Disclaimer: Don't own "Lord of the Rings" and there's nothing to add.
FaerlasAlthough you've read it, I cannot leave you out of mentioning. :o)))) I'm not a gwumpkin.
ZELINIA: Realistic reasons are the hardest part of it all. Thanks for staying with me.
Neniel Sildurien: Here I am at last… As fast as a snail. :o))) Anything new at LiveJournal?
Elven Script: Hi! Thank you very much – you cannot imagine how pleasant it is to hear this. The fic is twisted, I agree with you. I didn't want to write a common parody, in which only the MS character is ridiculed. To denounce the whole conception is much more interesting. I'm glad that you find it worth reading. :o)
legos-r-Hot You made my day - thanks. :o) And you know – if you really have a good idea for a story – don't pay much attention to criticism. After all you have your right to post whatever you want. I'm sure that if you go on, you'll find your readers. Or try to change the composition and insert the main zest of a story into the first chapter, so that everyone could see that your plot is far more original than they supposed it to be.
Chapter 11.
The eye of the storm
Is it the Hatred, who is trying to love?
Or is it Love, who craves for feeling hatred?
I. Severyanin (translation again)
The corridor was still and obscure, like a crypt. The frozen silence was disturbed only by the faint rustle of bat's wings – scared by his presence they were leaving their nests, and their shivering shadows timorously scampered along the walls, covering the stones with intricate dark-and-light tracery.
The idea of creeping through the hall was declined at once – instead of that Legolas turned to the opposite direction and prowled deep into the belly of the dwarves' sanctuary. At first all the torches, lining the passage, were alight, but as yards stayed behind the elf, the ranks of their coiling tongues were thinning out, and after a quarter of an hour he found himself in affable mild darkness.
He was not chased – no steps were heard behind him. They had probably failed to notice his absence yet.
With each turn the walls were losing their decoration, and the corridor was rounding, looking more and more desolate. Heavy drops of water were falling down from the ceiling, the resonant chime flowing into the hoarse murmur of the draught, which was stealthily drifting along the concave floor.
His sole touched the ground once more, and he suddenly stood rooted to it.
The echo of his step split as though two boots had shuffled against the stone plate at once.
There was something behind the monotonous drip – someone's hushed breathing, and trembling in a strained body, invisible even to his sharp eyes. The dark was watching him. His foot went up and down again. And just like that first time the sound bifurcated.
Slowly, trying to refrain from jerky movements, Legolas turned his head. But the corridor was empty and lifeless. Whoever was playing with him from the sheltering gloom of the winding pass, he was hiding in front of the elf.
Step…and dry ruffling of cautious feet. It wasn't an orc. Orcs never hunted alone and were far too primitive to track down their game in such a fastidious way.
Step…and light whistling of material. It wasn't an elf either. The elves were left behind him. They wouldn't disperse their strengths now.
Step…and nothing. Having forgotten how to breathe, he was desperately listening to crisp and tense stillness.
And there came… Fainter than whisper… Shorter than a sigh.
Something, he couldn't expect to hear. Not in this place. Not now.
"Legolas…"
His heart twanged and froze still, like a torn bow-string. That voice…
One of the niches, gnawed out in stone by generations of miners, dimmed up. Somebody slim and lissome slipped out of it, tangling in a too long cloak.
Legolas drew forward, but the name, which was willing to be released, died down on his lips as the flame of the upraised torch spilt over the figure, making its features clear and distinct against the dungeon blur.
The left side of her face was purple. Somehow the eye remained untouched, but everything else merged into one dark spot with crimson strokes of scratches. Blood had parched on her crashed and swollen mouth. Something was wrong with her left arm – wrenched at a strange angle, it was lifelessly hanging along her body.
His blood was suddenly too hot for his veins. They melted, relinquishing the wave of fervid shiver, which swept down his chest and shattered into myriad of biting pangs. His smile perished, not having been born.
She couldn't have been here. But here she was – alive and almost safe. And on his way again.
"Come on!" ordered she, impatiently waving her touch, "Hurry up!"
But Legolas stayed motionless. She was beautiful, thought he. Even now, when her outer frame had suffered so many injuries. She was beautiful, brave and loyal, wherever her loyalty lay. Why had he always believed that the darkness could sprout only unsightly traitors?
