-The LIGHT And The Darkness-

Chapter Four

Of Men And Madness

Part 1

With news that Arwen's return from a visit to the Shire (to Samwise, specifically) had been delayed to see to small matters of council, Aragorn had the huge bed all to himself, but he wasn't the least bit tired. Far from it.

Folding an arm under his head, he stared up at the ceiling and ran the plan over and over in his mind until he was sick of thinking about it and anxious to get on with it. But they had to wait. Word of what Gimli had told him had spread through the palace like wildfire, just like he knew it would, and now the guards were watching him like hawks - especially at night. They naturally figured that if he was going to try to leave, he'd use the advantage of darkness to cover his exit. Anyone else would. But Aragorn and Gimli weren't 'anyone else.' That's why they were going to go tomorrow in broad daylight.

The guards. It's not that he could be angry with them for keeping him under lock and key. He was, after all, their king, and each of them had sworn a solemn oath to protect him with their lives if necessary. Still, he couldn't sit idly by and wait when his skills could be put to use out there in the search. Besides, he and Gimli could cover far more ground and attract far less attention than a battalion of heavily armed guards would, and that's what he'd be forced to take with him if word got out that he was going.

Hawk in a gilded cage. Well not this time. This time it was personal. It was Legolas. And he was still a ranger. A little rusty perhaps, he admitted to himself with disdain, but still a ranger. It would all come back as soon as he got clear of here.

/Hopefully,/ his mind insisted on whispering.

No - not hopefully, he assured himself, definitely. After all, he'd been a ranger far longer than he'd been a king. Truth be told, because of the Dunadan blood in his veins he'd been a ranger longer than these guards have been alive. He'd been through the backwoods tracking everything from orcs to rabbits for so many years that he knew them like the back of his hand. And that was before these men's parents had taken their first wobbly steps.

He rolled over and reached a hand under the bed. His fingers brushed against the small kit he had stashed there. Grabbing it, he sat up and rooted through it; excitedly checking it's supplies like a small boy would check his most secret and prized possessions. All day long both Gimli and he had secreted this and that from under unsuspecting noses to restock it. Not even the herb-master's treasured vials had been safe from their light fingers. Now everything was ready, including this now fully-stocked kit, weapons, and his old clothes. Naturally, he had kept the clothes, even though on first arrival the laundress had attempted to pry them out of his fingers in order to burn them.

.

Burn them! He snorted with mirthless humour. It would be a frosty day in the void before he'd let anyone burn them! They were his only link to his past. And besides, other than his father's ring, Arwen's Evenstar Pendant, the great Sword-that-was-Broken - Anduril, the elven broach, his kit, and a few odd trinkets, the only things he owned when he had claimed the crown were the clothes on his back. He'd be damned if he let anyone take what little he had collected over the years and burn them like trash just because they thought they were inappropriate. Funny that no one thought them inappropriate for a ranger but suddenly thought them inappropriate for a king. Besides, whether ranger or king, he was still the same man, wasn't he? Why did the servants care that he kept old clothes? Or other mementos from his past?

But they had cared...and still did. And because of that, he had stashed them away in a heavy trunk in the corner of his room and locked it solid. There was only one key, and it had not been used since the trunk had been locked and stored away. The key was kept on a chain around his neck. Childish? Perhaps. But not to him. He saw nothing childish about holding onto the past. Most people keep something of their past. So what that he had kept everything? He hadn't had much to keep. And besides, as he saw it, it's his past and his business, not theirs.

/Burn them. The void will freeze over first,/ he thought now as he fingered the silver key. With smug satisfaction he dropped it back down his shirt and patted his chest.

He stuffed the kit back under the bed and settled again. He needed some rest. The next few - days? weeks? - were going to be hard going, what with trying to track Legolas and still keep two steps ahead of his own guards. He grinned ruefully. If it wasn't for why they were going, he'd love this challenge.

"It'll be a miracle if I get any sleep tonight," he mumbled. But not five minutes after saying that, Aragorn was sound asleep.

And he dreamed the dream again.

