Ament downed the goblet's contents greedily, relished the salty taste of the precious ambrosia with abandon, and dropped his sword to the ground to hold the legendary goblet lovingly in both hands. As he drank the scant supply he had drained from his captive, he hungered for more of the prurient fulfillment this single act gave him and the unholy anticipation of what would transpire now. The leader wondered as he licked the fluid from his lips, Is this enough? Mayhap a bit more wouldn't hurt. Looking into the dregs remaining in his goblet, the mercenary tilted his head back and tipped the cup, draining the last into his open, ravenous mouth.
The mercenary sat slowly on the ground beside the Elf, whose eyes were closed and breathing low. The goblet had barely been filled halfway; he had swallowed not even half a pint of Elven blood, but much more spilt from the open wound on the fallen Elf's neck, a gushing reserve of immortality-granting fluid. No need to squander what remains, should I need more. Tearing a strip from his dirty tunic, the mercenary wound it expertly around the Elf's neck, and seeing the creature's eyelids flicker at his rough handling, smiled. Just in case. Whether the Elf died or lived, Ament had his blood and the means for more. Unsure whether he had the energy to rise, he sat and waited.
The other Elves or Jalian may be coming this way soon. Earnestly, the mercenary listened for any sound of upcoming danger, indecisive in his next endeavor. Now that I've completed my undertaking, I've naught else to do but enjoy it. Idly, the leader picked up the torch, which still lay in the earth sputtering its oily flame just where he had dropped it. He lodged it upright within the dirt beside him, lighting the tunnel with its jaundiced orange glow. It is no matter. Let the Elves come. Looking to his blade, the mercenary pondered as to whether he should leave or see Strider and his saviors dead.
His plan was accomplished, his revenge won, and his life soon to be immortal, though none of this had been achieved exactly as he had intended. Thranduil will likely never know what has happened to his son, nor anyone learn of the death of these other pointy-eared interlopers, or even the meddling human, but I will know. A single chuckle escaped him, and he stifled the desire to continue rejoicing when the urge to cough reminded him of his injury, the pain from which he no longer felt as severely. I cannot now seek the Elven King's fortunes as I had, since I do not have the Prince, but that is of no importance, either. I can find another way, or find another affluent idiot to force atonement from… for my benefit, of course.
It had not been easy; he had lost the last of his family, the few men in Middle Earth whose company he could withstand, and he had almost lost his own life, but now he sat, waiting, although for what he wasn't certain. It would be folly to leave without making sure that he drank the proper amount of Elven blood, the quantity of which had not been included in the telling and retellings of the goblet's legend. Watching the Elf before him, he saw the already pallid complexion of his sacrifice was turning ashen with the trauma of the loss of blood, a loss that still gradually seeped from the makeshift bandage even as he watched.
Ament dipped his finger in the sanguine liquid pooling on the soft soil at the creature's throat. As he smeared the blood and mud across his fingertips, the mercenary paid close attention to any sounds coming from the tunnel. Where is Doran? He longed for the tall archer to appear, his nerves tried by his impatience for some sign that the goblet was working, and his desire for an ally resurfacing. Jalian has never been of much use. He was too easily led by his fear to comply with the Elves, but Doran may have been worthy enough to keep.
He looked behind him as he pondered, unconsciously looking for the blond mercenary, to realize that the haze had left his vision. While before it was as if he were looking through murky, dark waters, an indication of his own injury and ill health, now he could see beyond what even his normal vision had ever allowed him. He could not view past the curve in the passageway; however, the tunnel itself was illumined by the scarce light such that he could ascertain each pebble and root betwixt the timbers in the shoddy walls. Turning his head to view the depths of the tunnel from which he had fled, even the farthest reaches could he see until the passage curved again, where the flaming orb of the torchlight did not span. The legend said nothing of this. The mercenary gazed around him, thrilled at the evidence that the goblet was eliciting some reaction.
The effect was subtle but once he took notice he could discern its presence within him. Vigor was spreading warmly through him. Ament stared in wonder at his arms as though he could see the manifesting potency through the cloth and skin. He became suddenly aware of a deeper consistency to the bloody muck that tainted his hands: he was able to perceive each individual grain of the soil as it slid between his fingers. He let loose a rich, hearty laugh of satisfaction that was nothing like his usual sinister snigger. This is an unforeseen boon to life eternal. Scooping up more of the blood and mud, he let it fall from his hand slowly, reveling in the sensation of the muck sliding from his fingers and the sound of it hitting the ground. Is this how the immortals sense?
