Legolas was having that same dream again – his deadmare. He was trying to meditate, to go in peace. He was journeying through a wide field towards a large boulder and, again, his fantasy was broken up with dark flashes of a twisted forest. Once again, he knew that the trees held his Estel within and that he must try to find him before his death, for the ranger's soul was trapped somewhere. He accepted the forest in his mind. He moved away from the boulder and entered the forest. He stepped up to the close-knit trees and began pulling back the vines that were enshrouding them. One by one, he ripped. It got harder and harder and his arms were becoming heavy with the exertion of it.
Don't worry, Estel. I'll reach you. He was getting closer. He could see glimpses of the ranger's dark hair between the roots, held deep within. Despite his aching arms, the elf increased speed. He pulled the stubborn roots away and shredded them ferociously. He was much nearer now – he could almost reach a hand out to the ranger. Just a few more layers!
I will not die this time! This time I will succeed. This time I will free him! He wildly frayed the last layer, blood, adrenaline and fury pulsing through him. And as he looked up to the ranger's face, ready to untie him, he opened his eyes.
"And that," Maeryn was saying to Ithast. "Is how you deal with a nuisance."
The black mass of roots filled the elf's eyes and he knew what he must do.
"Now enough fooling around." Maeryn raised herself onto her knees and her face was now very close to the elf.
"You'd better be done with those, if you're going to concentrate." Ithast pointed out, gesturing towards the roots, which were still attached to the old woman's hand.
"I supposed you're right." She began to use her other hand to sever the vines from her.
It's now or never.
At that moment, Legolas thrust forward with all of his might and butted his head roughly against Maeryn's. She let out a horrific scream as the black disease hit her head and trickled down her face, her neck, her arms, scarring and sizzling and burning all the way down to her toes. And, as the Prince had predicted, the plague went right through to the vines attached to her hand. They sizzled and turned to dust as the blackness travelled along them. The charring followed their path around and around the cedars until they reached the centre and Estel's suspended body. They charcoaled into ash and he fell to the ground, his lungs gasping for air. Legolas noted this, his own breath caught in his throat, his small sense of triumph swelling.
But Maeryn was not dead. She was rolling on the ground, writhing and screaming and covering her face with her hands. Ithast was powerless to help and jumped about trying not to step on her. Legolas watched her silently, wondering why she wasn't dust yet. The elf had not been watching the other 'wizard', so it came as quite the shock when the back of the man's gloved hand slapped him swiftly and smartly across the face. The Prince's face burned with the sting, hot with embarrassment and fury.
"You'll pay for that, Highness." He spat. Ithast had more to say, but was interrupted then by a deep moan from the old woman. He helped Maeryn to her feet, trying to console her. "Let me see." He gently lifted Maeryn's face and peered into it.
If the old woman had looked haggard before, it was nothing compared to the ghastly vision she was now. Her once hairy, warty face was now covered with terrible black and bloody burns. Her skin was charcoaled and leathery. Her hair was burnt into black wires. Her hands were withered and corpse-like. But she was not dust. Ithast cradled her in his arms. There were thick, blackened tears rolling out of her gray eyes.
"H-he tried to kill me. H-he's too close to death now f-for his skin to have the proper effect, b-but he burned me. H-he-" She sobbed and then coughed, her lungs obviously filled with ash.
"Shhhhhhhh. I know, I know." Ithast looked down at her lovingly with his perfect black eyes. "Don't worry. We'll set things right. He'll pay. He'll pay for everything, my sweet. We'll fix your face. Just don't cry."
Legolas wondered briefly if they were lovers. But surely they couldn't be. She was old enough to be his grandmother. In fact, maybe she was. But the Prince didn't have time to long consider this, for Ithast gently set down Maeryn and advanced on him. He backhanded the elf once again.
"You and your friend will suffer!" He screamed with rage.
"Oh, we've had plenty of that!" Legolas spat out the blood that had seeped into his mouth from his split lip. "What's a little more?"
Ithast obviously didn't know what to say to this and it clearly infuriated him more. "Y-you will die. Now!"
