not all elves have trained their minds properly.”
328
“How do you intend to teach me this logic?”
Oromis’s smile broadened. “By the oldest and most effective method:
debating. I will ask you a question, then you will answer and defend your
position.” He waited while Eragon refilled his bowl with stew. “For ex-
ample, why do you fight the Empire?”
The sudden change of topic caught Eragon off guard. He had a feeling
that Oromis had just reached the subject that he had been driving toward
all along. “As I said before, to help those who suffer from Galbatorix’s
rule and, to a lesser extent, for personal vengeance.”
“Then you fight for humanitarian reasons?”
“What do you mean?”
“That you fight to help the people who Galbatorix has harmed and to
stop him from hurting any more.”
“Exactly,” said Eragon.
“Ah, but answer me this, my young Rider: Won’t your war with Galba-
torix cause more pain than it will ever prevent? The majority of people
in the Empire live normal, productive lives untouched by their king’s
madness. How can you justify invading their land, destroying their homes,
and killing their sons and daughters?”
Eragon gaped, stunned that Oromis could ask such a question—
Galbatorix was evil —and stunned because no easy reply presented itself.
He knew that he was in the right, but how could he prove it? “Don’t you
believe that Galbatorix should be overthrown?”
“That is not the question.”
“You must believe it, though,” persisted Eragon. “Look what he did to
the Riders.”
Dunking his bread in his stew, Oromis resumed eating, letting Eragon
fume in silence. When he finished, Oromis folded his hands in his lap and
asked, “Have I upset you?”
“Yes, you have.”
“I see. Well then, continue to ponder the matter until you find an an-
329
swer. I expect it to be a convincing one.”
330
BLACK MORNING GLORY
They cleared the table and took the dishes outside, where they cleaned
them with sand. Oromis crumbled what remained of the bread around
his house for the birds to eat, then they returned inside.
Oromis brought out pens and ink for Eragon, and they resumed his
education of the Liduen Kvaedhí, the written form of the ancient lan-
guage, which was so much more elegant than the humans’ or dwarves’
runes. Eragon lost himself in the arcane glyphs, happy to have a task that
required nothing more strenuous than rote memorization.
After hours spent bent over the paper sheets, Oromis waved a hand
and said, “Enough. We will continue this tomorrow.” Eragon leaned back
and rolled his shoulders while Oromis selected five scrolls from their
nooks in the wall. “Two of these are in the ancient language, three are in
your native tongue. They will help you to master both alphabets, as well
as give you valuable information that would be tedious for me to vocal-
ize.”
“Vocalize?”
With unerring accuracy, Oromis’s hand darted out and plucked a mas-
sive sixth scroll from the wall, which he added to the pyramid in Eragon’s
arms. “This is a dictionary. I doubt you can, but try to read it all.”
When the elf opened the door for him to leave, Eragon said, “Master?”
“Yes, Eragon?”
“When will we start working with magic?”
Oromis leaned on one arm against the doorway, caving in on himself as
if he no longer possessed the will to remain upright. Then he sighed and
said, “You must trust me to guide your training, Eragon. Still, I suppose it
would be foolish of me to delay any longer. Come, leave the scrolls on
the table, and let us go explore the mysteries of gramarye.”
On the greensward before the hut, Oromis stood looking out over the
Crags of Tel’naeír, his back to Eragon, his feet shoulder width apart, and
his hands clasped in the small of his back. Without turning around, he
asked, “What is magic?”
331
“The manipulation of energy through the use of the ancient language.”
There was a pause before Oromis responded. “Technically, you are cor-
rect, and many spellcasters never understand more than that. However,
your description fails to capture the essence of magic. Magic is the art of
thinking, not strength or language—you already know that a limited vo-
cabulary is no obstacle to using magic. As with everything else you must
master, magic relies on having a disciplined intellect.
“Brom bypassed the normal training regimen and ignored the subtleties
of gramarye to ensure that you had the skills you needed to remain alive.
I too must distort the regimen in order to focus on the skills that you will
likely require in the coming battles. However, whereas Brom taught you
the crude mechanics of magic, I will teach you its finer applications, the
secrets that were reserved for the wisest of the Riders: how you can kill
with no more energy than moving your finger, the method by which you
can instantaneously transport an item from one point to another, a spell
that will allow you to identify poisons in your food and drink, a variation
on scrying that allows you to hear as well as to see, how you can draw
energy from your surroundings and thus preserve your own strength, and
how you can maximize your strength in every possible way.
“These techniques are so potent and dangerous, they were never shared
with novice Riders such as yourself, but circumstances demand that I di-
vulge them and trust that you won’t abuse them.” Raising his right arm to
his side, his hand a hooked claw, Oromis proclaimed, “Adurna!”
Eragon watched as a sphere of water coalesced from the brook by the
hut and floated through the air until it hovered between Oromis’s out-
stretched fingers.
The brook was dark and brown under the branches of the forest, but
the sphere, removed from it, was as colorless as glass. Flecks of moss, dirt,
and other bits of detritus floated inside the orb.
Still gazing toward the horizon, Oromis said, “Catch.” He tossed the
sphere back over his shoulder toward Eragon.
Eragon tried to grab the ball, but as soon as it touched his skin, the wa-
ter lost cohesion and splashed across his chest.
“Catch it with magic,” said Oromis. Again, he cried, “Adurna!” and a
sphere of water gathered itself from the surface of the brook and leaped
into his hand like a trained hawk obeying its master.
332
This time Oromis threw the ball without warning. Eragon was pre-
pared, though, and said, “Reisa du adurna,” even as he reached for the ball.
It slowed to a halt a hairsbreadth from the skin of his palm.
