cannot be expressed in any language, decided that a common treaty would not suffice. Signed paper means nothing to a dragon. Our blood runs hot and thick and, given enough time, it was inevitable that we would clash with the elves again, as we had with the dwarves over the millennia. But unlike with the dwarves, neither we nor the elves could afford another war. We were both too powerful, and we would have destroyed each other. The one way to prevent that and to forge a meaningful accord was to link our two races with magic.
Eragon shivered, and with a touch of amusement, Glaedr said, Saphira, if you are wise, you will heat one of these rocks with the fire from your belly so that your Rider does not freeze.
Thereupon Saphira arched her neck, and a jet of blue flame emanated from between her serrated fangs and splashed against the scree, blackening the lichen, which released a bitter smell as it burned. The air grew so hot that Eragon was forced to turn away. He felt the insects underneath the rocks being crisped in the inferno. After a minute, Saphira clapped shut her jaws, leaving a circle of stones five feet across glowing cherry red.
Thank you, Eragon said to her. He hunched by the edge of the scorched rocks and warmed his hands over them.
Remember, Saphira, to use your tongue to direct the stream, admonished Glaedr. Now... it took nine years for the elves’ wisest magicians to devise the needed spell. When they had, they and the dragons gathered together at Ilirea. The elves provided the structure of the enchantment, the dragons provided the strength, and together they melded the souls of elves and dragons.
The joining changed us. We dragons gained the use of language and other trappings of civilization, while the elves shared in our longevity, since before that moment, their lives were as short as humans’. In the end, the elves were the most affected. Our magic, dragons’ magic — which permeates every fiber of our being — was transmitted to the elves and, in time, gave them their much-vaunted strength and grace. Humans have never been influenced as strongly, since you were added to the spell after its completion and it has not had as much time to work upon you as with the elves. Still — and here Glaedr’s eye gleamed — it has already gentled your race from the rough barbarians who first landed in Alagaesia, though you have begun to regress since the Fall.
“Were dwarves ever part of this spell?” asked Eragon.
No, and that is why there has never been a dwarf Rider. They do not care for dragons, nor we for them, and they found the idea of being joined with us repellent. Perhaps it is fortunate that they did not enter into our pact, for they have escaped the decline of humans and elves.
Decline, Master? queried Saphira in what Eragon would have sworn was a teasing tone of voice.
Aye, decline. If one or another of our three races suffer, so do they all. By killing dragons, Galbatorix harmed his own race as well as the elves. The two of you have not seen this, for you are new to Ellesmera, but the elves are on the wane; their power is not what it once was. And humans have lost much of their culture and been consumed by chaos and corruption. Only by righting the imbalance between our three races shall order return to the world.
The old dragon kneaded the scree with his talons, crumbling it into gravel so that he was more comfortable. Layered within the enchantment Queen Tarmunora oversaw was the mechanism that allows a hatchling to be linked with his or her Rider. When a dragon decides to give an egg to the Riders, certain words are said over the egg — which I shall teach you later — that prevent the dragon inside from hatching until it is brought into contact with the person with whom it decides to bond. As dragons can remain in their eggs indefinitely, time is of no concern, nor is the infant harmed. You yourself are an example of this, Saphira.
The bond that forms between a Rider and dragon is but an enhanced version of the bond that already exists between our races. The human or elf becomes stronger and fairer, while some of the dragon’s fiercer traits are tempered by a more reasoned outlook... I see a thought biting at your tongue, Eragon. What is it?
“It’s just...” He hesitated. “I have a hard time imagining you or Saphira being any fiercer. Not,” he added anxiously, “that that’s a bad thing.”
The ground shook as if with an avalanche as Glaedr chuckled, rolling his great big staring eye behind its horny lid and back again. If ever you met an unbonded dragon, you would not say so. A dragon alone answers to no one and no thing, takes whatever pleases it, and bears no thought of kindness for aught but its kith and kin. Fierce and proud were the wild dragons, even arrogant... The females were so formidable, it was accounted a great accomplishment among the Riders’ dragons to mate with one.
The lack of this bond is why Galbatorix’s partnership with Shruikan, his second dragon, is such a perverted union. Shruikan did not choose Galbatorix as his partner; he was twisted by certain black magics into serving Galbatorix’s madness. Galbatorix has constructed a depraved imitation of the relationship that you, Eragon, and you, Saphira, possess and that he lost when the Urgals murdered his original dragon.
Glaedr paused and looked between the two of them. His eye was all that moved. That which links you exceeds any simple connection between minds. Your very souls, your identities — call it what you will — have been welded on a primal level. His eye flicked to Eragon. Do you believe that a person’s soul is separate from his body?
“I don’t know,” said Eragon. “Saphira once took me out of my body and let me see the world through her eyes... It seemed like I was no longer connected to my body. And if the wraiths that a sorcerer calls upon can exist, then maybe our consciousness is independent of flesh as well.”
Extending the needle-sharp tip of his foreclaw, Glaedr flipped over a rock to expose a woodrat cowering in its nest. He snapped up the rat with a flash of his red tongue; Eragon winced as he felt the animal’s life extinguished.
When the flesh is destroyed, so is the soul, said Glaedr.
“But an animal isn’t a person,” protested Eragon.
After your meditations, do you truly believe that any of us are so different from a woodrat? That we are gifted with a miraculous quality that other creatures do not enjoy and that somehow preserves our beings after death?
“No,” muttered Eragon.
I thought not. Because we are so closely joined, when a dragon or Rider is injured, they must harden their hearts and sever the connection between them in order to protect each other from unnecessary suffering, even insanity. And since the soul cannot be torn from the flesh, you must resist the temptation to try to take your partner’s soul into your own body and shelter it there, as that will result in both your deaths. Even if it were possible, it would be an abomination to have multiple consciousnesses in one body.
“How terrible,” said Eragon, “to die alone, separate even from the one who is closest to you.”
Everyone dies alone, Eragon. Whether you are a king on a battlefield or a lowly peasant lying in bed among your family, no one can accompany you into the void... Now I will have you practice separating your consciousnesses. Start by...
Eragon stared at the tray of dinner left in the anteroom of the tree house. He cataloged the contents: bread with hazelnut butter, berries, beans, a bowl of leafy greens, two hard-boiled eggs — which, in accordance with the elves’ beliefs, were unfertilized — and a stoppered jug of fresh spring water. He knew that each dish was prepared with the utmost care, that the elves lavished all of their culinary skill upon his meals, and that not even Islanzadi ate better than him.
He could not bear the sight of the tray.
I want meat, he growled, stomping back into the bedroom. Saphira looked up at him from her dais. I’d even settle for fish or fowl, anything besides this never-ending stream of vegetables. They don’t fill up my stomach. I’m not a horse; why should I be fed like one?
Saphira unfolded her legs, walked to the edge of the teardrop gap overlooking Ellesmera, and said, I have needed to eat these past few days. Would you like to join me? You can cook as much meat as you like and the elves will never know.
That I would, he said, brightening. Should I get the saddle?
We won’t go that far.
Eragon fetched his supply of salt, herbs, and other seasonings from his bags and then, careful not to overexert himself, climbed into the gap between the spikes along Saphira’s spine.
