Wild Monster

by Matthew Harrington

  When the fire in Thranduil Oropherion came on again, she was jettisoned out of him by the eruption. A conflagration in white hot flame consumed the wind, the grey where she had been resting. She felt the heat of it on her heels.

  There was driving rain along the Mirkwood.

  High above the world a storm-front raced across the face of Lorien. Wind pushed through giant trees as far as the woodland's Northern edge and raced down all the way into Long Lake. The complex Forest River rushed thick and fast along its length. The water slammed against tall stone and steel ramparts that safeguarded the Halls. Its course roared against the hiss of downpour. Fast and full of fallen tree limbs.

  Eithahawn watched all this from the King's Aerie, a place where he had no right to be, in fact. He was no King of Mirkwood, but… the room had many things to recommend it. It was large and round, with space to pace in, it had windows that overlooked the river, and it was stocked with items that the King considered personal. His chair at his table covered in his books. His own records of rule lined the walls. The book open on the table held the lines – Such momentous change is upon us. The Emissaries with all of their predispositions, their expectations. I can but hold to the wisdom that the Ages have brought me. I miss my son. I love my wife. I trust my foster. I lead the people. The Northern Ranger, Redd, his adulation serves a constant reminder that there is no more room in my life. 'I' can scarcely fit into it. Time and space must be made. I will stand with the young Istari.

  A line below this the text said again.

  I miss my son.

  The wisdom of my father.

  There was more raw emotion, more cold fire, in the book he should never have read, and more of his King's heart – of his father's – than he'd ever expected to see. Eithahawn glanced over it and wished that he could pen his own thoughts. At the moment the lines would have read:

  Where are you?

  I am your son too.

  You try to forget.

  You are bad at forgetting.

  Where are you tonight?

  Are you safe?

  He continued pacing the rounded room until the bell at the base of the stairs rang up at him. All the guards and staff knew he shouldn't wander the Aerie, but it was tolerated. Eithahawn had started going there as a tiny and inconsolable child. There was nowhere else he felt closer to his King and father. Now he hurried down the curving stair to the summons and found soaking wet elves flocking there. The section head was a red-haired young woman with large grey eyes. "Come quickly."

  The number of saturated elves increased as he made his way deeper into the Halls, and closer to the cavern river. This fork of fast flowing water had been cut by Silvan and Sindar elves, long before. It flowed through a tall fissure and a channel into which the clever elves had introduced an estuary. The stone room served for the loading and unloading of goods for the Kingdom. Its doors ran along a hall high in the stone wall, and all doors there locked at night and when not in use.

  Two sets stood wide open now.

  The piers were choked with sections of elves.

  Glorfindel's bright head straightened in the confusion. Aric Awnson and Redd Ayesir sprinted away from the pair of ships at dock and went for a Silvan elf who stood beside a cabinet opened in emergencies. She handed them blankets.

  The King's long body came to view. He was carried by Glorfindel, his grand autumn robes wet and dragging behind him on the stones. Eithahawn started to hurry through the Silvan guards. On the stairs he saw Nimpeth supporting Ewon, and Amathon carrying Lusis Buckmaster in his arms. Redd hurried to her. He draped a blanket over her, and then rushed to the King.

  "Does he breathe?" Eithahawn called, but no one heeded.

  He found his voice and shouted above the confusion. "Order in the Halls! All of you to order!"

  The sound suddenly fell to nearly nothing, and Eithahawn made his hasty way to Glorfindel. "What have you done?"

  "Carried him from the ship," said the Noldorian blond. "I swear to you, Kingdom's-seneschal."

  Eithahawn gathered himself, "Does he breathe?"

  "Oh, yes." Said Lindir of Rivendell. "He is weak, but alive. As is the Istari."

  As he reached them, Eithahawn tugged the blanket aside, shoved his hand into the open throat of his father's long coat, and slid it to his sternum to feel for a heartbeat. It was there like the wings of a bird fluttering in his chest, and his pearly skin was dull to the eye. He was cold.

