Elrohir coughed and choked his way to consciousness through burned lungs. The rushed sounds of triage were the first thing to come to him. Voices shouting orders echoed around the cottony space of his drugged mind. Elrohir was lying on hard stone on his side. He pried open his eyes and rolled onto his back to look at the night sky. For a moment, he did not remember what had happened, he just frowned, breathing in the scent of smoke that seemed to cling to him. He raised one hand to his face and winced as he felt fresh blisters tug at the flesh of his palm, he was covered with tiny scratches and his skin was black with soot.
"Now, now," a voice gently chided, moving his hands down and opening his curled fingers. Elrohir hissed in pain, blinking up at the face above him. The healer was an ancient Easterling with a long wispy mustache and cheerful dark eyes, he wore sweeping, pale blue robes. "I have to treat the burns on your hands, I will be gentle."
Elrohir resisted with a shake of his pounding head and pushed himself onto his elbows, coughing painfully and looking around him with dry eyes. His head swam, and he resisted the pull of gravity as another wave of choking swept over him. The fire in the library, the collapsing roof, Celiriel. With a gasp, he sat up and looked around him. He was at the Houses of Healing, not the new infirmary at the palace, but the large, ancient hospital sprawled across one of the lowest levels of the city. He was in a long line of triaged casualties from the two attacks. Across the road, they had begun the sad work of identifying corpses and wrapping them in white linen.
"The princess..." he told the old man as he felt him take his burned hand. Elrohir hissed as he applied a creamy salve to the wound.
"I don't know about a princess," the old man's hands were surprisingly strong as they held Elrohir's wrist still. "You were found unconscious near the library."
"The library…" Elrohir said, cringing as the old man manipulated his fingers.
"Can you tell me your name, boy?" He looked concerned.
"Elrohir Peredhil," he muttered, but sitting up was taking its toll and he leaned back into the slanted stone wall struggling for breath.
"Peredhil?" the old man squinted at him in curiosity. He pushed a singed lock of hair behind a fluted ear, examining his patient thoughtfully, "So my mad brother was right…"
Elrohir frowned at him. The old man studied him back, and there was some distant reflection of the light of Valinor in his eyes. He moved to his patient's second hand, applying more strong-smelling salve to the blistered skin.
"I do not know you as one of the healers… with whom I am well acquainted." He gave the stranger a level look and felt it returned with equal suspicion.
"You would not." He deflected, focusing on separating his patient's fingers and applying the last bit of his salve. "You would do well to rest, my boy."
Elrohir felt slightly taken aback by the old man's short tone, he held his shiny hands up in midair, unwilling to put them down anywhere. "Shall I tell my sister, the queen, that there are nameless strangers entering our fair city unescorted?" his tone was deadly as he studied the old man but his words seemed to catch his attention.
"Your sister, Peredhil?" he narrowed his eyes, producing a cloth napkin and wiping the salve he had just applied away. Elrohir looked on in amazement as freshly healed pink skin was revealed. Even his father's greatest skill could not heal so quickly.
"Give me your name, father." Elrohir asked slowly.
"In the grey tongue of the West I am called Allatar. I have only come to this city in the last few hours as the sun set, I regret that I was not fast enough to stop my mad brother I have been following the one who calls himself Faramir for some days, hoping that I could overtake him and prevent disaster. But it seems that I have failed." He sighed.
Elrohir studied the old man, watching as he returned the pot of salve to his healer's bag. "You are one of the Istari." He said with a tone of certainty. "Did you know Mithrandir before his departure?"
Deep eyes like wells of starlight studied him calmly. "I knew one who was called by that name. A great lover of things that go pop and bang, much like my brother." He sounded suspicious of the whole affair.
"Did he make the bomb that destroyed the market?" Elrohir asked. Leaning forward.
"The fingerprints of his art hang in the air like the smell of sulfur." Allatar frowned "and I am doing my best to alleviate the damage he has caused."
