Murtagh

CHAPTER I The Village

On still wings, Thorn soared into the cleft. The soft ceiling of clouds muffled the air, and the silence only heighted Murtagh’s anticipation as he leaned forward in the saddle, peering over Thorn’s neck to see what lay ahead.

The mountains formed blue-white walls to either side, broken by cliffs of bare grey granite that protruded from the ranks of snowbound trees. Below, the river flowed swift and narrow along its course, the water so clear Murtagh could count the rounded rocks beneath its rippling surface.

As they neared the back of the valley, the smell of rotten eggs grew stronger, and to Murtagh’s surprise, the air seemed to grow warmer as well, as if winter had yet to lay its frozen fingers upon the northern reaches.

Beneath the scrim of smoke draped over the foothills piled before them, he saw a collection of closely built stone structures. They were dark grey with domed roofs, unlike the style of construction elsewhere in Alagaësia. Some were houses, he thought, but there were other buildings as well: a narrow tower that would not have been out of place in Urû’baen and, set into the base of the near hill, what looked to be a palace or temple with a large open courtyard and a tiered roof.

Figures were visible in the streets, but distance and smoke obscured them.

The land surrounding the village was charred black like the surface of a burnt log, cracked and brittle, with tendrils of smoke rising from hollow pockets where the surface of the ground had collapsed. The few trees that stood upon the scorched earth had died, their branches bare and grey, and the bark had sloughed off the trunks in great sheets.

Wariness dampened Murtagh’s anticipation. For all their powers, they were alone, he and Thorn. Not so different from Galbatorix and Jarnunvösk. If things went badly, they could expect no reinforcements. Lord Varis wouldn’t ride to their rescue, Tornac wouldn’t parry a blow meant for his neck, and Eragon and Arya were too far away to reach them in time.

A short growl rumbled Thorn’s sides between his knees. Galbatorix and Jarnunvösk were brash and foolish. We will not repeat their mistakes.

“Let’s hope not. Turn around for now. I’d rather not rush into anything.”

Thorn banked and—without a flap of wing or sweep of tail that might have betrayed their presence—glided back toward the mouth of the cleft. There was a beaten path along the river, and Murtagh thought he saw weirs and nets set in the crystalline water.

By unspoken agreement, Thorn settled along the side of a hill one mountain over from the cleft, where a sharp-edged ridge hid them from the narrow valley.

Murtagh loosened the straps around his legs and slid to the ground. He stretched his arms and looked across the Bay of Fundor before turning back to Thorn. “What do you think?”

The scales along Thorn’s neck prickled. No village has the means to build such shells.

“The houses? I agree. Not without a great deal of help. That or they used magic.” He scratched his chin; his shave should be good for another day. Without a dagger or camp knife, he’d been forced to use a spell to remove his stubble, which made him more nervous than did a good, honest blade.

Thorn crept closer and placed his head by Murtagh’s shoulder. How long do you think you will be gone?

“I won’t be gone at all.” Murtagh smiled. “This time, I think we should do things differently. This time, the situation calls for some thunder and lightning.”

Thorn’s long red tongue snaked out of his mouth and licked his chops in a wolfish way. That seems most agreeable to me.

“I thought it might.”

Do you mean to kill Bachel?

“I mean to talk with her. If we have to fight, we fight, but—” Murtagh’s brows drew together as he frowned. “We need to find out what she and the Dreamers are about. Whatever their goal, they’re pursuing it with serious intent.”

And you want to scent out how many of them are in Nasuada’s realm.

“That too, although I doubt Bachel will tell us. At least, not willingly.” He scratched Thorn atop his snout. “Either way, we have to be careful.”

Our wards should protect us from her wordless magic, same as any other.

He gave the dragon a grim look. “Maybe. It’s hard to say. If things go badly, it might be best to flee.”

Flee or fight, I shall be ready.

“Then let us be at it.”

Murtagh walked along Thorn’s glittering length to where the saddlebags hung. He opened them and removed in order: Zar’roc, his arming cap and helmet, his greaves and vambraces, his iron-rimmed kite shield—from which he’d scraped the Empire’s emblem—his padded undershirt, and his breastplate. When not marching into open battle, he preferred to wear a mail shirt for the mobility it provided, but it wasn’t mobility nor even protection he was after. It was intimidation.

So, for the first time since Galbatorix had died and the Empire had fallen, Murtagh decided to substitute spectacle for subterfuge.

As he donned the armor, its familiar weight settled onto his frame with cold, forbidding constraint. Piece by piece, he assembled himself—or rather, a version of himself he had hoped to abandon: Murtagh son of Morzan. Murtagh, the dread servant of Galbatorix.

Murtagh the betrayer.

There was a circlet of gold about the helm, reminiscent of a minor crown. Galbatorix’s idea of humor. He’d introduced Murtagh as his right-hand man in the Empire. A new Rider, descended of the Forsworn, sworn to the king and devoted to his cause. Before the crowds, Galbatorix had treated Murtagh as all but his son, but in private chambers, where the truth could not hide, Murtagh had been nothing more than a slave.

He placed the helm upon his head and then walked to a marshy pond lined with cattails and studied his reflection. He resembled a princeling sent to war. With the added harshness his visage had acquired during the past year, he found himself thinking he would not want to fight himself.

He nodded. “That’ll do.” Then he eyed Thorn. “A pity we don’t have armor for you.”

Thorn sniffed. I need none. Besides, it would have to be made anew every half year.

It was true. Like all dragons, Thorn would continue to grow his entire life. The rate of growth slowed in proportion to overall mass, but it never entirely stopped. Some of the ancient dragons, such as the wild dragon Belgabad, had been truly enormous.

Murtagh belted on Zar’roc and then closed the saddlebags and climbed back onto Thorn. “Letta,” he said, and ended the spell that concealed Thorn in the air. “All right. Let’s go meet this witch Bachel.”

A rumble of agreement came from Thorn. Then the dragon lifted his wings high, like crimson sails turned to the wind, and drove them down. Murtagh clutched the spike in front of him as Thorn sprang skyward, and cold air rushed past with a promise of brimstone.

Land in front, Murtagh said to Thorn as they flew into the cleft. Make sure you have plenty of room. If it does come to a fight, I don’t want you to get pinned or cornered.

For a moment, Thorn’s fierce enthusiasm dimmed. You need not worry. I will not allow there to be a repeat of Gil’ead.

I know. Murtagh patted the dragon’s neck. But let’s not chance it all the same.

Down swept Thorn from the roof of clouds, eddies of mist whirling from the tips of his batlike wings. He circled the village—his form now fully visible to those below, and shouts and screams echoed among the buildings, and bells began to clang with urgent alarm—and then down again he swept and pierced the veil of smoke.

Murtagh’s eyes smarted, and an acrid taste formed in the back of his mouth.

With a threatening roar, Thorn settled on the blasted earth in front of the village. The crusted dirt cracked under his feet, and he sank inches into the ashy soil. The sight reminded Murtagh of the Burning Plains, though on cursory examination, the valley floor seemed to contain no peat or coal that might fuel an ongoing fire.

Bells continued to sound, and Murtagh saw grey-robed men and women running through the streets as they sought cover in the nearby buildings. Not that it would provide much protection against a dragon.

Murtagh drew Zar’roc then, and held it over his head. The bloody blade flashed in the dull winter light, a fitting match to Thorn’s scales.

Raising his voice as if he were addressing an assembly of troops, he shouted, “Hear me! My name is Murtagh, and I have come to speak with the witch Bachel! Come forth, Bachel, that we may have words!”

The bells ceased tolling, and an eerie silence fell over valley and village. In it, Murtagh became aware of a faint hissing from the vents discharging vapor near Thorn’s feet.

One by one, a number of robed individuals—men and women alike—emerged from the buildings and gathered along the main road. They were a disparate collection: some were of pale northern stock, others were as brown as Surdans, and a few possessed the same deep black skin as Nasuada. They peered at Murtagh from under their hoods, their expressions angry and concerned, but not as fearful as he’d expected.

You would think they’d be more scared of a dragon and Rider, he said to Thorn.

The dragon licked his teeth. I can correct that mistake.

Murtagh hid a smile. Later, perhaps.

“Bachel!” he shouted. “Come forth, Bachel!”

The knot of people parted as a tall, goateed man stepped forward and, with a cold gaze, inspected Murtagh and Thorn. Two streaks of white banded his beard, and he had a pronounced widow’s peak, while his shaved cheeks were sunken and pitted from pox. Murtagh found it impossible to place the man’s ancestry. His brow was heavy, his cheekbones protruded, and he had a fierce, unfinished look, as if he were an earlier form of human. Unlike the others, his robe had stripes of purple sewn around the cuffs.

To Murtagh’s surprise, the man bowed in a formal manner and said, “Welcome, Dragon. Welcome, Rider.” His accent reminded Murtagh more of an Urgal’s speech than any human tongue. “Come. This way. Bachel awaits.” And then the rawboned man turned and walked back into the village, heading up the main road. As if at an unseen signal, the rest of the group dispersed among the buildings.

“Blast it,” Murtagh muttered. He was no lapdog to be summoned at Bachel’s convenience, and yet he and Thorn were the intruders here. Or, if he were being charitable, they were the guests. To expect Bachel to come out to meet them might be unreasonable, depending on the customs of her people.

And he wasn’t prepared to be unreasonable. Not yet.

Still, he hated to enter the village. It would be the perfect place for an ambush, if the Dreamers were so inclined. There was also the matter of Thorn: the buildings looked uncomfortably close for him.

I will be all right, said Thorn. Do not worry about me.

How can I not? Maybe I should go alone.

Thorn growled. No! I would rather bite off my own tail. We stay together.

Are you sure? Absolutely sure?

Yes!

Fine. But if you need to leave, we leave, no matter what. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

I promise, said Thorn, and hummed his appreciation.

Murtagh tapped Zar’roc’s blade against his thigh as he studied the village a moment more. Let the witch play her little games. It mattered not, and he refused to wait outside her doors, like a supplicant peasant seeking a favor. Now she might see them enter her domain, proud and unafraid. “After him, then.”

Thorn pressed his wings close against his sides and started forward. His claws clacked loudly against the mossy flagstones that paved the road as they entered the village.

As Murtagh had feared, there was little space for them between the buildings, and Thorn grew tense beneath him. Murtagh could feel his apprehension as if it were his own. Still, for the time, the dragon kept himself under control.

Murtagh had never seen buildings such as the ones in the village. The stonework was dwarven in quality, but with an elven grace, and there were strange runes—neither dwarven nor elven—cut into the frames and lintels of the arched doorways. Sculptures of dragon-like beasts adorned the cornices, and their frozen snarls gave Murtagh an uneasy sense of being watched, as if the entire village were a living creature crouched close to the earth, waiting for its prey.

The most unusual feature of the village was the raised patterns covering walls, set into mosaics, and painted onto shutters—swirling, branching, crystalline patterns that seemed to repeat themselves as they diminished: variations on a common theme. The patterns were dangerously fascinating; Murtagh felt as if he could stare into them for the rest of his life and still find new things to see. They contained an obsessive, seemingly impossible amount of detail, and the longer Murtagh looked, the more his vision swirled and swayed. The decorations reminded him of the involuted depths of an Eldunarí…or of shapes that appeared only in the deepest of dreams.

With an effort, he focused elsewhere.

The curious craftsmanship of the village disturbed him. To find such accomplished, well-formed creations in such an isolated place didn’t make sense. There ought to be a long lineage of like works elsewhere, but there wasn’t. Not in Alagaësia, at least, and if the tradition came from across the ocean, well, that was hardly more explicable.

Murtagh shifted in his seat, feeling as if the ground had tilted beneath them. There was a deeper mystery here than he had anticipated.

Careful now, he said.

A sense of terse acknowledgment came from Thorn.

The goateed man was waiting for them halfway through the village. Seeing them, he turned and continued walking at a steady pace, long arms swinging, oversized hands nearly at his knees. Each step, he put his whole foot flat on the flagstones—a firm, unwavering stamp, heel and toes landing as one—and then pushed off in a similar fashion. Stamp, lift. Stamp, lift.

The street ascended at a steep incline toward the far side of the village. As they went, Murtagh kept a close watch on the rooflines, the alleys, the corners: anywhere that foes might be waiting. But no one showed their face, and he didn’t want to risk opening his mind to search the area. That was a good way to invite a mental attack.

The more Murtagh saw of the settlement, the more he gathered an impression of extreme age. The sculptures were weathered, the steps hollowed; walls bowed from centuries of weight, and more than a few structures had collapsed on themselves and remained as crumbling, lichen-covered ruins.

I do not like this place, said Thorn.

No. Murtagh reset his grip on sword and shield. Maybe he should have contacted Eragon before entering the village. There were many secrets in the world, and some of them were older than even the Riders. Nasuada has to be told of this, he thought.

The man led them into a modest square in front of the temple-like building. A fountain stood in the center of the yard, but it was dry and full of dust and overgrown with moss, and the fluted finial atop had cracked and split sideways, leaving a chisel tip of stone pointing toward the dismal sky.

The temple—for so Murtagh had decided it was—had a two-tiered roof, with the topmost roof a ribbed dome the same as the other buildings in the village. A double row of columns guarded the shadowed entrance, while a line of dragon sculptures loomed outward from between the slitted windows. And wrapped around the columns and pedestals and the scaled statues were the same crystalline patterns seen elsewhere: a membrane of eroded veins, rotten and raveled and pocked by time.

Even new, the temple would have possessed a grim and disagreeable presence. In its current state of decay, the building’s gloom-ridden bulk was all the more daunting; it projected an ancient and enduring strength—ironhard, obdurate, and devoid of forgiveness.

The goateed man stopped and took up position beside one of the pillars that framed the recessed entrance. He clasped his heavy hands in front of himself.

A horn sounded within the temple, a long, wavering note with a haunting quality, and the sound echoed with dire effect off the walls of the buildings and the flanks of the mountains. The nape of Murtagh’s neck prickled, and he lifted Zar’roc to the ready. Remember who you are, he told himself.

Footsteps approached from inside the temple: tromping boots marching in matching time. From the shadowed entrance, a double line of fourteen armored men emerged, shields and spears held upright. Their helmets and breastplates were dented and tarnished and of an unfamiliar design. But the blades of their spears were sharp and free of rust, and they wore arming swords at their waists.

The formation parted in half, and the warriors arranged themselves on either side of the entrance. They displayed admirable discipline, moving with an alert precision that told Murtagh they weren’t just ceremonial guards but warriors with actual fighting experience.

Behind them came another fourteen figures: these white-robed, with hoods pulled low over their faces so nothing could be seen of their features. Men and women alike, and each held a metal frame set with rods of iron from which hung open-mouthed bells. They shook the frames with every step, and the tongues of the bells wagged in a discordant chorus.

There was an air of ancient ritual about the procession, as if such a thing had been done for a thousand years or more.

The bell-shakers went to stand behind the warriors, where they continued their jarring cadence.

Last of all appeared four men in black armor that gleamed like lacquer. And on their shoulders, they carried a covered litter draped with diaphanous white veils.

Through the veils, a figure was partially visible.

Without word or signal, the four litter-bearers stopped upon the edge of the square and stood in place. They stared straight ahead, unblinking and seemingly unaffected by the sight of Thorn.

The bell-shakers ceased shaking.

With a whisper of sliding fabric, the veils parted.

A woman rose to stand upon the litter. She, like everything about the village, was singular. Her hair was black and shiny as obsidian and arranged in an elaborate edifice upon her head, the coils pinned and piled into a bewildering pattern. Bands of carved ivory stood stark against the amber hue of her forearms, and she wore a dress made of knotted straps. The knots traced the shapes of unfamiliar runes, long lines of them, as if she were armored with palings of words. A small dagger hung from a gilded girdle about her waist.

She was tall—taller than most men—with strong limbs, an angular face, and a dark red mouth that sat askew upon her face. Her almond-shaped eyes were rimmed with soot, which gave them the bruised look of the fruit of the blackthorn. She appeared neither young nor old; there was an agelessness to her features that made it impossible to determine her years.

So striking was the woman, Murtagh’s first thought upon seeing her was: An elf! But then he looked more closely and realized that, no, her features weren’t quite elven. However, neither were they entirely human. A deep disquiet stirred within him.

Then the woman smiled at Thorn and him with such warmth, it took Murtagh aback. “Welcome to Nal Gorgoth, O Exalted Dragon,” she said. Her voice was low and melodic, and it thrummed with the power of conviction. “And welcome to you as well, Rider. I have been waiting for you, my son.”

CHAPTER II Bachel

Murtagh gripped the edge of Thorn’s saddle, his mind a welter of confusion. The woman before him couldn’t possibly be his mother. Every reasonable part of him knew that. And yet…He felt as if he’d stepped wrong-footed and the path before him had vanished.

“Are you the witch they call Bachel?” he asked, attempting to feign confidence.

With an elegant motion, the woman inclined her head. “I am, my son.”

A sense of imposition began to clear Murtagh’s head. “Why do you call me such?”

Bachel indicated the courtyard and everyone within it. “Because you are my child, as are all who follow the Great Dream.”

“I follow no one and nothing.”

A faint spark of amusement appeared in Bachel’s hooded eyes. “I very much doubt that, Kingkiller.”

Murtagh tensed even more. “You know of me.”

“Of you and Thorn both. Word of your deeds has traveled far, Kingkiller, even to this, our sacred redoubt.” There was an archaic quality to her speech that reminded Murtagh of how the eldest of the Eldunarí had spoken: a remnant of past eras.

“And what is this?” Murtagh gestured with Zar’roc at the temple and the village.

“A place of many dreams.” Bachel smiled again, seemingly without guile. “You have come to Nal Gorgoth, Kingkiller, as I foretold. Long have we waited for you and Thorn, and your arrival is most propitious.”

Again, Murtagh felt lost. “Waited for us? Why?”

The witch’s smile widened, and she spread her arms as if to embrace the whole of existence. “Because you are to be the saviors of the world.”

A profound silence reigned in the courtyard.

Thorn’s confusion matched Murtagh’s. But before either of them could demand an explanation, Bachel laughed, a low, throaty sound, and said, “You do not believe me. I see it in your eyes. That is of no matter. Soon you shall come to understand the truth of things. Answers you shall have, both to the questions you yearn to ask and those you have yet to conceive. But not here, and not now. It has been many an age since a Rider and dragon graced our court. We shall have a feast to celebrate your arrival, and you shall be my honored guests, you and brilliant Thorn both!”

She sat then, and snapped her fingers, and the litter-bearers marched to a stone dais on the northern side of the courtyard. The warriors followed and placed themselves on either side of the dais. The bearers continued to stand, the litter resting across their shoulders, while Bachel reclined against her carved, throne-like seat.

“Grieve,” she said, “see to the arrangements. Let us have food and wine and music. Let the Vale of Dreams ring with joyful revelry, on this most fateful of days.”

The goateed man bowed. “Your wish is our command, Speaker.”

He clapped his hands, and the white-robed bell-shakers retreated into the temple while a rush of men and women emerged from the surrounding buildings. They seemed to need no instruction; with hardly a spoken word, the villagers brought out heavy wooden tables, and copper braziers filled with blazing coals, and iron sticks that held tapers of greasy tallow, and deer and goat hides to cover the mossy flagstones. All sorts Murtagh observed among the folk: they appeared to share no common origin. Nor were they human only. He saw two dwarves, both female, and what he thought might have been an Urgal youngling—though Murtagh only had a brief glimpse of his face. The dwarves gave no sign of hostility, but their presence heightened his wariness.

Nal Gorgoth. His brow furrowed. The name sounded Dwarvish, at least in part. As he had learned during his stay in Farthen Dûr, goroth meant place in the dwarves’ tongue. Was the name of the village related to that word? Or had it another origin entirely? It also reminded him of Du Fells Nángoröth, which was what the elves called the mountains in the center of the Hadarac Desert—where the wild dragons used to live—and which was translated as the Blasted Mountains. Since fells meant mountains, then nángoröth meant blasted.

His thoughts were interrupted by the return of several of the bell-shakers carrying a heavy carved chair that they placed before the dais.

“Come, sit with me, Kingkiller,” said Bachel. “And you as well, Dragon. Join me.” She held out a hand, and a young, white-robed woman with flaxen hair and a devoted expression scurried up, placed a stone chalice in Bachel’s grip, and filled it with wine from an earthenware pitcher. “Thank you, my child,” murmured Bachel.

The young woman curtsied and withdrew.

Murtagh debated with himself for a moment. Then he slung his leg over the ridge of Thorn’s back and slid to the ground, Zar’roc and shield still in hand.

Are you sure? Thorn asked.

No, but I don’t see a choice. Stay close.

She cannot believe what she said.

What? About us being the saviors of the world?

Yes.

Murtagh agreed. Yet the straightforward assurance with which Bachel had spoken left him with a lingering doubt. Lies of all sorts he was accustomed to from his life at court, but he sensed no falsehood in the witch’s speech or bearing. She seemed utterly convinced of the rightness of her words, and that more than anything made him uncertain.

Murtagh slowly approached the dais. Thorn followed a pace behind, claws tapping against the flagstones. The fourteen warriors attending Bachel shifted slightly. Murtagh ignored them.

With a gracious gesture, Bachel extended a hand toward the carved chair.

Murtagh hated to put himself at a disadvantage, but it would not do to completely break the rules of hospitality. So he sheathed Zar’roc—though he kept one hand on the hilt—before lowering himself to sit upon the chair. His greaves and vambraces clattered, and the point of his shield knocked against the yard’s paved floor. The armor made him feel clumsy and uncouth; he never would have worn it to a high event at court, but there was a limit to how much safety he would sacrifice for manners.

The moment he was seated, two of the village men came to serve him. They set a small table before him and, on it, deposited plates laden with cheeses, sweetmeats, and fresh blueberries, along with a cup of wine and a bowl of water in which to wash his hands. The blueberries puzzled him; they were out of season, which meant magic or some form of preservation he was unfamiliar with.

One of the men bowed and left, while the other remained close at hand, ready to wait upon his needs.

There was a comfort to again having a servant attending him. It was one of the benefits of living in Urû’baen that Murtagh had not fully appreciated until leaving. Doing everything for himself—especially cooking—took far more time than he liked.

A faint smile curved Bachel’s lips, and she sipped from her chalice. “I see you are not entirely at ease in our midst, but you have nothing to fear from us here in Nal Gorgoth, Kingkiller.”

“Is that so?”

She inclined her head. “You may set aside your arms and armor whene’er you wish. No harm shall come to you.”

“My Lady…” Murtagh paused while he searched for the right words. “I wish to believe you, but how can I, when I know so little about you?”

To his annoyance, Bachel answered with a question of her own: “Tell me, my son, how did you find this valley? Few there are who are aware of Nal Gorgoth’s existence or where it lies.”

Murtagh rolled the stem of his cup between his fingers while he considered how best to answer. Then he tasted the wine. To his surprise, he recognized the vintage as having come from the vineyards on one of the Southern Isles. How did it end up here?

He said, “I met several men who wore amulets of protection they claimed were enchanted by you.” He fixed Bachel with a steady gaze. “They tried to kill me, but they failed, and then they told me what they knew.”

A slight line formed between Bachel’s brows. “I see. Then it was you met some of my Eyes. My apologies for their behavior. They would not have attacked had they known who you were. They did not, did they?”

Murtagh shook his head. “No.”

“That is good. However, I must ask: my Eyes. My children. Did you kill them?”

“Those I had to. But no more.” Her dark gaze lingered on him, and Murtagh felt compelled to add: “I give you my word.”

“Then I thank you for your mercy. Were, perchance, the Eyes you encountered in Ceunon?”

“Some. Not all.” For an instant, Murtagh thought he saw a flicker of concern in Bachel’s expression. He decided to press the advantage. “Have you many Eyes?” he asked in an uninterested tone.

Bachel returned her attention to the preparations before them. “More than you would believe, Kingkiller.”

It was exactly the sort of answer Murtagh had feared. “To what end, I wonder?”

“All shall be revealed in the goodness of time, my son. Worry not. But you must be patient. The secrets of the sacred circle are not lightly shared.”

She spoke in such a gracious and yet commanding manner that Murtagh found it hard to dissent. It felt as if he would be in the wrong, despite everything he knew about the Dreamers and their activities. Yet his disquiet and his desire to know more continued to gnaw at him. Saviors of the world…but how? From what? Or is she merely trying to lead us astray?

Then Bachel turned her hooded gaze to Thorn. “O Exalted Dragon, I would ask a question of you, although perhaps you may think it impertinent. But it is this: you are larger than seems fit for your age. Is your stature born of nature, or has it another origin?”

Thorn was slow to respond, but when he did, he said to both Bachel and Murtagh alike, I grew faster than most hatchlings, for I needed to. So I did.

It was not entirely the truth, but Murtagh knew Thorn hated to speak of what Galbatorix had done to him, and he was not about to share those painful details with a stranger. Especially one as potentially perilous as Bachel.

The witch nodded as if she understood. “Of course. Such is the nature of dragons.”

And what do you know of them? Murtagh wondered. He motioned at the ranks of scaled statues along the temple exterior. “Do you worship dragons?”

A thread of smoke came from Thorn. What an excellent idea. All should worship our kind.

Murtagh nearly smiled, despite himself.

A thin, cold note sounded as Bachel tapped the rim of her stone chalice. “Not as such. But we revere them, for we remember what so many have forgotten. And we count it a sacred thing to be bonded so closely with a dragon, even as you are, Kingkiller.”

Before Murtagh could inquire further, the witch looked away, making it clear that, for the moment, the topic was closed.

To Thorn and Thorn alone, Murtagh asked, What is her mind like? He did not want to risk touching Bachel’s consciousness as well. Not until they were sure of her intentions.

The dragon twitched the blunt end of his tail. Like none I have ever felt.

How so?

Her thoughts are as iron, and yet there is a strangeness to them. It is hard to describe. Here. And an impression came to Murtagh from Thorn, an impression of distance and desolation and distortion, as if the world were seen through a piece of polished crystal that changed the shape of every angle.

Puzzled, Murtagh looked back at Bachel and tried to reconcile her appearance with the oddness of her inner life. She is not as she seems, he said.

No, Thorn agreed.

Throughout the square, the villagers continued to assemble the feast. Goats and sheep were butchered, and rich cuts of meat were laid out over fires built on the flagstones. As the villagers labored, Murtagh noticed how they kept sneaking glances at Thorn. It was as if the dragon were a bloodied lodestone drawing them closer, and their bodies traced lines of force, like iron filings. Some were brave enough to reach out with tremulous hands, though none dared to actually touch him. In Murtagh’s judgment, their behavior bespoke not so much reverence, as Bachel had said, but something closer to idolatry.

Bachel watched him watching, and she seemed to guess his thoughts, for she said, “They are enamored with the beauty of your dragon. Few there are in Nal Gorgoth who remember such a sight.”

Thorn hummed, pleased by what she had said.

“But there are some?” Murtagh asked.

“There are.”

“Would you count yourself among their number?”

Again, slight amusement colored Bachel’s angular features. “You have questions without end, my son. But it is better to eat and then talk than to talk and then eat.”

“Of course. Forgive me. The wisdom of the ages flows from your tongue.” Murtagh meant his response as sarcasm, but despite himself, it came out sounding sincere.

Several men began to play lyres among the columns of the temple. The music was in a minor key and had a fierce, savage sensibility that heightened the strangeness of the setting.

Bachel raised a finger. “Alín, attend me.”

The same young, white-robed woman who had served the witch earlier hurried over and bowed deeply. “Yes, Speaker?” Her voice was high and sweet.

“What think you of our guest, the great dragon Thorn?” asked Bachel.

Alín’s eyes grew round, and she bowed again. “He is very splendid, Speaker. We are fortunate you have allowed him to visit among us.”

Allowed? Thorn said to Murtagh, somewhat bemused.

I’ll say this, Bachel does not seem concerned by our presence.

Very little seems to concern her.

Bachel looked satisfied with Alín’s answer. “Yes, he is. Enjoy his presence whilst you may, my child. Such moments are rare over the long reach of years. You are blessed to live in these most momentous of times.”

“Yes, Speaker.”

The lyres struck louder.

“Dance for us now, my child,” said Bachel. And she tapped one of the litter-bearers on the shoulder. “You as well. Put me down and join with Alín. Share with us your joy.”

The armor-clad men lowered the litter to the dais and descended with Alín to stand among the tables set up before them. Then the five of them began to move in time with the music, their bodies turning and swaying with sinuous grace.

The bearers’ armor, Murtagh noted, made no noise, as if it were made of felted wool rather than wood or metal or whatever was the lacquered material.

Somewhere among the columns, a drum took up the beat, and then a horn, and though Bachel’s face remained impassive, a fire seemed to light her eyes, and she tapped the middle finger of her right hand against her chair, keeping time with perfect, unyielding precision.

Murtagh watched from the corner of his eye. He couldn’t decide what to make of her. Even sitting there, Bachel struck an imposing figure, tall and statuesque, like a warrior facing a gathered army, and none there were in the courtyard who could match her presence. In that, she reminded him with unexpected strength of Nasuada.

Thorn nudged his elbow, and Murtagh blinked and tightened his hand about Zar’roc’s hilt.

After a minute, Bachel said, “Do you dance, Kingkiller?”

He gave her a courtly nod. “Quite well, I’m told.”

“Then dance for me, if you would. Let my children see the high styles of the land.”

“You make a fair request, Lady, but my armor is ill suited for such sport, and I’ll not remove it.”

He thought his refusal would displease her. But instead, she merely picked up her chalice again. “No matter. You will dance for me another time, Kingkiller.”

“Will I?”

“It is foreseen, foretold, and thus fated.” And she returned to watching Alín and the bearers.

More grey-robed servants came with platters of food: bread and milk and butter and salted meats. Grieve joined them on the dais and, after a deep bow to Bachel, said, “Dragon Thorn, we have goats and sheep and cows for you. Which would you like?”

I ate before we set off north. At the moment, I am not hungry, but I thank you for your offer.

Grieve bowed again. “Of course. As you so desire. If you change your mind, you have but to ask, and our herds shall be yours to choose from as you please.”

Thorn’s eyes glittered in response. That is most kind of you.

The dancers continued without letup, and before long, the villagers brought cooked meats to the dais and the feast began in earnest.

Murtagh was hungry, but he took only a few bites from each course, just enough to be polite, and he drank sparingly. The witch, by comparison, was immoderate in her consumption; she ate a constant stream of dishes, displaying the sort of appetite common to soldiers after days of forced marching. Her manners were fastidious, although—also to his surprise—she forwent fork and knife and devoured her food using nothing but fingers and teeth. It made for an odd mix of refinement and barbarity. Along with her food, she drank chalice after chalice of wine. And yet she remained alert and bright-eyed throughout, and Murtagh could detect no slurring of her speech.

Either she has the constitution of a Kull or she has spells protecting her, he said to Thorn.

Or some combination of both.

When Bachel held out her chalice for the seventh time, Murtagh gave an incredulous chuckle and shook his head. “You are amused, my son?” Bachel asked.

“It’s only that…well, I’ve never seen man or dwarf who could hold their own with you when it comes to drink. Perhaps an Urgal might, or an elf, but I’ve never had chance to match cups with either of their races.”

Bachel nodded, unperturbed. “It is because my mother was indeed an elf. That is why my blood runs hot and I have the strength and quickness I do. There is no one like me in all the world.”

Murtagh’s mind raced. Growing up, he’d heard stories of half elves, but they were always spoken of as something out of myth and legend. It had never occurred to him that such a thing might be possible…though considering it now, he supposed it wasn’t that surprising. Elves and humans were more closely related than, say, humans and dwarves—dwarves, like Urgals, had seven toes on each foot—and given enough time living in the same land, it was inevitable that some intermingling would occur.

She could be lying, said Thorn.

But then how to explain…her?

The dragon had no answer.

Murtagh looked back at Bachel. “Is your mother still—”

“She died long ago,” the witch said in a bland tone. “She came here when she was heavy with me, and she died. Is that what you wanted to know, my son?”

He wet his lips. “And your father? He was human, I take it?”

Bachel gave a languorous wave. “A woodcutter, I’m told. He too is long since dead.”

“I see…. My condolences.”

Bachel looked at him with a glittering gaze, as if he’d grown a horn from his forehead. “Why your condolences? They are in no pain. They sleep the long slumber, and were they here, they would be honored to know that I of all people was anointed Speaker. That I was chosen by fate to read and interpret and share the truth of ages. Do not mourn for me, Murtagh son of Morzan. I have no sorrows here, only triumph, glorious and inevitable.”

Then she lifted her chalice and again returned to watching those moving to the music.

In the distance, a crow uttered its harsh cry.

The feast dragged on, course after course, and the players continued to weave their savage melody throughout. It was a strange celebration. None of the villagers spoke to Murtagh or Thorn, not even when they waited upon Murtagh. Only Bachel conversed with them, and she seemed more interested in indulging in food and drink than talk.

Murtagh didn’t mind. The many months he’d spent traveling alone with Thorn had accustomed him to sitting and watching and thinking. And there was a certain pleasure in being served, as he had been at Galbatorix’s court; he heard the careless clip of authority harden his voice when he spoke to the man attending him.

It fit with his armor.

Nevertheless, Murtagh recognized his own feelings, and he knew them for a trap that could lull him into complacency. So while he welcomed the treatment due his rank, he also made an effort to observe the villagers and attempt to deduce something of their nature.

One point in particular struck him: when Bachel issued an order, the villagers scurried about like mice before a cat, almost desperate to please her. And yet they didn’t seem afraid. Or if they were, it was an odd sort of fear. Mostly, he saw deference and respect in their actions. If he could understand the reasons why, he felt he would understand the mystery at the heart of Nal Gorgoth.

Shadow filled the valley, and the stars were cold sparks in the night sky when Bachel finally pushed away her plate, dabbed her lips, and leaned back in her throne. Her skin glowed from the rubbed-in grease, and her whole being, face and body together, seemed swollen from the vast amount of food she had ingested.

“A most bounteous feast,” said Murtagh. “Your cooks are to be commended.”

Bachel nodded in a satisfied manner. “I thank you for your kind words. Such a feast as this, and more besides, are your rightful reward. Yours and Thorn’s. Were it within my power, I would set a thousand days of celebration in your honor. It is only what you deserve.”

Murtagh eyed her, wondering at the praise. Was it possible that the rumors about the Dreamers, and Bachel herself, were falsities? Or else misleading? Perhaps Bachel was not as he had thought. After all, were someone to judge him on hearsay, they would deem him a villain fit to frighten even the stoutest of hearts.

Then: “My Lady, we have eaten and eaten well. Might we now talk?”

“Of course, my son. What would you speak of?”

So many questions had Murtagh, he was almost at a loss to begin. “I have heard your people called the Dreamers. Would that be correct?”

A stillness took Bachel’s face, and with a single draft, she emptied her chalice and placed it beside her litter. “It is.”

“And what is it you dream of?”

“Of remaking the very face of the land.” Bachel turned her dark-rimmed eyes upon him. “As has been fated since the beginning of time. And as you and Thorn are destined to help bring to pass.”

The certainty with which she spoke chilled him. Partly because it reminded him all too much of Galbatorix’s ironclad conviction—a conviction born of the king’s own delusions and untrammeled power. And partly because he wondered if she spoke the truth.

“You speak with great confidence about our future actions.”

“Of course. Because I am a seer. A soothsayer. A prophet, if you will. The gift of foretelling what shall be is mine, and before me, all paths are laid bare.”

Ice poured down Murtagh’s spine. Prophecy was a real thing, but rare, very rare, and—to his knowledge—limited to the near future. If the witch could see further than that, then she might very well be the most powerful being in Alagaësia.

I do not believe in fate, Thorn said to him. We make our own way through the world.

Yes, but if she can predict what we choose to do next, how could we possibly counter that? And what exactly has she foreseen as our future? A fierce desire to know burned within Murtagh.

“Is that why your people call you Speaker?” he asked. “Because you speak to them of the future?”

Bachel smiled slightly. “No, not quite. I am the chosen voice of the Dreamer of Dreams, from whom all wisdom flows. For the Dreamer I speak, and thus the Speaker I am.”

When she failed to elaborate, he said, “And who is—”

“Some secrets are not to be shared with outsiders.” She gave him a long look, her gaze hard and evaluating. “Although perhaps you shall be a rare exception, my son.”

Murtagh frowned. Just because court intrigues had accustomed him to evasion didn’t mean he liked it. “My Lady…if an oracle you are, might you provide us with a demonstration of your powers, that we may marvel at your gift?”

For the first time, Bachel did appear offended. She said, “What visions I have are granted to me for sacred purpose, and I would risk the wrath of the Dreamer were I so presumptuous as to demand them merely to satisfy my own selfish desires. It would be a desecration of my role as Speaker.”

How convenient, Murtagh thought, but before he could voice his doubt, the witch continued:

“However, I will tell you this much, Rider, and I speak the truth, for I have seen what is to come. Ere long, you and Thorn shall fly forth, and you shall redden blade and claw in service of this cause. This I promise you.”

Thorn growled slightly, and Murtagh felt his skin prickle and crawl. “And what else have you seen of our future? Why do you call us the saviors of the land?”

Bachel’s mouth twisted further askew with an enigmatic smile. “We shall speak of that anon and more besides. This also I promise. But it is late, and you must be tired from your travels. For now, you should rest. My people will see to it that you are well cared for. If there is anything you need, you have but to ask. Grieve!”

The goateed man shambled over. “Speaker?”

“Escort our guest to the chambers overlooking the Tower of Flint. Sleep well, Kingkiller, and may your dreams bring you understanding. Tomorrow we shall talk of the new age that is dawning.”

Then Bachel gave word to her armor-clad servants, who lifted her litter and carried her from the courtyard back into the temple. Once she had left, the players ceased plucking the lyres, and the drums fell silent too. Soon the crackling of the fires was the loudest sound in the square.

Grieve approached Murtagh and bowed. In a condescending tone, he said, “This way, Rider.”

His mind full of thoughts, Murtagh stood, stiff and unsteady. He didn’t want to sleep indoors, alone and isolated from Thorn, but he feared it would be unwise to refuse Bachel’s offer of hospitality.

Go, said Thorn, sensing his deliberation.

Murtagh put a hand on the dragon’s neck. I’ll sneak back out once they’ve left me. And then maybe we can look around a bit and see what we can discover.

Thorn hummed with agreement, but Murtagh could tell the dragon wasn’t entirely happy with the plan. They’d talk more later, when there was less of a chance their thoughts might be overheard.

“After you,” said Murtagh, gesturing at Grieve.

The goateed man turned and, with his heavy, flat-footed tread, led Murtagh beneath the arcade of faceted columns and through a small side door along the northern wing of the temple. The hallway inside was cool and dark; no torches or lanterns were lit, but Grieve moved with surety, and Murtagh followed the sound of his steps while probing for the minds of any who might be lying in wait to attack.

Up a flight of stairs they went, to a landing where the temple’s narrow windows let through enough moonlight to see along the wall flat carvings of…of what, Murtagh did not know. His eyes refused to settle on the confusion of figures that adorned the stone. Bodies, human or beast, distorted structures, strange honeycomb patterns that melted one into the next…It felt as if the sculpture were an attempt to physically depict madness. The frenzied, half-formed shapes reminded him of the twisted mindscapes of the Eldunarí whom Galbatorix had enslaved, as well as the disjointed logic of nightmares. Malevolence emanated in great waves from the wall. The sensation was so tangible, it made him recoil. The sculpture was a grotesquerie—a mockery of grace and art and all things beautiful. He felt a strong urge to break it. If he were to look at the carvings for too long, Murtagh feared they would infect him with whatever insanity had inspired such a malformed creation.

“Who made this thing?” he asked. In the night air, his voice sounded as an unlovely croak.

Grieve did not pause as he lurched down the landing. “The First Ones made it when they discovered the sacred well.”

“You mean the Grey Folk?” asked Murtagh. The long-dead race had been the ones to bind the ancient language and magic in the first place. He could easily imagine them building Nal Gorgoth, although he had never heard of their kind having set foot in Alagaësia. But then, there was much he did not know, and much that was hidden by the passage of years.

Grieve snorted. “I mean the First Ones. The first of the Dreamers to find this place. Many races they were, but all of them of a single mind.”

“I see. And the well you mentioned? What makes it sacred?”

“That is not for me to say, Rider.”

“What is for you to say?”

With a stiff-legged step, Grieve stopped, his shoulders and neck hunched like those of a bear readying himself to charge. “Do not expect me to provide you with aid, Rider. You are an outsider, an unbeliever, and your kind are neither needed nor wanted in Nal Gorgoth.”

He turned on Murtagh. His moonlit eyes were silvered chips of ice, hard and full of hate, and Murtagh—despite all his wards and skill at arms—felt threatened enough that he put a hand on Zar’roc’s hilt.

“But,” Grieve continued, “in her wisdom, Bachel has chosen to tolerate your presence. That is her right.”

“She tolerates my presence, does she?” said Murtagh, his voice deadly calm. “What other choice does she have, servant?”

Grieve’s mouth split apart to show the yellow stakes of his teeth. “That you shall learn, Rider, and you will wish you hadn’t. Your power holds no sway here. If Bachel wishes, she will use the Breath on you, and then we will see who is servant and who is master.”

“I don’t think I like you, Grieve.”

“The words of unbelievers are as dirt beneath my feet.”

“I’m glad we have an understanding. Lead on. I grow weary and would rest in my chambers.”

The malice in Grieve’s eyes intensified, but he turned and continued along the landing. Murtagh let the man put several steps between them before he followed. He kept his hand on Zar’roc and made sure the blade was loose in the sheath. Jealousy or overprotectiveness? he wondered. Or was it zealotry that fueled the hostility of Bachel’s right-hand man?

At the end of a hall, they arrived at a set of closed wooden doors. “Here,” said Grieve, and, without another word, departed.

Murtagh waited until he was sure he was alone and then pushed open the doors.

CHAPTER III The Tower of Flint

The corner chambers Bachel had given him would have been considered poor accommodations in Urû’baen. But by the standards of a rustic, out-of-the-way village, they were sumptuous. The inside of the temple was in better repair than the outside: the stone walls were clear of moss and lichen, the floor was well swept, and there were no cobwebs to catch in his hair.

A stone fireplace was set against one wall. Facing it was a four-poster bed of black walnut, with blankets that seemed clean and a sheepskin laid on top that smelled only faintly of the animal it had been cut from. An iron candlestick with an unlit taper stood by the bed, along with a bare side table and, a few feet past, a plain wardrobe. A bearskin with the head still attached lay in the center of the floor.

Adjoining the space was a small washroom with a stone basin, a porcelain chamber pot, and a bucket of fresh water for his ablutions. There were no carvings or banners upon the walls of either room, but the washroom floor had a mosaic made of chips of colored glass, and it contained the same branching patterns that adorned the rest of the village.

Several shuttered windows marked the walls on either side of the bedroom’s outer corner. Murtagh checked to make sure that no one was hiding in the chambers, and then he went to the windows and unfastened the shutters.

The dragon sculptures that lined the upper part of the building extended past the sides of each window, the exaggerated shapes of their snouts hooked downward like overgrown corbels.

To the east, the windows opened onto the temple courtyard. The villagers had already—with unexpected speed and efficiency—cleared the tables, braziers, food, and skins from around the ruined fountain.

Thorn sat crouched on the flagstones, eyes open and alert. He saw Murtagh, and the dragon’s tongue slipped out as he tasted the air. There you are.

Here I am. By the entrance to the yard, Murtagh spotted a pair of bored-looking villagers sitting next to a glowing brazier. The men carried spears and had swords at their waists, but Murtagh couldn’t imagine that Bachel expected the guards to stop him or Thorn if they chose to leave. Their only purpose, he decided, was to keep watch and inform the witch as to the activities of her guests.

Guests. His lip curled.

The guards glanced up at him and then returned to talking amongst themselves.

One moment, Murtagh told Thorn, and went to the north-facing windows. Not far from the temple, he saw the narrow structure that Bachel had called the Tower of Flint. It stood tall and stark in the moonlight: a spear of rough-hewn stone, velvet grey, with belfry-like openings beneath the domed roof. From the tower, he thought he heard a faint murmur of sleeping birds, but the sound might as easily have been a trick of the imagination.

Past the tower stood a number of houses, and he was also able to pick out—dimly visible in the moonlight—the corner of tended grounds that extended behind the tower and temple. Their presence intrigued him. There was a path running across the neatly trimmed grass and between a double row of low shrubs, leading toward the trees along the foothills….

Murtagh looked back at the guards below. Experience had taught him caution, but it had also taught him the importance of decisive action. Whatever the truth regarding Bachel’s means and motives, he didn’t feel comfortable waiting for her to reveal it. He wanted to find out for himself what secrets lurked at the heart of Nal Gorgoth. That way, at least, he might be able to determine whether Bachel was lying to them.

All of which justified taking a bolder-than-normal approach.

But carefully.

Murtagh scratched his chin. The guards didn’t appear to be wearing amulets like the ones he had encountered in Ceunon and Gil’ead. However, Bachel might have gifted them with some form of wards. There was no way to tell beforehand, and the nature of her wordless magic meant that the Name of Names would be of no help. And while it was possible Bachel was ignorant of more formal magic, he couldn’t see how to use that to his advantage. Still…Whatever wards protected the guards, they might not block spells intended to help rather than harm—even as had been the case with Galbatorix.

He decided to risk it. As with all magic, intent mattered, so he concentrated on the fact that both of the men appeared tired. It was late, and they ought to be in bed. It would be best if they slept, for their own good.

With that firmly in mind, Murtagh cast the same spell he’d used on the guard in the catacombs under Gil’ead: “Slytha.” Sleep.

He released the energy for the spell in a carefully controlled trickle over the course of half a minute or more. It was a gentle piece of magic, subtle enough that if a ward did stop it, the warriors might not notice.

The guards slumped over, and one of them dropped his spear. It clattered on the flagstones with startling loudness, and then the village was again quiet.

When no one came to investigate, Murtagh allowed himself a pleased chuckle. As much as he hated to admit it, the way Eragon had used magic on Galbatorix had been a stroke of inspiration. No one seemed to think of guarding themselves against the good, only the bad.

It wouldn’t last, of course. Over the years, word would spread from magician to magician, and eventually no capable spellcaster would leave themselves open to well-meaning attacks. A contradiction, that! But a reality all the same. Regardless, Murtagh wasn’t about to lament Bachel’s ignorance. As long as the technique continued to work, he’d use it and be grateful for it too.

Of course, he still didn’t know for sure if the guards had wards, but he would have been shocked if they didn’t.

How long will they sleep? Thorn asked.

As long as needed. Help me down, said Murtagh, climbing through the window onto the skirt-roof below.

Thorn snorted and lifted his head. Murtagh stepped onto it, careful not to put a heel in the dragon’s eyes. Then Thorn lowered him to the flagstones, and Murtagh straightened his sword belt and looked around.

“Thanks,” he murmured, suddenly gleeful, like a fox that had broken into a henhouse while the hounds were away.

Bachel is very dangerous, I think, said Thorn.

“I agree.”

Perhaps we should leave. We know where this place is now. Let Nasuada or Arya or even Eragon deal with it. This isn’t our responsibility.

“Don’t you want to find out the truth behind Bachel and this Dreamer of Dreams? Not to mention this supposed prophecy regarding the two of us. Aren’t you curious?”

Thorn sniffed the night air and was slow to answer. I am…but I am also wary. I feel as if we’re sticking our paws into a dark burrow. We do not know what we might find. We might end up bitten.

“And if we do?” asked Murtagh, serious. “Would it not be better to know if there’s something here that can bite us?”

Is that even a question? The only mystery is, how large of a bite?

Murtagh cocked an eyebrow. “So far, Bachel and her people have shown us nothing but hospitality. Even if Grieve is a surly malcontent.”

Yet you do not trust the faces they show you, else we would not be having this discussion.

“No. You’re right.”

Thorn released a very human-sounding sigh. You will not sleep well unless you sniff about, will you?

He grinned. “You know me too well.”

After a moment, the dragon lowered his head, and the soft warmth of his breath enveloped Murtagh. All right. But if you get caught again, I’ll grab you and fly out of here, as I did at Gil’ead.

“And if it comes to that, I’ll be happy for you to grab me.” He rubbed Thorn behind one of his neck spikes, and the dragon’s sides vibrated with a low hum of satisfaction.

Where do you want to search?

Murtagh glanced at the tiered temple. The mountains rose high behind it, the peaks pale as the finest pearl beneath the twinkling stars. There, but I think it would be too risky. Too many people in the building.

