Island of Sorrow RPG

[Envinyatar]

The Lady's Orcs

It proved a restless bed the three Orcs settled into. Something pulled at the core of each of them . . . tugged hard at them beneath the stones.

A fresh breeze slipped into the cracks in the bloodied stone. It bore a feel of cool mists and smelled of salt. The songs of seabirds echoed faintly in its passing. It troubled the three fëar . . . bringing both alarm and an uneasy longing . . .

‘M’Lady?’ Gorgu said, his voice low with an uncertain edginess. ‘What is happening?’ The other two crowded close behind him, waiting for the sound of her voice.

[piosenniel]

Endamir had secured Orëmir and Lindir into the big wooden bucket. Clinging onto the vines on the side of the cliff, he called up to where Lómwë stood waiting. He heard the last of the man’s words, but in his anxious state for his brother and his friend he did not hear them clearly.

. . . I can help you with the basket… but I . . . I’ve lost it, Endamir. I lost it . . . The rest was obscured in the breezes that blew up from the sea below.

Endamir cupped his hands about his mouth and called loudly up to Lómwë. ‘It’s right here,’ he said, shaking the rope so that the other could see it. ‘You haven’t lost it at all. I’ve loaded my brother and Lindir into the bucket, pull hard on the rope, Lómwë, and bring them up.’ He shook the thick coil and watched as the wood and rope contraption began to ascend. ‘Send it back for me once you’ve got them out.’ He stepped back, away from the lip of the ledge and leaned against the rocky wall. His body sagged against it in relief. Orëmir would be fine and Lindir would recover, he was sure.

Endamir moved away from the wall after a few moments of rest intending to see if the bucket had reached the top of the cliff. He was almost to the edge when the force of the Diviner’s mind hit him. He stumbled back, his feet slipping on the bones that had rolled out of the grotto. The rage and hatred of the Diviner was merciless in its battering.

He was not prepared to fight back. Endamir’s mind crumpled beneath the cruel invasion and only darkness remained.

[Envinyatar]

The pain his brother reeled under wrenched Orëmir from Lindir’s mind. He sat up with a gasp, looking wildly about him, half disoriented. He and Lindir were sprawled on the grassy sward above the cliff which held the grotto. Near them stood Lómwë. He seemed despondent and distraught, all at the same time.

Orëmir lurched to his feet, grabbing onto Lómwë’s arm as he did so. ‘Take care of Lindir. Keep him safe,’ he rasped. ‘I’m going down to fetch Endamir.’ He grasped the front of Lómwë’s tunic. ‘I’m going to need your help. I can get myself down there, but when I call out to you, you’ll need to haul us both up as quick as you can.’

~*~

The wooden bucket bumped down the side of the cliff much as it had when Orëmir and Lindir had first gone down. He peeked over the side of the container as it descended. On the lip of the grotto he could see Endamir, lying dangerously close to the edge. Strewn across the ledge were skulls and bones. In the dark whirlwind that played about his brother’s form, the bones shifted and moved, many of them rolling off the edge and into the sea below.

Orëmir closed his mind fast to the Diviner’s intrusion as he dragged his brother’s form to the wooden bucket. ‘Leave us be, foul wight!’ he growled as the stinging wind lashed at him. Behind him he could hear even more of the river of bones tumbling over one another and down into the waters. The whole of them seemed to rumble loudly as the bones echoed in the inner chambers.

‘Lómwë!’ Endamir called loudly, clinging to his brother’s limp form. ‘Bring us up! Quickly!’

The awful touch of the Diviner’s mind withdrew as it seemed another force now fought against him . . .

[Child of the 7th Age]

Lindir's attempts to struggle to his knees and stand upright met with little success. Earlier, his leg had given way under the surging flood of bones and his ankle had twisted underneath him, an injury that prevented him from moving swiftly. Although the sprain was minor and would soon heal, the Elf lacked the ability to rush forward and climb into the bucket to offer assistance to his friends.

