Luminescent (Inheritance Cycle and Beyond)

Chapter Nineteen: Iridescent

"And what about the other organisms in the earth and the air? Can you tell me what they were doing while your ants tended their droves?"

"No, Ebrithil."

"Therein lies your mistake. You must become aware of all things equally and not blinker yourself in order to concentrate on a particular subject. This is an essential lesson, and until you master it, you will meditate on the stump for an hour each day."

"How will I know when I have mastered it?"

"When you can watch one and know all. Khensamel, would you please join us." I unfolded my legs and stood up before heading into the hut where Eragon and Oromis waited. I sat down on the available stool as Oromis set parchment, ink, and a quill down in front of Eragon and I.

"So far, you have made do with incomplete knowledge of the ancient language. Not that any of us knows all the words in the language, but you must be familiar with its grammar and structure so that you do not kill yourself through an incorrectly placed verb or similar mistake. I do not expect you to speak our language like an elf—that would take a life-time—but I do expect you to achieve unconscious competence. That is, you must be able to use it without thinking."

"In addition, you must learn to read and write the ancient language. Not only will this help you to memorize words, it is an essential skill if you need to compose an especially long spell and you don't trust your memory, or if you find such a spell recorded and you want to use it. Let us start: What are the basic vowel sounds of the ancient language?"

"What?" Eragon asked as I cringed, Brom hadn't taught us the basic vowel sounds. Oromis instructed us on what the basic vowel sounds were, and we began to write them over and over.

"I've never needed very many words in my spells; Brom said it was a gift that I could do so much with just brisingr. I think the most I ever said in the ancient language was when I spoke to Arya in her mind and when I blessed an orphan in Farthen Dûr."

"You did what?" I exclaimed.

"You blessed a child in the ancient language?" Oromis asked in an alerted tone.

"Aye."

"Recite it for me," Eragon repeated his blessing, and a look of pure horror engulfed Oromis. "You used skölir! Are you sure? Wasn't it sköliro?"

"No, skölir. Why shouldn't I have used it? Skölir means shielded."

"That was no blessing but a curse," Oromis said with irritation. "The suffix o forms the past tense of verbs ending with r and i. Sköliro means shielded, but skölir means shield. What you said was 'May luck and happiness follow you and may you be a shield from misfortune.' Instead of protecting this child from the vagaries of fate, you condemned her to be a sacrifice for others, to absorb their misery and suffering so that they might live in peace."

Eragon's face went white.

"The effect a spell has isn't only determined by the word's sense, but also by your intent, and I didn't intend to harm—." Eragon started

"You cannot gainsay a word's inherent nature. Twist it, yes. Guide it, yes. But not contravene its definition to imply the very opposite." Oromis pressed his fingers together and stared at the table. "I will trust that you did not mean harm; else I would refuse to teach you further. If you were honest and your heart was pure, then this blessing may cause less evil than I fear, though it will still be the nucleus of more pain than either of us could wish."

"It may not undo my mistake," Eragon said. "but perhaps it will alleviate it; Saphira marked the girl on the brow, just like she marked my palm with the gedwëy ignasia." Oromis looked dumbstruck.

"One who bears the sign of the Riders, and yet is not a Rider. In all my years, I have never met anyone, such as the two of you. Every decision you make seems to have an impact far beyond what anyone could anticipate. You change the world with your whims."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Neither, it just is. Where is the babe now?"

"With the Varden, either in Farthen Dûr or Surda. Do you think that Saphira's mark will help her?"

"I know not," Oromis said. "No precedent exists to draw upon for wisdom."

"There must be ways to remove the blessing, to negate a spell." Eragon was almost to the point of pleading.

"There are. But for them to be most effective, you should be the one to apply them, and you cannot be spared here. Even under the best of circumstances, remnants of your magic will haunt this girl evermore. Such is the power of the ancient language." He paused. "I see that you understand the gravity of the situation, so I will say this only once: you bear full responsibility for this girl's doom, and, because of the wrong you did her, it is incumbent upon you to help her if ever the opportunity should arise. By the Riders' law, she is your shame as surely as if you had begotten her out of wedlock, a disgrace among humans if I remember correctly."

"Aye, I understand."

"Then we will speak of this no more."

"Yes, Ebrithil." We finished up our exercises and headed outside to meet up with our dragons. Glaedr turned a glittering eye at Eragon.

"What are the rules three to spotting downdrafts, and the rules five for escaping them?"

"I don't know," Eragon mumbled. Oromis turned to Saphira and confronted her.

"What creatures do ants farm, and how do they extract food from them?"

"I wouldn't know," Saphira grumbled.

"After all the two of you have done together, I would think that you had learned the most basic lesson of being Shur'tugal: Share everything with your partner. Would you cut off your right arm? Would you fly with only one wing? Never. Then why would you ignore the bond that links you? By doing so, you reject your greatest gift and your advantage over any single opponent. Nor should you just talk to each other with your minds, but rather mingle your consciousness's until you act and think as one. I expect both of you to know what either one of you is taught."

"What about our privacy?" Eragon objected.

"Privacy?" Glaedr rumbled. "Keep your thoughts to thyself when you leave here if it pleases you, but while we tutor you, you have no privacy."

Oromis then turned to Alethea, and before he even asked, she projected our mind share and the information we had exchanged. Glaedr turned to me. I did the same as Alethea had done to Oromis.

"Good," Glaedr grumbled. "You two already share consciousness."

Eragon turned back to Oromis with an apology.

"We won't disappoint you again."

"See that you don't. You will be tested tomorrow on what the other learned." Oromis procured a round wood bauble. "So long as you take care to wind it regularly, this device will wake you at the proper time each morning. Return here as soon as you have bathed and eaten."