The only outside affair that Eragon, Saphira, Arya and Indra actively involved themselves in nowadays was the matter of the Eldunari. Unfortunately, not a single one of them had broken out their stupor after decades of effort. Eragon’s elven guard stood watch over mount Marna dutifully and could not but be alarmed as they felt the mountain be consumed in the rage and sorrow that emanated from the Eldunari.
Rhunon worked away at her forge built inside the mountain whenever she got time off convincing the dragons to see reason. Murtagh visited religiously on a daily basis to help Rhunon. Even Angela made odd visits to the cave and tried her hand at arousing interest in the dragons. No fruit was to be had for years until Murtagh decided that it was wiser to concentrate on the one Eldunari that was brighter than the others and took personal charge of the purple orb. After a year of spending more time soothing it than he spent with his wife, there was some light to be had: the particularly large orb sent back a flash of images to him that were too distorted to process anything out of. Thorn had to assist him in making sense of the images, his dragon senses helping make out what the dragon had communicated. They could only collect that the images were a route to unknown lands beyond Hedarth, the dwarven trading post.
Saphira, Vanendra and Thorn had to pool together their minds and access what they called the “dragon conscience” - the one that Eragon had met with during the Agaeti Blodhren to make total sense of the imagery. The conscience instructed them that it was just too important an information to ignore. Eragon decided that he and Saphira would explore the route to discover what it was that the purple dragon had wished to convey. Arya and Vanendra did not want to be left behind when Saphira and Eragon ventured into the unknown. They were adamant that they would accompany the lead rider and dragon. Eragon had to enlist the services of Islanzadi to keep them at bay. The queen convinced her daughter to visit her in Ellesmera when Eragon and Saphira finished up their quest. After much bickering, Arya kissed Eragon a safe journey and Vanendra bid Saphira his pitiful farewell.
The journey was treacherous even with the power of ultimate sacrifice assisting them. Saphira was caught in strong gusts of wind and pushed out of her path many times. Mountains taller even than the Beors had to be crossed and rivers as wide as oceans were spotted. The land beyond Alagaesia was truly wild and civilisation had no place in it. But then it also offered its own advantages: Eragon and Saphira were transported back to the days when he struggled to keep her safe from the prying villagers and wildlife of Carvahall right after her birth. That very same innocence was back in their lives.
It took them a whole month to reach the destination and a unique challenge faced them when they arrived in the valley. It was an almost perfectly circular valley hemmed in by mountains on all sides - mountains that were so tall that anyone other than Saphira would consider them infinitesimally tall. Not her of the glorious blue scales though: she rose and rose in the sky till the air became so thin that Eragon was struggling to breathe and the cold started seeping rapidly into his lungs. His vision started blurring.
‘Just a little while more, Little one!,’ Saphira hummed in his head and tried to descend on the other side of the mountain only to be blocked by an invisible force. Disoriented, she took a moment to regain her senses and then tried again with even greater speed, hoping she could break the barrier open using brute force. Eragon, even with dulling senses, tried casting a spell to push them onward. The misty barrier didn’t budge - not even when Eragon channelled his almost unlimited energy into the spell. They had to drop out or risk death - even Saphira who had fire welling up in her belly started feeling cold. Eragon was close to freezing, his only protection a spell he had cast to surround his body with warmer air. But for some reason, the warmth in the air seemed to drain away as soon as it started building up. Their sojourn from Alagaesia to these unknown lands was wasted: here was a spell that even a superior spellcaster like Eragon couldn’t break. Frustrated, Saphira bellowed and lit up the air around her with dragon fire. Lo, and behold! They were transported into the middle of the valley just as the images from the purple dragon predicted. It was disorienting even for the magic-aware Eragon and Saphira. This was different: this magic felt raw and ancient. When the effects of the transportation withered away, they marvelled at the sheer beauty of the valley. The surrounding mountains were far and away from where they stood, yet no less imposing. They were in a vast expanse of verdant trees - neither dense as those of Du Weldenvarden nor wild as those of the Spine but well spaced and well lit. It was domestic and wild simultaneously if that was ever possible. The Sun beat down on them and the warmth was palpable, yet the wind was cool and soothing.
A few hours roaming the valley, Eragon realised how massive the place really was. It could harbour a whole country and no one would ever find out it ever existed. There was a gradual build up of will in his mind from the moment he arrived to walk in a particular direction. He curbed that urge and wandered around searching for whatever it was that he was meant to find. The urge to simply walk in the said direction grew with time to the point that he couldn’t resist anymore. Saphira, soaring above him, scanning for threats also shared his urge. ‘This seems like a trap to me,’ Eragon told Saphira.
