Christopher Paolini - Inheritance

The man grunted, grabbed her other arm, and marched her to the privy room. As she entered, he shuffled back toward the tray, muttering under his breath.

The moment she had closed the door, she pulled the spoon out of her shift and placed it between her lips, holding it there as she plucked several strands of hair from the back of her head, where they were longest. Moving as fast as she could, she pinched one end of the gathered hairs between the fingers of her left hand and then rolled the loose strands down her thighs with the palm of her right, twisting them together into a single cord. Her skin grew cold as she realized the cord was too short. Fumbling in her urgency, she tied off the ends, then placed the cord on the ground.

She plucked another group of hairs and rolled them into a second cord, which she tied off like the first.

Knowing that she had only seconds remaining, she dropped to one knee and knotted the two strands together. Then she took the spoon from her mouth and, with the slim length of thread, she bound the spoon to the outside of her left leg, where the edge of her shift would cover it.

It had to go on her left leg because Galbatorix always sat to her right.

She stood and checked that the spoon remained hidden, and then she took a few steps to make sure it would not fall.

It did not.

Relieved, she allowed herself to exhale. Now her challenge was to return to the slab without letting her jailer notice what she had done.

The man was waiting for her when she opened the door to the privy room. He scowled at her, and his sparse eyebrows met, forming a single straight line.

“Spoon,” he said, mashing the word with his tongue as if it were a piece of overcooked parsnip.

She lifted her chin and pointed toward the rear of the privy room.

His scowl deepened. He went into the room and carefully examined the walls, floors, ceiling, and all else before stomping back out. He clacked his teeth together again and scratched his bulbous head, appearing unhappy and, she thought, a little hurt that she would bother to throw away the spoon. She had been kind to him, and she knew an act of such petty defiance would puzzle him and make him angry.

She resisted the urge to pull away when he stepped forward, put his weighty hands on her head, and combed through her hair with his fingers. When he did not find the spoon, his face drooped. He grabbed her arm then and walked her over to the slab and again placed her in the manacles.

Then, his expression sullen, he picked up the tray and shuffled out of the room.

She waited until she was absolutely sure he was gone before she reached out with the fingers of her left hand and, inch by inch, pulled up the edge of her shift.

A broad smile passed across her face as she felt the bowl of the spoon with the tip of her index finger.

Now she had a weapon.

When the first pale rays of light streaked across the surface of the dimpled sea, illuminating the crests of the translucent waves-which glittered as if carved from crystal-then Eragon roused himself from his waking dreams and looked to the northwest, curious to see what the light revealed of the clouds building in the distance.

What he beheld was disconcerting: the clouds encompassed nearly half the horizon, and the largest of the dense white plumes looked as tall as the peaks of the Beor Mountains, too tall for Saphira to climb over. The only open sky lay behind her, and even that would be lost to them as the arms of the storm closed in.

We shall have to fly through it , Glaedr said, and Eragon felt Saphira’s trepidation.

Why not try to go around? she asked.

Through Saphira, Eragon was aware of Glaedr examining the structure of the clouds. At last the golden dragon said, I do not want you flying too far off course. We still have many leagues to cover, and if your strength fails you-

Then you can lend me yours to keep us aloft .

Hmph. Even so, it is best to be cautious in our recklessness. I have seen the likes of this storm before. It is larger than you think. To skirt it, you would have to fly so far to the west that you would end up beyond Vroengard, and it would probably take another day to reach land .

The distance to Vroengard isn’t that great , she said.

No, but the wind will slow us. Besides, my instincts tell me that the storm extends all the way to the island. One way or another, we shall have to fly through it. However, there’s no need to go through its very heart. Do you see the notch between those two small pillars off to the west?

Yes .

Go there, and perhaps we can then find a safe path through the clouds .

Eragon grasped the front of the saddle as Saphira dropped her left shoulder and turned westward, aiming herself toward the notch Glaedr had indicated. He yawned and rubbed his eyes as she leveled out; then he twisted round and dug out an apple and a few strips of dried beef from the bags strapped behind him. It was a meager breakfast, but his hunger was slight, and eating a large meal while riding Saphira often made him queasy.

While he ate, he alternated between watching the clouds and gazing at the sparkling sea. He found it unsettling that there was nothing but water beneath them and that the nearest solid ground-the mainland-was, by his estimate, over fifty miles away. He shivered as he imagined sinking down and down into the cold, clutching depths of the sea. He wondered what lay at the bottom, and it occurred to him that with his magic, he could likely travel there and find out, but the thought held no appeal. The watery abyss was too dark and too dangerous for his liking. It was not, he felt, a place where his sort of life ought to venture. Better, instead, to leave it to whatever strange creatures already lived there.

As the morning wore on, it became apparent that the clouds were farther away than they had first seemed and that, as Glaedr had said, the storm was larger than either Eragon or Saphira had originally imagined.

A light headwind sprang up, and Saphira’s flight became somewhat more labored, but she continued to make good progress.

When they were still some leagues from the leading edge of the storm, Saphira surprised Eragon and Glaedr by slipping into a shallow dive and flying down close to the surface of the water.

As she descended, Glaedr said, Saphira, what are you about?

I’m curious , she replied. And I would like to rest my wings before entering the clouds .

She skimmed over the waves, her reflection below and her shadow in front mirroring her every move like two ghostly companions, one dark and one light. Then she swiveled her wings on edge and, with three quick flaps, slowed herself and landed upon the water. A fan of spray shot up on either side of her neck as her chest plowed into the waves, sprinkling Eragon with hundreds of droplets.

The water was cold, but after so long aloft, the air felt pleasantly warm-so warm, in fact, that Eragon unwrapped his cloak and pulled off his gloves.

Saphira folded her wings and floated along peacefully, bobbing up and down with the motion of the waves. Eragon spotted several clumps of brown seaweed off to the right. The plants were branched like scrub brush and had berry-sized bladders at joints along the stems.

Far overhead, near the height Saphira had been, Eragon spotted a pair of albatrosses with black-tipped wings flying away from the massive wall of clouds. The sight only deepened his unease; the seabirds reminded him of the time he had seen a pack of wolves running alongside a herd of deer as the animals fled a forest fire in the Spine.

If we had any sense , he said to Saphira, we would turn around .