“And Arya? What would be the honorable thing to do about her predicament?”
Eragon hesitated. “I don’t want to lose her friendship.”
“No.”
“Therefore... I will go to her, I will apologize, and I will reassure her that I never intend to cause her such hardship again.” It was difficult for him to say, but once he did, he felt a sense of relief, as if acknowledging his mistake cleansed him of it.
Oromis appeared pleased. “By that alone, you prove that you have matured.”
The sheets of paper were smooth underneath Eragon’s hands as he pressed them flat against the tabletop. He stared at the blank white expanse for a moment, then dipped a quill in ink and began to transcribe a column of glyphs. Each barbed line was like a streak of night against the paper, an abyss into which he could lose himself and try to forget his confused feelings.
THE OBLITERATOR
The following morn, Eragon went looking for Arya in order to apologize. He searched for over an hour without success. It seemed as if she had vanished among the many hidden nooks within Ellesmera. He caught a glimpse of her once as he paused by the entrance to Tialdari Hall and called out to her, but she slipped away before he could reach her side.
As the days rolled by, Eragon embraced Oromis’s training with a zeal that the elder Rider praised, devoting himself to his studies in order to distract himself from thoughts of Arya.
Night and day, Eragon strove to master his lessons. He memorized the words of making, binding, and summoning; learned the true names of plants and animals; and studied the perils of transmutation, how to call upon the wind and the sea, and the myriad skills needed to understand the forces of the world. At spells that dealt with the great energies — such as light, heat, and magnetism — he excelled, for he possessed the talent to judge nigh exactly how much strength a task required and whether it would exceed that of his body.
Occasionally, Orik would come and watch, standing without comment by the edge of the clearing while Oromis tutored Eragon, or while Eragon struggled alone with a particularly difficult spell.
Oromis set many challenges before him. He had Eragon cook meals with magic, in order to teach him finer control of his gramarye; Eragon’s first attempts resulted in a blackened mess. The elf showed Eragon how to detect and neutralize poisons of every sort and, from then on, Eragon had to inspect his food for the different venoms Oromis was liable to slip into it. More than once Eragon went hungry when he could not find the poison or was unable to counteract it. Twice he became so sick, Oromis had to heal him. And Oromis had Eragon cast multiple spells simultaneously, which required tremendous concentration to keep the spells directed at their intended targets and prevent them from shifting among the items Eragon wanted to affect.
Oromis devoted long hours to the craft of imbuing matter with energy, either to be released at a later time or to give an object certain attributes. He said, “This is how Rhunon charmed the Riders’ swords so they never break or dull; how we sing plants into growing as we desire; how a trap might be set in a box, only to be triggered when the box is opened; how we and the dwarves make the Erisdar, our lanterns; and how you may heal one who is injured, to name but a few uses. These are the most potent of spells, for they can lie dormant for a thousand years or more and are difficult to perceive or avert. They permeate much of Alagaesia, shaping the land and the destiny of those who live here.”
Eragon asked, “You could use this technique to alter your body, couldn’t you? Or is that too dangerous?”
Oromis’s lips quirked in a faint smile. “Alas, you have stumbled upon elves’ greatest weakness: our vanity. We love beauty in all its forms, and we seek to represent that ideal in our appearance. That is why we are known as the Fair Folk. Every elf looks exactly as he or she wishes to. When elves learn the spells for growing and molding living things, they often choose to modify their appearance to better reflect their personalities. A few elves have gone beyond mere aesthetic changes and altered their anatomy to adapt to various environments, as you will see during the Blood-oath Celebration. Oftentimes, they are more animal than elf.
“However, transferring power to a living creature is different from transferring power to an inanimate object. Very few materials are suitable for storing energy; most either allow it to dissipate or become so charged with force that when you touch the object, a bolt of lightning drives through you. The best materials we have found for this purpose are gemstones. Quartz, agates, and other lesser stones are not as efficient as, say, a diamond, but any gem will suffice. That is why Riders’ swords always have a jewel set in their pommels. It is also why your dwarf necklace — which is entirely metal — must sap your strength to fuel its spell, since it can hold no energy of its own.”
When not with Oromis, Eragon supplemented his education by reading the many scrolls the elf gave him, a habit he soon became addicted to. Eragon’s rearing — limited as it was by Garrow’s scant tutelage — had exposed him only to the knowledge needed to run a farm. The information he discovered on the miles of paper flooded into him like rain on parched desert, sating a previously unknown thirst. He devoured texts on geography, biology, anatomy, philosophy, and mathematics, as well as memoirs, biographies, and histories. More important than mere facts was his introduction to alternative ways of thinking. They challenged his beliefs and forced him to reexamine his assumptions about everything from the rights of an individual within society to what caused the sun to move across the sky.
He noticed that a number of scrolls concerned Urgals and their culture. Eragon read them and made no mention of it, nor did Oromis broach the topic.
From his studies, Eragon learned much about the elves, a subject that he avidly pursued, hoping that it would help him to better understand Arya. To his surprise, he discovered that the elves did not practice marriage, but rather took mates for however long they wanted, whether it be for a day or a century. Children were rare, and having a child was considered by the elves to be the ultimate vow of love.
Eragon also learned that since their two races had first met, only a handful of elf-human couples had existed: mainly human Riders who found appropriate mates among the elves. However, as best he could tell from the cryptic records, most such relationships ended in tragedy, either because the lovers were unable to relate to one another or because the humans aged and died while the elves escaped the ravages of time.
In addition to nonfiction, Oromis presented Eragon with copies of the elves’ greatest songs, poems, and epics, which captured Eragon’s imagination, for the only stories he was familiar with were the ones Brom had recited in Carvahall. He savored the epics as he might a well-cooked meal, lingering over
Saphira’s own training proceeded apace. Linked as he was to her mind, Eragon got to watch as Glaedr put her through an exercise regimen every bit as strenuous as his. She practiced hovering in the air while lifting boulders, as well as sprints, dives, and other acrobatics. To increase her endurance, Glaedr had her breathe fire for hours upon a natural stone pillar in an attempt to melt it. At first Saphira could only maintain the flames for a few minutes at a time, but before long the blistering torch roared from her maw for over a half hour uninterrupted, heating the pillar white-hot. Eragon was also privy to the dragon lore Glaedr imparted to Saphira, details about the dragons’ lives and history that complemented her instinctual knowledge. Much of it was incomprehensible to Eragon, and he suspected that Saphira concealed even more from him, secrets of her race that dragons shared with no one but themselves. One thing he did glean, and that Saphira treasured, was the name of her sire, Iormungr, and her dam, Vervada, which meant Storm-cleaver in the old speech. While Iormungr had been bound to a Rider, Vervada was a wild dragon who had laid many eggs but entrusted only one to the Riders: Saphira. Both dragons perished in the Fall.
Some days Eragon and Saphira would fly with Oromis and Glaedr, practicing aerial combat or visiting crumbling ruins hidden within Du Weldenvarden. Other days they would reverse the usual order of things, and Eragon would accompany Glaedr while Saphira remained on the Crags of Tel’naeir with Oromis.
Each morning Eragon sparred with Vanir, which, without exception, ignited one or more of Eragon’s seizures. To make matters worse, the elf continued to treat Eragon with haughty condescension. He delivered oblique slights that, on the surface, never exceeded the bounds of politeness, and he refused to be drawn to anger no matter how Eragon needled him. Eragon hated him and his cool, mannered bearing. It seemed as if Vanir was insulting him with
