Christopher Paolini 39 страница

Uthar crossed his bare arms. “You’ve never seen the Eye, have you, sir? ”

“I can’t say I have. ”

“It’s not that I’m not man enough, but that the Eye far exceeds the strength of men; it puts to shame our biggest ships, our grandest buildings, an’ anything else you’d care to name. Tempting it would be like trying to outrun an avalanche; you might succeed, but then you just as well might be ground into dust. ”

“What, ” asked Roran, “is this Boar’s Eye? ”

“The all-devouring maw of the ocean, ” proclaimed Uthar.

In a milder tone, Jeod said, “It’s a whirlpool, Roran. The Eye forms as the result of tidal currents that collide between Beirland and N& #237; a. When the tide waxes, the Eye rotates north to west. When the tide wanes, it rotates north to east. ”

“That doesn’t sound so dangerous. ”

Uthar shook his head, queue whipping the sides of his wind-burned neck, and laughed. “Not so dangerous, he says! Ha! ”

“What you fail to comprehend, ” continued Jeod, “is the size of the vortex. On average, the center of the Eye is a league in diameter, while the arms of the pool can be anywhere from ten to fifteen miles across. Ships unlucky enough to be snared by the Eye are borne down to the floor of the ocean and dashed against the jagged rocks therein. Remnants of the vessels are often found as flotsam on the beaches of the two islands. ”

“Would anyone expect us to take this route? ” Roran queried.

“No, an’ for good reason, ” growled Uthar. Jeod shook his head at the same time.

“Is it even possible for us to cross the Eye? ”

“It’d be a blasted fool thing to do. ”

Roran nodded. “I know it’s not something you want to risk, Uthar, but our options are limited. I’m no seaman, so I must rely upon your judgment: Can we cross the Eye? ”

The captain hesitated. “Maybe, maybe not. You’d have t’ be stark raving mad to go nearer’n five miles of that monster. ”

Pulling out his hammer, Roran banged it on the table, leaving a dent a half-inch deep. “Then I’m stark raving mad! ” He held Uthar’s gaze until the sailor shifted with discomfort. “Must I remind you, we’ve only gotten this far by doing what quibbling worrywarts said couldn’t, or shouldn’t, be done? We of Carvahall dared to abandon our homes and cross the Spine. Jeod dared to imagine we could steal theDragon Wing. What will you dare, Uthar? If we can brave the Eye and live to tell the tale, you shall be hailed as one of the greatest mariners in history. Now answer me and answer me well and true: Can this be done? ”

Uthar drew a hand over his face. When he spoke, it was in a low voice, as if Roran’s outburst had caused him to abandon all bluster. “I don’t know, Stronghammer. . If we wait for the Eye to subside, the sloops may be so close to us that if we escape, they’d escape. An’ if the wind should falter, we’d be caught in the current, unable to break free. ”

“As captain, are you willing to attempt it? Neither Jeod nor I can command theDragon Wing in your place. ”

Long did Uthar stare down at the charts, one hand clasped over the other. He drew a line or two from their position and worked a table of figures that Roran could make nothing of. At last he said, “I fear we sail to our doom, but aye, I’ll do my best to see us through. ”

Satisfied, Roran put away his hammer. “So be it. ”

RUNNING THEBOAR’SEYE

The sloops continued to draw closer to theDragon Wing over the course of the day. Roran watched their progress whenever he could, concerned that they would get near enough to attack before theDragon Wing reached the Eye. Still, Uthar seemed able to outrun them, at least for a little while longer.

At Uthar’s orders, Roran and the other villagers worked to tidy up the ship after the storm and prepare for the ordeal that was to come. Their work ended at nightfall, when they extinguished every light on board in an attempt to confuse their pursuers as to theDragon Wing ’s heading. The ruse succeeded in part, for when the sun rose, Roran saw that the sloops had fallen back to the northwest another mile or so, though they soon made up the lost distance.