Looking about him again at the ordinary but suddenly majestic construction of the tunnel, his eyes flitting from pebble to pebble in wonder, he rubbed his hands absently on his leggings only to be pulled from the sight to the sensation of his hand across the fabric. Ament smirched the filth in an arc around his thigh, entranced by the vibrant contrast of the wet, reddish ebony stain on his otherwise dry leggings. The coppery smell of the blood and rich earth held him spellbound, and his hand's languid palpation of his skin and muscle impelled the mercenary to moan in corporeal excitation.
Giggling in childish amusement at these simple pleasures, the mesmerized mercenary grabbed another handful of the rubicund mud as though to paint himself with it, but then his eyes lit upon an especially glossy pebble scintillating in the pool of Elven blood by his feet. He made to seize it, pleased by its shine, when the fallen Elf twitched in his deathlike tranquility, the creature's brow knitting with some unknown thought or with the throes of his demise. With his soiled fingers, Ament touched the Elf's forehead tentatively. The Elf did not awaken, nor did he find any comfort from the mercenary's contact, but Ament groaned. He is dying. I have killed him.
Stifling grief burned through the leader. He is beautiful. Ament caressed the silky, knotted hair of the Elf, his touch not one of lust, but of awe. Never had the mercenary experienced beauty without desiring to own it, or if he could not possess, to destroy it. I have killed him. Ament's disturbed psyche dominated him, the destruction he had wreaked to obtain this moment of what was to be absolute joy had wilted to utmost sorrow in the wake of the goblet's odd effect on him. Pressing his fingers to the Elf's throat, the mercenary sought a pulse, a sign that the Elf still lived. He found one, weak and irregular, but became lost in the silken skin on which his digits rested, and promptly forgot his concern for the Wood-Elf. Ament ran his fingers along the Elf's flesh, admiring the creature for the tactual bliss it gave him until some part of his mind, inebriated as it was by the handiwork of the goblet, sternly reminded him, Listen.
The passageway's darkness impeded his progress through the mounds of dirt and stone, and several times the Prince was forced to dig sightlessly through portions of the tunnel that had completely collapsed, offering little or no room above or around the debris for him to crawl. Let my arrow have struck Ament true. Let him be buried under this chaos. That his sentry may also be covered under the soil on which he moved distressed the Wood-Elf, but these ponderings he pushed aside, along with the persistent pain of his many injuries and the gnawing desolation that ate at him. His current impasse offered him little optimism of burrowing through the earth that barred his way, for the timbers of the walls were broken, caught amidst the stone of the ceiling to form an indecipherable barrier through which he could not seem to find an opening. Sitting back on his heels, Legolas rubbed his dirty face with his grimy hands.
His borrowed sword lay on the ground beside him, begging to be used, to free Ament of his scheming head. The Prince dug through the dirt, hoping to find a single gap in the impediment through which he might make his way, but with no torchlight by which to work, Legolas could only grope blindly through the entangled disarray. Please let me not be too late. Frustration and fear ran rampant within him, fueling him to continue his vain efforts while his body and mind beseeched him to stop, to lie in the soft dirt, to die. But he knew he was not far from the entrance, and Mirkwood and his father were still endangered, not to mention Tirn, to whom the Prince knew he owed his life.
Abruptly, the soil gave way at his unrelenting prodding, and the short mound of dirt upon which he sat slid forwards as his hand finally broke free one of the timbers barring him from continuing. His removing the restraining plank of wood loosened much of what blocked his way, and timbers, stones, loam, and Elf went crashing forwards in a small avalanche down the mound of dirt to the tunnel's floor. Moving with the momentum of the falling wreckage, the Prince managed to avoid the tumbling debris, and was fortunately on the other side of his obstacle. He slid to a halt on his hands and knees, only partially buried under the soil.
