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Echoes of the Narbeleth
Spirit Star
Chapter 13: In which Change stirs the water once more
Aragorn swore. "She can't have gotten far on foot."
"Why bother about Lady Adariel? We have weightier trouble upon us. What of our friends Masters Merry and Pippin? And our word to Eomer that we would return our borrowed horses? The witch was nothing but trouble from the start. I say we leave her to her own troubles." Gimli said.
Everyone with the exception of Boromir glared at him. Legolas stepped forward, eyes narrowed. Gimli looked unabashed and crossed his arms over his ax. "Besides. What about the old man next to our fire last night? Have you forgotten already?"
"What shall we do?" Boromir cut in impatiently. There was a thickening tension in the air and it seemed that someone would pounce on Gimli. Everybody looked toward Aragorn for a suggestion. Aragorn looked at Legolas.
After a pause, Aragorn said, "We will continue on the trail of our Hobbit friends, and we shall see what we can find. Mayhap we shall meet up with both parties."
There was a soft hiss that escaped from Legolas's lips. He felt like disagreeing with Aragorn, but when he looked in Aragorn's face he saw only sympathy and a determination to do things right. Who was he to argue with reason when he was without logic in his frustration?
"We leave as soon as we hide our tracks," Aragorn announced. He felt a little guilty that he had not fulfilled his silent duty to Arwen to look after her younger sister. But he hardly thought Adariel needed looking after. The last time he had been in Lakewood, he had sensed something change in the air. He had been with other Rangers that time, and it was in the distant past.
Now, Aragorn watched his elf friend move dejectedly to help with the cleaning up of the dark ashes that had been sparks from the fire and felt a slight surge of apathy. If Arwen had been lost, he would have been desolate and all hope would have failed him.
Which was why, Aragorn thought to himself, he could not fail the mission. Merry and Pippin had to be found and brought with them. They would be needed in Minas Tirith, he knew it.
Already, Adariel was beginning feel regret forming in her throat. It threatened to push its way out in the form of a frustrated scream. The forest was deathly silent. Where were the birds? Where was the rustling of the leaves? There was not even a slight breeze.
There was anger in the air, she could feel it. Almost taste it, even. Here were trees that had seen much and felt the tongues of flame upon their branches and pass them by. There was a thin layer of black ash and a lingering smell of burnt wood.
Wherever she went, Adariel felt the vegetation shy back from her. Once, she thought she heard a hollow voice say "You are not welcome here."
Occasionally, she felt pinpricks in her hands and guessed that Boromir was cleaning up the still hot ashes of the fire with his bare hands. She didn't mind the pain. It kept her sane. She had the same suffocating feeling that the forest was closing in on her, their branches as their arms and their twigs as their fingers reaching out to throttle her or encage her once more.
No matter how absurd that thought was, she could not shake it out of her head. After all, the trees were her friends. They were the ones who liberated her, not capture her. But she also knew that trees in their anger were quick to lash out, and since they were sightless, it did not matter much to them who they struck out at.
Maybe this was what Celeborn had been thinking when he warned Aragorn about passing through Fangorn.
Adariel followed the darkening ground. The ash was piling thicker and thicker, and the tension grew greater with every step she took. The smell of burnt wood grew stronger. Lakewood was drawing closer.
Adariel had been amazed, horrified and disgusted all at once when she had first walked into the Fangorn. There was a slight layer of black ash on the floor. As scattering at first, but as she followed it deeper into the forest it grew deeper until she left footprints that sunk into the thick dust and left a mark imprinted in the black sand-like ash.
It didn't take her long before she figured out that she was on the right path to Lakewood.
When she had heard from the pine tree what Eltheran had done, or rather, what the Eltheran had allowed the orcs to do, she had been disgusted. Now, she was sickened. Adariel had taken her cloak off to avoid the unnecessary suspicion. A cloak from Lorien symbolized light. She was heading into darkness.
There was an endless supply of trees as she walked steadily deeper into Fangorn. They grew in order according to rank. She had passed pine trees in the outer circle, then some chestnut trees. Now, she was walking amongst elms and beeches. A few more turns, and she should be amongst the rowans and willows who were not Elderlings.
But as the elms became scattered, instead of finding rowans and willows dotted in the thinned gaps, she found the skeletons of burnt out trees. Adariel gasped out loud, her sudden intake of breath muffled in the thick silence. The charred remains of what had been towering rowans and willows were bent and broken. A lone leaf drifted off the end of a black branch and floated to the ground. It was strange to see the spot of brown amongst the thick layer of black on the ground.
Where there was anger in the air, there was now death.
She took a couple of steps forward, and was suddenly surrounded by a ring of elves dressed in the black that she normally saw on slain Orcs. Their bows were drawn, and they were made out of ashwood. The only wood hardy enough to grow on the outskirts of Mordor.
"Daro. Halt. State your name and your cause and we will escort you into Morladris."
Adariel tried not to look nervous. She had to come up with the perfect lie, and found it hard to speak up. She said the first thing that came to her mind. "Morladris?"
"We, the combined council, have renamed Lakewood," replied the same monotone voice. "State your cause and your name and you will be escorted into Morladris," it repeated.
"Is this how you address your princess?" Adariel assumed an air of cruelty and coldness.
"We know no princess except one," the voice replied without emotion. "And she is gone from these woods."
"Bow, you cowards," Adariel ordered, her eyes glittering with malice that was not altogether fake. "I have come back."
The elf seemed to assess the situation before calling another to him and pointing at Adariel. "Take her to Eltheran and see if she is telling the truth. And disarm her."
The other Elf nodded, drew his bow even tighter and motioned Adariel in front of him. She shuffled purposely with a venomous glare and held her head up. Another Elf tugged the quiver off her shoulder and snatched her bow from her hand. Adariel jerked it back at the last minute, causing the Elf to fall backwards as she let go of her bow. The other Elves looked at each other and wondered if this was truly the princess. Who had the courage, or the wits small enough to do such things in Morladris?
Adarielf felt a sharp jab roughly in her back and felt the arrow tip graze her slightly. She stiffened, wondering if it were a poisoned arrow. A harsh laugh came behind her.
"Don't try anything. Do not look back. Walk where I tell you to."
"I will do no such thing," Adariel turned around, gathering her courage to her. She could be shot on the spot. She had to assume that they were ruthless. "I refuse to be treated like a prisoner in my own domain. YOU should be the one bowing to MY will. Be warned that Eltheran will hear of this."
"Oh, he will," the dark-haired elf laughed again. "You will see him when he pushes you down the stairs into his dungeon." The elf drew his bow even tighter, and poked her again sharply in her back.
"You should be ashamed, if not disgraced, to treat your kindred like this," Adariel said in annoyance as she was forced to walk in hurried steps through the trees. The dark-haired elf advanced with his arrow pointed at her back. If Adariel walked too slowly, the arrow point would pierce her and she would be lost.
"I might have cared once," the elf said, his tone changing to regret. "But I have seen too much. I feel the change coming in me and I must join or suffer the torture of his calling. I was once called Eleduil, but now I am a wraith. I am in between."
"In between?" Adariel sensed weakness. "In between what?"
"In between the Change." Eleduil said, but his voice grew harsh and scratchy. "Move on! Do not bother me with your cunning tongue."
They hurried on until Adariel fancied the day faded into night. Certainly, there was a great darkness about. She was looking upward for the moon when she realized that it was still day. She was in the shadow of a great fortress, dug deep into the ground. There were no trees. There were no Elderlings. There was only a tall black wall that cast a shadow on the ground, and an iron gate forged of bent armor.
"Is this Morladris?" asked Adariel.
"You claim to be princess, yet you do not know your own land. You are a liar, and Eltheran will see that." Eleduil said, arrow tip jabbing into her flesh so it bled. Adariel had slowed down. "Faster, Prisoner! Make haste to meet your doom!" he laughed. Adariel picked up her feet.
The bent black gates were opened not by elves, but by Orcs standing guard there. Adariel's eyes widened. So Orcs were working with the elves? Never in her life had she felt so nauseated. The rotting stench came from within the helmets, and she could feel the hatred strike at her through the visors.