Late that morning, Roran climbed the mainmast and pulled himself up into the crow’s nest a hundred and thirty feet above the deck, so high that the men below appeared no larger than his little finger. The water and sky seemed to rock perilously about him as theDragon Wing heeled from side to side.

Taking out the spyglass he had brought with him, Roran put it to his eye and adjusted it until the sloops came into focus not four miles astern and approaching faster than he would have liked. They must have realized what we intend to do, he thought. Sweeping the glass around, he searched the ocean for any sign of the Boar’s Eye. He stopped as he descried a great disk of foam the size of an island, gyrating from north to east. We’re late, he thought, a pit in his stomach. High tide had already passed and the Boar’s Eye was gathering in speed and strength as the ocean withdrew from land. Roran trained the glass over the edge of the crow’s nest and saw that the knotted rope Uthar had tied to the starboard side of the stern — to detect when they entered the pull of the whirlpool — now floated alongside theDragon Wing instead of trailing behind as was usual. The one thing in their favor was that they were sailing with the Eye’s current and not against it. If it had been the other way around, they would have had no choice but to wait until the tide turned.

Below, Roran heard Uthar shout for the villagers to man the oars. A moment later, theDragon Wing sprouted two rows of poles along each side, making the ship look like nothing more than a giant water strider. At the beat of an ox-hide drum, accompanied by Bonden’s rhythmic chant as he set the tempo, the oars arched forward, dipped into the sea of green, and swept back across the surface of the water, leaving white streaks of bubbles in their wake. TheDragon Wing accelerated quickly, now moving faster than the sloops, which were still outside the Eye’s influence.

Roran watched with horrified fascination the play that unfolded around him. The essential plot element, the crux upon which the outcome depended, was time. Though they were late, was theDragon Wing, with its oars and sails combined, fast enough to traverse the Eye? And could the sloops — which had deployed their own oars now — narrow the gap between them and theDragon Wing enough to ensure their own survival? He could not tell. The pounding drum measured out the minutes; Roran was acutely aware of each moment as it trickled by.

He was surprised when an arm reached over the edge of the basket and Baldor’s face appeared, looking up at him. “Give me a hand, won’t you? I feel like I’m about to fall. ”

Bracing himself, Roran helped Baldor into the basket. Baldor handed Roran a biscuit and a dried apple and said, “Thought you might like some lunch. ” With a nod of thanks, Roran tore into the biscuit and resumed gazing through the spyglass. When Baldor asked, “Can you see the Eye? ” Roran passed him the glass and concentrated on eating.

Over the next half hour, the foam disk increased the speed of its revolutions until it spun like a top. The water around the foam bulged and began to rise, while the foam itself sank from view into the bottom of a gigantic pit that continued to deepen and enlarge. The air over the vortex filled with a cyclone of twisting mist, and from the ebony throat of the abyss came a tortured howl like the cries of an injured wolf.

The speed with which the Boar’s Eye formed amazed Roran. “You’d better go tell Uthar, ” he said.

Baldor climbed out of the nest. “Tie yourself to the mast or you may get thrown off. ”

“I will. ”

Roran left his arms free when he secured himself, making sure that, if needed, he could reach his belt knife to cut himself free. Anxiety filled him as he surveyed the situation. TheDragon Wing was but a mile past the median of the Eye, the sloops were but two miles behind her, and the Eye itself was quickly building toward its full fury. Worse, disrupted by the whirlpool, the wind sputtered and gasped, blowing first from one direction and then the other. The sails billowed for a moment, then fell slack, then filled again as the confused wind swirled about the ship.

Perhaps Uthar was right, thought Roran. Perhaps I’ve gone too far and pitted myself against an opponent that cannot be overcome by sheer determination. Perhaps I am sending the villagers to their deaths. The forces of nature were immune to intimidation.

The gaping center of the Boar’s Eye was now almost nine and a half miles in circumference, and how many fathoms deep no one could say, except for those who had been trapped within it. The sides of the Eye slanted inward at a forty-five-degree angle; they were striated with shallow grooves, like wet clay being molded on a potter’s wheel. The bass howl grew louder, until it seemed to Roran that the entire world must crumble to pieces from the intensity of the vibrations. A glorious rainbow emerged from the mist over the whirling chasm.

