Eragon Chapter Twenty Five

This chapter is called ‘an old friend’. Ah, yes. Our old friend the long and dull chapter. Comparing this to the average length this one is going to be a bit of a pain.

Brom and Eragon can’t tell which house belongs to Jeod. A man whose name is either supposed to rhyme with geode or jihad from what I can tell. What he has to add to this stagnating pool of words I have no idea.

As Brom, normally so decisive, can’t figure out where to go he heads into the herbalist shop to ask her. Apparently herbalist are the medieval equivalent of a gas station. ‘Um, yes, hello. I need a couple of scratch tickets, directions to the nearest highway and thirty pounds of dragon kibble.’ ‘That’ll be six gold and a half silver. Coin or banker’s note?’ ‘Coin. Oh and do you have anything for, eherm, the aiding of potency?’ ‘Back corner next to the merskin condoms.’ ‘Much obliged.’

There’s some banter which is meant to be funny but really it’s more sad. They go to Jeod’s house and his wife answers. There’s the whole ‘who are you’ ‘an old friend’ ‘he’s not in’ ‘well tell him a friend from the land of blargetybla’ is here’ exchange goes on. Suddenly Jeod opens the door and it’s Han and Lando reuniting.

They go to a hidden place to talk where a plot point is vomited all over us by Brom. He stole something from a warehouse who hid it immediately afterwards. Hmm, that wouldn’t happen to have been a dragon egg which just happened to end up in Eragon’s hands now did it? Nah, Brom doesn’t explicitly say so and it’s not like he’d hide anything from McMoron.

Then Chris decides to pet his avatar on the head and tell him what a good and special boy he is. Jeod tells him how unique the name Eragon is. He knows of only three people that were ever named after Eragon. Look Jeod, just because you’re a friendless loser who doesn’t get out to meet a lot of people doesn’t mean Eragon is such a unique name. Maybe over in the middle of nowhere it’s a popular name because the turnip farmers hope their kids grow up to be something else.

Eragon gets sent to go look after the horses so the grownups can talk about adult stuff. Deciding he’ll risk being incredibly stupid as he wants the plot to advance, Eragon casts a magic spell that allows him to eavesdrop. Brom and Jeod talk a little about the old days and where to go next. For those with a short attention span Chris sums it up in Eragons’ thoughts.

Eragon heard chairs being pushed back. He quickly pulled his mind away and opened his eyes. “What’s going on?” he muttered to himself. Jeod and other traders are in trouble for helping people the Empire doesn’t favor. Brom found something in Gil’ead and went to Carvahall to hide. What could be so important that he would let his own friend think he was dead for nearly twenty years? He mentioned a queen—when there aren’t any queens in the known kingdoms—and dwarves, who, as he himself told me, disappeared underground long ago.

There we go, big shocker I know. Who could have foreseen dwarves making an appearance? Next you’ll tell me there’s a some royalty in exile. You know the right and proper kind not the bad kind like Galbatorix. Everyone knows that the original royal family deserves to rule because…well, they just do. Stop asking questions and join up with the rebellion.

Jeod gets strange about letting them into his home and offers to buy them dinner somewhere else. He also mentions his business hasn’t been doing so well. Not so bad that he’d turn in his friends for a reward form the king or anything. In fact, he’s not sure why he mentioned that. Just go ahead and forget it.

Eragon leaves to go visit with Saphira who’s hiding in a tree. He climbs up to her and, like an overgrown cat, gets stuck. Let me go over that once more. Eragon has to be saved from a freakin’ tree by his dragon. And he’s the hero because?

Eragon gets back to the house and finds them in the study. Jeod comments on how he’s not so much of a scholar anymore.

Jeod shrugged. “Not anymore. I’m afraid I’ve degenerated into a bibliophile.”

I’m fearing this is going to turn into a PSA for literacy. And right on schedule Eragon mentions he can’t read. Cue a star trailing a rainbow over a starry background. The more you know. Brom decides he’ll teach him to read. It won’t take long. Hopefully not as long as this book.

He stops by Brom’s room afterwards and asks him about using magic to see these records they’re looking for. Only he claims to want to do it to check up on his cousin. Brom tells him to stop being a wuss and go to bed. Also he’ll tell him the magic words but don’t use them without supervision, okay?

And then Brom mentions that the king will probably want to recruit Eragon as he’s the only other rider alive. But wait, I thought Galbatorix brought some of the original riders to the dark side with promises of free puppies? We’ll see how long that lasts, just like we saw how long the ‘dwarves have disappeared’ schtick did.