Page 32 of Eldest (The Inheritance Cycle 2)

  “But the young man was young, and he began to long for a mate closer to his own age. His eye fell upon a young woman, and he wooed and won her. And for a time, they too were happy.

  “When Linnëa discovered that she had been spurned, scorned, and abandoned, she went mad with grief. The young man had done the worst possible thing; he had given her a taste of the fullness of life, then torn it away with no more thought than a rooster flitting from one hen to the next. She found him with the woman and, in her fury, she stabbed him to death.

  “Linnëa knew that what she had done was evil. She also knew that even if she was exonerated of the murder, she could not return to her previous existence. Life had lost all joy for her. So she went to the oldest tree in Du Weldenvarden, pressed herself against it, and sang herself into the tree, abandoning all allegiance to her own race. For three days and three nights she sang, and when she finished, she had become one with her beloved plants. And through all the millennia since has she kept watch over the forest…. Thus was the Menoa tree created.”

  At the conclusion of her tale, Arya and Eragon sat side by side on the crest of a huge root, twelve feet off the ground. Eragon bounced his heels against the tree and wondered if Arya had intended the story as a warning to him or if it was merely an innocent piece of history.

  His doubt hardened into certainty when she asked, “Do you think that the young man was to blame for the tragedy?”

  “I think,” he said, knowing that a clumsy reply could turn her against him, “that what he did was cruel…and that Linnëa over-reacted. They were both at fault.”

  Arya stared at him until he was forced to avert his gaze. “They weren’t suited for each other.”

  Eragon began to deny it but then stopped himself. She was right. And she had maneuvered him so that he had to say it out loud, so that he had to say it to her. “Perhaps,” he admitted.

  Silence accumulated between them like sand piling into a wall that neither of them was willing to breach. The high-pitched hum of cicadas echoed from the edge of the clearing. At last he said, “Being home seems to agree with you.”

  “It does.” With unconscious ease, she leaned over and picked up a thin branch that had fallen from the Menoa tree and began to weave the clumps of needles into a small basket.

  Hot blood rushed to Eragon’s face as he watched her. He hoped that the moon was not bright enough to reveal that his cheeks had turned mottled red. “Where…where do you live? Do you and Islanzadí have a palace or castle…?”

  “We live in Tialdarí Hall, our family’s ancestral buildings, in the western part of Ellesméra. I would enjoy showing our home to you.”

  “Ah.” A practical question suddenly intruded in Eragon’s muddled thoughts, driving away his embarrassment. “Arya, do you have any siblings?” She shook her head. “Then you are the sole heir to the elven throne?”

  “Of course. Why do you ask?” She sounded bemused by his curiosity.

  “I don’t understand why you were allowed to become an ambassador to the Varden and dwarves, as well as ferry Saphira’s egg from here to Tronjheim. It’s too dangerous an errand for a princess, much less the queen-in-waiting.”

  “You mean it’s too dangerous for a human woman. I told you before that I am not one of your helpless females. What you fail to realize is that we view our monarchs differently than you or the dwarves. To us, a king or queen’s highest responsibility is to serve their people however and wherever possible. If that means forfeiting our lives in the process, we welcome the opportunity to prove our devotion to—as the dwarves say—hearth, hall, and honor. If I had died in the course of my duty, then a replacement successor would have been chosen from among our various Houses. Even now I would not be required to become queen if I found the prospect distasteful. We do not choose leaders who are unwilling to devote themselves wholeheartedly to their obligation.” She hesitated, then hugged her knees against her chest and propped her chin on them. “I had many years to perfect those arguments with my mother.” For a minute, the wheet-wheet of the cicadas went undisturbed in the clearing. Then she asked, “How go your studies with Oromis?”

  Eragon grunted as his foul temper returned on a wave of unpleasant memories, souring his pleasure at being with Arya. All he wanted to do was crawl into bed, go to sleep, and forget the day. “Oromis-elda,” he said, working each word around his mouth before letting it escape, “is quite thorough.”

