At last, my friends, we come to the climax of the story. I thank thee for coming this far on this quest, and I ask of one last thing: please do tell what you think of this story in its final progression. Thank you, and enjoy!
oOo
Her body lay tossed upon the cold stone with her limbs splayed like a rag doll dropped from its owner's hands. Her side pressed hard against the icy surface with her temple pounding relentlessly against it, her heat-starved heart pounding harder than normal. Her mind moved at a lethargic pace as her thoughts struggled into consciousness that was just out of grasp. She dragged a numb hand across the floor, a dull pressure on the tips of her fingers pricked her senses as she pulled her hand close to her core to warm it. Moments passed as her mind crept up to the edge of sleep and wake, her mind foggy and dazed as her thoughts drifted in an almost inert fashion. She managed to open her eyes, feeling suddenly aware of every aching muscle and tendon as she curled up to preserve as much heat as possible. Darkness met her eyes, but she did not make sense of it.
A cool shiver sprang down her spine, sending frigid tendrils into her limbs as her exposed skin became numb in response to the iron bite of the surrounding air. She kept her eyes open as her leaden thoughts began to piece together pale fragments of memory. Flashes of war formed sketchy glimpses of orcs, their pointed teeth lined up in a crude smile as they issued shrieks of battle. Of Elves as they pirouetted in and out of her vision, their elven armor and weapons catching the light of the setting sun. Of Jacen as he charged at her with his vacant eyes, unheeding and uncaring to her words. Jacen…was he still alive?
The jolt of remembrance came crushing down upon her, her thoughts slamming into a perfect sequence of events as they played before her eyes. She saw her blade crash down upon her friend and her delivering blow, and the tall figure of Saruman burst before her mind's eye. Renewed thoughts sprang to questions as they broke free of their semiconscious bonds. Where was she? Where had Saruman taken her? She pushed herself up into a sitting position and from there she stood up, unstable without visual aid to guide her motions. She rubbed her hands together, barely feeling the palms of her hands as she pressed harder to restore circulation, stopping when she was more aware of each individual finger. She then proceeded to reach out into the darkness with her fingers spread out like she had the last time she was captured, searching for a way out.
But even after several tentative steps forwards she did not touch wall or door, and she stopped, taking a deep breath of the cold air. Her dry throat resented it as the chill seemed to greaten as time passed, her entire body trembling with uncontrollable shivers. She winced unseen in the thick darkness as the cut along her side stretched along with the expansion of her lungs. She ran a hand along the gash that had cut through even her mail, feeling half with her fingers and half with her side: it was long but fairly shallow. By now it had cauterized and it would not bother her for now.
There was a moment after this where the silence pressed almost tangibly on her ears, her arms hugged around her torso to shield her middle from the cold. "Hello?" she said after a pause, her voice echoing eerily in answer. She waited for her resounding calls to die away, feeling even more alone as it was reduced to a vague hum. "Hello!" she called out when she did not get a satisfactory response. "Reveal yourself if you can!" were the words that she spoke, confident despite her growing dread. This time a laugh hissed from behind her, sending another row of shivers down her back.
She spun around, losing balance in the dark and instinctively groping out in front of her as if to find a hand hold in the blackness. "Does the dark not suite our hero?" the laugh transformed into a mocking voice, deep and cruel to her ears as she righted herself and readied for any onset of attacks. She was poised like a cornered cat, her heart beginning to race in her chest as she recognized the voice. "Does it scare the pathetic child that all so fondly call 'the chosen one'?" the voice spat, filling her with fear as her hands sprang to her sword, her fingers running over an empty sheath with a terrifying recognition. It was gone.
Another crackle sounded somewhere to her left, the sound of footsteps falling softy on the stone magnified by resounding echoes. Her fists balled as if she was willing to lash out into the darkness with her bare fists despite the pain it would most likely cause. Inevitably, adrenalin began to course through her veins as another ownerless voice hissed to her side, cold and sharp like the bitter air around her. "And why should I bow to the wishes of this child who so audaciously commands me?" it said, close to her but she could not tell where as a chorus of echoes distorted its original location. Without the use of sight, her hearing began to naturally amplify, the faint rustle of thick cloaks giving clue to the movement of her captor. "Answer me," whispered the voice, its source close to her ear.