  The healers who hurried in behind him glanced over him as Eithahawn pivoted away from the King. "It is so similar to what has befallen the Lord of Rivendell…" he raised his voice. "Quiet now. We bring him in quietly and the Istari as well, so as to not disturb our honoured guests."

  A sudden hush fell.

  Eithahawn turned to the healers. "Hurry. Quickly now. Bring them in."

  He extended a hand at Nimpeth with Ewon. "Follow the healers with your father, Nimpeth-bess." He glanced at Aric Awnson's bloody arms and directed the human Ranger to do the same.

  There would be no rest until the King woke.

  "Kingdom's-seneschal," said the harried-looking valet who had followed the golden half-Sinda down to the cavern-river, "Your meeting with the Emissaries – the Council – is within the hour. They are asking after an update on the King's Tour?"

  Of course they were.

  Eithahawn smoothed his clothes. In fact, he smoothed his presence to the seeming of flawless elven serenity. It did not allow him to forget his father's too-pale face. How he had seemed still as the marble figure of Oropher in the grand cavern. But he sealed those memories away now, in the way of elves, deep, and, with hope, out of sight.

  The bed Lusis lay in was round.

  It was more of a salad bowl wooden construction than a bed. She lay on a fragrant collection of blankets and was covered over with the softest wool.

  And she was clean. That was the high point. For she was also completely naked. She wrapped the sheet around her, in a terrible mood, sat up, and looked at the pinkish light streaming through arches and windows cut in stone.

  A mellifluous elf healer said, "Here she is." The beautiful wood screen, engraved with birds and trees, and animals, all of whom were not naked, glided aside.

  "I'm not decent," she blurted.

  "Oh, awake," said the elf healer. He was a young elf, by his behavior, and as he gently smiled over her, Lusis gazed at the smoothness of his jaw and the dimple at the corner of his pale mouth.

  "You are very decent." Eithahawn folded down on the broad edge of this nest-bed in which she sat. She checked the fit of the wool blanket – generous – and then tucked one end over the other, and held it fast against her chest. "Are you well enough to get up, Lusis Buckmaster?"

  She looked at him after not having seen him in half a year, and he was… gloriously the same. His red-golden hair fell in waggles around him, long and lovely, and he wore the most amazing robes yet – the rosy-violet colour of sunrise at his shoulders and chest, it faded down to white, an effect achieved by expert needlework and oodles of semi-precious stone. The drape of cloak he wore with it was a beautiful, lush gold. "You… are a sight."

  "And you saved my father," he told her quietly.

  The flood of relief made her hide her face in her hand. She hadn't been sure. The young elf left at once, not wanting to be party to some strong outburst of emotion, lest it sweep him up too.

  Eithahawn's golden brows rose. "He's gone. You can come out now."

  She scoffed at the thought, "I'm not hiding from some baby elf who's probably seen me naked."

  "He's two hundred."

  "Anyone under a thousand seems like a teenager to me." She told him grumpily and stood up in the nest. "Where are my clothes?"

  Eithahawn smiled up at her, "You are preoccupied with nudity, you humans." He stood up and brought her… an outfit that wasn't her Ranger gear.

  "No, I meant, my clothes. These are elf… clothes, I mean." She knew the long overcoat design of the Mirkwood nobles by heart and ra
ther liked those. But this was a woman's outfit, soft yellow and embroidered expertly with their sparkling threads, so that several butterflies marched around the hem. "I'm not wearing a dress."

  "Curious," said Eithahawn. He looked down at the outfit in his hand. "I… I shall go to the hall of the seamstresses and tell them this garment, into which they sewed extra linings for your comfort, and onto which their careful hands fastened beads of amber and gold-rutilated quartz, is rejected." He laid a hand on it and looked up at the cavernous ceiling, patting it, lightly, as he spoke, "Though they woke in the darkness and worked to the last candle, and they set themselves apart from all who loved them, the great Istari will not wear-"

  Lusis swept the dress out of his hand and vanished behind the folding screen to pull it on. But it wasn't as simple as that. There were… parts. After struggling with it for a moment she sighed heavily and spoke between her gritted teeth. "Send help."

