Laureanis approached the entranceway to Delossad in pelting rain. She had ridden all night to get to Tâl Bruinen before morning, but she had not been able to force herself to approach Delossad in the dead of night. When morning came she was still reluctant to enter that place of abhorrence and face whatever darkness awaited her there. It was her final day in the mortal realm, she was fairly certain of it. That is what she wanted. She was going to enter Delossad in search of answers but also death.
But even with all the pain and suffering she had endured during all the long yéni of her lifetime in the mortal realm, her fëa still seemed strangely reluctant to leave it behind. Stubbornly it clung to the only life she had ever known, even when she had lost all the reasons and will to go on. She had bid her faithful steed Daeroc goodbye and sent her home. She would find her way back to Imladris on her own. Laureanis had no need for Daeroc anymore, not where she was going. She had spent the last day of her life walking by the banks of the Bruinen, taking in the sights of the colorful shores, lush valleys and woody hills of Tâl Bruinen in the autumn. She had walked in the rain, focusing her mind on how it felt against her skin.
But now it was already late in the afternoon. It would begin to gloom in an hour. Laureanis had postponed the inevitable long enough. She was fairly certain Delioron would not find his way here any time soon, but she would not risk it by delaying any further. Soon she would rejoin Maglor’s side in the Halls of Mandos. She walked through the stone arc and ascended the stairs up into the darkness. And there, on top of the stairs, she found Cugusaelon’s decaying corpse. It looked like somebody had impaled him with a sword and then tossed his body in a corner like trash, no more a concern to whomever dwelled in this place.
The passageway turned right and after a short walk opened up to a small, alluring garden. There was certain ethereal beauty about the place. It was like Laureanis had stepped into an enchanted garden out of a fairytale; but there was something very unsettling and unpleasant about the scene too, like the enchanted garden was nothing but a veil of illusion, covering up something profoundly rotten and corrupt.
A small, old woman strolled slowly along the meadow of dandelions and wildflowers. Sensing Laureanis’ presence, the old woman stopped at the bottom of the stone stairs that led up to the second floor.
”Laureanis”, said the old woman in a creaking voice, smiling a vaguely comic smile of an old dotard. Her eyes glittered beneath her white hair. ”I was not expecting you. Why have you come to this place?”
”I want you to tell me why you killed Maglor”, Laureanis said patiently.
”I did no such thing.”
”I know that you killed him. The time for lies is over. I want you to tell me why. I need to know.”
The vision of the old woman at the bottom of the stairs rippled like a mirage and changed. In the spot where Sara Oakheard had been a moment earlier now stood a much taller woman, clad in crimson veil and dress, steel armor and ghastly iron mask. Only her hands were bare. On top of her head the woman wore a spiked iron crown. In her right hand she held a sword.
”You must die now, Laureanis”, said the apparition. Her voice beneath the iron mask sounded hollow.
”Yes. I accept that.”
The woman in the iron mask cocked her head, as if puzzled by Laureanis’ response. ”Why do you choose to die?”
”Because I do not choose to live anymore”, she said in a low voice, a voice speaking from her own grave. ”Life has brought me nothing but misery. To end it all will be an answer to my prayers.”
”Then, if the Valar have not answered your prayers, I will.”
”Why did you kill Maglor?”
”Don’t you understand even that?” the woman in the iron mask asked as she walked slowly across the meadow towards Laureanis. She did not try to get away.
”He wanted to take you out of Imladris. I was worried he might be successful. I worried that he might be able to turn your head and convince you to leave and not go on with whatever inner reason you had to wish for Elrond’s death. Of course, it was before I found out you never had any intention of killing Elrond in the first place. Maglor died for nothing, Laureanis. He died because of you.”
Laureanis groaned with deep grief and agony of her fëa, a sound muffled by thunder rumbling outside. She did not try to move or defend herself when the woman in the iron mask thrust her sword into her abdomen. Laureanis fell backwards and her body slumped lifelessly on the cold, wet grass.
She was still breathing. The woman in the iron mask raised her sword to finish her off, but a sudden noise made the woman look up in the direction of the entrance to Delossad. There, between the columns, she saw a dark hooded silhouette approaching fast, running towards the scene, sword in hand. The woman in the iron mask glanced at the elven woman’s motionless body at her feet and cocked her head, as if deciding something. Then she turned to look at the quickly approaching figure.
Before Delioron reached the scene there was a purple-colored puff of smoke where the woman in the iron mask stood, and when the smoke cleared she was gone. Delioron, out of breath, looked wildly around him, but there was no sign of anyone anywhere.
Delioron crouched down to check on Laureanis. The blade had went through her right hypochondrium and exited through her left lumbar square. It was a very serious wound, but perhaps there was hope still, if she could get Laureanis back to Imladris quickly enough. She was mercifully unconscious.
Before he could lift her up, something captured Delioron’s attention. There was something sparkling in the grass where the woman in the iron mask had stood. Delioron reached out his hand and picked it up. It was a pendant with three large, white, sparkling jewels. It was the same pendant he had seen in Maglor’s hands by the mountain river in Narimanush fifteen years ago, the jewels Maglor had once crafted in the likeness of the Silmarils so he would never forget his life's failure.
Delioron slipped the pendant in a pocket of his cloak and turned to lift Laureanis’ body up from the cold, wet grass.
