Murtagh

CHAPTER I Creatures of the Dark

The air in the cave was hot and stifling, and the heat seemed to be increasing as Murtagh descended along the cut-stone stairs. He did not remember it being so warm during his previous venture into the warren hidden beneath Nal Gorgoth. It must be because of the black smoke, he thought. But, of course, that failed to answer the question of what caused the black smoke itself.

As he hurried downward, he dipped his mind into the ruby mounted within Zar’roc’s pommel. A fair amount of energy remained stored within the faceted gem. Less than he’d hoped, but more than he’d feared.

He debated casting a spell to light his way, but he didn’t want to make himself an obvious target. Besides, he remembered the glowing fungus that populated the depths of the caves. He could wait for that dubious illumination. Better to be a hunter stalking in the dark than prey standing in a moonlit clearing.

Beads of sweat began to run down his brow and into his eyes. He wiped them away with the inside of his forearm, the rings of mail hard against his skin. Fighting was hot work, and the sweltering temperature of the cave only exacerbated the lather he’d worked up on the surface. As did the corselet of mail. Iron rings were the very opposite of a cooling fabric.

With his outstretched consciousness, he detected a flicker of life ahead of him, off to the side of the stairs. A man, he thought, but—

A whirring noise crossed the cave, and an arrow bounced off the air in front of his nose.

Murtagh flinched. Even after long acquaintance and deep familiarity with magic, instinct still made him react as if the arrow had been about to hit him. It was a sobering realization to know that, were he not a spellcaster, he would have just died.

He did not dwell on the thought.

Kneeling, he placed Zar’roc on the stairs and felt about until his fingers found a small, sharp chip of rock. He held it up on the palm of his hand and whispered, “Thrysta!”

The rock shot through the air, faster than any eye could see, and—aimed by his will—intersected with the consciousness of the cultist who had shot the arrow.

A flat smack echoed through the cave, followed by the unmistakable sound of a body falling.

Grimly satisfied, he continued onward.

When Murtagh arrived at the vast, slime-lit cave at the bottom of the stone staircase, three more Draumar came rushing out of the shadows to attack him.

The lead cultist jabbed a spear at his hip. Murtagh parried and lunged and ran the man through. Zar’roc pierced the man’s leather-scale armor as if it were no thicker than gossamer.

He withdrew blade from flesh, pivoted, and cut the next Draumar through the neck. The man’s head fell to the ground amid a shower of green blood and bounced away, hair flying in a tangled mess.

A high clang jarred Murtagh’s hearing as he caught the spear of cultist number three on his shield. The man jabbed again, his face a rictus of anger. Murtagh sidestepped and neatly chopped off his right arm.

The cultist howled and staggered back.

Murtagh gave him no quarter. He followed up with two quick thrusts: one between the man’s ribs and one up under his chin.

“Pathetic,” said Murtagh as the cultist collapsed. Grieve had been formidable enough, but if this was the quality of Bachel’s ordinaries, Murtagh was far from impressed. They had neither technique nor magic, only blind faith to fuel their violence. Tornac would not have approved.

A frown settled on Murtagh’s brow. Why were the cultists bothering to attack in such limited numbers? They had to know they stood no chance of stopping him.

They’re trying to delay me, he realized. Either so Bachel could escape or so the witch and her minions might prepare for his coming.

With a flick of his wrist, he shook the blood off Zar’roc’s blade. In a detached manner, he noted the liquid’s unusual appearance; it resembled the dark, iridescent green of the water beetles he would find around Urû’baen. Somehow the sickly glow emanating from the membranous slime on the cavern’s rocks had altered the color of the gore. His skin didn’t look normal either; it appeared horribly unhealthy, as if the slime-glow had leeched him of all vitality.

He hurried along the path of flagstones, eager to reach the Well of Dreams.

His steps quickly brought him to the three tunnels bored into the far wall of the enormous cave. As before, he took the central one, and rushed down the tunnel shingled with scalelike tiles.

Extending his mind, he searched for Bachel and her retinue. But he felt no tickle of thoughts, and his inner eye saw no bright sparks of being amid the surrounding darkness.

When he broke into the marble-clad chamber that housed the Well of Dreams, he found it empty, devoid of motion, save for the flames flickering in the alcoves along the walls. The well itself was open, the grated cover pulled aside to expose the shaft that plunged into unknown depths.

The stench of brimstone poured out of the well with sickening strength. Even as Murtagh took a step toward it, a column of black smoke erupted from its depths, billowed against the arched ceiling, and then ascended through narrow slits cut along the crown of the ceiling, and which he had not noticed before.

They built this in expectation of the smoke, Murtagh thought. He tried to imagine what lay below. Heated vents full of molten stone, or something of that like. He had heard of such things among the Beor Mountains: places where the mountains breathed fire, and hot smoke and ash often made the surroundings miserable to endure.

He risked a quick glance over the lip of the well. The hole beneath seemed bottomless. For a moment, his balance wavered, and he imagined falling and falling…forever lost in the bowels of the earth.

With an oath, he pulled himself back and looked around. “Where are you?” he muttered.

Once more, he reached out with his mind. When he was assured that no one (and no thing) was close enough to ambush him, he closed his eyes and focused on his inner eye.

He had to range farther and deeper than he expected before he again located Bachel’s white-hot spark of consciousness. She was below him—almost directly underneath the top of the well—and at such a distance, he thought it would take a rock many seconds to fall to her.

“Blast it.” He eyed the human-sized doorways leading out of the chamber. The prospect of getting lost underground appealed to him no more than it had in Gil’ead. But there was no helping it; he had to find Bachel and stop her from escaping.

Right. He started toward the corresponding doorway. Most folks were right-handed, so if either passage was to lead somewhere important, he guessed it would be that one. And if he were wrong…He wondered how difficult it would be to use magic to blast his way straight through the rock. Even Thorn would struggle to muster enough energy to burrow more than a short distance. Rock was heavy, and no amount of chanting in the ancient language would change that.

He ran onward.

The warren of tunnels beneath the marble-clad chamber was far more complicated than Murtagh had feared. If not for his ability to sense Thorn’s mind—even at a distance—he would have quickly ended up hopelessly turned around.

Not far from the chamber, he again found himself in passages large enough for Thorn to have moved through. The wending shafts ran in seemingly random directions, through chambers natural and otherwise—many times he chanced upon what appeared to be shrines or altars or abandoned guardrooms—but always they led downward.

Although the slime-glow was often bright enough to illuminate his path, more than a few of the spaces were as black as the void between the stars. To keep the patches of blinding darkness from unduly slowing him, Murtagh relented and created a red werelight that floated some feet above and in front of his head. The combination of colors from the werelight and the slime painted objects the most hideous shades. So much so that he sometimes had difficulty recognizing the substance of what he saw. He nearly altered the werelight to the pure white of the sun’s noonday radiance, but he valued his night eyes too much.

The air grew thicker as he descended, until it lay heavy and moist in his nose, throat, and lungs, and it took a conscious effort to breathe. At times, clouds of smoke wafted over him, and then he was grateful for his wards, for they seemed to filter some of the stench.

The weighted presence Murtagh had felt in the village was even stronger in the caves. It pressed in around him like old honey, and he had an unaccountable urge to crouch and hide or else to flee far, far away. There was nothing concrete to which he could attribute the feeling, but it was as inescapable as the stifling air.

His attention began to wander, and his vision too. Focusing on any one thing for more than a few seconds seemed…not impossible, but his gaze kept slipping, and a few steps later, he would find himself wondering what he had been looking at and what he had been thinking about.

Strange…

He shook his head to clear his mind. The motion was a mistake. The world tilted around him, and he fell to one knee, planting his shield against the ground for balance.

After a moment, he felt stable enough to stand.

Could there be drink in the air? Mead or strong spirits sprayed in a fine mist? He tasted the air: brimstone and nothing more. Nevertheless, he cast another ward to purify the air around himself.

It didn’t help.

Concerned, he staggered onward.

Phantasms began to plague him: flashes of shimmering rainbow colors, dolorous moans that snaked through the tunnels, and—rare at first, but then with increasing frequency—visions that appeared before his eyes and that, for those timeless moments, seemed as real as the rocks.

He saw Tornac standing before him, wooden waster in hand. The swordmaster had just been assigned to Murtagh, and they were about to spar…. The clash, when it came, was quick, and the outcome was Murtagh on his backside with a bruise forming across his left ribs. He expected scorn and derision from Tornac. Such had always been his lot at court. But no ridicule was forthcoming. Instead, Tornac walked over to him, offered a hand, and in a matter-of-fact tone said, “It’s a start.”

