~ Middle Earth Reclaimed ~
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A slightly longer chapter this time, as things start to happen. I'm posting this from someone else's computer, as mine has become spectacularly inaccessible. :) As usual, thank you for the reviews; I wasn't able to reply to all of them, but I hope your questions will be answered within the story itself.
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Chapter 7:
She saw Thranduil rise from his chair, his eyes wild with something that lay between fury and fear. The park was no longer full of trees, but full of silhouettes curling in the blast of heat. There were sharp reports like gunshots as treesap heated beyond vapour point and burst explosively from blackened trunks.
And this is how I would fashion the end of Elvenkind... an end to those craven, tear-eyed children of regret. First, to consume all that they have known and loved, then to hunt the skulking remnants down, one... by one... by one...
It was a mere whisper, emanating slyly from the heart of the fires like the harbourer of secrets. Helen turned away to shield herself, so full of malevolence were the words, but there was little time to ponder their meaning. In the next moment she felt Thranduil take her arm, and they began running, running from the searing heat , running from the flames which devoured their way across the grass. The fire relentlessly surged forward in pursuit. They leapt across a narrow ornamental stream, over flower beds, past rows of shrubs that began to crackle only seconds behind them.
"Arwen - " He was half-dragging her now, his long light strides pulled back by the frailty of her human legs. The flames were close now, ineluctably close, spitting our sparks which singed her long hair.
This is how I would repay you, King of Woodland Fools, for suffering me as your neighbour in Dol Guldur.
The torrent of flame heaved upwards and then crashed over them, and Helen suddenly knew the pain of dying, the pain of feeling layer upon layer of skin, fat, flesh, stripped from one's body. Beside her, beaten to the ground by torment, lay Thranduil. He was a mere outline in flickering orange and yellow, yet there was a point of incandescence brighter than this, and it issued from his finger.
She fell forward, and somehow wrenched his hand towards her; in his convulsive pain he was almost too strong to be forced, and the sight of her own burnt hand seemed unreal. In one motion she plucked at the source of the light -
- and with agonising slowness it slipped off his finger, now but an ornamented silver ring that steamed slightly in the cool breeze.
They both lay on the grass for a long moment, stunned by the abruptness of the ending. There was no fire, no insidious voice, no pain; without the ring to channel them, the illusions could not persist. The park was as mundanely pleasant as it had been before, ordinary people paying them no heed as they walked by.
"A silver ring fit for a Queen..."Thranduil laughed harshly, and shifted to look at Helen, who had warily set the ring down on the ground. His face still seemed impossibly youthful, but more lines had been added to it. "If I had but known its origin, I would not have treasured it so." He reached out as if to take it, then stopped, closing his fingers in a fist. "No - some part of me did know. For it was captured from a orc-hoard, and I knew that among their treasures were spoils from Eregion. "
"Eregion?"
"There lived the Gwaith-i-Mirdain, the Ringsmiths. It was they whom Sauron instructed and deceived. Save the Three Rings which Celebrimbor forged alone, all their works were tainted by him. And this, no doubt, is one of those lesser rings... I have been a fool not to see." Now that remorse had been vented, there was an unmistakeable undertone of anger in his voice.
"But perhaps... Arwen saw."
Thranduil gazed at Helen as if seeing her for the first time, his lips parted slightly. "Then I must not be foolish again. That voice - his fell voice. For centuries the ring was powerless on my hand. Why should it turn now, unless its maker still lived? Somehow he has crawled up from the dust, and knows that I too have survived." He became silent, unwilling to continue.
Helen continued for him. "And through you, he knows of my existence, whatever that means to him."
"It means much. You are Elrond's daughter, descended from those he loathed and feared most."
"Then I cannot run, not this time." She studied his face, searching for understanding, and saw deep unhappiness. "Can we find him?"
In that moment when the flames had been hottest, when the ring had betrayed its true nature and Sauron's unguarded hate, Thranduil had seen a black mountain from afar. More strangely, there had been a brief image of flowers, their petals lusciously red.
"Yes."
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He walked alone through the excavation site, now and then kicking away the green tarpaulin sheets which covered the ground. He was jetlagged from his journey, on edge, frustrated. This was not meant to happen. This was not meant to happen...
"Faramir, you bloody idiot," he said with feeling, and crushed his cigarette into the earth.