However, Ithast clearly thought of something even worse, for he unsheathed his blade and moved behind Legolas. Before the elf had time for fear, he felt a tug at his scalp as the 'wizard' took hold of his waist-length hair. Legolas struggled not to cry out as a rough tearing prickled through his skull, accompanied by the horrible sound of careless shearing. All at once, the pressure on his hair was released and his blond locks swung forward. They were now the down to the bottom of his shoulder blades – a good foot and a half shorter! Ithast came back into his view, the great length of blond clasped in his hand. A great indignation flamed across the elf's cheeks as he watched his thousand-year-old tresses dead and in the clutches of a stranger.
Ithast stroked the locks across his face. "Oooh, so soft!" He moaned. "I can't wait until they're mine." He slowly and reluctantly tucked the hair inside his cloak and snapped his eyes back to the elf's, angry once more. "And once you are gone, know that your friend will be next!"
"Kill the ranger first. It will pain him more." Maeryn said in a scratchy voice.
"An excellent idea, my sweet."
Maeryn made a motion with her hands as though she was pulling back two branches and the large cedars parted and moved aside, revealing the ranger. He was unconscious on the grass inside. "Here." Maeryn said and the grass rolled upward and carried the ranger over to them. "See now, as we take that which matters most to you." She coughed. She took Aragorn by the hair and lifted a blade to his neck.
"No!" Legolas screamed in a voice no longer his own. It was filled with the raw, bloody, unquenchable emotion of a human. The elf slammed forward in his bindings, narrowly missing Ithast's head. The man gasped.
"Maeryn, give me your hand, now! He's too dangerous to live!" And Ithast took Maeryn's hand into his and jerked her towards him. Maeryn dropped the ranger and the blade. Ithast began summoning his music and Maeryn did not hesitate to concentrate her rage on the elf.
The magic came to them quicker now, the life of the elf less anchored to the body. It soon began peeling off of him in layers and dispersing into the air like pearly bands of vapour. The Prince of Mirkwood's eyes rolled back into his head, his strained, desperate face went slack, and his body slumped heavily against its bindings as though they were the only things holding him up. The eerie music drifted high and undirected through the air, putting the orcs in the peripheral forest into a bewitched sleep.
The ranger's eyes snapped open, red spots dancing in front of them as he instinctively tried to raise himself out of the vulnerable heap he found himself in. He pushed himself up on his elbows, spitting out grass. He then noticed the spine-chilling music sauntering through his ears and wondered why it wasn't enchanting him into some horrible doom. Remembering where he was, he looked at the 'wizards' who were once again performing the spell.
The ranger was aghast to see the old woman's limbs had become like cindered logs and her entire body was covered in her own burnt meat. He couldn't understand what could have happened to her while he was in his tree-cage.
He looked up to find the staked elf before him. Even as the human watched, Legolas' clouded eyes seemed to be sinking into his head. His cheeks were hollow, his now marble-white skin once again becoming translucent. The man swore that he could see every blue vein and red artery pumping under his thin skin and for a moment, was ill to suppose that he caught a glimpse of his organs within his vine-bound torso. Aragorn could see the wisps of white life curling off of the immortal creature and seemingly evaporating into thin air. A panic filled the ranger's lungs and he silently choked on the terrified scream that involuntarily rose into his mouth. He couldn't think. He didn't. His friend would enter true death any incalculable moment. He did not consider his action – his body just did it of its own accord.
Leg-o-las!
He leapt to his feet and threw his body against Legolas as though it were a shield. He fell limply against him, scrambled to find his balance and clung to the body.Hearing the man's cry, the two 'wizards' opened their eyes to find the ranger clinging to the dying being. Aragorn scrambled, moving his hands furiously, trying to clutch the vaporous strands of life and keep them in the body. He tried to grasp at them and shove them back. He moved his hands over the elf's shoulders, trying to hold in the life.
"Please! Stop this! I beg you!" He said to them. "Legolas! Listen to me! Come back! Hear my voice and return! Return!" Estel screamed with so much pain and force that it rang out through the forest. It cut through the trees, the grass, the bodies of the insects, and the music.
The music died. Suddenly the sword that posted the elf into the ground burst with a metallic zing. The shining pieces flew everywhere and turned to molten ash. At the same moment, the poisonous mushrooms in Legolas' cupped hands disintegrated into dust. With no anchor, the Prince's nearly lifeless body collapsed backward into the grass, the ranger falling heavily on top of him. Legolas began to shake and convulse spasmodically, his body perhaps suffering the severe loss of life, or trying to call it back. Aragorn was filled with so much shock and desperation that he only vaguely took in the voices of the 'wizards'.
