Dark
Leaf, Chapter Five: Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams
Legolas
was daydreaming, delighting in the encompassing silence in his cell for once.
Such moments did not come often, and seldom lasted for very long, but
the weather had been hot and tiresome of late, and the Orcs of Dol Guldur had
settled into a routine that required as little daytime movement as possible.
He had been left out of his chains for the past turn of the sun, and
that was an infrequent privilege, too. His
wrist was nearly healed from having been broken; food and drink had been in
abundance to help him recover from the mauling he had taken at the hands of
the females, and for once he almost felt normal.
I
remember normal, he
thought, rolling onto his back on the floor.
He was shirtless, reveling in the feel of summer sun on his skin. There
was a sunbeam from the high window, and it warmed the slate floor beneath his
back; Legolas stretched, catlike, and smiled up at the brightness by tipping
his head back. The window looked
even more odd upside-down, and he laughed quietly to himself.
Everything had to be quiet on days like this.
Mustn't upset the Orcs...
mustn't attract attention from the Wraiths....
All
told, it was not a great deal unlike being at home--not if he thought very
hard, and reconstructed the details. Surely
there had been days at home when silence was a good thing for a child to
weave. Days when Council sessions had gone poorly, and Father was not in
anything even remotely like a pleasant mood.
Days when Mother had been worried over various incursions of Shadow;
days when Brethilas was out of sorts because a friend had been killed fighting
spiders, or was just in one of those foul moods that overtook him from time to
time.
Father
called those his 'Oropher tangents',
Legolas reminded himself with a grin, and folded that memory away with the
others, so he would remember when he finally got home.
I wonder if he still has them.
I wonder if Brethilas still behaves like Grandsire....
Yes,
those had been days when servants or tutors had scooped Legolas up and gotten
him out of the way, so he would not either innocently or by some design get
himself into more trouble than he could handle.
Elvish faces looked at him out of his memory, long elegant fingers
placed across fine lips: we must be
quiet now, caun nin. Come, here
is a picture book for you to look upon... or here is Erthilar to take you for
an archery lesson... or yes, you do look weary, time for a nap, you were up
half the night as it was.... If
Legolas closed his eyes now, he could remember those books, those lessons, and
it was easy to let Dol Guldur fade away.
All he had to do was enjoy the silence, and ignore the stench that
pervaded this place....
Outside,
so far away and down the hill that even Legolas' hearing could not always pick
out all of what they sang, he could hear the voices of his people calling out
to him. There was one voice in
particular that he knew well, longed to hear often, and that voice was singing
now, strong and clear. It was the
voice of Saeros, he who was known in Mirkwood as the Tracker: an Elf so old
that only a small handful of the Firstborn could name his lineage without
looking it up, and that was saying quite a bit.
Legolas smiled and wriggled with pleasure, for Saeros was singing in
Silvan, a tongue of the Elves that the Orcs did not know.
It was a very, very old song, a teaching song, by which young Elves
were instructed in how to make a bowstring.
Legolas had known it absolutely forever, at least as he reckoned
forever, and he sang along in a very, very quiet voice, so no one would hear:
Twist
and turn, wax and burn,
Tie off tight, turn it right,
Arrow sings in the wood,
Thus we make the bowstring good....
The
tune was sweet and simple for the sake of it being memorable, and it made
Legolas smile to hear it, to sing it. Behind
his closed eyes he could see his own hands moving through the motions as the
song described: a half turn here, the motion of braiding then turning, another
half-turn, and then a twist; over and over to the proper length depending on
the weapon, then wax it and burn the ends to seal, turn it to make the end
loop, and tie it off.... He had
made his own bow string before his first hunt, as was expected and proper, and
he still remembered it fondly. The
gut had been dyed black and red and white, because he was still a child, and
the way the colours wove in and out of one another through the braiding
pattern had fascinated him at the time. It
still did, in fact, though only in his mind's eye.
I
wonder what became of it. Or of
my bow and quiver. Did I actually kill an Orc that day?
I think I did; I remember seeing my arrow in one of their necks
before... before....
Legolas
felt his lower lip start to quiver, and he bit down hard on the inside of his
mouth. No
tears... not today. Happy
memories. This is a day for happy
memories.
He
made himself smile, licked the blood from inside his cheek, and bared his
teeth in what he was sure was a grin of disdain.
I
think I probably did kill an Orc. I
will do so again someday.
Perhaps
someday soon.
Now
that was a cheering thought. Legolas
gave a bright chuckle, almost instantly clapping a hand over his own mouth,
though not in fear. He laughed
behind his hand, and smothered the amusement back into a snort.
His father had been there in his mind, the day Morgal and the others
did bad things to him. He had
felt him. He knew his Ada was proud of him, and knew beyond any possible doubt
that eventually, Thranduil and the Valar who were aiding him would figure out
what to do.
Would
it not be most amusing if, when they break down the doors of this disgusting
place, they find me stepping over a pile of dead Orcs? Or even a Nazgúl?
