Elrond sat in his chambers before a roaring hearth, a wrinkled
parchment lying limply in one hand. The other kneaded restlessly at his
forehead. He knew he should be concentrating on the matters of running his
realm, not the least of which was the mithril contract he now held, but try
as he might, he could not bring himself to do it. The muffled noises
seeping through his thick chamber wall, the noises that heralded his
undoing, were too demanding, too insistent, to ignore. Noises? He was
being kind. Shrieks, that was what they were, carried down the narrow
passageway. He resisted the impulse to stop his ears. The parchment
jittered softly in his grasp. Even from this great distance, the wails and
screams coming from the midwife's chambers were piercing; he could not
imagine what they must be like, what they must sound like, to the midwife's
diligent ears.
The five and a half months between Sithirantiel's revelation of her pregnancy and now had passed in a haze of constant, swooning terror for him. Oh, he went about his daily appointed rounds, talking with his trusted counselors and even smiling at passersby upon occasion, but in the dark recesses of his mind, a mind once so wise and cunning, now worn by constant fear and unabating guilt, the silent shadow of Sithirantiel's pronouncement skulked like a thief in the night. Day by day, he had watched her stomach swell with the dark secret it held, and the ever- rounding belly had seemed to mock him, leering derisively at him as he took his evening meal. Her oval belly button became a great unblinking eye, triumphant in its cold, unrepentant hatred. I see you, it said each time he examined her with trembling hands. I see you and despise you. I hold the key to your destruction, and I shall seek it out with all my strength. By the time her condition had become obvious and tongues began to wag, his hands shook so treacherously that he no longer trusted himself to sup with his courtiers. Instead, he ate in the empty sanctuary of his chambers, sometimes accompanied by Celebrian, but more often than not alone.
The tongues were wagging, make no mistake. The exact nature of their speculation was unknown-even at this late date, he was not about to go slinking around chamber doors and creeping around bower corridors to find out, but he was still shrewd enough to guess at its general bent. He was not blind to the curious glances thrown Sithirantiel's way as she waddled past, pale and haggard, nor was he deaf to the subtle chatterings on garden pathways or in dimly-lit corridors. Sithirantiel's miraculous conception was on every citizen's lips.
It was not the pregnancy itself that was such cause for debate. It was the conspicuous absence of a father that had fueled imaginations. Male elves, married or otherwise, were quick to acknowledge paternity. It was a badge of honor. A child was proof of virility, a sign of prosperity and favor from the Valar. Yet no male had come forward to claim the child that until this night had made its home inside of her pasty, vacant-eyed frame. Some of the braver souls assayed that maybe the poor mite was the result of an insidious orc attack, or maybe she had been waylaid by an uncouth man from Gondor. The general consensus, though, was that the cunning and haughty young Sithirantiel had found herself a secret lover, one too shy or too joined to speak to the child. No one, not even the wisest of the wise, had ventured to guess that the burden she carried was ill-gotten, taken by deceit from the loins of their oh so just ruler in the dead of an accursed night. For that at least, he was glad.
He stood with a sigh and let the parchment flutter noiselessly to the floor. Well, all their idle musings would be answered soon enough. Sithirantiel had gone into labor just after dusk, and now in the wee hours of the morning, with the sun still hours from peeking its head above the horizon, her agonies were at their peak. Another tortured wail from the birthing room confirmed the fact as he moved thoughtfully to the elegant armoire in the corner in search of something to drink. He was ashamed to admit it, but hearing her shrieks and screams as she struggled to bring forth the life within her made him glad, almost happy. She deserved it after what she had done to him. He hoped the child she so loathed tortured her all it was able before it drew its first breath. A hideous, grimacing parody of a smile wrenched his lips at the thought. Had anyone been in the room with him at that moment, they would have been hard-pressed to stifle a shout of surprised horror at the sight of him. He looked mad.
His shaking hand hovered indecisively over the numerous crystal spires perched atop the armoire. Most contained spirits of some kind, ale or mallorn wine, but a few held more mundane fare-water or melon juice. He longed for a drink, his every nerve ending clamored for it, sending shivers of need through his muscles like a cramp. Already he could taste the fiery tang of mallorn wine on his tongue, could feel it washing over his teeth and gums and tumbling down his parched throat to coat his roiling stomach. His fingers hesitated, twitching longingly above the point of a decanter of a rich, midnight mallorn wine.
Since when have you become a slave to this bewitching demon brew? asked his reason, a voice that was too often lost amidst the gibberings and acerbic insinuations of his guilt, that insipid, jeering, wheedling voice that stole peace from his dreams. Has she so thoroughly defeated you, then? Broken your spirit, your will, until you are nothing but a trembling dotard leaning against the crutch of sweet, poison ale?
No. She had not. He drew his hand away from the ale with a wince of self-disgust, and chose instead the bottle holding melon juice. He poured himself a goblet, taking care not to slosh the pale yellow liquid onto the armoire top. He replaced the stopper in the decanter and took a drink, long and deep. The drink was sweet and cold. It moistened his sandpaper tongue, but did nothing to quell the mutinous, greasy grumblings of his stomach.
He returned to his fireside seat, sitting heavily on its edge, the goblet clasped loosely in his hands, the stem dangling freely between his slightly parted knees. Far away, there was another piercing cry from Sithirantiel as she grappled with yet another contraction, and he started a little, alarmed by its intensity. From the sound of things, he would very likely be called in to assist the midwife before the end. He was glad he had been strong enough to resist the siren song of the ale. If he were going to be helping in a birth, he would need quick reflexes and quicker wits. There would be no room for fumbling fingers and a muddled mind.
A disturbing thought occurred to him then, one from which he instinctively recoiled. Could he, if it came to it, bring himself to aid in the delivery of his own doom? If the midwife called to him, would he be able to lead his reluctant feet down the claustrophobic hallway to the private cloister of the midwife's room? If need be, could he make his unsteady hands toil to guide the innocent bearer of his torment into the light of Arda? The question was huge, daunting, and the fact that he could not give his unquiet conscience a definitive answer troubled him greatly. How had his much-vaunted honor crumbled into dust so quickly, so effortlessly?
Can you do it, m'lord? The relentless voice of self-doubt was back, shrill and cutting. Can you really bring yourself to crouch betwixt Sithirantiel's splayed, sweat-slick legs as she groans, staring at you with her hateful, lunatic eyes as she delivers a child neither of you truly wants, but whom she will use as the cruelest of weapons to buy your acquiescence? Do you really think you can? You are hard-pressed to stay your hand from the fine spirits of your table. And even if you could somehow curry your dwindling will and usher your tiny bane from the dark world of the womb into the light and warmth of most treasured life, could you resist the urge to hurl the wet, shivering, defenseless life in your hands to the floor and dash its brains against the unyielding stone? Could you? Maybe once, long ago. But no more. No more.
To his horror, he could see himself doing just that. It played out crystal clearly before the unflinching eye of his mind. He saw himself staring intently down at the squalling, squirming child in his arms, staring at it with eyes as hot as burning coals and as dull as those found in the murals that decorated his halls. He saw himself raising the child up, as though he were about to offer the traditional benediction and welcome into elven society. But instead of holding the infant outward toward the sun in gentle, loving hands, its bright, surprised eyes level with his own, he saw himself lifting it high above his head, his stiff fingers digging into its soft flesh until it howled in pain. He saw the midwife's wide, shocked eyes as she shot out a mortified hand, too late to stop him. He heard her anguished scream mingled with the sharp keenings of the babe, and as he sat frozen in his chair, willing the terrible image away, he saw himself bring his arms down in a brutal, swooping arc. There was a cracking sound like a clay pot shattering, and an alarming spray of red and pinkish grey across the floor. The child wept no more.
The vision was so hellishly vivid that he clamped his eyes shut against it, the goblet in his hands tinkling and shuddering dangerously. He let out a desperate cry, jerking the cup up to his lips for a steadying draught. He shook so violently that more than half of the contents sloshed onto his chest. He did not notice.
"I would never do such a foul deed!" he exclaimed to the empty room. After seven months of unmitigated hell, talking aloud to himself no longer seemed strange to him.
Ah, but are you so sure of that? prodded the voice in a sly whisper. After all, just seven months ago, you never would have believed yourself capable of deceiving Celebrian and denying paternity of a child, no matter the circumstances of its beginnings, yet you have done both. How can you be so certain that you will not take the next sliding step down this most precipitous of slopes? You are not who you were, and never will be again.
"I am doing what I must to protect my dearest Celebrian from the shame and humiliation my sins would bring her if brought to light." His voice was tight and trembling, the voice of a man exhausted from battle but unable to flee from it.
Are you now? mused his internal interrogator. How very noble of you! I'm sure she would be pleased to learn that she has trothed herself to such a martyr! Do you take me for a fool? For her! Ha! Let us not deceive ourselves. All of this secrecy, all of this deception has been for you, not for her. You would rather die than see your glorious reputation tarnished by such scandal. You cannot lie to me…or to yourself.
"Be quiet! Give me peace!" he shouted. The goblet wobbled jerkily to his lips again. He was squeezing it so tightly that the gold chalice was buckling under the pressure. When he woke up the next morning, he would find that his hand was so stiff that the joints creaked with every movement, but for now he did not see this, did not feel it. He no longer remembered what he was drinking. All of his attention was concentrated on the vicious, unforgiving crier inside his head. How he loathed it! Always baiting him, deriding him, mocking his frailties and failings. More than once he had been tempted to bash his troubled head against the wall until his skull cracked like a rotten egg just to still the ceaseless ridicule.
All right. Finally weary of discussing yourself? That is a refreshing happenstance. What then, shall we discuss, hm? Ah, yes, I know. A matter of the utmost gravity. The child. Because whether you wish or no, the child is coming. It is a reality you cannot avoid. What will you do with it once it arrives? It most certainly cannot be sent back into the shadowy netherworld from whence it came. What will you do with the wages of your sin? The voice was toying with him the way a frisky cat toys with a frightened, exhausted, bloody mouse. There was no need for haste or delicacy. Its prey could not flee, nor could he plead for help. No one else could see the ruthless swath it cut across his mind. It wrought its cruelty with complete impunity.
Elrond leaned back in his chair, the cool, mostly empty goblet resting lightly against his knee. He took a deep breath and forced his jaw, which throbbed with crushing tension, to relax. That was one question to which he had an answer. He knew beyond doubt that the child could not remain in Rivendell. It would be too dangerous for everyone involved, not least of all the child. Sithirantiel had made it abundantly clear that she would not hesitate to harm the child, and he had no reason at all to doubt her.
