They dragged him up the broken stone steps to the top of Ost Barandor. Through the rough cloth of the dark sack over his head, Cutch could see he was surrounded by daylight and a blue sky, and heard the sounds of trees in a brisk wind. His feet were bound together as were his hands behind his back, so when they roughly pushed him down, he could not see to protect himself from the heaved pavement stones. The effects of the paralyzing poison were nearly worn off, allowing his instinct to curl his body, and although this kept his head from striking the broken stones, his shoulder took the brunt of the fall and he grunted in pain.
“He’s kill’t a dozen of us, yer majesty”, one of his captors growled. A foot kicked him savagely in the side and the breath left his lungs, leaving him struggling to regain it.
“Leave him!”, a low-toned female voice commanded. He could hear a strange crackling hum from the same direction as her voice, and then feet scurrying away back down the stairs. Someone fell, cursed, then scampered to catch up with the others.
“You have a remarkable skill for killing, but that is to be expected from an assassin. Curious, though, that you would want to target your employer’s company.” He could hear her approach as she continued, “Bargaining for more compensation, are you?”. Through the hood he could barely make out her shape as she stooped next to him and yanked the sack from his head.
She was indeed an Elf, dark haired and beautiful, but with eyes both fierce and cold, and then wide with surprise. She flung the sack aside, staring at Cutch. She suddenly stood laughing, full and cruel, her eyes darting around his face. “You clever little half-blood!”, she managed to declare between guffaws. Her laughter subsided, and a softness momentarily shaped her face. “I must say, grandson, that you bear a striking resemblance to your grandfather.” She stepped back to examine him coolly. “He was a much larger fellow, but those brows and nose are his.” Her eyes lost focus as her thoughts drifted. She stepped away from Cutch and wandered toward the view offered from the lofty ruins. “He would have been a good king, you know, had the fools listened to him as he listened to me…”.
She surveyed the land far below the edge of Ost Barandor, an ancient Edain fort, now just a crumbling dais to a would-be queen looking out upon an imaginary realm which would, she was sure, soon worship her. The Bree-lands, neatly parceled farms hugging a bustling and prosperous town, were the prize she sought to claim by conquest, and its people to subjugate. When they were in her grasp, she would be a power to be reckoned with. Surrounding this realm were many more lands to be brought under her crown. She would be the ally the wizard wanted.
"But Men are weak and shortsighted, even the Dunedain, despite their Numenorian blood.” She sighed as she turned back to Cutch, bound and silent as he looked about for some means to free himself. “My pretty Mortal lord perished in the cold of the Fell Winter, my cowardly son joined the Dunedain in turning against my wisdom, and I abandoned them all.” She knelt next to Cutch and roughly grabbed his chin, forcing his face toward hers. “The wizard bade me to return to save you all from your Mortal foolishness, and give you an Elf queen to guide you. And now you, little fellow, the last of my blood mixed with the Dunedain, have come to me. A gift? Or a threat? Do you truly wish to interfere, or are you here to impress me with your clever prowess? Or perhaps the absence of the assassin I bought? You killed him first, didn’t you? It is he that lies in your grave, while you skulk about looking for his master before his absence raises suspicion.”
Her uncanny string of conclusions seemed to be drawn, in part, from her proximity to Cutch’s thoughts, as if she were invading them. Her terrible madness, indifferent and intelligent, mixed with her beauty to form a frightening mask on the face of a battering ram pounding on the gates of his mind. Cutch stared for a long moment, barring his mental gates, then counterattacked the only way he could. “You monster! You would kill all I hold dear! You conspire with orcs and thieves to threaten my home, my friends, my…” He halted before revealing his betrothal, but his defiant eyes never left hers.
She slowly stood and stepped back. “Your what, grandson?” From an ornate pouch hung from her hip she drew out two stones to hold in her hands. Her fingers sensually caressed them and again he heard a crackling hum. “Tell me.” With narrowed eyes and clenched teeth, he braced for whatever response she would have to his silence.
Again, her eyes lost focus. One hand lifted above her head as she uttered words he did not understand and in a split second a crackling bolt of bluish white descended to her uplifted hand and then flew to his chest. His flesh burned as it struck and his body stiffened and then convulsed as the bolt shattered into sparkling fingers dancing on him, stabbing. In defiance he stifled his howl and stared into her eyes, but his face revealed his pain. With a satisfied grin, she softly spoke. “There, there, grandson. You need not suffer so. Tell me your secret. It will be safe with me; you can be sure.”
Behind his back, he tightened a fist, thumb wrapped around the place on his finger that once held the betrothal ring. The memory of Her burst into his mind, a lovely silhouette framed against a red sunset, Her remembered laughter filling his heart and dissipating the pain. With added resolve he growled, “Kill me if you dare, bitch.”
With a twisted smirk, she taunted. “A betrothed, grandson? Who is she, and where?” Cutch could feel his tormentor somehow still sifting through his mind, like fingers in sand searching for a lost bauble. His fist tightened, knuckles cracking, and he drove his mind to memories that continued to hide Her face and name. Perhaps, he thought, if he taunted Gilmorwen’s madness he could save Her from this… Standing behind Her on a starlit night, his arms around Her, She rests one hand over his and leans against him. Her other hand points up at the pinpoints of twinkling light, and She shares their names with him.
“An Elf, perhaps, grandson? But, of course. Your grandfather was also so smitten.” She lightly hummed as she searched her pouch, drawing another stone to replace the one she’d held high. It was white and translucent, and she smiled sweetly at him over it. Uttering another unintelligible phrase, she pointed it at him. The air seemed to be sucked in towards her and he was suddenly very cold. From this new stone a channeled blizzard flew at him, pummeling him with ice shards, tearing at his exposed flesh like a storm of frozen sand. The force of the wind carrying the new attack threw him skidding across the ancient paving stones to slam against a crumbling column. His bruised shoulder again took the brunt, and he growled a groan. She pursued him to the column.
“Who and where is she!”
He offered no reply. His clenched fist trembling, he again drove his mind away from his tormentor. They sit before the fireplace in Her bedchamber, She snuggles before him as he brushes Her lovely waist-length dark hair, the strokes long and slow. She relaxes against him and Her breathing slows. Soon She will slip into slumber, he knows, and he will gently carry Her, sleeping, to Her bed.
His grandmother closed on him and dropped to her knees with a pointed sliver of a blade drawn. His defiant eyes locked onto hers as she hissed, “Something more primal, perhaps.” She grabbed a fistful of his hair and jammed his head against the column with his face upturned, then placed the point of the blade just beneath his eye, pricking the skin. “WHO IS SHE!!! WHERE IS SHE!!!”, she screamed, voice cracking with her own madness, his memories invoking her own of her lost husband and their shared intimacies, memories she had tried to bury with him.
He lays next to Her, forming his body behind Her as if they were neatly stored spoons. Her scent fills his heart and mind with the beauty of all the seasons, Her warmth calms his soul. His arm drapes around Her waist and in Her slumber, She closes a hand around his, drawing and releasing a deep breath. Somewhere and somewhen far away, someone else is suffering from a cruel blade slowly puncturing an eye. Someone else’s cheek is feeling the warm flow slide towards a chin. Someone else’s heaving scream is escaping a straining throat. Someone else suffers, certainly, for he slips into sleep behind Her.
