is pointless for you five to try to allocate blame," King Hrothgar said, looking at each of them – and Saphira – in turn. "Whether any of you are to blame, and I do not think you are, it was my choice to host the Varden, and that is what ultimately brought the invasion upon us, and thus, the destruction of Tronjheim. Some clans were already displeased with the Varden's presence, and this will give them much thread to spin stories from."
"As Swelden rak Anhuin?" Harry guessed.
Hrothgar nodded wearily. "Among others, they are the most vocal and vociferous, yes."
Brom stepped forwards. "Your majesty." He said King Hrothgar's title perfunctorily, giving a quick, lazy bow that more resembled a nod. "While most of the Varden are accounted for, dead or alive, we are missing four of note. A squad reported that Ajihad and the twins split up in the tunnels, and Murtagh is nowhere to be found."
Harry's eyes widened. "Shit. The workshop."
Arya gave him a solemn look of warning. He understood immediately. If the fiendfyre was still around, and he jumped straight into it…
"It's not just them," he apologized, already stepping on the stirrups of his broom. "I left Maria, and Misha was supposed to come back with a plane full of elves."
Arya's expression did not change. "You are worth more to the war than Ajihad, the twins, Murtagh, and a dozen elves. The dwarves of Tronjheim will need a place to stay."
She held his gaze. "If it becomes a choice of you or them…"
Harry turned away. "It won't be."
He kicked off and hurtled down the tunnel.
As soon as he found a gap between groups of evacuees big enough to get lost in, Harry landed. Wand in hand, he took a deep breath and prepared himself to apparate out the moment things went wrong. He pictured the workshop and twisted.
One of the twins dragged another man in. Misha did not know his name. He had dark hair and was already unconscious when they brought him over the ramp. The twin chained him in the opposite corner to Ajihad.
The clinking of chains sounded as loud as hammers on anvils. Shrieks echoed in his ears, noises he had not thought could come out of a human. He did not dare close his eyes, for then he might see the nightmares as well.
Mama sat on the ground looking lost – the twins did not bother to wake her, they had no use for her, nor had they any shred of kindness in their blackened hearts. Not like Larkin.
Misha could feel the crushing weight of guilt chasing after him, a lumbering beast he was determined to stay one step ahead of. He had a job to do.
The hold was full of whatever was not nailed down, whatever the twins could order them to move that would fit in the back of the plane. A desk, piles of paper, magical knicknacks and racks of potions, steel ingots, half finished breastplates, a pile of junk stolen in the wake of their betrayal. Misha's first foray as a petty thief. Misha tried to warn them that unsecured stuff in the back would fly around, but neither of them were moved by his warning.
The other twin appeared then. "It's time to leave," one ordered him.
Misha trudged to the back of the cabin to raise the ramp. He pulled up the stairs and got into the cockpit. One of the twins took the copilot's seat. Eerie and claylike, he was not happy to have to look at him the whole flight.
"Describe what you are doing," the twin ordered as Misha's hands flew across the dashboard.
Misha gave halting commentary, immersing himself in the task, forcing his mind fully upon the task of flight. He ran down pre-flight checks, then showed the twin the button that made the Hedwig hover off its struts, the one that ignited the engines, and the throttle that controlled the thrust of the plane.
He started taxiing the plane towards the runway when the twin beside him stiffened.
"Faster," he demanded. "Now."
His neck heated up. "I can't just go faster. The wings are nearly as wide as the runway; I have to turn on the spot to fit in."
The twin's soulless eyes bored into him. "If you do not wish to discover what the wizard does to traitors, you will get out of here as fast as possible."
A lump in Misha's pockets gave him mild reassurance that Harry was too kind to punish him in a truly grisly manner. The twin cottoned onto this thought and stared.
"If he catches us, our last act will be to kill your mother."
Misha's jaw tightened. This was the horse he'd hitched himself to.
Harry sprinted towards the plane. He held his broomstick level and vaulted onto it. He couldn't think. He couldn't see. It didn't matter where he looked. The thing he'd seen hanging out of the coke oven stayed in his vision.
He hurtled down the massive room. The plane had already turned the corner onto the runway. The blackened husk broke open again in his mind, squishy pink goop showing through the cracks.