Lord Celeborn might make a song. 'Nine
there were in Dol Guldur, but eight now are come to Mirkwood's fringe....'
Or perhaps seven. Could I
kill two Nazgúl? Anything is
possible.
I
could certainly try.
Arrow
sings in the wood,
Thus we make the bowstring good....
As
the sunbeam shifted, Legolas rolled with it across the floor, considering many
things. Saeros had been an
excellent story-teller, almost as good as Brethilas, who was in his turn
nearly as good at it as Father was. But
Saeros had told him things that were most distinctly un-Sindar, because
Legolas constantly badgered him for tales and songs that were of the Silvan
folk. It had been Saeros who, at
Mother's urging, had taught all of Luthiél's children how to speak the
language of the Silvan Elves, taught them the customs and ways of those proud
Moriquendi. They had been
fascinating stories. Legolas
purred to himself and cocked one eyebrow, thinking back.
There
I am. Saeros is sitting in the
tree, and I am one branch below him because he is very much my Elder, and
anyway he is watching for Orcs and spiders.
His eyes are very dark in the dimness, and he does not ever keep them
still; he looks here and there and all over, because he might miss something
if he does not. Saeros misses
nothing. And I am being very
quiet, holding onto the tree limb between my legs, balanced perfectly because
this is my tree...
Saeros'
tales were generally most instructive. They
were seldom what any Sindar or Eldar would consider proper stories, but then,
Saeros had a disturbingly ironic way of laughing at what Sindar considered
proper stories.
All
right for courtiers and diplomats, and soldiers who insist they must wear
armour, he had said once.
Legolas nodded, hearing the voice in his mind, and chuckled again.
Armour and playful language will
not help them in the trees. Spiders
care not for fine words and fancy shells....
Legolas
suddenly stiffened, going very still at the sound of footsteps.
Heavy, booted feet, stepping with purpose: Man-feet, those, and the
less elegant, more dark sound of Orc-feet, coming down the corridor and up the
turnpike stair. Coming here,
because there was no other room on this floor.
The prince listened, sifting sound from echo, and then nodded as he
rolled over onto his stomach and rose up to a wary crouch.
Four Yrch, one Man.
If I had a weapon, I might be able to handle that.
But
he did not have a weapon, so he settled for moving out of the sunbeam and
preparing in other ways. The Orcs
tended to take away what they thought he found overly worthy, so he did not
let them know how much that sunbeam meant to him, never let on that the window
was anything more than a window; Legolas snagged his shirt from where he had
flung it. As he slipped the
garment over the nakedness he had worn into the sunbeam, he swiftly tiptoed
over to the bedstead and sat down, scrunching over so that he was up against
the wall, his back protected. He
settled his head back against the stone and let his gaze go long, pretending
he was napping. If
they think I am being good, maybe they will forget the chains for another day.
That would be pleasant....
Keys
jangled in the lock; the door swung open, revealing Galgrim and one of the
Dale-Men.
"I
thought the whelp was kept chained?" the Man murmured, seeing Legolas on
the bed and the fetters hanging tenantless from the stone wall.
Galgrim gave the strangled, gargling sound that in him passed for a
chuckle.
"Does
he look like he needs to be, Man?" the Orc captain asked with a sweeping
gesture of his arm. "Meek as
a dove since we bred him. Mayhap
Elvish children are like Orc wenches: breed them and they lose their
edge!"
"Mayhap
he just enjoyed it and hopes for more," the Dale-Man growled, and Galgrim
chortled.
"Eh,
give him time to learn to enjoy it. Morgal
broke the little bugger's wrist the other day; Master was not amused."
Nor
was the 'little bugger',
Legolas thought, but we'll have that
out with Morgal someday soon.
He
tensed within himself, ready for whatever mood Galgrim might choose this day;
it could go either way. The heat
might be making all the Orcs sleepy--or it might make them mean.
Best to be prepared in either event....
But
the luck of the day was with him for a change, it seemed.
Galgrim came over to the bed; rather than reflexively striking out to
smack the Elf awake, he poked Legolas in the shoulder a time or two.
"C'mon,
bratling, wake up now. Drat you,
boy, move your eyes or something!" Galgrim shuddered and looked at the
Man. "I hate the way Elves
sleep."
"Face
it," the Man muttered, not without irony.
"You just hate Elves."
"Well
aye, there's that too." Another
poke; Legolas pretended to stir, grumbling under his breath as if he had just
now awakened. "Wake up,
Elf-brat!"
"
'M not a brat," Legolas murmured, and faked his best yawn.
He blinked a few times, made his eyes look unfocused, then yawned
again. "Oh. Hello,
captain."
Galgrim
laughed again and poked him once more, for good measure.
"Sleepy little prince," he mocked, and pinched Legolas' cheek
hard enough to make his eyes water. But
it was meant in rough kindness, something Legolas had long since learned to
distinguish from the bad days when Galgrim was a heavy-handed and surly
cretin. Little
victories, Legolas thought, remembering something the grave-eyed Vala had
told him in one his visions. We
survive by little victories....
