Disclaimer: Don't own it.
Author's note: I get more and more upset… :o((( You are unfair…
I'm sorry if it is dull.
ZELINIA: Wow! Thank you, thank you, thank you. :o))) When is your new update?
Faerlas: This chapter is a little less eventful. So that you wouldn't lose your breath anymore. :o))) Have a happy trip!
Neniel Sildurien: Thank you for the review and for C2. Sorry for having been so slow – University, the end of the fourth year. Even our summer vacation is poisoned by a lot of things to write, read and work out. I guess you know it as well as I do. ;o)
Chapter ten.
Lie, only the lie, and nothing but the lie.
The blade in his chest was scalding, but the pain seemed distant, somebody else's, like it was not him to be wounded. It receded, devoured by wild astonishment. Though his hand continued to clutch at Archaldir's wrist with the persistence of the wolf's jaws, his mind was hardly aware of that.
The end of the tale appeared to be quite different from what he had imagined it to himself.
There was no Noble Prince, perished in the battle for his land. There was no Silly girl, mourning him and fighting with herself not to betray his memory by falling in love with another.
Nobody died.
But there was the Noble Prince, who somehow managed to obtain the Ring and caused all this chaos. The Noble Prince, who renounced his nobility to ascend the throne of evil and be crowned like the Dark Lord. The Noble Prince and … his lover?
Wasn't it Gwirith to tell him that the death collected all those who hadn't agreed to serve the dark side? And she was alive, in spite of all those years, while she was supposed to be the first to die, being the closest person to her Legolas, when he let the almighty jewel embrace his finger and the smile of a new-born malice dawned upon his serene elven face.
Did she cry? He knew she did.
Did she run? Did she try to escape or did she yield at once? What was she, she, who walked freely through the shambles with her pockets full of gold and her sneer full of poison? His servant, his spy?
His mistress?
It occurred to Legolas that he couldn't even tell Gwirith had deceived him. She told him what their destination was. He was led to Mordor with his eyes open. It was his choice – her conscience was as clear as a lambent icicle. Whether she was ordered to bring him there, or decided to gladden her lov… master on her own – he went after her voluntary. She must have been mocking at him up her sleeve.
Why was it the only thought that made him cringe? She was leading him to death!
And now he will find his end in the person of those who were intoxicated with their thirst of revenge over her … patron.
Eru, when everything is finished with him, both sides will be disappointed.
Legolas's lips curved. He slackened his grip, and stepped back, still chuckling like a madman, till his back brushed against the arrows behind him. A strange sound broke from him – and before his innocent executioners understood its nature, Legolas had been shaking with loud and artless laughter.
He was rocking back and forth, squeezing his head and sobbing with strange, twisted mirth. He growled, hurling his laughter into the faces of all those who were standing around him. Staggered, puzzled, malicious faces. He couldn't stop. He didn't want to stop. All he wanted was to laugh himself to insanity, so that nothing could trouble him anymore.
His new friends probably thought that he had already succeeded in that, because one of them lowered his bow and asked in a husky youthful whisper:
"Is he mad?"
"Don't let him fool you," snapped back Archaldir, never taking his eyes off sniggering Legolas, "It's a trick."
Suddenly one more bow came down. Its owner slowly approached Legolas. His studying glance ran over the figure of the elf, and flared up with distrust.
"It's not him," said he quietly. Archaldir jerked up his head. His brows met at the narrow bridge of his nose, turning into one threatening broken line.
"What do you mean?" inquired he, tense and horrent obstinacy flickering in his voice, "Has Eru clouded you eyes? Look at him!"
"I do look. And I don't see the thing I must. Where is his scar?" returned the debater, making one more step. Now he was standing between Archaldir and his soon-to-be victim. Legolas, benumbed by the events and discoveries of the last hours, with a habitual, out-of-body calmness of a war-leader marked that it was strategically the worst position a warrior could chose – showing his back to such a dangerous enemy, as they thought him to be. He unexpectedly got angry at his defender. So that's what is left of the guards of Mirkwood… A handful of credulous fools.
