“Are ye going to th’ festival?” asked one of the cultists, a red-bearded dwarf who leered at Murtagh through the bars of his cell. “ ’Course you are, Kingkiller. ’Course you are.”
The dwarf and the man who was his companion dragged Murtagh from his confinement. Murtagh put up no resistance. Until he could move and think of his own accord, he was at Bachel’s mercy…and she possessed precious little of that particular virtue.
Uvek remained squatting and watching as the cultists removed Murtagh, and Murtagh gave no look or sign of acknowledgment to the Urgal. Best the Draumar did not know they had even spoken.
As the cultists escorted Murtagh up the worn stairs and through dark corridors to the front of the temple, he noticed that the ever-present stench of brimstone was startlingly stronger. The miasma lay on the village, as heavy as a blanket, and it made his eyes water and the back of his throat sting. Every breath threatened to make him retch.
Bloody light broke across him as the dwarf and man guided him between pillars into the temple courtyard. Smoke filled the valley. Black smoke, rising from the vents in the ground, and it acted as a curtain upon the sky: a red and orange scrim that diminished the sun to a dull disk no brighter than an ember in a dying fire.
The courtyard was transformed. Bachel’s carved throne had been moved into the yard and placed upon the dais at one end. A long table stood at
right angles to the dais, and in the center of the yard, before the ruined fountain, the cultists had placed the great ash-colored altar. Murtagh could not fathom how they had moved such an enormous block of stone, unless Bachel had employed magic in the effort.
Banners hung upon the patterned pillars that lined the temple, and streamers of knotted fabric—similar to those the Urgals made—hung from the eaves of the surrounding buildings.
At the table sat the remaining guests. Lyreth had a chalice in one hand, while his other hand wandered across the back of a village woman seated on his lap.
All the villagers were gathered around the courtyard, packed into the streets as so many pickled bergenhed in casks. They were chanting and moaning and beating drums and ringing bells and striking brass cymbals that jarred the smoke with their brazen crashing. Their clothes were different: a complete change of raiment such as Murtagh had never known commoners to possess. Instead of their usual robes, they wore sleeved jerkins cut and sewn out of dish-sized scales of thick boiled leather dyed dark brown. The effect was between that of a closed pinecone and the belly of a dragon. The scale pattern continued along their arms and trousers, also of leather. On their faces, the Draumar wore molded half masks that resembled Bachel’s, though theirs possessed none of that mask’s transformative power. Even the children were garbed as such, furtive figures amid the forest of legs.
Bachel herself sat upon the hide-strewn throne, her hair raised in an edifice of ragged tufts, her lids and eyes blackened with soot, her lips red as blood, and the hated claws of onyx upon her fingers.
A flock of restless crows roosted on the eaves behind the dais, cawing and cackling in response to the cacophony the villagers produced. They formed a dark crown above Bachel’s head: a shadowed symbol of her supreme authority.
To the left of the witch stood Grieve, and for once the dour man had an almost pleasant expression. The festival seemed to suit him.
But of everything Murtagh saw, it was Thorn he had eyes for most. The dragon was chained next to the dais, wings pinned by cabled ropes, a muzzle
of wrought iron locked about his long jaws. Murtagh could feel the dragon’s fetters as if they were tight against his own body, and their touch seemed to burn with icy cold.
Soon, Murtagh said to Thorn, and the word was a promise, an oath, an apology. But it was like pushing his thoughts through a wall of wool. Still, the dragon’s eyelids flickered, as if he understood. Murtagh hoped he did.
The two cultists brought him before Bachel, and she inspected him as one might inspect a prize horse. “You look as though the night treated you badly, Kingkiller.” She gestured with one elegant hand to her right, and he obediently took his place.
His gaze kept drifting back to Thorn. The dragon was still suffering the effects of the drug vorgethan; Alín could not bring him clean food or water without arousing suspicion. Murtagh could feel a low, dull sense of misery emanating from the dragon. Misery. He hated the word….
Once again, Murtagh attempted to access the power in the yellow
diamond. Almost. But almost was never enough.
Then Bachel stood and clapped her hands over her head, and after the crowd quieted, she proclaimed, “Let the recitation begin!”
A line formed outside the courtyard, and one by one the cultists presented themselves to Bachel and told her of the visions they’d had that night. The dreams were far more varied than usual: fantastic images and narratives that Murtagh would have hardly credited as true had he not experienced something similar himself. Yet there were commonalities of theme among the visions, promises of bloodshed and vengeance claimed, premonitions of a world razed and rebuilt—a world where every living creature worshipped Azlagûr the Devourer, or else died.
