A Beautiful Poison by Idrils Scribe

The second and greatest evil came upon Gondor in the reign of Telemnar, the twenty-sixth king... a deadly plague came with dark winds out of the East. The King and all his children died, and great numbers of the people of Gondor, especially those that lived in Osgiliath.

The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion

Osgiliath stank of piss and terror. 

Elrond tried not to breathe as his carriage crossed the great bridge. 

The city’s clever Numenorean sewer system had ceased to function. Angry crowds railing against water from the Mountains of Shadow smashed the aqueducts flowing in from Ithilien, and the craftspeople who might repair them had long died or fled. The river Anduin was the only water to be had now. In high summer it ran slow and lukewarm, choked with the city's waste - and its corpses. 

He looked out the window at the water churning below, but then the smell hit him and his stomach soured. The Plague made all bodies bloat alike: men and women, young and old, Numenoreans and Lesser Men bobbed side by side. Their dark-haired heads looked like strange floating nuts until the corpse-gasses evaporated and they sank to the bottom to be fed on. Only the eels thrived in times like these

And yet there were people about. The rich had long fled to their country estates, burghers to their ancestral villages, spreading the Plague throughout the land. Only the poorest remained in the city, and they fled their crowded housing, where the disease leapt from shack to shack and devoured entire families within a day. They milled about on the squares and leafy avenues, scared of the river, of the sewers, of one another, dying in droves - on street corners, under bridges, in marble arcades. 

Osgiliath had no hands left to dig that many pits, not enough quicklime to keep stacked corpses from festering in the summer heat. Bloated green corpse-flies burrowed into every crevice, carrying the plague. And so the bodies were tipped into Anduin, and the eels grew fat.

They were headed for the crown prince’s refuge; a fortified mansion, more citadel than house, in a leafy quarter on the river’s western bank. 

A man lay sprawled on the steps leading to the front door. 

“Careful, lord, do not touch him!” Elrond’s coachman yanked him back by his sleeve when he rushed over to examine the sick man. Only then did Elrond notice the tell-tale stains, blood and pus soaking through the man’s tunic from the weeping sores in his armpits. 

The Plague - and what else, in Estë’s name, could it be? The Plague, in its inexorable third and final stage. There was no help for this poor fellow, no succor, no comfort but death. Elrond struggled to keep his expression even and smooth - master healers did not weep. 

The Man looked so young, perhaps not even twenty, with the olive skin and aquiline profile of Harondor. What had brought this southern boy to Osgiliath, the city of the king? And what led him here, to choose for the place of his death the crown prince’s doorstep, his back against the gate? 

The boy tried to speak, but the Plague’s abscessed lymph nodes had closed his throat so that breath could barely pass, and delirium burned in his gaze. 

“Hope …”

This mansion was Gondor’s hope. With the king and his wife lost to the Plague, their only son had been sealed into his house to weather the epidemic. 

Alas, for Sauron’s artfulness! The Torturer cleverly engineered this accursed disease. Walls of stone could not hold a pathogen so elegantly designed, so flawlessly lethal. A gram-negative bacterium strong and versatile enough to ride rats and fleas, be carried in the pus oozing from the wounds of the dying - or be borne upon the very air they breathed. 

The Plague had an exquisite predilection for the genetic makeup of the Edain. Numenorean blood became a death sentence, and Gondor’s people had the purest of all in Middle-earth. 

Elrond could offer the dying boy neither hope nor healing. All he might do was ease the inevitable passing. It was a warped, alien kind of compassion, but Elrond was so weary of sickness and despair. A good death was all he had left to give. He reached out his mind and caught the boy’s in his. Some strength yet remained, like a wounded bird flapping its wings against the hunter come to deal mercy, but the coruscating thread connecting the boy’s fëa to his hroä had frayed thin already. Snapping off a child’s life had become an easy thing after so many, and the light fled from the boy’s eyes in an instant. 

The coachman watched from a safe distance, his face a mask of indifference. Compassion had run out a long time ago, in this city. Once the boy’s final death rattle passed his blistered lips, the man whistled sharply, a familiar sound in these streets. Soon a mule cart appeared around the corner, its drivers dressed in long-snouted masks and waders. Their creaking wain was stacked high with corpses. The boy was headed for a nameless grave in Anduin’s waters. He was someone’s son.

Elrond could not watch him tossed onto the cart like a sack of grain, but turned around and climbed the steps to the gilded gates of the crown prince’s mansion. Instead of a door he was faced with a thick seam of coagulated metal: prince Tarlanc’s residence was welded shut. To knock here was entirely pointless. He did so nonetheless.

“Hail Lord Elrond, and well met!” called someone from a window high up. A basket was lowered on a rope, and Elrond climbed in. 

Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. And none could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest, without divine offices ... great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead. And they died by the hundreds both day and night ... And as soon as those ditches were filled more were dug … And there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city. There was no one who wept for any death, for all awaited death. And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world. 