“An awkward word choice,” said Oromis, “but workable, nevertheless.”
Eragon grinned and whispered, “Thrysta.”
The ball reversed its course and sped toward the base of Oromis’s silver
head. However, the sphere did not land where Eragon had intended, but
rather shot past the elf, whipped around, and flew back at Eragon with
increased velocity.
The water remained as hard and solid as polished marble when it
struck Eragon, producing a dull thunk as it collided with his skull. The
blow knocked him sprawling on the turf, where he lay stunned, blinking
as pulsing lights swam across the sky.
“Yes,” said Oromis. “A better word might be letta or kodthr. ” He finally
turned to look at Eragon and raised an eyebrow with apparent surprise.
“Whatever are you doing? Get up. We can’t lay about all day.”
“Yes, Master,” groaned Eragon.
When Eragon got back on his feet, Oromis had him manipulate the wa-
ter in various ways—shaping it into complex knots, changing the color of
light that it absorbed or reflected, and freezing it in certain prescribed se-
quences—none of which proved difficult for him.
The exercises continued for so long that Eragon’s initial interest faded
and was replaced by impatience and puzzlement. He was chary of of-
fending Oromis, but he saw no point to what the elf was doing; it was as
if Oromis were avoiding any spells that would require him to use more
than a minimal amount of strength. I’ve already demonstrated the extent of
my skills. Why does he persist in reviewing these fundamentals? He said,
“Master, I know all of this. Can we not move on?”
The muscles in Oromis’s neck hardened, and his shoulders were like
chiseled granite for all they moved; even the elf’s breathing halted before
he said, “Will you never learn respect, Eragon-vodhr? So be it!” Then he
uttered four words from the ancient language in a voice so deep that
their meaning escaped Eragon.
333
Eragon yelped as he felt each of his legs enveloped by pressure up to
the knee, squeezing and constricting his calves in such a way that made it
impossible for him to walk. His thighs and upper body were free to
move, but other than that, it was as if he had been cast in lime mortar.
“Free yourself,” said Oromis.
Here now was a challenge that Eragon had never dealt with before:
how to counter someone else’s spells. He could sever his invisible bonds
using one of two different methods. The most effective would be if he
knew how Oromis had immobilized him—whether by affecting his body
directly or using an external source—for then he could redirect the ele-
ment or force to disperse Oromis’s power. Or he could use a generic,
vague spell to block whatever Oromis was doing. The downside to the
tactic was that it would lead to a direct contest of strength between
them. It had to happen sometime, thought Eragon. He entertained no hope
of prevailing against an elf.
Assembling the required phrase, he said, “Losna kalfya iet.” Release my
calves.
The surge of energy that deserted Eragon was greater than he had an-
ticipated; he went from being moderately tired from the day’s pains and
exertions to feeling as if he had hiked over rough terrain since morn.
Then the pressure vanished from his legs, causing him to stagger as he re-
gained his balance.
Oromis shook his head. “Foolish,” he said, “very foolish. If I had com-
mitted more to maintaining my spell, that would have killed you. Never
use absolutes.”
“Absolutes?”
“Never word your spells so that only two outcomes are possible: suc-
cess or death. If an enemy had trapped your legs and if he were stronger
than you, then you would have expended all of your energy trying to
break his spell. You would have died with no chance to abort the at-
tempt once you realized that it was futile.”
“How do I avoid that?” asked Eragon.
“It’s safer to make the spell a process that you can terminate at your dis-
cretion. Instead of saying release my calves, which is an absolute, you
could say reduce the magic imprisoning my calves. A bit wordy, but you
334
could then decide how much you wanted your opponent’s spell de-
creased and if it were safe to remove it entirely. We will try again.”
The pressure returned to Eragon’s legs as soon as Oromis mouthed his
inaudible invocation. Eragon was so tired, he doubted that he could pro-
vide much opposition. Nevertheless, he reached for the magic.
Before the ancient language left Eragon’s mouth, he became aware of a
curious sensation as the weight constraining his legs lessened at a steady
rate. It tickled and felt like he was being pulled out of a mire of cold,
slick mud. He glanced at Oromis and saw the elf’s face scribed by passion,
as if he clung to something precious that he could not bear to lose. A
vein throbbed at one of Oromis’s temples.
When Eragon’s arcane fetters ceased to exist, Oromis recoiled as if he
had been pricked by a wasp and stood with his gaze fixed on his two
hands, his thin chest heaving. For perhaps a minute, he remained thus,
then he drew himself upright and walked to the very edge of the Crags of
Tel’naeír, a lone figure outlined against the pale sky.
Regret and sorrow welled in Eragon—the same emotions that had
gripped him when he first saw Glaedr’s mutilated foreleg. He cursed
himself for being so arrogant with Oromis, so oblivious to his infirmities,
and for not placing more confidence in the elf’s judgment. I’m not the only
one who must deal with past injuries. Eragon had not fully comprehended
what it meant when Oromis said that all but the slightest magic escaped
his grasp. Now he appreciated the depths of Oromis’s situation and the
pain that it must cause him, especially for one of his race, who was born
and bred with magic.
Eragon went to Oromis, knelt, and bowed in the fashion of the
dwarves, pressing his bruised forehead against the ground. “Ebrithil, I beg
your pardon.”
The elf gave no indication that he had heard.
The two of them lingered in their respective positions while the sun
declined before them, the birds sang their evening songs, and the air grew
cool and moist. From the north came the faint offbeat thumps of Saphira
and Glaedr’s wing strokes as they returned for the day.
In a low, distant voice, Oromis said, “We will begin anew tomorrow,
with this and other subjects.” From his profile, Eragon could tell that
Oromis had regained his customary expression of impassive reserve. “Is