"I
was sleeping," Legolas informed them needlessly, and faked another yawn.
"What's the matter? Is
everything all right?"
"Depends
on how you define that, whelp," the Dale-Man said impolitely, and moved
toward the chains. "Galgrim?"
The
Orc reached over with a negligent flick of one powerful wrist and hauled
Legolas off the bed by his shirt, prodding him to his feet.
"Nay, he'll go along quiet-like, without chains.
Won't you, bratling?"
Anxiety
curled in Legolas' guts all of a sudden, but he kept up the meek façade.
He had long realized the Orcs did not have the wit or the acuity to
discern changes in breathing and heartbeat, as Elves did, unless those changes
were dead obvious. Legolas dipped
his chin and nodded solemnly.
"Where
are we going? Outside?"
"You
wish," the Orc captain retorted, grinning.
"Come along now, that's a good bratling."
With
an unuttered sigh, Legolas obediently tripped after Galgrim and the Dale-Man.
The other Orcish soldiers who had accompanied them fell into sloppy
order behind their captain and his companions; they trooped down the corridor
and down the spiral turnpike stair, the armour of the Orcs making an almost
rhythmic rattle according to the pattern of their footfalls.
Legolas thought it would make a good song, but Orcs only sang
disgusting and stupid songs, so he decided not to waste a good beat
pattern--or risk annoying Galgrim. Little
victories...
Down
and down they went, past the three main floors of Dol Guldur: through the
large wardroom beneath Legolas' cell, where the Orcs dined and held their
celebrations; down into the massive chamber where their weaponry and armour
were stored. As he generally did
on the infrequent occasions when they let him be elsewhere within the tower,
Legolas paid close attention to where everything was placed, counted steps
from one stair to the other, measured how long it took to walk from point to
point. One never knew when such
information might come in handy, after all.
There
were other Dale-Men about the place; Legolas recognized a few of them, rough
and problematic people they were, like the Orcs blowing hot and cold.
One day kind in their rough way, the next cantankerous and mean.
Some of them had assisted Galgrim in teaching more swordplay to
Legolas, and the occasional, cherished archery practice, on the assumption
that eventually Master would lose patience and either kill the Elf or make him
into an Orc--and if the latter, best to have him ready to go out immediately
onto the field against his kinfolk. Galgrim
secretly hoped for just that to happen, as he would like to someday see the
face of King Thranduil, just before his own son (a fine young Orc-to-be if
there ever was one!) killed him.... But
such lessons were few and far between, and when they did occur, Legolas was
scrupulously well-behaved so they could not have reason to take the privilege
away.
Teach
me to someday be able to kill you,
he thought, waving as one of the Dale-Men raised a hand in greeting.
Traitors, animals... teach me
how to kill you all.
Galgrim
paused by a large wooden door bound in iron bands, and reached for a key at
his belt. Legolas' eyes widened.
Surely they were not going down into the dungeon....
But apparently that was their destination.
He took an involuntary step back, eyes widening further, nostrils
flaring in instinctive preparation for panic; behind him was the Dale-Man who
had accompanied Galgrim upstairs, though, and he put a sharp knife to Legolas'
throat, twining one hand painfully in the long pale hair, and twisting.
"I
would like an excuse to make you bleed, whelp," the Man said with smiling
menace. "Want to give me
that excuse? Whelp?"
Legolas
looked sidelong at him, and stilled his breathing.
"Copulate with Goblins," he said in Quenya, his tone
conciliatory and sedulously polite. He
had discovered to his dismay some years ago that many of the Dale-Men knew a
lot of words in Silvan; he had paid dearly for insolent remarks he had made,
thinking himself safe from them as he was from the Orcs.
But Quenya was beyond them all, and he did not think the Valar would
punish him too straightly for using so lovely a language to say such terrible
things.
"That's
Elf-speak for 'no thank you, kind Dale-Man,' " Galgrim laughed, batting
away the Man's hand. "Leave
the bratling be, Aldor. Master's
dungeons would make anyone squirm."
Then the captain looked at Legolas, a long and considering look, full
of insinuation and promise. "No
sass from you, bratling. You know how Master is when 'e's angry.
Don't make my life difficult on such a hot day."
Knowing
Galgrim had the power to make his life exquisitely miserable indeed, Legolas
did as he was told. The sense of
growing anxiety and helplessness took on more life in his guts with every
downward step they took into the bowels of Dol Guldur.
Blessed
Valar be with me, he
pleaded silently, putting out one hand to brush the wall so he did not stumble
and fall in the dark. There were
no railings on the stairs in the dungeons....
"Smile,"
the Dale-Man hissed in Legolas' ear as they came to the foot of the stairs.
"This is a happy day for you, whelp!"
Legolas
shuddered, knowing anything Shadow and its minions thought of as a happy thing
could not possibly give pleasure to any of the Firstborn.
My name is Legolas... I am the
son of Thranduil Oropherion, King of Mirkwood....
I may not be home, but I have never left my father's realm...