Agnolo di Tura, 14th century chronicler from Siena, Italy, on the Black Death

 

Chapter End Notes

Hi everyone, and welcome!

I hope you'll enjoy my first foray into the horror genre.

The research for this little tale was a wild ride, and as we go I'll be sharing some of the weird and wonderful histories I happened upon. Whatever Elrond may think, the star of this story is of course the Great Plague. Afaik Tolkien gives no details on the disease except that it's deadly, so I've concocted a hybrid horror. The disease's transmission modes are those of the actual Black death (good old Yersinia Pestis), but the airway compression is strangles (Streptococcus equi), a thoroughly terrifying disease in horses.

A comment with your thoughts on this chapter would make my day.

See you tomorrow, and stay spooky!
Idrils Scribe

    Rich men, trust not in wealth,

    Gold cannot buy you health;

    Physic itself must fade.

    All things to end are made,

    The plague full swift goes by;

    I am sick, I must die.

      Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Thomas Nashe. "A Litany in Time of Plague" from Summer's Last Will and Testament (1592).

Within the mansion lay another world. No corpse-smells in here, no sweetish odour of refuse rotting in the unswept streets, no wailing of the bereaved. 

A fountain sang in the garden courtyard, pouring clean, cold water into its marble basin. The summer sun dappled down through the leaves of orange trees in fragrant blossom. The trimmed lawn was soft and springy beneath Elrond’s feet as he approached his host.  

His Royal Highness Prince Tarlanc, heir apparent to the throne of Gondor, rose from a high-backed chair to greet Elrond with formal courtesy, as if such things still mattered. The prince’s robes were Númenórean purple, richly draped and topped with a carcanet of emeralds from Harad. Liveried servants clustered around their prince, bearing fans and umbrellas and cups of sharp-smelling draughts, but he waved them away with a sharp, irritated gesture. Tarlanc was a proud man.  

From some hidden reserve, Elrond drew forth a stiff little smile fit for court. 

“Hail Tarlanc, Crown Prince of Gondor!”

Elrond bowed with formal grace, but a hair’s breadth less deep than he would for Tarlanc’s father, the king, who still lived - be it barely. Elrond tried not to recall the sight of mighty King Telemnar of Gondor weeping with terror as he slowly suffocated in his silk and feather bed. Soon, a courier clad in black and silver would bear the winged Crown of Elendil from the King’s House to Tarlanc’s residence. Soon, but not yet. 

Only then did Tarlanc break protocol. He did not step forward to greet Elrond, but sank back into his chair instead. A ripple passed through the cluster of servants, and they produced a cup, coaxing him to drink from it. He gurgled and spluttered.

Ai Valar, have mercy! 

Elrond could not hide a wince. The welded doors were not enough. 

Beneath his draped silk and samite, the lymph nodes in Tarlanc’s neck were swollen. His breath wheezed precariously past the abscesses pressing against his windpipe. The prince’s breath did smell of expensive tooth powder - cloves and hyssop - but it bore that wet, tell-tale rattle of pneumonia. 

This particular diagnosis took no master healer. Any apprentice might read the signs: the Plague in both its bubonic and pneumonic forms, second stage edging into third. 

Before Elrond even straightened from his bow of greeting, he knew with complete and devastating certainty that this man would die, and die soon.

It took much to keep the pain off his face. King Telemnar was a broken man when he begged Elrond with his last wheezing breaths, after losing the queen and all of their children, to come here, to this welded-up villa, and save the last scion of his house. 

No, not the last. The king had a brother, Minastan. Minastan, too, had succumbed to the Plague, but his son Tarondor still lived. Tarondor remained in his country estate far from Osgiliath lest he, too, be stricken. Gondor would have a king.

One of the footmen placed a chair by Tarlanc’s, and Elrond took it, with profuse thanks. In Gondor’s formal court, it was a singular honour to be allowed a seat beside the prince. 

Tarlanc’s eyes were a deep blue-grey, like Elros’. He would die like Elros, too, and suddenly it was all Elrond could do not to burst into tears. 

“Welcome, Lord Elrond, to my home.” Tarlanc paused for a moment to draw breath. It wheezed past his swollen throat, but he soldiered on, a consummate ruler. “I am honoured by your visit. It saddens me that the circumstances should be so grave.”

“I am honoured by your House’s trust in me, sire. The circumstances are grave indeed.”

Tarlanc smiled, and the expression was wholly Elros’. “Let us be frank with each other. I am a dead man walking, and it shall be a miracle indeed if I draw breath much longer.” Tarlanc captured Elrond’s gaze. “Are you one for miracles, lord?”  

“I make no promises, sire,” Elrond said. “We can but try.”

“So you shall administer me your Elvish medicine?” Eagerness burned in Tarlanc’s eyes. “I am told it kills the Plague.”

Elvish medicine. Hah!