And just how do you intend to wrest the babe from her arms? She will not surrender it willingly. It is unlikely she will leave it within arm's reach of you so long as it lives. You'll never even set eyes upon the pitiable creature except for the weekly visits to prove that it is still among the living. Only when she has wrung every bit of use from its bones and leached from you your sour capitulation like the last drops of sap from a withering maple will she relinquish her reluctant charge, and when she does, it will be no more than a dried-out husk of flesh and bone, a hollow carcass crumpled at your feet, the sordid spoils of her little war.
He shuddered involuntarily against the ruthless images crowding his mind, unwilling to look into the hollow, dead eyes of the doomed child his stupidity had conceived. He would not let it come to that. He would get the child away somehow. Perhaps while she slept after her labor, the midwife could spirit the child away and care for it until he decided what to do. Getting it out of Rivendell was going to be difficult. If he sent out the word that there was a child to be adopted in his realm, there would be interest. There would also be questions-too many of them. No, the infant's departure must be kept secret.
He felt a wave of pity for the child beginning its innocent life just a few doors away. It had done nothing, and yet it was fraught with so much guilt and tragedy. Its life could have no good end. If it remained here in Rivendell, it would be treated like a dirty secret, shunned and secreted from the world without ever knowing why. If it survived and was sent away, it would be subject to the often cruel vagaries of life. Instead of growing up within the pampered confines of the royal court, it could very well end up as a poor peasant barely eking out a life in the far corners of the world. If a human took it in, it may well suffer a fate not fit to contemplate.
These compassionate thoughts did little to change his mind, however. It was still firmly fixed to the notion that the little creature not remain here. Even if Sithirantiel were not such a pernicious, spiteful wench, he would not dare allow the child to live here. The risk was too great that his secret would be discovered, innocently or otherwise. Sithirantiel could very well break her vow of silence; in fact, she probably would. In a fit of anger, she would blurt everything out and bring him to ruin. Worse yet, what if someone should notice that the child bore a striking resemblance to the great elven king and began to spread the silent but potent rumor that His Lordship had sired a bastard with a voluptuous courtesan? What if that someone was Celebrian? What if she saw the child and pieced together the truth from the half-truths of local gossip and his own furtive, churlish mien? What would she think when she beheld a tiny face full of dark chocolate eyes, a sharp, angular chin, and severe cheekbones? When she saw the flowing mahogany river of the child's hair as it tumbled, wild and uncombed, over its emaciated, sunken frame? Could he bear to see the terrible knowledge welling up in her eyes, a dark and paralyzing flood of unspeakable anguish? He drained the last dregs of melon juice from the goblet and set it on the floor. Then he rubbed his bruised hands over his face, as though he were trying to scrub away the subtle tinge of guilt that had been branded upon it since the night of the festival.
"I just want to make things the way they were," he beseeched the empty room.
Do you really believe that by casting this child away like a bit of scrap, things will be as they were? If only it were so. You can neither reverse time, nor change what is to be. This child will forever be a part of you, a scar from a wound you dearly wish to forget. Send it to the ends of the earth if you will. It will still haunt your every step. On the happiest day of your life, you will hear its cries, feel its warm weight in your hands, and weep. It will never leave you. It may be gone, but never will it be forgotten. If you do this, you have dreamt your last sweet dream. Better for you to salvage what little honor you can and save yourself and your child from this hell you have created. Heed my words before it is too late.
For the first and only time in its existence, the voice spoke to him with a note of compassion, and the earnestness he heard there almost gave him pause. But he was a stubborn man, a trait his firstborn would inherit in spades; he pushed the uncharacteristic plea aside. He could not afford to give in to such sentimentality. Sometimes things were hard, unspeakably hard, without rhyme or reason. This was one of those times. It was a hard lesson, but a true one, he thought. The child must go. The voice, perhaps realizing the futility of further argument, fell silent. It never offered anything other than biting derision ever again, and alone in his room, Elrond slipped a little further down that invisible slope.
While Elrond wrestled a losing battle against his fears, Sithirantiel lay furious and exhausted in a room just down the hall, her legs splayed and sweating. She was naked, and her hair hung in sweaty, greasy clumps on her head. For untold hours now, she had lain in this empty, cavernous room with the midwife crouching between her legs like one investigating a hidden recess in search of treasure. The pain was constant and enormous, a vise against her back and entrails, squeezing until she thought she would go mad from the pain. Just when she thought she could stand no more, it tapered off, only to be replaced by another spasm worse than the first.
"Get this thing out of me," she howled at the hawk-nosed woman keeping her tireless vigil between her thighs, but the woman only scowled at her for a moment before resuming her watch.
Probably never had a whelp of her own, by the looks of her. No man would get near enough, she thought savagely.
Before she could glean any amusement from her wit, another contraction tore through her, making her grip and claw at the bedclothes in agony. It lanced through her belly, a brutal, jagged pain like shards of glass slicing through her innards, and she cried out. It was a cry of rage as well as fury, for already she hated this child that was using her body as a conduit into this world. She was going to enjoy punishing it for what it was making her endure now on its behalf.
The pain from the contraction passed, and in the few seconds before the next hit, she had time to focus her mind on the one thing she was sure would carry her through this miserable business of labor-her unadulterated hatred for Elrond. It stood out in her mind, a piercing, blinding beacon that sliced through the red haze of pain that had laid siege to her mind. She saw that beacon and latched onto it, a tick fastening onto a favorite host. Her seesawing mind steadied.
How she despised him! He, with his façade of nobility, he whom all of Rivendell adored, he who deep in his heart had believed himself to be beyond reproach. He had dangled before her all that she desired-power, glory, riches-and then snatched it all away like a bit of beef from the slavering jaws of a starving dog. Well, she was no starving mongrel. She had, by virtue of her cunning, exposed him for the wretched blackguard he was. She had stripped away the thin veneer of righteousness in which he chose to garb himself, and had shown him the rancid blackness of his cowardly heart. She was sure he did not like what he saw, but that did not matter. What mattered was that he had quailed before the truth like a mole shying away from the light of the sun. Here in this room, she had her vengeance in her grasp. All she had to do now was bear this merciless agony for a little while longer, and then she could reap her just rewards.
All smug thoughts were slapped out of her head by another contraction, this one more fierce and terrible than all the rest, and she shrieked, a long, ululating howl that made her throat throb with effort, and her hands snapped closed around the sweat-dampened bedclothes so hard that she snapped a fingernail to the quick and pierced her sweaty palm with another, leaving a crescent weal of blood. The pain was monstrous, a pain so bright and clean, like her innards had sprouted icicles that were now trying to erupt from the cavern of her womb like stalagmites. She groaned again, and beneath the sheet of pain ravaging her bulbous stomach, she felt something shift. The bastard inside her was moving.
"Good," murmured the midwife, who was peering intently between the valley of Sithirantiel's thighs, and Sithirantiel was struck by an odd thought, a blink of intuition that was gone in a moment. She meant more by that simple word than she would have be known, she thought with a stoic clarity. She thought(and she was not wrong)that the old crone was enjoying her agonies.
Her legs were pushed up and apart, and she felt impossibly stretched. If she had been able to see herself from a bird's eye view, she would have been mortified by her most undignified appearance. Her face was hectic, red splotches blossoming almost purple from her exertions. Her hair, so patiently coiffed that very morning, was a lank, snarled ruin hanging dispiritedly in her furious, smoldering black eyes. Her breasts lay flat against her chest, dwarfed by the gargantuan mound of her stomach, which rippled and tensed with another contraction. Her legs splayed almost dangerously wide, making her look like a traitor about to be drawn and quartered.
The pain was now nearly constant, bright and hard as mica chips glinting in the desert sun. From somewhere beneath its all-encompassing pall, she heard the midwife give a single, stern command. "Push!"
"May the demons of Arda swallow you whole!" she spat.
The midwife only stared at her with an expressionless face and repeated her command. "Push!"
So she pushed. She pressed her chin into the sweat-slicked skin of her heaving chest and bore down with all her might. She could hear the sound of her teeth grinding together like dry pebbles as she pushed. The blood pounded in her hot ears. She was vaguely aware of the midwife counting off in a placid, atonal voice. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5… At last she fell back, exhausted. The child did not seem to have moved.
"That was good, but you need to make it to ten," the midwife said calmly.
"I would like to see you make it to ten, you miserable old hag! Like as not, the pressure of such a thing would tear you apart like a tired bag of cloth," snarled Sithirantiel. The pain was crushing. Had she known had difficult birth was going to be, she might have taken a different, less painful road to Elrond's destruction.
"Be that as it may, my potential performance in your place is of no account. I am not where you are. Talking will not end you discomfort any faster. Indeed, it will have the opposite end. Now take a deep breath and push." The midwife's disdain for her was now evident. She stared at Sithirantiel, her blue eyes icy with anger. Her jaw was set in a hard line.
Sithirantiel tried to disobey the order, to give a show of defiance in the face of this mounting chaos, but the biological imperative to bear down was irresistible. The spasm clawed at her insides like a feral beast, and she grunted and pressed her chin down. The monotonous count began again.
"When this is over," she panted, collapsing onto the pillows, "I'm going to make you regret your cheek."
"When this is over, you will not have the strength to even raise your head," came the sedate reply. "Again!"
On and on it went. The sharp command followed by the drone of the count. Each push brought her closer to exhaustion. She could feel it stealing into her trembling muscles, a warm, stinging fog. Her teeth ached from constant grinding. Her stomach felt stretched and tender. Each push grew a little weaker, a little shorter, and her breath came in whooping gasps. Her hands were raw and bloody from the constant digging of her rough fingernails. She had no way of knowing how long she had been wrangling with the stubborn little beast within her, but the horizon glowed pink through the small window on the far side of the room; it had been drawing down dark when her labor had begun. Twelve hours, at least, and it felt to her like the child had not budged even a centimeter.
"It is no use," she gasped. "The child will not come."
"The child is nearly arrived. Push but a little more," said the midwife, her hands pushing none too gently on Sithirantiel calves.
Too tired to think of a cutting retort, Sithirantiel pushed, her burning, throbbing arms trembling with effort. Though her eyes were hot and bleared with stinging sweat, she could just make out the snowy white crown of the midwife's head and the sharp, jutting profile of her nose. She wanted desperately to smash her fist into the woman's face, shattering it with a sound like clay pottery disintegrating into a thousand pieces inside a wet burlap sack. She wanted someone to share in her agony, and by the gods, someone would.
Like this puling little thing presently engaged in sundering my womb. It's toying with me, it seems; mayhap it knows what its future holds and fears to come out of the dark. If so, it already holds more wits than its father. No matter. We shall see if it feels so feisty after a few days without sustenance. Miserable brat. She entertained these thoughts with a vicious cheerfulness. Yes, it was going to be much fun to repay this defenseless leech for all of her torment.
