ERNIL

Chapter 10 ~ Over the Mountains VII

Gwaelas set his book down, hearing his master call.  In a moment he had left his corner and stood beside the divan at the hearth.  He smiled, for it seemed his prince had fallen asleep before he could make his request.  Gwaelas did not wake him; Thranduil needed sleep, especially after last night.  Instead, he gently lifted his lord’s injured arm, pulling away the open book and replacing it on the table with the others.

He sat down on the floor beside him, resolved to wait with good grace.  It was worth it just to see Thranduil enjoy some peace, even if unconsciously.

Gwaelas had been taught to read Sindarin well enough, but in that vast collection of books there were few that interested him.  He perused the titles Thranduil had gathered and decided it was no wonder that he had lulled himself to insensibility.  He looked up at him now and knew in his heart that he would never live to serve another.  Even asleep Thranduil shone with a natural majesty that was at once beautiful and awful, the firelight playing over his features.

The people of Greenwood still remembered in the deepest traditions of their history that all rightful authority sprang from the Creator of the world, and that His creatures shared that authority inasmuch as they shared His likeness.  Therefore, the Belain were the images of the All-Father on earth, and kings in their own way images of the Belain who were the images of the All-Father, and so forth.  Gwaelas fancied that he could see much of the Belain in Thranduil.  He had only to look at him to convince himself that a world had once existed in which the immortal paradise and Middle-earth were wondrously mingled, that the Powers had walked the earth and dwelt with its people.  From that world came demigods like the Iathrim, like Thranduil.

Gwaelas would never quite understand what had caused that idyllic world to collapse into self-destruction, but he would ever count himself and his people blessed that the wheeling stars had brought a remnant over the mountains to brighten the shadows of Greenwood, to share with them a shard of the magnificent era they had never known.

Suddenly, Gwaelas was surprised to see Lord Amroth standing over them both.  It was incredible that he had not heard him come in, for there was no one else about.   Amroth lay a hand at Thranduil’s throat as if to determine that he was truly asleep.  Thranduil stirred as if the touch pained him.

“Please, my lord,” Gwaelas asked.  “Do not wake him.”

“Certainly not,” Amroth obliged, straightening.  “But if he insists upon sleeping away the afternoon, my good cousin cannot object if I borrow you for a short time, can he?”

Gwaelas was reluctant to leave Thranduil alone, for his own safety as much as for his lord’s.  Besides, Thranduil had instructed him in no uncertain terms to stay with him.

Amroth saw him hesitate.  “Come, it will be all right,” he insisted with a smile.  “I shall return you within a few moments, and he need never know.”

Gwaelas was still loath to go, but surely he could trust Amroth of all people in Eregion.  The other lord was leaving now, giving him little choice in the matter.

“Come, come!” he called from the doorway.  “Lady Celebrían awaits us.”

Against the protest of what was probably his better judgment, Gwaelas leapt to his feet and followed Amroth into the corridor.  He looked back at Thranduil before he turned the corner, dead to the world and completely unattended.  He resolved to make it a swift errand indeed.

The many winding halls and passages of the city still confused him, and he could only trust in Amroth’s lead.  He gathered that it must be nearing time for dinner, for there were few people about anywhere.  His suspicions were stirred again only when he realized he was being taken higher and farther into the palace than ever before.

“Where are we going, my lord?” he ventured to ask.

“Not much farther,” Amroth assured him, climbing another stairway.  “I shall not take you to the ends of the earth to do the job.”

Gwaelas was by no means satisfied with that answer, yet even if he turned back now he doubted he would be able to remember the way.

“My lord?” he called.  Amroth had rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.  “My Lord Amroth!”  He stopped, unwilling to go farther.

All at once every lamp in the corridor was extinguished, plunging him into darkness.  Immediately he tensed, his heart hammering against his ribs.  He could not help crying out as a murderous hand clamped around his throat from behind.

A growing rumble sounded in the deep places of the hall, the growling of the dogs.

Thranduil rushed back to his room, haunted by the grim suspicion that it was already too late.  How had he been such a fool?  They had been taken far too easily.  But how could he explain it all to Amroth in a single moment?

“Are you certain he has gone missing?” Amroth was asking him, genuinely concerned.

“Gwaelas would not leave me of his own accord,” Thranduil insisted, inexplicably hoarse.  He burst into his room, already convinced that Gwaelas was not there.  Before he left, he took up his winter cloak.  “Did you see him at all after you returned to the city?”

