AH, broken is the golden bowl! The spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now or nevermore!
Edgar Allan Poe
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Glorfindel sat by the bedside of his friend, the human called Ethan, and held the man's hand gently in his own while looking down at his peaceful face. It was hard to imagine that this was the same man that had fought by his side not that many months before and who had endured so much yet had managed to suffer through and survive his ordeal with a determination that would have made any elf proud.
But now, the years that had passed the man by while he had been an unwilling inhabitant of the world called Lament, had caught up with him. Oh so tenderly, Glorfindel reached out and smoothed the thinning white hair back from the wrinkled brow. As he did, the man's eyes came open and looked at him for a moment, and when he finally recognized him, his entire face lit up with a smile.
"Ah, my Lord Glorfindel, you have come to visit me at last." He said in his old man's voice that crackled from a throat dry and raspy from age and disuse.
The elf Lord smiled.
"I have not left your side since last you laid your head on your pillow, my friend ... just as I promised."
Glorfindel's eyes stung from trying to hold back his tears and though he was old, Ethan didn't miss the effort. He lifted his free hand from beneath the covers and placed it over the strong hand of the elf Lord.
"Don't grieve for me, Glorfindel. I am not an elf, but am just a man and I am over 2,000 years old – this is not my time." Ethan sighed deeply. "Death is not so bad ... I am ready for it." He clasped the elf Lord's hand one last time. "I will miss you."
The man's last words were no more than a whisper, then after smiling a soft, peaceful smile, sighed deeply and exhaled both breath and life.
And so it was that the land finally laid itself down to rest for a season, covering itself with a blanket of white, the first gentle snow of winter. And as it fell into its final slumber of the season, so too, did the human named Ethan, 2000 and some years too late, with his friend, the blonde haired elf lord, Glorfindel of Gondolin and of Imladris, by his side and looking into his eyes as they closed for the final time.
"Sleep well, my friend," he said quietly and gently as he caressed the man's brow, "for you earned this rest a long time ago. There will come a day ... some far off day, when we will see each other again, when we will sit peacefully in front of a warm fire and share a glass of fine wine. It is then that we will tell stories of long before and of better times, times that we will remember fondly, and gladly. Until then, I can only say that I will miss you as well."
Glorfindel picked up the man's hand and held it to his heart, then bowing his head, he finally gave in to his grief and wept. Above the small room where he now kept the watch over his friend, in the great bell tower of the Last Homely House of Lord Elrond of Imladris, the bell was rung by unseen hands. Six times the great bell cried out - six times it voiced its grief for the passing of a man who had endured much and who would always be fondly remembered for his courage and endurance.
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Well, the ride is over and the time has come to let everyone know exactly what happened over the course of the story.
Was it a scary story? Hopefully, for it was written specifically for Halloween, the scariest night of the year. But if you care to think back over the story and look just a little bit deeper, you can see positive things as well as evil, for in mythology or reality, one can not exist without the other. There were grand examples of honor, loyalty, love and true and abiding friendships over distances and time unimaginable - all concepts most minds would have trouble understanding under the tests my characters were forced to endure.
Was it a crossover story? Yes and no again, depending on your perspective. You have to remember that Middle-earth is a mythological world as was the world of Lament. In the grand scheme of things, even considering that we are talking about the realm of imagination and make-believe, the chances of something like this happening are infinitesimal although in my world, it did happen – two worlds came together and for a small span of time, occupied the same space at the same time.
It was a personal choice to deal with the effects of this phenomena on Middle-earth but not on the world called Lament because this was, after all, a Lord of the Rings, based story, written from the point of view of the inhabitants of Arda and in particular, of the inhabitants of the House of Elrond.
Writing such a story in this fashion was difficult for me to do without giving away the little surprises although I would hope that some of my readers might have guessed. What were the little surprises?
Ok. Here goes ...
The world called Lament was, in fact, the personification of the puzzle box called the Lament Configuration that Author Clive Barker made so popular in the Hellraiser movies. Allegedly, the puzzle box was the Hell Dimension and there are those who claim that it was also a doorway between two worlds, hence my idea for this story. Once this doorway has been opened, the inhabitants from Lament had to take a being/soul back with them to convert to their own kind.
I gave Lament a consciousness and self-will – not free will, but self-will, and also made it, not only the Hell Dimension but the home of some of the most evil and murderous beings that had ever walked through anybody's imagination. Truly fun stuff.
The room of light and sanctuary that existed in the heart of Lament: The reason that the nobody could read the book at first and could only remember basic facts about it after they left the world called Lament was simple ... tainted timeline. The basic similarities between the two worlds were acceptable but to introduce such concepts as the typewriter, modern paper, or even the concept of Hell to the inhabitants of Middle-earth would have caused some horrific ripples in the great cosmic timeline, something that could not be allowed to happen.
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The Shadow Horde: The Shadow Horde consisted of a multitude of small faceless beings from Lament whose only function was to hurt and destroy. The problems with these creatures was that there were so many of them and even though Thranduil, Glorfindel, Semoro, Saeros were great warriors and even Ethan could kill his fare share of the nasty creatures, they all still had their hands full.
