Paolini, Christopher - Inheritance Trilogy, Book 2 - Eldest (v1.5) (43 page)

out igniting the pain in his back, yet challenging enough that sweat

beaded his forehead and he panted for breath. He found himself grinning

with joy at his reprieve. His wariness evaporated and he flowed through

the postures—most of which far exceeded his flexibility—with more en-

ergy and confidence than he had possessed since before the battle in Far-

then Dûr. Maybe I’ve healed!

Oromis performed the Rimgar with him, displaying a level of strength

and flexibility that astounded Eragon, especially for one so old. The elf

could touch his forehead to his toes. Throughout the exercise, Oromis

remained impeccably composed, as if he were doing no more than stroll-

ing down a garden path. His instruction was calmer and more patient

than Brom’s, yet completely unyielding. No deviation was allowed from

the correct path.

“Let us wash the sweat from our limbs,” said Oromis when they fin-

ished.

Going to the stream by the house, they quickly disrobed. Eragon sur-

reptitiously watched the elf, curious as to what he looked like without

his clothes. Oromis was very thin, yet his muscles were perfectly defined,

etched under his skin with the hard lines of a woodcut. No hair grew

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upon his chest or legs, not even around his groin. His body seemed al-

most freakish to Eragon, compared to the men he was used to seeing in

Carvahall—although it had a certain refined elegance to it, like that of a

wildcat.

When they were clean, Oromis took Eragon deep into Du Welden-

varden to a hollow where the dark trees leaned inward, obscuring the sky

behind branches and veils of snarled lichen. Their feet sank into the moss

above their ankles. All was silent about them.

Pointing to a white stump with a flat, polished top three yards across

that rested in the center of the hollow, Oromis said, “Sit here.” Eragon did

as he was told. “Cross your legs and close your eyes.” The world went

dark around him. From his right, he heard Oromis whisper, “Open your

mind, Eragon. Open your mind and listen to the world around you, to the

thoughts of every being in this glade, from the ants in the trees to the

worms in the ground. Listen until you can hear them all and you under-

stand their purpose and nature. Listen, and when you hear no more,

come tell me what you have learned.”

Then the forest was quiet.

Unsure if Oromis had left, Eragon tentatively lowered the barriers

around his mind and reached out with his consciousness, like he did

when trying to contact Saphira at a great distance. Initially only a void

surrounded him, but then pricks of light and warmth began to appear in

the darkness, strengthening until he sat in the midst of a galaxy of swirl-

ing constellations, each bright point representing a life. Whenever he had

contacted other beings with his mind, like Cadoc, Snowfire, or Solem-

bum, the focus had always been on the one he wanted to communicate

with. But this. . this was as if he had been standing deaf in the midst of a

crowd and now he could hear the rivers of conversation whirling around

him.

He felt suddenly vulnerable; he was completely exposed to the world.

Anyone or anything that might want to leap into his mind and control

him could now do so. He tensed unconsciously, withdrawing back into

himself, and his awareness of the hollow vanished. Remembering one of

Oromis’s lessons, Eragon slowed his breathing and monitored the sweep

of his lungs until he had relaxed enough to reopen his mind.

Of all the lives he could sense, the majority were, by far, insects. Their

sheer number astounded him. Tens of thousands dwelled in a square foot

of moss, teeming millions throughout the rest of the small hollow, and

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uncounted masses beyond. Their abundance actually frightened Eragon.

He had always known that humans were scarce and beleaguered in Ala-

gaësia, but he had never imagined that they were so outnumbered by

even beetles.

Since they were one of the few insects that he was familiar with, and

Oromis had mentioned them, Eragon concentrated his attention on the

columns of red ants marching across the ground and up the stems of a

wild rosebush. What he gleaned from them were not so much

thoughts—their brains were too primitive—but urges: the urge to find

food and avoid injury, the urge to defend one’s territory, the urge to

mate. By examining the ants’ instincts, he could begin to puzzle out their

behavior.

It fascinated him to discover that—except for the few individuals ex-

ploring outside the borders of their province—the ants knew exactly

where they were going. He was unable to ascertain what mechanism

guided them, but they followed clearly defined paths from their nest to

food and back. Their source of food was another surprise. As he had ex-

pected, the ants killed and scavenged other insects, but most of their ef-

forts were directed toward the cultivation of. . of something that dotted

the rosebush. Whatever the life-form was, it was barely large enough for

him to sense. He focused all of his strength on it in an attempt to identify

it and satisfy his curiosity.

The answer was so simple, he laughed out loud when he compre-

hended it: aphids. The ants were acting as shepherds for aphids, driving

and protecting them, as well as extracting sustenance from them by mas-

saging the aphids’ bellies with the tips of their antennae. Eragon could

hardly believe it, but the longer he watched, the more he became con-

vinced that he was correct.

He traced the ants underground into their complex matrix of warrens

and studied how they cared for a certain member of their species that

was several times bigger than a normal ant. However, he was unable to

determine the insect’s purpose; all he could see were servants swarming

around it, rotating it, and removing the specks of matter it produced at

regular intervals.

After a time, Eragon decided that he had gleaned all the information

from the ants that he could—unless he was willing to sit there for the

rest of the day—and was about to return to his body when a squirrel

jumped into the glade. Its appearance was like a blast of light to him, at-

tuned as he was to the insects. Stunned, he was overwhelmed by a rush

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of sensations and feelings from the animal. He smelled the forest with its

nose, felt the bark give under his hooked claws and the air swish through

his upraised plume of a tail. Compared to an ant, the squirrel burned

with energy and possessed unquestionable intelligence.

