Author's Note: An update after two months absence – what an amazing feat … My various bits and pieces have suffered slightly from a move from one computer to another. That's my excuse; I'm so original.
This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but it is the end of the introduction chapters, and the beginning of the actual story. There will be elaboration on the ending in the beginning of the next chapter when I can really get the wheels turning. Have been suffering a full creativity block lately, therefore imagination is a little lethargic and reluctant on the uptake. But thank you for the support that has been shown this far; it's much appreciated.
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The Enigmatic TimekeeperChapter 3: The Immortal Binding
Rating: PG-13
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Man and Elf, Dwarf, Halfing and Otherworlder, beast and bough and being, it binds us all. It encircles us, makes us as one for it is a force that cannot be fathomed: deeper than the blackest abyss of the Sundering Seas, greater than the vastness of all Heaven, more steadfast and enduring than the very bones of the earth.
But they delved too deep and too greedily, consumed by their passion for knowledge, a quest for the immortal all-knowing and everlasting glory. They did not see, they did not hear, they did not know. They pushed forwards, heedless and blind, and did not see their intrusion into something older, wiser, and more devastating than any of them could understand. It stirred after long ages spent in slumber; with a kindling of bloodlust it rose and came after them. One saw, and one heard and one knew. And he cried to the others, 'Ware!' Only one other hearkened to him, and he woke and knew, warning and pleading with those who remained unaware. But they did not hear the wakened, for the need was still strong within them and demanded satiation. The two fled and were forgotten in their flight, and thus were saved from the roused Guardian and its burning hunger.
So it was that their ignorant companions found they sought a false hope, and they were cornered, and one by one devoured. And the Guardian returned to its sleep, and the gate remained closed until the one whose destiny lay within it returned to the way into the Between, born an Otherworlder and the precipitator of the great creation, and set to rights the ill that the folly of the seekers had brought about through secret arts. And so came into being the Timekeepers, but terrible devastation and unrest brought about the fall of the first, and the untimely abdication of the second.
And the one who is third, remains unknown and will remain in anonymity until the day foretold comes to pass and that which is evil and wrong may be at last thrown down, and kept away from all that is good and righteous.
'Who was the mentioned "one"?' he asked, poring over the heavy tome with interest. 'Does anyone know who the third is?'
'He has long since passed. And no-one that I know of.'
He glanced across at the older man, wondering at the tacit response. His elder delighted in deluging his students and acolytes with his wealth of knowledge, this sudden inclination to repression denoted ill. Setting the elaborate quill to rest in the inkwell, he rose and went to join his tutor by the open window. The light breeze billowed the sable curtains into rippling folds that draped across youth and elder as they gazed upon the tiers of the lower Circles below, and the people who bustled to and fro at their mundane daily tasks. Work on the fortifications across the Pelannor continued; he beheld the king's new distrust of the world beyond the walls. He did not understand the motives behind such prudery, feeling entrapped in this enclosed place of stone and mortar. A reason why reading was a favourite pastime of his.
'The days grow weary,' the older man sighed, wisps of greying hair curling upon his high brow. 'The wind sings a fell song these cold nights. I do not think the omens presented are auspicious. And apparently neither does Elessar with this renewed passion for mortar and stonework.'
'Oh, come now. You do not believe in omens, do you?'
His tutor turned heavy eyes to him; he was taken aback by the resignation that peered from the depths of the elder's mind. 'I did not, but with this sudden profusion of what the lore masters have written as signs I think I have no choice but to be wary,' he answered quietly. 'Eldarion, my prince, you are yet young and unlearned; you have yet to grow and open yourself to manhood. Even as a man, you will find there are many puzzles to solve and things to learn. I want to be sure that you have armed yourself with all knowledge that you need and that I can give.'
'Why so grave?' said Eldarion softly. He disliked this fey mood, and yet he could not deny those words.
'I have prepared myself for the battle. I must now ensure that you too are ready to face the challenges that lie ahead when they confront you. Your brow will one day bear the weight of the crown of the House of Telcontar. You must be able to bear that burden in wisdom, and honour, and chivalry, in heart and spirit through given word and vow pledged.'
