Disclaimer: I don’t own them and I’ll put them back when I’m done!

Author’s Note: Once again, I must apologize for the long gap between updates. And once again I must blame computers, for technology likes to die on my beta and I. That being said, I hope you enjoy the chapter. Thanks Pip, for the beta!

Chapter Fifteen: To the Alchemy Room

  “Well, I think it’s a silly name. ‘Alchemy Room’. Who could take a place like that seriously?”

  “ Somebody obviously did, Pip, because it’s there,” Merry replied, leading the way towards the librarian’s seat.

  The librarian was obviously of excellent hearing. “No you don’t. You lads go straight back there and continue your studies.”

  The hobbits and Bergil froze, surprised by the powerful tone in the wizened little man’s voice. Pippin began to think he was right in supposing that the man was somehow related to Gandalf. The White Wizard was the only other person Pippin knew who had perfected that sort of commanding tone.

  “W-why, sir?” Bergil asked, voicing Merry and Pippin’s thoughts. He was gazing at the librarian in alarm.

  “Because,” the librarian replied sternly, “I did not get out all of those books and maps for you to go off gallivanting at the slightest little notion. Go back to that table and don’t come back up here for two hours.”

  Cowed, they slunk back to the huge table, and resumed their places in front of the books.

  The next book in the pile was an account of the City during the year of Alatarial’s death. This book was bent open in one section, which fell open naturally when Pippin laid the book flat.

  “ ‘A young tower guard was found raving this day, the fifteenth of April. He is presumed to be insane, and has been sent to the asylum in the Fifth Circle’,” Pippin read aloud, and looked up at Merry and Bergil. “Well, that’s interesting. I wonder what this has to do with anything.”

  “It’s probably something that we’ll have to piece together before the end,” Merry said, shrugging. “Best write it down, Bergil. What else is there?”

  Pippin looked back at the book as Bergil scribbled the note of the mad guard down. There were several other notices of the kind, all dealing with the affairs of the Citadel. Pippin got the feeling that some things were written down as though they had actually happened, but he could not be certain. It was annoying, that feeling. It made him frustrated because he did not know what to believe.

  “Nothing else jumps out at me,” he said eventually. “Is there anything in your book, Merry?”

  Merry was leaning both elbows on the pages of a huge tome. It was by far the newest of the books on the table. He was biting his lip in a way that told Pippin that he was concentrating very hard.

  “I think I can tell who that ghost was last night. The one who screamed at the ball,” he said.

  Pippin started. That event seemed so long ago that he had already stored it away in his mind as occurring ‘the other day’. It seemed too easy, that they had found the identity of the woman so soon.

  “ ‘Lady Niriel, long-time companion of the Lady Finduilas, committed suicide during a ball held at the Citadel on the twenty second of March.’ It doesn’t give a year,” Merry added. “It says she had been hearing voices, and that she left a note explaining that she jumped to rid herself of them.”

  Pippin and Bergil stared at him, both shocked to the core. Then Bergil wrote it down on the parchment.

  “You know, I’m beginning to think that Minas Tirith is bad for the health,” Merry said. “You should defect to Rohan, Pippin. It seems so much simpler. You can’t go wrong with plains and horses.”

  Pippin laughed. “Unless there is something they’re not telling us.”

  “I think the Shire sounds much less complicated,” Bergil said decidedly, waving the parchment to dry the ink.

  “Oh, it is. It really is,” Merry said. “And nothing changes in the Shire.”

  They were silent for a moment, remembering simpler times, and Bergil wisely did not interrupt. Then Pippin shook his head and straightened up.

  “How much time has passed? I don’t doubt that the librarian will make us stay for the full two hours. He reminds me of Gandalf,” he said.

  Merry glanced at the pocket watch he had acquired. “It has been forty minutes,” he said. “But we still have plenty of books to go through. Best get to work, then.”

  They each took a book and began searching. The written histories of the city were dusty, but in good condition, and many of them opened naturally to certain sections. They very quickly learned not to ignore these pages. They seemed to yield more information than any others.

  Bergil’s book was about Dol Amroth. He read all about the Prince of Alatarial’s time, and about the man’s three sons. Seregon featured prominently, several pages devoted to chronicling his crimes. He took a piece of paper from the pile, blew the dust off, and took notes.

  Two hours later, they were none the wiser as to why the librarian had given them these books, but they had plenty of information. ‘Tidbits’, as Merry said. They would show them to Arwen and Eowyn later, and perhaps puzzle them out. Now, however, they had an expedition to make.

  “Try not to do anything perilous,” the librarian said dryly as they returned the books to him and headed towards the doors.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be careful,” Pippin said cheerfully to him. “Thank you for helping us today.”

  The librarian inclined his head to them, watching until the heavy door swung shut behind them. Then he sat back and sighed. He had done all he could, for now.

