Long Lost Leaves - Part III

[Earniel]

Radagast stepped out of the antechamber into a large, natural cave. High enough for Ents or Entwives to stand up unencumbered. Behind him the other adventurers too stepped into the stony, domed hall. They kept close while making room for the others to enter. Even the Ents managed to crawl through the cave opening, which they did with un-Entish haste. No, Radagast corrected himself. he could hardly call the Ents hasty, after all, they had been waiting for this for many millennia.

Unscrewing the top of his lamp, Radagast let out the fireflies. They took flight but remained near the adventurers, above their heads. One short word of power, and a wave of the wizard's staff and the fireflies lit up with a bright yellow light, each as powerful as a torch. Now they could see a lot more of the cave. But still no sign of the Entwives.

When he was certain everybody had entered the hall behind him, Radagast cautiously went forward. The hall was narrower than he had originally thought. In the light of the enchanted fireflies he could dimly see the sides of the cave, polished by endless years of water. The light reflected off them. This was a stroke of luck, for otherwise even the sharp-eyed Elves would not have seen the strange markings on the wall to which they now alerted the wizard.

Radagast called his fireflies closer. The markings had been made by large hands, smearing light clay on the dark wall. He could make out rough tree-figures.

"Well," he said, "that at least confirms it, the Entwives were here. But..." He paused, thinking of the silence that hung over the cave. "Are they still here now?"

[Midge]

Magor was awed. The thought of drawings and writings as old as Entwives boggled his mind. He leaned over to Aerin and whispered, "If your other cave story is anything like this one, I want to hear it as soon as we get out."

Aerin shook her head. "Most of that story is like the story of how we found the pit and the eye. But we'll give you the highlights - Shh!" for at that moment, she noticed a small but bright light far off.

She felt any loud noise would frighten it away and hoped that the clanking members of their group would tread softly.

[feawen]

Lightly stepping up to Radagasts shoulder Nami stopped and peered at the small light. "I don't think it would be this easy, do you? Why do i get the feeling its going to go horribly wrong?"

[Acalewia]

Nami had spoken aloud what Aelfwine had been thinking. This had been too easy. She started looking around them, searching for any kind of trap that might be waiting for them.

[Varnafindë]

Horribly wrong? Barufiniel was glad she still had her bow ready to use. She felt for her dagger, satisfied that it was where she expected to find it, and stared at the light at the other side of the new hall she had entered.

[Earniel]

"Generally," Radagast said, probably misunderstanding Nami, "lights indeed aren't easy to light underground. Especially since these caves have been closed off from the outside worlds for centuries. Look at how our torches splutter and gutter now and then and how the air in here tastes stale. The only fresh air in here has come in with us. So that light over there can't be fire. It glows too evenly as well."

"It could be luminescent lichen," Radagast continued almost to himself. "Luminescent lichen is usually rather harmless. Hardly ever has teeth."

He shook himself, realising his mind was wandering. "Thus far the botany lesson. Let us proceed."

He walked on, gripping his wizard's staff just a little tighter. Cautiously the group walked through the hall, passing the gnarled pillars on their way to the other side.

As they came closer, they saw the light was a lamp, a fëanorean lamp even, burning with a light that wasn't flame. Long ago, many of these lamps had come with the Noldor overseas. In the millennia of war and chaos that followed, their number had dwindled and the art to make them had been lost. Only a few of these lamps still existed, treasured as heirlooms by the remaining Elves. This lamp had been here for a very long time: ancient stalagmites had buried the base of it into the rock. Its metal was mired and blackened. But the art of Fëanor still endured, still casting its light after centuries.

In the light of the lamp the adventures saw an indentation in the rockwall behind it, shaped like a seat, worn smooth with use. There appeared to be some rotting fragments of clothes left behind on it.

[Aikanáro]

<i>A light without a source!</i>

Tabrîl, who had quite deliberately disregarded the pictures on the walls, not believing them to be of any relevance or use to her personally, could not help but look over at the light.