The lack of rancor opened Murtagh’s heart. He was slow to admit it to himself, but at that moment, he learned to trust, and he clung to Tornac’s instruction—no, his leadership—as the only steady rock in a storm-tossed life.

Murtagh blinked, disoriented. Whatever strangeness was affecting him, he wasn’t about to turn back. “Is this what you count on protecting you, Bachel?” he asked, his voice small in the vastness of the cave. “Well, it won’t. This I swear.”

With dogged steps, he continued.

—black-sun plain scoured by a howling wind that chilled flesh to bone…A man lay hunched in the barren dirt, arms wrapped around his head as he rocked back and forth, screaming in a high, broken tone—

The tunnel Murtagh was following angled steeply downward. His steps quickened as, relieved, he allowed himself to be pulled along by the descent. He kept his gaze fixed forward, hoping to see the tunnel’s end, for it ought to lead him close to where Bachel was waiting, if not the very location.

—a thunder of dragons flew past, so numerous that they blotted out the sky. Their scales flashed with every conceivable color, a profusion of terrifying beauty, and the air beat like a drum from the force of their mighty wings—

Murtagh broke into a trot. He tried to block out the visions by reciting a scrap of verse. It helped for a time, but then his attention wandered for an instant and—

—Nasuada lay before him, chained to the ashen slab in the Hall of the Soothsayer, even as the prisoners had been held upon the altar in Nal Gorgoth. The pleading in her eyes was as loud as any speech, but they each had their roles to play, and he could not help her. The king commanded, and he obeyed, and she suffered because of it. They all suffered.

“No, no, no,” Murtagh muttered. He banged the rim of his shield against his forehead. The impact helped dispel the images still playing behind his eyes.

The tunnel opened up into yet another cave. As with so many of them, it was lit by slime, and ranks of purple-capped mushrooms edged a small pond far to his right. Rings spread across the surface of the water, as if something had just jumped into—or out of—the pond.

A thicket of larger mushrooms stood before him, like so many stunted, unwholesome trees.

As he picked his way between the woody stems, a sharp chittering caught his ear. He stalked quietly between the mushrooms and soon saw…an odd shape crouched over the body of a fallen cultist.

As the red glow from the werelight touched the creature, it twisted to look at him with the face of a nightmare. A glistening black tongue as long and thick as his arm lolled from narrow, shrewish jaws, which were too thin to entirely contain the muscle. Loose, sagging skin as pink and pale as a piglet—bare of fur, save for an occasional white bristle sprouting from warty growths—hung in repulsive wrinkles over protruding bones. From the narrow skull stared lidless eyes no bigger than a fish egg and seemingly too sensitive to bear the soft glow of the werelight, for the creature squinted and recoiled as if in pain. Most disturbing of all were the beast’s front paws, or rather…hands. It had long, humanlike fingers with broken, grime-packed nails smeared with the blood of the dead cultist, and the fingers opened and closed as if to squeeze the life from another unfortunate victim. Dragging behind the beast was a thick rope of a tail, as limp as a dead earthworm.

Revulsion filled Murtagh. The creature—the fingerrat, as he thought of it—seemed wrong in a fundamental manner, as if its very existence were a perversion of all that was good and right.

He reached out to the fingerrat’s mind. What he discovered only increased his aversion: a gnawing hunger dominated the animal’s consciousness, and all it seemed to think about was the pleasure of eating the warm man-flesh below it and its anger at being interrupted. The others would be coming soon, and—

Others?

More chittering sounded in the shadows. A horde of pale fingerrats crept closer, feeling their way with their long fingers, their tails sliding across the cave floor like so many scaleless snakes.

The creature squatting over the corpse uttered a descending moan—Murtagh recognized the cry as one of the many sounds he’d heard filtering through the underground complex—and it returned to tearing at the body, using its tongue to flense skin and muscle from the man’s chest.

“Begone with you, foul creature!” Murtagh shouted, and sprang forward, waving Zar’roc.

The fingerrat shrieked like a pained infant as it cowered. Then it hissed, showing rows of translucent needlelike teeth, and—with shocking speed and agility—jumped toward Murtagh’s throat.

He fell back and slashed the air in front of him, hoping to hit the creature.

Zar’roc struck, but Murtagh’s edge alignment was off, and the hilt twisted in his hand, and he almost dropped the sword.

He staggered as the fingerrat crashed into him and hot blood gushed over his corselet of mail. Teeth snapped at his throat, stopped only by his wards. Then he threw the creature off, and it fell to the ground, nearly cut in half, squalling and thrashing in its death throes.

The stench of offal made him gag. No help from his spells there.

The squeals of the wounded beast did nothing to deter its approaching kin. They continued to crawl closer through the mushroom thicket while uttering harsh laughing sounds that raised the hair on Murtagh’s neck. Something seemed desperately wrong with the creatures, as if they were half mad from living underground, or else so crazed from the constant smoke that they had no sense of self-preservation.

“Don’t do it,” said Murtagh, keeping Zar’roc at the ready. “I’ll kill you all.”

More of the fingerrats appeared out of the darkness. How many were there now? Thirty? Forty? He tried to count, but it was impossible to keep track of any one individual as they moved amongst themselves.

“Naina,” Murtagh said, and the werelight above him flared in intensity until it was so bright, it banished all shadows beneath it.

The fingerrats screeched and spun in circles as if a bee had stung them on their sunken flanks.

“Begone!” Murtagh cried again. It was a mistake. The sound of his voice focused the attention of the creatures; they turned toward him, tongues extending like so many feelers, bleached whiskers twitching, knobbed hands reaching.

“Kv—”

The horde rushed him, their hands and paws scrabbling against the dirt and stones of the cave floor.

Murtagh struck down the lead rat, but then the rest of the creatures swarmed him, snapping and clawing and lashing him with their heavy tongues. His wards flared, and his strength ebbed with alarming speed as the spells struggled to protect him.

He tried to speak, but the warm hide of a fingerrat pressed against his face, preventing him from uttering a sound. Nor could he draw in a breath.

The animals smelled of must and musk and warm dung.

Enough! He focused his will and, with his thoughts, said, Kverst!

The bodies of the fingerrats dropped from him like so many sacks of flour.

Murtagh shuddered. It would not have taken much more to deplete his immediate reserves of stamina, and then his wards would have failed in order to keep him from losing consciousness. If the fingerrats had pressed but a little harder, or if he had hesitated a few seconds longer, they would have overcome him.

A sense of satisfaction filled him as he stared at the mound of bodies. He had no love for such slaughter, but had he the time, he would have hunted down the rest of the carrion eaters and seen to it that their like never bothered another person.

More chitters sounded in the distant shadows.

But not now. He reduced the brightness of the werelight to its previous level and hurried away. Maybe the corpses of their kin would distract his inhuman pursuers, give them enough food that they would not bother following him. It was a hope.

As he trotted along, Murtagh reviewed all the animals he knew of in Alagaësia. He had never heard of such grotesque beasts. Had they a name in the ancient language, he was ignorant of it, and none of the old stories spoke of creatures of that kind.

Do they only live here, or in all the places where the Draumar worship? Was there a chance he might have encountered fingerrats somewhere beneath Gil’ead? The possibility disturbed him.

Still, he ran. And though the chitters faded, they never entirely vanished. Twice more, a fingerrat darted out of the darkness and attempted to bite him. Both times he slew the creature with a single blow from Zar’roc.

Murtagh couldn’t shake the feeling that he was trapped in a waking nightmare. The constant sounds echoing around him—and now he began to question whether some came from other creatures stalking through the underground warren—the seemingly endless tunnels, the shimmering distortions floating before his eyes, and the heat and sweat and crushing sense of presence…all of it combined to give him a pounding pressure at the back of his skull and a conviction that he couldn’t trust anything around him.

—a body of a dragon draped across the land, spikes as tall as mountains, teeth as long as towers, blood flowing like rivers across the withered plains—

He shook his head and pressed on.

Amid the chitters and moans, a new set of sounds became noticeable: a scissorlike slicing and a tiny tapping as of iron nails dancing across stone.

He froze when something large and angled ran out of a side passage and darted halfway up the curved wall of a tunnel. The thing stopped and clung there, unnaturally still.

“Naina,” Murtagh whispered, though he almost didn’t want to see whatever the creature was.

