Everyone greeted Elladan merrily as they sat down to lunch. He had taken Katie's advice and changed into less travel-worn clothing.
"Has anything exciting happened while I've been away?" he asked as the meal was winding down. He obviously expected an answer in the negative and was surprised when Elrond said, "Yes."
"Oh? What?"
"We found a knife in Orain's grave," Erestor said grimly.
"What?"
"Yes. And then a note was discovered on the kitchen door a week later," Elrond added. "I will show it to you when we have finished eating."
When luncheon was over, Elladan, Erestor and Elrond closeted themselves in Elrond's study while Elladan examined the note. When they had exchanged opinions on it, Elladan sat back and regarded it thoughtfully.
"This is very strange," he said finally. "Could the writer have had some purpose in leaving part of it illegible?"
"If he did, we have no hint as to what that purpose was," Erestor answered, "nor to the identity of our culprit."
"It is a demand notice like those Dorlarth sent, but makes no demands: at least, none that we can make out. And that seems pointless in the extreme. I would guess that someone is simply trying to intimidate us, although for what purpose, I could not say."
"Well, they have failed, then: we are not intimidated," Elladan said firmly, placing the note back on his father's desk.
000
He and Erestor found Katie, Vivian, and Elrohir sitting on a balcony overlooking the valley. Trailing vines had wound themselves along the stonework, and they sat amidst a riot of blooms and greenery.
"The three of you would make a lovely painting," Elladan commented as he and Erestor joined them. "Erestor tells me you have been spending a good deal of time together lately."
Katie nodded. "We've been hanging out a lot," she agreed. The elves smiled at her use of language.
"I have a question for you, Erestor," Vivian asked. "Or rather, two questions."
Erestor waited expectantly.
"First: you said that only some Elves are reborn after entering Mandos. What happens to the rest? And secondly, what did you mean by Elves' fëar consuming their bodies?"
"The first is easy to answer," Erestor said. "They simply remain in Mandos. Those that did evil in life are sometimes kept there for a long time, or are not allowed to be reborn at all. Also, some Elves give up hope and willingly cause their fëar to leave their bodies, and many of these do not desire to return. They stay in the Halls of Waiting until such time as Arda perishes.
"The second is harder to answer. It is believed that when the time of the Elves on Middle-earth has passed, that many of those who remain will fade. Their bodies will become more of a memory than a physical thing, and then they will be fëar alone, existing on Middle-earth but unable to affect anything that happens here. They will, perhaps, be sensed directly by other fëar, but will no longer be visible to the eye.
"But it seems to me that these faded Elves will be much like houseless spirits, and may perhaps be feared as such." When Vivian and Katie did not seem to understand him, he explained. "The fëar of Elves are summoned to Mandos; they are not forced. Sometimes, an Elf's spirit may refuse the summons, and will wander houseless in the world, because it is unwilling to leave it but cannot inhabit. It may haunt trees or springs or hidden places that it once knew."
"Ohh," Katie said. "We call them 'ghosts'. But I've never head of faded Elves."
"Sure you have," Vivian said, leaning back comfortably. "You've heard of people who claim to have seen fairies, or communed with Elves. Iceland appears to be full of them."
"You mean—you think that the fairies and elves some people believe still exist are faded Elves that never left Middle-earth?" Vivian nodded. "Wow," Katie said, "I wonder what they think of the modern world? Imagine it: elves in Manhattan!"
Vivian grinned at the idea. "Some mediums in our time claim to communicate with elves," she told Erestor and the twins. "I think a good number of them are charlatans. But I'm not wild about mediums, anyway."
"Why not?" Elrohir asked.
"Because they claim to speak to ghosts as well," Vivian said, "and I think that's not a good thing to do."
"No, it is not," Erestor said emphatically. "The refusal of the summons to Mandos is a sign of the taint of the Shadow, and many houseless spirits are unkindly. It is not a wise thing to try to commune with them. In fact, the Valar forbid it. The most tainted among the Houseless are those that most desire to communicate with the living. They follow in the footsteps of Morgoth and attempt to lie and deceive. And some of the Houseless wish still to have effect on the living world. To do that, they need bodies. Only the Elves that go to Mandos and are corrected by him and then allowed to be reborn are allowed to inhabit bodies, but some of the Houseless try to take bodies unlawfully. So those that commune with them are not only in peril of being deluded by fantasies or lies, but the Houseless that they communicate with may forcibly try to eject the fëa from its body and take it over, or plead for shelter and then seek to enslave its host and use both his will and his body for its own purposes.
"So," he concluded, "if, in your own time, you ever think you may be communicating with a faded Elf, it would be best to first deduce whether it is a faded Elf or a houseless spirit you are speaking to."