‘That it does,’ agreed she. ‘But it somehow soothes me rather than make me restless,’ she added.
‘Aye, it is. That’s what worries me.’
‘Trust me, little one! Dragon sense is never wrong. This is not a threat.’
Even as they were discussing this, the urge to walk on ceased to exist. Eragon felt something amiss - like there was something or someone watching him. He cast a spell to show hidden artefacts. Nothing happened.
“Now what do we do?” he wondered out aloud.
On instinct, Saphira lit up the space in front of Eragon. He was surprised at the speed with which Saphira proceeded to act. Even when their minds were melded as one, she had blasted the flames within milliseconds of the thought forming over their mind-meld. ‘Your dragon instinct is going to roast me ali… ,’ he started commenting only to be stopped by the greatest revelation he had come up on in his life and that was saying something: he had found Bid’Daum as an infant, found Saphira as an egg, Kuthian as an impossibly elder dragon and had found a way to kill the evil Galbatorix. But this was the greatest find he had ever made. For before him lay the future of the dragon race. A huge collection of yet to be born dragons in their eggs. Wild dragon eggs!
Saphira roared triumphantly and Eragon joined her in happiness. They let their emotions reverberate across the valley. The valley responded with a flurry of images: Images created by dragons. The images explained what was happening: The dragons had not been too reckless during the Fall after all. They had come here before the final battle to safeguard the next generation of wild dragons. The spells around the valley had been willed into existence by dragons and were still active because the Eldunari in Mount Marna still breathed dragon magic into those spells - unbeknownst to themselves. The spells would only have let in a dragon and no one else - that was the reason that dragon fire was necessary to enter into the valley and to find the egg stash. The urge to walk in the direction of the stash built up gradually because their minds were being probed to find their intentions. Only people and dragons with good intentions would have been guided to the location of the eggs. Others would have been driven crazy - it was magic at another dimension - the dimension of dragons.
Eragon counted about fifty eggs - each a different shade. They were more than enough to bring back the dragons to their former glory. Eragon secured the eggs to Saphira’s saddle and added protective spells around them. Just the thought of bringing dragons back to life in Alagaesia thrilled them. ‘How joyous would Arya be?’ was all Eragon could think. His mate had been born into a world filled with dragons only to lose them before she understood what it was like to be in the presence of wild dragons. He decided that he would surprise Arya with the eggs when they returned rather than inform her beforehand.
During their return journey, they followed a river upstream believing it to be the continuation of the Edda and Az Ragini rivers of Alagaesia that meet in a fantastic confluence at Hedarth. It had further swollen to many times larger after merging with nameless rivers downstream. The return was swifter than the way towards the dragon egg stash. They reached Hedarth after five and twenty sunrises since they started. In the next half day, they reached the outskirts of Ellesmera. First they visited Master Oromis’s hut and left the dragon eggs inside making sure that enough protective spells were in place to stop unwanted attention. Thus having set the surprise up, they flew back to their mates on the other end of Ellesmera.
Arya dashed towards Eragon as soon as he disembarked from atop Saphira, hugging and kissing him with abandon, not caring if any elf noticed her passion. Eragon could not resist his own fire. He had not realised how much he missed her till she crashed into him. Even though he had scried her almost on a daily basis, being physically able to hold her was something else. He lovingly stroked her back as he took in her scent of pine cones. The dragons for their part danced in the skies - a blur of green and blue. Once their initial greeting was done, Saphira became restless.
‘Let’s show them,’ she blurted out.
“Show us what?” Arya asked, curious. She had noticed the excitement in Eragon’s steps as they ascended the stairs and had simply taken it to mean his enthusiasm at being back home.
Eragon kicked Saphira mentally for blowing their surprise. “Come with me,” he said to Arya, literally dragging her back down and out into the city. He almost ran through the city not noticing elves who curtsied to him with Arya closely behind him. She was acutely aware of the disapproving glances from the elder elves of the town but ignored them for the sake of Eragon. If he was excited enough to behave this way, she would not begrudge him that pleasure - he was human and she had accepted that long ago.
Saphira, meanwhile, had brought Indra to Master Oromis’s humble abode already. They arrived earlier than Eragon and Arya as they took the aerial route. ‘Oh, do come soon, Eragon!,’ Saphira chided even as he was dashing through the winding streets of Ellesmera. Arya struggled to keep up with his mad pace as she had not the element of inspiration that Eragon had. Saphira fidgeted uncontrollably wanting to break the surprise to Indra even before Eragon and Arya reached the crags. The rider pleaded with his dragon not to do so as he wanted to watch Arya’s reaction when presented with the physical eggs themselves.
