Usual disclaimers and thanks: Nothing is mine, etc., etc.
Thanks to my betas, eekfrenzy and Rose—and thanks also to my reviewers.
Reviews are my only reward. I like them a lot.
cjsl8ne: Yep, Merry did remember that Strider used fire on the Nazgûl—you couldn't forget something like that! He remembered it all along…
LadyDoroAnne: I sure hope this isn't the only chapter you were waiting for!
I'd like to remind everyone that this story is not only fantasy-it is, in its way, historical fiction. For us, it's the year 2010-from Barbarella's point of view, it's early 2003.
Chapter 21 Meanwhile, Back at the Palace
Elric, Bergil, and I careened out of the tunnel and clattered up a little flight of stairs into the sunlight. The Courtyard of the White Tree was behind us and the Tower of Ecthelion loomed to the right. The King's House, a massive structure made of the usual white stone, was positioned immediately in front of the stairs. In days gone by, it used to be the Royal Palace, but since Anárion's Line had been defunct for at least a thousand years, it was being used for…nothing really useful, if I know my Gondorians. The Great Doors of the King's House were always supposed to be closed, but just then they were hanging ominously open.
A bad portent indeed, if you ask me—and by no means the only one.
As soon as we hit the stairs I knew that something awful was going on. The noise from the Pelennor had amped up and a lot of guardsmen were charging around pointing at the sky—at something that I couldn't see. These were the Tower Guard—the loonies guarding the White Tree, of course, were still standing as motionless as Beefeaters.
Just as we passed the fountain I heard an all-too-familiar whining shriek and looked up to see that the enemy was lobbing fiery missiles into the city. One missile arced through the air to hit a domed building a few levels below us, caving in its roof completely.
When he beheld this monstrous sight Bergil bleated in horror, but Elric, who'd seen this sort of thing before, elbowed him in the ribs and snorted scornfully, "Come on, it's not magic, it's just vesper fire."
Vesper fire or no, if the enemy was sending up rockets, I didn't want to be standing around outdoors. I quickly scanned to the left and the right and up—was anything incoming? No? Good. I tapped the two kids' shoulders and we sprinted across the grass to go through the open door into a dark space.
In hushed quiet, we tramped down a long gloomy corridor. I suppose to Elric this was just another strange place we'd come to in Mundberg, and he counted on me to explain it if necessary. I have no idea what Bergil was thinking as we invaded the House of the Kings of his forebears.
I saw torchlight in front of us. We soon reached a big hexagonal room with two great iron doors, shut and barred, that were bracketed by torches. Gold and silver statuary that were set into wall niches shone in the torchlight.
What I noticed first was the big pile of wood heaped in the middle of the mosaic floor, and the fact that two guards were lifting a motionless Faramir onto the pile. He was lying on a litter, and he looked dead to me, but I was willing to take Pippin's word for it that he wasn't.
Lord Denethor was there too. It wasn't easy to make out facial expression in the flickering torchlight, but I stared hard at Denethor as he observed his son's body hoisted to the center of the funeral pyre, and came to the conclusion that he wasn't actually bat-crazy, just grimly, obsessively determined.
As I watched I heard quiet footsteps behind me, and two more guards brushed past us bearing heavy jars that smelled of olive oil. Out of the corner of one eye, I saw that one of them was Beregond.
"Beregond?" I said softly. Bergil's father pretended not to hear me—he didn't even meet my eyes. Instead, he set down his jar in front of the Steward, then crossed over to the pyre and picked up a bundle of sticks.
Denethor finally had something to say. "So you're back. It took you long enough."
Somehow I had to stop Lord Denethor and help Faramir. Me, the handmaiden, versus Denethor, Ruling Steward of Gondor. Yeah, right.
I ventured uncertainly, "Ummm…Lord Denethor? Sir?"
Both of the boys faded into the shadows the moment I spoke. I cleared my throat and said in a slightly louder voice, "Lord Denethor!"
