The Trees Remember
Chapter Thirteen
"Mysterious Letters"
The Elves sat around the hotel room in silence. In the past six weeks, they had journeyed halfway around the world to find the source of the evil plaguing Arda. The conclusion of this journey was astonishing. It was not unheard of for Maiar to turn to the path of darkness. Only a few had, and most had recanted of their wayward deeds and returned to the service of the Valar.
Finally, Elaneth broke the silence with the question that had lingered in her mind since the moment Adolph Hitler had stepped onto the platform to address the German people.
"Is he the Dark Lord?"
"No," Legolas answered, flatly.
"Well, that's good."
"How is that good?" Elladan questioned.
Elaneth was at a loss for an answer. She had assumed that Sauron was a more formidable foe than any other Maia.
"We know nothing about this Maia. His name, his motivations, and his weaknesses are unknown to us. At least if he were the Dark Lord reborn we would know how to defeat him. As it is, our task is unfinished."
Elladan looked to Elaneth, as if he expected her to offer some advice. She had no information to give him, however. Neither she nor Thranduil had suspected that Hitler was anything other than an evil man.
"Then let us prepare to go seek him out and discover his name," Elrohir stated, standing up.
"What!" Elaneth cried. "You can't do that! It's suicide to show yourselves!"
"Ourselves," Elrohir corrected.
The elleth stood up and looked the Elf in the eyes.
"I have not survived all the perils and woes throughout my life only to actively seek death. If you do this, you do it without me."
"The only way to learn his identity is to speak with him," Haldir insisted.
"I will die needlessly for no one!" Elaneth yelled, spinning around to face Haldir. "Not even the Valar."
The march warden was taken aback. Her words were sacrilege. No one dared to say that, even if they were cowardly enough to think it. Legolas tentatively moved closer to Elaneth.
"Then what is your suggestion, Elaneth?"
The elleth eased onto the sofa beside Legolas. She smoothed out the front of her dress and crossed her legs.
"The safest way-"
"It is always about the safest way!" Haldir lashed out. "What about the bravest? The noblest? Do you truly care so much about your own life-"
"We do not have time for this," Elladan interjected.
Elaneth ignored him. "Do you know how many Elves remained in Middle-earth after the last ship sailed?" The march warden shook his head. "One thousand. Do you know how many Elves remain today?" Again, Haldir admitted that he did not. "Sixty-three."
The Elves quieted as the weight of the numbers settled in.
"I have known many Elves like you, Haldir. They are all with Mandos now. Courage is not charging the enemy lines looking for death. Courage is explaining to all the elflings why their fathers have not returned."
The room remained silent for a long minute. There was no response from Haldir, and Elaneth did not care to say anymore. There were plenty of words she wished to scream at the march warden, but she held her tongue. Finally, the elleth raised her eyes to Elladan.
"The Nazi party keeps records of their activities. At their headquarters, they will have documented something that can help us, whether it's Hitler's true name or the location of the abducted Maiar. Our mission will take longer, but we all may survive it."
As the sun dipped low on the horizon, the Elves prepared to leave. Elaneth dressed as a warrior once again. A quiver was strapped to her back, and a short sword hung at her hip. The ellyn watched her enter the room, amazed at her transformation. She no longer appeared to be a modern woman or a gentle elleth terrified of the Nazis. She was a warrior on a deadly mission.
"The Reich Chancellery is not too far from here," she said, pulling a cloak over her shoulders. "We're going to the Fuehrer's Bunker."
"Will we find what we need there?" Elrohir questioned.
"It is the place where Hitler maintains his office. If there is anything to find, it will be found there."
The Elves departed from the hotel shortly after sunset. Few people were out after dark, but the Gestapo and S.S. still patrolled the streets. The night was cold, and a harsh wind whipped through Berlin.
This mission felt like old times in Middle-earth to the ellyn, except for the elleth leading them from shadow to shadow. She seemed to know the city as well as Washington, D.C. That made the Elves curious, for Elaneth had made no mention of ever visiting Berlin in the past. In fact, she had hinted that she avoided Germany itself as much as possible.
Elaneth stopped in front of a massive white building. It spanned an entire block in length, but was narrower in width. Four rows of windows ran across the building, each draped in the same semi-sheer cream curtains. Standing on either side of the front entrance were two S.S. guards, and a sentinel stood on the roof.