"How can you do that?" Katie asked. "You said yourself they're a lot alike."
"That is simple," Elladan answered. "Any spirit that speaks against the Valar or even, if it dares, against Ilúvatar, is evil and should be shunned."
000
That evening, Elladan went with Vivian and Katie to the stables. As usual, Sadron greeted them, then went to fetch apples for them to feed to the horses. He came back with two.
"I am afraid this is all we have left," he said apologetically. "Our stores have gone down since you began to visit the stables."
Vivian laughed. "We do rather use up your apples, don't we? Sorry about that."
Sadron shook his head. "The horses are always very glad to see you coming," he answered with a small smile.
When they left the stable, Sadron went with them in order to fetch a new bag of apples from the kitchen. The kitchen door itself was the closest to the stables, so they all headed in that direction. When Katie spotted the door, she stopped in her tracks, almost causing her grandmother to run into her.
"We need to get you some brake lights for Christmas," Vivian said ruefully. "What's the matter?"
"Look at the door," Katie answered in a heavy voice.
They all looked. There was a small white note fluttering on it.
"Oh, not again," Vivian muttered.
Elrohir pulled the note off with an angry gesture. "It is indeed another one," he said, and pulled the door open with (Katie thought) and unnecessary amount of force.
They hurried to follow him through to the kitchen. Once there, he brandished the note. "Did anyone hear someone put this note on the door?" he asked to the kitchen workers at large.
Everyone began to murmur answers in the negative. Katie watched Lossefalme look up at the note, then glance at Sadron. He looked back at her warningly, and she seemed to go a little white, then turned away from him. Katie thought she looked almost frightened.
Vivian and Katie followed Elladan up to his father's study. Sadron simply collected the things he had come for and returned to the stables. Katie's mind buzzed with suspicion, but she forced it down until she had heard Elrond's reaction to the note.
"It seems much the same as the last," Elrond said when he had read the slip of paper his son had given him. "A few legible words, in what looks mostly to be Dorlarth's hand, interspersed with unreadable pen strokes in which Dorlarth's style is mixed with another. You… my revenge…" he read, "your sons… as I… rue… protect them. Incomprehensible," he summed up.
000
Katie had another sleepless evening. She was even more suspicious now. The male elven figure that she had seen disappear into the stable after speaking with Lossefalme that night must've been Sadron. Maybe Sadron had been one of Dorlarth's followers, but no one knew it. And maybe he was trying to intimidate Elrond and his family, or was plotting something against them. Perhaps Lossefalme had guessed it was him or caught him at it, and he was threatening her to keep her silence!
Katie shook herself. She had no reason to suspect Sadron, who had always been nothing but polite to her and her grandmother. And Estel said they had all known Sadron for a long time and trusted him.
But then, they had known and trusted Dorlarth for a long time too.
You're going in circles again, she told herself. You're going to feel bad if you accuse him and then you're wrong.
Accuse him. Should she? Her mind turned again to the thing that had been bothering her ever since she had used the bandits' marker to save Rivendell. Why was she still here, and why was her grandmother here? What was their purpose in Middle-earth this time? There must be one. Maybe she was supposed to figure out who the culprit was in this series of nasty occurrences. In that case, she should tell Elrond about her suspicions. But maybe that wasn't it at all. And if she was just supposed to figure out the culprit on her own, what was her grandmother there for?
She eventually fell asleep, still filled with indecision, and dreamed that she woke up and her room was full of little slips of white paper, with words written on them that, try as she might, she couldn't read.
TBC
AN: Information on the fading of elves and houseless fëar comes from "Laws and Customs Among the Eldar"—some of it quoted almost word-for-word. I forgot to mention on the last chapter: In "Laws and Customs", the word for body is hrondo, but in the Athrabeth, it's hroa. So when Erestor is reading the Athrabeth, I substituted hrondo for hroa so as not to confuse anybody. Hroa may actually be the more correct term, but oh well.
RenegadeKitsune: Actually you did spell philosophical correctly—good job!
Princess Siara: Yes, I noticed that when I was reading your review and had to smile a little.
Erasuithiel: Yes, I had a bit of a fascination with Atlantis in eighth grade—that, and the Seven Wonders of the World. I can name them all if I think for a bit… "Large wooden badger"—lol!
EresseElrondiel: I'm very sorry; I don't know how I missed you! Well, thank you anyway! —huggles disgruntled reviewer—
IwishChan: Sweaty horses? Not pleasant.
Redone: That's what I thought! I love the Athrabeth.
MaddHatter: "Gondor has no pants… Gondor needs no pants!" —laughs loudly—
Please review with all your happy little theories!