Chapter 4 – Growth of a dark child
The cold stones whispered with the patter of light feet and
a child slipped from the shadows lurking in the East corridor of Dol Guldur.
There, caught in the sunlight the child froze for a moment and scanned the
length of the hallway. Motionless for such an instant, highlighted in the bright
sunlight an observer would have a rare view of the child of Dol Guldur. The
observer would be startled with the appearance of the young one. Barefoot and
dressed in cast-off clothes, so old that they resembled a beggar's rags, a
young girl, around nine years of age in appearance was the rarely seen child of
Dol Guldur. The Necromancer's daughter was of moderate height yet long limbed
and as slender as an ash tree, no hint of tender childhood clung to this lean
waif. For although she appeared to men as a youngling who has not reached a
decade in truth the girl had seen over twenty summers. As she slowly turned her
head the observer would see the elfin cast to her ears, her fine facial
features and smooth glowing skin. In the sunlight her hair was the colour of
burnished bronze throughout which glimmers of gold could be seen. Most unusual
were her eyes; caught in the sunlight they glowed so brightly they appeared to
mirror the sun and so intense the glow of her irises that the pupils vanished.
A slight sound and the girl cocked her head, tensed and then
silently retreated to the shadows of the dusty corridor. Here she was invisible
save for her glowing eyes. From the staircase at the end of the East Corridor,
the reason for the child's retreat to the shadows was apparent, a tapping noise
could be heard and gradually it grew louder. The child of Dol Guldur remained
motionless in the shadows trying hard not to breathe as the source of the sound
entered the hallway. It was an old woman, hunched over a stick, muttering
softly. As she neared the girl her muttering became audible, "Dem gel…
when I get 'old of 'er…"
The girl smiled hidden deep in the hallway depths.
"Pss," she whispered, as quietly as possible, her eyes now glowing
brighter with mischief.
The old woman ceased her path along the corridor and cocked
her head listening for the sound. The good woman was grizzled with age and her
clothes so patched and mended that no fragment of the original cloth existed.
Her hunched back and depressed air seemed to indicate one not long for this
world but the resilience and native toughness of this old serving woman would
see her through over three more decades. This elderly beggar woman was the
nurse of the Necromancer's daughter, and the state of her clothes provided a
good indication. Then with a speed that belayed her age she whirled her stick
into the shadows at the side of the hallway. The girl danced out in front of
the stick laughing as she ran. The child's laugh was as pleasant and tinkling
as a babbling brook and sounded misplaced in the grim fortress. Somehow in that
one innocent laugh it seemed as if the girl held all the joy in the world. The
old woman scowled. "Yes, laugh at me young'n, why don't you? After all I
just look after 'ye."
The girl's face fell and the dancing light died out of her
eyes. "I am sorry my lady," apologised the child, sincerity ringing
in her voice.
"Bah," the old woman replied. "You look all
innocent but I know 'ye young Valimar! You feel no guilt about no'ing."
"How different to her mother", thought the old woman, "she
never resisted nothing and what tragedy her end. She never said a cruel word
and her daughter inflicts them recklessly. Still how nice of the elf to call
her child's name as she died."
The true tragedy was that the midwife on hearing tell of
what Vanaria cried as she plunged to her death sentimentally assumed that it
must be her baby's name. The midwife therefore called the child after Vanaria's
call; and so it was that the daughter of Sauron was named Valimar, which in
elvish means farewell. Perhaps it was through a sense of irony that the
Necromancer allowed his only progeny to be named for departure, for no
complaint had ever been from the girl's father about the name. Mayhap it was
due to guilt and he had no wish to see the being that caused the death of the
beautiful elf. Or more likely it was due to an apathy that the Dark Lord felt
towards his child for since her birth he had not seen her nor taken any
interest in her upbringing. The only touch of his presence that affected the
little girl was how his closest servants monitored her behaviour. Still Valimar
was the only name that Vanaria's daughter had known and thus answered too.
Valimar, unaware of her cursed name, smiled sadly at the
woman who called her by it and clasped a hand to her heart, "You accuse me
falsely madam. Your distrust wounds me."
"Humph!" was the only reply, the grizzled nurse
well use to the child's wiles.
"Come now madam," continued the girl as smoother
than a silver-tongued serpent, "when did I not feel guilt?"
