A Beautiful Poison by Idrils Scribe

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The Fall

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“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. 

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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

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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