Island of Sorrow RPG

[Envinyatar]

‘I have no idea where they might be trapped.’ Orëmir crouched down near the little fire they’d built to drive away the coming chill of night. ‘But . . .’ He picked up a stick and began scratching a series of lines on the dirt. With a snort of disgust he scuffed the lines away with his fingers and began again.

‘There was a plan in place, in case the fortress was taken, for those not critical to the defense to leave.’ He looked up at his brother who had come to see what he was scrawling. ‘You remember, don’t you, Endamir?’ Orëmir stood up, the tip of the stick pointing down to the diagram. ‘It didn’t really involve us; we were away on patrol so often. But the troops garrisoned here spoke of it sometimes. How they were to take their positions along the walls, depending upon the direction of the attack, while some of them were to open the hidden entryways to the tunnels delved beneath the living quarters.’

Orëmir snapped the stick in two and threw it into the fire. ‘Did you ever wonder, if we had stayed to fight, if we had been here, there might have been more that got away?’ He rubbed out the drawing he had made, watching the dust swirl about and settle on the toe of his boot. ‘An over inflated sense of our importance no doubt.’ He looked westward, where Vingilot floated above the rim of the world. ‘Brave men, they were, who stayed and faced the foul corruption that o’erflowed from Dor Daedeloth.

A bit of verse came unbidden to his lips. And he murmured it softly, recalling a captain of the lancers who had spoke it so long ago. A fierce opponent in battle, his face set grim and hard in battle. Yet he best remembered him at rest in a rough camp. His eyes had flashed in the fire’s light, and a ready smile had put his men at ease. They had come from one of many skirmishes against the Orc foe. And they had been victorious, but at a cost of a number of their fellows’ lives. Sindar and Green Elves had been some of those counted among the dead. The Noldorin captain had honored them with drink and the remembrances of their comrades. And had offered his own words in a voice husky with mingled sorrow and pride.

These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when Earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What Valar abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.

Orëmir put away the old images and words and refocused on the task that was now before him and his three companions. ‘I think I recall where one of the entryways was hidden. Let’s bring some lit brands with us as well as some extra should our search be a long one.’ He picked two torches and started toward where the family quarters had been located. ‘Let me know if the pace is too quick for your ankle, Lindir. The passages will be there whether we go quickly to them or slower.’

[Anguirel]

That voice, again! That much-beloved voice that seemed to physically lance the funeral shroud of despair...

Malris jerked bolt upright, listening with more attention than he could summon in the normal course of events. Partly, of course, there was the fact that the song was fascinating, enlivening, for its own sake, the poetry of the arrangement, filled with verbal tricks that surprised and delighted the listener.

"No one ever beat Maglor, no one," he muttered in something like disbelief. Becoming more aware of the space around him, he turned to Tasa, smiling slightly; though with the enthralment in which the song held him, he scarcely had energy left to express happiness.

Then, of course, there was the reassuring nature of the tidings the voice brought.

"The smith must be Lindir," he whispered, not wanting to disturb the staves of the music, behaving almost as if Maglor was close at hand and could be distracted by his speech, out of turn as it was. "They've cured Lindir's wound! The other party must have encountered the Diviner..."

Remember when this tower was yours
Malris: look to the shaft.

"Of course!" Malris cried, now throwing his sensitivity aside. "What a fool I was...why did I not think of it the moment the door failed?"

But the singer was still not finished, and had still more reassurance to deliver. When he realised his wife was freed from her long agony...separated presumably at last from those...creatures...Malris did not forgo weeping, though he wept silently, his eyes growing unaccustomedly large as he thanked the Powers of the West again and again, filled with emotion he scarcely understood.

"Maglor says Mandos will not take him. There he is pessimistic," Malris muttered. "A truer friend...saving you, Tasa, and His Lordship, and perhaps Endamir...there never was. If the Valar possess hearts...but come, Tasa. I must show you the secret way out of this bastion."

Malris got to his feet with some difficulty, his mind still partly absorbed by the memory of the song's last notes. He offered his arm to Tasa, waiting for her to rise and join him.

"It lies beneath the penultimate stair...and leads to the corridors beneath the fortress. A labyrinth with a thousand purposes...and who knows what state of repair it will be in...but it's a hope, Tasa. A way, promised by the Lord Maglor himself...we're going to find the others, and then we'll soon be home."

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

A way... a path to light and to dancing breezes and the smell of fires and starlight on damp grass instead of dusted stone and cold memory.

Tasa looked at Malris' outstretched hand, taking in every detail from the small scars that came to every fighter in his life to the faded light that shone dully upon his fingernails. She looked at her own, the long white fingers streaked with blood, the gouges in her palms still oozing slightly. She looked up at him mournfully, with dead eyes and pale cheeks. A single black feather lay tangled within her long blonde locks.

"No." Her voice echoed dully against the grey walls, lost into the shadow that kept them.

[Firefoot]

As the other three discussed the song and how to find Malris and Tasa, Lómwë could not help but feel rather isolated from the group. He knew that this was mostly of his own doing, but was not sure how to change it – was not sure if he wanted to. He felt emptied out, drained of all emotions relevant to the present. It was not that he did not care, as before, but more like he did not know how to care anymore. Even emotions pertaining to the past were blunted. Orëmir’s words Did you ever wonder, if we had stayed to fight, if we had been here, there might have been more that got away? had bounced around in his head for a bit, bringing pricks of guilt and sorrow, still mutedly poignant but not stabbingly painful. There was nowhere left for him to go, nothing left for him to do, it seemed, except to finally leave these eastern shores into the west.