When the Crags of Tel'naeír came in view, Eragon took Arya’s hands in his and half dragged her behind him into Oromis’s hut.
Having waited for a grand total of three minutes by when Saphira had threatened to break their surprise, Indra peered into the single-room hut through a window. In an instant and without warning, Eragon lifted the cloaking spell and all fifty dragon eggs surrounded Arya. She stood still for a moment with just a gasp escaping her vocal chords. Involuntarily, she leaned back on Eragon’s shoulders with tears streaming down her cheeks. Eragon held her close, feeling her happiness embrace him. After a moment in awed silence, she bent down to marvel at the smoothness of an amber egg that was close to her.
Then she got back up and turned - her face radiated the thrill she was experiencing inside. “Eragon… this… this is… ,” she choked on the words. Eragon kissed her forehead softly. It was for this reaction - to experience it first hand that he had hid this fact for a month from Arya. He embraced her even as he teared up as well.
“This is the lasting peace we have been searching for Arya,” said he. Indra, who was stuck outside the room could not control his excitement and wanted to break into the hut only to be held at bay by Saphira. Both dragons then let out a roar that together pierced every corner of the great elven city. Before long Islanzadi had arrived at the scene and elves started assembling as the rumour of a great find spread like wildfire. The few human and dwarven traders that were staying in town also came up to see what the commotion was about. It wasn’t always that there was a commotion in the elven capital afterall.
The elves danced on seeing what it was that Eragon had brought back from the unknown lands. The agaeti blodhren was not in another three quarters of a century but the elves didn’t care. The return of dragons was even greater a celebration for them.
The festivities raged for months and one by one the dragons hatched as if responding to being celebrated. Wild Dragons only hatch when the environment is conductive to their wellbeing and their hatching bode well for the future. Within weeks, the city was the scene of fifty fast growing and wild dragons. They took to the elves like children took to playmates. For the elves, it was a prematurely arrived blodhren festival. Only, this was greater than the previous one as they now had fifty young dragons amongst them to take part in the celebrations. Murtagh, Nasuada, Roran, Katrina, Weldhana, Orik and their parties all descended on the city in the next few days. Even Kull who revered physical strength above all else visited the dragons. The five sentient species of Alagaesia were all in one city for the first time in probably, forever.
Rhunon worked away at her forge built inside the mountain whenever she got time off convincing the dragons to see reason. Murtagh visited religiously on a daily basis to help Rhunon. Even Angela made odd visits to the cave and tried her hand at arousing interest in the dragons. No fruit was to be had for years until Murtagh decided that it was wiser to concentrate on the one Eldunari that was brighter than the others and took personal charge of the purple orb. After a year of spending more time soothing it than he spent with his wife, there was some light to be had: the particularly large orb sent back a flash of images to him that were too distorted to process anything out of. Thorn had to assist him in making sense of the images, his dragon senses helping make out what the dragon had communicated. They could only collect that the images were a route to unknown lands beyond Hedarth, the dwarven trading post.
Saphira, Vanendra and Thorn had to pool together their minds and access what they called the “dragon conscience” - the one that Eragon had met with during the Agaeti Blodhren to make total sense of the imagery. The conscience instructed them that it was just too important an information to ignore. Eragon decided that he and Saphira would explore the route to discover what it was that the purple dragon had wished to convey. Arya and Vanendra did not want to be left behind when Saphira and Eragon ventured into the unknown. They were adamant that they would accompany the lead rider and dragon. Eragon had to enlist the services of Islanzadi to keep them at bay. The queen convinced her daughter to visit her in Ellesmera when Eragon and Saphira finished up their quest. After much bickering, Arya kissed Eragon a safe journey and Vanendra bid Saphira his pitiful farewell.
The journey was treacherous even with the power of ultimate sacrifice assisting them. Saphira was caught in strong gusts of wind and pushed out of her path many times. Mountains taller even than the Beors had to be crossed and rivers as wide as oceans were spotted. The land beyond Alagaesia was truly wild and civilisation had no place in it. But then it also offered its own advantages: Eragon and Saphira were transported back to the days when he struggled to keep her safe from the prying villagers and wildlife of Carvahall right after her birth. That very same innocence was back in their lives.
It took them a whole month to reach the destination and a unique challenge faced them when they arrived in the valley. It was an almost perfectly circular valley hemmed in by mountains on all sides - mountains that were so tall that anyone other than Saphira would consider them infinitesimally tall. Not her of the glorious blue scales though: she rose and rose in the sky till the air became so thin that Eragon was struggling to breathe and the cold started seeping rapidly into his lungs. His vision started blurring.