Then where?

Murtagh pointed at the Tower of Flint. It must be important for the Dreamers to have named it. And I want to see the grounds behind the temple. He cast a critical eye over Thorn. Some of the villagers may still be up, and you’re a bit big to be sneaking around these days.

Thorn snapped his jaws shut with a soft but definite click. Then we wait until they are asleep. Where you go, I go.

Murtagh could tell there was no point in arguing. “You’re as stubborn as a mule,” he muttered. All right. But you’ll have to stay behind where you don’t fit.

The dragon nodded. That is acceptable.

Then Murtagh nestled against Thorn’s side, and the dragon covered him with a wing so he was hidden from any who might pass by. Knowing that Thorn was keeping watch, Murtagh closed his eyes and used the opportunity for a quick nap. Even in the midst of his enemies, he could still sleep—a useful, if somewhat regrettable, skill garnered over years of dangerous living.

The sharp tip of Thorn’s snout poking him in his ribs woke Murtagh. He reluctantly opened his eyes.

I’m up, I’m up, he said as Thorn continued to nudge him.

The dragon snorted and pulled his head out from under his wing.

Murtagh yawned. What had he been dreaming about? The memory scratched at the edge of his mind, and he had an obscure sense that it had been important….

Well? Thorn asked, and lightly scratched the flagstones.

Give me a minute. Let me make sure no one is watching. Carefully, cautiously, with almost paranoid slowness, Murtagh reached out with his mind and checked the surrounding area. He felt a few people nearby, but they were deep asleep, dreaming whatever it was the Dreamers dreamed.

All clear, he said, crawling out from under the wing.

The moon was directly overhead now. The pall of smoke had dispersed, and the air acquired the perfect clarity found only on bitter winter nights. And yet the village retained an unseasonal warmth, as if summer still dwelt among the stone buildings while frost and ice accumulated on the encircling hills and peaks. Perhaps, Murtagh thought, the heat was coming from the ground itself. It would explain why the fields that fronted Nal Gorgoth were charred black.

He sniffed. He couldn’t smell the stench of brimstone anymore. Was that because it had departed along with the smoke, or had he simply gotten used to the odor?

The second explanation bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

“Watch your tail,” he murmured to Thorn. “Don’t go caving in any of the buildings.”

Thorn gave a dismissive snort. I’m more careful than that.

“Mmm,” said Murtagh, unconvinced.

From the courtyard, he scouted down the adjoining streets before heading around the corner of the temple and toward the Tower of Flint. Thorn stalked after him, as quiet as a cat. He lifted the tips of his claws so they didn’t touch the stones and walked on the pads of his paws with impressive delicacy. His tail he kept raised off the ground, and it hung behind him like a great crimson snake, headless and blindly following.

Just off the temple was a roofed well with a small winch for lifting its bucket. The well was plain enough, devoid of even the most basic decoration. Murtagh doubted it was the sacred well that Grieve had mentioned.

On the off chance he was mistaken, he leaned on the mouth of the well and peered over the edge. The black depths echoed with the faint sounds of his hands against the fitted stones. Nothing about it seemed unusual.

If he’d had a coin, he would have tossed it in for luck. He and Thorn needed more than their fair share.

“Nothing,” he said to Thorn. “Do you smell anything?”

The dragon sniffed, and his tongue darted out. Only water, wood, and sweat.

Murtagh moved on.

A hip-high wall of mortarless stonework encircled the Tower of Flint, and there was a small wrought-iron gate blocking the way. The bars of the gate traced the outline of a dragon’s head as seen from the top.

“They really seem to like dragons,” said Murtagh as he unlatched the gate and pulled it open. The hinges squealed loud enough to make him pause, but no one was near to notice.

Why should they not? said Thorn. There is no other creature or being that can match the beauty of our form.

“Perhaps not, but you don’t have to brag about it.”

The truth is never bragging.

Murtagh smirked. Dragons had many virtues, but modesty wasn’t one of them. “Wait here. I won’t be long.” Leaving Thorn at the small gate, he proceeded to the door of the tower. It was wood, with a heavy iron lock set into the boards.

He opened it with a subtle application of the word thrysta and a slight surge of energy. Click went the lock, and he pulled the door open.

The acrid stench of bird droppings struck him, making his breath catch and his eyes water. He screwed up his face and padded into the dark interior.

It took a minute for his eyes to adjust well enough to make out even basic shapes. He was standing at the bottom of a great cylinder, which started at the base of the tower and rose right to the top. Lining the walls were hundreds of tiny wooden coops, each with a section of a bark-covered branch protruding from the front to serve as a perch. From inside the coops, he heard a thousand little murmurs—the sounds of sleeping birds—and the silky whisper of feathered wings shuffling and readjusting. The floor was soft with a thick layer of droppings, and there were crates and barrels and other objects piled along the bottom of the walls.

Murtagh stared. The tower was as curious a space as he’d ever seen, even including the catacombs under Gil’ead. It was a demented, oversized version of the dovecotes that Yarek the spymaster had built in Urû’baen for housing his homing pigeons. But what birds were these? Not pigeons or doves, he suspected.

He cast about on the filthy floor, looking for feathers that might help identify the birds. Instead, he stepped on something hard and felt it break beneath his foot. Holding his breath, he bent to look.

Half buried in the droppings was a beaked skull. The skull of a crow. Of course. The tower had to be where the Dreamers raised the birds that Bachel used to make her amulets. Murtagh straightened. The sheer number of crows in the tower made him wonder just how many amulets Bachel had enchanted.

How are they fed? he wondered. It would be no small task tending to so many birds.

Keeping a hand out for balance, Murtagh felt his way around the outer curve of the chamber, intending to make a circuit and then depart. What was he looking for? He didn’t know. Crows weren’t used for carrying messages. There would be no writing desk with secret messages lettered across slips of parchment. No maps or magical items used for enchanting, assuming he was correct about Bachel’s spellcasting. But he felt obliged to be thorough.

Three-quarters of the way around the tower, he stepped in a particularly slippery patch of droppings, and one foot slid out from under him. He flailed and caught himself with a hand on the floor. His right knee banged against the corner of a crate, sending a hot jolt through his leg, and the tip of Zar’roc’s scabbard knocked against a barrel.

A muted chorus of disquiet passed through the tower as the crows shifted in their sleep, their murderous minds for a moment disturbed.

Murtagh clenched his teeth, held his breath, and didn’t move. His knee throbbed. A spike of alarm came from Thorn, and Murtagh quickly reassured him: I’m fine. Don’t worry.

Then he whispered, “Maela.” It was said that the ancient language was the mother tongue all creatures had spoken at the beginning of time. Murtagh wasn’t sure if he entirely believed that—he had his own ideas about how the language might have been enchanted to influence living beings—but it was true that animals responded to the ancient language in ways they didn’t to other tongues.

Sure enough, the birds began to settle down, and shortly thereafter they were again quiet.

Murtagh made a face as he started to push upright and the droppings squished between his fingers. He uttered a single, soundless curse, as foul as the situation he found himself in.

The heel of his palm sank into the excrement and touched cold hardness buried within. He frowned. Huh.

Despite his disgust, he dug down until he could grasp the object. It felt like metal: oval, half the size of his hand, with carving on one side. A coin? But no, it was too large for that.

Keeping a firm grip on the object, he stood up and carefully made his way back out through the tower door.

Thorn wrinkled his snout and retreated several steps as Murtagh approached. “That bad?” said Murtagh, rueful, closing the small gate behind him.

If you don’t bathe before tomorrow, everyone for a league will know where you’ve been.

“Uh-huh.” Murtagh turned so the moon was behind him and held up the object he’d found. As he’d suspected, it was a flat piece of metal: electrum, by the looks of it (although it was hard to be sure in the moonlight; it could just as easily have been gold), with an iron hook on the back. It was a clasp for a cloak that would be fastened at one shoulder. Droppings were embedded in the design on the clasp’s face, and Murtagh spent the better part of a minute scraping the muck away with his thumbnail before he could make sense of it.

A shock of recognition passed through him, as a bolt of lightning through a drought-stricken tree.

What is it? Thorn asked.

Murtagh shared with him a memory of Galbatorix’s private dining hall, where crimson banners hung along the walls, banners embroidered with the crests of the Forsworn. The one opposite the middle of the table, facing the chair where Murtagh had so often sat, had borne the same design as the clasp.

“It is the mark of Saerlith.”

A similar shock passed through Thorn. How came it to this place?

“I don’t know.” Saerlith had been a lesser name among the Forsworn; he’d done little to distinguish himself from his fellow traitors, although he had shared in their general infamy. All Murtagh knew of him was that he was human and had come from somewhere around the city of Teirm. That, and his dragon was unfortunate enough to have puce-colored scales. Like the other dragons of the Forsworn, the name of Saerlith’s dragon had been lost, erased by the collective will of their species. Dragons did not forgive those they considered betrayers. A fault of theirs, perhaps, but when it came to the Forsworn, an understandable one.

Murtagh tried to recall how Saerlith had died. Not in Nal Gorgoth, that much he knew. Accounts were mixed, but supposedly Galbatorix had dispatched Saerlith to Alagaësia’s southern coast, where the Rider and dragon had been ambushed and killed. By whom, Murtagh had never heard, although he assumed the Varden or their allies had been responsible.

Regardless, Saerlith had perished long before Murtagh’s time.

Thorn said, If Saerlith and his dragon discovered Nal Gorgoth—

“Then maybe Galbatorix knew about this place.” Murtagh bounced the clasp in his hand. “Or maybe Saerlith was working with the Dreamers for his own gain.”

Galbatorix would have killed him for that.

“If he knew of it.” Murtagh placed the clasp in the pouch on his belt. Again he felt as if the village were a living thing that was waiting and watching with unknown intent. He grimaced, knelt, and used the ground to scrape more of the crow dung off his fingers. “I don’t like this,” he said, straightening back up. “I don’t like this at all. There’s more at work here than Bachel is willing to admit.”

Thorn nodded toward the pouch. A strange people to leave makings of the Forsworn lying about.

“It’s careless, all right. Or arrogant.” He paused to consider, and his skin prickled with gooseflesh as an unsettling thought occurred to him. “What if…what if Galbatorix found Nal Gorgoth when he was traveling back through the Spine, after Urgals killed his dragon? Or what if this is where he and my father fled after they betrayed the Riders? I’ve always heard it said that Galbatorix hid in an evil place, where the Riders dared not follow. What if Nal Gorgoth is that place? What if this is where Galbatorix met Durza and…where they trained my father?”

Thorn hissed, snakelike. Murtagh shared the sentiment.

If the Riders were familiar with Nal Gorgoth, why would they suffer it to endure?

“I don’t know. Maybe they thought it was abandoned. Maybe they set fire to the place and drove out the original inhabitants. We don’t know how long Bachel or her people have been here. The buildings are older than any I’ve seen. Who knows who made them.”

Thorn’s gaze grew more intent. Umaroth knew enough to warn us against coming here. What if the dragons of old and their Riders—his tongue flicked across his teeth—were afraid?

CHAPTER IV Dreams and Portents

Murtagh and Thorn stared at each other, an unspoken question hanging between them. What or whom would dragons or Riders fear?

“If Galbatorix and Morzan came here,” said Murtagh, “perhaps all of the Forsworn did.” He looked at the silhouettes of the dark rooftops and at the moonlit tip of the Tower of Flint. His discovery of the clasp put everything Bachel had said during the banquet into a new light. And yet he remained uncertain. Was he making unfounded assumptions? His gut told him there was something to Bachel’s claims of fate and prophecy. He just didn’t know what or to what degree. Perhaps his desire to learn more about her and the blackened land was a foolish one.

He turned back to Thorn. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should leave. What say you?”

Thorn blinked, his surprise evident. In all their time together, Murtagh had never before suggested abandoning whatever goal they were pursuing. Thorn dug the tips of his claws into the cracks between the flagstones. If this is the place that Riders feared to tread—

“Which it might not be.”

Thorn’s nostrils flared. If it is, we must know, for the sake of the hatchlings at Mount Arngor. Anything dangerous enough to threaten the Riders of old could destroy the next generation of dragons. Stay on the hunt, search the spoor. There are old secrets here, I can smell it.

“All right. But we have to be smart about this. There’s no point in getting ourselves killed.”

With Thorn following, Murtagh made his way around the northeastern corner of the temple. Behind it lay a swath of cropped turf that, despite the time of year, was soft beneath his feet. A path led across the grass to a small grove of pinetrees set against the base of the foothills.

As Murtagh approached the trees, he noticed the air growing warmer. It was damp too, and the smell of brimstone again rose up to meet him. The ground around the trees was crusted black, similar to the area in front of the village, and tongues of steam drifted from the earth. And yet it was not barren. The grove seemed a garden of sorts. By the moonlight, he saw blueberry bushes and flowers—their blossoms closed and drooping downward for the night—and a vast assortment of mushrooms arranged in pleasing patterns.

He thought of the secret garden in the catacombs of Gil’ead and wondered.

Thorn hesitated at the mouth of the grove, but the path was wide—the villagers had trimmed the lower levels of branches—and there was room for him to walk without scraping the trees. So he followed Murtagh, and Murtagh was glad for the company.

“Remind me to brush out your footsteps when we head back,” he murmured.

A sense of acknowledgment came from Thorn.

The heart of the grove was even darker than inside the Tower of Flint. Murtagh finally relented and whispered, “Brisingr.” The werelight he created was a tiny wisp, no brighter than a dying coal. But it was enough to see where to place his feet.

The path wound between the trees, past beds of well-tended, well-weeded plants—mostly herbs and berries—until it reached the foothills.

There, Murtagh beheld an even greater darkness yawning before them, like a wound cut into the side of the hills. At first his eyes refused to make sense of the absence. Was he looking at something? Into something? Was it a shadow?

Unable to understand, he increased the flow of energy to the werelight and allowed it to brighten until—

He saw.

An open mouth of stone and earth gaping before them. The cavern was large enough that Thorn could have easily fit within, and the interior was a mysterious black depth, swimming with impenetrable shadows and unquiet with ominous sounds: the click of a falling stone, a heavy influx and outflux of heated air—as if the mountains themselves were breathing, slow and labored—the high-pitched squeaks of fluttering bats, and even, Murtagh imagined, the low, nearly inaudible groans of the earth’s massive weight as it settled and shifted, constantly seeking to further collapse into the tumbled ruins time made of all things.

Along both sides of the gaping cavern was stonework of a kind with the rest of the village, and set within the stonework, a mirrored pair of iron rings, each as wide as Murtagh was tall. The rings were so stout, they could have held even Thorn, and by the wavering werelight, they appeared dark and rusted and stained black with what resembled dried blood.

An altar made of cut basalt stood to the left of the cavern, which seemed odd. Murtagh felt it would have been more impressive—and more visually pleasing—to center the altar on the opening. Compared with the altar in the cathedral at Dras-Leona, this one appeared crude, unfinished even. Still, it had a rough presence that made Murtagh think of ancient rites and sacrifices performed to appease an unkind god.

The stench of brimstone was stronger than ever. A thick wave of it rolled out of the cavern, hot and unpleasant, and Murtagh gagged at the reek of rotten eggs. He covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve.

Thorn tasted the air and then wrinkled his snout and hissed. He said, I smell old meat and flowing water and…His scales prickled. And the stink of men. They are—

Footsteps sounded from the cavern, faint but approaching, as two or more people climbed out of the black depths.

Back! said Murtagh, alarmed. He snuffed his werelight and retreated as quickly and quietly as he could.

Our tracks! Thorn said as he did likewise.

The footsteps were growing louder.

Murtagh hastily whispered, “Vindr!” and a small stream of wind swept smooth the path as they rushed through the grove.

Glancing over his shoulder, Murtagh thought he glimpsed a group of robed figures through the trees. His pulse quickened. Had they spotted Thorn? It was dark, and the grove was dense, so maybe not. Maybe.

The two guards were still in their enchanted sleep when he and Thorn hurried into the courtyard.

“Up, up!” said Murtagh.

Thorn crouched low, and Murtagh climbed onto his neck. He held on tightly, and the dragon lifted him high enough to scramble onto the temple’s skirt-roof and thence into his chambers.

As he did, Thorn curled up by the far side of the courtyard.

Just in time. Peering out the north-facing window, Murtagh saw four men, hooded and somber, walk past the temple and disperse among the streets of the village.

He let out his breath. Then he returned to the courtyard window and looked back at Thorn. Bachel has much to explain, he said. And I want to know what the Dreamers find so important about that cave.

Thorn snorted. Whatever it is, I think the fumes from below rot their minds.

Murtagh scratched at his forearm, troubled. You might be right. Either way, I’d like to know the truth. Although, in this case, he wondered if the truth might be as dangerous as ignorance.

He and Thorn forwent the sharing of their true names. There was too great a risk of being overheard in Nal Gorgoth, even if they confined themselves to the privacy of their minds.

Keep a close watch tonight, said Murtagh.

That I shall. If there’s the slightest thing amiss, I’ll wake you.

Thank you.

Then Murtagh ended the spell he was using to keep the guards asleep. The two men snorted and stirred but did not open their eyes; they were genuinely tired, and he thought it likely they would slumber straight through until morn.

Lastly, Murtagh closed the shutters to his bedroom, cloistering himself in the pregnant darkness.

Murtagh lit the taper by the bed and then went to the washroom and did his best to cleanse himself of the crow dung. Even with the help of some magic, he wasn’t entirely successful. He hoped he didn’t smell enough to arouse Bachel’s or Grieve’s suspicions.

Shirtless, he sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress was stuffed with wool, not straw. An unexpected luxury. He held Saerlith’s clasp, which he had also washed, and studied it by the flickering candlelight.

If the Dreamers had been allied with Saerlith or the other Forsworn, did the partnership mean so little to them that the villagers would leave Saerlith’s clasp to sit like a piece of rubbish in the Tower of Flint? Or had it been dropped and forgotten, the result of some accident?

Questions. So many questions.

In the back of his mind, Murtagh felt Thorn’s thoughts grow strange and disjointed as the dragon passed into a troubled slumber. As always, Murtagh wished he could soothe Thorn, but he feared to wake him, so he sat and kept to himself, and the dragon’s dreams only worsened Murtagh’s own unease.

He leaned back with a sigh.

A day, two at the most. That was what he’d allow. If, by then, he and Thorn didn’t find answers to the many questions Bachel and Nal Gorgoth raised, it would be time to apply force—by words or by action—and pry loose the information.

Murtagh shivered and reached for his shirt.

The chambers were cold and getting colder. He considered lighting a fire, but he was tired and didn’t want to deal with tending the flames through the night. So he wet his fingers, pinched out the taper, and burrowed under the sheepskin and blankets.

After a few minutes, he turned the sheepskin wool-side down. There. Then he pulled the blankets up to his neck and closed his eyes as warmth gathered around his body.

It took him some time to quiet his thoughts enough to sleep. He wanted to rest; tomorrow, he suspected, would be trying, and it was important to be as sharp as possible in the event that their time in Nal Gorgoth came to violence. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the Tower of Flint, Saerlith’s clasp, and the cavern sitting like a great gluttonous toad behind the temple.

Whirling darkness swallowed him, and in the center of it, at the bottom of an impossibly deep hole, at the very heart of the widdershin void, lay a formless horror—ancient and evil and from which emanated a constant, merciless hunger: never sated, all-consuming, with a particular glee for the sufferings of creatures caught between the gnashing of teeth.

His mind fled the horror, but it was a deadly riptide, more powerful than the Boar’s Eye between the Southern Isles of Uden and Parlim, and the harder he tried, the slower he moved….

Fear filled him. Icy, coursing fear that froze his veins and chained his limbs and turned his stomach to acid. His heart fluttered, and for a moment seemed to stop, and in the grips of his terror, he cried for help as he had when a child: “Mother!”

Then Thorn’s mind touched his own, and the gaping horror receded, and for a time Murtagh felt himself lost in the vast landscape of Thorn’s thoughts.

They were flying, higher and higher, until the ground faded from sight, and above and below were the same: a perfect sphere of sky, with nowhere to land and only clouds for cover. A flock of eagles screamed past, talons extended to tear out eyes, and then they were gone, and it was impossible to tell which direction was up and which down.

A timeless while passed, and then a thunder of dragons rose about them: dragons of every shape and color, their scales flashing, their wings thudding until all the air vibrated like a drum. For an instant, hope and companionship, but only an instant. The dragons turned on them and attacked them and tore at Thorn’s flesh until his wings were tattered remnants and he plunged from the pale sphere of the sky into the heated depths of the earth, where the dirt was heavy and pressing and the only solace was pain and hate and the steady drip of their own hot blood.

Nasuada stood in front of him. Her dress was ripped and stained, and across her forearms, he saw the cuts and bruises Galbatorix had forced him to inflict upon her, and with them, the bloody tracks where the burrow grubs had chewed their way beneath her skin, and his guilt knew no bounds. “Why?” she said. “Why, why, why? Tell me…why?”

A disjunction, and then a battlefield stretched before them, from their feet to the smoke-smudged horizon. Humans and Urgals and elves struggled in their thousands: a sea of heaving bodies intent on inflicting pain on one another.

Zar’roc was in Murtagh’s right hand, and his shield in the other, and Thorn stood beside him. They roared together and strode forth into maddened conflict. And Murtagh swung his sword with abandon, and he felt the familiar shock of impact as the blade sliced through flesh and bone, and his foes fell before him. A wall of rippling flame shot out ahead of him as Thorn sprayed the collected warriors with liquid fire. The smell of burnt hair and crisping skin filled the air, and the combatants screamed as they cooked in their armor.

Murtagh continued forward, Zar’roc lighter in his hand than ever before. And he killed, and he killed, and with each kill, he felt growing power.

A cloud of crows wheeled above the battlefield, and in the distance, hidden by the smoke but in presence felt, Bachel watched. And Murtagh knew she watched with approval.

CHAPTER V Recitations of Faith

The sound of bells woke Murtagh, a high, brassy clang that bounced off the mountains and set the crows in the Tower of Flint to cawing.

He blinked, instantly alert, and reached for Zar’roc. The familiar feel of the wire-wrapped hilt comforted him.

Grey light pervaded the bedroom. It seemed well into morning, but because of the high mountains, the sun had yet to rise.

Murtagh searched for Thorn’s mind…and found the dragon already awake in the courtyard below.

They shared a moment of closeness, and Thorn said, You dreamt as I did.

It wasn’t a question, but Murtagh answered all the same. Yes. I…I’ve never had an experience like that before.

He could feel Thorn shifting in place. The visions were like those HE showed us, during the dark time.

Murtagh suppressed a shiver. Of all the many tortures Galbatorix had inflicted upon them, Murtagh had hated those most of all. The king would, at his whim, flood their minds with false images that served to confuse the senses and make it difficult to resist his will.

Yes, he said. But different too. They were more real than real. He sat and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He stared at the wall for a moment, and then rubbed his face in a futile attempt to dispel the memories of the night.

Umaroth was right. This is not a good place, said Thorn. We should not linger any longer than necessary.

Maybe not, but I want to hear what Bachel has to say for herself today. She owes us an explanation. Several explanations.

Murtagh went to the washroom and splashed his face with the last bit of water remaining in the jug. Were the ill humors that suffused Nal Gorgoth enough to explain their dreams? Or was there another force at work? Unlike with Galbatorix’s coercions, Murtagh hadn’t felt any mind touching theirs during the night. The dreams seemed to have arisen unbidden from the deepest burrows of their consciousness.

Thorn snorted. Those were no dreams of mine.

No. Murtagh well knew what Thorn dreamt of: flights and fights and their time spent imprisoned at Urû’baen.

Though it made him nervous to do so, Murtagh used the word kverst to remove the stubble from his face. It fell from his skin as a shedding of black dust. He ran a hand across his chin, satisfied. He did not want to appear anything less than perfectly presentable before Bachel.

Then he dried his face and belted on Zar’roc and tucked Saerlith’s clasp into his belt.

As he started toward the door, a knock sounded, and a woman said, “May I enter, Kingkiller?”

Murtagh bridled at the title. Though the Dreamers seemed to use it as a sign of respect, it sat badly with him. “You may.”

The door swung inward to reveal Alín, the young woman who had attended him and Bachel during the feast. As before, she wore a white robe, unlike the rest of the villagers. A tray with food rested in her hands.

She bowed slightly—which Murtagh found odd; the maids in Urû’baen had always curtsied—and carried the tray to the side table by the bed. “Breakfast, my Lord.”

It gave Murtagh a discomfiting feeling to be addressed as my Lord again. It was his due, of course, but only because of his father’s treachery. Technically, he no longer held claim to any title but that of Rider…and Kingkiller. And traitor.

He feigned a relaxed smile as he strode over to inspect the contents of the tray. Half a loaf of dense rye bread, three kippered bergenhed, and a tankard of watered wine. Standard fare, as such things went, but he didn’t trust the food. The feast last night had been a spontaneous event, and he’d watched as the meal was prepared. However, the breakfast could easily have been tampered with. It wasn’t worth the risk. He still had a bit of cooked hare in his saddlebags, and that would hold him for a time.

“I’m afraid I don’t have much of an appetite,” he said in a mild tone.

The woman seemed uncomfortable in his presence. She stiffened as he approached, and then ducked her head and twisted the tips of the blue ribbon tied around her waist. “Of course, my Lord. I’ll remove the tray.”

When she started to reach for it, he said, “Your name is Alín, yes?”

Softly: “Yes.”

He nodded. “Would you be so kind as to guide me back to the courtyard, Alín? I can’t say I remember the way.” A lie, but he wanted the opportunity to question her.

She bowed again and, subdued, said, “Yes, sir. After me, sir.”

With brisk steps, Alín led him out of the room. Murtagh followed, but at a slower pace—slow enough that she was forced to halve her stride.

“Tell me, Alín,” said Murtagh, “for I much desire to know: How long has Bachel ruled in Nal Gorgoth?”

She gave him a quick, shy glance from under her pale lashes. “A very long time, my Lord. Far longer than I have winters.”

Murtagh let his eyebrows rise. If Alín was telling the truth, then Bachel was half elf, as that was the only obvious explanation for why the witch lacked any obvious sign of age. “Would you say she has been a fair ruler, Alín?”

“Of course, Kingkiller,” she answered in a reproachful tone. “Bachel is the Speaker. How could she be anything but just?”

“How indeed? I imagine being able to foretell the future might help avoid such a misstep. Would you say she is adept at prophecy?”

The woman nodded quickly. “Oh yes, my Lord. It is her duty to guide us, and we are fortunate she has been blessed with such great skill in augury.”

“I see.” Murtagh paused before the panel of stone carvings along the landing. In the morning light, they appeared no less disturbing.

Alín stopped as well. She had no choice.

“You wear white, not grey,” Murtagh observed.

The woman folded her hands in front of her, and her long sleeves covered them. “I am one of the temple chosen. These robes represent our purity. So long as I serve in the temple, at Bachel’s will, no man may touch me on pain of losing the hands he sinned with.” She lifted her gaze to meet his, and Murtagh saw a challenge in her eyes, as if she were daring him to break the prohibition.

“And likewise, you may not touch a man.”

“No, my Lord.”

He nodded. Then, more gently, he said, “What is the purpose of Nal Gorgoth, Alín? What is it Bachel seeks to accomplish?”

The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he’d overreached. Alín’s back straightened, and her shoulders squared, and a spark of defiant fire animated her expression. “You could not possibly understand if I told you, outsider. Such understanding can only come from Bachel herself, for she is the—”

“The Speaker. Yes, you said.” Even though it was more than likely fruitless, he decided to press on. “But I wonder, for whom does Bachel speak, Alín? Who is the Dreamer of Dreams?”

The color drained from Alín’s cheeks. “Please, my Lord. You should not ask me such a thing.”

“But I do.”

She shook her head. “I cannot say. I beg you—”

“Cannot or will not?”

She shook her head again, all defiance vanished, and turned her back to him. “You do not understand. You cannot. Please, my Lord, this way.”

Thoughtful, Murtagh followed her across the landing—away from the maddening carvings—down the stairs, and through the hallways that led to the courtyard.

When they arrived at the door to the outside, Alín surprised him by stopping with her hand on the frame. In a small voice, she said, “What is it like, Kingkiller?”

“What do you mean?”

She looked back at him, her face lost in the shadows of the unlit hallway. “Out there…beyond. What is the rest of Alagaësia like?”

“What is the farthest you have been from Nal Gorgoth?”

A hint of defensive sorrow colored her voice. “I have never left this valley, Kingkiller.”

It was not an unexpected answer for one of her station, yet Murtagh found it difficult to imagine having such a limited perspective. To be so blinkered in place could only lead to being similarly blinkered in mind.

He thought for a moment on how best to answer. Then: “Alagaësia is far wider and wilder than you can imagine. There are mountains so high their peaks vanish from sight. Vast deserts where dragons used to live. Forests so old no memory remains of their birth. And there are cities too: large and small, and peoples of all sorts. Humans and elves and dwarves and Urgals. Even werecats. And so, so much more.”

A hint of wistfulness might have appeared in Alín’s expression, but it was difficult to tell for sure in the dark hallway. “And what do they dream of, all those people?”

Murtagh watched to see what effect his words had. “Every person dreams their own dreams. Some are frightening or unpleasant. Some are beautiful and hopeful. Some are silly or nonsense. They differ for every person.”

“Even for you?”

“Why would they not?”

“Because,” she said, seeming confused, “you are a Rider.”

He felt equally confounded. “What does being a Rider have to do with the dreams I have?”

Alín frowned. “Surely you must know, my Lord. You are joined with a dragon, and dragons are the blood and bones of the land. They are the source of everything that was and is and shall be. I thought that, because of your bond with Thorn, that…”

“You thought what?” Murtagh asked gently.

“That you would have the same dreams as we do in Nal Gorgoth.”

“Does everyone here dream the same, Alín?”

She turned back to the door. “It is the one thing I cannot bear. The dreadful sameness, night after night. The dreams so rarely change.”

Then she pushed open the door and stepped out before Murtagh could ask another question.

Thorn gave Murtagh a welcoming nudge as they came together in the courtyard. He scratched Thorn’s snout in response.

Then he became aware that Alín was standing behind him with her hands clasped and her gaze fixed on the flagstones, her whole body stiff as if she were terrified. But when she stole a glance at Thorn, her eyes shone, and he realized that she was overawed by Thorn’s presence.

“Have you ever seen a dragon before?” he asked.

She shook her head, keeping her gaze turned down. “No, my Lord. He is magnificent.”

I like her, said Thorn.

You would. Would you mind if I—

You may.

With a small smile, Murtagh said, “If you want, you may come closer.”

Alín gasped and looked up with undisguised joy. “Oh! Yes, please. I mean, thank you, my Lord.” With careful steps, she approached Thorn.

She squeaked as Thorn arched his neck and loomed over her, a puff of smoke jetting out from his nostrils.

Murtagh smirked. You’re as dramatic as a troubadour.

Thorn ignored him and lowered his head until he was at eye level with Alín. She stood very still, but her expression was wide and shining, and the tips of her fingers trembled.

“He won’t hurt you,” Murtagh said.

Alín laughed with febrile energy. “It would not matter if he did. I would be honored. It is not every day you meet a living god.”

Murtagh felt his eyebrows rise. He gave Thorn a look. “Do you hear that? A living god, she says.”

The dragon surprised him then, for Murtagh felt Thorn extend his mind until it contacted Alín’s, and for a fraction of a second, the three of them were joined. Murtagh had a brief impression of Alín’s inner self: a sense of warmth and wonder and overwhelming radiance.

Then Thorn withdrew the connection, and Alín cried out and fell to her knees.

Murtagh went to her, meaning to help. At the last moment, he remembered not to touch and stopped with his hands hovering on either side of her shoulders. He retreated a step. “Are you all right?”

It was a long moment before she stirred and looked up, tears on her cheeks. “I never thought to be so blessed,” she whispered. She turned back to Thorn and bowed her head. “Thank you. Thank you. A thousand thanks upon you.”

Murtagh wasn’t sure how to respond. He watched as she gathered herself and stood. “Bachel will send for you soon,” she said, her voice as thin and pale as a winter sky. “Be ready to attend her. She does not stand for delay.”

“No, I would imagine not,” said Murtagh.

Alín gave Thorn one last look—her expression suddenly troubled—and then fled into the temple.

Without her, the courtyard seemed cold and empty.

Murtagh turned back to Thorn. He frowned. “Why?”

With a scrape of scales against stone, Thorn wound his neck around Murtagh and trapped him in a great coil. It seemed appropriate.

“Because she said you were magnificent?”

Thorn coughed. No. Because she has been told much but seen little. I was like that once. It is good to know the truth of things.

At that, Murtagh’s stance softened. “I suppose you’re right.” Thorn hummed, and Murtagh scratched his snout again. “Well, as long as she didn’t see anything about last night, there’s no harm done.”

And perhaps some good.

“Perhaps.”

Then Thorn uncoiled his neck and Murtagh retrieved the haunch of roasted hare from Thorn’s saddlebags. He ate quickly, not knowing how long it would be until Bachel summoned them.

Voices sounded from within the streets leading off the courtyard: rhythmic chanting that seemed more ceremonial than musical.

Curious, Murtagh wiped his fingers and wandered down the nearest street, Thorn at his back.

He didn’t have to go far before he saw a group of twenty or so Dreamers gathered around an alcove built within the outer wall of a house. In the alcove was a small altar—not dissimilar to the one he’d found last night—with fruits and cuts of meat piled in the center.

Another white-robed Dreamer, a man, stood facing the rest of the villagers, and it was to him the people directed their voices. The chanting was so fast, so practiced, that at first Murtagh couldn’t distinguish one word from the next, but as he listened, he began to pick out repeated phrases, such as “With our hands, so we serve,” “As it is dreamt, so it shall be,” and “Given our earthly reward, praise be.”

Between the repeated phrases, he realized the villagers were describing their dreams from that night: something to do with blood and fire and ancient wrongs. The specifics escaped him, but he caught words here and there, like silver fish flashing through a stream. Some of it reminded him of the visions he and Thorn had shared, but only in part; the rest seemed to vary wildly from what they had seen.

It was clear the villagers were well accustomed to their dreams, as Alín had claimed. The chanting was rote, ritualistic, nearly unconscious, with a trance-inducing quality, as if the drumming of their voices numbed their minds. The villagers’ eyes glazed over as they swayed along with the rhythm of their words.

As he stood watching, he found himself struck by the cohesion of the group. The villagers appeared more like a single, many-faced entity than a collection of individuals. The cause that bound them—whatever it was—seemed so strong as to erase their differences. The result was intimidating.

Even with Thorn by his side, a hollow sense of envy formed within Murtagh. He missed the moments, rare as they’d been, when he’d felt joined in common purpose with the soldiers of Galbatorix’s army. The camaraderie had brought with it a certain confidence—a fortification of self, even as his definition of self had expanded to include his brothers-in-arms. He had recaptured the sense, all too briefly, while drilling with the guards in Gil’ead. And looking even further back, he had shared a similar feeling during his travels with Eragon.

But those days were long since passed.

Thorn touched his elbow, and Murtagh smiled sadly.

The chanting continued with numerous repetitions of “As it is dreamt, so it shall be,” and the repetitions were so perfectly uniform, so perfectly matched in intonation and mindless recitation, that the sameness of it suddenly seemed repulsive. It felt as if he were watching a group of sleepwalking half-wits who moved without thinking, their blind, unblinking, cataractal eyes fixed upon a vague point in the distance, while their mouths hinged open and closed with synchronized precision. His envy evaporated, like mist before dragonfire, as he realized something else about the Dreamers: they were neither a conspiratorial group nor a political organization, nor even a martial one. In actuality, they were a cult, devoted to their dreams and to their Speaker above all else.

The chanting stopped.

For a moment, silence reigned in the street. Then the temple acolyte said, “Say now what differences you beheld, if any you did.”

And a man with a birthmark as dark as a splash of wine across his nose said, “I saw a flight of dragons, only there was a crimson dragon in the middle. Before, there was none.”

The acolyte nodded wisely. “Bachel’s Ears have heard you. What else?”

A girl—no more than ten, with tresses like spun gold—said, “An obelisk of stone with a black tip and gilded carving. The carving glowed, and I heard a voice speaking words I did not understand.”

The acolyte nodded again. “You will present yourself to Bachel at the morning hearing, and she will speak to you the meaning of your vision.”

“As it is dreamt, so it shall be.”

Murtagh continued to listen while the cultists confessed their dreams. He wondered how many of them spoke the truth and how many were inventing details for a chance to impress their neighbors or please Bachel. But perhaps that was unkind of him. The villagers seemed entirely sincere and convinced of their experiences.

They would be, he thought. He tried to imagine what it was like to grow up in Nal Gorgoth, being constantly questioned about your dreams, and if the dreams were of a like with what he and Thorn had experienced the past night…He shuddered.

Then a woman emerged from within the group. She was of middling age, with hair that hung in tangled skeins, and her face was drawn and dolorous, as if she’d been up the whole night fretting. She wrung her hands, the fingers twisted like roots.

“Hear me!” she cried.

The white-robed acolyte eyed her with something akin to disgust. “Speak and be heard, O Dethra.”

The woman sobbed and shook her head before continuing. “I did not dream as was right and proper. My mind was empty all the night until just before waking. Then an image filled my mind, and I saw the white mountain with—”

The faces of those listening hardened, and Murtagh saw no charity in their expressions.

“Enough!” cried the acolyte. “Do not poison our minds with your false visions. You are unclean, Dethra.”

“I am unclean!” she shouted, tears streaking down her cheeks.

“You are unworthy!”

“I am unworthy! Punish me! Let me atone!”

With a thunderous scowl, the acolyte pointed at her. “Dethra! You cannot regain favor in the Eyes of Bachel until you purge this heresy from your being. Go to the temple and confine yourself to the Azurite Room until such time as Bachel sees fit to bring you to the realm of the Dreamer.”

The woman cried out with terror and collapsed onto the ground, where she shook and gibbered incomprehensibilities.

The white-robed acolyte stormed forward. He grabbed Dethra by the arm and dragged her toward the temple.

The crowd parted before them, men and women alike watching in stony silence. At the front of the group, the golden-haired girl chewed on her thumb, her eyes round and solemn.

In an undertone, Murtagh said to Thorn, “Is that woman most afraid of confinement or atonement?”

Or Bachel?

It was an unsettling thought. With Thorn close behind, Murtagh followed the acolyte back to the temple and watched as the man hauled Dethra into the building.

CHAPTER VI The Court of Crows

“There you are, Rider,” said Grieve with heavy disapproval as he strode with a hurried pace toward Murtagh and Thorn. He made a bow so slight, it was more of a nod. “Dragon Thorn. Bachel will grant you audience now. The both of you.”

Murtagh gestured at the temple. “Do you mean for us to go in there?”

“Of course. Bachel awaits you in her presence chamber.”

Murtagh raised his eyebrows. “Alas, Goodman Grieve, I’m sorry to inform you that the doors of your temple are far too small for Thorn to pass through. Unless you mean for him to break them apart.”

The flicker of irritation that crossed Grieve’s face was satisfying. “I do not,” he said stiffly. “Dragon Thorn, an atrium exists behind that will suffice if you will fly to it. Thence you may access the presence chamber.”

Murtagh hesitated, glancing at Thorn. Do you want to chance it?

The dragon growled and, to both Murtagh and Grieve, said, I will go so far as the atrium, but no farther. If Bachel wishes to speak with me, then she may come to me.

Grieve’s scowl deepened. “You risk offending the Speaker, Dragon Thorn.”

Thorn sniffed. So be it. With a sweep of his wings, the dragon jumped into the air. His body blotted out the sky for a moment, and then he was above the temple, and there he hung, like a great crimson bat, before folding his wings and dropping out of sight behind the peak of the building.

In a mild tone, Murtagh said, “I’m afraid that no one can tell a dragon what to do, not even a Rider.”

A grunt from Grieve, and he turned and walked with his lurching stride toward the temple’s shadowed entrance.

Alert and curious, Murtagh followed, hand on hilt.

Deep between the faceted pillars, a pair of blackened oak doors stood open. The wood was chiseled with runes and inlaid with threads of gold that traced the same branching pattern carved into the face of the temple. The air within was noticeably warmer and thick with the smell of brimstone. Murtagh felt moisture collecting on his skin, tiny droplets of sulfurous dew.

They moved through a short passage lit by oil lamps. Then the way opened upon the atrium. It was large and square, with four raised pools—overgrown with reeds and floating moss—at the corners, while in the center stood a giant sculpture, nearly as tall as the surrounding roofline. The statue was made of black stone, and it was all angles and shards and misjoined edges, but when taken as a whole, there was a shape amid the chaos. He felt as if he ought to recognize it, but the truth eluded him, like a name or a face that he couldn’t place.

Thorn had landed next to the statue and was looking at it as if he meant to knock it over with a swipe of his tail.

“What is that?” Murtagh asked.

Grieve continued trudging on and didn’t turn to look. “A depiction of dream.”

Unease made Murtagh pull his cloak tighter. What do you think? he asked Thorn.

An abomination.

It’s a nightmare, that’s for sure.

As Murtagh continued after Grieve, Thorn said, If they are so foolish as to attack you, I shall rip apart the building from top to bottom.

Murtagh smiled, comforted. Good.

On the other side of the atrium, another passage doglegged to the south. It ended at a tall lancet doorway large enough for Thorn to pass through. Ironbound doors of dark oak stood open, and past them, a great space echoed.

The chamber seemed part throne room and part inner sanctum. In its center sat a brazier of hammered copper, ten feet across and laden with a bed of smoldering coals. From it, smoke and incense—rich with the scent of sage, pine, and cedar—thickened the air, although they could not obscure the underlying taint of brimstone, which seemed stronger, more concentrated there within the temple. Beneath the brazier, a heavy cast-iron pipe joined the bottom of the metal pan to the floor.

An open-roofed pavilion, made of angled stone, ringed the brazier. From the pavilion uprights, sculpted dragon heads extended over the coals, like gargoyles on the cathedral in Dras-Leona.

The ceiling was lost in shadow. The floor glinted with pearlescent chips of a vast multicolored mosaic that swirled in ways Murtagh’s eyes found difficult to follow. Blood-red banners hung from the walls, their edges tattered, the fabric mildewed and moth-eaten.

Opposite the entrance, on the other side of the brazier and pavilion, was a long double arcade with stone chairs set between the carved columns, empty save for dust and memories. The arcade ended at a wide altar of ashen stone, behind which ascended several steps to a high-backed stone chair, cold and grey and carved with arcane patterns.

And reclining upon that unforgiving throne was Bachel in all her stark, imperious glory. A single shaft of light illuminated her from above—the beam filtered through some cleverly hidden window—and it rimmed her as if with holy radiance. Unlike before, she wore an elaborate headpiece of jade and leather that was black and polished to an oily sheen. Her dress was red and, again, sewn from strips of knotted straps. Rubies and emeralds glinted from the rings on her thumbs.

She was sipping from a cup of carved quartz, her eyes liquid amber in the glow from the brazier.

In every aspect, she presented an imposing figure, and a deep disquiet formed within Murtagh. It felt as if he were approaching a source of secret power; he could nearly taste the energy emanating from Bachel, as if she were the physical embodiment of some enormous force. Even Galbatorix, he thought, would have hesitated before the witch.

Three acolytes were arrayed before Bachel and the altar, kneeling on the mosaic, hoods drawn over their faces, hands pressed together in prayer. A single grey-robed villager—a dwarf seemingly of middle age—stood in their midst, and he said, “…twelve upon twelve, and the black swan burst into fire over the field of battle, and—”

Bachel lifted a finger, stopping him. “You have had another vision of victory, Genvek.”

The dwarf tugged on his braided beard. “There is yet more, Speaker. After the swan, I saw—”

“You may tell me of it later, my child,” Bachel said as Grieve arrived at the altar, with Murtagh trailing behind.

The witch, Murtagh noticed, seemed none the worse for wear after her indulgence at the feast. Bachel smiled, and her teeth shone translucent as polished cowrie shells in the pale light from above. “This court has a guest that needs attending. Begone for the nonce.”

Genvek the dwarf appeared put out, but he tugged on his beard again, bowed, and departed with a black glare directed toward Murtagh.

“Come now, Kingkiller,” said Bachel, her voice proud and strong. “Approach that I may see you more clearly.”

Murtagh obliged. He stepped between the acolytes and stood before them, though he hated to have anyone at his back.

Bachel’s smile widened as she studied him. Then she gestured at the temple in a most elegant manner, the gems on her fingers tracing constellations through the air. “Welcome to the Court of Crows, Murtagh Morzansson. It has been over half a century since last a Rider stood here.”

And was that Saerlith or another of the Forsworn? Or Galbatorix himself? Murtagh wondered.

Before he could reply to Bachel, she said, “And welcome to thee as well, Dragon Thorn.”

Murtagh turned to see that Thorn had stuck his head into the entrance of the presence chamber. The dragon did not dare more than that, but Murtagh was still grateful to have him near.

Feeling somewhat more confident, he said, “I must admit, I see no crows, Lady.”

The witch laughed, and her husky voice echoed off the shadowed ceiling. “Look closer, Kingkiller. There is much you do not see.”

Murtagh hated being told that he didn’t understand something. And he especially hated when it was true.

Forcing an expression of polite blandness, he turned his gaze upward while also extending outward with his consciousness. Scores of tiny minds immediately appeared above him, as rings of candles set about a ritual space. Crows. A whole flock of them perched along the underside of the ceiling, on cornices and carvings and beams of stone. Now that he knew what to listen for, he could hear the noises as they clucked and muttered and moved about on their tapping claws. And yet none of them cawed, and he saw no droppings on the mosaic below.

He raised an eyebrow. “The floor is very clean.”

Bachel’s smile grew mysterious. “The crows are my kin. I speak to them, and they answer. I command them, and they obey, as do all of my children.” Then she raised a hand and said, “Come,” and he heard magic in the word: a compulsion that nearly caused him to step forward before he mastered himself.

With a soft gale of flapping wings, the crows descended in a black cloud and settled upon the back and arms of Bachel’s throne and on the dais surrounding her. As one, the dire flock fixed their ghostly eyes upon Murtagh—white irises stark and staring in the chamber’s gloom.

Bachel chuckled and clucked fondly at the birds. One of them hopped close to her, and she scratched it on the head and under the beak while the bird closed its eyes in apparent bliss.

“You see, Kingkiller,” she said, “Speaker I am, but also am I the Queen of Crows.”

There was an unreality to the image of her sitting regnant amid the murmuring multitude, a specter-like quality that made Murtagh feel as if the world had shifted sideways and he was no longer in a place where the familiar rules of nature held sway, but rather an older, wilder sort of reasoning.

He heard Thorn release a low hiss at the front of the chamber.

Murtagh made a small bow. “The extent of your power is truly impressive, Lady Bachel. It seems even the common crow recognizes your authority.”

“Crows are far from common,” said Bachel. She cooed at the bird she was scratching. “Did you know, my son, that the Urgals believe crows carry the souls of the dead to their afterlife?”

“I did not.”

She nodded. “The sight of the crow fills an Urgal with immense dread, but an Urgal will also go to great lengths to help a crow in need or to avoid hurting one, for they think that if they anger the crows, the birds will refuse to carry them to the fields of their ancestors once they die.”

“And what do you believe, my Lady?”

Bachel lifted an eyebrow. Then she said, “Go,” and her voice rang with power. The birds took off in a flurry into the shadows above. “I believe that crows are hungry and they have no scruples as to how they sate their appetite, which is why you will always find them gathered on the field of battle to feast on the fallen.”

Murtagh’s lip curled with revulsion. “A grim reckoning and an unpleasant habit, my Lady.”

The witch sipped from her cup, unconcerned. “You cannot fault them for their nature.”

“Neither do I have to praise them for it.”

Bachel inclined her head. “That is true.” Then her eyes narrowed, and the amber in them darkened. “Tell me, my child, did you rest well last night?”

“Well enough.”

Her gaze further sharpened. “And did you and Thorn dream? You must have. All creatures in this vale dream, even crows.”

She asks most eagerly, said Thorn.

That she does. Murtagh toyed with the ruby set in Zar’roc’s pommel as he considered. He didn’t want to tell Bachel anything too personal, but he was curious how she would interpret their visions. Whatever she said could reveal more about the Dreamers than he would reveal about himself.

So he told her, leaving out but one detail: Nasuada’s appearance in his dream. That was too personal, and Murtagh had no intention of dissecting its meaning with a stranger.