  Several healer elves – all women, thankfully – helped her to get the dress on. She was not the willowy shape of most women elves, and was gratified that the soft gold bodice was roomy. She had shoulders, a powerful torso and arms, and muscles had thickened her figure. The elf women didn't seem to notice, and didn't draw back from her many scars, or the brand she had on her hip, which was of the Buckmaster crossed antlers. She'd done that herself.

  She saw the small slippers and her toes curled up. "Boots. At least give me some boots. No one can see my feet anyway."

  They furnished her with soft leather boots in the same colour as the cape, which was the golden red of Mirkwood. She pulled them on while one of the girls combed her hair. With the cape on, it was almost as if she had, she realized, the small frame of any girl. It was comical to see herself in the glass the elf women brought. She wasn't sure who that girl was. Then she looked at her hip and lifted the cloak. "Sword."

  There was no argument. Her sword – the elf steel sword she called hers – was handed over to her in a sheath inlaid with a panel of golden wood. It was gorgeous. She strapped it on happily and stepped out to Eithahawn.

  His chin rose, his body sloped back easily. "Ah, Lusis. You look like the Yellow Istari."

  She shrugged at him, "Where's the King, Eithahawn?" She pressed down the embarrassment she felt at being dressed like this – the sound of the fabric trailing behind her was unnerving – and went to join him. He laid an elegant hand in air.

  "What am I supposed to do with that?" She asked pertly.

  He actually made a soft huff of laughter and had to turn from her to gather himself. He looked at the wall to her right. "I missed you."

  Lusis exhaled and admitted, "I missed you too, Eithahawn."

  He glanced at her. "Please, Istari, if you will follow me."

  He led her out of what, essentially, was an arched, petal-shaped apse in a solid stone wall. There were many of them around a central open hub where several healers inclined their heads to Eithahawn as he passed. She glanced around her as she stepped out onto a long ridge of stone, and realized she was high up, and below her, more of the Kingdom opened. She gritted her teeth, seeing as the elves didn't believe in rails, and followed behind Eithahawn, staring at his long back and waving hair.

  Steed, with his elf blood, liked heights and open spaces. As for Lusis, nothing convinced her that she didn't have a speck of edhel blood like this. The Kingdom's-seneschal stopped to answer a hail from a bridge below this one and Lusis walked into his back and hid her face in his hair. He reached around behind him, highly amused. "Ah. Some humans dislike heights-"

  "I'm okay with heights," she said. "I just like handrails. I like those a lot."

  He caught her hands and turned to walk backwards before her, "You dislike close spaces," he nodded. "You dislike heights." He looked up and around him at the bustle of stone paths through the caverns. Mirkwood elves came and went in all directions, some of them with children racing and giggling tunefully before them. Elf children were prone to giggling.

  "I don't like extremes. Too high. Too close. Extremes." She said between her teeth and held fast to his hands. "But I… I climbed mountains in the North for your father, a stretch to a summit where the stone curved out at me, and I had to rely on my hands, because my boots couldn't keep purchase. I summited the coldest mountain I've ever met to find him." She took her hands from his and noticed all the blackened bruises were gone. Her nails looked whole. "Don't fear for me. The things I am afraid of… when the time is right, I do them."

  Eithahawn stopped on the stone bridge and stared at her a moment.

  "What?"

  He took a step back and bowed to her, the clip that ran along his hair like a half-circle of leaves glittered in the autumn light. "I owe you such a debt, my friend. Please remember me, if you have a need. I will not fail you."

  She glanced around her as he straightened. In all directions, elves stopped to look on. She felt her face growing red. "Eithahawn, may you never bow to me again. Now take me to your father."

  "Straightaway," he cocked his head at her and his expression was bright with genuine warmth. He brought her down the snaking path to the ground of the great cavern that was the Halls. She seemed far from the guest quarters she knew. Briefly, she wondered where the 'Inner Halls' were. The King's 'house', and whether Eithahawn still lived there with him. It would be lonely, she thought, without this little cardinal-jay of his. Eithahawn caught her gaze and said, "It is in the receiving room. It is not a place as… perhaps as humans would have. It is not a hall such as at Jan Kasia's in Lake Township. And there are guests, Lusis Buckmaster. They are elves of note through those doors. Please be warned." He told her this as they walked through rows of armoured guards in red and gold, green and gold, blue and silver. There were many before the tall doors at the end of this brief, shining hall.

