Bachel’s expression grew haughty. “You would not understand if I told you, Kingkiller. You would claim you did, but you would not feel the truth, and your heart would be empty. I had hoped to spare you this. I had hoped you would dream as we all dream here in Nal Gorgoth, and you would come to understand the truth as we all have. You would have devoted yourself to our cause, freely and willingly.”
“Is that how it was with Saerlith?” asked Murtagh. “Did he follow you freely?” As he spoke, he risked sending a single blade of thought toward the surface. Thorn! A cry for help to the only one he could count on.
But all he received in return was fear. Fear of enclosed spaces, fear of being trapped, fear of loss. Murtagh’s mouth grew sour. He could expect no reinforcement.
Bachel’s lips twisted to one side. “Saerlith was a pawn and nothing more. He served our aims, even as did Galbatorix and Morzan.”
The mention of his father seemed like an obvious attempt to needle him. He chose to ignore the bait. “Somehow I doubt that. Galbatorix served nothing and no one.”
His words appeared to prick the witch’s pride. “Your fear leads you to overestimate the king. How is it, do you think, he came to lose his dragon?”
Murtagh felt his pride similarly afflicted. “Galbatorix? He went adventuring in the north, and a group of Urgals—”
“No!” cried Bachel, and she slashed through the air with one arm, the hand flat and narrow as a blade. Then, in a more measured tone: “It is true that Urgals slew Jarnunvösk in the icy reaches of the far north, but you are mistaken as to the reason Galbatorix and his unfortunate party ventured forth. He lied to you, Outlander. What he told you, and everything else you have heard from the Riders of old about that expedition, all lies!”
Keep her talking. Murtagh continued to edge around the well, trying to maintain equal distance between him, the witch, and Grieve. “Then what is the truth, Bachel? Or will you only answer with more riddles?”
Bachel assumed a cold, cruel demeanor. “The truth is this: The Riders feared us, Du Eld Draumar. And they feared me. And, in secret, they dispatched Galbatorix and his companions to seek us out, that the Riders might later destroy us.”
Just how old was the witch? “If they feared you so,” said Murtagh, “why would they send Riders who were not even fully trained or tested? None of them had even a score of years. Surely you cannot expect me to believe such a tale.”
“The purpose of Galbatorix’s party was to find us. Theirs was not to attack,” said Bachel. “Indeed, they did not even know the truth of whom they looked for, as their elders sought to keep them ignorant of the Draumar.”
Murtagh’s steps slowed as dozens of possibilities raced through his mind. Nothing the witch said was impossible, and if she was right, the implications were dire, for they meant the Draumar were dangerous enough to threaten even the Riders. “But they were attacked.”
Bachel gave a curt nod. “Galbatorix came wandering back through the Spine, alone and half mad. As such, he found us, and it was as such we took him in. At first he distrusted us, even as you have, and he blamed us for the death of Jarnunvösk, but I ministered him with what attentions were needed, and in time, he came to understand that it was the Riders who were to blame for his loss.”
“You turned him against them,” Murtagh breathed. “And then you sent him back to confront them.”
Again, Bachel nodded. “It was a test. Were the Riders as kind and compassionate as they claimed, they would have taken pity upon Galbatorix and given him another dragon. But they were not, and they did not, and so Galbatorix came to understand the truth of them.”
Fear hollowed out Murtagh. It was hard for him to imagine Galbatorix being anything less than the most powerful person in the land, elves included. If Bachel had done what she claimed—whether through the force of her words or the strength of her magic or a combination thereof—then by some measure, she surmounted even the king.
In a low voice, he said, “Do you mean to say Galbatorix and the Forsworn were your thralls?”
“In part. They were useful instruments to a needed end.”
He cocked his head. “Which was?”
“The eradication of the Riders.”
“Why would you seek that? Are not dragons sacred to your people?”
A dismissive wave of Bachel’s hand. “The lesser worms matter not. Their blood is tainted by the wrongdoings of their forefathers, and only once the Riders and their dragons were washed from the world could a new era begin.”
Grieve moved a bit too close for Murtagh’s liking, and he retreated a few steps. “What of Durza?” he asked. “Always I’ve heard that Galbatorix met him in the Spine, after Jarnunvösk died.”
“That is true,” Bachel said, inclining her head. “The Shade shared in our dreams, and it was because of them that his ambitions grew longer and broader than is the wont of his ilk.”
“He lived here?”
“For many a year, even as Galbatorix and your father lived here after they fled Ilirea with the hatchling Shruikan.” The glow from the Dauthdaert lit the side of Bachel’s face with a ghoulish cast. “Your king and your father knew the truth of things, Murtagh son of Morzan. Always you were destined to follow in their footsteps. There is no other path for you.”
Murtagh’s mind was awhirl as he parsed the witch’s revelations. And yet he remained convinced of one truth: Galbatorix would never have bent his knee to another. Not after he turned against the Riders. If he had been allied with the Draumar, it had only been as a matter of convenience. The king was no zealot, no true believer. At the soonest opportunity, he would have turned against the Draumar and attempted to undo them. Murtagh recalled what Bachel had said before their boar hunt: that Galbatorix once tried to purge their settlements. Tried and failed.
With the harsh light of insight, he realized: Somehow the Draumar held their own against the king. Somehow she did. Bachel was a danger even to Galbatorix. But why, why, why, why?
“I am not my father,” he said in a tight voice. “Nor am I the man I once was. It is you who are mistaken, witch. I shall not bend to you.”
“How unfortunate,” said Bachel. But she seemed entirely unconcerned.
Murtagh lifted Zar’roc and twirled the hilt in his hand, as if he had not a care in the world. “You cannot best me, Bachel. Neither of you can.”
The witch laughed, a wild, unrestrained laughter that sent chills down Murtagh’s spine. She was no more scared of him than he would be of a common footpad, and his palm grew slick with sweat on Zar’roc’s wire-wrapped hilt. Should have worn gloves, he thought. Without taking his gaze off Bachel or Grieve, he unhooked his cloak and spun it around his left forearm, and he heard Tornac’s voice in his head saying, “An offhand garment may serve to distract, bind, and, in the absence of a shield, protect.”
“Perhaps I cannot best you, Kingkiller,” said Bachel, “though it would be an interesting contest. However, it is not I that you must overcome. I am merely an instrument of a higher power, and neither you nor I nor the wisest of elves nor the strongest of dragons yet living can prevail against that which I serve.”
She touched the pane of crystal in the hammered lid, and the pane slid open, seemingly of its own accord, and a choking cloud of green-lit vapor billowed into the room.
Murtagh didn’t know what danger the vapor posed, but he knew enough to be afraid. He had a half second to inhale, and then the cloud enveloped him, dimming the room and making his eyes smart.