"I'm afraid I cannot allow that," said a purring voice. Her father's voice.
Had she been more alert, more able, her head would have snapped toward that dreadful voice quickly enough to shred muscle from bone, but the brutal hours of labor had sapped her strength, and she could only manage to swivel her head in a wobbling arc toward the source of her deepest terror.
A mirror stood to her left, an oval full-length mirror with an ornate wrought iron frame. What its purpose was she neither knew nor cared. Her father stood in the mirror, arms folded across his chest, black, pitted teeth exposed in a leering grin. His right shoulder sagged against the frame, as if he were leaning against something just out of view. His feet were crossed. He looked almost jaunty.
"Hello, daughter," he rasped. "Not pleased to see me?" There was no jest in his voice.
Sithirantiel screamed. A hand clapped heedlessly to her lips, leaving a bloody smear. It was hellishly bright on her ghostly face. The other hand pawed mindlessly at the sheets beneath her, leaving bloody handprints. Her eyes bulged, and her mouth formed a perfectly round O of terror.
The midwife, intent on the child whose head was just beginning to peep out from Sithirantiel's cervix, did not see the mind-wrenching terror on Sithirantiel's face and mistook her shrill shrieks for more of her usual melodramatic self-pity.
"Hush and push. 'Tis almost done," she chided without looking up.
He's not real, he's not, not, not," she thought wildly. Close my eyes, I'll close my eyes, and he'll be gone. She squeezed her frantic eyes closed and counted to ten, murmuring a prayer with every breath. Please, she thought, please. She opened them. There was nothing. The mirror was empty.
Her shoulders sagged with relief. Just a bad dream. She gave a small titter. Not real. Of course not.
"I assure you; I am still here. And quite real." There was a cold breath on her ear, and a stink like a thousand defiled tombs drifted past her nose.
I don't want to look, she thought. Please, gods, don't make me look.
She looked. Her father's malevolent face was two inches from her own, the skin black and doughy on his skull. The foul breath from his rotted tongue and blackened gums wafted over her face. She made a retching noise and jerked her face away, but the stench was too powerful. It clung to her, invaded her, the unwanted advances of a spurned lover. This close, she could see the jagged edges of the hole in his throat. She could also see things squirming in that hole, dark and slithering things. He stood over her, a three-dimensional horror. Only the ravenous pain of the incessant contractions prevented her from fainting dead away.
"You can't-,"
"Oh, but I am. And I've come for you at last. Just like you knew I would." He gave her a mockingly benevolent smile, and then his bony hands shot out and wrapped themselves around her throat.
He's real, she thought with a strange, detached wonder. He's real, and he's going to kill me. The stink was overpowering, cloying, the smell of diseased meat left to bake in the sun. She gagged, and the implacable hands tightened their grip. Her bloody hands fluttered up to her neck, clawed fingers wrenching frantically at cold forearms. But the hours of childbirth had made her weak, and she could not move them. Her larynx gave way with a dull pop, the sound of heavy boots crunching brittle, dry grasses.
Sithirantiel began to drown in her own blood.
Her vision faded, replaced by a memory of long ago, a memory of the day her wheel of Fate had taken that first irrevocable turn that would send her down the darker path. It was the memory. The memory of the day she had killed her father.
She had been young, not yet five hundred. She was standing in the middle of the small, cramped bower she shared with her mother and father. Her back and legs stung with the unpleasant reminder of a lashing she had just received. She knew even without trying that it would be a week before she could sit down. The memory of the beating welled up in her, making her cheeks flame warmer than the raw skin of her buttocks. She felt a dull stab of hatred for the man she called adar.
Nothing was ever good enough for him. Nothing. If she burned the lembas, a beating. If she failed to answer one of his questions correctly or quickly enough, a beating. If she did not come right away when called, a beating. If she missed a target during archery practice, a beating. Sometimes she thought he beat her just for being alive.
She shot a furtive glance at the object of her hatred from downcast eyes. She did not dare look at him directly for fear that he might see her and reward her impudence with yet another thrashing. At the moment, he was seated at his workbench, facing away from her and hunched over his latest woodworking project. He was humming a tuneless ditty to himself. She felt another twinge of ugly green hate for him. Bastard. She hated him. She wished he was dead.
She turned away, intending to go to her room and curl up on her soft pallet, her thin cotton blanket pulled up to her neck. It was the one place she felt safe. Then her eyes had fallen on the sturdy, slender bow she used for archery practice. Its polished cedar gleamed amid the mid- afternoon shadows, suffused, at least to her eyes, with its own inner light. The falling dust motes, caught for a moment in the mellow rays of the sunshine, swirled and eddied above it, tiny moths drawn to a cold flame. In the strange half-light, it looked almost holy.
She glided, silent as a snake, to the low wooden table on which it sat. As she drew close, she could faintly make out the smell of pine resin, which she used to polish it every day. The bow looked at her expectantly, as though it had been waiting for her. She reached out and stroked a finger reverently along the pale, gleaming wood. It thrummed beneath her finger like a thing alive.
She picked it up off the table, careful not to make any noise. If she disturbed her father at his work, there would be another beating. It was light and cool in her hands. Holding it made her feel proud. She was very good at archery; even her father said so, and he was not one for compliments. When she took practice, she rarely missed the paper targets her father set up for her. On the rare occasion that she did miss, there was a beating, naturally, and fear of reprisal went a long way to ensure that she worked to improve herself.
She lifted the bow up and took aim at her father's back, just between the shoulderblades. Her finger twitched delicately against the bowstring as she pulled it back. The bow was empty, of course, so when she released the string, nothing issued from it but the soft twang of the string as it snapped back into position.
Oh, how she wished she could do it, could shoot him down like the miserable cur he was. She would pay him back handsomely for all of the times he had whipped her until she bled, until her skin was flayed and cracked. She fancied she heard the meaty thud as the arrow struck home and toppled her tyrant king. She smiled. Would it take a long time for him to die? she thought. Would he cry out if I killed him?
Why don't you find out? The thought was so cold and so forbidden that she nearly dropped the bow. She couldn't do that. She hated him, yes, but she couldn't do that, could she? Surely they would catch her and punish her if she did. Still, the idea was not unattractive. It was a chance to be rid of him forever, to be rid of his cruel whippings. And who would ever suspect her? She was only a child, after all. Still, she wasn't sure she should do it.
Why not? Who would ever know? Your mother is not here, and will not be for some hours yet. Anyway, there is no need to stay here once the deed is done. Flee if it suits you.
At that thought, the bow grew warm in her hands. It seemed to surge with a mysterious power, and she was acutely aware for the very first time of the power she held in her hands. It could kill; that was, in fact, the purpose for which it had been made. That had been her first taste of power, real power. It was sublime.
Her eyes were drawn like magnets to the quiver of arrows behind the table. In her heightened state of awareness, she could see the fine grain of the wood in each shaft. Her slippered feet moved quickly across the floor until she stood before it. Her mind hesitated, but her body never did. Her small hand drew two arrows from the quiver. She looked at them as though she had never seen them before.
She returned to her place in front of the table. As though in a dream, her hands deftly fitted an arrow into the bow. Her slender arms rose, pointing it once more at the center of his back. A calm certainty fell over her. She was going to do it. There were no butterflies in her stomach, no rabbity voice of conscience screaming for her to stop. She had gone cold inside.
"Adar," she said. She wanted to see his face before he died.
There was no response. His lithe arms did not even stop their movement as he tinkered furiously with the object on his workbench. This was not unusual. He often did not speak to her for several days after a beating. That was all right. She could wait.
"Adar," she called again a few minutes later.
This time, his hands stopped their flurry of motion and there was an ominous clearing of the throat. It was a warning. Be quiet, that sound said. He still thought he had the power around here. She stifled a mad spate of giggles. He was about to learn differently, but that was just fine by her. She waited until the movement from her father resumed. She could afford to be patient.
"Adar." She gave her voice just a touch of condescending impertinence.
That did it. Her father erupted from his chair and whirled to face her. His eyes were simmering with fury.
"What have I told you about interrupting me, you impudent li-," He stopped when he saw the taut bow in her hands. "Sithirantiel, what are you doing?"
"I think you know." The words were casual, glib. Her voice did not quaver and her hands did not shake.
The anger in her father's eyes sputtered and died, replaced by an even more primal emotion-fear. He tried to hide it, but it was there just the same. She could almost smell it, a musky, jungly smell, sharp and cutting as acid to her nose. She crinkled it in disgust. Seeing fear on his face filled her with an exhilaration so exquisite she was nauseated by it. She felt a giddy smile spreading over her face. There was an almost sexual tightening in her prepubescent groin, a cramp that made her feel all tingly and warm down there. She thought she would explode if she looked at him much longer.
"Put that down!" His voice was hoarse, not quite steady.
"No, I don't think I will." The voice coming out of her was calm, musing. It was not the voice of a terrified child cowering beneath the shadow of the lash. It was the voice of a young girl who has tapped into some arcane conduit of power and knows how to wield it. "What ails you, father? You don't look at all well."
"You'll pay for your cheek," he roared, and took a step towards her.
She raised the bow a few inches higher until the arrow tip pointed at his bobbing Adam's apple. Though he was advancing toward her quickly, probably with the intention of beating her senseless, most likely to death, she did not hurry. She measured him in the same meticulous manner with which she measured the thin paper targets he set up for her. Just a paper man, she thought, and loosed the bow with a merry twang of horsehair string.
The man who had haunted and hounded her childhood simply by the unfortunate virtue of being her father did not topple over and crash to the ground like a felled redwood as she had thought he might. Instead, he wavered dreamily on his feet, big, work-roughened hands fluttering ineffectually around the delicate shaft of the arrow he suddenly found lodged in his throat. His eyes bulged, round and fish-like, from their sockets.
"Gah," he croaked, and a freshet of dark red blood gushed from his mouth.
She watched him impassively as he crumpled slowly to the floor, knees touching the floor gently. He warbled like a throttled turkey. She blinked sedately. He pitched sideways, arm flung outward. She watched with interest as his outstretched hand opened and closed, opened and closed.
It took him forty-five minutes to die. She watched it all with her dispassionate obsidian gaze, hunkered over his twitching body like a curious child squatting over the death throes of a crushed insect. A few times, he tried to cry out but only managed a queer, gabbling croak. His hands, spasmed into claws, scraped sporadically against the floor, gouging thin lines in its hard surface.