"The king was hurt!" Elrohir raised his eyes from his close inspection of his burned fingertips, "I see that you have great skill as a healer, might you aid him?"
"I bear responsibility for my brother's actions on this day," the wizard glanced down the row of injured patients looking guilt stricken. An ancient fire burned behind his dark eyes and a muscle in his sunken cheek clenched. "would that I might be in two places at once, alas I have not that magic." He shook his head, "there are many who need my aid here. There are some staff who were among the victims, I cannot leave the many to treat the one, even royalty." Elrohir closed his eyes, he wondered what time it was, this hellish night seemed to drag on forever.
"Whatever you choose, I must return to the palace. He's like a brother to me." Elrohir stood clumsily, dusting off his clothes. He saw that he had been laid on a burlap sack, the kind used for hauling grain. "and he could die this night, and then the designs of the enemy will be fulfilled. The lives of all those in the city will be at risk if he is taken from us. He is the hope that your brother came to destroy!" Elrohir tugged on his singed over garment. The wizard watched him dress himself, the old man stooped when he walked and so only came up to Elrohir's chest, he peered up at the tall half-elf thoughtfully.
"Lead the way," he said, producing a knobby walking stick and bowing, "I will not put a the life of a king before a peasant, but I will always heed the love of kindred. Take me to your brother."
Outside the cloisters of the healing halls the city was still in chaos. The sky was red and black from the fire at the library. It seemed that a window had been smashed and the black clad city guards were busy rounding up looters. The taste of ash and blood hung in the air and the oil lamps which were usually turned low at this time of night blazed brightly.
The streets were full of civilians anxiously watching to see which direction the wind would blow and guards attempting valiantly to organize fire brigades. Elrohir and the wizard made their way through the crowd up through the winding, terraced paths to where the library had been perched upon the walls of the sixth level, only to find a row of black shields emblazoned with the white tree. Behind them the building smoldered in a great heap, sending up pillars of steam where arcing spouts of water poured into the ruined edifice.
"I'm Elrohir Peredhil, I need to get through!" Elrohir's voice was clear and authoritative as he aproached the guards.
"I don't recognize ye…" The guard sniffed, "ain't supposed to let anyone past, they say there's shape shifters about." The guard raised his eyebrows and set his feet apart, he wore the insignia of a captain and, despite his years of experience with the men of the city, Elrohir had not the faintest idea of the man's name.
"Excuse me?" he smiled, mildly annoyed.
"Ye heard me." The guard fixed his eyes above Elrohir's shoulder and set his jaw.
"I…" Elrohir opened and shut his mouth, looking to the wizard for aid. "I am the queen's elder brother." He gestured to his chest and, looking down realized that his clothes were filthy with blood and soot, he looked like a mad peasant. "muk," he swore, turning to the wizard.
"Can you.." he mouthed, gesturing subtly towards the guard.
"Do what?" the wizard shrugged, completely missing his point. "do you want me to put him under some devilish charm?" he sounded offended.
Elrohir growled in frustration, and grabbing the old man by the sleeve left the glowering guard behind as he pulled them into an alleyway.
"OK," Elrohir leaned against the stone wall, stealing a glance around the corner to where the guards were talking to each other and pointing in their direction. "new plan."
"Oi!" the big guard was coming towards them. Elrohir put up his hands and wheeled into view with what he hoped was a charming smile. "what did he mean by a devilish charm? You using black magic?"
"Nay, good gentlemen!" Elrohir smiled, looking desperately for a face that he recognized, but these were not the elite fountain guards who protected his brother and sister personally, these were simple city watchmen who he had never met in his life. apparently word had spread quickly of their shape changing foe and he and his companion were now prime targets. no matter, as soon as he was brought before their commanding officers he would be recognized and released, "but if you will take me before the lord Steward he might vouch for me." The guards circled the two of them, lowering shining glaives. They looked pleased to have found a potential suspect.