"Sonorous. MISHA! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!"
His voice echoed through the massive room, ricocheting off the stone walls and floor.
Misha slammed the throttle to full, heedless of the fumes he was blasting into the workshop. Harry sounded furious and devastated. He had to have seen–
He squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered.
The twin next to him gripped his seat as they hurtled down the tunnel. Misha had no way of seeing behind the plane and no way of knowing when or if Harry would catch him. The slit of blue sky at the end of the tunnel widened, racing towards him.
Harry slashed the Elder Wand at the plane. "IMPEDIMENTA!" he bellowed. The craft shuddered, speed stolen from it just as it dropped off the lip of the runway. It plunged below the opening and out of sight. Harry coughed and cast a bubblehead to ward off the fumes.
Heatwaves assaulted Harry as he plunged through the runway after the plane, speeding through its exhaust. He raced over the lip of the runway. The plane had vanished. Harry spotted the telltale shimmer of disillusionment beneath him.
The Hedwig was going into a dive to recover its speed, already curving back up to level. "Hominem revelio," Harry cast.
Two glowing presences in the cockpit, four in the back. The twins, Ajihad, Murtagh, Misha, and who? He kept an eye on the orientation of the people in the air and used it to deduce the location of the plane.
Hedwig began pointing its nose up to climb. Harry raced over to get in front of it, firing a descendio in hopes of making Misha land.
A bolt of light struck the windshield. Misha flinched away, the bottom of his stomach falling out as the craft plunged. The wizard was flying in front of him. Next to him, the twin's eyes were locked onto Harry through the windshield.
Misha didn't think Harry had thought this through. He had been the one to tell everyone to never, under any circumstances, be in front of a turbine engine while it was running. Room to make the climb over the mountain was running out. He pulled the nose up even further, aiming the plane at Harry on his little broomstick.
Harry froze in place as a mental attack slammed into him. He hesitated, almost to the point of no return. The suction of the air intakes started gentle, increasing to nigh irresistible within a few feet of careless drift.
He ignored the mental attack and wrenched his broom around. The turbine passed by as he slid back over the wing, shimmering glass sliding by inches from his face. Harry tried to catch the wingtip, but the leading edge was rounded and devoid of any grips. The heat of the engine seared his skin as he passed by the exhaust. It blasted him, wheeling back into the air.
Harry gritted his teeth and mastered the pain of his burns, righting himself mid-air and racing past. Misha kept pulling the nose of the plane back. Harry sped after him. Again, he was just a second too slow to put the pieces together. His self-inflicted concussion had him a step behind.
Misha glanced over his shoulder. Of course, he could see nothing but the cabin behind him. The plane had begun to stall, he couldn't wait any longer. His hand hovered over the button.
"What is that?" the twin demanded. He had felt the plane slowing as well.
Misha shook his head and mashed it, half hoping Harry had fallen far behind and would give up, half hoping he was right on their tail and would no longer be his problem anymore.
The afterburners flared at full blast, shoving them up towards the ridgeline.
If Misha had been able to see behind the plane, he'd have seen another blackened creature falling away, limbs pinwheeling as aerosolized jet fuel and superheated afterburner exhaust set it alight, plummeting towards the earth.
Misha had never flown so far north. Nor had he flown with a passenger since Harry taught him how to fly. Uru'baen was only a few hours from Tronjheim. The twin ordered him to land in a field near to a span of wall that wrapped close to the massive stone shelf sitting over the city, and to leave the craft invisible.
The twins unchained Ajihad from the rail at the front of the cabin and dragged the unconscious man out the ramp. Everything was jumbled up back there, furniture fallen over and paper scattered across the floor in the wake of their departure.
"Unchain him at your peril," one said ominously, nodding to the dark haired one, who had awoken and was glaring murderously at the twins. "You have cast your lot with us. None but Galbatorix will accept your allegiance now."
Misha swallowed.
"Wait here," the other twin commanded, and they disappeared.
Misha righted the desk chair and sat with his mama.
"Oh Robert," she said, eyes lighting up as he sat with her. "What a marvelous machine! If the dragons are gone, we must make our own once more."