She spat at them, but was struck hard in the back of the head by one. Hard enough to hurt her, but not so hard as to give her the relief of falling unconscious.
The earthen stairway led downwards. Adariel's heart quivered as she saw her fellow elves dressed in black tunics or black gowns darting here and there, some talking seriously with Orcs and pointing to pieces of armor or weaponry in a critical manner. Others labored along with the rest.
It was the laboring elves that caught her eye, and her gaze held the sight of them. They had blank, glazed over eyes and several scars that had not been treated. There was a resolute determination in their manner that had been beaten down to dejected silence and acceptance of their fate.
But worse were their physical attributes. There were not Elves any longer, but creatures somewhere between Elves and Orcs. Their skin had turned pale gray and their backs were bent and stooped from work. Their hands were now thin and gnarled and their hair was drifting to the ground in clumps.
Now she knew what Eleduil meant by change.
Her gaze snapped away from the horror and bitter tears leaked out of her eyes. This was what she had seen in the Mirror. She would have driven her people to a fate so unimaginable yet so real that it hurt her to even think about it. She recognized it all now. The dark iron twined walls of earth, the color of the black ashen floors that were shod with clay.
This was the place she had seen herself, eyes blazing an unearthly white, torturing Elves into the Change. Adariel felt a dread like she had never experienced before. Not even at the entrance of Moria. It was the dread that fear brought. And she was afraid…of herself.
They had come upon the biggest building in Morladris, as it was now called, and the doors were thrown open by an Elf and an Orc. The exterior was made fully out of iron, which clanged when a spark from a nearby forger hit it. The doors were decorated with glittering night-gems that twined upward to read:
The interior was bare. There were archways that led left and right, but straight from the entrance was a large metal door with the same markings as the exterior one. It was guarded by an Orc and an Elf, both carrying swords. Both were dressed in black with a red eye marked on their breast.
They glared at her and then at Eleduil before allowing the doors to be flung open. Adariel found herself roughly pushed inside. The blackness that engulfed Adariel started her, and it took a while for her eyes to adjust to the room. It was bare, with only a glowing banner of the One Eye staring at her from the rooftop. At the front of the room was two one throne and beside it was a smaller, although extensively carved chair.
The body on the throne stirred, but it was the haggard one on the chair that spoke.
"Who is the Prisoner and what business do you have to bring it before the King?" it hissed with hatred dripping like honey from its strangely accented tongue.
"She claims to be the Princess," Eleduil laughed uneasily. It was met with silence. Eleduil stopped laughing immediately and Adariel looked at him from the corner of her eye. He looked frightened.
"Bring her forward," the voice from the throne commanded. Adariel didn't recognize the tone of voice. It was harsher and almost cracked with power, or madness. It was more likely madness.
The shove caught her by surprise and she took a couple of steps forward after the initial force had faded. She now stood before the throne and the chair.
"Kneel, filth!" hissed the voice from the chair.
"No!" Adariel said clearly. She could not be submissive in these halls; she never had been as the Princess.
"No?" The voice was outraged. "You shall be made to bow."
Adariel squinted but could only make out the haggard outline of the shape in the chair, but there was a giveaway stench. It was an Orc. Even as Eleduil came forth with two other Elves that had heard the order, she felt outrage winding upward through her windpipe. Adariel felt the hands pressuring her spine and the sharp sword tip at the back of her knees.
She struggled, thrashing aimlessly, but the sword tip was cutting the backs of her knees and she felt it was coming dangerously close to her vein. She collapsed suddenly, bringing the three Elves down with her. They clattered on the polished metal floor.
Adariel immediately stood back up again. "Curses be rained on your kind forever, Orc."
"Kill her!" the Orc screamed. He was cut off as a flash of silver severed his head. It rolled onto the floor at Adariel's feet. There was an expression of surprise on it, and spittle mingled with blood on the floor. Its eyes were a sickening yellowish color and had red lines streaked all across its eyeballs. Its teeth were yellow, rotting and its tongue was covered with a layer of green. Adariel kicked it away and looked up at the figure on the throne sheathing his sword.
"They are rather stupid," Eltheran explained without bothering to wipe the dark blood off his blade before he slid it back in its scabbard. "He's the fourth one to meet his fate here, yet still more are willing to take his place."
Adariel said nothing, just stared at Eltheran in grim silence as he stood abruptly and descended toward her. He stopped directly in front of her and cupped a hand around her face. Adariel flinched.
"Just like how I remembered you…" Eltheran muttered absently. Adariel almost let out a sigh of relief. She had been afraid that Eltheran might have been so far corrupted that he might not have recognized her. "…but different somehow," Eltheran finished.
Adariel tensed slightly with Eltheran's hand still cupped around her cheek. There was a silence.
"But that is something we will discuss later," Eltheran said, his eyes narrowing slightly at the almost relieved look that Adariel sported. "You must get changed and tell me all about your adventures at the feast in your honor tonight." To Eleduil, he said, "You are now a Worker for your disgraceful misconduct of the Princess. Go before I throw you in a dungeon."
Eleduil looked horrified as he backed out of the room.
"Wait!" Adariel said hastily. "He amuses me, Father. Let him be my servant."
"Very well, Adariel," Eltheran said without pausing to consider, as if Eleduil were just some tool that was easily dismissed of. He motioned for Eleduil to leave and the look that Eleduil gave Adariel as he backed hastily out of the room was one of hatred and bewilderment.
"Anything that pleases you to have is yours," Eltheran said, gesturing her to walk with him.
"Thank you, Father. It's good to be home," Adariel said 'home' trying to sound convincing. She hoped Eltheran hadn't noticed the slight note of apprehension in her voice as he led her out of the throne room and also out of the metal building.
The smell of blood and sweat hit Adariel like a wave and she shook her head to clear it. "You'll get used to it," Eltheran explained happily. "There has been so much that has happened since you were kidnapped."
"Kidnapped?" said Adariel sharply. "Did you not get my note?"
"Oh, of course. The servants searched everywhere for a sign. But of course it was a note that the kidnappers made you write. They were trying to take you away from me. Besides, you would never leave here voluntarily. Lakewood was great, and now, as Morladris, it is perfect," Eltheran said, menace stripping his voice raw.
'They' must mean the people from Rivendell! Adariel felt her surprise turn into anger. So he had kept the visits secret and hoarded her like a trophy? And how dare he say she would never have left voluntarily. Adariel felt a slight dent in her pride. She struggled to maintain her mask of unconcerned interest and listened to Eltheran continue. He had somehow forgotten that she was walking right beside him.
"You were mine, right from the start. I saw you in your cradle of rowan wood under the willow tree. I knew you did not belong. A gift from the Valar, if you will. I took you from that cursed cradle of rowan and took you as my own. They did not understand. They wanted you for themselves."
Adariel nodded slowly, afraid that if she spoke he would recollect himself and stop talking.
"And your name was so perfect. Fate had made them name you Adariel…Father's daughter. You were meant to be my likeness, you know."
"Yet I was not yours," Adariel said quietly.
"That matters not," Eltheran said. "What matters is that you were *fated* to be mine."
Adariel drew in a breath as big as she dared. The smell of blood was unbearable. 'Eltheran is insane,' Adariel thought to herself as she surveyed her surroundings grimly. Eltheran walked tall through the hammering around the clumps of dirt and mud. Adariel could see the remnants of roots in the soil. They were literally in a wide valley-like ditch.
"I kept your old room, you know," Eltheran said to Adariel. "I had it shifted down near my quarters down here in Morladris. Everything is exactly the same, but I daresay you will want to make some adjustments. Your adventure would have changed you, I am sure."
"More than you will ever know," Adariel answered cryptically.
"Yes, yes," Eltheran answered impatiently, sweeping his hands across the view. "For all our change, we have kept the lake. I knew you loved the lake so I had them leave it untouched. You must come for a walk with me and tell me your tale. How did you escape from your kidnappers? Where did you learn? What news from travelers?"