The old woman looked at the mocking child, whose birth she
had assisted into the world and sighed. It was not that the girl was really
evil, not like some of the creatures that inhabited this forsaken place;
thought the elderly midwife. Rather the girl was strong willed, self centred
and thoughtless. Of course this was only to be expected when a child is brought
up with little discipline, over indulged and allowed to roam as if a wild
thing. The old woman regarded her half elf charge with a clear eye. She knew
that Valimar was spoilt, ill discipline and malicious, look at how the
youngling teased and tormented her. The girl was always running away from her
lessons and at bath times, she refused to have her hair brushed and change
clothes. Also invariably the girl ran
used stairs as escape routes, knowing how difficult they were for a woman as
old as her nurse and especially for one with a walking stick. It was funny how
the daughter of a graceful elf could be such a ragamuffin, thought the old
woman. The mother had looked elegant even during her captive pregnancy yet the
daughter always appeared to have been dragged through a bush backwards!
The half-elf still continued to simile beguilingly (yet
scruffily) at the old woman. Who shook
her head, "No Valimar, 'ye're not to go to 'te stables."
The child's smile lessened, "But madam I shall return
within the hour, and then I promise I will return to my studies."
The old nurse looked at her smiling charge and felt that
although the smile had diminished slightly something in that smile now
reflected some goodness. She knew full well her charge was probably lying,
something the brat seemed to do that as easily as breathe, and when Valimar
spoke in the high-fluting language of her tutors she condescended to her only
retainer. Yet there was some hope there, thought the nurse, the girl had not
been completely corrupted. The old
woman reckoned that if she could remove her charge from Dol Guldur the child
would be immeasurably improved. The old
woman realised her musing was impractical for the Master would surely kill her
if she stole his child, even if he paid the brat no attention; all he did was
send spies, like his accursed Mouthpiece, to watch the brat. Well, thought the girl's nurse, if young
Valimar could not be brought up outside the fortress, the young madam really
ought to be whipped for her cheek!
Valimar continued, "Please madam I will be back within the
hour and I promise on my Mother's grave that it shall be so," The girl's eyes
pleaded.
The old woman was not heartless and the reasonableness of
the plea and strength of the girl's oath was accepted. Besides if the girl was so determined to go
she would anyway so it was much better for the child to be given
permission. So the old nurse nodded
briefly and before the nurse could utter her agreement Valimar was heading off
to the stables. The nurse smiled at the impetuousness of her charge and shook
her head sagely.
Deftly the child slipped out of the tower, pausing as she passed
the guards. Valimar was checking to see who was on guard and how alert they
were. The girl knew that her movements were of considerable interest to the
soldiers (little did she know that they reported them to her father's servants)
and so liked to confuse them. Sometimes
she would enter the tower striking up a brief chat with the guardsmen. Then
young Valimar would run through a series of secret passageways, she had found
when bored, that led through the dungeons and back to the main courtyard as fast
as she could. The girl would then
nonchalantly re-enter the tower, acting as if she hadn't passed that way before
starting the same conversations with the luckless guardsmen. Obviously this
caused confusion for the guardsmen who'd report that the child had only entered
the tower once. For they knew that to see her to entering the tower twice
indicated that they were losing their sanity. However this day the girl was not
interested in teasing the soldiers and after leaving the tower entrance headed
towards the stable block.
The route to the stable block was uneventful. The orcs and
rough men who lived within the fortress walls cat called at the girl and
Valimar ignored them. For as long as she could remember her presence had
attracted insults from these unkempt folk, but she knew this was the attention
that they meted out to all those not directly in their circle.
Once at the stable block the girl paced forward slyly her
head gently and hypnotically swaying. Ordinarily horses would start and tremble
at such a silent apparition but the horses at Dol Guldur were used to strange
creatures. Some would even carry loathsome beings that would normally drive a
beast of burden to insanity, sending it bucking and screaming into the wide
yonder. These horses regarded the child with the cats-eyes placidly, a couple
even snorted fondly. They liked this creature; she spoke softly and would
occasionally bring them titbits that merited fondness in the horses' view.
However young Valimar was not interested in any old horse today, she did not
even glance in the direction of her beloved pony, which snickered at her over
his stable door. The girl was interested only in discovering if the big black
horse was in the stables.
Valimar had not seen the horse arrive, or even heard of it
from idle gossip by the Dol Guldur staff, rather she had dreamt it. Her dreams scared her they sometimes seemed
to come true. In her sleep she had a mirror and gazed through into the future.
Such things were not possible! When the
girl had asked her nurse about this the nurse had smiled and said, " Aye well
y'ur fath'r be right pow'ful a' magic. M'be ye 'ave the gift too." This scared
Valimar. She had no knowledge of her father, except that other people in the
fortress were terribly afraid of him and yet still seemed to revere him, this
confused the girl to such an extent that she decided not to think about the
subject. From somewhere, possibly her
elvish grandfather the king of the Wood Elves, Valimar had inherited extreme
practicality, so if a problem occurred that she could not do anything about she
simply ignored it.