‘Just a little while more, Little one!,’ Saphira hummed in his head and tried to descend on the other side of the mountain only to be blocked by an invisible force. Disoriented, she took a moment to regain her senses and then tried again with even greater speed, hoping she could break the barrier open using brute force. Eragon, even with dulling senses, tried casting a spell to push them onward. The misty barrier didn’t budge - not even when Eragon channelled his almost unlimited energy into the spell. They had to drop out or risk death - even Saphira who had fire welling up in her belly started feeling cold. Eragon was close to freezing, his only protection a spell he had cast to surround his body with warmer air. But for some reason, the warmth in the air seemed to drain away as soon as it started building up. Their sojourn from Alagaesia to these unknown lands was wasted: here was a spell that even a superior spellcaster like Eragon couldn’t break. Frustrated, Saphira bellowed and lit up the air around her with dragon fire. Lo, and behold! They were transported into the middle of the valley just as the images from the purple dragon predicted. It was disorienting even for the magic-aware Eragon and Saphira. This was different: this magic felt raw and ancient. When the effects of the transportation withered away, they marvelled at the sheer beauty of the valley. The surrounding mountains were far and away from where they stood, yet no less imposing. They were in a vast expanse of verdant trees - neither dense as those of Du Weldenvarden nor wild as those of the Spine but well spaced and well lit. It was domestic and wild simultaneously if that was ever possible. The Sun beat down on them and the warmth was palpable, yet the wind was cool and soothing.
A few hours roaming the valley, Eragon realised how massive the place really was. It could harbour a whole country and no one would ever find out it ever existed. There was a gradual build up of will in his mind from the moment he arrived to walk in a particular direction. He curbed that urge and wandered around searching for whatever it was that he was meant to find. The urge to simply walk in the said direction grew with time to the point that he couldn’t resist anymore. Saphira, soaring above him, scanning for threats also shared his urge. ‘This seems like a trap to me,’ Eragon told Saphira.
‘That it does,’ agreed she. ‘But it somehow soothes me rather than make me restless,’ she added.
‘Aye, it is. That’s what worries me.’
‘Trust me, little one! Dragon sense is never wrong. This is not a threat.’
Even as they were discussing this, the urge to walk on ceased to exist. Eragon felt something amiss - like there was something or someone watching him. He cast a spell to show hidden artefacts. Nothing happened.
“Now what do we do?” he wondered out aloud.
On instinct, Saphira lit up the space in front of Eragon. He was surprised at the speed with which Saphira proceeded to act. Even when their minds were melded as one, she had blasted the flames within milliseconds of the thought forming over their mind-meld. ‘Your dragon instinct is going to roast me ali… ,’ he started commenting only to be stopped by the greatest revelation he had come up on in his life and that was saying something: he had found Bid’Daum as an infant, found Saphira as an egg, Kuthian as an impossibly elder dragon and had found a way to kill the evil Galbatorix. But this was the greatest find he had ever made. For before him lay the future of the dragon race. A huge collection of yet to be born dragons in their eggs. Wild dragon eggs!
Saphira roared triumphantly and Eragon joined her in happiness. They let their emotions reverberate across the valley. The valley responded with a flurry of images: Images created by dragons. The images explained what was happening: The dragons had not been too reckless during the Fall after all. They had come here before the final battle to safeguard the next generation of wild dragons. The spells around the valley had been willed into existence by dragons and were still active because the Eldunari in Mount Marna still breathed dragon magic into those spells - unbeknownst to themselves. The spells would only have let in a dragon and no one else - that was the reason that dragon fire was necessary to enter into the valley and to find the egg stash. The urge to walk in the direction of the stash built up gradually because their minds were being probed to find their intentions. Only people and dragons with good intentions would have been guided to the location of the eggs. Others would have been driven crazy - it was magic at another dimension - the dimension of dragons.
Eragon counted about fifty eggs - each a different shade. They were more than enough to bring back the dragons to their former glory. Eragon secured the eggs to Saphira’s saddle and added protective spells around them. Just the thought of bringing dragons back to life in Alagaesia thrilled them. ‘How joyous would Arya be?’ was all Eragon could think. His mate had been born into a world filled with dragons only to lose them before she understood what it was like to be in the presence of wild dragons. He decided that he would surprise Arya with the eggs when they returned rather than inform her beforehand.