And why deny the obvious? Deep down he ceased doubting in her intentions the minute Archaldir claimed him the Dark Lord. It was bitter, it was painful. So painful, that he was searching for every possible reason to excuse her… He had lied for her. He had practically sacrificed himself at the altar of her love. He departed for Mordor, having blindly persuaded himself that she was in danger, that she needed him. And for the sake of what? Of being forgiven for what he had done so long ago? Another lie. It had stopped serving a justification of his absurd faith in her impeccability. He hadn't just imagined his attachment to her to make up for his filthy crime, as her had thought – as he had tried to think. There was immeasurable abyss between the feeling of guilt and remorse, the image of the dead girl brought him, and rebellious surrender, he suffered in the company of his guide. Between the wish to cherish and protect, and desire to fall on his knees and pray to be smiled at. He learnt to live without his Gwirith – he grieved for her, but he survived. And with the years the grief blunted, leaving only the fear of himself, dissembled in the deepest corner of his being. Legolas suddenly remembered the last phrase, she had heard from him, before the blade found its way to her innocent heart. I shall hate myself till I die… He was egoistic even in his sorrow. Why hadn't he said "I love you" then? The answer was clear as daylight – he wasn't thinking about her. Only about his own disarray at meeting his dark side, which he had never suspected to exist. He had left that girl in the past while she was still alive. He kept her in his mind – she was a scar, marring his pure conscience. And yet all scars could be hidden under clothes and forgotten until their bearer undressed.
This Gwirith didn't content herself with such destiny. She plagued him. She crept into his body and soul. He was ill with her eyes, her lips, her childish wrists. Her cruelty didn't repulse him. He reveled in self-denial. He perceived the strangely alluring taste of hoping beyond hope. She lingered inside, she intoxicated, she enlivened him.
He loved her.
He had loved her.
She shouldn't have come back – he would have saved her pains, bringing himself to the slaughter. He would have died loving her. But she had deprived him even of that. It seemed like his life had dripped out of him together with her, and he became nothing but an aching hollow shell, open to all winds.
Gwirith was saying something, obviously impatient to lead him away. The elf didn't hear her.
Venom gradually began to fill the emptiness inside him. Nothing bound him to this tainted creature, except for his treacherous longing, and thanks to her he had managed to break this tie. He was murderer – and he will murder again. This time it made perfect sense. They were at war, and she was no better enemy than the most despicable orc. And then he will return to his kin and fight shoulder to shoulder with them.
A dangerous sparkle ran along the slender sting of his knife. Gwirith fell silent, her eye-lashes flying up for one elusive instance.
"I should have been ready for that," said she at last, slowly and despondently, "They told you everything, didn't they? About … Legolas."
"About the Dark Lord?" Legolas tried to sound indifferent, but his strained voice betrayed him.
"About the Dark Lord," though Gwirith never cast a glance at the knife, he felt that she was watching it, "You think that I'm a liar… Believe me, I…"
"No."
Confusion drew a hard vertical line on her forehead. Legolas couldn't hear her breathing anymore. The contours of her silhouette changed – if she were a beast of prey, he would swear she was preparing for a deadly jump. Let it be. He was as ready for it as she.
"And what are you going to do after you get rid of me? Persuade yourself that you did a favour for the poor oppressed elves? Believe that you were a fighter for the good and justice?"
Her words were oozing with scornful curiosity.
A spiteful smirk was his only answer. She won't gain her end now. He had studied her, and was anticipating the coiling of a baited cobra. It would entertain him.
Yet the girl unexpectedly changed her mind. Her shoulders went down. Rage ran out of her, as if she was a broken phial. She closed her eyes and uttered a defeated sigh.
"Very well," whispered she, calmly moving aside to put her torch into a rusty hoop on the wall, "Do it. Render me a service."
That was unpredictable - Legolas gave a start, persuading himself that his ears had played a cruel trick on his addled mind. But his hopes were not fated to come true. Gwirith made a quick step to him, and he shrank back, oblivious to her being unarmed. Her healthy palm lay over his cramped fingers, forcing them to bring the knife against her vest. The tip came through the coarse leather with icy indifference. For some reason Legolas inwardly flinched at the sight, suddenly stifled with a sharp twinge in his chest, there, where a moment ago the frenzy flame had roared so loudly. His skin grew hot, and the heart, he had so presumptuously considered to calm down, made itself heard and felt.
