In the next room, Aragorn heard the wizard's cries and he leapt up from his chair by the doorway.  Like a deer, he bounded into the next room, and the door shut behind him, leaving Arwen, Thranduil, and Gimli confused in his wake.  What had caused such urgency in Gandalf's cries?  Although no one spoke, each guessed within their own hearts what might have happened.  They made their way into the hallway, but the heavy, solid wood of the doors and walls prevented them from having even the slightest knowledge of what was happening in the next room.  After a few moments of this, each turned back and went back into the other room.

Not long passed before one of Arwen's attendants came to them from down the hallway, and Arwen ordered that food and drink should be brought for them all, including Aragorn and Gandalf, though she knew not how long the two would be with Legolas.  Thranduil sat in a corner, absent-mindedly staring out the window at the city.  It was buzzing with life; people went here and there about their business with no idea of what was going on inside the palace walls, and Thranduil almost envied them in a way.  They did not have the cares that he now bore, knowing that his son was poisoned and dying.

Time crawled by.  At last, Aragorn and Gandalf emerged from the next room, just as the attendant was coming in with the food Arwen had requested.  Both were looking slightly haggard and wide eyed, and they sat without saying a word.

It was Thranduil who broke the silence.  "What happened?"

"Your son has been poisoned with a little know and extremely dangerous poison," ventured Gandalf, choosing his words carefully so as not to alarm or upset the elven king more than necessary.  "I have only seen it once before and even then, it was not I who tended to the afflicted.  It is a living poison and it has taken hold of his body.  I could not forcibly remove it, so I have poisoned it instead.  It was risky from the start and the shock was a little too great a strain on Legolas' body."

"No," Thranduil whispered and shook his head, knowing what the wizard's next words would be. 

Legolas was dead.  His only son and family left in Middle Earth was dead.  Unbidden tears leapt unchecked into the elder elf's eyes and he put his head into his hands.

A comforting hand was placed on his shoulder, and when he looked up, he saw Gandalf with a pitied look.

"Thranduil, my old friend, you did not let me finish what I was going to say.  Now then, it was a great strain on his body, and his heart did stop beating, but with Aragorn's help we brought him back.  He is resting comfortably for the moment in the next room."

"He is alive?"

"Yes, although I will not lie to you.  The road that lies before him will be a tough one.  For his body still must fight the poison and rid itself of it.  I have done all I can.  All hope now lies with him and not with me."

Suddenly, an irrational fear seized the elf, and he looked accusingly at Gandalf.  "But yet you took it upon yourself to almost kill him!"

Gandalf's voice remained steady and unchanged.  "There was no other choice.  Something had to be done or he would have died for certain before the night fell.  Risky though my actions were, I think they were better than leaving Legolas for dead."

The fire died within the elf's eyes and he looked thoughtful and sad.  "I am sorry Mithrandir.  I do not know what came over me."

"It is quite alright.  You are emotionally drained.  I understand."

"Gandalf," began Gimli after a lull in the conversation fell, "you said you've seen this once before?"

The wizard nodded.  "It was before the One Ring had been found in the Shire.  I was in Isengard by chance, and Saruman was tending to Radagast the Brown, another of my order.  He had been tending to a woman afflicted by the poison, when he became surrounded by orcs that had recently come out of Mordor.  Sauron had been developing new weapons we surmised, and this poison had been one of them as far as we guessed.  Radagast was healed through withdrawal of the poison, but the woman Saruman could not save.  I was there, and the poison would not come forth.  We did not think of trying to kill it because we did not know that it was in itself a living entity."

"So you think Sauron was behind what happened to Legolas?  But I thought he was destroyed when the Ring was?" Gimli asked.

"That is true, but I think there is more to this than we yet know.  Certainly, this is a product of Mordor, but Sauron is not behind this."

"We shall find the answers to all the mysteries," Aragron spoke up, assuring them all.  "I will send messengers to bring Faramir and Boromir to the palace this afternoon, for Faramir deserves the answers as much as we do."