Okay, here's chapter 6. I got off my lazy butt and uploaded it. I have NO idea what went wrong with the first 4 chapters, they all were fine for weeks and now, suddenly, the paragraphing has disappeared. Oh yes. I do love this website. Grr. Anyway, hopefully that's fixed. Thanks muchly to the reviewer that pointed out the format raping. I really have no idea how that happened and it ticks me off since that's one of my biggest peeves in fics.
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Elrond Half-Elven rode determinately towards the great gates of Eryn
Lasgalen. The sun, where it was allowed to filter through the thick branches
overhead, glinted off the simple silver circlet he wore at his brow as a
symbol of his rank and off of the small studs of steel which dotted his
leather over-tunic. Beneath that he wore a simple shirt of burgundy caught
at the wrists and up his forearm by finely wrought bracers. His legs were
encased in fine breeches which while rich, were also serviceable, and
elegant leather boots dyed to match his shirt encased his calves. He had
discarded his robes of state for clothing more suitable for long traveling,
but he looked no less stately as he paused his horse in front of the giant
portals.
The guards looked coolly down at him, but made no sound, and before he could
properly think of a reply to their lack of challenge, the intricately carved
doors were swinging silently open on invisible hinges. Wordlessly, for it
seemed oddly wrong to break the eerie quiet of the place, Elrond dismounted
and sent his horse back into the woods. He would not need it within the
close confines of Mirkwood's palace, and he did not want the animal trapped
within if they had to make a quick escape. The horse was elven trained as
were all his family's horses and would come to a whistle from its owner even
if it did not find its way back to where Glorfindel was hiding.
The seemingly soulless eyes of the watch followed Imladris's lord into the
dark cavern, and then the gates swung slowly shut behind him. There would be
no going back now. He felt a tingle of enchantment touch him with the
closing of the doors that he assumed was whatever had taken over the rest of
the populace. Its feel was not unwholesome, but before he could puzzle out
the ramifications of that, he was met by the king himself and over twenty of
his guardsmen.
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Legolas, Elladan, and Elrohir were standing in various stages of tension as
they once again went over all the facts and tried to come up with a plan of
escape. Legolas stood a bit more peevishly than the twins as they made their
by now routine fuss over the still unhealed cut on his cheek and tried to
convince them that they should go over the library's older scrolls once more. Many of them they had discarded as unreadable during their last
search--Thranduil kept far worse care of his books than he did of his
gems--but the twins were not eager to wade through moldy illegible papers
again just yet. This conversation was proving just as fruitless as all the
previous ones as ten soldiers who appeared without warning to surround them
seemed to materialize out of the gloom of the chamber. None of the three
nobles sensed their arrival. Before any of them could make a move to defend
themselves the guards moved with speed unheard of, even for elves, and all
three of them found swords at their throats.
"Wha--?" Legolas began, but the point of the weapon was shoved up harder
against the vulnerable part of his jaw beneath his chin, and his head was
forced up lest the weapon draw blood. He found it impossible to speak from
such a position and when he managed to maneuver himself slightly to see what
was going on with his friends the involuntary gasp that left his lips caused
the blade to lightly pierce his flesh. The twins had been forced to the
floor with the mutual threat of each other's lives hanging over their heads
and there they were gagged and bound with all the skill of the woodland
elves' knots. It became obvious to the prince that the gags had been covered
with some direvitive of the stuff they used in the river to make people
sleep when the two began to go completely limp and ceased to struggle at all
and the distinctive pungent odor of it made him feel slightly woozy as well.
The soldiers who surrounded them wore the empty eyes of all of the populace
who had been somehow corrupted by Thranduil's madness. If anything, Legolas
would have said they looked worse. There was a frightening soullessness to
them and they no longer glowed at all in the darkness of the halls. He knew
it would be pointless to try to reason with them in that state, and he found
himself sighing in resignation and casting worried glances at his downed
friends.
The guards did not bind Legolas, and they said not a word to their prisoners
or each other as they efficiently picked up Elladan and Elrohir's unmoving
forms and prodded the heir to their kingdom forward at multiple sword points. He dared not try anything with the brothers so completely incapacitated and
at the soldier's mercy, and so the archer prince was forced to docilely go
along towards his father's throne room.
Elladan and Elrohir were dumped unceremoniously on one of the lower steps of
the dais as the King and a troop of guards entered the great hall. Legolas
felt despair and his sworn oath prick at his heart as he noticed Elrond
Half-Elven escorted as he, himself had been, in the midst of the large
company of his father's soldiers. He instinctually began to move forward
towards the obviously angry and worried lord but he was stopped by his
father and his barked "Don't move." and then a sense of extreme panic and
total paralysis tethered him to his spot as surely as any mithril chains
might have.