For his companions’ sake, he tried to dredge up some piece of information pertinent to their search. The tunnels… yes, perhaps he did remember them. He had never used them as they were intended, but once he had showed them once to Aradol. But try as he might, he could remember nothing else of them, not where the entrances were hidden nor where they led. To the rest of his mind, the fact was apparently not important enough to be recalled.

As Orëmir began to lead the way, Lómwë picked up a torch of his own and fell into the rear, a position becoming oh so familiar. He had enough wits about him to be wary of any spirits in this place that might be intent on harm, although there seemed to be few of those left… most seemed to have departed, except for the mysterious minstrel.

The foursome treaded on in silence, which suited Lómwë perfectly. After a little while, Orëmir drew to a halt. “It was around here somewhere…” Lómwë could see little beyond his torchlight, but what was within it did not look promising as far as an entryway. He stepped a little closer to what appeared to be a short, dark alleyway. The walls, or perhaps the foundations themselves, had partially collapsed, urging Lómwë to caution. He could not tell, and he was unsure of what they were looking for, but this looked promising. “I’m not sure,” he called out to the group, “and it could be just an old alley, but does this look like a collapsed entryway to any of you…? If it is, it doesn't look entirely safe.”

[Anguirel]

Malris was not as shocked by Tasareni's refusal as might have been expected. He recalled the first night on the island, when he had been torn between his friends and Maglor's voice...when he had stumpled a few feet up the steep, sharp, mountain path to the ruins of Himring...when Tasa had reproached him so bitterly.

He had almost chosen the Voice in that hour, but Tasa's words had recalled him to the realities of the present. An awful moment.

But now things were different. Things were simpler. No longer two paths, two women and a Lord the Valar knew where. A chamber that had become a prison, an exit out, Tasa alone with him and his Lord, Kanafinwe Makalaure, the son of Curufinwe the Elder, called Feanaro; Maglor, his lord and friend, beckoned him to follow the only way that was left. And Tasa too, whether she trusted him or not.

"Yes," he replied simply; Malris had never wielded words as the Sons of Feanor did, lightly and elegantly, beautifully, and dangerously. He extended his left hand, calloused by the grip he had kept to Cirlach's hilt, and plucked the carrion bird's feather from Tasareni's stream of hair of pale gold.

Malris was short for the males among Elves; Tasareni tall among females. There was little between them, and he scarcely bent as he lightly kissed her cheek, breathing Yes into her toil-wearied mind.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

His lips burned her pale cheek. She pulled away, holding back exhausted tears. Her heart turned to ice and she felt sick. She swallowed and felt mild distress at her inability to find anything to say. Her voice cracked before words could escape her lips. She stepped away from Malris, colliding with the cold wall.

He reached for her, concerned, and took her by the hand. She pulled from his grip, afraid to let herself dream. It could never be... it would never be.

"No." Tears fell. "No."

"If you do not trust the words, trust me." He spoke simply as ever. "We must leave. I know the way. You must come."

Her voice strengthened, exhaustion lending a dangerously sharp edge to her thoughts. "I must do nothing. I am neither your child to be led by the hand nor your lover to be led by the heart. Perhaps you are tireless, but I can go no further without rest. Do you wish to carry me as one dead? I cannot continue upon my own legs.

"Perhaps you did not notice while you were busy concentrating on shadows of the past and whispers on the wind..." Her voice shook with bitterness. "It is not a traditional enemy that knows the depths of your heart and uses that knowledge to besiege you as she makes every attempt to take your hroa perforce. I will not go on tonight."

She stood defiantly before Malris, tears carefully tracing the silver scars upon her jawline. She trembled with emotion, her body weak. Her fingertips traced her sword hilt as she awaited his response.

[Anguirel]

Malris remained silent for several moments, his hands once more at his sides.

He had not expected to be...repulsed. For that was undoubtedly what had occurred. His mind throbbed, as if he had been struggling in some battle of the spirit once more, but confusion and guilt, not Orcs or Elves, were now his enemies.

His wife had found peace, at least. But Tasa, it seemed to him, had lost every vestige of it.

"Very well," he said at last. "We shall stop here...though it is...hardly conducive to sleep..."

Neither was it. The floor was as hard as the bedrock of the very isle, and as cold. The whole set of chambers were bare, except for the vast, oak-crafted bedstead, bereft of mattress or drapery. And Malris still felt the summons of that gentle son of Feanor so very keenly...

"There is unhealthy irony here," he added. "We are incarcerated in a room containing a bed neither of us can possibly want to sleep on."

It wasn't just Maglor's persuasion. The others...they would worry, they would search...would they stumble on more trouble, in the darkling places of the fortress that had too long defied Morgoth?

But Tasa was drained, utterly, and furthermore would despise him, would disarm him with the aggrievement of every Elven maid to every Elf, if he tried to talk her round...not necessarily even for her own good, which would naturally damn him utterly...but for the good of the others.

But what sort of authority do you hold over me, he could hear, an acerbic hypothetical utterance.

Who are you? Not father, not brother, not leader, not husband, your vows elsewhere...across the sea perhaps...

"You will at least take my cloak?" Malris asked, braving the actual Tasareni, despite his fears of the projected one. "I know I will have little need of it tonight."