Disclaimer as for 1: i own nothing 'cept the plot. no money is being made and no copyright infringement is intended. I can spell infringement. Oh, and for clarification, in this universe:
1) Elrond has gone happily off to the Tir n'an Og, or wherever it is that Elves go when they cross the sea, and left his House to Arwen, who is alive and well. I dunno why. I just kind of like Arwen.
2) Aragorn is doing his Heir-of-Elendil Rightful High King bit off in Gondor or Rohan or somewhere and is not connected with Arwen. Maybe they send each other Christmas cards.
3) Legolas is still around but has gotten someone to wax his eyebrows into the correct pointy arched Elvish shape, modeling them on Elrond's, and now looks a great deal better.
4) I know precisely dick about Elvish healers, so just deal with mine.
5) I didn't invent the crystal tears, but I did invent the legend.
And finally: thank you to all who actually took the time to read this and review, it's an honour.
**
Night fell over the Shire; the moon raced through tattered clouds, dragging her shadows over field and dale, lending an air of urgency and menace to the land. One by one the little lights marking the hobbit-houses winked out as the hours dragged by, until there was only one left; one flickering window-square of yellow light in a world of shifting silver darkness.
Sam hadn't left his master's side. He remained where he was, only moving to replenish the ice in the basin by the bed, wringing out cool cloths and replacing them one by one as the dry sick heat of Frodo's skin warmed them again. He knew he would have to get help, of course, but something—perhaps the presence of the dagger that still glowed sullenly in the wardrobe—told him that he would not have to go far to find it. Something was coming. Something was on its way. Sam didn't know what, or even whether it was friendly, but he could do nothing more for his master than just stay there as the hours passed, and hold him when he woke crying out from the pain in his chest. Sam's wife Rose had looked in several hours before, and had merely laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, and left him alone with Frodo. It was not her business, and she couldn't have done anything for Frodo that Sam couldn't do—as little as that was. She had brought the doctor, of course, and the doctor had had a brief look at Frodo and gone away again quickly.
Frodo tossed uneasily under the covers, muttering something about the fire, how he could see into it now, see through the dark slit at the center of the fire...but not make out what was beyond it. He couldn't talk much, even if he'd been lucid; speaking brought on the cough, and now when he coughed, he was bringing up blood. Sam did his best to keep him quiet, but Frodo was growing more and more restive as the hours passed. I wonder what'll happen when he finally reaches the flames, thought Sam miserably. Will I know?
**
Once again cloaked Riders galloped through the woods, silent but for the urgent thudding of their horses' hooves and the whipping wind through their clothes. The last Riders had been dead black, riding black horses that seemed to have longer teeth than normal, and their faces had been hidden behind the drape of their black cowls—if they had even had faces. These Riders wore grey, a soft clear grey like smoke in rain, and their hoods were pushed back as they rode, bent forward over the reins, urging their mounts on, faster, on. There were two of them, not nine. But the first thing that anyone would have noticed about them, had anyone been watching the forest road, was the strange pale light that seemed to glow from within their faces—a light that flaked off in little swirls as they rode, and lingered in the dark air behind them. The wind of their riding brought with it a faint sharp, sweet scent, like green apples and rain.
Arwen's dark hair caught and held the glints of light like shreds of stars, streaming out behind her. The elf who matched her pace, neck and neck, was blonde and rather lovely, but not with the ethereal unworldly sort of beauty of the old Elves; he looked not unlike a particularly elegant Man. His name was Legolas Greenleaf, and it had been by the purest chance that he had happened to be at Rivendell when the Lady Arwen had set out for the Shire. They had exchanged few words; they needed few.
Side by side, the archer and the Lady galloped onwards past the dim lights of the Prancing Pony, hurrying toward what they hoped would not be the end of a long and complicated story.
They made it to Hobbiton at half past one; the grey clouds were going, and the vault of deep heaven was shining down over the Shire as if all manner of thing were well. Arwen found herself wishing it was raining; it didn't seem.....appropriate, for such a beautiful night to hide such terror. Wordlessly they dismounted, leaving the elvensteeds quiet and unmoving except for the faint heaving of their flanks, and hurried up to the green door of Bag End.
