They emerged into a large crack that firelight flooded with so much light that Lusis and Bess were blinded, as they came out and flattened to the stone behind Dorondir. Ahead, a lip of stone rose. Glorfindel was pressed against a ledge. He spied on the noise and whatever threw the light and shadows from below. His eyes were wide as they arrived.
He reached for Lusis, paused to set fingertips to his lips for silence, and then took hold of her shoulder. Amathon braced her other shoulder. She peeked out over the lip and down a mere storey and a half, into a large rounded space that appeared to have been storage for the amphitheater, now caved in on one side to reveal a large tunnel that ran Northward.
She looked at the straight cuts in the stone, and the beautiful parallelism, and Lusis eyes widened. She'd seen this before. Inside Erebor.
'Dwarves cut this? Even though Dorondir said this directly in her thoughts, Lusis felt as if it was still a whisper.
Now Glorfindel was grim. 'They let these forces into the city. We are betrayed.'
Lusis shook her head. She sort of… thought at them, 'I don't see treachery here, Glorfindel. That passage is old and worn, and there cannot be enough dwarves in Erebor to both build it and guard the-'
The noise increased steadily. The room echoed with the footfalls of marching men. Werewolves growled and snarled, driven ahead of Gurn Drivenn's traitorous Forces. Orcs snapped whips overhead in air and shouted in their garbled language.
Bess leaned in against Lusis' ear and whispered. "I have heard rumours of tunnels. The dwarves used them so they were not seen by Men on the way to the Old Forest Road which they cut through the Great Greenwood. They did not all summer in the mountain, it is said. Those old legends also spoke of a secret way to move gold and stones into Erebor."
Lusis moved to whisper to Bess, "But the mountain was already full of gold."
"Don't you know the story of the old dwarf King? He wanted to stand on high, above all beings, atop his riches? He wanted more than the mountain could give?"
'These tunnels are the old way in for supplies to the mountain,' she told the elves. 'Supplies and still more riches.'
Bright-eyed Glorfindel glanced at her, 'The Lord and King passed that way, Lady. If the roads go to Erebor, then that is our way now.'
"We can't go through these tunnels." Lusis exhaled. "The way is blocked with troops."
Amathon brightened. 'Lady, you'd have to be used to sheltering within living stone. There will be utility tunnels, not only to test the soundness of the stone ahead before digging through it, but to give a means of escape should the excavations collapse.' He actually sounded like his wife, the tour guide of the Halls of the Elvenking.
'There will be guards within them.' Telfeth said with certainty.
'You may call them guards if you wish,' thought Legolas as he took down his war-bow. 'I prefer to call them target practice.'
Glorfindel actually smiled as he rolled to his feet in the recesses of the crack in the stone. 'We go down into the room when the troops pass, and we find the tunnels. And if they cry out when you put an arrow through them, Elfprince, what odds? Orcs and wolves are a hurricane of noise and cries.'
Legolas looked so pleased, 'No one will know.'
Lusis couldn't have imagined she would ever range through dwarven tunnels, underground. She loped through the dark, mostly blind, but trusting in the sureness of the elf before her, and Telfeth's presence close behind. The dwarves cut such even floors for themselves. Where light from the main tunnel punched into this escape hatch, she saw the most beautiful and balanced ribbed archways overhead, some three stories. The walls had long, curved cuts as if the pale stone might be waves and drifts in settled snow. It was so beautiful, and just a utility tunnel. The dwarves had cut such a trail of beauty through this landscape.
They'd been running upward for a long while, making very good time. True to his word and his exemplary eyesight, Legolas had shot down every hall guard along the way. By now that was a small army of dead orcs – they'd stopped counting. Glorfindel dragged them further into darkness. Amathon or Telfeth reclaimed the elf arrow. Dorondir cleaned the arrow and handed it back to Legolas. This was as smooth a rhythm as the ticking of a clock, which soothed the metronomic mind of Glorfindel.
"Light ahead," Legolas whispered.
The cold of the mountain had been rolling down onto them for a while now.
Lusis could smell the stillness and the faint ozone of dragons ahead.
"Smaug's castle," Bess exhaled at the scent. "It does reek."