"What is happening, Maeryn?" Ithast screamed.
"What was wrong with your sword! It's supposed to stand up to the force of spell and sound!" She called back. They were both on their backs, on the ground, having lost their balance trying to avoid being filleted by flying shards.
Aragorn quickly unbound the elf, whose delicate life rippled and hovered precariously around his body like mist. As he did so, he tried to wake him, pushing his long, tangled hair back from his face, "Legolas, please! Come back. Return to me!" The elf's skin was no longer powerful enough to inflict death on contact.
A nearly inaudible whisper escaped the lips of the elf, his clouded, milky eyes unchanging. "Estel, stop this… You are being … selfish."
The man's heart leapt and struggled to make the words that would encourage the immortal to keep talking, to return.
"They have been more than fair… This fate has been more than fair. I…have had several…lives…. It's better … this way. Please go now… and help my father…" The Prince murmured as though half asleep. "You're being… so selfish…" He added humourlessly.
"And what's so wrong about that?" The man yelled, and then checked himself. "Don't you understand? There is a reason for all this. There has to be. There is a reason you have been brought back! You're meant to live." Aragorn looked back at the wizards and saw that they were trying to mobilize once more to perform the killing spell. "Oh Valar!"
Not noticing with his unseeing eyes, Legolas continued murmuring. "No… Estel… There is no reason for …it. It's as the old woman said… This is an abomination, an anomaly that happens…. sometimes."
Aragorn pulled the elf's limbs underneath him, trying to shield him from the oncoming spell. "Please don't!" He said, but his voice was overshadowed by Maeryn's.
"Music." She commanded.
Ithast tried to summon his music, but none would come.
"Concentrate!" Maeryn hissed.
"I'm trying!" Ithast tried to whistle, but his lips would not work. Nothing would come. "It's not working!"
Aragorn was thankful for the time bought – he needed Legolas to will himself to live. "Legolas, why have you fallen to her lies? You believe everything that they have said and yet you have no reason to trust it. Search your feelings, mellon nin. This is not your time. You know this is not your time!"
"Estel, I cannot live unnaturally any longer just because you want me to. I died fair and square. I was tested, and overtaken. My skills were bettered, so I deserved to die… As has been done with all of my kin for thousands of years." No light was returning to the elf's chalky eyes.
"But that's just it, Legolas!" The man slammed his fist down upon the ground. "It wasn't fair! Don't you remember? That coward took all of your abilities away to lure you into a vulnerable position. There was nothing fair about it! And I've cursed myself every waking moment since then – I was truly not the bodyguard you needed. I failed to protect you. But it was in no way fair!"
"This is useless without the sword and the mushrooms! Without the articles of original death, without the music… He cannot be killed." Maeryn's blackened throat cursed a few feet away, unheard by the man and elf.
"I was stupid enough to fall to the enchantment of the music; I deserved to die…" Legolas' lips barely moved and his body showed no signs of life, but his voice sounded exasperated.
"So that's it then!" Aragorn's voice shook with tears of helpless rage. "You're just going to give up, throw it all away, relent your hold on life….?" The ranger waited for an answer but none came. For a moment he feared that the Prince's spirit had left his body. But in a tiny gesture the man almost missed, the elf licked his lips. "Well, if you're not going to claim your life, then I will!"
"What do we do now?" Ithast asked Maeryn desperately, humiliation colouring his face.
Maeryn stared into his eyes for a moment, thinking. "He must pay. We'll kill his ranger friend!"
Just then, movement at her feet caught her eye. The ranger had crawled over to them and, in a stealthy flash, had claimed the forgotten blade from the grass beside them. For a moment, her heart leapt in fear, convinced he meant to kill them. But the ranger quickly crawled back to the translucent elf lying in a pile on the ground. He bent over the elf, hesitated a moment and then drove the knife swiftly down through the immortal's throat. Scarlet teemed out and there was a horrible choking sound overlaid with the gurgling of blood.
The 'wizards' gasped and stared for a moment, unable to understand why his friend would do this to him. Then a realization washed over Maeryn and she narrowed her eyes, trying to think of something that she could do to stop it.
Aragorn was frozen, poised over the elf, still bearing down on the blade that stuck straight through the elf into the ground below. For one horrifying moment, he wondered if he had taken his frustration out on the elf.