'I will, old father,' the prince replied gently. The wind combed chill fingers through his unruly dark locks, but he relished it not as he would have had he been spared this realisation. And yet to what end were they all walking, they who did not see, who did not hear, who did not know? To be devoured or succoured? The day suddenly seemed less fair, the sun less benevolent, and the standard of Minas Tirith embroidered on his surcoat seemed a hopeless claim to a superficial title that would never withstand the trials ahead. The hand of the king grasped the hilt of his sword alone, and his son foundered blindly in a suffocating darkness as the world seemed to come undone at the very seams. It seemed a foolish thing to hope again for union...
It binds us all, makes us one ... one heart, one mind, one soul -- but a body hopelessly divided. Are the carrion birds descending for the feast or are we not beyond healing yet? Oh, father -- the world will heed not walls, why build and give them the satisfaction of watching them fall?
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An older and wiser man reflected upon the words of the tome. All the world was lain before his feet, and he frowned upon it. Elessar despised this time of anticipation and what it reduced him to: this uncertain, cowering shell of a man with a title and a crown upon his brow and a standard at his back -- so sparse a protection and so weak a claim.
Word had been flying like fire through dry bracken of late, and the talk unsettled him. Memories he had buried many years ago were resurrected and walked the pathways of his mind, attacking when he least expected it, shadowing his every thought. The embattled king of Gondor found his hands full beyond capability. Every day they cried for bloodshed and for vengeance. Every night they whimpered for a saviour and a champion. Every hour they rattled at him, but he would not offer false hope. So one by one they forgot their loyalty and turned their backs upon him. His great work of peace and productivity crumbled into anarchy and obsolescence.
It struck him to a point where Elessar feared he would yield to madness. He clutched the balustrade and hung his head, hiding from the dissolution, longing to shirk the yoke of a monarch and be free from these trials that were ever upon his doorstep.
It had been so long and they had not returned. A missive had been dispatched to the city from the Grey Havens, but when it arrived he had noticed with a cold thrill that the wax seal had already been broken. Someone other than him had been privy to the knowledge divulged therein. Who else knew? Who else understood?
Come home soon, my friend; the times grow dire and I fear I am falling, he pleaded to the bleeding sky of evening. Please, come home soon.
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The clement weather had had a sudden change of heart on the other side of the Between. Where the sun had shone benevolent and the sky had been a clear azure upon his leaving, there were sombre clouds that drizzled a misting veil of rain through the acrid smokes and fumes of the Otherworlder city to greet him, as he stepped out of the dank darkness of the obsolescent trade establishment. 'A fine day indeed,' he muttered in reproof at the bleak mood of the afternoon, tugging his collar high around his neck and resting his hands in his pockets as fine beads of moisture gathered on the black wool of his long coat.
Water gurgled in the choked gutter, streaked with the hazy murk of oil. He had little love for the machinations of these Men, this outland race who prided themselves on the complexity of their designs and forgot the base pleasure of simplistic living. The earth was poisoned with foul toxins, the sigh of the breeze through diseased foliage was tortured, laden with the filth said designs had afflicted upon the air he breathed. But then, what could there be but deterioration and death and desolation, in a world that they had written was a creation begotten by the darkness that had haunted the mind of the greatest enemy? This, the sacrilege of the birth-song and Illuvatar's pure visioning. It grew worse yet; the Decaying had been set in motion, as had the commencement of the Sundering. A beginning of the end.
Legolas' brow creased in a frown as his mind lured him towards dismal thoughts. The end ... He pushed them away, they would lend him no help. Allowing himself to sink into despair would be a severe regression they could not afford, not if he was to be a Changer. Best for him to not to focus on any sole thought, he decided. Somewhere in the distance a pneumatic jackhammer drummed a shrill tattoo in concurrence with the urgent cry of a siren; talk was a sluggish murmur that lapped against his hearing, the air was thick and heavy, but through it salvation beckoned. He had but to fall through and let everything go -- he had no place here ... not his problem ... not his burden...