*****

  They stopped in the Company’s house for tea, eating toast dripping with butter and jam in the kitchen. Spending the first part of the afternoon in the library had left them all hungry, and besides, they had missed elevenses. Merry carved them all thick slices of bread and toasted it over the coals.

  “What confuses me is this alchemy stuff. I have never heard of it before,” he said, settling down at the table with the toast in hand. “You’d have thought that some of those books would have touched on it, but of course they didn’t.”

  Bergil munched some toast thoughtfully. “I think I know what it is, Sir Merry. I remember learning something about it in lessons before the war.”

  “What is it?”

  “Something about using a stone to turn plain metal into gold. It was supposed to do other things as well, like make a potion that would make the person who drank it immortal,” Bergil explained. “That’s all I know, really.”

  “What are you lot talking about? Black magic?”

  The hobbits and Bergil looked up; Legolas had noiselessly entered the room as only an elf can, and was regarding them with an expression that was no less quizzical for all its lightness. Pippin smiled in relief at him.

  “We looked at an old map today and saw a room labeled Alchemy Room,” he explained, deciding that a half-truth was probably the best way to go with Legolas. “Merry and I have never heard of it before, so Bergil was explaining it to us.”

  “I see,” said Legolas, helping himself to their snack. “Foolish mortals, trying to have what they were not gifted with. It is one thing to make progress, lads, but it is an entirely different story when you toy with nature in ways that you should not. The Dark Lord extolled the wisdom of trying to get what you cannot. I believe that is the reason Numenor was sunk.”

  The lads all stared at him. Legolas smiled back, seeing the alarm on their faces. “Never fear, the Shadow is departed. I have to wonder, though, why there was a room for alchemy here in the palace. Strange. I suppose you’ll tell me when you find out, though.”

  “What makes you think we’re going to find out?” asked Merry, confused. Why did Legolas have to be so confounded enigmatic all the time?

  Legolas shrugged. “What with the trouble that you are getting into with Arwen and Lady Eowyn, I would be surprised if you did not. That’s all.”

*****

  “Are all Elves like that?” Bergil asked a while later as they hurried through the bustling corridors towards the portrait gallery.

  Pippin laughed. “Enigmatic and strange? No. And Legolas likes to act that way sometimes. He’s not always so dignified. You should have seen him when we blew up a privy around him in Rivendell. It was not a pretty sight.” 

  Bergil tried to imagine Legolas of Mirkwood covered in filth, and failed. Obviously Merry and Pippin were more worldly-wise than he.

  “Hush now, lads, and try to be inconspicuous,” Merry muttered. They were nearing the corridor that led to the gallery, and did not want to be stopped. Quiet and determined, they slipped through the various doorways until they were in the portrait gallery.

  “I’ll never get used to this place,” Pippin muttered as they crept through the stale grandeur of the corridor. “Even if I go through it five times every day. It’s creepy. Unsettling.”

  Merry and Bergil nodded in agreement. The portrait gallery was not a cheerful place, with all of its staring painted eyes. They made it to the alcove door without any problems, a small miracle as they had half expected Aragorn to have posted a guard there to keep them from entering. Merry held the door for them as they hurried through, and shut it softly after them.

  “Right then,” he said, consulting the map he had copied. “It’s this way.”

  It was a long way, through twisting corridors that were wholly unfamiliar to them. Pippin did not recognize anything, and knew that they were passing though places undisturbed by mortal steps for centuries. At one point, they passed an open, oddly sunny room and paused to look inside. Their eyes met with a strange spectacle: a messy nursery that looked as though its occupants had been swept up by their nurses one day while at play, and taken away, never to return. There was even a dusty table that held the remains of a lunch that had never been consumed.

  “Let’s continue,” Merry said after several moments of staring at the ruins. “Come on.”

  Neither Pippin nor Bergil argued with him.

  At long last, they reached the place where the map indicated the Alchemy Room should be. The map was right, however; there was no door leading into the room. Pippin wondered why they were surprised; nothing was as it seemed in this part of the palace. They stood together in a huddle, contemplating the map and the empty wall.

  Empty, that was, except for an elegant sculpture of a man, which stood in a painted niche several feet away. They had passed several such sculptures, all faded and beautiful. Merry’s eyes fastened on it and a small smile grew on his face.

  “There must be a secret passage,” he said. “A secret door. I wonder-”

  As Pippin and Bergil watched, Merry went up to the sculpture and shoved it. Nothing. Merry waved them over to help, and they examined it thoroughly for a hidden spring. A long time passed in which they discovered nothing, only succeeding in rubbing decades’ worth of dust off the sculpture and onto themselves. Then, suddenly, there was a loud clicking sound and the sculpture moved back into the wall several feet, creating a narrow opening wide enough for a fully grown but slender man to pass through. They stared at the dark space behind it. They had found the Alchemy Room.

  “Well, lads,” Pippin said at last, breaking the heavy silence. “Shall we?”

TBC