The current moved faster than ever, driving theDragon Wing at a breakneck pace as it whipped around the rim of the whirlpool and making it more and more unlikely that the ship could break free at the Eye’s southern edge. So prodigious was her velocity, theDragon Wing tilted far to the starboard, suspending Roran out over the rushing water.

Despite theDragon Wing ’s progress, the sloops continued to gain on her. The enemy ships sailed abreast less than a mile away, their oars moving in perfect accord, two fins of water flying from each prow as they plowed the ocean. Roran could not help but admire the sight.

He tucked the spyglass away in his shirt; he had no need of it now. The sloops were close enough for the naked eye, while the whirlpool was increasingly obscured by the clouds of white vapor thrown off the lip of the funnel. As it was pulled into the deep, the vapor formed a spiral lens over the gulf, mimicking the whirlpool’s appearance.

Then theDragon Wing tacked port, diverging from the current in Uthar’s bid for the open sea. The keel chattered across the puckered water, and the ship’s speed dropped in half as theDragon Wing fought the deadly embrace of the Boar’s Eye. A shudder ran up the mast, jarring Roran’s teeth, and the crow’s nest swung in the new direction, making him giddy with vertigo.

Fear gripped Roran when they continued to slow. He slashed off his bindings and — with reckless disregard for his own safety — swung himself over the edge of the basket, grabbed the ropes underneath, and shinnied down the rigging so quickly that he lost his grip once and fell several feet before he could catch himself. He jumped to the deck, ran to the fore hatchway, and descended to the first bank of oars, where he joined Baldor and Albriech on an oak pole.

They said not a word, but labored to the sound of their own desperate breathing, the frenzied beat of the drum, Bonden’s hoarse shouts, and the roar of the Boar’s Eye. Roran could feel the mighty whirlpool resisting with every stroke of the oar.

And yet their efforts could not keep theDragon Wing from coming to a virtual standstill. We’re not going to make it, thought Roran. His back and legs burned from the exertion. His lungs stabbed. Between the drumbeats, he heard Uthar ordering the hands above deck to trim the sails to take full advantage of the fickle wind.

Two places ahead of Roran, Darmmen and Hamund surrendered their oar to Thane and Ridley, then lay in the middle of the aisle, their limbs trembling. Less than a minute later, someone else collapsed farther down the gallery and was immediately replaced by Birgit and another woman.

If we survive, thought Roran, it’ll only be because we have enough people to sustain this pace however long is necessary.

It seemed an eternity that he worked the oar in the murky, smoky room, first pushing, then pulling, doing his best to ignore the pain mounting within his body. His neck ached from hunching underneath the low ceiling. The dark wood of the pole was streaked with blood where his skin had blistered and torn. He ripped off his shirt — dropping the spyglass to the floor — wrapped the cloth around the oar, and continued rowing.

At last Roran could do no more. His legs gave way and he fell on his side, slipping across the aisle because he was so sweaty. Orval took his place. Roran lay still until his breath returned, then pushed himself onto his hands and knees and crawled to the hatchway.

Like a fever-mad drunk, he pulled himself up the ladder, swaying with the motion of the ship and often slumping against the wall to rest. When he came out on deck, he took a brief moment to appreciate the fresh air, then staggered aft to the helm, his legs threatening to cramp with every step.

“How goes it? ” he gasped to Uthar, who manned the wheel.

Uthar shook his head.

Peering over the gunwale, Roran espied the three sloops perhaps a half mile away and slightly more to the west, closer to the center of the Eye. The sloops appeared motionless in relation to theDragon Wing.

At first, as Roran watched, the positions of the four ships remained unchanged. Then he sensed a shift in theDragon Wing ’s speed, as if the ship had crossed some crucial point and the forces restraining her had diminished. It was a subtle difference and amounted to little more than a few additional feet per minute — but it was enough that the distance between theDragon Wing and the sloops began to increase. With every stroke of the oars, theDragon Wing gained momentum.

