In which Geezer has a vision, everybody hurries to head home early, and Sharley is a teensy bit terrifying.
Lorna might be looking forward to a feast in Erebor, but Thranduil most definitely was not. Fortunately for him, Geezer happened – or more accurately, one of his seizures did.
He was in the middle of talking with Bard when it did, scaring the life out of the poor man and Arandur, even though the Elf had apparently seen one of them before.
Tilda had been dispatched to find Ratiri, who was answering an endless stream of Sigrid's questions through Lorna's translation. "There is something wrong with Geezer," she said, slightly breathless from her run. "He is unconscious, and he is twitching."
"Seizure," Lorna said, translating to Ratiri. He immediately took off after Tilda, with Lorna in tow.
Thranduil followed as well, unease sitting in his stomach like a lead weight. Thus far, none of Geezer's fits of prophecy had showed them anything good, and he strongly doubted this would be any exception. If this didn't necessitate them needing to pack up and leave early, he would be very surprised.
What he wouldn't give for a car and a straight road. Had they one, the distance from Dale to the Woodland Realm could be covered in hours, not days. As it was, even if he pushed the elk at a full run, it would take at least two.
Geezer, he found, was indeed twitching, sprawled on the ground with someone's cloak hastily folded and shoved under his head like a pillow. His faded blue eyes were wide, his pale, bloodless face utterly void of expression – it was unnerving, and it took a great deal to unnerve Thranduil. Like this, staring at nothing, his mind invaded by visions not his own, the man looked truly alien.
Ratiri knelt beside him, attempting to take his pulse through his thrashing, but making no attempt to restrain them. Thranduil would have thought it prudent to hold him still, but Ratiri was an Edain healer, accustomed to treating other Edain – he would know what he was doing.
"Lorna," Thranduil said, "can you read his mind, while he is like this?"
"Probably," she said, "but I don't dare try. I don't know if it would hurt him or not."
She had a point. Edain minds were so much more fragile than those of the Eldar, as they had both learned the hard way.
It took a good ten minutes for Geezer to still, during which time they gathered a rather large crowd of onlookers. His face had gone grey, his brow beaded with sweat, and Ratiri hurried to test his pulse, pressing an ear to his chest to listen to his breathing.
"His vitals aren't steady, but they're there," he said. "I wouldn't dare move him yet, though."
Thranduil knelt beside the unconscious man, laying a hand on his clammy brow. His fëa was firmly anchored, at least, but he needed Elvish medicine. "Lorna, fetch Galasríniel. He will live, but without aid, he will not be pleased when he wakes."
Off Lorna went, and Thranduil sighed. "I wish I knew how his curse worked," he said. "I wish I knew how all your curses work. Your magic is so unlike anything I have ever encountered, good or ill."
"I don't think anyone knows how they work, even in our own world," Ratiri said. "It's what Von Ratched was trying to work out, and as far as I know, he failed before he came here. I don't even want to know what sort of damage he's done, now that he is here. He won't have had the tools he needs to experiment, but I wouldn't put it past him to invent them, sooner or later. The bastard's a ruthless genius, and from what I could tell, he needs almost as little sleep as an Elf."
In spite of himself, Thranduil wanted to meet this man – though 'meet' was not entirely accurate. He wanted to tear Von Ratched's mind apart, for what he'd done to Lorna in this timeline, and what he would have done in the other. Such a creature should not be allowed to retain sanity, but he couldn't do it yet – not until their need for him had passed. Once Thorvald had been dealt with, Thranduil would destroy Von Ratched, and he would not do it swiftly. Lorna would not be able to stop him, but he doubted she would want to. She had a streak of her father's cruelty that she had fought all her life to subsume. So far she had mostly managed it, but if anything was likely to be able to break her hold on it, it would be Von Ratched.
Geezer grabbed his hand, his grip shockingly strong for an old man. "Gondor," he said, his voice little more than a harsh rasp. "Get your army and go to Gondor, now. Von Ratched…" He fell silent, drawing a breath of hissing pain.
"We must stop him," Thranduil said. "I know."
"Not stop," Geezer whispered. "Help."
Before Thranduil could ask why, the man lost consciousness again.
Sharley and Galadriel had walked all night, taking a short break only at dawn. They'd been walking again for several hours, the sun now well up in the sky, when they ran across possibly the ugliest creature Sharley had ever seen.
It was human-ish, in that it had legs and arms and something recognizable as a face, but it looked diseased. Its skin was a mottling of grey and black, with scraggly, thin hair, and ears pointed like an Elf's. And it was running so fast that it didn't spot them until it had almost run into them.