Two thin needles of gilded fire were glimmering in the hazel irises. Gwirith didn't move, and they stood in silence, looking at each other and waiting, till she spoke again, her voice unusually soft.
"You cannot, can you? Will this way be more convenient?"
She let go his hand and turned away from him, tossing aside her hair to provide him access to her narrow and straightened back.
"Under the left shoulder-blade," advised she with a murderous composure, "Or here," her head tilted, opening a small pit at her collar-bone, "And be quick, or you won't be able to say that I was trying to escape. I don't want to stain your reputation."
Why didn't he feel his body anymore? The air, he drew in, was scorching. Madness… Pure madness to let his hand tremble so violently. To be spellbound by this smooth, unprotected curve, flowing down into a leather-clad shoulder. The knife was growing into his perspired palm…
"What are you waiting for?" shouted Gwirith all of a sudden, "Do it!"
The cry broke off, followed by a sharp sob, which cut through him, shattering his will into nothing.
The only thing he saw was the fragile whiteness of flesh, sheening against the alloy of bronze locks and coal-black collar. And the pearl-like tear, aflame with the imprisoned light of the torch.
Legolas was bending lower and lower to watch it slink down and halt in the slightly pulsating flexure, so poignantly and thrillingly close to him…
She was beguiling him again. Bribing him, like she had once done it to Boromir…
But his lips were already on her skin, drying up the precious drop with a wary, shivery kiss… The girl winced, taking a short breath, when his mouth traveled up her neck to tarry under the chiselled shell of her ear. She leisurely threw back her head, and Legolas felt her soft tresses brush against his face in a casual caress…
That was all it took to dement him completely. The blade fell at their feet, useless and forgotten, as his unleashed passion turned her to let their glances cross. He leaned in, capturing her at the wall, his body pressed against hers so tightly, that her heart seemed to be beating in his chest.
"Kiss me," seethed the elf hoarsely, "Kiss me, and I will forget everything you did. I'll believe you, I swear. Please…"
"Legolas…", Gwirith didn't finish, for he vehemently caught her lips, striving to elicit the same response.
They tasted of blood.
With a start Legolas came to his senses, getting keenly aware of a moan of pain, his harsh touch had extorted from her. He jerked back, stumbling over the knife, his whole being still shaken with agitation and rebelling desire. She brokenly raised her hand – he vaguely guessed that it touched her chafed mouth in the attempt to stop the wound.
"I'm sorry," muttered he quietly, burning with shame and disenchantment. He couldn't bring himself to look at her.
"I shall survive," whatever she said, her raucous voice only deepened his confusion.
The rattle in his ears was fading. What had he been doing before his mind darkened? What led him to these dank catacombs? The knife was still lying on the floor – he couldn't believe it had ever been gripped in his hand. Eru, what if he…
He had wanted to kill her… He had almost let it happen again… And what is worse – this time the decision was purely his. Nobody forced him into it.
How would he ever redeem this blame?
"I came back for you," remarked Gwirith at last. The elf nodded, his glance cast down in mortification.
"Won't you ask how I managed to escape?" enquired she, half-surprised, half-reassured.
He raised his sore eyes at her. Didn't she see that he gave himself up?
"You are right," murmured she more to herself, than to him, "You don't need to know it."
A swift motion brought her closer. Slender arms weaved around his body. She was embracing him… How could she do it after his callous treatment of her? Angry, humiliated, repelled at the undeserved tenderness, he still didn't have the strength to keep her away, and returned the endearment, feeling his heart shrink with black anguish.
"I'm sorry, too," her breath was warm at his stark skin, "I shouldn't have kept it from you. I was just afraid that you would refuse to go with me. I swear I didn't mean any harm. All I wanted was to help you."
Unimportant… Even if she took out a dagger and thrust it into his weary heart, he wouldn't break the circle of his clasp. What did her words mean in comparison to that?
"We must be leaving," her whisper was lower than the crackle of torch-fire, "If, of course, you are with me."
"I said that I would follow you," answered he as quietly. Nothing was allowed to break the moment of peace, they were sharing, "I don't take my words back."
"So generous…" teased she, gradually coming back to her usual sneery attitude, "Let me go, we cannot walk like this."
"He is not going anywhere."
Gwirith jumped on the spot. Her eyes frost over - bristling up, she broke loose from Legolas's grip. A bunch of flame flared up in several yards from the runaways, illuminating the speaker.