Elvish healers may have retained the art of isolating penicillin when it would have sunken with Numenor, but the drug only served Mortals, who are so vulnerable to infection. And the stuff was devilishly difficult to make: the mould was temperamental as a thoroughbred, the yields were low, the isolation murder, the purification invited disaster.

Every apothecary in Imladris had been working tirelessly for weeks, but the precious vials Elrond carried were barely enough for an adult of Tarlanc’s stature. 

Even if there were more … 

Elrond shuddered. He tried antibiotics before, early in the pandemic, but Sauron the Torturer had foreseen this pass. The drug could not penetrate the abscesses, and from there the bacteria emerged victorious, seeding a rapid scatter of infections to every tissue in the body: brain and heart and skin. To die of strangles was horrid, but the other deaths had been more horrific still. 

Even so, a handful of patients had been cured. A mere handful, but to the desperate every straw was worth grasping.

“Lord, we take a risk... ” Elrond began.

“Say no more. All must be risked, for life .” Tarlanc said the word like a prayer.

Elrond did not answer as they rose. In silence, he followed the prince with Elros’ eyes and his attendants to the bedroom, where he would draw up the precious medicine and inject it into Tarlanc’s dying body. 

Birds sang in the orange trees as the summer day turned to a golden evening, and Elrond could not help but wonder if the boy on the doorstep had reached the river yet. 

Chapter End Notes

Welcome back everyone!

Today's chapter gives a bit more insight in the state of Elvish microbiology. I'm well aware that with the level of technology Gondor possesses in LoTR it'd be thoroughly impossible for them to have any knowledge of the germ theory of disease, let alone develop antibiotics. However, I imagine microbiology is common knowledge in Valinor (seems like Yavanna's department). From there, the knowledge could've reached Men at least twice: once from the Noldor in Beleriand, and a second time when the Elves brought it to Numenor. 

Elendil and his fellow refugees must've carried fragments of it with them to their new kingdoms in Middle-earth. Poor Tarlanc knew perfectly well what was killing him, but by then his people had lost the technological capability to do anything about it. 

Elrond's thoughts about the difficulties of making penicillin are inspired by an actual quote from John Smith, a 1940's Pfizer executive struggling to supply the US army:  “The mold is as temperamental as an opera singer, the yields are low, the isolation murder, the purification invites disaster.”

As always, a comment with your thoughts on this chapter would make my day. 

See you tomorrow,

Idrils Scribe

That morning, Tarlanc slept long. The prince had adamantly refused Elrond’s offer to keep vigil at his bedside. 

Elrond had heard comings and goings during the night, lamps and hasty footsteps moving in the great house’s marble halls. Messengers, it seemed, but not the one bearing the crown. Tarlanc remained crown prince and not yet king when a servant summoned Elrond to the prince’s workroom at midday.

He was led into a high chamber of white stone arches. Tall windows on two sides offered a sweeping view over the roofs of Osgiliath, the expanse of the river Anduin, onto Ithilien’s  green haze and the Mountains of Shadow in the east. 

The room contained many curious things - Tarlanc was clearly a man of learning and intellect - though Elrond wondered why  the earth sciences might interest a crown prince so deeply that he would fill his study with precious minerals.

Upon entering he paused briefly to admire a fist-sized realgar crystal. The rare mineral must be imported from some distant mine in Far Harad. It caught the morning sun bright and deep red as a ruby, but Elrond did not touch: this jewel was soft and poisonous - almost pure arsenic.

Tarlanc had amassed a stunning collection of beautiful poisons: from various marble cases gleamed the sulfuric yellow of orpiment, bright scarlet cinnabar, deep blue azurite. A bowl of mercury shimmered on a stand, scattering the sunlight in a myriad stars across the walls and ceiling.

“Sit with me, Lord.” The prince’s voice was hoarse. 

Worry leapt at Elrond’s throat, but he could not see his patient yet. Tarlanc sat hidden behind a lacquered screen. When Elrond rounded it he found him in an armchair facing the window, looking out across his capital. Then Tarlanc turned, and Elrond kept himself from gasping. 

The penicillin had failed.

Tarlanc’s abscesses had grown in the night. There was now a distinct asymmetry to his face, one eye pushed grotesquely forward by the foulness brewing behind it. A tiny, shameful sliver of disgust shivered behind Elrond’s consummate healer’s facade. How humiliating for this proud prince, to lose his fairness and his voice before the end.

Tarlanc met his eyes. “Today I must hide even from my court, lest they abandon all hope. A King of Gondor should be flawless and fair as an Elf. Anything less than perfection is a sign of the Marring.” 

Elrond knew his own appearance must be a disappointment, with his simple healers’ smock of white linen, his hands and arms wholly bare of jewelry. Even so, jealousy burned in Tarlanc’s grey eyes. Elrond possessed the one thing this Man could never have, not for all the wealth in Gondor: health. 