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The Dark-skinned Man: The evil being met by Aragorn and Legolas, also known as the "dark skinned man," was the Candyman and the experience of our two "brothers of the heart" was a test of their trust and loyalty in each other. The Candyman was once a man by the name of Daniel Robitaille, and was an ex-slave turned artist who committed an unthinkable act for the era in which he lived by falling in love and having an affair with his client's daughter. As punishment for his great crime, his right hand was cut off, his body was covered in honey and he was allowed to be stung to death by bees while the relatives watched. As the myth went, if anyone said his name five times while looking in the mirror, he would appear behind that person and would kill them with the hook he wore on his severed hand.
The problem I faced with this particular character, was that none of the characters involved were familiar with modern terms for the dark-skinned race and so they just referred to Robitaille as the "dark-skinned man." Neither were they familiar with modern day writing, modern even referring to the era in which Robitaille had lived and so wouldn't have been able to read, write or recognize his name in the mist covered mirror in the bathing room. Aragorn had traced all five occurrences of the word with his fingers and as the ghost of Robitaille had said, "Close enough."
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The Bat Shapeshifter: Elrond met the heinous murderer who was, of course ... Dracula, also known by some as Count Vladislaus Dracula or Vlad the Impaler in our mythology, and the elf Lord's test, was of his perceptiveness, or his ability to see beyond what his eyes and heart told him was real until he came upon the truth. Everyone should be pretty much familiar with Dracula and this character wasn't all that hard to write, considering that Middle-earth mythology contained a character named Thuringwethil, who was the bat-servant of Sauron, also known as Thu.
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The Shapeshifter/Wolfman: Elladan and Elrohir met the wolfman, more commonly known as the werewolf, a shapeshifter also a part of Middle-earth mythology. Their twin bond was sorely tested when it appeared that Elladan was going to die from injuries received when he was mauled by the creature. The two did what they had to do and even though they were in a world quite different from their own and even though time was skewed, they still managed to not only maintain the bond only another twin could understand, but also finally defeated the wolfman and took it back to Lament.
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The Skinny Man: Gandalf was paired up with the "skinny man," as he was referred to and it was the wizard's power that was tested. Power had corrupted his adversary, but it was the power of Gandalf's heart that finally won the day ... that and a sausage of course.
In case none of you have been able to figure it out by now, Gandalf fought Freddy Kruger, who according to legend was a maniacal murderer with a twisted and sarcastic sense of humor whose favorite weapons were his finger knives and whose favorite victims were teenagers and children. The problem with the writing of the Freddy character was that none of the Middle-earth characters would have known that Freddy's death had occurred when he had been burned to death and so would naturally have thought that his face was somehow deformed. Neither would anyone have known that Freddy's finger knives were called that and so referred to them as they did.
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I liked writing every character I used, but these last two were my personal favorites.
The Large Man: Captain Rahan fought Jason Voorhees, who as a young child, drowned while at summer camp and who came back to avenge his mother's murder and who liked doing what he did so much that he stayed to continue his work. Although I never could find out just how big the character actually was, I thought the perfect match for this murderer would be the Thurin Tirith Captain who stood 6'6" tall and weighed 450 pounds.
Strength and tenacity ... oh yes ... there was plenty of that as Captain Rahan went right to the edge while fighting this demon. The interesting part about this character was that none of the Middle-earth inhabitants would know what a hockey mask was and so naturally thought that the man's face was expressionless and deformed, and none of them would have known what a machete was and so referred to Jason's weapon as a short sword.
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Once-human: Then there was the "Engineer" of it all, a true voyeur and connoisseur of both pain and pleasure, a being who came to be known as "Once-human." Of course I am talking about the head "Engineer" from the Hell Dimension, Pinhead, a being from Clive Barker's Hellraiser series.
You may remember that when Anayah was bedeviling and distracting Pinhead, she kept calling him Elliot. Pinhead, when he was still human, was a man by the name of Elliot Spencer who was a Captain during World War II. When researching this character, I learned that Elliot Spencer "…became a pain monger thirsty for inflicting the same kind of pain his past self received for playing with the box."
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And who was the Shadow Being? I can tell you truly that it was NOT Anayah. It was
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A/N: There was a dream sequence in Chapter 9 that needs a little clarification. The sequence with the college student, Rachel Westerlake, then when Anayah fell down the stairs, was only a dream she was having. Why did both dreams seem connected? I was reaching a little bit here, but just like how Lament and the House of Elrond could be in the same place at the same time, so could the worlds in which Anayah's dreams were actually reality. If you still don't understand, email me and I will explain a little further.
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I don't want to get in trouble from the powers that be by writing long review responses, but I did want to thank:
Thanks to NanaHalfElven, friend, confidante, muse and the smartest woman on the face of the planet.
Also, a million thanks to CapriceAnn Hedican-Kocur, Laer 4572, Black as Shadows, and Adrieal Kenobi and her Crazy Frog for writing reviews. If I forgot anybody, please email me and let me know.
To the 1,000 + readers who just read the story but didn't get a chance to review, my thanks to you for taking the time to read the story. I sincerely hope that all of you were entertained … at least for awhile.
Hannon-le a Namarië Mellyn-nín!