  He winced as she gripped his upper arm with bruising strength. “What has gone amiss?”

  He tried to shrug her hand off. “Nothing.”

  “I’ve traveled with you long enough to know when you’re happy, angry…or in pain. Did something happen between you and Oromis? If so, you have to tell me so that it can be rectified as soon as possible. Or was it your back? We could—”

  “It’s not my training!” Despite his pique, Eragon noticed that she seemed genuinely concerned, which pleased him. “Ask Saphira. She can tell you.”

  “I want to hear it from you,” she said quietly.

  The muscles in Eragon’s jaw spasmed as he clenched his teeth. In a low voice, no more than a whisper, he first described how he had failed at his meditation in the glade, then the incident that poisoned his heart like a viper coiled in his chest: his blessing.

  Arya released his arm and clutched at the root of the Menoa tree, as if to steady herself. “Barzûl.” The dwarf curse alarmed him; he had never heard her use profanity before, and this one was particularly apt, for it meant ill fate. “I knew of your act in Farthen Dûr, for sure, but I never thought…I never suspected that such a thing could occur. I cry your pardon, Eragon, for forcing you to leave your rooms tonight. I did not comprehend your discomfort. You must want to be alone.”

  “No,” he said. “No, I appreciate the company and the things you’ve shown me.” He smiled at her, and after a moment, she smiled back. Together they sat small and still at the base of the ancient tree and watched the moon arch high over the peaceful forest before it hid behind the gathering clouds. “I only wonder what will become of the child.”

  High above their heads, Blagden ruffled his bone-white feathers and shrieked, “Wyrda!”

  A MAZE OF OPPOSITION

  Nasuada crossed her arms without bothering to conceal her impatience as she examined the two men before her.

  The one on the right had a neck so thick, it forced his head to jut forward at nearly right angles to his shoulders, giving him a stubborn, dim-witted appearance. This was intensified by his heavy brow with its two cliffs of matted hair—almost long enough to pull over his eyes—and bulbous lips that remained puckered into a pink mushroom, even when he spoke. She knew better than to put stock in his repulsive looks, though. No matter its rough housing, his tongue was as clever as a jester’s.

  The only identifying feature of the second man was his pale skin, which refused to darken under Surda’s relentless sun, even though the Varden had been in Aberon, the capital, for some weeks now. From his coloring, Nasuada guessed he had been born in the northern reaches of the Empire. He held a knit wool cap that he wrung into a hard rope between his hands.

  “You,” she said, pointing at him. “How many of your chickens did he kill again?”

  “Thirteen, Ma’am.”

  Nasuada returned her attention to the ugly man. “An unlucky number, by all accounts, Master Gamble. And so it has proved for you. You are guilty of both theft and destroying someone else’s property without offering proper recompense.”

  “I never denied it.”

  “I only wonder how you ate thirteen chickens in four days. Are you ever full, Master Gamble?”

  He gave her a jocular grin and scratched the side of his face. The rasp of his untrimmed fingernails over his stubble annoyed her, and it was only with an effort of will that she kept from asking him to stop. “Well, not to be disrespectful, Ma’am, but filling my stomach wouldn’t be a problem if you fed us properly, what with all the work we do. I’m a large man, an’ I need a b

it o’ meat in my belly after half a day breaking rocks with a mattock. I did my best to resist temptation, I did. But three weeks of short rations and watching these farmers drive around fat livestock they wouldn’t share even if a body were starving…Well, I’ll admit, it broke me. I’m not a strong man when it comes to food. I like it hot and I like plenty of it. An’ I don’t fancy I’m the only one willing to help himself.”

  And that’s the heart of the problem, reflected Nasuada. The Varden could not afford to feed its members, not even with Surda’s king, Orrin, helping. Orrin had opened his treasury to them, but he had refused to behave as Galbatorix was wont to do when moving his army across the Empire, which was to appropriate supplies from his countrymen without paying for them. A noble sentiment, but one that only makes my task harder. Still, she knew that acts like those were what separated her, Orrin, Hrothgar, and Islanzadí from Galbatorix’s despotism. It would be so easy to cross that divide without noticing it.