So caught up in her contemplation the girl reached the
stables. Where the stable lads watched
her arrival with interest. The lads
were bored and ill disciplined and this combined with the illness of the stable
master caused them to revert to an unruly mob.
A small section of these boys confronted the girl. They considered her to be over privileged and
like the gutter scum they were ganged up upon the girl half there size. As a feral mob five surrounded the
Necromancer's daughter. "Ye' re so ugly
tha's no s'prise yer ma killed herse'f," taunted one boy.
"Aye," added another, "she were right pretty too." The
second lad smiled reflectively imagining the beautiful woman, yet he had not
been born, nor even had his father, when tragic Vanaria had thrown herself from
the heights of Dol Guldur. But the legend of the elf-woman's uncanny beauty
lived on as the years passed. In truth
it grew with the telling and Vanaria, who had been an elf-girl of ordinary
beauty, metamorphosed into the most beautiful of all women, in the eyes of the
men at Dol Guldur. The other races did
not care to remember her, she was an elf and elves were enemies.
Immobile Vanaria's daughter regarded the boys surrounding
her unblinkingly.
"Course she were beautiful," the first stable lad continued,
sandy haired and stoop shouldered he winked as he turned to his colleague. Valimar did not see the wink. The stable lad then waved his arms
enthusiastically, "but beauties like tha' are right rare. 'S said that she were
a right goer. Any man could've 'er and…"
"You lie!" The girl
was no longer able to pretend indifference to the underlings' conversation and
she interrupted them abruptly. Valimar's whole body was tensed and the girl
squared up in front of the stable lad.
Her head did not even reach his shoulder of the hapless lad.
"Would m'lady be call'ng me a liar?" asked the sandy haired
fool. The foolish boy was unaware of
the power of his small opponent's bloodline. In the unmeasured opinion of the
sandy haired adolescent the girl was a stuck up little madam. She had been
annoying him all week with her authoritarian demands to curry her pony, clean
her tack, no Boy clean it properly… How dare the little madam call him Boy! He
would show her and it would be worth the whipping he'd get from old Tom the
stable master.
Valimar regarded him steadily and silently. The boy tensed,
he had being trying to bait the stuck up girl into attacking him so he could
put her in her place but the little so-and-so was not playing along. The boy
did not expect such a young child to stare at him so strangely; it quite
unmanned him and were it not for his fellows egging him on the boy would have
backed down.
The girls then blinked slowly and eyes as yellow as a cat's
and with that same unblinking intensity focused. With a feline grace the child
stretched, moving herself into an attacking position, the stable lads did not
notice this. "You lie Boy,"
uttered the girl calmly.
This nettled the stable lad. " No I don't your mother
was nothing but a…" he did not finish his insult for as he tried to
simultaneously cuff the Necromancer's daughter the girl pounced.
She sprang at the boy who insulted her dead mother's memory
and now would attack her and as she sprang Valimar changed. She changed to a
form similar to that used by her father but no wolf was this little one.
Although the form she melded to was similarly canine to her father's it lacked
the lupine aggression. Instead of a wolf
Valimar's form changed to that of a hound, a proud noble hunting hound. The dog stood, at the shoulder, as high as a
man's hip and had a brown coat, the bronze colour of the girl's hair and with
the same matted texture. Yet still the childish form of the girl could be seen
in the hound, its gait was puppyish for the dog appeared to lack full control
over it's limbs and it's paws were slightly out of proportion with the rest of
it – being a trifle too large.
The stable lad noted this not. He was terrified. Before him
where had stood a young girl now stood a terrifying demon dog, with eyes that
glowed with an evil light.
"Nice doggy," the sandy haired lad began as his
fellows fled.
The dog growled and raised its hackles. The boy gulped and
retreated a pace. The hound pressed forward. As the hapless lad turned to flee
the hound sprang, knocking the boy to the ground. The dog continued to growl
low in her throat. The stable lad thought he was done for and closed his eyes
unable to bear the gaze of the hound of the grim-eyed dog. Then the weight of the dog was lifted from
his chest. The lad peeped out of one
eye. In front of him stood the
Necromancer's mouthpiece holding the hound by the scruff of the neck. The hound
then transformed back to a struggling and confused Valimar. Ignoring the prone
boy the Mouthpiece dragged Valimar back to the tower of Dol Guldur. The
Mouthpiece smiled, " Well my lady, your talents begin to show. Now we
begin your training in earnest."