His Elvish blood raised him out of reach of the accursed disease. Months of laboring elbow-deep in filth and misery in the Houses of Healing left him untouched, clean and whole as a noble who rides above the mud from which his peasants dig their livelihoods. 

“So fortunate you Elves are, to be spared from death,” Tarlanc wheezed past the nodes strangling his windpipe.

“Through death, Mortals receive a Gift that shall never be for us.” 

Elrond felt like an idiot, to be citing Finrod Felagund at this poor wretch.

“A thing ceases to be a gift if forced upon the receiver. Immortality is the true gift.” Tarlanc gave Elrond a clever look from his one good eye. “You chose it for yourself.”

That was the truth, and Elrond knew not what to answer him. 

Tarlanc knew it.

“Matters are not so easy for us, your brother’s descendants. We have searched for so long. I, too, have devoted myself to this research, but thus far all my work has proven fruitless. Potable gold, mercury, the transformation of cinnabar… all in vain. Tell me,” Tarlanc demanded, “what is the true secret? Are we not kin, you and I? Will you not share?” 

Ai, he has fallen into alchemy! 

Now Elrond understood the array of poisons, the alembics and strange devices, the metallic smell filling this room.

That ancient sin of Númenor, the pointless search for an impossible substance that might render a Man immortal, transmute his very nature into that of an Elf. The Golden Elixir, the  Númenóreans used to call it, the secret of eternal youth -  as if such a thing were possible. Words straight from the mouth of Sauron the Deceiver. 

All those deluded fools ever achieved was to cut their mortal lives even shorter by mercury poisoning. And as the body withered from the poison they drank, so did the mind. The Prince was more than a little mad, it seemed.

“Sire...” Elrond began, hesitant. 

Tarlanc leant forward, pathetically eager, hanging on Elrond’s every word.

“You are of the race of Men,” Elrond continued, gentle but firm. “Even the Elder King himself has not the power to change your kindred.”

Tarlanc was unused to being refused. He breathed in, wheezing, stilling himself against his anger. “And yet eternal life can be ours. Even here, even now. I know that much. Is there then a power beyond Manwë’s?”

Who told him this!? Tarlanc’s words were blasphemy, sure, and a lie - but not wholly. 

“Whose power do you speak of, my prince?” Elrond asked.

“Those with the true interests of Gondor in mind.” 

Of course. Tarlanc was a king’s heir, the weight of responsibility drummed into him from the cradle. Elrond would comfort him to ease his passing. 

“Sire, you are mortal, but you are not irreplaceable. Rest assured that Gondor will endure.”

Words spoken as comfort, but received as a draught of poison. “Gah! You speak of that fool Tarondor?” Tarlanc wheezed with indignation, and for a moment, it seemed he might perish from the effort of his rage. “That weakling, that soft-handed loiterer! He will drop the kingdom in Umbar’s lap. Gondor needs the House of Telemnar!”

Elrond winced. He should have spoken better. Surely there were words in the Sindarin language that would ease Tarlanc into a gracious death. A better healer, a more gifted diplomat might find them. But this disease was so horrific and its devastation so thorough that Elrond had no more wit left. He could not solve this.

“Lord, I tell you,” Elrond said, his voice as grave as he could make it. “I cannot avert your death. All I may do is make it a good one. I counsel you to make your peace with it, and accept the Gift with Elros’ grace.”

Tarlanc’s lopsided face became a grotesque mask of rage. “Leave me be,” he snarled, “you traitor!”

‘Death was ever present, because the  Númenóreans still, as they had in their old kingdom, and so lost it, hungered after endless life unchanging. Kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living, and counted old names in the rolls of their descent dearer than the names of sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold towers asked questions of the stars.”

The Two Towers Book 2, Chapter 5: The Window on the West

Chapter End Notes

Welcome back, my friends!

I hope you've enjoyed the chapter. 

Researching this one took me down a rabbit hole of historical realities so strange I could never have made them up them in a million years. 

Throughout Asia, Europe and the Middle-east, alchemy has a long and fascinating history of weird and wonderful experiments in search of the elixir of immortality. Alchemists particularly favored mercury, or arsenic in its various forms (and who knew there were so many, or that they were so pretty!). 

Turns out that poisoning oneself with toxic 'Eternal Life Elixirs' was a common cause of death for rulers, emperors and nobles for thousands of years (check the 'Chinese alchemical elixir poisoning' entry on Wikipedia, and prepare to be astonished!). That struck me as very on-brand for the Númenóreans, hence Tarlanc's peculiar interior decoration choices. The Middle-earth equivalent of horse dewormer and hydroxychoroquine. 

It's all false hope, but poor Elrond (he needs a hug, doesn't he?) can't offer any real one, and he's having a terrible time of it. 

A comment with your thoughts on the chapter would absolutely make my drizzly October day. 