Near the end, when the blood and swollen tissue had completely blocked his airway, he had flopped over onto his back and glared at her with his bulging, agonized eyes, and in them she saw impossible malice. His pupils were wide; looking at them was like peering over the edge of a precipice to find a bottomless abyss of midnight fire. His outstretched hand rose slowly, and he pointed at her.
He's marking me, she thought, and a ripple of gooseflesh traveled up her spine. Then she shook her head and laughed.
"What can you do to me, old man?" she sneered, giving him a kick. "You're already dead."
Something, a word, maybe, tried to force its way from his ruined throat. All that came out was a wet, glottal gargle. Then his body had gone rigid, his back arcing off the floor in a final tortured spasm. After that there had been no more movement, no more sound. The dark fire in his eyes slowly faded into the dull glaze of lifelessness. His clawed hands relaxed. The tyrant king had fallen.
When she had been certain that he was dead, she stood up. After a brief stretch, she calmly picked up the unused arrow and replaced it in the quiver. Then she slipped out of the bower and into the surrounding woods. She never gave the cooling corpse of her father another look.
When she returned from the woods a few hours later, the small community had been in chaos. Her mother, who had discovered the body upon returning home, was under the watchful care of Mirkwood's healer, heavily sedated. Most people were so relieved to find her alive and unscathed that they did not question her story of being outside playing in the clearing when the swarthy bandits came and killed her father. The fact that she could not describe the bandits was of little consequence; she had been through a great trauma. Three days in the woods with no food or water was enough to disorient anyone, they said.
If anyone wondered at the strange welts on her back and calves or entertained misgivings about her curious lack of grief upon the loss of her father, they never spoke of it. Soon enough, the matter passed out of the people's interest and into the local mythos. Sithirantiel never thought of her father again. At least not in the safety of daylight. At night, when the veil between the worlds was thinner, he came to her in her dreams, a ghastly specter with burning, lunatic eyes and a pointing, accusatory finger. Sleep never again offered her the same sweet sanctuary. Even in death her father had made her pay.
All of this passed though Sithirantiel mind in less than three seconds. Her brain, consuming itself in a futile, cannibalistic attempt at salvation, began stealing oxygen from its own cells. The memory faded. In the instant before she was given the mercy of unconsciousness, her rolling eyes locked onto the leering, victorious face of her father. His breath was hot and eager on her face.
"You forgot one thing, daughter dearest," he crowed, "sometimes power requires sacrifice."
She did not feel it when he snapped her neck with a sound like a heavy branch cracking beneath December frost. Sithirantiel had gone to her reward.
The midwife, who had looked up to tell her patient to push just one more time, stared at the scene before her in stunned incomprehension. She had delivered babies for hundred of years, hundreds of thousands of them, and she had never witnessed anything like this. Never. One minute the birth had been progressing well, and the next Sithirantiel had begun to scream and paw at the air, as though fighting an invisible assailant. Yet there had been no one there.
You must be losing your mind, she thought. You did not see what you think you did. You did not see her throat swell and bulge as though wrung by unseen hands. She just had a convulsion and died, that's all.
A convulsion strong enough to snap her neck? questioned the frightened voice of logic inside her head.
Elbereth, what was she doing? Standing here like an open-mouthed imbecile while there was still a chance the child might live. The head had very nearly crowned before Sithirantiel had suffered her fatal seizure. She squatted down and pushed the limp leg of the dead woman aside. A quick look confirmed that the child's head was just beneath the lip of the cervix. She could just make out a tiny scrap of pink scalp. If it was still pink, that meant it was still getting a little oxygen, but it didn't have much time. She had to get it out now.
She slipped one hand inside of the womb easily enough and felt the reassuring presence of warm flesh. When she tried to insert the other hand, though, she discovered to her dismay that the child had turned on its side and was wedged firmly inside the womb, its tiny shoulder lodged firmly against the mother's pelvic bone. She would have to break a hip to get it out, and she wasn't sure she had the strength to do it. She sighed.
"Lord Elrond," she called, "Please come at once! Hurry!"
There were no rapidly approaching footsteps echoing down the corridor. It remained eerily silent. She called again, louder this time, more strident. Still nothing. No swish of robe, no crisp clop-clop of slippers on stone floor. Just the indifferent silence. She cursed him under her breath.
Damn him! Probably wallowing in self-pity again. He had been doing that a lot-too much-lately.
"Lord Elrond, come at once!" she demanded. She was screaming now, not really caring if she had offended his sensibilities. She needed his help, and she needed it now.
When there was no response to her third frantic summons, she gave up on him and tried to find another way to save the child's life. One push on the rigid hipbone blocking the child's shoulder told her she would never be able to exert enough pressure to break it. She tried to palpitate the abdomen, to push the child down and sideways, away from the bone. Nothing. Another look between the woman's legs showed that the rosy scalp was quickly fading. The child was running out of time.
Her eyes settled on the knife she had brought to sever the umbilical cord, and a gruesome idea began to form in her mind. She tried to push it away, but it would not go.
Going to let the babe die because you're a bit squeamish, are you? prodded her conscience.
No, she wasn't. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she picked up the knife, muttered a quick prayer, and went to work.
In his chambers, Lord Elrond was fighting a tremendous battle between his desire to hide from what he knew awaited him down the hall and his sworn duty as healer of the realm. He did not want to go to Sithirantiel, did not want any part of the life making its way into the world; yet as healer, it was his duty, his duty to save any life if it were in his power to do so, even if he did not wish to save it.
He did not want to save Sithirantiel. He wanted her to die. If she died and took the child with her, his troubles would be over. He could pretend that none of this had ever happened, and after enough time had passed, maybe he could even believe it. He could have everything he ever wanted if he just sat here in this chair and pretended that he heard nothing. He would not be haunted by the knowledge that a child of his wandered somewhere in the dark places of this world. He could start his life with Celebrian with a clean slate. All he had to do was stay right here.
You can do that, said his conscience, weakened but not destroyed. I cannot stop you if you do. But have you really fallen so far? Have you? What kind of man have you become that you would let an innocent life be extinguished, let it pay for your mistake? If you let it die, though you have laid not a hand on it, the blood shall be upon your hands, and I will never let you forget it. I will remind you of what you did not do for all the rest of your days. I can do that, at least. And when I fall silent, your tormentor will be glad to take my place. Every choice has a price, some higher than they seem. Are you willing to pay?
Elrond groaned, a miserable, hunted sound, the sound of an animal trapped between the sharp point of the hunter's spear and the gleaming steel jaws of a limb-crushing trap. There was no way out. Whichever way he turned, he was damned. Now he had only to choose the method of his downfall. With a deep breath, as though to fortify himself for some monumental task, he rose from his chair.
Slowly, reluctantly, like a man going to the gallows, he went around the room collecting the things he thought he might need. The midwife's urgent, plaintive cries had stopped, and there were no more screams coming from Sithirantiel. It was probably too late, but he owed it to himself and the child to at least go and see.
You do not have to do this, insisted the insidious voice of his fear. You can claim you heard nothing, and no one would be the wiser.
"I would be the wiser," he said. "I would."
Are you sure you want to do this? the voice asked.
"No, I do no want to do this," he said, pulling some fresh towels from a wardrobe by the door. "I have to. I just have to." He went out.
The corridor, save for the two solemn sentries posted on either side of his door, was utterly deserted. Both of the guards inclined their heads and snapped their heels together as he passed.
"Some strange doings at the midwife's tonight, m'lord," said one, shooting a nervous glance at the closed door at the end of the hall.
"My wife's time draws close," said the other. "I hope she fares better than the unfortunate tonight. Birth sounds an awful business." He looked vaguely ill.
Whatever she has endured, it cannot possibly be enough for what she has done, he thought grimly, unaware of what he was about to find in the room down the hall. In the heavy silence of the lonely passageway, his slippered feet seemed very loud as they shambled and grated over the gritty floor. His heart was thudding painfully in his chest; he could feel his ribs vibrating softly with each beat. He swallowed, and there was a dry click in his throat. The heavy door to the midwife's chambers suddenly seemed a thousand leagues away. I cannot do this. The thought fluttered around his head like a panicked bird trying to escape a gilded cage
Somehow he kept moving forward. The thought of what that pair of sentries would think if he ran screaming back to his chambers helped him to put one foot in front of the others. He mustn't show weakness, no matter how much he felt it. As the door edged ever closer, a new and strange sound reached his ears. It was a wet tearing sound, like strips of wet flesh being torn into pieces. It was coming from the midwife's chamber.
A midwife's chamber is home to many sounds. The sound of groaning and weeping as a mother gave birth. The sharp, strident cry as a newborn child drew its first breath. Occasionally, the bitter sobs of a mother whose child did not survive the ordeal could be heard. But this sound, the sound of a hungry beast feasting on a meaty carcass, did not belong. He felt a cold, suffocating dread settle around his larruping heart. He crushed the towels and other supplies he had been carrying to his chest.
I don't want to see what lies behind that door, no, I don't. Not for money, not for honor, not for charity, not at all. I want to go back to my chambers and bolt the door behind me. Please, Elbereth, let me turn around.
But his feet kept going forward, carrying him closer to the door. He doubted he could turn them from their path now if he tried. Halfway to the door, his ears were greeted by another sound, a far more normal sound-the shrill, offended cry of a healthy newborn child. The blanket of trepidation lifted a little, but it did not dissipate entirely. The lack of response from either Sithirantiel or the midwife troubled him, and though the rending noises had ceased, their memory still echoed in his head. Those unnatural, wet sounds.
He hesitated in front of the door. The thought came again, I do not want to see what is behind this door. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. His throat felt roughly the size of a pinhole. His bladder was a shrunken sac. His hands tingled with adrenaline. He opened the door.
For a moment, all he could see was red. Red on the floor in pools and rivers, red splashed on the walls in great starburst constellations. There was even a mist of red on the ceiling. Then his shocked eyes adjusted, and he realized that it was all blood. Pools and rivers and droplets of blood. The source of the blood lay on the bed.
Sithirantiel's face was a rictus of terror. Pie plate eyes bulged from shrunken sockets. A livid purple, swollen tongue protruded from her slack mouth. Her head jutted at an awkward angle, ear just grazing the top of her breast. Below her breasts, there was-
He swayed in the doorway a moment, then stumbled inside and slammed the door behind him before anyone else, likely his sentries, could see. Once inside, the coppery smell of congealing blood hit his nostrils and he struggled with his gorge. He looked down at the supplies he had brought, all quite useless. He looked at the bright point of the needle sticking out from the spool of suturing thread.
I'm afraid that wound is beyond my skill, he thought, and wheezed frightened, falsetto laughter.
"I did what I had to do," said the mid-wife.
