The Heroes of Alegasia

Chapter 13

Eragon's point of view  

The next eveningBrom, Joed and I left for our mission. We bribed the castle guard claiming that we needed to go to Joed's office because I had left something valuable there. The guard had also been drinking heavily. Brom unlocked the records room door with magic and then we started reading the shipping records for the past five years.

Suddenly my neck prickled. I tried to ignore the feeling but it didn't go away, annoyed I looked up and was surprised to see a small boy crouched outside the window, but he didn't quite look like a normal boy. His eyes were slanted and a sprig of holly was woven into his black hair. I heard a voice in my head say, "do you need help?"

The voice sounded like Solembum. I asked, "Is that you?"

Solembum replied, "Am I someone else?"

I concentrated on my scroll and said: "if my eyes don't deceive me you are."

The boy smiled slightly and said, "what I look like doesn't change who I am. You don't think I am called a werecat for nothing, do you?"

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

The werecat tilted his head and considered whether the question was worth answering. Finally, he said, "that depends on what you are doing here. If you are reading those scrolls for entertainment I suppose there is no reason for my visit. But if what you are doing is unlawful and you don't want to be discovered I might be here to warn you that the guard you bribed has just told his replacement about you and this second official of the Empire has sent soldiers to search for you."

I said, "Thank you for telling me."

Solembum said, "told you something did I? I suppose I did. And I suggest you make use of it."

I tried to ask Solembum about the information that the werecat had given me during our last encounter about the Menoa tree and the Rock of Kuthian, but the werecat would only say, "exactly what I said."

Eventually, Solumbum left, so I announced: "there are soldiers searching for us."

Brom asked me how I knew. To avoid telling them about Solembum I just said that I had listened in on the guard and that his replacement had sent soldiers to look for us and that they had probably already discovered that Joed's office was empty.

Joed asked me, "are you sure?"

"Yes," I answered impatiently.

Brom said, "it doesn't matter now we have to finish this."

So we read the scrolls as quickly as we could and then we quickly put the last scroll back on the rack. Joed put his ink, quill, and parchment back in his pouch and I grabbed the torch we had taken from the wall. we hurried from the room and shut the door just as we heard the tramp of soldiers' boots at the end of the hall.

We were about to leave when Brom said, "damnation! It's not locked."

he put his hand against the door and the lock clicked just as we could see three armed soldiers coming toward us. One of the soldiers said, "hey! Get away from that door!"

Brom stepped back assuming a surprised expression. The soldiers marched up to us and the tallest one demanded: "why are you trying to get into the records?"

"I'm afraid we lost our way," Joed said nervously.

The soldier ordered one of his men to check the door when they found it locked the soldier said, "I don't know what you were up to but as long as the door is locked I guess you're free to go. Come on."