See you tomorrow,
Idrils Scribe

Night brought more footsteps and lamps moving through the halls. Elrond had not slept, and rose from his bed’s silken opulence to watch light flicker in the gap beneath the bedroom door. Fear leapt at his throat - the great house’s night sounds were changed. A heavy, tomb-like silence had descended, and beneath its surface lurked a shapeless terror beyond words. 

He dressed quickly, and hesitated. Diplomats did not go armed in Gondor’s court, not if they valued their lives, but this night such rules had ceased to matter. Some strange and fell thing was afoot.

Beneath his clothes he strapped on a hidden harness - Elrohir’s clever design - so he might carry a long knife in secret. The knife, too, was Elrohir’s. Shaped in the Sindarin fashion, with a sinuous inlay of running horses along the blade. Elrohir insisted that Elrond carry it on this journey. 

Elrond recalled the beloved faces of his children, seeking comfort but finding little. Where were they now? The twins and Arwen departed Imladris leading a contingent of healers, to bring aid to Eriador’s stricken populace. Doubtless they faced a similar nightmare, Men and Halflings falling to the Plague like wheat before the scythe. They were beyond Elrond’s help. 

He had his own battle to fight.     

The hallway had fallen back into darkness when he stepped out, mind and body geared for a fight. Against whom, or what, he could not say. The mansion was eerily silent, save for soft creaking from the street side. Elrond knew that sound at once: the pulley for winching visitors in and out. An alchemist summoned in the night to brew some new deluded poison for Tarlanc? 

Fool! He might as well cut his own throat and be done with it.

With Elvish stealth, Elrond crept through the silent house. There was no moon this night, and the dying city lay in darkness. The hour before dawn wreathed the street side balcony in deep shadow, save where a single torch threw a leaping circle of light against the marble pillars. It painted the servants’ faces a flickering blood-red.

Elrond arrived just in time to see Tarlanc’s departing visitor climb into the basket. A man, dressed in a black hooded robe like a billowing cloud of shadow. He had a pure  Númenórean face, fine and high-cheeked - almost Elvish. Then Elrond saw the eyes, and froze. The man’s gaze was a featureless dark, deep as the Void beyond the stars. 

Elrond knew he had made no sound, with all his considerable will and potency bent on concealment. The Mortal footmen turning the winch had no idea of his presence. Even so, the stranger in the basket suddenly raised his head. He stared straight at Elrond, and smiled. 

Elrond’s fist closed about his knife hilt, though the weapon was useless against this foe. He knew that ruinous gaze. He had seen it trained on him twice before. First long ago in Lindon, when he repelled it. 

The second time, it triumphed amidst the burning ruins of Ost-in-Edhil. 

----

“I must see the prince!”

For a single heartbeat, the officer posted at Tarlanc’s study looked ready to panic. He blanched beneath his mithril helm, his pupils wide with terror. But the Men who wore the Livery of Elendil were well chosen and well trained. He soon straightened his shoulders, prepared for an Elf-lord’s wrath. 

He bowed respectfully, but did not move. 

“Lord, Prince Tarlanc did not request your presence. And he does not wish to be disturbed.”

“What is your name, captain?”

“Berelach, my lord. Of the Third Company. I regret it, but I must follow my orders.”

“Then admit me, Captain Berelach,” Elrond replied, steel in his voice. “My voice is the king’s.”

Elrond raised his left hand, and released the concealment upon it. Gondor’s royal signet gleamed on his middle finger. 

Berelach stared for a moment, examining the ring’s seal. He found all in order: the white tree in blossom, surmounted by the silver crown and seven stars. King Telemnar’s parting gift would open any door in the realm for Elrond. Even this one. 

Berelach bowed, and stepped aside.

----

Tarlanc stood at the window, looking out across Osgiliath at the Mountains of Shadow. The eastern sky had begun to lighten, bathing him in a strange blue haze.

“A fair view, is it not, Elrond?” 

Elrond did not reply, noting the abrupt disappearance of his honorific.

“I have always wondered at what lies to the east,” Tarlanc mused, his voice pleasant and even, as if making small talk at a feast. “Great realms and many riches. Gondor never got her proper share, with us always at war against our neighbours. Perhaps there are better ways.”

Tarlanc turned, and Elrond gasped. The prince’s skin was rosy, his face fair and straight once more. His lymph nodes had returned to their normal size and there was no trace of the suppurating craters beneath his armpits. 

Tarlanc was his old self again, but his eyes had changed. They were cold and hard. In their depths writhed a shadowy secret, an aura of terror, a flickering flame that devoured instead of lighting. 

No! This cannot be!

But Elrond knew it was so. With devastating certainty, he understood the extent of his failure, what devious scheme had unfolded under his very nose. 

Tarlanc smiled, and his smile was that of the dark stranger. 

“You carry a ring that is mine by rights, Elrond. Your loan has ended. Now return it, lest you become a thief.” 

Tarlanc held out his hand. 