He jumped, badly frightened. In his stupefied fascination at the carnage before him, he had not noticed her standing silently beside the mirror. He looked at her and nearly screamed. She had no arms. From the elbows down, there was nothing but bright red. Then he blinked and saw that her arms were indeed still intact; they were just slathered from fingertip to elbow with a solid sheet of blood. In them, she held a swaddled bundle, a bundle that cooed and kicked.
"Sire," she said in a thick dreamy voice, "your daughter."
The five and a half months between Sithirantiel's revelation of her pregnancy and now had passed in a haze of constant, swooning terror for him. Oh, he went about his daily appointed rounds, talking with his trusted counselors and even smiling at passersby upon occasion, but in the dark recesses of his mind, a mind once so wise and cunning, now worn by constant fear and unabating guilt, the silent shadow of Sithirantiel's pronouncement skulked like a thief in the night. Day by day, he had watched her stomach swell with the dark secret it held, and the ever- rounding belly had seemed to mock him, leering derisively at him as he took his evening meal. Her oval belly button became a great unblinking eye, triumphant in its cold, unrepentant hatred. I see you, it said each time he examined her with trembling hands. I see you and despise you. I hold the key to your destruction, and I shall seek it out with all my strength. By the time her condition had become obvious and tongues began to wag, his hands shook so treacherously that he no longer trusted himself to sup with his courtiers. Instead, he ate in the empty sanctuary of his chambers, sometimes accompanied by Celebrian, but more often than not alone.
The tongues were wagging, make no mistake. The exact nature of their speculation was unknown-even at this late date, he was not about to go slinking around chamber doors and creeping around bower corridors to find out, but he was still shrewd enough to guess at its general bent. He was not blind to the curious glances thrown Sithirantiel's way as she waddled past, pale and haggard, nor was he deaf to the subtle chatterings on garden pathways or in dimly-lit corridors. Sithirantiel's miraculous conception was on every citizen's lips.
It was not the pregnancy itself that was such cause for debate. It was the conspicuous absence of a father that had fueled imaginations. Male elves, married or otherwise, were quick to acknowledge paternity. It was a badge of honor. A child was proof of virility, a sign of prosperity and favor from the Valar. Yet no male had come forward to claim the child that until this night had made its home inside of her pasty, vacant-eyed frame. Some of the braver souls assayed that maybe the poor mite was the result of an insidious orc attack, or maybe she had been waylaid by an uncouth man from Gondor. The general consensus, though, was that the cunning and haughty young Sithirantiel had found herself a secret lover, one too shy or too joined to speak to the child. No one, not even the wisest of the wise, had ventured to guess that the burden she carried was ill-gotten, taken by deceit from the loins of their oh so just ruler in the dead of an accursed night. For that at least, he was glad.
He stood with a sigh and let the parchment flutter noiselessly to the floor. Well, all their idle musings would be answered soon enough. Sithirantiel had gone into labor just after dusk, and now in the wee hours of the morning, with the sun still hours from peeking its head above the horizon, her agonies were at their peak. Another tortured wail from the birthing room confirmed the fact as he moved thoughtfully to the elegant armoire in the corner in search of something to drink. He was ashamed to admit it, but hearing her shrieks and screams as she struggled to bring forth the life within her made him glad, almost happy. She deserved it after what she had done to him. He hoped the child she so loathed tortured her all it was able before it drew its first breath. A hideous, grimacing parody of a smile wrenched his lips at the thought. Had anyone been in the room with him at that moment, they would have been hard-pressed to stifle a shout of surprised horror at the sight of him. He looked mad.
His shaking hand hovered indecisively over the numerous crystal spires perched atop the armoire. Most contained spirits of some kind, ale or mallorn wine, but a few held more mundane fare-water or melon juice. He longed for a drink, his every nerve ending clamored for it, sending shivers of need through his muscles like a cramp. Already he could taste the fiery tang of mallorn wine on his tongue, could feel it washing over his teeth and gums and tumbling down his parched throat to coat his roiling stomach. His fingers hesitated, twitching longingly above the point of a decanter of a rich, midnight mallorn wine.
Since when have you become a slave to this bewitching demon brew? asked his reason, a voice that was too often lost amidst the gibberings and acerbic insinuations of his guilt, that insipid, jeering, wheedling voice that stole peace from his dreams. Has she so thoroughly defeated you, then? Broken your spirit, your will, until you are nothing but a trembling dotard leaning against the crutch of sweet, poison ale?
No. She had not. He drew his hand away from the ale with a wince of self-disgust, and chose instead the bottle holding melon juice. He poured himself a goblet, taking care not to slosh the pale yellow liquid onto the armoire top. He replaced the stopper in the decanter and took a drink, long and deep. The drink was sweet and cold. It moistened his sandpaper tongue, but did nothing to quell the mutinous, greasy grumblings of his stomach.
He returned to his fireside seat, sitting heavily on its edge, the goblet clasped loosely in his hands, the stem dangling freely between his slightly parted knees. Far away, there was another piercing cry from Sithirantiel as she grappled with yet another contraction, and he started a little, alarmed by its intensity. From the sound of things, he would very likely be called in to assist the midwife before the end. He was glad he had been strong enough to resist the siren song of the ale. If he were going to be helping in a birth, he would need quick reflexes and quicker wits. There would be no room for fumbling fingers and a muddled mind.
A disturbing thought occurred to him then, one from which he instinctively recoiled. Could he, if it came to it, bring himself to aid in the delivery of his own doom? If the midwife called to him, would he be able to lead his reluctant feet down the claustrophobic hallway to the private cloister of the midwife's room? If need be, could he make his unsteady hands toil to guide the innocent bearer of his torment into the light of Arda? The question was huge, daunting, and the fact that he could not give his unquiet conscience a definitive answer troubled him greatly. How had his much-vaunted honor crumbled into dust so quickly, so effortlessly?
Can you do it, m'lord? The relentless voice of self-doubt was back, shrill and cutting. Can you really bring yourself to crouch betwixt Sithirantiel's splayed, sweat-slick legs as she groans, staring at you with her hateful, lunatic eyes as she delivers a child neither of you truly wants, but whom she will use as the cruelest of weapons to buy your acquiescence? Do you really think you can? You are hard-pressed to stay your hand from the fine spirits of your table. And even if you could somehow curry your dwindling will and usher your tiny bane from the dark world of the womb into the light and warmth of most treasured life, could you resist the urge to hurl the wet, shivering, defenseless life in your hands to the floor and dash its brains against the unyielding stone? Could you? Maybe once, long ago. But no more. No more.
To his horror, he could see himself doing just that. It played out crystal clearly before the unflinching eye of his mind. He saw himself staring intently down at the squalling, squirming child in his arms, staring at it with eyes as hot as burning coals and as dull as those found in the murals that decorated his halls. He saw himself raising the child up, as though he were about to offer the traditional benediction and welcome into elven society. But instead of holding the infant outward toward the sun in gentle, loving hands, its bright, surprised eyes level with his own, he saw himself lifting it high above his head, his stiff fingers digging into its soft flesh until it howled in pain. He saw the midwife's wide, shocked eyes as she shot out a mortified hand, too late to stop him. He heard her anguished scream mingled with the sharp keenings of the babe, and as he sat frozen in his chair, willing the terrible image away, he saw himself bring his arms down in a brutal, swooping arc. There was a cracking sound like a clay pot shattering, and an alarming spray of red and pinkish grey across the floor. The child wept no more.
The vision was so hellishly vivid that he clamped his eyes shut against it, the goblet in his hands tinkling and shuddering dangerously. He let out a desperate cry, jerking the cup up to his lips for a steadying draught. He shook so violently that more than half of the contents sloshed onto his chest. He did not notice.
"I would never do such a foul deed!" he exclaimed to the empty room. After seven months of unmitigated hell, talking aloud to himself no longer seemed strange to him.
Ah, but are you so sure of that? prodded the voice in a sly whisper. After all, just seven months ago, you never would have believed yourself capable of deceiving Celebrian and denying paternity of a child, no matter the circumstances of its beginnings, yet you have done both. How can you be so certain that you will not take the next sliding step down this most precipitous of slopes? You are not who you were, and never will be again.
"I am doing what I must to protect my dearest Celebrian from the shame and humiliation my sins would bring her if brought to light." His voice was tight and trembling, the voice of a man exhausted from battle but unable to flee from it.
Are you now? mused his internal interrogator. How very noble of you! I'm sure she would be pleased to learn that she has trothed herself to such a martyr! Do you take me for a fool? For her! Ha! Let us not deceive ourselves. All of this secrecy, all of this deception has been for you, not for her. You would rather die than see your glorious reputation tarnished by such scandal. You cannot lie to me…or to yourself.
"Be quiet! Give me peace!" he shouted. The goblet wobbled jerkily to his lips again. He was squeezing it so tightly that the gold chalice was buckling under the pressure. When he woke up the next morning, he would find that his hand was so stiff that the joints creaked with every movement, but for now he did not see this, did not feel it. He no longer remembered what he was drinking. All of his attention was concentrated on the vicious, unforgiving crier inside his head. How he loathed it! Always baiting him, deriding him, mocking his frailties and failings. More than once he had been tempted to bash his troubled head against the wall until his skull cracked like a rotten egg just to still the ceaseless ridicule.
All right. Finally weary of discussing yourself? That is a refreshing happenstance. What then, shall we discuss, hm? Ah, yes, I know. A matter of the utmost gravity. The child. Because whether you wish or no, the child is coming. It is a reality you cannot avoid. What will you do with it once it arrives? It most certainly cannot be sent back into the shadowy netherworld from whence it came. What will you do with the wages of your sin? The voice was toying with him the way a frisky cat toys with a frightened, exhausted, bloody mouse. There was no need for haste or delicacy. Its prey could not flee, nor could he plead for help. No one else could see the ruthless swath it cut across his mind. It wrought its cruelty with complete impunity.
Elrond leaned back in his chair, the cool, mostly empty goblet resting lightly against his knee. He took a deep breath and forced his jaw, which throbbed with crushing tension, to relax. That was one question to which he had an answer. He knew beyond doubt that the child could not remain in Rivendell. It would be too dangerous for everyone involved, not least of all the child. Sithirantiel had made it abundantly clear that she would not hesitate to harm the child, and he had no reason at all to doubt her.
And just how do you intend to wrest the babe from her arms? She will not surrender it willingly. It is unlikely she will leave it within arm's reach of you so long as it lives. You'll never even set eyes upon the pitiable creature except for the weekly visits to prove that it is still among the living. Only when she has wrung every bit of use from its bones and leached from you your sour capitulation like the last drops of sap from a withering maple will she relinquish her reluctant charge, and when she does, it will be no more than a dried-out husk of flesh and bone, a hollow carcass crumpled at your feet, the sordid spoils of her little war.