The utility tunnel ended in, of all the sane things in the world, a stone pocket door. It was ajar. It had been ajar, from the cobwebbing on it, since the days of Thrain. The elf spy dropped to his knees and his long body slinked forward enough for him to peek out.
He leaned back with his cheeks pale.
"What is it?" Glorfindel grumbled.
Dorondir's voice was thready. "Is… is it possible to have… so much gold?"
"We're above the Counting Room." Lusis noted and wished she had Redd with her. She looked at Legolas. "We are breaking all law."
"They have Lord Elrond, and my father," he told her. "If the dwarves march on the Mirkwood over such a deliverance, then so be it. I am not afraid of dwarves."
"Okay," she breathed deeply. "The Counting Room is like a sea. Get your bearings before we climb down into it."
Glorfindel shook his head a few times after he examined the gold below him. His expression had darkened with disapproval. "Avarice." The remaining elves looked shocked, though not thunderstruck, like Bess.
They made their way out and down dark and narrow steps to the golden sea. Bess Bowman walked over the coinage, dazed. "But my people… they have even gone hungry."
"The great Northern Bowmen," Glorfindel said bitterly, and his tone was laced with pity, "who brought low the dragon who commanded this cache of gold, gone hungry in the winter cold, when some large share of this wealth," his blue eyes found Bess' stunned, pale face, "is your own." On the heels of this, Legolas looked across at the girl's brown curls, curiously.
"Don't touch it. It's still covered in dragon's sickness, yet," Lusis warned.
The Elfprince bent and scooped up several coins. He held them in his softly luminous hand. Lusis watched the fire of his being travel through him. His palm lit below the gold and the bright metal was lost in the sudden gush of the neophyte King's Light inside of him. He had learned this trick at his father's knee. It seemed he didn't even know he knew it. Now that the Prince held the impure dragon's gold, the trial of his fire happened by reflex. He turned and passed the coins over to Bess. "It seems harmless to me."
"Take only what he gives you," Lusis warned the girl.
Bess held the five gold coins in her hand, stupefied.
Lusis noted, "The Elfking can also help… if he is hale."
A sing-song of pleasantry drifted down from overhead. "My, my. Of course he is hale."
Everyone froze in place, for there was no cover to rush to in the sea of gold.
Lusis turned herself to look at the tall stair to the Royal hallways above. On a landing that overlooked the sea of blinking gold, was slender Nema Aragennya. She smiled and gestured at Lusis. Her merry voice floated down, "I would never harm him, as I have said before."
Legolas' bow flickered up with an arrow knocked.
"No. Information," Lusis whispered. She had restrained his powerful elven arm. When sense returned to his pale blue eyes, Lusis stepped out and stood before their small band. "Where is he, Nema?"
"Safe," she came down a few more stairs, grand in long red velvet and layers of lace and golden silk. She opened her thin arms. "You ruined my dress… but I had one prepared for this escape. It is in the King's colours, of course. Do you like it?"
She did a little twirl. The dress was dazzling. It blinked with gemstones from the mountain.
"You look divine," Lusis exhaled. And it was as true as it was infuriating.
"Ah, yes. I should con
gratulate you…" she giggled. "But, of course, this calamity is your only wedding gift, as it is your only gift in life. You grew up out of it like a Bloodroot blossom. You waded to him out of strife and combat, and that is all you can bring into his life."
"We are not wedded." Lusis said calmly. "We are contracted together."
"And even that is too close." Nema opened her long, slim arms, "This is your sign. This is a vision of your future together, and the reason why you are wrong for him, Buckmaster goat. All destruction you have wrought."
Lusis' chin rose. "We. We have wrought, Nema. You are a part of this."
"Fie, it is your doing. His beauty has driven you mad," Nema snapped in retort. "And you are too late. Let me be the first to tell you that our presence in the Lonely Mountain means that we have won."
"They are departing from here," Dorondir surmised in a low voice. "This will be our last chance to stop them and deliver the King."
"Of course, if you kill me, you will never see him again. Not even to say goodbye," Nema's smile was as beautiful as ever. "I am the only thing that keeps him safe."
Lusis shut her eyes. "Where is he?"