Sam opened it for them before Arwen's fingertips touched the green paint. His face was set and white, and he looked up at them with red, but unsurprised, eyes. "Thank Elbereth you've come," he said roughly. "My lady....my lord......he needs your help."
Legolas ducked under the lintel and hurried inside; Arwen waited a moment, kneeling down beside Sam. "What is it?" she asked softly. "What has happened to him?"
"I don't know," Sam wailed. "It's.....he keeps talking about the Eye....and oh, my lady....Sting is glowing."
Arwen's mouth tightened. She followed Sam through into Frodo's bedroom, and had to pause at the door for a moment as a wave of revulsion splashed through her bones. The atmosphere of evil in the room was as thick as wet-wood smoke. How could we have missed this? How?
Legolas was bending over Frodo, who was moaning softly; Arwen could already see they had no time to waste. His porcelain skin was stretched tight over the fine bones of his face; blue-brown shadows pooled beneath his eyes and cheekbones. Sweat glistened on his face and throat. "Arwen," said Legolas roughly, and she didn't notice the lack of the honorific. "He's on fire."
"How long has he been like this?" she demanded. Sam rubbed at his eyes with his thumbs.
"I found him this morning, collapsed on the floor. He's......well, he's been sick for a few days, I think...he'd never admit it......."
"Help me get him ready," she said. Legolas was already crushing athelas into the water-glass by the bed, and not for the first time Arwen wondered how it had been on that long road, how they had managed to make it home, and what they had had to do on the way. The other Elf's dark eyes looked far too old as he slipped an arm around Frodo's shoulders and helped him drink.
Sam was holding something out to her. She forced herself to look away from Frodo and turned her gaze on the hilt he was offering; an old Elvish blade, the dagger Sting, which had accompanied both Bagginses on their journeys, and warned them of danger. It was glowing like a shard of the moon.
Arwen reached out and took the hilt, and a shock of cold fire flickered through the room; it had been many years since Sting had been touched by one of its own, and it recognized an Elf when it felt one. She nodded. "We must go, Sam." Legolas had already wrapped Frodo in blankets and lifted him in his arms; she could tell by the look on his face that he, too, felt the wrongness burning in the hobbit.
Sam looked from her to Legolas, and his face crumpled. "My lady," he begged, "don't take him away from me, please don't leave me without my master, I swore not to leave him..."
She flicked a glance at Legolas, who nodded once. "Very well, Sam. But you will carry Sting for me. It is no longer the property of the Elves."
Sam took the dagger and reverently tucked it into his belt. They hurried out into the night, and paused for a moment by the horses. As she had said once before, kneeling by a Frodo dying from a different hurt, "I am the faster rider. I will take him."
Legolas looked down at the white face in the blankets, closed his eyes. "I quested with him," he said softly.
"I know. And you may do so again, if we hurry. Give him to me."
This time the other Elf didn't hesitate, lifting Frodo's limp form up to her embrace. She wheeled her horse and spurred off at once, riding again as fast as she could with a dying hobbit in her arms, running this time from a shadow that did not follow at her heels but lay even within her grasp. Legolas and Sam followed after, grimly silent in the dark.
**
The white and ivory cloisters of Rivendell are hung with vines that bear, in autumn, little golden fruits like apples. Their scent, and the scent of the creamy flowers that bloom before the vines bear, has been sung about in Elvish homecoming songs for thousands and thousands of years. The perfume of the cloisters is said to heal the sick, ease sorrow and pain and the grief of a wound. There is some little truth in the stories; the flesh of the golden fruits will restore the strength of a sick man, and the leaves steeped in water will hasten the healing of a wound. Today, the sweet sharp scent of the vines did nothing for Arwen, as she paced up and down the cloister in the long ceremonial robes of the Lady of Rivendell, waiting. It had been only a day since she and Legolas had brought Frodo, white and still save for the bright flecks of blood on his lips, to the Healers. Only a day.
