Eldest [en]

Shall we see what accommodations they’ve provided us with? asked Saphira. She jumped into the air and sailed around the tree in a tight circle, balancing on one wing tip, perpendicular to the ground.

As Eragon took the first step, he saw that Islanzadi had spoken true; the stairs were one with the tree. The bark beneath his feet was smooth and flat from the many elves who had traversed it, but it was still part of the trunk, as were the twisting cobweb banisters by his side and the curved railing that slid under his right hand.

Because the stairs had been designed with the elves’ strength in mind, they were steeper than Eragon was used to, and his calves and thighs soon began to burn. He was breathing so hard when he reached the top — after climbing through a trapdoor in the floor of one of the rooms — he had to put his hands on his knees and bend over to pant. Once recovered, he straightened and examined his surroundings.

He stood in a circular vestibule with a pedestal in the center, out of which spiraled a sculpture of two pale hands and forearms that twined around each other without touching. Three screen doors led from the vestibule — one to an austere dining room that might hold ten people at the most, one to a closet with an empty hollow in the floor that Eragon could think of no discernible use for, and the last to a bedroom overlooking, and open to, the wide expanse of Du Weldenvarden.

Taking a lantern from its hook in the ceiling, Eragon entered the bedroom, creating a host of shadows that jumped and swirled like madcap dancers. A teardrop gap large enough for a dragon pierced the outer wall. Inside the room was a bed, situated so that he could watch the sky and the moon while lying on his back; a fireplace made of gray wood that felt as hard and cold as steel when he touched it, as if the timber had been compressed to unsurpassed density; and a huge low-rimmed bowl set in the floor and lined with soft blankets where Saphira could sleep.

Even as he watched, she swooped down and landed on the edge of the opening, her scales twinkling like a constellation of blue stars. Behind her, the last rays of the sun streaked across the forest, painting the various ridges and hills with a hazy amber that made the needles glow like hot iron and chased the shadows back toward the violet horizon. From their height, the city appeared as a series of gaps in the voluminous canopy, islands of calm in a restless ocean. Ellesmera’s true scope was now revealed; it extended for several miles to the west and to the north.

I respect the Riders even more if this is how Vrael normally lived, said Eragon. It’s much simpler than I expected. The entire structure rocked slightly in response to a breath of wind.

Saphira sniffed her blankets. We have yet to see Vroengard, she cautioned, although he sensed that she agreed with him.

As Eragon closed the screen to the bedroom, he saw something in the corner that he had missed during his first inspection: a spiral staircase that wound up a dark wood chimney. Thrusting the lantern before him, he cautiously ascended, one step at a time. After about twenty feet, he emerged in a study furnished with a writing desk — stocked with quills, ink, and paper, but no parchment — and another padded roost for a dragon to curl up on. The far wall also had an opening to fly through.

Saphira, come see this.

How? she asked.

Through the outside. Eragon winced as layers of bark splintered and cracked under Saphira’s claws while she crawled out of the bedroom and up the side of the compound to the study. Satisfied? he asked when she arrived. Saphira raked him with her sapphire eyes, then proceeded to scrutinize the walls and furniture.

I wonder, she said, how you are supposed to stay warm when the rooms are open to the elements?

I don’t know. Eragon examined the walls on either side of the breach, running his hands over abstract patterns that had been coaxed from the tree by the elves’ songs. He stopped when he felt a vertical ridge embedded in the bark. He tugged on it, and a diaphanous membrane unspooled from within the wall. Pulling it across the portal, he found a second groove to hold the hem of the cloth. As soon as it was fastened, the air thickened and became noticeably hotter. There’s your answer, he said. He released the cloth and it lashed back and forth as it rewound itself.

When they returned to the bedroom, Eragon unpacked while Saphira coiled upon her dais. He carefully arranged his shield, bracers, greaves, coif, and helm, then stripped off his tunic and removed his shirt of leather- backed mail. He sat bare-chested on the bed and studied the oiled links, struck by their similarity to Saphira’s scales.

We made it, he said, bemused.

A long journey... but yes, we made it. We’re lucky that misfortune did not strike upon the road.

He nodded. Now we’ll find out if it was worth it. Sometimes I wonder if our time would have been better spent helping the Varden.

Eragon! You know that we need further instruction. Brom would have wanted it. Besides, Ellesmera and Islanzadi were certainly worth coming all this way to see.

Maybe. Finally, he asked, What do you make of all this?

Saphira parted her jaws slightly to show her teeth. I don’t know. The elves keep more secrets than even Brom, and they can do things with magic that I never thought possible. I have no idea what methods they use to grow their trees into such shapes, nor how Islanzadi summoned those flowers. It is beyond my ken.

Eragon was relieved that he was not the only one who felt overwhelmed. And Arya?

What about her?

You know, who she really is.

She hasn’t changed, only your perception of her. Saphira chuckled deep in her throat, where it sounded like stones grinding against each other, and rested her head on her two front feet.

The stars were bright in the sky now, and the soft hoots of owls drifted through Ellesmera. All the world was calm and silent as it slumbered away the liquid night.

Eragon clambered underneath his downy sheets and reached to shutter the lantern, then stopped, his hand an inch from the latch. Here he was in the elves’ capital, over a hundred feet in the air, lying in what used to be Vrael’s bed.

The thought was too much for him.

Rolling upright, he grabbed the lantern with one hand, Zar’roc with the other, and surprised Saphira by crawling onto her dais and snuggling against her warm side. She hummed and dropped a velvet wing over him as he extinguished the light and closed his eyes.

Together they slept long and deep in Ellesmera.

OUT OF THE PAST

Eragon woke at dawn well rested. He tapped Saphira’s ribs, and she lifted her wing. Running his hands through his hair, he walked to the room’s precipice and leaned against one side, bark rough against his shoulder. Below, the forest sparkled like a field of diamonds as each tree reflected the morning light with a thousand thousand drops of dew.

He jumped with surprise as Saphira dove past him, twisting like an auger toward the canopy before she pulled up and circled through the sky, roaring with joy. Morning, little one. He smiled, happy that she was happy.

He opened the screen to their bedroom, where he found two trays of food — mostly fruit — that had been placed by the lintel during the night. By the trays was a bundle of clothes with a paper note pinned to it. Eragon had difficulty deciphering the flowing script, since he had not read for over a month and had forgotten some of the