"Where is the room we seek?" Elladan asked.
The elleth shrugged. "How should I know? I've never been invited to tea with Hitler."
"Perhaps we should begin with entering the building," Elrohir suggested, leaning over his brother's shoulder.
They fell into silence, each surveying the situation. If any of the three guards sounded the alarm, they would miss their chance completely. Elrohir unfolded a parchment he had tucked into his pocket.
"Sleeping spell or memory spell?" he asked.
The ellyn seemed to genuinely contemplate this question, but Elaneth's jaw slacked. She snatched the paper and read it quickly.
"Incantations? Sleep, memory, smoke, fire! Where was this when S.S. were chasing us on the cruise ship? When we had to go through customs? When I almost got a bullet in my head?"
Elrohir scowled at her. "Mithrandir said it must be used only at greatest need."
Elaneth continued to stare at him in disbelief. "A gun pointed at my head is not a time of greatest need?"
The younger twin grabbed the paper back. "The sleeping spell will raise the least suspicion."
Elrohir chanted the spell as Gandalf had wrote it. The guards remained on alert. He repeated the spell, but without results. He frowned deeply.
"Try another one," Haldir suggested. "Perhaps the fire spell? Mithrandir is well known for such magic."
"Good idea," Elaneth sneered. "Let's set the guards on fire. That won't raise suspicion."
"I did not mean the guards," Haldir hissed.
"You had better do something quickly," Legolas said.
The Elves looked up sharply to see the S.S. man on the roof looking intently in their direction. Haldir cursed under his breath. Clouds had cleared from the face of the moon, shining a dim beam of light on the Elves. With their elven cloaks, they were nearly invisible from enemy eyes, but their shadows were not.
"Don't let him yell," Elaneth ordered.
Elrohir looked to the parchment again, this time chanting the words to the spell that would erase his memory. It was a long shot. As soon as the man forgot about the shadows, he would see them again. It was the first spell Elrohir saw on the parchment, however. The sentinel walked to the edge of the roof and leaned over, preparing to tell his compatriots by the door to look for the shadows. The twang of a bowstring echoed through the empty street.
The words of the spell died on Elrohir's lips as his target fell from the rooftop. The man did not cry out for he was already dead. His limp body collided hard with the pavement face first, and the arrow embedded in his chest ripped through his back. His fellow soldiers did not react, however, for they too were already dead.
The Elves turned around slowly. Elaneth stood behind them, her longbow still clasped in her hand.
"Quickly," she ordered, already moving across the street. "They will be found soon."
She considered retrieving her arrows, but decided against it. Her stomach was not strong enough to clean off the blood and muscle tissue. She slipped into the building, and glanced both ways down the corridor.
The building was lavishly decorated with only the finest items. Elaneth could not suppress her scoff. Hitler lived a life of abundance while the citizens of Germany were forced to ration everything from bread to soap. If a German bought a foreign product, they were chastised for not supporting the Fatherland, but Elaneth did not see one German item in the Chancellery building.
The corridor ran straight through the building with only four hallways running perpendicular to the first. It was for the staircase that she searched. Logic told her that Hitler would demand his office be on the fourth floor.
The Elves sensed several people in the building, but not enough to raise suspicion. They were most likely guarding other entrances or members of the Nazi party working late. They hurried through the building silently and at a fast pace. Elaneth led them up the staircase to the fourth level.
"Spread out. His office will be someone nearby."
Each Elf checked two different rooms, for that was the total number on the floor. Elaneth felt a shudder pass down her spine as she realized exactly where she stood. In this building, in these offices, the policies of Nazi Germany were decided. In one of these rooms, Himmler, Goebbels, and Georning advised Hitler to exterminate the Jews and to conquer Europe with a heavy hand.
"We have located the largest room," Legolas whispered, motioning to Elaneth.
She followed him. The office he led her to had neither distinct markings on the door nor a plaque with the occupant's name. There was an assumptive air about the lack of those features, as if everyone should know who worked in this place.
It was by far the largest and most extravagant room in the building. The carpet was a rich maroon and cream with a distinctly Turkish design. Highly polished oak paneling lined the lower half of the walls and on the upper section, brass sconces with electric bulbs emitted a faint light. Original masterpiece paintings hung on every wall.