Blessed Valar, look down upon me with kindness--Lady Elbereth--oh
help.... The anxious litany
went on and on, ever-changing, ever growing, as Legolas realized that three of
the Nine were in residence, and awaited him below.
In the dank dimness of this deep undercroft, they shone with a
not-light of their own making, a kind of bizarre reverse of the Elvish glimmer
radiating from Legolas' own form. It
was impossible not to see them standing there watching him, hear them
whispering amongst themselves.... He
was acutely aware of the Dale-Man, his knife still out and ready, standing
right behind him, and Legolas thought: Coward...
scared to stand forth, hide behind me, coward....
Angmar,
the Lord of the Nazgúl, a King among Kings, stood at the apex of the dark
triangle. One hand moved
majestically within the black robes; it held a long, wicked knife, and was
pointed to a spot on the floor, right in front of it.
Galgrim shuffled in that direction, accompanied by two of his soldiers,
who each took Legolas by an arm and hauled him along.
The young Elf dragged his feet, unable to tear his gaze from the tall,
powerful scion of Darkness, but in the end he was brought where Angmar
silently demanded, and was made to kneel in response to the downward sweep of
that knife-bearing hand. Angmar
moved to one side, darkness shimmering from the folds of his robes as he did
so; behind him was a large stone vat, full of a burbling liquid that threw off
a noxious odour and seemed to bring up from within itself things that looked
alive.
Legolas
stared at it in horrible fascination, jerking backward with a start at the
sight of a small, claw-like hand that came up from below, then disappeared
into the murky brown liquid.
Hold
him, Angmar hissed, and the
Orcs on either side of Legolas obeyed with alacrity.
"No,"
Legolas whimpered on a note of pleading anger, gritting his teeth and trying
to break away. "No,
please--"
Angmar
slapped him; the hand was cold and burned, all in the same touch.
Before the Elf could recover from the force of the blow, the Nazgúl
seized him by his right wrist; the knife descended, glittering cold and sharp,
and bit deeply into Legolas’ forearm, slitting him open from elbow to wrist.
Legolas bit down hard on the cry that tried so hard to escape from him;
the blade burned worse than the touch of Angmar's hand, and took longer to
stop burning. Blood welled up
behind the blade as it moved along his arm, for all the world as if the knife
were some bizarre pen and the lifeblood of an Elven prince the equally bizarre
ink upon which it fed.
He
wanted to cry out, to struggle, but for the second time in as many days he
thought suddenly, incongruously, of his father--could hear Thranduil's deep,
compelling, melodious voice in his mind:
This
is what it feels like to face death, to look it in the eyes and not fear it,
my son, my brave little bird... someday when the enemy does this, you will
look them in the eye and show them who you are, what you are made of, and you
will meet the test without fear....
Neither
of them could have guessed, all those years ago, that it would mean such a
wound as this, but Legolas took heart from the words, remembered what his sire
had taught him, remembered who he was, and he fought to breathe like a proper
warrior. But it was hard, so
hard, oh blessed Elbereth, it was so very hard... he squirmed against the
restraining hands of the Orcs, but was held so tightly he could hardly even
twitch for all his effort. Angmar's
hand never wavered, but dragged him to the edge of the stone vat; he squeezed
all down the length of Legolas' forearm, milking it of blood, so that the
bright fluid dripped and trickled into the oversized receptacle.
An Orc overseer moved in with a paddle and began to stir....
Then
from the vat there came a terrible shrieking, as of a creature in agony.
Little clawed hands, small heads, bright watchful eyes squeezed in
dreadful pain... little mouths full of sharp teeth, little ears with
swept-back tips, almost Elven in design....
The overseer stirred and stirred, and Legolas stared, his eyes wide and
silver in the dimness, all the blue bleeding out of them into the dark agony,
and still Angmar milked his arm, still the blood burned and chilled and
flowed....
Then
the chief of the Nazgúl gestured, dropped Legolas' arm, and moved toward the
vat. His movements were mirrored
by the other two. They paused a
moment, and after the manner of a terrible ritual, raised their arms--and
began to chant in their horrible voices, high and screaming and hissing and
loud and vile. Legolas did not
recognize the language, did not know what the words meant; he wished he could
cover his ears, but his entire being was suffused in a kind of torpor, sliding
him as if toward sleep, but leaving him all the while terribly alert, and he
could not move.
Just
when it seemed the sound could not become louder or more cacophonous, it
simply stopped. The silence was
worse than the screaming. All
eyes strained toward the vat....
From
within there came a rumbling, like the distant echo of an earthquake.
With a suddenness that sent the Orcs falling over backward, dragging
Legolas with them, five beings stood up within the sick swirl of the brown
liquid: five full-grown Orcs with long golden hair, mottled and tough of skin,
almost poetic in the definition of their muscle and the visual power of sinew.
They screamed with ecstatic pain as other Orcs came alongside to haul
them out, to beat them down in their newborn pain....
