Eowyn lay in her empty bed, trying to follow orders. She clutched the down pillow that still smelled like her husband against her stomach. She lay on her back on top of the carefully arranged green duvet bordered with running horses. She was still in her chemise, face washed but hair kept in its braided bun, watching the glaringly bright stripes of summer sun cut between the curtains and willing herself to sleep. The day was becoming hot, and the sound of singing, which had not stopped since the morning, filtered through the open windows. The Steward's house was an austere but stately building on the very lip of the citadel, their veranda opening onto one of the main thoroughfares up to the fountain court. They were close enough to the market to be covered in settling dust.
Eowyn thought of all the patients in the infirmary and worried the most over one she had not seen all night. It felt wrong to disrupt the bed that had been made the day before. It felt wrong to fully undress, to take down her hair when she knew that she would be back on her feet in a few hours when she didn't know where her husband was. After all, she told herself as she watched the plaster ceiling, she did not actually need to sleep, just to disappear long enough to convince the Peredhil that she was fit for work.
She sighed, and despite herself, it became a yawn. She blocked out the light from her eyes with one hand, and a great wave of healing sleep washed over her, pulling her down into the murky depths of her own consciousness.
Eowyn could not remember how she had entered the maze, but she knew that she had been wandering through it for a long time. The air smelled of some sweet, exotic flower she could not identify, and the blooming twilight seemed to fill her spirit with an ethereal effulgence as if every edge was adorned with misty rainbows. She touched one side of the hedgerows that loomed over her head. Glossy, miniature spoons of boxwood leaves greeted her fingers. The hedges were ornamented with sweet-smelling flowers and shimmering motes of light that swarmed curiously around her, lifting her garments with childlike audacity. She frowned and flattened her skirts. Peering around her, she became suddenly and vividly lucid.
"This is a dream…" Eowyn looked the other direction, sensing some movement just beyond the next turn in the leafy corridors, "who's there?" She put her hand to her hip, but where her dagger hilt usually hung, she touched something strange. She blinked away the dreamy mist and looked down at the pruning shears in her hand. Accepting the whims of Irmo's strange poetry, she raised the shears before her defensively and, despite her better instincts, crept towards the movement and the distant sound of tinkling bells.
After all, Eowyn thought to herself, adjusting her grip to hold the scissors underhand, she seemed to have been wandering forever, and she had yet to see anyone but herself. She crept up to the turn in the hedge, and as she went, she noted that the sprinkling of flowers started to overtake the manicured boxwood, and the swirling motes became gleaming butterflies, bees trailing stardust like pollen, curious pixies twittering in celestial tongues who hid whenever her gaze fell upon them. She stepped carefully, lifting her gown so that it did not disrupt the clusters of bobbing mushrooms at her feet. These grew up larger than her head as she made her way towards what looked like a clearing ahead of her. They rained down gleaming spores onto her upturned face. Draping festoons of wisteria, climbing roses, and thick bunches of waist-high poppies burst in a clashing riot of lavender and red, sprouting from the mycelium at their roots.
Eowyn heard a decidedly equine snort, and as she stepped around the fibrous trunk of a mushroom taller than a spruce tree, she saw a sight that took her breath away.
It had, by all practical reason, the form of a horse, but its proportions were somehow uncanny in their eldritch elegance, its hooves were cloven, and it had a back that would bear no rider. It shone as if it was wrought of pure mithril; its mane and tail seemed to float upon an intangible breeze, and the arm-length horn that issued from its brow was born with perfect grace. As she looked into the apparition's wild black eyes, Eowyn knew at once that this was a creature of incredible age and power. It dipped its head to her, and she saw that it bore the decorations of loving hands, who had sewn its flowing mane with silver bells and forget-me-nots. She put out one hand in a cautionary greeting, and dainty as a dancer; it pricked her finger on the tip of its horn.
Eowyn gasped in surprise, pulling back the wounded digit and startling the poor beast. It tossed its head with a tinkle of bells and pranced away, showing her the white of one great black eye.
"Wait!" Eowyn went to pursue it, but the creature was already galloping away through the clustering mushroom forest, fruiting bodies bobbing in its wake. She had the vague feeling that she had failed some test and looked down at her bloodied finger. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of musical laughter behind her.
Eowyn spun around, shears raised to block her eyes from the blinding light.
"You won't catch her." A mocking voice said the light seemed to coalesce into a body. He sat upon a large rock at the center of the glade. For a moment, she was convinced that she had drawn the attention of the Dream Lord himself, but then the light seemed to contract into visible color. Eowyn relaxed and stowed her scissors in her belt. It was an elf, one whom she knew. She had last seen the Lord of the Golden Flower at the wedding of the King and Queen. He had pounced upon her gleefully and, before she realized what was happening, had plied the story of her misadventures upon the Pelennor from her and Sir Brandybuck and named her Dagulfiriath – Witchslayer.
