Chapter 8

[Read authors note]

Eragon was soon knocking on Jeod's door. "Is Neal back?" he asked the butler.

"Yes sir. I believe he's in the study right now."

"Thank you," said Eragon. He strode to the room and walked inside. Brom was sitting before the fire, smoking. Brom saw him as he passed through the doorway, examining him up and down. "Ah, Eragon, it's good to see your fine. Earlier we felt quite a dreadful presence not too long ago and worried something might've happened to you. Given a few more minutes me and Jeod would've went searching."

Eragon shook his head. "I'm fine, I just came from that strange herbalist shop. I was talking with miss Angela who rambled on about herbs and a few more of her strange experiments when we felt it too. But anyway how did it go? He asked.

"Bloody awful!" growled Brom around his pipe.

"So you talked to Brand?"

"Not that it did any good. This administrator of trade is the worst sort of bureaucrat. He abides by every rule, delights in making his own whenever it can inconvenience someone, and at the same time believes that he's doing good."

"Then he won't let us see the records?" asked Eragon.

"No," snapped Brom, exasperated. "Nothing I could say would sway him. He even refused bribes! Substantial ones, too. I didn't think I would ever meet a noble who wasn't corrupt. Now that I have, I find that I prefer them when they're greedy bastards." He puffed furiously on his pipe and mumbled a steady stream of curses.

When he seemed to have calmed, Eragon asked tentatively, "So, what now?"

"I'm going to take the next week and teach you how to read."

"And after that?"

A smile split Brom's face. "After that, we're going to give Brand a nasty surprise." Eragon thought about questioning him for details but he felt Brom would refuse to say more.

Dinner was held in a sumptuous dining room. Jeod sat at one end of the table, a hard-eyed Helen at the other. Brom and Eragon were seated between them, which Eragon felt was a strange place to be. Empty chairs were on either side of him, but he didn't mind the space. It helped to protect him from the glares of their hostess. The food was served quietly, and Jeod and Helen wordlessly began eating. Eragon could only shake his head internally, feeling the simmering resentment pouring from Helen. But he did nothing as it wasn't his problem, it was Jeod's.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The next day Brom began teaching Eragon the runes of the language that was used by the populace in Alagaësia. Which he found was literally just a variant of English, one of the languages that he'd learned already. With that it was in a matter of three days since since he started that learning he'd officially mastered the language.

Other than that his routine consisted of waking up in the morning for breakfast, went to study or just read in the study, and spare with Brom behinds Jeod's house, before they had dinner. Having a small crowd of children and servants watch as they danced around each other, swinging their swords about as they went.

He would also visit Saphira in the evening, discussing with her his progress and his plans for the future. With her adding in her piece as they went back and forth in their talks.

-x-x-x-x-x-

As each day passed, more grim new poured into Teirm. Arriving merchants told of horrific attacks along the coast. There were reports of powerful people disappearing from their houses in the middle of the night and their mangled corpses being isdiscovered in the morning. Eragon often saw Brom and Jeod discussing the events in an undertone, obviously trying to hide their conversation from him as they had many other times, never knowing that as long as their were in the range of his haki, it was a completely useless endeavor.

Soon the days passed and almost instantly a week had gone by. At this point Eragon was reading faster than Jeod and Brom, making him be a lot more useful in whatever plan Brom had.

It was afternoon when Brom summoned both Jeod and Eragon to the study. Brom gestured at Eragon. "Now that you can help us, I think it's time to move ahead."

"What do you have in mind?" asked Eragon.

A fierce smile danced on Brom's face. Jeod groaned. "I know that look; it's what got us into trouble in the first place."

"A slight exaggeration," said Brom, "but not unwarranted. Very well, this is what we'll do..."

'We leave tonight or tomorrow', Eragon told Saphira from within his room.

{This is unexpected. Will you be safe during this venture?}

Eragon shrugged. 'I don't know. We may end up fleeing Teirm with soldiers on our heels. He felt her worry and tried to reassure her. It'll be all right. Brom and I can use magic, and we're good fighters.'

He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. As sleep overcame him, he felt a wave of confusion. He felt that strange conscious brush against his mind again. It again began relaying him imagines again.

He saw a young woman, bent over in sorrow, chained in a cold, hard cell. A beam of moonlight shone through a barred window set high in the wall and fell on her face. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Eragon got up in the morning feeling more confused as to who the conscious was, who was in the images, and what exactly it wanted with him.

Eragon woke from his nap to a golden sunset. Red and orange beams of light streamed into the room and fell across the bed. They warmed his back pleasantly, making him reluctant to

move. He dozed, but the sunlight crept off him, and he grew cold. The sun sank below the horizon, lighting the sea and sky with color. 'Almost time,' he quietly thought to himself.

