1 1: Memories of an old woman.
Even from deep within the earth, she could hear the battle cries, the sounds of combat, and the various effects of the magic used in the fighting. Ninety years, ninety years had passed since she was born in Alagaësia, this fictional continent that had given her much joy and sorrow in her previous life.
She learned at a tender age that she had been born in the capital of the Human Empire, Urû'baen. Like all reincarnates, she would have liked to join the protagonists and benefit from the knowledge of the plot, but knowing her true situation... she made a difficult decision.
Urû'baen was the center of the empire, here all loyal mages could join and be trained, although they had to swear allegiance in the ancient language, a language connected to the magic of this world, she did not mind. She was born with the power of magic, she was a mage, and from what she knew of the book, she was very talented at it.
She could easily read the minds of those who had no training and it became easy for her to break through the defenses of the weakest with her little experience in this art. Even the Emperor himself came to see her, telling his servants, "She will be the best mage after the Dragon Riders.
So she spent decades studying grammar, the art of magic using the words and phrases of the ancient language. When the shadow Durza joined her training, she was taught black magic and the art of summoning and controlling spirits. Perhaps because of her adult soul in her youthful body, she absorbed the knowledge imparted to her and even created new spells using her ideas from her former life.
The Shadow also taught her the art of the one-handed sword, telling her that a good mage must know how to defend themselves when magic is unavailable or must be spared to avoid becoming a liability. It was these teachings that forged a hard and cold character in her, everything had to have a purpose.
But her training had a price, she had to fulfill missions for the emperor. So espionage, seduction, sabotage, murder, exploration, betrayal. She became a sharp sword in the hands of Galbatorix, and he fulfilled her wish not to be touched by any man, including Dragon Riders, even if they were more powerful than her and some of them were her masters, she wanted nothing to do with them.
She remained even when the renegades, those treacherous dragon riders, died one by one. Her body aged and her physical abilities faltered, but her wisdom and prudence only increased. Perhaps her former self was reluctant to be loyal, but she had lived so much, and seen so much, that she wanted Galbatorix to win.
He was human, powerful, clever, manipulative, and an expert at illusion and breaking minds, but he was still human. So she began to investigate and handed her 80-year-old master a bag of black powder.
"What is this, Jackeline?" asked the Emperor, who was sitting on his throne.
The book described him as having barely tanned, thin skin, black eyes with large pupils that left almost no room for the white part of the eye, black hair, a clean-shaven mustache and beard, and his mouth was wide and thin. The face was long and thin, with thick eyebrows and a sharp nose. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a thin waist. From his general appearance, he looked about forty years old. According to Nasuada, daughter of the rebel leader known as the Vardenos, Galbatorix's voice would be desired by any bard or minstrel, for it was beautiful. She wore black armor, a black cloak, and gloves made from a wing of the dragon Belgabad.
"My application of the knowledge of the substances around us is a powder that reacts with heat, causing fire and smoke. Concentrated and used properly, it can cause explosions. My Emperor, this can be used as a weapon against these rebels," said Jackeline, an old woman with blue eyes that glowed with fury, her stooped body and silver hair betraying her advanced age, but her fervent expression on her wrinkled face gave her a hint of vitality.
"How wonderful! It can be even more powerful in larger quantities than a spell with a similar function. You know, Jackeline, I was always amazed at your wisdom and your way of thinking, as if you had endless ideas in your head," Galbatorix's voice sounded cheerful, but Jackeline knew him, this man was her master, but he was also a paranoid control freak who trusted no one, even now he had his doubts about her.
And how could Jackeline survive reading and exploring the mind of a person like Galbatorix? Simple, she forced herself to forget her past life, she hid all her memories deep inside her mind, and only had access to small things that could be of use to her, giving the illusion of sudden inspiration.
Knowing what was about to happen, the old woman lowered all her mental defenses and let the Emperor probe her mind, feeling the Thought Probe pause to examine her magical and chemical research and experiments, especially with gunpowder.
"Wow, mixing three such common things can produce something as terrifying as this strange powder called gunpowder, fascinating. I'll have some more made, thank you for your services," the man said, dismissing Jackeline, but she lowered her head and lingered, waiting for him to notice her.
"Hmm? Do you have anything else to say or ask?" he asked curiously, though his tone was icy.
"My Emperor, what will you do after you have created the greatest empire this continent has ever seen? Will you sail the seas and go to distant lands? And what will you do when you have conquered everything else?" Jackeline looked earnestly into the Emperor's eyes, with no mental defenses, she wanted him to see her thoughts at this moment.
"It is said that the humans and the Ra'zac came from somewhere else, even the elves are not native to this continent, which means that there are other lands far away from here that you can conquer, but after that, what is left?
If you rule the whole world, there will be nothing left to do. You can lead everyone to prosperity, and study the magic, the secrets hidden by the elves, dwarves, dragons, and other intelligent species, but in the end, in your immortality and magnificence, you will not be able to expand, you will not be able to bring your worthy glory to more beings.
My Lord, as you know, spirits live in another place called the spirit world, and I emphasize the word "world," which means that there are other worlds out there.
Worlds with different species, different magic, different lands to conquer.