Still, he could feel the presence of the Diviner through the minds of the brothers. She knew him too well. Yet he could not say the same of her. He could feel her implaccable will bearing down upon Orëmir, threatening to bludgeon the Elf into submission. Lindir had spent years thinking and dreaming of her, berating himself for his inability to find and bury her body. She had always been proud and haughty, yet she had once possessed a gentler side, a caring side that had responded to laughter and to his personal touch and voice. Where was the Elf that he had known? He saw no resemblance to the woman he had loved in this half mad Diviner who bore down upon them all.


How many knew her real name? As far as Lindir knew, he was the only one. Elliel, sweet one.... He whispered the name under his breath but there was no sign of recognition from the shrouded figure whose devouring presence seemed little different than a cataclysmic force of nature, impersonal and empty. Lindir tried to remember back over the endless years. Once, long ago, he had almost managed to make peace with himself and accept the fact that she was gone with a certain grace and resignation. But then had come the time he would rather forget, when he had put his hand to the forge in helping to fashion the rings. There had been no peace for him from that day forward. The events of the First Age had returned yet again to haunt him. She had filled his mind and life, not the real Elliel but some hideous apparition. Yet this is what she had become.

Reeling under the pressure from her mind and the weight of his memories, Lindir pulled back in horror. Never would he let this creature touch him! The thought filled him with revulsion. Whatever feeling and warmth had bound them together in the First Age had long disappeared. He could not save her. Perhaps that was why he had come here, with some foolish thought of undoing what had been done. But there is no undoing the music of Arda, a fact he recognized with a feeling almost akin to relief. He was not responsible for what she had become. There were things he could do and mend, but this was not one of them. As he felt the Diviner's presence pull back to rush forward to face Idrahil, Lindir was filled with peace and resolve. It was time to go home. His job here was finished, but there was another that called out for his attention. For the moment, at least, his home lay to the east, in the heart of Middle-earth.

[piosenniel]

Giledhel

‘The sea . . . and so close. I can smell it faintly.’ Giledhel turned a puzzled face toward the three Orcs. ‘How is this so?’

Up from their stony resting place, the four sat huddled together. The figures of the Orcs she noted, even as the last of her question hung in the air, had begun to waver and thin out, to fade. And she, herself, felt lighter somehow.

‘How is this so?’

The question caromed off the crumbling walls of the room; knocking away as it was considered, again and yet again, bits and pieces of her closely woven fantasies. They had told her in the early days, she now remembered, what had happened to this place that was her home. And had soon grown silent with this news of the changes that had been wrought when she could not, would not, hear of them.

Giledhel’s mind became clearer as the gauzy layers of fantasy fluttered away in the salty breezes. There against the wall slumped a familiar figure. ‘Malris?’ she said, her brow furrowing. ‘He has grown so careworn.’ She drew near him, one insubstantial hand touching against his face. ‘And never have I seen him look so defeated.’

‘Yes, M’Lady,’ came Gorgu’s now thin, reedy voice. ‘Your Malris has come at last.’

‘But not for me,’ she returned, drawing back to where the Orcs had all but faded. ‘He lives. And I . . . I have been dead these many years . . . ages, even. Dead and clinging to what now are only long gone dreams . . .’

‘Yes, M’Lady,’ came the faintly whispered answers.

The pull of the sea grew stronger against her. She felt it lave her bones to their core. Amidst the surging of the waves, the Orcs’ bones rose and fell and rose again, breaking apart in the strong, insistent waters.

‘Go on,’ she called to them as they turned to shimmering mists borne on the westered air.

Giledhel’s gaze turned back to Malris. ‘Fare well, once and always beloved.’ With an even look she surveyed the figure of the woman who huddled against him. ‘May you find some measure of comfort, Malris. I will not hold you any longer to that long dead promise. It serves no purpose any longer, save for ill.’

The grace of the Valar be on you . . .

And even as her voice, her presence faded from the cold, shadowed room there came a strong wind, and the remnants of that long rotted weaving were caught in the currents and borne away.

[Firefoot]

How could he watch his friends in trouble so passively? He ought to be worried, really worried; he ought to want to do something to help. But he felt no anxiety for Orëmir descending the cliff, no fear for Endamir lying so suddenly unconscious at the bottom, and no connection with Lindir struggling to his feet. The only people he could bring himself to care about were those long dead.