It was pretty much the same, right up until the very end. Legolas walked down the hallway making loud, echoing steps, entered and exited the left door then entered the right. Aragorn peeked in and saw himself and the elf teasing each other and laughing like they'd had in the old days. Then he entered the left door, took the torch from the standard, and was drawn to the door at the end of the long mine tunnel. As before, the boy was there briefly, then gone again. He had reiterated what he had said, and as Aragorn watched, the door opened again without the touch of his hand, and Legolas once again died in his arms decomposing in front of him. Everything the same...until he got to the part where the other Legolas spoke to him.

From over his shoulder, the other Legolas said coldly: "Two...and yet one. We're one and the same, he and I, yet we're nothing alike. Just two halves of a whole. Remember that, Ranger...or should I say - King?" His hand appeared over Aragorn's shoulder, pointed to the decaying form on the floor, and the voice whispered in his ear: "He's weak, but I'm not. He weakens while I grow stronger. Keep a watch for me, Ranger-King. I'll be coming for you soon."

Aragorn woke up with a start, sweating, shaking. The feeling was too much with him...as was the sound of the echoing footsteps. He lay in the dark, trembling and cold all over, thinking how much clearer the nightmare had been this time; how clearer and

(evil)

darker, as though, for what ever reason, something - some heavy force - had been added. Perhaps it had been there the first time, but didn't think so. He would have remembered that.

As he waited for the dream to release him, a slow shiver crawled up his spine again, and with it came the same persistent thought as before: /Someone is walking on his grave./ But this time a distant part of his mind insisted on adding: /And mine. Because that was no nightmare - that was definitely a premonition./

Part 2

The storm in Legolas' mind grew worse.

All night the blizzard inside of him raged, and the elf slept fitfully, when at all. He heard the phantom wind die in the middle of the next morning and the silence made the thought of having the delusion at all seem suddenly terrible and threatening once more. Then it gripped him again, and the illusion of the storm's snow flashed and sparkled in the sunshine of his minds-eye. Now and then, visions of huge gusts of wind would lift the dream surface around him and whirl the fantasy snow into the icy air.

He suddenly knew where his delusion had taken him, but wished he didn't: on the cliff of the high mountain pass of Caradhras - the same mountain pass where the fellowship had been unsuccessful in their bid to attempt to cross near the beginning of the quest. And as he had done then, he was again standing on the snow, not in it.

He narrowed his eyes and strained to search, when suddenly the land of Mirkwood lay glittering before him. He knew he shouldn't be able to see it from here and couldn't explain why he could see it, but that fact didn't seem to matter - he could see it as clear as day. Hills and valleys swathed in white floated below him like mighty clouds. He could see for leagues across the great expanse of blue sky, and what he saw stunned him. As he looked, he didn't see the mighty forest of his memory, but lifeless, twisted-treed ruins of hills rising and falling, and decimated fields cut by long-ago-dried streambeds. The forest was still, lifeless, and abandoned. His heart was as heavy and as cold as the apparition before him.

Great, heavy snow clouds suddenly billowed around him, swallowing him whole in a greying blindness as the illusion changed again and the silent darkness came...

/I'm dreaming, aren't I? I have to be. This can't be real./

/Can anyone hear me?/

/CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?/

/Please, somebody tell me this isn't real./

/I'M HERE! HELP ME! I CAN'T GET OUT! I CAN'T FIND A WAY OUT!/

/Aragorn, where are you?/

/Oh lords... I can't stop this. I don't know how./

Agree, the voice that was his and yet wasn't, urged in his mind...except the voice in his mind seemed deeper, older - almost the voice of a stranger.

/NO!/

Agree. You have your orders. You know what will happen if you don't follow his orders. Have you forgotten so soon? SEVEN LEVELS...

/No. No more. Please... /

Then agree.

/Please let me out of here./

/Please, somebody help me... /

/Help me... /

I will, when you agree to do what he tells you. Not before.

/NEVER!/

Legolas stood in soundless, pitch-black emptiness, wild panic skittering along his nerves, every muscle tensed. His eyes were wide, scanning for anything - ANYTHING - but he could not even see his hand.