I just hope this works…. He thought, slowly pulling the weapon out of the supple flesh. He noticed a twitching out of the corner of his eye and looked over to find the elf's hands convulsing. Thinking it grotesque, the man looked back into the transparent, blue-tinged face of the elf. His heart leap as the milky eyes suffered a sort of explosion, starting at the black pupil and moving out in a fantastic wave of glacial blue. His live eyes focused and dilated, while air was feverishly sucked over his cold lips, desperate to feed his hungry brain. His skin was becoming harder and harder to see through and his cheeks soon developed a pallor. But he did not warm. He had become the undead thing once more. Relief melted Aragorn as he saw his own face register in the elf's brilliant eyes. The man held his breath as the elf raised himself up on his elbows, willing him to speak.
This again… Legolas thought, looking into the ranger's face. As he raised himself into a sitting position, he saw what was behind Aragorn. Maeryn was silently advancing on him with her own blade, ready to strike him in the back, ready to make Legolas pay. Aragorn watched Legolas' expression turn to horror inexplicably. But he didn't have time to discover why because at that moment, Legolas leapt forward and hurdled the ranger aside, sending him sprawling on the ground. The elf plunged forward, meeting the old woman in mid-stab. He latched onto her exposed forearms and his hands burnt right through them. She cried the most terrible sound that any of them had ever heard, and even Ithast's own screams could not be heard over it. The black charcoaling flamed through her body at an unprecedented rate. In moments, her flesh had melted off her bones and become ash and her skeleton soon collapsed onto the ground in a random mound. Legolas found the hand with the sword in his own, having melted it right off. He watched it as it quickly became its own tiny pile of ash and the blade fell to the ground with a metallic clang.
Aragorn's own flesh had turned cold and covered in goosebumps, his eyes were popping out of his head and he could not understand. Legolas turned to look down at him from where he stood over the remains. He looked sad and regretful, as though he hadn't wanted the man to have to see this. His eyes glistened with extreme remorse – a rarity in any elf's eternity – and then hardened, committing to the facts.
"I am dead. I spread death." He said, simply. He looked on Aragorn with increasing pity as he noticed the man's hands shaking as he brought them up to his face, covering his mouth in shock. For a moment, Legolas thought he saw something like fear pass behind Aragorn's eyes, as though the man wanted nothing more than to back away. Legolas' insides flinched as though being plucked like a stringed instrument, but he kept his exterior static. "Don't touch my skin." He added, solemnly.
A sobbing sound came from Ithast, who was bent over the ashes, holding the bones that lingered to his face. His mouth was quivering uncontrollably as he kissed and nuzzled all of the remains that were still solid enough to be held. Terrible hiccupping moans came from him and he clenched and unclenched his fits.
"My s-sweet," He mourned. "C-come back, my sweet." His tears disappeared into the flaking cinders, absorbed by the dryness of the dead, his long jet-black hair hanging ragged in the ashes. His trembling lips kissed what looked to be a femur in a last goodbye and then he gently put the bone back into the pile as though setting it neatly in its place. "I'll get them for you, my sweet. Don't you worry. You will be avenged. I'll succeed in our goal just for you. Don't worry about anything…" He spoke as he organized the bones as though it were some cleaning up that he took pride in doing.
When he finally looked up, he had changed. His hands were clenched into tight menacing balls and his black eyes burned with more fire than Maeryn had. He looked as though he was poised to leap onto Legolas and throttle him. The danger in his eyes made Legolas' instincts scream, and he stepped deliberately between the ranger and the remaining 'wizard'. Aragorn thought to protest, but now that Legolas' body was undead again and he, himself had no armour, it seemed that this arrangement only made sense.
"You," Ithast spoke with near inaudible rage. "Will pay most dearly for what you have done. I will burn you and everyone you know." Ithast paused, forcing himself to think through the fury that would have otherwise disabled him. He realized that he had no weapon against the immortal elf. The blades would not work on him and he was unable to perform the spell that would kill him anymore. And his music seemed to have deserted him. But perhaps there was one way to get his revenge and to get the elf to hand over the beauty.
A look of epiphany suddenly passed through the eyes of the 'wizard', frightening the elf, who was watching him intently.
"Prepare to suffer as I now suffer! I hope your fathers are as strong as the elves seem to think they are!" Ithast's throat sounded as though it was coming apart at the seams and with that, he began to run. He ran back the way Legolas had come, towards Rivendell.
TBC