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Elrond felt the evil in the room grow exponentially as Tharanduil pointed at
Legolas and gave his simple demand. He knew the young elf could be no other
than the king's only son by the circlet of state he worn on his brow and the
caste of his features. He had his father's white gold hair which flowed down
his back in a long silken wave that glimmered even in this poor lighting and
the striking bone-structure that seemed to be the signature Oropher's line.
Combined with the stunning blue of his eyes that could only have come from
his mother's line and the odd nobility that shone in his bearing, it was
obvious that he could be no one else. Elrond also noted, with a spark of
hope, that the boy was not held in the same ruthless grip as the rest of his
people.
The lord of Imladris was brought up just short of the dais by his guards as
the king took the steps up to sit upon his throne. He'd been met at the
gates by the madman who had demanded he submit if he wished to see his sons.
With trepidation and hope that this could be worked out without harm to
anyone, he had reluctantly allowed himself to be led into the dark cavernous
room like a common prisoner. His willingness to comply abruptly dissolved
into instant battle fury as his eyes traveled down to the floor in front of
the giant carved chair that the mad king now occupied. His sons lay
unconscious and cruelly bound and though he could sense no great harm to
them, his parental link flared and he suddenly found himself twisting out of
the grip of his guard. A well practiced move disarmed the soldier and Elrond
thanked the Valar that he had not allowed his warrior's skills to wane in
the years since he had last seen battle.
Before he could further move to free his sons he found himself suddenly
completely incapable of motion, arrested by the same command that had been
directed at Legolas a few moments earlier.
"What have you done to my sons you self-righteous bastard!" the peredhel
impotently seethed as the soldier retook his weapon and three more wrestled
his suddenly heavy body to his knees and arranged him as they wanted him. He
distantly felt his hands being bound behind his back and he was even more
distantly aware of the ache where they had been none to gentle in getting
him to kneel on the hard stone floors. His knees would undoubtedly be
bruised, but he was hardly aware of that as he struggled desperately to do
something--anything besides calmly allow them to secure him at wrist and
ankle.
"They sleep only." Thranduil coldly replied to Elrond's query his face
showing no emtion at all.
"Why have you bound them and I thus? I demand that you allow my sons and I
to leave this instant. Undo whatever you have done to me!"
"No one who enters my gates may leave my realm again. They, and now you, are
mine. I can keep whatever is mine, however I like it."
"You have no right--!"
"They were warned the consequences of entering here and choose to disregard
it." The king's voice was empty.
Conversely, Elrond's speech was full of emotion and distantly he noted that
the lord of Mirkwood was as taken by this thing as his subjects. "You cannot
possess another elf nor keep anyone here without reason and against their
will! Besides, I was not so warned upon my arrival, yet you bind me before
you! I, another elf lord, who has been your ally and done nothing to warrant
such treatment! How do you justify your actions?"
Thranduil blinked a moment, then shrugged, "I can, and there is no one who
can stop me."
"Father! You cannot do this! To imprison Lord Elrond will bring the other
two kingdoms down upon our people, surely you cannot be that far gone into
madness--" Legolas interjected into the stunned silence brought about by his
father's simple, but true, statement."
"Silence, Legolas." The king cut him off before he could finish and the
prince found himself again struck mute. Panic nearly overwhelmed him. Not
again, he could not do this again...
"Whatever you wrote to me about has obviously taken control of you
Thranduil! Look what it has caused you to do to your own son!" Legolas's
distress was easy to see to everyone in the room as he tried to master the
dread and hysteria that wanted to rise up in him. He could not move, nor
speak and all he could think about was his father leaving him here, in the
room so full of creeping evil, a living statue, until he died of grief or
lack of nourishment. He knew his spirit was fragile from the long weeks
spent without sunlight or wind under the ponderous weight of this palace,
and he feared he was no longer nearly strong enough to deal with the
betrayal of the father he loved so much.
The pain in his son's eyes no longer had any effect on the king. He showed
not even the moment's hesitation he had displayed upon the twin's arrival.
That is none of your concern, Peredhel." He gracefully rose from his throne
and paced down the dais with the nearly boneless feline grace which was
another trademark of his line. Elrond was reminded of a golden mountain lion
on the prowl as he glided towards him in the torchlight. "You brought a
thing of great power into my woods, Peredhel. I sensed it clearly for a
moment, but now it had disappeared from me. I want it, and if you give it to
me, I might be persuaded to let your sons go."