/Where am I?/ he wondered. /What is this place?/

Then he had another thought: /Am I dead?/ The though didn't scare him. To be dead would actually be a relief. If he were dead...there would be no pain...and he would not be in a mine.

He raised his hands to his face but he couldn't see them. The darkness was total. Just to be on the safe side, his fingers brushed his eyes to check that he had them open.

"Legolas..."

He wheeled on his heels, reaching back on instinct for his knives. They weren't there. Then he remembered that he was alone in the dark - and why.

"Legolas," a soft, insistent voice whispered, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

/Ridley. He said his name was Ridley./

"I'm disappointed. You know what happens when I'm disappointed, don't you? You do remember?"

He remembered all too well. The horrific memory crashed around him like great chunks of stone. He froze. Face fell slack. Heart lurched painfully. He felt as though he'd been struck square in the chest by a cave troll's club.

After a moment a soft light shone down on him and only him, as though the moon's rays shone down from the only opening in a canopy of some great, unseen forest.

"Legolas, I'm very disappointed in you. I'm losing patience."

SEE WHAT YOU DID? his own voice, yet not his voice, screamed with a harshness that made him flinch. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!

He wheeled again but still could see nothing. His breath came in short, quick pants. He swallowed past the lump in his throat that was his rising terror, and took several deep breath to calm himself.

"I'm not going to!" Legolas called. He was relieved to find that he was getting at least some control back. He wanted to be angry because anger would stem the fear, but he could manage no better than to sound disorientated. "I can't do this! I won't!"

"No? Then how about for you own sake?"

Yes - how about for your sake...for our sake?

A light spilled across his shoulder, it's brightness growing until it was blinding. He turned his head slowly, slowly, and was astonished to see himself lying on a rock floor on his side, his knees draw up and his body curled into a tight fetal position. Tears were streaming down his agonized face. His long hair was spread around him, some hanging across his sweat-soaked forehead. Huge eyes lifted to his own. Mouth working, begging with silently pleas for

(death)

help and release. This was no mere vision; this had already happened.

/No - is happening,/ a small distant part of his mind corrected. /It is happening right now. This was what my body is doing without my consent./

He gasped hard. Recoiled from his own pitiful sight. Stepped back so quickly that he almost tripped over his own feet.

And these...

Translucent apparitions slowly walked by him, around him. Only a few at first - a half dozen or so at the most - then more...more...until finally they were so massed together that they seemed to walk right through each other. None looked toward him nor acknowledge him in any way, as though he was the spectre here and not of this world or theirs. Some faces he recognized. Some he didn't. Some...he couldn't.

Each of these once lived, his own voice was saying, the tone both powerful and terrible at the same time. You destroyed them all, didn't you?

"That was in the heat of battle. It wasn't my fault." Legolas intended to roar this, but even with his brain telling his lungs to turn the volume up to a full-blown-bellow, the best he could manage was a mild objection.

His own voice replied in a curiously gentle tone: Even so, they're just as dead, aren't they? Did you stop to mourn any of them?

"No. I told you it was in battle," he said. His voice was shaky and changed pitches like that of an adolescent. "Why would I mourn enemies?"

Enemies? They didn't even know you.

The visions and the voices changed...

He was standing in blackness again and heard only one voice this time - his own from the past - and as he heard the past, he not only remembered exactly where he had been during each of them, but what he was doing and how he'd felt as well.

"Why a cave?" his own voice groaned softly from the darkness. "Why not a nice field or forest? Why does it always have to be a cave?"

Legolas turned on his heels, searching the blackness for it's source. It had no source, though, he knew. It was from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, breaking over him like a great wave, then was gone.

After a moment, his voice came again, this time quieter. "Strider, you know I'm not afraid of much, really, but everyone has something that makes their skin crawl and wakes them out a deep sleep, drenched in sweat and reaching desperately for a candle. Mine comes in dreams about once a month. Caves, Strider. I am deathly afraid of...of being buried alive in rock or stone and never getting out. Lost. Suffocating. Alone. The smell of old, dark, heavy earth makes me sick. And it makes no difference to me whether it's large or small, it still feels like a tomb that blocks out the sun and stars. Lifeless, empty, dead, even when it's full. I hate caves. I really, really hate caves."