"Must I, Father? I am weary from the road."
"Humor me, then," Eltheran answered. He led Adariel to a small tunnel opening that seemed to spiral upwards. There were lit torches on the inside of the tunnel and Adariel could feel a slight breeze from the other end. They were heading up.
When they emerged from the tunnel, Adariel found herself coming out of an opening in the large hill by the lake. She had always loved the lake because there were many trees there. And she had loved watching the moonlight on the water and the leaves float and disturb the glossy shine at night.
Eltheran was right. It remained unchanged. Even the trees had not been disturbed, although a tense anger radiated from them. The lake was still calm and the grass was still green, although it had taken up a slightly yellowish tinge. Adariel imagined it would be from the poisons that had seeped into the ground below.
Eltheran leaned on a tree and the tree groaned loudly and angrily. Adariel chose to stand where she was. They were out of view and the only way to the lake was through the tunnel. Adariel knew that there would be guards now at the tunnel opening underneath. She had seen the signal that Eltheran had given them as he walked past.
Now, she stood contemplating. There was no possible escape and she was unarmed if anything happened. Suddenly, she was feeling very vulnerable.
"Well," Eltheran exclaimed, overlooking her silence. "Tell me all that you have seen!"
"But Father, of course you have some tales of your own!" Adariel said quickly to fill in the time she needed to come up with a convincing story to replace the truth.
"Ah, yes," Eltheran said. Adariel was disgusted to hear his voice had a speck of pride in it. "Of course you understand that when you left, we were all in an uproar."
His eyes twinkled for a moment. There was a pause as he cleared his throat and continued, "You were always like that, causing some kind of chaos wherever you went. But a maid found your note and I read it. The kidnappers were smart, getting you to use your own hand to write it. But I knew that you were my daughter, and you could outwit them. I did not send you help, but instead concentrated on your homecoming."
"I see," Adariel said coldly. "So I was unarmed and untrained in combat and you did not think I would have been in any danger."
She was extremely surprised when she heard Eltheran laugh. "Adariel!" he cried. "So innocent in the ways of the world. How I wish I could keep you like this forever! But alas, you will change when you take over my crown. You will taste power and adore it. But for your rather naïve statement I answer: I knew you were practicing the bow in your room. Do you not think I count the weapons at the end of each day?"
"Oh," was all Adariel could answer.
Eltheran laughed again. "Do not be ashamed for your ways and lay the blame instead on me. I was so eager to shield you from the harshness of the world. It would seem that I was a little too indulgent in my ways."
Adariel's anger flared up again. "Then I certainly will blame everything on you, Father," She snapped.
"Then I take your blame whole heartedly, and thank you," Eltheran said. "But to continue with my tale that you have been so eager to hear of. Yes, I planned to make Lakewood great for you. We were weak, and we needed to be strong. Several weeks after you left a messenger from far Lorien came to me asking me to the Golden Wood. Of course I refused."
"But why?" Adariel asked, frowning a little. Things were starting to make sense now, but not entirely. There were some things that did not fit into place.
"Why, you ask me?" Eltheran said with amusement tingling in his voice. "You are too young to understand, and until you come one day into the shadows of the trees of Lorien I will keep this secret to myself."
Adariel ached to say that she had infact been to Lorien herself, but stopped short. She remembered the words of fair Galadriel of the Light and her cryptic message about the darkness in Lakewood (now Morladris) and she said nothing and filed the conversation away into her mind for further examination.
"How came the Orcs to our city?" Adariel asked.
"Such a simple question, Adariel. I would have thought you shrewd enough to answer it yourself."
"Humor me with the truth. I'd rather that than anything in the world," Adariel said pensively. Eltheran appeared not to notice the double meaning in her sentence.
"Your wish," Eltheran said, "is granted. We found an Orc in our territory but I ordered it captured and brought to me. It told me of many things, Adariel. Of the might of our lord Sauron of the One Eye and the Great Army. We cannot defend against Isengard much longer. We are but a small population too close to the lands of Men. What could I do? I knew that you would be coming back soon and I did not wish you captured."
"So you joined the forces of Sauron?"
"What else could I have done? You must understand that there is no Good or Evil. There is only power. And power is all that matters. If I had not, then you would be in the hands of that foul Saruman now."
"I understand everything," Adariel said slowly. "But must you have burnt all the trees?"
Eltheran's eyes became glazed. Adariel had seen the look before on some of the other elves and she took a step back. It frightened her, that look. She knew by some instinct what would happen next. Eltheran's voice went flat. "The trees must be burnt. They hinder the process of the rise to power,"
"Surely you don't mean that?" Adariel gasped. She had suspected that the Elves burnt the trees by force, but now it seemed that they did it freely. She suddenly saw images of charred wood and blackened leaves in a heap and a great fire spreading, and she drew deep breaths to calm herself.
"I do," came the reply in the same tone of voice. Then Eltheran changed as if he had just woken from a long daydream. "But you must tell me of yourself now. It has been a while and we must get back for the feast soon."
There was an expectant silence. "I was taken," Adariel said dramatically, "by Elves from Rivendell after they'd lured me out of Lakewood."
"I knew it!" Eltheran roared, "I knew it was so. Rivendell, Imladris, you say?"
"Yes, but I managed to slip away. And I ended up utterly lost on my way. I headed south and wandered for a few days before I found myself in Rohan in the company of many horsemen. They did not know me and captured me, but again I managed to slip away before I came to the edge of the Fangorn."
Adariel hoped that Eltheran would not notice how vague the description was but she knew it would be a false hope. Eltheran was extremely cunning in his own way and she did not doubt he would pick up the difference. And he did.
"You do not speak in detail," Eltheran said, studying her. "Could it be that you do not remember? Or mayhap the memories are too sharp to describe? Or you are hiding something from me?"
"I think," Adariel announced, opening her mouth in a graceful yawning gesture and pronouncing her words with unconscious clarity, "that I am just tired from my wary days of wandering."
"So you are, Daughter, so you are," Eltheran said, but then drifted into silent musing. Adariel's eyes widened slightly with panic.
"We should go back now, for the night is cold and the wind is icy on the eve of my return," she said carefully, trying to sound indifferent to his mood. The King looked up with a sly, catlike stare that faded into a warm smile.
"Oh, how ignorant of me. Please accept my apology as you had left me on my own for quite some time and I had but forgotten how to treat company," he shook his head and held out his hand, which Adariel took slowly. "Let us go back, for I had almost forgotten the preparations for the feast to be held to-night!"
Down the smooth, winding tunnel they stepped with footsteps light and thoughts heavy. Past the lines of working Elves and Orcs and half-Elves and half-Orcs they trod with Adariel looking at the murky ground at her feet and Eltheran's head up, surveying the workers. Once in a while he would find something that displeased him and would spring forth with Adariel's hand still grasped in his and command the guards to take some people away.
The earth had become stained brown and rusty with specks of black forming a slight dust over the top. The elves left faint footsteps while the Orcs left heavy dents in the soft ash. The heat from the melding nearby was bringing out a slight flush in Adariel's cheeks and the stench of the Orcs was making her nauseous.
They parted outside the doors of the great iron cast hall with its wide doors clanging slightly in the heat and its inhabitants standing to attention just outside the gate. Eltheran gave a fluid sweep of his hand and a maid scurried hurriedly to Adariel's side.
"Take Adariel to be robed in her room. 'tis the door that has been barred until now, and I would wish it of you to fling open the doors and allow some light into the room," he murmured to the maid. She danced a little on her bare feet on the heated ground that was tinged a rusty blood red and bent her head low to Adariel.
Adariel thought she looked familiar, but couldn't place her. There was a gentle shove at her back and she found the King bowing his head politely and saying, "I will meet you at the Hall in one fourths turn of an hour and you shall sit merrily by my side."
Adariel only nodded before following the maid inside the dark receiving chamber of the great iron building. Her last glimpse of Eltheran was his retreating back as he strode swiftly down to the Orc forces gathered in a corner. They were armed and some sat on dark horses that pranced in distemper.