The werelight brightened to reveal…what, Murtagh didn’t know. The creature was the size of a large wolf. A very large wolf. But it more resembled an insect than any furred or feathered animal. It had four double-jointed legs with spikes at the joints, and then another set of legs—or rather, arms—held close against its narrow chest, just beneath its mouth, which was a butcher’s collection of cutting blades. Similarly, the arms ended in razor-sharp pincers, and the creature opened and closed them with the same slicing sound Murtagh had heard moments before. Flat, tick-like head, segmented body, jagged limbs: all of them were clad in black plates of naturally grown armor, no different from a beetle’s shell. The creature had no eyes to speak of: only a double row of pits—no bigger than seeds—along both sides of its head.

The monstrosity looked as if it were made out of sawtoothed lengths of shadow welded into an unlovely whole that reminded Murtagh entirely too much of a spider.

Murtagh straightened from his crouch. He didn’t feel like cowering before this particular horror. “I don’t like you,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “If you attack me, I will kill you.”

The creature cocked its head and mashed the blades in its mouth. Then it darted down the wall of the tunnel and—before Murtagh could do more than take a half step back—skittered out of sight.

“Shade’s blood,” Murtagh muttered. How many unnatural horrors lurked beneath Nal Gorgoth?

Gooseflesh prickled across his neck and arms as he hurried onward.

CHAPTER II Freedom from Misery

Not a hundred feet down the tunnel, the giant spider attacked him from behind.

Murtagh heard the iron-nail tapping seconds before the creature struck. He spun around just in time to block a spear-tipped leg plunging toward his heart. Zar’roc’s blade rang as it glanced off the spider’s carapace, same as if he’d caught another sword against the edge.

The spider struck again. It was faster than any human. Faster than any elf. His wards blocked the attacks, but then the spider swept a limb across the ground and tangled his legs.

Murtagh fell. By instinct, he covered himself with his shield, and as he landed, he again cast the killing spell: “Kverst!”

The magic had no effect.

He was so surprised that, for a moment, he failed to act. Then he used his shield to heave the spider off him. It was incredibly heavy, as if it had metal in its shell. Still, he threw it back, and as it scrambled on bony legs to again attack him, he swung Zar’roc far harder than he would have against any human foe.

He struck the spider across the flat of its head. The carapace cracked beneath Zar’roc’s crimson blade, and black blood oozed out, thick as warm tar. The spider clicked in distress, and the cutting surfaces in its mouth stabbed and gnashed.

Murtagh swung again, and this time, Zar’roc split the creature’s head in two. Its legs gave way, and it collapsed against the ground.

He stared at the monster as he regained his breath. Why hadn’t the spell killed it? A ward? On an animal so deep in the ground? It wasn’t impossible, of course, but the only explanation that made sense was that Bachel herself had enchanted the spider. The question was, why? So the creature might hurt or delay him, same as with the cultists? Were the creatures likewise her thralls?

Chittering echoed in the distance.

He straightened, grim. Whatever foul minions Bachel had amid the caves, they weren’t about to stop him; of that, he was sure.

Determined, he resumed his course.

As he made his way through the underground chambers, the fingerrats and shadow spiders continued to attack. One here. Two there. A rat dropped on him from a crevice hidden high upon a slime-infested wall. A spider leaped out at him from within a dark chasm. And more. Many more.

He beat back every assault, meeting savage fury with equal force. Zar’roc’s blade was constantly awash with blood, and his boots grew wet with gore, and his eyes stung from dripping sweat. Fatigue slowed his steps, and he began to worry what would happen if he could no longer keep up his wards.

It was hard to track time or distance. Thorn’s consciousness had faded from his mind, and when Murtagh reached for him, he realized he could no longer feel the dragon’s thoughts. Too much stone separated them.

Alarmed, he searched instead for Bachel. If he could not locate her, then he was truly lost…. But no, he again felt the witch’s life force. Only she was not just below him, she was also behind him by what felt like a good quarter of a mile. Despair touched Murtagh. He must have gotten turned around during the fighting.

The path seemed endless. And always the chitters and the tapping and the swish-swash-scissor-slicing haunted him. He dared not lower his guard for even a second, and the constant state of watchfulness was of itself exhausting.

Even with his magic and his sword, Murtagh felt as if he were a child alone in the dark, afraid of unseen monsters waiting to pounce. But this time, the monsters were real, and no less terrifying for it.

Visions and phantasms continued to bedevil him. He managed to ignore most of them—even when they occurred at inopportune moments, such as in the middle of a fight—but at last:

Dark ceiling, dark walls, floor of patterned wood…a fire roaring in the stone hearth along one side of the great hall. Dishes scattered across the banquet table, which all the guests had long since fled…. At the head of the table, the dark shape of his father, still wrapped in his travel cloak, hunched, brooding, the ever-present goblet of wine grasped firmly in his hand. Hovering behind him, the slim figure of his mother, speaking in low, tense tones.

Murtagh sat on the edge of the hearth. The sounds of his parents talking distracted him at times—his father’s voice was loud, brusque—but then his attention returned to the wooden horse he was playing with. It was painted brown and white, with crisp black hooves, and it had a mane and tail of real horsehair. He ran it back and forth across the hearth, making little sounds as he did. He jumped the horse over imagined rocks and hedges, and then, by accident, he brought the horse too close to the fire, and a spark landed on the tail.

A flame kindled in the hair. Frightened, he shook the horse, and the flame went out, but the smell of burnt hair stung his nose, and the tail was ruined.

He started to cry. That much he remembered. The horse was so handsome, and now it was ruined, and he had no others like it.

His father’s voice rose in an angry shout. “—don’t stop that brat and his mewling, then I will!” And there was the scrape of a chair being shoved back and a cry of terror from his mother, and a heavy weight struck Murtagh in the back and knocked him flat against the hearth.

Zar’roc fell beside him with a clatter, the blade’s edge so sharp it was invisible.

Murtagh knew he screamed, but he felt no pain, only a sense of cold and weakness as blood spread in a pool around him. His mother’s face appeared over him, her expression pinched with fear, and that disturbed him more than anything. He didn’t want her to worry, didn’t want her to be afraid.

Then the hall grew hazy, and the last thing he was aware of was his mother murmuring in an unfamiliar language as the dreadful chill settled in his bones.

Murtagh stopped by a mound of mushrooms and gasped as if he’d taken a blow to the stomach. He clenched his jaw and stared at the rocky ceiling for a time as tears spilled from his unblinking eyes. “That’s not for you,” he muttered to whatever force inhabited the caves. Why had he been compelled to relive that particular moment? He went to great lengths to not think about it, although the knotted scar on his back had been reminder enough: a memento of both his father’s cruelty and his mother’s love. The latter part was why he’d kept the mark. Removing the scar would be easy enough with a spell, but to do so felt like repudiating his past to such a degree, he might as well have declared himself nameless and kinless. Perhaps he should have. Morzan’s legacy had brought him nothing but pain. But his mother’s…was more complicated. From her he had life and love, and just because his life had been difficult, that did not negate her love.

Quick tip-taps circled him in the shadowed distance. He heard, but he did not care.

Murtagh looked at Zar’roc. He scowled with barely contained disgust, and his hand shook. Scar or not, he hated the sword, hated what it represented. Zar’roc. Misery. His father’s choice of name, and a fitting one, given Morzan’s history. That wasn’t what Murtagh wanted for his life, and yet he had taken the blade from Eragon, to claim it as his own, as if somehow it would protect him.

Instead of it protecting, he felt as if it were defining him. Zar’roc. Misery. Names were important, even for the smallest thing. By naming, one might gain understanding. Even more, one might recast the very nature of a thing. Had he not experienced that himself in the citadel of Urû’baen when his true name had changed?

An idea occurred to him. A bright, promising idea that brought with it fierce determination. He knew the Name of Names, the very key to the ancient language and its arcane power. By it he could use or define or even change the words of the language.

Which meant…he could rename Zar’roc. If he so wanted.

Murtagh did not have to stop to consider. He wanted.

But rename to what? If not Misery, then Happiness? Hardly the right meaning for his or any sword. Besides, Murtagh had never tended toward happiness—he wasn’t sure he knew what it really was—and he would have felt ridiculous carrying a blade called Happiness.

Even though time was short, he stood still in the dark and let his mind range wide as he sorted through dozens of possible names. At its core, the question was simple: What did he want Zar’roc to represent? That was, what value did he want to give pride of place in the center of his being?