"an elf and a wizard, bad disguise choice, skin changer," the big man sneered.
"I'm telling you, get anyone from the upper city, I am the queen's brother!" Elrohir put up his hands defensively and found that they were seized by rough gauntlets.
"Bind their hands." The captain's orders were followed cruelly.
"Yes, yes," Allatar observed sarcastically in Quenya as they were lead up the stairs by two guards. "this is a much better use of my time than treating burns!"
"I'll get us out of here," Elrohir answered in the same language.
They were lead roughly into one of the guard houses beside a gate on the sixth level of the city. It was a dingy, humid little building and the room was only lit by a single oil lamp hung from the ceiling. An ominous looking iron door opened to the dank tunnels and dungeons below the city. They were left alone for only a moment, sitting side by side, their shackles looped around the legs of a plain wooden table, before the door opened again.
Elrohir breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the man's face who entered with two other guards, "Vorgil!" Elrohir greeted him, "there has been a terrible mistake!" he looked hopefully at the face of the man whose life he had saved, but his hope fell when he saw the shadow behind the man's eyes. "It is I who staunched your wounded leg upon the Pellenor," Elrohir raised his bound hands in a plea, "you know me! I'm Elrohir Peredhil, son of Elrond, brother of the Queen," but there was no light of recognition in the captain's grey eyes.
Vorgil turned to his lieutenant who had followed him inside. "good try," he nodded, smiling at the wizard but addressing the lieutenant, "I was not wounded on the Pelennor, lieutenant, see how the Great Deceiver wields his lies?" He fixed Elrohir with an icy gaze and he knew that he had found their shape changing wizard.
The lieutenant looked at Elrohir and the wizard with a newfound trepidation and swallowed. "Go to the citadel," the thing that looked like Captain Vorgil ordered him, "inform the lady Arwen that we have an imposter!"
"Wait!" Elrohir tried to protest but the lieutenant had bowed smartly and closed the door with an ominous click.
"So," Allatar's voice broke the silence, "brother, I have caught up to you at last!" he slowly raised his eyes and by the time they reached his brother's face, he had returned to his usual form.
"You know each other?" Elrohir observed.
"This is the one I came seeking." Allatar hissed. "You would throw a peaceful city into chaos to fulfill your mad delusions!"
"Chaos?" Pallando laughed, stepping nimbly out of the range of his brother's bound hands. "You would be mad to ignore the slow violence of your precious kingship." As he spoke his features changed into those of the captain again. He opened the door and four guards entered.
"Take them below." He ordered, "I have a meeting with the queen."
"No!" Elrohir lunged for the captain but his shoulders were grabbed and the shackles were disconnected from the table. The iron door behind him opened with a squeal of disused hinges. As he was pulled into the darkness, Elrohir watched in horror as the captain's face morphed into a mirror of his own.
.
When he was a small elfling in Imladris, Elladan had wanted nothing more than to be like his father. He had spent years awaiting the day when he would be given his first white robes and allowed to officially start as an apprentice in the healing halls. He had grandiose visions of himself being praised as a gifted healer, able to dispense the woes of the world and all its torments with a wave of his hands.
The reality of the healing arts had struck him ruthlessly, he found that his father's façade of gentle expertise concealed centuries of bitter loss. The praise heaped upon Lord Elrond by those he had healed was only matched by the crushing silence of those who he had not been able to. Elladan soon discovered that healing arts were not an opportunity for glory, but a carefully constructed circus of constant cleaning and terrible smells and brutal misery which he often found himself completely helpless to prevent. While the master healers might be able to knit shattered bone with mithril wires and songs of power, the healing halls were entirely dependent on custodians and nurses, cooks and craftsmen for any healing to happen at all. He had been tasked with the washing of bedlinens and the scrubbing of floors, the counting and re-counting and of surgical equipment, the memorization of Teleri bio harmonic chord progressions and technical names of anatomical and physiological details in Quenya, Sindarin and Westron and the cleaning of chamber pots. The fact that he was the firstborn son of the lord of the house seemed to make his tenure as the lowest in the slow-moving elven hierarchy all the more miserable.