"He is not going with you," repeated the same familiar voice, "Not until I'm alive."
Once again Legolas cursed himself. He could have averted it, had he only been not so criminally absorbed in his own resentment and yarning for revenge. He could have noticed that they had been watched - or he could have gone together with Gwirith before the beholder found them. And now it was too late.
Yet Gwirith had already collected herself and didn't seem alarmed at having been caught.
"Oh," observed she contemptuously, "The noble bearer of noble wrath. My respects to you."
"Forgive me for not answering in like manner," hurled Archaldir through the clenched teeth, "For you I have no respect, milady."
A peal of cynical laughter commented his reply, turning it into an overly-exalted, but empty declaration.
"An elf of principle," chanted Gwirith, fearlessly smirking at his face, twisted in rage.
"I feel that you are used to dealing with the elves of some other kind?" parried her opponent with a scorn.
"Let me remind you that the "elves of some other kind" were brought up by you," hissed the girl coldly, "How does it feel to be the mentor of the black sheep?"
Evidently she had slapped too hard. Having uttered a furious growl, Archaldir dashed forward. In an instant Legolas comprehended what the end of this mad throw would be like. Without thinking he grasped Gwirith by the shoulder and flung behind his back, sheltering her with his own body.
He was not so experiences as Archaldir. He was tired. But he was younger and stronger. Their clash could hardly have finished in some other way. In a blink of an eye both elves were battered – yet one of them was lying at the feet of the other, coughing and spitting out fresh blood. His hand stole to the knife, which had earlier been dropped by his adversary, and Legolas threw the weapon away with the toe of his boot.
"We are leaving, adar nin," said he firmly, "I don't belong in here, and you'd better forget that you ever saw me. Farewell."
"Legolas, wait!" with obvious difficulty the older elf rose to his feet, and leaned against the wall, his forehead damp with sweat, "Whatever she promised you, don't fall for it. Her allegiance is not on this side. "
"What do you know about allegiance?" snorted Gwirith with disdain, "To whom are you allegiant, you, sage? To yourself? A laudatory kind of loyalty."
For a second it appeared to Legolas that he would have to stand another skirmish with his teacher. However, Archaldir was sensible enough to get the better of his anger.
"I don't serve the darkness," stated he plainly.
"Neither do I," she shrugged her shoulders with the air of tranquil perplexity.
"You live in Mordor and associate with the Dark sovereign," retorted Archaldir, knitting his brows.
Gwirith chuckled again.
"How does it deal with service? I'm not a dog to serve someone."
"Then tell me, my guiltless girl, why you are sill alive?" the enquiry was acid.
She didn't answer, contenting herself with an arch brow. Evidently celebrating his victory, the elf turned to Legolas.
"I didn't believe your story, hen nin. You couldn't have been alone. So I sent my scouts to the place of our meeting. I'm more than sure that I don't have to overwork myself in telling you what they discovered in there. The traces of you and a lady, who had been kind enough to leave some of her dark hairs on your cloak."
Legolas forced a crooked smile. He had foreseen all that…
"You were attacked," went on Archaldir in the tone of a zealous tale-teller, "She was taken away by a nazgul, and you were left in the hands of the orcs to be discovered by our watch. You know what happened here. But I know much more," with mock politeness he addressed to Gwirith, "Shall I tell him what occurred next, milady?"
Something told Legolas that it would be wrong to study her face now, for she might think that he had doubts in her. So he couldn't say whether she was confused or placid when she dropped an indifferent:
"Why not?"
"Very well," as to Archaldir, he was shining with gloomy triumph, "During several hours she was absent. Later another nazgul brought her back. She slipped into Moria from the side of the main gates, killed the guard – a young one, and then had probably been skulking along the passages until she found you. Am I right?"
Having forgotten his promise, Legolas was staring at his guide in stupor. Her glance reproached him, and she turned away, bitterly curving her lips, as if he had betrayed her.
"You were wrong twice, sage," replied she without the slightest sign of disarray at the denunciation, "I came back alone – no nazguls are behind me. And I didn't kill the guard. You must have been in a hurry and failed to make certain of it. He is in danger of having a few days of sharp headache, but nothing more. I never kill unless there's any need in it – and there wasn't."