He shuddered involuntarily against the ruthless images crowding his mind, unwilling to look into the hollow, dead eyes of the doomed child his stupidity had conceived. He would not let it come to that. He would get the child away somehow. Perhaps while she slept after her labor, the midwife could spirit the child away and care for it until he decided what to do. Getting it out of Rivendell was going to be difficult. If he sent out the word that there was a child to be adopted in his realm, there would be interest. There would also be questions-too many of them. No, the infant's departure must be kept secret.
He felt a wave of pity for the child beginning its innocent life just a few doors away. It had done nothing, and yet it was fraught with so much guilt and tragedy. Its life could have no good end. If it remained here in Rivendell, it would be treated like a dirty secret, shunned and secreted from the world without ever knowing why. If it survived and was sent away, it would be subject to the often cruel vagaries of life. Instead of growing up within the pampered confines of the royal court, it could very well end up as a poor peasant barely eking out a life in the far corners of the world. If a human took it in, it may well suffer a fate not fit to contemplate.
These compassionate thoughts did little to change his mind, however. It was still firmly fixed to the notion that the little creature not remain here. Even if Sithirantiel were not such a pernicious, spiteful wench, he would not dare allow the child to live here. The risk was too great that his secret would be discovered, innocently or otherwise. Sithirantiel could very well break her vow of silence; in fact, she probably would. In a fit of anger, she would blurt everything out and bring him to ruin. Worse yet, what if someone should notice that the child bore a striking resemblance to the great elven king and began to spread the silent but potent rumor that His Lordship had sired a bastard with a voluptuous courtesan? What if that someone was Celebrian? What if she saw the child and pieced together the truth from the half-truths of local gossip and his own furtive, churlish mien? What would she think when she beheld a tiny face full of dark chocolate eyes, a sharp, angular chin, and severe cheekbones? When she saw the flowing mahogany river of the child's hair as it tumbled, wild and uncombed, over its emaciated, sunken frame? Could he bear to see the terrible knowledge welling up in her eyes, a dark and paralyzing flood of unspeakable anguish? He drained the last dregs of melon juice from the goblet and set it on the floor. Then he rubbed his bruised hands over his face, as though he were trying to scrub away the subtle tinge of guilt that had been branded upon it since the night of the festival.
"I just want to make things the way they were," he beseeched the empty room.
Do you really believe that by casting this child away like a bit of scrap, things will be as they were? If only it were so. You can neither reverse time, nor change what is to be. This child will forever be a part of you, a scar from a wound you dearly wish to forget. Send it to the ends of the earth if you will. It will still haunt your every step. On the happiest day of your life, you will hear its cries, feel its warm weight in your hands, and weep. It will never leave you. It may be gone, but never will it be forgotten. If you do this, you have dreamt your last sweet dream. Better for you to salvage what little honor you can and save yourself and your child from this hell you have created. Heed my words before it is too late.
For the first and only time in its existence, the voice spoke to him with a note of compassion, and the earnestness he heard there almost gave him pause. But he was a stubborn man, a trait his firstborn would inherit in spades; he pushed the uncharacteristic plea aside. He could not afford to give in to such sentimentality. Sometimes things were hard, unspeakably hard, without rhyme or reason. This was one of those times. It was a hard lesson, but a true one, he thought. The child must go. The voice, perhaps realizing the futility of further argument, fell silent. It never offered anything other than biting derision ever again, and alone in his room, Elrond slipped a little further down that invisible slope.
While Elrond wrestled a losing battle against his fears, Sithirantiel lay furious and exhausted in a room just down the hall, her legs splayed and sweating. She was naked, and her hair hung in sweaty, greasy clumps on her head. For untold hours now, she had lain in this empty, cavernous room with the midwife crouching between her legs like one investigating a hidden recess in search of treasure. The pain was constant and enormous, a vise against her back and entrails, squeezing until she thought she would go mad from the pain. Just when she thought she could stand no more, it tapered off, only to be replaced by another spasm worse than the first.
"Get this thing out of me," she howled at the hawk-nosed woman keeping her tireless vigil between her thighs, but the woman only scowled at her for a moment before resuming her watch.
Probably never had a whelp of her own, by the looks of her. No man would get near enough, she thought savagely.
Before she could glean any amusement from her wit, another contraction tore through her, making her grip and claw at the bedclothes in agony. It lanced through her belly, a brutal, jagged pain like shards of glass slicing through her innards, and she cried out. It was a cry of rage as well as fury, for already she hated this child that was using her body as a conduit into this world. She was going to enjoy punishing it for what it was making her endure now on its behalf.
The pain from the contraction passed, and in the few seconds before the next hit, she had time to focus her mind on the one thing she was sure would carry her through this miserable business of labor-her unadulterated hatred for Elrond. It stood out in her mind, a piercing, blinding beacon that sliced through the red haze of pain that had laid siege to her mind. She saw that beacon and latched onto it, a tick fastening onto a favorite host. Her seesawing mind steadied.
How she despised him! He, with his façade of nobility, he whom all of Rivendell adored, he who deep in his heart had believed himself to be beyond reproach. He had dangled before her all that she desired-power, glory, riches-and then snatched it all away like a bit of beef from the slavering jaws of a starving dog. Well, she was no starving mongrel. She had, by virtue of her cunning, exposed him for the wretched blackguard he was. She had stripped away the thin veneer of righteousness in which he chose to garb himself, and had shown him the rancid blackness of his cowardly heart. She was sure he did not like what he saw, but that did not matter. What mattered was that he had quailed before the truth like a mole shying away from the light of the sun. Here in this room, she had her vengeance in her grasp. All she had to do now was bear this merciless agony for a little while longer, and then she could reap her just rewards.
All smug thoughts were slapped out of her head by another contraction, this one more fierce and terrible than all the rest, and she shrieked, a long, ululating howl that made her throat throb with effort, and her hands snapped closed around the sweat-dampened bedclothes so hard that she snapped a fingernail to the quick and pierced her sweaty palm with another, leaving a crescent weal of blood. The pain was monstrous, a pain so bright and clean, like her innards had sprouted icicles that were now trying to erupt from the cavern of her womb like stalagmites. She groaned again, and beneath the sheet of pain ravaging her bulbous stomach, she felt something shift. The bastard inside her was moving.
"Good," murmured the midwife, who was peering intently between the valley of Sithirantiel's thighs, and Sithirantiel was struck by an odd thought, a blink of intuition that was gone in a moment. She meant more by that simple word than she would have be known, she thought with a stoic clarity. She thought(and she was not wrong)that the old crone was enjoying her agonies.
Her legs were pushed up and apart, and she felt impossibly stretched. If she had been able to see herself from a bird's eye view, she would have been mortified by her most undignified appearance. Her face was hectic, red splotches blossoming almost purple from her exertions. Her hair, so patiently coiffed that very morning, was a lank, snarled ruin hanging dispiritedly in her furious, smoldering black eyes. Her breasts lay flat against her chest, dwarfed by the gargantuan mound of her stomach, which rippled and tensed with another contraction. Her legs splayed almost dangerously wide, making her look like a traitor about to be drawn and quartered.
The pain was now nearly constant, bright and hard as mica chips glinting in the desert sun. From somewhere beneath its all-encompassing pall, she heard the midwife give a single, stern command. "Push!"
"May the demons of Arda swallow you whole!" she spat.
The midwife only stared at her with an expressionless face and repeated her command. "Push!"
So she pushed. She pressed her chin into the sweat-slicked skin of her heaving chest and bore down with all her might. She could hear the sound of her teeth grinding together like dry pebbles as she pushed. The blood pounded in her hot ears. She was vaguely aware of the midwife counting off in a placid, atonal voice. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5… At last she fell back, exhausted. The child did not seem to have moved.
"That was good, but you need to make it to ten," the midwife said calmly.
"I would like to see you make it to ten, you miserable old hag! Like as not, the pressure of such a thing would tear you apart like a tired bag of cloth," snarled Sithirantiel. The pain was crushing. Had she known had difficult birth was going to be, she might have taken a different, less painful road to Elrond's destruction.
"Be that as it may, my potential performance in your place is of no account. I am not where you are. Talking will not end you discomfort any faster. Indeed, it will have the opposite end. Now take a deep breath and push." The midwife's disdain for her was now evident. She stared at Sithirantiel, her blue eyes icy with anger. Her jaw was set in a hard line.
Sithirantiel tried to disobey the order, to give a show of defiance in the face of this mounting chaos, but the biological imperative to bear down was irresistible. The spasm clawed at her insides like a feral beast, and she grunted and pressed her chin down. The monotonous count began again.
"When this is over," she panted, collapsing onto the pillows, "I'm going to make you regret your cheek."
"When this is over, you will not have the strength to even raise your head," came the sedate reply. "Again!"
On and on it went. The sharp command followed by the drone of the count. Each push brought her closer to exhaustion. She could feel it stealing into her trembling muscles, a warm, stinging fog. Her teeth ached from constant grinding. Her stomach felt stretched and tender. Each push grew a little weaker, a little shorter, and her breath came in whooping gasps. Her hands were raw and bloody from the constant digging of her rough fingernails. She had no way of knowing how long she had been wrangling with the stubborn little beast within her, but the horizon glowed pink through the small window on the far side of the room; it had been drawing down dark when her labor had begun. Twelve hours, at least, and it felt to her like the child had not budged even a centimeter.
"It is no use," she gasped. "The child will not come."
"The child is nearly arrived. Push but a little more," said the midwife, her hands pushing none too gently on Sithirantiel calves.
Too tired to think of a cutting retort, Sithirantiel pushed, her burning, throbbing arms trembling with effort. Though her eyes were hot and bleared with stinging sweat, she could just make out the snowy white crown of the midwife's head and the sharp, jutting profile of her nose. She wanted desperately to smash her fist into the woman's face, shattering it with a sound like clay pottery disintegrating into a thousand pieces inside a wet burlap sack. She wanted someone to share in her agony, and by the gods, someone would.
Like this puling little thing presently engaged in sundering my womb. It's toying with me, it seems; mayhap it knows what its future holds and fears to come out of the dark. If so, it already holds more wits than its father. No matter. We shall see if it feels so feisty after a few days without sustenance. Miserable brat. She entertained these thoughts with a vicious cheerfulness. Yes, it was going to be much fun to repay this defenseless leech for all of her torment.
"I'm afraid I cannot allow that," said a purring voice. Her father's voice.
Had she been more alert, more able, her head would have snapped toward that dreadful voice quickly enough to shred muscle from bone, but the brutal hours of labor had sapped her strength, and she could only manage to swivel her head in a wobbling arc toward the source of her deepest terror.