Today he cleaned the surgery alone. Of course, there were workers for this sort of thing, but with all the chaos of the previous night, he knew that most of the hospital staff would be preoccupied. Anyway, this was his brother's blood and it felt wrong for him to let anyone else touch it. It was his brother's blood on his fingernails and in his hair and spattered all over the blue cotton tunic he had been wearing in the market the day before. Or perhaps he was just avoiding facing Arwen's grief as she wept beside her unconscious husband. A familiar feeling of impotence as a healer sank into his guts, whether Aragorn would live or die or be permanently altered depended upon his skill as a surgeon and he was surely the imperfect copy of his teachers.
The Eastern sunbeams which came from the high windows found him scrubbing the surgical suite from top to bottom. He was crouched under the worktable with a soapy bucket and a rag. He did not hear the door open and shut.
"Uncle Dan?" Elladan startled, hit the back of his head on the table and rubbing it experimentally turned to see his nephew leaning heavily on the door, one leg bereft of his its trouser and tucked back as if it hurt to put weight on it.
"Why are you up?" Elladan asked from his position on the floor, the soapy water in the bucket was brown with Aragorn's blood and Eldarion thought he would be sick.
"Where did they put him?" He asked instead, his face trembling, "is he?" Eldarion hugged the broken handle to his chest.
Elladan's shoulders relaxed, "your father lives." He wanted to embrace the boy, who had his mother's round eyes and Aragorn's wavy hair but the foul pink foam on his hands kept him from it. "And, you should not be walking around!" Elladan scolded gently, gesturing at the prince's bandaged leg.
"Aunty finished stitching it up." Eldarion told him confidently but his eyes, lingering on the pale soup in the bucket gave away his fear, "it doesn't even hurt anymore."
"That's good!" Elladan nodded, "you were braver than many who have taken their first wound."
"They wouldn't tell me if he was…" the prince's eyes were bright, "I thought maybe I could…" Eldarion fidgeted with the stick he was holding and sniffed. "See him?"
"Of course, you can," Elladan softened. "He was taken into one of the observation rooms." Eldarion nodded, he was familiar with the building. "There is a guard at the door. Your mother is there." He sat up, taking a thoughtful breath, "But you should know," Elladan watched the boy in pity. "he sleeps, Eldarion, he may not awaken." The silence was only broken by the soft sound of voices down the hall.
"Will he die?" the prince asked directly, jaw set and eyes brimming with emotion.
"I don't know," Elladan answered the boy honestly, Eldarion tucked his lips between his teeth, pushing down his emotions and without another word, he ran from the door and down the hall. The twin doors swung in his wake.
.
They had brought a bassinet into the intensive care wing. Arwen had an army of nurses and nannies to help her raise their children, handmaidens and butlers, some of whom held ancestral positions at court through thirty generations of proud Numenorian lineage. But on this night the separation was too much. Eldarion, her sweet, charming princeling, had refused to have his leg sewn up until the night was almost over and he had been convinced that all others had been tended to. He was currently under the care of the lady Eowyn who had earned a reputation of one skilled with needle and blade.
If the winds of war were to come for her family, Arwen was resolved to lay down her life in their defense. Celiriel had been given a tincture to soothe her tiny coughs, and now she slept peacefully in the corner while Arwen kept silent vigil over her husband's still body. Aragorn had been lovingly cleaned and dressed in silk with his hands twitching mindlessly upon the coverlet. His head had been wrapped in thick gauze, and his breathing seemed faster than was natural as if some barely conscious part of him could feel the agony of shattered bones. The familiar and treasured healing gems from Imladris, sculpted in Ost-in-ethil before the fall, were set in shining mithril upon the Aragorn's breast, they flashed and glowed dimly in the morning light and she wondered if any of the rumored tree-light still remained reflected in their glittering facets. Clear grey eyes would not focus and his lips seemed to tremble in a stream of silent, meaningless prayer.