"What the hell is that thing?" Sharley asked, giving it a solid punch to the jaw, and stepping on its chest to keep it down.
"An orc," Galadriel said, and though her pale face was serene as ever, there was worry and confusion lurking in her voice. "They almost never travel alone, and yet I sense no more of them for many leagues."
The thing thrashed beneath Sharley's boot, but it was weak, possibly from starvation, if its bony arms were any indication. She didn't have the language to question it, but she didn't need to – she focused on the lines of its Time, searching out the threads of its history.
It was alone because the few of its brethren that weren't dead were scattered. Once they had had a foothold in the Grey Mountains, many thousands strong, until they came.
The creatures that attacked were not, Sharley saw, Memories, but her relief was short-lived – they might not be Memories, but nor were they any manner of walking dead she had ever known. Their eyes were black, twin wells of darkness that seemed to suck at the light around them, and their movements were odd and jerky, unnatural as a puppet. They looked as though they had once been human, not orc or Elf.
But the problem, the biggest problem, was that they were following this orc. And they were less than a day away.
She blinked, and looked at Galadriel. "Are there any humans – mortals – living in the Grey Mountains?"
"No," she said. "Not for many a year. There are far too many orcs."
"Motherfucker." That meant these things weren't from here, but they sure as fuck hadn't come from Earth or the Other, unless something had gone catastrophically wrong in the brief time she'd been away. "There's something nasty ahead of us," she said. "You'll probably start feeling it soon, if my being close doesn't screw up your senses. We've gotta stop it – them – before they get to Dale and Erebor."
"Can we do that on our own?"
Sharley smiled slowly. "The two of us? Of course we can." She stomped on the orc's neck, snapping it like a pencil. "Let's go."
It took several hours for Geezer to wake and actually be coherent enough to speak. They'd moved him into one of Bard's spare rooms (thankfully not the one Lorna and Thranduil had been in), where Galasríniel forced several unpleasant concoctions on him.
Thranduil grew ever more worried. The only reason he could think of for them to help Von Ratched was if Thorvald had arrived, and if that was the case, with the Ring still loose in the world, they might well be doomed.
He wished Galadriel and Sharley had not left for Angmar, but no doubt there really was something there that needed their attention. It would be months yet before Mithrandir would reach the Woodland Realm with the hobbit – another very good reason for Legolas to remain, because no matter what, Thranduil would have been gone by the time they arrived.
Finally Geezer managed to drink some tea, though when he spoke, he still sounded as though his throat had been scoured with gravel. "Von Ratched's been tapping into people's minds since he got here," he said. "It's like a disease – he infects one person, and that person infects whoever they touch. But now he's got most of the populated areas of Gondor, and he can use them as spies, right? Well, he can also control them, if he wants to – he just chooses not to because that would make his presence pretty damn obvious."
"And?" Thranduil prompted.
"And something's gonna make him do it anyway," Geezer said, grimacing as he sipped more tea. "Dunno what, but I saw him do it. You've gotta get there before he does – he doesn't know what dong that'll do, because nobody's ever done it before. Using that much magic wouldn't end well."
"The storm," Lorna said, her eyes widening.
"Huh?" Geezer asked.
"There was a storm, when Thranduil and I met Aelis in one o the might-have-been's. That's what caused it – Von Ratched screwing with too many people at once."
"How do you know?" Thranduil asked.
"I never stopped having the dreams," she said. "He wanted to hit the organization of the cursed – the DMA, it was called – but he wanted to cause a massive distraction first, so he tapped a lot'v people like that and used them all at once, attacking military installations all over America. What he didn't know was that throwing so much magic around at once would bugger up the weather – he wound up destroying most'v the continent by mistake." She looked at Geezer, and then at Thranduil. "Middle-Earth's not much bigger than North America. If he manages something on that scale, there won't be much left to oppose Sauron, even if Thorvald doesn't get here first. Only consolation's that he'd get hit as bad as the rest'v us."
Even with that, it was still not a thought to be borne. "Geezer, you have said the future cannot be changed," Thranduil said.
"No," Geezer said, "it can't, but it can be…altered. Doesn't have to do as much damage. Once Sharley's got her ass back here from dealing with Angmar, I'll send her your way. She knows Von Ratched, and she ain't best pleased with him."
"She does?" Ratiri asked, startled. "How?"
"Institute wasn't his first hospital – it was just the worst of 'em. When she was still alive, she was his prisoner for a while."
