Island of Sorrow RPG

[Envinyatar]

The Lady's Orcs

The swirling winds threw the man's words back at him.

‘We have speech . . . Mal . . . risss . . .’ came a breathy trio of voices that swirled about the man.

‘Lecherous cowards he calls us, brothers! And defilers!’ came a voice from behind Malris.

‘Well he should know the depths of such names,’ spoke the voice of another. ‘And here in bastion where he dwelt with his love . . . which love is that, we wonder . . .’ Ashukh’s laughter echoed round the ruins of the room.

‘Leave the lady alone he commands us.’ Zlog gave a deep chuckle. ‘Who are you to command us . . . you who left your lady alone . . .?’

The three Orc spirits flew in among the birds attacking Tasa, driving them off. Giledhel had withdrawn to the safety of her loom with Malris’ loud outburst.

‘Who do you think cared for the Lady,’ Gorgu spoke, close to Malris’ ear, his voice taking on a tone of respect as he spoke of her. ‘Who helped her through these years upon years, wiped away her tears, tended to her as she desired of her sons, learned from her, protected her as she required.’

‘Not you, Malrisssss . . .’ A hissing wind stirred Tasa’s golden hair, pulling at it as it passed.

‘And now you’ve come back. And what have you done but frightened the Lady and given her a new sorrow?’

‘She only wished to dance with you . . . to feel your arms about her,’ Zlog rasped, stirring up a small whirlwind of dust and pebbles aimed at Tasa’s face.

The three Orcs settled protectively round the shattered pieces of wood where once Giledhel’s loom stood. Gorgu reached out a ghostly hand to pat her arm. In the shadows in which the broken loom lay, three dark, wavering forms could just be seen, their gazes fixed on Malris and Tasa.

The soiled, torn remnants of her unfinished tapestry stirred and fluttered beneath the Orc’s hand though no breeze now blew . . .

[Anguirel]

Malris paled as the voices mocked, starting to shudder, feeling uneasy on his feet. Cirlach slumped in his fist, formerly clenched so tight, now loosened by the lashings of guilt. So what his fea had felt had been, at its base, correct. The reproach he felt directed at him had not been incidental. It had been everything to do with this battle. But even so, some things seemed unfathomable. That his wife had not reached Mandos and the bliss of Aman, had been tied to this stagnant place of war, was bad enough. That his wife knew of his moment of weakness was a sore dishonour. That Orcish spirits should play as her messengers...should "care for her as sons..." was unimaginable.

Malris thought back to the scene at Mithlond, where so many of the party had begged that he abandon all thought of visiting Himring. He remembered his inescapable feeling of a story left unfinished, a blank page where a conclusion ought to have been, that made him press on. Valinor had seemed too neat, too easy and ending. And it seemed poor Giledhel had thought the same. Perhaps because she had not taken in her plight or the choice before her; perhaps because she feared the Valar; perhaps because she thought he would return for her. Perhaps for all these reasons.

What he longed for most now was to see Giledhel, to speak to her alone, to reassure and comfort her. But he found himself in the company of these ghastly interlopers...and of Tasareni. He stopped listening to the taunts around him, staring about the quarters that had once been the nest of his happiness. Malris gazed at the marriage bed further back, the drapery gone, the structure of the mahogany unchanged, a thin layer of dust coating it. He turned to the loom that faced him, the ruined loom and the creatures around it...his keen sight had already read what could still be seen of the words it bore, Malris, forgive...; what failing could he forgive in her? It was he who had wronged his wife now.

And then he saw the dark hair that had stirred him to passion in years long past; like black cream, he remembered thinking...the face looked drawn and haggard now, but the eyes were still beautiful...though not as soft as he remembered them, for they were fixed on Tasareni.

"Giledhel," Malris murmured. "You have waited for me for a long time. Longer than either of us could have guessed on the day of the retreat. Why must jealousy mar this?" He was speaking to an image in a loom, that flickered from his sight when he moved to a different angle, but he cared not. It was his wife. He wanted to drive his sword through the insubstantial hearts of the beasts who thought they were speaking for her. He wanted to embrace her even there was nothing to embrace.

"Tasareni is a faithful friend and a brave warrior. Think nothing else of her. Now, please, let your...companions...go, and allow Tasa to go back and join the rest of us. I brought five others, Giledhel."

"Five others? For the feast?" she replied innocently, her eyes growing wide with astonishment.

"Yes, my love. We will...feast here, and then we're going to go home," said Malris, desperate, kneeling.