Though was he to judge, being one of them…
At the mention of the scar Archaldir gave a start. Murmur arose from the circle of elves – they forgot they weapon to step up to the prisoner, all the glances chained to his right cheek. Unconsciously Legolas lifted his hand to his face, as if expecting to find there the mark, which they were searching for so desperately, but at the same moment woke up and interrupted the movement. There was no scar. There had never been any, and who, if not he, was aware of it better than anyone else?
"It's impossible," whispered Archaldir. However, his former certainty was gradually leaving him, "I've left it to him myself."
"He must have got rid of it…" supposed somebody hesitantly.
"He couldn't," another voice weaved into the argument, "He was cursed to bear it forever."
"Is he a vision?"
Fine faces became dark and worried. Legolas understood them – visions didn't appear from nowhere. If he were a vision, they all would be in great danger, in the same danger that watched for a shoal of fish near luring bait. They remembered the old tales too well.
With a scornful sniff Archaldir quickly ran his hand over Legolas's chest, the nail of his index finger painfully scratching the straight edges of the wound. Legolas jerkily clenched his teeth, but didn't utter a sound.
"He's bleeding," stated Archaldir softly, showing his blood-stained palm to his fellows.
"I am," Legolas was tired of being touched and discussed, "And what did it tell you?"
Something imperceptibly changed in a hard look of the older elf. Cruelty evaporated from it – he sheathed his poniard and motioned for the others to quiet down.
"Who are you?" asked he thoughtfully.
"I'm Legolas, son of Thranduil, the Prince of Mirkwood," the elves began exchanging whispers again, but Archaldir cut them short with a quick glance.
"Do you know me?"
"Not you," even knowing what mishmash he would provoke, Legolas decided to be frank. It was his time to astonish. They will do nothing to him while he was a mystery for them, "I know the Archaldir who brought me up."
Contrary to what he had expected, Archaldir didn't seem puzzled. His silvery eyes narrowed, yet now they were glimpsing with an odd sort of gloomy comprehension.
"And I'm…not the one?"
Legolas shook his head in the negative. Having considered for a moment, Archaldir pointed at the young elf, who was the first to argue with him.
"Do you know him?"
"I've never seen him before", responded Legolas firmly. His father's friend nodded, getting suddenly very interested in the toes of his boots and the ground under them. The rocky passage was writhing under the heel of deafening silence, which drooped over it.
"Bless the mirror of Galadriel, hen nin," said Archaldir apropos for nothing, "Bless it. It saved your life and my reason. Come."
Someone leaned to pick up his torn cloak, while the other warriors were hurriedly pulling the arrows out of the orc's bodies.
"Follow me," Archaldir walked for several yards and then dove into the cleft, he had appeared from some time ago. The elves slid after him, ushering Legolas into a winding path. They didn't force him to go, just clustered behind him so that there was no way back.
The path was narrowing – soon enough it became nothing but a thin cleavage between the rocks, passable perhaps only for a famished hobbit. They were moving with their faces towards the wall, and soon Legolas had to hold in his breath not to chafe the wounded chest against the scaly tumours of lichen. When it began to seem that they would stick there like the withered petals, forgotten between the pages of a read-up book, Archaldir halted and set his foot against a formless stone, projecting from the rough handmade ashlar. The stone noiselessly caved in…
"Jump!" commanded Archaldir, pushing the elf forward. Legolas instinctively turned his head, expecting the impact with the solid wall, but the stones crumbled down under his weight, and he clumsily flew through the meandering, earth-smacking burrow into the large hall.
