Jeod glanced around furtively, then he leaned close to Eragon and whispered, “All my reading and searching has paid off. I’ve discovered a hidden tunnel that leads straight into Dras-Leona!”

DECISIONS

xplain it to me again,” said Nasuada.

Eragon shifted his weight, impatient, but he held his tongue.

From the piles of scrolls and books in front of him, Jeod picked up a slim volume bound in red leather and began his narrative for the third time: “Some five hundred years ago, as best I can tell—”

Jörmundur interrupted him with a motion of his hand. “Leave out your qualifiers. We know this is speculation.”

Jeod began again: “Some five hundred years ago, Queen Forna sent Erst Graybeard to Dras-Leona, or rather what was to become Dras-Leona.”

“And why did she send him?” asked Nasuada while she toyed with the fringe of her sleeve.

“The dwarves were in the midst of a clan war, and Forna hoped that she could secure the support of our race by helping King Radgar with the planning and construction of the fortifications for the city, even as the dwarves engineered the defenses for Aroughs.”

Nasuada rolled a strand of cloth between her fingers. “And then Dolgrath Halfstave killed Forna.…”

“Aye. And Erst Graybeard had no choice but to return to the Beor Mountains as fast as he could, to defend his clan from Halfstave’s predations. But”—Jeod held up a finger, then opened the red book—“before he left, it seems Erst did start on his work. King Radgar’s chief adviser, Lord Yardley, wrote in his memoirs that Erst had begun to draw up plans for the sewer system underneath the center of the city, since that would affect how the fortifications would be built.”

From his place at the far end of the table that filled the middle of Nasuada’s pavilion, Orik nodded and said, “That’s true enough. You have to work out where and how the weight is distributed and determine what’s appropriate for the kind of earth you’re dealing with. Otherwise, you’re liable to have cave-ins.”

Jeod continued: “Of course, Dras-Leona doesn’t have underground sewers, so I assumed that nothing like Erst’s plans were ever put into effect. However, a few pages later, Yardley says …” Peering down his nose at the book, Jeod read, “… and in a most lamentable turn of events, the reavers burned many a house and made off with many a family treasure. The soldiers were slow to respond, for they had been put to work underground, laboring like common peasants.”

Jeod lowered the book. “Now, what were they excavating? I was unable to find any further mention of subterranean activities in or around Dras-Leona, until—” Putting down the red volume, he selected another book, this one a massive, wood-paneled tome nearly a foot thick. “I happened to be perusing The Acts of Taradas and Other Mysteries of Occult Phenomena as Recorded Throughout the Ages of Men, Dwarves, and the Most Ancient Elves when—”

“It is a work filled with mistakes,” said Arya. She stood by the left side of the table, leaning on both hands over a map of the city. “The author knew little of my people, and what he did not know, he invented.”

“That may be,” said Jeod, “but he knew a great deal about humans, and it is humans we are interested in.” Jeod opened the book close to the middle and gently lowered the upper half to the table, so it lay flat. “During his investigations, Othman spent some time in this region. He mainly studied Helgrind and the strange happenings associated with it, but he also had this to say about Dras-Leona: The people of the city also often complain of peculiar sounds and odors wafting up from under their streets and floors, especially at night, which they attribute to ghosts and spirits and other uncanny creatures, but if they are spirits, they are unlike any I have heard of before, as spirits elsewhere seem to avoid enclosed spaces.”

Jeod closed the book. “Fortunately, Othman was nothing if not thorough, and he marked the locations of the sounds on a map of Dras-Leona, where, as you can see, they form a nearly straight line through the old part of the city.”

“And you think this indicates the presence of a tunnel,” said Nasuada. It was a statement, not a question.

“I do,” said Jeod, bobbing his head.

Sitting next to Nasuada, King Orrin, who had said little, spoke. “Nothing you have shown us so far, Goodman Jeod, has yet to prove that this is actually a tunnel. If there is a space under the city, it might very well be a cellar or a catacomb or some other chamber that only leads to the building above. Even if it is a tunnel, we do not know if it exits anywhere outside of Dras-Leona, nor, assuming its existence, where it would lead. To the heart of the palace, perhaps? What’s more, by your own account, it’s likely the construction of this hypothetical tunnel was never completed in the first place.”

“It seems unlikely it could be anything but a tunnel, given its shape, Your Majesty,” said Jeod. “No cellar or catacomb would be so narrow or long. As for whether it was completed … we know it was never used for its intended purpose, but we also know that it lasted at least up until Othman’s time, which means the tunnel or passageway or what-have-you must have been finished to some degree, otherwise the seep of water would have destroyed it long ago.”

“What of the exit, then—or the entrance, if you will?” asked the king.

Jeod scrabbled among the piles of scrolls for a few moments before pulling out another map of Dras-Leona, this one showing a portion of the surrounding landscape. “That I can’t be sure about, but if it does lead out of the city, then it would exit somewhere around here—” He placed his index finger on a spot close to the eastern side of the city. Most of the buildings outside the walls that protected the heart of Dras-Leona were located on the western side of the city, next to the lake. This meant that the location Jeod was pointing at, though empty land, was closer to the center of Dras-Leona than one could get from any other direction without encountering buildings. “But it’s impossible to tell without going there to look for it in person.”