Behind her she heard their light footsteps, and she turned ungracefully to meet them. Rivendell's Healers were twins—Iriliath and Gerylon—and they were almost, almost identical. Iriliath's white-gold hair was slightly longer, and her eyes a shade darker grey than her brother's, but they shared the exquisite bone structure of the high-born Elves, and their closeness as twins seemed to make them more effective Healers. They always worked together, two halves of a whole.
"Well?" Arwen demanded.
Iriliath spread her hands in a graceful gesture of helplessness. "The poison is deep within him, Lady," she said. "It eats at him as a worm eats at a fruit, from within, spreading rottenness."
Gerylon sighed. "It is in his lungs; somehow it has found a way into his body, and it is destroying him. Soon it will eat into a vein, and then...."
Arwen kept her gaze steadily on them. "Can you do nothing for him?"
"We can ease him, at least," said Gerylon. "He will feel neither fear nor pain. It will be like going into a sleep."
"There is no hope, then."
Iriliath bowed her head. "It is in all the gods' hands, Lady. Not in ours."
Arwen turned and sat down on a bench beneath one of the hanging vines. "How......how did this happen? The Ring was destroyed, and with it the evil of Mordor's shadow; how can it be killing him now?"
Gerylon knelt by her and took her hands in his. "We believe.....my sister and I......that when the Ring was destroyed in the fire of Mount Doom, the smoke of its burning carried with it some of the old magics the Dark Lord worked into the metal. The Ringbearer......was close to the chasm when the Ring burned."
"You think he breathed in the poison? That it's been there in his chest all this time?"
Iriliath nodded once. "So very little of it has taken a long time to work its evil. He has carried his death within him since the day of the Ring's destruction."
"Blessed Elbereth," Arwen breathed, "there has to be something we can do."
Neither Healer spoke for a few minutes. Arwen noticed Iriliath's fingers were absently playing with a small silver aspen leaf she wore around her neck.
**
Hello again, little Ringbearer. Welcome home.
--No. No! We destroyed your Ring, we defeated you, that war is over.
Ah, but here you are again, in my Eye, in the dead light of my Eye's flame, and you are dying, are you not, little Ringbearer? I can feel you dying.
--I don't understand.
You would not understand. You are delicious, though. So delicious. I grow stronger every day—and when I have used you up, little Ringbearer, you shall die, and I shall pass to another host, and another, and I shall make a new Ring. A Ring a thousand times more powerful than the one you thought you would keep for your own. Oh, yes, little Ringbearer, I know how that came to pass. I was already in your heart, a little. You would have kept the Ring, and I you, but for that piteous creature who had possessed the Ring before. It was his greed that ended your little war, Ringbearer. His greed and not your nobility.
--I would have given it up.
Would you?
All around him the roaring darkness receded and became a horribly familiar scene—the stinking red-and-black pit of Mount Doom, the incandescent bestial heat of that place. He was standing, weary as death, with the Ring in his hand, and he was about to cast it into the heart of the mountain, about to end the whole horrible quest, about to stop the darkness, and he could not do it. His own words echoed in his head like hammerblows. I have come. But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!
Frodo cried out, clutching his maimed hand, and began to cough; and with each cough the pain of the lost finger and the pain of the thing growing inside him grew worse and worse until they eclipsed everything, and he was nothing but a fragment of memory on a sea of pain, and then even that was gone.
I will win, little Ringbearer, said the bubbling, choked voice of the thing. I always do, in the end.
**
They had left Arwen alone with him for a little while. Mostly Sam sat with him in the white, airy room, perched in an Elf-sized chair, his feet not touching the ground. But they had let her in, for a little while.
She sat by his bed, with the four-fingered hand lying hot and limp in hers. It was an interesting scar, she reflected. Smeagol's razor teeth had neatly cut down to the bone, and through the bone, and the stump had healed smoothly over with the Elves' care. It looked almost as if he had been born with nine fingers, as if the whole horrible adventure had never even happened.
As Arwen stared, the hand closed on itself, closed tight enough so that the knuckles blanched, and Frodo's mouth tightened in pain. She bent closer, gently stroking his hair out of his face. At her touch, his eyes opened a slit, and she bit her lip so hard she drew blood, because his eyes had changed. The blue was still there, mostly. But the pupils were no longer round. Frodo looked up at her with the slit pupils of a snake.