"I told you to jump", observed Archaldir, having flawlessly landed near, while the fallen one was rising to his feet and shaking the soil off his clothes. Legolas shot him an irritated glance, yet the angry retort stuck in his throat when he suddenly discovered that they both were watched with the hungriest attention by a crowd of elves, who were filling the hall. And the hall itself wasn't so unfamiliar to him, as it appeared at the first sight.
Wide, lavishly carved columns rose above him – their capitals disappeared somewhere in the foggy bowl of the endlessly high ceiling. Torches and candles illuminated the lancet archways, and the stones were smooth like the finest elvish silk. The fretted walls still kept some of the gems and jewels, spent on their incrustation, though many were gone, leaving deep black nests, cracked as if the precious things were plucked out of them with a knife.
"Welcome to the chambers of Moria," his guide made an inviting gesture, "Raised by Dwarves, inhabited by Elves."
The crowd split in two, as Archaldir moved across the hall, leading Legolas to one of the arches. Vigilant gazes were following their every step, but none of the elves stirred, while they were passing by.
Legolas counted seventy of them – men, harsh-eyed and clad in chain-armors; women – dressed like men and not inferior to them in dignified bellicosity. The air was charged with simmering rage and hatred…
"This way," Archaldir opened a massive oaken door, and Legolas slipped in, feeling ripped into shreds by the intensive stares, sent on to his back.
"And now," calmly said the attendant, "You will tell me everything."
Archaldir never forgot that day. It chased him in nightmares. It corroded his soul. The beginning of their downfall. The end of Mirkwood.
Many and many months passed since the day the heir of Thranduil left the halls where he had grown up. Days of waiting gave place to restless nights - the news, coming from Rivendell and Lothlorien, held more despair with each change. The King was ageing hundred years an hour.
The Fellowship had to reach Mordor already. Nobody knew how much of its members survived, but the hope was alive. Still, time was running by, bringing no long-expected peace… Little by little even those, whose faith in the grace of Valars was boundless, had to resign themselves to the obvious. The Prince won't return. They were losing the war.
And once, when they had finally managed to persuade Thranduil that further waiting was futile, and they must move to the Sea while they still could, the gates of the castle swept open to let in ragged, pale, weary, but triumphant Legolas.
"I won it," that was his greeting.
The Prince was in a hurry. He refused to have rest, he didn't change his clothes. Instead of that he insisted on a private talk with his father and Archaldir. How could they reject his request? For them he had risen from the dead and had come back with the victory – he deserved all the time of the world.
Alas, they didn't notice how little there left from the pure and fiery Legolas that had said them his farewell so long ago. And then it was too late. Archaldir understood that the moment his pupil took off that strange leathern glove, enfolding his right hand, and the cold shimmering of a golden ring reflected in his exultantly blazing eyes.
He tempted them. He offered them power – power over the whole Arda. They would make it pay for allowing Sauron to conquer it, he told them. They would show everyone what the real greatness was.
His fingers were clenching at the invisible sword-hilt. He was ready for a battle.
Archaldir still reproached himself for not having predicted what happened then. Thranduil suddenly sprang up to his feet – a real sword appeared in his hand. His son sprang back, taking out the knife. That instant Archaldir regretted having taught him to throw it so neatly. The King staggered…
Archaldir threw himself between them. He didn't hesitate as to whom he should protect. The blade whistled and hewed the Prince's cheek from the mouth-corner to the ear. Legolas hissed, but soon his grimace of pain turned into a wry sneer. He flapped the edges of his cloak and disappeared, leaving only a peal of wicked laughter, which died down in the high chamber vaults.
And the next day hordes of orcs assailed the marches of Mirkwood.
Mere two hundred elves contrived to escape after it became clear that they were powerless against the dark forces, growing stronger with every day. The runaways wandered along the land, watching its inevitable devastation. They died in tens. At last they descended into Moria and settled there, from time to time coming up to the surface in search of their survived kinsmen.
But this trophy went beyond their wildest expectations.