“And what of you, Thorn?” asked Bachel. “What saw you?”

Thorn growled softly. I saw much the same.

Then the witch tilted her face to catch the beam of light that broke upon her brow, and she let out a long sigh. “Ah, such beautiful visions, Kingkiller. I can feel their promise, like the warm touch of dawn’s first rays.”

“I would hardly call them beautiful.”

She lowered her gaze to him. “That is because your sight is blinkered, my son, limited by your senses and the confines of your mind. As is true of all of us, even you, Thorn.”

“But you can see the truth?” Murtagh asked, not hiding his disbelief.

A shake of her head swayed her headpiece. “No. I do not claim such wisdom. I am merely a conduit for understanding. An interpreter, if you will.”

“Then interpret.”

The corners of Bachel’s mouth curved. “Very well, Kingkiller. I shall.” She closed her eyes, and the acolytes bowed in rhythmic fashion and began to chant in an unfamiliar tongue, and Grieve lowered his head until only his widow’s peak showed. Sparks flared in the brazier as Bachel uttered several low words in the strange language, words that lingered in the air longer than was right. For a moment, the chamber seemed to dim as if a shadow pressed in on them from without.

A chill crept into the heated air.

Murtagh held his place, but all the hair on his body stood on end. He felt as if he were in an open field during a heavy thunderstorm while lightning threatened. How very theatric, he commented to Thorn. Nevertheless, he couldn’t deny the effect the ceremony had on him.

When Bachel spoke, her voice had an eerie, hollow timbre: “Behold…as it was, so it shall be. See you now the center of all things, the king on his throne, the snake in his lair. See you now past sorrows—injustices unrevenged—and future triumphs. The cleansing sword, the son freed of his father. See you this now, and know it to be true. As it is dreamt, so it shall be.”

Icy dread coiled within Murtagh’s core, and his whole body tensed at the word father, the response as instinctual as pain.

Bachel slumped slightly. Then she opened her eyes and, in a tired manner, gestured at the acolytes. They ceased bowing and chanting, and the chamber again fell silent.

Murtagh fought to remain impassive, though his muscles were as taut as so many weighted cables.

The witch straightened upon her throne. “There now, Kingkiller. I have said my piece.”

“The Speaker has spoken,” Grieve murmured.

“And yet,” said Murtagh, “I understand no more than when you started.”

Bachel replied: “That is because I have yet to explain the explanation. Be not so bound by convention, my fair princeling. You must learn to see with more than your mortal vision.”

Murtagh’s frown deepened. “What is it you want, Bachel? Why have you seeded your servants throughout Alagaësia? To what end? And why is it you say Thorn and I are to be the saviors of the land? How? And from what?”

“Do you recognize the shape of this sanctum, my child?” Bachel asked, indicating the chamber about them.

Caught off-guard, Murtagh fumbled his reply. “No. I don’t.”

“You should. It has a sister beneath Urû’baen: the Hall of the Soothsayer. I believe you are well familiar with it.”

For a moment, Murtagh grew weak, and he nearly sat. He trembled slightly.

He glanced around. The witch was right. If he ignored the arcade and the pillars and the open pavilion, the general layout of the space was similar, if not identical, to the Hall of the Soothsayer. And the ashen altar, that hateful slab of stone, was no different from the one where Galbatorix had kept Nasuada chained….

Bachel leaned forward, hawklike. “The sacred vapors that emanate from the ground here likewise once emanated from the rocks and stones beneath Urû’baen. Then too a Speaker dwelt in that hall and breathed of them and dispensed the wisdom of dream to those wise enough to consult her.”

Had Galbatorix known the truth about the Soothsayer? He had claimed ignorance regarding her origin, but if there was one thing Murtagh had learned over the years, it was that the king lied, and he lied well.

Perhaps Bachel also lies, said Thorn.

With some difficulty, Murtagh found his voice. “You claim the same mantle as the Soothsayer?”

“We are of the same lineage, in beliefs and observance, if not blood.”

Murtagh glanced back at Thorn, feeling lost. Everything he had heard of the Soothsayer of old had spoken of her uncanny foresight, and there were more than a few stories of people who had ignored her advice—or sought to contravene it—to their inevitable sorrow.

Murtagh had never been able to bring himself to believe that the future was set. Like Thorn, he hated the idea that some impersonal force dictated the shape of his life. The very concept sapped all motive and responsibility from his choices. And yet…if Bachel were an oracle in truth, then he needed to know what she predicted for him and Thorn, if only that they might take a stand against it.

The witch seemed to read his thoughts, though he felt no touch upon his mind. “I will say this to start, my son: it was Fate that brought you here. You could no more have resisted the urge to find Nal Gorgoth—and me within it—than a moth may resist the lure of a nighttime flame. The threads of destiny may be plucked by those who know how. Plucked, and severed. Nal Gorgoth and places like it have endured for longer than you can imagine. No dragon or Rider or elf or any other creature in all the history of the land has ever succeeded in clearing our redoubts or snuffing our faith.”

“Not even Galbatorix?” said Murtagh in a flat tone.

Bachel’s smile widened, showing more teeth than was normal for a human. “Not even the dread dragonkiller himself, Rider. He tried, once, and soon realized the magnitude of his mistake.”

Fear and frustration broke Murtagh’s control. “Who are you?” he cried, allowing some of his power to enter his voice. He could use words to control and command just as easily as Bachel—and he had a dragon backing him to boot.

His voice resounded off the walls of the chamber, and Grieve and the white-robed acolytes stiffened. “Speaker!” said Grieve, the word coming from between clenched teeth.

Bachel seemed unaffected. She waved a hand at Grieve. “Peace, my child. You are as nervous as a spring rabbit. Our guest means us no harm.” The muscles along Grieve’s jaw bunched, yet he held his peace.

Murtagh was not about to do the same. “But my patience grows thin. You promised me answers, Bachel, but so far, all I have are more questions.”

Her nails tapped against the arm of her throne. “Do you doubt my word?”

“No, my Lady, only the timing of its fulfillment.”

She eyed him with a hooded gaze, her headpiece and shoulders haloed with pale radiance from above. “Walk among us for a day and a night, you and Thorn both. See what we are and how we live, ere you seek to pass judgment on us. Dream once more in Nal Gorgoth, and let your mind wander wide and deep.”

She was being evasive. That much was obvious, but at the same time, the offer was tempting. So much about Bachel and the Dreamers was difficult to explain, and Murtagh felt it was desperately important to have a better idea of what they were and what they wanted. Especially if Bachel had the same powers of prophecy as the Soothsayer. They had to learn more. For himself. For Thorn. And for Nasuada.

What say you? he asked Thorn.

One day more is no great price.

Lifting his chin, Murtagh said, “If we do, will you forgo your riddles for plainer speech?”

The witch made a gracious gesture with her hand, as if inviting him to bow. “If you do, and you strive to see but truly, then yes, Kingkiller, I will explain my prophecy and more besides. I will lay bare the threads of fate, and you will understand both the role you have played and the role you shall yet play. A great storm is coming, Kingkiller, one that shall shake the very foundations of Alagaësia, and we must all choose where to cast our lots.”

“A storm has already ravaged the land. Another might destroy it.”

Fire replaced the honey in Bachel’s eyes. “Then destroyed it shall be, and a new and better world will rise from the ashes!” Fast as flowing quicksilver, her expression softened. “But not today, Kingkiller.” She stood then and descended from the throne, and the acolytes parted before her. “Come now. If you are to stay with us, Kingkiller, I have arranged a most amusing diversion.”

Wary, Murtagh said, “And what would that be, my Lady?”

She swept past him, the train of her dress trailing across the floor. “The sport of kings, my fair princeling. A boar hunt!”

CHAPTER VII Tusk and Blade

A boar hunt would have thrilled and daunted Murtagh when he was younger. Boars were dangerous animals, and he’d known of at least four earls who had been maimed or killed by a wild hog. The danger was part of the appeal; it was an opportunity to prove your mettle, sharpen your martial skills, and—for many a man—win favor with the women at court. The first time Murtagh had gone boar hunting had been with a group of nobles, headed up by Lord Barst. It had been…a less-than-enjoyable experience. He’d missed his chance at a boar and ended up smeared in mud from crown to sole. Lyreth and his peers had relentlessly made fun of him on the ride back. He’d had better luck on future expeditions, but they’d always been colored by his memories of that initial humiliation.

Now, though, Murtagh found no thrill in the prospect of a hunt. His wards removed any possible danger, and with it any sense of challenge or accomplishment, leaving only slaughter for the sake of meat. It was a dour thought. There was a significant difference between a hunter and a butcher, and he had no desire to be a butcher.

Along with Bachel and her retinue, he departed the temple and returned to the front courtyard.

Dust shook from the building as Thorn landed beside them.

Bachel spread her arms in a welcoming manner and said, “A hunt, noble dragon! Join us on our venture, and you may slake your thirst for blood and hunger for flesh.”

Thorn snorted and looked at Murtagh. She enjoys making lots of noise, like a magpie in the morning.

Do you want to come?

The dragon licked his chops. I’ll not let you wander off with her alone. Besides, she is not wrong; I do hunger.

“Assemble, my faithful children!” cried Bachel. “Bring us horses and water and wine and all the things needed for a hunt. Quickly!”

Dozens of grey-robed cultists and white-robed temple acolytes rushed about the courtyard as they sprang to obey. Alín approached carrying two braces of broad-bladed, short-handled spears, one set of which she handed to Bachel and the other to Murtagh.

Bachel tested the edges of her spears with her thumb and then pointed a spear at Murtagh, like an accusatory finger. “There is a condition to the hunt, Kingkiller.”

Of course. “And what would that be, my Lady?”

“No spells are to be used in the killing of the boars. They are sacred beasts, touched by the power of this place, and it would be disrespectful, as well as blasphemous, to do otherwise.”

Murtagh likewise tested the edges of his spears. They were tolerably sharp, but the metal seemed to be rather poor iron; they would bend after the first hard blow, and the edges wouldn’t stay sharp for more than a few strokes. Using them would be a challenge, as would forgoing magic.

He liked the idea.

“That seems eminently reasonable. I shall abide by your custom.”

She inclined her head. “The Dreamer will look kindly upon your efforts, my son.”

Then Murtagh gestured at her spears. “Do you mean to hunt as well, my Lady?”

A gleam appeared in Bachel’s eyes, and she hefted one of the spears with surprising ease. “Think you that I am incapable?”

Murtagh didn’t, but neither did he have a good measure of her. In a mild voice, he said, “Hunting boar takes great strength. I have never seen a woman attempt it.”

Bachel’s laugh echoed off the mountains, and crows cawed in response from the Tower of Flint. “A human woman, you mean to say. ’Tis good, then, that I am not wholly human. The blood of the elves runs in my veins. Though it may not be so thick as my mother’s, it is still thicker than that of the women of your kind.”

“Then I look forward to seeing your prowess upon the field of action.”

“And I yours, my son.”

As the cultists hurried to organize the hunting party, several of Bachel’s servants brought screens and held them about her while Alín and two other women attended her. When the screens were lowered, Murtagh saw Bachel no longer in her dress of red but now garbed like a man, with leather vambraces upon her forearms and chased riding boots that went to midthigh and a peaked helm divided by lines of bright rivets. The helm had a half mask to protect her eyes and nose, and an aventail of fine mail edged with rings of brass or bronze. It was a handsome look, Murtagh thought, for war or for sport.

From among the stone buildings came men leading a score of horses—short, hardy animals that were barely taller than ponies. Their coats were shaggier than those of any horse Murtagh had seen before, as if they were wearing their own knotted blankets for warmth in the long northern winters.

The cultists gave him a mare with a liver chestnut coat to ride. She was a far cry from the chargers he’d been trained on, but the animal seemed steady enough. He just hoped the mare’s nerve would hold during the hunt.

Before getting on the horse, he slipped off his cloak and tucked it into one of Thorn’s saddlebags. It would only hinder him when on foot.

As he climbed onto the mare, Thorn’s disapproval washed over him. It does not seem right to see you ride one of those hornless deer animals.

Horses. They’re called horses, and you know that.

But it sounds more insulting to call them hornless deer.

Murtagh glanced over. If Thorn were human, he would have sworn the dragon was smiling. You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?

Thorn coughed in his chest. It is not every day I see a Rider riding a horse.

As the hunting party readied itself for departure, a realization came to Murtagh: Dogs…They don’t have any dogs. Now that he thought of it, the village was surprisingly quiet. There were no hounds baying, nor were there mutts yapping in the streets or scrapping over food. It was an odd thing. In all his years and all his travels, Murtagh had never before seen a human settlement without dogs.

Are dogs so important? Thorn asked.

They are. For the common man, having a dog is the closest thing to the bond you and I share.

Do you mean to compare dragons to dogs?

No, no. Not as such, only to say that the connection a human may share with a dog can—in part—resemble the connection that we have.

Thorn seemed unconvinced. Mmm. Did you ever have a dog?

You know I didn’t…. The other boys would have hurt or killed any dog I owned.

Thorn’s lip wrinkled slightly, not enough that others would notice, but Murtagh saw. They would not have dared were I there.

Murtagh chuckled. No. That they wouldn’t.

He coaxed his mare to sidestep over to Bachel. “I notice you have no dogs.”

Disdain sharpened the witch’s angled features. “And for good reason. They are blasphemous creatures.”

“Dogs?”

“They refuse to accept the insight one may receive through the power of this place. No dog will stay here in Nal Gorgoth, and that has ever been the case. Crows are wiser. They understand the promise of dream.”

“How will you drive the boars, though?”

Her hooded gaze grew mysterious. “You shall see, Kingkiller. We will not need such assistance as you are accustomed to.”

As the group organized their provisions, Murtagh spotted Alín watching from among the temple’s shadowed pillars, a furtive figure half hidden behind the carved stone.

When everyone in the party was mounted up, Bachel lifted a spear over her head and cried, “With me!” and spurred her shaggy stallion forward, away from the temple and into the village.

Murtagh was tempted to brandish Zar’roc, as if rallying troops, but instead he spurred his mare and followed at a sedate pace. The cultists trailed after, and Thorn brought up the rear, his weighted tread shaking dust from the shingles of the buildings.

Dozens of villagers gathered along the streets to watch them depart. Murtagh spotted a surprising number of children among their ranks. It seems like there ought to be more people here, given how many children they have, he said to Thorn. It’s odd.

The dragon answered: Perhaps they send the younglings elsewhere when they are grown.

Once the party reached the edge of Nal Gorgoth, Bachel reined in her stallion and pointed toward the southern side of the valley. “Do you see that small gap between the mountains, Kingkiller? Where the trees follow a stream out of the heights? That is our destination.”

“We will find boars there, my Lady?”

“Enough to feed a thunder of dragons!” Then she spurred her stallion again, bending low over the horse’s neck as he sprang forward with a startled snort over the blackened earth.

Grieve scowled and lashed the side of his mare as he followed. “Keep with the Speaker, blast you!” he shouted at the warriors who filled out their party.

With a clamor of drumming hooves and the cries of the excited men, the group headed south toward the narrow wedge of space that separated one mountain from the next.

It will be a wonder if we don’t scare away all the boars with this ruckus, said Murtagh.

Thorn surprised him then by taking flight; his wings cast a crimson shadow upon the group as he soared over them. I will scout ahead and see where our prey might be, before you drive them from their feeding grounds and watering holes.

Murtagh watched with some regret as Thorn rose with enviable ease above the foothills. He wished he were riding Thorn instead of the mare with the coat of liver chestnut; he hated being left behind among strangers.

Most of all, he hated how familiar a feeling it was.

The air grew warmer as they neared the sliver of a side valley, and more and more wisps of smoke rose like garden eels from the crusted earth. A few times, a scrap of wind-torn smoke struck him in the face, and he gagged from the overwhelming stench of sulfur. The land had a charred and barren appearance, as if razed by fire in the recent past.

Bachel had slowed her stallion to a more measured pace, so Murtagh rode up next to her. “I’ve never seen a place like this before, except for the Burning Plains far to the south. And those don’t smell of brimstone.”

The witch nodded. “There are many such places, Kingkiller, scattered about Alagaësia, though you will not easily find them. There is another, not far south of here: the barrows of Anghelm, where Kulkarvek the Terrible is buried in state.”

Murtagh fought to hide his reaction. Kulkarvek was the only Urgal known to have united their fractious race under a single banner, an event that had occurred long before the fall of the Riders, if stories were to be trusted. His resting place was one of the other locations—along with the ruins of El-harím and Vroengard Island—that Umaroth had warned Thorn and Murtagh to avoid.

But what bothered him most was the implication that there were many such places throughout Alagaësia: places where the ground was burnt and the air smelled of brimstone.

Why aren’t they more widely known? he asked Thorn. Even if they’re in remote, isolated locations, surely the Riders or others would have noticed any place that smelled like this. It would be difficult to hide, especially from the air.

A weirding veil, perhaps? A spell that hides the obvious from sight?

Wards ought to block that sort of thing.

It depends on the spell. You know that. It could be an enchantment of a sort none now are familiar with. Or something akin to the Banishing of the Names.

Murtagh glanced up at Thorn. Dragon magic?…Do you feel something of that here?

I do not know what I feel, only that the land seems alive, despite the charring.

The world narrowed around them as the hunting party entered the side valley and the mountains pinched close, until the foothills were only a few hundred feet apart and dense ranks of trees blocked their sight. It was good, Murtagh thought, that Thorn was in the air and not there in such tight quarters.

Bachel led the way along a well-trodden path that wound between the tall pines.

Past the gap, the valley widened again, and Murtagh beheld what elsewhere in the Spine would have been a long alpine field where deer and bears and other wildlife would gather. Not here. Here the earth was still scorched and blackened, and the trees were dead and skeletal—bare of all but a few clumps of brittle needles. None of which made as strong an impression on Murtagh as the enormous numbers of mushrooms growing from the ground.

They came in all kinds. Brown-capped, white-capped, round as puffballs, tiered like the temple in Nal Gorgoth, broad as shields or as tall and narrow as a spear; the profusion of forms was overwhelming. There were gilled mushrooms, and mushrooms as red as ladybugs, and huge woody funguses that rose higher than a horse-mounted man. A rich, savory smell scented the area—like a cut of well-cooked beef—and thin veils of brown spores drifted upward along currents of rising air, mixing with the wisps of vapor from the ground.

Amid the field and forest of mushrooms, Murtagh spotted dark shapes moving through the shadows: monstrous wild boars, ridge-backed and covered in coarse black bristles.

“They eat the mushrooms and grow to exceptional size because of it,” Bachel explained, bringing her horse alongside his. “It gives their meat a taste unlike any other.”

Murtagh shook his head, still taking in the sight. “I’ve never seen or heard of mushrooms like these.”

“The ground here suits them as much as it is hostile to green growing plants.”

From above, it looks as if the ground is covered with melted fat, said Thorn, circling over the far end of the narrow crevice splitting the Spine, some miles away.

Delightful, Murtagh replied.

Bachel continued: “As you can see, we need no drivers. We are our own drivers. We will push toward the head of the valley, and the boars will gather before us. If your dragon—”

“He is only mine as much as I am his.”

Her eyelids drooped with what seemed like amusement. “Of course, Kingkiller. If Thorn wishes to hunt there at the other end, he might help us and so trap the boars between our spears and his teeth and claws.”

It is a good plan, said Thorn, and Murtagh could almost hear him snap his jaws shut with finality. I will do so. The dragon folded his crimson wings and dove toward the far end of the valley, a burning meteor blazing.

The ranks of mushrooms hid Thorn as he descended.

Then Bachel lifted her spear. “Dismount!” The hunting party obeyed, as did Murtagh, grateful to be rid of the liver chestnut mare for the time being.

Some seconds later, a muted thud rolled down the valley: the sound of Thorn’s impact belatedly arriving.

There were, Murtagh saw, numerous game trails wending through the expanse of overgrown mushrooms—pathways pounded flat by the passage of countless sharp hooves.

Along with the cultists, Murtagh staked and hobbled his horse and then set out on foot along the near trail. The ground, though blackened, was softer than by Nal Gorgoth, as if the entire subsurface were riddled with fungus.

Murtagh made a face as he stepped on a shelf of brown mushroom and it dissolved into a slippery, foul-smelling liquid the color of night soil.

“Spread out,” commanded Bachel. Her warriors responded quickly, forming an arching line to either side of her. Grieve remained close by, which she seemed to expect.

Murtagh moved away from the group toward the eastern side of the valley. He wanted space to maneuver; hunting with strangers was always a dangerous proposition, and doubly so here. Besides, he knew from past boar hunts that having room to run was often the difference between success and injury or death.

“Where are you going, Kingkiller?” Bachel called out in a gay voice.

“I hunt better alone, Lady Bachel!” he answered in a like tone.

She flashed him a savage smile. The mushrooms appeared archaic—primitive predecessors of more finely finished plants—as if they’d endured from a time beyond recorded history, and Bachel seemed a part of that ancient remnant. “Only remember to control your tongue, Kingkiller. You must make your kill without magic.”

“Oh, that I shall,” he muttered. No matter how poor the metal used to make the spears they’d given him, Murtagh knew he could deliver at least one fatal blow apiece.

Step by measured step, they proceeded up the valley. Ahead of them, an occasional roar sounded as Thorn chased this boar or that. It wasn’t long before the dragon touched his mind again, and Murtagh found it full of blood and excitement and the hot thrill of the hunt.

The witch was right, said Thorn. The meat is good.

Murtagh laughed softly. That should be all the recommendation a butcher or cook needs. A dragon said, “The meat is good.”

Thorn roared with amusement.

Mushrooms crunched and squished and snapped beneath Murtagh’s boots with every step. The soft fungal bodies made it difficult to keep a steady footing. He was off any trail now, which wasn’t ideal for finding game, but it allowed him to keep his distance from Bachel’s group, a few hundred feet to his right.

His senses sharpened as he neared the edge of a dense stand of…he wasn’t sure what to call them. Mushroom trees? Their gnarled trunks were as broad as a horse’s chest and had scraps of cobweb-like membranes clinging to them. Please, no giant spiders, Murtagh thought. He would rather face a horde of Urgals barehanded.

The air was thick and moist and smelled fleshy and overheated, as if he were pressed close against an enormous, sweating armpit. He grimaced and moved forward with caution, eyes darting from shadow to shadow as he looked for any boars.

Would it be using magic to find the beasts with my mind?

He hadn’t meant the thought for Thorn, but the dragon answered all the same: Do you care about pleasing Bachel?

I care about keeping my word.

Murtagh decided to rely on only his eyes and ears for the time being. It made for an even more interesting challenge.

A chorus of squeals and grunts sounded across the field to his right. He dropped into a crouch as he spotted a cluster of seven or so hogs—boars and sows alike—run out from under the treelike mushrooms and charge Bachel and her line of warriors.

Bachel sank to one knee, planting the butt of her spear against the instep of her back foot and aiming the tip of the blade toward the oncoming beasts. Her warriors did the same, and she loosed a piercing cry that captured the attention of the lead boar and drew it toward her as metal to a lodestone.

Murtagh watched, momentarily breathless, as the animals closed the distance between them and the cultists, crashing through every mushroom in their way.

Some of the hogs bypassed the waiting cultists. But three—including the lead boar—plowed straight into the hunters, impaling themselves on the weapons. One of the warriors fell, and he screamed as a hog trampled him, gouts of blood spurting from the animal’s gored chest.

Bachel caught her prey on the point of her spear. The impact drove her back several inches. Then she dug in her heels, thrust hard, and forced the spear through the chest of the outraged boar. With a gleeful cry, she stood and lifted the boar upon her spear and then slammed the dying animal back down against the ground. It was a feat of astonishing strength. Even with the heightened abilities of a Rider, Murtagh knew he would have been unable to perform such an act without the help of magic.

Bachel planted a foot upon the back of the fallen boar, spread her arms and threw back her head and filled the valley with her triumphant ululation.

The sight and sound sent a savage thrill through Murtagh. The witch was as a wild beast, pure and fierce and terrifying. In that moment, she seemed more like a dragon than either human or elf.

“That is one to me, Kingkiller!” Bachel cried without looking at him. Behind her, the trampled warrior lay groaning on the ground, his broken chest heaving. The man’s hog was on its side a few steps away, a wide wound in its breast, and it kicked and shuddered as it bled out.

Then a thousand more squeals seemed to sound: a tormented assault upon their ears as first dozens and then hundreds of wild pigs stormed out of the mass of overgrown mushrooms in front of Bachel and her warriors. Beyond, Murtagh heard Thorn approaching, the dragon making no attempt to conceal his heavy tread.

Distracted, Murtagh peered between the trunks of the mushroom trees in an effort to better see. He glimpsed Bachel setting her spear again, and the warriors closing in to protect her flanks.

Another grunting squeal sounded, startling in its nearness.

Murtagh dropped to one knee as a bristling shadow charged toward him through the fungal forest. Tusks flashed white and sharp in the dim light, and a reddened mouth gaped, and small eyes rolled, black and beady. The boar uttered a coughing bark that Murtagh had heard in more than a few nightmares, and then it was upon him.

The boar slammed into him with shocking force. The animal was denser than any human and many times stronger. Murtagh felt his spear sink into the beast’s deep chest, and likewise, he felt the vibration along the haft as the iron blade struck a rib and snapped in two.

The boar squealed and twisted sideways as it tumbled into Murtagh. They both fell to the blackened ground in a tangle of arms and kicking legs.

Sharp, hard blows struck Murtagh along the ribs and the back of his head, and though his wards flared to life, the blows still hurt.

He yelled and tried to rise, but the boar was lying athwart him, kicking and thrashing, and Murtagh couldn’t find a good angle to push himself upright.

Then more boars rushed past—a torrent of frightened, blood-maddened beasts—and their weight drove him into the slippery, slimy mire of the crushed mushrooms. A thick, rotting stench clogged his nostrils, making it impossible to breathe. Dozens of sharp hooves dug into his back, deadly as any dagger, and his wards drew even more of his strength.

The squealing and grunting were deafening. A crimson tunnel closed in around his vision, darkening the world.

Murtagh groped for Zar’roc. His fingers found the pommel, but he didn’t have room to draw the sword while lying on his belly.

A word from the ancient language leapt to mind. A single utterance and he could drive the boars away or else kill them entirely. But then he would have failed Bachel’s challenge, and failure was more painful than the blows battering his frame.

He managed a quick, shallow breath. It wasn’t enough.

Blast it. He was running out of time. If—

He cried out in pain as a boar stomped on his right elbow. His wards kept the joint from breaking, but the pressure pushed his arm into the soft soil, and the angle caused something in his elbow to stretch or snap.

Then a black hoof came down along the side of his head, scraping his skull, and the impact whipped his neck to the side.

Stars filled his vision, and the world grew dark and hazy, and all sound faded into the distance, dimly heard and badly apprehended.

CHAPTER VIII Mother’s Mercy

A black sun rimmed by black flame hung against a darkling sky. The stars were faded, guttering; the air cold and dry, and a bitter wind blew from the north.

The world was dead. All the ground was cracked and charred as by Nal Gorgoth. Bare trees stood on the flanks of slumped mountains, the sharpness of their peaks defeated by the passage of uncounted eons. No birds or beasts were to be seen; if he wandered to the ends of the land, he knew he would find nothing but bones and ashes.

Existence was a tomb wherein the sins of the past lay interred.

But no…not entirely.

Ahead of him, close to the dim grey horizon, an enormous section of the ground heaved upward, as if the world itself were breaking apart, but the sawbacked enormity moved and shifted as only a living creature could. Flecks of red flashed from the silhouette, like coals seen through smoked glass.

Dread consumed him. Total, thought-destroying dread that caused his limbs to go limp and his mind to go slack with unremitting fear. All had been lost, and there before him lay the instrument of their destruction.

The beast rose rampant against the black sun—a wingless dragon, apocalyptic in size, terrifying in presence. Destroyer of hope, eater of light, snake-tongued and hook-clawed.

And the beast turned, and its flaming eye settled on him, and he shrank before it, feeling death’s cold touch seize his heart, feeling the helpless, inevitable surrender before what could not be changed, what could not be stopped.

The dragon’s mouth parted, and withering flame lit its maw, and—

“Wake! Wake, Kingkiller!”

Murtagh’s eyes snapped open, and he jolted upright with a panicked yell as fire coursed through his veins and his heart convulsed like a dying rabbit.

Bachel stood over him, blood-smeared, black-bladed dagger in one hand, spear in the other. Grieve and her warriors ringed them, and half a dozen dead hogs lay on the trampled ground nearby: a battlefield in miniature, but no less fraught or deadly because of it.

Before Murtagh could collect himself well enough to understand what had happened, much less speak, Thorn crashed through the forest of mushrooms, roaring as he came. He stopped directly over Murtagh and turned and snarled as he searched for foes. The sun was behind Thorn, and his scales sparked red and bright.

The sight caused Murtagh to flinch as he remembered his vision of desolation. Deathly fear again gripped him.

Thorn reached for him with a paw, as if to pick him up and fly away, and Murtagh raised a hand. “No,” he croaked. “I’m fine.” He wasn’t, and Thorn knew it.

The dragon said, Are you wounded?

Murtagh got to his feet, unsteady. He checked himself. None of the blood seemed to be his, but his right elbow throbbed, and it was already starting to swell. He bent and extended his arm; it still moved as it should. So nothing torn. He cast a quick healing spell—careful to speak the words without sound—and only then noticed how deeply exhausted his wards had left him. His hands and feet were cold, and there was a gnawing hunger in his belly. Nothing too serious. Did you see what I saw?…The dragon?

No, said Thorn, baring even more of his teeth. Your mind was closed to me.

Murtagh was so shaken, he didn’t pause to consider the wisdom of his action as he shared the memory with Thorn in all its terror-inducing immediacy. A deep hiss came from Thorn, and he dug his claws into the ground. Murtagh felt his own fear reflected in Thorn’s thoughts.

It was just a dream, Murtagh hastily said.

An evil one, though. Perhaps it was more than just a dream.

A premonition? They can’t reach that far into the future.

Thorn shivered and lowered his head until his eyes were level with Murtagh’s. Is that known for sure? Who has proved it?

I—

“My son, are you hurt?” asked Bachel. She pointed with her dagger at the blood on Murtagh’s chest. His jerkin was torn, and the air was cold against his skin. “You are covered in gore.”

The tip of the dagger was uncomfortably close. Murtagh fell back a half step. His hand moved to Zar’roc’s hilt. “Not hurt, no. Thank you for…helping.”

The witch nodded, satisfied. She wiped her dagger on her leather vambrace and sheathed it. “It is better to hunt as part of a group than to hunt alone.”

“You might be right.” He shivered and rubbed his arms, trying to coax warmth back into his limbs. “When I was on the ground, I saw…I saw a vision. An evil one.”

Bachel’s expression grew intense, and she stepped forward and grasped his shoulder with her free hand. Surprised, he resisted the urge to knock her hand away. The witch’s grip was like heated iron. “A vision,” she said, her voice low and forceful. “Describe it to me, my son. Quickly now, before your memory fades. It is important.”

Annoyed but also curious, Murtagh complied, speaking in swift, short sentences, eager to force the words out so he could stop thinking about the black sun and the impossibly large dragon….

Grieve and the warriors listened with close attention, and they murmured with what seemed to be either awe or reverence as he described the dragon.

“Ah,” said Bachel. “You are indeed fortunate.” She released him and circled her hand above her head, indicating both the small side valley and the cleft that contained Nal Gorgoth. “All who come here dream, but few there are who receive such clear portents, and those who do often become Speakers themselves.”

“Have there been many Speakers?” asked Murtagh.

“My Lady,” said Grieve in a tense voice. “It is not right for an outsider to kn—”

“Tsk, tsk,” said Bachel. “Our guest is no ordinary person. Indeed not.” A disapproving scowl settled on Grieve’s seamed face, and he pulled at the cuff of his blood-splattered robe in a nervous, angry manner, as if what he really wanted to do was wrap his thick fingers around Murtagh’s neck.

In a grand voice, the witch said, “There have been many Speakers—some false, some true—through the ages. We are Du Eld Draumar, and we have lived in these places of power since before elves were elves. We were known to the Grey Folk themselves…known and feared.”

Murtagh translated in his head. Du Eld Draumar was a fancy way of saying The Old Dreamers, but as it was cast in the ancient language, the name held more truth than it would have in any other tongue. “I believe you,” he said, and he meant it. Although he doubted Bachel would give him a straightforward answer, he asked, “What, in your judgment, does the vision mean, O Speaker?”

“It is a gift. The exhalations of this land have shown you a vision of the sacred mystery that lies at the heart of our creed. What you saw, Kingkiller, is a portion of what may yet be.”

“As a warning?”

She surprised him by taking his hand and pressing it flat against his chest, over his heart. Her fingers were sticky with blood. And she answered in a low, serious tone with no hint of anything but utter sincerity. “As a promise.” Then she let go.

A hot-cold touch of his dream-born fear gripped Murtagh. He shrank in on himself and found he had lost his taste for further questions.

She lies, said Thorn.

If she does, she believes the lie.

Murtagh looked back at the warriors and counted. Two more were missing. Through the mushroom trees Thorn had knocked over, the open field was visible. In the center of it lay several lifeless hogs, as well as the three downed warriors. One of the men was still moving, albeit feebly. Splattered blood, human and animal alike, stained the mushroom caps in a reddened ring.

“The beasts have cost us,” said Murtagh.

Bachel nodded in a serious manner, though she seemed neither sad nor upset, but rather prideful. “My men have served well today, Kingkiller, and those who fell, fell in service of our faith. Their sacrifice will not go unforgotten or unrewarded.”

The warriors bowed their heads and, as one, said, “As it is dreamt, so it shall be.”

At that, Murtagh thought Bachel would attend to her wounded, or at least dispatch some men to do so. Instead, she gestured at the boar he had slain. “You have taken a fine beast, Kingkiller. I expected nothing less.”

In death, the boar seemed smaller, though still imposing; it must have been equal in weight to several large men. His spear projected from the center of the animal’s chest, the haft a broken splinter.

With a bow and an extended hand, as if requesting a dance at court, Murtagh said, “And without the aid of the slightest charm or spell, my Lady.”

“So I saw,” Bachel replied. “But were it not for our help, would you have lived? Does such a victory count as a victory in truth?”

Murtagh raised an eyebrow. He did not feel like bandying words, but he could not allow her challenge to pass uncontested. “I killed the boar, my Lady, and dead he would have been no matter what happened to me. As that was my goal, yes, I would count it a victory.”

A small smile touched Bachel’s lips. “A fair point, my son.” In the open field, the wounded man let out an agonized groan. The sound drew her attention, and she turned from Murtagh. “Come,” she said, and strode toward the field.

The command annoyed Murtagh, but he followed nonetheless. Should I offer to heal him? he asked Thorn.

Wait to see what magic the witch can work. If she cannot heal the man, then offer to help.

A good idea.

Quickening his pace, Murtagh drew abreast of Bachel and gestured at the dead boars ahead of them. “You made a heroic kill, Lady Bachel.”

She hardly seemed to react to the praise, as if it were merely her apportioned due. “It was of a kind with all my kills, Rider.”

Of that, Murtagh was convinced.

As they approached the churned mess of blood and crushed mushrooms in the center of the field, it became evident that the two warriors who lay motionless on the ground were already dead.

Bachel knelt by the man who still breathed. His jerkin draped inward along the great divot in his chest where his ribs were broken. Bloody slaver coated his chin, and his breathing was hitched and shallow. A punctured lung, Murtagh guessed, if not worse.

With a gentle hand, Bachel smoothed the man’s brow. He opened his eyes and looked up at her, and in his gaze, Murtagh saw utter devotion.

“Shh,” said Bachel, her voice calm and vast as a windless ocean. “Be of good heart, Rauden. You have served well.”

The man nodded. Tears filled his eyes, and with enormous depth of feeling, he whispered, “Mehtra.”

Affection softened Bachel’s face, and she bent close to him. “Sehtra.” Then, with a smooth, quick motion, she drew her black-bladed dagger, placed it under the man’s chin, and shoved it into his head. He convulsed and went limp.

“Shade’s blood!” Murtagh swore, and started forward. Around them, the warriors raised their spears. “I could have healed him!”

Bachel withdrew her dagger and wiped it clean on the man’s shirt. “He was beyond healing, my son.”

“Not for me! You should have let me try!”

Bachel rose and turned to face Murtagh. Her expression was fierce and terrible but also sorrowful. “Do not think to question me, Rider! You do not know our ways! We seek to serve the Dreamer however we can, each and every one of us, and when our time is come, we yearn to return to He who dreams us. It is our greatest desire.”

“Yes, but—”

“The matter is closed, Murtagh son of Morzan. Enough!”

Disapproval pinched Murtagh’s features, and he set his jaw. As if by magic, Bachel seemed to transform before him; he saw cruelty in her features now and the stubbornness of deluded certainty. And he wondered at his own credulity. Then cold settled in his gut as he became aware of the potential danger of the situation and all emotion abandoned him, leaving him a hollow shell. He affected the same bland, noncommittal aspect that had served him so well at court. “Of course, my Lady. My apologies.”

Bachel inclined her head and then turned back to the dead man and placed a hand upon his brow. She murmured something and closed the man’s blank, unseeing eyes.

The witch was silent for a moment, her features inscrutable. Then: “Grieve, see to it that our kills are collected and our fallen too. Bring them to Nal Gorgoth, that we may feast upon our triumph.”

“Speaker.”

Bachel nodded and strode forth from the bodies and broken mushrooms toward the horses.

Murtagh watched her go. Then he looked at Grieve, who was directing the warriors to gut and truss the boars. “What does mehtra mean?”

Grieve gave him a sullen glare and bent to help another man with a boar. “It means mother, Outlander. For Bachel is as our mother in all things, and we trust her as such.”

“And sehtra?”

“Son.”

In a daze, Murtagh walked to Thorn. She’s as ruthless as Galbatorix.

The dragon agreed. And yet her people still care for her.

Rauden called her mother even knowing she was about to kill him. Galbatorix never inspired such love. Only fear.

For a moment, Murtagh debated following Bachel and riding back upon the liver chestnut mare. But he didn’t want to be anywhere near her. Not right then.

He turned to Thorn. “No more horses.” And he reached for the stirrup hanging down Thorn’s left side.

The dragon crouched lower so that Murtagh could catch the loop of boiled leather and pull himself up onto Thorn’s back. Good.

“Can you bring my boar? I would rather not wait on B—”

The name was still in his mouth when Thorn lurched up to his full standing height, startling the warriors, who leapt away. Light as a cat, Thorn padded over to where Murtagh had made his kill.

With one foot, Thorn scooped up the hog’s bloody carcass. Then he jumped skyward and flew away from the field of slaughter.

CHAPTER IX Breaking Point

I’m sorry for scaring you. The boar caught me by surprise.

A deep huff emanated from Thorn as he climbed over the flank of a mountain, heading back toward Nal Gorgoth. You should be more careful.

I should…. I might need to rework my wards. I think I’ve been too lax with what they allow.

Thorn executed a slow turn over Nal Gorgoth. Seeing the village once more from above, Murtagh noticed that the buildings were laid out in intersecting circles, like rings on a rain-pelted pond.

Thorn said, Do you still wish to stay through the night?

I don’t know. An image flashed through Murtagh’s mind of the black sun over a barren land, and he again felt the bitter touch of a northern wind. He hugged himself, and for the first time, he wondered if Bachel’s answers were the sort he actually wanted to hear. There’s something very wrong here.

Very, very wrong.

As they landed in the courtyard, Alín approached from within the temple, bearing a pitcher of water with a cloth and basin. It was a welcome sight. Murtagh could feel the filth on his skin, blood and dirt and the dried juice of crushed mushrooms all intermixed.

Accompanying Alín was the temple cook—a surly, heavyset woman with a stained apron and forearms as large as a baker’s—and a half-dozen scullions. Together, cook and scullions braved Thorn’s close inspection to fetch Murtagh’s boar and carry it away to be butchered.

Murtagh was glad to see the beast gone. He’d had his fill of boar hunting for the rest of time.

Alín placed the pitcher, cloth, and basin on the flagstones, bowed, and retreated to a safe distance.

“My thanks,” said Murtagh. She averted her eyes as he pulled off his torn, bloodstained jerkin and the woolen shirt beneath. He cursed. Both garments were ruined. He would have to wear his linen shirt until he could acquire replacements.

“How went the hunt, my Lord?” Alín asked in a soft voice.

Murtagh wet the cloth and scrubbed at the blood on his skin. It clung to him with stubborn persistence. “If your only measure of success is the number of animals killed, well enough. Otherwise, I would say badly. Very badly. The beasts took three of your men.”

Alín bowed her head. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Murtagh grunted. “Are you, now? Bachel stuck a dagger into one of the men. Rauden was his name. Is that how things are done among your kind?”

Pale blue eyes met his gaze and held it. “Was Rauden wounded?”

Reluctantly, Murtagh said, “He was. But I could have helped him. Or Bachel could have.”

Alín’s resolve and conviction never seemed to falter. “Perhaps that is true, my Lord, but I trust our Speaker’s judgment. She knows what is best for us, and if it was Rauden’s time to leave this life and rejoin the greater dream, then it is good that Bachel was there to ease his journey. None of us could ask for more.”

“Because she is your mehtra.”

A flash of disapproval crossed Alín’s face. “We do not call her that lightly, Kingkiller.”

“I’m not sure why you call her that at all. She doesn’t seem like much of a mother.”

She lifted her chin. “You must understand, my Lord, that Bachel is the Speaker. Her concerns transcend those of normal mortals. You cannot expect to know or understand her. If what she did seems wrong to you, the fault lies not with her. She can do no wrong.”

Murtagh chewed on that. There was a possibility, a very, very slight possibility, that Alín was right. If Bachel could see the future, then every choice she made might be the correct one. And yet surely killing Rauden couldn’t be justified.

His lip curled. “So says everyone who wishes to hold power and not be challenged.”

“You are unfair, my Lord. No king or queen has ever had as much right to rule as does Bachel, nor as much responsibility.”

Abandoning the cloth, Murtagh bent and poured the contents of the pitcher over his head and shoulders. The water was shockingly cold, even more so in the unseasonable warmth that pervaded Nal Gorgoth, and yet it was a relief and a pleasure to feel himself at least partially clean.

“Is that so?”

Alín nodded, earnest. “Her burdens are immense, my Lord. The life of any one man—of any one of us here in Nal Gorgoth—is as a speck of dust when weighed against the importance of the Speaker’s duties.”

Murtagh didn’t feel like forcing the issue. He shook his hair dry and turned to retrieve his linen shirt from the saddlebags.

As he did, he heard Alín let out a small gasp, and he knew she had noticed the scar on his back. Grim curiosity drove him to look at her, expecting to see either pity or disgust distorting her face.

He saw neither. Her face was soft with what he could only interpret as compassion. Understanding, even. The anger that had been building within him drained away, leaving him hollow and off-guard.

“Oh,” she said. “In what battle were you wounded? Was it Eragon who—”

“No.”

“Then was it Galbatorix or—”

“It was my father.”

Her eyes grew very wide, and then Murtagh did see pity in her gaze, and he couldn’t bear it, so he turned away and busied himself retrieving his linen shirt. Alín was silent the whole while.

Thorn gave Murtagh a comforting nudge on the shoulder, and Murtagh patted him without looking. Then Thorn started to lick the scales along his forelegs, and the claws too, cleaning them of the dirt and boar’s blood that darkened them. His barbed tongue rasped with each stroke.

“Ah! Wait, please! I can help,” said Alín. She gave a quick bow and scurried back into the temple.

Thorn paused and watched with curiosity.

“What do you think—” Murtagh stopped as he saw her returning with another basin, this one full of water, and several more cloths draped over the crooks of her arms.

Alín placed the basin on the stones in front of Thorn’s forefeet and bowed again. “Please, Dragon, will you let me wash you?”

Murtagh felt Thorn consider, and then Thorn opened his mind to her and said, You may.

The reverberation of his words caused Alín to blink and step back, but then she bobbed her head and wet a cloth and—with as much care as if she were cleaning the jewels on a king’s crown, fragile with age—began to wipe the blood and dirt from Thorn’s scales.

Murtagh watched, unsure of what to make of it, but touched by her consideration. In all his time with Thorn, he had never bothered to help clean the dragon. Thorn was fastidious with his grooming, and Murtagh had seen no reason to offer aid.

He said, “So your vows allow you to touch Thorn but not me? He is as much a he as I am.”

Alín pursed her lips as she worked the cloth under the tip of a scale. “You know better than that, my Lord. Thorn is neither human nor elf nor dwarf nor Urgal. It is different with him. Besides, my faith would never forbid me the touch of a dragon. That would be…Why, that would be like locking a person underground and refusing to let them feel the touch of the sun upon their face.”

“Are dragons really so essential to you and the rest of the Draumar?”

“They are. More than I can explain to an outlander.”

“Mmh.” Murtagh looked toward the side valley. Bachel and her retinue had yet to arrive back at Nal Gorgoth. “I had a vision during the hunt.”

Startlement flitted across Alín’s face, but she hid it quickly. “We have many visions in Nal Gorgoth, my Lord.”

“Yes, but this one was different, I think.”

Murtagh described it to her as she continued to work on Thorn’s feet and legs. The acolyte appeared increasingly uncomfortable, until—as he mentioned the dragon—she said, “Stop! No more, my Lord. This is for the Speaker to hear and interpret, not I.”

“And yet I would hear your thoughts,” Murtagh said, and forged onward with his account.

Alín let out a cry, dropped the cloth, and clapped her hands over her ears. “This…No, no! I cannot hear any more!” And with her hands still about her head, she fled the courtyard.

Murtagh watched her go, frustrated. No matter how else he tried to gather information about the Draumar, all paths seemed to lead back to Bachel.

Beside him, Thorn lifted a foot and inspected his now-glittering scales. He licked at a remaining smear of grime. Alín is not a bad person.

“No, but her loyalty is firmly fixed on Bachel.”

Then Murtagh took the last two dried apples from Thorn’s saddlebags, sat upon Thorn’s right foreleg, and set to eating while they waited. His mind was a muddle of indecision. He kept seeing flashes of the boar trampling him, and also Bachel shoving the dagger into Rauden, and the black sun hanging in a dead sky…. And he kept asking himself: What could be so important that the people of Nal Gorgoth were willing to die without hesitation?

He had to talk with Bachel again. Had to try to find out why she had acted the way she did. If there was a reasonable explanation, perhaps then…But no. How could there be?

What do you make of all this? he asked Thorn.

Before the dragon could answer, Bachel and what remained of the hunting party clattered into the courtyard. The shaggy mountain horses were lathered and steaming. They dragged behind them makeshift litters of branches lashed together, upon which rested the corpses of the slain boars and fallen warriors.

Murtagh stood and started toward Bachel, determined to push past her evasions.

He hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps when a heartrending wail filled the courtyard as a barefooted woman ran forth from among the houses. Her hair was undone and flew free behind her like a pennant of flame. She went straight to the litters and fell upon Rauden’s body, wailing all the while, deep, agonizing cries that hurt to hear.

Murtagh stopped in his tracks. A crowd of villagers gathered about the edge of the courtyard, watching.

Bachel went to the woman and placed a hand upon her head. “My daughter,” she said in a sorrowful tone. And then she spoke to the woman in a voice intended only for her.

The grieving woman nodded, and though her tears did not cease, Murtagh heard her say, “Thank you, Mehtra.” And what surprised him was that she seemed to mean it.

Then Bachel turned her attention to the assembled villagers. “My children! Our dead need burying, that they may sleep, and dream, in peace. Come with me, that we may see it done and done rightly, and after we may celebrate their lives with this bounty the Dreamer has given us. Come! Let us—”

A clatter of iron and a bark of harsh orders—“Move! Forward!”—among the streets of the village interrupted her.

Bachel seemed unsurprised. “Make way!” she commanded, and the people did.

Murtagh and Thorn turned to look. What now? wondered Murtagh.

Four spear-carrying warriors drove a line of shackled prisoners into the courtyard. Murtagh counted quickly; there were twenty-one men and women bound in irons, disheveled, dirty-faced, and dull and listless as if they had already given up all hope of freedom. They were a mix of young and old, though none were children. By their clothes, Murtagh guessed the prisoners were commoners from somewhere near Ceunon. Taken off a ship, perhaps, or captured in a raid along the Bay of Fundor.

Thorn hissed and bared his teeth slightly. I know, Murtagh said.