All around, he continued to hear the tip-taps of the marauding shadow spiders. But they held their distance, and he paid them little attention, for the problem he was wrestling with was all-encompassing and, he felt, crucial to his survival.

In the end, the answer came from within, as it must—from his memory of Morzan hurting him, and from his own true name, which he saw with new clarity: what it had been, and what it now was. For he was a changed person. The pain he had clung to so assiduously no longer held sway over him; he had new cares and new values, and he was determined to pursue them.

Fired by inspiration, Murtagh opened the pouch on his belt, took out the compendium, and, one-handed, flipped through the parchment pages until he found that which he sought.

He studied the short line of runes. Was he sure? Yes. More than ever before.

The spell required energy he did not have to spare, but nonetheless, he drew upon his body and, soft as a falling feather, spoke the Word and, with it, renamed the sword:

“Ithring”…Freedom.

As he spoke, the barbed glyph stamped upon blade and sheath shimmered and shifted into a new shape, a new understanding. And he recognized the glyph as that which the elves used for the sword’s new name.

The hate and anger that had been boiling inside of him cooled into calm determination. He nodded. Freedom. His father had chosen to spread misery through life and land. Perhaps Murtagh could do better.

A crooked smile crossed his lips. He had no delusions. He knew he had responsibilities that bound him. To Thorn, if nobody else. But they were responsibilities he had accepted for himself, not ones imposed from the outside. Freedom had always been what he aspired to, and what he would always cherish. His blade could stand as a symbol for that. And when he fought, as he knew he would soon need to, then it would fall to him to grant his foes their final release. And besides, he might use Ithring to help those, like Alín, who could not help themselves. To cut their bonds and set them loose, even as he and Thorn had freed themselves of Galbatorix’s oaths.

His mother, he thought, would have been proud of him for it.

“Ithring.”

The word felt strange upon his tongue, yet fitting also. The sword itself seemed different: an ineffable change that left the blade brighter and cleaner.

Murtagh felt different as well. He stowed the compendium and resumed his journey with a new sense of lightness, as if renaming the sword had somehow helped drive back the oppressive presence of the caves. And when the dark denizens of the undercroft again attacked him—the shadow spiders and their gnashing blades, and the fingerrats reaching for his throat—he dispatched them with a calm efficiency that had previously escaped him. For he knew who he was and why he was there, and he no longer sought to fight with misery, but in pursuit of freedom.

CHAPTER III To Hold the Center

A pale glow appeared ahead of Murtagh—spilling out from behind a fold of rock—and his pulse quickened. At last! Bachel was near. He could feel her. And not just her, others besides. Thirteen of them, by his count.

He readied himself with a long, slow breath and a drawing in of his mind. Bachel might not have a legion of Eldunarí to command, as had Galbatorix, but she was no less dangerous. Murtagh had no intention of underestimating her. She’d gotten the best of him before; it wouldn’t happen again, regardless of her source of power. That he swore to himself.

He spared a quick thought for Thorn and then continued.

His boots were soft against the stone as he rounded the fold of rock. Beyond it, he beheld a vast, circular chamber that looked as if it had been scraped out of the granite by a great millstone. He hardly noticed the slime-veined walls, for a cluster of white crystals thrust upward at various angles from the ground. The crystals were semi-opaque and translucent along their sharp edges, and they varied in size from small protrusions no larger than the thorn of a rose to enormous pillars as thick around as an aged oak. Large or small, the crystals glowed with a natural radiance, white and pure and beautiful to behold.

In the center of the chamber lay a wide clearing with a gaping hole at its heart: a void twenty paces across that opened to yet further depths.

At the height of the chamber was another opening, and he had a sense that it led up, up, up to the Well of Dreams. For all his walking, he’d merely ended directly below where he’d started.

Bachel stood waiting for him by the void.

He hardly recognized her. The witch still wore the enchanted half mask that transformed her aspect to that of a dark, draconic being. But she had exchanged her dress for a suit of armor that encased every inch of her body, and the armor was made not of leather or metal but rather of dragon scales.

The scales were reddish black and glimmered with an oily sheen. They emitted a dim glow, dying embers still pulsing with contained heat. The scales must have come from an old dragon, for some looked to have been cut from even larger pieces. Seeing the armor, Murtagh realized that the leather garb the cultists had donned for the festival of black smoke had been made to resemble Bachel’s fantastic suit.

In her hand, the witch held the Dauthdaert Niernen. Its blade matched the light from the slime along the walls.

Six acolytes stood to Bachel’s left and six to the right, as if two great wings extending from she who served as their central body. The impression was marred slightly by the pair of acolytes who held Alín between them, their hands firm around her arms and wrists as they kept her kneeling upon the stone.

A reddened bruise discolored Alín’s cheek, and blood spotted one corner of her mouth, but her neck was unbowed and desperate hope filled her eyes as she beheld Murtagh. “My Lord!” she cried.

Dark rage gripped Murtagh as he saw her plight. He welcomed the emotion, knowing it would serve him well in the fight to come.

The acolytes carried neither swords nor spears but tall staffs of knotted wood, each embellished with strange carvings. For the oddest moment, Murtagh was reminded of Brom. Then the cultists stamped the butts of their staffs against the ground, and the sound echoed again and again from the domed ceiling, and they began to chant in a low chorus that filled the chamber with building urgency.

Murtagh picked his way between the crystals, careful to avoid their sharp edges.

As he approached, Bachel lifted Niernen and pointed the lance at him. She seemed entirely unafraid, and she said, “I am impressed, Murtagh son of Morzan. The power of Azlagûr’s dreams drives to madness most who venture into the depths below Nal Gorgoth.”

“But not you or your servants.”

“I am the Speaker. I am Azlagûr’s chosen mouthpiece. His protection grants certain privileges to me and those I choose as my attendants.”

Murtagh wasn’t so sure about that. He affected a casual expression and spun Ithring in his hand as he paced forward, keeping a close watch on the cultists. “What of those…things in the caves? Are they your doing as well?”

Beneath the mask, Bachel’s mouth twisted with amusement. “Not mine, Kingkiller. Mites and fleas of Azlagûr are they. Useful tools, nothing more.”

He nodded in a pretense of understanding. The twelve acolytes couched their staffs toward him as he stopped some ten paces in front of Bachel. If he could somehow maneuver behind them, he could drive Bachel toward the hole in the floor, and it would limit her movement….

A column of thick black smoke jetted up through the hole, as loud and fast as a giant waterfall, only in ascent. Heat followed, so intense that Murtagh fell back a step, and the stench of brimstone was overwhelming.

Bachel seemed unaffected. She extended Niernen and let the tip of the lance enter the flow of smoke. The glow from the blade illuminated the dense haze from within, giving it an unearthly hue.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the torrent ceased, and what remained continued upward, lifted by the heated currents of air. It vanished into the shadows above, but Murtagh knew that, in a few minutes, it would arrive at the surface and thence would seep through the ground and into the polluted air around Nal Gorgoth.

“What is this place, witch?”

Bachel drew herself up, eyes bright with fury, and her mask lent her voice terrifying power. “You will address me by my rightful title, desecrator! This place is Oth Orum, the hidden heart of the world, the very center of all being, and your presence is an affront to Azlagûr Himself. No outlander has set foot here, not in all the thousands of years the Draumar have guarded it. To come here unconsecrated is to invite death, and death you shall have unless you realize your error and kneel before me.”

“I shall not kneel. Not to you. Not to Azlagûr. Not to anyone.”

Bachel’s fury increased, but she mastered herself and, in a cold tone, said, “Why, Kingkiller? I have offered you everything, and still you scorn me.”

“No, you have taken, not offered.” Murtagh did not blink as he met her gaze. “I am my own man. By my will, I make my way. I will let no one steal that from me, least of all you, witch. Surrender now, or I swear the worms will feed on you this very day.”

“Desecrator!” she declared. “Defiler! You will rue those—”

The ground shook beneath them, and a thunderous rumble echoed through the caves and tunnels. Flakes of stone fell from above, and billows of grey dust clouded the chamber.

Murtagh dropped into a half crouch, alarmed. Was this Bachel’s magic again?

But no, the witch and her minions staggered, as if surprised, and then Bachel laughed, low, throaty, delighted. “Do you feel that, Kingkiller?! Do you? That is Azlagûr come to purge the unbelievers! He shall sweep aside the unworthy, like maggots before the flame! Submit!”