In the meantime, Denethor had picked up the jar and was matter-of-factly pouring oil on himself. Dragging his attention from this engrossing activity, he looked over at me and replied, "So, it is the foreign woman. This is no concern of yours. Begone."
"What are you doing? What's going on? Please explain it to me!" 'Keep him talking' sometimes works wonders. In this case it was the only weapon I had, so I was going to use it.
Sighing theatrically, Denethor said to me as if I were a little child, "I have seen more than I could possibly explain to you. It is better to die soon than late, for against the power in the east there can be no victory."
He had 'seen'? So I was right—Denethor did have a seeing stone and he was definitely under mind control. The Gondorians might not have picked up on what was going on, but I can assure you, anyone who'd ever watched Star Wars would have recognized it in a twinkling.
The arguments that I'd been forming died in my throat. It was time to try feminine wiles.
"Surely, Lord Denethor, you would not choose fire? I have seen men burn. It is such an ugly death…and so undignified."
Taking a deep breath, I threw out my best baited hook. "I know of a much better way to die. A deep draught of syrup of poppy offers an endless sleep with no dreams."
If I could con Denethor into asking for narcotics in the Houses of Healing, I thought that I could get Narbeleth to slip him a sleeping potion.
Denethor seemed to consider this for a few moments, then shook his head. "That is no choice for my son and me. Our corpses shall not become carrion to be rended by the foe. But as for you, go and die in whatever way seems best to you."
I clasped my hands and looked pitiful. "The syrup of poppy is what I would choose, but the healers of Minas Tirith would never give a deadly poison to a foreigner like me. They would give it to you, though, for you are their ruler. Where is your chivalry? It would take such a little time to help me!"
For a moment Denethor wavered and I thought that I might have reached him. But instead he said sternly, "I have no time to waste on you, Barbarella. For a thousand years my forefathers and I served Gondor as Stewards of Anárion. I shall burn with my son like the pagan kings of old, second to none."
He reached out and pulled a burning torch from the wall. "Guards! Pour oil on the body of my son."
Fire and oil. That tore it—I had only seconds to act.
If Denethor was out of the picture, no Tower Guard would be crazy enough to immolate Faramir. And the fact is, I wasn't actually weaponless. I slid my right hand down my hip and began to pull my dagger out of the scabbard hidden by my elven cloak.
But before I could grab my dagger, Bergil shrieked from behind me, "Daddy! Daddy! You can't let him burn Faramir!"
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Beregond's head shoot up as if he'd just come out of a stupor. Hefting the bundle of sticks in his arms like a club, he slammed it over the head of the man who'd brought in the other jar of oil, then sprang at the guard nearest the pyre and started to wrestle with him.
This was our break! Interposing my body between Denethor and the funeral pyre, I yelled in Rohirric, "Take care of the wounded, Elric! You know what to do!"
Elric had been one of my stretcher-bearers at the Battle of Helm's Deep, so he knew exactly what I meant.
As he witnessed the fight right in front of him, Denethor's face was turning purple with rage. "Soldier! What are you doing? Stop that at once!"
I didn't dare turn my head to see what was happening, but I winced when the clumsy noises of scuffling were replaced by the clanging of steel on steel. Were these guards really willing to kill Beregond in order to murder Prince Faramir, the son of their Steward?
As Denethor's glaring eyes moved from the fighting guards to his son on the pyre, he saw what I was not able to see—the events going on behind me. "No! You will not take my son from me!" Holding a burning torch in his hands, he started to charge toward my kids.
Toward my kids! That wasn't going to happen on my watch. As Denethor ran by, I stuck out my foot in front of him and he tripped and fell headlong—right on top of the torch.
Now what was I going to do?
Just when I thought that things couldn't get weirder, Gandalf the Wizard galloped in on his white horse, with Pippin sitting right in front of him. The stallion halted sharply right in front of the funeral pyre and Gandalf quickly dismounted. He shouted in a ringing voice, "What madness is this?"
