My beta has also had a lot of work, so she sends her apologies as well.
Hopefully you have not all totally lost interest in the interim.Thanks to all who reviewed! Any further feedback would be greatly appreciated – I'm still not particularly proficient at writing fiction.
Warning: if you don't like blood, skip the italics.
Chapter Three – MaeglinFrom one side, she might have been sleeping, if it were not for the blood that trickled down across the bridge of her nose, and welled up through her hair from the bloody halo pooled on the stone around her head. Her eyes were half open, the whites bloody, and a crimson drop, like a tear, trickled down slowly from her left eye. From the other side, you had no illusions. The side of her head was caved in – beneath the blood, you could imagine how her skull was filigreed with cracks radiating out from the fist-sized crater. The bullet hole. Fragments fanned out on the ground: blood, flesh, something white, which might have been bone. But maybe not. Too gelatinous. Her skin was almost as pale as the stone she lay on. It had been, even in life, but now looked like thin as rice paper. Cold. Almost blue with bloodless whiteness. Her hair was a colour that wavered between white-blond and gold. It looked washed out under the lights the police had put up, the fine strands meshing and overlapping like the intricate lacy veins on leaves where everything else has been eaten away by insects. The blood that had seeped up through it, like the dye on the hem of a silk dress, was drying brown.
Who would have thought there would be so much blood? It tricked down, it seeped up; her white dress had begun to soak up the pooling blood, and the faint rivulets running up the warp and weft made it look as if she was blurring, descending maybe, into the pool that surrounded her body. It looked wrong, red. Too violent a colour for such a slight frame; like a dried beech leaf.
A squat policeman was leading him over now. You didn't need to look at his pupils – from the dreamlike way he walked, it was obvious that they would be dilated, merging with his inky irises – more dark pits. For him, the scene would drip and sway, most likely, the colours would blur, shift, shine out. He was at the end of…what?…a bad trip? It would have sounded funny, any other time. Disoriented, he pushed his dark hair out of his eyes as the policeman spoke to him quietly. Only a few words drifted over: …point blank…was shot…the head…was probably instant… The policeman was showing him the gun in its evidence bag, and he was squinting at it, as if that would make him understand. Meanwhile, men in white covered the body with a sheet, slid it onto a stretcher, to take it away. Pharazôn didn't react. He swayed a little, then pushed his hair out of his eyes again. The policeman was trying to be nice about it, he put his hand on the king's shoulder, looked into his face…what about the child, your highness…And Pharazôn started laughing, at something maybe only he could see, or maybe something only he knew, or some irony.
The medics lifted the stretcher and its clean, white parcel. They moved slowly, but the edge of the sheet untucked, a hand lolled out, disembodied, bloody…
…what about the child?…
Silmarwen woke up. Her lips moved silently: what about the child? She sat up and opened her eyes. Not that it made much difference. Her eyes weren't the milky orbs that might have been expected in a human – no Elf was born blind. But they were blurred and grey – shabby remnants of former perfection. Her world was shadows now; faint outlines only. And fëar, sometimes. She reached out, and found the familiar rough edge of the bedside table. Her hands slid across it, fingertips crossing grains and cracks in the old wood, bumping up and down these faint hills and valleys, until they connected with the sharp cold metal of the clock. The glass front had been removed so that she could feel where the icy hands pointed – 11 o'clock, she guessed. Why had she woken? There were fragments of the dream still floating in her mind. She closed her eyes, a relic of her former mannerisms, trying to catch them together. Subconsciously, she remembered what she had dreamt about…