  “I understand your reasons, Master Gamble. However, although the Varden aren’t a country and we answer to no one’s authority but our own, that does not give you or anyone else leave to ignore the rule of law as laid down by my predecessors or as it’s observed here in Surda. Therefore, I order you to pay a copper for each chicken you stole.”

  Gamble surprised her by acceding without protest. “As you wish, Ma’am,” he said.

  “That’s it?” exclaimed the pale man. He wrung his cap even tighter. “That’s no fair price. If I sold them in any market, they’d—”

  She could not contain herself any longer. “Yes! You’d get more. But I happen to know that Master Gamble cannot afford to give you the chickens’ full price, as I’m the one who provides his salary! As I do yours. You forget that if I decided to acquire your poultry for the good of the Varden, you’d get no more than a copper a chicken and be lucky at that. Am I understood?”

  “He can’t—”

  “Am I understood?”

  After a moment, the pale man subsided and muttered, “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Very well. You’re both dismissed.” With an expression of sardonic admiration, Gamble touched his brow and bowed to Nasuada before backing out of the stone room with his sullen opponent. “You too,” she said to the guards on either side of the door.

  As soon as they were gone, she slumped in her chair with an exhausted sigh and reached for her fan, batting it over her face in a futile attempt to dissipate the pinpricks of sweat that accumulated on her forehead. The constant heat drained her strength and made even the smallest task arduous.

  She suspected she would feel tired even if it were winter. Familiar as she was with the innermost secrets of the Varden, it still had taken more work than she expected to transport the entire organization from Farthen Dûr, through the Beor Mountains, and deliver them to Surda and Aberon. She shuddered, remembering long, uncomfortable days spent in the saddle. Planning and executing their departure had been exceedingly difficult, as was integrating the Varden into their new surroundings while simultaneously preparing for an attack on the Empire. I don’t have enough time each day to solve all these problems, she lamented.

  Finally, she dropped the fan and rang the bellpull, summoning her handmaid, Farica. The banner hanging to the right of the cherrywood desk rippled as the door hidden behind it opened. Farica slipped out to stand with downcast eyes by Nasuada’s elbow.

  “Are there any more?” asked Nasuada.

  “No, Ma’am.”

  She tried not to let her relief show. Once a week, she held an open court to resolve the Varden’s various disputes. Anyone who felt that they had been wronged could seek an audience with her and ask for her judgment. She could not imagine a more difficult and thankless chore. As her father had often said after negotiating with Hrothgar, “A good compromise leaves everyone angry.” And so it seemed.

  Returning her attention to the matter at hand, she told Farica, “I want that Gamble reassigned. Give him a job where his talent with words will be of some use. Quartermaster, perhaps, just so long as it’s a job where he’ll get full rations. I don’t want to see him before me for stealing again.”

  Farica nodded and went to the desk, where she recorded Nasuada’s instructions on a parchment scroll. That skill alone made her invaluable. Farica asked, “Where can I find him?”

  “One of the work gangs in the quarry.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Oh, while you were occupied, King Orrin asked that you join him in his laboratory.”

  “What has he done in there now, blind himself?” Nasuada washed her wrists and neck with lavender water, then checked her hair in the mirror of polished silver that Orrin had given her and tugged on her overgown until the sleeves were straight.

  Satisfied with her appearance, she swept out of her chambers with Farica in tow. The sun was so bright today that no torches were needed to illuminate the inside of Borromeo Castle, nor could their added warmth have been tolerated. Shafts of light fell through the crossletted arrow slits and glowed upon the inner wall of the corridor, striping the air with bars of golden dust at regular intervals. Nasuada looked out one embrasure toward the barbican, where thirty or so of Orrin’s orange-clad cavalry soldiers were setting forth on another of their ceaseless rounds of patrols in the countryside surrounding Aberon.