Worry gnawed at Murtagh’s confidence. He still did not fully understand the forces he was dealing with; whatever lay at the bottom of the hole, it was concerning.

Raising Ithring, he pointed at Bachel, even as she had pointed at him with Niernen. “Let Alín go,” he said, and his voice rang loudly. “She has no part in our quarrel.”

“Oh, but she does,” said Bachel. “She is my vassal, and you have turned her against me, and against Azlagûr Himself. She shall pay for her sins, Rider. She shall pay most dearly. Her blood will be a welcome sacrifice to our dread god.”

“Liar!” shouted Alín. “Hypocrite! You broke our creed! You went against everything you told us was sacred!” She spat on the floor in Bachel’s direction. “You are the defiler! You are the desecrator!”

Bachel turned, the slightest smile upon her distorted features. “Foolish girl. There are deeper truths than you know. Everything I have done has been in service of Azlagûr’s will. You dare question me? She whom He has chosen as His Speaker?”

Hair flew wild about Alín’s face as she shook her head. “How can you say that? All my life, we worshipped the dragons, as you taught us. You said—”

“The dragons?” said Bachel, her voice so loud that Alín quailed into submission. The witch laughed, and there was nothing pleasant in the sound. “You wish to understand that which is above your station, wretch, but I will indulge you this once. Azlagûr has no regard for the little worms. They may serve Him or not, and if not, the calamity of His arrival shall sweep them aside. That is as He desires. That is as it shall be. The little worms are not gods. They are noisome spawn, weak, blind, and benighted.”

The twelve staff-wielding Draumar seemed unsurprised. Murtagh wondered if they were Bachel’s inner circle, privy to information kept from the rest of the cult.

“No,” said Alín in a small voice. She was shaking. “That cannot be. Why w—”

Bachel rapped Niernen against the stone. “Because! The little worms are aspects of Azlagûr, but they are not Azlagûr Himself. It is the Great Devourer we worship above all else.” The witch shook her head, as if disgusted, and held out her off hand toward the nearest of the Draumar. “Give me now your knife.”

The acolyte obliged by producing a short-bladed dagger from within the sleeve of his jerkin. The iron blade appeared as grey velvet in the light from the crystals.

Bachel took the dagger and strode toward Alín.

“No!” shouted Murtagh, and he launched his thoughts at Bachel’s mind in a furious assault.

The witch’s steps faltered, and then she stopped, and Murtagh strove to hold her in place as he charged forward.

Bachel motioned at the Draumar. Their chanting increased, and Murtagh stumbled and fell to one knee as the full force of twelve more minds crashed into his. Their voices filled his ears with a throbbing rhythm. His head seemed to pulse with the same tempo, and darkness crept in about the edges of his vision.

Moving was impossible. Murtagh’s awareness of his body shrank as he focused inward and armored himself against the onslaught. His sense of self became the center of his existence; it was all he allowed himself to think of, all he allowed himself to imagine. What he saw, he observed without judgment or reaction, as if he were watching events without meaning.

Bachel raised an arm and threw a vial toward him.

The glass shattered on the stone by his hand. A cloud of pearly white vapor floated up to his face and wrapped itself around him. But he smelled none of it, and it had no effect on him—his wards at work.

The witch bared her teeth. “Your magics will not—”

Another tremor passed through the mountain, and for a moment, the ground seemed to rise beneath him.

The disturbance provided a useful distraction. Two of the Draumar lost their concentration, and Murtagh seized the opportunity to drive deep into their minds. But only for a second. Then the combined might of the cultists forced him to retreat within himself.

Bachel abandoned Alín and advanced upon him. The butt of Niernen tapped against the ground in time with the witch’s every step. Her guards followed, two of them dragging Alín between them.

Bachel stopped in front of Murtagh, and the staff-wielding acolytes closed in around him, forming a tight circle. Their chanting increased in volume again, a dozen voices drumming against his ears, a dozen minds battering against his consciousness.

“Why do you strive so?” Bachel said, her voice a low purr. “Surrender to me, my son. Join us. Join us in service to Azlagûr, and never again will you be tormented by doubt. Your place in the world will be secured, and your name will be sung for a thousand generations.”

Join us, the cultists’ thoughts chanted, a constant, maddening refrain.

Murtagh felt physically trapped, hemmed in too tightly to move or even to think. Bodies all about him and voices also, and every member of the group assaulting him in the same fashion until it seemed he was dealing with a single, massive creature determined to defeat and constrain him.

His hand trembled about Ithring’s hilt. Even the idea of standing and striking was enough for the cultists to gain purchase on his consciousness. The weight of their minds pressed him down, flattening his being until his identity thinned and nearly vanished, and it was difficult to tell whose thoughts belonged to whom.

Yet even then, he refused to surrender. He was sovereign to himself, and he would sooner die than be otherwise.

A sudden movement: Alín twisted and wrenched free of her captors. She tore something from the neck of the man to her right, and then she sprang toward Murtagh.

Bachel shouted and pointed at Alín. A spear of fire leaped from the witch’s clawed finger and struck Alín in the chest.

The fire passed harmlessly around her.

With a desperate cry, Alín collapsed against Murtagh with her arms around his shoulders. Her fingers fumbled against the back of his neck and—

Clarity. Sudden relief. The pressure upon his mind vanished, and he jumped to his feet.

A bird-skull amulet bounced against his chest.

Ithring sang through the air as he swung at the nearest cultist. The man had no wards to protect him; the sword’s crimson blade passed through him with hardly any resistance.

The chanting dissolved into panicked discord.

Murtagh quick-stepped to the next Draumar and clove head from body. The cultists were crowded close to him, and he moved with ruthless efficiency among them, chopping at arms and legs and stabbing where he could, determined to keep them so busy they could not again immobilize him.

Bachel snarled. A torrent of flame shot from her to Murtagh. As with Alín, the flames wrapped around him without harm. Nor did the arcane fire touch two of the three Draumar behind him. However, the third cultist was the man from whom Alín had stolen the amulet, and him the fire harrowed, and his skin cracked and his hair vanished in a flare of orange sparks. He ran away screaming as a blanket of flames enveloped him.

In his blindness, the man ran off the edge of the great hole in the center of the room and fell into the black void, the flames trailing like flapping flags from his body.

Murtagh did not pause to watch, but hurried about his butchery, eager to put down the rest of Bachel’s guards before they could regain the advantage.

Several of the cultists attempted to block or parry his attacks, and a few even struck at him in turn. But they were not trained warriors—not as he was—and he outfenced them with ease.

As he spun about, he saw Alín grappling with one of the cultists. The man struck her with his staff, and she fell to the stone, limp and unmoving.

The sight spurred Murtagh to even greater speed. By his hand, Ithring traced a fatal cutting line from body to body, a bloody blur too fast to follow. The Draumar toppled like scythed stalks of grass.

A grinding rumble passed through the floor of the cavern. More dust sifted downward, while shards broke loose from the crystals and landed in a tinkling cascade throughout.

Murtagh stumbled and paused, arms outstretched.

Before the shaking subsided, Bachel came flying toward him—a dark shape piercing the curtains of dust, the ancient lance held before her.

He was quick to respond, but the witch was faster still, for she had the reflexes of an elf. The tip of Niernen struck him in the side and, to Murtagh’s astonishment, punctured his shirt of mail and stabbed him between the ribs.

Bachel pulled the lance free, and he fell back, clutching his side. Fire burned in his chest, and blood spattered his lips as he coughed. Then he went cold with fear, and his thoughts grew hard and simple. The blade had touched a lung. It was a deadly wound, if not immediately fatal. He had seen such injuries on the battlefield. His lung would collapse or else fill with blood. Either way, he would die from lack of air unless he could heal himself.

The witch crowed. “You cannot triumph in this place, Kingkiller. Here I reign supreme, for I am Azlagûr’s champion.”

One of the acolytes charged at Murtagh from the side. He dodged a swing of the man’s staff and ran him through the neck.

The cultist fell, gurgling and kicking.

Murtagh glanced about, expecting another ambush. There was no one left standing in the chamber, save him and Bachel. Dark slicks of blood coated the stone surrounding the crumpled bodies of the eleven fallen cultists—the twelfth having cast himself into the hole.

The witch raised her left hand and made a crushing motion. The bird-skull amulet about his neck cracked and disintegrated in a pale powder that ran down the front of his mail. As it did, the amulet’s protection vanished, and he felt the witch launch a renewed assault upon his mind.