"Lord Glorfindel?" she asked cautiously. He laughed again at her recognition, throwing back his head and clapping his hands. He sprang down from his perch and suddenly became more corporeal as he landed with two feet in the swirling grass. He was dressed in rich, green robes of silk that caught the breeze, and his hair hung in luscious waves of spun gold across his chest adorned with Celandine and green ribbon. He held open his arms and his eyes were as blue as the sky behind him.
"Witchslayer!" He answered her with a crushing embrace that lifted her off her feet and stole her breath as she was momentarily drowned in a face full of soft golden curls and the scent of vanilla. He set Eowyn back on her feet with a slap on her upper back that was calculated for his brothers in arms but made the petite mortal woman gasp. He beamed down at her with pride, seeming to weigh her development as one would a beloved sapling.
"Where are we?" she asked when she had recovered her breath.
"In the gardens of Lorien!" He took her hand and pulled her down a path that seemed to open through trembling fungal towers, soaring in mounting canopies above them. "come, my lady, we must make haste! Great magic has been invoked to call you here."
"Why me?" she asked the elf as he pulled her along.
"In truth… you were the first to dream," Glorfindel admitted, "Princess Celebrian has been trying to contact her children since this whole disaster began, but they do not sleep as mortals do."
"Disaster?" Eowyn asked. "I am only dreaming, my lord." The air was alive with distant singing and soon she could make out dwellings carved into the living flesh of the great mushrooms. Far away, where the lingering fog parted, she could see the canopies of mallorn trees standing pale in the rising mists.
"It is here that mortals glance in dreams and come to find the healing balm of rest." He guided her forward as the path turned into an ancient and finely carved stair, edged by a riotous swell of poppies.
"Why have you brought me here?" She followed him onto a raised cliff, face of pale stone marked with ancient lichen and carved by some celestial hand into the form of a soaring eagle.
"To show you that?" he pointed, and her eyes followed the direction of his finger out to the horizon across the flowering gardens and down across a rich and humid valley towards the West where mountains disappeared into purple mist. There, it was as if a storm was brewing, but this was unlike any storm that Eowyn had ever seen. The clouds spiraled downwards in a funnel of foul winds. Lightning arched in searing flashes from the belly of the lowering clouds, and the wind that stirred from that direction stank faintly of death.
"What is it?" Eowyn asked, but she was well acquainted with the reek of Morgul fires.
"Our time runs short; your mind will not bear this reality for much longer." Glorfindel turned her face towards him and issued her an order as a general speaking to his lieutenant. "In ages past, the feud between the Sons of Fëanor and the Lord of Death drove them to experimentation with necromancy. It was thought that such treacherous meddling was in vain, but somehow, one of their experiments has been reawakened."
"What?" Eowyn panicked. Her grasp of First Age history was rudimentary, much to her husband's dismay.
"He made stones," Glorfindel rushed to explain. The edges of the dream were becoming fuzzy as she struggled not to wake up.
"The Silmarils!" Eowyn smiled, feeling as if she had gotten a test answer correct.
"No," he corrected her, and her face fell, "Other stones, gifts, in boyhood, to his father. Finwé was wearing them when he was killed," Eowyn rushed to remember which one Finwé was, her eyes becoming wider, "they were broken," Glorfindel explained, "half was born to Mandos and half to Endore. The elves believed that they could use them to communicate with the dead, but it never worked," the vision began to fade into haze until only his voice remained. "Something has opened the eyes of Mandos!"
She sat up, once again, in the warmth of her bed in her room in Minas Anor. For a moment, Glorfindel was sitting before her, real as flesh, upon her bed, holding her by both hands. "You have to save Aman." He squeezed her hands sincerely, "You must break the stone!"
She blinked, and he vanished except for the faint smell of vanilla on the summer breeze.
"Break the stone," Eowyn repeated to herself with conviction.
.
"Muk!" Elladan swore, disentangling himself from his brother and stumbling to the door. He threw his weight against it, but it clanked uselessly and remained locked hard.
"He means to kill us." Allatar pressed his face against the bars, trying to see where the mass of chaos had gone, "and half the city with us if he can." Several motes of fairy lights emerged from the wizard's beard and slipped away down the hall, illuminating the windowless corridor as they went.
"Can they help us search for another explosive?" Elrohir asked, watching them go. He unhooked his shackles from where they had been performatively propped around his wrists.
"Potentially," Allatar grumbled, "but I would not trust them to know what to do when they find such a device."
"Let's focus on our escape first," Elrohir knelt before the wizard, and, using his teeth to adjust one of the mithril hairpins he used to clip his braids, he set about freeing his hands. "Easy," He announced, casting aside the chains."
"Oy!" Nic peered over Elrohir's shoulder, "where'd you learn a trick like that?"
"From a professional burglar." He answered flippantly, going to the girl who smiled coquettishly as she raised her bound hands and was met with cool indifference.