It shone with all the purity of the stars over Kordâla, for all that it was ancient, and such a light to Tabrîl, preserved so long underground, could signify only one thing. It was a sign. A sign perhaps that deeper Mysteries lay ahead. She had seen such a light but once before, high in the tower of Tathilei the Wise before it was laid ruin, countless years ago.

Tabrîl quickly looked away, unsettled, and muttered, to nobody in particular, perhaps only to herself: 'I ought not to be here.'

[feawen]

Nami looked at Radagast a little puzzled. "Are you ok?"
The lamp unsettled Nami, its beauty should not have been in a place so evil looking. Making her bow ready loosely at her side she cast her gaze around the hall. "What are the captors of the entwifes doing with elven lamps? This all feels very wrong to me."

[Earniel]

"All is wrong," a tiny voice said sadly.

The adventurers were startled. The voice was but a whisper but each had heard it perfectly as if someone had been standing right next to them and had whispered it in their ears. But while some turned to look right behind them, they saw nothing but empty space.

"The world is all wrong. Twisted. Gnarled. Dark." The voice complained, now coming from different directions as if someone unseen was circling the adventurers.

"Stay close," Radagast whispered urgently to the others. "Do not move." The last thing he needed was someone bolting. It could have them killed instantly.

The voice continued it's plaintive cry. "Where have the stars gone? Where has the wind gone? No breath. No word. No life. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone."

"And the Entwives?" Radagast inquired carefully in the silence that followed. "Have they gone as well?"

"No," was the answer after a moment. The voice sounded almost smug.

[Midge]

Magor saw that many of his companions were readying their weapons, but he made no move to do so. He bit his tongue to keep from chuckling as an image of a Gollum-like creature who kept to the dark was what was putting them all on edge.

His eyes met Aerin's who, though she had not drawn her sword, was clearly tense. Her fingers twitched as she controlled her urge to ready herself for a battle that would likely be the most peculiar of their lives - including the one which involved a blind elf regaining his sight in the midst of the fight. He read in her eyes the same thought in his mind - that too many people revealing their weapons would make whatever this voice was feel more threatened and more prone to unprovoked attack. Still he knew that each member of the company would have heightened reflexes during this strange encounter.

[Earniel]

"Where?" The tiny voice repeated with some surprise as if the question was a foolish one. "Why, they are here! Around us. All here. All alone in the voiceless dark. No sun, no stars, no wind. Lost, lost, lost, lost, lost. Forev- "

The voice stopped its litany as if something had occured to it.

"Who are you?" It suddenly asked sharply, its voice edged with suspicion.

[Acalewia]

"Sweet Elberath," Aelfwine breathed, a bit frustrated. "Whatever it is is toying with us," Her voice was barely a breath, although in these caverns that breath sounded like a whisper. She had the arrow pointing downward but would raise it if the need came. Why was it toying with them? What creature of the Dark was this? Or was this the Guardian Radagast spoke of?

[Varnafindë]

Barufiniel chose to speak up, looking over at Radagast and hoping it would be alright. She had some experience in diplomacy from back at - that other place - and hoped that it might come in useful now.

"Who are we? That depends a bit on who you are. If you're speaking for the Entwives, then we are friends - for we would be their friends."

[Earniel]

"Friends..." the voice sneered. "Friends that are late in the coming. Unfaithful friends. Three thousand years of silence and now you pretend to come and look for them unheeded, unneeded. The Entwives have no friends! "

"They have!" Earthshaker rumbled, getting fired up by the voice's reproaches. "They have both friends and relatives," he said. "We have come to take them home!"

"Entsss," the voice hissed angrily as if it only now noticed them in the company.

"Forest dreamers! Forsakers of kin and blood!" It shrieked. "Go back to your dusty forest-eaves and stay there! You are not wanted here! The Entwives have no home, it withered away wile you idled. It took you aeons to even miss them!"

A short silence fell but too short for any of the adventurers to make a reply. The voice wasn't finished yet. It was growing larger and more agitated the more it spoke. As if after being silent for so long it had to rediscover its strenght by practise.