He steeled himself against the invasion.

A smile pulled Bachel’s mouth further askew. “Did you think mine own charms could withstand me, Kingkiller?” As she spoke, she stalked toward him, as a great cat walking down its prey.

Despite his pain, Murtagh kept his mind calm, clear—emotionless. Panic would not help him. The witch lunged again, and he parried. The wound in his side made it impossible to move smoothly; he hitched as he deflected the Dauthdaert, which provided Bachel with ample opportunity to evade his counterstrike.

“This resistance will bring you only death! Kneel before me!”

“No.”

Again the witch came at him, and Murtagh retreated around the gaping hole in the floor, attempting to maintain distance between the two of them while also drawing Bachel away from Alín’s motionless form. Bright spots of blood fell from his side, leaving a trail of splattered blotches, as a line of red coins strewn behind him.

Never before had Murtagh felt such a sense of desperate struggle. Not even during the fight against Galbatorix and Shruikan. At least then there had been others to help. Here he was alone, without even Thorn, and the slightest mistake would mean death.

He might already be dead.

His breath wheezed through his punctured lung. Even now it was difficult to get enough air.

Forward strode Bachel, and she jabbed at him with furious intent: a half-dozen quick stabs, which left Murtagh with a small cut on his calf, just above his greaves.

His wards couldn’t stop the Dauthdaert. No ward could. Galbatorix had claimed the lances were the only weapons dragons feared. Murtagh believed it. He had learned to fear them himself.

He feigned a stumble, and when Bachel moved to take advantage of the supposed opening…he sidestepped and slashed underneath her outstretched arm.

Ithring glanced off a protective spell. Even without her armor, Bachel would have been well shielded against his blade.

Murtagh reassessed. He wasn’t going to defeat the witch through force of arms, unless he could somehow break her magical defenses.

As Bachel twisted around to again face him, he drove his mind against the witch’s with every mote of strength he could muster. The invisible assault was so strong, it stopped Bachel in her tracks. Her face went rigid with strain as she struggled to repulse his intruding thoughts.

Neither of them moved; they had not the attention to spare.

Bachel’s mind was uncomfortably familiar to Murtagh. How many nights had she spent torturing him, trying to break his will in the room of horrors beneath the temple?

But this time it was different. He was himself again, and though he was no elf, his strength of mind was the match of anyone’s, as was his determination. Bachel could not easily fend him off, and every triumph he had against her—no matter how small—further fueled his attack.

Still, the witch was strong and devious. Trying to restrain her consciousness was like trying to hold on to a beast that kept twisting and snapping. The slightest of openings allowed her to shift the attack back to Murtagh, and then he was on the defensive until he could again begin to pin her down.

Though they did not move, their breathing grew heavy, and sweat dripped from their faces and onto the floor. And Murtagh felt and heard the all-too-swift patter of blood falling from his side. Each inhalation was more difficult than the last.

Hard as it was, he made progress against Bachel. Every time she wriggled out of his mental grasp, the space he gave her to move was smaller, and bit by bit, he cinched tight the fetters he was binding about her being.

When Bachel realized what was happening, she panicked. He had expected as much. But instead of thrashing or stabbing or doing anything so reasonable, she lifted her hand and pointed at Murtagh, and to his shock he felt a surge of energy in her mind, and—

—jagged shards of ice shot up toward him from a suddenly frost-covered ground. The needle-sharp tips shattered against his wards, but the air on his lips grew painfully cold.

He snarled. The witch refused to adhere to the only rule of a spellcasters’ duel: which was to not use magic until one had established control over their opponent’s mind.

Murtagh’s first instinct was to lash out with the most dire spells he knew—spells that would draw so much energy from him, they might kill him, but that also might be his only chance of stopping Bachel before she accomplished the deed herself. Still, he hesitated. Suicide held no appeal—and it occurred to him that Bachel was undisciplined, untrained. She didn’t use the ancient language because she didn’t know it, and she wasn’t adhering to proper dueling protocol because she was likewise ignorant of it.

That didn’t make his position any safer, but it did mean that if he used magic, she wasn’t likely to react with suicidal force as would any trained magician.

At least, so he hoped.

Maintaining his pressure on her mind, he shouted, “Brisingr!” and allowed a stream of sparkling crimson flames to pour forth from the tip of Ithring. The spellfire flash-melted the icicles before wrapping around Bachel with intrusive intimacy.

He ended the spell to see the witch unharmed and laughing. “Bow, infidel!” she shouted.

Another tremor shook the ground. The distraction allowed Bachel to wrest her mind even further from his. Then she pointed Niernen at him, and he felt a sudden and drastic decrease in strength as his wards fended off an onslaught he neither felt nor saw.

“Thrysta!” was his reply, and the spell had a similar effect on Bachel; she slumped as his attack depleted her reserves.

They cast spells with wild abandon, each trying to overwhelm the other. Murtagh uttered words in the ancient language as quickly as he could: once he’d exhausted the most obvious means of defeating Bachel, quantity became more important than quality. Speed was of the essence.

In that, Bachel had the clear advantage. Murtagh had never truly appreciated the power of wordless magic before. The witch did not need to stop to think of how to phrase her enchantments; she simply willed them to be, and they were. Concepts that would have been tedious or impossible to express in the ancient language were a trivial matter for her, and indeed, many of the attacks she launched at him were of a sort he would have struggled to replicate.

The limitation for both of them, of course, was the energy at their disposal. Murtagh quickly depleted what remained in Ithring’s ruby, leaving him with only the reserves of his body. And it was easy to overtax those.

Whether Bachel had hidden stores of energy herself, he didn’t know. But her lips soon grew grey, and she tottered slightly as she advanced on him. Murtagh felt no better. Every spell consumed another portion of vitality, and a deadly lethargy dragged at his limbs and mind.

Between them flickered staggering blows of heat and cold, light and dark. Wind howled in brutal gusts, only to vanish a second later, replaced by tendrils of liquid night, or else invisible forces that sought to cut or crush or inveigle themselves into the fragile flesh of their foe. Once a double of Bachel appeared next to Murtagh—lifelike in every respect, even down to the pores of her skin—and the illusion so startled him, the real witch nearly managed to stab him again.

Murtagh had spent many an hour over many a day thinking of attacks and counters to use when fighting another magician. But none of the schemes he’d devised succeeded against Bachel. Nor were spells he’d used with success in the past effective. He even tried bypassing the witch’s wards as Eragon had done with Galbatorix’s: by helping her. That too failed.

Indirect attacks seemed to have the most effect. If a spell did not work upon Bachel herself but on the environment around her, then he was able to more consistently stress her wards and, sometimes, bypass them to a degree.

The realization gave him an idea.

He glanced around. On the other side of the clearing, an enormous white crystal leaned out over the open space, like a windblown tree near to falling. However much the crystal weighed, he guessed even Thorn would struggle to hold it up.

Fast as he could, he scoured his scrambled brain for the words he needed and then muttered, “Ílf kona thornessa thar fïthrenar, thae stenr jierda.” It was a gamble, but just maybe…

Bachel snarled, her mouth pulling further off-center. “Your magic has no effect against me, Kingkiller. Abandon your pride and kneel! Do you not yet understand you cannot resist Azlagûr or His disciples? Surrender and serve!”

Another jet of black smoke shot up through the hole in the center of the cave.

“I would rather die.” Murtagh began to retreat toward the leaning crystal. He affected a limp and moved as if his strength had nearly given out and he were about to pass out. It wasn’t entirely an exaggeration.

“Bah!” Bachel’s face distorted into a hateful visage as she strode toward him, head held high, planting the butt of Niernen firmly against the stone floor with every step.

Good. She was confident. Too confident.

As the witch neared, Murtagh cast another spell, this one an attempt to blind her by bending the light around her face. The magic succeeded, but only for a second, and then Bachel waved her hand, and her strength surged against his. He did not fight it. He released the spell. But it had served its purpose to distract the witch, and to fulfill her expectation that he would continue to fight until the bitter end.

The soft radiance of the crystal appeared above him as he edged underneath it.

He paused there for a moment, just long enough for Bachel to close within a few yards of his position.

She strode forward, a cruel, triumphant smile upon her lips.

He stepped backward.

As Bachel’s foot touched the stone directly underneath the crystal, a great CRACK sounded, and Murtagh’s knees buckled as his spell exacted its price.

The crystal snapped off near the base and came crashing down.