The recitation took hours. Every member of the village came before Bachel and had their say. At the table in front of the throne, Lyreth and the other guests grew restless, and they often stood and left for a time, only to return later and resume eating.
Once Lyreth came to Murtagh and stood before him while gnawing on a leg of lamb. The young nobleman was fever-eyed and disheveled, and his movements had a sharp, birdlike quality, as if he were overly excited. “Did
you enjoy those dreams last night, Murtagh? Eh?” And he poked Murtagh in the chest with the end of the leg. The meat left a grease stain on his woolen jerkin. Lyreth took another bite, his eyes wandering across the courtyard. “It was a singular experience. That’s why I wanted to stay, to see if what Bachel said is true. I dreamt of my father and…” A strange smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and he looked back at Murtagh. “Enough of that. How do you like this, Murtagh? Here you are, a faithful servant to the throne again. Even if you sit upon the throne in Urû’baen, yours is ever to be the slave and not the master. You and your dragon both.” He laughed in a most unpleasant way. “How do you like seeing the foundations of the future, Murtagh? These Draumar may be inauspicious material from which to alter the course of history, but from small seeds may tall trees grow.” He poked Murtagh in the chest again and then, with a smirk, returned to his seat.
For his part, Murtagh stood. He stood and he kept trying to force his mind to access the energy in the yellow diamond. Surely the vorgethan couldn’t still be in his body!
The dull disk of the sun arced across the sky. The smoke never lessened, and no breath of wind arose to give them relief. Beneath the stifling blanket of haze, it grew increasingly warm—as if the earth itself were heated—and the whole village seemed to labor beneath an obsessive presence. Murtagh could not shake the feeling he’d had in his dream, of cowering on the blasted plain before the rising abomination, far in the distance….
The ceremonies went on. Endless rites, obscure and meaningless to Murtagh, but clearly of deep value to the cultists. Bachel spoke at times, in the same manner she often did, of the riches and rewards destined to those who followed their faith. The discordant music continued, and between that and the smoke, a pounding headache formed at the base of Murtagh’s skull. His eyeballs throbbed with every beat of a drum or crash of a cymbal.
Then the observances came to an end, and the villagers fell to feasting. That, at least, Murtagh was familiar with. Great servings of food were brought forth from the temple kitchens and from dwellings throughout Nal Gorgoth. Boar meat and venison and mushrooms prepared in a dizzying variety of dishes. Wine too, and mead, and bergenhed, and aspic, and loaves
of fresh-baked bread, and more besides. Pies, savory and sweet. Deep dishes of creamy soup, wedges of hard and soft cheeses, berry tarts. All manner of sumptuous food.
Bachel’s servants filled her dented brass goblet with wine, and with his thoughts now clearer, Murtagh recognized the goblet as that which he had found in the tower of Ristvak’baen. His neck stiffened, and he clenched his jaw. The witch continued to pile presumption upon presumption.
Throughout the evening, Murtagh ate when ordered to. He knew it would help keep up his strength, but he had no stomach for food.
He saw Alín on occasion, moving about the courtyard, tending to the guests, helping with the serving, rushing to obey Bachel’s orders. As with the other Draumar, she wore a scaled outfit, and it gave the acolyte a darker, more serious appearance than Murtagh was used to.
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The feasting continued for hours. The flock of crows remained for the duration, white eyes fixed on the bounty laid out before them. Bachel appeared to have no interest in feeding the birds, but they did not defy her and take flight. As she ordered, so they obeyed.
Lyreth and his companions consumed cup after cup of wine. They seemed to view the entire festival as a lighthearted affair, no different from the themed parties so common among the nobles of Galbatorix’s court. Murtagh knew better, but he would not have warned them even if he could. Some wisdom, he thought, was best acquired through experience.
As the orange smoke-darkened disk of the sun approached the peaks of the western mountains—which were visible only as dusky silhouettes beneath the sinking orb—the villagers cleared the food from the courtyard and lit the braziers.
Then Bachel did say, “Bring in the offerings!”
A parade of gifts followed. Wooden carvings, small and large, plain and painted, simple and complicated. It seemed as if the villagers had spent the entire year chiseling away at a piece of hardwood in their spare time. The
sculptures would have horrified most any artist in Alagaësia, no matter their race, for they were the shape of dreams: distorted, angular, structured according to flawed, uncomfortable logic. In them, Murtagh recognized fragments of his own brimstone-born nightmares.
