Night had fallen by the time the feast was finished. As seemed to be her habit, Bachel had eaten all of the dishes placed before her, and more besides. She had also drunk a small cask of sweet red wine
and now sat slumped upon her throne, swollen with satiation. Looking at her put Murtagh in mind of a great, overfed toad, self-satisfied with its gluttony.
At a signal from Grieve, the witch’s bearers lifted the litter and carried her into the dark recesses of the temple. Then the music ceased, and the cultists began to remove the tables and clean up from the feast, and Alín came to Murtagh and offered to lead him to his quarters.
After saying a temporary farewell to Thorn, he accepted.
Alín’s white robe seemed to almost glow as she led him through the unlit hallways of the temple.
“Has Bachel ever done something like that before?” Murtagh knew he did not need to specify what exactly.
A momentary hesitation—an almost imperceptible hitch—appeared in Alín’s stride. “Once, a long time ago, my Lord. A woman came to Nal Gorgoth. Uluthrek was her name, which was strange, as she was human. Bachel went to treat with her outside the village. No one heard what they said, but in the end, the Vale of Dreams shook as it shook today.”
“Bachel went to meet her?” Murtagh had difficulty imagining. “Yes, my Lord.”
“Do you know why?” “No, my Lord.”
When they arrived at the doors to his chambers, Murtagh said, “Alín, you are bound by oaths. That I understand. But I need to know: What is Bachel’s source of power? Tell me that much, at least.”
“She is the Speaker, my Lord. All who serve as Speaker have this power.” “Yes, but why? Where does it come from?”
A hint of exasperation livened Alín’s features. “That is a silly question. It comes from the Dreamer of Dreams, as does everything in life.” She bowed, then said, “Your rooms, my Lord,” and turned to leave.
“Wait!” Without thinking, Murtagh reached out to stop her. But Alín saw, and she shrank from his hand as if it were a red-hot iron, and her back struck a column built into the wall.
She let out an anguished cry and arched her chest, losing all composure. Murtagh yanked back his hand as he realized he’d nearly touched her.
Then his eyes narrowed as he noticed how gingerly Alín straightened her posture, face pale as fresh-fallen snow.
“She had you whipped,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He recognized the way Alín moved; he’d moved the same every time Galbatorix sent him to the post.
“I should not have spoken to you as I did earlier,” said Alín in a low voice.
“After the hunt?” Murtagh struggled to keep the anger out of his voice.
She nodded. “It was wrong to be so familiar. I was wrong.” She covered her face with her hands, and before Murtagh could reply, she rushed away, her soft leather shoes pattering along the stone hall.
 |
A thick cloud layer had formed over the mountains, rendering it a starless, moonless night. The darkness suited Murtagh; it would make sneaking around that much easier.
Still, it was hard to gauge the passage of time without a view of the sky, and he wasn’t sure how long to wait before leaving his quarters. He lit a small fire on the bedroom hearth and watched the flames consume the wood.
His mind refused to rest. Images of the black sun and looming dragon kept intruding, and he found himself planning and overplanning what might happen if he and Thorn had to fight Bachel and the rest of the Draumar.
Whatever happened, he wanted to protect the children. But it would be difficult, very difficult, given the witch’s abilities.
He fished out one of the gold crowns from the pouch on his belt and held it up before the fire. The metal gleamed with an almost mirror-smooth polish. There was a spell on it, he guessed, to preserve the coin from wear.
Nasuada’s sculpted profile remained as mysterious as ever. He brushed a thumb across her cheek and then stopped, feeling as if he’d taken an unwarranted liberty.
She was in danger—he was sure of it—and in no small part from Bachel. And he was determined to help protect her. “If only…,” he murmured, then stopped. Was there a more useless phrase than that? If only he hadn’t convinced Galbatorix to have Nasuada abducted. But if he hadn’t, the king would have killed her instead. As had happened so often in Murtagh’s life, he’d been forced to choose between a pair of evils, and though he tried to pick the lesser of the two, it was evil all the same.
Moody, he put away the coin and stared into the depths of the fire.
He wished he had thought to take the compendium from Thorn’s saddlebags and bring it with him. Reading would have been a welcome distraction. Instead, he turned to composing another poem.
The words came in fits and starts, with little grace, and the lines seemed broken and unpleasant to hear. Still, he kept trying to hammer them smooth, and in the end, he recited to himself:
Fragile is the flower that grows in darkness. Precious is the flower that blossoms at night. Their gardeners absent, blind, or uncaring.
But bent and broken petals still have beauty
All their own. Have care where you tread, lest you Trample the treasures scattered before your feet.
When the fire had burned for what seemed like an hour, Murtagh ground out the embers with the heel of his boot, went to the east-facing windows, and looked down at the men standing guard in the courtyard.
He swore. Instead of two, there were now seven warriors, all of them awake. And upon their mailed chests, he saw the familiar shape of the cultists’ enchanted bird-skull amulet. Bachel was sending him a message. She knew he’d snuck out of his room the previous night, and now she was taking precautions to keep him from doing so again. Seven men or two—the exact numbers didn’t matter. What mattered were the amulets, which might be able to block the spell he had used before.
There was only one way to find out. “Slytha,” he murmured.
Murtagh felt the slightest decrease of strength, but the men seemed entirely unaffected. “Blast it,” he said between clenched teeth.
Thorn eyed him from where he lay curled upon the flagstones. Do you wish me to remove the men?