Bachel started to jump out of the way, but—fast as she was—the huge trunk of faceted stone caught her across the hips and legs and drove her to the ground.

A lightning-like flash surrounded Bachel, and in the same instant, her wards gave out, and the thousands upon thousands of pounds of crystal crushed the lower half of her body.

The impact shook Murtagh off his feet. He landed on his backside with a painful jar, nearly deaf from the sound of the felling.

Bachel screamed. She was pinned, trapped, and butterfly wings of crimson blood spread about her. A piece of the crystal had struck her on the head and knocked her half mask askew. The repositioning seemed to have disrupted the mask’s effect; no longer did the draconic glamour cloak Bachel in its dreadful aspect. She seemed merely a woman again—smaller and diminished, but still as angry as ever and far from dissuaded.

“Kverst!” Murtagh said, even as the witch cried in a malevolent tone, “Stop!”

Their spells clashed. One against the other, and neither he nor she was willing to give way. A black veil gathered around Murtagh’s vision as the heat fled his body. Nevertheless, he dragged himself upright and took the two steps necessary to close the distance between Bachel and himself.

The witch’s face was twisted with effort, her grey lips pulled back in a snarl. Her neck was corded, and veins stood out like tangled rope beneath her skin. She still held Niernen, and as Murtagh approached, she drew back her arm and stabbed with the lance.

He had not the strength or speed to evade.

The tip of the Dauthdaert glanced off his helm with a metallic squeal, and his head snapped back as he absorbed the force of the impact.

Then he was inside Bachel’s reach. She could no longer attack him with the spear.

Their eyes met, an instant of calm amid a storm, and he saw in her gaze recognition and, he thought, acceptance. He felt a sense of closeness with her, as if she were as dear to him as Tornac or Thorn, for the arrival of death destroyed all boundaries and pretenses.

With his last dram of strength, he swung Ithring. A single, perfect blow, which struck Bachel upon the crown of her head and split her skull.

Her opposition vanished. His spell, kverst, took effect, and the witch fell away from him, pulling Ithring’s hilt from his hand.

Cold blackness washed over Murtagh, and the cave tilted around him as he collapsed, unconscious.

CHAPTER IV Islingr

A deep, grinding rumble and the sound of uprushing smoke were the first things Murtagh was aware of.

Then pain, and a cold so intense it went to his marrow, and an immense weakness. He needed food and drink and time to recover. None of which he was about to get.

He opened his eyes. The domed ceiling was dark with smoke. It had thickened since he’d passed out.

Setting his teeth, he rolled onto his right side—where it hurt less—and pushed himself into a kneeling position.

He looked at what remained of Bachel: her lower half pinned beneath the crystalline rubble, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle, Ithring still embedded in her skull, honey eyes wide and lifeless. He felt nothing, thought nothing, only looked at what he had done. It was important.

From far above, he felt Thorn touch his mind, a distant yet urgent contact. As Murtagh’s strength ebbed, their thoughts merged, and for an instant, the differences between them dissolved, and he beheld the world as did Thorn:

The two-leg-nest turned below as he dipped his wings toward the fang-tooth-sunset-mountains. Many of the stone-wood-shells were broken and on hot-tongue-fire, and the flames cast flickering shadows on the surrounding hills. White-eye-crows screamed, and goats too, and a steady stream of bad-dream-two-legs fled on foot along the banks of the clear-water, heading toward the Bay of Fundor. His wings hurt from many arrow-bite-holes, but the pain was of no matter.

Concern came from Thorn. The dragon gave him a plea and a command cojoined: Heal yourself!

I—

Another rumble shook Murtagh, and from the hole in the center of the cave came sounds as rock being crushed and broken. Apprehension gathered in him, and it occurred to him that haste might be called for.

Getting to his feet took a concentrated effort of mind and body, and he nearly fainted again as he rose. He stood for a moment, swaying, until his vision cleared and his balance steadied. He’d dropped his shield at some point. Picking it up seemed more trouble than it was worth.

The eleven Draumar lay on the other side of the hole, their bodies fallen like broken dolls amid the broad, oil-slick splay of blood. There too lay Alín, still motionless.

Murtagh! Thorn’s frustration was palpable.

“Can’t. Alín. Have to…”

Pressing a hand against his wound, he stumbled over to the witch. He braced his left foot against her head and pulled on Ithring. The blade stuck, and he had to yank twice more.

Distaste and pity made Murtagh turn away from her remains. “May you dream forever,” he muttered.

More grinding sounded from beneath the hole, and another jet of black smoke shot up through the opening.

With halting steps, he made his way around to Alín. He let out a cry as he dropped to a knee next to her and the jolt sent pain through his side.

Blood matted the woman’s hair, but she still breathed.

Murtagh placed Ithring on the ground and pressed his palm against Alín’s head. “Waíse heill,” he whispered.

His vision flickered as the spell took effect. He swayed and fell sideways, barely catching himself before his head hit stone. His eyes drifted shut.

…

Air whistled past his head as he dove toward burnt-black-ground, legs tucked close to chest and belly. He landed with a crash of thunder. The horned-two-leg-no-sword turned to look at him, surprised, afraid.

Help.

Horned-two-leg understood and ran to him. Climbed onto his back.

He wolf-ran toward foot of grey-rock-mountain.

…

Murtagh started as he came to, disoriented.

By his knees, Alín moaned, and her eyelids fluttered.

More sounds of crashing stone emanated from the hole, as if the mountain were gnawing itself to pieces, and there was a great grinding commotion painful to hear.

The ground shuddered beneath Murtagh as he grasped Ithring and forced himself to his feet. He coughed. Gobs of blood sprayed forth, wet and sticky.

He wanted to also heal himself, but he had not the strength. Not yet. But he knew that if he did not attend to his stab wound soon, he would lose the opportunity.

A violent tremor made him stagger. Throughout the cave, crystals cracked and shattered, crashing against the ground with bell-like notes: a cacophony of disjointed music.

Apprehension shaded into fear as Murtagh tried to imagine what could cause the mountains to shake. Bachel was dead, so…Was there some reality to the beliefs of the Draumar, something that went beyond the foul fumes that seeped from the rocks surrounding Nal Gorgoth?

He fixed his gaze on the hole. He had to know.

Ithring’s tip dragged against the stone as he started toward the gaping void. Every step cost him, and he felt increasing reluctance to look over the stony lip and see what lay below.

But still, he crept closer, his whole body taut with pain and dread.

The ground spasmed beneath him. He pushed Ithring away as he fell onto his side. Hot pain clamped about his limbs, and his vision went white and then black.

…

The mouth of grey-rock-mountain yawned before him. He hesitated. Inside lay pain and fear and cold-net-chains and close binding. But Rider-Murtagh was in danger, needed help.

He stepped forward, only to stop and whine. The fear was too great. His stomach felt sick-bad-food-burn.

“What do you wait for?” bellowed horned-two-leg.

He snarled and roared and then shook his head and spun away from the loathsome hole. Two bounding leaps, and he again took to the air and rose circling above the hard-gaping-mountainside.

And he hated himself for it.

…

Murtagh gasped. Where was he?

A fist-sized piece of crystal skittered across the ground near his head. He flinched. Using Ithring as a crutch, he pushed himself to his feet, holding his side. Thorn wasn’t coming. The thought was nearly as painful as his wound. He wished he could soothe the dragon’s distress, but there was a greater worry at hand. Still, the thought remained, a barbed needle in his mind.

He dragged himself forward, desperate, gasping.

A prismatic shimmer passed across Murtagh’s vision. For a moment, he felt he was elsewhere, elsewhen, on a withered plain scoured by endless wind—

He shook his head. No. With the last of his strength, he staggered across the final few yards to the hole and collapsed on his knees before it.

He peered over the rim, wary.

Blackness yawned below, soft as dragon wings and with an impression of immense depth. At first his eyes could find no purchase in the void, but then he discerned motion, barely visible, as of a great, shadowy river flowing past.

Smoke pillared up in a roaring column.

Despite his best effort, the hot cloud enveloped him, stinging his eyes and clogging his nose and throat.

He fell back and struck the stone, and again his surroundings deserted him.

…

Horned-two-leg was shouting at him and beating against his shoulder. He paid the two-leg no mind as he kept his gaze fixed on the mouth in the mountain. Rider-Murtagh was hurting, and that made him hurt.

The two-leg shouted louder, and this time, he heard the words: “What manner of beast are you? Are you dragon or crawling worm?! Turn back! Go!”

