Murtagh

The word felt strange upon his tongue, yet fitting also. The sword itself seemed different: an ineffable change that left the blade brighter and cleaner.

Murtagh felt different as well. He stowed the compendium and resumed his journey with a new sense of lightness, as if renaming the sword had somehow helped drive back the oppressive presence of the caves. And when the dark denizens of the undercroft again attacked him—the shadow spiders and their gnashing blades, and the fingerrats reaching for his throat—he dispatched them with a calm efficiency that had previously escaped him. For he knew who he was and why he was there, and he no longer sought to fight with misery, but in pursuit of freedom.

CHAPTER III

To Hold the Center

A pale glow appeared ahead of Murtagh—spilling out from behind a fold of rock—and his pulse quickened. At last! Bachel was near. He could feel her. And not just her, others besides. Thirteen of them, by his count.

He readied himself with a long, slow breath and a drawing in of his mind. Bachel might not have a legion of Eldunarí to command, as had Galbatorix, but she was no less dangerous. Murtagh had no intention of underestimating her. She’d gotten the best of him before; it wouldn’t happen again, regardless of her source of power. That he swore to himself.

He spared a quick thought for Thorn and then continued.

His boots were soft against the stone as he rounded the fold of rock. Beyond it, he beheld a vast, circular chamber that looked as if it had been scraped out of the granite by a great millstone. He hardly noticed the slime-veined walls, for a cluster of white crystals thrust upward at various angles from the ground. The crystals were semi-opaque and translucent along their sharp edges, and they varied in size from small protrusions no larger than the thorn of a rose to enormous pillars as thick around as an aged oak. Large or small, the crystals glowed with a natural radiance, white and pure and beautiful to behold.

In the center of the chamber lay a wide clearing with a gaping hole at its heart: a void twenty paces across that opened to yet further depths.

At the height of the chamber was another opening, and he had a sense that it led up, up, up to the Well of Dreams. For all his walking, he’d merely ended directly below where he’d started.

Bachel stood waiting for him by the void.

He hardly recognized her. The witch still wore the enchanted half mask that transformed her aspect to that of a dark, draconic being. But she had exchanged her dress for a suit of armor that encased every inch of her body, and the armor was made not of leather or metal but rather of dragon scales.

The scales were reddish black and glimmered with an oily sheen. They emitted a dim glow, dying embers still pulsing with contained heat. The scales must have come from an old dragon, for some looked to have been cut from even larger pieces. Seeing the armor, Murtagh realized that the leather garb the cultists had donned for the festival of black smoke had been made to resemble Bachel’s fantastic suit.

In her hand, the witch held the Dauthdaert Niernen. Its blade matched the light from the slime along the walls.

Six acolytes stood to Bachel’s left and six to the right, as if two great wings extending from she who served as their central body. The impression was marred slightly by the pair of acolytes who held Alín between them, their hands firm around her arms and wrists as they kept her kneeling upon the stone.

A reddened bruise discolored Alín’s cheek, and blood spotted one corner of her mouth, but her neck was unbowed and desperate hope filled her eyes as she beheld Murtagh. “My Lord!” she cried.

Dark rage gripped Murtagh as he saw her plight. He welcomed the emotion, knowing it would serve him well in the fight to come.

The acolytes carried neither swords nor spears but tall staffs of knotted wood, each embellished with strange carvings. For the oddest moment, Murtagh was reminded of Brom. Then the cultists stamped the butts of their staffs against the ground, and the sound echoed again and again from the domed ceiling, and they began to chant in a low chorus that filled the chamber with building urgency.

Murtagh picked his way between the crystals, careful to avoid their sharp edges.

As he approached, Bachel lifted Niernen and pointed the lance at him. She seemed entirely unafraid, and she said, “I am impressed, Murtagh son of Morzan. The power of Azlagûr’s dreams drives to madness most who venture into the depths below Nal Gorgoth.”

“But not you or your servants.”

“I am the Speaker. I am Azlagûr’s chosen mouthpiece. His protection grants certain privileges to me and those I choose as my attendants.”

Murtagh wasn’t so sure about that. He affected a casual expression and spun Ithring in his hand as he paced forward, keeping a close watch on the cultists. “What of those…things in the caves? Are they your doing as well?”