She jumped to the side and gave a general flail in the direction that it had come, but her hand met nothing but blackness, sending her drastically off balance. A lurch in her stomach tugged at her insides as she lost balance and fell backwards, her head hitting hard upon a wall as she toppled to the ground. Suppressing a cry, she reached out and felt the unmoving surface of polished stone, and she stood up and pressed her back against it. Instincts screamed at her to keep as many sides protected as possible and she felt a little tension lift when she knew that her back was covered. She slid along the wall, her fingers soon becoming numb once more as she ran them across the cool surface in search of a door or handle to free herself of this chamber, this danger.
A slight flicker of light glinted in her peripheral vision, vanishing as soon as her eyes jumped to it. She halted in her quest to find a way out as another blue spark danced for a moment, suspended daintily in air, and then extinguished itself. A moment later a wall of excruciating cold rushed at her, almost burning her skin as it bombarded her and quickly crept into her core, freezing her blood. It grabbed at her throat and lungs, punishing every breath she took as she began to cough uncontrollably with a sharp pain stabbing her side. Her legs buckled from lack of air and she gasped on her hands and knees, her head soon beginning to swim. Laughter echoed once more, her captor enjoying her torture as she choked out words. "Stop it! Stop!" she gasped, the cold blanketing her and scratching her lungs as she spoke, the latter unfazed by the change in temperature.
"Ah, and again she feels like she has even the slightest bit of authority. How…quaint," the voice said, adumbrating the release of her bonds. The room became as it was before and her lungs gratefully expanded and contracted in deep gulps of air, oxygen briskly being restored to her body. "And yet she possesses not even a fraction of the power that I would rule over Middle Earth. Pathetic, is it not, that deprived of a weapon she becomes no more than a lamed dog faced against a great beast."
She stood up with the use of the wall for support, and shouted angrily to the empty dark, her voice trembling slightly from a mixture fear and cold. "Show yourself, coward. Do not pray on the blind in the dark like a vulture," she said, flinching inadvertently as she expected another onslaught of deathly cold. Instead she received an almost polite answer:
"As you wish, O chosen one."
Light suddenly flashed violently before her eyes, her hands springing to them as green and purple spots appeared at the sudden change in light. She removed them as soon as the light calmed slightly, a large, bleary room revealing itself to her, a figure garbed in dark purple robes etching its self into her vision. As her eyes adjusted, she made out the all too familiar face of the elderly man, his long white beard contrasting almost painfully with his robes and black staff which was raised for a moment before he brought it back down. He quickly assumed a posture of feigned welcome, his face contorting into an obviously unfamiliar smile as he opened his arms and spoke.
"And now that I have shown myself, what do you wish for me to do?" he said, his voice condescending and mocking. She gave no answer as she stood shocked and paralyzed by his gaze. "Have you no plan of what you wish to do next? Fine. It is of little matter to me: I simply wish to give you the choice that you declined so ignorantly before. But maybe you shall see my reasoning now," his voice grew in volume until it encompassed her and drowned all other thoughts, threatening and harsh to her eardrums. "Join me in power, and live to use your gifts to the advantage of Middle Earth. Or…keep your allegiance to your friends, and die. What is your choice?"
Her mind raced almost beyond comprehension as she calculated her choices, her eyes scanning the walls of the room. She backed up against the wall once more as the wizard began to storm towards her with long strides, his staff raised and pointed to her head. Her mouth opened and closed, words escaping her for what seemed like an eternity as her throat became unbearably dry. "W-why didn't you capture me before? Why start a war if you could intrude the battle field at a whim?" she asked, desperate for time as she continued to scrutinize two smooth lines cutting in the wall a hundred meters from her.