He sheathed Zar'roc at his waist, making sure his sheath was snuggly against his hip. He left the bow in his room as it was more of a prop at this point, as he didn't even use it anymore.

He waited patiently in his room until the light faded. Then he entered the hallway and shrugged so the quiver settled comfortably across his back. Brom joined him, carrying his sword and staff. Jeod, dressed in a black doublet and hose, was waiting for them outside. From his waist swung an elegant rapier and a leather pouch. Brom eyed the rapier and observed, "That toad sticker is too thin for any real fighting. What will you do if someone comes after you with a broadsword or a flamberge?"

"Be realistic," said Jeod. "None of the guards has a flamberge. Besides, this toad sticker is faster than a broadsword."

Brom shrugged. "It's your neck."

They walked casually along the street, avoiding watchmen and soldiers. Eragon followed their lead and casually walk. As they passed Angela's shop, he could see Solembum on the room looking at the pass. Eragon, who found this strange didn't turn to look at the werecat though, opting to let the werecat think it avoided detection, while in actually never avoiding detection.

Brom led them along Teirm's outer wall. By the time they reached the castle, the sky was black. The sealed walls of the fortress loomed over Eragon and his companions. Jeod silently took the lead and strode up to the gates, trying to look at ease. He pounded on the gate and waited.

A small grille slid open and a surly guard peered out. "Ya?" grunted shortly. Eragon could smell rum on his breath. "We need to get in," said Jeod.

The guard peered at Jeod closer. "Wha' for?"

"The boy here left something very valuable in my office. We have to retrieve it immediately." Eragon hung his head, shamefaced.

The guard frowned, clearly impatient to get back to his bottle. "Ah, whatever," he said, swinging his arm. "Jus' make sure 'n give'im a good beating f'r me."

"I'll do that," assured Jeod as the guard unbolted a small door set into the gate. They entered the keep, then Brom handed the guard a few coins. "Thank'ee," mumbled the man, tottering away. Jeod quickly let them into the main part of the castle. They hurried toward their destination, listening carefully for any soldiers on patrol.

At the records room, Brom tried the door. It was locked. He put his hand against the door and muttered a word that Eragon did not recognize. It swung open with a faint click. Brom grabbed a torch from the wall, and they darted inside, closing the door quietly.

The squat room was filled with wooden racks piled high with scrolls. A barred window was set in the far wall. Jeod threaded his way between the racks, running his eyes over the scrolls. He halted at the back of the room." Over here," he said. "These are the shipping records for the past five years. You can tell the date by the wax seals on the corner."

"So what do we do now?" asked Eragon.

"Start at the top and work down," said Jeod. "Some scrolls only deal with taxes. You can ignore those. Look for anything that mention Seithr oil." He took a length of parchment from his pouch and stretched it out on the floor, then set a bottle of ink and a quill pen next to it. "So we can keep track of whatever we find," he explained.

Brom scooped an armful of scrolls from the top of the rack and piled them on the floor. He sat and unrolled the first one. Eragon joined him, still watching the entrance where the drunken guard was posted, along with still keeping track of Solembum. Who he'd notice had seemingly transformed into a small boy with a shaggy head of hair, jagged teeth, and slanted eyes to top it off.

'I guess it makes sense that a werecat would have a human transformation like a werewolf does.' He thought to himself, focusing more on the task in front of him.

The tedious work was simple for him, as the cramped script on the scrolls was different from the printing Brom had taught him. By looking only for the names of ships that sailed in the northern areas, they winnowed out many of the scrolls. Even so, they moved down the rack slowly, recording each shipment of Seithr oil as they located it. It was quiet outside the room, except for the occasional watchman.

Suddenly, without looking up Eragon's cast his thoughts towards the strange feral looking child crouched on the windowsill. 'What can I help you with Solembum?' He said, while continuing his work. 'Ah, give me a moment.'

He then turned to the other two. "The guard you bribed just finished his shift and informed the people replacing him that we're here. They're sent soldiers to search for us."

"How do you know," Brom said sharply.

"A spell. Look I just finished and it looks like you both are nearly done to. I saw we go to Jeod's office so when they do inevitably find use they can't really put any suspicion on us. Oh and Brom, your going to have to lock the door on the way out."

With that statement they flew into a flurry as they began putting this back up in the order it was found.

{I was about to inform you about the guards but it seems you knew already.}

'Then thank you for the thoughts of kindness. And was that all?'

{Your quite interesting aren't you? But yes that was all, till me meet next time Eragon.}

Eragon watched him leap from the windowsill with an unnatural nimbleness, leaving the cold hard building behind. He then gave his support to the others in the room, making the process end swiftly.

They exited the room, with Brom speaking a word of power to lock the door back. And by the time the soldiers found them, the three were in the middle of leaving Jeod's office. Seeing this the soldiers weren't too suspicious of them as they had already checked the records room and saw it was locked. The event ended with the soldiers escorting them to the entrance bidding them a good night.

