Chapter 7: Verses and Tidings

The dungeons weren't so much a hop and skip away from the entrance hall as a long jog through branching pathways and tall flights of stairs that led ever downwards for what seemed like miles. Twice Alec had to double back, getting the turn in a corridor wrong. The first time she found herself in the kitchen where she saw rows of elves at trestle tables kneading what looked like flat circular bread. The second time she arrived at a warehouse where large wooden barrels that carried the pungent and bittersweet smell of herbs were stored in a wide room with an arched stone roof.

When Alec did finally reach the prisons, she found the entrance barred by four heavily armed elven guards. Slowing her run down to a crawl, she carefully walked forward. One step. Two steps. Three steps. But before she could move an inch further, the outermost two guards leveled at her identical spears, the cold steel tips brushing the bare skin of her neck and her midsection in warning.

"Dár."

Alec smiled, or at least tried to. It was time to see if the elvish that she'd learned was enough.

"Cen gador gwain ûn."

The slight crease in the guards' brows betrayed how badly she'd mangled the words. Crap. The sharp edges of their weapons pressed a hair's breadth closer, forcing her to angle her body in a slight backward bend while sucking her stomach in. She breathed in deeply.

"Im iest na ped na i ulunn."

The guards' faces darkened. They understood her clearly this time.

"Baw!" Their answer was short and equally emphatic. With the rear guards taking their stance, it was clear what the answer was even if she had not understood the word.

No.

Of course.

Alec wouldn't normally back down but she wasn't in any mood to have herself skewered to death or have an all-out brawl with the four of them. Besides, her watchers were still there, lurking in the shadows. She had no intention of giving them any cause for amusement.

Putting her hands up in mock surrender, Alec slowly stepped back. When she was a safe distance away and gave no indication of making a suicidal dash forward, the men stood down. Alec folded her hands across her chest. She was not stupid enough to charge in just then but she sure as hell wasn't over trying to gain access. She would be back. And she'd find another way.

Legolas followed a short distance behind Aragorn as Gaelin led the way to the throne room. They did not have to wait long to get an audience. The Dunedain's arrival, albeit unexpected, was not unwelcome. Aragorn after all was one of the few outsiders that Thranduil suffered to allow not only free entrance into their domain but also one of the few he deigned to speak freely to. He wagered it was in equal parts due to the blood that they knew flowed through the dark-haired man's veins, the birthright he was unwilling to take up, and the regard of Elrond who had seen fit to raise the man up as he did his own sons.

Legolas had known Aragorn since the man's youth. Estel they had called him then. It had been many years since he'd seen him last in Rivendell. He was certain the Dunedain had many tales to tell in his travels since. Legolas grinned. This time it is I who has a tale to tell. The Ranger had yet to be introduced to Alec and the thought of having the two meet added a spring to his step.

His father was not on the throne when they finally arrived there. In fact, Thranduil was nowhere to be seen. Gaelin instead led them to the antechamber beside it where they found his father, garbed in a thick velvet mantle, comfortably seated on the small chaise that occupied the center of the room. In his hands he held a heavy black and gold tome. Upon seeing them enter, he shut the book with a loud thud and set it down on the oak table before them.

"Aragorn. How time flies does it not? When last we saw you, you were but a boy and now you are a grown man. A man who brings a foul and detestable creature to our doorstep."

Aragorn bowed. "It is but the necessity of the times, my Lord. I assume you already know why I have come."

Thranduil tilted his head in acknowledgement. "Indeed." He pulled out a small tightly rolled up parchment the height of a thimble from within his robes. It was a hawk's message. The thin paper would have been held in the small iron canister tied to the bird's legs as it flew across the miles of terrain that separated it from its destination. Now in his father's hands the small drop of purple wax that had sealed it had already been broken. The writing, even from afar and though small, was recognizable. Thranduil met Aragon's gaze with one of both grudging acceptance and curiosity. "Your letter asks of a favor. Had it been from any other mortal, I would not have deigned to even consider it."

Aragon's shoulders eased fractionally and a small smile graced his tired features. "And I can but only thank you that you are."

Thranduil lightly shook his head. "You can thank the grace of Elrond that I do." Without waiting for a response from either of them he stood up and walked to one of the many shelves flanking the circular walls of the room. From one of the upper shelves he pulled down a number of scrolls. He laid them upon the table and spread them out for all to see. Map after map after map of Mirkwood and its environs was laid out, the tell-tale annotations of the scouts scribbled in green ink across each. Triangles dotted along ridges marked observation posts. Rectangles and crosses denoted enemy units. And all of them were clustered around and spreading out in the southern forest from one singular point - Dol Guldur.

