Synopsis:
In the time before the War of the Ring,
a loved one was lost. Now, in the peace that follows, Valraen, the King's
own cousin has been found. But her past is covered in darkness and
Valraen has no memory of herself or the Elf she loved. As the forces of
darkness that separated them gather once more, can Legolas bridge the distance
between them and reclaim the one he lost?
Hi All! Here is Chapter 13. I most profusely apologise for the very big delay in this chapter. My life has suddenly taken off as I'm in the middle of a move interstate to start a new job, so you can imagine how hard it has been to find time to write. In addition, I've been working on another short story for an assignment and, well, there you have it. As I am going to be even busier over the next month, I thought I should get chapter 13 up now to tide you guys over until the next chapter. It may take a while but I will finish this story – I promise! :) (Ryonwen, this chapter is for you since it was your message that convinced me to put it up now).
Legal Stuff – All characters (except Valraen/ Arienel; The Master and Fidelian) belong to Tokien The Great. None to me (mores the pity). I am but a trespasser on his glory.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Chapter 13: The first task
Legolas forced himself to keep moving as he felt the darkness close behind him. His breath came out in short bursts as he moved away from the entrance through which he had come. Behind him, the gaping hole dissolved and closed. Removing an arrow slowly out of his pack Legolas strung his bow and focused his Elvish senses onto his surroundings.
He seemed to be in a narrow tunnel. The rocky ceiling hung low, forcing the Elf to stoop his head slightly as he searched the way ahead with piercing eyes. A dim blue light shimmered in the distance and danced on the edges of the walls.
Legolas moved forward with cat-like grace until he came to the end of the tunnel. From close up, the light resembled a bright fire, it's enormous blue flames shooting up from the ground to lick the ceiling. A ghostly music seemed to rise from the fiery chasm it created and echo around him, reverberating hollowly through the tunnel.
Legolas felt the hair on his neck rise as a strange feeling stirred in his gut. The song was Elvish. 'It cannot be,' Legolas whispered to himself. It's impossible. I have not heard that song in a two thousand years. Not since…
Moving forward tentatively, Legolas placed his hand into the fire. It did not burn.
Impossible. Locking his jaw resolutely, he tightened his bow and aimed it in front of him. 'Hold on, Valraen,' he whispered urgently, 'I am coming.' And with that, Legolas leapt through the light.
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Arwen shook her head sharply, trying to wake herself up. Two weeks. It had been two long, heartbreaking weeks since she had performed the ritual that had sent Legolas and Valraen to an unknown fate.
She ran a hand over her tired eyes and sank back into her chair. She had spent every day since that moment wondering whether she had perhaps failed to perform the ritual properly and doomed her friends to an early death. Neither had moved. Apart from the occasional whimpering sounds Valraen made, neither had shown any signs of life. Legolas had not moved at all. He was a still as a dead man. Arwen wiped away the tear that ran down her cheek and tried to ignore the pain of the lonely silence.
Gimli, unable to stand the strain, had long since abandoned his bedside vigil and buried himself in the work around the palace. Unable to sleep, and unwilling to leave Minis Tirith, he laboured from dusk until dawn, stopping only once a day to place his gnarled hand on his friend's brow and check that Legolas still lived.
Arwen was sure the shadows that had begun to form under his eyes were mirrored on her own face. Her evenings were punctuated by restless sleep, filled with ugly searching dreams. That she slept at all was due only to Aragorn who insisted on keeping watch alone during the night.
Her husband had not stopped. Between days spent running the affairs of his kingdom and nights spent watching over his friend and cousin, Aragorn had not rested in days. If Legolas and Valraen did not wake soon, she feared he would surely collapse, and she with him.
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Legolas landed softly on the forest floor at the other side. The music, so haunting in the tunnel, was louder here. Legolas paled as the tune crashed against his mind. He let his bow drop to his side and stared in disbelief around him.
Greenwood, he was in the Greenwood. How can this be?
Legolas moved forward in shock, staring at the tall, familiar trees surrounding him. Small fairy lights danced in their leaves where the Mirkwood Elves made their homes. Bright, incandescent eyes reflected strangely from their depths, leaving Legolas with a strong feeling of being watched.
But something was wrong. This wasn't right. The sounds were disjointed. No birds could be heard.
The music grew stronger as Legolas walked deeper into the woods. He recognised the song now. Although it had been almost two thousand years, he would never forget.
His mother's death song. The lament sung at his mother's funeral. The poignant sound had brought tears to his eyes then, as it did now. And if this was his mother's song, then somewhere up ahead would be his mother's funeral pyre.
The moment he thought this, a clearing dissolved from behind the trees.
The pyre rose before him in an ugly inferno, as Elves slithered out from behind the trunks of the trees and gathered around him. A woman, wreathed completely in black, lay on a plank balanced high on a mountain of wood. The fire flicked the edges of her covered face.
