In a Time of Sorrow

Chapter Three

Disclaimers: Not mine, even though I asked very nicely.

Thanks to Nemis for betaing.

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Celebrían returned with her children, and together they kept a lonely vigil over the ailing lord. As the next night faded into the dawn, Elrond slipped into a tormented dream-world, tossing and turning as the sheets irritated his sensitive skin, unable to bear even the touch of his wife's hand on his.

She began a song to lull him, and Arwen joined her, their sweet voices entwining, but in his delirium Elrond heard the lilting melody twist and change into the dread shrieks of the Nazgûl.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He was kneeling on a beach as the foul creatures howled around him. The sky roiled and seethed with heavy clouds, yet sunlight glinted on the water.

Elrond looked down at the prone figure before him and wailed in grief.

"No, no, my brother, it cannot be… I did not mean to… you must understand that my hand slipped. I never meant to kill you," he begged, but he held a knife in his hand, dripping with gore. There was a great gash beneath his twin's ribs, and his eyes were shut.

Frantically, the elf knelt down beside his twin and leaned over, pressing his hands to the wound, trying to heal him. His crystal tears fell fast into the red murk.

Without warning, a strong yet gnarled hand wrapped itself in the hair at the nape of his neck and hurled him backward onto the sand.

As he wiped salt-scented grit from his eyes Elros towered over him, his lifeless face terrible and wrathful.

"How could you heal me, brother mine?" the man mocked, kicking sand into his face. "Your powers are nothing but the product of your overweening pride in your own knowledge, yet you are nothing; you know nothing. It is you who should have chosen the Doom of Men, and then poor Elrond would suffer no more."

He leaned nearer and nearer. His brother could smell the stench of the grave clinging to him, and then he was choking, pinned to the rough sand … falling … falling…

~*~*~*~*~*~

Celebrían paced the room, wringing her hands.

"What can I do? Why do you not do more?' she demanded of the healer. "He cries out in his sleep and raves that he has killed his brother, and it destroys me as surely as it does him."

Hildor's response was the same as it had been for many hours, "We have spent all our energy and wisdom on him, as we always would, but now both have failed us. Even Lord Elrond when he was …he could not save many in Arnor."

"What were you going to say?" Celebrían's red-rimmed blue eyes flashed menacingly. "You were about to say 'when Lord Elrond was alive', were you not? He lives yet. Have you tried athelas?"

"Yes, my lady, we have indeed, but if you wish us to prepare some more…"

"Yes. Please do so. Bring a basin," she clipped out.

As they bathed her husband in the healing liquid he began to thrash wildly, and Celebrían wept in distress as her sons pinned their father's shoulders to the bed to still him, leaving red welts on the pale skin despite all their care.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He was back on the Dagor Dagorlad before the Black Gate of Mordor, in the thick of battle. As acrid smoke descended over the field of combat, he wielded his sword expertly, although he was cut off from all allies, and unnumbered crude weapons, in the hands of the servants of Sauron, clanged against his armour, ripping his cloak to shreds.

A horde of orcs bore down upon him, crushing him to the ground, his limbs ground into the mud, but he struggled up and fought on. He spun around in a deadly circle, decapitating three orcs with one fell sweep. His sweat-sodden black hair flew in his eyes, its leather tie long since lost and the braids unravelling.

He sliced and hacked and stabbed, but they surrounded him and overcame him, and suddenly he was garbed as one of them, and he charged down the hill towards the Last Alliance, screaming vile curses at the top of his voice.

Although he tried to resist it, he brought his sword smoothly, inflicting mortal wounds on both elves and men, in whose glazed eyes he caught glimpses of shock and hatred..

He looked up under the sharp brim of his helm to realise that Ereinion Gil-galad stood before him, the stars emblazoned on his armour shining even in the darkness.

"What foul treachery is this which has blackened your heart, my son?" the High King spat. Elrond tried to answer, but words failed him, and the towering figure continued, "You have failed me and all the Free Peoples. You shall no longer be known as Elrond, nor shall you be received anywhere in this world. I hope that Mandos has no pity on you…"

And he was drowning in his own blood, shame and terror coursing through him…

…He knelt before a tall figure, robed in night, and felt its pitiless, inscrutable gaze resting on him.

"Know this," the Doomsman of the Valar intoned, "you are as the dust before the wind, Elrond Eärendilion. Nothing you made will endure, nor will those you have loved survive the coming darkness."

And from the shadows Sauron laughed at the fate of the crumpled elf.