"Do you admit that you were in Mordor?" mistrustfully asked Archaldir. The girl nodded assent, smiling like she found the interrogation highly entertaining.
"And you still ask for his trust?" the frown dimmed the rejoicing of her opponent, as he pointed at silent Legolas. This time Gwirith shook her head.
"I don't need his trust. I probably don't deserve it. If he says that he stays in here, I will turn around and leave. I'll let him fight with you and die with you."
Her chilly tone grated on Legolas. Somehow she managed to insult both of them by choosing it – she spoke to Archaldir, but clearly stated that his opinion mattered not. She informed Legolas about her position and offered him a seeming freedom of choice, while making him feel a disputable property, which deserved to be addressed to in no other way, except for by scornful implication.
"You are not leaving," snapped Archaldir, whose attention was arrested by quite a different part of the insinuation.
"Oh, please," drawled Gwirith indulgently, as if speaking to a little boy, who was brandishing his wooden sword in front of her nose, threatening to scratch her unless she presented him a candy, "Would you dare and stop me once you know who I am?"
"Would you dare and think that I let you go once you are in my home?"
"If I die from your hand, He will raze your home to the ground. Consider it, sage. Does my life cost the lives of all those who believe in your wisdom?"
She got tired of playing. Legolas understood it at once. There was no purring of a sleeping tiger anymore – no mockery, no admonition, no bribe. Only cool, hard, matter-of-fact menace, coming from a creature with hundred dark years behind her back – years of cold-blooded war, considered intrigues and countless killings. Gwirith didn't lie to him, saying that she wasn't robbing the graves. She was filling them.
Why was she showing it off so thoughtlessly? He couldn't believe there was any possibility of her flying into such blind rage, that she forgot about him, watching her every step… She acted as though she had a pressing desire to make him take fright at her real face and refuse to go any further. Was it a wish to save him against her master's will?
Legolas ventured a stealthy look in her direction, and was immediately caught. It must have been a mistake. Unlike her voice, her face was as soft and smooth-lined, as when she had been hiding in his arms, persuading him of her guiltlessness. Could both of them be truthful?
A smile melted the contours of her lips, and all of a sudden the scales fell from his eyes. No, she wouldn't betray him. How did he fail to see it?
She needed him. She had lived in this world with the awareness of having destroyed it. Like him, she bore her blame, her pain, her remorse. May be he was a chance to pay back for it. To try and whitewash her love – at least a ghost of this feeling. That's why she angered when he got too close – in his passion she saw the passion of her Legolas. It was spoiling him, depraving him – and she deliberately destroyed it for fear that he wouldn't stop and thus would repeat the path of his twin. Then her sacrifice would lose its sense. She was ready to be a monster in his eyes not to let him fall. He could be absolutely calm about his future, for her persistence showed him how deep her obsession with his security was.
"I'm going with her, Archaldir," Legolas was surprised himself by the easiness, with which he pronounced it, "I'm a stranger to you. Don't risk yourself."
"I'd be glad to risk for you," Archaldir stretched out a pleading hand, attempting to hold him, "Stay with us, my child. You rightful place will be yours – I cede it to you. Lead us. Or stay as my son, if you don't want to battle. I fear for you."
Gwirith quietly snorted, muttering something indiscernible, but it produced no impression on the beseeching one.
"I told you to bless the mirror of Galadriel. I will bless it twice if you stay. Now I don't doubt that all I had seen in it is true – I believe you. You run a great danger. I can't see what makes you do it, but please, bethink yourself!"
Legolas began to waver again. It was already too much for him. He didn't want to hear anything else – he didn't trust himself. His inner balance was too unstable to accept more arguments. Come what may… One couldn't pray to Valars and Balrogs at once. Even if he took the wrong side, it was his fault.
"I've made my decision," he forced himself to be unflinching. The years of royal upbringing wasn't lost on him. Archaldir lowered his head in defeat.
"No," objected Gwirith suddenly, "You will listen to him. I want you to evaluate your chances soberly, and chose with your eyes open."
The elves started. Mistrust flashed across Archaldir's face, yet he restrained himself.
And Legolas was never so close to hating her as in this moment.
"As you wish," said he reluctantly, "Milady."
"I don't want to offend you, Lady Galadriel, but the honour you offer to me is far too high."