Legolas raised his bow once more and swung it tensely around at the ghastly images of the Elves around him. Each of them brought to mind those he had loved. One misshapen and deformed Elf resembled his own father, Thranduil. In others Legolas could have sworn he saw his brothers, scarred and orc-like. There was even one that looked like a very young Arwen, her chocolate hair matted in snake-like threads and her blue eyes dead and empty. Their black clothes hung like rags around their thin bodies. They grimaced at him as they surrounded him, their white faces and black lips like the apparitions of unearthly demons.
Legolas stood, horrified, as they began to dance, the lament growing into a cacophony that soon resembled a wailing screech. His bow was still trained on the Elves whirling past him, but he had not the heart to let loose an arrow.
The screeching became a woman's scream. Legolas turned sharply towards the pyre and almost gagged.
The woman on the pyre was alive, her short black hair wreathed in flames. She was sitting upright now and screaming, her violet eyes staring at Legolas in terrified accusation as the skin around them peeled and burned.
'NO!' Legolas cried out, as he sprang forwards. 'VALRAEN!'
But the Elves around him smothered his progress, their scaly hands clawing at his face and clothes as they pulled ever nearer. A talon-like nail caught Legolas under the eye, leaving a long red welt across his cheek.
'Legolas,' they whispered hoarsely. 'Don't you love us anymore.' The one resembling Arwen began to giggle, her black lips contorting monstrously.
'Get out of my way!' Legolas screamed, as he let an arrow go. It hit the Arwen Elf squarely in the face and she fell heavily to the ground, still laughing.
Legolas flung aside his bow and leapt onto the pile of wood. He tried to claw his way desperately to the top but a gnarled hand grasped hold of his ankle. Kicking down with all his might, Legolas felt his foot connect with a jaw with a might crack. Looking back, he saw his father's image fall away from the pyre with a manic hiss.
But the flames had begun to crawl down around Legolas' hands and he fell, with a painful cry, onto the ground below. He shut his eyes against the pain as his hands blistered and reddened. The Elves were dancing ever harder now around his fallen form, their screeching and laughing driving painfully into Legolas' brain. The Elf that looked like his eldest brother leaned over him menacingly and, with an evil smile, pulled him up onto his feet by the neck.
'Don't you love me brother?' it said grinning as it lifted him high. 'Aren't you pleased to see me?'
Legolas struggled weakly as the hand around his throat tightened. He tried to prise open with his burnt fingers. What breath he could draw came in short, painful bursts.
'I asked you a question,' the hideous brother-Elf said again, it's face stretching even wider as it grinned. The mad laughter grew louder. Legolas closed his eyes once more. He could not bear to look the creature in the face. He tried in vain to weaken the hold but to no avail.
'I will always love you brother,' Legolas whispered finally and, with that, he brought his feet up hard against the Elf's chest and pushed with all his strength. The Elf-creature dropped him with a startled hiss and Legolas rolled backwards out of his reach and over his abandoned bow.
The arrow went straight through his brother's heart.
The screeching song died. The other Elvish creatures now faded backwards into the dense and dark woodland, disappearing as surely as if they had never been.
Forcing the image of his dying brother out of his head, Legolas stood painfully and moved towards the pyre. Withdrawing a long piece of wood, he swung with all his strength at the foundation. The pyre came apart at the base. Legolas sprung away from the tumbling wood and watched as the body of the woman rolled away from the burning plank.
'Valraen,' he whispered as he ran over and dropped to his knees beside her. 'Oh no.'
Her face was completely unrecognisable. The skin had been burnt almost entirely away and the hair had melted away from her scalp.
The impact of all that he had seen hit Legolas like an arrow and he started to weep, his tears raining over Valraen's wasted face. A black despair began to steal over him. He did not feel the forest floor shift until it was too late.
The image of Valraen in his arms faded and disappeared as the sand below him fell away.
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In the distance, the Master stood behind Valraen, her face held tightly between his thin hands.
'Do you see, my love?' he whispered into her ear as he forced her to watch the Elf disappear through the quicksand. 'Do you see how much he loves you?'
Valraen closed her eyes as the tears ran down her face. The chains around her hands twisted painfully. She did not know who the Elf was, but something in her had cried out for him as she watched him struggle to free the ghastly image of herself. She had felt sorrow through to her very soul when his hands had burned.
'He is coming for you,' the Master continued behind her. 'He does all this for you. Are you worth it Arienel? Murderer that you are, are you really worth it?'
Valraen held back the sob that threatened to break from her throat. 'Let him go,' she said to the tall, thin man behind her. 'You can do what you want with me, but let him go. He does not deserve this.'
The Master's derisive laugh rang harshly through Valraen's ears. 'Oh no, my dear,' he said. 'I think not.' His fingers tightened around her face. 'I want him to suffer. He deserves to suffer. Before we are done, you will watch him swim in blood.'