Yet another Orc, bare-chested and bound about the middle with a leather
apron of a farrier, stood forward with a branding iron, the wooden handle
wrapped in cloth; each new Orc warrior was branded upon the face with a
design, and the smell of burning flesh, the hideous screams of joyful agony,
were positively foul. From where
he knelt, bleary-eyed and green with nausea, Legolas thought it looked like an
oak leaf. Odd...
an oak leaf? Why an oak leaf??
Right
about then it hit him. Legolas
realized what they were, who they
were, and a soundless scream of denial coiled up from deep within him.
He began to fight like a mindless thing against any hand or claw that
touched him; it took four Orcs to hold him, and even then, when the silence
rolled up through his throat and broke as a scream of terrible pain from his
lips, it took one of Angmar's potions to slowly subdue Legolas, and bring a
measure of quiet to the dungeon once more....
A few rapid heartbeats, and the only sound to be heard over the
growling of the newborn Orcs was the sound of one lone Elf retching with sick,
frightened disbelief.
Oak
and ash and thorn.... The sigil
of the House of Oropher....
Finally
the potion took effect and wiped consciousness from him, spinning Legolas away
from the horror. Echoing behind
his fleeing mind was the memory:
A
fine little army of Orcs from the House of Thranduil....
**********
"If
I were a Man, I might suggest one could almost set a clock by these
events." With a heavy sigh,
Glorfindel dipped the soft cloth back into the lavender-scented water of the
basin, swirling it about. "I
hesitate to even guess what may be the cause of such regularity; it chills my
heart to think of it."
"Clocks
are foolish toys," the Elven Lord before him retorted in a gasping
whisper. "Time ought not to
be measured in such small doses."
"Better,
then, to measure them by such events as this?" Glorfindel asked, wringing
out the cloth and placing it gently over the brow of Elrond Peredhil.
Elrond made a curmudgeonly sound deep in his throat and ignored the
question, just as he ignored knowing Glorfindel was smiling.
He did not need to open his eyes to know this; it simply was.
"I
worry about you," the Elf went on, when it became clear Elrond did not
mean to answer his questions. "It
is good to know the little Prince is alive, but you torment yourself to stay
in contact with his mind so frequently."
"He
is not 'little' any longer," Elrond murmured.
"He is now forty years old, and has matured both physically and
mentally. Would to the Powers he were
still a child! His torment would
be less than it is, were that the cas e. At least while he was yet little,
they did not beat him so often, and they certainly did not--"
The Lord took a deep breath. "Did
not--breed from him," he finished quietly.
Glorfindel
said nothing for many long minutes. He
thought back over the past eighteen years, to the frenetic days during which
the attempt to rescue young Prince Legolas was mounted and met with failure,
due to the unlooked-for rise of the Nazgûl at the tower of Dol Guldur, in
Southern Mirkwood. Other attempts
had been made over the years, and had met with failure, bringing only death to
a small handful of Elves and adding to the careworn look in the eyes of those
left behind. From time to time
since then, Elrond still met with visions and nightmares that brought his mind
into contact with that of the captive prince.
This contact had begun during the rescue attempt, with frightening and
painful consequences; it continued, more sporadically, to this very day.
On
this evening, Lord Elrond had been calmly sitting in his library, reading,
when quite suddenly the second vision in three days struck him between the
eyes. It had been beyond
horrific--a matter of blood and foul spells and a Morgul blade, and Orcs with
oak leaves burned into their faces, and a dreadful screaming that went on and
on.... and at the end, Elrond had been reduced to wracking tears, in which two
names could be distinguished: that of Legolas, the son of Thranduil, and
Celebrían, Elrond's own wife, now gone West.
The servants had sent for Glorfindel, since the twin sons of Elrond
were not at home; that had been just before the first evening watch. It was
now significantly later, and the pain seemed to be under control at last.
"May
I ask what you saw this time, Lord?" Glorfindel asked after a pause.
Elrond shuddered.
"You
may certainly ask," he breathed.
"That
bad?"
Elrond
nodded fractionally, squeezing his eyes more tightly closed.
It had started out innocently enough: an awareness of Legolas reaching
out to him in anxiety, almost as a child will look for their parent across a
crowded room to make certain all is well.
He had sent back a kind of caressing mental touch: yes,
I am here, child--try to rest.... Then
he had tried to block out the thoughts, for it was always difficult to think
straight through the increasingly dark and dire touches he experienced from
the captive youth. Blocking had
not worked; Elrond had seen and felt it all, first to last, when the Orcs were
birthed in a scene only slightly less harrowing that watching an Elf be broken
to make a single abomination.
But
then Elrond had felt something that angered him even more against the Orcs,
and unnerved him for the sake of Legolas.
That something was an overwhelming wash of despair, barely choked back,
the kind of despair that could well lead to attempts to take one's own life.
Elrond was a great believer in hope being eternal as an Elf's lifespan,
so long as that Elf continued in
life. He could also understand
the desperation and terror of Legolas' situation--had he not gotten enough
glimpses of torture, violation, emotional agony?--and because there was little
he could do at the moment to assuage it, Elrond knew a vast frustration that
made him feel distinctly not Elvish.