Those horrible black slits dilated, contracted. He saw her. He knew her.
".......Arwen," he croaked. "Arwen Evenstar.....help me...."
She felt her hand close over his. "Hush, Frodo," she managed. "You're safe here."
"No," he gasped. "It....wants....once it's killed me, it wants more......."
She went cold all over. "What is it, Frodo?"
"....don't know.....feels like Sauron......"
Arwen bowed her head over Frodo's maimed hand. "Iriliath was right," she murmured. "It.....speaks to you?"
Frodo coughed, coughed again, his hand tightening convulsively in hers. She bent over and slipped an arm around him, supporting him as the spasm ran its course. Fresh blood bloomed on the sheets. We don't have much time......
Eventually he could gasp in a breath, and she would have let him lie back, but he clung to her as if he could never let go. "It speaks in my head," he gasped. "Arwen.....when I die.....you mustn't let anyone near me......."
Arwen could feel tears starting. "Frodo, don't talk like that," she said miserably. "You won't die. We'll heal you. Somehow, we'll heal you."
He pulled back and stared at her with those awful slit eyes—eyes that were worse because of the remains of Frodo she could see in them. "Promise me," he said hoarsely. "Promise me you won't let it have anyone else."
Arwen stared back, then nodded, once.
He didn't speak again; shortly after that he had another fit of coughing and slipped back into the strange delirious coma state.
"You were right," she said softly, in the cloisters. "He says....it will take over another body, when he dies. It has already.....changed.......his eyes."
Iriliath paled a little. "It is more powerful than I had thought. I must speak with my brother." She nodded, and the Healer hurried off to find her other half.
Left alone in the fragrant quiet of the cloisters, with a drop of Frodo's blood staining the pale silks of her gown, Arwen Evenstar sat down and wept. All the trials, all the battles and the deaths and the brief bright moments in between the dark and the dark, had been for nothing now. She remembered with the perfect recall of the Elves the day she'd called the flood down upon the Nine, at the ford; that other desperate ride against time and danger, with Frodo curled in her arms. She supposed she had fallen a little bit in love, that day. Aragorn......was different. Frodo Baggins was like no one she had ever met; he had a strange kind of beauty unlike the high elegant loveliness of her people, but she couldn't deny that it was beauty—the huge, luminous eyes, the chiseled nose, the mobile and elegant little mouth—were unforgettable. She remembered not even noticing his beauty, though, being struck so deeply by the mithril strength of him—so young and so determined, bearing such a great responsibility. She hid her face in her hands and wept for the waste of all he had done.
The Healers paused in the doorway, seeing her bent and sobbing under the golden vinefruits, and would have retreated to let her be alone; she, like them, had realized there was no hope.........but Gerylon stopped his sister. He tilted his head, listening. Above the gentle hush of the wind and the everpresent singing of the birds, above Arwen's helpless sobs, they could hear a faint, crystalline tinkling.
Iriliath frowned. "That's a legend. It's never been seen in my lifetime."
Gerylon waved her quiet and hurried forward, kneeling down by the Lady of Rivendell. Her pale skirts spread out around her like a flower, and lying like tiny diamonds in the folds of the cloth and on the polished stone of the pavement were little crystal drops, perfectly round. Arwen was crying softly now, the force of her grief spent, but tears still seeped between her fingers and fell with that faint bell-like tinkle to the ground.
Iriliath picked up one of the crystal tears. It was cool and hard to her touch, like polished stone, and lay on the palm of her hand and glowed gently in the sun. She felt her weariness fade noticeably.
With quiet gallantry, Gerylon drew Arwen's hands away from her face. "My lady," he said, gently. "My lady, you have given us some hope."
Arwen stared at him, her eyes brimming. He held out his hand, cupped around a sparkling heap of the crystal tears. "I don't understand," she said, unevenly.
"It is a legend, my lady. An old Healers' legend. The crystal tears of a highborn Elf, when shed in true and honest grieving.......are a most sovereign remedy for all poisons of the body and the soul."
.....to be continued.