Each sculpture, Bachel accepted with grace and thanks. She made no distinction in quality; simply creating a piece seemed sufficient to satisfy the traditions of the Draumar.
When the last villager had presented the last carving, Bachel’s warriors gathered the sculptures into a pile behind the basalt altar set before the ruined fountain.
Bachel stood and cried out, “For another sevenmonth, Azlagûr has gifted us with His dreams of prophecy. Now, during the time of black smoke, we repay His generosity with these gifts. With these sculptures born of dream. Azlagûr is well pleased with your efforts, O Draumar! You have proved your devotion, and we make now this burnt offering that Azlagûr may continue to look upon us with favor. In return, we serve Azlagûr with our lives, and may destruction strike us and all we care for if we break this sacred covenant.”
She lifted her pale arm and pointed at the mound of carvings. She spoke no word, but her body grew tense as a bowstring drawn taut, and then the tension released, and a bolt of liquid fire leaped from her hand and flew to the sculptures.
Yellow flames engulfed the carvings. In an instant, a year’s worth of work was lost to fire, charred and seared and soon to be reduced to ashes. But the villagers were not dismayed. To the contrary, they cheered the eruption, and Bachel seemed gratified by the display.
Then once again she clapped her hands. “Bring forth the initiates!”
Murtagh expected to see a line of younger villagers, ready to assume the responsibilities of their elders. Instead, Bachel’s warriors ushered into the courtyard the same sorry-looking prisoners they’d herded into Nal Gorgoth before…before the Breath of Azlagûr had fogged his brain and sapped his will.
Among the prisoners was Uvek. The Urgal’s wrists and ankles were shackled, his lips pulled back to show his fangs. The sight sent a spike of alarm through Murtagh. As far as he knew, the cultists hadn’t taken Uvek from his cell in all the time since Murtagh and Thorn had arrived at the village. That they had done so now presaged nothing good.
The prisoners were herded into a block before the dais. The mound of burning statues backlit them in a writhing thicket of flame and sent their famished shadows stretching off to the north.
Bachel looked the prisoners over with exaggerated care. Then she took a small crystal vial from within the sleeve of her dress, descended from the dais, unstoppered the vial, and blew the swirling contents into the faces of the flinching prisoners. The vapor clung to their heads, and Murtagh saw it pour into their mouths and noses as they inevitably inhaled.
He instinctively held his own breath, hoping that no scrap of vapor would be blown his way.
With a satisfied look, Bachel returned to the throne. Lifting her husky voice, she said, “Dream now, unbelievers, as do all who live here in Nal Gorgoth. Those of you who are prepared to swear loyalty to Azlagûr the Devourer, and who are prepared to join us as faithful members of the Draumar…step forward now.”
The prisoners shuffled and shifted and looked at each other with dazed expressions. Then a full three-quarters moved forward in a single staggered group. Uvek was not one of them. He remained standing at the back, teeth bared, arms pressed outward against his shackles, his fingers locked in claws.
The corners of Bachel’s lips curved. “Excellent. I applaud your wisdom. You shall be inducted into the mysteries of our order, and the veil of common life shall be torn from your eyes by the truth we share. Come. Swear to me and to Azlagûr.”
One by one, the prisoners who had stepped forward knelt before Bachel and swore their fealty. Though they did not use the ancient language, the stifling sense of presence increased, and the hairs on Murtagh’s arms and neck stood on end, and he felt a thrum in the air, as of a great power passing through Bachel into her new followers.
An eerie light brightened the eyes of the men and women as they finished their oaths. With each, Grieve removed their shackles, and they went to stand with the rest of the assembled cultists, an expression of wonderment and—Murtagh thought—fear upon their faces.
“What of these recalcitrant stragglers?” Lyreth asked, his voice ringing out over the courtyard. He gestured toward Uvek and the other prisoners who had refused to budge.
“A sacrifice to Azlagûr,” said Bachel. “In which you are included as well, Uvek Windtalker! Your time is at an end, and I shall no longer waste my energies upon you. Not now that I have a Rider to do my bidding.”
She rose and put a hand on Murtagh’s shoulder and tightened her grip. Even through his clothes, the tips of her sharpened onyx claws hurt. “Come, Kingkiller. Join me in presenting this sacred offering to Azlagûr. Today we shall appease our dread master, you and I together. You shall watch me wield the dagger I had of Saerlith, and then you shall wield it in turn, and the blood will flow and flow and the earth will turn black with it even as it shall when Azlagûr rises from His repose and wreaks His vengeance upon the land.” Her eyes were burning with excitement. “Come. Now.”
