Keep a close watch tonight, said Murtagh.
That I shall. If there’s the slightest thing amiss, I’ll wake you.
Thank you.
Then Murtagh ended the spell he was using to keep the guards asleep. The two men snorted and stirred but did not open their eyes; they were genuinely tired, and he thought it likely they would slumber straight through until morn.
Lastly, Murtagh closed the shutters to his bedroom, cloistering himself in the pregnant darkness.
Murtagh lit the taper by the bed and then went to the washroom and did his best to cleanse himself of the crow dung. Even with the help of some magic, he wasn’t entirely successful. He hoped he didn’t smell enough to arouse Bachel’s or Grieve’s suspicions.
Shirtless, he sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress was stuffed with wool, not straw. An unexpected luxury. He held Saerlith’s clasp, which he had also washed, and studied it by the flickering candlelight.
If the Dreamers had been allied with Saerlith or the other Forsworn, did the partnership mean so little to them that the villagers would leave Saerlith’s clasp to sit like a piece of rubbish in the Tower of Flint? Or had it been dropped and forgotten, the result of some accident?
Questions. So many questions.
In the back of his mind, Murtagh felt Thorn’s thoughts grow strange and disjointed as the dragon passed into a troubled slumber. As always, Murtagh wished he could soothe Thorn, but he feared to wake him, so he sat and kept to himself, and the dragon’s dreams only worsened Murtagh’s own unease.
He leaned back with a sigh.
A day, two at the most. That was what he’d allow. If, by then, he and Thorn didn’t find answers to the many questions Bachel and Nal Gorgoth raised, it would be time to apply force—by words or by action—and pry loose the information.
Murtagh shivered and reached for his shirt.
The chambers were cold and getting colder. He considered lighting a fire, but he was tired and didn’t want to deal with tending the flames through the night. So he wet his fingers, pinched out the taper, and burrowed under the sheepskin and blankets.
After a few minutes, he turned the sheepskin wool-side down. There. Then he pulled the blankets up to his neck and closed his eyes as warmth gathered around his body.
It took him some time to quiet his thoughts enough to sleep. He wanted to rest; tomorrow, he suspected, would be trying, and it was important to be as sharp as possible in the event that their time in Nal Gorgoth came to violence. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the Tower of Flint, Saerlith’s clasp, and the cavern sitting like a great gluttonous toad behind the temple.
Whirling darkness swallowed him, and in the center of it, at the bottom of an impossibly deep hole, at the very heart of the widdershin void, lay a formless horror—ancient and evil and from which emanated a constant, merciless hunger: never sated, all-consuming, with a particular glee for the sufferings of creatures caught between the gnashing of teeth.
His mind fled the horror, but it was a deadly riptide, more powerful than the Boar’s Eye between the Southern Isles of Uden and Parlim, and the harder he tried, the slower he moved….
Fear filled him. Icy, coursing fear that froze his veins and chained his limbs and turned his stomach to acid. His heart fluttered, and for a moment seemed to stop, and in the grips of his terror, he cried for help as he had when a child: “Mother!”
Then Thorn’s mind touched his own, and the gaping horror receded, and for a time Murtagh felt himself lost in the vast landscape of Thorn’s thoughts.
They were flying, higher and higher, until the ground faded from sight, and above and below were the same: a perfect sphere of sky, with nowhere to land and only clouds for cover. A flock of eagles screamed past, talons extended to tear out eyes, and then they were gone, and it was impossible to tell which direction was up and which down.
A timeless while passed, and then a thunder of dragons rose about them: dragons of every shape and color, their scales flashing, their wings thudding until all the air vibrated like a drum. For an instant, hope and companionship, but only an instant. The dragons turned on them and attacked them and tore at Thorn’s flesh until his wings were tattered remnants and he plunged from the pale sphere of the sky into the heated depths of the earth, where the dirt was heavy and pressing and the only solace was pain and hate and the steady drip of their own hot blood.
Nasuada stood in front of him. Her dress was ripped and stained, and across her forearms, he saw the cuts and bruises Galbatorix had forced him to inflict upon her, and with them, the bloody tracks where the burrow grubs had chewed their way beneath her skin, and his guilt knew no bounds. “Why?” she said. “Why, why, why? Tell me…why?”
A disjunction, and then a battlefield stretched before them, from their feet to the smoke-smudged horizon. Humans and Urgals and elves struggled in their thousands: a sea of heaving bodies intent on inflicting pain on one another.
Zar’roc was in Murtagh’s right hand, and his shield in the other, and Thorn stood beside him. They roared together and strode forth into maddened conflict. And Murtagh swung his sword with abandon, and he felt the familiar shock of impact as the blade sliced through flesh and bone, and his foes fell before him. A wall of rippling flame shot out ahead of him as Thorn sprayed the collected warriors with liquid fire. The smell of burnt hair and crisping skin filled the air, and the combatants screamed as they cooked in their armor.
Murtagh continued forward, Zar’roc lighter in his hand than ever before. And he killed, and he killed, and with each kill, he felt growing power.
A cloud of crows wheeled above the battlefield, and in the distance, hidden by the smoke but in presence felt, Bachel watched. And Murtagh knew she watched with approval.
CHAPTER V
Recitations of Faith
The sound of bells woke Murtagh, a high, brassy clang that bounced off the mountains and set the crows in the Tower of Flint to cawing.
He blinked, instantly alert, and reached for Zar’roc. The familiar feel of the wire-wrapped hilt comforted him.
Grey light pervaded the bedroom. It seemed well into morning, but because of the high mountains, the sun had yet to rise.
Murtagh searched for Thorn’s mind…and found the dragon already awake in the courtyard below.
They shared a moment of closeness, and Thorn said, You dreamt as I did.
It wasn’t a question, but Murtagh answered all the same. Yes. I…I’ve never had an experience like that before.
He could feel Thorn shifting in place. The visions were like those HE showed us, during the dark time.
Murtagh suppressed a shiver. Of all the many tortures Galbatorix had inflicted upon them, Murtagh had hated those most of all. The king would, at his whim, flood their minds with false images that served to confuse the senses and make it difficult to resist his will.
Yes, he said. But different too. They were more real than real. He sat and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He stared at the wall for a moment, and then rubbed his face in a futile attempt to dispel the memories of the night.