"Glorfindel,
my friend--I do not like this," he growled at last.
"It eats at us all. Do
you know that Elladan swears he killed an Orc last week--one that looked very
much like Legolas?"
"From
what you have told me," Glorfindel said, quelling a shudder of his own,
"comparing the Prince of Mirkwood to an Orc is not to be borne.
I cannot imagine the son of Thranduil and Luthiél as an Orc."
Elrond
opened his eyes and stared at his friend.
"It does you credit that you wish to alter the course of my gloomy
thoughts," he said, "but such attempts at humour go without
appreciation." He threw the
wet cloth at Glorfindel, catching him in the face with it as he intended, and
sat up. His head throbbed at the
movement. "We know the Orcs
are now breeding replacements for Dol Guldur from the youth.
Elladan was quite upset by it all."
"I
was not attempting to be
humorous," Glorfindel retorted solemnly.
"I was attempting to keep you from a train of thought better left
quite alone. We do young Legolas
no service, by allowing ourselves to think in such a vein.
And in any case, Elladan's anxiety is running away with him.
It has barely been a day or three since they--"
He
did not complete the thought, knew Elrond would reach the same conclusion, and
after all--how many different ways could one find to say the same things over
and over again?
But
Elrond had to admit his friend was right.
There did not seem to be any alternative, but neither was there much
point to thinking in the same tired circles.
The echoes of despair he felt so often from Legolas these days were
harrowing to Elrond. He wanted to
take action, but knew their options were few; if they again rushed the Tower
during the day, it was certain many more Elven lives would be lost before such
an attack was over. Elladan and
Elrohir, in the company of like-minded hunters, had had some success killing
the Orc warriors when they went forth each night to hunt, kill, and destroy.
But lately, other roving Orc bands had begun to patrol the area with
greater numbers and frequency, as if something were about to happen at Dol
Guldur. This in itself was a
nerve-wracking thought.
Elladan,
the elder and less patient of Elrond's twin sons, had spoken often of late
about his newest idea: that they actually enter the Tower after the Orc
warriors departed, free the captive Prince of Mirkwood by stealth, and kill
all the females found within. Elrond
had pondered the various points of this plan, and had forbidden it with a
heavy sigh. There was no way to
tell how many females there might be within, and they were just as likely to
kill young Legolas rather than see him rescued.
And that was before one even considered the presence of the Nazgûl
within.... It was not always
possible to know when any of the Nine Ringwraiths might be in residence, and
Elrond did not want his sons taking on such beings without a very solid plan
of attack.
"Something
has got to be done, Glorfindel," Elrond murmured at last.
"I fear for the state of the prince's mind and spirit, if he
remains there much longer. He has
held on with amazing resilience, and I am stunned to discover that anything of
sanity remains at all, much less the sweetness I sometimes sense from him.
Eighteen years has already been eighteen years too long."
"I
am certain that when he arrives, Mithrandir will have some idea of how we
might proceed," Glorfindel suggested gently, making Elrond lay back on
the bed and carefully replacing the cool cloth over his eyes.
"It has been said before, but may bear repeating: a new pair of
eyes on the situation cannot help but be a good thing.
Especially when those eyes belong to Mithrandir."
He set to work mixing some fresh herbs, carefully bruised, into a cup
of hot water on the bedside table.
Elrond
took it as a measure of just how unnerved he was by all this, that he had
neglected to recall Mithrandir's imminent arrival.
"I had forgotten," he breathed on a trailing note of wonder
and irritation. "When does
he arrive?"
"Tomorrow.
Hopefully early," Glorfindel said, cocking an eyebrow.
Elrond
ignored what was implicit in Glorfindel's words and tone; already his mind was
racing ahead to Mithrandir's arrival. Mithrandir
was one of the Maiar--older than time, full of wisdom.
He was the wizard Elrond most trusted, could always confide in, for he
kept secrets and knew of more ways to deal with any situation than most beings
had the wit to conceive of. If
anyone could think their way through this, he could.
"I
wonder where he has been these last years," Elrond murmured.
"I wish he had shown up long before now."
"He
is not yet here," Glorfindel felt constrained to point out.
Elrond lifted the damp cloth and gave his friend a jaundiced look.
"Do
not be difficult, Glorfindel."
"It
would never cross my mind to be so, Lord."
Glorfindel hid a smile as he finished making his herbal concoction.
"You should drink this now and try to sleep, before the young
prince decides to visit you in his dreams again."
"Will
this make it easier to deal with those dreams?" Elrond asked,
transferring his unamused gaze from Glorfindel to the cup.
Glorfindel helped him to sit up, and handed over the small chased
silver beaker.
"If
it works as I hope it will," he announced, "I will settle for it not
allowing you to share those dreams--just for this night.
You need your rest."
"I
doubt Legolas rests much," Elrond growled stubbornly.