She nodded and motioned for them to begin searching for clues. On the desk, papers and memos in German were stacked neatly. They contained war plans for the continued occupation of the U.S.S.R. Elaneth shook her head. That move was the most foolish Hitler had made so far. No one but Genghis Khan had managed to occupy that land. Then again, Hitler probably thought he was better than Khan.
They searched quickly through drawers and file cabinets, being careful not to disturb anything. The Elves could not read German, however. They likely passed over a great number of documents that Allied spies would kill to see.
"Tengwar," Haldir said, holding up a sheet of paper. "This is a letter in Tengwar."
"Who is it to?" Elaneth questioned, crossing the room.
"It is to Adolph from … Benito," he said, pronouncing each syllable.
"Who is Benito?" Legolas asked, peering over Haldir's shoulder to read the letter. "Where is Midway Island?"
Elaneth took the letter, swiftly scanning the words.
"Benito Mussolini is Il Duce, the Prime Minister of fascist Italy. Midway Island is a strategic military location in the Pacific. This is an old letter about the bombing at Pearl Harbor. Did you find any others?"
Haldir nodded, holding up an entire file folder full of paper. Elaneth flipped through it briefly. All the letters came from Mussolini. It looked so odd on paper to see the subordinate Mussolini refer to Hitler as "Adolph" and "my friend." As she read more, the oddities grew. Mussolini thanked Hitler for the gifts he sent, asked how Eva liked Hitler's new home in the mountains, and invited the German to vacation in the Mediterranean after the war was over.
"This is insanity," Elaneth whispered. "There is something deeper here than an alliance."
Elaneth abruptly ended her sentence. The Elves stiffened as they felt men approaching. The men tried to move quietly, but their heavy boots and loud breathing betrayed them. They were half-way up the staircase already.
The Elves moved out of the office silently, needing no commands. Elaneth clutched the folder tightly, unwilling to leave the valuable letters. Elrohir led the group away from the staircase. They moved quickly, but with stealth. The apparent plan was to sneak around the Nazi guards while they investigated their leader's office.
They were nearly to the end of the hallway when the Nazis appeared at the top of the staircase. The Elves were hopelessly outnumbered. Each presence they had felt in the building belonged to a guard. There were a total of sixteen men spreading throughout the floor and two more standing guard by the staircase.
Elaneth motioned to a niche in the wall. It was not large enough for five Elves, but it contained the door to the roof. The Elves moved with silent footsteps, but they could not mask the squeak of the rusty door hinges. The soldiers spun, their machine guns aimed and ready to fire.
The Elves ducked into the stairwell just as the soldiers opened fire. In such a confined space, each gunshot sounded like an explosion equal to the bombs dropped on London. At least three soldiers fired at the wall, their guns rapidly spitting bullets. The shells ripped through the plaster on the walls and pinged off the steel stairs leading to the roof.
The Elves ascended the stairs two and three steps at the time. At the roof entrance, Elrohir inched the door open, and Legolas peered out the small slit. It appeared safe, and they felt no malice from any presence on the roof.
"Hide quickly," Elladan ordered.
As if on cue, the steel staircase groaned in protest with the weight of heavy men. The Germans did not attempt to mask their approach this time. They called to each other in the guttural language, unaware that one of the intruders they stalked could not only speak German, but had exceptional Elven hearing.
"They're going to shoot through the door, and then burst through two men facing each direction," Elaneth explained, repeating the German orders.
The Elves searched for some place to hide. The roof was completely flat except for two places; the stairwell exit and a small guard shack for the sentinel on the roof. Legolas, Haldir, and Elaneth stood atop the guard shack while the twins climbed inside. They did not seem pleased with Elaneth standing in the open, but she had proven her skill in archery both on the training field and battlefield. Their arrows were nocked, waiting for the Germans to emerge.
The explosion of gunfire echoed through the night. Four or five soldiers fired an entire round through the door. The sounds of men shuffling about inside the cramped area alerted the Elves to the Nazis' intentions long before the action occurred. The men kicked the door off its hinges, and slowly edged through the exit.