Arwen had hoped that the sun would wake him, but the east facing windows brought no light to her spirit and he only seemed to wander further adrift in his shattered wilderness of dreams. Her father would know what to do and his absence was an aching grief in the back of her mind that she knew she would never forget.
"Aragorn," she called him, taking one hand in her own. It reflexively seemed to close around her fingers, "can you hear me?" she laid it against her face, her tears moistening the creases in his palm. There was no response, "Estel?" she embraced his arm and imagined that his hand twitched against her cheek. She studied his face under the white bandages which crossed his brow at an angle. The grey that dusted his beard seemed lighter than it ever had. He was dying, in an hour or a yen it mattered not.
The child growing inside her body kicked and she was suddenly overwhelmed at the bitter wrongness of it, the cosmic injustice that the stars would burn forever in a lonely sky while all that watched their turning paths upon the shores of Middle Earth should die. Should the heavens not still their pointless dance? Would Varda Elentari herself come down and proclaim a pause in the cosmic choreography to honor the injustice of the death of one good man? Or would the heavens keep turning without them while the world grew old and forgot itself and children of new languages would sing strange songs beneath the unchanging stars?
"Nan?" Eldarion's voice cut through her reverie. Arwen raised her tear bright eyes to see her son standing beside the door, his eyes had fallen upon his father. His mother looked small, sitting beside the bed, hunched over her belly, clutching her husband's limp hand.
"You shouldn't be walking around sweetheart." Arwen scolded him gently as she reached to pull him into an embrace. He was still holding the broken handle from the great dwarven hammer. He held it before him, willing any power that was held within the great purple jewel to go into his father's body. Nothing happened.
"it was worth a try." He looked at the gem with a disappointed frown, then at his father and his mother. "it worked the first time." He choked on tears and looked away from his mother in shame.
"oh sweet boy." Arwen pulled him into her arms and despite the tangle of coltlike limbs, managed to fit him into her lap as if he was a child of three summers. She held him as he cried for his father and she was able to slip the broken haft from his clutches. Arwen gazed thoughtfully at the purple gem, it had a familiar energy to it and as she turned it, chips of violet light fell across her tear lined face.
"what did you mean." She asked him when his tears had stilled a little bit. "by 'the first time'?"
Eldarion turned his face into his mother's shawl.
"Eldarion." She caressed his back and he snorted.
"he wasn't breathing." His voice was barely a whisper and a shudder went through him, he tucked himself as close as he could get to his mother. "the stone brought him back." He took a deep breath and the words came out of him in a torrent. "he wasn't breathing mom, he threw himself over me and then I woke up and I had the stone and it gave me power to bring him back but I couldn't heal him and I didn't know what to do so I brought him back and thats what it does it brings people back and I brought that girl back and I can see inside people and I just want Ada!" he was openly sobbing by this point. Arwen put one hand on the back of his head, she held him close and turned the purple stone slowly so that it caught a beam of morning light.
In the depths of the stone she saw the ever spreading halls of Mandos.
.
Elladan listened to Eldarion's steps recede and part of him knew that he should follow him, he should go and embrace his sweet, brave sister and lend her his much-needed strength as their father would have. He found himself utterly lacking. Elladan threw down the rag with a wet slap on the tile floor. He sat on the floor, leaned heavily against the worktable, folded his bloodied arms across his knees and wept.
The doors opened again. "Dan?" a voice that sounded almost, but not exactly like his twin's came to his ears and a shudder of doom rolled across his heart.
"No!" Elladan was on his feet as he looked up at The Thing That Was Not Elrohir standing with a bright smile before the swinging surgery doors. It looked, in every way, as much like his twin as he did himself, except where his brother was, at his core, a torch of irritating familiarity and cheer, this thing had a core of purest malice.