…And then he was held in the grip of a monstrous beast, all horns and tentacles and armour as hard as steel. It beat him against the rock wall until he was bruised and senseless, robbed of speech and thought.

...He was standing with Glorfindel, high on the battlements of Gondolin. As he flailed desperately with his sword the Balrog's fiery lash caught his legs from under him. He lay there, begging his muscles to move, but they would not obey him, and the creation of Morgoth bore down upon him, its grasp melting the flesh from his bones. Just when he thought that the pain would conquer him utterly, it turned away; its terrible eyes narrowing as it beheld Glorfindel. With a single leap it was upon the golden-haired elf, and Elrond screamed and pleaded as he watched the death of his charred friend…

~*~*~*~*~*~

Elladan hacked viciously at the tree, feeling the axe-blade sink through the layers of powdery dead wood. He poured all his frustration and hopeless rage against fate into the attack on the rotten oak.

"Mae govannen," a soft voice called from behind him. He whirled round, narrowly missing cleaving his twin in two.

"Be careful, gwanur-nîn," Elrohir cautioned him with a raised eyebrow.

"'Tis you who should be more careful, little one." Elladan wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, the other flexing round the handle of the wood-axe. "What are you doing here, anyway? Should you not be with Erestor, keeping the House in order?"

"There are more important things to be done. We need to take Arwen outside; she needs to be away from Ada's chamber for a few hours. It pains her too much to see him like this."

"'Tis not our place to tell her what she should do. You know how much she hates our attempts to do anything of the sort," he protested.

"You are afraid of Arwen." Elrohir cast up his hands in exasperation. "She is no longer an elfling, I'm sure that you will be perfectly safe … unlike the time when she shredded your favourite tunic…"

Elladan started to respond, but his brother's face was so grim and determined that he acquiesced, and they went in search of their sister.

The Evenstar sat by Elrond's side while Celebrían dozed fretfully in an armchair. In a low voice the maiden read the Lay of Leithian to her father, who seemed to be momentarily lucid. As they entered he shifted his head slightly, and murmured, "Hello, gwanûn. Come here."

They obeyed, slipping across the room soundlessly to stand by his side. Even in the brief time they had been absent, he had deteriorated further. His black hair was spread across the pillows, contrasting shockingly with the deathly pallor of his face. When he weakly stretched out one hand to them it was hot and cold at once, the veins showing through the translucent skin. Elladan could not contain a shudder of despair.

"Ada." Elrohir forced his voice to remain light and merry as he bent down to kiss his father's cheek. "We have come to steal Arwen away from you, if we may."

Their sister's blue gaze pierced them.

"I shall go nowhere."

"Nonsense, Undómiel." Elrond tried to rally some of his usual mellifluent gravity, but even the effort of speaking left him breathless. "I wish you to go with your brothers. I do not forever need a nursemaid."

Protesting, she left the room, her brothers holding her tightly. When she made to return, they tickled her until she submitted through her teary giggles, and walked with them out into the gardens.

Celebrían, awoken by her children's voices, locked eyes with her husband's clouded grey ones.

"I am glad that they are so close," he whispered. "It will make it easier for them to cope when I am gone."

"Never say such things," his wife choked. "Or do you wish to see me cry, you silly child?"

But he was already fading back into his dreams of darkness, and he could not reply that he never meant to hurt her.

*~*~*~*~*~

Arwen paced the path by the river, not caring that the hem of her dress was becoming muddied by the damp soil.

"Why did you take me away? I wished to be there!" she cried suddenly.

"There was nothing you could do," Elladan answered. "'Tis better that you see the trees again, and he and Ammë need time together," Elladan answered, scuffing the ground with the toe of his boot.

"Yes, time before he… I want to be by his side when…" she sobbed. The twins exchanged glances, sublimating their own fears for the sake of their baby sister.

"Do not despair, Undómiel." Elrohir gathered her close. "There may yet be hope which we cannot see."

Weeping uncontrollably she buried herself in his arms until no more tears would flow. Extricating herself slowly, she strode off down the path. Elladan and Elrohir hurried after her.

"Where are you going?"

"To pick flowers," Arwen called back. "Ada must be reminded of the valley which depends on him."

Shaking their heads at her whimsical notions, but unable to deny her, they followed the route she chose to the high meadows.

*~*~*~*~*~

When at last they returned, laden down with flowers, a din rose to meet them from the main courtyard. Their breathing fast with fear, they sped into the confines of the Last Homely House, terrified at what they might see, and stopped dead at the uproar which greeted them.

TBC

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Translations:

Mae govannen - well met.

gwanur-nîn - my brother.

gwanûn - twins.

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