Legolas had heard the scouts' reports but had not seen the official documents himself until then. The tallied numbers and positions confirmed what he'd heard - Mordor had reawakened. Orcs were amassing in numbers that spoke of only one thing. War. And soon.

Aragorn studied the reports. When he looked up at them, his face was hard. "It is as we suspected. Sauron is calling to arms all his forces. I have been to the Dead Marshes and even from there smoke rises from Mordor. A war is coming."

Thranduil resumed his seat. "And is it there that you picked up that thing that now resides in my dungeons?"

Aragorn nodded. "We have been hunting for Gollum across the vales of Anduin, Mirkwood and Rhovanion for the last eight years. We, Gandalf and I, believe that he holds knowledge that is vital to safeguarding Middle Earth."

Thranduil's eyebrows arched in incredulity. Legolas understood why. Even he himself found the thought that the creature held such vital information ludicrous. And yet the severity of Aragon's disposition and tone brokered no argument.

"Yes, as hard as it may be to believe. Gandalf will be here in two days to question Gollum himself."

Leaning back against the chaise, Thranduil steepled his fingers. With his icy gaze he appraised the Ranger. Legolas knew that look well. It was one he'd seen countless times as his father weighted the truth of the man presented before him as though he could see every truth and falsehood he had ever uttered in his life. He had seen many others, be it man, elf, or dwarf that had withered in his piercing gaze. Aragorn did not. The Dunedain held his chin straight and gave Thranduil a clear-eyed look.

It was several minutes before his father finally spoke. "And what knowledge do you seek from this creature?"

Aragorn was matter of fact in his response. "On what we believe might be a ring of power that has finally been found."

Alec scrunched her nose. There had to be a better way than this. Really. Except she'd searched for any other option in the last two hours and found nothing. Even the option of trying to dash in when the guards changed shift wasn't really one. These were no village idiots that guarded the entrance but highly trained fighting machines. They all operated with a precision that made finding a loophole, any loophole, to bypass them at the entrance highly difficult if not impossible. And they had far better night vision than her.

So here she was, with the only option that she could find. And it was not one that she particularly liked. After all, whoever dreams of having a roll around the mud and filth of a latrine in the hopes of clawing their way through the small, cramped, and stinky hole into the other end that connects it to the dungeons?

Apparently, her.

Because while she'd never seen an elf actually use one, they did keep a latrine handy for their odd guest or, in this case, prisoners. So here she was, neck deep in dried decaying sludge and trying her best not to breathe in the noxious and nauseous fumes that the slimy sticky walls were coated in.

Not one of the grown elves that resided in the palace would have fit into the space she was in. And she doubted that even an elf child, though they too could plausibly fit, would dare. Their highly developed sense of smell would make what she was currently doing nothing short of a torture. With her slight build, she could, just barely, squeeze herself in, inch by torturous inch, through the stone portal and through the chute.

She'd found the thing really by pure chance. She had wandered deeper into the maze of the palace both in the hopes of outsmarting her watchers and to find some way of breaking into prison. Although deep within the bowels of the palace, the prison was not, as she had originally thought, its lowest level. Underneath the grey stone floors of the dungeons were a series of small naturally formed caverns laid out in an interlocking maze. It was there that she found that because of her stature she could wiggle herself through cracks and crevices that the elves following her could not. And it was also there that she found what amounted to the elvish version of a sewage system.

Alec made her way through the bramble and tree roots that filled up the room. She figured they acted as natural filters for whatever waste was released into the cavern. It was in the far corner that she found the stone chute. The foul odor that emanated from it that no amount of tree bark or leaf could hide amounted only to one thing. So she did the only thing she could do in those circumstances. She took off her sword, pinched her nose, closed her eyes, and began to climb.

Now, a further full half hour later by her reckoning, she was near the top of the latrine chute. With a big heave, she pushed her right arm upwards as far as she could. At first she only felt more sludge under her fingertips. Then, just as she resigned herself to spending more time clawing upwards, she felt it.

Finally. The stone walls curved outwards onto an edge. Alec redoubled her upward climb. Her arms and thighs ached from the strain of holding her up against the downward pull of gravity. She ignored the burn on her muscles as she pressed her body hard against the iron bars that grilled the top of the hole. She sighed in relief when, after several attempts to get the rusted metal to budge, she heard the unmistakable groan and pop of metal being unhinged. The first lungful of fresh air she took after she'd pushed her body up and out had never been sweeter.

Fuck. Alec refrained from glancing down from where she came. Never again will I do something like that.

But, despite the ordeal, Alec had gotten to where she wanted to go. She was in a recessed corner of the prisons. Iron rings mounted onto the walls above and around her were scratched with use. Some still even had chains where they had tied the prisoners to prevent them from escaping, presumably down the very hole that she had just clambered up through.