Her feet hit the floor, it was disorienting – you never quite understand the way your body sways and lurches as you run, balancing all weight onto one leg or the other, a precarious, miraculous balancing act, each toe of vital importance, until the movement is all you know. She couldn't focus on a point to run towards. There were no points. Just greyness, and sound, sharper and clearer than it had been when she could see, and the faint, pulsating light of people. She had tried to run, oh, she had tried, but her body couldn't co-ordinate the motion without the sight, she resorted to flinging herself desperately from wall to wall, hoping to propel herself forward, clinging onto things, and advancing in the direction her sighted memory suggested. She lurched outside, and the cold autumn air hit her, a dry, spicy wind. In her mind, her sight focused on the gold outline standing at the other end of the courtyard. She could hear the figure muttering, a strained, no, a desperate, tiny voice. Saying what? 'No'? 'Please'? 'Elbereth'? She wasn't sure. The blood pounding in her ears drowned it out. She knew that she had reached out, had shouted something – 'no!' or 'stop!', or maybe 'Nellas!' – she had stumbled forward, trying to stop something, to save her. If she could have run…but it was useless to think that. She had heard the shot. It had reverberated inside her chest. Her uncooperative feet had stumbled, and she had fallen, hitting the stone, skinning her palms, although she hadn't noticed. She had lain helpless as she watched the golden light fade. Only then had she realised that there was something warm on her face. Warm and wet, tricking slowly down across her cheek. Blood. She had been so close. There were footsteps beating on the flagstones, minute vibrations through her hands, and voices shouting – they had heard the shot. Too late, thought Silmarwen. We were all too late. She tried to get up, but faltered. She could smell the blood, acrid and metallic, as if it was a humidity in the air, seeping into her nostrils, her lungs, and moving through her body like a poisonous smog. She could feel this sudden…absence…of a person, so palpably, so tangibly – it was like a hole had opened up in the universe – to feel a person just…go out…like a candle. She wished she could look up and see the sky, and know something bigger, and wider, a world beyond this tragedy played out before her. She felt trapped in the limit of her remaining senses – the smell of the blood, the stinging of her scratched hands, the mental ache, and a metallic taste as a trickle of blood came past the corner of her mouth, half-open in shock. There was nothing to remind her of anything beyond this. Bile rose in her mouth, and her head swam. The gun must have been right to her temple, she though. And she was sick on the ground in front of her.
Why had she dreamt about that, of all things? She ran the dream fragments past herself again, trying to suppress the memories that accompanied the recollection. The child, she thought fitfully, trying to push away the rising feeling of nausea in the pit of her stomach. Not so much a child any more, she mused. And she stood, swaying until her feet adjusted to the tiny irregularities of the worn rug by the bed. She felt suddenly purposeful. She walked slowly, shuffling, to the wall, and running her fingers across the pitted painted surface, she walked until her fingertips found the varnished doorframe, and she opened the door. She could navigate the citadel like that well – she had known it all by sight once, so it was only a matter of connecting her knowledge to other senses – touch and hearing. Her fingers moved across rough stone walls, painted plaster, and her feet felt their way down worn steps. It was a new landscape; one of hairline cracks and wood grain. Her senses seemed to bristle out like the whiskers of a cat, giving her a feeling for the space she was in. But no replacement for sight. Nothing could replace that.
In a low corridor, she paused, and 'looked' ahead. There was a glow at the end of the corridor – an aura, as the humans might have called it, but perhaps more properly a fëa. It was distinctive – two-coloured, black and gold, the two colours constantly changing and pushing against each other for dominance. Two essences that should not be put together fighting for space. Silmarwen stopped, and called out:
"Inzilaphel." The fëa froze, and rippled as the body that encased it turned. Silmarwen could sense fear.
"Don't worry." she said quietly. The figure stayed where it was. "Come here" she added, and it moved towards her, slowly. When the shape was close, she reached out her hand to where the face should be, and ran her fingers across the jaw line, the mouth, the eyebrows – 'looking' at the expression. Inzilaphel didn't flinch. Much as she disliked Silmarwen, she was used to this, as much as one could be used to it. Silmarwen smiled slowly.
"Where are you going?" Had she been able to, she would have seen Inzilaphel start.
"G-going, Silmarwen?" Inzilaphel whispered quietly, "I'm just wandering – insomnia". It sounded stupid, even Inzilaphel herself knew that. Silmarwen dropped her hands away from the girl's face, and sighed.
"You know that's a lie." She paused, watching as the edges of Inzilaphel's fëa pulsated with emotion – fear, probably, but possibly anger. When she spoke, her voice shook slightly:
"What does it matter?" Silmarwen smiled and shook her head.