The kid was lucky that Archaldir didn't yield to his first impulse. And even luckier that his story was listened to and believed. Partially. Brought from another world, lost, starving. The last statement looked more truthful. The first one would have been laughed at, if not for that half-playful agreement to glance at the famous mirror of Galadriel, Archaldir had once given. Two visions there were, that didn't let him murder this boy there and then. Two visions made him suffer this foolish talk, reeking of lie…
He inquired the newcomer about his past and his childhood, about the war. He called names to make sure this Legolas knew them. The stranger, however, never slipped, and Archaldir, raged by each failure, asked again and again.
Some of his questions remained unanswered – the Prince merely shrugged his shoulders with an apologetic air. He seemed quite sincere. None of the traps, so carefully prepared by Archaldir, confused him. He didn't notice them or pretended that he didn't. He was curious about their living in Moria. He kept somber silence, while Archaldir was narrating the chronicles of their defeats. His forehead got covered with lines of wrathful woe, when he heard about Thranduil's death.
Everything spoke in his favour, except for the one detail, which didn't let the experienced and acute politician – the name, often applied to Archaldir both by friends and enemies – forget his suspicions and trust the newcomer completely.
His interlocutor had demonstrated all the proper emotions. Except one. Surprise. He grieved, but his grief was tinted with resignation. Except for that "jovial" outburst during their meeting, nothing testified to his being unprepared for the news. And the more Archaldir watched this new Legolas, the clearer it was that someone had already acquainted him with at least half of the truth. Unless, of course, he lied about his strange journey from the other world. Archaldir tapped his long finger against the hard curve of his chin. Lady Galadriel warned him that visions, shown by her mirror, may never be realized. Or may be interpreted in a wrong way.
"I'm sorry for your companion," said he, evenly enough to make it sound an occasional remark. Legolas started, the baited expression flitting through his eyes. But Archaldir's face showed only calm compassion, so well-adjusted, that he relaxed again.
"Companion?" echoed Legolas at last. The older elf smirked inwardly – he had always belonged to those who prided themselves upon a shrewd guess and an artful step. And though the question-answer he had received confirmed one of the unpleasant surmises of his, he still congratulated himself on not having lost his former craft. The next enquiry followed the same line.
"I suppose he was killed by the orcs. Wasn't he?"
Yet he had to be disappointed. Instead of getting more confused, Legolas settled down. There was barely noticeable relief in his reciprocate smile.
"I was alone," answered he, dauntlessly meeting the keen gaze of Archaldir.
"But someone led you here," the latter couldn't keep in his annoyance. Legolas continued to look at him, as his arms slowly went up and crossed themselves on his chest. Archaldir knew this gesture. Little Legolas often did so, having committed a silly trick and not wanting to confess it, as caught. Grown-up Legolas lied with his arms folded – lied or tried to conceal his feelings.
"I was alone," repeated he obstinately.
"And what brought you to the gates of Moria?" asked Archaldir jauntily, studying his nails as if they were more interesting than the elf in front of him.
"I was heading home. I needed to find out if somebody survived. The usual way was too dangerous," Legolas was losing his temper. The more chances there were that he would make a mistake.
"Who told you it was?"
"Everyone tells it," that was a full nonsense. Everyone would rather strangle any elf they met, than would help him. And the assumption about his having been led by the elves was ludicrous, considering quite an obvious reason. There were no elves not to recognize their former kin, and the present Dark Lord by sight.
That proved that Archaldir was right, having spared the life of this Legolas, for he wasn't the one to be punished for all their sorrows and losses. That Legolas wouldn't use such a justification. But this Legolas was dissembling… With a bitter clarity Archaldir thought that he wouldn't trust him anyway, be he a thousand times frank… One disappointment was enough.
"Very well," he smiled and stood up, showing that the audience was over, "You must be tired, hen nin. I'll ask the guards to find you a place to rest and something to eat. Don't judge too severely – our food is modest. "
"The dinner, shared with a friend, is always rich," Legolas put forward his hand, which Archaldir shook with feign cordiality, "Thank you, adar nin. I understand that I couldn't count at it. I'm fortunate that I met you."