With his heavy, lurching stride, Grieve went to the warriors guarding the prisoners. He spoke with them and then returned to his mistress’s side. “Your latest thralls, Speaker.”

“Thralls?” Murtagh said loudly, making no attempt to hide his outrage. He was not fond of serfdom or slavery or any sort of enforced bondage. One of the first changes Nasuada had made upon assuming the throne in Ilirea was outlawing such practices throughout her realm, a change Murtagh thoroughly approved of. Though he felt she had somewhat undercut the decree by requiring magicians to join Du Vrangr Gata or else have their abilities suppressed through herbs and potions.

Bachel gave the prisoners an appraising look. “Thralls soon to join us in our high and terrible cause.”

“You expect these sorry folk to swear loyalty to you?” said Murtagh.

Bachel arched an eyebrow. In her blood-spattered clothes, she had a fantastic aspect, as if she were a spirit of the forest given life and as dangerous as any wild beast. “All who serve our cause here in Nal Gorgoth serve willingly, my son. Even as you shall.”

“That…is difficult to believe.”

“And yet, so it is, my son. You must have faith.”

“How can I if I do not even know what your cause is?”

Inscrutable as ever, Bachel turned away. “Soon all shall be revealed, Kingkiller, but I warn you, you may find understanding more difficult than ignorance.” To the warriors guarding the prisoners, she said, “Take them away. I shall grant them audience later.” And then she returned to her fallen warriors and walked beside them as the cultists carried the bodies into the temple. With them went Rauden’s widow, clutching at her breast.

Murtagh watched them go, feeling helpless. He could not bring himself to intrude upon a funeral procession. So he stayed by Thorn and twisted Zar’roc’s hilt until the skin on his palm nearly tore.

Murtagh knew that he might have learned more about the Draumar from the rites attending the burial of their men, but for the present, he could no longer tolerate Bachel or the rest of the villagers. Instead, he said to Thorn, I need to move.

They left the courtyard, and Murtagh wandered with brisk steps through Nal Gorgoth. The village was eerily empty; all of the cultists were in the temple, and the only sounds of life came from the crows in the Tower of Flint and the livestock penned along the periphery of the village. As for the prisoners—the thralls—the warriors had marched them away from the temple and out of sight. Murtagh nearly used his mind to search for them but then decided to hold.

There would be time enough for that later.

Thorn trailed him, being careful not to scrape his scales against the sides of the buildings and destroy the aged carvings or knock loose one of the dragon-like sculptures.

Murtagh stopped and studied the sculptures. That they resembled dragons was undeniable, but it was equally certain that the creatures depicted differed in subtle ways that made them feel like a separate race. The spines along the heads were shorter than those of Thorn or Shruikan or Saphira, and the heads themselves were longer, bonier, and thinner across the beam of the brow. Perhaps the differences were a result of creative choices on the part of the artisans, but Murtagh doubted that; the sculptures were too carefully crafted—too closely observed—for such liberties or inaccuracies to make sense.

They look more like Fanghur, he said, naming the wind-serpents, the small, dragon-like creatures known to live in the Beor Mountains.

The little worms never flew so far north, said Thorn. Not if Yngmar’s memories are to be trusted.

Are they, though? The world is old; even dragons do not know everything of note that has happened.

It is strange, said Thorn, lifting his head above the rooftops to sniff the air.

Murtagh moved on.

The longer he walked, the more agitated he became. Between the pummeling he’d taken during the hunt and the subsequent vision, he had been in no way prepared for Rauden’s killing. No matter what Bachel or Alín or anyone else says, that was wrong. He snorted. Eragon had said much the same to him after Murtagh had killed the defenseless slaver, Torkenbrand. But that had been different. Torkenbrand had been a threat. Rauden was no threat at all. Certainly not to Bachel.

The memory of the slaver turned his thoughts back to the cultists’ prisoners. Their thralls.

A hard certainty began to form within Murtagh.

He stopped again and looked at Thorn. The dragon lowered his head until they were staring eye to eye. Murtagh could feel the same hard certainty within Thorn.

I don’t care about whatever future Bachel sees for us, said Murtagh.

Nor I.

I just want to know what she and the Draumar are trying to do. It can’t be good.

Thorn’s hot breath washed over him, a comforting sensation. You mean to press the point with Bachel?

He nodded. When we sup this evening. Either she’ll answer us and answer well or—

We fight?

If it comes to that. Only…Murtagh shivered. The children. We have to protect the children.

Thorn licked his teeth. It is hard to fight in a nest without crushing eggs.

Then we’ll have to find a way to empty the nest first. It’s a big enough valley. There’s plenty of room to run and hide.

What if the younglings refuse to run? Thorn cocked his head. They might stand and fight, same as their elders, and then what?

Murtagh shook his head. I don’t know. We do our best. He put his hands on either side of Thorn’s head. We are decided?

We are.

And yet doubt gnawed at Murtagh. Confronting the witch seemed an increasingly chancy prospect, even if he couldn’t reasonably explain why. But he was determined, as was Thorn. There was no turning aside now.

CHAPTER X Upheaval

As Murtagh and Thorn retraced their steps through the village, they came upon a toothless old man sitting by a well. The man was dressed in rags, with eyes blue white with blindness and a crude crutch cut from a forked branch. He rocked on his narrow haunches and stared sightless at the mountains while he grinned and gummed.

When Murtagh passed by, the man cocked his head and said, “Aha! The crownless prince, afoot in a foreign land. Son of sorrow, bastard of fate, sing of sorry treachery. Red dragon, black dragon, white dragon…White sun, black sun, dead sun.”

Murtagh stopped and crouched by the man. “What do you know about a black sun?”

The man turned his face toward Murtagh. His skin was so deeply wrinkled, it hung in folds like loose leather draped over his bones. He cackled. “Dreamt it, I did. Ahahaha. Sun eaten, earth eaten, the old blood avenged and the new enslaved. Did you dream, princeling? Do you see? What? Speaker got your tongue? Ahahaha.”

“No one has my tongue,” Murtagh said darkly.

The man ignored him and twisted in the direction of Thorn. “Proudback, bentneck, choose, choose, choose, but can’t wake from life, oh no. Serve the sire or sleep forever. What deathless lies may in eons rise, ahahaha!”

And the man said nothing more that resembled coherent speech.

Frustrated, Murtagh stood and continued back through the village. This is pointless, he said to Thorn. They’re all mad. This should be called the village of riddles.

Maybe that is what trapped Galbatorix and the Forsworn.

What? Endless riddles?

Can you think of a better snare for a well-honed mind?

Murtagh couldn’t. I wonder if that addled greybeard is what everyone turns into if they stay in this accursed valley long enough.

Upon returning to the temple courtyard, he and Thorn found the cultists preparing another feast. Tables and chairs and hides had again been placed around the defunct fountain, with braziers of burning coals between and bedded fires laden with spitted meat.

The food was far from ready, so Murtagh retired to his chambers for a time. He tried to nap, but his mind was too agitated for sleep. Instead, as he lay on the bed with his eyes closed, he risked reaching out with his thoughts and lightly searching the village and the area beneath it, looking to see if there were large numbers of people hidden nearby. He found a few bright sparks of consciousness where he didn’t expect—one beneath the temple, and several clustered atop its highest tower—but no great hordes hidden away, no army lying in wait to storm south and overrun Alagaësia.

It should have been a relief, but he remained as tense as ever.

At last he rolled back to his feet, returned to the courtyard, and went to sit with Thorn. There, at least, he felt somewhat more at ease.

As the sun crept downward, Grieve emerged from the temple and began to oversee the proceedings. Then too came Bachel.

No longer in her hunting garb, the witch wore a dress of fine wool dyed a purple so dark as to be nearly black, and a new headpiece adorned her brow, this of gold and silver studded with ruby cabochons. A heavy woolen cloak, red as autumn leaves, wrapped about her shoulders.

She greeted Murtagh and Thorn and proceeded to her dais. There a group of white-robed acolytes gathered in a circle about her, and they began to sway while they chanted and hummed. Murtagh did not see Alín among their ranks.

Bachel stood head and shoulders above the acolytes, her height augmented by the platform beneath her. She swayed in time with her acolytes, eyes half closed, arms raised toward the sky as if to beseech an unseen god for favor.

A strange people, Thorn commented.

Murtagh grunted.

After a few minutes, Alín scurried over. She avoided his gaze and said, “How may I serve you and Thorn, my Lord? May I bring you something to drink?”

Murtagh waved away the suggestion. “What is she doing?” he asked, motioning toward Bachel.

“She is praying for warm weather through the winter, my Lord. And she is calling forth dreams to free the minds of the thralls our warriors have brought us.”

Something about Alín’s phrasing bothered Murtagh, but he wasn’t sure why. “And to whom does Bachel pray?”

Alín backed away. “I will bring you wine and cheese, my Lord, to tide you over until the feast.”

“Wait, that’s not—”

But the young woman was already hurrying off, her head down and her hood up.

Murtagh let out a soft growl and settled back against Thorn. What do dreams have to do with convincing prisoners to join their cause? he said. If the dreams are anything like the ones we had, they’ll just want to leave.

A small puff of smoke rose from Thorn’s nostrils. Perhaps they dream differently than we do. The witch said not everyone here has such visions.

“Mmm.” Murtagh wasn’t persuaded.

Bachel continued to sway and chant with her followers until Grieve struck a brass gong, whereupon she clapped her hands and cried, “Let us eat! Kingkiller, join me.” Then she sank back to her litter on the dais.

He reluctantly went to join her.

Murtagh bided his time throughout the feast, waiting for the right moment to confront the witch. Hungry though he was, he ate but little, preferring not to weigh down his stomach before whatever was to come. It was a pity; the few bites he took of the boar he had killed were delicious. In that, Bachel had told the truth. The fungus-fed meat was remarkably good, better than any he’d had, even in Galbatorix’s court. It was moist and savory and sweet and had an intensely nutty flavor. Whatever their other flaws, the cultists knew how to cook pork to perfection.

As they ate, he posed a number of questions to Bachel, casual inquiries that she deflected at every turn. He might as well have been trying to extract information from a stone. In a way, he was grateful. The witch’s refusal confirmed that he and Thorn were doing the right thing by choosing to confront her.

Murtagh kept a tight leash on his temper, but he felt it rising as he readied himself for action. He had never been one to sit by idly, and always restrictions and impositions had rankled. Bachel’s evasions were both of those and more: she was disrespecting him in front of her people.

As the villagers served the last course of the meal—molded aspic filled with nuts and berries—Murtagh gave Thorn a discreet look and said, This has gone on long enough. Be ready to fight or fly. If things go badly, don’t let Bachel get away.

Dark resolve colored Thorn’s thoughts. I am ready. And he loosened his wings in preparation. No one but Alín—who stood behind Bachel—seemed to notice.

Murtagh hoped the acolyte wouldn’t get in the way if words turned to violence. He gathered his will and then said, “Bachel, Thorn and I have decided: we no longer wish to wait through the night. Our patience is at an end. We would have our answers of you. Now. What is it the Draumar seek to accomplish? What is the future you have foreseen, and whom is it you serve? Who is the Dreamer of Dreams?”

The villagers playing on lyres never faltered, but he was aware of a sudden tension throughout the courtyard and of the weight of many eyes.

The witch paused with her cup halfway to her slanted mouth. Then she took her sip and placed the cup down most particularly. When she spoke, her voice cut like a sword: “You are very presumptuous, my son.”

“Very. And I no longer have any stomach for these endless mysteries. You are the Speaker. Speak plainly with me, then.”

She waved a hand. “Now is not the time to dwell upon such tiresome matters. It would ruin our enjoyment of this evening.”

“Then let it be ruined!” His voice rang out so loudly that the musicians stumbled over their strings before regaining their rhythm. “I insist.”

Rage flushed Bachel’s face. Behind her, Alín watched, wide-eyed and terrified. In a fearsome voice, the witch said, “You insist!” She threw off her cloak and stood, and the players finally fell silent. “You have no right to insist here, O my wayward child. The traditions of hospitality protect you, but even a guest may not insult me with impunity.”

“Guests or not, we will have our answers,” said Murtagh.

Behind him, Thorn growled slightly and rose into a crouch. The Draumar nearest him scrambled away, scattering plates and dishes and food across the courtyard and spilling dark runnels of wine that spread like seeping blood. Thorn said: Would you deny a dragon, witch?

In an instant, Bachel’s rage turned into equally cold contempt. “You would not understand my answers. Neither of you can. Not yet. Not so long as you are outlanders.”

“Bah! Another mealymouthed nothing.” From the pouch on his belt, Murtagh brought forth Saerlith’s clasp and cast it down upon the dais between him and Bachel. The metal rang as it struck stone. “Whom do you serve, witch? Were you an instrument of the Forsworn? Galbatorix? Or were they your foes?”

Bachel’s expression darkened as she beheld the clasp. “You have been meddling where you should not, Outlander.”

“And still, you will not answer. Whom do you serve? What is it you want?”

“Whom do I serve?” The witch’s voice gained in power, deepening so that her words echoed off the walls and hills. “I serve a power greater than you can imagine, Rider. I serve the Dreamer of Dreams, and I will not be questioned by the likes of you! Bow before my might and show your contrition!” Her final words arrived as a mighty blow, and the air shook loose dust and chips of stone that fell from the temple roof. A cloud of darkness gathered about her form as she lifted her arms and cried out with a wordless sound to the gloaming sky.

An attack Murtagh expected. But no attack came. Instead, he heard her cry roll the length of the valley, as a charge of cavalry rounding and repeating, and then the air went still, and the Draumar prostrated themselves with plaintive pleas. An instant later, the courtyard bucked beneath them, and all the valley seemed to heave and groan, and the very mountains shook. The granite peaks shed long slides of crusted snow, and consuming billows of white raced down the timbered flanks, and Bachel’s flock of crows screamed their murderous alarms within the Tower of Flint. Owls and eagles rose shrieking from the treetops, and animals of every sort yammered throughout the valley.

Thorn snarled as the ground moved. He sprang into the air, and the downblast from his wings only added to the confusion. The pulse of wind was so strong it forced Murtagh to squint until he could barely see.

Then the valley floor grew still again. The cries of the animals trailed off, with the last being the high-pitched yips of a fox.

Thorn drifted down and settled next to Murtagh. The dragon’s scales were raised, like the ruff on a frightened cat.

Moments later, dull thuds and thumps reached them from the mountaintops, as hammer blows of giants.

Bachel lowered her arms. She looked at him and Thorn with a distant expression, as if they were of little consequence. When she spoke, her voice was hollow and void of emotion. “Do not try my patience again, Murtagh son of Morzan. I will share the truth with you when I deem fit. Until such time, partake of my hospitality, and be thou not so impertinent.” Then she bent and took Saerlith’s clasp and closed her hand around it. Whereas before Murtagh had felt no magic, no force or impetus radiating from the witch, now he did, and a flash of golden light rayed from between her fingers. She opened her hand to reveal the clasp crushed into a rough orb.

She dropped the orb into the brazier next to the dais, sat upon her litter, and again took up her cup. “Come, my son,” she said. “Sit, and let us forget this unpleasantness and enjoy the remainder of the evening.”

There were, Murtagh had learned, times when the wiser thing was to bide one’s time rather than to rush headlong into battle.

This, he decided, was one of them.

He relaxed his hold on Zar’roc’s hilt and warily lowered himself back into the chair where he’d been sitting. His arms were damp with sweat, and he could barely hear over the blood coursing in his ears.

Then Bachel clapped her hands and said, “Players, again.”

And the musicians resumed plucking at their lyres and singing in their hidden tongue, and throughout the courtyard, the Draumar picked themselves up and began to collect the scattered contents of the feast. Behind the dais, Alín stood cowed and hunched. Her hands trembled as she clenched the front of her white robe.

Thorn settled close behind Murtagh’s back, and he was well glad of the companionship. The dragon’s concern mirrored his own.

We should be gone from here, Thorn said.

I agree.

Then why do we wait? A few seconds, and I can have us in the air.

And the witch can cast her magic as fast as she can think. A cultist offered Murtagh a selection of sweetmeats, and Murtagh feigned a smile and declined. Do you want to fight her right now?

…No.

A moment of grim understanding passed between them. The witch was more capable than either of them had expected, and Murtagh did not want to test their magic against hers, for fear they would fall far short. What she did shouldn’t be possible. No one is strong enough to move that much dirt and rock at once. Not even Shruikan.

If all the Eldunarí worked together, they could.

Maybe. But I’ve already looked with my mind. So have you. There are no Eldunarí here.

Thorn’s breath was hot against the nape of his neck. She could have used a store of energy hidden in gems.

Why waste it on such a demonstration, though? That much energy would be a treasure beyond reckoning. It would take years upon years to acquire. Murtagh resisted the urge to grip Zar’roc again. He wanted the sword in hand, blade drawn, and a shield upon his off arm. And yet he knew now none of it would protect him against Bachel’s power. No, she must have a source of energy that renews itself, and it can’t be that far away.

He looked up as Alín approached with a pitcher of wine and offered him a stone cup. He accepted, and she filled the cup, though she refused to meet his gaze. Then she bowed, said, “My Lord,” and departed.

Still unsettled, Murtagh took a larger drink than was his wont. The wine did little to soothe his nerves. He took another sip, and a thought occurred to him that caused him to lower the cup and stare at the coals in the nearby brazier while he worked out the implications. I think I know why Bachel keeps delaying. She wants us to sleep again. To dream. That’s what she’s waiting for. She said as much earlier, didn’t she? That’s why she asked us to stay through the night. She must believe that the dreams here will somehow convince us to join their cause. Same as with their prisoners.

A soft growl sounded behind him. Then we must not sleep.

We daren’t. Murtagh turned the cup between his fingers. If we lose ourselves, I shudder to think what would happen.

It would be good to have help if we are to fight Bachel.

The thought pained Murtagh, but he could see no alternative. Agreed. Once we are away from this place, I’ll send a message to Eragon and Saphira and to Arya and Fírnen.

A hint of fiery excitement colored Thorn’s mind. And then the newest generation of dragons and Riders can fly forth together.

Mmm. Before we leave Nal Gorgoth, though, I want to find out what’s in that cave.

Wariness was Thorn’s initial response. Why?

Because maybe Bachel’s source of power is down there.

And if you find it—

Perhaps we can use it for ourselves. Or I can destroy it. In any case, knowing what it is would give us our best chance of defeating Bachel. We’ll wait for everyone to fall asleep, I’ll look in the cave, and then we’ll be off. By the time the witch wakes, we’ll be long departed.

Good, said Thorn.

Then Bachel proposed a toast, and Murtagh smiled and raised his cup in response. And all the while, his mind whirled with dark speculation.

CHAPTER XI Anticipation

Night had fallen by the time the feast was finished. As seemed to be her habit, Bachel had eaten all of the dishes placed before her, and more besides. She had also drunk a small cask of sweet red wine and now sat slumped upon her throne, swollen with satiation. Looking at her put Murtagh in mind of a great, overfed toad, self-satisfied with its gluttony.

At a signal from Grieve, the witch’s bearers lifted the litter and carried her into the dark recesses of the temple. Then the music ceased, and the cultists began to remove the tables and clean up from the feast, and Alín came to Murtagh and offered to lead him to his quarters.

After saying a temporary farewell to Thorn, he accepted.

Alín’s white robe seemed to almost glow as she led him through the unlit hallways of the temple.

“Has Bachel ever done something like that before?” Murtagh knew he did not need to specify what exactly.

A momentary hesitation—an almost imperceptible hitch—appeared in Alín’s stride. “Once, a long time ago, my Lord. A woman came to Nal Gorgoth. Uluthrek was her name, which was strange, as she was human. Bachel went to treat with her outside the village. No one heard what they said, but in the end, the Vale of Dreams shook as it shook today.”

“Bachel went to meet her?” Murtagh had difficulty imagining.

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Do you know why?”

“No, my Lord.”

When they arrived at the doors to his chambers, Murtagh said, “Alín, you are bound by oaths. That I understand. But I need to know: What is Bachel’s source of power? Tell me that much, at least.”

“She is the Speaker, my Lord. All who serve as Speaker have this power.”

“Yes, but why? Where does it come from?”

A hint of exasperation livened Alín’s features. “That is a silly question. It comes from the Dreamer of Dreams, as does everything in life.” She bowed, then said, “Your rooms, my Lord,” and turned to leave.

“Wait!” Without thinking, Murtagh reached out to stop her. But Alín saw, and she shrank from his hand as if it were a red-hot iron, and her back struck a column built into the wall.

She let out an anguished cry and arched her chest, losing all composure.

Murtagh yanked back his hand as he realized he’d nearly touched her. Then his eyes narrowed as he noticed how gingerly Alín straightened her posture, face pale as fresh-fallen snow.

“She had you whipped,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He recognized the way Alín moved; he’d moved the same every time Galbatorix sent him to the post.

“I should not have spoken to you as I did earlier,” said Alín in a low voice.

“After the hunt?” Murtagh struggled to keep the anger out of his voice.

She nodded. “It was wrong to be so familiar. I was wrong.” She covered her face with her hands, and before Murtagh could reply, she rushed away, her soft leather shoes pattering along the stone hall.

A thick cloud layer had formed over the mountains, rendering it a starless, moonless night. The darkness suited Murtagh; it would make sneaking around that much easier.

Still, it was hard to gauge the passage of time without a view of the sky, and he wasn’t sure how long to wait before leaving his quarters. He lit a small fire on the bedroom hearth and watched the flames consume the wood.

His mind refused to rest. Images of the black sun and looming dragon kept intruding, and he found himself planning and overplanning what might happen if he and Thorn had to fight Bachel and the rest of the Draumar.

Whatever happened, he wanted to protect the children. But it would be difficult, very difficult, given the witch’s abilities.

He fished out one of the gold crowns from the pouch on his belt and held it up before the fire. The metal gleamed with an almost mirror-smooth polish. There was a spell on it, he guessed, to preserve the coin from wear.

Nasuada’s sculpted profile remained as mysterious as ever. He brushed a thumb across her cheek and then stopped, feeling as if he’d taken an unwarranted liberty.

She was in danger—he was sure of it—and in no small part from Bachel. And he was determined to help protect her. “If only…,” he murmured, then stopped. Was there a more useless phrase than that? If only he hadn’t convinced Galbatorix to have Nasuada abducted. But if he hadn’t, the king would have killed her instead. As had happened so often in Murtagh’s life, he’d been forced to choose between a pair of evils, and though he tried to pick the lesser of the two, it was evil all the same.

Moody, he put away the coin and stared into the depths of the fire.

He wished he had thought to take the compendium from Thorn’s saddlebags and bring it with him. Reading would have been a welcome distraction. Instead, he turned to composing another poem.

The words came in fits and starts, with little grace, and the lines seemed broken and unpleasant to hear. Still, he kept trying to hammer them smooth, and in the end, he recited to himself:

Fragile is the flower that grows in darkness.

Precious is the flower that blossoms at night.

Their gardeners absent, blind, or uncaring.

But bent and broken petals still have beauty

All their own. Have care where you tread, lest you

Trample the treasures scattered before your feet.

When the fire had burned for what seemed like an hour, Murtagh ground out the embers with the heel of his boot, went to the east-facing windows, and looked down at the men standing guard in the courtyard.

He swore. Instead of two, there were now seven warriors, all of them awake. And upon their mailed chests, he saw the familiar shape of the cultists’ enchanted bird-skull amulet. Bachel was sending him a message. She knew he’d snuck out of his room the previous night, and now she was taking precautions to keep him from doing so again. Seven men or two—the exact numbers didn’t matter. What mattered were the amulets, which might be able to block the spell he had used before.

There was only one way to find out.

“Slytha,” he murmured.

Murtagh felt the slightest decrease of strength, but the men seemed entirely unaffected. “Blast it,” he said between clenched teeth.

Thorn eyed him from where he lay curled upon the flagstones. Do you wish me to remove the men?

The idea was tempting. Not yet. Let me think a moment.

A puff of grey smoke rose from Thorn’s nostrils. The warriors gave him nervous looks.

Murtagh retreated from the windows and paced the room while he considered options. It was his memory of the tangle box that gave him the first hint of a solution. The box had been designed to catch and hold spellcasters who were likewise protected against magic. It had done so through a combination of brute force and by altering the things around an unlucky captive, but not the captive themselves.

We’ll have to be quick, said Murtagh, moving back to the windows.

They won’t escape, replied Thorn.

Murtagh flexed his hands, readying himself. Then he drew in his will and whispered, “Thrysta vindr.” The spell was simple enough, but it was the intent that mattered.

At first the seven warriors didn’t notice that anything was amiss. Then one of them made a curious face and motioned in a panicked way toward the man opposite him. His companion frowned.

Murtagh was already moving. He leapt through the window, slid across the skirt-roof below—barely bothering to slow himself—and dropped to the courtyard.

His sudden appearance startled the men, caused them to seize their spears and train them on Murtagh. But when they attempted to shout and raise the alarm, no sound came from their mouths. For, as Murtagh knew, the spell had hardened the air about their faces so that they could neither inhale nor exhale.

The men’s eyes bulged with anger, outrage, and horror, and their faces turned purple as the blood congested beneath their skin. They were courageous, though. Murtagh would give them that. Five of the men charged him, while one turned to run into the main part of the village and one ran toward the entrance of the temple.

Thorn reached out with a forefoot and slapped the village-bound warrior to the ground. He did not rise.

Murtagh darted sideways and slammed his shoulder into the man running for the temple. The warrior stumbled and fell.

The five other men closed upon Murtagh. A clumsy jab of a spear glanced off his wards, and then he managed to retreat and put the ruined fountain between him and his pursuers.

The warriors tried to follow. But they were out of air. One after another, they collapsed, faces mottled and discolored, veins standing proud along their corded necks.

Then all was quiet, save for the kicking of their feet on the flagstones.

Murtagh hurried to Thorn and checked that the saddle straps were secure. He hadn’t removed the dragon’s tack the whole time they’d been in Nal Gorgoth, nor had Thorn asked him to. “There’s no helping it now,” said Murtagh in a low voice.

We should leave before anyone notices.

“First the cave.” Thorn snorted in disapproval, and Murtagh gave him a look. “It’s our only chance to find out what’s in there.”

The dragon growled deep in his chest. Fine, but I will be glad to be gone from this place.

“That makes two of us.”

The last of the warriors went limp and lifeless as Murtagh tightened his sword belt and fetched his cloak from the saddlebags. He debated donning his mail. The armor would have been a comfort—if only a small one—but even with a slight layer of muffling rust on the iron rings, he feared the shirt would make too much noise.

With Thorn a stealthy companion at his back—or as stealthy as a dragon his size could be—Murtagh slipped around the northeastern corner of the temple and headed across the swath of cropped turf to the grove of pinetrees. At the mouth of the grove, Murtagh paused to search with his thoughts. Finding no one ahead of them, he whispered, “Brisingr,” and set a faint red werelight burning in the air above.

The arcane fire lit the way as they proceeded along the path that wound among the dark-shadowed pines. Gloom and murk pressed in from all sides, as if the only piece of reality that existed was the small circle of earth the werelight painted red.

Thorn shivered with discomfort and kept his head and tail low to avoid the branches.

Beneath the pines, the air was heavy with the scent of herbs and mushrooms, as well as the ever-present stench of brimstone. Murtagh felt as if they were in a healer’s storehouse, and he wondered at the uses of the plants.

At the gaping cavern set within the base of the foothills, Murtagh saw a stain of fresh blood atop the altar to the left of the opening. In the werelight’s ruby radiance, the mark was black as ink, and the sight of it filled Murtagh with an apprehension of evil.

He loosened Zar’roc in its sheath and continued forward.

Twenty feet into the cavern, he heard Thorn’s footsteps falter behind him. He looked back to see the dragon pressed flat against the ground, wings tight against his body, upper lip wrinkled in a fearful snarl.

Murtagh glanced at the arched ceiling of stone high above. “Even here?” he said in a quiet voice. He had thought there was enough room that Thorn would not feel threatened.

The dragon growled equally softly. I am sorry.

“Your wings don’t even touch the walls. You can still fight if you need, and if we have to flee, there’s space for you to turn ar—”

No. I…Thorn put a paw forward, and then trembled violently and pulled it back. He blinked, and a glistening film coated his eyes, bright in its reflection of the werelight. I want, but I cannot.

Murtagh returned to him and put his arms around Thorn’s neck. For a moment, they stood like that, and the heat from Thorn’s scales warmed Murtagh’s chest through his thin linen shirt.

“It’s all right,” he murmured. “Stay here. I’ll be quick, and then we can be gone.”

Thorn hummed, appearing abashed. I wish I were not so faulted.

A rush of sorrow, compassion, and regret overwhelmed Murtagh. Opening his mind more fully, he said, My hurts are different from yours, but I am as faulted as you, if not more. You know.

I know.

No one is perfect. No one makes it through life whole and unscathed. So do not blame yourself for what is out of your control. We are here, and we have each other. That is what is important.

Another shiver ran Thorn’s length. I will try to follow you. If—

No, no. Stay. We’ll try somewhere else, when we don’t have to worry about being stabbed in the back. Stay, and I’ll be back directly.

You promise?

I promise. Wiol ono.

CHAPTER XII The Bad Sleep-Well

Murtagh advanced alone into the waiting darkness.

Despite his assurances to Thorn, he felt vulnerable and afraid. The chambers that lay buried beneath him were full of the unfamiliar, the unguessed, and the obscure. How could he ready himself to face that which he had yet to name?

He kept Zar’roc loose in its sheath as he descended along the cut-stone stairs that led into the cavern. The ceiling remained high, lost in a dome of shadow that the feeble illumination from the werelight could not penetrate. He could have increased the flow of energy to the werelight—fanned it bright as a miniature sun—but that might have attracted attention. Also, he heard the squeaks of roosting bats far overhead; more light would risk waking them, and that would bring the cultists down upon his position.

His footsteps seemed curiously loud as he continued down the stairs, each gritty scuff and scrape bouncing off the unseen walls and raising his pulse. The steps ran back and forth in a zigzag, and they were worn hollow in the centers from the passage of uncounted feet over the centuries. Murtagh felt a sense of not just age but antiquity. Whoever had built the stairs had done so long before Alagaësia had been a settled place. What was it Bachel had said? That the cultists had lived in Nal Gorgoth since before elves were elves…. He was starting to think she had told the truth.

The cavern maintained enough height and width for a dragon Thorn’s size—or larger—as it continued to sink deeper and deeper into the sounding earth. The air was warmer now, and moister too, and the smell of brimstone stronger still.

Murtagh wiped his palms against his trousers. He didn’t want his grip slipping on Zar’roc.

The mouth of the cave faded behind him, and soon he dwelt alone in a world of gloom. He reached back with his thoughts—farther than he realized he’d traversed—and touched Thorn’s mind. All well? he asked.

The crows are stirring, but the village yet sleeps.

Murtagh quickened his pace. I’ll try not to be much longer, but this cave…it seems bottomless.

Worry not. I will guard the entrance.

I know.

Despite the heat, Murtagh shivered. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he felt a disconcerting presence, as if a thousand unseen eyes surrounded him in the press of dark. His nerve faltered, and he was about to increase the brightness of the werelight when…

A greenish glow appeared before him, so dim that it was barely perceptible. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but after a few more yards, he realized that, no, there was indeed light ahead.

He extinguished the werelight, and the shadows rushed in. The sickly green luminescence led him on, and with every step, it swelled in strength until he saw: the cut-stone stairs ended at a rocky cave floor that extended in unknown directions. The coal-seamed rocks were mottled with membranes of virescent slime, from which emanated the low, flameless light. Poking up among the rocks were numerous mushrooms, the most common variety being a short, purple-capped toadstool with drooping gills that resembled an oyster’s inner flesh. Throughout, wisps of brimstone vapor drifted up from the cave floor, as if the earth itself were breathing and sweating.

A winding path set with flagstones like the temple courtyard extended from the bottom of the stairs and disappeared into the ringing shadows.

Murtagh swore to himself, softly, as he arrived at the bottom. He’d never seen such a place—not even in the Beor Mountains, among the tunnels and caves the dwarves built and tended. Whether or not the space was naturally occurring, he couldn’t tell. No stalactites or stalagmites were visible, and the slimed rocks were broken into pieces much like quarry stones.

He pushed his cloak back from his shoulders. I should have left it with Thorn. The heat was becoming unbearable.

He tried to estimate how far underground he was. It had to be several hundred feet, if not more. Chiseling out that many steps would have been a monumental undertaking, even with magic, and if it had been done by hand…What is so important down here?

He started along the path.

The off-putting glow from the slime and the smell of sulfur and his underlying wariness combined to turn his stomach, as if he’d eaten a duck egg that had been insufficiently cooked. He swallowed the spit that was filling his mouth and tried to ignore the feeling, though his body was telling him to flee to open skies and fresh air.

His right foot struck something hard.

A fist-sized rock rolled away. He stepped off the path and retrieved the stone. The rock glistered and gleamed as if burning from within. It was a perfect pair to the stone he’d had off Sarros in Ceunon what seemed like half a year ago.

His heart racing, he tucked the stone into the pouch on his belt.

Perhaps a hundred feet from the stairs, a huge curving wall emerged before him, rough and creviced. Three tunnels pierced the wall, and Thorn would have fit into each had he folded his wings tight and kept his belly against the ground, like a great glittering serpent. The tunnel in the middle was edged with finished stone: a ring of rectangular blocks carved with sharp-cornered lines and the same unfamiliar runes as in the village. In the center of each block was set a cabochon of opal, which reflected the slime-glow like so many cats’ eyes.

The tunnels to the left and right were plain, unfinished: rough tubes of stone that burrowed into the roots of the mountains. They did not look chiseled or hammered, and yet neither did they feel entirely natural. More than a little, they reminded Murtagh of the tunnels he’d fled through during his escape from Captain Wren’s secret chambers beneath Gil’ead—only far larger.

Faint sounds emanated from the depths of the tunnels. Whispers. Moans. Soft echoing cries that had a hooting, birdlike quality. At first he thought he was hearing speech or calls of animals, but after a time, he grew convinced it was the air itself moving through the veins of the earth that gave rise to the eerie sounds.

He chose to enter the central tunnel. The unknown craftsmen who had labored upon the caves had taken special pains with that one, and so it must be of importance or lead to importance.

He continued forward. Deeper into the womb of the earth. Deeper into the black unknown, seeking, seeking, always seeking a farther shore, every sense razor-sharp and razor-scraped, skin all goosefleshed, cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck and gathering around his belted waist.

The walls of the tunnel were sheathed with diamond-shaped tiles of rough stone that were lapped like the scales of a dragon. He felt as if he were walking inside a shed skin of enormous proportion.

Not far, then. A minute of walking, no more, and the darkness again encroached, for the tiles were free of slime.

Then he saw a room before him, warm with light. A pale room. A bone-white room clad in finest marble, the veins of which were chased with hammered gold. Brass censers hung on chains from the snouts of sculpted dragon heads, which projected from the circular, column-lined walls. Small flames burned in alcoves in the wall, but the fires consumed no wicks and no fuel; they seemed to spring straight from the marble.

Several open, human-sized doorways led to yet more tunnels. But it was what lay in the center of the room that captured Murtagh’s attention, for it was large and strange: a ring of rough marble, several hands high, with a lid of grey metal atop it, like a covered well.

As he crept closer, he saw a pane of clear crystal framed within the metal, and through the crystal…a vaporous void dropping deeper into the earth.

He frowned. Was this the sacred well that Grieve had mentioned? Was it—or what it contained—the source of Bachel’s power? The well itself didn’t look like much. And yet, the air seemed to thrum like a plucked string. It was true that not all magics were made by humans, elves, dwarves, or any other self-aware, thinking race. There were natural magics also, such as the floating crystals of Eoam, but they tended to be wild and unpredictable.

If the well were such a place, that could explain Bachel’s prowess with magic. And if so, it wasn’t the sort of thing that the Draumar ought to have dominion over. Not that he would want Du Vrangr Gata to assume control over such an important location either. This was exactly what the Riders had been created for: to oversee and mediate that which could destabilize the land.

He bent over the hammered lid and squinted as he tried to peer through the snakes of vapor swirling below. There was a hint of a shape beneath the haze: a vague outline that he could almost make sense of.

Opening his mind, he sent a cautious, probing thought into the murk. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but he suspected there was something of interest hidden at the bottom of the well….

The moans and murmurs echoing through the tunnels seemed to grow louder, and Murtagh’s vision flickered as if shadowy creatures were moving about the edges. When he blinked, images flashed behind his lids—too fast to fully register—and a powerful urge to sleep settled upon his shoulders, pressing him down. He fought against it, alarmed. Wherever the urge came from, he felt sure it was the source of the bad dreams that plagued the village, as an evil miasma seeping out of the ground and infecting their sleeping minds.

The vapor below parted in places, and dimly in the dark he saw different levels of tunnels and chambers, pierced by the shaft plunging downward. And at the distant bottom, obscured by drifting patches, a pulsing glow that—

“You should not be here, my son.”

Murtagh spun to see Bachel and Grieve standing by the entrance. The witch’s hair was down, and it tumbled in a stormy mess around her face and shoulders to her midback, dark and lustrous. The sleeves of her dress were pushed up to expose her forearms, her feet were bare, and the soot round her eyes was smudged as if she’d been interrupted while removing it. In one hand, she carried a tall spear, the haft of which was made of a greenish material, with a long, barbed blade of strange design atop it. A faint glow surrounded the head of the weapon.

Cold lead loaded Murtagh’s gut, keeping him from moving. He recognized the spear. It was a Dauthdaert—a Deathspear—made by the elves with but one purpose in mind: to kill dragons. The elves had forged the twelve Dauthdaert during their war with the dragons, prior to the formation of the Riders, and they had enchanted the weapons that they might pierce scale and bypass even a dragon’s wild magic.

Moreover, Murtagh knew this specific Dauthdaert. It was the selfsame lance that Arya had used to kill Shruikan. Niernen was its name, and it was cursed and hated and coveted by every person of bloody ambition. He’d thought the Dauthdaert had been lost in the destruction following Galbatorix’s death. That it had survived was surprising. That someone had spirited it out of Ilirea and brought it to Bachel was profoundly alarming.

In contrast to the lance’s arcane appearance, Grieve carried a more mundane weapon: a club of hardwood shod with iron bands secured around the head.

Thorn! How had Bachel and Grieve gotten past him? Murtagh wanted to reach out with his mind to the dragon, but he didn’t dare lower his mental defenses with the witch and her companion so close. Still, he felt no pain or alarm through the constant background connection that he and Thorn shared, and that was a comfort. More tunnels, he thought. There had to be a passage joining the temple with the caves beneath.

Murtagh’s hand tightened around Zar’roc’s hilt. In any other circumstances, he would have drawn, but he wanted—no, needed—a better understanding of Bachel’s power before fighting her, especially as he was on his own, without Thorn. “I saw the cave, and I was curious.”

“This is not a place for outsiders.” Bachel’s stance was poised but not overly stiff, the perfect way to ready oneself for violent action. Her eyes flashed with dark promise, and she held the Dauthdaert with an ease that convinced Murtagh that she was well accustomed to its use.

“And what is this place, my Lady?”

Bachel and Grieve started to stalk with measured steps around the lidded well of stone. Murtagh mirrored their movement, keeping the well between him and them.

Grieve was the one who answered, glowering beneath his heavy, unfinished brow. “It is the Well of Dreams, Rider, and none may approach it without Bachel’s permission. It is the heart of all things, the source of prophecy and power, and those who defile it must die.”

With the thumb of his left hand, Murtagh pressed Zar’roc an inch or two out of the sheath so that it would slide free without binding. “And have I defiled it, Bachel?”

At first he thought the witch would respond with anger. But then she laughed in a lazy fashion and took another step closer. Grieve split from her and came round the other side of the well, bracketing Murtagh.

He retreated a step to keep from being flanked. One of the open doorways was to his back; he had room to flee.

“Defile?” said Bachel, nearly purring. “No, my son, I think not. Not so long as you kneel now and swear fealty to me. For how can the servant be in the wrong if they are acting in accordance with their mistress’s will? Kneel now, Murtagh son of Morzan, and your life will be spared.”

Zar’roc sang as he drew it, the familiar weight a comfort in his hand. He smiled a crooked smile. “You know I will not. You have given me no reasons worth hearing. Even if you had, Thorn and I will never again kneel out of fear or desperation. If we bend our knees, it will be because of love, duty, and respect, or not at all.”

Bachel’s expression grew haughty. “You would not understand if I told you, Kingkiller. You would claim you did, but you would not feel the truth, and your heart would be empty. I had hoped to spare you this. I had hoped you would dream as we all dream here in Nal Gorgoth, and you would come to understand the truth as we all have. You would have devoted yourself to our cause, freely and willingly.”

“Is that how it was with Saerlith?” asked Murtagh. “Did he follow you freely?” As he spoke, he risked sending a single blade of thought toward the surface. Thorn! A cry for help to the only one he could count on.

But all he received in return was fear. Fear of enclosed spaces, fear of being trapped, fear of loss. Murtagh’s mouth grew sour. He could expect no reinforcement.

Bachel’s lips twisted to one side. “Saerlith was a pawn and nothing more. He served our aims, even as did Galbatorix and Morzan.”

The mention of his father seemed like an obvious attempt to needle him. He chose to ignore the bait. “Somehow I doubt that. Galbatorix served nothing and no one.”

His words appeared to prick the witch’s pride. “Your fear leads you to overestimate the king. How is it, do you think, he came to lose his dragon?”

Murtagh felt his pride similarly afflicted. “Galbatorix? He went adventuring in the north, and a group of Urgals—”

“No!” cried Bachel, and she slashed through the air with one arm, the hand flat and narrow as a blade. Then, in a more measured tone: “It is true that Urgals slew Jarnunvösk in the icy reaches of the far north, but you are mistaken as to the reason Galbatorix and his unfortunate party ventured forth. He lied to you, Outlander. What he told you, and everything else you have heard from the Riders of old about that expedition, all lies!”

Keep her talking. Murtagh continued to edge around the well, trying to maintain equal distance between him, the witch, and Grieve. “Then what is the truth, Bachel? Or will you only answer with more riddles?”

Bachel assumed a cold, cruel demeanor. “The truth is this: The Riders feared us, Du Eld Draumar. And they feared me. And, in secret, they dispatched Galbatorix and his companions to seek us out, that the Riders might later destroy us.”

Just how old was the witch? “If they feared you so,” said Murtagh, “why would they send Riders who were not even fully trained or tested? None of them had even a score of years. Surely you cannot expect me to believe such a tale.”

“The purpose of Galbatorix’s party was to find us. Theirs was not to attack,” said Bachel. “Indeed, they did not even know the truth of whom they looked for, as their elders sought to keep them ignorant of the Draumar.”

Murtagh’s steps slowed as dozens of possibilities raced through his mind. Nothing the witch said was impossible, and if she was right, the implications were dire, for they meant the Draumar were dangerous enough to threaten even the Riders. “But they were attacked.”

Bachel gave a curt nod. “Galbatorix came wandering back through the Spine, alone and half mad. As such, he found us, and it was as such we took him in. At first he distrusted us, even as you have, and he blamed us for the death of Jarnunvösk, but I ministered him with what attentions were needed, and in time, he came to understand that it was the Riders who were to blame for his loss.”

“You turned him against them,” Murtagh breathed. “And then you sent him back to confront them.”

Again, Bachel nodded. “It was a test. Were the Riders as kind and compassionate as they claimed, they would have taken pity upon Galbatorix and given him another dragon. But they were not, and they did not, and so Galbatorix came to understand the truth of them.”

Fear hollowed out Murtagh. It was hard for him to imagine Galbatorix being anything less than the most powerful person in the land, elves included. If Bachel had done what she claimed—whether through the force of her words or the strength of her magic or a combination thereof—then by some measure, she surmounted even the king.

In a low voice, he said, “Do you mean to say Galbatorix and the Forsworn were your thralls?”

“In part. They were useful instruments to a needed end.”

He cocked his head. “Which was?”

“The eradication of the Riders.”

“Why would you seek that? Are not dragons sacred to your people?”

A dismissive wave of Bachel’s hand. “The lesser worms matter not. Their blood is tainted by the wrongdoings of their forefathers, and only once the Riders and their dragons were washed from the world could a new era begin.”

Grieve moved a bit too close for Murtagh’s liking, and he retreated a few steps. “What of Durza?” he asked. “Always I’ve heard that Galbatorix met him in the Spine, after Jarnunvösk died.”

“That is true,” Bachel said, inclining her head. “The Shade shared in our dreams, and it was because of them that his ambitions grew longer and broader than is the wont of his ilk.”

“He lived here?”

“For many a year, even as Galbatorix and your father lived here after they fled Ilirea with the hatchling Shruikan.” The glow from the Dauthdaert lit the side of Bachel’s face with a ghoulish cast. “Your king and your father knew the truth of things, Murtagh son of Morzan. Always you were destined to follow in their footsteps. There is no other path for you.”

Murtagh’s mind was awhirl as he parsed the witch’s revelations. And yet he remained convinced of one truth: Galbatorix would never have bent his knee to another. Not after he turned against the Riders. If he had been allied with the Draumar, it had only been as a matter of convenience. The king was no zealot, no true believer. At the soonest opportunity, he would have turned against the Draumar and attempted to undo them. Murtagh recalled what Bachel had said before their boar hunt: that Galbatorix once tried to purge their settlements. Tried and failed.

With the harsh light of insight, he realized: Somehow the Draumar held their own against the king. Somehow she did. Bachel was a danger even to Galbatorix. But why, why, why, why?

“I am not my father,” he said in a tight voice. “Nor am I the man I once was. It is you who are mistaken, witch. I shall not bend to you.”

“How unfortunate,” said Bachel. But she seemed entirely unconcerned.

Murtagh lifted Zar’roc and twirled the hilt in his hand, as if he had not a care in the world. “You cannot best me, Bachel. Neither of you can.”

The witch laughed, a wild, unrestrained laughter that sent chills down Murtagh’s spine. She was no more scared of him than he would be of a common footpad, and his palm grew slick with sweat on Zar’roc’s wire-wrapped hilt. Should have worn gloves, he thought. Without taking his gaze off Bachel or Grieve, he unhooked his cloak and spun it around his left forearm, and he heard Tornac’s voice in his head saying, “An offhand garment may serve to distract, bind, and, in the absence of a shield, protect.”

“Perhaps I cannot best you, Kingkiller,” said Bachel, “though it would be an interesting contest. However, it is not I that you must overcome. I am merely an instrument of a higher power, and neither you nor I nor the wisest of elves nor the strongest of dragons yet living can prevail against that which I serve.”

She touched the pane of crystal in the hammered lid, and the pane slid open, seemingly of its own accord, and a choking cloud of green-lit vapor billowed into the room.

Murtagh didn’t know what danger the vapor posed, but he knew enough to be afraid. He had a half second to inhale, and then the cloud enveloped him, dimming the room and making his eyes smart.

A touch of panic spiked his pulse. He had made no wards to filter the air. An oversight. He turned to run, and the glowing tip of the Dauthdaert sliced past his ear.

He flinched and used Zar’roc to beat the haft of the lance away. Then he lunged toward Bachel, but the distance was wrong; she was out of reach, laughing amid the brimstone mist.

Grieve came at him from the side, swinging his iron-shod club with ruthless efficiency. He caught Murtagh in an awkward position, and the club slammed down against Murtagh’s right arm. His wards deflected, and the club skated away amid swirls of vapor.

At the same time, cruel thoughts assailed Murtagh’s mind: Bachel and Grieve attempting to batter down his defenses and assume control over his consciousness. Their mental attacks were as strong as any he had ever encountered, including Galbatorix’s. But Murtagh was no weakling, and he held fast within his inner being, secure in who and what he was.

Bachel stabbed again and again with Niernen, fast as an elf. The Dauthdaert flicked like a deadly tongue through the vapor. The edges were so sharp, they parted the cloud like cut gauze.

Only seconds had passed, but already Murtagh’s lungs were on fire. He felt as if he were going to explode. He needed air, needed to breathe….

He launched a counterattack against Bachel’s and Grieve’s minds, a desperate attempt to overwhelm them with the sheer force of his consciousness. From a distance, he felt Thorn adding strength to his own, and the realization gave him courage.

Then Murtagh stepped back, and his heel caught against the lip of a stone tile in the floor.