“I must say I did not,” Amroth admitted.

“Thranduil!” Celebrían protested.  “Do you mean to search this entire city alone?”

“Are you suggesting that I should not?” Thranduil barked, and he could not help falling into a fit of hollow coughing.  An agony of debilitating pain had claimed his right side, and seemed intent on clawing its way through the rest of his body.

“Absolutely!” Amroth agreed with his sister.  “I shall go with you.  Or perhaps in place of you.  Thranduil, sit down; you are not well.”

“Never mind!” Thranduil commanded with greater vehemence.  “I shall not rest until Gwaelas is accounted for.”

“But he could be anywhere!”

“Amroth,” Thranduil demanded, “take me outside the walls.”

Night had fallen and the vicious winds of a blizzard whistled over the city with teeth of ice.  Snow had already gathered in great drifts in the street, and most of the population knew better than to venture outside.  Thranduil stood for a long moment on the palace steps, striving to clear his mind of the pain and the smothering stones.  He could not hope to locate Gwaelas with pinpoint accuracy, but now even a general direction would be invaluable.  Time was of the essence.  “Toward the gate,” he decided.

Amroth knew the city like the back of his hand in daylight or darkness, so he led the way.  Thranduil strove to keep pace with him but his feet were sluggish and his breath was coming in ragged gasps.  His lungs were soon frozen, burned by the cold, much more easily than they should have been.  Was he seeing things, or was it merely a trick of the snow and wind?  There were faces on the air, diaphanous forms that were distinct one moment and obliterated in the next.   Snow pelted him in the face, but he did not feel it.  He felt no cold, no wind, nothing but the pain blossoming like fire behind his heart.  His arm was already dead.

The voice from his dream returned to him in his growing deafness.  It called to him again, patient but menacing, as if taunting his inability to resist it.  The graying world began to spin before his eyes.

“Thranduil!”  It was Amroth calling him now, shouting to be heard over the howl of the storm, and shaking him sensible.  “They say they have found him!  He is in the gatehouse!”

Thranduil allowed Amroth to drag him along behind as his cousin elbowed their way through the attentive crowd.  What remained of Gwaelas lay on a table inside, frightfully torn but bandaged and with a splinted leg, his face ashen.

“Valar above!” Amroth exclaimed, horrified.  “Is he dead?”

“Dying, my lord,” the guard confirmed darkly.  “If you had not come, we would soon have sent for you.  It was only a moment ago that he was recognized as belonging to Lord Thranduil,” he explained, bowing appropriately.

There was no time.  Desperately gathering every ounce of strength that remained to him, Thranduil forced life back into his limbs and scooped Gwaelas’ prone form into his arms.  Way was made for them as they turned back toward the palace.

The vicious weather did not concern him.  He could not feel it.  But all the while, Thranduil was aware of a presence brooding over him, weighing him down, urging him without words to abandon his struggle for survival.  He merely grit his teeth and forced his feet forward with all the speed he could manage, angry tears freezing on his face.  But he could not breathe, and at last the palace steps proved too much.

“Give him to me, for pity’s sake!” Amroth insisted, relieving him of Gwaelas and then flying up the stairway.

When at last they burst into his room, they found Celeborn and Galadriel with their attendants already waiting for them.  Concern was written on their serene faces, growing ever deeper as they saw the extent of the injury.  Amroth bore Gwaelas to the bed, and at once they surrounded him, quickly unwrapping the wounds to probe their severity, demanding to know what had become of him and where they had found him.

Thranduil did not join the knot of attendants at the bedside.  Indeed, it was all he could do to drag himself inside and close the door after him.  He was barely aware of the particulars of the conversation; Celeborn’s firm inquiries, Amroth’s swift answers, Galadriel’s low conjecture amid the flurry of activity.  It all sounded so distant, as if he heard it through glass.  All color was rapidly fading from his vision, and his perception had become so unsteady that he could no longer be entirely certain of his bodily presence in the room.  He fell against the nearest piece of furniture, coughing sepulchrally and retching blood onto the table.

“Thranduil!” Celeborn exclaimed, turning at last.  “What in heaven’s name is afflicting you?”

He could not answer.  He barely heard him.  Nor did he feel the impact as his head hit the floor.

“Oropherion!”

The last thing he dimly recognized was that a pair of strong arms began lifting him from where he had fallen, and that Galadriel’s voice was calling his name from across the great black chasm that was swallowing him.

Then nothing.