A mysterious smile lingered in her eyes, the smile, which didn't touch the blamelessly dainty outline of her lips. A soul-selling sight. Varda in the flesh. Her presence was bewitching – one glance of hers was enough to enslave anyone. He hadn't evaded the fate of many others, lying at her feet in mute respect and idolatry.
Who was he to refuse when his goddess asked him?
He leaned over the carved bowl. Not to see his future – it bore no interest for him - but to catch one more glimpse of her divine reflection in the still surface of silvery water.
The mirror dimmed, filling up with weightless fog, which soon drifted away. His face frowned at him from the depth of the pool. The hands of his image were tightly closed around a bow simultaneously with two small and narrow hands of a richly-dressed elfling. The child was biting his lips with such a tense concentration as if his enemy was a grown-up orc, and not a training target, coloured loudly enough to be shot at a fair thousand of yards.
A warm wave spread over Archaldir's chest. He recognized that day – the first day when he handed Legolas a real bow. Soon the arrow will leave its nest and fly past the target to cause an angry snarl from his young lad.
The green plumage rushed through the air, and young Legolas darted after. That was something Archaldir didn't recollect. The following picture appeared to be even stranger – the arrow, he knew to be lost somewhere in the high grass of the clearing, was sticking out of a blooming sapling. The boy was guiltily pulling off his tunic to bandage the damaged tree.
Before Archaldir thought that it had never happened to them, the mirror had hazed again. He had the feeling of diving into the eyes of his pupil. When he came to the surface for the second time, the eyes still belonged to Legolas. But for some reason they were black and bottomless, without any radiance, inherent in the elven nature. His cheek was dissected with a ragged scar. He was smiling – Archaldir shuddered at this smile, for it was dreadful and perilous.
Somebody was standing on his knees before him, bending down in painful convulsions. The victim raised his head, and shock seemed to have shoved a stone into Archaldir's throat. The features were worn out and wry with suffering, and yet it couldn't deceive the one, who used to see them everyday for many and many a year. It seemed to be insanity.
The kneeled figure was Legolas, too. And this Legolas was living his last minutes in Arda.
The image rippled – its edges commenced to smoulder. Soon it darkled, but in the last piece of it Archaldir managed to see the shadow of someone else, rising up behind the back of the triumpher. A woman's shadow…
His pupil was staring into the darkness. An odd pang pricked Archaldir – a remorse-like sensation, quite inappropriate, taking into account that all he had said was meant to help the kid. Now he almost regretted his sincerity. Legolas looked so lost and dismayed. Like a condemned, devoid of the most precious of his hopes.
"I remember this tree," his voice was too husky to be compared with whisper, "I practically killed it then."
His limpid glance glided along Archaldir, obviously not seeing him, and halted at the proud posture of the lady.
"Say something," asked he quietly, and Archaldir realized that his story wouldn't change anything. Defend yourself – sounded in the voice of his prince – Give me the reason to excuse you. It was a plea, not an accusation. Now she would invent the most unbelievable of tales, and Legolas will gladly let her put the leash around his neck.
But, to his surprise, the Morgoth of a woman didn't grasp at the sure opportunity to win.
"I've said everything, Legolas," responded she in the same impassively-belligerent manner, "Don't make me repeat myself. Either you go with me, or I leave."
The girl didn't cease surprising Archaldir. She was either insane, or played the game, which overstepped the limits of his orderly logics. He tried to place himself in her position – for some reason she had a desperate need in this Legolas, yet the ways she chose to obtain him were out of all reasonable considerations. To resign that you were leading someone to Mordor, to confirm that you belong to the realm of evil, to acknowledge exposure and after that still insist on being put faith in… It was in the least incredible.
On the other hand the elf couldn't deny that gossips about her deeds never declined a queer kind of moral code, she followed. In fact, nobody had any evidence of her having caused a battle or bloodshed. She didn't accept many desperate challenges to fight, though the assailants – he was one of them – knew that all she had to do was to nod at them to her master, and step aside letting him have his revenge. Once it was considered a point of honour to capture her, but now, looking back, Archaldir failed to give himself an account of what had caused that irreconcilable baiting. She hadn't handed the ring to Legolas.
