There was a secluded alleyway behind the palace, where the buttressed walls of finely hewn white marble and the raw, fern decorated granite of the mountainside formed a narrow passage. A second path branched out, ascending a worn set of stairs through the rough stone to the gateway to the Halls of the Dead. The wind whistled solemly between the high walls and Eldarion sheltered against the cool corner of one of the buttresses, a secluded perch, just above the eye line of the guards. The sun blazed a sharp shadow across the stone pavers.
Elros Taur Minyatar's minimalist circlet sat on top of his folded dress uniform, a simple twist of elegantly crafted metal fit for an elven princeling from some age old legend. It held no particular mythos or power as an artifact in itself, it had no name and the mark of the smith who had made it in ages past was long worn away. He had removed his sweltering jacket, and wore only a thin under tunic above breeches adorned with his mother's embroidery.
If everything had gone according to plan then his co-conspirators should be appearing any moment. He leaned forward out of his hiding place, peering first one direction then the other. He quickly withdrew his head when he saw one of the guards reach the end of his patrol at the far side of the parapet. They would not bother to walk across the Amon Tirith while security was heightened at the front on the citadel, and Eldarion was sneaky. Well wishers and courtiers still hovered in nervous vigils at the tops of the stairs and the guards were only letting those on official business inside.
"I used to hide here too." Eldarion whipped his head around in horror to see the lord of Ithilien coming from the other direction. Before he could protest, Faramir had casually grabbed the edge of the ledge he was perched on and lifted himself up to sit beside the prince. He sat so that the slash of brilliant summer daylight cut across his body and he squinted up at the sun.
"I just wanted some time to think." Eldarion lied.
"Nice view for that." Faramir said, glancing at the looming opening to the halls of the dead and pushing down dark memories. He settled comfortably beside the boy, waiting with his hands folded.
"Did you want something?" Eldarion asked, after a moment, not looking at him.
"Just to see if you are well." Faramir studied him gently, resisting the urge to pull the boy into his arms and mess up his hair with affection.
Eldarion sneered, "And, do I look well?"
"You are brave, that much is clear," this earned him an ireful flash of grey eyes behind windswept hair. Faramir smirked.
"I don't want to be brave," he set his jaw stubbornly. "You stood up to an Istar, Eldarion."
"I unleased something terrible." He shook his head, "I broke the rules, I…" his eyes scanned the rock face in front of them as if his fate would be etched in crooked runes in the lichen. "I changed the music…" he closed his eyes and for a moment he slipped back into the harmonic trance space, a churning sea of reality seared in bright cymatic patterns on his mind. "I feel like I'm going mad," he whispered to himself, "are the Gods angry with me?" Eldarion asked with barely a tremor in his voice.
Faramir studied the prince thoughtfully, letting him know that he took his anxiety seriously.
"You need time to process all that has happened." He said sagely, "I pray that you come to trust me as your father has trusted me for many years. I always want you to know that you can be completely honest with me."
Eldarion looked up at him, the steward's genuine kindness made him long to confess everything.
"I think…" Eldarion began, and then made sure not to move his eyes when he saw Brekke's fluffy hair poke around the corner of the palace wall behind him. Below her, Findegil, Allatar, Tulk and Elanor all stuck their heads out. Allatar waved with a smile and Findegil looked back with a worried glance over his shoulder where the guard had just rounded the corner. Tulk held up a long, linen wrapped object taller than himself. Their plans were coming together and Eldarion was determined that Faramir would not ruin them. He trained his eyes not to move from Faramir's sincere face and prayed that the pounding of his heart was not audible.
"You're not him," Eldarion said, hoping to push the steward away, "you never will be." "That much is clear," Faramir nodded, "I would never dream of replacing him."
"You would give up already?" Eldarion scowled. Findegil peeked out from between two buttresses, recognized the steward's back and put a silent hand over his mouth before disappearing. Eldarion caught himself looking a split second too late.
"It is my duty to care for the realm for any reason that he cannot." Faramir continued, he caught the prince's look, "And it will be my joy to return the rule to him, shou- when," he put his hand on Eldarion's shoulder, "he makes a recovery. Until then I need you to know that I stand at your back whatever you desire." Eldarion breathed deeply and blinked slowly to keep the moisture behind his eyelids.
"Thank you," the Prince smiled meekly, trying a new tactic. "I need some time to think and meditate." He found it distressingly easy to lie to the man who had just asked so sincerely for his honesty. "Get my mind in tune with the Valar. If my mother comes looking for me, tell her that I am here."
"Do not dwell to much upon death," Faramir sent a dark look at the opening to the catacombs, a yawning black pit in the summer day, "you will find no comfort there."
Eldarion nodded stiffly.
'Who's behind the corner?" Faramir asked as he dropped lightly to the pavers. "It's just Findegil," Eldarion Lied, "you can come out Fin!"
"He's a loyal friend, keep him close as hoarded dragon gold," Faramir smiled fondly at the Archivist's apprentice, "I place our lord prince in your capable hands, Master Scholar."
Fin's smile was as wooden as a puppet, "I'll look after him, my lord." He gave the steward a polite bow. Eldarion held his breath, horrified as Faramir bowed and turned towards his hiding friends. He went stiff as his heart hammered against his ribs. Eldarion was certain, at any moment that he would shout and their plans would be ruined, he slammed shut his eyes.
"Oh, Findegil," Faramir turned, smiling brightly, just beside the hiding place, "I had put in a request for some manuscripts from the archive, can you see that they are brought to my home?"
"Yes, my lord." Fin bowed again.
"Thank you," Faramir saluted the prince, "my lord." He waited for Eldarion to dismiss him with a nod, then turned and continued around the corner looking pleased with his mentorship.