Pippin frenziedly leapt down and ran over to help my kids pull Faramir off the pyre.
In a quick jerking motion, Denethor rose up from the marble floor. His clothes were already beginning to burn as he shouted, "There is no hope!" Before anyone could answer him he screamed and ran down the corridor—on fire.
Gandalf didn't even move when the Steward ran by him, but I chased Denethor outside and pulled off my cloak in a futile attempt to smother the blaze. He was running a lot faster than I was—I'd barely passed the courtyard when he reached the easternmost point of the ship rock.
And then he leaped off!
Denethor instantly dropped out of sight to plummet down and smash on the ground right outside the Great Gate. It wasn't the first time I'd seen somebody jump from a high place to keep from burning alive. You've seen it too and you know what I mean. But this wasn't on television—it was right in front of my eyes.
I screamed and screamed and screamed and I couldn't seem to stop screaming. Finally Gandalf put his hand on my shoulder and I quivered to a halt.
"So passes Denethor, son of Ecthelion," Gandalf said solemnly. His face appeared mournful, but otherwise he was perfectly calm and collected.
"Why didn't you save Denethor, Gandalf? He ran right past you—you could have stopped him!"
Gandalf shook his head. "I could have saved his life, but his life no longer had meaning."
If this hadn't reminded me so much of the Twin Towers I wouldn't have been so angry. "Who are you to say that his life had no meaning? This isn't a story that somebody made up—this is reality, Gandalf."
I felt so alone. For the first time it occurred to me that the Wizard Gandalf was less of a human being than Gimli or Legolas. He cared about us mortals, yes—but did he see humans as comrades or as beloved pets? If I stayed there for one more minute I was afraid I'd say something that I would regret later, so I turned on my heel and stalked off to the edge of the shiprock that Denethor had jumped from.
I couldn't see everything from the top of the rock, but I could see enough. Sauron's army was still lobbing fiery missiles, and killer pterodactyls were swooping low to attack the city's defenders. Some Elf must have made his money shot, because one of those pterodactyls never pulled out of its power dive.
That must have been the suitable moment, because Éomer's Riders charged out of Harlond and Erkenbrand's Riders poured from the city to meet them. Between them, the two groups were bottling up Sauron's army.
For a few minutes the tide seemed to be turning, and then a line of gigantic beasts pushed through the Rammas Echor and fanned out into the Pelennor Fields. At first I thought they looked like Imperial Walkers but when they moved closer I saw that they were mastodons. Mastodons with archers in howdahs.
Giant mastodons? That wasn't fair!
Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, they got worse. From the waves of the Anduin a brilliant green fog bubbled up and gushed at tremendous speed through the Pelennor Fields and toward the city. Another one of Sauron's superweapons, no doubt. What it looked like to me was chlorine gas—and if it was, our Riders would be exterminated in minutes. Surely Gandalf would do some magic against a gas attack!
As I watched in terror, it turned out that it wasn't chlorine gas after all. When that mass of green hit the Wall of Minas Tirith it formed into a gelatinous wave that crested higher and higher. Wavelets were splashing up onto the higher levels. One emerald tentacle actually double-bounced on a high dome and shot up to the top of the shiprock where I was standing!
Of all the weirdnesses that I'd seen in Middle-earth, this was definitely the weirdest. I knew for sure that it wasn't poison gas when one glowing gobbet hovered right in front of me.
It looked like a luminescent, mummified corpse-warrior with a spear clutched in its bony hand. But mummy or not, that corpse-thing had eyes. Even as I was observing it, it was watching me right back. And then…
…it dove right into me.
When the corpse-thing hit, it felt like an arctic blast freezing my flesh. Incomprehensible chittering sounds buzzed at me from my back teeth—cacophonous, ineffably alien syllables that formed words of some kind—a monstrous, unspeakable message straight out of the grave.
Luckily for me, I blacked out before I could translate it.