  Doors. Her gaze snagged on them. Doors in the Halls meant business. Unless they were for the sake of protecting their own, for securing them, Elves disliked barriers. They disliked doors between them. Even a broken line of sight could be irritating for them.

  She wiped her damp palms on her velvet cloak a few times, "Right. Elves of note," she looked down at her clothes and was selfishly glad her brothers and troop hadn't seen her dressed like this. Yet. She felt anxious until she saw the light on her chest – the bright sunny star-point.

  The King.

  That blast furnace he kept inside. What had become of that?

  She looked at the doors. There was no larger Kingdom among elfkind, and no more seasoned King in Middle-Earth. That meant he was an elf of note. He was in there.

  She took off in the direction of the doors without a word to Eithahawn, her sure elven boots both quiet and fast. Two armoured elves stepped out and pulled the doors open just in time for her to charge into the room. It was full of elves. They all turned at the noise and sudden speed of her entrance, and Lusis loped through them until her eyes found a gleaming pillar, then she stopped.

  He blurred with light in front of her eyes. Light shining out of him like a star.

  Lusis opened her arms beside her. "Thank the gods."

  His great eyes shone starlight-silver, his head tipped as he glided toward her, rich with power, backlit by a luminosity and so strangely radiant that she backed away. He halted, "Lusis?"

  "My King."

  "She does call you her King," said an elf woman's voice, so pure and musical, it was like a chord playing in middle register. The pacing of her words was just a touch too slow, which meant she was used to the longer and smoother glides of an elvish tongue, and her accent was so very different than the King's.

  The woman emerged from behind him. They had been standing together and talking, both of them so breathtakingly radiant they had washed-out her ability to see their details.

  "My… my Lady," Lusis was no fool. She knew this was someone incredible just from looking up into her foam pale skin, her horizon-blue eyes, waving pale blonde hair covered in a webbing of silver Mithril dotted with pale blue and white gemstones. That
'crown' fell all the way to the small of her back. Lusis wrung her fingers and looked at the Elfking.

  His pale hand moved, rested on his ribs. It rolled so the palm faced the floor and pressed down just slightly. Be at ease. Be calm. She sucked a deep breath. No matter where she looked, she was the shortest person in the room.

  She managed a subdued smile for the tall shining elf woman. "My name is Lusis Buckmaster. It's nice to meet you."

  The elf woman smiled in return, as if it was habit, which was unusual and should have been reassuring in an elf. "It is also good to meet you," she drifted toward Lusis, who took an involuntary step back from this shining being. She seemed like something expertly carved out of ice: beautiful, still-faced, and too ideal. So effortless she might have been a bride to the Elvenking.

  Thranduil didn't move, didn't edge toward her. She glanced back and could see Eithahawn in the room behind her – the place was aglow, and perfectly silent – he didn't come near her either, but his hands, folded together before him, pushed out a little, which was Elven for 'Go'.

  Go where? There was too much light in the room, too much greatness. Their motions, their lack thereof, their small glances and slight leanings, their barely perceptible tilts and silent folding-in, it was overwhelming. She looked at Thranduil and shook her head. He could dress her up in gold threads and put gloss in her hair, but he couldn't change what she was. Not enough for this.

  "Who are these people?"

  "They are friends."

  "Not my friends."

  "We are ever friends of the Istari," the glowing woman said. "You did travel here with Glorfindel. He is my kin."

  "That makes you a Noldor." Lusis told the lady elf, she added, "Great Lady." She had terrible luck with most Noldor. Though there was Lindir. He was so even-tempered and considerate it was probably impossible not to like him. She found him when he stepped up beside taller Eithahawn and inclined his head in greeting.

  "Yes. I am Galadriel, the Lady of Lorien."