"Home? But we are home..." came her poignant, quiet, bemused voice.

"No," Malris said, crawling up to the torn, befouled tapestry. "We're going to go to Aman. You'll see your parents again...your father..." Both of their cheeks were bright with tears now.

"What about her? She going too?" came the harsh, mocking chorus, and Tasa's voice rose in a scream as she was seized by the arms.

"Don't bring her," Giledhel muttered with quiet distaste. "I didn't want her at the party anyway..."

But Malris had turned and drawn his sword, futile though his martial skill was proving.

"Take your...hands...off her, yrch..."

"They were rude at first," Giledhel admitted. "But now they're good to me, as children should be good to their mother..."

The forms of the creatures came into sight again, and Malris recognised a darker line across the largest Coavalta's finger. The object itself must have been long lost; but Malris recognised the image of a ring he knew well; forged by his mother for her son's wedding day...

"They are not your children, nor your servants, nor your friends," he cried. "They are parasites. They slew you...and they will slay us too if they can..."

Ducking, Malris grabbed Tasareni's sword in his right hand and rushed towards her, forcing the hilt through the icy mockery of the Orc that held her fast, into her writhing palm. Giledhel's face faded from the loom, a low moan echoing about the chamber.

[piosenniel]

The shadows in the room seemed to shift as the three presences entered the room. Lómwë had fallen silent, so silent he seemed a shadow himself. Endamir narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the different forms. Two sentries . . . the ones the seneschal had sent out . . . and there between them a slip of a man. So this was the Diviner. Endamir could not recall having met or even seen him in times past.

He stopped a distance away from Endamir. In the dim light it was near impossible to see the expression in his hooded eyes. But as the frail figure turned slightly to the side, speaking in whispers to the wavering form of Idrahil, Endamir could almost see a peevish frown slide across his features. Still there was naught to do but ask, cajole, entreat; whatever it might take to assure that Lindir would not die.

Endamir made a gesture with his hand, calling the attention of the others to his presence. ‘My Lord,’ he began, speaking to the pooling shadows which clung about the Diviner like some thick and layered cloak. ‘Lómwë,’ he said, motioning toward where the other Elf stood, ‘and I, Endamir, have come seeking aid which only you can provide.’ He paused for a moment. ‘We hope that you will give some further hope to us before our companion loses his way and is called to the Halls of Námo.’ His voice grew rough with emotion. ‘We . . . no, I, especially, had thought that he would travel the Straight Road with me . . .’ He did not finish the thought that he wanted to surround himself with his companions of old in an effort to lessen the pain that his brother would not sail with them.

The Diviner had given no indication of whether he would help or no. Endamir plunged onward, giving a brief explanation of how they had come to the island and what had happened since their arrival. He spoke of his brother’s attempts at keeping Lindir whole, telling what little he knew of the elixir Orëmir had given the stricken Elf.

‘Is there something you might do . . .’

His question broke off, his vision of the dark room tunneling down to a pinpoint.

From behind his eyes, it seemed, a grassy, flowered vista opened up. Bright; familiar in a way . . . and disconcerting, as familiar smells, and sights, and feelings flooded in. It was his Mother’s garden. And she was there.

‘By the One! She is so beautiful. How is it that I never noticed?’ he heard his brother say.

And there in the distance he saw two young boys, one with his arm about the other’s shoulders, a little swan ship held in his other . . . he could feel the warmth of his twin’s shoulders as his arm rested there.

Endamir frowned as a familiar figure hailed the two boys. Lindir! How could that be. A ways from Lindir the voice of his grown-up brother called out, warning the Elf away from interfering in the memory . . .

‘Orëmir!’ his voice rang out in the now sunless room. He shook his head in a futile effort to call his brother from those dreaming paths. ‘Orëmir,’ he called out in a softer and more desperate plea.

Endamir turned his stricken gaze back to where the Diviner and the others stood. ‘My brother,’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘He is drifting away; I cannot find him. I fear he has followed Lindir . . . and both are now lost . . .’

[Child of the 7th Age]

Lindir looked upon the Lady and heard her gentle words. Immediately, his heart swelled with longing. How akin she was to to his own mother and sister who waited now far across the Sea. What he would give to glimpse their faces and hold them in his arms one more time. Yet surely they were better there, for they dwelled in a place of beauty and peace, as sweet and gentle as this garden.

