Arms lifted him off the floor, and a pair of white-robed men dragged him from the cell even as he began to protest.
The cultists carried him back to the room of torment. Coal-lit, bloodstained, the strained stench of terror clinging to the chiseled stones with dogged, unkind persistence.
Bachel was waiting for him, again bedecked with headdress and dragon-aspect mask, her figure tall and fearsome, with a crow perched on either shoulder.
Murtagh fought to no avail as the cultists chained him to the rough slab table. Murmuring softly, Bachel bent over him, and the sound of Murtagh’s agony echoed off the indifferent walls.
There was a monotony to pain. Every hurt brought fresh discomfort—immediate and insistent and demanding of Murtagh’s attention—and yet the pain possessed a deadly sameness that blurred into a single smear of agony. The repetitiveness was nearly as unbearable as the injuries themselves. The process was all so miserably predictable. He hated knowing the direction of Bachel’s cruel intentions, and he hated how effective her not-so-tender ministrations were. Experience provided no protection; if anything, it made his trials harder to endure, and the continual confusion that snarled his thoughts only increased the inhuman strain of every eternal instant.
Yet for all that, he still managed to evade and confound Bachel’s mental attacks. And the witch grew frustrated, and she used the Breath on him again, and time fractured around him, and he could not order the happening of events. He seemed to skip between moments, unmoored from a constant present, a castaway thrown from one chopped fragment of time to the next, as a piece of flotsam from whitecap to whitecap.
Murtagh held fast to the one thing he was sure of: his own sense of self. That much he knew. The core of what he knew himself to be—the truth of his name in the ancient language—gave him strength even in the depths of his despair.
The pain was no longer his alone. He felt additional torments now, these from Thorn, and they compounded his anguish. He cursed Bachel, but the witch only laughed, as was her wont, and once more demanded his fealty.
It was a pointless exercise on her part, but Murtagh felt tears on his face—the first time he had wept because of Bachel’s inflictions—and he wept not for himself but for Thorn. The dragon did not deserve the pain, had never deserved such treatment. I have failed, Murtagh thought, and the realization was crushing. Once again, he was unable to protect his friend. Once again, another suffered because of his mistakes.
He wished he could ask Eragon for help. He would have happily swallowed his pride if it meant that Eragon and Saphira would fly to their rescue. What use was pride when you were reduced to the basest, meanest part of existence? Pride, vanity, ambition, anger—none were left to him. Only the need to survive. And to somehow save Thorn.
The cultists were splashing water over him, washing him as before. Old court habits made Murtagh want to thank them, to show that even though he was at their mercy, they had not stripped him of his self-possession and good manners. But the words would not leave his mouth.
Thorn lay in the courtyard, beaten and bedraggled. Never had Murtagh seen a dragon so cowed—a mistreated hound cringing before its master. The sight caused something to break in Murtagh’s chest, and he tried to speak.
All he could manage from between cracked lips was the softest: “…thorn.”
The dragon’s eyes stared back with a dull, lifeless gaze, and Murtagh felt a brush of his mind. For a moment, he glimpsed a dark, gloom-ridden landscape of thought, where no spark of hope shone, and grey murk pressed in from every side.
Uvek was speaking: “…Murtagh-man…Can you hear me, Murtagh-man?…Blink if you understand words.”
Murtagh tried to roll onto his side, but his muscles refused to respond. He slumped back against the wall, eyes closed, and made a sound of defeat. With one hand, he gestured vaguely toward the Urgal.
A grunt came from Uvek. Through slitted lids, Murtagh saw him squat next to the bars of his cell. “You are strong, Murtagh-man. Stronger than most hornless.”
“…Rider.” The word came as a croak from his raw throat.
“Hrmm. Is more than that. Strength comes from here.” Uvek tapped the side of his head. “And here.” He tapped the center of his chest.
A sudden cough caused Murtagh to cry out as pain lanced his side. It felt as if he had a broken rib, or near enough. He took a shallow breath. “What do…you know…of…Azlagûr?”
A dark cloud settled on Uvek’s face, and the muscles in his forearms rippled and knotted. “Only that Draumar worship that one. I never heard name before Nal Gorgoth, but I think…No, I do not know what I think. Bachel is mad, but does not mean power is imagined. No.”
“…no.” Murtagh grimaced as he pulled his cloak across his chest. The stones beneath him felt unbearably cold. “I keep dreaming…dreaming of…” His strength fell off, and with it, his voice. With an effort, he rallied. “Of a black sun with a black dragon…. think…it has…something to do with…Azlagûr.”
The shadowed crevices on Uvek’s face deepened. “Is so? I see black sun as well, Murtagh-man. Every night, it troubles my sleep. Hrmm. Do you know how Urgralgra think world will end?”
“…how?”
Uvek bared his teeth. “The great dragon, Gogvog, will rise from the ocean and eat the sun and the stars and the moon, and then he cook world with his flames. Will be bad time for Urgralgra. And hornless too.”
The faintest of smiles touched Murtagh’s lips. “I would imagine…so.”
“It remind me of black sun.” The Urgal rolled his shoulders. “It bother me, Murtagh-man. This is a bad place, I think. Very bad.”
Murtagh couldn’t disagree. His eyes drifted closed, and he felt as if he was on the verge of passing out.
Uvek’s voice dragged him back to awareness. “Is bad to sleep when you are hurt like this, Murtagh-man. I know. Close eyes and you not wake up again. Might be.”
“Can’t…stay…awake,” Murtagh mumbled.
The Urgal huffed. “I will tell you story, then. Hrmm. I will tell you how Draumar caught me. Would you like?”
“…yes.”
“Good. Keep eyes open, Murtagh-man. Story is this…. Fourteen winters. Fourteen winters I sit atop mountain. I think. I dream. I listen. Birds and beasts, the little bees that feed off spring flowers, I listen to them, Murtagh-man. They taught me much about world, and I thought I understand, but…Guh!” He tugged the tips of his horns, and his heavy lips curled with disgust. “No understand. I was fool then, but I not realize. I left clan because I thought better to be alone. Only way I could learn without distraction. Only way I help Urgralgra without favor this clan or that. Only way to stand apart.”
Uvek tapped a thick yellow fingernail against the iron bar in front of him. “Older I get, Murtagh-man, more I think being wise is knowing how much still unknown. Too easy to be fooled by thinking we know pattern, but the world, she like sand falling in wind. Much zhar. Much randomness. Hrmm…Two years ago, Clan Vrekqna came to me, told me of hornless that raid them, take prisoners, kill their warriors. They asked help, but I would not leave mountaintop, and I sent them away. Few moons later, Clan Thulkarvoc came to me with same ask. Said the hornless had strange magics they could not stand against. Said they left charms of bird skulls. Said they stole their rams and burned their huts. Still, I would not leave mountaintop. Too proud I was, far, far too proud.”