Brisingr Preview

BOREDOM WARNING: The following post will hold minimal interest to those unfamiliar with Christopher Paulini's Inheritance series (including already-published Eragon and Eldest).

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

One of the most anticipated novels of the year is Christopher Paulini's Brisinger, the 3rd installment in the Inheritance Trilogy Cycle. Folks are dying to know what happens next in the rather epic tale of Eragon and his Saphira.

We wrote Paulini a very nice letter, and he agreed to send us the unfinished Brisinger manuscript. We read it, and now offer you this plot summary for those of you who can't stand to wait for September 20th:

The story begins with Eragon abandoning his freshly-victorious army so he can help his brother Roran track down his girlfriend Katrina, who has been captured by the Ra'zac. Almost immediately after Eragon loses sight of the army, Galbatorix himself swoops down with his dragon and has a Surda sandwhich with Urgals for seasoning and the Carvahall townspeople for desert. There are only a handful of survivors, including all the major characters. Nasuada is believed dead but of course she isn't really - she just got lost in a bog.

Eragon knows that he is too weak to take on Galbatorix directly, so he flees into the Spine with Roran, where they bump into Angela and Solembum. They have a lengthy and mildly amusing conversation which has no bearing on the plot, at the end of which Solembum utters some impenetrably mysterious riddles and turns into a rutabaga.

They proceed along the Spine eating less than is humanly possible. Nights are bitterly cold, but Eragon uses the magic word Brisingr (hence the name) to surround their camps with a ring of fire every time they go to sleep. This has several effects: It keeps enemies away, keeps Eragon and Roran warm and makes it obvious to anyone a hundred miles around where exactly they are.

Eventually they randomly fall into a hole in the mountain and stumble on a city hidden by magic from the eyes of those far off. It is populated by a race more or less exactly like Hobbits. You could say that Paulini ripped this race off of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, but you would be mistaken, because these people are called Bar'u'ab'dualötís, so obviously he made it up himself. The Bar'u'ab'dualötís are a peace-loving people (as you know if you're at all familiar with Lord of the Rings); they want no trouble, but Eragon's ring of fire has attracted an army of Ra'zac. The Bar'u'ab'dualötís are forced to fight for their homes and turn out to be pretty good fighters for no explicable reason. Eragon's magic does plenty of damage, but the Ra'zac do something sneaky to his mind during the battle and he has strange nightmares for the rest of the book.

The good guys win of course, but they take heavy losses in the form of warm Bar'u'ab'dualötí bodies the reader barely knew the name of anyway. Of course, the heavy losses aren't actually dead - they just got lost in a bog. Eragon captures the Ra'zac leader (who's name is Arbaghdallrencarfithroughtheriver) and finds himself in a moral quandary. He can either torture Arbaghdallrencarfithroughtheriver to find Katrina's location or risk not saving Katrina at all. True to form, Eragon deals with this decision by hanging out and waiting for something terrible to happen.

He only has to wait two days. Arya, who found Eragon using magic instead of the rings of fire, appears that night and confides several important pieces of information. First, she explains the origin of the Bar'u'ab'dualötís. Here's a shocker: they come from Over the Sea just like everything else. Roran wonders aloud what's so special about Over the Sea that gives it such auto-generating powers. Arya curses him in the ancient language so he can never speak again. She says that these things must not be spoken of until the author figures out "where the heck this world comes from anyway."

Arya uses her magic to pry open Arbaghdallrencarfithroughtheriver's mind and find out where Katrina is.

They continue on their journey. They are escorted by four Bar'u'ab'dualötí. These four are led by a slightly handsomer chap named Imn-ot'fro-do. They march to Gil'ead with no idea how they'll save Katrina. On the way, a handful of survivors from the Surdan and Urgal armies join them. "Anything Saphira's master's brother's girlfriend," They reason.

Upon arrival at Gil'ead, a terrible battle breaks loose. Just when all seems lost, Murtagh shows up out of nowhere and agrees to help Eragon because he feels bad about all that mean stuff he said at the end of Eldest. Together, the brothers defeat Galbatorix's million thousand soldiers and burn the dungeon (but only after extracting the prisoners). Katrina isn't there, which means they just wasted two hundred pages of effort. Eragon, Roran, Arya, and Murtagh have a meeting to decide what to do next. During this meeting, a wounded imperial soldier sneaks up and tries to shoot Eragon in the back. Elva shows up out of nowhere and jumps in front of the arrow. She is lost in a bog soon after. The enemy is captured but Arya doesn't want to torture him because he's human and not a worthless Ra'zac.

So Trianna, leader of the Du Vrangr Gata, shows up and tortures him instead. The poor man reveals that he doesn't know where Katrina is, but he does know a secret tunnel into Galbatorix's palace. As if on cue, a bunch of Varden show up who say they can lead him to the entrance to the tunnel but go no further because a strange and convenient force has been placed on the entrance so only dragon riders can pass into it.

They reveal several other juicy tidbits:

1) There are actually three more dragon eggs at least.
2) No one has any clue where they are.
3) That thing back in the chuck wagon wasn't a watermelon.
4) It was a dragon egg, and it seems to be hatching for Imn-ot'fro-do into a strong green male.
5) Nasuada isn't dead, she's just lost in a bog.
6) Katrina has been spotted in Helgrind, which Eragon should probably have known she was in all along. That dirty rbaghdallrencarfithroughtheriver was a liar!

On hearing this news, Arya dies of despair. Dies. Of despair.

The book ends with Eragon in a moral quandary.