Elrond shook his head and closed his fist about Telemnar’s signet ring, resisting a shameful urge to recoil from Tarlanc’s presence. 

“The King of Gondor gave me this ring,” he replied, struggling to keep his voice even. “I shall return it to none other.”

“Then hand it over.” Tarlanc smiled that horrid little smile. “My father is dead. The messenger departs the King’s House as we speak. I shall wear the crown by dawn.”

“How do you know this?” Elrond demanded.

Tarlanc drew a sharp breath, his nostrils widened. 

“I know, and that should suffice!” He turned from the window, pacing the dark study like a shadow stalking between the marble pillars. 

“You failed me Elrond, and you failed Gondor! From today, we shall look elsewhere for counsel.” 

He stood still before Elrond, radiating menace like heat from a kiln. 

“Now hand me that ring!”

Elrond had faced the Dark Lord himself, and he would not cower before a mere Mortal. He drew a deep breath, and leapt. 

“You have already received a ring this night, Tarlanc. You cannot wear both that one and your father’s. Which one will you give up?”

Tarlanc had to be deep in darkness already, because he lied effortlessly, without a shred of hesitation. 

“I know not what you mean.” 

He raised both his hands, his fingers spread. They were bare, to ordinary eyes. 

Elrond’s eyes were anything but. Maglor himself once taught him this cantrip of revealing, a Song of Power sharp and strong as a Fëanorian blade. Tarlanc was no match for it, and Elrond laid bare the horror with ease. 

There, on the Prince’s forefinger, shone a ring. A plain but well-formed band of yellow gold, doubtlessly the work of a Noldorin smith, set with a single jasper, red as blood.

Cold terror gripped Elrond’s throat. He knew that ring.

One of the Nine.

"Men proved easier to ensnare. Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thralldom of the ring that they bore and under the domination of the One, which was Sauron's."

The Silmarillion, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age

 

Chapter End Notes

Welcome back, everyone. 

This chapter is where things go well and truly off the rails. Tarlanc's miracle healing proves a much more terrible danger than his death could ever be.  What will Elrond do now? 

For those wondering why there's suddenly a vacant Ringwraith position: this particular ring was 'freed up' during the events of False Dawn. Sauron was holding it back for the right candidate, and Tarlanc has all of the qualifications... 

I'd love to hear what you guys think of the events in this chapter. A comment would make me a very happy scribe.

See you tomorrow, and stay spooky!

Idrils Scribe

“It is not yet too late!” Elrond pleaded with Tarlanc. “Take off that cursed ring, and I will see it destroyed!”

Tarlanc laughed, a horrible sound. “You would rather see me in my grave than share your immortality. I have gained it nonetheless! Now hand me my birthright or I will destroy you, halfbreed!”

Elrond knew he must sound pathetic, but he did not care. “Tell me, Tarlanc, I beg you! Who gave you this ring?”

Tarlanc was unmoved. “It matters not.”

“I believe it matters very much. Did your guest tell you his name, or his loyalties?” 

“He is a true friend to Gondor. That is all you need to know,” Tarlanc retorted as he circled Elrond, made for the door, and locked it from the inside. 

The bolt’s metallic click was terrifying in the silent room. No aid would come.

Elrond had fought many desperate battles. He straightened his shoulders, and stood. “All gifts come with a price. You will pay him back, and pay more than you can ever imagine!”

“For Gondor, I will make any sacrifice!” Tarlanc held up his ring and admired it, stroking his fingers along the red stone’s setting as were he caressing a lover. 

Ai! He has worn that ring for barely an hour and already he is drawn in!

Elrond grew aware of his knife’s hilt resting smooth and cool against his skin. He had accepted Tarlanc’s inevitable death, but it now seemed it would come by his own hand. 

“See how fair this ring is, how perfect?” Tarlanc drew his eyes from the jewel with visible effort. He paced the study, gesticulating wildly as he spoke. “It has great power, I can feel it. Power to be harnessed in Gondor’s defense!” 

Tarlanc’s eyes widened as he raved. “Never again shall Umbar threaten us! No more raids against our harbours, no more Corsairs on the sea!” 

As his arms flailed the ring became a flash upon his hand, sending flecks of blood-red light dancing across the poisonous crystals in their displays. 

“With this ring I shall crush Castamir the Usurper’s House! Imagine it, Elrond! Umbar itself razed to the ground, the earth salted where it stood. All of Harad will be mine!” Tarlanc drew a deep breath, a terrible fire in his eyes. “And then we turn to Rhûn. Gondor shall rule an empire!”  

Elrond shook his head. “The only power this ring possesses, my prince, is to transform you into a specter of horror beyond human imagining, and Gondor into Sauron’s vassal state. I will not allow it.”

This, at last, pushed Tarlanc over the edge. 

“I will show you power , you fool!”

Tarlanc drew his sword, but Elrond was prepared. He whirled, dodging the deadly thrust. Elrohir’s long knife slid smoothly from its hidden sheath, Elvish steel glittering coldly in the dawn’s grey half-light. 