  Not that they could do much good if Galbatorix decided to attack us himself, she thought bitterly. Their only protection against that was Galbatorix’s pride and, she hoped, his fear of Eragon. All leaders were aware of the risk of usurpation, but usurpers themselves were doubly afraid of the threat that a single determined individual could pose. Nasuada knew that she was playing an exceedingly dangerous game with the most powerful madman in Alagaësia. If she misjudged how far she could push him, she and the rest of the Varden would be destroyed, along with any hope of ending Galbatorix’s reign.

  The clean smell of the castle reminded her of the times she had stayed there as a child, back when Orrin’s father, King Larkin, still ruled. She never saw much of Orrin then. He was five years older than her and already occupied with his duties as a prince. Nowadays, though, she often felt as if she were the elder one.

  At the door to Orrin’s laboratory, she had to stop and wait for his bodyguards, who were always posted outside, to announce her presence to the king. Soon Orrin’s voice boomed out into the stairwell: “Lady Nasuada! I’m so glad you came. I have something to show you.”

  Mentally bracing herself, she entered the laboratory with Farica. A maze of tables laden with a fantastic array of alembics, beakers, and retorts confronted them, like a glass thicket waiting to snag their dresses on any one of its myriad fragile branches. The heavy odor of metallic vapors made Nasuada’s eyes water. Lifting their hems off the floor, she and Farica wended their way in single file toward the back of the room, past hourglasses and scales, arcane tomes bound with black iron, dwarven astrolabes, and piles of phosphorescent crystal prisms that produced fitful blue flashes.

  They met Orrin by a marble-topped bench, where he stirred a crucible of quicksilver with a glass tube that was closed at one end, open at the other, and must have measured at least three feet in length, although it was only a quarter of an inch thick.

  “Sire,” said Nasuada. As befitted one of equal rank to the king, she remained upright while Farica curtsied. “You seem to have recovered from the explosion last week.”

  Orrin grimaced good-naturedly. “I learned that it’s not wise to combine phosphorus and water in an enclosed space. The result can be quite violent.”

  “Has all of your hearing returned?”

  “Not entirely, but…” Grinning like a boy with his first dagger, he lit a taper with the coals from a brazier, which she could not fathom how he endured in the stifling weather, carried the flaming brand back to the bench, and used it to start a pipe packed with cardus weed.

  “I didn’t know that you smoked.”

  “I don’t really,” he confessed, “except that I found that since my eardrum hasn’t co

mpletely sealed up yet, I can do this….” Drawing on the pipe, he puffed out his cheeks until a tendril of smoke issued from his left ear, like a snake leaving its den, and coiled up the side of his head. It was so unexpected, Nasuada burst out laughing, and after a moment, Orrin joined her, releasing a plume of smoke from his mouth. “It’s the most peculiar sensation,” he confided. “Tickles like crazy on the way out.”

  Growing serious again, Nasuada asked, “Was there something else that you wished to discuss with me, Sire?”

  He snapped his fingers. “Of course.” Dipping his long glass tube in the crucible, he filled it with quicksilver, then capped the open end with one finger and showed it to her. “Would you agree that the only thing in this tube is quicksilver?”

  “I would.” Is this why he wanted to see me?

  “And what about now?” With a quick movement, he inverted the tube and planted the open end inside the crucible, removing his finger. Instead of all pouring out, as Nasuada expected, the quicksilver in the tube dropped about halfway, then stopped and held its position. Orrin pointed to the empty section above the suspended metal. He asked, “What occupies that space?”

  “It must be air,” asserted Nasuada.

  Orrin grinned and shook his head. “If that were true, how would the air bypass the quicksilver or diffuse through the glass? No routes are available by which the atmosphere can gain admission.” He gestured at Farica. “What’s your opinion, maid?”

  Farica stared at the tube, then shrugged and said, “It can’t be nothing, Sire.”

  “Ah, but that’s exactly what I think it is: nothing. I believe that I’ve solved one of the oldest conundrums of natural philosophy by creating and proving the existence of a vacuum! It completely invalidates Vacher’s theories and means that Ládin was actually a genius. Blasted elves always seem to be right.”