Legolas stood as if his feet had magically bolted themselves to the floor and simply refused to budge. The utter despair in that voice - in his voice - shook him; magically transporting him back to the very instant he had said it. He shivered. Swallowed. Fought to steady his ragged breath.

This time his thoughts rose out of the depths, loud and rising and so laced with utter terror that it stunned him.

/Trapped. Caves. I hate caves. I'm in a cave and I can't breathe! There's not enough air! There's not enough air in the whole world./

The memory of that moment flooded over him, piling the nightmare of terror he had felt then onto what he felt now. Too much. It was all too much! His heart slammed in his chest then began to beat double-time.

"SEVEN LEVELS, ELF! DON'T FORGET THAT!" Ridley's voice boomed.

The voice tore through his head with the brute-force of a axe-blow. He pressed his palms to his ears and cried out in a noiseless scream.

Silence. Then the man's voice said, "I have to decide now. Will it be punishment or reward?"

Legolas sank to his knees and wrapped his arms around himself. He wanted to speak, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

"I control you," the man's voice said mildly. "I control time. I control everything. Nothing is as it seems. Nothing is real - except me. Do you believe me?"

Tell him - yes. TELL HIM!

Yes - he wanted to cry out with all his heart, but the word remained as a lump in his throat. He nodded instead.

"Then stop fighting and do as your told."

He hung his head.

"Good boy. Very good. Now close your eyes and find your strength. You've made excellent progress today." The man's voice had a gentle lilt to it. "It's reward time, Legolas. I'm pleased...for a change."

Ripping pain burned through his shoulder. He welcomed it like an old, comforting friend. He wanted it. Needed it. Actually leaned into it. Tears of relief welled in his eyes then overflowed and poured down his cheeks.

A cool washcloth gently stroked his forehead. Ridley began to speak softly, smoothly. Legolas hated the sound of that voice but was helpless to counter the soothing effect of it.

"Relax," the man said. "Breathe in and out slowly. Listen to your heartbeat and float away."

He allowed himself a shadow of a smile, then spun into merciful oblivion.

Part 3

Ridley was supremely satisfied.

He'd read Legolas correctly. Now it was only a matter of time before he'd be ready.

He hummed softly as he secured the damp scrap of cloth tight to the semi-conscious elf's shoulder and then readjusted his shirt. Within moments the elf's eyes rolled back (/Well I'll be damned. Did he just smile, or am I seeing things?/ Ridley wondered) and his lids slid closed.

Ridley felt a small shudder beneath his knee and grinned to himself. Old Boomer Hollow was at it again. He knew the sound; knew this area like the back of his hand. He'd grown up in Ashern, not ten leagues away from this very spot. This hollow, though hollow wasn't quite the right word for it because it ran on for leagues, was so named because if the wind shifted just right, sometimes it carried the rumbling sound of old mines collapsing - what the old-timers call "Boomers" - all the way to Ashern. Dwarves looking for Mithril had all but ravaged this hollow, riddling it with hundreds upon hundreds of mines. But that was years ago before Ridley'd been born. Centuries, really, if one could believe the old tales. Now the Hollow is alive with re-growth and steadily healing itself; the old mines, long abandoned, were collapsing as if the land was cleansing itself. But there were still plenty of decent mines left, and they made perfect hiding spots and perfect places to keep things hidden. You just had to know where to look. And you had to know the area like the back of your hand. To one who didn't know, the danger of Old Boomer Hollow is in it's beauty. Many a man had walked into the hollow and had been so taken with its beauty that they failed to look carefully enough for it's ugliness. In so doing, they never came out. Because of collapses, overgrown sinkholes are quite common throughout the area. It seemed the hollow - having had enough of being violated - had grown teeth and would kill when least expected.