"So am I," muttered Archaldir quietly, "So am I".
He opened the door himself and nodded to one of the elves, standing in the hall, to follow the guest. The other entered, obeying the slight wave of their leader's hand.
"Send someone to the place we've found him in," ordered Archaldir, when the door behind Legolas closed, and his steps ceased being heard, "Search it over, each span of it. If he was not alone, I must know who accompanied him."
"What if we find someone there?" inquired the warrior dispassionately.
"Bring him to me," responded Archaldir with a grim chuckle, "In case he is dead, I want to see his body".
Why did he lie? For the hundredth time Legolas cursed himself for his prompt decision – not to tell anything about Gwirith. He couldn't give himself an account of the inane thoughts that led him to such a conduct.
He was treated with the perfect civility. The separate chambers were at his disposal. His wounds were bandaged. He could have gained their credence. And he lied… It will take Archaldir no more than half an hour to expose him.
He tried to imagine how he would explain his deceit. He had to think about his own life, or what was left of it.
But whatever straw of an idea he was grasping at, it was breaking in his hands, returning him into the flow of obsessive reveries. Reveries about her.
Each time Legolas closed his eyes, he saw her, dragged away by the Rider. Her scream was ringing in his ears, shrill and pleading.
If she served the Dark Lord, why was she captured?
He knew he shouldn't justify her. She didn't deserve that. She wanted his death.
Yet she didn't leave him in Rivendell. And didn't betray him in Hollin.
And her kiss was burning on his sore lips…
Eru help him, why was she captured!
For several minutes Legolas was sitting still, his forehead set against his clenched fists. His chest rose and fell, letting out a long steady breath. Then he stood up, gathered his poor belongings and the remnants of his dinner, wrapped up in a new cloak, which was left by one of the taciturn guards, and crept out of the room.
His respite in here was over. He had deprived himself of it due to his own folly.
And due to his own folly he was going to continue his path, or rather begin a new one. For Gwirith.
A young guard at the gates of the dungeon yawned and irritably rubbed his tired eyes, fighting with the gentle assertiveness of the upcoming sleep. The watch bored him to death – in his memory nothing ever happened when he was in patrol. He would rather join all those who crowded in the hall, gossiping about their unusual guest. It was rumored that the elf they had brought today was a twin of that betrayer Legolas. Not that the guard had the chance to see the Prince in person – before the War his family had lived too far from the castle of Mirkwood – but curiosity needs no redundant fare to ignite, and the elfling was fidgeting of impatience, waiting for the minute when he would be changed by somebody else and would have an opportunity to see the stranger with his own eyes.
A slight draught swayed the flame of the torch – the elf shrank, bringing the fire dangerously close to his face. It was so cold in the cave that he didn't mind even singeing his lashes, if it could help him to get warmer. Curse the dwarves who dug this bottomless grave. Ugly greedy moles.
The draught became stronger. Something rustled behind his back – light like a breath, and swift like a bird's flight. Whipping around, the elf saw a still ghost, which had grown out of the thin air. A quavery light snatched from the darkness a large, horrible bruise on the bloodless skin of a maidenly face.
The guard had no time to be surprised, no time to be frightened, when the ghost brusquely lifted its arm. In the next moment the shattering blow smashed his temple, striking him down.
The torch fell out of the unclenched fingers, and was caught up by another, and a much firmer hand. Graceful feet stepped over the body, which looked almost as inanimate as the stones under it. A bloody cobble lay at the golden-haired head. The elf uttered a small moan…
"Have some rest," mockingly advised the ghost, and slunk away, taking off the poorly smoking torch.
A/n: Review it, if you are inclined… I'm lazy if I'm not encouraged. Very lazy. :o)
Adamanta.