A mirror stood to her left, an oval full-length mirror with an ornate wrought iron frame. What its purpose was she neither knew nor cared. Her father stood in the mirror, arms folded across his chest, black, pitted teeth exposed in a leering grin. His right shoulder sagged against the frame, as if he were leaning against something just out of view. His feet were crossed. He looked almost jaunty.
"Hello, daughter," he rasped. "Not pleased to see me?" There was no jest in his voice.
Sithirantiel screamed. A hand clapped heedlessly to her lips, leaving a bloody smear. It was hellishly bright on her ghostly face. The other hand pawed mindlessly at the sheets beneath her, leaving bloody handprints. Her eyes bulged, and her mouth formed a perfectly round O of terror.
The midwife, intent on the child whose head was just beginning to peep out from Sithirantiel's cervix, did not see the mind-wrenching terror on Sithirantiel's face and mistook her shrill shrieks for more of her usual melodramatic self-pity.
"Hush and push. 'Tis almost done," she chided without looking up.
He's not real, he's not, not, not," she thought wildly. Close my eyes, I'll close my eyes, and he'll be gone. She squeezed her frantic eyes closed and counted to ten, murmuring a prayer with every breath. Please, she thought, please. She opened them. There was nothing. The mirror was empty.
Her shoulders sagged with relief. Just a bad dream. She gave a small titter. Not real. Of course not.
"I assure you; I am still here. And quite real." There was a cold breath on her ear, and a stink like a thousand defiled tombs drifted past her nose.
I don't want to look, she thought. Please, gods, don't make me look.
She looked. Her father's malevolent face was two inches from her own, the skin black and doughy on his skull. The foul breath from his rotted tongue and blackened gums wafted over her face. She made a retching noise and jerked her face away, but the stench was too powerful. It clung to her, invaded her, the unwanted advances of a spurned lover. This close, she could see the jagged edges of the hole in his throat. She could also see things squirming in that hole, dark and slithering things. He stood over her, a three-dimensional horror. Only the ravenous pain of the incessant contractions prevented her from fainting dead away.
"You can't-,"
"Oh, but I am. And I've come for you at last. Just like you knew I would." He gave her a mockingly benevolent smile, and then his bony hands shot out and wrapped themselves around her throat.
He's real, she thought with a strange, detached wonder. He's real, and he's going to kill me. The stink was overpowering, cloying, the smell of diseased meat left to bake in the sun. She gagged, and the implacable hands tightened their grip. Her bloody hands fluttered up to her neck, clawed fingers wrenching frantically at cold forearms. But the hours of childbirth had made her weak, and she could not move them. Her larynx gave way with a dull pop, the sound of heavy boots crunching brittle, dry grasses.
Sithirantiel began to drown in her own blood.
Her vision faded, replaced by a memory of long ago, a memory of the day her wheel of Fate had taken that first irrevocable turn that would send her down the darker path. It was the memory. The memory of the day she had killed her father.
She had been young, not yet five hundred. She was standing in the middle of the small, cramped bower she shared with her mother and father. Her back and legs stung with the unpleasant reminder of a lashing she had just received. She knew even without trying that it would be a week before she could sit down. The memory of the beating welled up in her, making her cheeks flame warmer than the raw skin of her buttocks. She felt a dull stab of hatred for the man she called adar.
Nothing was ever good enough for him. Nothing. If she burned the lembas, a beating. If she failed to answer one of his questions correctly or quickly enough, a beating. If she did not come right away when called, a beating. If she missed a target during archery practice, a beating. Sometimes she thought he beat her just for being alive.
She shot a furtive glance at the object of her hatred from downcast eyes. She did not dare look at him directly for fear that he might see her and reward her impudence with yet another thrashing. At the moment, he was seated at his workbench, facing away from her and hunched over his latest woodworking project. He was humming a tuneless ditty to himself. She felt another twinge of ugly green hate for him. Bastard. She hated him. She wished he was dead.
She turned away, intending to go to her room and curl up on her soft pallet, her thin cotton blanket pulled up to her neck. It was the one place she felt safe. Then her eyes had fallen on the sturdy, slender bow she used for archery practice. Its polished cedar gleamed amid the mid- afternoon shadows, suffused, at least to her eyes, with its own inner light. The falling dust motes, caught for a moment in the mellow rays of the sunshine, swirled and eddied above it, tiny moths drawn to a cold flame. In the strange half-light, it looked almost holy.
She glided, silent as a snake, to the low wooden table on which it sat. As she drew close, she could faintly make out the smell of pine resin, which she used to polish it every day. The bow looked at her expectantly, as though it had been waiting for her. She reached out and stroked a finger reverently along the pale, gleaming wood. It thrummed beneath her finger like a thing alive.
She picked it up off the table, careful not to make any noise. If she disturbed her father at his work, there would be another beating. It was light and cool in her hands. Holding it made her feel proud. She was very good at archery; even her father said so, and he was not one for compliments. When she took practice, she rarely missed the paper targets her father set up for her. On the rare occasion that she did miss, there was a beating, naturally, and fear of reprisal went a long way to ensure that she worked to improve herself.
She lifted the bow up and took aim at her father's back, just between the shoulderblades. Her finger twitched delicately against the bowstring as she pulled it back. The bow was empty, of course, so when she released the string, nothing issued from it but the soft twang of the string as it snapped back into position.
Oh, how she wished she could do it, could shoot him down like the miserable cur he was. She would pay him back handsomely for all of the times he had whipped her until she bled, until her skin was flayed and cracked. She fancied she heard the meaty thud as the arrow struck home and toppled her tyrant king. She smiled. Would it take a long time for him to die? she thought. Would he cry out if I killed him?
Why don't you find out? The thought was so cold and so forbidden that she nearly dropped the bow. She couldn't do that. She hated him, yes, but she couldn't do that, could she? Surely they would catch her and punish her if she did. Still, the idea was not unattractive. It was a chance to be rid of him forever, to be rid of his cruel whippings. And who would ever suspect her? She was only a child, after all. Still, she wasn't sure she should do it.
Why not? Who would ever know? Your mother is not here, and will not be for some hours yet. Anyway, there is no need to stay here once the deed is done. Flee if it suits you.
At that thought, the bow grew warm in her hands. It seemed to surge with a mysterious power, and she was acutely aware for the very first time of the power she held in her hands. It could kill; that was, in fact, the purpose for which it had been made. That had been her first taste of power, real power. It was sublime.
Her eyes were drawn like magnets to the quiver of arrows behind the table. In her heightened state of awareness, she could see the fine grain of the wood in each shaft. Her slippered feet moved quickly across the floor until she stood before it. Her mind hesitated, but her body never did. Her small hand drew two arrows from the quiver. She looked at them as though she had never seen them before.
She returned to her place in front of the table. As though in a dream, her hands deftly fitted an arrow into the bow. Her slender arms rose, pointing it once more at the center of his back. A calm certainty fell over her. She was going to do it. There were no butterflies in her stomach, no rabbity voice of conscience screaming for her to stop. She had gone cold inside.
"Adar," she said. She wanted to see his face before he died.
There was no response. His lithe arms did not even stop their movement as he tinkered furiously with the object on his workbench. This was not unusual. He often did not speak to her for several days after a beating. That was all right. She could wait.
"Adar," she called again a few minutes later.
This time, his hands stopped their flurry of motion and there was an ominous clearing of the throat. It was a warning. Be quiet, that sound said. He still thought he had the power around here. She stifled a mad spate of giggles. He was about to learn differently, but that was just fine by her. She waited until the movement from her father resumed. She could afford to be patient.
"Adar." She gave her voice just a touch of condescending impertinence.
That did it. Her father erupted from his chair and whirled to face her. His eyes were simmering with fury.
"What have I told you about interrupting me, you impudent li-," He stopped when he saw the taut bow in her hands. "Sithirantiel, what are you doing?"
"I think you know." The words were casual, glib. Her voice did not quaver and her hands did not shake.
The anger in her father's eyes sputtered and died, replaced by an even more primal emotion-fear. He tried to hide it, but it was there just the same. She could almost smell it, a musky, jungly smell, sharp and cutting as acid to her nose. She crinkled it in disgust. Seeing fear on his face filled her with an exhilaration so exquisite she was nauseated by it. She felt a giddy smile spreading over her face. There was an almost sexual tightening in her prepubescent groin, a cramp that made her feel all tingly and warm down there. She thought she would explode if she looked at him much longer.
"Put that down!" His voice was hoarse, not quite steady.
"No, I don't think I will." The voice coming out of her was calm, musing. It was not the voice of a terrified child cowering beneath the shadow of the lash. It was the voice of a young girl who has tapped into some arcane conduit of power and knows how to wield it. "What ails you, father? You don't look at all well."
"You'll pay for your cheek," he roared, and took a step towards her.
She raised the bow a few inches higher until the arrow tip pointed at his bobbing Adam's apple. Though he was advancing toward her quickly, probably with the intention of beating her senseless, most likely to death, she did not hurry. She measured him in the same meticulous manner with which she measured the thin paper targets he set up for her. Just a paper man, she thought, and loosed the bow with a merry twang of horsehair string.
The man who had haunted and hounded her childhood simply by the unfortunate virtue of being her father did not topple over and crash to the ground like a felled redwood as she had thought he might. Instead, he wavered dreamily on his feet, big, work-roughened hands fluttering ineffectually around the delicate shaft of the arrow he suddenly found lodged in his throat. His eyes bulged, round and fish-like, from their sockets.
"Gah," he croaked, and a freshet of dark red blood gushed from his mouth.
She watched him impassively as he crumpled slowly to the floor, knees touching the floor gently. He warbled like a throttled turkey. She blinked sedately. He pitched sideways, arm flung outward. She watched with interest as his outstretched hand opened and closed, opened and closed.
It took him forty-five minutes to die. She watched it all with her dispassionate obsidian gaze, hunkered over his twitching body like a curious child squatting over the death throes of a crushed insect. A few times, he tried to cry out but only managed a queer, gabbling croak. His hands, spasmed into claws, scraped sporadically against the floor, gouging thin lines in its hard surface.
Near the end, when the blood and swollen tissue had completely blocked his airway, he had flopped over onto his back and glared at her with his bulging, agonized eyes, and in them she saw impossible malice. His pupils were wide; looking at them was like peering over the edge of a precipice to find a bottomless abyss of midnight fire. His outstretched hand rose slowly, and he pointed at her.
He's marking me, she thought, and a ripple of gooseflesh traveled up her spine. Then she shook her head and laughed.
"What can you do to me, old man?" she sneered, giving him a kick. "You're already dead."