The idea was tempting. Not yet. Let me think a moment.
A puff of grey smoke rose from Thorn’s nostrils. The warriors gave him nervous looks.
Murtagh retreated from the windows and paced the room while he considered options. It was his memory of the tangle box that gave him the first hint of a solution. The box had been designed to catch and hold spellcasters who were likewise protected against magic. It had done so through a combination of brute force and by altering the things around an unlucky captive, but not the captive themselves.
We’ll have to be quick, said Murtagh, moving back to the windows. They won’t escape, replied Thorn.
Murtagh flexed his hands, readying himself. Then he drew in his will and whispered, “Thrysta vindr.” The spell was simple enough, but it was the
intent that mattered.
At first the seven warriors didn’t notice that anything was amiss. Then one of them made a curious face and motioned in a panicked way toward the man opposite him. His companion frowned.
Murtagh was already moving. He leapt through the window, slid across the skirt-roof below—barely bothering to slow himself—and dropped to the courtyard.
His sudden appearance startled the men, caused them to seize their spears and train them on Murtagh. But when they attempted to shout and raise the alarm, no sound came from their mouths. For, as Murtagh knew, the spell had hardened the air about their faces so that they could neither inhale nor exhale.
The men’s eyes bulged with anger, outrage, and horror, and their faces turned purple as the blood congested beneath their skin. They were courageous, though. Murtagh would give them that. Five of the men charged him, while one turned to run into the main part of the village and one ran toward the entrance of the temple.
Thorn reached out with a forefoot and slapped the village-bound warrior to the ground. He did not rise.
Murtagh darted sideways and slammed his shoulder into the man running for the temple. The warrior stumbled and fell.
The five other men closed upon Murtagh. A clumsy jab of a spear glanced off his wards, and then he managed to retreat and put the ruined fountain between him and his pursuers.
The warriors tried to follow. But they were out of air. One after another, they collapsed, faces mottled and discolored, veins standing proud along their corded necks.
Then all was quiet, save for the kicking of their feet on the flagstones.
Murtagh hurried to Thorn and checked that the saddle straps were secure. He hadn’t removed the dragon’s tack the whole time they’d been in Nal Gorgoth, nor had Thorn asked him to. “There’s no helping it now,” said Murtagh in a low voice.
We should leave before anyone notices.
“First the cave.” Thorn snorted in disapproval, and Murtagh gave him a look. “It’s our only chance to find out what’s in there.”
The dragon growled deep in his chest. Fine, but I will be glad to be gone from this place.
“That makes two of us.”
The last of the warriors went limp and lifeless as Murtagh tightened his sword belt and fetched his cloak from the saddlebags. He debated donning his mail. The armor would have been a comfort—if only a small one—but even with a slight layer of muffling rust on the iron rings, he feared the shirt would make too much noise.
With Thorn a stealthy companion at his back—or as stealthy as a dragon his size could be—Murtagh slipped around the northeastern corner of the temple and headed across the swath of cropped turf to the grove of pinetrees. At the mouth of the grove, Murtagh paused to search with his thoughts. Finding no one ahead of them, he whispered, “Brisingr,” and set a faint red werelight burning in the air above.
The arcane fire lit the way as they proceeded along the path that wound among the dark-shadowed pines. Gloom and murk pressed in from all sides, as if the only piece of reality that existed was the small circle of earth the werelight painted red.
Thorn shivered with discomfort and kept his head and tail low to avoid the branches.
Beneath the pines, the air was heavy with the scent of herbs and mushrooms, as well as the ever-present stench of brimstone. Murtagh felt as if they were in a healer’s storehouse, and he wondered at the uses of the plants.
At the gaping cavern set within the base of the foothills, Murtagh saw a stain of fresh blood atop the altar to the left of the opening. In the werelight’s ruby radiance, the mark was black as ink, and the sight of it filled Murtagh with an apprehension of evil.
He loosened Zar’roc in its sheath and continued forward.
Twenty feet into the cavern, he heard Thorn’s footsteps falter behind him. He looked back to see the dragon pressed flat against the ground, wings
tight against his body, upper lip wrinkled in a fearful snarl.
Murtagh glanced at the arched ceiling of stone high above. “Even here?” he said in a quiet voice. He had thought there was enough room that Thorn would not feel threatened.
The dragon growled equally softly. I am sorry.
“Your wings don’t even touch the walls. You can still fight if you need, and if we have to flee, there’s space for you to turn ar—”
No. I…Thorn put a paw forward, and then trembled violently and pulled it back. He blinked, and a glistening film coated his eyes, bright in its reflection of the werelight. I want, but I cannot.
Murtagh returned to him and put his arms around Thorn’s neck. For a moment, they stood like that, and the heat from Thorn’s scales warmed Murtagh’s chest through his thin linen shirt.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “Stay here. I’ll be quick, and then we can be gone.”
Thorn hummed, appearing abashed. I wish I were not so faulted.
A rush of sorrow, compassion, and regret overwhelmed Murtagh. Opening his mind more fully, he said, My hurts are different from yours, but I am as faulted as you, if not more. You know.
I know.
No one is perfect. No one makes it through life whole and unscathed. So do not blame yourself for what is out of your control. We are here, and we have each other. That is what is important.
Another shiver ran Thorn’s length. I will try to follow you. If—
No, no. Stay. We’ll try somewhere else, when we don’t have to worry about being stabbed in the back. Stay, and I’ll be back directly.
You promise?
I promise. Wiol ono.