I have an idea, I want to create a gateway to those worlds, it will be difficult, but if we can summon spirits, what stops us from going there? What prevents us from visiting and conquering other worlds?" her words echoed throughout the throne room.
Durza, who stood to the side of Galbatorix, looked greedily at Jackeline, her pupil was always brilliant and her way of thinking was unique and different, almost as if she was possessed by a spirit like him, but she was not a shadow like him, just a human, but she was the most brilliant human he had ever met.
Galbatorix put his hand to his chin and thought. It was something he had thought about after he had conquered the Eldunari, those dragon cores, and acquired their power, he felt he was the most powerful being in the world, but something was missing, so he had pointed out the missing detail, the name of the ancient language.
But then what? Of course, he would crush the rebels, defeat the dwarves, conquer the elves, and even expand through the Spine, that cursed mountain range that had caused him to lose half of his army in his early years.
He had even made plans to sail to distant lands and conquer them, but he had never thought about what he would do next. The idea of going to other worlds and conquering them sounded appealing. Already the strongest, he would be the strongest on other worlds, and bringing them under his tutelage would be a breeze, so it was excellent.
"I will give you all the resources you need, you are my best sword, I have taught you everything you know and you have never let me down, so I will give you what you need to build this gate," this statement, an extensive 10-year project began in the depths of the royal palace.
...
She learned as much of the ancient language as she could, and was even surprised when Galbatorix gave her the name of the ancient language to make a more perfect gate. And there she was, looking at her creation.
It was a silver metal creation, ten feet high and two feet wide. It had hundreds of thousands of words of the Ancient language carved into it, even the written version of the name of the Ancient language was carved into it.
The door had thousands of diamonds embedded in it, full of magic thanks to Galbatorix, who regularly carried them without fear due to the enormous amount of Eldunaris she possessed.
Though he didn't trust her, he was sure of his oath, and not only that, he knew her real name, which confirmed his control over her on a deeper level.
But poor fool, she was a reincarnate, and even though her values had changed quite a bit, becoming a cold-blooded, ruthless person who could kneel before her power, the inherent pride of a reincarnate was still there.
She knew about drawing energy from living things to power her magic, she knew about dangerous non-verbal magic, the kind that nearly destroyed the world in ancient times. She knew that a person's name in the ancient language was not static, but subject to change, and hers had changed twice.
Once in her childhood, she accepted to live in the world she was in and shed her reincarnated identity for safety, and the second time when all her memories surfaced more fully and made sense of many things she did, thought, and said.
"Wow, a plan that spanned from my childhood to my old age, a plan that took 80 years to come to fruition, honestly... I realize that I am very different from what I was before, but I can certainly accept that change because I never stopped being me," Jackeline said after looking at her two lives.
"Now, before that brat Eragon comes to interrupt me... [I command you to open up and take me to another world where mine is," she said in the ancient language as she drew the lives of hundreds of slaves and people trapped in the subway, draining their lives and opening the giant door in front of her.
"Goodbye, world, hello, new world," without taking anything but a small bag, without saying goodbye to anyone, she crossed the door, which opened emitting an ominous black light.
The door closed behind her and soon seemed to vanish into thin air. Soon footsteps could be heard in the subway, the rebels led by Eragon had arrived, but they only saw many people with their vitality drained, a room full of books and papers full of research and ideas, plus many new and strange spells.
And a note that read:
"The Flower of Death bids you farewell, I hope what I have left here will be of use to you, if you do not destroy yourselves in the process."
Arya, Nasuada, Eragon, and Murtagh were stunned, especially the latter because he knew Jackeline's character and how cruel and selfish she could be.
"The Flower of Death... she visited me when I was imprisoned and just looked at me. Her blue eyes glowed as in the legend and her gaze was even worse than Ava's, it was as if she just saw me as a piece of rotten meat," Nasuada said as she remembered Jackeline's piercing glowing eyes.
"The Flower of Death was someone who dared to hunt and kill elves in our territory, according to their remains it was obvious they had been tortured and according to spies she did it to get more of our language, spells, and techniques," added Arya, a beautiful elven woman who was now frowning.
"The Flower of Death, or Jackeline, was a vicious, ruthless, selfish, cruel, proud woman, a supremacist who believed only in humans as the only ones who should rule over everything and everyone, skilled in magic and sword, the most powerful person after the Dragon Riders according to Galbatorix, the things she did were even more heinous than him since the latter rarely fought personally since his ascension.
She... was terrible, I knew her as a child when my father was alive, and as far as I know, he was afraid of her. He behaved respectfully in front of her and did not dare to be rude. Once I did something embarrassing in front of her and my father beat me like never before, preferring to do it himself rather than give her the chance to get her hands on me," Murtagh's story was accompanied by the tremble in his voice, even though he was a dragon rider when he saw her again, the fear Jackeline had caused him was firmly etched in his mind.
"The dragons say they could never interfere with her actions, they could never make her fail, and it would be better not to interfere because they even suspect that she might detect them," Eragon said, a little dismayed because he knew that the dragons had scanned the entire continent constantly with their unified mental abilities and no one had detected them, but they suspected that a mere human had.
Oh, but our protagonist is no ordinary person, regardless of her reincarnation, which we'll explore in the future. But for now, let's see where the door Jackeline opened led to.