No, she would not be pleased with him. That was a reunion Thranduil wanted to watch. From a safe distance. "Pack everything," he said to Galasríniel. "We leave tonight. We can cover a few miles before dark."
The order to pack alarmed Tauriel, but she also wasn't surprised. She'd known things couldn't stay quiet forever.
Already there were whispers that they would be marching to Gondor – Gondor! Legolas had confided it to her, but she'd been expecting it. Never had she thought the King would take their words to heart, and certainly not like this. He must have been told something truly terrible by one of their seers, or he would never have thought to send a company so far from home, let alone gone with it.
Would she be going with them, or would she stay in the Woodland Realm? Logically, it would be the latter, for Legolas trusted her. Mercifully, he seemed to have abandoned whatever inappropriate feelings he'd had for her while out in the wild with the Rangers, or this would be very uncomfortable. It was a relief to have her friend back, as only a friend.
A friend who would need all the help he could get. Being a prince was a very different thing from being a king, and he had spent as much time as he could being anything but princely. He was very likely in for a nasty shock. Fortunately, their people loved him, and would do their best not to make his life unduly difficult – and he did have much experience as a commander. Still, this was not something he was likely to enjoy.
Nor, she was sure, would the King. He had not been so far from home since the Last Alliance, and had not left the Woodland Realm at all since the battle that cost him the Queen. For all his determination, he was likely to find this quest even more unpleasant than everyone else. At least if he fell into brooding melancholy, he had Lorna to smack him out of it. Possibly literally.
But how would she fare, undertaking such a journey so soon after giving birth? Birthing children was immensely taxing for Elven women, and it was likely much the same with Edain. More than once, she had looked grey and tired even on this short journey to Dale; the long trek to Gondor might be more than she could handle. And if anything happened to her, the King might well lose his mind. Somehow, after their violent, turbulent history, he really did seem to truly love her. Whenever he inevitably lost her, to injury or merely old age, it might well break him.
But that was not a thought Tauriel could dwell on. Perhaps they would all die, in whatever war was to come. The Valar would sort things out after that. As she understood it, they usually did. Meanwhile, they had a camp to pack up.
Lorna was temporarily at loose ends, since she'd only get in the way if she tried to help the Elves pack. She sat with Geezer while he recovered, watching as a little color started to come back to his face.
"Will you teach the Dwarves how to make guns?" she asked.
"I'll try. I'm sure they'll figure it out sooner or later. I just hope we're not gonna need 'em."
"If we succeed in Gondor, you might not." She sighed. "D'you ever wonder how much damage we're doing to Middle-Earth, by bringing all this modern shite to it?"
"A lot, lately," he said, struggling to sit up. "I wouldn't even mention guns if I didn't think I had to. Ratiri's stuff, the medical supplies and everything, I can't see how that could be bad, but our weapons? They'd be a game-breaker for whoever had 'em. Even Elvish armor'd be no match for a grenade, let alone anything heavier. And to tell you the truth, I wouldn't even trust the Elves with guns."
"Really?" she asked, surprised. "Why not?"
"Because once they got over being horrified by what they could do, they'd start finding more and more uses for 'em. Oh, they'd take care of the orcs first, and goblins and wargs, but they weren't always so benevolent and wise, and guns'd bring out the worst in 'em."
"In the Noldor, maybe, but most'v them are dead," Lorna said, but she had an uneasy suspicion that Geezer wasn't wholly wrong. Give Thranduil cause to hold a grudge against someone, she was quite sure he'd cap them in a heartbeat.
"You'd be surprised," Geezer said. "I hope that you don't ever have to learn that killing people can be addictive, if you think they deserve to die. And the longer you're at war, the easier it is to think someone deserves it. I don't know that I ever killed anyone on purpose in 'Nam, but some of the guys in my unit, guys who'd been there a while…war changes people. If it comes to it, don't let it change you."
It could, she knew, all too easily. In one way at least, she was her father's daughter, and while her temper had been markedly reduced in Middle-Earth, she couldn't trust that that would hold indefinitely. Lorna had never killed anyone on purpose either, but that was because in the red-misted grip of fury, she'd wanted them to suffer instead. There was a dark, horrible part of her that only Thranduil knew about, twisted and cruel, and she'd tried all her life to contain it, since she knew she'd never banish it.
Seeing Von Ratched again might break that container. Thranduil would have to stop her then, if that was even possible, because it wasn't just what the bastard had done to her, it was what he would have done, in that other timeline.
She shuddered. "I'll try not to, but I can't make any promises," she admitted. "I don't really know what I'm capable of, and I'll try not to find out."