Glorfindel's
expression became sad and distant; he glanced southeastward in the general
direction of Dol Guldur, and sighed. "I
doubt he does either. But I am
sure he must rest a little from time to time, even if it requires that Orcs
beat him into a stupor." He
cocked an eyebrow at Elrond. "I
hope I will not have to employ a similar tactic upon you, my Lord."
Elrond
rolled his eyes and said nothing. He
sniffed suspiciously at the cup; it contained several herbs Elrond knew well,
herbs of healing and heavy sleep.
"I
think what you have here would fell
an Orc," he grunted.
Glorfindel
consulted the small handwritten book from which he had gotten the ingredients
and the receipt for making this particular tisane.
"It says something to that effect right next to the
instructions," he said, quirking a faint smile.
"But since it is in your handwriting, I do believe you are safe in
drinking it."
Because
he knew the effects would wear off early enough on the morrow, Elrond suffered
himself to drink it. He made a
face at the taste.
"Remind
me, sometime soon, to add a line to those instructions," he said.
"A little honey would make this a great deal more palatable."
Glorfindel
promised to remind him, and made Elrond lay back; the concoction was strong,
after all, and the Lord would soon be feeling the effects.
His eyes were already beginning to dilate as he settled against the
pillows. Glorfindel tucked him in
as carefully as he would a child, then extinguished the bedside candle.
"I
will see to it you are up and coherent before Mithrandir arrives," he
said softly, gathering up the basin of water and other healing items he had
used to soothe his friend's distress. Elrond
murmured something sleepily, but Glorfindel did not catch what it was.
He smiled wearily as he closed the door behind him, leaving the Lord of
Imladris to get some rest for a change.
May
Elbereth guard you this night and always, Prince Legolas--may your dreams be
sweet and uninterrupted!
Glorfindel thought, and went on about his business with a song of hope in his
heart for the first time in a long time.
Mithrandir's arrivals had a tendency to foster such things....
Author's
End Notes:
I
am mindful of my responsibility as a writer, not to put in gratuitous stuff
without plot purpose if I can avoid it. A
number of folks, both reviewers and e-mailers, have mentioned being parents
and dealing with this tale on that level, both in terms of observing how
Legolas is depicted, and dealing with shared parental angst with the adult
characters who suffer through what is being done to the Prince of Mirkwood.
This tale, and the more "JastaElf-canonical" AU stuff of
"Leaf and Branch" and other stories that will be in that arc (yes,
it will be an arc, I have at least two other tales to tell you over time),
would not work if Legolas had gone through these things at a later point in
his life. I do not believe in sex
with minors, nor do I believe in putting children through hell or hurting
them; I know such things happen, and we know, from shadows thrown up in high
relief within Tolkien, that Middle-Earth is seldom a place of unvarnished
delight and wonder. Good does not
always win in Tolkien's works, which may explain why we love them so well.
But
I am myself a mother, of a delightfully innocent young man of (at this
writing) nineteen going on fifty going on twelve (he is high-function autistic
with a touch of Asperger's Syndrome), and if all the babies I've ever
conceived had made it past the first trimester, I'd be swamped in children.
I love them, adore them, and wish I had scads; I hang out with them as
often as I can, and writing about them as honestly as I can in a venue like
this is a huge trip for me. If
anyone, Orc or otherwise, ever laid a hand on my child, they would die.
If my child were in need, especially as desperate as this for Legolas,
and I could not help him for whatever reason, as Thranduil is constantly
frustrated from doing, I too would be more than half-mad with grief,
desperation, and angst. I don't
know for certain yet why this story is so important to me, but I hope I will
do it supreme justice.
According
to one of my favourite writers, Tyellas, there seems to be a good reason to
assume (within reason, up to a certain point in Elven maturing processes) that
Elf-years to Man-years (presuming the calendar usage of Gondor) equals
approximately 2.5 to one, which (since Legolas just passed his 40th conception
anniversary, and is in his 41st Elf-year of life) would make him (Jasta counts
on her fingers....) about sixteen years old.
Even for an Elf he is no longer a minor; he is old enough to be
married, or if single, to go to war, make important and binding decisions,
etc. But even the Elves would not
consider him completely mature. If
one assumes that Legolas is 500 years old in Fellowship of the Ring, he is
still the merest stripling by comparison to, say, Elrond, whose age (in whose
years, Men's or Elves', I don't know...) has been conservatively estimated in
the 20K+ range... So most
assuredly at 40, he is still woefully young.
Frankly
speaking, there IS no right age at which non-consensual sex with a monster is
the way to go; witness the understated horror that surrounds the
never-fully-explained ordeal of Elrond's wife Celebrían, daughter of Celeborn
and Galadriel. We are never told
she was ravished, only that she suffered torment. But we can all do the
math.... Now imagine what all
this is doing to the other adults. Celebrían’s
husband. Celebrían’s mother
and father. But when you factor
in that this particular Elf is young, was pretty much sheltered through a
childhood in Middle-Earth's most Shadow-torn Elf-Realm, and is from what bids
fair to be the most dysfunctional family of the Firstborn in Ennor, there is
just very little light in this mess. For
anyone.
