Verse II
Save a prayer for us
Those who fell with no hope
But never will I die in company of those
Who feared my company in death
The heavy door fell into the lock, the loud, metallic clang resounding through the halls and passes. Thick stone walls had buried them alive, and the silence claimed, what was left of the battle. Their boots were heavy, but the atmosphere of the stony hall seemed to swallow every sound, every single step. And so they walked, the silence being a funeral march more fitting than any slow, mourning trumpet sound would have.
In front there walked the Stewart, Denethor, son of Ecthelion, a man stern in face and stature, his steps slow but steady, his gaze fixed on the other life they had slowly begun to penetrate his conciousness with their first steps into the Silent Street. Behind him, there were six men, guards of the citadel, clothed in black and silver, the tree of Gondor in their tunic gleamed in the dim light of the torches, seemingly the only real source of light in these halls. On their shoulders, they carried Faramir, son of Denethor, who fell in the defence of the city, and in whose pale, lifeless face, Denethor had seen his own end coming.
Because thus it was, that the line of the Stewarts would fail...
There should have been a funeral march, maybe, the slow,wailing horns, the quivering trumpets, but it was the silence, that the orb had promised, that swallowed, what was left of Gondors rulers.
Of all those, who still had tried to maintain the city, who had fought for the proud heritage of Numenor to survive, Denethor had been the first to know – with the certainty that only a carefully placed lie can bring - that all their struggles would be in vain, that darkness unescapable lingered in Mordor, and now, that the pest of the Black Lands had left ist realm, all hope was gone, and so would he be. Soon, so soon...
There was no strength left for regret, no strength for tears. Stern he had been, all his life, and stern he would go, but the proud fight that had kept him upright, was gone. Denethor had left the realms of men, the instance that his son, his second son, the vain, the useless, the weak one, had been brought to him, battered, dead, gone.
Too late, Denethor had realized his mistake. His greatest strength, his sons, weapons in his hands, had been wasted, and now, at last, he understood what the silken voice of darkness had prophecied – not only that Minas Tirith, Gondor, Men would fall, but that it would be his fault, his responsibility alone.
Too late had he seen, that his hopes, high as they had been on Boromir, would not have been placed badly on Faramir either, on his second son, second weapon in his ageing hands, and how poorly had he made use of it!
All this he understood, looking at the pale face of the Captain, as the blood slowly left the dying body together with the breath of life. Faramir, this now, at last, at the end of all things, when hope had failed, he understood, was the city, more than Denethor himself had been, and in his sacrifice he had signed the death sentence for Minas Tirith, too. For the city would fall with his son, and would have lived with him.
And thus it was, that his soul cried out in agony, turning its back to the fights and gladly welcoming madness.
It was the final triumph of the whispering orb over the spirit of a man, who had proven to be resistant beyound expectation, who had claimed – and got – much of the attention of the brooding spirit in the darkness. A man who had been strong enough to look into the fire and remain standing, if only for a while. But the strength of his heart had been Denethors weakness also, and strong as fealty, love and honor were, if wielded as a blade against the trickery of Mordor, deadly were they, if turned against itself, deadlier still if turned against the world.
And so, indeed, Denethor had built his very own tomb.
And the final step would not be patient for much longer.
„Burn we shall..." he whispered, as he lay eyes on the stone at the crossing of the silent streets, and in his eyes, there was a fire already, and his body cried to feel the agonizing heat from without as well as within.
Denethor turned, watching the six guards, as they tenderly set down Faramir, pale, dying Faramir, onto the stone, and he saw the fire burn him as well, as it should have to be.
Rusty was his voice, but none the less strong, commanding and cold.
„Bring wood and oil."