The sloops, however, could not overcome the whirlpool’s dreadful strength. Their oars gradually slowed until, one by one, the ships drifted backward and were drawn toward the veil of mist, beyond which waited the gyrating walls of ebony water and the gnashing rocks at the bottom of the ocean floor.

They can’t keep rowing, realized Roran. Their crews are too small and they’re too tired. He could not help but feel a pang of sympathy for the fate of the men on the sloops.

At that precise instant, an arrow sprang from the nearest sloop and burst into green flame as it raced toward theDragon Wing. The dart must have been sustained by magic to have flown so far. It struck the mizzen sail and exploded into globules of liquid fire that stuck to whatever they touched. Within seconds, twenty small fires burned along the mizzenmast, the mizzen sail, and the deck below.

“We can’t put it out, ” shouted one of the sailors with a panicked expression.

“Chop off whatever’s burning an’ throw it overboard! ” roared Uthar in reply.

Unsheathing his belt knife, Roran set to work excising a dollop of green fire from the boards by his feet. Several tense minutes elapsed before the unnatural blazes were removed and it became clear that the conflagrations would not spread to the rest of the ship.

Once the cry of “All clear! ” was sounded, Uthar relaxed his grip on the steering wheel. “If that was the best their magician can do, then I’d say we have nothing more to fear of him. ”

“We’re going to get out of the Eye, aren’t we? ” asked Roran, eager to confirm his hope.

Uthar squared his shoulders and flashed a quick grin, both proud and disbelieving. “Not quite this cycle, but we’ll be close. We won’t make real progress away from that gaping monster until the tide slacks off. Go tell Bonden to lower the tempo a bit; I don’t want them fainting at the oars if’n I can help it. ”

And so it was. Roran took another shift rowing and, by the time he returned to the deck, the whirlpool was subsiding. The vortex’s ghastly howl faded into the usual noise of the wind; the water assumed a calm, flat quality that betrayed no hint of the habitual violence visited upon that location; and the contorted fog that had writhed above the abyss melted under the warm rays of the sun, leaving the air as clear as oiled glass. Of the Boar’s Eye itself — as Roran saw when he retrieved the spyglass from among the rowers — nothing remained but the selfsame disk of yellow foam rotating upon the water.

And in the center of the foam, he thought he could discern, just barely, three broken masts and a black sail floating round and round and round in an endless circle. But it might have been his imagination.

Leastways, that’s what he told himself.

Elain came up beside him, one hand resting on her swollen belly. In a small voice, she said, “We were lucky, Roran, more lucky than we had reason to expect. ”

“Aye, ” he agreed.

TOABERON

Underneath Saphira, the pathless forest stretched wide to each white horizon, fading as it did from the deepest green to a hazy, washed-out purple. Martins, rooks, and other woodland birds flitted above the gnarled pines, uttering shrieks of alarm when they beheld Saphira. She flew low to the canopy in order to protect her two passengers from the arctic temperatures in the upper reaches of the sky.

Except for when Saphira fled the Ra’zac into the Spine, this was the first time she and Eragon had had the opportunity to fly together over a great stretch of distance without having to stop or hold back for companions on the ground. Saphira was especially pleased with the trip, and she delighted in showing Eragon how Glaedr’s tutelage had enhanced her strength and endurance.

After his initial discomfort abated, Orik said to Eragon, “I doubt I could ever be comfortable in the air, but I can understand why you and Saphira enjoy it so. Flying makes you feel free and unfettered, like a fierce-eyed hawk hunting his prey! It sets my heart a-pounding, it does. ”

To reduce the tedium of the journey, Orik played a game of riddles with Saphira. Eragon excused himself from the contest as he had never been particularly adept at riddles; the twist of thought necessary to solve them always seemed to escape him. In this, Saphira far exceeded him. As most dragons are, she was fascinated by puzzles and found them quite easy to unravel.