"Will you teach me?" Nic bounced enthusiastically.
"No." the shackles came apart in Elrohir's hand, "and were it up to me," he leaned forward and spoke in a threatening hiss, his eyes going grey as a hurricane at sea, "you would not be leaving this cell." His features twitched in a half smile, and he turned to the door.
"You have made some interesting friends, brother," Elladan shared a glance with Gimli.
"So it would seem," Elrohir muttered, sitting on the ground and trying to reach his arm around to reach the keyhole. "Elladan, The Blue Wizard Allatar of the East."
Elladan turned to gaze at the old Easterling with wonder. "My lord," he inclined his head in deference, "You should have been greeted as a sage."
The old man harumphed, but there was a kindly warmth to his expression. There was tree light in his ancient eyes and cosmic harmony in the sound of his voice and Elladan realized that he had been too long starved of that primordial fire. He went to his knees before the old man, feeling his hand grasp his injured shoulder, and soft tendrils of light soothed the burn of torn flesh. "Is this the brother you sought for me to heal?" He petted the Peredhil's head with one gnarled hand. "there is a great sadness upon him, but no mortal wound…" he looked at Elrohir quizzically.
Elladan tested his shoulder in wonder. He stretched it out, pulling apart the carefully constructed sling as he tested his range of motion. "You have a healing touch." He observed in wonder, struggling to extract the tangle of bandages from the front of his tunic and ultimately requiring Gimli's help with a knife.
"Long were my studies in the garden of Este." He said cryptically, "I have followed my mad brother up from Umbar, where he orchestrated similar attacks not a fortnight hence. His targets then were the last remnants of the so-called Black Numenorians." Elladan's eyebrows raised in interest. "He has come north to see to the extermination of that ancient race." Elladan's eyebrows fell.
"He's going after my sister! MUK!" Elladan dragged his hands through his hair in frustration. "Elrohir, can you…"
"I am working on it!" Elladan spun to his twin, who was awkwardly twisted so that his hand could reach the far side of the locking mechanism.
"Can you go any…"He was interrupted by Elrohir's growl of frustration.
"The lock will not move," he informed them all, fruitlessly jiggling his hairpin. "It's some Numenorian contraption unlike any I have seen."
"You wouldn't put pickpockets behind a pickable lock," Anga observed pragmatically.
"I don't suppose you want to give it a try?" Elrohir sat up and offered his hairpin to the mortal woman.
"My arms aren't that long," she folded her arms and shrugged.
"Something's coming," Elladan said, looking through the bars down the hall. Sure enough, as Elrohir stood and followed his brother's gaze, he saw Allatar's floating speck returning. But this time, it burned an angry red color and seemed to jerk about as if it was in distress.
"Oh dear," the wizard observed, putting out a hand to catch the light as it returned.
"What does that mean?" Elladan asked.
"It found something," Allatar said sadly.
.
"A bomb in the base of the tower?" Eldarion repeated numbly, "Well then, we have to run!" He tugged on Faramir's sleeve. Faramir looked down at the boy, his eyes were huge and round, and he looked remarkably like his father, with his hair pushed behind his ears. The lingering effects of whatever Pallando had given him made the prince's face seem to shine and distort in strange ways. He blinked away the hallucination.
Faramir shook his head. "He wants me alive, Eldarion," he extracted himself from the prince's grip, holding up two bloody hands. "I believe that he means to take me from the top of this tower before the device activates. That means while I am up here, he will not risk it going off, do you understand?"
"I can't just leave you!" Eldarion protested, a gust of wind blowing his hair back. He clutched the railing and pressed himself against the wall.
"My father is hurt; you have to help!" he tugged on one limp arm.
"My prince," Faramir begged, but the boy's jaw had set like steel.
"You will not stay here to play the helpless bait!" Eldarion meant to sound kingly, but his voice cracked and shook, and his true despair flickered through, "Please don't leave me." He added in a smaller voice, slipping down onto the stairs below him.
"How gravely was your father injured?" Faramir asked in genuine concern. He remembered his duties as the haze of drugs started to wear off a bit more.
Eldarion clutched the haft in his belt. "He hit his head, and he won't wake up. They killed Damrod and Uncle Ro." He closed his eyes against the wave of emotions, and the Commander put a hand on the base of his neck. "He didn't make it out of the library."
"We go together then," Faramir looked at the Commander, who confirmed what he was saying with a sad nod. He got to his feet unsteadily, squeezing shut his eyes against the lingering illusion that the tower was breathing from within.
"We just need to get down these stairs," Eldarion assured him. He winced as he watched Captain Holleg pull one of the Steward's hands over his shoulder. Faramir went white as if he was going to be sick, and his legs almost crumpled beneath him.
"One step at a time, my lord." The three of them made slow progress; they had made only a few turns in the spiraling stairs when they all noticed a faint red light arising from below them.