It had been nearly five days since his younger brother had called, babbling about important personal missions and whatnot. Over the pho he had managed to convey vague brotherly concern, letting some indulgence slip into his voice. But it had taken all Brian Stewart's self-control not to lose his temper then, and still more afterwards not to go into blind panic. He feared that his brother had somehow been caught in local gang business. He feared that the young man was idealistically - stupidly - trying to put things right. And most of all, in some vain selfish way, he feared that Faramir had finally discovered the truth about his admired elder brother.
His mobile phone tweeted shrilly in his pocket. Brian cleared his throat, hoping his voice would sound steadier than he felt.
"Brian... Brian... They let me know you're in the neighbourhood. What brings you here?"
"I'm sorry, Mr Anghe. I have to ask you... a favour."
A pause. "A favour. Really?"
Brian swallowed and pushed on. "My brother was on this last dig. I don't know if I told you before - "
"And?"
"And he's deviated from the schedule. He didn't clear out. I was wondering if... if your men might have come across him..?"
There was a little huff of breath from the other end of the line. "Difficult. Difficult, Brian. It's a little matter. I don't keep track of little things, Brian. You know that."
"Yes, I understand completely, Mr Anghe. But please, I just want to make sure that none of your men mistook him for... an outsider. I can't do business without him in the department, you understand."
This seemed to register with Mr Anghe, and he made a little noise of assent. With the abrupt change of mood he was known for, his tone became friendly. "You are at the site? Very good. I'll send a man to pick you up and take you to one of my hotels. I don't want people to think I don't know how to treat my people right. After that... after that we sort out where your brother is." He paused. "You know who to wait for."
"You're very kind, Mr Anghe, thank you - " But the conversation was already over. Brian walked away from the main excavation, back out to the small dirt track leading to town. There stood a wooden post with illegible words scratched onto it, and he leaned against it, his face in his hands. The exchange had been a brief one, but Brian felt he had come through a great trial.
Twenty minutes passed, and he looked at his watch, considering whether to retreat to the shade of the trees. Just before he moved off, a figure appeared at the end of the dirt track, and he stopped. The figure grew ever closer, and he saw that it was some man in a suit. Several hundred yards behind him was a black limousine; evidently the chauffeur was reluctant to subject the car's suspension to this dirt track and had parked it on the main road. They had to be Anghe's men. It was unthinkable that anyone not sanctioned by Anghe could be prowling around the area, especially at this time.
The man's angular Eurasian features surprised Brian, but not as much as the absolute blankness on his face. His clothes looked slightly ill-fitting, his broad shoulders too large for the jacket.
"Have you come for me?" asked Brian.
A nod. With mechanical steps he traced his way back to the car, this time with Brian in tow, and then opened the door for him.
There was already someone in the other passenger seat, an old man with bleared eyes. He looked as if he were far away, drugged even, and seemed to pay no heed as Brian sat uneasily beside him. He was toying with something in his hands - a red hibiscus blossom - and ripping its petals up in tic-like movements.
"My luggage is still at the Rivera Hotel. Are we going to see Mr Anghe now?"
The chauffeur was mute; in the reflection of the rear-view mirror his expression was vacant.
Brian scowled and turned to the old man, who now had a scatter of red confetti on his lap. "Are you going to see Mr Anghe too?" He hardly expected a response.
The old man's lips pulled back in a smile, and Brian noticed two things - that his bare feet were caked with mud, and his white hair was streaked with soot.
Yes.
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The earthquake had lasted no more than twenty seconds, perhaps half a minute. Faramir brushed himself off, groaning, and looked over at Glorfindel, who was miraculously on his feet. The pile of things from the survival pack had tumbled down, and the elf was ankle deep in tins.
"Worse than a ride on the Tube," said Faramir, thinking of London's dilapidated underground train system. "And that's saying something."
It was a poor joke, but there was an acute need for humour. He knew that there were always tremors before a volcano was due to erupt. How long before was another matter; it could be weeks, days, hours. Even to his untrained eye the volcano looked wrong, as if it had been deformed by internal forces, and cracks had appeared along its southern flank. He exhaled slowly.
"The mountain is servant to its master." Glorfindel's face was ivory pale, except for a thin line of blood where something had scratched the skin of his cheek. "Always has Orodruin rekindled at Sauron's rising."