-x-x-x-x-x-

"That went well," commented Eragon. They had it made back to Jeod's house and were in the study at the moment.

"Yes, but now we have to figure out if it was worth the trouble," said Brom. Jeod took a map of Alagaèsia from the shelves and unrolled it on the desk.

[Map Image Here]

On the left side of the map, the ocean extended to the unknown west. Along the coast stretched the Spine, an immense length of mountains. The Hadarac Desert filled the center of the map—the east end was blank. Somewhere in that void hid the Varden. To the south was Surda, a small country that had seceded from the Empire after the Riders' fall. Eragon had been told that Surda secretly supported the Varden.

Near Surda's eastern border was a mountain range labeled Beor mountains. Eragon had heard of them in many stories—they were supposed to be ten times the height of the Spine. The map was empty to the east of the Beors.

Five islands rested off the coast of Surda: Nía, Parlim, Uden, Illium, and Beirland. Nía was no more than an outcropping of rock, but Beirland, the largest, had a small town. Farther up, near Teirm, was a jagged island called Sharktooth. And high to the north was one more island, immense and shaped like a knobby hand. Eragon knew its name without even looking: Vroengard, the ancestral home of the Riders once a place of glory, but now a looted, empty

shell haunted by strange beasts. In the center of Vroengard was the abandoned city of Doru Araeba.

Carvahall was a small dot at the top of Palancar Valley. Level with it, but across the plains, sprawled the forest Du Weldenvarden. Like the Beor Mountains, its eastern end was unmapped. Parts of Du Weldenvarden's western edge had been settled, but its heart lay mysterious and unexplored. The forest was wilder than the Spine; the few who braved its depths often came back raving mad, or not at all.

Eragon shivered as he saw Urû'baen in the center of the Empire. King Galbatorix ruled from there with his black dragon, Shruikan, by his side. Eragon put his finger on Urû'baen. "The Ra'zac are sure to have a hiding place here."

"You had better hope that that isn't their only sanctuary," said Brom flatly. "Otherwise you'll never get near." He pushed the rustling map flat with his wrinkled hands.

Jeod took the parchment out of his pouch and said, "From what I saw in the records, there have been shipments of Seithr oil to every major city in the Empire over the past five years. As far as I can tell, all of them might have been ordered by wealthy jewelers. I'm not sure how we can narrow down the list without more information."

Brom swept a hand over the map. "I think we can eliminate some cities. The Ra'zac have to travel wherever the king wants, and I'm sure he keeps them busy. If they're expected to go anywhere at anytime, the only reasonable place for them to stay is at a cross-roads where they can reach every part of the country fairly easily." He was excited now and paced the room. "This crossroads has to be large enough so the Ra'zac will be inconspicuous. It also has to have enough trade so any unusual requests—special food for their

mounts, for example—will go unnoticed."

"That makes sense," said Jeod, nodding. "Under those conditions, we can ignore most of the cities in the north. The only big ones are Teirm, Gil'ead, and Ceunon. I know they're not in Teirm, and I doubt that the oil has been shipped farther up the coast to Narda—it's too small. Ceunon is too isolated . . . only Gil'ead remains."

"The Ra'zac might be there," conceded Brom. "It would have a certain irony.

"It would at that," Jeod acknowledged softly.

"What about southern cities?" asked Eragon.

"Well," said Jeod.

"There's obviously Urû'baen, but that's an unlikely destination. If someone were to die from Seithr oil in Galbatorix's court, it would be all too easy for an earl or some other lord to discover that the Empire had been buying large amounts of it. That still leaves many others, any one of which could be the one we want."

"Yes," said Eragon, "but the oil wasn't sent to all of them. The parchment only lists Kuasta, Dras-Leona, Aroughs, and Belatona. Kuasta wouldn't work for the Ra'zac; it's on the coast and surrounded by mountains. Aroughs is isolated like Ceunon, though it is a center of trade. That leaves Belatona and Dras-Leona, which are rather close together. Of the two, I think

Dras-Leona is the likelier. It's larger and better situated."

"And that's where nearly all the goods of the Empire pass through at one time or another, including Teirm's," said Jeod. "It would be a good place for the Ra'zac to hide."

"So... Dras-Leona," said Brom as he sat down and lit his pipe.

"What do the records show?"

Jeod looked at the parchment. "Here it is. At the beginning of the year, three shipments of Seithr oil were sent to Dras-Leona. Each shipment was only two weeks apart, and the records say they were all transported by the same merchant. The same thing happened last year and the year before that. I doubt any one jeweler, or even a group of them, has the money for so much oil."

"What about Gil'ead?" asked Brom, raising an eyebrow.

"It doesn't have the same access to the rest of the Empire. And," Jeod tapped the parchment, "they've only received the oil twice in recent years." He thought for a moment, then said, "Besides, I think we forgot something—Helgrind."