Murtagh’s heart began to hammer as the witch took his hand and led him to the altar. The cultists and prisoners parted before them; the sight reminded him of the weddings that had taken place at court, with Galbatorix presiding, a dark and foreboding figure waiting at the head of the great presence chamber to deliver his royal benediction.
Across the courtyard, Thorn stirred in his shackles, a futile protest of movement. Without looking at him, Bachel said, “Stay,” and he subsided, but his eyes sparked with restrained fire.
No, thought Murtagh when he saw the stained surface of the altar. He couldn’t do this, couldn’t be forced to do this. He wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t—
Bachel clapped her hands, and her warriors dragged to her the first of the remaining prisoners. The man was a ruddy-faced commoner garbed in a rough, homespun smock. He had a short, untrimmed beard that made his chin and upper lip look as if they had been rubbed with dirt. His jaw was
set, and his brow furrowed, but he was obviously frightened, and the Breath of Azlagûr still held him in its power and seemed to have left him with no will to fight or flee.
“Hold him down and bare his breast,” said Bachel, her voice loud and clear.
The warriors hauled the prisoner onto the altar and pinned him down. One of them used a knife to cut open the smock to expose the man’s chest, and the man let out a small groan.
Murtagh gripped the edge of his cloak with his right hand and began to pull the fabric up with his fingers, feeling for the diamond hidden within the hem.
The cultists started to chant, and the combined power of their voices was like a great drum beating through the air and ground. The sound was seductive, transfixing, overwhelming; it made Murtagh want to join the rhythmic recitation, to lose himself in the cry of the crowd and to become one with the group.
Moving in time with the chant, Bachel drew the black-bladed dagger from the sheath on her girdle and raised the weapon above her head. From where Murtagh stood, the knife was outlined against the sinking disk of the sun, as sharp as a serpent’s poisonous tooth.
His finger touched the diamond in the hem. Bachel’s dagger descended, fast as a falling arrow.
The prisoner let out a low grunt as the blade pierced his heart, and his whole body went rigid. He thrashed, but the warriors held him in place.
Blood sprayed skyward as Bachel withdrew the dagger. Then she moved lower, and as the man gurgled and gasped his last breath, she began to cut open his belly.
Murtagh watched. He had no choice. Gore in and of itself did not bother him. He had butchered his share of animals while hunting, and he had seen—and carried out—more than his share of bloody deeds on the battlefield. But to watch a man killed so coldly, without a chance to defend himself, was horrific. It gave him visions of Goreth of Teirm lying before him in the packed-sand arena….
The diamond was hard between his fingers as he seized it with crushing strength through the hem.
He drove his mind into the gem, trying once more to free the energy contained within. The swirling store of power trembled beneath his mental grasp, an electric whirlpool that sent tiny shocks through his consciousness. He strained with all his might, but the barrier in his mind continued to hold. Bachel spread out the prisoner’s bloody intestines across the ashen altar, and she made a show of studying them. Then she raised her stained hands and cried, “Azlagûr has blessed us!” The cultists roared with approval. “The time of the Draumar is at hand! Hark! I see our people stepping forth from the shadows and marching across the land! I see the sons and daughters of Azlagûr’s betrayers brought to heel! I see the Dragon Thorn and the Rider Murtagh flying at our fore! Yea, and even shall they cast down the false hero Eragon, and by their claw and tooth and blade shall they usher in the end of this age. All shall bow before Azlagûr’s might, and His reign shall take hold, and so shall we endure, yea even unto the end of time. As it is dreamt, so it
shall be!”
“As it is dreamt, so it shall be!” the villagers chanted.
Then Bachel stepped back from the altar and gestured at the corpse of the man. “Take him to the deep and deposit his body in the Well of Dreams, that Azlagûr may know we have served Him.”
Two of the warriors dragged the corpse away, leaving black streaks across the altar.
With a wicked smile, Bachel advanced on Murtagh. He froze, and his heart jumped as she took his right hand in hers. She lifted his hand, and the diamond slipped from between his fingers, and the cloak fell straight. Her smile deepened as she pressed her black-bladed dagger into his palm and wrapped his fingers about the hilt. The blood on her skin stained his own.
