Then the elves began to sing in their clear, flutelike voices. They sang many songs, yet each was but part of a larger melody that wove an enchantment over the dreamy night, heightening senses, removing inhibitions, and burnishing the revels with fey magic. Their verses concerned heroic deeds and quests by ship and horse to forgotten lands and the sorrow of lost beauty. The throbbing music enveloped Eragon, and he felt a wild abandon take hold of him, a desire to run free of his life and dance through elven glades forever more. Beside him, Saphira hummed along with the tune, her glazed eyes lidded halfway.

What transpired afterward, Eragon was never able to adequately recall. It was as if he had a fever and faded in and out of consciousness. He could remember certain incidents with vivid clarity—bright, pungent flashes filled with merriment—but it was beyond him to reconstruct the order in which they occurred. He lost track of whether it was day or night, for no matter the time, dusk seemed to pervade the forest. Nor could he ever say if he had slumbered, or needed sleep, during the celebration. . . .

He remembered spinning in circles while holding the hands of an elf-maid with cherry lips, the taste of honey on his tongue and the smell of juniper in the air. . . .

He remembered elves perched on the outstretched branches of the Menoa tree, like a flock of starlings. They strummed golden harps and called riddles to Glaedr below and, now and then, pointed a finger at the sky, whereupon a burst of colored embers would appear in various shapes before fading away. . . .

He remembered sitting in a dell, propped against Saphira, and watching the same elf-maid sway before a rapt audience while she sang:

Away, away, you shall fly away,

O’er the peaks and vales

To the lands beyond.

Away, away, you shall fly away,

And never return to me.

Gone! Gone you shall be from me,

And I will never see you again.

Gone! Gone you shall be from me,

Though I wait for you evermore.

He remembered endless poems, some mournful, others joyful—most both. He heard Arya’s poem in full and thought it fine indeed, and Islanzadí’s, which was longer but of equal merit. All the elves gathered to listen to those two works. . . .

He remembered the wonders the elves had made for the celebration, many of which he would have deemed impossible beforehand, even with the assistance of magic. Puzzles and toys, art and weapons, and items whose function escaped him. One elf had charmed a glass ball so that every few seconds a different flower bloomed within its heart. Another elf had spent decades traveling Du Weldenvarden and memorizing the sounds of the elements, the most beautiful of which he now played from the throats of a hundred white lilies.

Rhunön contributed a shield that would not break, a pair of gloves woven from steel thread that allowed the wearer to handle molten lead and other such items without harm, and a delicate sculpture of a wren in flight chiseled from a solid block of metal and painted with such skill that the bird seemed alive.

A tiered wood pyramid eight inches high and constructed of fifty-eight interlocking pieces was Orik’s offering, much to the elves’ delight, who insisted upon disassembling and reassembling the pyramid as often as he would allow. “Master Longbeard,” they called him, and said, “Clever fingers mean a clever mind.” . . .

He remembered Oromis pulling him aside, away from the music, and asking the elf, “What’s wrong?”

“You need to clear your mind.” Oromis guided him to a fallen log and had him sit. “Stay here for a few minutes. You will feel better.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need to rest,” protested Eragon.

“You are in no position to judge yourself right now. Stay here until you can list the spells of changing, great and minor, and then you may rejoin us. Promise me this.” . . .

He remembered creatures dark and strange, drifting in from the depths of the forest. The majority were animals who had been altered by the accumulated spells in Du Weldenvarden and were now drawn to the Agaetí Blödhren as a starving man is drawn to food. They seemed to find nourishment in the presence of the elves’ magic. Most dared reveal themselves only as pairs of glowing eyes on the outskirts of the lantern light. One animal that did expose itself was the she-wolf—in the form of a white-robed woman—that Eragon had encountered before. She lurked behind a dogwood bush, dagger teeth bared in an amused grin, her yellow eyes darting from point to point.

But not all the creatures were animals. Some few were elves who had altered their original forms for functionality or in pursuit of a different ideal of beauty. An elf covered in brindled fur leaped over Eragon and continued to gambol about, as often on all fours as on his feet. His head was narrow and elongated with ears like a cat, his arms hung to his knees, and his long-fingered hands had rough pads on the palm.

Later, two identical elf women presented themselves to Saphira. They moved with languid grace and, when they touched their hands to their lips in the traditional greeting, Eragon saw that their fingers were joined by translucent webbing. “We have come far,” they whispered. As they spoke, three rows of gills pulsed on each side of their slender necks, exposing pink flesh underneath. Their skin glistened as if with oil. Their lank hair hung past their narrow shoulders.

He met an elf armored in imbricated scales like a dragon, with a bony crest upon his head, a line of spikes that ran down his back, and two pallid flames that ever flickered in the pits of his flared nostrils.

And he met others who were not so recognizable: elves whose outlines wavered as if seen through water; elves who, when motionless, were indistinguishable from trees; tall elves with eyes of black, even where the whites should have been, who possessed an awful beauty that frightened Eragon and, when they chanced to touch something, passed through it like shadows.