During their return journey, they followed a river upstream believing it to be the continuation of the Edda and Az Ragini rivers of Alagaesia that meet in a fantastic confluence at Hedarth. It had further swollen to many times larger after merging with nameless rivers downstream. The return was swifter than the way towards the dragon egg stash. They reached Hedarth after five and twenty sunrises since they started. In the next half day, they reached the outskirts of Ellesmera. First they visited Master Oromis’s hut and left the dragon eggs inside making sure that enough protective spells were in place to stop unwanted attention. Thus having set the surprise up, they flew back to their mates on the other end of Ellesmera.
Arya dashed towards Eragon as soon as he disembarked from atop Saphira, hugging and kissing him with abandon, not caring if any elf noticed her passion. Eragon could not resist his own fire. He had not realised how much he missed her till she crashed into him. Even though he had scried her almost on a daily basis, being physically able to hold her was something else. He lovingly stroked her back as he took in her scent of pine cones. The dragons for their part danced in the skies - a blur of green and blue. Once their initial greeting was done, Saphira became restless.
‘Let’s show them,’ she blurted out.
“Show us what?” Arya asked, curious. She had noticed the excitement in Eragon’s steps as they ascended the stairs and had simply taken it to mean his enthusiasm at being back home.
Eragon kicked Saphira mentally for blowing their surprise. “Come with me,” he said to Arya, literally dragging her back down and out into the city. He almost ran through the city not noticing elves who curtsied to him with Arya closely behind him. She was acutely aware of the disapproving glances from the elder elves of the town but ignored them for the sake of Eragon. If he was excited enough to behave this way, she would not begrudge him that pleasure - he was human and she had accepted that long ago.
Saphira, meanwhile, had brought Indra to Master Oromis’s humble abode already. They arrived earlier than Eragon and Arya as they took the aerial route. ‘Oh, do come soon, Eragon!,’ Saphira chided even as he was dashing through the winding streets of Ellesmera. Arya struggled to keep up with his mad pace as she had not the element of inspiration that Eragon had. Saphira fidgeted uncontrollably wanting to break the surprise to Indra even before Eragon and Arya reached the crags. The rider pleaded with his dragon not to do so as he wanted to watch Arya’s reaction when presented with the physical eggs themselves.
When the Crags of Tel'naeír came in view, Eragon took Arya’s hands in his and half dragged her behind him into Oromis’s hut.
Having waited for a grand total of three minutes by when Saphira had threatened to break their surprise, Indra peered into the single-room hut through a window. In an instant and without warning, Eragon lifted the cloaking spell and all fifty dragon eggs surrounded Arya. She stood still for a moment with just a gasp escaping her vocal chords. Involuntarily, she leaned back on Eragon’s shoulders with tears streaming down her cheeks. Eragon held her close, feeling her happiness embrace him. After a moment in awed silence, she bent down to marvel at the smoothness of an amber egg that was close to her.
Then she got back up and turned - her face radiated the thrill she was experiencing inside. “Eragon… this… this is… ,” she choked on the words. Eragon kissed her forehead softly. It was for this reaction - to experience it first hand that he had hid this fact for a month from Arya. He embraced her even as he teared up as well.
“This is the lasting peace we have been searching for Arya,” said he. Indra, who was stuck outside the room could not control his excitement and wanted to break into the hut only to be held at bay by Saphira. Both dragons then let out a roar that together pierced every corner of the great elven city. Before long Islanzadi had arrived at the scene and elves started assembling as the rumour of a great find spread like wildfire. The few human and dwarven traders that were staying in town also came up to see what the commotion was about. It wasn’t always that there was a commotion in the elven capital afterall.
The elves danced on seeing what it was that Eragon had brought back from the unknown lands. The agaeti blodhren was not in another three quarters of a century but the elves didn’t care. The return of dragons was even greater a celebration for them.
The festivities raged for months and one by one the dragons hatched as if responding to being celebrated. Wild Dragons only hatch when the environment is conductive to their wellbeing and their hatching bode well for the future. Within weeks, the city was the scene of fifty fast growing and wild dragons. They took to the elves like children took to playmates. For the elves, it was a prematurely arrived blodhren festival. Only, this was greater than the previous one as they now had fifty young dragons amongst them to take part in the celebrations. Murtagh, Nasuada, Roran, Katrina, Weldhana, Orik and their parties all descended on the city in the next few days. Even Kull who revered physical strength above all else visited the dragons. The five sentient species of Alagaesia were all in one city for the first time in probably, forever.
Author’s Note:
The dragons are back! I wanted to give some closure to the peace we established in the previous chapter. While it was all well and good, there still weren't wild dragons in Alagaesia yet. The peace was incomplete without them and so I used the I-dont-know-what-to-do-with Eldunari to bring them back. Hope you liked it.
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