"Are you sure that you don't want something stronger?" Eowyn cringed in sympathy as she watched her mentor's face. They were in Elladan's office, he was shirtless, his ruined tunic underneath his arm to keep blood off the surface of the desk. It was a far cry from the pristine and sterile surgery, but that was needed for the seemingly endless string of casualties that continued pouring in through the day. The nurses and assistants were all busy in some capacity and the job needed to be done. She carefully dabbed a cloth, stained brown with an antiseptic fluid around the thick bolt.
"Just be quick." Elladan closed his eyes, "I can't afford to be off my feet." He held his wounded arm steady with his free hand. A sharp pain radiated from his shoulder and his hand on that arm was washed with sparkling nerves. He watched his star pupil preparing a suturing kit on the desktop, there were telling shadows under her eyes, she was exhausted and did not have the resiliency that he possessed as a peredhil. He wondered how long she had been awake.
"Very well then…" Eowyn took a steadying breath and held up the scalpel in mid-air, "The uh… the base of the arrowhead is just under the skin. I am going to have to widen the opening." She looked to him for assent, but he just covered his face with his hand. "okay…" she winced as she made first one then another small cut over the two sides of the arrowhead. He shuddered with pain but otherwise did not react, she caught the streaks of red that issued forth with the cloth. "It hit your collar bone," she observed, using a sterile set of forceps to push aside the cut flesh, her horror at seeing her teacher hurt giving way to a morbid surgical fascination. "if I just…" she bared her teeth and with a firm grip on the shaft and a wet, sucking sound, she liberated the bolt.
Elladan hissed as she held a wad of clean gauze to the wound. He picked up the bolt from the desk and looked at it closely, the fine Erabor craftsmanship had done its work efficiently and the arrow was mercifully intact.
"It looks like there's some tendon damage to the joint. The head of your collarbone is fractured," Eowyn observed, dabbing the slowly leaking wound with one hand and prodding inside of it with her forceps. Elladan ground his teeth and dug the point of the bolt into the desk, " but its not displaced!" she said with a cheerful smile, the sour look from the peredhil told her that he did not share her enthusiasm.
"Just sew it up and immobilize it so that I can return to work." He sounded tired.
"Yes sir," Eowyn answered quietly, suddenly appreciating what he had to lose amid all of this chaos. She turned to the tray of tools and measured a length of fine silken thread.
"Have you heard news of Lord Faramir?" Elladan asked gently, watching her expertly thread a suturing needle with approval.
"None have seen him since yesterday," Eowyn said, her voice shaking more than she would have liked. Elladan looked at her with a worried expression, but she smiled weakly. "he lives," she nodded but did not sound confident, "I would know if…" she looked at Elladan for reassurance. "I believe that he has been waylaid by the same force that stole his face."
"It is rare for mortals to share such a bond," he told her, ignoring the sharp tug of thread on torn flesh. "but I sense that you are right, he will be found." He fixed her with a cold, mithril grey look at once calm and deadly, "and you will take your vengeance upon any who have done him ill." This was not the first time that he had made such a promise and Eowyn had no doubt, as she dabbed sterilizing jelly on the puckered knot of stitched skin, that he would see it fulfilled.
"Yes, sir." She took a fresh roll of gauze from the desk, her jaw set and her eyes bright, "hold this." She held a square of cloth over the wound which Elladan obediently held in place with his left hand. She carefully wrapped the injury so that his arm was immobilized against his torso.
"Nicely done." He felt the bandage with his free hand." Although I may not be of much use in the surgery."
"I can stay on another shift, if it is needed." Eowyn sat up, blinking red-rimmed eyes and trying to look alert and soldierly.
"I shan't have you falling asleep in some poor soul's entrails, my lady." He smirked wryly. "I would say that you can rest in one of the hospital beds but they are all full. Go home, you may return once you have eaten and slept." Eowyn was about to object but looking into her friend and teacher's face she saw only an exhaustion so deep that it seemed to echo back through centuries of pain, "please." He asked in a low voice and she acquiesced.
"As you say." She stood up and straightened her garments, only noticing at that moment that she was still barefoot. It had only been yesterday that she had been kissing her husband in the mushroom garden, wondering what she would put in her letter to Sir Brandybuck.
