As Murtagh and Thorn retraced their steps through the village, they came upon a toothless old man sitting by a well. The man was dressed in rags, with eyes blue white with blindness and a crude
crutch cut from a forked branch. He rocked on his narrow haunches and stared sightless at the mountains while he grinned and gummed.
When Murtagh passed by, the man cocked his head and said, “Aha! The crownless prince, afoot in a foreign land. Son of sorrow, bastard of fate, sing of sorry treachery. Red dragon, black dragon, white dragon…White sun, black sun, dead sun.”
Murtagh stopped and crouched by the man. “What do you know about a black sun?”
The man turned his face toward Murtagh. His skin was so deeply wrinkled, it hung in folds like loose leather draped over his bones. He cackled. “Dreamt it, I did. Ahahaha. Sun eaten, earth eaten, the old blood avenged and the new enslaved. Did you dream, princeling? Do you see? What? Speaker got your tongue? Ahahaha.”
“No one has my tongue,” Murtagh said darkly.
The man ignored him and twisted in the direction of Thorn. “Proudback, bentneck, choose, choose, choose, but can’t wake from life, oh no. Serve the sire or sleep forever. What deathless lies may in eons rise, ahahaha!”
And the man said nothing more that resembled coherent speech.
Frustrated, Murtagh stood and continued back through the village. This is pointless, he said to Thorn. They’re all mad. This should be called the village of riddles.
Maybe that is what trapped Galbatorix and the Forsworn. What? Endless riddles?
Can you think of a better snare for a well-honed mind?
Murtagh couldn’t. I wonder if that addled greybeard is what everyone turns into if they stay in this accursed valley long enough.
Upon returning to the temple courtyard, he and Thorn found the cultists preparing another feast. Tables and chairs and hides had again been placed around the defunct fountain, with braziers of burning coals between and bedded fires laden with spitted meat.
The food was far from ready, so Murtagh retired to his chambers for a time. He tried to nap, but his mind was too agitated for sleep. Instead, as he lay on the bed with his eyes closed, he risked reaching out with his thoughts and lightly searching the village and the area beneath it, looking to see if there were large numbers of people hidden nearby. He found a few bright sparks of consciousness where he didn’t expect—one beneath the temple, and several clustered atop its highest tower—but no great hordes hidden away, no army lying in wait to storm south and overrun Alagaësia.
It should have been a relief, but he remained as tense as ever.
At last he rolled back to his feet, returned to the courtyard, and went to sit with Thorn. There, at least, he felt somewhat more at ease.
As the sun crept downward, Grieve emerged from the temple and began to oversee the proceedings. Then too came Bachel.
No longer in her hunting garb, the witch wore a dress of fine wool dyed a purple so dark as to be nearly black, and a new headpiece adorned her brow, this of gold and silver studded with ruby cabochons. A heavy woolen cloak, red as autumn leaves, wrapped about her shoulders.
She greeted Murtagh and Thorn and proceeded to her dais. There a group of white-robed acolytes gathered in a circle about her, and they began to sway while they chanted and hummed. Murtagh did not see Alín among their ranks.
Bachel stood head and shoulders above the acolytes, her height augmented by the platform beneath her. She swayed in time with her acolytes, eyes half closed, arms raised toward the sky as if to beseech an unseen god for favor.
A strange people, Thorn commented. Murtagh grunted.
After a few minutes, Alín scurried over. She avoided his gaze and said, “How may I serve you and Thorn, my Lord? May I bring you something to drink?”
Murtagh waved away the suggestion. “What is she doing?” he asked, motioning toward Bachel.
“She is praying for warm weather through the winter, my Lord. And she is calling forth dreams to free the minds of the thralls our warriors have brought us.”
Something about Alín’s phrasing bothered Murtagh, but he wasn’t sure why. “And to whom does Bachel pray?”
Alín backed away. “I will bring you wine and cheese, my Lord, to tide you over until the feast.”
“Wait, that’s not—”
But the young woman was already hurrying off, her head down and her hood up.
Murtagh let out a soft growl and settled back against Thorn. What do dreams have to do with convincing prisoners to join their cause? he said. If the dreams are anything like the ones we had, they’ll just want to leave.
A small puff of smoke rose from Thorn’s nostrils. Perhaps they dream differently than we do. The witch said not everyone here has such visions.
“Mmm.” Murtagh wasn’t persuaded.
Bachel continued to sway and chant with her followers until Grieve struck a brass gong, whereupon she clapped her hands and cried, “Let us eat! Kingkiller, join me.” Then she sank back to her litter on the dais.