"Would you like to know?" the woman stopped with one toe of one tiny shoe in the gold. "Would you like to see him again, Lusis… one last time? I… I would like that for you, I do admit."
Without hesitation, Lusis walked toward the woman. "Just tell me what I must do for that to happen, Nema. What must I give you?"
"The great pleasure," the flesh around the woman's eyes crinkled as her cheeks mounded with joy, "of watching your pure, perfect heart breaking." She was so pretty. And so warped.
"Her mind has failed." Legolas' aim reoriented, as did Telfeth's. There were Forces men lining along the stone railing above Nema now. Lusis never looked at them. She, frankly, didn't care that they existed. Every iota of her battle-honed attention struggled to read Nema's small, heart-shaped face. Finally, Lusis drew a deep breath. "If you are ready, Nema… you will see it."
Aragennya uttered a bell-like laugh. It was the life of the ballroom and lit in air like a trapped bird inside of the mountain. It stirred Lusis to regret. She shut her eyes because she didn't want to see this woman's fate before her. With all their conflict, it saddened her that she would likely kill this woman tonight. But of all the things that Lusis had been born to do, and among the many things at which she excelled, combat came first.
"Does it hurt?" the woman burbled.
"Yes, it does." Lusis said. She opened her dark eyes, having given up hope for the Madam at long last, and steadfast to her course.
Nema inhaled and exhaled in delight. She opened her arms in air and brought them together like a girl, so she could clasp them to her. "Ah, I know how you feel. I love him so. I am drunk on the air he breathes. It is wonderful. He is wonderful. Having him is like living in a dream."
"He will live forever, Nema." Lusis said.
"Of course," she smiled. "And I will not. But he will be mine for as long as I draw breath. You are too dim to see. I will ever be welcome in this city for securing the King for them. All the worry. All that anxiety. Wondering if we please him enough that he will retain the land, or when he will leave. He will never leave. He is in my possession now, and when I fail, his indenture will pass over to the city on the Lake. He will be their light forever, and I will be his greatest regret."
Legolas lowered his bow, "Indenture?"
"Shush, pretty one." The Madam smiled at him. "You are lovely too."
"Nema… where is he?"
The woman raised a hand. Several of the shuffling Forces on the level above moved. Their boot-heels clapped out an obscenity on dwarven marble. As they grouped around a wheel of metal and turned it, chains clanked in the darkness overhead.
Gilt cages lowered.
"What is it?" Telfeth breathed. Her arrowhead searched the towering dark.
"Hold your fire," Amathon cautioned. "The King's life depends upon it."
Now came fleeter running in the upper hall. Everyone looked sharply. "Fool woman, what are you doing?" Ellethiel Tatharion cried out. She hastened down the stairs, saw Lusis and the pod of elves with her, and halted sharply. Her expression went cold. She stilled and seemed to stop breathing.
"I understand now," Lusis laughed bitterly. "I understand why you didn't want us to ride out from your keep when the white horses of Rivendell came in your gates. I see why you were afraid of the Elfking's busy head."
The woman admitted. "In all schemes… he is the spoiler. Of all nights to arrive… the night of the Lord of Rivendell's delivery to Tatharion?"
Although Dorondir's training got him through that moment of blinding betrayal, Amathon had to restrain that other son of Rivendell, Glorfindel. In the end, only Legolas' quick, sharp command stilled the elves.
This meant that the Slaughter of orcs had been sent to do away with Lindir and his guard, Raineth, along with Glorfindel, and Dorondir. Her fists balled up. This must have been the goal, since Lusis had already gathered the Lord was for Ellethiel and Tatharion, the way the King was for Nema and Lake Township. "Ellethiel Tatharion, you have wronged the elves of Middle Earth and shamed your kin."
She sounded a small note of dark humour. "Buckmaster, they are abandoning us."
The half-elf woman's chin rose. She continued down the steps. "Tell me, what is the secret? How did your troop find our Lord so quickly?
Lusis couldn't do that, though she did know. She couldn't process the question.