"And Eowyn!" he said, "send me that Dwarf!"
"Yes, Sir." She scooped up the ruined tunic to dispose of.
"Wait," he stopped her before she reached the door. He had pulled open one of the drawers of the desk and brought out an antique crystal carafe with a few inches of clear liquid in the bottom and two matching glasses, one of which was slightly chipped from where his father had once dropped it.
"Sir?" Eowyn stepped closer to the desk warily.
"We earned this." He carefully measured two healthy swallows of Elrond's precious miruvor, the last of its like in Middle Earth, and handed her one.
"What are we drinking to?" she asked, inspecting the glass. He watched her thoughtfully and standing in the morning light upon a hard-won battlefield, she reminded him of a brave, mortal king who had once ridden to war and had never returned.
"Death." He raised his glass.
"Death." She agreed and tapped her glass to his, before swallowing it in one proud gulp as if it was the firey grain alcohol favored by her own people.
"Oh, my that is smooth!" she remarked, seeming visibly refreshed. Elladan laughed grimly, savoring the floral warmth that spread through his body like his departed father's embrace.
"Thank you." She inclined her head and placed her empty glass on the desk before hurrying out into the hall. He watched the swinging door in silence for a long moment, turning the crystal tumbler in a beam of light that had just moved to touch the corner of the desk. It wasn't often that he felt the absence of his parents as keenly as he used to. He wondered what had become of his fool of a brother.
.
It is said that Elves do not fear mortal ghosts, but the Peredhil's human blood seemed to crawl in the watching empty presence of his departed kindred. Generations of grim kings who had been born, grown and known all of life's encumbering trials as seasons in his long life seemed to gaze upon him with jealous eyes. Elrohir was not sure if it was fear that he was feeling as he reached out into the crowded silence. The wall of darkness was so complete that even to elven eyes it appeared as a sheet of velvet before his reaching fingers. Looking back down the passage they had just come through, lit by pale glow of pre-dawn filtering down from the street level, he wondered how they had gotten so far back into the mountain to reach the catacombs. A sickly smell of dust and mildew and long desiccated remains came from the door.
"Will this passage lead us to the citadel?" Allatar asked him, and before he could answer, Elrohir's eyes were illuminated by a mote of fairy light that emanated from the old man's walking stick to zip around his head like an exited bug.
"I believe so, though I haven't entered from this direction before," Elrohir recoiled warily as the curious spark explored his face. "You keep strange company." He observed nervously, holding up his hands. He had dealt with fairies before.
"Don't you worry about her my boy," the wizard laughed, and a strange violet effulgence seemed to radiate from him in the dark. "they're only dangerous in swarms!" he laughed, and lifting his robes daintily, he stepped onto the dark marble stairs that seemed to materialize at his feet.
The mote soared out in a long arc, illuminating walls stacked with dark recesses filled with carefully arranged bones receding upward into the gloom. "Let us take the main road then," Elrohir whispered, following the old man and wishing that he had spent more time looking at the architectural plans of the city.
"These bodies must be from the time of the plague," Elrohir observed, remembering how he and his brother had ridden South with medical supplies and been met with the wholly overwhelming numbers of victims and the stench of the Anduin as it carried the nameless dead out to the sea. The Heir of Gondor himself dying under Elladan's care, his armpits stuffed with pustules the size of walnuts that leaked a foul-smelling yellow fluid onto the fine royal silks.
"Yes yes, terrible business," the wizard clicked his tongue. Elrohir only hesitated for a moment before following him into the dark.
They continued onward for some time, following stairs and passages that lead steadily upward. Now and then the passage split or branched off in another direction and soon the walls of jumbled bones gave way to more organized graves. Elrohir hoped that his sense of direction was working, but he soon feared that he might be more lost than he hoped, still, he continued onward. The shifting fairy light caused the graves and crevices on his left and right to suddenly yawn in the darkness. He tried to remember what he had seen of the architectural plans of the city.
The stairs that they were following spiraled upwards and emptied out onto a broader path lined by small mausoleums carved from shiny black marble. The air seemed to open up a bit and there was a slight breeze from somewhere far above.
"I hear something." Elrohir put a hand to the wizard's chest, peering around the corner he saw that some of the pinnacles atop the mausoleums were lit by a fire some distance away.