Brom nodded. "Ah yes, the Dark Gates. It's been many years since I've thought of it. You're right, that would make Dras-Leona perfect for the Ra'zac. I guess it's decided, then; that's where we'll go."

The parchment crackled as Jeod slowly rolled up the map. He handed it to Brom and said, "You'll need this, I'm afraid. Your expeditions often take you into obscure regions." Nodding, Brom accepted the map. Jeod clapped him on the shoulder. "It doesn't feel right that you will leave without me. My heart expects to go along, but the rest of me reminds me of my age and responsibilities."

"I know," said Brom. "But you have a life in Teirm. It is time for the next generation to take up the standard. You've done your part; be happy."

"What of you?" asked Jeod." Does the road ever end for you?"

A hollow laugh escaped Brom's lips. "I see it coming, but not for a while." He extinguished his pipe, and they left for their rooms, exhausted. Before he fell asleep, Eragon contacted Saphira to relate the night's adventures.

-x-x-x-x-x-

In the morning Eragon and Brom retrieved their saddlebags while Helen watched from the doorway. With grave looks, the two men clasped hands. "I'll miss you, old man," said Jeod.

"And you I," said Brom thickly. He bowed his white head and then turned to Helen. "Thank you for your hospitality; it was most gracious." Her face reddened. Eragon thought she was going to slap him. Brom continued, unperturbed, "You have a good husband; take care of him. There are few men as brave and as determined as he is. But even he cannot weather difficult times without support from those he loves." He bowed again and said gently, "Only a suggestion, dear lady."

Eragon watched as indignation and hurt crossed Helen's face. Her eyes flashed as she shut the door brusquely. Sighing, Jeod ran his fingers through his hair. Eragon thanked him for all his help, then mounted Cadoc. With the last farewells said, he and Brom departed. A Term's south gate, the guards let them through without a second glance. As they rode under the giant outer wall, Eragon saw Solembum was crouched on the ground, tail twitching. The werecat followed them with inscrutable eyes. As the city receded into the distance, Eragon suddenly spoke up,

"What's Helgrind?" asked Eragon, after a moment's thought.

"You'll see when we get to Dras-Leona."

When Teirm was out of sight, Eragon reached out with his mind and called, 'Saphira!' The force of his mental shout was so strong that Cadoc flicked his ears in annoyance. Saphira answered and sped toward them with all of her strength, Eragon and Brom watched as a dark blur rushed from a cloud, then heard a dull roar as Saphira's wings flared open. The sun shone behind the thin membranes, turning them translucent and silhouetting the dark veins. She landed with a blast of air. Eragon tossed Cadoc's reins to Brom. "I'll join you for lunch."

Brom nodded, but seemed preoccupied. "Have a good time," he said, then looked at Saphira and smiled. "It's good to see you again." And you too. Eragon hopped onto Saphira's shoulders and held on tightly as she bounded upward. With the wind at her tail, Saphira sliced

through the air. Hold on, she warned Eragon, and letting out a wild bugle, she soared in a great loop. Eragon yelled with excitement as he flung his arms in the air, holding on only with his legs.

'I didn't know I could stay on while you did that without being strapped into the saddle,' he said, as the wind fiercely hit him in the face.

{Neither did I}, admitted Saphira, laughing in her peculiar way. Eragon hugged her tightly, and they flew a level path, masters of the sky.

By noon he had Saphira land so he could ride Cadoc. He'd already discussed with her that he would discuss the Varden with Brom. He couldn't put this conversation off much longer. That and he wasn't very keen on acting dumb. It would limit his responses and actions if he did. So after having a short lunch with Brom, he had Cadoc walk alongside Snowfire.

"Brom we need to talk."

"About what?"

"A talk about all your friends, the conversations you and Jeod had about the Varden."

"You eavesdropped on us."

"Not intentionally," He said why shrugging his shoulders. "My senses have been getting stronger as of late, so even when you both whispered, I'd hear the whole conversation as of if I was near you."

"Look Brom that incident with the urgals made me think a lot more about what exactly I want, and what exactly is going on around me. I know that if I do succeed in killing the ra'zac that I have a few choices right after. To join the Varden, flee to Surda, or join the king's forces. Really even if I don't kill them, there will still be my only choices, as Galbatorix won't let me loose for too long. As he can't have the first rider in years to appear and not be under his control."

Brom sighed, stroking his wispy white beard, while in deep thought. "It seems you have been thinking about things a lot more. I guess the circumstances have forced you to mature quite a bit in such a short time." He sighed before continuing, "I'll tell you, but you gave to understand that I cannot reveal everything as I won't give away secrets that aren't mine. You'll have to talk to others to find out the rest."

Eragon nodded, "Just tell me what you can."