"It doesn't, not really. But you should always tell someone where you're going. And possibly why." She grinned. Inzilaphel shuddered. Even taking into account people like the high priest Amcazôr with his fascination for blood, or the guards who leered when she wore a short skirt and tried to look up it as she climbed stairs, Silmarwen was easily the creepiest thing in the citadel. Creepy, not for normal, obvious reasons, but for the way she stared at you, as if even though she couldn't see you, she was piercing you more deeply. The way she seemed to enjoy telling you your thoughts just before you yourself voiced them. Her habit of turning up in just the right place at exactly the wrong moment, with exactly the right inclination for what was happening. Silmarwen grinned wolfishly.
"I know, I'm a pain, aren't I?" Inzilaphel started again. Loath as she was to believe it, there were times when the only way to explain Silmarwen was to accept the story that one of her ancestors had been begotten by the grace of the Valar. Inzilaphel wasn't sure if that was quite possible, or even what exactly it meant, but a link with the demons of the West would certainly explain a lot. She seethed quietly. How dare this nîmir nose into her business?
"Fuck off, Silmarwen" she muttered. Silmarwen acted as though she hadn't heard.
"Why are you going?" she asked, suddenly. Inzilaphel lashed out:
"Mûlker! I told you, I'm not going bloody anywhere!"
"I can understand you perfectly well without the expletives, you know" Silmarwen gave another grin. "Though I suppose you get that from your father". At the mention of the word 'father', Silmarwen saw Inzilaphel's aura flicker for a second. What was it? Love? Anger?…Fear?
"So he is the reason you're leaving." she said. It wasn't intended to be a question.
"I'm not…" Inzilaphel began to retort hotly, before suddenly realising what Silmarwen had said. In the elf's vision, Inzilaphel's fëa continued to flicker with emotion.
"What in the Void makes you think-"
"Just a hunch"
The gold swirled, pushing down the black momentarily. Silmarwen smiled faintly to herself.
"I'm not going to stop you from going" she said, "although I don't pretend to know where you mean to go, or why, or for how long. Or even whether you understand what an idiotic thing you're doing." Inzilaphel just stared at her, although she couldn't see it. "I don't suppose you'd like to tell me?" Inzilaphel made a derisive nasal noise.
"Tell you what?"
"Anything you like" At any other time, there would have been a lot of things she would have liked to tell Silmarwen, most racially abusive, despite the irony this constituted. But not now. She was too shaken. And besides, no one else ever asked. About anything. Ever. She bit her lip. Silmarwen seemed to be looking at her intently, but she knew that wasn't possible. She shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet, sighed, bit her lip again, and then whispered tremulously:
"…Artamir…"
Silmarwen's expression was unreadable.
"So you know."
"I think…"
"You do."
"That's why-"
"I know." Silmarwen's mouth twitched faintly into a half smile. She reached out clumsily, and put a hand on Inzilaphel's shoulder.
"Don't do anything too stupid, if you can manage it…and try to come back. Alive, if possible." Inzilaphel just looked at her for a second; at the half-closed eyes, which blurred from dim pupils to grey irises and then to whites, as if someone had drawn them in pastel crayon and smudged it with the end of their finger, and at the pointed ears peeking through a curtain of silvery hair. She frowned, and then turned quickly and walked away, trying to disguise the shudder in her breathing. She was not going to cry. Not in front of Silmarwen. Not right now. She couldn't. She couldn't even think.
Silmarwen herself stood, watching the shape disappearing down the corridor.
And so Maeglin leaves the wood, she thought. The end is beginning, for good or ill.
Glossary:
fëar – souls/spirits, as seen in the form of auras (not particularly Tolkien, probably, but oh well – I thought it seemed cool.)
Elbereth – Elvish goddess of the stars (although I think, or at least seriously hope, we all knew that)
Nîmir – Adunaîc word for "Elf"
Mûlker – Morgoth
Void – Morgoth was imprisoned in the "Void", a sort of space outside of Arda. Effectively, another dimension, I would guess…what a cliché…
Maeglin – the son of Eöl and Aredhel. As in "Of Maeglin" in the Silmarillion. He left Nan Elmoth and went to Gondolin, betraying his father. And eventually his people. Really pretty screwed up guy…10 points to anyone who can spot at least one way in which he's similar to Inzilaphel :D