"Do they light a pyre?" the wizard asked.
"It is not this people's way." Elrohir answered him in a whisper, "Can you dim your fairy lights, father?" the gleaming mote buried itself in the wizard's beard where it pulsed for a few breaths and then went dim.
As he observed the distant light, he heard whispered voices.
"Don't make me go down there Nic! I think I can see water." Said what sounded like a woman's voice.
"Don't make me angry Anga, this might be our only chance."
"Why don't you go first?" the woman urged her companion.
"I'm too big to fit, but my cousin said there were whole heaps of mithril down there from some old king."
"Your Cousin Holleg will be right peeved if we lose him that commission in the fountain guard!" The woman's voice was muffled as she made another attempt to climb through the opening.
"Looters," Elrohir whispered to his companion, "the normal guards must be elsewhere in the city on this night of chaos. Stay here." He touched the old wizard's arm and dashed across the street. Nimble as a squirrel and still wearing his burned clothing, the stench of his own singed hair still clinging to them, Elrohir climbed lightly onto the roof of the mausoleum. Below him he saw two people, a woman and a man, the man wore the livery of the city guard, and the woman was on her knees with her head and arms through an open grate in one of the mausoleums.
Crouching low in the shadow of a spired roof like a waiting gargoyle, Elrohir began to sing. The long low words of the epilogue to the Noldalante came to him and the shape of the cavernous ceiling made his voice echo and vibrate to the audience of listening dead. The lament of Maglor for Miriel Therinde started as less than a whisper, a warning in the subtle vibrations of the stone. The earth seemed to groan with the vastness of longing and regret as hollow as the sky and unending as the churning seas between here and paradise. Mother, mother, mother cried out the long generations, and the dead listened in their waiting halls.
"Do you hear that Nic?" the woman removed her head from the opening and looked around, "I told you these tunnels were haunted dint I?"
"Who's there?" Nic drew a sword and pointed it into the darkness as if it posed any danger to a wraith. Elrohir's voice seemed to echo off the cavern walls from every direction at once. He was sure that neither of the intruders spoke Quenya but the subtle vibrations behind the intent of the words was clear and profoundly threatening.
"I told you this place was haunted Nic!" the woman said through gritted teeth.
"Indeed," he looked around holding the torch aloft, "let us leave the dead to their wailing!" A moment later the pair were rushing off down the passageway and Elrohir was dropping into the shadows behind them. Spying movement, he saw that the wizard had followed some distance behind. Standing as a silhouette against the fading torchlight, Elrohir waited for the old man to creep up to him. A dim light at the tip of his cane.
"I see you possess no meager spark of starlight yourself, my boy!" he sounded proud as he patted his new friend on the arm.
"Let us see what exit they take," Elrohir smirked fondly down at the old man.
They followed the torchlight in creeping silence for a few paces before Elrohir stopped him with a hand to the arm. "I know where we are… look." They had come to a broader avenue made of widely spaced stair treads leading steadily upward under a vaulted ceiling. "This way leads up to the citadel." He pointed to the left. "But that gate is surely guarded, "our friends went that way, which goes back to the city." He pointed to the right."
"You might alert the guards to the presence of burglars and let me slip through into the citadel." Allatar suggested, "But I have not my brother's talent for face changing and would be swiftly apprehended in the palace, I'm afraid."
"Quite right," Elrohir ran one hand across his hair thoughtfully. "Follow me." He whipped around and bounded up the long stair, blank tomb windows opening to swallow him as he climbed out of the darkness in a shimmer of fairy light.
.
Eldarion ran. Clenching his jaw against the pain in his leg, he tucked the splintered haft into his tunic and made for his bedroom in the royal apartments across the courtyard. Stopping to look into the large living room, he saw one of the palace custodians crouched over a deep red stain, a pail of soapy water beside her. She looked up with a concerned smile when she heard his footsteps.
"How are you holding up, sweetheart?" she asked with genuine concern. Eldarion found he could not answer, he only nodded and ran from the room. He pulled on a pair of trousers and boots in his bedroom, shaking with the sense that he was being pursued, they were tight over his bandaged leg. How could it be that he had found the means to save his father's life and yet even his mother had been convinced that he should not use it? The very thought baffled him and as he tugged on the fastening of his pants. He felt confused and betrayed as if everyone had been replaced by strangers intent on convincing him that he was insane. He wanted his father, and a sudden overwhelming fear struck him that he should be left to rule over a court of his murderers should they succeed in taking the stone from him. He heard Holleg's voice from the atrium.