He reluctantly went to join her.
 |
Murtagh bided his time throughout the feast, waiting for the right moment to confront the witch. Hungry though he was, he ate but little, preferring not to weigh down his stomach before whatever was to come. It was a pity; the few bites he took of the boar he had killed were delicious. In that, Bachel had told the truth. The fungus-fed meat was remarkably good, better than any he’d had, even in Galbatorix’s court. It was moist and savory and sweet and had an intensely nutty flavor. Whatever their other flaws, the cultists knew how to cook pork to perfection.
As they ate, he posed a number of questions to Bachel, casual inquiries that she deflected at every turn. He might as well have been trying to extract information from a stone. In a way, he was grateful. The witch’s refusal confirmed that he and Thorn were doing the right thing by choosing to confront her.
Murtagh kept a tight leash on his temper, but he felt it rising as he readied himself for action. He had never been one to sit by idly, and always restrictions and impositions had rankled. Bachel’s evasions were both of those and more: she was disrespecting him in front of her people.
As the villagers served the last course of the meal—molded aspic filled with nuts and berries—Murtagh gave Thorn a discreet look and said, This has gone on long enough. Be ready to fight or fly. If things go badly, don’t let Bachel get away.
Dark resolve colored Thorn’s thoughts. I am ready. And he loosened his wings in preparation. No one but Alín—who stood behind Bachel—seemed to notice.
Murtagh hoped the acolyte wouldn’t get in the way if words turned to violence. He gathered his will and then said, “Bachel, Thorn and I have decided: we no longer wish to wait through the night. Our patience is at an end. We would have our answers of you. Now. What is it the Draumar seek to accomplish? What is the future you have foreseen, and whom is it you serve? Who is the Dreamer of Dreams?”
The villagers playing on lyres never faltered, but he was aware of a sudden tension throughout the courtyard and of the weight of many eyes.
The witch paused with her cup halfway to her slanted mouth. Then she took her sip and placed the cup down most particularly. When she spoke, her voice cut like a sword: “You are very presumptuous, my son.”
“Very. And I no longer have any stomach for these endless mysteries.
You are the Speaker. Speak plainly with me, then.”
She waved a hand. “Now is not the time to dwell upon such tiresome matters. It would ruin our enjoyment of this evening.”
“Then let it be ruined!” His voice rang out so loudly that the musicians stumbled over their strings before regaining their rhythm. “I insist.”
Rage flushed Bachel’s face. Behind her, Alín watched, wide-eyed and terrified. In a fearsome voice, the witch said, “You insist!” She threw off her cloak and stood, and the players finally fell silent. “You have no right to insist here, O my wayward child. The traditions of hospitality protect you, but even a guest may not insult me with impunity.”
“Guests or not, we will have our answers,” said Murtagh.
Behind him, Thorn growled slightly and rose into a crouch. The Draumar nearest him scrambled away, scattering plates and dishes and food across the courtyard and spilling dark runnels of wine that spread like seeping blood. Thorn said: Would you deny a dragon, witch?
In an instant, Bachel’s rage turned into equally cold contempt. “You would not understand my answers. Neither of you can. Not yet. Not so long as you are outlanders.”
“Bah! Another mealymouthed nothing.” From the pouch on his belt, Murtagh brought forth Saerlith’s clasp and cast it down upon the dais between him and Bachel. The metal rang as it struck stone. “Whom do you serve, witch? Were you an instrument of the Forsworn? Galbatorix? Or were they your foes?”
Bachel’s expression darkened as she beheld the clasp. “You have been meddling where you should not, Outlander.”
“And still, you will not answer. Whom do you serve? What is it you want?”
“Whom do I serve?” The witch’s voice gained in power, deepening so that her words echoed off the walls and hills. “I serve a power greater than
you can imagine, Rider. I serve the Dreamer of Dreams, and I will not be questioned by the likes of you! Bow before my might and show your contrition!” Her final words arrived as a mighty blow, and the air shook loose dust and chips of stone that fell from the temple roof. A cloud of darkness gathered about her form as she lifted her arms and cried out with a wordless sound to the gloaming sky.
An attack Murtagh expected. But no attack came. Instead, he heard her cry roll the length of the valley, as a charge of cavalry rounding and repeating, and then the air went still, and the Draumar prostrated themselves with plaintive pleas. An instant later, the courtyard bucked beneath them, and all the valley seemed to heave and groan, and the very mountains shook. The granite peaks shed long slides of crusted snow, and consuming billows of white raced down the timbered flanks, and Bachel’s flock of crows screamed their murderous alarms within the Tower of Flint. Owls and eagles rose shrieking from the treetops, and animals of every sort yammered throughout the valley.
Thorn snarled as the ground moved. He sprang into the air, and the downblast from his wings only added to the confusion. The pulse of wind was so strong it forced Murtagh to squint until he could barely see.