“You cannot kill me, slave of Sauron,” Elrond said, holding the weapon before him. “The Witch-king himself has not enough power, and you are but his thrall.”

Tarlanc laughed. “Neither can you kill me , half-breed. I am Mortal no longer.”

“I have no need to.” Elrond replied, holding up his hand with the signet. “Your father made me his executor. The messenger bearing the crown shall also bring the documents. You will find them all in order.” 

Elrond breathed deeply to steady himself. "Soon all Gondor will know what you have become, and whom you serve.  Do not think you can hide it. You shall bear the mark of it where all can see, and they shall spurn you for it.  You will never be king while I live, and that will be a long time indeed."

Hate flashed red in Tarlanc’s eyes, and his scream of rage was dreadful. He lunged at Elrond once more. Elrond whirled, parried, and hooked his knee behind Tarlanc’s to send him flying.  

Tarlanc grappled for support. His scrabbling fingers found the bowl of mercury on its stand. 

The basin tumbled through the air in a rain of quicksilver droplets, catching dawn’s first light in myriad flecks of silver radiance, each a brilliant star of its own. 

Elrond gasped. So bright, so impossibly beautiful - and so utterly poisonous.

Tarlanc seemed blind to the toxic luster. He lunged for Elrond once more, and their blades connected with a clang as they fought in the pool of scattering droplets, a quicksilver mirror. 

Here lay poison enough to kill this entire city, but neither Elf nor Ringwraith needed to fear it.

And yet, terror closed its icy claw about Elrond’s heart. Tarlanc had worn his new ring for a mere hour, but already he was fast - faster than a Mortal had any right to be. Once the cursed jewel had fully fused itself to his mind, like a parasite, he would become a fearsome opponent indeed.

Tarlanc leapt - a heartstopping near hit. Elrond had no choice left. Things had come to the final, dreadful pass. 

He slashed at the snarling face before him with deadly accuracy. Elrohir kept his knives razor-sharp, and the blade sliced flesh and cartilage without resistance. 

Tarlanc’s nose dropped into the pool of mercury with a soft splash and a gush of blood.   

“Yield!” Elrond demanded, panting with the fight’s desperate effort, his stomach churning with disgust. “Yield, or I will kill you!”

Tarlanc let out a shapeless howl, his mutilated face a mask of rage. Blood gushed from the slitted hole in his face, a waterfall of red drenching his mouth and the front of his tunic. 

He raised his red-ringed hand, and the wave of raw power that emanated from him almost made Elrond waver. Almost. He could feel the ring’s power overgrowing Tarlanc’s mind, spinning it in threads of malice like a spider wraps its prey. Soon little would remain of him, the cursed jewel sucking him dry of all he once was, until he became Sauron’s puppet entirely.   

And yet he still had Elros’ eyes. It could not be borne.

Elrond stood straight and stepped forward, his mind and voice thrumming with Power. “Hear me, Tarlanc!” he said, and his voice rang through the silent chamber. “You do not have to become a Nazgûl. It is a fate far worse than death. Stand down, and hand me that ring!”

Tarlanc grimaced, bearing his red-stained teeth.  “Cruel are the Eldar! How can I ever be king? Gondor would not accept a maimed man.”

“Your kingship is indeed forfeit,” Elrond replied, “but not your fëa. The Gift of Men remains within your reach.” 

Then something wistful shone in Tarlanc's gaze, a deeply human longing, and for a single breathless instant Elrond had hope. He stretched forth his hand, palm up, to receive the ring.

But Tarlanc's eyes flashed red, his face a snarl of hate once more. 

“Thief! Thus you steal my birthright, my Gondor!” he growled. “I will come for you, halfbreed! I will hunt you down and do the same. I will take what you hold dearest and destroy it, and make you live with the loss for your miserable eternity.”

The thing that was Tarlanc no longer laughed a bitter laugh.

“Keep your immortality. It will become a curse before the end!” 

He turned and leapt from the balcony into the outer courtyard below, landing smooth as a cat before the main doors. That gate could never again be opened, but the new-born Ringwraith raised his red hand and the welded doors shattered and broke before the power of his ring. The arch above came crumbing down in a tumbled ruin of dust and marble. 

The door guards cried out in dismay. One brave soul leapt into Tarlanc’s path with his blade drawn, but Tarlanc barely took note. He raised his sword and with superhuman speed sliced the guard’s throat to the bone. The corpse thudded before his feet, its black-and-silver livery stained with blood, and he trampled it as he passed.

The Ninth Ringwraith walked out into the streets of Osgiliath, into the miasma of disease and death that could no longer harm him. He turned east, towards the road that led to the great bridge across the Anduin, out of the city towards the Mountains of Shadow, and doubtlessly to Mordor beyond.

Upstairs in the study Elrond sank to his knees, a lone figure amidst the blood and quicksilver devastation. 