Elladan lunged for the tray of freshly cleaned surgical knives, closing his hand around three of them just as the shape changer struck. The Thing That Was Not Elrohir hooked one of his ankles as Elladan slashed at his face with a fistful of razors. There was a flash of one of his brother's own mithril knives, but Elladan caught it on the edge of the comparatively tiny scalpel. Elladan grabbed the wheeled cart upon which the surgical tools were neatly counted, and as they fell, he brought it down on top of them with a great crash and the glass tabletop, along with two dozen razor sharp blades, smashed into the tile floor.
"HELP!" Elladan yelled, having learned his lesson in centuries passed to never be a silent victim. "Help!" he could hear running feet in the corridor. They grappled desperately on the floor of the surgery for a moment but Elladan twisted away and, seeing an opportunity, grabbed the bucket of bloody, soapy water and flung it into his attacker's face. "Where is he!" Elladan got to his feet and landed a knee in the imposter's ribs as he struggled to stand on the slippery tiles. "Where is Elrohir?"
The shapechanger looked up at Elladan from where he had him beaten and half drowned on the ground, then to the doors behind him and pointing, he cried out, "That's not my brother!" Elladan turned, but had not made it halfway when something slammed into his shoulder. He looked down to see the shaft of a dwarvish crossbow bolt buried under his clavicle.
A shocked looking dwarf looked from one to the other, staring with wide eyes as Elladan, eyes screwed shut and teeth clenched, staggered against the surgical table, struggling to keep from passing out from the pain.
"Thank you, master dwarf!" the imposter was saying from what sounded like far away as Elladan's knees hit the ground. His whole body clenched and vibrated in agony around the thick bolt.
"We must take this one in for questioning," The Thing That Was Not Elrohir clapped the dwarf on the shoulder, "you were courageous to act so quickly! Assist me with the prisoner!"
A hood was pulled over Elladan's face and moment later agony stabbed through his shoulder as his arms and legs were grabbed and he was dragged into the hall. For a moment he smelled the fragrance of a summer morning
"Stop!" a shrill voice rang out, trying his best to sound authoritative as he sprinted down the hallway. Elladan was horrified to hear the voice of his baby nephew, Eldarion of house Telcontar, heir to the reunited kingdom of Gondor and Arnor, who was standing in the hallway, one trouser leg torn off at the hip, armed with only a broken handle and look of determination. He was flanked with the two fountain guards who had stood watch outside the intensive care suite.
"Put down the stick, boy." The imposter warned.
"I know what you are!" he pointed his weapon at The Thing That Was Not Elrohir, "release him."
"You don't know what you saw, boy." The imposter's voice gained an edge of danger.
"What have you done with my uncle Ro you pathetic," Eldarion's face went red with anger, "yellow bellied orc fucker, you coward!" he slashed at the air with the broken haft. His father was not around to scold him for swearing.
The Thing That Was Not Elrohir put his head back and laughed. "Would you like to see him alive again." He looked over Eldarion's shoulder to where the lady Eowyn appeared, leading a troop of black clad citadel guards behind her.
"Blimey did I shoot the wrong one?" Tulk looked down at Elladan in horror before pulling the hood off his face. The peredhil grunted in pain and made a solid effort at standing up, his injured arm held close to his body and his face pale.
The imposter put up his hands. "ah, brother." He turned to Elladan with a carved smile and empty eyes. Elladan punched him as hard as he could, the motion made him yelp in pain but it was worth it. For the briefest moment, the image of Elrohir's face shattered and the body of an old man with dark skin fell onto his backside with a yelp, but as soon as he hit the ground, his dark silks seemed to shatter into a flock of magpies which went cackling out the window.
"You fools!" one of the birds cackled, "I AM Pallando of the house of Irmo and Manwe, and no mortal being can end my life!"