Who is giggling? The question was pointless; the Wood-Elf recognized the sound of Ament's insanity. Sweet Eru, where is the sword? A modicum of light lit the area, originating from the same direction as the laughter, and the Elf's keen eyes detected the blade's shine next to him. He grabbed the hilt and leapt to his feet, nearly falling to the floor again as his legs quavered under him. Move, Legolas. Heedlessly, he sprinted down the passageway, cajoling his weakened, injured limbs into submission to carry him forward. Ament cannot escape. He cannot be allowed to leave with the goblet. Underlying these thoughts was his growing anxiety for his sentry's welfare.
"I am no Dwarf or craftsman, but I believe the bedding will absorb the impact, if we can release the door slowly, as well," Elladan stated, running his hands once more over the casing to the trapdoor. "Come, let us try." Without being told, Elrohir joined his twin at the door with an armful of bedding, while Aragorn stood at ready holding the straw mattress.
Let this work, Elladan pled, his worried gaze meeting Estel's to see the same fear reflected in the Ranger's grey eyes. We cannot leave Tirn and Legolas to face Ament alone. The Noldo refused to consider that the gracious sentry, who he and Elrohir had quickly befriended during their journey and search, might not have survived the collapse. The Prince's rapid departure to find Tirn and Ament had not given them the time to inquire what had happened in their absence, and Elladan hoped it had been Ament, and not Tirn, who had been Legolas' target. If Legolas even had the chance to let his arrow fly.
"I'm set, mate. Just hurry, will ya? This damn door is hard to keep open," Jalian called from outside.
Screeching and whining at its opening, the slab door scraped across the timbers in which it was set, and ere it even opened to its full extent, which was still only halfway, Elrohir threw his bundle between the casing and the door and immediately reached for Elladan's collection of moldering bedding. After placing the straw mattress in the doorway, the twins ushered the injured Ranger out of the cell, following close behind him. When the brothers were free, Elladan dashed to Jalian, taking hold of the lever also so that together they could allow the door to close slowly, and thereby avoid the slab slamming into the timbers any harder than necessary.
"Gently, Jalian," Elladan instructed. The Elves and humans watched the gradually closing door with paramount trepidation; Elladan could smell Jalian's fear and sweat, and the mercenary trembled with the burden of keeping the door open. As the stone met their makeshift obstruction, the scarred human's hands slipped from the lever, and Elladan, unprepared to accept the entire weight needed to keep the door ajar, felt the wooden handle slide from his own hands. Jalian gasped beside him.
The shrieking slab of stone collided with the coverlets and mattress, sending a cloud of mildew and rotted down into the air as the door smashed shut, its impact somewhat muffled, though not entirely. Rumbling and shimmying, the outside passageway groaned its protest but naught else. Elladan released a breath he was not aware he had been holding.
"Sorry bout that, mate," the mercenary whispered, never removing his attention from the doorway where all was extraordinarily still. "But no harm done, eh?"
"Thank Ilúvatar for that good fortune," Elrohir whispered in turn, pulling Estel with him as the band of Elves and humans walked cautiously to the door leading to the tunnel, not yet relinquishing their apprehension that the tunnel's ceiling might fall again.
At his first glimpse of the damage the collapse inflicted, Elladan despaired, There is no way that Ament or Tirn has made it from this mess. And if they have, Legolas will need our help. The cave in blocked the passageway in many places with heaping piles of earth and stone, baring the thick, gnarled roots of the trees overhead.
Aragorn must have held the same thoughts about the sentry and Prince, for he stepped away from Elrohir to dart down the hallway, trailed closely by the others.
The increased sensitivity to his surroundings deluged the mercenary with an overload of intoxicatingly useless, but pleasurable information, while his ability to comprehend this flood of stimuli remained slow, his mind unable to cope with the vivid perceptions. He sat still, closing his eyes and refusing to move his seeking hands so that he could allay his mind's saturation with sensation. He concentrated. Then he heard it; amongst the lingering, briny flavor in his mouth, battling for his awareness, and finally superceding the feeling of the remaining mud on his stilled fingertips, came a sound so distinct that Ament hurriedly gained his feet, sure the source of the noise must be near. Someone comes. Panic jettisoned through him as vivid as any of the sensations he had hitherto experienced.
The overflow of information did not cease while Ament fumbled ineptly in the dirt for his dropped sword. As the sound grew louder, the mercenary panicked, I cannot fight, not like this. The abrupt, jerky actions that shifted the arrow in his back as he made to locate his sword brought bright pinpoints of pain to dance before his eyes, blinding him from the inundation of myriad curiosities around him that he could not help but to peruse, even in his panic. Everything called for his attention, distracting him from his fear.