His stomach lurched as he fell. He twisted, intending to catch himself on one arm, but—

—too slow. He landed on his side, and the impact drove the air from his lungs. He inhaled without meaning to, and bitter, sulfurous fumes filled his nose and mouth and throat.

Coughing, he scrambled backward, keeping Zar’roc above his head to ward off blows. Bachel and Grieve were advancing on him, black shapes in the clotted clouds, their outlines bending and breaking, and he felt as if he were falling again and his body lacked substance and a horrible rushing sounded, as a wind across a desolate plain at the end of all things.

He tried to rise, tried to shout, tried to focus his will on a word or spell, but the world was dissolving around him, and his thoughts were as scattered as seeds before that horrible howling wind, and again he saw the black sun and the rising dragon, and an inexorable foreboding of doom crushed any hope he had.

Bachel’s face materialized before him, wisps of vapor wreathing her angled features. Her eyes were glowing with fevered ecstasy, and her lips were ruby red as if painted with blood. And she said, “You cannot win, Kingkiller. I serve the power of dream and He whose mind conjures dream. Sleep.”

Murtagh fought with all his might, but blackness descended, and Bachel and the chamber and all that he knew vanished.

CHAPTER XIII Nightmare

Black sun, black dragon, and an eternity of despair. He was falling toward the bottom of an incomprehensibly large void, and at the bottom lay slumbering a mind of impossible size, whose thoughts moved as slowly as the currents within an icebound sea and were just as black, cold, and hostile. He felt a presence that made him shudder and shrink to insignificance, and all of human endeavor seemed of no more importance than the accomplishments of a colony of ants.

He searched for Thorn, but the bond they shared was no longer to be found. He was utterly alone, without recourse, resource, or hope of rescue.

Then he was spinning through space, and all around malevolence pressed against him with crushing force. He saw dragons tearing at his flesh, and the bodies of his foes laid out across the mortified earth, scorched with flame, charred with soot. He saw the darkness beneath the mountains, and felt the coolness of the earth firm against his sides. Worms fed off his putrefying limbs as the smell of death wrapped him in its charnel embrace.

The void yawned wider. Amid the despair and screeching horrors, a bloody dawn spilled across a brazen land, and he saw himself triumphant: a golden crown upon his head, Zar’roc in his hand, Thorn by his side, and Bachel too…and a world at his feet, bowing to him as they had bowed to his father and Galbatorix.

A vision. A premonition. A dreadful promise.

Then he was in his cell beneath the citadel in Urû’baen. Stone walls wet with seeping moisture, black mold grown in veined maps across the crumbling mortar, ground mixed with droppings and urine and fallen crumbs from week-old crusts of bread. The jailers beat the bars of the cells and jeered at the prisoners—no sympathy from them, no help or kindness. And when the jailers left, terrors came crawling forth from cracks within the walls: fat-bodied spiders, pale and heavy, with furred legs and long feelers. They dragged their bloated stomachs across him and bit and bit him, and always it seemed he could feel the jittery touch of their clawed feet. The sounds of them moving about kept him awake nights, and never could he sleep in earnest.

A red egg before him, knee-high and shot through with white. Behind him, the unseen shadow of HIM. The egg cracked, and he watched, breathless, as a piece of shell fell free, and he saw the most delicate, beautiful, helpless hatchling: red and squalling and hungry, hungry, hungry. He reached for it, and snout and hand touched, and the contact was electric….

He yanked against his shackles, screaming, sobbing, as he felt the hatchling’s torment from the other side of the wall. HE bent over him—close-cropped beard like a black dagger, thin mouth distorted in angry delight—and said, “Swear to me, Murtagh. Swear to me, or I’ll have them strip every scale from his body. Swear fealty to me as your father did before you.”

He shook and shivered and raged, but he couldn’t hold out. The pain of the hatchling—the pain of such a perfect, innocent creature, a pain that he felt as if each fleck of agony were his own—it was too much. Of his own, he could have endured. But not this.

“I swear,” he sobbed. “I swear fealty to you.”

The evil smile widened. “In the ancient language now. Use the words I gave you.”

So he swore as instructed, and the words were ashes in his mouth.

Later came more oaths. And later still, HE spoke their true names, and then Murtagh and Thorn both were lost, lost, lost….

Awareness returned, hazy as a cloud.

Murtagh blinked, uncertain of himself, his place, and how he had gotten there. He felt stuffed full of wool: thick, slow, and heavy.

He sat up, befuddled.

Marble walkway beneath him. Curved tunnel walls around him. And before him…a woman with tumbling hair, a glowing spear in one hand, and the light of triumph in her hawk-eyed face. She was fierce and beautiful and terrible. No mercy or comfort was to be found in her features, only burning passion that would sweep aside anything that barred her way.

Bachel. Remembering the name was a struggle; speaking it, impossible.

The woman bent toward him. “Rise, Kingkiller,” she commanded, and her voice thrummed with power.

Her words were irresistible. In a daze, he rose to his feet, still unable to form a coherent sound.

She put her lips together and blew on him. Vapor whorled toward him, and with it, a heavy, rotten odor. For some reason, he no longer found it offensive. Rather, it was intoxicating, as if he could never breathe enough of it. Each lungful was an exhilaration that set his head spinning and prevented him from focusing on any one thing for more than a moment.

“Walk with me, my son,” said Bachel. Her words echoed in his mind, soft as song but strong as iron.

She strode away through the vapor, and he followed, dumb and wildered.

A man accompanied them with a lurching, long-limbed tread. Murtagh studied his cragged face, trying and failing to place it. The man carried a red sword in one hand and an iron-shod club in the other, with a loose cloak draped over the crook of his arm.

Into a marble-clad chamber they went and along a tiled tunnel and through a slime-lit cave with a broken floor. As they arrived at the base of a set of stairs cut into the stone, Murtagh’s mind began to sharpen, though he remained deeply confused.

“Where…where are—”

Bachel turned and blew on him again, a gentle breath of warm air. With it came a billow of vapor from a crystal vial she held on her palm. He had not noticed it before.

At the touch of the vapor, all thought deserted him.

“Close your mouth, Kingkiller,” said Bachel. “It is unseemly of you to gape as a poleaxed fish.”

He did as he was told.

“Good. Now come with me, Kingkiller. Come.”

Up the stairs they went, and the slime-glow faded behind them. In its place, torchlight appeared above and ahead, the flames—which were not yet visible—casting a throng of shadows upon the walls and mouth of the cave.

The last step passed beneath Murtagh’s feet, and then he stood on level ground again. Bachel led him toward a great red dragon crouched on the dark path before them.

The dragon snarled, and his tail twitched, and something of the dragon’s presence resonated in Murtagh’s mind, but he could make no sense of it. The words and impressions forced upon his consciousness were a meaningless storm filled with random bits of wind-tossed flotsam.

A roar burst forth from the dragon, strong enough that Murtagh felt the vibration against his cheek.

“Hush now,” said Bachel. She lifted the vial and blew across the crystal mouth, and a cloud of vapor streamed forth and surrounded the dragon’s head.

The glittering creature thrashed and quivered, and then his catlike eyes rolled back, and his enormous bulk went slack and still.

Formless alarm filled Murtagh, yet he could do nothing.

After long minutes…the dragon stirred again.

Bachel walked over to him and placed a hand upon his snout. “Awake, O slave of dream.”

The dragon’s eyelids flicked open with a snick, and he arched his neck and shook his head, as if to throw off a swarm of flies. The creature stared at Murtagh, and Murtagh at him, and neither of them spoke, both equally confounded.

A set of seven crows descended from the blackened sky. They circled Bachel’s head in a murderous crown and then settled about her shoulders and arms. She smiled at them fondly and stroked their feathers with the back of her forefinger while the birds peered with pale eyes, bright and suspicious, at Murtagh and the dragon.

With the birds as her companions, Bachel strode forward from the cave and into the grove of trees. “Come,” she said, and Murtagh and the dragon followed.

They had no choice.

The black-needled pines stood as silent sentinels watching over the strange, staggered procession passing beneath their arching boughs. Murtagh stared up at the treetops and the velvet blackness of the clouded sky, and he tried to understand why the world felt so out of joint.

With measured steps, they walked across the cropped turf and then back into the courtyard before the temple. Rows of grey-robed people stood like hooded statues in the yard. Each held a lit torch, and their faces were turned down, so only the tops of their hoods were visible.

Bachel led Murtagh and the dragon into the center of the mute congregation, and a quartet of warriors gathered close around her, spears held at the ready.

She pointed at the dragon with a taloned finger. “Secure him,” she said, her voice ringing clear in the night air. And she tossed the vial at the dragon’s feet. It broke with a sharp chime. A plume of vapor expanded upward and gathered around the dragon’s head, moving as if it were a living thing.

Then Bachel beckoned to Murtagh. “With me, Kingkiller,” she said, and walked toward the entrance of the temple, the seven crows still riding upon her arms and shoulders.

He wanted to object, but he could not form the words, and no sound left his throat.

The tall witch led him deep into the temple, through cold corridors devoid of light, past windows shuttered closed and empty doorways that stared like eyeless sockets. Then down again, along a snail-shell staircase, until they arrived at a series of iron-barred cells. Grieve opened one door and pushed Murtagh inside.

“Now, O Rider, drink this,” said Bachel. And she handed Murtagh another vial, this one smaller, more delicate. Within was a pearlescent liquid that glowed with an unnatural luminance.

He stared dumbly at the vial, unable to make sense of what was expected. The floor and the ceiling seemed to spin; he swayed and nearly fell.

Bachel placed a finger against the back of his hand and pressed it toward his mouth. Her skin was cool against his. “Drink,” she said, and her voice was a wind brushing through branches bare of leaves, needles, or bark.

He drank. The liquid burned like brandy.

Then Grieve took the vial from his hand and closed the iron door.

“Give him his cloak, that he may remain warm,” said Bachel. “He is my child, after all, and I would have him treated as such.”

The garment landed upon him, a heavy petal of felted wool. He pulled it off his face. The fibers rubbed against his skin; he could feel each individual one, and they overwhelmed him with the influx of sensation.

Bachel bent toward him from beyond the iron bars. “Sleep, Kingkiller. Sleep…and dream…. Dream…. Dream.”

Her voice faded into the distance, and shadow swallowed her face as Murtagh fell backward—fell and fell and fell, and all the universe spun around him, and he cried out. But no one answered.

He was standing in the royal balcony overlooking the arena, Galbatorix behind him, looming and unseen, for Murtagh kept his gaze fixed on the sandy pit—the same pit where he’d killed his first man.

“Watch now,” said the king, and his voice contained the authority of rolling thunder.

Murtagh gripped the balcony railing until his nails turned white. He wanted to shout and rant—he wanted to leap over the railing and jump into the arena—but it would only make the situation worse.

Thorn stood in the center of the pit. He was only four days old: still weak, still unable to fly, though he kept raising his thin, undersized wings and driving them down in a futile attempt to take off. He turned in circles, chirping in concern, uncertain of where to go or what to do. He saw Murtagh on the balcony and let out a pitiful whine, and Murtagh knew his own feelings were affecting the hatchling. So he hardened his heart and, despite the anguish it caused him, closed his mind to the hatchling below.

“He’s too young,” he said from between clenched teeth.

“No creature is too young,” answered the king. “If he is to survive, he must learn to fight and feed. There is no other way.”

The iron portcullises at either side of the arena ratcheted up, and from each opening, a pair of grey timber wolves loped into the pit. They growled and snarled as they saw Thorn, and the fur along their spines bristled.

Thorn shrank back, but there was nowhere to run or hide.

“Please,” said Murtagh, gritting his teeth.

“No.” The king’s breath was warm against his ear.

The wolves circled Thorn. The dragon was longer than they were, but the wolves outweighed the hatchling by a significant amount.

After a few false starts, the wolves began to dart in and nip at Thorn’s wings and tail.

The dragon twisted round to face each new threat, but he wasn’t fast enough, and the wolves moved together with silent understanding. Within seconds, drops of steaming blood dripped from rents in Thorn’s wings, and he held his left forefoot off the ground, unable to place his weight on it.

Each drop of blood struck like a drumbeat of doom.

Murtagh felt as if he were about to explode. He tore down the barrier he’d erected in his mind and sent his thoughts hurtling toward the dragon’s small but fierce consciousness.

Thorn flinched, distracted, and the wolves closed in.

Jump! Murtagh shouted in his mind, including an image of what he meant.

Thorn hesitated, still uncertain, and one of the wolves bit his tail. With a yelp, Thorn spun to face his attacker.

It was a mistake. The other wolves rushed toward him, jaws parted, foam-flecked fangs ready to close on Thorn’s slender legs and delicate wings.

Murtagh forced his will onto the dragon’s as-yet-unformed mind and again shouted, Jump! To his relief, Thorn jumped, and he used his wings to gain a few extra feet of height before dropping down on the other side of the arena. The walls were too high for Thorn to surmount, which meant he had to fight.

The wolves raced after Thorn, and Murtagh fed the dragon more instructions. Thorn was, like all of his kind, a natural fighter, and it took only seconds before he started to understand and respond.

Thorn sprang onto the back of the nearest wolf and sank his teeth into the beast’s neck. With a sharp, vicious gesture, he tore out a chunk of hide and muscle—releasing a spray of blood—and then jumped onto a second wolf.

The wolf twisted nearly in half, snapping at the dragon, but Thorn dug his claws in and bit at the wolf’s head until the creature’s legs buckled and it collapsed to the ground.

The fall knocked Thorn onto his side, and before Murtagh could do anything to help, the other two wolves darted in and began to savage Thorn.

“No!”

For a few seconds, the dragon was barely visible, lost beneath a twisting knot of grey fur, legs, and tails. Growls and snarls and yelps of pain filled the arena, and fans of blood sprayed across the packed sand. Murtagh felt sharp pangs from Thorn, and he feared all was lost. He couldn’t understand. Why would Galbatorix allow his newest prize to die?

“How could you?” he said, barely able to form the words.

“Watch.”

The wolves fell apart. One dragged itself away, hind legs limp and useless, fur matted with spit and foam and blood. The other rolled onto its side and kicked helplessly, its belly ripped open and a pile of grey intestines spilling out. The kicking slowed.

Between the wolves stood Thorn. The small dragon was battered and torn—his wings shredded in several places—but fire burned in his sparkling eyes, and blood dripped from his razor-sharp fangs and from the large claws on his hind feet.

With a small roar, he sprang after the wolf with the paralyzed hindquarters. He bit and held the back of the wolf’s neck, and the animal shuddered and went limp, dead.

Then Thorn crouched low over his kill and began to tear at the corpse, ravenous in his hunger.

“Do you see?” said the king. “He is a dragon, and dragons are meant to kill. It is what they are. It is who you are. If you learn this now, the coming days will be that much easier for you, O son of Morzan. Now go to your dragon and heal him as you will.”

“I’ll kill you for this.”

A deep chuckle behind him. “No, you shall not. You will dream of killing me, you will plan for it, you will desire my demise with all your heart, but in the end you will see the rightness of my ways and realize that there is no opposing my power. You are mine, Murtagh, as is Thorn, and you shall serve me as your father did before you.”

To that, Murtagh had no answer. He went to attend Thorn’s wounds.

Nor was that the only time they visited the arena. Every time Thorn grew hungry, Galbatorix forced him to fight for his food, and Murtagh had no choice but to watch, helpless, as the young dragon killed and killed again. Even when Thorn grew larger than the largest bear, the king still insisted on making him face his prey in mortal conflict.

Murtagh saw the sands of the pit soak through with blood, and outside the citadel, he seemed to see the sky turn red. All around he heard the sounds of prisoners shrieking and yammering their torment, and he turned and ran and ran and ran through a warren of rocky tunnels, but they kept leading him back to the charnel grounds of the arena, and each time, he saw Thorn sitting hunched over his kills, alone, frightened, covered in blood, and desperately eating.

As Thorn had his trials, so too did Murtagh have his own. And they were just as long, bloody, and inescapable.

And beneath it all—beneath the overpowering images and emotions brought forth from the unwelcome past—lay the yawning void, and within it…a core of slow-turning madness centered upon some unknown yet implacable purpose.

And Murtagh wept and cried out with fear.

CHAPTER XIV Uvek

Murtagh woke.

There was no slow return to reality. No gradual brightening of light, no ramped awareness of his senses. One moment, nothing. The next—

A grey stone floor lay beneath him, inches from his nose. The stone was cracked, and small filigrees of moss had infiltrated the tiny crevices in the material: a tracery of green in an otherwise bare, grim surface. The smell of moss and stone combined was like that of a high mountain stream, or else a deep cave filled with a sunless lake.

His body was cold. He was lying face down on the hard floor. His left knee throbbed, and his right arm was numb from being folded underneath him.

As for his mind…his thoughts were clearer, more focused than before, although he still felt strangely muzzy, and there was a sickly-sweet taste at the back of his throat that he felt he ought to recognize….

He remembered the caves beneath the village, and the glowing slime, and finding the grated well where Bachel and Grieve had confronted him.

Alarm rushed through him. Thorn!

With his left arm, he pushed himself upright. His head swam, and he braced himself against the floor and closed his eyes until his balance returned and his right arm stopped tingling. Then he looked around.

He was in a dark cell, not dissimilar to the one he’d been confined in under Urû’baen. A narrow wooden cot sat against one wall, with a bucket for relieving himself next to it. His cloak lay beneath him, crumpled and wrinkled. There were no windows, only three blank stone walls, and iron bars where the fourth would have been. (He noted the bars especially; they represented an unusual amount of metal for such a small village.)

The only light came from a dim oil lamp near the end of the hallway in front of the cell.

Across the hall were three more cells, lost in inky shadows.

Murtagh tried to reach Thorn with his mind, but their thread of connection was nowhere to be found. Moreover—and equally concerning—Murtagh couldn’t feel a single other mind in the vicinity. Either the village had been deserted or somehow his tendrils of thought were being blocked…. And what was that taste sticking to his tongue and throat? He could almost place it.

Cold fear settled into Murtagh’s bones. Once again, he and Thorn found themselves overmatched, even as with Galbatorix. And once again, they found themselves bound against their will, for he could not imagine Thorn was free to fight, or else the dragon would have already rescued him.

Even in his worst nightmares, Murtagh had never imagined they would find themselves in a like situation again. Foolish, he thought, and cursed himself. He’d been overconfident, and now both he and Thorn were paying the price.

There would be time enough for recriminations later. For now, he had to concentrate on escape.

Murtagh clenched his hands several times in preparation. Then he gripped the cold iron, gathered his will, and whispered, “Kverst.”

Nothing happened. He could not seem to breach the barrier in his mind—the thin, glass-like pane that a consciousness had to break in order to directly manipulate energy. He tried again, but he found no purchase for his will. The barrier kept slipping away, and his thoughts remained too unfocused to pierce it.

His fear deepened until it was more akin to despair. He knew then what he was tasting: the drug called vorgethan, or some compounding of it. Galbatorix had fed it to him in Urû’baen until the king had forced his fealty, Durza had used it on Eragon at Gil’ead, and Du Vrangr Gata now mandated its consumption by magicians who refused to join or swear loyalty to their organization.

For vorgethan had two very specific effects: it slowed down the movements of the body and made it nigh on impossible to cast spells.

Murtagh shook his head, dismayed and furious with himself. How was I so stupid? Escaping would be far more difficult now. If he could contact Thorn…but then, Thorn was likely chained in place, and moreover, vorgethan made it difficult to touch the minds of others.

“Your weirding words will not work, human.”

The voice was deep as rumbling rocks and wild as a northern wind. It came from the cell opposite his, and the sound made Murtagh start and stumble back, hands raised as if to fend off attack.

A shape moved in the shadows: a hulking, heavy-shouldered mass with a head that was far larger than it ought to have been….

From the inky darkness emerged a battered, scar-slashed face as large as Murtagh’s chest. Grey skin, yellow eyes, pointed teeth, and huge ram’s horns that descended in jagged turns around broad cheekbones—

An Urgal!

Murtagh’s neck prickled as the Urgal studied him from across the hall, the creature’s yellow eyes fierce as a wildcat’s. The Urgal wore a jerkin of crudely sewn leather trimmed with bear fur. His arms were massively muscled, and the skin was scarred and tattooed with cabled patterns similar to those Murtagh had seen on the banners in the Urgal villages he and Thorn had flown over. A hide loincloth completed the Urgal’s outfit. He wore no shoes, and Murtagh could see the yellow clawlike nails on his seven-toed feet.

“She used the Breath on you,” said the Urgal. His mouth and chin projected from the rest of his face enough to give him a slight muzzle, and his heavy jaw mangled the words in a way that Murtagh found difficult to understand. But he could understand. “That is how she captured you, human.”

“The Br— How do you know our tongue, Urgal?” Murtagh found it hard to string words together into coherent sentences. His mind was still strange, his thoughts kept skating in different directions, and his body felt light and unbalanced, lacking substance.

The Urgal’s eyes shifted away, as if he were looking at something in the far distance. “I know many things. What is your name, hornless one?”

Murtagh knew enough of Urgals to realize the creature had just insulted him, and badly. If he were an Urgal, he supposed it would have bothered him, but he wasn’t, and it didn’t.

He briefly considered lying, but lies were beyond his ability at the moment. Even so, he was cautious. “Names are powerful things. It would be foolish…foolish to share them carelessly.”

Again, the Urgal focused on him. The creature went “Hmmm,” deep in his throat, and scratched at the thicket of black bristles that covered his chest. “You say truth, but some names are more dangerous than others. Do you not have a common name, to speak with outlanders?”

“…I do.”

“Hrmm. I am Windtalker and Peak-Climber. I sit in silence and listen to birds and bears and words of trees. No tribe claims me, and I claim none myself. My common name is Uvek.”

“Uvek…. My common name is Murtagh.”

A flash of fire illuminated the Urgal’s deep-set eyes. “So. You are one who shares thoughts with worm Thorn. Word of you reached even farthest parts of Alagaësia. I heard tell that you fought Urgralgra in dwarf mountains, and that you then fought Urgralgra for dragonkiller Galbatorix. Is true?”

It seemed surreal to Murtagh that he was having a conversation with an Urgal—and that Uvek was asking him much the same questions that he received from humans in Nasuada’s realm. “Is true,” he said wearily. “Galbatorix captured us and forced us to fight against the Varden. Otherwise, I suppose I would have been shieldmates with your kind once they joined the Varden.”

“Hrmm. Do you hate Urgralgra?”

“No,” said Murtagh, again approaching the iron bars. He leaned against them, welcoming the support. “But neither do I have any love for your kind. One of your chieftains almost killed me when I was younger.”

Uvek bared his large teeth in what Murtagh realized was an approximation of a smile. If not for his experience with Thorn, the expression would have been terrifying and difficult, possibly impossible, to interpret. “You say truth. I like that, human. And you are here, so chieftain cannot have been so bad. You live, he dead?”

“He’s dead.”

“So all good. What else matter?”

Murtagh grunted. He grasped the bars and shook them; they didn’t budge. The ends were seated in deep sockets drilled into the stone, and he suspected some form of magic fortified them, for they were free of rust or discoloration.

Tonnng. Uvek snapped a finger against his bars, and the metal rang like a bell. “I cannot break this iron, Murtagh-man. You cannot break either.”

“No…. You said she—Bachel—used the Breath on me?”

Uvek’s heavy head moved up and down in a nod. “That is what she call it.”

“What is it? The breath of what?”

A shrug this time. “She not tell me, so I cannot tell you.”

Murtagh frowned as he tried to think. “Weirding…How do you know I can’t use magic?”

“Because,” said Uvek, hunching forward, a grim look on his bestial face, “I also cannot. They give us poison that steal our strength, make us weak and helpless. So I sit here like chukka waiting for knife.”

Murtagh found it hard to wrap his mind around this new piece of information. “You…you are a spellcaster?”

“No. I am shaman. There is difference. But I am familiar with weirding ways, and I know some words of power.” Uvek tugged on the tip of one horn, thoughtful. “They give you more poison, I think. Or same amount, but you smaller, it hurts you more.”

A moment of silence passed as Murtagh studied Uvek again, reevaluating. He knew the Urgals had magicians of their own, but he had never met any; the alliance between Galbatorix and their kind had already been broken by the time the Twins dragged him back to Urû’baen.

His knees felt suddenly weak, and he lowered himself to the floor, using the iron bars for support. He reached back and pulled over his cloak and draped it across his shoulders. “There has to be a way to escape,” he muttered.

Uvek chuckled, an unpleasant sound. “I am stronger than you, and I have more clear head, but I cannot find escape. The witch is smart, and strong too.”

Murtagh blinked. He couldn’t seem to clear his eyes; everything appeared slightly blurry. “If I could just talk to Thorn—”

“If wishes were real, world would end.”

“The…the world might be ending anyway.”

“Hrmm. That depend on what witch is want to do.”

“How did you…How were you…” The light from the lamp seemed to fail, and the shadows narrowed his vision, and all grew dark and grey.

“Human?…Human?…Open eyes, Murtagh-man. Open….”

The dreams this time were more fragmented. Quick flashes of images, each of which carried a charge of emotion strong enough to knock a man from his feet. Murtagh found himself whipped from the heights of frenzied delight to the depths of grim morbidity and back again. At times, he thought he felt Thorn, and their dreams seemed to intertwine, and then the whirling currents of fevered imaginings would rip them apart: strange tides leading to stranger shores.

Throughout, Murtagh tried to hold to his sense of self, but it was difficult, for he did not know what was real and he had no lodestone to set his course by. The experience was exhausting and terrifying in equal measure, even more so because he sensed a gaping chasm underlying all of the visions—and, within that chasm, a lurking presence so huge and malevolent, he shrank from it for fear of going mad.

In desperation, he cried out in the ancient language, trying to still the stormy waters of his mind. But though he could voice the words of power, he could not give them the strength needed to work a change in the sawtoothed jags of disjointed images.

Helpless, he had no choice but to ride the ups and downs of the stormy swells and hope—hope—that they would soon subside.

A splash of cold water roused Murtagh from his torpor.

He sputtered and inhaled a spray of droplets. He started to cough.

A pair of white-robed cultists stood over him. One held an empty bucket, the other a wooden bowl and spoon.

“Wha—”

The men pinned him against the hard floor, holding down his arms and legs. He thrashed, but he had no strength. They restrained him as easily as a child.

One of them produced a small crystal vial from inside his tunic. Murtagh recognized it as containing the same enchanted vapor Bachel had used on him. No!

He struggled harder as the cultist unstoppered the vial and blew the contents into his face. The vapor filled Murtagh’s nostrils, and within seconds, his will to resist bled away, and his limbs grew slack, and he stared unblinking at the ceiling.

“Keep him upright, that I may feed him,” said the other cultist.

Murtagh felt himself pushed into a sitting position. Then the man who held him grabbed his jaw and forced his mouth open while his companion spooned in slop. Murtagh gagged. A large portion spilled onto his shirt.

The cultist frowned, and after the next spoonful, he pinched Murtagh’s nose and pressed the palm of his hand over Murtagh’s mouth.

As the slop ran down his throat, Murtagh recognized the burning brandy taste.

When the bowl was empty, the cultists let him fall onto his side and left the cell. The door closed with a hollow clang.

Footsteps receded into the distance.

From across the hall, Uvek’s voice sounded: “Murtagh-man? Can you speak?”

Murtagh made an incoherent sound and tried to roll onto his side. The movement nearly made him throw up. Before he could progress any further, more footsteps echoed through the dungeon, this time approaching.

The pair of white-robed cultists returned with empty hands. They opened the cell and, despite Murtagh’s murmured protestations, picked him up by his arms and dragged him away.

CHAPTER XV Obliteration

Two turns of the hall brought them to a wooden door. The door opened to a stone room with a brazier full of glowing coals and a wooden slab table fitted with iron manacles.

The sight struck him with shocking force. It was horribly similar to how the Hall of the Soothsayer had appeared when Galbatorix had forced him to torture Nasuada therein. Every part of Murtagh’s being rebelled at what lay before him. He rejected, repudiated, and forswore both past and future, and for a second, the searing fire of recognition burned away the effects of the vorgethan.

No! He dug in his heels and twisted in his captors’ hands in a futile attempt to break free. Desperate, he bent and bit the hand of one man. The cultist yelled as hot blood pulsed into Murtagh’s mouth.

The men slammed him against the table, and stars flashed across his vision as his head hit the wood. He continued to struggle even as they forced the manacles about his wrists and ankles.

“No,” he growled, barely audible.

The cultists ignored him. They withdrew to the corners of the room and stood at attention, the one man cradling his hand as blood dripped from the teeth marks Murtagh had left in his flesh.

Again, Murtagh tried to use magic. Again, he failed.

The door swung open, and—with a rush of air as from a beat of giant wings—Bachel strode in. The witch wore a long, black, high-collared robe with gold stitching along the cuffs. From her brow rose a matching headdress, stiff and splayed, made of netted threads adorned with pearls and the polished skulls of crows. The dark backdrop of the headdress framed her angular face, as in a carefully painted portrait. But unlike in most portraits, a mask covered the upper half of her face, and it seemed to blend into her skin and grant the witch a strange, draconic aspect, as if the shape of a dragon were somehow imposed over her body, as a glamour or an illusion.

It was more than a simple trick; Murtagh could feel an additional presence in the room, a stifling, inhuman force for which Bachel was merely the vessel.

The effect of the mask was the same as…as…He struggled to remember. Then it came to him: Captain Wren. The same as the masks the captain kept in his study, and it seemed to Murtagh they must have come from the same place. Perhaps Wren had given the Draumar the mask. Or perhaps they gave him his masks.

Either way, Bachel had taken on a terrifying, outsized appearance, and every sound and movement she made acquired a heightened reality, as if he lay before a god made flesh.

As disorienting and intimidating as the experience was, that wasn’t the worst of it. Not for him. For the mask reminded him, more than anything, of when Galbatorix had ordered him to wear a half mask of his own while interrogating Nasuada. Why exactly, Murtagh had never known, but he suspected the king wanted to force distance between Nasuada and him, that she might take no comfort in any look or expression of his, and he might more easily assume the role of torturer.

Murtagh had hated the blasted thing.

“Welcome, Kingkiller.” The witch’s words resonated as if from the peaks of the mountains: a supernatural sound that in no way resembled the voice of a human or elf.

She advanced upon the table, and Murtagh saw she wore jewelry on her hands: for each finger an onyx claw fixed to a setting of carved gold. The claws were sharp, and he stiffened as she traced them across the curve of his shoulder. Even through his shirt, they scratched him.

With an effort of will, he forced himself to say: “What do…do you want, witch?”

“I want you.” She smiled, and beneath the mask, her teeth showed with feral hunger.

“Never.”

“You will bow to me, Kingkiller, and you will serve me and the one I in turn serve.” Her eyes glowed with honeyed light. “And you will be richly rewarded for helping to forge our fearsome future. No longer a princeling but a king fit to rule the world.”

Her oversized, dragon-like bearing was crushing to be near, and Murtagh faltered before the force of it, faltered and felt diminished. “No,” he said, but the word seemed pitifully weak.

“A king,” she whispered, leaning down so he could feel her breath on his ear. “A king such as the world needs, and I your priestess, and we shall bring long-delayed vengeance to this corrupted land.”

He shook his head, trying to block out her insidious voice. A trial was coming, he knew, and it was going to test him to the utmost.

“…Why?”

The witch straightened, as tall and distant as a cruel-faced statue. “We are the devotees of Azlagûr the Devourer. Azlagûr the Firstborn. Azlagûr the Dreamer. He who sleeps and whose sleeping mind weaves the warp and weft of the waking world. But the sleeper grows restless, Kingkiller, and we are His eyes and ears and hands. By our doing, we shall ready the world for His dread arrival. Those who serve Azlagûr, those who well please Him—those He shall elevate above all others and grant to them power. Power such as has not existed in the world since the days of old, when magic was wild and unbound and the Grey Folk were yet primitives clawing their way out of the muck.”

She bent toward him again, her expression terrible, and he thought to see flames leaping in her eyes and blood dripping from her onyx claws. “Join me, Kingkiller. Join me of your own accord. All that you wish will be yours if you but have faith.”

“Never,” he gasped. The air seemed heated, and he found it difficult to breathe. He felt as if he were choking.

“So be it. I shall have you either way, for I am the avatar of Azlagûr, and He cannot be denied.”

And Bachel swiped her claws across his chest. Sparks flew from the sharpened onyx tips as they struck his wards, and Murtagh grew weak as the spells consumed his strength in an attempt to protect him.

Her expression hardened, and her glamoured face was fearsome to behold. With a deliberate motion, she placed her claws in a circle over his heart and pressed downward with ever-increasing force. The tips of her claws began to glow red, and Murtagh grew dizzy and breathless.

His wards could have protected him forever…if he’d had the energy to power them. But he didn’t. Sustaining the spells felt like trying to hold a boulder in his outstretched hands; the weight was overwhelming, and in an instant—to keep from killing him—the wards failed, and Bachel’s claws sank into the meat of his chest.

Murtagh stiffened and cried out.

“…how?” he managed to gasp.

“The might of Azlagûr is greater than you can imagine, Kingkiller. He will not be denied.” And the witch’s mind assaulted Murtagh’s with a torrent of black thoughts, quick and grasping.

He had not the fortitude to hold her at bay. Not then. So he tried a different approach, one more dangerous, but no less effective. He bent like a reed in the wind and allowed Bachel’s consciousness to flow around his own. Wherever and whenever she attempted to grasp one of his thoughts, he slipped sideways and turned his attention elsewhere. His distraction became a defense, and with it, he repeatedly foiled Bachel.

The witch did not give up. She had resources he didn’t, and every time a thought or memory flickered through his mind, she learned a little more about him.

“Ahhh!”

Her claws cut bloody stripes across his chest, and Murtagh arched his back. He pulled on the iron cuffs and tried to break them, but they were too thick and too well secured.

Pain focused his mind, and the witch used that to pin his consciousness in place, to hold it and corral it as she sought to subjugate him to her will. But even drugged, Murtagh knew this game. He had played it with Galbatorix more times than he cared to remember, and he knew how to bend and twist and escape her grasp.

Nasuada too had played the game with him during her time in the Hall of the Soothsayer. And she—fierce, proud, strong—had never broken. The thought gave him a small measure of hope.

Still, evading the witch’s mental grip was exhausting work, similar in effort to physically wrestling, and compounded in difficulty by the hurts Bachel inflicted upon him.

“I have no desire to disfigure you, Kingkiller,” she said, and shook a drop of blood from her onyx claws. The bead glistened in the light of the brazier as it fell, a perfect polished orb of deepest vermilion. “But it requires very little to cause agonies that will drive even an elf mad.”

She pressed the tip of a claw against one of the scratches on his chest, and the point of the claw found a nerve, and electric fire shot across his torso and up his neck.

He fought to keep his face still. The more he grimaced, the worse the pain seemed. When, after an eternity of suffering, Bachel lifted the claw, he gasped. “Do you want…me…mad?”

“If mad is what I can have, then mad is what I shall take. You are a useful tool either way, Kingkiller, but my preference would be to have you as you are, whole and handsome and fit to fight an army.” She laughed, and it was a disconcerting sound, emanating as it did from the draconic shadow that enveloped her. “But I think you would be most entertaining mad. You are the one who must choose, Kingkiller. Join the Draumar. Join me, and serve our dread master Azlagûr as have those who came before us.”

“…Never.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. So repetitive. So boring. You must think of more creative answers, my wayward child. Do not force me to chastise you, though chastise you I shall, for thine own good.”

She lifted her clawed hand again, and he forced himself to say, fast as he could: “D-does…Azlagûr speak to you?”

A secret smile formed on Bachel’s face, and her claws paused in the air. “In a way. He speaks to all of us, Kingkiller, even you, if you but have the ears and eyes to understand. When you dream, those are Azlagûr’s dreams, and by them we understand His will. As His priestess, as His Speaker, He sends dreams to me most particularly, and I share them with my people, and I interpret for them the dreams that they have. This is how we receive Azlagûr’s wisdom.”

“To what end?”

“That we bring about the destruction of this era and the beginning of another. That we remake the world through fire and blood and bring to fruition prophecies and plans that span millennia. Do you not understand, Kingkiller? We are the instruments of Fate. We have been chosen to set the pattern of history, and by it, we shall have recompense beyond mortal imagining.”

Then Bachel’s claws again descended, and Murtagh again gave voice to his pain.

Deep in his mind, he felt a matching agony from Thorn, and the feeling heightened his torment, for he could not help the one who mattered most to him.

CHAPTER XVI Waking Dreams

The witch tormented him for hours. Always she kept asking him to break or bend.

Always he refused.

But he gave her everything else she demanded. When she ordered him to agree, he agreed. When she told him to turn his head or say that the Varden’s cause had been wrong and misguided, he obeyed. It was a trick he’d learned in Urû’baen. If he agreed, it bought him a slight reprieve, physically and mentally. If he was cooperative, that mollified Bachel to a certain extent. But on the core issue, he never budged, and as much as he could, he deflected and dissembled and otherwise tried to frustrate the witch’s efforts.

Had he not been drugged, he would have attempted to seize Bachel’s mind and make her his own servant. As it was, he could only endure.

Nor was the witch solely interested in his compliance. She questioned him about Eragon and Saphira, Arya and Fírnen, and specifically the state of Nasuada’s realm, including the dispersion of the magicians of Du Vrangr Gata, the postings of the realm’s armies, and many other useful pieces of intelligence. Much of what she asked, Murtagh had no special knowledge of, though Bachel did not always believe him and pressed him hard on every point.

Her questions taught him two things in return. First was that Bachel seemed to think a full-scale attack on Nasuada’s realm was not only desirable but an actual possibility. With what army? And second, that Bachel and the Draumar were far better informed than their numbers or location seemed to indicate. How many sympathizers have they?

Such coherent thoughts appeared only in the brief respites between Bachel’s attentions. Most of the time, Murtagh drifted amid a haze of pain, unable to make sense of anything but his need to escape the witch’s clutches.

And…he was scared.

The fear did not cause him to turn coward, but the more he saw of Bachel’s distorted visage, and the more he felt of her red-tipped claws, and the more her intruding consciousness pulled at the most intimate parts of his self, the greater his terror grew.

Many difficult things Murtagh had done in his life, many shameful, bloody things, some forced upon him, some born of his own weakness, but there and then was the greatest challenge he had faced. Because unlike with Galbatorix, he could not—would not—allow himself to give in. He knew what torments lay down that path, and they were worse than any physical pain.

Or so he told himself. But because of it, there was no end in sight, and that made it difficult to sustain hope.

He tried not to think, only do what had to be done in the unfounded, perhaps futile expectation that, at some point, at some time, Bachel would tire of him and direct her cruelty elsewhere.

Nasuada’s face often filled his mind, her expression sometimes soft with sympathy, other times contorted with pain and fear, and Murtagh found himself forced to remember what he had done to her in the Hall of the Soothsayer. The suffering he had inflicted was no less than what he now endured, and the knowledge made his stomach turn. There was a part of him that welcomed his torture as penance for his crimes. But no matter how great the agony, the mistakes of the past remained a testament to his failures.

Bachel noticed, for as he struggled with his memories, she brought her face close to his and studied him with cold amusement. “What would your queen think of you now?” she murmured. “Would she pity you? No, I think she would be disgusted by your weakness, my helpless little princeling. ’Tis a fatal weakness, one you will never recover from, unless you swear fealty to me and Azlagûr.”

“…no.”

Her claws descended, and he screamed again.

After an endless while, the witch grew bored with him. She drew forth another crystal vial from her bodice, unstoppered it, and blew a fresh cloud of vapor upon his face.

Murtagh held his breath, but as with Thorn, the cloud clung to him, and when at last his lungs gave out, the putrid stench of brimstone clogged his nose and mouth, and the room tilted beneath him, and everything that was solid seemed insubstantial.

Save for Bachel. She retained her sense of substance. Her face grew impossibly large as she leaned over him and said, “We shall try again tomorrow, Kingkiller. Let that knowledge fill your thoughts. In the meantime, may the Breath of Azlagûr bring you wisdom through dream, and dreaming shall you find your way.”

Her face receded. “Take him to the well before you return him to his chamber. His smell offends me.”

“As you wish, Speaker,” replied a man from beyond Murtagh’s vision.

Then the witch swept out of the room, and unseen hands removed the manacles from Murtagh’s wrists and ankles. They dragged him through the building, and for a time, all Murtagh was aware of were the bumping of his legs across the stone floor, the strain in his arms and shoulders, and the bobbing of his head, which made him queasy.

Blood dripped from his body. Less than he had feared, but any was unwelcome.

Icy water poured over the back of his neck. The shock cleared his mind somewhat. He gasped and looked around; he was sitting by the well outside the temple, and the two cultists were tossing buckets of water upon him. Then they dragged him into the temple courtyard.

Thorn was there. Heavy iron chains bound the dragon to the flagstones, while his muzzle was wrapped with thick leather thongs, and his wings were pinned to his side by rounds of rope. Tar-like blood streaked the rucked membranes.

Murtagh’s heart lurched. He felt as if there were words that needed saying and actions that needed doing, but he could not stir his limbs.

He stared at Thorn, and Thorn at him—the dragon’s ruby eyes dull, defeated, dimmed by drugs or magic or some combination thereof. There was a sadness to his expression that struck Murtagh to the core, even in the extremes of his own distress, and he struggled to break the grip of his captors, but he could do no more than weakly thrash.

“None of that now,” said one of the cultists.

Across the yard, Alín appeared—white-robed and pale-faced—among the temple columns. She seemed stricken by the sight of him and Thorn, though Murtagh could not understand why. For an instant, he thought she was about to speak, but then his captors turned and dragged him toward the temple’s small side door, and the moment passed.

Murtagh landed on his side with a painful impact, and the cell door closed behind him with a clang.

He lay on his crumpled cloak for a long while, trying to gather the pieces of himself well enough to make sense of the world.

Despite his efforts otherwise, his eyes slid shut….

He was sitting on a throne…THE throne: the same black and gold monstrosity Galbatorix had held court from. Thorn was to his left, and on the polished marble floor before them knelt Eragon, head bowed so his face was concealed, his hair the same mess of tousled brown locks Murtagh remembered. There were raw red marks around Eragon’s wrists, and—with the certainty found only in dreams—Murtagh knew that he had broken Eragon, and that Eragon was his to command even as Murtagh had been Galbatorix’s.

Past Eragon were the kneeling forms of Arya, the dwarf king Orik, and…Nasuada. As with Eragon, their faces were turned toward the floor. All save for Nasuada. She looked at him with an expression of fearful devotion, and he knew that she too was his to command, and that even more than the others, she was a slave to his word.

Farther still stood endless ranks of soldiers: humans in their mail shirts and padded gambesons; elves garbed in woodland colors, with elegant bows in hand and long, graceful swords at their hips; dwarves with hammers and pikes, and battalions of spearmen mounted on Feldûnost, the proud-footed mountain goats of the Beors; and Urgals too, with their crudely fashioned weapons, Urgals of human height and others towering ten, twelve feet in total—Kull, huge, muscular, terrifying.

And he knew that every soldier owed him fealty, and that he could order them onto the field of battle, and they would die for him to the last.

Murtagh felt power to be his, and he welcomed the sense of control. With it, he could do what was right—what was needed—and, more important, he could keep Thorn and himself safe. No one could command or enslave them if they ruled the land. How simple. How direct. Why had he never thought about it before? No longer would he have to wrestle with the question of whether to keep apart from the doings of Alagaësia. By assuming his rightful place on the throne, he could sidestep the problem, and everyone in the realm might become a part of him, rather than he a part of them.

He smiled as he beheld his dominion. For the first time in his life, he felt as if he had found his place.

At the end of the impossibly large audience chamber, a trefoil window allowed for a view westward, and framed in it, a black sun descended….

“Murtagh-man…Can you hear me?…Wake now, human…. Human?”

The dark arch of the stone ceiling was the first thing Murtagh saw. He blinked and stirred. Every muscle in his body felt sore and strained; he’d pulled against the manacles with all his might, and he was paying the price for it now. Tomorrow would be worse.

Dried blood cracked on his chest as he rolled to his knees. His mind was still bleary, his wits dulled, his vision fuzzed.

On the other side of the hallway, he saw Uvek crouched by the door to the Urgal’s own enclosure, the tips of his horns touching the bars. It was difficult to tell, but Murtagh thought the Urgal appeared, if not concerned, at least of a mind to commiserate with a fellow prisoner.

“Can you speak, Murtagh-man?”

It took him longer than he liked to make a sound: “I—”

Footsteps echoed off the walls, approaching. Dread filled Murtagh, and he scooted back, away from the door to his cell. Opposite him, Uvek silently withdrew until he was hidden within shadow.

Then Murtagh saw Alín sweep down the hallway. She stopped before his cell and stared at him, her cheeks as pale as her robe. Her eyebrows narrowed, and her lips pressed together, and she trembled slightly, as if racked by a powerful passion.

She knelt and placed a wooden plate in his cell, along with a small pitcher of what smelled like watered wine. The plate held bread and hard cheese and several strips of smoked bergenhed.

Again she stood. She smoothed the front of her robe, and Murtagh noticed that her hands were shaking. Then she turned and ran from his cell, and her robe flapped like a pennant in the wind.

“You have friend, Murtagh-man.” Uvek’s rumbling voice preceded him as the Urgal emerged from the shadows.

“…Maybe.” Sudden hunger—ravenous, burning, unbearable—sent Murtagh scrabbling forward to tear at the bread and cheese. His own hands were no more steady than Alín’s. Whether she was a friend or not, the unmistakable flavor of brandy tainted the food she’d brought—the dreaded drug vorgethan. For a moment, he considered forgoing the food, but he was desperately weak. If he did not eat, he knew his will would desert him entirely. To survive, he had to force down the very poison that kept him imprisoned.

“The witch treated you roughly,” said Uvek.

It wasn’t a question. Looking at him again, Murtagh saw a kindness in the Urgal’s expression that he had never before encountered among Uvek’s race. An image came to Murtagh, so bright and strong that he felt as if he were looking upon another time and place—an image of Uvek sitting on a high mountain ridge, near a scraggled, windblown pine…sitting hunched over a single blue flower, wan and delicate, a thoughtful expression on his face.

Murtagh shook his head. The Breath and the vorgethan were making reality as thin as a threadbare curtain, as if he could peek through a frayed hole and see what otherwise would be hidden.

“What does she want from you, Murtagh-man?”

“She…” He coughed. Flakes of dried blood fell to the floor. “She wants me to swear fealty to her and to join the Draumar.”

Uvek tilted his head. The tip of one horn tapped the bars of his cell. “She wants same from me.”

“But she doesn’t torture you.”

“Not since they capture you. I think she find you more interesting.”

“Lucky me.” Murtagh drank deeply of the watered wine and then started in on the smoked bergenhed. As he chewed, he studied Uvek. “Why does Bachel seek your fealty?”

“The Draumar seek fealty from all who cross path.”

Murtagh shook his head again. He was having trouble summoning the words he needed. “Yes, but…No. Why…why you?”

“Because I was one they could find.”

That still wasn’t what Murtagh wanted to know, but expressing himself was too difficult, so he grunted and focused on eating.

When the food was gone, he leaned back and rested his head against the cold stone of the cell, closing his eyes while he tried to strengthen the thin, nearly indetectable umbilical cord that joined him and Thorn. Uvek watched the whole while, but Murtagh didn’t care. There was plenty of iron separating him from the Urgal, and besides, he didn’t feel threatened by Uvek…though he felt sure that Uvek was capable of great violence when the occasion called for it.

Murtagh found little success with Thorn. All he could discern were indistinct emotions, none of them pleasant. Full thoughts and words still proved impossible to exchange. In any case, Murtagh’s mind kept wandering, and he noticed himself slipping in and out of awareness, as if the world were divided into short sections of consciousness, brief flashes of lucidity, and the rest madness, or worse, nonexistence.

Yet throughout, his mind kept returning to Nasuada, and the horrible intimacy of their time together in the Hall of the Soothsayer. His shame swelled, and with it, his respect for her. That she had resisted Galbatorix and endured for so long now seemed miraculous to Murtagh. He wasn’t sure how she had managed. Nor how she had recovered. He feared he wasn’t as strong.

He was nearly asleep—or lost in a fugue state that resembled sleep—when Uvek said, “Murtagh-man, why did you and Thorn-dragon come to Nal Gorgoth?”

“Wanted to…find out…who Bachel…brimstone…stone.”

“How did Draumar catch you? Was when earth shook?”