Orik said, “The only riddles I know are in Dwarvish. I will do mine best to translate them, but the results may be rough and unwieldy. ” Then he asked:

Tall I am young.

Short I am old.

While with life I do glow,

Ur& #251; r’s breath is my foe.

Not fair, growled Saphira. I know little of your gods. Eragon had no need to repeat her words, for Orik had granted permission for her to project them directly into his mind.

Orik laughed. “Do you give up? ”

Never. For a few minutes, the only sound was the sweep of her wings, until she asked, Is it a candle?

“Right you are. ”

A puff of hot smoke floated back into Orik’s and Eragon’s faces as she snorted. I do poorly with such riddles. I’ve not been inside a house since the day I hatched, and I find enigmas difficult that deal with domestic subjects. Next she offered:

What herb cures all ailments?

This proved a terrible poser for Orik. He grumbled and groaned and gnashed his teeth in frustration. Behind him, Eragon could not help but grin, for he saw the answer plain in Saphira’s mind. Finally, Orik said, “Well, what is it? You have bested me with this. ”

By the black raven’s crime, and by this rhyme,

the answer would be thyme.

Now it was Orik’s turn to cry, “Not fair! This is not mine native tongue. You cannot expect me to grasp such wordplay! ”

Fair is fair. It was a proper riddle.

Eragon watched the muscles at the back of Orik’s neck bunch and knot as the dwarf jutted his head forward. “Ifthat is your stance, O Irontooth, then I’d have you solve this riddle that every dwarf child knows. ”

I am named Morgothal’s Forge and Helzvog’s Womb.

I veil Nordvig’s Daughter and bring gray death,

And make the world anew with Helzvog’s Blood.

What be I?

And so they went, exchanging riddles of increasing difficulty while Du Weldenvarden sped past below. Gaps in the thatched branches often revealed patches of silver, sections of the many rivers that threaded the forest. Around Saphira, the clouds billowed in a fantastic architecture: vaulting arches, domes, and columns; crenelated ramparts; towers the size of mountains; and ridges and valleys suffused with a glowing light that made Eragon feel as if they flew through a dream.

So fast was Saphira that, when dusk arrived, they had already left Du Weldenvarden behind and entered the auburn fields that separated the great forest from the Hadarac Desert. They made their camp among the grass and hunkered round their small fire, utterly alone upon the flat face of the earth. They were grim-faced and said little, for words only emphasized their insignificance in that bare and empty land.

Eragon took advantage of their stop to store some of his energy in the ruby that adorned Zar’roc’s pommel. The gem absorbed all the power he gave it, as well as Saphira’s when she lent her strength. It would, concluded Eragon, be a number of days before they could saturate both the ruby and the twelve diamonds concealed within the belt of Beloth the Wise.

Weary from the exercise, he wrapped himself in blankets, lay beside Saphira, and drifted into his waking sleep, where his night phantasms played out against the sea of stars above.

Soon after they resumed their journey the following morning, the rippling grass gave way to tan scrub, which grew ever more scarce until, in turn, it was replaced by sunbaked ground bare of all but the most hardy plants. Reddish gold dunes appeared. From his vantage on Saphira, they looked to Eragon like lines of waves forever sailing toward a distant shore.

As the sun began its descent, he noticed a cluster of mountains in the distant east and knew he beheld Du Fells N& #225; ngor& #246; th, where the wild dragons had gone to mate, to raise their young, and eventually to die. We must visit there someday, said Saphira, following his gaze.

Aye.

That night, Eragon felt their solitude even more keenly than before, for they were camped in the emptiest region of the Hadarac Desert, where so little moisture existed in the air that his lips soon cracked, though he smeared them with nalgask every few minutes. He sensed little life in the ground, only a handful of miserable plants interspersed with a few insects and lizards.

As he had when they fled Gil’ead through the desert, Eragon drew water from the soil to replenish their waterskins, and before he allowed the water to drain away, he scryed Nasuada in the pool’s reflection to see if the Varden had been attacked yet. To his relief, they had not.