The iron doors clanged shut. Eltheran had not looked back.
Gimli thought that everybody was especially gloomy that night as they trod heavily on the blackened leaves in the forest of the Fangorn. The trees bent down towards them with their dangerous looking twines reached out for their necks. Gimli rubbed his collar nervously.
There was no song in the branches and sunlight reflected vainly off the slight dusting of ash. All day they had walked upon heavy feet, well, maybe everybody except Gimli. There was no remorse in his heart, although he did not deny that he had an uneasy feeling about the robed stranger they had met the night before.
Under his breath, Gimli muttered dark words to himself. The only one within hearing distance was the Elf, and Gimli thought that he looked unusually brooding in the speckled shadows of the leaves. Boromir's face expressed nothing but sober indifference and Aragorn had shed none of the worried lines on his face. Gimli shook his head and gripped his ax with more vigor.
The leaves crunched under his boots and he tried to think of the fair lady of Lorien, and of her hair and her wise eyes shining in the glinting golden mist. Not a thing was more precious to his people than gold and jewels and Lorien had more than he ever wanted or needed. But it was not the glittering studs that caught Gimli son of Gloin's eye but the fair lady who stood smiling surrounded by it all.
A slight heaviness eased off Gimli's face and he felt himself brightening, even in the dreary light and the choking air.
Boromir looked down at the dwarf and then back to the back of Aragorn's head. He thought it so ironic that he, Boromir the proud, had given in to temptation first and almost eagerly. Such was the extent of his pride. Now his heart had been stripped of it and he felt sympathy replace it.
Boromir had never really been brought up on sympathy.
Now, as he followed Gimli with his footsteps grinding down on the dark soot, Boromir felt a wave of slight sympathy toward them all. How hard the journey must be for them, with their feet never having touched the first steps to the Land of the Dead.
He never felt tired now, and the road had seemed to him like nothing compared to the one step that his foot had set itself upon on the path to the Dead. The forest held nothing against him, and nor did the shadows the trees cast. It would have seemed sinister to him once, but now he felt nothing but indifference toward the images leaping up endlessly before his eyes.
"Mortals upon mortal roads weary quickly and mortals on immortal ones even more so," he muttered to himself under his breath.
Nobody heard him except the Elf, but Boromir didn't really think that Legolas was listening. There was a difference between hearing and listening. Casting his eyes toward the forest bed, Boromir picked his way carefully across the uneven ground. Some places the layer of leaves was thicker and deeper than others. In front of him, he could sense the rhythm in the others' steps change every so often when there was a rough patch.
Boromir noted that Legolas who had seemed unaffected by the changes in the forest floor in Lorien was stumbling every so often like his mortal companions. He suppressed an exasperated sigh and thought about Adariel. 'Alas, poor Legolas,' Boromir thought to himself. 'Though I know not what madness the power of love drives into Elves, I have seen it in the faces of Men, and…maybe even in the eyes of Dwarves.'
Boromir glanced at Gimli's face again with a reluctant amused glint in his usually dull eyes.
The four travelers followed the light trail of the Hobbits. It would disappear every now and then and fade into the crackled dry drift of leaves at their feet but they followed near the trail of the bank of the Entwash. The mood was different from that of when they set across the green plains. It was more sober, and slightly heavier in way of spirit.
They came after a while to the steep end of Treebeard's Hill and looked up at the rock wall and its rough steps that lead up to a high shelf. It was gray and far away from the dark source of the ashes scattered previously along the ground. It was gray with no sign of the black specks on its surface. Gleams of sun were striking the clouds that scurried across the sky. Suddenly, the forest looked lighter and less foreboding.
"Oh!" said Legolas. "I feel my breath short and I should like to taste a freer air for a while. The forest holds no laughter and song, but perhaps the view from the hill shall ease my troubles if only for but a while."
It was the longest sentence he had remarked that day. The companions climbed up the rough hill with Aragorn last, looking for marks on the steps and ledges.
They did not notice the softest of rustles in the thickening trees behind them.
The shelf faced southward and eastward but the southward view was closed and narrow. Aragorn was bent low toward the ground and his eyes searched the undisturbed ground. The dust had resettled itself in swirling circlets after the dry wind had shifted.
Legolas was caught up in his own thoughts of far away places and people that perhaps were not so distant. How long ago had he admitted to himself that he had loved the haughty creature that had journeyed demurely for most of their way? A year or a week ago…yet it seemed longer.
Although Adariel rarely displayed any emotion in the gray-blue windows of her eyes, he could not stop himself from gazing into them when she was preoccupied. Which, he noted, was often when they had entered Rohan. Whither was she now? Trapped in a cage wrought of orcish iron with sweet red blood drifting down her pale cheeks?
Legolas drew a deep breath and told looked about himself with deliberate slowness in an effort to calm his thoughts. Aragorn was still bent low to the ground, checking here and there for signs of the Hobbits. Boromir was looking with amusement at Gimli, whose eyes had glazed over with a liquid sheen and whose lips were muttering softly underneath his beard.
Legolas could guess who Gimli was thinking about. He had never seen one being, let alone a dwarf, admire one thing some much. Not that Galadriel was not admirable. Celeborn loved her dearly, the proud lady she had been and the wise one she was now. He shook his head so his hair shifted slightly. Gimli was doomed to admiration from a distance, and how Legolas pitied him!
But then again, Legolas admitted to himself, Gimli's situation seemed impossibly like his own.
The eerie silence continued with Aragorn's soft footsteps disturbing the unshattered calm. But there was a change in the air, and where the mood had been restful, it was suddenly tense. Legolas could feel it in the trees, a confused mixture of anger and relief.
He stood up and drew out his bow. The sudden movement brought Gimli to his feet and he gripped his ax with vigor. Boromir unsheathed his sword and Aragorn straightened and swiftly snatched an arrow out of his quiver. Nothing moved, then a flash caught their eyes.
The flash of color that did not belong in the dark forest with the evergreen leaves now dried and soiled. It was a flash of white. It moved suddenly from view, then back again and stood quite still.
At that very moment, there was a whoosh from the surrounding treetops that sounded more like the groan of forced labor. The sharpness of gray, flashing points aimed themselves down at the four. Soft thumps jerked the leaves out of place as soft feet landed on the forest floors behind them.
They all looked up in different directions and saw that they were surrounded by Elves clad in dark clothing. One stepped forward on a dappled gray horse that pranced haughtily before them.
"Well, well…what gift does the forest give up today?" said the one on the horse, sinister amusement glittering in his eyes. They narrowed, as he made a swift motion with his arm, "Take them back with us. This is a gift for the Princess."
There was nothing they could do: the elves were too well armed. Rough rope tightened around their wrists as they were bound and stripped of their weapons. Legolas turned his head back to the suspicious white figure behind him, and saw that it had gone.
The blindfold came over his eyes, and all was dark. Dark as the blackest of nights, as surely this one was.
1.1 End of Chapter 13
Reviews please! NO FLAMES but constructive criticism is very welcome! –Spirit Star
Author's Note: Adariel really does me Father's daughter/maiden/fill your own word for female
Morladris is a mixture of Mor (darkness) and imlad (valley)
For the person that asked, I have a sindarin dictionary on my computer and for the other person that asked, yes, I have been to China; I was born there!
Phew, finally back on a computer that I saved work on! Geez, you should see my inbox! Over 100 messages and heaps of junkmail not included. If you sent me a message, please don't be too offended if I don't reply immediately.
Pllleeeeaaaase forgive me for not updating for such a LONG time…:'(
I'm going to sleep now so goodnight…it's about 10 o'clock and my teachers are going to KILL me. I've been such a ditz today coz I went to sleep at around midnight yesterday. You should have seen me at school. Don't go there, PLEASE. It was the time Ross and Rachel got married accidentally in Vegas.
P.S. No, I did NOT actually get married…I'm not that out of it yet.
P.P.S. I'm going on camp tomorrow and you know how camps are when the Physical Education Department runs them. The torture! The torture!
