Author's Note: Okay folks...here it is, the final chapter of this story! I hope you enjoyed readingit as much as I enjoyed writing it. grins> Happy New Year to all!
LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....LOTR....
The waxing moon climbed higher in the sky, nearing its peak. Elrond finished his tale and suddenly remembered the maps and recipe for the serum that he had taken from Kyno's notes. At Thranduil's request, he took the documents from the top drawer of Legolas' night table, where he had placed them for safe keeping. Now the king and the prince looked at them in interest and once or twice Legolas swore in Elvish under his breath.
"These maps will come in quite useful. I dearly wish I had had them earlier. Though no elf has yet fallen to the evil in our current hunt, I am afraid that a great many strong warriors have been badly wounded in battle. With these maps we could, perhaps, have averted some of the ambushes that succeeded in taking us off guard. Yet these maps still bring us hope, if the information is still current. Perhaps the restoration of Greenwood the Great is not as far off as I had imagined," Legolas said, never taking his eyes off of the inked parchment.
"What ever became of the spiders?" Thranduil asked.
"They remain locked in their cells as I found them," replied Elrond. "I left them alive when I found them, for I was unsure if I would need to extract venom from them if my quest to find the antidote was to be in vain. And then, it is not my place to see the creatures dead. You and Legolas have been the ones wronged, and so you should be the ones to expel this evil from your home."
Thranduil nodded his head. "Very well. As soon as Legolas is well, he and I shall deal with the spiders."
"You only say that because I am a better shot with the bow than you," Legolas sniffed teasingly, however true his words were.
"Let us be thankful for that," Glorfindel said, for he knew the elven king well. "Had he possessed as great a marksmanship as you, you would not be alive now. That arrow would never have missed its mark."
"Let us be thankful indeed!" said Gimli, the closeness of the arrow to his best friend's heart suddenly coming back into his mind.
Thranduil looked down, for the same thought had passed through his mind as well.
Now the spider venom serum was studied and burned in the hearth along with all of Kyno's books and notes tracking the many years spent in pursuit of perfection of his poison. These Elrond and Glorfindel had brought into the prince's room, where the two had spent their time reading them and ensuring that no helpful and good discoveries had been transcribed. There had been none, only vented frustrations and evil information, and so the books were burnt without a thought.
"Still, I wonder how Kyno came to hold spiders so long within the palace walls unnoticed," Thranduil mused aloud.
"I think I may know," Legolas said, watching as a deep red book was fed into the fire. "That prison was not one of the ones that we used to imprison the dwarves in before the Battle of Five Armies. I do not rightly remember what the reasoning behind that was now. Tauron and Nimras would have been the only guards down there in any case, for that is the smallest prison that we have, and they were both part of the plan. Did Kyno ever bring in spiders to the palace for any reason?"
"No," said the king. "But I do now remember this. Kyno did once ask for permission and an escort to hunt down spider lairs. That was many years ago. You were quite young then. He had wanted to study the spiders in the woods and perhaps kill some with the intent of collecting venom to improve the antidotes that we had then, which were only successful in saving the afflicted about half the time. If Kyno did nothing else good in his life, he did right by the antidotes. Since his breakthroughs and new formulas, it is very rare to lose a bitten elf now."
"You are sure that he did not bring back live specimens?" asked Legolas.
"Yes, I am sure. I saw him arrive back. He had no live spiders."
"Eggs then," said Aragorn, seeing where Legolas' thought was turning. "It is possible that he could have found a nest, maybe killing the adult spiders, and taken the eggs back with him."
"It is possible," said Thranduil slowly as the realization came to him. "It is very possible, for I did not check his belongings, as I had never had the need to."
"Well, it matters not any longer," said Legolas as he stifled a yawn. Though he seemed in all outward appearances to have recovered from his wounds, their effects still lingered. His energy since awakening had been spent.
"Indeed. There is nothing now that can be done about the past," said Elrond as he threw the last of Kyno's books upon the fire. "Now we should all rest, Legolas most of all. You need to regain your strength," he said, looking kindly upon the wounded prince.
Legolas nodded, though admitting his weakness was ever a sore blow to his pride.
"I shall," was all that he said.
Once Legolas had awoken from his troubled sleep, the prince quickly regained his strength. Within a week's time, he was nearly healed, though his chest wound and leg wound still bothered him, having not yet healed completely. Still, Elrond felt confident enough to permit Legolas leave to wander about the palace as well as relax in the outdoors sunlight. He could not yet muster the strength to climb into the trees however, and that was a fact that Legolas was loathe to accept. But his friends still remained in the kingdom, now his father's honored guests, as did Elrond and Glorfindel. Celeborn and Galadriel had as of yet not come.
For his friends, Legolas was quite glad, for in them he found the companionship and comfort that he needed during his healing. Gimli it was, perhaps, that had been of the most importance, for after several days confined to his bed, Legolas had become slightly depressed. He missed the sun and the wind, and he had really missed speaking with the trees. But the dwarf had come to the rescue, verbally sparring with his friend and keeping his mind off of the things that the elf missed.
The spiders had been shot down at the hands of Legolas and Thranduil as soon as the prince had been able to stand and draw his bow, and the bodies had been burnt together in a clearing just outside of the kingdom gates. Already the bodies of Tauron, Nimras, Kyno, and Celebloki had been committed to the hungry flames of funeral pyres. That had occurred before the prince had even awoken. What Thranduil had told the elders about all that had occurred, Legolas did not ask, nor did his father offer to say.
Now Mirkwood slipped back into a quiet state of peace as things back to return to normal. It was true that many of the kingdom's warriors were out in the woods still striving against the evil, and Legolas often thought of them, yearning to rejoin them. It was not that he could not wait to leave the palace; in fact, it was quite the opposite, as Legolas found it hard to leave each time. But the thought of any evil still remaining in his woods, and therefore posing a threat to his people, smote his heart and boiled his blood. True peace could only exist once the goblins and spiders were vanquished.
The End