Allatar's glamour sparkled away a moment after his steps receded down the parapet. The wizard opened eyes which he had been squeezing shut in concentration and let out a deep breath as he lowered his staff. He held up one finger to his lips as he looked out from between the buttresses. Eldarion dropped to the pavers beside Findegil with suspiciously wood-elf-like agility and dashed to meet them.
"Did you get it?" he reached to take the bundle from Tulk. Anduril was lighter than he remembered, he glanced around for guards, flipped the fabric back to show the pommel of the blade and then quickly hid it again. "no sword belt?" he asked.
"You didn't ask us to get a sword belt!" Fin whispered, looking both directions.
"You will not need it where were going." The wizard said ominously, "come." He started up the pathway.
"I'm not going in there," Brekke stood firm at the first stair going up into the mountain. "they say that you can still hear lord Denethor screaming." She looked to Fin for help. The Archivist's apprentice was looking up at the dark door, a hundred childhood stories about the crypts ran through his mind but he squared his shoulders and stood behind his friend. He had promised the steward that he would look after the prince.
"Really?" Elanor looked more exited than afraid.
"As soon as they realize we took Anduril they'll be looking for a thief," Eldarion warned the two handmaidens, "the whole citadel knows that you two were in my father's bedroom, and was your sister not just arrested?" he jammed the sheath under his belt and awkwardly fastened it with the delicate elvish buckle.
"They said you would protect us!" Brekke turned to Eldarion with a look of betrayal.
"I said I would protect them," he scowled at Fin in a way that reminded him too much of Aragorn, "conspiracies don't work well if too many people get pulled into them." He took a few steps up the stairs, "stand guard at the door if you must." He paused, then added sincerely, "Thank you, when all this is over you will be honored as saviors of the realm." Elanor stood up very tall and Brekke bowed.
The four who remained ascended the winding stair to the looming portico. Eldarion walking in the lead felt dread grip him as he stepped into the shadow of the door. The arching passageway had been carved in the high Numenorian style with two geometric Maiar reaching their wings across the gated entrance. Somehow, miraculously, it was open, the wrought iron standing slightly ajar as Elrohir and the Wizard had left it the day before, moments before they were apprehended by the citadel guards. Tulk opened the gate, which swung silently on skillfully wrought hinges, peering inside curiously as he studied the metalwork.
Suddenly feeling the need for protection, Eldarion tugged the fabric away from Aragorn's sword and drew the ancient blade with a flash. He had been fencing with his father since he could pick up a practice foil, but for real proficiency with a longsword required a certain length of limb that had always put him at a disadvantage when sparring against his father and his uncles. Today Anduril sat lightly in his hands.
"Let's go." He said, and lead them into the darkness.
.
"This is the place." Allatar stopped, they were standing under the dome of the temple of Mandos, beams of light filtered down from high light wells onto his face. Arching recesses around the octagonal room held carved, skeletal figures keeping silent watch over the space that lead to the deeper catacombs. A simple altar held a single burning oil lamp on one side of the room, the air smelled of dust and incense.
"Sit." Allatar ordered, his voice echoed ominously and Eldarion sat on the floor facing the altar. The inlaid floor was set in a radial star design. The marble was like ice through his breeches. He laid his father's blade on his knees and waited for the wizard's next instruction.
"You two, stand guard," Allatar ordered, "do not let us be interrupted."
"Are you sure about this, my lord?" Fin asked, glancing warily at the wizard.
"Yes Fin." Eldarion said. Allatar sat down across from the prince, gingerly settling his old bones onto the ground and smiling gently as the other two went to the door. He placed his walking stick onto his knees in poetic contrast to the sword. Eldarion had the sudden sense that the air had grown dense and cold as a grave in winter. The sun seemed to pass behind a cloud and the beams of light from the ceiling dimmed. The lamp on the altar flickered in the sudden breeze.
"You remember what we did before?" the wizard asked.
"Yes," Eldarion did not resist as Allatar placed one of his hands on Anduril's hilt. His heart was racing wildly as he waited to see what the wizard would do next. They proceeded through a series of controlled chants and harmonic tones and soon Eldarion felt the now familiar miasma of trance wash over him. He found himself repeating words he had never heard before in elegant Valarian, each syllable bursting through his mind with echoing symphonies of breathtaking synesthesia.
For a moment, he blinked his way back into the room and it seemed that the skeletal sculptures that stood guard around them had gained flesh and eyes that burned with terrible light in the forms of ancient kings of men. Eldarion closed his eyes and let himself settle into the deep music of his own mind. Every breath vibrated out in fractal harmonies down to his hands which seemed to sparkle with living power.
"This is, what you might call," Allatar raised one hand, "Necromancy." Eldarion looked up and he beheld the wizard as he was beyond the veil, servant of the Doomlord beyond the unbending sea. A maddening abyss of time outside of time, a dusk enshrouded wonder of light beyond light and darkness beyond darkness which unwound the burdensome coils of the mind. He was awake in sudden witness to the fragile boundaries of his own consciousness and the terrible strangeness of the multi-dimensional sea beyond left him drowning in fathomless water.
"In the name of Eru Illuvatar I call upon the power of the mortal dead to protect this child as I send him into the West."
Eldarion watched from some distant plane of violently dilated awareness as the wizard closed his hand around the hilt, and, raising the sword, he drew it across his own aged palm so that rivers of blood flowed down over his arthritic knuckles and dripped onto the stone from his fingertips.
Allatar raised his bloody fingers and painted a rune onto the boy's brow, a trickle of blood ran down the side of his nose but he did not seem to notice. For a moment nothing happened and then Eldarion's eyes rolled abruptly back into his head. Anduril clattered onto the stones as he fell into a deathlike swoon onto the floor.