Elrond's eyes widened and he once more tried to struggle against the
paralysis and bonds that held all but his face immobile. Thranduil had
sensed Vilya! He could not be allowed control of an elven ring, and in his
madness, he most assuredly could not be trusted to let Elladan and Elrohir
go! How had he sensed her in the first place? The son of Oropher definitely
should not have had that kind of perception! Only another wearer should have
been able to—
Suddenly Elrond knew exactly what had happened and what the king had found
and set upon his own people. He must have somehow gotten hold of one of the
dwarven rings! The darkness, the hording possessiveness of everything,
including his people, and lack of need for the touch of starlight and nature--everything now made sense. The fool had tried to harness a dwarven ring and
it had worked alright. The power had driven the darkness from the land and
replaced it with its own. Once the evil was gone, the covettess nature of
the ring would not allow Thranduil to take it off, and now it had control of
all the huge land of Mirkwood and all of her people. Now that he knew what
to look for, he could clearly see the dark stone set in purest mithril
sitting docilely upon the other's finger.
"You fool! You've found a Dwarven ring! How could you use something so
corrupted by Sauron's evil!"
For the first time since the audience had begun, Thranduil showed emotion,
Its MINE! You cannot have it! For centuries have held it safe, kept it close-- too scared to use its awesome power because of the cowardly words of you
and the rest of your arrogant council! I am not cowed any longer! You drove
me to use it! You and Lorien with whatever protects your realms that would
be peaceful anyway, and me with mine beset by evil from all sides! You don't
know what it's like to fear for your son's life on your own borders, nay,
within very sight of your castle! But I will never know that fear again. My
ring keeps him here. Keeps him safe! My ring protects him and everything
else that is mine! No one will ever take something of mine from me again...I
will rend and torment and keep in everlasting pain anyone who tries to take
what is mine...They will know suffering such as no other elf could divine,
my ring will help me....yes. We won't loose anything more of ours..."
Legolas's eyes were squeezed tightly shut at the sudden revelation of the
depths of his father's decent from the realm of sanity. There was clearly no
choice. If he were given the ability to move again, he would get Elrond and
his sons away from here and hope they could find help. He knew of no force
that could overcome one of the rings of power, save another ring, and he
knew not where any of the others were, or even if they still existed. He had
heard that the elven rings were uncorrupted yet, but who had them and why
would they help Mirkwood now? Despair threatened to send him back into the
state of panic he had managed to fight his way out of, but he resolutely
held it back. Maybe Mithrandir could help. The old wizard would surely not
leave his people in this state... Legolas knew he would probably not survive
the ring's wrath at loosing Elrond and whatever he had that it wanted, but
one life for many was hardly even a choice when that one life was his own.
Elrond's quiet and now quite emotionless voice rang into his thoughts and
made him open his eyes once more. For a moment he was startled by the
blankness of the other's face and feared he'd somehow fallen under the
dwarven ring's sway, but he noticed the odd tension and a flash of something
behind the lord's eyes which told him that it was a blankness of carefully
held control and an emotionlessness of one who knows one is dealing with
madness and so knows feelings will not aid him. "It has completely taken you." The words rang like the toll of a death bell in the practically empty
stone hall and seemed to hang themselves like a banner before Legolas's eyes
There was no emotion in the voice, and so there was no hope in the words.
Thranduil only shrugged. He seemed to have regained himself, or the ring had
regained him. Either way, he was back to the cold statuesque being who had
escorted Elrond into these halls. "Where is the thing of power you brought
with you?"
The kneeling peredhel said nothing. His lips as unmoving as the forced
paralysis of the rest of his body. He would not give up Vilya to this
monster in the elf lord's body. They would just have to endure until
Glorfindel could bring help.
Thranduil took the few remaining strides forward that brought him right up
to where Elrond knelt and he cruelly gripped his chin and forced his head up, "You will speak."
The prisoner now knew that if the king only knew what to ask, he could be
compelled to answer, but there was no power in the command and so he kept
his mouth shut. Speaking might inadvertently lend him clues or draw his
attention to the two helpless twins still laying insensible at the foot of
the throne.
"It is mine Elrond! It is in my woods! Give it to me!"
He remained as unmoving as ever.
An animalistic snarl issued from the king's throat. "Fine, I can tell you do
not have it with you now, but it is near. You will tell me where it is, and
until you do. You will suffer what I promised for anyone who would keep
something of mine from me." The cold proclamation sent a thrill of dread
through the half-elf's spine, but he had known great pain in his life. He
would hold out until Glorfindel arrived with help. He would have to.
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Elvish:
Peredhel -- Half-elf