“Now it is your turn to prove yourself a faithful servant to Azlagûr the Devourer,” she said, and a tone of unhealthy delight colored her voice. “Bring another!”
The warriors grabbed the next prisoner—a short, brown-haired woman
—and carried her to the altar. Despite the stultifying effects of the Breath,
she was clearly terrified. Her nostrils flared, and her lungs rasped like overworked bellows, and a fine sheen of sweat coated her ashen skin.
Even though Murtagh wasn’t touching the diamond, he should have been able to draw the energy from it. Under normal circumstances he could have. He felt sure that if he just tried hard enough…but even in that moment, with his heart pounding and the smell of blood and death filling his nostrils, he could not bring his full strength to bear.
One of the warriors cut open the front of the woman’s tunic. Bachel savored the sight before turning back to Murtagh. “Now, Kingkiller. You know what is to be done. Now, by my word, my will, my command, sacrifice this unbeliever to Azlagûr the Devourer! Do this, and you shall be favored above all others.”
A scrap of black smoke blew into Murtagh’s face as he inhaled, and the smoke choked him and unbalanced his thoughts. The world distorted, and the festival and Nal Gorgoth itself seemed to thin and waver.
His hand trembled around the hilt of the dagger.
For the slightest moment, he imagined accepting. No longer would he and Thorn be outcasts. They would belong to the Draumar, and the Draumar would belong to them, and wherever they went, whatever they did, they would be able to rely upon the Draumar for help, even as the cultists might rely upon them. He would lead the Draumar to victory against the rest of Alagaësia. He knew how. Bachel was not wrong in that. And in victory, he and Thorn might at last be truly safe.
The prospect was enormously tempting.
Yet he could not bring himself to take the first step along that path. The costs were too high. He and Thorn would still be Bachel’s thralls, servants to her grim cause, and there was no certainty they could ever overcome her. Besides, to pursue an absence of danger beyond all other considerations was its own form of madness. And as much as he yearned to belong, the question of to whom mattered. The Draumar, he deemed, were unworthy of his loyalty. He had rejected what Galbatorix offered—and through that rejection won his freedom. Likewise, he now rejected Bachel.
“Kill her, Kingkiller!” Bachel insisted. The leaping flames of the bonfire gilded her hollow cheeks with liquid gold. The chanting of the cultists surged in response to her words, rising to a demented frenzy.
Murtagh lifted the knife. He had to. Bachel’s words left him no choice. But in his mind, he continued to rebel. Time was nearly gone, and yet he still failed to breach the barrier and access the energy in the diamond.
He couldn’t do it alone.
The thought struck him with clarifying force. In an instant, he diverted his mental energies to Thorn—and then to Uvek—and threw himself against the unnatural haze that separated their minds and pierced it through the strength of his will. I need your help! he said.
The knife began to descend.
Thorn blinked, and Uvek snarled, and yet Murtagh felt nothing from them. Despair sank its teeth into him. They had lost, and Bachel had triumphed. If only—
New strength poured into him. Thorn’s and Uvek’s both. Their contribution was limited—neither was able to fully overcome the restrictions of the Breath or the vorgethan—but it was more than he had on his own.
With them backing him, Murtagh again drove his mind into the diamond. It took every scrap of their combined might, but he was able, just barely, to prize open the bottled store of energy.
The torrent of potential rushed into him.
He directed it into the blackstone charm. At the same instant, he mouthed the Urgal word that Uvek had taught him: “Shûkva.” Heal. It felt strange to work magic without the ancient language, but the word served its purpose nonetheless, and the charm triggered.
A sense of lightness passed through Murtagh, and a cloud seemed to lift from his mind as his sight and hearing sharpened and his thoughts grew swift as a high-spirited stallion. It occurred to him that he was lucky his remaining wards hadn’t blocked the effects of the charm.
He stopped the downward motion of his arm. The tip of the black-bladed dagger hung a hair’s breadth from the center of the woman’s chest.
Bachel looked at him, and her angled eyes began to narrow. “Do not hesitate, Kingkiller. Finish the deed!”
Murtagh knew the odds were against him. His wards that protected him from physical harm were exhausted. All he had was the force of his mind and the strength of his body, and Bachel and the entirety of the Draumar were arrayed before him—and they were well protected by amulets and enchantments.
His lips curled. A good fight, then.
The first flash of alarm crossed Bachel’s face, but before she could act— “Vindr!” Murtagh shouted, and stabbed the dagger toward the witch’s
heart.