Echoes of the Narbeleth
Spirit Star
Chapter 13: In which Change stirs the water once more
Aragorn swore. "She can't have gotten far on foot."
"Why bother about Lady Adariel? We have weightier trouble upon us. What of our friends Masters Merry and Pippin? And our word to Eomer that we would return our borrowed horses? The witch was nothing but trouble from the start. I say we leave her to her own troubles." Gimli said.
Everyone with the exception of Boromir glared at him. Legolas stepped forward, eyes narrowed. Gimli looked unabashed and crossed his arms over his ax. "Besides. What about the old man next to our fire last night? Have you forgotten already?"
"What shall we do?" Boromir cut in impatiently. There was a thickening tension in the air and it seemed that someone would pounce on Gimli. Everybody looked toward Aragorn for a suggestion. Aragorn looked at Legolas.
After a pause, Aragorn said, "We will continue on the trail of our Hobbit friends, and we shall see what we can find. Mayhap we shall meet up with both parties."
There was a soft hiss that escaped from Legolas's lips. He felt like disagreeing with Aragorn, but when he looked in Aragorn's face he saw only sympathy and a determination to do things right. Who was he to argue with reason when he was without logic in his frustration?
"We leave as soon as we hide our tracks," Aragorn announced. He felt a little guilty that he had not fulfilled his silent duty to Arwen to look after her younger sister. But he hardly thought Adariel needed looking after. The last time he had been in Lakewood, he had sensed something change in the air. He had been with other Rangers that time, and it was in the distant past.
Now, Aragorn watched his elf friend move dejectedly to help with the cleaning up of the dark ashes that had been sparks from the fire and felt a slight surge of apathy. If Arwen had been lost, he would have been desolate and all hope would have failed him.
Which was why, Aragorn thought to himself, he could not fail the mission. Merry and Pippin had to be found and brought with them. They would be needed in Minas Tirith, he knew it.
Already, Adariel was beginning feel regret forming in her throat. It threatened to push its way out in the form of a frustrated scream. The forest was deathly silent. Where were the birds? Where was the rustling of the leaves? There was not even a slight breeze.
There was anger in the air, she could feel it. Almost taste it, even. Here were trees that had seen much and felt the tongues of flame upon their branches and pass them by. There was a thin layer of black ash and a lingering smell of burnt wood.
Wherever she went, Adariel felt the vegetation shy back from her. Once, she thought she heard a hollow voice say "You are not welcome here."
Occasionally, she felt pinpricks in her hands and guessed that Boromir was cleaning up the still hot ashes of the fire with his bare hands. She didn't mind the pain. It kept her sane. She had the same suffocating feeling that the forest was closing in on her, their branches as their arms and their twigs as their fingers reaching out to throttle her or encage her once more.
No matter how absurd that thought was, she could not shake it out of her head. After all, the trees were her friends. They were the ones who liberated her, not capture her. But she also knew that trees in their anger were quick to lash out, and since they were sightless, it did not matter much to them who they struck out at.
Maybe this was what Celeborn had been thinking when he warned Aragorn about passing through Fangorn.
Adariel followed the darkening ground. The ash was piling thicker and thicker, and the tension grew greater with every step she took. The smell of burnt wood grew stronger. Lakewood was drawing closer.
Adariel had been amazed, horrified and disgusted all at once when she had first walked into the Fangorn. There was a slight layer of black ash on the floor. As scattering at first, but as she followed it deeper into the forest it grew deeper until she left footprints that sunk into the thick dust and left a mark imprinted in the black sand-like ash.
It didn't take her long before she figured out that she was on the right path to Lakewood.
When she had heard from the pine tree what Eltheran had done, or rather, what the Eltheran had allowed the orcs to do, she had been disgusted. Now, she was sickened. Adariel had taken her cloak off to avoid the unnecessary suspicion. A cloak from Lorien symbolized light. She was heading into darkness.
There was an endless supply of trees as she walked steadily deeper into Fangorn. They grew in order according to rank. She had passed pine trees in the outer circle, then some chestnut trees. Now, she was walking amongst elms and beeches. A few more turns, and she should be amongst the rowans and willows who were not Elderlings.
But as the elms became scattered, instead of finding rowans and willows dotted in the thinned gaps, she found the skeletons of burnt out trees. Adariel gasped out loud, her sudden intake of breath muffled in the thick silence. The charred remains of what had been towering rowans and willows were bent and broken. A lone leaf drifted off the end of a black branch and floated to the ground. It was strange to see the spot of brown amongst the thick layer of black on the ground.
Where there was anger in the air, there was now death.
She took a couple of steps forward, and was suddenly surrounded by a ring of elves dressed in the black that she normally saw on slain Orcs. Their bows were drawn, and they were made out of ashwood. The only wood hardy enough to grow on the outskirts of Mordor.
"Daro. Halt. State your name and your cause and we will escort you into Morladris."
Adariel tried not to look nervous. She had to come up with the perfect lie, and found it hard to speak up. She said the first thing that came to her mind. "Morladris?"
"We, the combined council, have renamed Lakewood," replied the same monotone voice. "State your cause and your name and you will be escorted into Morladris," it repeated.
"Is this how you address your princess?" Adariel assumed an air of cruelty and coldness.
"We know no princess except one," the voice replied without emotion. "And she is gone from these woods."
"Bow, you cowards," Adariel ordered, her eyes glittering with malice that was not altogether fake. "I have come back."
The elf seemed to assess the situation before calling another to him and pointing at Adariel. "Take her to Eltheran and see if she is telling the truth. And disarm her."
The other Elf nodded, drew his bow even tighter and motioned Adariel in front of him. She shuffled purposely with a venomous glare and held her head up. Another Elf tugged the quiver off her shoulder and snatched her bow from her hand. Adariel jerked it back at the last minute, causing the Elf to fall backwards as she let go of her bow. The other Elves looked at each other and wondered if this was truly the princess. Who had the courage, or the wits small enough to do such things in Morladris?
Adarielf felt a sharp jab roughly in her back and felt the arrow tip graze her slightly. She stiffened, wondering if it were a poisoned arrow. A harsh laugh came behind her.
"Don't try anything. Do not look back. Walk where I tell you to."
"I will do no such thing," Adariel turned around, gathering her courage to her. She could be shot on the spot. She had to assume that they were ruthless. "I refuse to be treated like a prisoner in my own domain. YOU should be the one bowing to MY will. Be warned that Eltheran will hear of this."
"Oh, he will," the dark-haired elf laughed again. "You will see him when he pushes you down the stairs into his dungeon." The elf drew his bow even tighter, and poked her again sharply in her back.
"You should be ashamed, if not disgraced, to treat your kindred like this," Adariel said in annoyance as she was forced to walk in hurried steps through the trees. The dark-haired elf advanced with his arrow pointed at her back. If Adariel walked too slowly, the arrow point would pierce her and she would be lost.
"I might have cared once," the elf said, his tone changing to regret. "But I have seen too much. I feel the change coming in me and I must join or suffer the torture of his calling. I was once called Eleduil, but now I am a wraith. I am in between."
"In between?" Adariel sensed weakness. "In between what?"
"In between the Change." Eleduil said, but his voice grew harsh and scratchy. "Move on! Do not bother me with your cunning tongue."
They hurried on until Adariel fancied the day faded into night. Certainly, there was a great darkness about. She was looking upward for the moon when she realized that it was still day. She was in the shadow of a great fortress, dug deep into the ground. There were no trees. There were no Elderlings. There was only a tall black wall that cast a shadow on the ground, and an iron gate forged of bent armor.
"Is this Morladris?" asked Adariel.
"You claim to be princess, yet you do not know your own land. You are a liar, and Eltheran will see that." Eleduil said, arrow tip jabbing into her flesh so it bled. Adariel had slowed down. "Faster, Prisoner! Make haste to meet your doom!" he laughed. Adariel picked up her feet.
The bent black gates were opened not by elves, but by Orcs standing guard there. Adariel's eyes widened. So Orcs were working with the elves? Never in her life had she felt so nauseated. The rotting stench came from within the helmets, and she could feel the hatred strike at her through the visors.