Then it leaped to another branch and faded from his awareness.

The forest seemed much darker and quieter than before when Eragon

opened his eyes. He took a deep breath and looked about, appreciating

for the first time how much life existed in the world. Unfolding his

cramped legs, he walked over to the rosebush.

He bent down and examined the branches and twigs. Sure enough,

aphids and their crimson guardians clung to them. And near the base of

the plant was the mound of pine needles that marked the entrance to the

ants’ lair. It was strange to see with his own eyes; none of it betrayed the

numerous and subtle interactions that he was now aware of.

Engrossed in his thoughts, Eragon returned to the clearing, wondering

what he might be crushing under his feet with every step. When he

emerged from under the trees’ shelter, he was startled by how far the sun

had fallen. I must have been sitting there for at least three hours.

He found Oromis in his hut, writing with a goose-feather quill. The elf

finished his line, then wiped the nib of the quill clean, stoppered his ink,

and asked, “And what did you hear, Eragon?”

Eragon was eager to share. As he described his experience, he heard his

voice rise with enthusiasm over the details of the ants’ society. He re-

counted everything that he could recall, down to the minutest and most

inconsequential observation, proud of the information that he had gath-

ered.

When he finished, Oromis raised an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

“I. .” Dismay gripped Eragon as he understood that he had somehow

missed the point of the exercise. “Yes, Ebrithil.”

“And what about the other organisms in the earth and the air? Can you

tell me what they were doing while your ants tended their droves?”

“No, Ebrithil.”

“Therein lies your mistake. You must become aware of all things

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equally and not blinker yourself in order to concentrate on a particular

subject. This is an essential lesson, and until you master it, you will medi-

tate on the stump for an hour each day.”

“How will I know when I have mastered it?”

“When you can watch one and know all.”

Oromis motioned for Eragon to join him at the table, then set a fresh

sheet of paper before him, along with a quill and a bottle of ink. “So far

you have made do with an incomplete knowledge of the ancient lan-

guage. Not that any of us knows all the words in the language, but you

must be familiar with its grammar and structure so that you do not kill

yourself through an incorrectly placed verb or similar mistake. I do not

expect you to speak our language like an elf—that would take a life-

time—but I do expect you to achieve unconscious competence. That is,

you must be able to use it without thinking.

“In addition, you must learn to read and write the ancient language. Not

only will this help you to memorize words, it is an essential skill if you

need to compose an especially long spell and you don’t trust your mem-

ory, or if you find such a spell recorded and you want to use it.

“Every race has evolved their own system of writing the ancient lan-

guage. The dwarves use their runic alphabet, as do humans. They are only

makeshift techniques, though, and are incapable of expressing the lan-

guage’s true subtleties as well as our Liduen Kvaedhí, the Poetic Script.

The Liduen Kvaedhí was designed to be as elegant, beautiful, and precise

as possible. It is composed of forty-two different shapes that represent

various sounds. These shapes can be combined in a nearly infinite range

of glyphs that represent both individual words and entire phrases. The

symbol on your ring is one such glyph. The symbol on Zar’roc is an-

other. . Let us start: What are the basic vowel sounds of the ancient lan-

guage?”

“What?”

Eragon’s ignorance of the underpinnings of the ancient language quickly

became apparent. When he had traveled with Brom, the old storyteller

had concentrated on having Eragon memorize lists of words that he

might need to survive, as well as perfecting his pronunciation. In those

two areas, he excelled, but he could not even explain the difference be-

tween a definite and indefinite article. If the gaps in his education frus-

trated Oromis, the elf did not betray it through word or action, but la-

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bored persistently to mend them.

At a certain point during the lesson, Eragon commented, “I’ve never

needed very many words in my spells; Brom said it was a gift that I could

do so much with just brisingr. I think the most I ever said in the ancient

language was when I spoke to Arya in her mind and when I blessed an

orphan in Farthen Dûr.”

“You blessed a child in the ancient language?” asked Oromis, suddenly

alert. “Do you remember how you worded this blessing?”

“Aye.”

“Recite it for me.” Eragon did so, and a look of pure horror engulfed

Oromis. He exclaimed, “You used skölir ! Are you sure? Wasn’t it sköliro

?”

Eragon frowned. “No, skölir. Why shouldn’t I have used it? Skölir means

shielded. ‘. . and may you be shielded from misfortune.’ It was a good

blessing.”

“That was no blessing, but a curse.” Oromis was more agitated than Er-

agon had ever seen him. “The suffix o forms the past tense of verbs end-

ing with r and i. Sköliro means shielded, but skölir means shield. What

you said was ‘May luck and happiness follow you and may you be a

shield from misfortune.’ Instead of protecting this child from the vagaries

of fate, you condemned her to be a sacrifice for others, to absorb their

misery and suffering so that they might live in peace.”

No, no! It can’t be! Eragon recoiled from the possibility. “The effect a

spell has isn’t only determined by the word’s sense, but also by your in-

tent, and I didn’t intend to harm—”

“You cannot gainsay a word’s inherent nature. Twist it, yes. Guide it,

yes. But not contravene its definition to imply the very opposite.” Oromis

pressed his fingers together and stared at the table, his lips reduced to a

flat white line. “I will trust that you did not mean harm, else I would re-

fuse to teach you further. If you were honest and your heart was pure,

then this blessing may cause less evil than I fear, though it will still be the

nucleus of more pain than either of us could wish.”

Violent trembling overtook Eragon as he realized what he had done to

the child’s life. “It may not undo my mistake,” he said, “but perhaps it will

alleviate it; Saphira marked the girl on the brow, just like she marked my