Though eager to show courtesy and respond, a warning bell echoed within Lindir's head, telling him to wait until his friend approached. Lindir glanced back over his shoulder to where Öremir still stood. His friend gazed long and deep at the gentle Elf with the twinkling eyes and soft grey dress. There could be no doubt. His friend's face told all. Whoever this fair Lady was, she was well known to Öremir as someone he held dear. A hot flush spread over Lindir's cheeks as he recognized his blunder. He felt like a young lad who had unknowingly stumbled into a place where he should not be.

These two must be left to talk. Of that, Lindir was certain. Instinctively he bowed his head and quickly stepped backwards, whispering a hasty excuse that, although the Lady's courtesy was much appreciated, he must now take his leave. His friend, he assured her, would stay behind and talk. There was a light, so bright that it seered into the depths of Lindir's eyes, a single instant of waiting, and then he found himself being sucked down a tunnel, back into the ominous cavern where the bone things lived.

Without further warning, he was sinking into a pile of bones, his arms and legs flailing to find solid ground, all to no avail. Only this time the bones gave an eerie moaning to the depths of the cavern and mysteriously began to come together to form real skeletons, standing in front of him with half their eyes gone, their remaining hair askew, and pieces of their bodies missing. Whether this was real or merely a terror dredged up from some hidden corner of his mind, Lindir could not say. One of the bone things loomed over him, its visage angry and threatening, looking to be the remains of some long dead Orc. Stuck between the Orc's ribs was a part of the blade that had broken off in the death thrust. Ever the craftsman, Lindir looked closer at the shape and form of the blade. What he saw took his breath away, leaving him gasping for air. He would recognize that blade anywhere for he had crafted it with his own hands years before and had taken it with him to battle. He could easily call up an image of what had occurred. Hacking his way through a Sea of Orcs, hoping to clear a path to where he thought the Diviner was trapped, Lindir had come upon the mightiest of Orc chiefs and engaged him in battle, a bout that went on and on. In the end, they had both fallen to the ground: the Orc in the final throes of death, Lindir stunned and bleeding. When he had come to, the Orc lay dead and there was no sign of the Diviner, even though he serached for many days.

Now this nightmare had come back to haunt him. The Orc reached over and, in some wild rage, yanked the blade free from his side. Lifting it upward with both his scrawny arms, he held it over Lindir's head and made a swift downward movement.....

Lindir's mind called out for help: Öremir, are you not here? There was no immediate reply. And in one last desperate appeal, he cried out loud, "Diviner, do you still lie in this Sea of Bones? Can you not help me? Long did I search for a glimpse of your face, but it was not to be. Come now and we will battle this thing together."

[Anguirel]

Endamir's ominous premonition seemed to have an immediate effect on the spirits in the tower. The sentries from the torch-brackets exchanged a glance that could have been knowing, fearful or triumphant, so inscrutable it seemed to the corporeal Elves; they then faded from sight, and another grate of rusted iron against stone announced that they had returned to their hosts.

More telling was the reaction of the other two, the Seneschal and the Diviner. The former seemed puzzled, wary, uncertain.

"But my friend...how can this be? You said you left your wounded friend attended by your twin brother at the guardhouse? How then can they have fallen into danger..."

"Mayhap the guards proved faithless," the Diviner replied, and there was hideous satisfaction in his sanctimonious, pedant's voice. Idrahil grew angry, taking a step forward and laying a hand upon the other's shoulder. Could spirits feel each others' touch? It almost seemed so.

"Do not insult the soldiery of Himring, soothsayer. They are my Elves and I have trained them to remember that: first that they are Elves and secondly that they are mine."

"It seems this Ingir was slow to learn your lesson..." the Diviner taunted. But he had stepped too far. The Seneschal drew still closer to him and clasped the smaller figure's frail neck with his pale, mailed hands.

"Speak no further or thou art no friend of mine!"

"I no longer need you," came the unsettling reply from one that could no longer be called a he. Idrahil was thrown back as if by an unseen buffet. The Diviner now stood taller even than the mighty Seneschal, wild, long hair flying out behind...her...

"I know where your friends be. I know how to save them-travel to my grotto and bury the bones therein. But you never will. For I will end you here, and you will remain here, all six of you traitors who left us to die...you will never see Mandos, any more than I will..."

Three white sparks rose through the chilly air as Idrahil unsheathed his pale, shimmering longsword.

"You will have to reckon with me first, yrch. For I can find no other word for an Elf who behaves so...guards, to me!"

But there was no answer from the brackets. They were not taking sides. And so the Diviner and the Seneschal closed for combat...