Ithilien
and others have commented on why has nothing been done in 18 years?
Well, actually, things have been done, we just have not heard about
them yet. (Honest, it's not ex
post facto reasoning, either...) Based
on the Appendices to the original Tolkien trilogy, the concept of how they
would have tried (in canon, yet!) to free any captive Elf from Dol Guldur
generally, and in this AU case, Legolas specifically, is already built into
Tolkien's reasoning. At least
twice in the years of the Third Age before the founding of the Fellowship,
Shadow rose up in Dol Guldur. Generally
speaking it was Mithrandir/Gandalf who was sent to deal with it.
Without giving too much away for the upcoming chapters, I will admit he
is not coincidentally involved in this plotline.
(grin) Shortly we will
hear of attempts made, both large and small, to free Legolas--and the outcomes
of those attempts, as well as the payment rendered to Shadow for it.
Failure generally has a high cost, and it is no less so in this story.
But
not too long from now, we shall see what the outcome is of Celeborn's quiet,
completely PO'ed comment that "this ends now..."
And trust me, neither Orcs nor Nazgúl want to see Celeborn PO'ed.
You know what they say about those Quiet Types™....
It
was also pointed out by a very observant reader (can't find the message to
name them, sorry...but I think it was Ithilien) that Thranduil seemed all full
of parental piss and vinegar at the end of his encounter with Angmar of the
Nazgúl in "Leaf and Branch", chapter seven ("Shadow Has Never
Been a Father..."), and in fact he specifically says "This is not
the end of the matter. Somehow I
will gain my Legolas free of Dol Guldur - or kill him myself."
And yet he is still not finished with this vow 18 years later?
Well-- o. H e tried; in "Leaf and Branch," he is (if you will
recall) going the wrong way to meet Elrond, because he does not want Angmar to
know he isn't going home. The
implication is that he arrives after they have already burned up all the dead
Orcs and headed pell-mell for Lothlórien, because Legolas is in peril of
tipping into Shadow because of that potion he was given.
Imagine the poor King riding around Southern Mirkwood like a mad thing,
worried about attracting the attention of Shadow, terrified for the fate of
his son, and unable to find anyone... then imagine being poor Tinuvil, who
gets the unhappy job of finding him and telling him "yeah, we succeeded,
but there's this catch...." In
short, Thranduil arrived at the scene of the crime intending to whup butt and
take names--and found he was too late.
In
"Dark Leaf", Thranduil arrives in time to be *seriously* late--and
yet perniciously in time--to see his child carried off beyond anyone's power
to stop (See flashback in chapter 2). He
does not give over to Shadow without an occasional fight--but after all this
time and no success, the strain is beginning to tell.
(You might have noticed that in Chapter 4.
I am SO not wanted at Thranduil's parties these days...)
In
"Leaf and Branch," Thranduil and Tinuvil do not find one another for
about another day or so after Legolas is already rescued and safe in Lothlórien,
and at that point, (though admittedly no reference is specifically given to
this happening) riders from Celeborn meet up with both of them, inform them
that Legolas will be brought home, and the rest you know if you have read
"Leaf and Branch." If
you have not read it, go do so now; we'll wait.
(grin)
I
also had a neat question (BOY you people are reading this thing closely...)
from the 4th flashback in chapter 4 (the scrubbing scene from when he first
arrived at Dol Guldur) as to what the heck "potash and lye" are, and
why anyone, even Orcs and traitor Men, would have it anywhere near a child of
any race. Wow.
OK, here's the quick and dirty from someone old enough to remember
party lines; phone numbers that began with letters instead of numbers; ice
deliveries, milk deliveries, and wringer washing machines:
Ever
hear of brown laundry soap? A
brand name, which you can still get in grocery stores here in the
neighbourhood of the US Nation's Capital, is Fels-Naptha™.
It comes in a rectangular brick, and I have unpleasant memories of
using it and a washboard to clean socks when I was a kidlet.
THAT is the soap I had in mind they were using on Legolas, to clean all
the dirt, sweat, blood, urine and mud off of him after essentially neglecting
to remember they had him locked up for the first week or two that he was a
prisoner. (BAD Orcs. VERY bad, no
Orc biscuits!) Potash is
potassium carbonate, essentially you burn a lot of wood and sieve water
through it to make potash. It and
lye (potassium hydrochloride) are used in the making of soap--and the soap so
made often comes out like the brown laundry soap mentioned above.
Nasty, nasty stuff... More
than you ever wanted to know... (grin) But
it shows how much of an eye y'all have for what's happening here, and I am
both moved and humbled.
The
Chapter Title is taken from a poem by T.S. Eliot, one of my favourite writers
of all time, and a superlative poet. This
particular one seemed to speak of the bond between Elrond and Legolas, and the
effects that bond have on our dear Lore-Master.
The poem is "The Hollow Men", Part II:
Eyes
I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.....
Chapter Six