Right now however the prison had only one occupant. The thing that she'd earlier seen in the courtyard squatted by edge of the cell it was in. Its robin-egg blue eyes watched her every move with a languid uncaring similar to how one might watch the movements of an ant. She shivered as she approached it.

"What did you mean earlier when you said 'You don't belong here'?" Although Alec pitched her whispered inquiry low her voice echoed in the empty space. She looked up sharply towards the entryway. She half expected the guards stationed above to come crashing down and lock her up beside the creature she was now conversing with.

Or at least, she hoped to be conversing. The misshapen and gangly creature before her just tilted its head and stared back at her, uncomprehending.

"Who are you? What do you know about me?"

Silence. The thing extended a bony finger to trace the outlines of the prison bars separating them. It extended a long pale red tongue and licked the grey metal in one long swipe. It made a disgusted face, as though the taste had not suited it, before it jammed its features against the small opening between two. "Them's elves locking us up's no fair, my precious. We's want our own cave. No fresh fishies here. We wants us nice juicy fishies. Gollum."

Alec bent down and rattled the bars in front of her. Maybe to scare it. Partly due to her frustration. She did not have much time. Any second now the guards would come. She needed to know the truth. Her voice dripped venom and authority.

"Treneri nin."

It rolled its eyes. "Lost. Isn't she, my precious?" It softly laughed, the dry cackle reverberated in the musty air and made the hairs at the back of Alec's neck rise.

The thing before her squeezed its face even more through the bars. Its emaciated head was stretched and like leather over a drum its pockmarked skin thinned across its skull. It bared its crooked teeth in a parody of a smile.

"Fear the man with the sunken blue eyes
Pity him who offers him aid
For he will snatch the little lassie away
Whisk her to live in his dark little cave
With its smell of fishes and lies."

It spoke the words in a shrill sing-song. At the end of the verse it laughed once more. The edges of its ribs stuck out of its chest with every loud burst. Alec tried to reach through the bars to clamp its mouth shut. It only laughed louder. She backed away. Over the din the pound of metal on stone alerted Alec that finally the guards had come. Just as soon as the footsteps approached the thing stopped its cackles abruptly, pressed a long finger over its chapped lips, and turned to face the cell's interior wall.

Alec shifted to face the elvish infantry that had come, her palms held up in surrender. She kept her eyes firmly planted to the ground. Shit. There wasn't anything she could say that would make her situation any better. They were, after all, catching her red-handed.

"And who do we have here?"

At the unfamiliar voice Alec looked up. Beside the unamused elven guards in their plate mail was the same dark-haired man whom Legolas had been speaking to earlier. Unlike his elven escorts, the man looked like he was deciding whether to pull out the sword that hung by his side, turn away from the foul stench of excrement that she was no doubt exuding, or laugh out loud at the absurdity of the sight.

Alec slowly stood up from where she was bent. Her height barely grazed his sternum. Up close she saw that he had handsome features beneath his rugged exterior. The crust of mud at the soles of his boots told her of long travels abroad. He held himself casually like all the best warriors. She had no doubt he could run her though with the long sword at his side without breaking a sweat. She resisted the urge to test it.

"Elvellon. Alec na mui est."

The man before her crossed his arms across the leather traveling armor he wore over his wide chest. "And what is an elf-friend doing here, sneaking around in the dungeons without any permission."

A movement to her right caught her attention. In its cell the creature half turned to her and shook its head before retreating further into the shadows. Yes, she agreed, he doesn't need to know why. Alec kept her voice light, unconcerned. "To see an interesting creature. I had heard the rumors."

"And you were so desperate to see it that you had to make your way in through, unless I am mistaken, the latrine."

Alec shrugged her shoulders. With one hand she attempted to brush away some of the flakes from the chute that had stuck to her clothes. "Well, what can I say? Minai ulunn."

His eyes narrowed. He did not buy her statement. One of the elves beside the man whispered into his left ear. He spoke so fast and softly that she barely caught his words. "She is Legolas' charge."

The man looked at her sharply. "Perhaps we shall let him figure out what to do with you. Either that or the king." Without another word he turned aside to usher her out.

As Alec began to walk away she distinctly heard the thing in the cell behind her snicker. Its last cryptic words filled the empty space between them. Fear the man with the sunken blue eyes...

It did not escape her notice that the deep-set eyes of the man who now led the way out were a clear and unmistakable shade of blue.

Notes:
Dár (Sindarin) - halt
Cen gador gwain ûn (Sindarin) - See prison new creature
Im iest na ped na i ulunn (Sindarin) - I wish to speak with the hideous creature
Baw! (Sindarin) - No!
Treneri nin (Sindarin) - Tell me.
Elvellon (Sindarin) - Elf-friend
na mui est (Sindarin) - is my name
minai ulunn (Sindarin) - unique hideous creature