Why was he deprived of a blissful ability to act on feelings and instincts? His inclination for cogitations was letting him down. Like many other thinkers, Archaldir sometimes lost the feeling of dark and light, so well-rooted in his kinsmen, and took the unforgivable liberty to judge only the strategy reasoning of this or that side. He knew where it would lead him, and shunned it. The one, who tried to understand the enemy instead of killing him, was inevitably doomed to forget what he was fighting for. And indeed, is there anything else but a chessboard and a battle of minds? Each one is for himself. These were the thoughts which turned a thinker into a betrayer.
He won't follow this path.
Archaldir mercilessly banished the doubts out of his mind. He was dealing with a foe – and he would prove it.
"Are you not afraid, that you Lord will punish you if he finds out that you are helping the one he's hunting?"
Go on, encouraged he inwardly, admit that the prince is hunted.
"My Lord doesn't even know he exists," easily returned the sleuth, "And even if he knew, I cannot imagine why he would hunt him in particular."
She was irritating Archaldir with her impregnable calm. He couldn't help but experience a twisted respect at the defense she was demonstrating.
"But you were attacked by a nazgul and a bunch of orcs. Don't tell me that they were not after Legolas," his uncertainty had shaped into a cross and hostile tone. Bad… Extremely bad. He had always been proud of his self-mastery, so why was it abandoning him now?
"The nazgul was sent after me," explained the girl as serenely, "And the orcs were ordered to murder the elf who shared my company. I suppose my previous game of generosity finally took its vengeance over me."
His perplexity must have been so obvious, that it set the riddle incarnate laughing.
"Tell me, wise Archaldir, how many of the lonely elves, you and your guards had found in this place, boasted that they had been chasing me?" continued she, once her ironical merriment had abated, "Ten? Fifteen? More? How many times did you all rejoice at this unbelievable luck? Could you really allow yourself to think that I was stupid enough to get into one and the same trap in one and the same area and still wander in here?"
Blood rushed to Archaldir's face, making him bless the half-darkness of the passage, which hid the first and the last blush in his life. He prayed to all the Valars for her not to have been aware of how right she was.
"I guess, my Lord saw me with Legolas and jumped at the conclusion that I had begun to help you openly," a brief chuckle escaped her bent lips, "He didn't give himself the trouble of finding out who the elf was."
She slowly unhooked the collar of her vest and drew the leather down her shoulders. In the ensuing silence Archaldir heard a sharp gasp, let out by staggered Legolas.
Occasional white gleams of intact skin paled against the burning background of scalds, wounds and bruises… The tight tissue cornet was brown with dry spots, the origin of which left no particular doubts.
"That was what he called me for. To remind me that I should be less obvious in my preferences. He might have forgotten how to love, but he is still matchless in jealosy – no matter if he's jealous of his rivals or his enemies."
The vest unhurriedly slid back, hiding the awful sight from their terrified stares. During the endlessly long moment nobody made a move. The girl was the first to stir.
"I must be going," muttered she tiredly, suddenly losing all her outward vigour, which had changed into exhausted indifference, "Good bye. Long live the Prince…"
But as soon as she turned away to leave, Legolas, who for all this time seemed no more alive than one of the statues, decorating the hall somewhere above them, seized her hand.
"Gwirith, wait," begged he, suppliantly cupping her disfigured cheek, "Forgive me. I'm with you."
She shrugged her shoulders again, and instead of answering unexpectedly appealed to Archaldir:
"Sage?"
"Go," said Archaldir unwillingly. He had already bowed down to her, "But promise that you'll save him out of it all."
"I swear with my heart-blood, that I will do everything to keep him safe," the solemn words rang through the passage in a thousandfold echo, and Moria responded with low hum, acknowledging itself the witness of the oath, "I'm the eye of this storm, sage. And the eye of the storm is the quietest place. Even you are not able to shelter him better."
He exchanged a short handshake with Legolas – a handshake more sincere that they had shared during their last talk. The girl watched them say their goodbye… Her hand he had to shake, too, though it didn't bring any pleasure to both of them.
"If you lie…" enunciated Archaldir dangerously, grasping at her wrist as she was going to break the touch, "If you only lie…"
Her dark eyes slightly narrowed, begetting a cruel sparkle. She didn't let him finish.
"I admire your attempts to save your face, Archaldir," she rapped out archly, "But if I lie, you are helpless. Farewell."
A/N… I know, I know… It's long and mind-spinning. Sorry. :o)))
Hugs to all my reviewers – former, present and future ones. :o))
Adamanta.