Disclaimer: Only the same dudes are mine. Same warning about the "Elvish".

CHAPTER SEVEN

"How long?" Boromir whispered to Siriandil.

"Not long; listen." He tilted his head to one side, assuming an attentive pose then straightened and nodded.

As Boromir and I flattened ourselves on either side of the door, Siriandil casually strolled toward it. It opened at precisely that moment, and the wizard ran into a very flustered-looking Calmacil. The lieutenant was too bust trying to get around Siriandil that he didn't notice us until the doors had already closed very firmly.

Boromir took the hilt of his sword and swung it into Calmacil's face to drop him unconscious as I grabbed from the guard's hand a rolled, sealed paper. "From Nenlom," I announced, handing it to Boromir. While he opened it, I pressed my ear to the door to hear the four wizards' conversation. Our general plan was that once the wizards sent a message to their superiors (we had guessed it would be delivered by Calmacil, hwo was obviously working specifically for them), we would intercept it as proof of their activities for my father. In the meantime, Siriandil would keep them in the library until Boromir and I could return with my father and Mithrandir to confront them. Until then, it wouldn't even come to a fight, or so the plan went.

"Would you three assist me with something?" Siriandil was asking them. "There's some research I'm doing..."

"Actually we were just leaving."

"But, Dinanna, my friend, this is very important, and you have always helped me with things like this before. Why not now?" There was no response; at least none audible from my listening point. Siriandil changed his tone. "Dinanna, if you three do not help me, I will be forced to believe there is some deep, dark conspiracy going on here that you do not want me to know about.

He laughed lightly to show he was joking, but three people quickly responded "No!" so forcefully that I wanted to laugh. Siriandil had things well in hand, I decided. I abandoned my eavesdropping and followed Boromir down the hallway so we could talk. "He has things under control in the library," I reported.

Boromir nodded. "I tied and gagged Calmacil and put him in a closet, but he won't awaken any time soon, anyway." He smiled in self-satisfaction. "Now, you read this and we'll bring it to Father."

I took it and read the elvish letters. "It says 'Dagnir en taur'ohtarea'- translated 'Bane of Rangers'. Not exactly incriminating."

"And our plan was hinging on this not being coded." He sighed. "Now, I have to figure out how we are going to get out of this mess." I waited for my older brother to come up with an alternate plan, perfectly confident in his ability to think up something, but any logical thought turned out to be unnecessary, for we heard a fight breaking out in the library and Boromir naturally charged right in with me close behind.

Calmacil was there, having somehow escaped his makeshift prison. But surprisingly he was using his sword to fight Dinanna with Nenlom's assistance. That left Siriandil to face off with Tarfea. Deciding to sort everything out later, I joined Siriandil's fight, and Boromir helped out in the other.

Seeing that there were no staffs out, I was about to be relieved at the lack of magic being used in this wizards' duel. Then I heard a moan from Calmacil as the lieutenant dropped to the ground, shivering in a sudden cold sweat. I was slightly concerned, but even more so when Boromir joined him in the same condition.

Now infuriated, I decided to utilize the one advantage humans- or rangers at least- have over wizards: reflexes. I stopped my offensive slashes that I was directing against Tarfea, ducked his blade, and left him to Siriandil. I turned to face Dinanna who had at that moment stabbed Nenlom in the side and simultaneously raised his other hand in my direction to cast some evil spell at me. He did succeed in his goal, but I also succeeded n mine; I drew my dagger and with a flick of my wrist, I sent it flying towards him. It drove through and lodged in Dinanna's hand, and he clutched at it with a scream of pain while retreating to the back door.

To my satisfaction, as I was dropping to the ground from his spell, I saw him run into Mithrandir, who was at that moment walking in the door, trailed by Father, Anborn, Mablung, and Damrod- that latter having obviously been ditched by Siriandil. Then I found myself dropping into a haze, an unfamiliar one. I sensed heat all around me, like fire, and tendrils of the flame seemed to be eating away at my skin, until abruptly the heat was gone. The pain did not dissipate, though; rather, it worsened. It was a needle-like sting which shot through my limbs.

A strange sort of blending began to take place between .reality and the dream world that I continued to observe. In both of them, I was left in this pain, and Mithrandir was leaning over me with my father in the background. But I felt as though I was at the sme time in the palace library and the Silent Street- the ancient mausoleum of the kings and stewards of Gondor.

The pain was becoming unbearable. I called out, begging for help. "Mithrandir, Father!"

I had probably only said the first word for real, and dreamed saying the second, for my father did respond from the Silent Street, while he never would have for real. "Do not take my son from me!" he said. "He calls for me."

Mithrandir's deep voice was the next thing I hear. "He calls, but you can not come to him yet. For he must seek healing on the threshold of death, and maybe find it not."

He faded into the background, and Anborn's voice asked, "Mithrandir, will he recover?"

"I can not say. The spell Dinanna used against him was powerful..."

Heat. Fire. The stench of burning flesh and boiling blood. My eyes fluttered open then shut again. The Silent Street- my father and two of his servants consumed in a blaze of fire.

I slowly woke up. "I believe he will recuperate well," Siriandil said.

"If he doesn't, may I have his dagger?"

"Mablung," I murmured, "over my dead body."