"The Entwives now need neither home nor Ents," it said breathlessly. "The world grew old and grey and still they waited. But you didn't come, oh no, what lay beyond the forest no longer concerned you! The Entwives told me that you would look for them and would come. But I knew better, oh I did. Had I not waited once, as they did? Had I not also hoped I had been missed? Had I not longed for to be found and rescued as well? But when they came it was not for me. They tore up the mountain-teeth and laid bare the pits but it was not for me. And so they left without me. And I no longer wanted to be found. Year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium. But now I have the Entwives and all they have is me..."

"You will not take them away from me now!" It wailed desperately. The sound echoed through the pillared hall.

[feawen]

It was all getting rather too dark and shouty for Namis liking. She disliked not seeing for opponent. "We dont wish to take them away from you. Maybe" She spoke up. "If you know to which race you belonged we could tell you why no one has come for you. The world has seem much evil over the past hundreds of years, only now has the world and its races for peace."

[Acalewia]

Aelfwine realized this creture, what ever it was, was the willing guardian of the Entwives. A duty it did out of sheer loneliness.
"Why were you left here alone?"

[Varnafindë]

What would this creature be? Barufiniel wondered. 'They came - they tore up the mountain-teeth and laid bare the pits - they left without me' - when would this have happened? At the end of the First Age?

Had this guardian been waiting there for more than two Ages?
No wonder it was bitter.

She waited breathlessly for its answer to Aelfwine's question.

[Earniel]

"Questions, questions," the Guardian repeated as if in agony. "Enough. Enough! No solace in answers. Don't want to remember. Don't want to hear. Don't want to talk. Don't want you here. Gogogogogogogogo."

"We can't do that," Radagast said softly but the Guardian no longer seemed to hear him. She kept on rattling off complaints, reproaches, insults that did not seem aimed at him or his companions but at someone long ago.

Radagast's mind was racing, going over every clue they had found; what had been said in the Dol Guldur papers, what Teye had seen in her vision, what cryptic clues the Guardian had told them. Radagast didn't like where they were all going. If his idea was right, then the Guardian could be very dangerous indeed, especially in this unhinged state as she appeared to be in.

The fireflies he had brought settled on his hat, as if they felt he needed some light to illuminate his mental processes. Or more likely, they disliked the draught in the cave too much to stay flying.

With a jolt, Radagast lost his train of thought. Draught? What draught? There had been no draught when they entered the cave and yet he could feel it now. It had not been there before.

He berated himself, he should have seen it coming, if the draughtt had not been there before, then it had to have been brought in recently. And had they not met creatures than moved with the wind before?

"Everyone," Radagast said. "don't be alarmed. But it would appear we have old acquaintances joining us."

Knowing they had been spotted, the shadow martens stepped forward into the light circle of the torches. The draught picked up as their small shapes shimmered in the poor light. There were about two dozen of them and they had formed a circle around the adventurers.

In his mind, Radagast could hear Teye's voice as she spoken to them in the Ultai camp: "“The second image is of an immense hall with strange, dark pillars. Some of you have entered it, although not all, and I cannot say who. There’s a strange draught around you, like a fickle, ever-shifting wind: whispering, alert yet indecisive and potentially dangerous. I believe this is to be the turning point in your quest, but which way the balance swings, in your favour or against it… I cannot say.”

[Acalewia]

Aelfwine had been there when the shadow martens were freed from their prison, but she was surprised to see them surround them. She looked about her, wondering what they were goin to do.

[Midge]

Aerin shuddered as she saw the shadowy creatures and felt their accompanying wind, reminding her of her last day in Dol Guldur. Though the feeling had heralded freedom, it was not one she associated with joy or happiness or anything positive.

"Whoaa.." She heard Magor quietly gasp in awe at the same time she shuddered. Though he was shocked (having never seen the shadow-martens before), he reached over to grab her shoulder and steady her. She looked toward him and thought, Who would ever have thought that a Beren-and-Luthien-like pair would forge a friendship more similar to what Legolas and Gimli had? Then she turned toward the shadow creatures and awaited what would happen. She'd think about her mundane things after they emerged from this cavern alive.