INHERITANCE: Memorandum Of Scales

DRAGON FROM THE WOOD

THE DRAGON grew faster than Eragon anticipated. He watched the newly hatched youth scamper around in the grass, wings flaring as she ran. Eragon could hear her thoughts in his mind, her inquistive voice mumbling, strange thoughts mixing with his. At first the sensation had scared him- her intrusion was sudden and queer- but as she grew he got used to the feeling. She knew a few words, well enough to speak haltingly to him, but she preferred to relay her thoughts to him by a mixture of emotions and smells, physical feeling and sights. This form of communication was unfamiliar, but Eragon was more than surprised that he could understand everything that she wanted him to.

The morning sun was rising, splattering the open sky with hues of orange and red. Eragon looked at the artistic orb of light rise as it rose above the trees that surrounded them. They were deep in the wooded area behind his village, where Eragon had constructed a den for his Dragon. She hated the den, and would rather be out in the open, but Eragon had stressed the importance of her not being seen.

It had been a mere three weeks since she hatched, and Eragon doubted that the Empire had lost interest with her. No, the soldiers looked even harder than they had before. Roran had told him how the search had been expanded to encompass all of the northern holdings, and even to the edges of the mountains.

Roran knew it as the Stone. Eragon wanted to share the truth with him- But he couldn't. Roran was a good man- if Eragon told him about the egg, his brother would be forced to choose between his duty and his family.

Eragon did not want to see the results of that choice. The drifter they had taken in was doing better, walking about and talking. He still had a ways to go, being very thin and still weak, but he was kind enough, and even helped Eragon with simple tasks while Garrow was in the village and Roran was out on patrol. The man told them his name was Brom, and when Roran asked what he had been doing, wandering about in the deep flat valley, he gave them a strange tale.

Eragon remembered now, as he watched his young Dragon get out all of her excitement before she was forced to stay in her wooden keep.

"I was in the South." Brom had said, his voice croaked, and he coughed. Garrow had Eragon fetch the man a flagon of water. Brom nodded gratefully, and drank. He slumped over his chair and leaned on the table, but his eyes seemed alert enough.

"South? Dras Leona? Harbbold's keep? Fentlass..." Roran trailed off as Brom shook his head.

"Further. Past the deserts. Past even Surda." He coughed again, and Eragon winced as he could hear the phlegm building in Brom's chest.

Garrow made an irritated sound as he ate his dinner, a simple soup, with salted beef and hard bread.

"Impossible. There's nothing past Surda- It is an endless waste."

"And how would you know? This world is filled with dark wonders old and new. There are lands beyond Surda, with kingdoms of men with jet black skin, lords who bathe in gold dust and wage war atop horned horses ten feet high."

Roran leaned forward, his face beaming with interest.

"And you've seen these things?"

"Aye." Brom said, taking a drink of water. "I have."

Garrow was about to respond, but Brom began speaking again.

"I was a mercenary in those lands. Surda is where common law stops- South of Surda, there is no king. There are kings. Hundreds of them. All fighting each other in an endless war. Pillaging one another, making alliances, and then breaking them. It is their way of life. Beyond even that? Vast jungles with towering trees. Islands stuck in an endless winter, and beasts with more intelligence and cunning than man that stalk the hidden expanse, and hunt the deep and forgotten seas. That is the world past, where there was never men, only creation and magic."