He watched the elf for awhile longer and then climbed to his feet, corked the small vial, and dropped it into his pocket. So easy. Too easy. The training wouldn't be necessary very much longer. The elf was well on his way. He had Legolas almost turned now and the other was cooperating nicely in finishing him.

He looked down at the elf and shook his head in wonder. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes he would never have believed it. No matter how many times he'd seen the elf's reaction, it never failed to amaze him. He'd heard tell of elves tortured for months on end refuse to give so much as their name. But between using Legolas' natural fear of mines and small doses of the liquid he was already advancing nicely in his training (well, truth be told - more like turning, not training), and it had only been four days.

Twill was the one who had first heard about the liquid, and it was he who had recommended it to Ridley.

/Twill, I'd kiss you right now...if I hadn't killed you, that is,/ Ridley thought with a smirk.

He picked up the pronged knife from the floor, opened his flask, and poured water over it to wash away the blood. He grinned as he worked, remembering how he'd had his doubts when Twill first told him about it.

"I'm serious," Ridley could remember Twill telling him excitedly. "All you need to do is open the shoulder deep enough to hit flowing blood, pour a few drops of the liquid onto a piece of cloth, secure it over the wound, and wait." That conversation had also taken place in the Boar's Tusk a few days after Twill had arrived back from working with some recluse herb-master / alchemist last year. "I'm serious. No mess, no fuss, no bother."

Skeptical, Ridley had said, "Yeah, right. Come on, Twill. No liquid can - "

"Shh," Twill had hushed him as he nervously glanced around the room. "Keep you voice down." His gaze cut back to Ridley, and for almost the first time since he had known him he fixed Ridley's grey eyes firmly with his brown ones. Then he'd leaned forward, elbows on the table, and spoke hushedly: "Ridley, I saw it work with my own two eyes. He showed me."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not," Twill had said. His face was pale and solemn...and then he'd grinned like a child bursting to tell a big secret. "See, the liquid makes their mind fracture. Then the two sides fight for dominance. If you train as you go along to gain control, what you end up with is an elf who doesn't care or fear anything, and who's literally willing to do anything you want - and I mean anything at all. They turn into cold-blooded killers who'll take any order you give them. Hell, they'd kill their own mothers if you told them to." Then Twill assured him that it worked every single time, but cautioned: "Of course, the liquid is too powerful for humans. It's instant death for us. But on elves? I don't know why, but for some reason it works like a charm.

"There's only one problem - after the liquid runs out, they die." He fidgeted uncomfortably. "And it's a long, slow, gruesome death too. Trust me. Complete madness." He grimaced as though at an ugly memory. "I'm not sure exactly how it works, or why, but it's like the liquid weakens the light side of the soul and strengthens the dark. But when the liquid is cut off, the light side dies...or quits, and then, well... the dark goes crazy. I know one thing though: it's not the drug or lack of it that kills elves, it's the lack of inner balance that does. One side can't exist without the other. It doesn't last forever, either. Given enough time, even with the liquid, it's sort of like the dark eventually kills off the light and then both die anyway. Too hard on the body and mind, I guess."

"So what you're saying is that either way..."

Twill nodded solemnly. "Once started, and I mean right from the first dose, an elf will eventually die from it. With the liquid, it'll take longer to die, that's all. Years, if your lucky. But when the liquid is cut off? Days. Stronger elves?" He shrugged. "They might last a week at the outside, but no longer than that."

"And the cure?"

Twill shook his head. "There isn't one."

Still skeptical, Ridley hadn't really believed it...until now.

"Simple," Ridley mused. "Perfect." And it was all a matter of punishment and reward. Once the elf was fully trained, and he was sure he could control Legolas from a distance, he would send him out with just enough liquid to complete his mission. Then...well...who cared after that? There would be no loose ends. The elf would die, the man would get what he wanted, and no one would be the wiser. It was so easy it was sickening. At this rate, it wouldn't be much longer until the Prince would be ready to carry out his plans.

Yes, he was very satisfied with how things were going. Now he had to check on only one more detail, and then...

Tbc...