It was too difficult to explain in full. “No…got careless…after feast…”

He heard Uvek shift, and the Urgal made an angry sound. “Feast! How long you been in Nal Gorgoth, Murtagh-man?”

“Two…two days.”

“Why not kill Draumar when you could?”

Murtagh forced his eyes open. “…was curious. Important to know before act.”

Uvek’s beetled brow smoothed, and then his heavy head moved up and down. “Ah. That wise, Murtagh-man. But now you trapped like Uvek. Would have been better act sooner, save much pain, much…”

His voice faded into oblivion as Murtagh’s eyes rolled back, and he fell away from the cell, down, down, down, through endless black, into the harsh visions of promised dreams.

CHAPTER XVII Fragments

The cultists came for him again.

The cell door banged open, and Murtagh woke with a start, confused. It felt like the middle of the night, though there was no way to tell in the windowless space. Night or day, time had lost all sense of cohesion, and for a scattered few seconds, he had no idea where he was or what was happening.

Arms lifted him off the floor, and a pair of white-robed men dragged him from the cell even as he began to protest.

The cultists carried him back to the room of torment. Coal-lit, bloodstained, the strained stench of terror clinging to the chiseled stones with dogged, unkind persistence.

Bachel was waiting for him, again bedecked with headdress and dragon-aspect mask, her figure tall and fearsome, with a crow perched on either shoulder.

Murtagh fought to no avail as the cultists chained him to the rough slab table. Murmuring softly, Bachel bent over him, and the sound of Murtagh’s agony echoed off the indifferent walls.

There was a monotony to pain. Every hurt brought fresh discomfort—immediate and insistent and demanding of Murtagh’s attention—and yet the pain possessed a deadly sameness that blurred into a single smear of agony. The repetitiveness was nearly as unbearable as the injuries themselves. The process was all so miserably predictable. He hated knowing the direction of Bachel’s cruel intentions, and he hated how effective her not-so-tender ministrations were. Experience provided no protection; if anything, it made his trials harder to endure, and the continual confusion that snarled his thoughts only increased the inhuman strain of every eternal instant.

Yet for all that, he still managed to evade and confound Bachel’s mental attacks. And the witch grew frustrated, and she used the Breath on him again, and time fractured around him, and he could not order the happening of events. He seemed to skip between moments, unmoored from a constant present, a castaway thrown from one chopped fragment of time to the next, as a piece of flotsam from whitecap to whitecap.

Murtagh held fast to the one thing he was sure of: his own sense of self. That much he knew. The core of what he knew himself to be—the truth of his name in the ancient language—gave him strength even in the depths of his despair.

The pain was no longer his alone. He felt additional torments now, these from Thorn, and they compounded his anguish. He cursed Bachel, but the witch only laughed, as was her wont, and once more demanded his fealty.

It was a pointless exercise on her part, but Murtagh felt tears on his face—the first time he had wept because of Bachel’s inflictions—and he wept not for himself but for Thorn. The dragon did not deserve the pain, had never deserved such treatment. I have failed, Murtagh thought, and the realization was crushing. Once again, he was unable to protect his friend. Once again, another suffered because of his mistakes.

He wished he could ask Eragon for help. He would have happily swallowed his pride if it meant that Eragon and Saphira would fly to their rescue. What use was pride when you were reduced to the basest, meanest part of existence? Pride, vanity, ambition, anger—none were left to him. Only the need to survive. And to somehow save Thorn.

The cultists were splashing water over him, washing him as before. Old court habits made Murtagh want to thank them, to show that even though he was at their mercy, they had not stripped him of his self-possession and good manners. But the words would not leave his mouth.

Thorn lay in the courtyard, beaten and bedraggled. Never had Murtagh seen a dragon so cowed—a mistreated hound cringing before its master. The sight caused something to break in Murtagh’s chest, and he tried to speak.

All he could manage from between cracked lips was the softest: “…thorn.”

The dragon’s eyes stared back with a dull, lifeless gaze, and Murtagh felt a brush of his mind. For a moment, he glimpsed a dark, gloom-ridden landscape of thought, where no spark of hope shone, and grey murk pressed in from every side.

Uvek was speaking: “…Murtagh-man…Can you hear me, Murtagh-man?…Blink if you understand words.”

Murtagh tried to roll onto his side, but his muscles refused to respond. He slumped back against the wall, eyes closed, and made a sound of defeat. With one hand, he gestured vaguely toward the Urgal.

A grunt came from Uvek. Through slitted lids, Murtagh saw him squat next to the bars of his cell. “You are strong, Murtagh-man. Stronger than most hornless.”

“…Rider.” The word came as a croak from his raw throat.

“Hrmm. Is more than that. Strength comes from here.” Uvek tapped the side of his head. “And here.” He tapped the center of his chest.

A sudden cough caused Murtagh to cry out as pain lanced his side. It felt as if he had a broken rib, or near enough. He took a shallow breath. “What do…you know…of…Azlagûr?”

A dark cloud settled on Uvek’s face, and the muscles in his forearms rippled and knotted. “Only that Draumar worship that one. I never heard name before Nal Gorgoth, but I think…No, I do not know what I think. Bachel is mad, but does not mean power is imagined. No.”

“…no.” Murtagh grimaced as he pulled his cloak across his chest. The stones beneath him felt unbearably cold. “I keep dreaming…dreaming of…” His strength fell off, and with it, his voice. With an effort, he rallied. “Of a black sun with a black dragon…. think…it has…something to do with…Azlagûr.”

The shadowed crevices on Uvek’s face deepened. “Is so? I see black sun as well, Murtagh-man. Every night, it troubles my sleep. Hrmm. Do you know how Urgralgra think world will end?”

“…how?”

Uvek bared his teeth. “The great dragon, Gogvog, will rise from the ocean and eat the sun and the stars and the moon, and then he cook world with his flames. Will be bad time for Urgralgra. And hornless too.”

The faintest of smiles touched Murtagh’s lips. “I would imagine…so.”

“It remind me of black sun.” The Urgal rolled his shoulders. “It bother me, Murtagh-man. This is a bad place, I think. Very bad.”

Murtagh couldn’t disagree. His eyes drifted closed, and he felt as if he was on the verge of passing out.

Uvek’s voice dragged him back to awareness. “Is bad to sleep when you are hurt like this, Murtagh-man. I know. Close eyes and you not wake up again. Might be.”

“Can’t…stay…awake,” Murtagh mumbled.

The Urgal huffed. “I will tell you story, then. Hrmm. I will tell you how Draumar caught me. Would you like?”

“…yes.”

“Good. Keep eyes open, Murtagh-man. Story is this…. Fourteen winters. Fourteen winters I sit atop mountain. I think. I dream. I listen. Birds and beasts, the little bees that feed off spring flowers, I listen to them, Murtagh-man. They taught me much about world, and I thought I understand, but…Guh!” He tugged the tips of his horns, and his heavy lips curled with disgust. “No understand. I was fool then, but I not realize. I left clan because I thought better to be alone. Only way I could learn without distraction. Only way I help Urgralgra without favor this clan or that. Only way to stand apart.”

Uvek tapped a thick yellow fingernail against the iron bar in front of him. “Older I get, Murtagh-man, more I think being wise is knowing how much still unknown. Too easy to be fooled by thinking we know pattern, but the world, she like sand falling in wind. Much zhar. Much randomness. Hrmm…Two years ago, Clan Vrekqna came to me, told me of hornless that raid them, take prisoners, kill their warriors. They asked help, but I would not leave mountaintop, and I sent them away. Few moons later, Clan Thulkarvoc came to me with same ask. Said the hornless had strange magics they could not stand against. Said they left charms of bird skulls. Said they stole their rams and burned their huts. Still, I would not leave mountaintop. Too proud I was, far, far too proud.”

A pensive silence followed as Uvek picked at his belt, and Murtagh drifted closer to sleep, lulled by the stillness of their cells.

Then the Urgal spoke again: “Two moons ago, Draumar came to my hut. They told me go with them. I say no. They say yes, so we fight, Murtagh-man. But there were too many, and I was alone. No, not all alone. I say wrong. There was raven. She would visit me every day, and I talk to her. She listen, and I give her seeds. Twelve years, Murtagh-man, she came to me. Kiskû, I name her. She tried to help me, attack Draumar.” Uvek made a deep, rolling sound like falling rock. “But Draumar kill her. That one, Grieve, he threw rock at Kiskû, hit her. Is a bad thing to do, Murtagh-man. Raven not like crow. Raven bring life and luck and tidings from afar.” Uvek rocked in place, and his horns tapped against the bars of his cell. “Draumar caught me, Murtagh-man, like rabbit in snare, and they brought me here, and here I stay while dreams rot my head.” The Urgal scratched underneath this chin. “There your story, Murtagh-man. Now you know how stupid I am and how I get caught. Hrmm. Was wrong to live apart. I could not help clans, and clans could not help me.” He shook his head. “Is better to find way to be close to ones we care for, even if not always fit in easily. The bees know it. The wolves know it. Now I know it.”

Bachel was growing more and more impatient, and her methods became increasingly cruel as a result.

Murtagh knew his limits, and he was at them. His wards were gone—those that would have protected him against physical damage, at least—and his body weak, and his mind a muddled haze. At times, it felt as if the witch held his consciousness in a controlling grasp. At other times, that he was still able to evade her burrowing mental attacks. But often he could not tell whether he was free or not, and he feared that his thoughts were no longer his own.

When he grew incapable of responding as the witch desired, she wove wordless magic and healed his wounds. But never all of them, and only enough to restore him to a semblance of awareness. It was the cruelest form of care, and he hated the falseness of it almost more than the tortures themselves.

A crow cawed.

It was night. Late or early, he could not tell. The stones were cold beneath him and damp too. Uvek’s breathing was a steady sound across the dungeon.

Murtagh stared into the blackness. Patterns of light formed before his eyes, an iridescent display of chaotic ornamentation, oranges and reds and pulsing blues of a purity rarely found in nature.

He could not sleep. He tried to compose a poem to still his mind, but the words escaped him. Even the very concept of the poem eluded him. What he could not name, he could not describe, and all seemed hopeless.

Again the crow cawed.

Two cultists held him down while a third forced thin gruel into his mouth. He choked and tried to spit it out, but they held his nose shut until he swallowed. The gruel burned like brandy.

His eyes jolted wider as a shiny, black-bodied spider skittered across the stones in front of him. He cried out and tried to push himself away, but pain made his arms give out, and he fell onto his side.

The spider disappeared into a crack along the wall. He stared at the narrow crevice, convinced that dozens, no, hundreds more spiders would come pouring out at any moment. Every touch of his clothes made him feel as if there were insects upon his body. Once a drop of moisture fell from the ceiling and landed upon the back of his neck and he scratched and scrabbled as if to tear off his own skin.

When he finally closed his eyes, spiders filled his waking dreams. Spiders both black-bodied and white, and he thought to hear Nasuada whispering in his ear, urging him to surrender. He looked and saw her there beside him, but then her face melted into Galbatorix’s, and the king smiled in his vulpine manner.

Murtagh screamed.

While in the extremes of agony, Murtagh felt a snap in his mind, and a flood of emotions rushed through him. Even in his dazed state, he recognized the feel of Thorn’s thoughts, and he clung to them as a drowning man might cling to a passing branch.

Images of the courtyard floated before Murtagh’s eyes; it was difficult to tell which part of himself was in the dungeon beneath the temple and which part was above, lying on the flagstones. Thorn was in pain equal to his own, and somehow the strength of their shared torment had overcome the stifling resistance of the vorgethan and the Breath.

Recognition came from Thorn, and relief and affection. Regret too, and confusion, for all was a blurred haze….

Twice more Murtagh saw Alín standing by the door of the cell. The woman seemed increasingly troubled, and she spoke to him in a voice that sounded as if at the end of a great tunnel….

She gave him food. That much he remembered. Solid food, and he was grateful to eat something other than the slop the cultists had forced into him. But solid or not, the food still burned with the hated taste of brandy.

Bachel bent low over Murtagh, her distorted, half-hidden face gilded with garish adornment by the light of the copper brazier. He could smell the sweat on her skin and feel the heat of her breath.

“You will serve me, and through me, Azlagûr,” she whispered. “If I cannot have your obedience sworn of your own tongue, I shall have it by other means. In the end, you will bow before me, my son, and do my bidding in these, the end of days.”

“Never,” Murtagh managed to croak.

“No being is meant for never. Not even Azlagûr. We are creatures of change. Be so now, Kingkiller. Change. Become!”

The witch raised her arms, and her draconic aspect strengthened until it seemed as if he were staring into the eyes of a great, fiery beast. She cried out in a voice not her own, and he felt the forces of magic swirling about him. Down swung her arm. She dashed a vial against the floor, and a clinging cloud of Breath enveloped him. Then her claws dug into his torn flesh with fresh savagery, and Murtagh shouted with such violence that his voice broke and blood filled his throat.

Through Thorn’s eyes, he saw heavy-browed Grieve swing an iron lash, and the dragon roared with mirrored torment.

Up and down lost all meaning. Reason and logic abandoned Murtagh—and Thorn too—leaving only feeling, and what they felt was unbearable.

What could not continue…did not.

Murtagh broke. He felt it, he knew it, but in the moment, he did not care. All he wanted was for the pain to cease. He could not swear fealty to Bachel, that was beyond him, but he could no longer keep fighting.

So he stopped.

He gave up, and his mind retreated from the horrors of the situation, and a strange shell of passivity formed around him, numbing his emotions, dulling his thoughts. What he was shrank until it nearly vanished.

He could feel a sense of triumph radiating from Bachel. But he did not care. It did not matter.

None of it did. Only that the pain had stopped.

And it had. For Thorn had given up also, and the two of them lay in their respective places—chained and fettered—and waited to be told what to do.

CHAPTER XVIII Without Flaw

Murtagh stood unmoving before Bachel’s high-backed, fur-strewn throne. Above, the rustles and whispered caws of hidden crows echoed off the stones of the shadowed ceiling: a constant accompaniment to the doings below.

Murtagh stared without seeing as cultists stripped him of his clothes. All of his wounds had been attended to; where Bachel had inflicted her tortures upon him, his skin was again smooth and seamless.

From her raised seat, the witch watched with an impassive gaze over the rim of a dented brass goblet. Grieve stood beside her, stone-faced.

“Turn about, my son,” she said.

He did.

By the middle of the chamber sat Thorn, wings furled, shoulders hunched high and tense. No shackles bound his scaled limbs, yet he did not stir.

“Stop.”

Murtagh stood with his back to Bachel, eyes fixed upon the pale beams of sunlight that crept in about the edges of the distant doorway. The mosaic floor was cold against his feet. He shivered, but it was a reflex; no thought accompanied the movement.

“A most unsightly scar lies upon him, Grieve.”

“Verily, Speaker.”

“I wonder, ought I remove this blight from him? He is to be our shining paragon, after all. Our faultless champion. Our king of kings.”

Murtagh’s lips twitched, but he could not speak.

“If you so wish, Speaker.”

“Hmm.” A slosh of wine in the goblet as the witch took a sip. “No, I think not. It is good for him to remember that he is not without flaw. And that he is not all-powerful.”

“Very wise, my Lady.”

Thorn’s limbs trembled, and the slightest sound escaped his throat.

“Turn now and face me, my son.”

He did.

The witch leaned forward in her seat. “You are as you deserve to be, Kingkiller. Never forget that. Your father’s hate marks you, and I shall not be the one to lift that burden. Not until you bring yourself to accept Azlagûr, myself, and the Draumar as your family. For that we are, and we love you more than you know.” She looked then to Grieve. “See to it that he is well fitted. After all, he is our most honored son.”

Disapproval crossed Grieve’s face, but his voice remained deferential. “As you say, Speaker.”

“I do.”

For a time, Murtagh stood fully exposed. His skin felt strange upon him, and he knew not who or what he was. An unaccountable sense of grief formed deep within him.

Then the cultists brought clothes in which to garb him. Fine woolen trousers—red and black—soft leather riding boots that reached to his knees, and a thin undershirt overlaid with a padded jerkin. Atop that, a tabard of archaic scale armor, the metal velvet grey and the tip of each scale adorned with a line of embedded gold that traced the shape of the scale. A gold-studded belt cinched about his waist, and upon his head they placed a crown-like helm, such as some long-forgotten king might have worn into battle.

“There,” said Bachel, leaning back in her seat. “Now you look as you should.”

Murtagh did not answer. Words seemed of no import. Behind him, he heard Thorn’s heavy breath as they waited upon the witch’s command.

Bachel’s eyes were cold as she studied them—they her vassals, she their maternal sovereign. Her voice rang with a stony determination that overrode the soft cries of the crows above: “The time has come. We have not arrived at the end of the end, nor the middle of the end, but I say now that this day marks the beginning of the end. And it shall be a calamity to all who oppose us.”

Many things Bachel had Murtagh do. He did as he was told—listless, unresisting, his mind muffled as if bound in batts of felted wool. On the few occasions when a coherent thought came to him, he wondered whether any of it was real.

Nights he spent in the cell beneath the temple. The Urgal opposite him kept trying to speak with him, but none of the creature’s words held in Murtagh’s mind. They were not from Bachel, and so he did not remember them.

Days he spent sitting to the right of Bachel in the temple’s inner sanctum—while Grieve glowered at him from across the chamber—or else riding beside the witch as she led him about the valley. Evenings they feasted in the courtyard: leisurely banquets of roasted boar meat, aged wine, and mushrooms cooked in every possible way. And always Bachel was talking to him: talking, talking, talking, an endless stream of words that shaped his actions and ordered the world about him.

As she spoke, she sometimes rested her hand on his arm, not with any passion, but as she might with a valued possession, and her scent mingled with that of the ever-present brimstone.

Thorn accompanied them most times, but not always. Twice Murtagh saw Grieve climb into Thorn’s saddle and ride on the dragon high into the sky above Nal Gorgoth. And once they flew out of sight beyond the jagged peaks and did not return until several hours thence.

When they did, Thorn landed in the courtyard and crouched there, cold and shivering. Murtagh stared at the dragon, miserable, though with no means to give voice to his misery.

From among the pillars along the front of the temple came Alín, bearing a pitcher of water and a basket of bergenhed and a ragged piece of cloth. She placed the basket before Thorn’s head and then wet the cloth and began to wash dirt and dried blood from the healing wounds that striped Thorn’s side.

Murtagh’s lips trembled, and he clenched the belt around his waist.

At Bachel’s command, the cultists began preparations for a grand festival to be held in a week’s time. “I have had a premonition,” she announced to the assembled village. “The time of the Black Smoke Festival approaches. Send forth raiding parties that we may gather the means to properly worship Azlagûr the Devourer.”

Then Nal Gorgoth became a hive of activity. The cultists swarmed about in constant, frantic pursuit of their duties. Three groups of armed warriors left on horses, shouting their praise and devotion to Bachel, spears held high. Murtagh watched them go from beside Thorn, and he wished he could leave with them—to escape the valley and breathe fresh air untainted by brimstone.

That day, Bachel took him on another boar hunt. She gave him a spear to wield, and he held it without feeling, though the weight of the weapon stirred an obscure desire within him.

The witch rode before him on Thorn, her hair bound up in feathered tufts, her arms bare to the wind, her teeth flashing with fierce delight. It felt strange to have another upon Thorn with him—strange to Murtagh and strange to Thorn. But neither of them complained of it.

Bachel’s honor guard followed on the ground while Thorn flew from Nal Gorgoth into the mushroom-laden valley where the boars rooted and rutted.

The hunt went much as before. At Bachel’s command, Murtagh took his place by her side and set his spear against the arch of his foot and waited while Thorn drove the beasts toward their position. He waited, and no fear quickened his pulse, nor excitement nor joy nor any form of normal human feeling.

He watched what was happening as if viewing it from a great distance, as if nothing he saw could affect him or Thorn and, thus, was of no real consequence. Even his own actions felt as if they belonged to another person: a stranger without a name who wore his face but contained nothing of his self.

The boars drummed across the beaten ground, a wall of snarling, snorting animal flesh, intent on trampling a path through those blocking their way.

A shock of impact: blood and heat and the smell of viscera.

He killed his boar, as Bachel did hers.

Afterward, Bachel reclined on her litter and had Murtagh sit at her feet while her warriors tended the wounded and dressed the slain beasts. A circle of broken mushrooms surrounded them, and the air was heavy with the earthen scent.

Murtagh stared unblinking at the sky beyond the high mountain peaks, at the pale emptiness that beckoned, impossible and unreachable.

Cold fingers slid between his neck and shoulder and rested there. In a low voice that seemed to match the scent of the mushrooms, the witch said, “Can you imagine, Kingkiller, what it was like to be blessed with the full force of Azlagûr’s dreams while still a child? What the power of those visions might do to you? How they might change you?…How lonely you would feel when you could see what others could not? When every moment was a waking dream? Can you imagine?”

He turned to her. The witch’s expression was distant and contemplative, a mood he had not seen in her before. She sipped from her dented goblet. Blood lay splattered in jagged coins across her dress, same as with his hands and jerkin.

“I believe you can, Kingkiller. My mother…she could not. Her dreams drew her away from her people to Nal Gorgoth, but she grew jealous when Azlagûr spoke to me and the Draumar knew I was to be their new Speaker. Their mehtra. Such a blessed thing. Yet my own flesh found it unbearable. Her resentment maddened her, and she turned against me, and in time, I had no choice but to strike her down.”

Another sip. “Do you judge me for it, Kingkiller? No, I think not. You would have killed Morzan had you the chance. You understand my decision, I believe. Something of it, at least. And when the time of black smoke arrives, you will understand better still.”

Her words struck a false note with Murtagh, but he struggled to think why. Would he have killed Morzan?…Yes. But there was more to it than that, and the touch of Bachel’s cold fingers made him want to dash her hand away and flee her presence.

He looked back at the patch of sky cupped between the snowbound peaks.

“I am not the only Speaker, you know, Kingkiller. There have been countless others before me, stretching back to the beginning of time. Nor am I the only one now in the land. Wherever the black smoke rises, there you will find the Draumar.”

That drew his attention back to her. She lifted a dark eyebrow. “Oh yes, Kingkiller. The Draumar have been part of the warp and weft of the world far more than you realize. Nor has it come about by happenstance. Why else do you think a Speaker sat in the Hall of the Soothsayer, whispering visions of what might be into the ears of the elves? Long has the will of Azlagûr shaped the course of events.”

She drained her goblet. “I will tell you this, Kingkiller. There are places deep underground where Azlagûr’s dreams become reality. It is true. Specters acquire substance, and the roots of the mountains seem to move, and it is difficult to know your way. Someday you shall see.”

Soon afterward, Bachel stood and collected herself, and she spoke no more of such things. Then they hoisted their kills onto litters, and the cultists dragged them back to Nal Gorgoth while Murtagh and Bachel rode on Thorn.

It was night, and Murtagh found himself staring into the dark mirror of water that filled the bucket in his cell. He did not recognize the bearded visage that looked back at him from the still surface.

An urge came upon him, and his lips moved as he attempted to speak his true name. The words were familiar upon his tongue, but they no longer rang true, and he felt a hollow despair as he realized he had again become a stranger to himself.

Anger flared, and he dashed the water aside, scattering the reflection in a thousand different directions.

The anger passed. Then he knelt and wet his hands in the water that remained in the bucket, and he washed them over and over. It seemed to him that the boar’s blood still clung to his skin, and so he scrubbed until the skin was red and raw, and yet the blood never seemed to lift free.

He sat kneeling before the bucket, staring at the scratches on his hands, and he wished…He wasn’t sure what he wished, only that it would somehow relieve the burning in his chest.

The dreams that night were worse than before. They seemed more potent and immediate, but also more distorted and disturbing. Slaughtered villages rose before him, and memories of battle brought cold sweat to his brow. A current of deep notes—too discordant to call a melody—ran throughout, and it reminded him of the feel of a dragon’s mind, only vastly larger and more twisted and alien than even the maddest Eldunarí.

Then, amid the cavalcade of bloody images, came a memory. A true memory:

The arming room smelled of rust, oil, leather, and stale sweat. Afternoon light poured like honey through the slit windows and lit the blades of spears stored in racks along the walls. It was a room of many hopes…and many fears.

Tornac tugged on the buckles along the side of Murtagh’s breastplate, checking that they were properly tight. Then he slapped Murtagh on the shoulder. “Good to go. Keep your breathing under control and you’ll have nothing to fear.”

“Nothing?”

“Not from the likes of Goreth. He’s fast enough, but he hasn’t the technique.” Tornac came around to Murtagh’s front and gave him a look-over from top to bottom. “You’ll do.” The words were more comforting than the armor, but even so, Murtagh knew the tough-minded swordsman was putting on a brave face. Goreth was one of the most feared duelists in the king’s court. He’d wounded three men in the past four months, and out of his twenty-seven duels, he’d lost only five.

Tornac read Murtagh’s thoughts easily enough. He always did. “Be of good courage. It’s an exhibition. The king doesn’t want to see you killed any more than he’d like to see a prize horse put down.”

“I know.”

“Remember what I taught you and you’ll acquit yourself with distinction.”

Then Tornac surprised him by giving him a brief embrace. It was the first time the swordsman had shown such emotion—but then, it was the first time Murtagh was to fight a duel.

They parted, and Murtagh let out a shaky laugh.

The brightness of the sandy arena caused him to pause and squint as his eyes adjusted. It was a brisk autumn day, but expectations of combat had raised his pulse, and he already felt overly heated in his armor.

The stands were packed with nobles, there to witness the spectacle of Morzan’s only-born son in an ostensibly friendly contest of arms against Goreth of Teirm, he of the silver sword. The duel had been Galbatorix’s idea. He had chanced to pass the sparring yards while Murtagh took his daily instruction with Tornac, and upon seeing them, the king had proposed that a more formal test of Murtagh’s skills might be appropriate. And as always, what the king desired was soon made manifest.

Murtagh saw many a familiar face in the stands, but no friendly ones. He knew Tornac was watching from the arming room, though, and the knowledge both gave him courage and made him all the more determined not to disappoint his mentor. That, and he would sooner die than embarrass himself before the current crowd. The slightest hint of weakness would earn him a lifetime of derision at court, and his position was already difficult enough.

Goreth entered through the gateway opposite him. The man was tall and clean-limbed, with the sinuous grace of a practiced warrior. Despite Tornac’s assurances, there was no doubt that Goreth was a formidable fighter, and Murtagh knew he would be pressed to the limit of his abilities.

They saluted the king, who was a shadowed shape upon his throne beneath a velvet canopy. Then the heralds made their declarations, and the arena marshal read the rules of combat: No biting. No kicking while a man was upon the ground. No gouging of eyes. No striking of unmanly blows (by which was meant no striking below one’s belt).

At the conclusion of the interminable talking, a horn sounded, the marshal dropped his kerchief, and the duel was begun.

Despite the fire in his veins, Murtagh felt as if he were trapped in quicksand, barely able to move his legs or swing his arms. Yet he dodged and parried and beat his opponent’s blade as he should. They used no shields, as the contest was to be a test of pure bladesmanship, and Murtagh had forgone vambraces that he might move all the faster. He trusted his mail shirt to protect his arms from cuts.

Most times it would have. But the tip of Goreth’s sword found the cuff of Murtagh’s left sleeve, and the length of sharpened steel slid up under the gambeson he wore beneath the mail. A shivering line, hot and cold and agonizing, ran along the outside of his forearm.

Out of instinct, he yanked his arm back. He cried out as the sword cut him again on the return.

The fingers of his left hand spasmed and curled into a useless knot. If not for the onlookers, he would have conceded the duel, but pride, fear, and sheer stubborn anger forbade.

Goreth seized the advantage and stabbed again, quick. Retreating, Murtagh beat aside the attack. Goreth pressed him hard with several more strikes, and then he lunged, and Murtagh took a glancing blow to his hip, upon the skirt of mail. In a desperate attempt to recover, he replied with a swing of his own and caught Goreth’s elbow with the tip of his sword.

Goreth dropped his blade.

It was a lucky strike. Murtagh could not have hoped to duplicate it in a week of sparring. He did not hesitate and followed through as Tornac had taught him and slipped the point of his sword under Goreth’s arm and pricked him in the armpit, where the armor did not cover.

It was a narrow wound, but deep enough to cause Goreth to cry out and fall to the ground and to mark the end of the duel.

Or so Murtagh thought.

With blood dripping from his limp left arm, he looked to the king for the final verdict. It was tradition for Galbatorix to declare the winner of any contest he sat in witness of; the king’s word was final, and until he spoke, no outcome—no truth—was official.

The shadow leaned forward on the throne, and glints of light appeared on the tips of his crown, but the king’s face remained too dark to see his expression.

“Make an end of him, son of Morzan.”

At first Murtagh did not believe what he heard, but Galbatorix’s voice carried with unnatural force, and there was no mistaking his words. The crowd grew tense, and several gasps and cries sounded among the rows of seating, but no one spoke out against the king’s command. No one was so foolish.

Goreth had not their restraint. He began to beg in a high-pitched voice. In an instant the image of the famous warrior vanished, replaced by yet another frightened soldier crawling on the battlefield, pleading for mercy from the approaching enemy.

Murtagh hesitated. He frantically searched the edge of the arena, searched for any means of escape. Then he saw Tornac standing inside the entrance tunnel to the arena, out of sight from the audience, but in plain view of Murtagh. The swordmaster’s face was pale and pinched, and he looked as if he wanted to speak, but his lips remained pressed together, and his expression was severe. He shook his head, a single, short movement, and Murtagh understood. There was no escape to be had. And no help either.

“End him, son of Morzan.”

Then Murtagh did as he had to, though it made him sick to bear it. He went to Goreth and attempted to give the man a quick death with a cut to the neck. But Goreth raised his arm, and Murtagh’s blade skated off Goreth’s iron vambrace. The man wasn’t about to give up and die. Murtagh hated him for it as much as he pitied him. He lost all sense of control then, and began to rain blows upon Goreth even as the man continued to attempt to fend him off. All the while Goreth kept screaming and pleading, and Murtagh was shouting as well, nonsense sounds to drown out the man’s voice.

When it was over, blood stained the packed sand for yards around them, and Goreth’s horribly cut and disfigured body was finally still.

Murtagh fell to one knee and used his sword as a crutch to keep from collapsing. It was a terrible abuse of the weapon, but right then he didn’t care how badly Tornac might thrash him for wrecking the edge on the blade.

A lone clapping sounded from the throne, and Galbatorix stood. The rest of the onlookers rose in response. “Well done, Murtagh.” He gestured with a finger, and Murtagh gasped and clutched his wounded forearm as skin and muscles squirmed like snakes and knit themselves whole. Then the king said, as an aside to the marshal: “Bring him to my chambers once he is washed and changed.”

“My liege.”

The king departed, along with his followers, and the arena quickly emptied, leaving Murtagh alone with the corpse of his first kill. The marshal approached, but before he could speak, Tornac appeared by Murtagh’s side. “I’ll see that he gets to the king,” Tornac said in a harsh voice, and the marshal did not argue.

As Tornac guided him out of the arena, Murtagh said, “I…I…He wouldn’t—”

“You did what was necessary. Don’t think about it.”

But of course Murtagh did. And it was after meeting with Galbatorix in his chambers—where the king set him the task of destroying a village he believed was harboring traitors of the Varden—that Murtagh, with Tornac’s wholehearted agreement, decided to flee the capital and Galbatorix himself.

He never spoke of the duel again.

Some days after the cultists began their preparations for the festival, a small group of visitors arrived at Nal Gorgoth. The men came riding on proud horses, and they blew a horn to announce their arrival. They were richly appointed, and they carried pennants with colorful designs, and they were well armed and well armored.

In the temple’s inner sanctum, Murtagh sat upon a stone chair next to Bachel’s throne. More chairs had been set up in a double row extending from the dais with the throne, and on them reclined the visitors. The men looked to be a mix of nobles and, as evidenced by their fine garb, merchants. Their faces seemed to swim before Murtagh; he found it difficult to concentrate on their features, and remembering them was next to impossible. But there was something familiar about—

“Why, Murtagh! To think I would find you here, of all places. Whatever are you doing in Nal Gorgoth?”

The words came from a youngish man at the head of the left-hand row of chairs. Murtagh frowned as he struggled to focus. The man’s features sharpened for a moment, and a name drifted to the top of Murtagh’s mind: Lyreth.

Murtagh opened his mouth, closed it.

The young man burst out laughing. “My dear fellow, you look like a fish that’s been struck with an oar.” He moved his mouth to demonstrate.

The rest of the visitors laughed as well.

With a supreme effort, Murtagh found his voice. “I don’t know why I am here.”

“You must forgive him,” said Bachel. Above her bronze goblet, her offset mouth lifted in the smallest of smiles. “The Kingkiller is not himself these days.”

The gathered men again laughed, and the crows above imitated them with harsh, chattering cries.

Then cultists came with food. Swirls of thick, sage-scented smoke drifted from the nearby braziers, clogging the air, and Bachel and the visitors fell to talking with avid desire. Murtagh could not follow the conversation. The incense made his eyes burn and his throat fill with phlegm, and it made it even harder to concentrate, and the food distracted him, although…he found himself strangely reluctant to eat the cut of boar meat placed before him. The meat no longer smelled sweet and savory, and its flavor had lost all appeal.

His gaze kept returning to the faces in front of him. Aside from the one who had spoken to him, he felt as if…as if he ought to know the man sitting by the end, on the right. Something about the man’s features lingered in Murtagh’s mind—an irritant that wouldn’t go away.

He put down his knife and stared at his plate, at the slices of meat that turned his stomach.

Beyond the rows of chairs, in the shadows by the entrance, Thorn sat curled on the mosaic, humming in a meaningless manner while Alín fed him scraps of boar.

Murtagh looked up. High above, in the shadowed vault of the ceiling, he thought he saw the pale circles of crow eyes looking down upon them, cold and cruel.

CHAPTER XIX Choices

It was morning, and though the village remained warm as always, the wind from the mountains was bitter. The contrast made it seem all the worse. Curtains of snow drew across the ridged flanks of the Spine, shrouding the peaks in white, as if protecting their long-vanished virtue.

Murtagh stood next to Thorn, a cloak clasped around his neck; it felt familiar, but he could not recall where he had gotten it. A shield weighed down his left arm, and Bachel smiled as she handed him a pale sword. It was not Zar’roc—he had not seen the crimson blade since…since before—but it was the first weapon he could remember holding in…in…in…

He blinked.

“Go forth now, Kingkiller, and assist my men,” said Bachel, commanding, triumphant, savage. Her hard hand caressed the side of his cheek, and then she looked over at Thorn. “You will serve also, Dragon. Fly as you are told, and when you arrive, you may fight alongside your master.”

Thorn shivered and bowed his head. Yes. It was the first Murtagh had heard or felt from him since…

Grieve approached from across the courtyard. The man was garbed in a corselet of mail, a heavy mace in one hand and a buckler in the other.

“You will do as Grieve tells you,” said Bachel. “In this, he speaks on my behalf, and as he says, you shall do.”

Murtagh bowed his head.

Then the witch removed a vial from the sleeve of her black dress, unstoppered it, and blew the vaporous contents across him and Thorn. With his first inhalation of the Breath, Murtagh’s head grew light, and the courtyard grew even more distant, as if he were viewing it through a dwarven spyglass.

“My Lady,” Grieve said, bowing deeply.

A small smile formed on Bachel’s lips. She touched Grieve upon the crown of his head, and her lips moved silently before she said, “Go now and return quickly, that I might know it is done.”

“As you wish.”

At Grieve’s command, Murtagh sheathed the sword in the scabbard hanging from his belt and climbed onto Thorn’s back. The saddle was already in place. Out of habit, he slipped his legs through the straps on either side and tightened them.

Grieve followed him onto Thorn’s back and settled between the spikes behind Murtagh. The nearness of the man was uncomfortable, and even more so when Murtagh felt a sharp poke in his ribs. He looked and saw a dagger pressed against his side.

“Move with care, Rider,” said Grieve between set teeth. “Else you will not move again.”

Murtagh did not react. In a distracted, uninterested manner, the thought came to him that he would like to kill Grieve.

Grieve tapped Thorn’s neck. “Now fly, beast!”

And with a sweep of wings, Thorn leaped from the ground, and they were airborne.

At Grieve’s direction, Thorn flew out of the cleft that contained Nal Gorgoth and turned north to follow the shoreline of the Bay of Fundor. By the mouth of the valley, where the river poured into the bay, Murtagh saw a vessel docked at the wooden quay: a tall sailing vessel, trim and shapely, with a clinker-built hull as was common in Ceunon.

Flurries of snow assailed them as they continued northward. Winter was deepening; it would not be long before the mountains were impassable for those on foot.

The air smelled strange to Murtagh. It took him a long while to understand why: it no longer stank of brimstone. Rather, it was clear and cold and fresh—invigorating in its purity.

Never had air seemed so…so delicious.

Tracks of many animals marked the blanket of white below: rabbits and deer and bears and more besides. Their spoor traced veinlike patterns across the landscape, a map of the movements of life itself, more random than the coursing of water but more meaningful by far.

Among the game trails, a single line of dark, beaten earth ran along the shore. Too straight and regular to have been made by any dumb beast, there was no mistaking its nature: a human-made trail, cleared of snow by many feet. A group on horses, perhaps, or else travelers moving on foot, which seemed unlikely given the place and season. Whatever the answer, the group could not have been far ahead, else the snow would have obscured the trail, bleached it of color, and made it difficult to follow.

A gull loosed a harsh cry over the water and swerved away to the east as Thorn came near.

For half the morning they flew, blindly following Grieve’s orders. When he said turn, Thorn turned. When he said go up or go down, then too Thorn obeyed. And all the while Murtagh sat bolt upright in the saddle, his face blank, the skin on his cheeks so cold he couldn’t feel it.

He would act when needed—or when told—but otherwise there was nothing for him to do but exist.

At last, a knot of horsemen appeared along the shoreline. When they saw Thorn, they reined in their steeds.

“Land,” Grieve commanded.

As Thorn descended, the horses shied before him, and the riders had to fight to hold them in place. On the ground, the truth became evident: the band of men was one of the three groups of warriors Bachel had dispatched from Nal Gorgoth.

“How close are the Orthroc?” Grieve asked.

One of the men pointed forward, toward a hogbacked ridge covered with pinetrees. “On the other side of that rise. They’re gathered by a creek while they water their horses, but they’ll be on the move again soon enough.”

Murtagh felt rather than saw Grieve nod. “Excellent. You’ll attack on my mark. The dragon and Rider will take the lead, but you must make sure to leave room for the dragon. Your horses will spook, and I cannot promise that Rider or dragon will behave as intended.”

The warrior before them snorted, and the other horsemen laughed with grim humor. “They’re so enthralled, they don’t know where they are,” said one, a short, straw-haired man with a red nose and frost on his eyelashes.

“Never mind that,” said Grieve shortly. “Bachel waits on us, and we must needs not disappoint her.” Then Murtagh again felt the poke of Grieve’s dagger in his ribs. “Now then. You and Thorn will fly forward and attack the Orthroc on the other side of this ridge. Capture their supplies and kill all who stand before you, but should any of the Orthroc flee, you are not to pursue them. Leave that to my men. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Murtagh said, and loosened the straps around his legs.

I understand, said Thorn.

“Then go!” And to the men on horseback, Grieve motioned and said, “Charge!”

The warriors turned their horses northward, dug in their spurs, and started to gallop toward the ridge.

Thorn waited until the group had reached the foot of the rise before he crouched and took flight after them. Murtagh hunched low over Thorn’s neck as the cold wind blasted him head-on, forcing him to squint. Its icy ferocity cleared his mind the slightest amount, a thin layer of patina being stripped from tarnished silver.

Up the hogbacked ridge Thorn soared, over the horsemen, over the snow-laden pines, and then down again, toward a broad creek bed, nearly dry in the winter, and by the creek, a band of fur-clad figures huddled among a long train of horses. To Murtagh, the Orthroc in their barbaric garb seemed bulky and threatening, and he saw curved horns upon the heads of several of them. Urgals!

Thorn roared. The Orthroc quailed and started to run, but the snow hampered them. They were too slow. Far, far too slow.

Horses screamed as Thorn thudded to the ground before them. The sound was maddening, and the beasts reared and thrashed and bolted. Some fell, crushing the Orthroc who stood near. Packs slid to the ground, and lines snapped taut, pulling horses off their feet or else cracking like whips.

Murtagh did not think. He did not need to. There was fighting to be done, and a sword in his hand, and enemies that meant to kill him and Thorn. It was a simple problem.

A figure rushed them, and Thorn slapped him down with one paw, breaking the warrior.

Murtagh jumped to the ground. The impact drove him to his knees, but he quickly recovered and charged forward, buckler held high. An arrow whirred past his head, barely visible as a blurred streak.

One of the Orthroc rose up before him, spear in hand. Murtagh batted aside the spear and cut through the warrior’s bearskin overcoat and into his neck. The warrior collapsed, blood spraying in a ruby fountain from his mortal wound.

Murtagh was already moving past. A pair of hulking Orthroc converged on him. A horse kicked one of them, and he fell. The other swung at Murtagh with a rusted poleax. He stepped out of range, dodged two lunges, and then closed the distance and stabbed the Orthroc in the belly and, continuing past, hamstrung him with a backhand blow.

At first the fighting seemed entirely separate from who and what Murtagh was. He watched himself move, and he felt nothing. But the instincts of flesh would not be denied. Even through the curtain of indifference, he felt the quickening of blood, and the deepening of breath, and the burn of overtaxed muscles. And a bloody rage rose within him, and along with it fear of equal strength, until his heart felt as if it were about to burst and—

thunk

An arrow struck his buckler, drove down his arm.

chink

An arrow struck his shoulder and pierced the scale armor.

He had no wards left against physical attack. The arrowhead punctured skin and muscle and sent a shocking jolt of pain through the bones of his arm and shoulder. In that moment, he went cold as ice, and his pulse stilled, and everything he saw acquired a bluish sheen. No longer was he angry or afraid. Rather, he was an instrument of pure, unrelenting violence, devoid of thought or mercy or anything resembling human emotion. He moved with a perfection of form born of practice, experience, and unconscious intent.

Above him a pennant of flames streaked the grey sky—fire from Thorn—and painted the field of struggling bodies with a ghoulish light.

For a timeless while, Murtagh fought. His left arm was numb and useless, but that hardly slowed him. He’d been trained by one of the finest swordsmen in the land, tempered in the fiercest battles in living memory, and his strength and speed were heightened by reason of being a Rider.

The Orthroc stood no chance before him. He cut them down as shocks of dry wheat with a scythe, and his blade ran red with blood. The few Orthroc who tried to flee covered no more than a few steps before he caught them and slew them from behind, ignoring their cries.

As he killed, a terrible glee took root within him. It was as if the dreams he’d had in Nal Gorgoth were become real, and a new surge of strength coursed through his limbs. Why should he not conquer and kill? Why should he not take the throne and rule with Bachel by his side? Why could he not shape the world to his will?

At last no more Orthroc remained before him. The final one lay at his feet, gurgling a mortal breath.

Murtagh turned. A path of bloodstained snow led back to the creek. Bodies lay strewn across the splattered ground, and of the Orthroc, only their horses were still standing: long teeth bared, eyes rolling to show the whites, sharp hooves dashing at the ground.

Thorn stood crouched within a circle of corpses—Orthroc and horses alike. His snout was wrinkled in a snarl, and his teeth and claws and forelegs were gore-splattered and dark with viscera. The dragon was panting and trembling, and small spikes of flame jetted from his nostrils with each exhalation.

Grieve still sat on Thorn’s back. The man looked shaken but triumphant.

The other Draumar gathered along the edge of the battlefield. None seemed to have bloodied their weapons.

A rattle sounded from the Orthroc at Murtagh’s feet, then the fur-clad body went limp. The motion drew Murtagh’s attention. For the first time, he looked one of the Orthroc in the face, and he saw…not an Urgal as he expected, but a man with windburned cheeks, a thick red beard, and beaded braids that hung on either side of his broad forehead. A man such as might have been found in any number of wandering tribes throughout the northern part of Alagaësia.

Murtagh raised his gaze and looked anew at the corpses of the slain. All human, and not just men but women and…smaller bodies too.

He began to shake as, in an instant, the fever of battle changed to sick revulsion and the seductive promises of misbegotten dreams became grim reality. Bachel had not sent them to attack a convoy of armed warriors but a group of tribespeople, and the only reason he could imagine for such folk to be on the move in the winter was because they were seeking safety—safety from those such as the Draumar.

Even in his addled state, Murtagh felt like vomiting. The pain from the arrow in his shoulder came to the forefront with crippling strength, and he gasped without meaning to. He wanted to deny the evidence of his eyes, but he was too practical-minded for delusion. He knew what his hands had done.

No, not his hands. Him.

He looked at Thorn, and found the dragon staring at him with a haunted expression Murtagh recognized from their time imprisoned in Urû’baen. The fires died in Thorn’s nostrils, and he shuddered and let out the faintest whine.

Thorn started to take a step forward, and from his back, Grieve barked, “Stay!” Thorn froze.

As Grieve slid to the ground, Thorn and Murtagh continued to stare at each other, hopeless to break the compulsion that bound them.

Bloody snow crunched under Grieve’s boots as he walked over to Murtagh. He studied the arrow in Murtagh’s shoulder. “It would have been better if they killed you,” he said in a flat tone. Then he took a bird-skull amulet from within his robe and pressed it against Murtagh’s shoulder and pulled free the arrow.

The pain caused Murtagh’s vision to fade out, and his knees buckled.

He came to on all fours. He looked: no blood spurted from his shoulder. The wound had sealed over and was red and puckered, as if a week of healing had taken place. He sat back on his heels and moved his left arm. It still had little strength, but the muscles seemed to work.

He shivered again.

“Back on your feet, wormling,” said Grieve, and turned away. To the warriors on horseback, he shouted, “Gather the supplies that the dragon may carry them, and be quick about it. Bachel grows impatient. When we are gone, take what horses you can and bring them to Nal Gorgoth.”

As a group, the men responded: “As it is dreamt, so it shall be.”

Murtagh sat next to Thorn and watched as the cultists piled bundles of supplies—food, clothes, skins of drink—before them. Grieve had spared him the task of helping, not out of mercy, but because Murtagh’s injured arm meant he could be of little use.

His gaze returned to the bodies lying in the trampled snow. Then he dropped his eyes to his bloodstained hands and to Thorn’s gore-splattered feet.

He pulled his cloak tighter. He still hadn’t stopped shivering.

Thorn’s snout touched his shoulder. The gesture seemed as if it ought to have provided a sense of comfort, but Murtagh felt no improvement. The only thought that came to his mind was: No. A statement of denial, of rejection. Not toward the dragon, but toward the circumstances that bound them.

The cultists used ropes to tie the supplies together. Then Grieve had Murtagh climb onto Thorn’s back—as did Grieve himself—and Thorn grasped the ropes between his reddened claws and took off with labored beats of his wings.

The flight back to Nal Gorgoth was cold and silent, and no slower than before, despite Thorn’s additional burden, for the wind was at their backs and it eased their progress.

Murtagh wished it wouldn’t.

Fingers of dull orange light were extending beneath the clouds to the west and filtering between the jags of the mountain peaks by the time the village came into sight.

Thorn landed in the temple courtyard, and Bachel came out to greet them along with her litter-bearers, warriors, and attendants. Alín stood near the witch, face pale and drawn, and her eyes widened as she saw Thorn’s paws and Murtagh’s hands.

Also with Bachel and her retinue were the recently arrived guests, and among them the man Murtagh couldn’t place, and—

“Murtagh! You look as if you slipped and fell in a butcher’s killing yard! Rather clumsy of you, I say!”

Lyreth. Lyreth in all his embroidered finery, a chalice of wine in one hand, the other pressed against the waist of a female cultist. Once his words would have bothered Murtagh. Now they were as chaff in the wind.

When Murtagh dismounted, Bachel had her warriors relieve him of his sword. Then, at her order, they took him to be washed and, after, dragged him back to his cell beneath the temple.

As the cultists left, one of them brushed against the lantern at the end of the dungeon hallway, and the breath of air snuffed out the flame, leaving the cells in pitch-black.

Murtagh lay on the stones, cold beads of water dripping from his hair onto the back of his neck. The darkness felt like a tomb for his guilt; it wrapped around him with horrifying strength, turning his insides and strangling his breath.

The force of it froze him in place for a boundless span, the gut-wrenching sense of wrongness as painful as any wound.