She spat at them, but was struck hard in the back of the head by one. Hard enough to hurt her, but not so hard as to give her the relief of falling unconscious.
The earthen stairway led downwards. Adariel's heart quivered as she saw her fellow elves dressed in black tunics or black gowns darting here and there, some talking seriously with Orcs and pointing to pieces of armor or weaponry in a critical manner. Others labored along with the rest.
It was the laboring elves that caught her eye, and her gaze held the sight of them. They had blank, glazed over eyes and several scars that had not been treated. There was a resolute determination in their manner that had been beaten down to dejected silence and acceptance of their fate.
But worse were their physical attributes. There were not Elves any longer, but creatures somewhere between Elves and Orcs. Their skin had turned pale gray and their backs were bent and stooped from work. Their hands were now thin and gnarled and their hair was drifting to the ground in clumps.
Now she knew what Eleduil meant by change.
Her gaze snapped away from the horror and bitter tears leaked out of her eyes. This was what she had seen in the Mirror. She would have driven her people to a fate so unimaginable yet so real that it hurt her to even think about it. She recognized it all now. The dark iron twined walls of earth, the color of the black ashen floors that were shod with clay.
This was the place she had seen herself, eyes blazing an unearthly white, torturing Elves into the Change. Adariel felt a dread like she had never experienced before. Not even at the entrance of Moria. It was the dread that fear brought. And she was afraid…of herself.
They had come upon the biggest building in Morladris, as it was now called, and the doors were thrown open by an Elf and an Orc. The exterior was made fully out of iron, which clanged when a spark from a nearby forger hit it. The doors were decorated with glittering night-gems that twined upward to read:
The interior was bare. There were archways that led left and right, but straight from the entrance was a large metal door with the same markings as the exterior one. It was guarded by an Orc and an Elf, both carrying swords. Both were dressed in black with a red eye marked on their breast.
They glared at her and then at Eleduil before allowing the doors to be flung open. Adariel found herself roughly pushed inside. The blackness that engulfed Adariel started her, and it took a while for her eyes to adjust to the room. It was bare, with only a glowing banner of the One Eye staring at her from the rooftop. At the front of the room was two one throne and beside it was a smaller, although extensively carved chair.
The body on the throne stirred, but it was the haggard one on the chair that spoke.
"Who is the Prisoner and what business do you have to bring it before the King?" it hissed with hatred dripping like honey from its strangely accented tongue.
"She claims to be the Princess," Eleduil laughed uneasily. It was met with silence. Eleduil stopped laughing immediately and Adariel looked at him from the corner of her eye. He looked frightened.
"Bring her forward," the voice from the throne commanded. Adariel didn't recognize the tone of voice. It was harsher and almost cracked with power, or madness. It was more likely madness.
The shove caught her by surprise and she took a couple of steps forward after the initial force had faded. She now stood before the throne and the chair.
"Kneel, filth!" hissed the voice from the chair.
"No!" Adariel said clearly. She could not be submissive in these halls; she never had been as the Princess.
"No?" The voice was outraged. "You shall be made to bow."
Adariel squinted but could only make out the haggard outline of the shape in the chair, but there was a giveaway stench. It was an Orc. Even as Eleduil came forth with two other Elves that had heard the order, she felt outrage winding upward through her windpipe. Adariel felt the hands pressuring her spine and the sharp sword tip at the back of her knees.
She struggled, thrashing aimlessly, but the sword tip was cutting the backs of her knees and she felt it was coming dangerously close to her vein. She collapsed suddenly, bringing the three Elves down with her. They clattered on the polished metal floor.
Adariel immediately stood back up again. "Curses be rained on your kind forever, Orc."
"Kill her!" the Orc screamed. He was cut off as a flash of silver severed his head. It rolled onto the floor at Adariel's feet. There was an expression of surprise on it, and spittle mingled with blood on the floor. Its eyes were a sickening yellowish color and had red lines streaked all across its eyeballs. Its teeth were yellow, rotting and its tongue was covered with a layer of green. Adariel kicked it away and looked up at the figure on the throne sheathing his sword.
"They are rather stupid," Eltheran explained without bothering to wipe the dark blood off his blade before he slid it back in its scabbard. "He's the fourth one to meet his fate here, yet still more are willing to take his place."
Adariel said nothing, just stared at Eltheran in grim silence as he stood abruptly and descended toward her. He stopped directly in front of her and cupped a hand around her face. Adariel flinched.
"Just like how I remembered you…" Eltheran muttered absently. Adariel almost let out a sigh of relief. She had been afraid that Eltheran might have been so far corrupted that he might not have recognized her. "…but different somehow," Eltheran finished.
Adariel tensed slightly with Eltheran's hand still cupped around her cheek. There was a silence.
"But that is something we will discuss later," Eltheran said, his eyes narrowing slightly at the almost relieved look that Adariel sported. "You must get changed and tell me all about your adventures at the feast in your honor tonight." To Eleduil, he said, "You are now a Worker for your disgraceful misconduct of the Princess. Go before I throw you in a dungeon."
Eleduil looked horrified as he backed out of the room.
"Wait!" Adariel said hastily. "He amuses me, Father. Let him be my servant."
"Very well, Adariel," Eltheran said without pausing to consider, as if Eleduil were just some tool that was easily dismissed of. He motioned for Eleduil to leave and the look that Eleduil gave Adariel as he backed hastily out of the room was one of hatred and bewilderment.
"Anything that pleases you to have is yours," Eltheran said, gesturing her to walk with him.
"Thank you, Father. It's good to be home," Adariel said 'home' trying to sound convincing. She hoped Eltheran hadn't noticed the slight note of apprehension in her voice as he led her out of the throne room and also out of the metal building.
The smell of blood and sweat hit Adariel like a wave and she shook her head to clear it. "You'll get used to it," Eltheran explained happily. "There has been so much that has happened since you were kidnapped."
"Kidnapped?" said Adariel sharply. "Did you not get my note?"
"Oh, of course. The servants searched everywhere for a sign. But of course it was a note that the kidnappers made you write. They were trying to take you away from me. Besides, you would never leave here voluntarily. Lakewood was great, and now, as Morladris, it is perfect," Eltheran said, menace stripping his voice raw.
'They' must mean the people from Rivendell! Adariel felt her surprise turn into anger. So he had kept the visits secret and hoarded her like a trophy? And how dare he say she would never have left voluntarily. Adariel felt a slight dent in her pride. She struggled to maintain her mask of unconcerned interest and listened to Eltheran continue. He had somehow forgotten that she was walking right beside him.
"You were mine, right from the start. I saw you in your cradle of rowan wood under the willow tree. I knew you did not belong. A gift from the Valar, if you will. I took you from that cursed cradle of rowan and took you as my own. They did not understand. They wanted you for themselves."
Adariel nodded slowly, afraid that if she spoke he would recollect himself and stop talking.
"And your name was so perfect. Fate had made them name you Adariel…Father's daughter. You were meant to be my likeness, you know."
"Yet I was not yours," Adariel said quietly.
"That matters not," Eltheran said. "What matters is that you were *fated* to be mine."
Adariel drew in a breath as big as she dared. The smell of blood was unbearable. 'Eltheran is insane,' Adariel thought to herself as she surveyed her surroundings grimly. Eltheran walked tall through the hammering around the clumps of dirt and mud. Adariel could see the remnants of roots in the soil. They were literally in a wide valley-like ditch.
"I kept your old room, you know," Eltheran said to Adariel. "I had it shifted down near my quarters down here in Morladris. Everything is exactly the same, but I daresay you will want to make some adjustments. Your adventure would have changed you, I am sure."
"More than you will ever know," Adariel answered cryptically.
"Yes, yes," Eltheran answered impatiently, sweeping his hands across the view. "For all our change, we have kept the lake. I knew you loved the lake so I had them leave it untouched. You must come for a walk with me and tell me your tale. How did you escape from your kidnappers? Where did you learn? What news from travelers?"