"Eldarion, are you in here?" the captain of the guard called out gently, "Please, talk to me!" Eldarion did not respond but slipped instead out the back door and into the garden where the morning light was bright on the summer flowers. He managed to slip through the garden and over the hedge onto the open plaza. Eldarion was halfway along the wall that led to the main structure of the palace, where the tower of Ecthelion gleamed white in the morning light when a voice called out to him from behind.
"Hello there princeling!" Winmeril popped up from her flower beds with a smile. Eldarion stopped and scowled at the blonde wood elf with distain. She was wearing a large, shady hat and held a spade in one hand, her braids swung gayly, and her expression saddened when she saw the prince's tear-streaked face. "I will forgive your carelessness, but you are standing on the begonias." The ancient being looked down in concern for the trampled plants.
"Do you not know what's happening?" Eldarion stamped down the begonias even harder and the elf flinched, "by what rights do you smile while your lord lies dying?" Eldarion snapped, making the elleth raise her hands with a softening expression. "or would you betray him too?"
"Eldarion?" She sounded hurt and she looked on the prince with concern. "I apologize if I have caused offense in any way," she studied him carefully, "I know how you love your father. But the flowers will bloom should he live or die. What has upset you so?"
"I…" He fought back tears, clutching the handle under his tunic. He hated the begonias with a terrible wrath and would gladly see a world where spring never came again if it meant that he could take his revenge on those who had hurt his father and caused his mother grief. Something dark and violent was waking up inside of him and he hated that it was the only comfort he could find in a world which, only yesterday had been safe and free. He raised his head and stepped aside from the mangled flowers and was about to tell the patiently watching gardener everything when another voice interrupted him.
"Eldarion!" It was Holleg, he looked tired and stepped past the hedgerow with hands raised in a gesture of peace. "Oh, thank Eru!" the captain breathed as he saw the prince. "You must not be unaccompanied, my lord." He insisted. "Your mother is terribly worried for you."
Eldarion's breath caught in his throat as he remembered the look of confusion and betrayal in his mother's face and a stab of guilt went through him at the cruelty of his words to her. How dare he question his parents' love. "Is she angry at me?" he asked in a voice that broke with emotion.
"She just wants to know that you are safe," he said, "with all that has happened you understand that she does not want you going off on your own."
"She tried to take…" he glanced at the wood elf who was watching with keen interest, "it." He then whispered to the commander, "but it saves lives, it saved my father!" the commander's face became grim as he stood straight and studied the boy.
"Leave us, mellon nin," Holleg said to the gardener. Winmeril looked at the boy with pity and stood, dusting off her knees.
"They won't even try to understand what it is before they destroy it," Eldarion said when she had made herself scarce and the commander had lifted his broadsword to sit on one of the low garden benches.
"Is that what you would like to do?"
"Yes!" He slipped the haft from under his tunic and looked at the stone, it seemed dull and grey in the morning light. "Shouldn't we understand things before we decide if we should be afraid of them?"
"Did your mother tell you why she was concerned about this… stone?" Holleg watched the boy turn it thoughtfully.
"No!" he insisted, "Tulk said he got it from some dwarf up north who said that it was elvish, but he doesn't know much more beyond that."
"Perhaps the archive will contain more." Holleg suggested gently, "and it will get your mind away from your worries."
"I wanted to use it to help the healers." Eldarion offered hopefully. "but…" his voice faltered with guilt, "but I don't even know if she wants me in there now!"
"It would not be safe to use an untested medicine upon them, my prince," Holleg answered practically. "We know not what effect it may have on those it heals, or what effect it might have on you!"
"Then we should learn from it, not destroy it!" he stamped his foot.
"Come with me
"Come with me to the archives," Holleg sensed that the prince needed some time to himself, "we will check on your father in a few hours… would you like that?" Eldarion nodded and wiped his suddenly stuffy nose with one sleeve. "But first." Holleg bent down, studying the prince's tired-looking face, "You need breakfast!"