From it, a truth formed in the center of his clouded mind, a hard core of inescapable reality: he could not continue as he was, but neither he nor Thorn could change things. Doing so was beyond them.

A gritty scrape sounded across the hall, as of a heavy weight shifting across the flagstones. Then: “Murtagh-man, what is wrong?”

It took all of Murtagh’s newly acquired mental acuity to force a word from his mouth. And he said:

“…help.”

CHAPTER XX Qazhqargla

“I cannot help you, Murtagh-man,” said Uvek in what seemed to be a sorrowful voice.

“…please…help…I—”

Quick footsteps approached near the entrance of the hall, and then they faltered and there was a soft cry of annoyance. After a moment, flint and steel struck.

Murtagh struggled to sit. Using his right arm, he pushed himself into a slumped position against the metal bars. The iron was so cold it seemed to burn. He tugged his cloak closer around his thin woolen shirt.

A flame flickered to life in the lantern at the head of the hall, and then Alín hurried to Murtagh’s cell, carrying a bowl of watery soup with half a loaf of bread in it. She hesitated upon seeing him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and thrust the bowl between the iron bars. “It was never supposed to be like this.” And she rushed away, her footsteps light as feathers on the stones.

Across the hall, Uvek turned his massive head back toward Murtagh. Lit from the side by the lantern, the Urgal’s cragged face was somber and careworn, and there was a wise sorrow in his yellow eyes. “Was it so bad, Murtagh-man, what they had you do?”

“…yes.” Murtagh cracked his eyelids open and, without moving his head, looked over at the Urgal. “…help…me…. I can’t…can’t go…on….” Speaking took every scrap of strength he had, and after he went limp and had to concentrate on his breathing while he waited for the floor to steady beneath him.

“Hrmm.”

When Murtagh recovered enough to open his eyes again, he saw Uvek watching him with concerned intent.

The Urgal said, “Cannot Thorn-dragon help Murtagh-man? Dragon and Rider together? Dragons very strong.”

“…not…not this…time.”

“Hrmm. I not know what to do. I am shaman; I speak to spirits. You know spirits, yes?”

Murtagh managed to nod.

“I speak to spirits. Sometimes they speak back. But they cannot hear me now. Not in this place, not with poison in stomach.”

Gathering his strength, Murtagh said, “…if I could…use…magic…could…free…” The effort was too much; he couldn’t maintain his mental focus long enough to keep talking.

Uvek picked at his thick lower lip with one clawlike nail. “Hrmm. Look, Murtagh-man.” From his rough leather belt, Uvek produced a small object: a piece of carved blackstone tied with a thin strip of woven cord. “You see? I have charm here. Hornless did not take because they think just rock. Hrr-hrr-hrr.” It took Murtagh a moment to realize the Urgal was laughing. Then Uvek held the stone up so that it caught the lantern light. The surface glittered as if embedded with flecks of gold. “Charm is for healing. Could help with Breath, but…”

“…but?”

“But no strength in charm, Murtagh-man. Charm empty. I used to heal deer with broken leg. I try give charm strength, but”—Uvek shook his head—“weirding not work. But maybe work for you. You are Rider.”

The faintest flicker of hope formed in Murtagh. “…maybe.” He struggled to sit upright.

Uvek hunched forward, cupping the blackstone as if it were fragile as a bluebird egg. “If you escape, Murtagh-man, will you free me? Will you free Uvek Windtalker?”

“…yes.”

“Hrmm. Urgralgra have many bad dealings with hornless. Hrr. And hornless many bad dealings with Urgralgra. Before I give charm, I need Murtagh-man swear oath that he never break word with Urgralgra.”

“…can’t swear…won’t…”

Uvek’s expression remained as stone. “Then I not give charm.”

Frustrated, Murtagh let his head fall back against the bars. He didn’t have the strength to keep fighting, and yet he couldn’t give up, no matter how painful it was to continue. “…can’t…can’t swear to…whole race…won’t be…bound…” He paused, trying to force past the fog in his brain. “…bound again…like that.” The whole reason he was in the cell, after all, was because he and Thorn refused to give their word to Bachel.

“Hrmm.” Uvek closed his hands around the blackstone as he sat hunched, thinking. Then he said, “There is other way, if you want, Murtagh-man, but…” The Urgal shrugged. “Is not often done, and never with hornless. Is rite of qazhqargla. You become blood brother to Uvek. Then your word is mine, and mine is yours, and we share our honor.”

Murtagh set his teeth as he stared at the dark ceiling. His choices were few, and if he and Thorn couldn’t break free of Bachel…Thorn. He sent his mind seeking toward the dragon and, with what energy he could muster, tried to impress on Thorn the nature of his dilemma.

In return, he received a vague, unfocused response, tinged with understanding and resignation. Murtagh knew what Thorn meant. The dragon would accept whatever choice Murtagh made. He trusted Murtagh, and Murtagh never, ever wanted to break that trust. He already felt guilty enough about bringing Thorn to Nal Gorgoth and not departing earlier, when Thorn had suggested….

“What say you, Murtagh-man?”

Murtagh grimaced as he pushed himself more upright. “My honor…is questioned by…many…. You…may…not want it.”

Uvek’s top lip wrinkled, showing his fangs in a grotesque smile. “I will take chance, accept burden, Murtagh-man. Will you?”

The cool underground air soothed Murtagh’s throat as he filled his lungs and tried to clear his head. He didn’t feel smart enough to solve the most basic problem, and regardless of how he looked at the matter, he couldn’t think of another solution.

The walls he and Thorn had built about themselves could not hold. Not any longer.

“All right,” he croaked. “I…will become blood brother.”

“Is not so easy, Murtagh-man.”

“…never is.”

Uvek began to mutter in his native language then, rocking back and forth. Murtagh closed his eyes and let the harsh words wash over him in rhythmic waves. After a minute, Uvek grunted. “This you will need to say, Murtagh-man.” And he spoke several lines of Urgalish that, as far as Murtagh was concerned, might as well have been a convoluted exercise specifically designed to keep him from completing the rite.

For what seemed like the better part of an hour, Uvek coached him in the proper pronunciation of the words. Murtagh had to often rest, and just as often he forgot what Uvek had already taught him.

At last, the Urgal made a huff of frustration and said, “Will do. Gods will understand your intent.”

A belated realization occurred to Murtagh. “…wait…. You don’t have me swear in…ancient language?”

Uvek cocked his head. “You mean weirding words, Murtagh-man? No. They are not of Urgralgra, so why use? If man or Urgralgra will not keep oath in one language, they will not keep in another.”

Relief and a slight sense of amusement made Murtagh chuckle. “…suppose…you’re right.” He had thought Uvek would have him use the ancient language, which was a large part of why Murtagh had been so reluctant.

“Hrmm.” Then Uvek tapped his forearm and motioned toward Murtagh. “To finish qazhqargla, must join blood and speak words. You understand?”

Murtagh gave a weary nod. “Why…why is it always…blood?”

“Blood is powerful, Murtagh-man. Blood is life. Surely hornless know this too?”

“…we…know.” Murtagh rolled back the sleeve on his left arm and then stared blankly at his bare skin for a moment. “…problem…I don’t have…knife.”

Uvek’s heavy brow beetled. “Why need knife, Murtagh-man? Use nails.” He held up his left forefinger, showing the thick, shovel-like nail growing from the tip.

Murtagh held up his own finger. “…too weak.”

“Ghra. I forget how soft hornless are. What if—”

“Wait.” Murtagh unfastened the clasp that held his cloak around his neck. There was a pin on the back, and while it wasn’t particularly sharp, he thought it would work. “…use this.”

Uvek grunted. “Good. Cut here.” And he drew a line just below his hand. “Then we touch, share blood.”

Murtagh grimaced slightly but nodded. The hall was narrow enough that they ought to be able to reach across it.

“Ready now, Murtagh-man?”

“…ready.”

In his cell, Uvek hunched over his arm, and he scraped his left thumbnail across his right wrist with a slow, deliberate movement. The Urgal showed no sign of pain as the thumbnail cut into his thick hide, and a line of black blood welled from his flesh.

Murtagh looked away. He took a breath, clenched his jaw, and then—fast as he could, and with as much strength as seemed necessary—dragged the point of the pin across the skin of his left wrist, creating a red-hot stripe of pain.

He cursed under his breath. The pin had only cut halfway or so through his skin. He clenched his jaw again and, without pausing to anticipate the pain, yanked the pin across his wrist a second time.

Blood flooded the angry red stripe, and he let out his breath in a gasp.

Then Uvek pushed his arm between the bars of his cell—it was a tight fit, but with some force, he managed—and Murtagh did the same from his side, and they pressed their blood-slicked wrists together. The Urgal’s arm was hot to the touch, and his blood burned against Murtagh’s skin.

Uvek spoke his half of the oath in Urgalish, and then it was Murtagh’s turn. He took his time, sounding the words as Uvek had taught him and striving to avoid mistakes. The meaning of the words was, or so Uvek had claimed, something to the effect of: “I, Murtagh Dragon Rider, join myself as brother to Uvek Windtalker. Let his blood flow in my veins even as mine flows in his. This I swear by Great-Horned Svarvok, and if I fail to uphold this sacred bond, may all manner of misfortune befall me and my tribe.” The oath may not have been worded in the ancient language, but it was a serious matter all the same. Murtagh felt the weight of the words as he spoke them.

Upon completion, they withdrew their arms and tended their wounds. Uvek grunted. “The qazhqargla is complete. Now we are brothers, Murtagh-man.”

“…brothers.” It felt strange to say. The only brother—half brother, really—Murtagh had known was Eragon, and their relationship had hardly been fraternal. And though Murtagh still worried about the obligations his oath imposed, he found it…comforting in a way, to be joined as such with Uvek. The customs of Urgals differed from those of humans, but he felt sure that if he were to call upon Uvek for help, the Urgal would answer without hesitation.

First, of course, they had to escape Nal Gorgoth.

“Here, Murtagh-man. The healing charm. Perhaps it help you.”

“…perhaps,” Murtagh mumbled, accepting the blackstone pebble from Uvek. The stone was warm in his palm, and the knotted strip tied around it pleasantly textured. He tried two things then: First to draw any remaining power from the pebble. In that, he met with total failure. Uvek had spoken true. Not the slightest scrap of energy still lay in the charm. Second to imbue some of his own strength into the blackstone. Even if he couldn’t directly cast a spell, Murtagh hoped that he could at least use the energy in his body to fuel the charm.

The hope proved in vain. No matter how hard he tried, Murtagh could not break the dam in his mind that prevented him from loosing the power he contained.

Uvek noticed his frustration. “Does not it work, Murtagh-man?”

“…no…No!” Murtagh closed his eyes and felt tears leak from the corners. “…no…I need…strength for the charm, but…”

“You cannot give because of Breath.” Uvek nodded sagely, and he appeared troubled. “I had same problem. Is there no solution?…Murtagh-man, are you still awake?”

Murtagh forced his eyes open. “…yes…solution?…” He shook his head, miserable, and lowered himself to the floor. The flagstones were cold, so he dragged the cloak over him. “…need to…think…sleep…”

“Murtagh-man. Murtagh-man! Open your ears, Murtagh-man. You…”

But Murtagh heard no more, and for once he had respite from the livid nightmares of Nal Gorgoth.

When Murtagh woke, at first he did not know who or where he was. He stared at the arched ceiling for a long while before dim, blood-drenched memories of the creekside slaughter spiked his pulse, and guilt again filled him.

He rolled over, intending to sit up, and felt something hard beneath his right hip. He looked, thinking it must be the blackstone charm, but all he saw was the folded corner of his cloak.

He patted it.

Again he felt a hard lump the size of a hazelnut. He frowned.

“What is it, Murtagh-man?” Uvek was squatting in the same position he’d been in when Murtagh fell asleep. It didn’t look as if he’d moved the entire time.

At the question, Murtagh became aware of the throbbing in his left wrist. It felt as if he’d been branded. His shoulder hurt too, and that particular pain brought unwelcome memories.

He shook his head. He was getting distracted. He looked back at the cloak and felt the corner…worked his fingers into the hem…and pulled out a yellow, teardrop-shaped diamond that glittered like a bead of crystallized sunlight in the dim cell.

Uvek sucked in his lower lip and let out a low sound at the sight.

It took Murtagh a moment to remember what the diamond was…and where he’d gotten it…. Wren…the door of stone…Excitement began to form in him, and he held the jewel up to Uvek. “…energy,” he whispered.

The Urgal leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with fire to match the diamond. “Is enough, Murtagh-man?”

He nodded. “…should…be.”

Then Murtagh opened his mind and reached out with his thoughts toward the diamond. He could feel the knotted whirlpool of energy the gem contained: so close, so tantalizing. But no matter how he tried, he just…couldn’t…get a hold of it and funnel it through his body into the blackstone charm.

He groaned with frustration and again threw his mind against the diamond. It felt as if he were trying to grasp liquid ice; it kept slipping through his mental fingers, leaving him fumbling at emptiness.

“…it’s…no use,” he said, sitting back on his heels and shaking his head. “You want to…try?”

Uvek held out his paw of a hand, and Murtagh—trusting the oath they had sworn—passed him the gem.

For several minutes, Uvek sat staring at the diamond, his brow drawn, his breathing slow and heavy. The muscles in his arms tensed as if he were straining against a great weight. Then, finally, he said, “Guh. I cannot touch fire in gem. It keeps slipping away.”

He passed the diamond back to Murtagh, and Murtagh sat against the wall of the cell and stared at the gem. After a moment, he clenched it in his fist, shook his head, and rested his forehead against his arm. “…has to be a way.”

For a time, they sat in silence. The whole while, Murtagh battled against the ever-present haze that clogged his mind. If only he could think clearly…

He frowned. The Breath of Azlagûr was what disrupted his thoughts, but it was the vorgethan that kept him from using magic, although perhaps the effects of both were worse in combination. If he could remove one or the other, he and Thorn—and Uvek—might have a chance.

He sat up and looked at Uvek.

The Urgal raised his heavy brow. “What is it, Murtagh-man? You have idea?”

“…maybe…”

“Is good?”

“…maybe…. wait…”

So they waited. Without windows in the cell, Murtagh couldn’t be sure of the exact time, but he didn’t think he’d slept the whole night through. His body told him it was either very early or very, very late.

He remained on the floor, eyes half closed as he husbanded his strength, knowing that he would need much of it.

Finally…footsteps at the end of the hall.

Alín, come to retrieve the bowl she had brought him earlier. As he had hoped. The white-robed woman gave him only a brief, concerned glance before kneeling and reaching between the bars for the bowl.

“…wait…,” Murtagh said, and moved to touch her wrist. At the last moment, an instinct halted his hand, though he could not have said why.

She paused, arm outstretched, her eyes wide and round, like those of a frightened doe.

“…will you…talk with Bachel…arrange to…bring…bring me all my meals?”

He could see her tremble. “Why, Kingkiller?” she whispered.

“…so you…can…leave out the drug.” He stared her straight in the eyes, as earnest as he could be. “…so…Thorn and I can…escape.”

Her trembling increased, and she shook her head, as if to deny his words, but still she did not pull back her arm. “I—I can’t.”

“…please…help…. Bachel will…wash the world…with…blood…if she can.”

Alín shook her head again, and then she did withdraw, and she fled back up the hallway, robe flying behind her.

With a groan, Murtagh collapsed back against the wall.

“Was good try, Murtagh-man,” said Uvek.

“…not good…enough.”

“Hrmm. We shall see. It takes time to calm wild animal.” The Urgal gave him a knowing look from beneath his beetled brow. “Sometimes better to let animal approach you. Otherwise, you scare.”

“…not…enough…time…”

“Not even gods know what future holds.”

Murtagh glanced at Uvek. The Urgal’s expression was impossible to read, but he seemed untroubled. Murtagh couldn’t decide if Uvek’s attitude was born out of fatalism or faith or some other aspect of his culture or personality, but Murtagh found it impossible to be as calm.

Calm or not, he had no choice but to bide his time and hope. And in the muddled recesses of his mind, the same two words kept repeating:…please…help….

CHAPTER XXI A Question of Faith

Murtagh was not long waiting before the cultists once again came for him and escorted him to the temple’s inner sanctum, where Bachel held court with her guests.

The day passed much as others had in Nal Gorgoth. Murtagh served his role as silent companion to the witch—an object of derision and not some little fear on the part of the guests—while Bachel went about her business.

Once, he saw Alín among the witch’s retinue, but the flaxen-haired woman avoided his gaze and quickly scurried away.

The Draumar were still preparing for the fast-approaching festival, and all the village was ahum with activity. Dark banners were hung among the patterned buildings, and carved frames placed about the dragon-like sculptures, while food and drink—much of which Murtagh recognized as spoils from the cultists’ blood-soaked raid—were readied in enormous quantities.

Twice Bachel let Murtagh sit with Thorn in the courtyard, which was a comfort for both Rider and dragon. Since communicating with their minds was so difficult, Murtagh had to resort to speech, slow and clumsy and wholly inadequate to his depth of feeling. “…how are…you?” he whispered.

The dragon placed his head alongside Murtagh’s thigh, and he rested his hand on Thorn’s scaled forehead.

As the Draumar moved about the courtyard, Murtagh saw Thorn watching them, and in Thorn’s gaze, he descried a newly found yet deeply set hate. The dragon’s anger emanated from his body like heat from a forge. Once that would have worried Murtagh. Now he welcomed the feeling. He shared the sentiment, and a part of him thought there was a chance that if Thorn’s emotions were strong enough, they might allow him to dispel the witch’s evil influence. With dragons, you never knew just what they were capable of.

But Thorn made no unexpected use of magic. The two of them sat there by the side of the courtyard, often glanced at but generally ignored, and Murtagh stared at the scraps of blue sky overhead and wished…wished he and Thorn were far from Nal Gorgoth.

That night, the cultists had barely deposited him in the cell and then departed when Alín came creeping down the hall. Her face was terribly red, the skin under her eyes was swollen, and her hair hung in a tangled mess.

She stood for a time, staring at Murtagh. Remembering Uvek’s advice, he returned her gaze with an open expression and waited for her to speak.

Alín hugged herself. Then she said, “You don’t understand…. How could you? But you don’t. You can’t.” Her countenance grew pleading. “I believed in Bachel. I believe. She is no false prophet. She speaks with the authority of Azlagûr, and how can any question Azlagûr when we live with His dreams? We all share in the dream of Nal Gorgoth and the vision of what may come. And when that vision becomes manifest…” She shivered violently. “The world will be remade according to Azlagûr’s will.” She rubbed her arms as if cold. “Always I wondered at what lay beyond this valley. Always Bachel has told us of the evils that inhabit Alagaësia, of the war and injustices.” She shook her head. “But you are not evil, Kingkiller. Nor is Thorn. And the way in which Bachel has treated Thorn…It goes against everything I know. Every tenet I believe. Everything she has preached to us over the years!”

She turned and paced between the cells, distraught. Still, Murtagh held his tongue. With a wild look, she spun back to him, her small teeth bared like those of a cornered animal. “Dragons are the lifeblood of the land, Kingkiller! They are the source of all that is good, the font of life and magic and…and…They are to be worshipped. Revered. Honored. Served. And yet Bachel says this mistreatment of Thorn is necessary. Needed. According to Azlagûr’s will! I…I—” She broke off and shivered again as if with fever.

Murtagh rose on unsteady legs and went to the door of his cell. Soft and slow, he said, “What…do…you…want?”

A film of tears silvered Alín’s eyes. “I want to help Thorn. And— No, it is too selfish of me.”

“…what?”

“I want to see the truth of the world before Azlagûr washes it clean.”

“Then…help us.”

“It is not that simple, Kingkiller. Bachel is the Speaker. She is our mehtra! I have sworn oaths to her and to Azlagûr. I cannot break them, and if I did, oh! If I did, my soul would be forever forsaken.” Her skin glistened with a sheen of sweat, and he could smell the sour stench of her fear. “You ask me to cast away my life and condemn my eternal future for this.”

“…for what is right.” The words struck home. He could see it in the misery of her expression. He struggled to order his thoughts. “…oaths bind, but you…can change…free yourself…. I…know. I did.”

Alín looked at him with anguish. “How?”

He did not want to say, but he had no other resort but the deepest reservoir of truth. “…for the sake…of another.”

Alín’s eyes widened, and he felt as if she were seeing his innermost self. Then her shoulders caved in, and she shook her head and uttered a soft sob. “I can’t. I haven’t the strength.”

The floor seemed to tilt underneath him and the cell spin. He staggered and grasped the iron bars for support. He took a steadying breath, trying to maintain a semblance of clarity. “…family?”

Alín shook her head. “No. I was found as a child. As many Draumar are.”

Blood on the ground. Orthroc fallen in mangled heaps. Bodies large and small. A chill gripped Murtagh. He could guess how the children had come to Nal Gorgoth. Orphans. Innocents.

Sorrow overcame him, and he reached toward Alín’s cheek, wanting only to comfort her.

She flinched but did not retreat.

Her skin was feverishly hot against his palm. She let out a small cry as he touched her, and he felt a tremor pass through her, but still she did not pull away. Somehow he knew that was significant. A line had been crossed that could never be uncrossed.

Tears rolled down her face. In a whisper, she said, “I want…I want a better dream, one of cheer and hope and love.”

“…then help us.”

She stared at him with a hope as desperate as his own, and he sensed no guile in her heart. “If you leave, will you take me with you, Kingkiller?”

“…yes…I swear it.”

A moment, and then she withdrew from his hand and rubbed her arms again. Her lips parted, as if she meant to speak, but instead, she hurried away before he could do anything to keep her.

He turned a helpless gaze to Uvek, who was watching as always. “…did I scare…her?”

The Urgal grunted and scratched at his neck. “Hrmm. Maybe yes, but—”

More footsteps sounded, and Alín reappeared carrying a bowl and pitcher. She avoided Murtagh’s eyes as she knelt and placed the dishes just outside his cell. Then she bobbed a quick curtsy, as she might have to Bachel, and rushed off again.

“Is always rushing, that one,” said Uvek.

Murtagh didn’t answer as he pulled the dishes into his cell. He cautiously tasted the watered wine in the pitcher and then the bread and soup in the bowl. None of them burned like brandy as he swallowed.

He looked to Uvek and nodded.

The Urgal grew very still, as if readying himself for action. “How long, you think, Murtagh-man?”

“I don’t…know. A day?…maybe more…depends…how much…gave me.”

“The black smoke time is only day or two away. I think it bad if we still here when it happens.”

“…that soon?” He hadn’t realized the festival was so close.

“Hrmm. Heal faster, Murtagh-man.”

Every meal thereafter, Alín brought Murtagh food free of vorgethan. He had hoped that his body might purge the drug within a few hours, but to his aggravation and disappointment, the process was far slower.

Other cultists continued to feed Uvek, and the Urgal remained under the effects of the vorgethan. Murtagh asked Alín if she could help Uvek as well, but she shook her head and explained that a man by the name of Isvar prepared Uvek’s food, and that Isvar had been specially appointed by Bachel and would not surrender the honor.

So they waited, and every few minutes that Murtagh was awake, he tried to access the energy in the yellow diamond, that he might transfer it into the blackstone charm. At some point, he had to succeed. The question was whether that would happen before the time of the black smoke.

He was growing increasingly concerned about the festival. From certain fragments he overheard, it seemed to him that Bachel was planning something particularly dramatic, and he worried that her plan would involve him and Thorn.

Even though Murtagh was no longer receiving the vorgethan, his mind felt as clouded as ever. The witch continued to use the Breath on him whenever they met, and the stench of the swirling miasma never seemed to leave his nostrils.

The following morning, Murtagh noticed that a goodly portion of Bachel’s guests were departing. They gathered in the courtyard on their fine horses, carrying their colorful pennants, and they saluted Bachel. The man Murtagh felt he ought to recognize said, “Fare thee well, Bachel. We shall send you tidings of our plans ere long.”

The witch picked at the rim of her dented goblet. “ ’Twere best if you stayed for the time of the black smoke.”

The grim-faced man inclined his head. “We’ll leave such things to you and your followers.” He looked at Murtagh with an expression of mild disgust. “And to whatever you have made of him.”

“Ah, but I and my companions shall stay and keep you company, most honorable Bachel,” said Lyreth. He stood at one corner of the courtyard along with four other men. They all had ruddy cheeks, as if from drink.

Bachel did not seem impressed. To the first man, she smiled and gestured, as if giving permission. “Go, then, and safe sailing upon your journey. Let the culmination of our plans arrive most swiftly.”

“My Lady.”

And with that, the group trotted out of Nal Gorgoth, heading for the Bay of Fundor and the ship Murtagh knew was docked thereat.

With every hour that passed, Murtagh felt as if his body were becoming lighter, more responsive. Unfortunately, his mind failed to follow suit. Every thought took work, and it was difficult to hold on to one for any length of time. And yet he could tell that the drug vorgethan was slowly working its way out of his limbs.

But not fast enough for his liking. The villagers were growing more excited by the prospect of their festival; even the heavy-browed Grieve seemed enlivened.

Bachel dismissed Murtagh early that day, as she was preoccupied with preparations for the festival. He didn’t mind. The less he saw of the witch, the better.

Once back in his cell, he did not sit or lie down. Despite his sluggish mind, he forced himself to stand and pace. Movement, as Tornac had told him, always cleared the blood. So he moved, with the hope of speeding the passage of the vorgethan from his veins.

Uvek watched with impassive patience. Only once did he ask if Murtagh had succeeded with the diamond. Aside from that, the Urgal seemed content to wait. Seeing him squatting in his cell, the flickering light casting deep shadows from Uvek’s horns, Murtagh could imagine the Urgal situated in a high mountain cave, as still and silent as a statue, an oracle waiting for the faithful to flock to his feet.

And still, Murtagh paced.

He was getting close to being able to access the energy in the diamond. He could feel it: a delicate tickle, like an itch high in his nose. If only…

A noise at the head of the hallway. Alín, bringing him his evening meal. Bread, a soup of boar meat, and watered wine.

Before she left, he said, “…wait…can you bring me…my sword, Zar’roc?”

She shook her head, hair hiding her face. “I can’t,” she whispered.

“…where?”

“Bachel keeps your sword and armor in the temple, in her presence chamber.”

That made sense. He nodded slowly. “I’m nearly…free. Can you…help ready Thorn?…water…food…saddle…shackles?”

She hesitated. The hair still covered her face, and she made no move to brush it aside. Soft as a falling petal, she said, “I will try, Kingkiller.”

“…thank…you…. We could use…supplies of…our…own…as well.”

Again a pause, and then she turned away and departed.

Murtagh remained where he was, watching.

“She still uncertain, Murtagh-man.” It was the first thing the Urgal had said in hours.

Murtagh grunted as he lowered himself onto the stones. “She’ll do…what’s right.”

Uvek’s head swung from side to side. “Depends on what she thinks is right.”

“…always…does.” Murtagh looked over at the Urgal. He felt inexpressibly tired. Worry, guilt, and the constant fight to think had consumed his limited strength. Just for a moment, he wanted to forget Bachel and everything about Nal Gorgoth. “…tell me a…story, Uvek.”

The Urgal’s heavy forehead wrinkled as he lifted his brow. “What sort of story?”

“…of your people.”

“Hrmm. I have many peoples. My family. My clan that I left. My fellow Urgralgra.”

Murtagh waved a hand. He was too tired to bother with details. “…you…pick.”

For a minute more, Uvek was silent, ruminating. Then his brow cleared. “I know. I will tell you of son of Svarvok, Ahno the Trickster. This was in time of red clover, when rivers tasted of iron. Ahno had changed himself into deer, and Svarvok sent wolves to chase him, nip at his heels, but Ahno laughed at father and changed himself into wolf instead. Seven winters Ahno ran with wolves, lived as wolf, ate as wolf. Was part of pack. Led pack. You hear, Murtagh-man?”

“…I hear.”

“Good. Hrr. Problem was, wolves did not choose Ahno. Did not want him. But could not drive him from the pack. Ahno was too strong, even in shape of wolf. But—” Uvek’s eyes gleamed with sly delight, and the tips of his fangs showed between his lips. “Wolves are cunning. A black-skin she-wolf known as Sharptooth went one night to gathering of wolves beneath full moon. Was bright as day with light from moon on snow. Wolves howl and growl and Sharptooth convinces pack to help her. Next day, Ahno’s pack goes hunt red deer. They run deep in forest, where shadows and big antlers live. Then Sharptooth came to Ahno and lured him away from pack.” Uvek’s expression grew rather goatish. “He liked her shape, her fur, and her teeth. You understand, Murtagh-man?”

“…understand.”

“Hrr-hrr. Sharptooth ran and ran, and Ahno followed, until they arrive at cliff. All packs wait there, hidden in bush. On cliff, Sharptooth let Ahno approach. Then she bite Ahno, and other packs come and snap and growl and run at Ahno, and they drive him”—Uvek made a diving swoop with his hand—“over edge of cliff. Fall not kill him, Murtagh-man. Wolves know this. Ahno son of Svarvok very hard to kill. At bottom of cliff was cave, and in cave lived ûhldmaq. You know?”

Murtagh shook his head. “…no.”

“Is Urgralgra who became bear. Very dangerous. Is told of in the stories of before times. This ûhldmaq was named Zhargog, and he was very old, very hungry. He came at wounded Ahno and fought with him, and ground shook and rocks fell, and at last, Ahno had to give up wolf form and return to being Horned. Then he fled, and Svarvok spoke to him, say, ‘Ho! now, Ahno! You have given up your teeth and paws and fur. What have you learned from this, my son?’ And Ahno laugh despite hurts and say, ‘It not good to run with pack that does not want me. I will find pack that does want.’ Then he change into eagle and fly away. And how Svarvok dealt with son then is another story entirely. Hrmm.”

Murtagh returned his gaze to the ceiling. “…are there…many…stories of Ahno?”

“Oh yes, Murtagh-man. Entire winter’s worth. Ahno was very clever, got into much trouble. In end, gods put him on mountaintop, tie him to stone so they not have to listen to his constant talk.”

“Did he ever…find his pack?”

“For a time, Murtagh-man. For a time.”

That night, the dreams that came to Murtagh exceeded all bounds of normal constraint. They possessed such vivid, horrific immediacy that reality itself seemed to have broken into blazing fragments: each an image that contained an epic’s worth of meaning—meaning that was understood perfectly and utterly and without words.

He careened through hallucinations of the highest order, where the air seemed to twist and bend, and every emotion, every fear and hope and joy, was given its shining instant beneath the black-sun sky.

The night felt endless, but even eternity itself could not endure, and at last the visions grounded themselves in something Murtagh knew far, far too well and that—given the choice—he would have rather forgotten.

The air was cold with winter’s last breath, and steam rose from the droppings in the stable. He was trying to be quiet as he and Tornac hurried to saddle their horses. The animals nickered and pawed impatiently, eager to be gone. They hadn’t been ridden for over a week and were excited for release from the city.

“Easy there,” said Murtagh, petting his charger.

His sword kept getting in the way, tangling with his legs, as he wrestled the saddle onto the charger’s back. Both he and Tornac were armed, and under his cloak, Murtagh wore a coat of fine mail.

They moved with hurried fear. Blankets, saddles, harnesses, bags laden with the supplies they’d need to get far from Urû’baen.

“What if he comes looking for us?” Murtagh whispered. He still couldn’t believe they were leaving the capital once and for all, leaving behind everything he’d known for the last fifteen years.

Tornac looked over the back of his horse, a roan mare with a white star on her breast. The swordmaster’s lean, tanned face was deadly serious, but there was a light to his expression that bespoke anticipation and, perhaps, a portion of excitement. Danger always quickened the blood. “Then we hide. Dragon eyes are keen, but even they can’t see through leaves or branches, and the king can’t take the time to search every copse and grove in the Empire. As long as we get enough of a head start, he’ll never find us.”

Murtagh was still troubled. “What if he uses magic? He must have spells to search. And I’ve heard he can reach out with his thoughts and find a person, even if they’re on the other side of Urû’baen.”

Then Tornac gripped Murtagh’s shoulder and fixed him with a firm gaze. “The charms I had off the hedge-witch will protect us from any sort of spying. The king is not all-powerful, Murtagh. No one is. Were every whisper about Galbatorix true, the Varden would have long since fallen to his might. As would the elves and dwarves.”

Murtagh pulled on the charger’s girth, tightening it the appropriate amount. “You shouldn’t have said his name,” he muttered.

Tornac paused in his own work. “Do you not want to leave?”

“…I do.”

A nod from Tornac as he returned to adjusting the roan’s saddlebags. “Then enough of this. We need to be well gone before dawn breaks.” Murtagh grunted, and Tornac gave him a considering look. “We agreed. You can’t stay. If you do, the king—”

“If I do, the king will turn me into my father. He’ll make me into another one of his bloody-minded lackeys, same as Barst or Yarek,” said Murtagh, with no attempt to hide his bitterness.

“It’s not just that,” said Tornac. “Even if you weren’t Morzan’s son, this isn’t a good place for you, Murtagh. Those leeches at court will ruin you if you stay.”

Pride made him reply, “I’d never let them.”

Tornac stopped and stared at him over the back of the roan. “You say that now, but they’ll keep grinding you down, year after year. That sort of attention cripples a man’s soul. I’ve seen it happen.” He returned to working on the horse’s tack. “You need to be free. Free of Galbatorix. Free of court. Free to make your own choices. Only then will you become the man I know you can be.” The care in his voice surprised Murtagh, but Tornac’s face was hidden behind the horse’s side. “You deserve a chance to find your way, and blast it if I’ll stand by and let them make you into something resembling Lyreth or his like. Trust me. Leaving is for the best.”

Only then had Murtagh realized that Tornac’s true motivation had nothing to do with opposing the king, and he felt a sudden sense of gratitude. “I trust you.”

Once their steeds were ready—their hooves muffled with rags—they departed. The boy who slept in the stables was still asleep, and the watchman whose duty it was to walk rounds through that part of the citadel was at the far end of his route. Tornac and Murtagh had planned their escape most carefully.

Out they went through the side gate of the citadel keep, open and unguarded during festival week, and headed toward Urû’baen’s outer curtain wall. The clopping of the horses’ hooves was a soft accompaniment as they made their way between the rows of sleeping houses. The sky was nearly black, and the great shelf of stone that hung over the eastern half of the city blocked any view of dawn’s first light.

The relatively short distance to the wall seemed at least a league, for their nerves were stretched to the point of breaking, and at every slight breath of wind, Murtagh expected Shruikan’s black form to burst from the citadel as the king came to accost them.

They soon arrived at the postern gate set within the back portion of the city’s defenses. Murtagh had bribed a watchman to leave it open, and so it was. He held the reins while Tornac unbarred the door, and then, together, they hurried through the dark, tunnel-like exit that led through the enormous curtain wall.

Then dismay. Fear. Hopelessness. Waiting for them in the field outside was a group of soldiers. Twelve spearmen, with a proud captain at the fore, his white-plumed helmet catching the last remnants of starlight.

At first Murtagh had a wild, horrible thought that Tornac had betrayed him. But then he saw the swordmaster’s face; Tornac was as distressed as he. Perhaps more so.

“So, the wayward sheep have been found,” said the captain with entirely too much glee. “The king will be pleased. Release your steeds, Murtagh son of Morzan, Tornac son of Tereth, and drop your weapons, and you shall not be harmed. This you have on my word, and as royal decree.”

There was no choice. Murtagh let go of the reins, as did Tornac, and reached for the buckle of his sword belt.

If he had not known Tornac so well, he would have missed the man’s intention. The slight shift of the swordmaster’s stance as he grounded his feet, balanced his weight—it was all the warning Murtagh got.

Tornac feinted with his hand, first appearing to grasp his own belt, but then, with deadly speed, diverting to grasp the hilt of his sword and draw the blade.

The captain barely managed the first note of a high-pitched screech before Tornac caught him in the throat with a perfectly placed lunge.

The soldiers yelled and scattered while Murtagh scrabbled to draw his own sword. It snagged in the sheath, and freeing it took precious seconds.

In that time, Tornac wounded two more soldiers and had begun advancing on a third. The men found their courage then and closed in around the swordmaster with their spears a ringed thicket of stabbing points.

Then the sheath released Murtagh’s sword, and he fell upon the soldiers from the side, and for the second time in two days, he fought, and he killed.

Never before had Murtagh let loose with such a combination of cold-minded ruthlessness and desperate savagery. But he was not only fighting for himself—he was fighting to help Tornac, and he would have sooner taken a blow than see the swordmaster harmed.

The soldiers were veterans all: trained fighting men who had been rewarded for their loyalty and doughtiness with a post guarding the citadel of Urû’baen. But they had been surprised, and the quick felling of several of their number confused them, caused them to fall back, and every time they faltered, Tornac or Murtagh extracted another life in exchange.

For the most part, they fought in silence, save for grunts and clashes of metal and the occasional quick cry. No one had the wind to speak. They were panting and fearfully focused, and sweat dripped into their eyes.

And yet…for all of Tornac’s skill, and Murtagh’s too, the numbers were badly against them. Twelve against two. Even with surprise on their side, it was hardly a fair fight. Murtagh glimpsed a blot of blood on Tornac’s right shoulder and more streaming from a cut on his scalp, and he felt a burning line somewhere on his own hip.

The swordmaster fought like a cornered cat, twisting and bounding and lashing out with blinding speed. Gone were the stylized forms used at court duels. Gone were the perfect angles and distances of sparring. And yet it was a dazzling, daring, dashing display that would have won applause from even the most jaded audience. At that moment, Murtagh truly believed that no man could have stood before Tornac.

But like all perfect moments, even in dreams, it could not last.

Murtagh tripped, and he felt the point of a spear jar his ribs as a soldier rushed him. He fell. Before he could make sense of what was happening, Tornac was standing over him, sword buried in the soldier’s side.

Then another soldier came at Tornac from behind and, with a long-bladed knife, stabbed him between the shoulder blades and bore him to the ground.

Murtagh scrambled free and slew the soldier before he could pull the knife out of Tornac’s back. Then another minute of desperate fighting followed as he contended with the last four soldiers.

The men were no match for Murtagh, but he knew they were sworn to Galbatorix with the most solemn of oaths. They could no more retreat than he would surrender.

In the end, in the grey predawn light, only he remained standing amid the scattered bodies. The roan mare had run from the field, but his charger stood by the gate, snorting and pawing.

Anguished, Murtagh staggered over to Tornac and turned him on his side. Frothed blood dripped from the swordmaster’s lips, but his eyes were still open, and he smiled as he saw Murtagh. “Did you end them rightly?” he asked.

Murtagh nodded, struggling to find enough breath to speak. “All dead.” He grasped the swordmaster’s hands. They were startlingly cold.

Tornac smiled again. “I taught you well, Murtagh.” Then his expression caught, and his grip weakened. “Tell…tell Ola I’m sorry…. If you get the chance.”

“Of course,” said Murtagh. He couldn’t bear to think how the pleasant, round-cheeked woman would take the news.

“She’s going to hate me for this.” Tornac’s eyes wandered, and then his gaze sharpened again, and for a moment, he was as lucid as Murtagh ever remembered. “Go. You have to go, blast you. Take my charm and leave me. I’m done. Go and be free and forget…me….” A harsh rattle sounded in his chest, and his body went limp, and the gleam faded from his eyes.

Then Murtagh wept, and he was not ashamed.

…

A disjunction, and Murtagh once again found himself cowering on the desolate plain, at the end of all things, with the black sun rippling with tendrils of black flame while the monstrous, mountainous, humpbacked dragon rose wingless against the horizon, blotting out light and hope.

…

Another disjunction. A field of golden grass blanketed the gentle curve of a hill. Standing amid the grass was Nasuada clad in a dress of red velvet. She turned to look back at him, and she held out her hand toward him, but her expression was sorrowful, and no matter how he reached for her, he could not close the distance.

Then the sky darkened, and the sun lost its luster, and land and sky both became the color of tarnished pewter. Tears traced lines down Nasuada’s cheeks, but he felt them on his own, hot with regret and the pain of parting.

Stars pricked the blackened sky, and a sense of impending and unavoidable doom hollowed out his chest. And far in the distance, a humped mass stirred along the horizon and began to ascend to eat the guttering sun….

Murtagh woke covered in cold sweat, disoriented, uncertain of what was real and what wasn’t, and yet consumed by a sudden conviction that time was desperately short.

The clash of chimes and bells and brazen cymbals sounded outside the temple, loud enough that the commotion filtered through the stones of the building. And wild, barbaric cries too, as if the entire village had gone mad.

Across the hall, half-shadowed Uvek looked out with a grim, heavy-lined expression. “Time of black smoke has arrived, Murtagh-man.”

Fear spurred Murtagh to action. He pawed through his cloak until he felt the yellow diamond hidden within the hem. Where was the charm Uvek had given him? Where? Where? Where? For a moment, he couldn’t remember. Then he recalled: tucked deep in his left boot.

He grasped the charm and reached for the energy stored in the diamond. The swirling vortex tickled his brain, tantalizingly close. He could almost touch it. The drug vorgethan must have been nearly purged from his body, but try though he might, he couldn’t quite unlock the flow of energy.

Clang!

The unseen door at the end of the hall opened, and boots tromped toward the cells. Cultists come to fetch him.

Murtagh yanked his hand out of his boot and stood. He cursed to himself. He’d been too slow. Time had run out. Now he had to face whatever the Draumar had planned.

Black smoke. Black sun. Doom.

CHAPTER XXII Black Smoke

“Are ye going to th’ festival?” asked one of the cultists, a red-bearded dwarf who leered at Murtagh through the bars of his cell. “ ’Course you are, Kingkiller. ’Course you are.”

The dwarf and the man who was his companion dragged Murtagh from his confinement. Murtagh put up no resistance. Until he could move and think of his own accord, he was at Bachel’s mercy…and she possessed precious little of that particular virtue.

Uvek remained squatting and watching as the cultists removed Murtagh, and Murtagh gave no look or sign of acknowledgment to the Urgal. Best the Draumar did not know they had even spoken.

As the cultists escorted Murtagh up the worn stairs and through dark corridors to the front of the temple, he noticed that the ever-present stench of brimstone was startlingly stronger. The miasma lay on the village, as heavy as a blanket, and it made his eyes water and the back of his throat sting. Every breath threatened to make him retch.

Bloody light broke across him as the dwarf and man guided him between pillars into the temple courtyard. Smoke filled the valley. Black smoke, rising from the vents in the ground, and it acted as a curtain upon the sky: a red and orange scrim that diminished the sun to a dull disk no brighter than an ember in a dying fire.

The courtyard was transformed. Bachel’s carved throne had been moved into the yard and placed upon the dais at one end. A long table stood at right angles to the dais, and in the center of the yard, before the ruined fountain, the cultists had placed the great ash-colored altar. Murtagh could not fathom how they had moved such an enormous block of stone, unless Bachel had employed magic in the effort.

Banners hung upon the patterned pillars that lined the temple, and streamers of knotted fabric—similar to those the Urgals made—hung from the eaves of the surrounding buildings.

At the table sat the remaining guests. Lyreth had a chalice in one hand, while his other hand wandered across the back of a village woman seated on his lap.

All the villagers were gathered around the courtyard, packed into the streets as so many pickled bergenhed in casks. They were chanting and moaning and beating drums and ringing bells and striking brass cymbals that jarred the smoke with their brazen crashing. Their clothes were different: a complete change of raiment such as Murtagh had never known commoners to possess. Instead of their usual robes, they wore sleeved jerkins cut and sewn out of dish-sized scales of thick boiled leather dyed dark brown. The effect was between that of a closed pinecone and the belly of a dragon. The scale pattern continued along their arms and trousers, also of leather. On their faces, the Draumar wore molded half masks that resembled Bachel’s, though theirs possessed none of that mask’s transformative power. Even the children were garbed as such, furtive figures amid the forest of legs.

Bachel herself sat upon the hide-strewn throne, her hair raised in an edifice of ragged tufts, her lids and eyes blackened with soot, her lips red as blood, and the hated claws of onyx upon her fingers.

A flock of restless crows roosted on the eaves behind the dais, cawing and cackling in response to the cacophony the villagers produced. They formed a dark crown above Bachel’s head: a shadowed symbol of her supreme authority.

To the left of the witch stood Grieve, and for once the dour man had an almost pleasant expression. The festival seemed to suit him.

But of everything Murtagh saw, it was Thorn he had eyes for most. The dragon was chained next to the dais, wings pinned by cabled ropes, a muzzle of wrought iron locked about his long jaws. Murtagh could feel the dragon’s fetters as if they were tight against his own body, and their touch seemed to burn with icy cold.

Soon, Murtagh said to Thorn, and the word was a promise, an oath, an apology. But it was like pushing his thoughts through a wall of wool. Still, the dragon’s eyelids flickered, as if he understood. Murtagh hoped he did.

The two cultists brought him before Bachel, and she inspected him as one might inspect a prize horse. “You look as though the night treated you badly, Kingkiller.” She gestured with one elegant hand to her right, and he obediently took his place.

His gaze kept drifting back to Thorn. The dragon was still suffering the effects of the drug vorgethan; Alín could not bring him clean food or water without arousing suspicion. Murtagh could feel a low, dull sense of misery emanating from the dragon. Misery. He hated the word….

Once again, Murtagh attempted to access the power in the yellow diamond. Almost. But almost was never enough.

Then Bachel stood and clapped her hands over her head, and after the crowd quieted, she proclaimed, “Let the recitation begin!”

A line formed outside the courtyard, and one by one the cultists presented themselves to Bachel and told her of the visions they’d had that night. The dreams were far more varied than usual: fantastic images and narratives that Murtagh would have hardly credited as true had he not experienced something similar himself. Yet there were commonalities of theme among the visions, promises of bloodshed and vengeance claimed, premonitions of a world razed and rebuilt—a world where every living creature worshipped Azlagûr the Devourer, or else died.

The recitation took hours. Every member of the village came before Bachel and had their say. At the table in front of the throne, Lyreth and the other guests grew restless, and they often stood and left for a time, only to return later and resume eating.

Once Lyreth came to Murtagh and stood before him while gnawing on a leg of lamb. The young nobleman was fever-eyed and disheveled, and his movements had a sharp, birdlike quality, as if he were overly excited. “Did you enjoy those dreams last night, Murtagh? Eh?” And he poked Murtagh in the chest with the end of the leg. The meat left a grease stain on his woolen jerkin. Lyreth took another bite, his eyes wandering across the courtyard. “It was a singular experience. That’s why I wanted to stay, to see if what Bachel said is true. I dreamt of my father and…” A strange smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and he looked back at Murtagh. “Enough of that. How do you like this, Murtagh? Here you are, a faithful servant to the throne again. Even if you sit upon the throne in Urû’baen, yours is ever to be the slave and not the master. You and your dragon both.” He laughed in a most unpleasant way. “How do you like seeing the foundations of the future, Murtagh? These Draumar may be inauspicious material from which to alter the course of history, but from small seeds may tall trees grow.” He poked Murtagh in the chest again and then, with a smirk, returned to his seat.

For his part, Murtagh stood. He stood and he kept trying to force his mind to access the energy in the yellow diamond. Surely the vorgethan couldn’t still be in his body!

The dull disk of the sun arced across the sky. The smoke never lessened, and no breath of wind arose to give them relief. Beneath the stifling blanket of haze, it grew increasingly warm—as if the earth itself were heated—and the whole village seemed to labor beneath an obsessive presence. Murtagh could not shake the feeling he’d had in his dream, of cowering on the blasted plain before the rising abomination, far in the distance….

The ceremonies went on. Endless rites, obscure and meaningless to Murtagh, but clearly of deep value to the cultists. Bachel spoke at times, in the same manner she often did, of the riches and rewards destined to those who followed their faith. The discordant music continued, and between that and the smoke, a pounding headache formed at the base of Murtagh’s skull. His eyeballs throbbed with every beat of a drum or crash of a cymbal.

Then the observances came to an end, and the villagers fell to feasting. That, at least, Murtagh was familiar with. Great servings of food were brought forth from the temple kitchens and from dwellings throughout Nal Gorgoth. Boar meat and venison and mushrooms prepared in a dizzying variety of dishes. Wine too, and mead, and bergenhed, and aspic, and loaves of fresh-baked bread, and more besides. Pies, savory and sweet. Deep dishes of creamy soup, wedges of hard and soft cheeses, berry tarts. All manner of sumptuous food.

Bachel’s servants filled her dented brass goblet with wine, and with his thoughts now clearer, Murtagh recognized the goblet as that which he had found in the tower of Ristvak’baen. His neck stiffened, and he clenched his jaw. The witch continued to pile presumption upon presumption.