The look Geezer gave her was distinctly pitying, which did nothing at all for her nerves.
Though Galadriel did not ask for a rest that night, Sharley halted anyway, no doubt to ensure that she could find with her full strength. Their respite was brief, but welcome; whatever they were to face, it was preferable not to face it on an empty stomach.
The moon, still not quite full, rose while they sat, silvering the grasses. The trees were sparse here, fir rather than oak or beech, still smelling of the day's sunshine. This far out, the land had not been scorched by dragonfire, and had sat untouched for many a year.
"When we reach the…things," Sharley said, "I want you to stay near me. I know how powerful you are, but even I don't know what these things are, or where they came from. If I have to, I'll go right into 'em, and you can do your thing at a distance. Neither you or they can hurt me, and I can keep 'em distracted."
"What if we are overrun?" Galadriel asked. There were few forces in Middle-Earth that Nenya could not overcome, but these creatures were not from Middle-Earth.
"We won't be," Sharley said, sounding utterly sure. "I've got my father's sword. I don't want to have to use it, but I will if I need to." She ran her fingers over the scabbard, an odd mingling of resentment and longing in her eyes.
"If they are already dead, you cannot kill them," Galadriel said, rising. She had had rest enough, and she would prefer to get this over with.
"With this thing? Yes, I can," Sharley said, standing with unnerving silence. "This could kill me, or Jary, or Gandalf. Hell, the only reason I can't kill Sauron with it is because he took precautions with that damn ring. My foster-mother is Life, Lady Galadriel, but my father is Death, and this is his sword."
She was telling the truth, Galadriel saw, her odd eyes shining in the moonlight. What an odd, horrific sort of world she must live in, that such things as life and death must manifest as people. It also made Sharley far more unsettling, while at the same time explaining a few things – it would seem there was more than one reason for living creatures to fear her. It was only a mercy she was an ally. "When you said you could break the world, you meant it, didn't you?"
Sharley laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I could," she said. "Breaking things is easy. Fixing them is the hard part, and it's the part I can't do, so I mostly just sit back and watch. I don't dare do much else."
Further words were cut off by a rustling in the grass – it was faint, and very far off, but it was not an animal. Nor was it isolated; whatever crept toward them moved in a very large group. Orcs would have made far more noise, as would wargs in such numbers.
"And here we go," Sharley said. "Let's get this over with."
Off they went, though in no hurry – there was no point in haste, with their enemy coming to meet them. Slow though they went, the nearer they drew, the greater a sense of wrongness grew in Galadriel's mind. She had felt and faced great evil in her life, but this was something else entirely, something that grated on her very fëa like mortar on pestle. It felt even more alien than Sharley, which Galadriel would not have thought possible.
The spring night ought to have been chilly, yet the further they went, the warmer the air grew, moisture leeched from it as though they walked in a desert rather than a forest. A strange, hot, metallic scent assailed her, rather like what one found in a forge. A great many people, even her own, would be surprised she had been in a forge, but there were few not living who remembered that she had been a warrior, that her epessë had once been Artanis, the Man-Maiden. Just because she had not needed a sword in an age did not mean she could not use one.
The rustling grew clearer, but strangely, not any louder; these things, whatever they were, might not be as stealthy as Elves, but they were far more so than Edain or Dwarves, and that worried her. Creatures with the capacity for stealth were likely more than mindless animals.
Sharley watched the treeline, her expression unnervingly blank. Galadriel had long though Thranduil like a statue, but next to Sharley, he was as lively and animated as her grandsons. The effect was not helped at all by the fact that she drew no breath.
The first of the creatures lurched its way from the trees, and Galadriel stared at it with a mix of fascination and revulsion.
It looked like it had once been an Edain, a young woman with long golden hair, now matted with blood. Its skin was so pale it was translucent, the veins on its face rendered as black as its empty eyes. Its movements were jerky and unnatural, but its expression was not vacant – there was still some manner of intelligence lurking in its mind.
And it radiated malice of a sort she had never encountered, so much so that it felt like a solid force. While it was no stronger than some that she had seen, it was so very alien that she was repelled.
"Give your magic a shot, Lady Galadriel," Sharley said quietly. "Let's see what it does against these fuckers."
She was willing to try, but she had her doubts as to how well it would work. The Three Rings had been crafted to protect and create, not to destroy. Raising her right hand, she whispered an incantation that had not been used in an age, feeling the full power of Nenya stir within her. So long had she kept it leashed until Dol Guldur five years ago, and in all that time she had not forgotten the feel of it, the sheer strength that flowed through her veins, hard and unbreakable as the Misty Mountains.