Something, a word, maybe, tried to force its way from his ruined throat. All that came out was a wet, glottal gargle. Then his body had gone rigid, his back arcing off the floor in a final tortured spasm. After that there had been no more movement, no more sound. The dark fire in his eyes slowly faded into the dull glaze of lifelessness. His clawed hands relaxed. The tyrant king had fallen.
When she had been certain that he was dead, she stood up. After a brief stretch, she calmly picked up the unused arrow and replaced it in the quiver. Then she slipped out of the bower and into the surrounding woods. She never gave the cooling corpse of her father another look.
When she returned from the woods a few hours later, the small community had been in chaos. Her mother, who had discovered the body upon returning home, was under the watchful care of Mirkwood's healer, heavily sedated. Most people were so relieved to find her alive and unscathed that they did not question her story of being outside playing in the clearing when the swarthy bandits came and killed her father. The fact that she could not describe the bandits was of little consequence; she had been through a great trauma. Three days in the woods with no food or water was enough to disorient anyone, they said.
If anyone wondered at the strange welts on her back and calves or entertained misgivings about her curious lack of grief upon the loss of her father, they never spoke of it. Soon enough, the matter passed out of the people's interest and into the local mythos. Sithirantiel never thought of her father again. At least not in the safety of daylight. At night, when the veil between the worlds was thinner, he came to her in her dreams, a ghastly specter with burning, lunatic eyes and a pointing, accusatory finger. Sleep never again offered her the same sweet sanctuary. Even in death her father had made her pay.
All of this passed though Sithirantiel mind in less than three seconds. Her brain, consuming itself in a futile, cannibalistic attempt at salvation, began stealing oxygen from its own cells. The memory faded. In the instant before she was given the mercy of unconsciousness, her rolling eyes locked onto the leering, victorious face of her father. His breath was hot and eager on her face.
"You forgot one thing, daughter dearest," he crowed, "sometimes power requires sacrifice."
She did not feel it when he snapped her neck with a sound like a heavy branch cracking beneath December frost. Sithirantiel had gone to her reward.
The midwife, who had looked up to tell her patient to push just one more time, stared at the scene before her in stunned incomprehension. She had delivered babies for hundred of years, hundreds of thousands of them, and she had never witnessed anything like this. Never. One minute the birth had been progressing well, and the next Sithirantiel had begun to scream and paw at the air, as though fighting an invisible assailant. Yet there had been no one there.
You must be losing your mind, she thought. You did not see what you think you did. You did not see her throat swell and bulge as though wrung by unseen hands. She just had a convulsion and died, that's all.
A convulsion strong enough to snap her neck? questioned the frightened voice of logic inside her head.
Elbereth, what was she doing? Standing here like an open-mouthed imbecile while there was still a chance the child might live. The head had very nearly crowned before Sithirantiel had suffered her fatal seizure. She squatted down and pushed the limp leg of the dead woman aside. A quick look confirmed that the child's head was just beneath the lip of the cervix. She could just make out a tiny scrap of pink scalp. If it was still pink, that meant it was still getting a little oxygen, but it didn't have much time. She had to get it out now.
She slipped one hand inside of the womb easily enough and felt the reassuring presence of warm flesh. When she tried to insert the other hand, though, she discovered to her dismay that the child had turned on its side and was wedged firmly inside the womb, its tiny shoulder lodged firmly against the mother's pelvic bone. She would have to break a hip to get it out, and she wasn't sure she had the strength to do it. She sighed.
"Lord Elrond," she called, "Please come at once! Hurry!"
There were no rapidly approaching footsteps echoing down the corridor. It remained eerily silent. She called again, louder this time, more strident. Still nothing. No swish of robe, no crisp clop-clop of slippers on stone floor. Just the indifferent silence. She cursed him under her breath.
Damn him! Probably wallowing in self-pity again. He had been doing that a lot-too much-lately.
"Lord Elrond, come at once!" she demanded. She was screaming now, not really caring if she had offended his sensibilities. She needed his help, and she needed it now.
When there was no response to her third frantic summons, she gave up on him and tried to find another way to save the child's life. One push on the rigid hipbone blocking the child's shoulder told her she would never be able to exert enough pressure to break it. She tried to palpitate the abdomen, to push the child down and sideways, away from the bone. Nothing. Another look between the woman's legs showed that the rosy scalp was quickly fading. The child was running out of time.
Her eyes settled on the knife she had brought to sever the umbilical cord, and a gruesome idea began to form in her mind. She tried to push it away, but it would not go.
Going to let the babe die because you're a bit squeamish, are you? prodded her conscience.
No, she wasn't. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she picked up the knife, muttered a quick prayer, and went to work.
In his chambers, Lord Elrond was fighting a tremendous battle between his desire to hide from what he knew awaited him down the hall and his sworn duty as healer of the realm. He did not want to go to Sithirantiel, did not want any part of the life making its way into the world; yet as healer, it was his duty, his duty to save any life if it were in his power to do so, even if he did not wish to save it.
He did not want to save Sithirantiel. He wanted her to die. If she died and took the child with her, his troubles would be over. He could pretend that none of this had ever happened, and after enough time had passed, maybe he could even believe it. He could have everything he ever wanted if he just sat here in this chair and pretended that he heard nothing. He would not be haunted by the knowledge that a child of his wandered somewhere in the dark places of this world. He could start his life with Celebrian with a clean slate. All he had to do was stay right here.
You can do that, said his conscience, weakened but not destroyed. I cannot stop you if you do. But have you really fallen so far? Have you? What kind of man have you become that you would let an innocent life be extinguished, let it pay for your mistake? If you let it die, though you have laid not a hand on it, the blood shall be upon your hands, and I will never let you forget it. I will remind you of what you did not do for all the rest of your days. I can do that, at least. And when I fall silent, your tormentor will be glad to take my place. Every choice has a price, some higher than they seem. Are you willing to pay?
Elrond groaned, a miserable, hunted sound, the sound of an animal trapped between the sharp point of the hunter's spear and the gleaming steel jaws of a limb-crushing trap. There was no way out. Whichever way he turned, he was damned. Now he had only to choose the method of his downfall. With a deep breath, as though to fortify himself for some monumental task, he rose from his chair.
Slowly, reluctantly, like a man going to the gallows, he went around the room collecting the things he thought he might need. The midwife's urgent, plaintive cries had stopped, and there were no more screams coming from Sithirantiel. It was probably too late, but he owed it to himself and the child to at least go and see.
You do not have to do this, insisted the insidious voice of his fear. You can claim you heard nothing, and no one would be the wiser.
"I would be the wiser," he said. "I would."
Are you sure you want to do this? the voice asked.
"No, I do no want to do this," he said, pulling some fresh towels from a wardrobe by the door. "I have to. I just have to." He went out.
The corridor, save for the two solemn sentries posted on either side of his door, was utterly deserted. Both of the guards inclined their heads and snapped their heels together as he passed.
"Some strange doings at the midwife's tonight, m'lord," said one, shooting a nervous glance at the closed door at the end of the hall.
"My wife's time draws close," said the other. "I hope she fares better than the unfortunate tonight. Birth sounds an awful business." He looked vaguely ill.
Whatever she has endured, it cannot possibly be enough for what she has done, he thought grimly, unaware of what he was about to find in the room down the hall. In the heavy silence of the lonely passageway, his slippered feet seemed very loud as they shambled and grated over the gritty floor. His heart was thudding painfully in his chest; he could feel his ribs vibrating softly with each beat. He swallowed, and there was a dry click in his throat. The heavy door to the midwife's chambers suddenly seemed a thousand leagues away. I cannot do this. The thought fluttered around his head like a panicked bird trying to escape a gilded cage
Somehow he kept moving forward. The thought of what that pair of sentries would think if he ran screaming back to his chambers helped him to put one foot in front of the others. He mustn't show weakness, no matter how much he felt it. As the door edged ever closer, a new and strange sound reached his ears. It was a wet tearing sound, like strips of wet flesh being torn into pieces. It was coming from the midwife's chamber.
A midwife's chamber is home to many sounds. The sound of groaning and weeping as a mother gave birth. The sharp, strident cry as a newborn child drew its first breath. Occasionally, the bitter sobs of a mother whose child did not survive the ordeal could be heard. But this sound, the sound of a hungry beast feasting on a meaty carcass, did not belong. He felt a cold, suffocating dread settle around his larruping heart. He crushed the towels and other supplies he had been carrying to his chest.
I don't want to see what lies behind that door, no, I don't. Not for money, not for honor, not for charity, not at all. I want to go back to my chambers and bolt the door behind me. Please, Elbereth, let me turn around.
But his feet kept going forward, carrying him closer to the door. He doubted he could turn them from their path now if he tried. Halfway to the door, his ears were greeted by another sound, a far more normal sound-the shrill, offended cry of a healthy newborn child. The blanket of trepidation lifted a little, but it did not dissipate entirely. The lack of response from either Sithirantiel or the midwife troubled him, and though the rending noises had ceased, their memory still echoed in his head. Those unnatural, wet sounds.
He hesitated in front of the door. The thought came again, I do not want to see what is behind this door. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. His throat felt roughly the size of a pinhole. His bladder was a shrunken sac. His hands tingled with adrenaline. He opened the door.
For a moment, all he could see was red. Red on the floor in pools and rivers, red splashed on the walls in great starburst constellations. There was even a mist of red on the ceiling. Then his shocked eyes adjusted, and he realized that it was all blood. Pools and rivers and droplets of blood. The source of the blood lay on the bed.
Sithirantiel's face was a rictus of terror. Pie plate eyes bulged from shrunken sockets. A livid purple, swollen tongue protruded from her slack mouth. Her head jutted at an awkward angle, ear just grazing the top of her breast. Below her breasts, there was-
He swayed in the doorway a moment, then stumbled inside and slammed the door behind him before anyone else, likely his sentries, could see. Once inside, the coppery smell of congealing blood hit his nostrils and he struggled with his gorge. He looked down at the supplies he had brought, all quite useless. He looked at the bright point of the needle sticking out from the spool of suturing thread.
I'm afraid that wound is beyond my skill, he thought, and wheezed frightened, falsetto laughter.
"I did what I had to do," said the mid-wife.
He jumped, badly frightened. In his stupefied fascination at the carnage before him, he had not noticed her standing silently beside the mirror. He looked at her and nearly screamed. She had no arms. From the elbows down, there was nothing but bright red. Then he blinked and saw that her arms were indeed still intact; they were just slathered from fingertip to elbow with a solid sheet of blood. In them, she held a swaddled bundle, a bundle that cooed and kicked.
"Sire," she said in a thick dreamy voice, "your daughter."