Chapter 8 - The second strike


The hall was frantic with guards and terrified guests when we arrived. Zigûr met us at the entrance and lead us to a dais at the head of the room, where we were greeted with a sound of retching and a wet splatter. The queen was seated on black stone tile, hunched over a wooden bucket that she held tightly in her arms. She was trembling, and her breathing was slow and laborious. The high collar of her dress had been torn open to allow her as much air as possible, and her pale breast was spotted with the now-familiar poxbark rash. She turned to us weakly as we entered.

"I think we may now be certain poisoner is still at large," she said, between gasping breaths.

"The king has been moved to a safer location of course. Luckily, it seems the queen got only a small dose," Zigûr told us. "I do not think it is the wine this time; three others had glasses poured from the same bottle with no ill effects."

"How long ago did this happen?"

"Only a short while, a quarter of an hour at most."

"Most interesting. This was her plate?" Teti asked, gesturing to one of the delicate gilded dishes on the white-clothed table. Zigûr nodded. Teti leaned in close to inspect it, his nose almost touching a half-eaten slab of lamb.

He beckoned Zigûr and me over to the table. "Her plate has been sprinkled with poxbark powder," he told us, pointing to a coarse, reddish powder, almost like fine sawdust, that dusted the plate. "That is why the symptoms are so mild. The poison does not work correctly in such a way. The toxin leeches too slowly, and before a fatal dose is reached other compounds in the bark induce nausea and cause the powder to be expelled, as we observed on our arrival."

"It is over the food so added during the meal," I observed.

"Well done, yes." Teti said. "So what does that tell you?"

"It would have to be someone near her at dinner," I suggested.

Zigûr beckoned one of the guards over. "See that anyone who was within three seats of the queen and anyone who served them does not leave the palace grounds until this is resolved."

"Would that not include yourself, and the king?" the guard asked hesitatingly.

"The king may do as he wishes," Zigûr answered. "As for me, I hardly leave this place anyway."

Teti seemed to take no notice of Zigûr's actions. Instead, he stood pensively, as if wrestling with some decision. Seeming to decide, he called to Rabêz, "I need to look at the grounds," then he abruptly turned and strode out of the room. Rabêz and I followed hurriedly.

Teti led us all over the palace grounds, inspecting this and that, but never seeming to find whatever it was he was looking for. He even searched outside the walls, down to the narrow strip of muddy coastline at the base of the cliffs just beyond. Rabêz chose to remain on the cliffs above, saying she only needed to accompany us within the palace walls, and that she preferred not to dirty her dress if she didn't need to.

As the night dragged on, I found myself wishing I had stayed with Rabêz. The wind was cold, and I was still tired from my ordeal in the kitchen the night before. I spent most of the time sitting on a small bit of stone watching the moonlight ripple on the ocean as Teti scurried along the base of the cliff behind me. I still had no idea what he was looking for.

I found myself thinking of Elrond, and the terror in his voice when he spoke of Zigûr's interrogation. Even half-poisoned as we had first met him he had been proud and strong. I shuddered to thing of what horrors could have reduced him to that desperate state. It was not the sort of thing I would have thought to see in Númenor. Were we not supposed to be the noblest of all men?

My thoughts were interrupted by the approach of Teti, the deep mud sucking about his feet. "No, no, sit a moment" he told me, settling himself down on the stone beside me.

"I must apologize to you, Abrazîr," he said. "It is as I feared, the poisoner is not someone I can safely accuse. I see no way to rescue Elrond without putting you, and myself, in danger."

"We cannot simply leave him there!"

Teti's kohl-rimmed eyes turned out over the water seemingly lost in thought. After several moments he spoke. "I hurt many of my own country-men by supporting your people during their occupation. Do not think I regret your friendship, but I do wish I had not allowed myself to become so engrossed in my work that I failed to notice the harm I was doing to those around me. I cannot do the same again."

"There is a way to save Elrond then?" I asked.

"Yes," Teti admitted. "I half hoped it would not pan out, but I think I have a way. It is too much to ask though."

"But think of the harm that will come if we do not act," I countered. "Elrond will be executed, and if he is made to sign that confession first there will be war with Lindon. Please, Teti, I cannot have those things on my conscience."

"I warn you," Teti said, "what I have in mind is neither legal nor safe, and," - he turned to me, every inch of his face seeming to plead for forgiveness for what he was about to say - "we will not be able to return to Númenor, perhaps ever. I know what a thing that is to ask of you, better than most I imagine."

This gave me pause. Leave Númenor? It seemed unthinkable. It was my home, as much a part of me as my arms and legs. But then I thought of how many would die in a war with Lindon and of Elrond, alone in the dark of the prison on the cliff above. How could I ever find peace here again, knowing what others had paid for it?

"I am resolved," I said. "Whatever your plan is, let us try it."

Teti smiled. "Abrazîr, I sometimes think the men of this land have a very inflated opinion of themselves. You though, my friend, live up to it."


That's all the clues! I'm curious what everyone's theories are at this point.