Much like his eyes were drawn to the intense visual spectacle afore him, his hands, too, did not care to obey him or continue their search for his blade but worked of their own accord to sift through the fallen rock and dirt leisurely, bringing him undesired ecstasy at the fondling of mere soil. Ament could not think clearly, so overrun was he by the acuteness of his ill begotten, heightened senses. Therefore, the desperate mercenary followed not his mind, but his instinct, and took hasty flight towards the exit, leaving his sword, the goblet, and his reservoir of Elven blood to lie on the tunnel's floor. I cannot fight them now. Immortality will not save me from death if I cannot even fend them.
Each of his footfalls sounded deafening to his ears; he closed his eyes, opening them only sporadically, his hands outreached to aid his mostly blind sprint down the passageway. Not now. Not now. Not now, he chanted, sure that his pursuer would find him in his vulnerable and defenseless state, but incapable of distinguishing how far away the Elf or man was from him. Once more, he opened his eyes, and was spellbound by the gleam of the wrought ladder before him, its metal shimmering in the pale moonlight that shone in a single, thin beam from the minute opening in the top of the tree's natural grotto. He was as overwhelmed by the sight of the beautifully simple object as by his relief at the chance for escape, and so closed his eyes to shut out the image, to retain his resolve.
Frantically, he grasped the rungs only to be immediately drawn into the cool texture of their making, the smooth metal eliciting a sigh of delight from him. So enamored was the mercenary with the ladder that he soon forgot himself again; that is, until an unknown agency compelled him into action. The foreign motivation moored his far-flung thoughts into some semblance of cohesion: while his senses staggered him, the alien impetus righted him. Ament climbed the ladder unthinkingly, lost in the pleasure of his keen acuity.
The arrow broke free from his back; the slender wooden shaft snapping on the wall of the confined space of the ladder's ascendance, clattering especially noisily to the compacted floor under him: it broke his reverie. Pain branched out from the wound, lancing through the muscles of his back and shoulders in agony so intense that Ament moaned at the exquisite, excruciating sensation, and nearly lost his hold on the ladder's rungs. It was not until he felt the dry, brittle leaves under his hands that the mercenary opened his eyes to find he was out of the accursed tunnel, kneeling on all fours in the cavity within the trees.
He observed himself shut the stone door to the passageway brusquely: a slab once too heavy for him to lift, he now closed without grievance. The leader smiled, satisfied at his forethought and strength; however, when he reached behind him, wrenching the remainder of the broken arrow from his back without regard, Ament came to a shocking revelation, screaming in pain all the while. While it was his hand that pulled the arrowhead free from his flesh to toss it across the cavern, it was not his will that controlled it. What sorcery is this?
The piercing agony did not stop Ament from crawling through the aperture Doran had hacked through the trees only earlier that day. The goblet, he remembered all of a sudden. Egad, I have left in the tunnel. His senses were lessened by his fear and his having become somewhat accustomed to its overpowering influence, and thus the mercenary sat back on his feet to ruminate as to how to reclaim the goblet with the Elves still within the passageway. Breathless and mystified, he rose, walking away from the trees involuntarily. Nay, the goblet. I will not leave without it, he argued uselessly, his mind recoiling in revulsion as a baneful, discordant presence welled higher within him. Despite his efforts, the leader could not control his unruly limbs.
Ament fell purposely to the ground to stop his progress, laying himself on his side and clutching his legs to his chest as though to prevent forcibly their disobedience. Rallying his awareness on this vile essence, he questioned, What blight is this? Flashbacks came to him of events through which he had never lived, people he had never met, and vile deeds he had never committed; the unfamiliar memories rambled on, bringing with them emotions of hatred, lust, and power the likes of which not even he was capable. Scenes of horrific torture turned his stomach, knowledge of spells, herbs, and poisons arose in his mind, pushing against the mercenary's essence, forcing from him his own memories. Although Ament had no knowledge of the goblet's imprecation, he knew then that something truly ill had befallen him. This is no boon; it is a curse.
The mercenary lay under the full moon, his spirit waning as Melfren's waxed.