Even before a soldier could fully appear, Legolas released an arrow. The German fell forward with a white-fletched arrow protruding from his neck. This seemed to give the Germans a reason to hesitate, but it also betrayed the Elves' position on the roof. Soldier after soldier appeared from the doorway, his gun pointed towards the Elves, but each one fell before he could open fire.
"This is rather boring," Legolas commented, nocking another arrow.
The steel staircase screeched again, and the entrance to the roof became eerily quiet.
"They have retreated so soon?" Haldir asked, with a laugh.
Elaneth shook her head. "No. They have trapped us up here."
"Or so they think," the march warden replied, jumping off the guard shack. "Did you pay no attention to the sides of the building? There are ledges above and beneath every window."
Elaneth hurried to the side of the roof and peered over. Just as Haldir said, ledges jutted out from the face of the building every five of six feet.
"We shall have to be quick," Haldir said.
Legolas and Elaneth were the first to climb down while Haldir, Elladan, and Elrohir stood guard. They then climbed down once the other two were on the ground. It was a fairly easy climb for an Elf, given that the ledges were spaced perfectly for their height. Not thirty seconds after all five Elves stood on the ground the sounds of men running reached their ears.
"Back the way we came," Elaneth said.
They raced through the city, being careful to avoid Gestapo patrols. At this time of night the Hitler Youth would be on their way home to bed so they could wake up early for yet another day of training to become good Nazis. They were often more frightening than adult soldiers. In school, children were indoctrinated with Nazi values. They were too young to understand that there was a gray area between loyalty and betrayal.
"There!"
Legolas glanced over his shoulder. A group of seven Nazi soldiers were following them, barreling down the street at full speed. Without need for prompting, the Elves quickened their pace. Elladan led them through the streets, ducking randomly into alleys and side streets. It was nearing the curfew hour of ten o'clock. The streets were rapidly emptying, leaving the Elves wide open targets for the soldiers.
When the Elves seemed to have sufficiently outdistanced the soldiers, they returned to their hotel room. They were barely in the door when it became apparent that Elaneth did not plan to stay. She grabbed her pack from the floor and quickly slung it over her shoulders. She made for the door with no other thought to anything in the room.
"Where are we going?" Elladan asked, following her out the door.
"Anywhere that is not Berlin. Preferably Switzerland," she declared.
"How? They will follow us!" Elrohir shouted, running to join the elleth and his brother.
"I have an idea, though I do not know if it will work. Pray to Ilúvatar." She turned back to Legolas and Haldir. "Faster!"
The freight train sat on the last rail line. Between the Elves and that train were seven passenger trains and five Nazi soldiers.
People shuffling to make the last train to Zurich packed the platform. The soldiers were busy checking identities and interrogating any suspicious person. There were other soldiers, however, who were responsible for the inspection of the trains. Those individuals lurked between the trains, checking the storage compartments and even coal pits.
The Elves pulled their cloaks tight around them and jogged across the rail lines. The conductor's cabin of the freight train faced south, in the general direction of Austria. It was the only assurance Elaneth had that they were not about to board an Interment Train to Auschwitz. Two Nazi officers and the conductor stood near the caboose, speaking rapidly about the contents of the train. Elaneth assumed that a closed door meant that car had been checked and approved.
Elladan and Elrohir pulled open a door just far enough for a slender Elf to squeeze through. Haldir lifted Elaneth into the car, and then hoisted himself up. The other three then quickly made their entrance and eased the door shut.
That particular train car carried sacks of cornmeal and live chickens in wooden crates. The birds looked curiously at the Elves with their beady black eyes then went back to their business of picking at the floor of their cage. Haldir tried desperately to suppress his laugh, but several chuckles escaped him. Elaneth nodded along with him, a smile spreading across her lips.
"Well, this is the life," Elrohir smiled, leaning back on an oversized sack of meal. "Have a seat, friends. It's quite comfortable for a sack of food."
"How long shall we enjoy such comforts, Lady Elaneth?" Elladan asked, sitting next to his brother.
"I'm not sure. I seem to have lost the train schedule."
As the train pulled out of the station, the Elves unloaded their packs and laid out their bedrolls. The freight train moved painfully slowly, yet the Elves did not think on it much. They were on their way out of Germany and that was all they cared about.