His scales bristled, and he roared as outrage fired his anger. Then he tucked his wings, dove, and landed on break-bone-ground at the foot of the mountain.

Before his nerve could fail him, he ran forward into black-moist-egg-smell-hole.

Grey-stone-walls surrounded. Air thick, choked. The space was too small, not move, not think, too close. Like prison in Urû’baen. Dragonkiller bending over him, showing little teeth, hard-iron-rings, sting of whips…

He could not continue. He lashed stump-tail and whimpered.

Then horned-two-leg stroked the side of his neck and said, “Your Rider needs you, dragon. Think of him. Do for him, not yourself. For other we can be strong.”

The words sank into his mind, settled there. He clung to them with desperate strength. Rider-Murtagh needed help. And Rider-Murtagh had always helped him.

There was only one choice. It was the only choice there had ever really been, but he had feared to truly face it until that moment.

The first step was impossible.

The second was nearly so.

The third was only horribly hard.

The fourth came quickly, and then he was crawling forward like four-legs-no-wings, scenting for prey. The cave-fear did not leave, still felt like hot-blood-heart would break, but he could move. He could fight. He could help.

He roared again.

…

Bitterness coated the back of Murtagh’s throat, sharp, acrid, poisonous. He came to, coughing and hacking, and each purging convulsion caused him agony through his chest.

He blinked back tears, barely able to focus. Thorn was on his way. The realization brought as much fear as pride and relief. If what was in the hole could hurt Thorn, Murtagh wouldn’t be able to protect him.

He rolled back onto his knees and again peered over the rim of the abyss, dreading what he might see. As before, he had a dim sense of ponderous motion within the murky, smoke-filled space beneath the mountain.

He reached out with his thoughts. No living thing lay below. And yet…He widened his search, opening his mind and spreading his consciousness as far as he could through the deepness. Wider and wider he went, until he was spread as thin as a film of soap, and he felt…

He felt a mind.

A mind as vast as the mountains themselves. A consciousness so far removed from his own, he might as well have been an ant clinging to the side of an unimaginably large beast. The thoughts of the mind were cold, slow-moving things—dark islands of ice drifting along a listless current. Pervading all was a sense of dire intent, an ancient, calculated malevolence that pulsed outward like the beat of a monstrous heart. From the mind he felt hunger, immense and endless, and a coiled rage that knew no bounds.

Shocks of freezing fear shot through Murtagh’s limbs.

At his touch, the mind stirred, and the tremors and rumbles beneath the cave intensified, and Murtagh felt the mind turning toward him, focusing the enormity of its consciousness upon the single point of his being. When it found him, when it had him within his grip, he knew he would be helpless.

He did not think. He did not wait. He drew upon what was left of his strength and cried out the spell he had used once before, on the windswept plains between Gil’ead and the Spine: “Vindr thrysta un líjothsa athaerum!”

The air above the glowing crystals rippled like glass, and in an instant, all the light in the cave bent into the hole and flash-formed a single bar of blinding, white-hot illumination: a fiery lance forged from the sun itself.

A blast of superheated air struck Murtagh with the force of a thousand hammers. It slammed him into the ground, and he felt his organs shift as the world exploded beneath him.

He blinked.

Everything had gone cold and silent. Ash drifted down from the stone ceiling, soft grey flakes that fell like snow.

He pushed himself onto his forearms.

The hole in the center of the cave was twice as large as before, and the edges glowed a dull red. Through it and below…nothing was visible. No hints of movement beside the falling flakes. Empty.

A piece of rock dropped from the ceiling and bounced across the floor several feet from him. It made no sound he could hear.

He tried to stand, but his arms and legs would not hold his weight.

He tried to reach out with his mind, but that too was beyond him. His throat was tight, and he felt as if he were choking. Darkness feathered the edges of his vision.

He tried.

He tried to try….

He couldn’t…

As awareness slipped away like water between fingers, the stone beneath him shook with the hurried tread of something huge and heavy approaching….

His last thought was one of regret. If only…

Glittering redness moved above him, and white jags that resolved into claws and teeth.

Thorn. He tried to rise but had not the strength.

Then the horned shape of Uvek was kneeling next to him. The Urgal muttered in his guttural tongue and pressed the cold hardness of the blackstone against Murtagh’s brow.

Welcome relief as the pain in his ribs faded, but his breathing felt no easier, and he remained as weak and helpless as before.

The Urgal’s voice sounded as if muffled by woolen batting: “He has too much blood in lungs, not enough in body. You must take him to one of your healers, dragon. And quickly too.”

There was jostling and shifting then, and the shapes of the chamber tilted as the Urgal picked him up and climbed onto Thorn’s back.

Murtagh struggled against the Urgal’s hold, wanting to speak, but the words would not form. Frustrated, he groaned, for there was something that needed saying, something important.

The world rose beneath him as Thorn stood, and his eyes rolled back.

The familiar pounding rhythm of Thorn’s trotting jarred Murtagh to wakefulness.

A dark stone ceiling swept past overhead, faster than a man could run. Deep booms echoed through the tunnel—as if from an enormous drum—and alarmingly loud cracks, and the mountain shook about them.

Flakes of stone fell as thick as snow.

“Faster!” growled Uvek as stones clattered about his head and horns.

Flames billowed out before them as Thorn swept the interior of a cave toothed with stalactites and stalagmites. Fingerrats in their hundreds squealed as the fire seared them. The vomitous stench of burnt hair filled the cave.

More of the grotesque creatures swarmed up Thorn’s sides. Uvek swung at them with a hammer-like fist, and they fell broken to the beslimed ground.

Thorn snapped and tore, and then he was moving forward again.

Amid the shrieking of the fingerrats, Murtagh remembered what needed saying. “Alín,” he murmured, but no one seemed to hear or care.

Time had little meaning. He was awake, but reality faded in and out around him: a series of disjointed impressions that gave him no sense of place or progress, as if he had been and would forever be caught upon Thorn’s back, subject to events without reason or explanation.

He felt as if he were choking. Every breath was a struggle, and when he failed the struggle, darkness would encroach, and another island of reality would wink out.

In his brief moments of awareness, he kept trying to talk to Thorn, but he could not seem to catch the dragon’s attention, and the failure was greatly distressing.

He saw caves and tunnels without end. Vaulted chambers filled with rotting mushrooms. Shadow spiders darting about the creviced stone, avoiding Thorn’s seeking fire. Pillars of crystal and walls of strange carvings that looked older than even the dwarves’ ancient works.

The paths Thorn followed were different from those Murtagh had, and he did not recognize their surroundings.

The mountain continued to shake. Twice he heard huge falls of stone, and Uvek shouting, “Turn, turn!” And always Thorn’s rasping breath, as if the dragon himself were struggling to breathe.

The faintest light appeared above them, orange and sooty, as a bonfire high upon a hill. Murtagh squinted, tried to raise his head.

A line of rough-hewn steps ascended the stone face before Thorn, rising toward the ruddy mouth of the cave. Salvation. Freedom.

Uvek bellowed something, and Thorn raced forward, grunting as he scrambled up out of the depths of the mountain. Hollow booms echoed throughout the widening cavern, louder than ever before—deafening crashes of thunder that vibrated through Murtagh’s bones.

He gasped and coughed. Clotted blood stopped his throat; he couldn’t cast it clear, couldn’t get the air he needed.

Steps shattered underneath Thorn’s weight. The cavern shuddered, and boulders plummeted from the raw ceiling and cracked and bounded around them. A piece of stone as large as a cart glanced off Thorn’s left shoulder, knocking the dragon to one side. He lurched, and Murtagh’s head whipped around at the impact.

Stars spangled Murtagh’s vision as black gauze wrapped close around the edges.

The whole cave seemed to be collapsing. Entire sheets of stone fractured free and tipped downward until they disintegrated into a shower of splinters and tumbling rubble. The sound was numbing, staggering, impossible to comprehend.

“Faster, dragon!” Uvek shouted.

The clots in Murtagh’s throat slipped the wrong way, and he inhaled them. The breath stopped in his chest. He couldn’t cough, couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t…

His head snapped back as Thorn leaped forward again. The mouth of the cave was shrinking as the ceiling collapsed, the orange light of freedom diminishing.

A particularly large boulder crashed down in front of them, and Thorn slipped and fell forward onto his chest.

The impact was brutal. Murtagh’s vision went white, his chest seized, and he felt himself sinking into oblivion even as thunder descended around them.

No! he thought.

The world ceased to be.