On the third day since leaving Ellesm& #233; ra, the wind rose up behind them and wafted Saphira farther than she could have flown on her own, carrying them entirely out of the Hadarac Desert.

Near the edge of the waste, they passed over a number of horse-mounted nomads who were garbed in flowing robes to ward against the heat. The men shouted in their rough tongue and shook their swords and spears at Saphira, though none of them dared loose an arrow at her.

Eragon, Saphira, and Orik bivouacked for the night at the southernmost end of Silverwood Forest, which lay along Lake T& #252; dosten and was named so because it was composed almost entirely of beeches, willows, and trembling poplars. In contrast to the endless twilight that lay beneath the brooding pines of Du Weldenvarden, Silverwood was filled with bright sunshine, larks, and the gentle rustling of green leaves. The trees seemed young and happy to Eragon, and he was glad to be there. And though all signs of the desert had vanished, the weather remained far warmer than he was accustomed to at that time of year. It felt more like summer than spring.

From there they flew straight to Aberon, the capital of Surda, guided by directions Eragon gleaned from the memories of birds they encountered. Saphira made no attempt to conceal herself along the way, and they often heard cries of amazement and alarm from the villages she swept over.

It was late afternoon when they arrived at Aberon, a low, walled city centered around a bluff in an otherwise flat landscape. Borromeo Castle occupied the top of the bluff. The rambling citadel was protected by three concentric layers of walls, numerous towers, and, Eragon noted, hundreds of ballistae made for shooting down a dragon. The rich amber light from the low sun cast Aberon’s buildings in sharp relief and illuminated a plume of dust rising from the city’s western gate, where a line of soldiers sought entrance.

As Saphira descended toward the inner ward of the castle, she brought Eragon into contact with the combined thoughts of the people in the capital. The noise overwhelmed him at first — how was he supposed to listen for foes and still function at the same time? — until he realized that, as usual, he was concentrating too much on specifics. All he had to do was sense people’s general intentions. He broadened his focus, and the individual voices clamoring for his attention subsided into a continuum of the emotions surrounding him. It was like a sheet of water that lay draped over the nearby landscape, undulating with the rise and fall of people’s feelings and spiking whenever someone was racked by extremes of passion.

Thus, Eragon was aware of the alarm that gripped the people below as word of Saphira spread. Careful, he told her. We don’t want them to attack us.

Dirt billowed into the air with each beat of Saphira’s powerful wings as she settled in the middle of the courtyard, sinking her claws into the bare ground to steady herself. The horses tethered in the yard neighed with fear, creating such an uproar that Eragon finally inserted himself in their minds and calmed them with words from the ancient language.

Eragon dismounted after Orik, eyeing the many soldiers that lined the parapets and the drawn ballistae they manned. He did not fear the weapons, but he had no desire to become engaged in a fight with his allies.

A group of twelve men, some soldiers, hurried out of the keep toward Saphira. They were led by a tall man with the same dark skin as Nasuada, only the third person Eragon had met with such a complexion. Halting ten paces away, the man bowed — as did his followers — then said, “Welcome, Rider. I am Dahwar, son of Kedar. I am King Orrin’s seneschal. ”

Eragon inclined his head. “And I, Eragon Shadeslayer, son of none. ”

“And I, Orik, Thrifk’s son. ”

And I, Saphira, daughter of Vervada, said Saphira, using Eragon as her mouthpiece.

Dahwar bowed again. “I apologize that no one of higher rank than myself is present to greet guests as noble as you, but King Orrin, Lady Nasuada, and all the Varden have long since marched to confront Galbatorix’s army. ” Eragon nodded. He had expected as much. “They left orders that if you came here seeking them, you should join them directly, for your prowess is needed if we are to prevail. ”

“Can you show us on a map how to find them? ” asked Eragon.

“Of course, sir. While I have that fetched, would you care to step out of the heat and partake of some refreshments? ”

Eragon shook his head. “We have no time to waste. Besides, it is not I who needs to see the map but Saphira, and I doubt she would fit in your halls. ”

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