The cages had touched down against the coins and ingots of gold. Inside the closest, a white-blond head tipped, the crown of Winter Deer glinting, but his intelligent silver eyes were dull and vacant. Lusis felt a blast of faintness. Her King. He sat on a beautiful wooden chair modelled to look like the elk-antler throne of Mirkwood. His hands were folded, sedately, in his lap. He looked incredibly beautiful, still dotted in the blood of fighting, still with his swords at his side. But his fire was a line of crawling blue inside of him, all but extinguished.
She knew only that she turned and ran for him. Somewhere behind her back, Nema was laughing.
Lusis' plunging body impacted the cage, and it hurt in her bones, but with her arm stretched until her shoulder popped, and her joints and tendons burned, Lusis couldn't as much as brush the silk of his clothes with the tip of a fingernail. She made a frustrated cry with the effort.
The voice from behind her stilled her. No one else would have had the power.
"Adar?"
Lusis withdrew her arm to turn to the Elfprince. His face was stark.
'Adar?" he tried sending his thoughts out. Lusis heard the call, but there was nothing at the other end but the bottomlessness of a well tunneled leagues through the world.
Legolas stabbed the treasure below him with his bow and took two quick steps to the cage. This close to him, his father had never failed to answer him. Never in life. Legolas breathlessly pressed the white-golden bars in a struggle to maintain control of his emotions. And as desperate as Lusis was for her King's freedom, she had to reach along the curving cage to shut her hand over the back of Legolas' wrist. His eyes were closed now. His forehead rested on metal. He didn't seem to breathe.
"Legolas. We will need you for this."
"But I didn't get to see him," the Elfprince was quiet, his sweetly melodic voice gone flat and numb, "I came home. I didn't see him."
She jostled him. "Your father needs your strength."
He backed away from the bars, but his eyes never strayed from his tall, pale father. Legolas' hand found the bow standing in the gold. "What have they done?"
Lusis scrubbed her cheek with the heel of her hand, "They've banked the fire in him, Legolas. Without it, he is like a dreamer, only barely aware of the world. Scarcely interacting at all." Before this, Lusis hadn't known that it was the flame – that Secret Fire – that had invested the elves with life. She blinked at the King. At one time, all elves had slept like this. It was the fire that gave them presence, gave them consciousn
ess, in the world.
She looked to the second cage to find the Lord Elrond, in a wooden chair sculpted to mimic leaping water, as if from a waterfall. His skin seemed grey, and his long, lustrous hair limp, lifeless, and without light. In him, the fire was… different. Not a low line, but a single, fearful candle flame of violet. Lusis' head turned, quickly, back to the King.
Suffering the same fate… why were they different?
Ellethiel exhaled and crossed the gold to Legolas and Lusis. "I am sorry, Lusis Buckmaster. I truly am. But the great elves of this world are rare commodities now. Worse, Gondor's throne has its own. Soon that nation will be run by half- and part-elves who command great power. So goes the race of rivals and great houses to secure their own lines. In the high halls of power, having no such blood will be as throwing down all arms in surrender before Gondor, and, frankly, one cannot keep the blood of the Dunedain alive without elves to seed the lines. Without this, what I am will cease to exist. Our culture will be no more. Do you wish for a world without Rangers, Lusis Buckmaster? Do you wish for a world where no power can oppose the might of the elf-children of Gondor?"
The Elfprince stepped in front of the cage that held his father and waited.
Ellethiel watched him. "Ah. You will join them soon enough, Greenleaf. Don't you see?"
"Give me my father, if you wish to live."
"Of course," Nema said smilingly. She still stood on the steps with one foot planted on the first coins of gold at the stair. "Why don't I open the cage and let you go to him, little beauty?"
With Nema distracted, Ellethiel's gaze glided to Lusis. Her voice was low, "Let me take my Lord to the safety of the Northern foothills. He does not have to strength to weather this fight."
"I would say yes to you," Lusis replied, "except you cannot be negotiated with."
"Fortunately, it doesn't matter what you decide. If you defy Tatharion we shall take Inilfain, I swear you that. We have his sister. She can find him anywhere. And he would die for her."
"Are you threatening your own family? How can this be good?"
The part-elf averted her gaze in shame. "I will protect him, Buckmaster, so that when you resist, as you know you will, he will be far from danger."
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