His fist closed tight and white about the hilt of Elrohir’s knife. Then he noticed his hands - caked in mercury and Tarlanc’s blood. Revulsion swept him. His throat contracted, bile rising in his gorge. Only long years of discipline kept him from vomiting. 

His breath came in long, wheezing gasps as a visceral, bone-deep terror swept him, for Celebrían, his children, his people. Tarlanc was no liar. Not in this, at least. He would come.  

Elrond buried his face in his hands, and wept. 

----

So lost he was in sorrow that the knock startled him. His work was not yet done.

He rose, wiped his face and straightened the ruin of his clothes. 

When the Lord Executor of King Telemnar’s will opened the door, he looked upon the pale face of Captain Berelach. Behind Berelach’s back a courtly company filled the hall, surrounding a pair of messengers in the black and silver livery of the King’s House. 

One of the couriers bore a stout, official-looking scroll wrapped in white silk with black wax-seals, the other a chest carved of mithril.

“Lord Executor… “ Berelach stuttered, all his courtly training failing him. “The prince has... The prince has departed, and now -” He drew a deep breath. “What are your orders, my lord?”

“Do not call him prince!” cried a tall, dark-haired noble. Elrond recognized Húrin of Emyn Arnen, Steward to the late King Telemnar. “He is king now. Long live King Tarlanc!”

Elrond stepped forward, revealing the devastation in the study behind his back, the bloodshot pool of mercury a red mirror for the rising sun. 

“No!” he cried. “The prince is no more.”

Húrin shook his head. “But lord, the guards saw him…” 

Elrond shook his head. “Lord Húrin, faithful friend of the king… you were deceived. The man you knew as Tarlanc has ceased to exist. Telemnar’s line is extinct.” 

“Where, then, is the prince’s body?” demanded Húrin. “And who is the noseless specter who murdered the guard? I am told it left the city through the eastern gate. Should we pursue it?”

“Tarlanc has fallen to Sauron,” Elrond uttered, devastated by the extent of his own failure. “His body may walk among the living, but it is a cursed life, a half-life, a thralldom everlasting. The thing he is now is neither lord nor kin to you. Mourn for him, for he is dead to Gondor.”

Húrin paled, and sank to his knees, head bowed beneath his grief. A wailing cry went up among the gathered courtiers, an outpouring of sorrow. 

The weeping messenger approached Elrond, presenting to him the chest with the Crown of Elendil. The solid weight of it sat heavy in his hands, and for a single mad instant, Elrond imagined taking it for himself.

If only you could see me now, Elros. A fine mess your heirs have made. 

Elrond could have been king. Once after the War of Wrath, and again when Ereinion fell. He had resisted the siren-song then, and he could do it again. The compulsion passed as quickly as it had come. He managed an unmoved expression as he handed back the chest. 

“Telemnar’s line has ended,” Elrond exclaimed in his orator’s voice, loud enough for all to hear, “but his brother-son still lives. Long live King Tarondor!” 

Húrin the Steward rose, his face tear-streaked, and took up the call. “Long live King Tarondor!”

The courtiers fell in with a mighty cry, echoed by the servants and the door guards, and soon the crowd that milled about outside in the street joined in. Tarondor’s name grew and multiplied, spreading like an infection throughout Osgiliath, inflaming the city’s bells until all the Vale of Anduin seemed to ring with it. 

Gondor had a new king.

When King Telemnar died... Tarondor, his nephew, who succeeded him,... removed the king's house permanently to Minas Anor, for Osgiliath was now partly deserted, and began to fall into ruin. Few of those who had fled from the plague into Ithilien or to the western dales were willing to return. ... 

The Peoples of Middle-Earth, HoME Vol 12, Part 1, Ch 7, The Heirs of Elendil: The Southern Line of Gondor: The Anárioni

 

Then for weariness and fewness of men the watch on the borders of Mordor ceased and the fortresses that guarded the passes were unmanned....

The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Gondor and the Heirs of Anárion

Chapter End Notes

Welcome back, my spooky friends! 

Elrond has made a hard choice, and he will have to live with the consequences. 

In today's installment of 'weird and spooky historical finds while researching this story', I'd like to introduce you to 'Byzantine political mutilation'. In Byzantine culture, the emperor was a reflection of heavenly authority. Since God was perfect, the emperor also had to be unblemished; any mutilation, especially facial wounds, would disqualify an individual from taking the throne. I've borrowed the concept for Gondor, a realm founded by Elf-friends. Elvish physical perfection as a cultural norm seems quite likely. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter, Elrond's decisions, and the story as a whole, so please do consider leaving a comment. 

For those of you wondering about 'A Web of Stars': work continues apace, and the story is coming along nicely (even if I say so myself!). Subscribe to my author profile if you'd like to get a notification when I start posting it. 

See you soon, and stay spooky
Idrils Scribe