Like a drowning man broken from a euphoric warmth wrought by the presence of death, Legolas pushed forcefully against the treachery and broke the surface, and breathed the free air, drawing it into all pathways of himself as the poisons drained away. Something hissed and slithered away into the nothingness he had permeated without intention. A thrill of terror raced through him. Forgetting himself, he recklessly pushed his way to the edge of the waiting crowd and ran across the street, the urgency of his errand doubled. A car came to a screeching halt beside him as a fist pounded the horn and the driver leaned from the window and cursed at him in fury. But the elf paid little heed in his hurry, offering the irate man a blank glance in dull acknowledgement but halting not.
It was awake, and it was hunting.
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The Master was displeased. And when the Master was displeased so too was his insidious thrall. Snake-Charmer cast a pallid gaze upon the city from the heights, a brisk wind whipping lank strands of dark hair from the sallow, gaunt features. He cast about for a moment, but the walls were strong and yielded not to even his battering. He ventured to expend a little more force, and was rewarded with attention. Whoever it was that he had found regarded him spitefully, and cocooned his mind with a fortified barricade before Snake-Charmer had the chance to slip past his defenses. With a rough shove, the seeker was cast aside and found, to his frustration, that he had lost the tenuous thread of contact. They eluded him, and it angered the Master.
Find it! Find the woman!
I am trying! Snake-Charmer cried in anguish as the fiery ember of the Master's ire stirred to blazing life, and he writhed pathetically in the boundless ferocity, feeling he burned. With an agonizing slowness the pain was alleviated; he lay upon his side, the trickle of blood warm on his cold face. He struggled to his feet, thoroughly chastened for his incompetence. He was weak, unworthy. The disembodied whisper encouraged his disgust in himself, a steady influx of venom. And suddenly everything drew itself into alignment. He had a task. He must fulfill it.
Find it, the Master prompted him again. You have the means but time runs thin as does my patience and faith in you. Find it. Now.
The wretch steadied himself. He studied the planes of the mortal world, and transcended beneath it. Something stirred there, in the Under, a mote of some insignificant matter drifting in the Void, through the Between. It knew him, started in horror as he fixed his attention upon it. It tried to flee him but he latched upon it and forced it to comply with his will.
You! His victim sputtered incredulously, quailing. Snake-Charmer smiled at the hapless one. Yes, he affirmed softly. It is I. And you, friend, will tell me what you know. Or I kill them all. Understand, my lord?
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Enveloped in numbness and warm lethargy she dreamt. Her mind told her so, but still her consciousness remained drowned in sleep, unable to be roused. The hand was cold and horribly lax within hers as she fondled it, willing life to wander in the pathways of a body gone still and quiet. She clambered upon the bed and stretched herself beside him, resting her head against a breast that had ceased to rise with breath, and nestled herself within arms that could never embrace her again. Her heart was shattered and her face was wet with tears. She ventured to touch his pale brow, to gently tuck a stray strand of pale gold behind an ear, to remember how lines of laughter had warmed his eyes when he had been merry, how fair his face had been when he smiled, how his brow had furrowed when he had been displeased, how his lips had pressed lovingly upon her forehead or rested upon her hair when he had cradled her in his lap. She did not understand the injustice. Her father was hers, how could he be so suddenly snatched from her?
The grief-stricken child rested his small head upon his father's chest and wept.
And in the wake of his pain a new scene wrapped itself around her.
Her sable mount shifted restlessly beneath her as she shielded her eyes with a long hand and gazed to the horizon. The roseate glow that heralded the sun's ascension stained the edges of the pallid sky. A torn banner resided in her left hand; the polished hilt of a long sword, keen edge gleaming with the pale fire of the rising day, rested in her right. Bathed in the scarlet dawn, she looked blearily to the scene lain before her eyes. Emptiness burgeoned within her; she had not the heart to care anymore, not to weep, not to lament, not to hate or be angry or be hurt. Once, she recalled, she had known inner pain. She had known sorrow and grief. But no longer.