"Must I, Father? I am weary from the road."
"Humor me, then," Eltheran answered. He led Adariel to a small tunnel opening that seemed to spiral upwards. There were lit torches on the inside of the tunnel and Adariel could feel a slight breeze from the other end. They were heading up.
When they emerged from the tunnel, Adariel found herself coming out of an opening in the large hill by the lake. She had always loved the lake because there were many trees there. And she had loved watching the moonlight on the water and the leaves float and disturb the glossy shine at night.
Eltheran was right. It remained unchanged. Even the trees had not been disturbed, although a tense anger radiated from them. The lake was still calm and the grass was still green, although it had taken up a slightly yellowish tinge. Adariel imagined it would be from the poisons that had seeped into the ground below.
Eltheran leaned on a tree and the tree groaned loudly and angrily. Adariel chose to stand where she was. They were out of view and the only way to the lake was through the tunnel. Adariel knew that there would be guards now at the tunnel opening underneath. She had seen the signal that Eltheran had given them as he walked past.
Now, she stood contemplating. There was no possible escape and she was unarmed if anything happened. Suddenly, she was feeling very vulnerable.
"Well," Eltheran exclaimed, overlooking her silence. "Tell me all that you have seen!"
"But Father, of course you have some tales of your own!" Adariel said quickly to fill in the time she needed to come up with a convincing story to replace the truth.
"Ah, yes," Eltheran said. Adariel was disgusted to hear his voice had a speck of pride in it. "Of course you understand that when you left, we were all in an uproar."
His eyes twinkled for a moment. There was a pause as he cleared his throat and continued, "You were always like that, causing some kind of chaos wherever you went. But a maid found your note and I read it. The kidnappers were smart, getting you to use your own hand to write it. But I knew that you were my daughter, and you could outwit them. I did not send you help, but instead concentrated on your homecoming."
"I see," Adariel said coldly. "So I was unarmed and untrained in combat and you did not think I would have been in any danger."
She was extremely surprised when she heard Eltheran laugh. "Adariel!" he cried. "So innocent in the ways of the world. How I wish I could keep you like this forever! But alas, you will change when you take over my crown. You will taste power and adore it. But for your rather naïve statement I answer: I knew you were practicing the bow in your room. Do you not think I count the weapons at the end of each day?"
"Oh," was all Adariel could answer.
Eltheran laughed again. "Do not be ashamed for your ways and lay the blame instead on me. I was so eager to shield you from the harshness of the world. It would seem that I was a little too indulgent in my ways."
Adariel's anger flared up again. "Then I certainly will blame everything on you, Father," She snapped.
"Then I take your blame whole heartedly, and thank you," Eltheran said. "But to continue with my tale that you have been so eager to hear of. Yes, I planned to make Lakewood great for you. We were weak, and we needed to be strong. Several weeks after you left a messenger from far Lorien came to me asking me to the Golden Wood. Of course I refused."
"But why?" Adariel asked, frowning a little. Things were starting to make sense now, but not entirely. There were some things that did not fit into place.
"Why, you ask me?" Eltheran said with amusement tingling in his voice. "You are too young to understand, and until you come one day into the shadows of the trees of Lorien I will keep this secret to myself."
Adariel ached to say that she had infact been to Lorien herself, but stopped short. She remembered the words of fair Galadriel of the Light and her cryptic message about the darkness in Lakewood (now Morladris) and she said nothing and filed the conversation away into her mind for further examination.
"How came the Orcs to our city?" Adariel asked.
"Such a simple question, Adariel. I would have thought you shrewd enough to answer it yourself."
"Humor me with the truth. I'd rather that than anything in the world," Adariel said pensively. Eltheran appeared not to notice the double meaning in her sentence.
"Your wish," Eltheran said, "is granted. We found an Orc in our territory but I ordered it captured and brought to me. It told me of many things, Adariel. Of the might of our lord Sauron of the One Eye and the Great Army. We cannot defend against Isengard much longer. We are but a small population too close to the lands of Men. What could I do? I knew that you would be coming back soon and I did not wish you captured."
"So you joined the forces of Sauron?"
"What else could I have done? You must understand that there is no Good or Evil. There is only power. And power is all that matters. If I had not, then you would be in the hands of that foul Saruman now."
"I understand everything," Adariel said slowly. "But must you have burnt all the trees?"
Eltheran's eyes became glazed. Adariel had seen the look before on some of the other elves and she took a step back. It frightened her, that look. She knew by some instinct what would happen next. Eltheran's voice went flat. "The trees must be burnt. They hinder the process of the rise to power,"
"Surely you don't mean that?" Adariel gasped. She had suspected that the Elves burnt the trees by force, but now it seemed that they did it freely. She suddenly saw images of charred wood and blackened leaves in a heap and a great fire spreading, and she drew deep breaths to calm herself.
"I do," came the reply in the same tone of voice. Then Eltheran changed as if he had just woken from a long daydream. "But you must tell me of yourself now. It has been a while and we must get back for the feast soon."
There was an expectant silence. "I was taken," Adariel said dramatically, "by Elves from Rivendell after they'd lured me out of Lakewood."
"I knew it!" Eltheran roared, "I knew it was so. Rivendell, Imladris, you say?"
"Yes, but I managed to slip away. And I ended up utterly lost on my way. I headed south and wandered for a few days before I found myself in Rohan in the company of many horsemen. They did not know me and captured me, but again I managed to slip away before I came to the edge of the Fangorn."
Adariel hoped that Eltheran would not notice how vague the description was but she knew it would be a false hope. Eltheran was extremely cunning in his own way and she did not doubt he would pick up the difference. And he did.
"You do not speak in detail," Eltheran said, studying her. "Could it be that you do not remember? Or mayhap the memories are too sharp to describe? Or you are hiding something from me?"
"I think," Adariel announced, opening her mouth in a graceful yawning gesture and pronouncing her words with unconscious clarity, "that I am just tired from my wary days of wandering."
"So you are, Daughter, so you are," Eltheran said, but then drifted into silent musing. Adariel's eyes widened slightly with panic.
"We should go back now, for the night is cold and the wind is icy on the eve of my return," she said carefully, trying to sound indifferent to his mood. The King looked up with a sly, catlike stare that faded into a warm smile.
"Oh, how ignorant of me. Please accept my apology as you had left me on my own for quite some time and I had but forgotten how to treat company," he shook his head and held out his hand, which Adariel took slowly. "Let us go back, for I had almost forgotten the preparations for the feast to be held to-night!"
Down the smooth, winding tunnel they stepped with footsteps light and thoughts heavy. Past the lines of working Elves and Orcs and half-Elves and half-Orcs they trod with Adariel looking at the murky ground at her feet and Eltheran's head up, surveying the workers. Once in a while he would find something that displeased him and would spring forth with Adariel's hand still grasped in his and command the guards to take some people away.
The earth had become stained brown and rusty with specks of black forming a slight dust over the top. The elves left faint footsteps while the Orcs left heavy dents in the soft ash. The heat from the melding nearby was bringing out a slight flush in Adariel's cheeks and the stench of the Orcs was making her nauseous.
They parted outside the doors of the great iron cast hall with its wide doors clanging slightly in the heat and its inhabitants standing to attention just outside the gate. Eltheran gave a fluid sweep of his hand and a maid scurried hurriedly to Adariel's side.
"Take Adariel to be robed in her room. 'tis the door that has been barred until now, and I would wish it of you to fling open the doors and allow some light into the room," he murmured to the maid. She danced a little on her bare feet on the heated ground that was tinged a rusty blood red and bent her head low to Adariel.
Adariel thought she looked familiar, but couldn't place her. There was a gentle shove at her back and she found the King bowing his head politely and saying, "I will meet you at the Hall in one fourths turn of an hour and you shall sit merrily by my side."
Adariel only nodded before following the maid inside the dark receiving chamber of the great iron building. Her last glimpse of Eltheran was his retreating back as he strode swiftly down to the Orc forces gathered in a corner. They were armed and some sat on dark horses that pranced in distemper.