"Robert is gone," Misha said gently. "Remember? It's just been you and me."
She turned confused, examining his face and frowning. "You– and me? Who…who are you?"
His eyes prickled. "Your son. Misha." He grasped her hands. "Ceres, please."
She pulled them away as if stung. "How dare you? Robert and I are not yet married. I certainly have no son." She stood up and walked towards the edge of the ramp, gazing out at the grassy field next to the wall.
"Where are we? Who are you?"
"Misha," Misha coaxed. "Your son."
Ceres rounded Harry's desk and screamed, scrambling back.
Misha rushed over. "What–"
"Morzan!" his mother shrieked. "How–"
Misha glanced around the desk. The dark haired man was the only one there, chained to the ground. "Morzan is dead," Misha reminded her, frustration mounting. "The twins can help you remember."
Ceres shook her head, lips tight. Her eyes did not move from the man.
He looked confused. "His death is common knowledge."
Misha shook his head. "Something is broken in her mind. She has been this way for years. I don't know why she thinks that."
"Did she ever see Morzan?" the man asked.
Misha shrugged. Ceres did not tell him everything, even back when she knew her own name.
"Maybe she recognizes his son. My name is Murtagh." Murtagh glared at Misha. "From all I've heard, the wizard is impossibly generous and good to his friends. Why–"
Guilt slowly closed that last step, wrapping its long talons around Misha's throat. The lump in his pocket felt like a boulder. "It's not about me," he muttered.
Murtagh's eyes fell on Ceres. "I see."
Misha felt the lump in his pocket through the fabric.
"What stops you from flying away right now?" Murtagh asked.
Misha thought for a moment. He had his mother with him, the twins had done nothing to stop him from taking off. "Nothing," Misha realized.
Murtagh inclined his head. "If you fly me away from here and drop me off anywhere, I swear I will do you no harm. Take the plane and fly wherever."
He shook his head. He couldn't.
"Why?" Murtagh demanded, irritated.
"Magicians," Misha swallowed. "They can wake her." he nodded to his mother. "When they help, she can remember."
"There are other magicians out there," Murtagh pointed out.
Misha shook his head. "You heard the twins."
Murtagh bowed his head. "If you fly away, you will be in a powerful position to negotiate. You'll have the wizard's desk and all its secrets, the plane, and Morzan's son to bargain with."
"I have to drop you off so you don't kill me," Misha reminded him. Murtagh's lips quirked.
"True. The desk or the plane are enough," Murtagh supposed.
Silence stretched in the cabin. Ceres was in the cockpit, staying as far from 'Morzan' as possible.
"They will come back soon," Murtagh reminded him. Misha felt the seconds drag on.
He let out an explosive sigh. "Fine," he said. His heart started racing again. Once more against time, he hurried to the cockpit when he heard footsteps on the metal ramp in the back.
One of the twins came to the cockpit, suspicion writ across his face. He saw Misha sitting with his mother and relaxed. "You will help carry things in when we return."
Misha swallowed, his heart thundering. He nodded.
The twin climbed back down to the cabin. Misha craned his neck to glance after him. He saw Murtagh by the ramp looking back at him in frustration. Why hadn't he sold him out yet?
With a lingering, meaningful look, Murtagh allowed the twin to push him out of the plane, hands chained behind his back. The other twin went to Harry's desk and scooped up a stack of papers, wrenching one of the mailboxes off the desk.
Misha waited until they had all vanished into a little passage in the wall before a strange feeling stole over him. Guilt had him firmly in his grip now, sharp talons piercing deep into his heart and mind.
He raised the ramp and sat down next to his mother. It would be just the two of them.
MIsha pushed the throttle forward, trundling over the grassy field. He raised the plane's nose to the sky and took to the air, soaring northwest with no destination in mind. Guilt gave his heart a squeeze. Misha glanced behind him. Scraps of his old life slid back to the edge of the ramp, tumbling around unsecured in the hold.
One day, he'd pick up the pieces, he swore to himself.
AN: That's it for daily uploads, and for the first book. Next chapter will come out next week as usual. There may be a week break in the nearish future to do some plotting. I appreciate feedback, and if you want a response from me, you can PM me so I can actually send a message back.