Blinding light flashed through the sky, hot as lightning, spreading out through every corner of the horizon. The creature fell as though shot from behind, limp and lifeless – dead now, truly dead, as were all that followed it.
Sharley stared at her. "Remind me never to piss you off," she said. "We'd better make sure everybody behind them bit it, too."
In one way, Galadriel almost hoped that they had not. Such power as the Rings held could be addictive, which was why they were so seldom actually used, and she would wield it once more, if she could, before containing it again.
They paused to examine one of the things, before continuing on to the trees. Up close, they were even more revolting. They had once been Edain, twisted by Eru knew what. "This was alive," she said, her hand hovering above its face, for she could not bring herself to touch it. "The skin is still warm."
Sharley didn't respond – she focused on one of them intently, then another, and a third. "I don't know where they came from," she said slowly. "Unless your Valar are still screwing with me, that shouldn't be possible."
She ran a hand through the thing's hair, though what she searched for, Galadriel could not guess. "They had a door," she said, "but it's closed now. Hopefully if we destroy it, it can't rebuild itself. We can't afford to stick around here and watch for long, but I wouldn't feel safe leaving Dale and Erebor open to any future invasions. I doubt these things would be easy to take down with conventional weapons – not in any real numbers."
"There are more out there," Galadriel said. "I can feel them. Are you certain their door is closed?"
Sharley stood. "Yeah," she said. "It just must have let an assload of them through before it shut."
They moved on, while the moon rose ever higher, lighting trees and grass until it was near as bright as day. The unnatural heat intensified, and a breeze began to stir the air, though it did little to dispel the stifling, choking dryness. The odd metallic scent grew stronger, until Galadriel could taste it, but for a good quarter of an hour, they found none of the creatures still living. The woodland floor was a carpet of corpses, for there had been a staggering number of them – and might well be an equal number more still alive between here and Angmar. Angmar, which was still so many miles away.
Sure enough, there soon came more rustling, telltale and distinctive, and Sharley went still.
"Lady Galadriel," she said softly, "if you could so something you knew would be effective, and would save you valuable time, but was totally horrible, would you do it?"
"That would depend on the thing," Galadriel said. "And the need. Why?"
"I don't think we can afford the time it would take to hunt down each and every one of these things by hand. You're sure there aren't any actual people living in these mountains?"
"Yes. The orcs allow no others a foothold."
Sharley shut her eyes. "I can't order you not to tell anyone what I'm about to do," she said, "but I wish you would keep it to yourself. I know touching me isn't any fun, but put your hand on my back or my shoulder, will you? It'll keep you safe."
"From what?" Galadriel asked, doing as bidden with an amount of trepidation that shamed her.
"From me." Sharley raised the sword, and when one of the lurching things approached, she swung at it –
-and for one agonizing, eternal moment, all of Galadriel's senses shut down, overwhelmed by a force as horrible as it was foreign. When they began to resurface, she heard a crack so loud it might well have broken the earth beneath her feet, accompanied by a flash of darkness like reverse lightning. The ground shuddered, and for a moment, just a moment, the air reeked of carrion. It was almost enough to drive her to her knees, but Sharley caught her before she could fall.
When her vision restored itself, she saw with horror that all before them – the trees and grass, as well as the creatures – was dead. The green of the fir needles had given way to brown, the grasses parched and withered, stretched out as far as her eyes could see.
She looked at Sharley, and recoiled. "Did your sword to that?"
Sharley nodded. "Told you there was a reason I didn't want to use it," she said, and there was an odd sort of sorrow in her voice. "We're not done yet, though. That door is still there." A faint ghost of a smile crossed her lips. "Wanna destroy Angmar?"
Galadriel stared at her. She had known that Sharley was possibly a very great threat, but she was only now realizing how great. "If it is Sauron's attention you want, you certainly have it now," she said. "His, and that of every other higher being in Middle-Earth. I do not think I want to know how you would go about destroying a kingdom, even a dead one."
Sharley said nothing for a moment. "You could go back," she said. "There's no reason you need to see it. Go find Thranduil – I'll catch up with you later."
She ought to. She ought to warn Thranduil what a nightmare of an ally they had, but she could not. For no reason even she could fathom, she felt compelled to follow Sharley – even if only to see what she did. "No," she said. "I will go with you." And pray that sword would not see use again.
Whelp, Sauron'll be good and interested now. At least it'll keep his attention off everything going down in Gondor.
Title means "Danger" in Irish. You know the drill: reviews make my week.