The iron doors clanged shut. Eltheran had not looked back.
Gimli thought that everybody was especially gloomy that night as they trod heavily on the blackened leaves in the forest of the Fangorn. The trees bent down towards them with their dangerous looking twines reached out for their necks. Gimli rubbed his collar nervously.
There was no song in the branches and sunlight reflected vainly off the slight dusting of ash. All day they had walked upon heavy feet, well, maybe everybody except Gimli. There was no remorse in his heart, although he did not deny that he had an uneasy feeling about the robed stranger they had met the night before.
Under his breath, Gimli muttered dark words to himself. The only one within hearing distance was the Elf, and Gimli thought that he looked unusually brooding in the speckled shadows of the leaves. Boromir's face expressed nothing but sober indifference and Aragorn had shed none of the worried lines on his face. Gimli shook his head and gripped his ax with more vigor.
The leaves crunched under his boots and he tried to think of the fair lady of Lorien, and of her hair and her wise eyes shining in the glinting golden mist. Not a thing was more precious to his people than gold and jewels and Lorien had more than he ever wanted or needed. But it was not the glittering studs that caught Gimli son of Gloin's eye but the fair lady who stood smiling surrounded by it all.
A slight heaviness eased off Gimli's face and he felt himself brightening, even in the dreary light and the choking air.
Boromir looked down at the dwarf and then back to the back of Aragorn's head. He thought it so ironic that he, Boromir the proud, had given in to temptation first and almost eagerly. Such was the extent of his pride. Now his heart had been stripped of it and he felt sympathy replace it.
Boromir had never really been brought up on sympathy.
Now, as he followed Gimli with his footsteps grinding down on the dark soot, Boromir felt a wave of slight sympathy toward them all. How hard the journey must be for them, with their feet never having touched the first steps to the Land of the Dead.
He never felt tired now, and the road had seemed to him like nothing compared to the one step that his foot had set itself upon on the path to the Dead. The forest held nothing against him, and nor did the shadows the trees cast. It would have seemed sinister to him once, but now he felt nothing but indifference toward the images leaping up endlessly before his eyes.
"Mortals upon mortal roads weary quickly and mortals on immortal ones even more so," he muttered to himself under his breath.
Nobody heard him except the Elf, but Boromir didn't really think that Legolas was listening. There was a difference between hearing and listening. Casting his eyes toward the forest bed, Boromir picked his way carefully across the uneven ground. Some places the layer of leaves was thicker and deeper than others. In front of him, he could sense the rhythm in the others' steps change every so often when there was a rough patch.
Boromir noted that Legolas who had seemed unaffected by the changes in the forest floor in Lorien was stumbling every so often like his mortal companions. He suppressed an exasperated sigh and thought about Adariel. 'Alas, poor Legolas,' Boromir thought to himself. 'Though I know not what madness the power of love drives into Elves, I have seen it in the faces of Men, and…maybe even in the eyes of Dwarves.'
Boromir glanced at Gimli's face again with a reluctant amused glint in his usually dull eyes.
The four travelers followed the light trail of the Hobbits. It would disappear every now and then and fade into the crackled dry drift of leaves at their feet but they followed near the trail of the bank of the Entwash. The mood was different from that of when they set across the green plains. It was more sober, and slightly heavier in way of spirit.
They came after a while to the steep end of Treebeard's Hill and looked up at the rock wall and its rough steps that lead up to a high shelf. It was gray and far away from the dark source of the ashes scattered previously along the ground. It was gray with no sign of the black specks on its surface. Gleams of sun were striking the clouds that scurried across the sky. Suddenly, the forest looked lighter and less foreboding.
"Oh!" said Legolas. "I feel my breath short and I should like to taste a freer air for a while. The forest holds no laughter and song, but perhaps the view from the hill shall ease my troubles if only for but a while."
It was the longest sentence he had remarked that day. The companions climbed up the rough hill with Aragorn last, looking for marks on the steps and ledges.
They did not notice the softest of rustles in the thickening trees behind them.
The shelf faced southward and eastward but the southward view was closed and narrow. Aragorn was bent low toward the ground and his eyes searched the undisturbed ground. The dust had resettled itself in swirling circlets after the dry wind had shifted.
Legolas was caught up in his own thoughts of far away places and people that perhaps were not so distant. How long ago had he admitted to himself that he had loved the haughty creature that had journeyed demurely for most of their way? A year or a week ago…yet it seemed longer.
Although Adariel rarely displayed any emotion in the gray-blue windows of her eyes, he could not stop himself from gazing into them when she was preoccupied. Which, he noted, was often when they had entered Rohan. Whither was she now? Trapped in a cage wrought of orcish iron with sweet red blood drifting down her pale cheeks?
Legolas drew a deep breath and told looked about himself with deliberate slowness in an effort to calm his thoughts. Aragorn was still bent low to the ground, checking here and there for signs of the Hobbits. Boromir was looking with amusement at Gimli, whose eyes had glazed over with a liquid sheen and whose lips were muttering softly underneath his beard.
Legolas could guess who Gimli was thinking about. He had never seen one being, let alone a dwarf, admire one thing some much. Not that Galadriel was not admirable. Celeborn loved her dearly, the proud lady she had been and the wise one she was now. He shook his head so his hair shifted slightly. Gimli was doomed to admiration from a distance, and how Legolas pitied him!
But then again, Legolas admitted to himself, Gimli's situation seemed impossibly like his own.
The eerie silence continued with Aragorn's soft footsteps disturbing the unshattered calm. But there was a change in the air, and where the mood had been restful, it was suddenly tense. Legolas could feel it in the trees, a confused mixture of anger and relief.
He stood up and drew out his bow. The sudden movement brought Gimli to his feet and he gripped his ax with vigor. Boromir unsheathed his sword and Aragorn straightened and swiftly snatched an arrow out of his quiver. Nothing moved, then a flash caught their eyes.
The flash of color that did not belong in the dark forest with the evergreen leaves now dried and soiled. It was a flash of white. It moved suddenly from view, then back again and stood quite still.
At that very moment, there was a whoosh from the surrounding treetops that sounded more like the groan of forced labor. The sharpness of gray, flashing points aimed themselves down at the four. Soft thumps jerked the leaves out of place as soft feet landed on the forest floors behind them.
They all looked up in different directions and saw that they were surrounded by Elves clad in dark clothing. One stepped forward on a dappled gray horse that pranced haughtily before them.
"Well, well…what gift does the forest give up today?" said the one on the horse, sinister amusement glittering in his eyes. They narrowed, as he made a swift motion with his arm, "Take them back with us. This is a gift for the Princess."
There was nothing they could do: the elves were too well armed. Rough rope tightened around their wrists as they were bound and stripped of their weapons. Legolas turned his head back to the suspicious white figure behind him, and saw that it had gone.
The blindfold came over his eyes, and all was dark. Dark as the blackest of nights, as surely this one was.
1.1 End of Chapter 13
Reviews please! NO FLAMES but constructive criticism is very welcome! –Spirit Star
Author's Note: Adariel really does me Father's daughter/maiden/fill your own word for female
Morladris is a mixture of Mor (darkness) and imlad (valley)
For the person that asked, I have a sindarin dictionary on my computer and for the other person that asked, yes, I have been to China; I was born there!
Phew, finally back on a computer that I saved work on! Geez, you should see my inbox! Over 100 messages and heaps of junkmail not included. If you sent me a message, please don't be too offended if I don't reply immediately.
Pllleeeeaaaase forgive me for not updating for such a LONG time…:'(
I'm going to sleep now so goodnight…it's about 10 o'clock and my teachers are going to KILL me. I've been such a ditz today coz I went to sleep at around midnight yesterday. You should have seen me at school. Don't go there, PLEASE. It was the time Ross and Rachel got married accidentally in Vegas.
P.S. No, I did NOT actually get married…I'm not that out of it yet.
P.P.S. I'm going on camp tomorrow and you know how camps are when the Physical Education Department runs them. The torture! The torture!