The wizard paused for a moment, but his staff did not lower. "It is only proper to have the pawns go first," he said, his eyes burning with a heartless and impersonal flame. "Why risk your own life when so many others are willing to go forth and do your bidding for you. I would have never brought you here, in fact, but you proved to be of greater skill than even I suspected. Your friends was of a different matter, too weak after his little incident with my flames and too fool hardy to make the proper decisions on his own. Persuasions had to be used…" He finished, and then gave another step forward, his staff now only feet from her face which portrayed fear beyond understanding.
But another burst of hot anger boiled in her as she thought of Jacen, her friend being dragged like a puppet along the battle ground. "You killed him! Youcoward. You uncaring, harrowing, cowar—" she screamed, but was cut off as the wizard made a quick flip of his staff, hitting her head squarely with the sharpened end of the bottom. She let out a slight shriek as it cut deeply her cheek just above the jaw, her head swinging to the side as the impact caught her off guard.
"Enough! You shall not speak to me with such a tongue. It was not I, but you, who murdered your friend on the battle field, and if you shall not join me, then so be it!" He raised his staff, but she immediately ducked out of the way of a blinding flash of red, her momentum hurtling her across the room as she spotted the doors on the opposite side of the room. Another streak of red shot past her shoulder as she dodged and grabbed onto the handle, twisting it only to find that it was locked. She gave a nervous glance behind her to find that the wizard was taking long strides towards her, a mad laugh emanating from his throat. She took a few paces back and drove her shoulder into the double doors, one of them giving as the weak lock (a thin plank of wood probably placed by an orc) groaned and surrendered to her force.
She slipped behind it and sprinted down the corridors as she ignored the blunt pain in her shoulder now, her path leading in frantic spirals of halls and doors. By now the darkness had begun to invade her vision, giving an extra strength to every step as she ran as fast as she could away from the sparks and bullets of flame. The cut on her side had opened up at the strenuous activity, but she did not care as she felt the brush of flame stroke lightly upon her arm, sending disproportional pain through her body. But agony had to be subdued. So much else counted on her to keep moving.
She dove into a hallway on the left as she felt a hot bristle brush her skin, tripping and twisting around to see a wall of flame dash past where she had been just moments before. Her eyes widened for a moment as she realized the deceiving capacity of the elderly man, a sharp understanding shredding through her mind as she realized what she was up against. Scrambling up and dashing down a flight of stairs to the right, she sprang down the steps four at a time, feeling the brunt shock of impact as she skipped the last seven. But this pain was quickly forgotten as she continued to run, slowly putting ground between her and the wizard.
However, this did not last long as she burst through another pair of doors, not heeding to what was in front of her as she sprang out onto a balcony. She stopped just in time not to have thrown herself over the stone railing, her upper half lurching over the rail as she came to a crushing halt, her ribs resenting the blow. She looked below to see if their was any chance of jumping, but her eyes met a stunning array of jagged stumps a few hundred feet below, thousands of dead trees dismembered and scattered from their roots. Deep chasms with a red glow curling up from them scarred the land, ready to swallow her if she were to fall. She pushed away the imminent thoughts of what was going to happen as she turned to see the wizard, a smile stretched along his crude teeth.
"Will you take up my offer now?" he said, his breathing hardly altered by the chase as he trained his staff upon her once more. Leah braced herself as she gripped the stone behind her, knowing her odds all to well as the wizard became impatient with her silence. The wind brushed at her skin during the quiet for a few moments as neither of them moved, her mind blank of all thoughts save for the one of the unstoppable. The wizard raised his eye brows slightly as if surprised by her steady resistance, but she refused to acknowledge an answer. "Then you have chosen death. Such a waste," he spoke under his breath as he raised his staff into the air, ready to bring down the finishing blow in a flurry of sparks and flames.
Her mind did not even move as three meters away a white streak sprang from the tip of the staff, a deafening screech sounding as it shot towards her: the end. She gave dive to the side to avoid it, the streak passing harmlessly to her side at the cost of her toppling over the rail, her hand grasping the edge as the polished surface sent her slipping ever further down. Sweat beaded on her palms dragged her slowly to the edge of the rounded hold, her legs unable to find purchase in the empty space below as she kicked wildly to find a way to climb back up. The sickening feeling of adrenalin and fear shot through every fiber of her being as the wizard strode casually up to the edge, the black flash of his staff glinting momentarily in her vision as he lifted it vertically as if to spear her feeble connection to the stone.