Throughout the evening, Murtagh ate when ordered to. He knew it would help keep up his strength, but he had no stomach for food.

He saw Alín on occasion, moving about the courtyard, tending to the guests, helping with the serving, rushing to obey Bachel’s orders. As with the other Draumar, she wore a scaled outfit, and it gave the acolyte a darker, more serious appearance than Murtagh was used to.

The feasting continued for hours. The flock of crows remained for the duration, white eyes fixed on the bounty laid out before them. Bachel appeared to have no interest in feeding the birds, but they did not defy her and take flight. As she ordered, so they obeyed.

Lyreth and his companions consumed cup after cup of wine. They seemed to view the entire festival as a lighthearted affair, no different from the themed parties so common among the nobles of Galbatorix’s court. Murtagh knew better, but he would not have warned them even if he could. Some wisdom, he thought, was best acquired through experience.

As the orange smoke-darkened disk of the sun approached the peaks of the western mountains—which were visible only as dusky silhouettes beneath the sinking orb—the villagers cleared the food from the courtyard and lit the braziers.

Then Bachel did say, “Bring in the offerings!”

A parade of gifts followed. Wooden carvings, small and large, plain and painted, simple and complicated. It seemed as if the villagers had spent the entire year chiseling away at a piece of hardwood in their spare time. The sculptures would have horrified most any artist in Alagaësia, no matter their race, for they were the shape of dreams: distorted, angular, structured according to flawed, uncomfortable logic. In them, Murtagh recognized fragments of his own brimstone-born nightmares.

Each sculpture, Bachel accepted with grace and thanks. She made no distinction in quality; simply creating a piece seemed sufficient to satisfy the traditions of the Draumar.

When the last villager had presented the last carving, Bachel’s warriors gathered the sculptures into a pile behind the basalt altar set before the ruined fountain.

Bachel stood and cried out, “For another sevenmonth, Azlagûr has gifted us with His dreams of prophecy. Now, during the time of black smoke, we repay His generosity with these gifts. With these sculptures born of dream. Azlagûr is well pleased with your efforts, O Draumar! You have proved your devotion, and we make now this burnt offering that Azlagûr may continue to look upon us with favor. In return, we serve Azlagûr with our lives, and may destruction strike us and all we care for if we break this sacred covenant.”

She lifted her pale arm and pointed at the mound of carvings. She spoke no word, but her body grew tense as a bowstring drawn taut, and then the tension released, and a bolt of liquid fire leaped from her hand and flew to the sculptures.

Yellow flames engulfed the carvings. In an instant, a year’s worth of work was lost to fire, charred and seared and soon to be reduced to ashes. But the villagers were not dismayed. To the contrary, they cheered the eruption, and Bachel seemed gratified by the display.

Then once again she clapped her hands. “Bring forth the initiates!”

Murtagh expected to see a line of younger villagers, ready to assume the responsibilities of their elders. Instead, Bachel’s warriors ushered into the courtyard the same sorry-looking prisoners they’d herded into Nal Gorgoth before…before the Breath of Azlagûr had fogged his brain and sapped his will.

Among the prisoners was Uvek. The Urgal’s wrists and ankles were shackled, his lips pulled back to show his fangs. The sight sent a spike of alarm through Murtagh. As far as he knew, the cultists hadn’t taken Uvek from his cell in all the time since Murtagh and Thorn had arrived at the village. That they had done so now presaged nothing good.

The prisoners were herded into a block before the dais. The mound of burning statues backlit them in a writhing thicket of flame and sent their famished shadows stretching off to the north.

Bachel looked the prisoners over with exaggerated care. Then she took a small crystal vial from within the sleeve of her dress, descended from the dais, unstoppered the vial, and blew the swirling contents into the faces of the flinching prisoners. The vapor clung to their heads, and Murtagh saw it pour into their mouths and noses as they inevitably inhaled.

He instinctively held his own breath, hoping that no scrap of vapor would be blown his way.

With a satisfied look, Bachel returned to the throne. Lifting her husky voice, she said, “Dream now, unbelievers, as do all who live here in Nal Gorgoth. Those of you who are prepared to swear loyalty to Azlagûr the Devourer, and who are prepared to join us as faithful members of the Draumar…step forward now.”

The prisoners shuffled and shifted and looked at each other with dazed expressions. Then a full three-quarters moved forward in a single staggered group. Uvek was not one of them. He remained standing at the back, teeth bared, arms pressed outward against his shackles, his fingers locked in claws.

The corners of Bachel’s lips curved. “Excellent. I applaud your wisdom. You shall be inducted into the mysteries of our order, and the veil of common life shall be torn from your eyes by the truth we share. Come. Swear to me and to Azlagûr.”

One by one, the prisoners who had stepped forward knelt before Bachel and swore their fealty. Though they did not use the ancient language, the stifling sense of presence increased, and the hairs on Murtagh’s arms and neck stood on end, and he felt a thrum in the air, as of a great power passing through Bachel into her new followers.

An eerie light brightened the eyes of the men and women as they finished their oaths. With each, Grieve removed their shackles, and they went to stand with the rest of the assembled cultists, an expression of wonderment and—Murtagh thought—fear upon their faces.

“What of these recalcitrant stragglers?” Lyreth asked, his voice ringing out over the courtyard. He gestured toward Uvek and the other prisoners who had refused to budge.

“A sacrifice to Azlagûr,” said Bachel. “In which you are included as well, Uvek Windtalker! Your time is at an end, and I shall no longer waste my energies upon you. Not now that I have a Rider to do my bidding.”

She rose and put a hand on Murtagh’s shoulder and tightened her grip. Even through his clothes, the tips of her sharpened onyx claws hurt. “Come, Kingkiller. Join me in presenting this sacred offering to Azlagûr. Today we shall appease our dread master, you and I together. You shall watch me wield the dagger I had of Saerlith, and then you shall wield it in turn, and the blood will flow and flow and the earth will turn black with it even as it shall when Azlagûr rises from His repose and wreaks His vengeance upon the land.” Her eyes were burning with excitement. “Come. Now.”

Murtagh’s heart began to hammer as the witch took his hand and led him to the altar. The cultists and prisoners parted before them; the sight reminded him of the weddings that had taken place at court, with Galbatorix presiding, a dark and foreboding figure waiting at the head of the great presence chamber to deliver his royal benediction.

Across the courtyard, Thorn stirred in his shackles, a futile protest of movement. Without looking at him, Bachel said, “Stay,” and he subsided, but his eyes sparked with restrained fire.

No, thought Murtagh when he saw the stained surface of the altar. He couldn’t do this, couldn’t be forced to do this. He wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t—

Bachel clapped her hands, and her warriors dragged to her the first of the remaining prisoners. The man was a ruddy-faced commoner garbed in a rough, homespun smock. He had a short, untrimmed beard that made his chin and upper lip look as if they had been rubbed with dirt. His jaw was set, and his brow furrowed, but he was obviously frightened, and the Breath of Azlagûr still held him in its power and seemed to have left him with no will to fight or flee.

“Hold him down and bare his breast,” said Bachel, her voice loud and clear.

The warriors hauled the prisoner onto the altar and pinned him down. One of them used a knife to cut open the smock to expose the man’s chest, and the man let out a small groan.

Murtagh gripped the edge of his cloak with his right hand and began to pull the fabric up with his fingers, feeling for the diamond hidden within the hem.

The cultists started to chant, and the combined power of their voices was like a great drum beating through the air and ground. The sound was seductive, transfixing, overwhelming; it made Murtagh want to join the rhythmic recitation, to lose himself in the cry of the crowd and to become one with the group.

Moving in time with the chant, Bachel drew the black-bladed dagger from the sheath on her girdle and raised the weapon above her head. From where Murtagh stood, the knife was outlined against the sinking disk of the sun, as sharp as a serpent’s poisonous tooth.

His finger touched the diamond in the hem.

Bachel’s dagger descended, fast as a falling arrow.

The prisoner let out a low grunt as the blade pierced his heart, and his whole body went rigid. He thrashed, but the warriors held him in place.

Blood sprayed skyward as Bachel withdrew the dagger. Then she moved lower, and as the man gurgled and gasped his last breath, she began to cut open his belly.

Murtagh watched. He had no choice. Gore in and of itself did not bother him. He had butchered his share of animals while hunting, and he had seen—and carried out—more than his share of bloody deeds on the battlefield. But to watch a man killed so coldly, without a chance to defend himself, was horrific. It gave him visions of Goreth of Teirm lying before him in the packed-sand arena….

The diamond was hard between his fingers as he seized it with crushing strength through the hem.

He drove his mind into the gem, trying once more to free the energy contained within. The swirling store of power trembled beneath his mental grasp, an electric whirlpool that sent tiny shocks through his consciousness. He strained with all his might, but the barrier in his mind continued to hold.

Bachel spread out the prisoner’s bloody intestines across the ashen altar, and she made a show of studying them. Then she raised her stained hands and cried, “Azlagûr has blessed us!” The cultists roared with approval. “The time of the Draumar is at hand! Hark! I see our people stepping forth from the shadows and marching across the land! I see the sons and daughters of Azlagûr’s betrayers brought to heel! I see the Dragon Thorn and the Rider Murtagh flying at our fore! Yea, and even shall they cast down the false hero Eragon, and by their claw and tooth and blade shall they usher in the end of this age. All shall bow before Azlagûr’s might, and His reign shall take hold, and so shall we endure, yea even unto the end of time. As it is dreamt, so it shall be!”

“As it is dreamt, so it shall be!” the villagers chanted.

Then Bachel stepped back from the altar and gestured at the corpse of the man. “Take him to the deep and deposit his body in the Well of Dreams, that Azlagûr may know we have served Him.”

Two of the warriors dragged the corpse away, leaving black streaks across the altar.

With a wicked smile, Bachel advanced on Murtagh. He froze, and his heart jumped as she took his right hand in hers. She lifted his hand, and the diamond slipped from between his fingers, and the cloak fell straight. Her smile deepened as she pressed her black-bladed dagger into his palm and wrapped his fingers about the hilt. The blood on her skin stained his own.

“Now it is your turn to prove yourself a faithful servant to Azlagûr the Devourer,” she said, and a tone of unhealthy delight colored her voice. “Bring another!”

The warriors grabbed the next prisoner—a short, brown-haired woman—and carried her to the altar. Despite the stultifying effects of the Breath, she was clearly terrified. Her nostrils flared, and her lungs rasped like overworked bellows, and a fine sheen of sweat coated her ashen skin.

Even though Murtagh wasn’t touching the diamond, he should have been able to draw the energy from it. Under normal circumstances he could have. He felt sure that if he just tried hard enough…but even in that moment, with his heart pounding and the smell of blood and death filling his nostrils, he could not bring his full strength to bear.

One of the warriors cut open the front of the woman’s tunic. Bachel savored the sight before turning back to Murtagh. “Now, Kingkiller. You know what is to be done. Now, by my word, my will, my command, sacrifice this unbeliever to Azlagûr the Devourer! Do this, and you shall be favored above all others.”

A scrap of black smoke blew into Murtagh’s face as he inhaled, and the smoke choked him and unbalanced his thoughts. The world distorted, and the festival and Nal Gorgoth itself seemed to thin and waver.

His hand trembled around the hilt of the dagger.

For the slightest moment, he imagined accepting. No longer would he and Thorn be outcasts. They would belong to the Draumar, and the Draumar would belong to them, and wherever they went, whatever they did, they would be able to rely upon the Draumar for help, even as the cultists might rely upon them. He would lead the Draumar to victory against the rest of Alagaësia. He knew how. Bachel was not wrong in that. And in victory, he and Thorn might at last be truly safe.

The prospect was enormously tempting.

Yet he could not bring himself to take the first step along that path. The costs were too high. He and Thorn would still be Bachel’s thralls, servants to her grim cause, and there was no certainty they could ever overcome her. Besides, to pursue an absence of danger beyond all other considerations was its own form of madness. And as much as he yearned to belong, the question of to whom mattered. The Draumar, he deemed, were unworthy of his loyalty. He had rejected what Galbatorix offered—and through that rejection won his freedom. Likewise, he now rejected Bachel.

“Kill her, Kingkiller!” Bachel insisted. The leaping flames of the bonfire gilded her hollow cheeks with liquid gold. The chanting of the cultists surged in response to her words, rising to a demented frenzy.

Murtagh lifted the knife. He had to. Bachel’s words left him no choice. But in his mind, he continued to rebel. Time was nearly gone, and yet he still failed to breach the barrier and access the energy in the diamond.

He couldn’t do it alone.

The thought struck him with clarifying force. In an instant, he diverted his mental energies to Thorn—and then to Uvek—and threw himself against the unnatural haze that separated their minds and pierced it through the strength of his will. I need your help! he said.

The knife began to descend.

Thorn blinked, and Uvek snarled, and yet Murtagh felt nothing from them. Despair sank its teeth into him. They had lost, and Bachel had triumphed. If only—

New strength poured into him. Thorn’s and Uvek’s both. Their contribution was limited—neither was able to fully overcome the restrictions of the Breath or the vorgethan—but it was more than he had on his own.

With them backing him, Murtagh again drove his mind into the diamond. It took every scrap of their combined might, but he was able, just barely, to prize open the bottled store of energy.

The torrent of potential rushed into him.

He directed it into the blackstone charm. At the same instant, he mouthed the Urgal word that Uvek had taught him: “Shûkva.” Heal. It felt strange to work magic without the ancient language, but the word served its purpose nonetheless, and the charm triggered.

A sense of lightness passed through Murtagh, and a cloud seemed to lift from his mind as his sight and hearing sharpened and his thoughts grew swift as a high-spirited stallion. It occurred to him that he was lucky his remaining wards hadn’t blocked the effects of the charm.

He stopped the downward motion of his arm. The tip of the black-bladed dagger hung a hair’s breadth from the center of the woman’s chest.

Bachel looked at him, and her angled eyes began to narrow. “Do not hesitate, Kingkiller. Finish the deed!”

Murtagh knew the odds were against him. His wards that protected him from physical harm were exhausted. All he had was the force of his mind and the strength of his body, and Bachel and the entirety of the Draumar were arrayed before him—and they were well protected by amulets and enchantments.

His lips curled. A good fight, then.

The first flash of alarm crossed Bachel’s face, but before she could act—

“Vindr!” Murtagh shouted, and stabbed the dagger toward the witch’s heart.

CHAPTER XXIII Fire and Wind

The Draumar were warded against magic, but they were not warded against the effects of magic.

At Murtagh’s shouted command, a torrent of ferocious wind knocked the cultists and prisoners off their feet, and even sent a number of them tumbling across the flagstones. Behind him, the bonfire roared to sudden heights, the flames leaping twenty feet or more into the air, and a cloud of swirling embers filled the yard while writhing shadows stretched to the surrounding buildings.

Summoning so much wind ought to have been beyond Murtagh’s strength, but he drained the yellow diamond empty, and he drew upon Thorn and Uvek, and his might was more than that of any single man, even a Rider.

The tip of the black-bladed dagger bounced off Bachel’s breast, stopped by a spell, and the weapon flew from his hand.

Then the witch was shouting in a guttural, unfamiliar language as she jumped back. One of her onyx claws pointed at him.

“Skölir!” he shouted. Shield. It was a generic ward, so vague as to be dangerous, but it was all he had time for.

Gouts of inky darkness poured from her finger and flowed around Murtagh as water around a stubborn boulder, deflected by his counterspell.

Another word, and she could kill him. His makeshift ward could be bypassed in any number of ways. So he did what always ought to be the first thing in a duel between magicians: he attacked Bachel’s mind with his own. Now freed of the Breath and the vorgethan, he knew he had a chance of overcoming her, if he could just—

Bachel laughed, and there was no humor or levity in the sound, only cruel, scornful mocking.

She stepped back, and a cloud of flapping wings and clattering beaks and stark white eyes obscured her as the murder of crows descended into the yard and surrounded the witch. Then the birds darted forward, and Murtagh heard and felt them everywhere around him, and they blotted out the light.

In the distance, Uvek bellowed, and fear shaded his thoughts.

From within the storm of crows, Murtagh sensed the witch’s mind slipping away, like a wisp on the wind. He tried to find her again, but to no avail. The minds of the flitting birds confused his inner eye, and he felt himself lost and uncertain of his balance.

It was an untenable position. At any moment, a blade or spell might end him.

Desperate, Murtagh thought back to the compendium, and he uttered the simplest, and greatest, of the killing words: “Deyja.”

Die.

The crows fell as dark, heavy rain.

He stood alone beside the altar. The female prisoner had rolled off the block of basalt. Around him lay a rosette of slain crows, their feathers pressed flat against the flagstones, as so many green-black petals.

Bachel was gone. Vanished. As was Grieve, and half the guests at the long table.

Blast it. He needed to catch Bachel before she could work more evil. But first—

The cultists were massing at the side of the courtyard, warriors and common Draumar alike gathering themselves for a charging attack.

“Vindr!” Murtagh drove them back with word and wind as he strode to Thorn. Once more the dragon’s strength served as his own. With another arcane command—“Kverst!”—he struck the shackles and muzzle from Thorn, and then he took the blackstone charm from his boot, pressed it against Thorn’s snout, and again said, “Shûkva.”

The change in Thorn’s demeanor was instantaneous. He arched his neck and roared, and a glittering ripple flashed along his sinuous length. At last! he said. And the feel of his mind, once more whole and sound, filled Murtagh’s eyes with tears.

It was the work of seconds to effect a similar cure on Uvek and to free him of his fetters.

The Urgal rolled his massive, rounded shoulders and let out a roar to match Thorn’s. “Is good, Murtagh-man. Has been long time since I fought. This I think I enjoy.”

“No younglings,” said Murtagh in a hard tone as he handed the blackstone charm back to the Urgal.

A rippling sheet of flame shot from Thorn’s mouth, driving back the surging mass of cultists. The same goes for you, said Murtagh with his mind. Leave the younglings alone.

I will try.

Uvek lifted his horns to show his throat. “As you say, Murtagh-man. And I ask you not kill more crows. Is bad fortune.”

Murtagh nodded in return. “I promise. Now let’s—”

He stopped when he saw Alín appear deep among the shadowed pillars that fronted the temple, running toward them with Thorn’s saddle and bags piled in her arms. As she staggered beneath the weight, Grieve and two armored acolytes darted up from behind and seized her.

The saddle and bags fell, and Alín thrashed in a frantic attempt to free herself. But Grieve and the acolytes dragged her back into the depths of the temple, and they vanished from sight even as Murtagh readied a spell.

He shouted in anger and started after her.

After two steps, he swung back to Thorn and slapped him on the side. “Go! Break! Burn! Tear this place to the ground.”

Thorn’s jaws parted in a toothy snarl, and the tip of his tail twitched. I thought you would never ask. Then he roared again and leaped into the air with a thunderous sweep of his wings.

The backdraft sent swirls of embers through the air, each one a tiny whirling firestorm.

As Thorn cleared the buildings that edged the courtyard, he laid down a wall of fire between Murtagh and the massing mob. A clutch of arrows pierced the wall and streaked past his head, trailing pennants of flapping flames.

Murtagh sprinted toward the temple even as the flames died down and the cultists surged forward. Behind him, he heard Uvek loose a mighty bellow: a battle cry fit to make even the bravest man quail.

Then Murtagh was among the dark rows of faceted columns. He ran through the open doors of blackened oak, down the alcove-lined passage, and into the atrium with the nightmarish statue of dream.

A deafening crash sounded behind him, and an enormous thud vibrated the ground. He spun around to see a cloud of dust rising above the front of the temple. A dark shadow swept over him as Thorn swooped overhead.

There, said Thorn. None shall reach you from the entrance. I blocked the doors with stone. As he spoke, the dragon alit upon the Tower of Flint and began to tear at the slate shingles that roofed it. A twisting stream of angry, frightened, cawing crows flew up through the holes and dispersed into the smoke that darkened the valley.

Murtagh smiled tightly. Thanks. Be careful.

Thorn roared in response.

Then Murtagh turned left and started out of the atrium, heading toward the temple’s inner sanctum, where he was most likely to find Bachel, Grieve, and Alín.

Along the way, he ended his shielding spell. It was too broad to be truly effective, and although it was a ward, the way he had cast it was as an ongoing effect, which was costing him precious energy that he knew—or rather, feared—he would need to overcome Bachel. Better to start fresh with proper wards, which would only trigger when actually needed.

As he passed among the pillars along the southern edge of the atrium, he struggled to remember the exact wording of his earliest wards. It had been some time since he cast them, and it wouldn’t do to accidentally curse himself. Ah, that’s it, he thought, and opened his mouth to—

A heavy weight slammed into his back, between the shoulder blades. His head whipped back, pain shot through his neck, and he fell forward onto the paved floor. White sparks flashed behind his eyes as his forehead bounced off the stones.

A boot rammed into his ribs, knocking the air from his lungs. Then again. And again.

“There! That’s right! You never were any better than a piece of gutter filth!” shouted Lyreth.

The sound of his voice and the feel of the blows filled Murtagh’s mind with memories of being ambushed on the spiral staircase at the citadel of Urû’baen. An instinctual sense of panic and helplessness gripped him, and he curled into a kneeling ball, trying to protect his head and the back of his neck.

Magic. That was the answer. If he could just cast a spell—

Something hard struck his temple. His vision flickered, and the ground seemed to tilt and turn beneath him. Dazed, he tried to recover, but it was impossible to think, impossible to move—

He lost his balance and rolled onto his side. He saw Lyreth standing over him, a bloodstained brass goblet in one hand, a vicious, snarling expression on his face. Lyreth raised the goblet again and—

Something yanked Lyreth to the side and sent him tumbling across the floor. The goblet fell and bounced with several high-pitched tings.

Then Uvek was standing over Murtagh, offering him a huge grey hand. In the other, the Urgal held a spear taken from the Draumar.

“Thanks,” Murtagh managed to gasp as he accepted Uvek’s help and the Urgal pulled him onto his feet.

“Of course, blood brother.”

Several pillars away, Lyreth stood somewhat unsteadily. He glanced between Murtagh and Uvek, and fear widened his eyes. He made to turn, as if to flee, and Murtagh said, “Don’t even think about it, Lyreth. I could kill you with a word.”

The noble’s face went even paler. He wet his lips. “Nonsense. Bachel’s magic protects me.”

Ah, he has an amulet.

“Do you really think that can stop me, Lyreth? Me? Even Galbatorix could not stop me with his oaths. If not for me, you’d still be a slave to his will.” It was a bluff, but Murtagh somehow believed his own words. If forced to, he felt sure he could find a way past the amulet’s wards. Somehow.

Lyreth lifted his sharp jaw. “So then kill me. What are you waiting for?” When Murtagh didn’t immediately answer, he smirked and began to back away. “That’s what I thought. An empty b—”

“No,” said Uvek, and his voice was like grinding rocks. He pointed at Lyreth with one hooked nail. “You stay.” Lyreth froze. There was no chance he could outrun an Urgal, and they all knew it. “Do you want I should kill this hornless stripling for you, Murtagh-man?”

Murtagh was sorely tempted. But he shook his head. “No. Leave him. He’ll make a better prisoner. We’ll take him back to face Nasuada’s interrogators.”

Fear again animated Lyreth’s face, but then he assumed the same haughty, contemptuous expression that Murtagh had learned to hate growing up. “Do you think it’s so easy to make me a prisoner? You never could best me at court, Murtagh.”

“And you could never best me in the arena. Goreth of Teirm could attest to that.”

Somewhere in the village, a building collapsed amid shouts and roars. Murtagh resisted the urge to look. He felt no pain from Thorn; the dragon was safe enough.

Lyreth made a dismissive motion. “You don’t have a sword now, Murtagh son of Morzan, and if you have that pet Urgal of yours catch and bind me, you’re a bigger coward than I thought. I wager you can’t make me bend a knee. I wager upon my life.”

It was a provocation, and Murtagh knew it, but neither could he let the challenge pass unanswered. “It might very well be on your life,” he said darkly. He wiped a line of blood from his throbbing temple. “No one calls me coward without a fair answer.”

Uvek nodded approvingly. “I will watch, Murtagh-man. Is good to fight. Clears the blood, adds honor to your name.”

“And my honor is your honor. Yes.”

The Urgal moved back several paces as Murtagh and Lyreth began to circle each other among the pillars. Lyreth’s unexpected courage puzzled Murtagh; he never would have thought of Lyreth as brave. Cunning, yes. Charming, when need be, yes. Cruel, most certainly. But not the sort of man who would jump at the opportunity to lead a charge in battle.

He must really want to avoid being captured. The thought gave Murtagh pause. If that was Lyreth’s true motivation, then—

He sprang forward. If he was right, delay would be deadly. With two steps, he closed the distance with Lyreth and, before the other man could back away, grabbed him by the shoulder with one hand while striking him in the jaw with a fist.

Lyreth took the blow better than Murtagh expected, and a second later, he felt an answering blow against his left kidney. The pain made Murtagh’s eyes water, and his whole body went rigid, save for his knees, which buckled.

Then Lyreth pushed against him, and they were falling together.

A jarring thud as they collided with the floor. For a minute, the only sound was their ragged breathing as they wrestled across the flagstones. Up close, Lyreth smelled of wine and a cloying, peach-scented perfume that Murtagh found distinctly off-putting.

The other man fought with desperate strength, but desperate or not, he was far weaker than Murtagh, and Murtagh soon gained the advantage. Lyreth seemed to realize his plight, for he resorted to the lowest of tactics and drove his thumbs into Murtagh’s eyes.

Pain caused Murtagh to jerk his head back, and his vision flashed white and red, and sparkling stars exploded at the points where Lyreth’s thumbs contacted.

They separated, and a second later, they were both on their feet, fists raised, hair tousled, teeth bared. Murtagh blinked. The world throbbed with reds and yellows, every line and angle outlined with a glowing halo.

Several quick jabs followed, and then Murtagh grew impatient and rushed Lyreth. He was no longer a youngling, and he’d be thrice cursed before he let Lyreth again use him badly.

He slammed Lyreth into a pillar, and the man’s head cracked against the carved stone.

For an instant, Murtagh thought he’d won. Then a flash of silver by his belt caught his attention: Lyreth fumbling to draw a short-bladed dagger from under the hem of his tunic.

Alarm spiked Murtagh’s pulse. He jumped backward, but too late: a burning line slashed across his ribs as Lyreth lashed out with the weapon.

Murtagh resisted the urge to disengage. Instead, he stepped forward again and trapped Lyreth’s arm between their bodies. He caught the man’s wrist with his hand and bent it inward until the dagger pointed back at Lyreth, and before Lyreth could drop the weapon, he shoved the knife deep into Lyreth’s chest.

Lyreth stiffened and let out a grunt, but he kept struggling against Murtagh, seemingly unwilling to acknowledge the wound. Murtagh knew he’d hit the man’s heart. He’d bleed out given enough time, but that could be a minute or more, and Lyreth was fighting with the same stubborn tenacity as a buck that had been struck in the chest by an arrow and refused to fall.

This is taking too long. The thought came to Murtagh with cold clarity. Alín needed rescuing. More importantly, Bachel was still on the loose, which meant Thorn was in danger, even if some of the dragon’s wards remained. The contest with Lyreth was an unnecessary distraction, and a dangerous one at that.

All anger left him then, and he stepped back and pulled the dagger free of Lyreth’s chest. A spray of crimson blood hit him, and the color drained from Lyreth’s face. The man flailed and scrambled after Murtagh, only to collapse into his arms.

Keeping a firm grip on the dagger, Murtagh lowered Lyreth to the ground. Already he could see the light fading from Lyreth’s eyes. His first instinct was to let the man die. But he didn’t want to lose all that Lyreth knew.

“Waíse heill,” he said, and placed his left palm against the wound in the man’s chest. It was a risky spell; he could be attempting to heal something that was beyond his strength or ability, but it was all he had time for.

The spell had no effect.

Lyreth chuckled. He sounded genuinely amused. Blood stained the corners of his mouth. “I’m charmed, remember? Your spells…won’t…work.”

Murtagh ripped open the front of Lyreth’s tunic, convinced he would see one of Bachel’s bird-skull amulets hanging around Lyreth’s neck. But all he found was pale skin and the red-lipped line that was the wound into Lyreth’s heart.

“What did you do?” he said, angry.

Lyreth chuckled again, more weakly this time. “Bound wards to…me…. No need for…amulet.” His gaze wandered for a moment, and then he rallied and looked at Murtagh with undisguised spite. “You always were a…bastard.”

And then he went limp, and his last breath left his body.

Murtagh stood and looked down at the corpse. “No,” he finally said. “Eragon’s the bastard. Not me.”

“A good kill, Murtagh-man,” said Uvek.

Murtagh grunted. He motioned to the Urgal. “We’d better hurry.”

CHAPTER XXIV Grieve

As Murtagh ran with Uvek toward the temple’s inner sanctum, he quickly cast a basic ward against physical damage, and he was just beginning to formulate a ward that could protect him, or others, against the Breath when they arrived in the echoing room.

There, waiting for them in the presence chamber, was Grieve and seven acolytes in their armor of leather scales. Grieve carried his iron-shod club; the acolytes carried spears and wooden roundshields.

Neither Bachel nor Alín was to be seen.

Uvek stomped his feet and bellowed, and the sound of his war cry echoed a dozen times off the high ceiling.

“Where is Bachel?” said Murtagh, raising his voice over the echoes. He regripped Lyreth’s dagger. It was the only physical weapon he had.

“That is none of your concern, Outlander,” said Grieve in his harsh tone.

“I disagree. Tell me, and tell me where Alín is.”

Grieve smiled grimly. “With the Speaker. She shall see to the little traitor. Now surrender, Outlander, or you shall surely die.”

“You know I’ll never surrender.” Murtagh was already preparing for the mental assault he was convinced would follow.

Grieve snorted. “Of course, but formalities must be observed. I’m glad for the chance to be rid of you, Rider. And you as well, Urgal.”

Uvek let out a low growl. “You owe me blood, shagvrek, for death of Kiskû.”

A disdainful sneer crossed Grieve’s face. “Was that your bird? Annoying thing. Uvek Windtalker, the greatest shaman of his people, and yet you chose to sit atop a mountain and talk to a bird for years on end. What a waste.”

Rage darkened Uvek’s face, and he lowered his head so that, for a moment, Murtagh thought he was going to charge. “You are slave to dream, shagvrek. Is wrong-think to worship Bachel or Azlagûr. You crawl before them, happy for attention. Like dog.”

Grieve snarled, his expression hateful. “I am no slave, Urgralgra.” He spat out the word as if it were invective. “I serve those who accepted me.”

Uvek spread his broad arms. “Then let me give embrace. See how long you can stand welcome. Hrr-hrr-hrr.”

Grieve lifted his club and pointed it at Murtagh and Uvek. “Kill the unbelievers.” And he drew forth a crystal vial and threw it at the mosaic floor.

Murtagh had been expecting exactly that. Even as the vial flew through the air, he cried, “Drahtr!”

The vial swooped back up, just missing the floor, and gently arced into Murtagh’s left hand. Grieve’s face contorted with rage, and he bellowed as the seven acolytes charged Murtagh and Uvek.

Murtagh didn’t have time to slip the vial into the pouch on his belt before the first cultist was upon him. He sidestepped a jab of the man’s spear, sprang forward, and drove Lyreth’s dagger through the man’s temple.

Good thing they’re not wearing helmets.

He left the dagger where it was and snared the end of the cultist’s spear as the man fell. Holding it one-handed, he waved it at the other cultists while retreating. That bought him time to put away the vial, and then he had both hands on the haft of the spear. A fierce glee overtook him.

Beside him, Uvek caught a man’s spear and used it to smash the cultist against the brazier in the center of the chamber. Sparks and glowing coals flew like a shower of meteors. Another of the Draumar jabbed Uvek in the upper arm, but the Urgal’s hide was so thick, the cut drew no blood.

For the next minute, Murtagh and Uvek fought side by side. They were fit companions. The Urgal’s size and brute strength—as well as his unexpected speed—allowed him to break the line of Draumar and keep them on the defensive, while Murtagh felled his opponents with practiced ease.

As they fought, Grieve stalked the perimeter of the battle, hefting his iron-shod club. But he continued to hold himself apart, content for the time to let his minions strive unassisted with Murtagh and Uvek.

When just two of the cultists remained, and the glittering mosaic was slick with blood, then and only then did Grieve attack.

His assault came as a surprise. Murtagh was focused on the Draumar in front of him—a stocky, slump-shouldered man with a streak of grey along his brow—and he nearly missed Grieve’s club as it swung toward him.

Murtagh twitched and managed to deflect the devastating blow with his spear. At the same time, he felt the man’s mind driving against his own. And not just his; Uvek snarled and said, “You shall not have my thoughts, shagvrek!”

The addition of Grieve to the fight shifted the advantage back to the cultists, for the witch’s adviser and right-hand man struck with a power Murtagh had not anticipated—he seemed nearly as strong as a Kull—and though ungainly, he was swift on his feet. Fending him off was like trying to fence with a savage animal, fierce and untrammeled.

The five of them maneuvered around the pillars and the brazier in the center of the sanctum, each seeking to land a mortal blow. Murtagh stabbed his spear into the brazier and tossed a clump of coals at one of the remaining acolytes. The man ducked, and Murtagh moved in, only for Grieve to drive him back with swings of his heavy club.

A painful stalemate held as they struggled to and fro. Their blows, parries, and occasional shouts echoed through the space, and a pair of dispossessed crows fluttered about near the crown of the ceiling, screaming at the combatants below.

Then Uvek uttered a growl of frustration, and with one hand, he grasped the lip of the burning-hot brazier and flipped it over. Coals cascaded across the gory floor, and the heavy copper dish landed on the shoulders of a cultist, crushing him. A gong-like tone sounded.

“Desecrators!” cried Grieve.

Murtagh seized the opportunity to lunge forward and took the other acolyte in the throat. As the man sank gurgling and gasping to the floor, Uvek slipped his spear under the overturned brazier and stabbed the man struggling beneath its weight. The man went limp, and the brazier moved no more.

“By Azlagûr, I curse you,” said Grieve, and spat on the floor.

Murtagh snorted. “I’ve been cursed by better than you and lived to see them become food for worms.” He pointed his spear at Grieve. “Come now, dog. Meet your fate.”

Grieve drew himself up, squaring his hunched shoulders, and his eyes rolled back to show white. “Azlagûr, hear the plea of your follower, Grieve the First. Let me defeat these unbelievers, and I shall—”

Uvek did not let him complete the contract. The Urgal shouted, “No!” and rushed forward and struck at Grieve with the haft of his spear, using it as if it were a staff.

The wooden pole snapped in two against Grieve’s robe, seemingly broken by the immovable fabric. But Murtagh knew the truth: a ward. Unsurprising, but unfortunate.

A grim certainty settled over him: Grieve would be no easy opponent.

He tried then to seize the man’s mind, even as Bachel and Grieve had attempted to seize his. But Grieve’s mental defenses were formidable, and in any case, the man gave Murtagh little time to concentrate, for he answered Uvek’s attack with a shower of blows from his club.

Uvek caught one blow against his forearm. The force of the strike would have shattered a man’s arm, but the Urgal merely grunted and fell back while swinging the remnants of his spear to gain himself room to recover.

Murtagh took the lead then, but he met with no more success. He jabbed, and Grieve parried. He feinted…and Grieve nearly caught him upside the head with the club. Every attack Murtagh made, Grieve seemed to perfectly anticipate.

The same proved true as Uvek attempted to flank Grieve. Even working two against one, neither of them could slip past Grieve’s guard, and he kept landing blows with his club. The blows did not hurt Murtagh; he had his ward to protect him, but he was tiring and did not know how long he could maintain it. And they did hurt Uvek; the Urgal was limping now, and a plate-sized bruise marred his forearm.

It occurred to Murtagh that he was treating Grieve as if the man were also a magician. But so far, he’d seen no evidence to that effect. If Grieve couldn’t cast spells, then there was no reason not to attack him with magic. But if he could…doing so might prompt a desperate and incredibly dangerous response.

Crack! Grieve smote the middle of Murtagh’s spear. The wood snapped like dry straw, and he fell back.

Shade’s blood! Enough with caution; magic was worth the risk! “Kverst,” said Murtagh, aiming his will at Grieve.

He felt a quick drop in strength—as if he’d sprinted up a hill—but the spell had no effect on the man.

Grieve laughed. It was a thoroughly distasteful sound. “You cannot break my mistress’s power, desecrator!”

With Thorn, Murtagh felt sure he could, but Thorn was otherwise occupied, and Murtagh didn’t dare open his mind to reach out to the dragon. Regardless, he felt sure that Grieve had given him the answer: they had to defeat the man’s wards. And that required energy, magical or physical. In the end, there was no difference. When cleverness failed, effort was the key to overcoming spells.

Murtagh threw his broken spear at Grieve and shouted, “Hold him off!” as he dashed toward the back of the chamber.

Behind him, Uvek roared, and the Urgal’s footsteps thudded as he closed with Grieve.

Bachel’s throne was missing from the dais—removed so that she might sit in state during the festival of black smoke. Where it had stood, the floor was dull and hollowed from uncounted years of bearing the heavy stone chair.

At the back of the dais were a pair of shallow steps that descended to a recessed area where various ceremonial items were stored: robes, tapers, brass censers, the headpiece the witch had worn when he first met her…. Also, there was a chest of dark walnut, and Murtagh hoped it was where he would find—

He threw back the lid of the chest.

Yes!

Zar’roc lay before him, a gleaming length of metallic beauty, red as blood, strong as hate, sharp as his will. The hilt found his hand, like an old friend, and he tore blade from sheath with a steely, slithering sound.

Finally, Murtagh felt ready to confront their enemies.

Nor was the sword just a sword. It was also a repository: a storehouse of energy that he had carefully gleaned in dribs and drabs, hoarding morsels in the great ruby of its pommel.

He drew upon that repository now, and he said, “Brisingr!” At his command, the blade burst into a profusion of crimson flames.

With the burning blade held at his side, he strode to Grieve, each step weighted with approaching doom. He swung, and the searing, incandescent edge came down upon Grieve’s brow—and stopped a hair’s breadth away, blocked by the man’s wards.

Murtagh held Zar’roc against the slippery surface and pushed harder while pouring even more energy into the fire rising from the colored steel. The heat was blistering, and he narrowed his eyes as the stench of burning hair filled the chamber.

“Now, Uvek!” he shouted.

The Urgal lowered his horns and bulled forward, taking a heavy blow from Grieve’s club against his armored forehead. The impact would have killed any human, but Uvek did not even react. He grabbed the club with one enormous hand and held it motionless in the air while he beat Grieve about the ribs and shoulder with the broken haft of his spear.

Grieve bellowed with anger, his face a mass of shifting shadows beneath the fiery blade. He wrenched at his club, fruitlessly trying to free it from Uvek’s iron grip. Then Grieve abandoned the club and made as if to duck out of the cage of their arms.

“Brisingr!” Murtagh shouted again, and redoubled the strength of the spell. The flaming blade shone with blinding light, and drops of liquid fire fell onto Grieve’s wards, where they danced like beads of water on a hot skillet.

Uvek struck once more at Grieve’s ribs: a mighty blow that shook the man and that Murtagh felt transferred into his hand through Zar’roc’s hilt. At that, Grieve’s skin went grey, and his ward collapsed.

Murtagh sensed an instant of overwhelming terror from the man’s mind, and then Zar’roc sliced down through Grieve’s head, the enchanted blade burning its way through flesh and bone as if they were no harder than fresh-formed cheese.

The sudden removal of the ward made it difficult for Murtagh to control the sword’s path. He struggled to arrest the swift descent of the blade even as Uvek released Grieve and twisted away, but Zar’roc’s blazing, razor-sharp edge severed the tip of Uvek’s right horn and touched him on the shoulder, near the collarbone.

Uvek’s breath hissed between his teeth, and he growled as if meaning to attack. But he stepped back and clapped a hand over the cauterized wound.

What remained of Grieve collapsed to the floor.

Darkness compressed around them as Murtagh ended his spell, extinguishing Zar’roc.

“Gzja!” said Uvek, and spat on Grieve’s body. “You no more throw rocks at birds. Now Kiskû rest easy.”

Murtagh gestured toward Uvek’s shoulder. “Let me see. I can help.”

Uvek grunted and shook his head. “Is not bad, Murtagh-man. An Urgralgra wears his hurts with pride. I will live.”

“Are you sure?”

The Urgal seemed offended that Murtagh would question his word. “Sure, sure. This small hurt. I had much worse from bear. I will live.”

“Good.”

With the toes of his bare foot, Uvek nudged the fallen tip of his horn. “Not good to lose horn, but horn grow back.”

Murtagh started back for the chest behind the dais. “I suppose you’ll just have to live in a cave until you’re presentable again.”

“What means presentable, Murtagh-man?”

“Fit to look at.” He was relieved to find his armor neatly stored inside the chest. And with it, the ancient language compendium, which was more valuable to him than any gold or gems.

The Urgal laughed as Murtagh pulled on his corselet of mail. “I no longer look for mate to live with, Murtagh-man. Broken horn will not be big problem.”

Moving with haste born of need, Murtagh donned his arming cap and helm, and then strapped on his greaves and vambraces. He decided against the breastplate; mobility was more important than protection from war hammers or the like. For that he had his ward. He belted on Zar’roc’s sheath and tucked the ancient language compendium into the pouch where he had stored the vial of Azlagûr’s Breath.

Then he scouted across the mosaic floor until he found one of the acolyte’s shields. Taking the shield, he returned to Uvek where he stood beside Grieve’s remains. “What is shagvrek?” Murtagh asked.

“Hard to say. Is hornless from before.”

“Before what?”

“Before hornless fill land. Before elves have pointed ears. Before dwarves were short. Before dragons had wings. Before that.”

Startled, Murtagh peered at him. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Uvek nodded. “Shagvrek old. Live in caves. Burn meat and eat dead.”

Before Murtagh could ask more questions, dull thuds sounded outside the temple, and a thin veil of dust sifted from the ceiling. Opening his mind once again, he could feel Thorn’s delighted, bloodthirsty rage as he tore apart the buildings in Nal Gorgoth. It was a shame, Murtagh thought, to lose such ancient structures (their carvings were well worth study), but he wasn’t about to let that stop him or Thorn from flattening the place. Nal Gorgoth and those who lived there were an abomination Murtagh was determined to see cleansed from the face of the earth.

He felt some pain from Thorn—arrows through his wings—but otherwise the dragon seemed unharmed.

Do you need help? he asked.

Only if you wish.

Uvek gave a restless glance toward the direction of the sounds. “Murtagh-man, there are other Urgralgra in Nal Gorgoth. Some prisoners. Some Draumar. Maybe Draumar will not listen to me, but I have duty to try.”

“Go. If you need aid in battle, call for Thorn.”

Uvek grunted and started to leave. Then he strode back to Murtagh and bent down and gently bumped foreheads with him. “Is good to have you as qazhqargla, Murtagh-man.”

An unexpected upswelling of camaraderie filled Murtagh. “And you as well, Uvek Windtalker.”

“Hrmm.”

Then the Urgal trotted away, his footsteps surprisingly quiet for his bulk, and Murtagh stood alone among the scattered corpses.

He ignored them. Closing his eyes, he sent his mind ranging through the village as he searched for Bachel, determined to find the witch and, once and for all, bring her to account. The thought of breaking her power held dark appeal. As she had done to him, he would do to her. She had brought him low, and he wanted revenge.

That, and he wanted to help Alín. No, needed.

Throughout Nal Gorgoth, he felt a confused chorus of pain and terror as the cultists fled before Thorn or else attempted, in vain, to halt the dragon’s rampage. But nowhere among the panicked minds of the Draumar did he detect the familiar shape of Bachel’s thoughts.

He delved deeper. Extending his consciousness into the depths, he searched under the buildings, down among the rot of tunnels that corrupted the roots of the mountains.

There. A cluster of sparks, as errant fireflies trapped far below the surface. He reached toward the brightest one, and the spark flared in response, and then pulled inward and shrank as Bachel shielded her thoughts from his.

Dread certainty congealed within Murtagh. The witch knew he was coming, and she was not alone. They would be ready for him. Ideally, he would take Bachel prisoner, that he might finally have his answers—most specifically about the activities of the Draumar in Nasuada’s realm—but Murtagh suspected the witch would sooner die than submit. That was acceptable too. Bachel was so dangerous, keeping her captive would be like trying to restrain a rabid beast with his bare hands. Nor would killing her be much easier, if even he could.

For a moment, doubt assailed him. We could still leave. There was nothing to stop him and Thorn from flying away. They could fetch reinforcements, and with Eragon or Arya by their side, the witch would hardly stand a chance. But there was no guarantee Bachel or the Draumar would hold in Nal Gorgoth while they were gone.

And in any case, he couldn’t abandon Alín. He’d made her a promise.

At least Bachel won’t shake the mountains while she’s under them, he thought, and felt grateful for the smallest of mercies.

Shield in one hand, sword in the other, he trotted out of the temple sanctum and toward the back of the building. There, he found the door that opened upon the cropped sward abutting the western side of the temple. Thick plumes of black smoke rose from vents in the ground.

A terrific crash caused him to flinch and turn. One side of the Tower of Flint had just collapsed inward, reducing the structure to a mound of rubble.

Past the tower, flames lit Nal Gorgoth. Half the buildings had their roofs torn off. Loose stones lined the streets, and bodies too.

Thorn swooped past, scales shining, threads of hot blood trailing from his wings.

Murtagh saluted, and the dragon roared in return. Then Murtagh started across the sward, heading toward the grove of pinetrees beyond. I’m going to find Bachel, he said.

Grim concern was Thorn’s first response. It is too dangerous.

I know, but I must.

Do not go alone. Take Uvek with you.

He has duties elsewhere, and I need you to keep the Draumar occupied out here.

Across the village, Thorn roared again, this time with frustration. You won’t ask me because you know I’m too afraid.

Murtagh stopped for a moment, his own emotions a conflicting welter. I didn’t want to trouble you. That is all. You’re as brave a being as any I know. Then, more gently: You probably won’t even fit in the tunnels down there.

You don’t know that.

Then come if you want! I’m not trying to stop you.

An uncomfortable silence followed, and Murtagh could feel Thorn’s mind churning with a mix of shame and anger.

Finally, Murtagh said, I have to go. Guard yourself well.

…And you the same. Then a snarl echoed across the tumbled rooftops. Make the witch sorry she ever thought to chain us.

“I’ll try,” Murtagh muttered, starting forward again.

A pair of sword-wielding Draumar sprinted toward him from the grove. He cut them down, one after the other, with decisive swings of Zar’roc. The elven-forged blade shattered the sword of the second cultist into silver shards.

Murtagh let out a shout as he hurried forward. It was more a battle cry than anything: a release of the furious energy coursing through him. He knew the feeling well; it was an old companion. Some men fought while in the grip of an icy calm, and he appreciated the value of that, but calm held no appeal for him at this moment. He had been bound, and now he was released, and every bottled bit of rage boiled out of him, as steam from a heated rock.

More Draumar attacked as he entered the grove. Five of them, armed with spears and swords and a single bow. Murtagh caught an arrow on his shield, and then he was among the cultists, beating and cutting and stabbing with deadly intent.

Dangerous as it was, Murtagh found the fight exhilarating, and he laughed at the fear of the men. Good. It was only right that they quailed before him.

The skirmish did not last even a minute. As the last body fell to the ground, he was already moving past, heart hammering, lungs heaving. His lips were drawn back to bare his teeth in a bloody grin, and he felt a sense of power gathered about himself, like an invisible cloak.

But even then, he knew his battle-born confidence was a falsity. Bachel would not be so easily overcome as her thralls. Cunning was needed, as much as strength, were he to have any chance of prevailing. So, as he exited the grove and advanced upon the yawning cavern set within the base of the foothills, he looked in the compendium for the words he needed to compose a spell that would protect him against the Breath of Azlagûr. The magic would filter the air, as a cheesecloth might filter water, and keep the poisonous vapor from entering his lungs.

Once he was well satisfied with the phrasing of the ward, he cast it, and a grim smile touched his lips. “Let us see how you like that, O Speaker of lies,” he muttered.

Fresh torches burned on either side of the ominous cave, and there were many tracks leading into the opening. Murtagh took them as evidence that Bachel had brought a contingent of warriors with her.

He hefted Zar’roc again, preparing himself, and then strode forward and allowed the darkness to swallow him.