Then the valley floor grew still again. The cries of the animals trailed off, with the last being the high-pitched yips of a fox.
Thorn drifted down and settled next to Murtagh. The dragon’s scales were raised, like the ruff on a frightened cat.
Moments later, dull thuds and thumps reached them from the mountaintops, as hammer blows of giants.
Bachel lowered her arms. She looked at him and Thorn with a distant expression, as if they were of little consequence. When she spoke, her voice was hollow and void of emotion. “Do not try my patience again, Murtagh son of Morzan. I will share the truth with you when I deem fit. Until such time, partake of my hospitality, and be thou not so impertinent.” Then she bent and took Saerlith’s clasp and closed her hand around it. Whereas before Murtagh had felt no magic, no force or impetus radiating from the witch,
now he did, and a flash of golden light rayed from between her fingers. She opened her hand to reveal the clasp crushed into a rough orb.
She dropped the orb into the brazier next to the dais, sat upon her litter, and again took up her cup. “Come, my son,” she said. “Sit, and let us forget this unpleasantness and enjoy the remainder of the evening.”
There were, Murtagh had learned, times when the wiser thing was to bide one’s time rather than to rush headlong into battle.
This, he decided, was one of them.
He relaxed his hold on Zar’roc’s hilt and warily lowered himself back into the chair where he’d been sitting. His arms were damp with sweat, and he could barely hear over the blood coursing in his ears.
Then Bachel clapped her hands and said, “Players, again.”
And the musicians resumed plucking at their lyres and singing in their hidden tongue, and throughout the courtyard, the Draumar picked themselves up and began to collect the scattered contents of the feast. Behind the dais, Alín stood cowed and hunched. Her hands trembled as she clenched the front of her white robe.
Thorn settled close behind Murtagh’s back, and he was well glad of the companionship. The dragon’s concern mirrored his own.
We should be gone from here, Thorn said. I agree.
Then why do we wait? A few seconds, and I can have us in the air.
And the witch can cast her magic as fast as she can think. A cultist offered Murtagh a selection of sweetmeats, and Murtagh feigned a smile and declined. Do you want to fight her right now?
…No.
A moment of grim understanding passed between them. The witch was more capable than either of them had expected, and Murtagh did not want to test their magic against hers, for fear they would fall far short. What she did shouldn’t be possible. No one is strong enough to move that much dirt and rock at once. Not even Shruikan.
If all the Eldunarí worked together, they could.
Maybe. But I’ve already looked with my mind. So have you. There are no Eldunarí here.
Thorn’s breath was hot against the nape of his neck. She could have used a store of energy hidden in gems.
Why waste it on such a demonstration, though? That much energy would be a treasure beyond reckoning. It would take years upon years to acquire. Murtagh resisted the urge to grip Zar’roc again. He wanted the sword in hand, blade drawn, and a shield upon his off arm. And yet he knew now none of it would protect him against Bachel’s power. No, she must have a source of energy that renews itself, and it can’t be that far away.
He looked up as Alín approached with a pitcher of wine and offered him a stone cup. He accepted, and she filled the cup, though she refused to meet his gaze. Then she bowed, said, “My Lord,” and departed.
Still unsettled, Murtagh took a larger drink than was his wont. The wine did little to soothe his nerves. He took another sip, and a thought occurred to him that caused him to lower the cup and stare at the coals in the nearby brazier while he worked out the implications. I think I know why Bachel keeps delaying. She wants us to sleep again. To dream. That’s what she’s waiting for. She said as much earlier, didn’t she? That’s why she asked us to stay through the night. She must believe that the dreams here will somehow convince us to join their cause. Same as with their prisoners.
A soft growl sounded behind him. Then we must not sleep.
We daren’t. Murtagh turned the cup between his fingers. If we lose ourselves, I shudder to think what would happen.
It would be good to have help if we are to fight Bachel.
The thought pained Murtagh, but he could see no alternative. Agreed. Once we are away from this place, I’ll send a message to Eragon and Saphira and to Arya and Fírnen.
A hint of fiery excitement colored Thorn’s mind. And then the newest generation of dragons and Riders can fly forth together.
Mmm. Before we leave Nal Gorgoth, though, I want to find out what’s in that cave.
Wariness was Thorn’s initial response. Why?
Because maybe Bachel’s source of power is down there. And if you find it—
Perhaps we can use it for ourselves. Or I can destroy it. In any case, knowing what it is would give us our best chance of defeating Bachel. We’ll wait for everyone to fall asleep, I’ll look in the cave, and then we’ll be off. By the time the witch wakes, we’ll be long departed.
Good, said Thorn.
Then Bachel proposed a toast, and Murtagh smiled and raised his cup in response. And all the while, his mind whirled with dark speculation.