The shout from below broke into his consciousness. “Lómwë! Bring us up! Quickly!” His body moved instinctively toward the rope and he strained against the rope mechanically, slowly drawing the basket upwards. Once it reached the top, however, he withdrew once more, not even greeting Orëmir or helping him with Endamir. He stared out blankly at the sea, realizing that, with the setting sun at his back, this was the very direction his home had been. So different now – so different. No more rolling hills or forests or plains – just water as far as the eye could see. All of it lay sunken in the waters at an unknown depth: utterly unreachable. He could not reach the old places, could not lay his heart at rest in any tangible way. Not like Malris, not like the others. They could go and see the places dearest to them, if they so desired. But not Lómwë – he could only drift, searching for what wasn’t there.

That hurt the most. He had come here hoping to find not only peace but also in some strange way hoping to find the past itself, something that no longer existed. But the knowledge that he could not fulfill these desires – or needs - only increased the longing.

And if peace could be found, he would not find it here. This place tore his heart and mind apart, not mended them. It would be better, he thought, if this place had been buried beneath the Sea with the rest of the land. Maybe it would have been better if they had not come to this place at all. An irrelevant issue, now.

“It is time to go,” he murmured to himself, and a light breeze carried his words out to the Sea. “Yes, time to go.”

[Anguirel]

For some moments, Idrahil remained shaken by the Diviner's display of power...as well as by the fact that the vulnerable sage he had respected and protected for so long possessed a character, nature, and visage...so totally foreign to what the Seneschal had known...

As he hovered in the comforting familiarity of the air's bite, Idrahil realised that if he pursued the elven-crone bent on the destruction of those he had sworn to succour...he would not survive in his form as one of the Houseless Spirits.

But there was fighting spirit in the ancient warrior yet, and he nodded slightly. He would fall, but he would take his last enemy with him. And what did he have to lose?

Himring, was the answer. The garrison he had kept in good order despite everything. The remnants of the Feanorian army, still in their correct battalions and quarters. The First Company at the Gatehouse. The Sentries of the Torch-Brackets in this very bastion, who seemed to be absent without leave. The armourers and forgers. The gaolers. The Watch. All lovingly trained and disciplined, for if Maedhros was no longer here to be served, they yet stood for his brother...

Trained enough, Idrahil thought, that they could ultimately do without their battered old captain. He and his former associate the Diviner were going to Mandos.

***

The Diviner had, in the event, neglected to draw on her full potency to sweep Idrahil far away over the ocean. She had other affairs to attend to, with her very cavern threatened by the blunderings of Lindir and his friends. Besides, she felt strange disturbances-some buried bones had been lost already. She might yet need to use Idrahil. Better to keep him and manipulate him as she had done so many times before.

"Still following me, Seneschal dear? You seem to have got rather...left behind..."

A mild buffet of stinging wind and he was off balance again. The Lady Diviner smiled. But rather to her surprise, Idrahil returned it.

"I don't suppose you will do me the courtesy of letting me...catch up..."

In but a few moments he was before her. Now the Diviner quailed in shock. Such efforts were outstanding and draining even by her standards. It was as if the Seneschal was engaged in a battle he had no intension of returning from...gripped by misgiving, she propelled her blade into her hand once more.

"Parry!"

She did, but he was moving so fast still, recklessly fast. He knew he was her superior with the sword, and was not letting her have a chance to exploit her...other skills...

She opened a gap in her guard which the Seneschal-as she had known he would-exploited at once. Spirit-sword cut spirit-side; but now Idrahil was equally exposed, and she sunk her rapier into his shoulder. Luminescence leaked from their wounds and tiny stars of bright light fluttered from their illusory steel...

"Be sensible, Idrahil. We need to talk. If you force me to drive my sword home and do likewise, we will both be gone."

The only reply was the Seneschal's sword piercing slightly further into her aether. She reciprocated. It was like a kind of love, this position in which they were pinioned.

"Yes, we will, Lady. Whatever be your true name, make amends to the Valar now. They are said to be forgiving."

And at that both swords, in the same split second, were plunged to the hilt through their adversaries. The impartial, chill mist of Himling hid them from sight, and neither were seen again on the Hither Shore.