Faramir met the elf's gaze in an instant. They had agreed to not to invoke the names of sunken Mordor, and to hear Glorfindel break this was a shock in itself. When Glorfindel raised his hand and pointed, he received a second shock.
There was the largish mound of loose silt about a hundred metres from them; they had climbed it the day before in order to sight a route up the volcano's slopes. Now part of the mound had slid away in the quake, leaving a concave surface, and exposed in the black-brown silt were spindly forms. The fossils spanned ten feet or more, criss-crossing each other as if frozen in mid-dance. Even from this distance Faramir knew what they were, and what they represented: Mates maybe, or children, the kin of Shelob.
Before other emotions could kick in, Faramir found himself running towards the mound, Glorfindel following close behind. There was no active menace around those skeletal remains, yet few could have looked upon them without a frisson of fear, if not terror.
"I don't like this." Close-up, the serrated edges of the legs were all too clear, and measurable in inches, not millimetres. From his experience Faramir knew the soil around them was young and unconsolidated, and the fact that these specimens were so close to the surface meant only one thing. He looked at another leg, its spiny hairs intact and bearing a green iridescent sheen. Fossils could not preserve pigmentation. These were the real thing, and recent. "Spiders shed their... their exoskeletons, as the grow, don't they...?"
"Yes." Glorfindel motioned him away from the molted husks, and despite his outer calm there was a tautness about him, a preparation for unseen enemies. "Are you afraid?"
Faramir smiled lopsidedly. "Of spiders? Not the house and garden variety, no." He suppressed the incongruous thoughts of Charlotte's Web and focused on the first mate's story of the doomed fuel depot. "This is different."
Indeed, like a spider's web, all the elements were drawing together in Faramir's mind. So far, his experiences had an ambiguity to them. The dreams of the past, Gandalf's appearance - these had been disturbing yet distant. The discovery of Imladris had inspired as much hope as it had shattered his idea of history, yet it was just a ruin. Even Glorfindel, no matter how solid he appeared, retained an elusive quality.
The spider husks were a more brutal reminder that all the spokes were converging on something greater and more insidious.
"Sauron has risen."
He wanted to ask how much time they had, what it was they had to do, how it was that Sauron could rise again. Indeed, what was meant by 'rising'? What form would he take?
"Need you ask?"
Glorfindel doesn't know. The realisation was daunting, and Faramir shook his head vigorously as if to clear the uncertainties in it. "That volcano is going to erupt soon. We'll need to get off the island quite quickly."
"The ship returns for us tomorrow. I do not think we are in peril yet. We can wait another night."
Faramir remembered the elf's sleepless vigil on the beach, guarding the relics of Elrond's House in their cloth-wrapped bundle. No doubt that had been enough to ward off lesser evils. They should be cunning enough to know that an elf-lord would make no easy meal.
As if to mock them, the ground shuddered again.
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Evelyn awoke in the middle of the night feeling uncomfortably warm. She got out of bed, the cotton pyjamas sticking to her back, and made her way to the kitchen in the dark to get a glass of water. Perhaps she'd had nightmares, but she seldom remembered her dreams after she woke up, and she'd lived alone for so long that nothing scared her.
I'm just restless, that's all. I'm driving to my uncle's place tomorrow, and I'm glad... need to get out of this depressing rut.
But did she really want to go to her uncle's? He was kind, and he would - kindly, of course - remind her constantly that she had trained to be a nurse, and would always be a nurse, and should be returning to nursing after the summer.
We'll see, thought Evelyn. The table was littered with sheets of newspaper, with red circles drawn around a random array of temporary positions. Unfortunately, being a junior secretary was likely to bring even less joy than tending to the ill. She switched on the light and began idly flipping through the papers. The third page carried a picture of a burnt-out building, with calls from the fire department for a greater awareness of fire hazards, more stringent safety checks. The building turned out to be a storage facility at the city airport.
There seemed to be fires everywhere. Or was it just that Evelyn had become more sensitive since the destruction of the hospital? She sighed, emptied her glass and prepared to turn off the light.
A strange noise arrested her, and she paused by the lightswitch. There it was again, a kind of rattling. It came from the door of the apartment, and before she could react there was a soft click as the bolts drew back. She was no longer alone in the apartment.
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End of Chapter 7
To be continued...
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AlexeCinz
August/September 2001
http://www.btinternet.com/~reitaira/izumi.htm