She coaxed her distressed horse forward, riding through a labyrinth of friends and foes greeted by the still, cold hand of death. How could she feel nothing? Coldness welled up within her. It seemed an evil thing that she should be so obdurate, so unfeeling when she yet lived in the midst of this devastation. She gazed down upon the still, colourless face of a young man, his hair caressed from his bloody brow by a cool breeze, one hand still held to the wound that had felled him. Did he have a wife who wept numberless tears in her sorrow as she lay upon the bed, her head resting where once his head would have the better to breathe in the scent of him, to be close to whatever she might salvage him? A mother who clutched memories of his childhood to her as she wailed her depthless grief, a father who stood in silent indifference before a fading hearth, as he awaited with dread the heavy blow of his loss to find his heart? Had he children, who could not understand that Papa would not be coming home to them that night, or ever again -- little ones who stood by the door with the faithful hope of the young, watching for him, waiting to be caught up in his embrace and assured that he had not left them?
And she looked down into his vacant gaze, and could feel nothing. The banner fell from her hand as she dismounted her equine, the reins trailed from her limp fingers as she wandered through the grim scene, her boots treading grass adulterated with blood spilt by the blind hatred that had kindled this savagery. Once she had known pain.
But not anymore.
And she fell to her knees and screamed her frustration and anguish to the bloody vault of the heavens.
Jenny could not withdraw from him; his agony caught her up and held her trapped. Searing pain exploded in her skull; her limbs trembled as though with an ague but she could do nothing.
NEVER BREAK NEVER FAIL NEVER FALL NEVER BREAK NEVER FAIL NEVER FALL NEVER BREAK ... The feverish chant shrieked incessantly in his mind as he screamed for everything that was lost to him -- the relief of tears, the gentle healing of pain, the ability to love and know love, the capacity to trust again.
'Stop it! STOP IT!' she cried.
STOP IT!
» Who are you, changer? Where are you? «
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A hand was unceremoniously clapped over her mouth as Jenny was shaken to terrified wakefulness. The excruciating ache that played hammer and tongs in her head cast a distracting haze of shimmering colour over her blurred vision. She panicked beneath the assailant she could perceive only as a shadow against deep grey, and thrust her hand towards the bedside cabinet, desperate for something, anything, preferably sharp and with the ability to cause severe pain.
Hush. Quiet now. Trust.
The gentle murmur rendered her suddenly lax; the hand closed over her lips slackened its grip. Renewed fear dashed away that sparse reassurance. 'Sean!' she choked, and then screamed in panic. 'SEAN!' She tried to throw herself away from her attacker but her legs refused to bear her and betrayed her, buckling as she made an effort to run for the door.
He will not hurt you. Trust him. He will not hurt you. You know me Jenny. You know us. Quiet now.
Dry sobs erupted in her chest and stole her breath away, leaving her gasping helplessly. 'Make it stop!' she heard herself beg as she wept. 'Make it go away! I can't take it anymore, just make it go away!' She closed her eyes to still the tumbling of the world.
'Shh, Jenny. I will not hurt you,' the gentle cadence of a male voice soothed her.
Trust him.
Doubt succumbed to the subtle tendrils of influence that bade her be still. Jenny stared up into the darkness, feeling a heady rush as though she was falling into it. But it did not matter. Gentle hands grasped her, succoured her from the blackness. The moonlight that knifed through the curtains made clear a sliver of the face beneath the deep hood; eyes discordantly coloured -- one a warm hazel, its counterpart a serene blue -- glimmered in the cold white glow.
You are safe. Trust us. Go with him now.
'Who are you? Where are you taking me?' she managed to whisper as she stared, transfixed on the stranger's as yet unclear features.
'My name is not important, but I am come to take you home,' he answered softly.
I am the Timekeeper, Jenny. Come home. They are waiting for you.
Another appeared silhouetted in the door. Jenny glanced at him, feeling unpleasantly light-headed. Somewhere within her a woman shouted that something was terribly wrong, demanded to know what was happening, screamed at her to run, run to her brother, run to sanctuary and hide. The voiceless whisper strangled that woman and silenced her shrieking. And with her departure nothing mattered any more.
'We must go. It cannot hold for much longer,' the man in the doorway urged, and the one who held the unconscious young woman nodded.
'You administered the draught?' Lea queried as Haldir awaited him in the narrow hall.
'I did,' Haldir murmured. 'He sleeps deeply, but not so deep that he will not wake soon.'
'Then let us away.'
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