Leah craned her neck to a painful angle to see him, the darkness in her eyes making the sharpened point at the end of his staff all too apparent. The wizard smiled madly as he brought down the staff with shocking speed, his aim thrusting the point towards her left hand.
Her fear peaked for an instant, her heart racing brutally in her chest, her thoughts intent on the jagged pain that would bring her doom. But then she felt the grip of her left hand loosen and disconnect from the rail, the staff's tip instead driving mercilessly into the stone and sending shards of black showering down upon her. She did not even think of her action that came next. She barely felt her muscles move as the darkness of her eyes deepened and made a stark outline of the wizard, his movements crisp and clear to her.
She returned her left hand to the rail directly next to her right as if it was drawn by an irresistible force, and swinging herself up and over the rail by a good three feet. The old man grasped his weapon with both hands as he tried to pry it loose of the stone's maw as he saw the first sign that she was going to execute the jump. Leah arched her back to clear the rail and she kicked firmly with her leg as they came over, her strike landing squarely on the middle of his staff, sending it lurching forwards with the old man still clutching it.
He wavered and flipped head first over the rail, a wrinkled hand appearing on the edge as he caught himself just as Leah had done; only a second hand never joined the first. Landing on her back, Leah did not even feel the impact as she stood up and saw as the wizard refused to let leave his staff, his only source of power, to free his other hand. He shouted frantically in a language she found foreign and raised his black weapon, red and white flames erupting from it and dashing towards her. She easily sprang many feet to the side and they crashed into the stone face behind her. She turned to see as a hold the size of her fist appeared in the wall, another set of flames following immediately after striking her in the back as she was caught unawares.
She could not tell if she screamed in pain, or if it was the howl of the wind that had picked up, but she managed to catch a glimpse of that one, frail hand as it slipped and let its owner fall. The wizard let out a piecing inhuman exclamation as he fell, his voice quickly drowned as a few hundred feet distanced the source from her ears. She pulled herself to her feet with a groan and willed herself to the rail. She looked over it and saw the last few moments of the wizard's fall as he was engulfed by the expectant jaws of a deep crevice.
A sudden weariness grasped her mind and body as she the blood drained from her head and limbs, the rush of adrenalin diminishing in her veins just as quickly as it had come. Emotion escaped her as she became numb to what had just happened, her mind focusing now primitive thoughts on the pain that had been tallied up through the unbelievable ordeal. She walked over to the door with the slow, heavy steps of one who had endured a great battle, all her wounds letting out a dainty flow of blood down her side and face. She felt her legs buckle and her body recline obediently to the ground. But she no longer cared as consciousness began to slowly ebb away: the tyranny of Saruman was over.\
oOo
Author's note: Thanks once again for coming thus far, and please do tell me what you think of my climax (wasn't really sure of how to end it, so opinions are welcome!). There's still a bit more to come, so don't worry if you thought there were some questions that need answering (which, by the way, if you have any plot questions that were left hanging, please do alert me via reviews and I will try to tie up those loose ends). I have also decided to begin to re-write my chapters as when I was looking back I noticed a significant difference in quality from what I would want my earlier chapters to be.
As for Saruman's wardrobe change: Yeah, that was Saruman at the end of my last chapter (I described his clothes somewhere around chapter fifteen or so if you didn't catch that). I decided that it would be improper for him to be garbed in white, as it is a symbol of purity and peace which he most certianly is not a good representative of. I also came to the conclusion that giving him midnight-black robes would be just mildly cliche. My solution? If you look back historically, purple dye was a symbol of royalty as such a color was not only very expensive, but also hard to make at the time. Because Saruman sought to over throw the present ruler (ie Aragorn and co.) I believed that he would choose a dark, "evil" purple to show his self-proclaimed authority and a black staff because of the white/purity issue. I guess that I did a poor job of explaining that as the author, huh? Well, now you know and I hope you liked this chapter. Do tell me what you think!