In the Darkness by Independence1776

Some Folk We Never Forget

My thanks to Rhapsody for the beta!

“What was the scariest thing you’ve ever seen?”

Maglor looked askance at the man sitting diagonally from him across the nearly new-- but still stained and marked-- wooden table. Two of the other men gathered around it laughed, though a couple more looked disturbed. Maglor wondered what they’d seen, but living near Mirkwood was bound to cause something unsettling. The other people-- like Maglor himself-- had come to Dale for the fifth year anniversary celebration of Smaug’s death and the return of the King Under the Mountain.

It was two weeks long, culminating in a large feast in the streets of the city itself for the common folk, and a feast inside the mountain for Dain II’s guests. If Maglor had known the identity of two of the latter, he would never have come north. But as far south and east as he had been, the only rumor that had reached him was that Smaug was dead and that the Dwarves lived once more in the Lonely Mountain. There had been nothing about Thranduil’s actions, or of the battle that took place. But the rumor of a rebuilt city had been enough to tickle his curiosity. And large celebrations always needed musicians.

So he had come, signed a contract, and now he was stuck. There were enough people here from various lands that if he left now, he’d be untrusted to hold contracts in some cities where he normally could find work. His only option now was to avoid the Elves-- and hope they didn't spot him. The Dwarves didn’t concern him.

Someone getting up to use the privy jostled the table, breaking Maglor out of his thoughts. Reflexively, he scanned the room, but he saw nothing of note-- just people eating and drinking after a hard day’s work of setting up the booths and decorations, as well as the day-to-day life that couldn’t stop.

Rathi, a man from Laketown, said, “It’s obvious, isn’t it? It was the night King Bard killed Smaug. To have a dragon rushing down on you, knowing there was nothing to defeat it and that even the lake was scant protection? Everyone lost family or friends that night. We’re just lucky King Bard hit the only vulnerable spot on that beast’s breast.”

A few murmurs of agreement rose, but a visitor from Gondor said, “Yeah, okay. That’s plenty terrifying. But I’ve heard enough about the dragon already. Surely someone’s seen something else?”

One of the other visitors, a musician like Maglor, nudged the other’s arm. “And you can only speak to fighting off a poorly planned ambush by two highwaymen on your way up here with a caravan of goods. So shut up.”

Amid the hooting and laughter, Kolgrím-- another man from Laketown-- said, “It wasn’t the dragon for me.” He stared down into his mug of beer as the table quieted. “Mirkwood… It’s always been on our borders. The Elves say it was green and good once upon a time, but I have trouble believing that. And it used to be a bit of a dare for teenagers in Laketown to enter the borders--”

A woodsman from the western side of the forest snorted. “You try living there, son.”

Kolgrím shot him a disturbed look. “Everyone stopped when…” He shuddered. “There was a spring not far into the eastern edge. It was a good place to go if you wanted to say that you’d been in the forest-- far enough in you couldn’t see the edge, but close enough that it wasn’t utterly dark. There was a small waterfall tumbling down the rocks, and it gathered into a little pool with a lawn around it. And the pool trailed off into a little stream that eventually went into the swamps. It was a gorgeous place.

“And it killed my one of my best friends.” He looked up then, and the hair on the back of Maglor’s neck rose. That was near-- too near-- the Necromancer’s territory. “We guessed that it was a spirit of some sort. But Leiknir… he was drawn in. I don’t know what he saw. Because what I saw was nothing good.

“You have to understand. The Necromancer wasn’t a rumor, and we knew the forest was dark. But we were young, reckless, and thought no harm would come to us. No harm had in the past to people who’d visited there. But maybe we had been lulled into a trap.”

“So what happened?” the visitor from Gondor asked.

“I saw something that looked like an Elf. Only… it wasn’t. There was something wrong. You know that feeling you get when you’re alone and you hear something creaking in your house? That dread? That’s what I felt. But Leiknir walked toward it wearing a smile-- and it took him.

“It went inside him.” Kolgrím gulped a large swallow of beer. “I know he fought, because I could see it in his face. But the… thing… fought, too. Scratches by his own hand, unearthly screams. He eventually went into convulsions and died. Leiknir died that day, with all of his friends looking on, helpless.”

“Are you sure it was a spirit?” the visiting musician said.

“With the Necromancer living nearby? Of course we were!”

Maglor shivered. A Houseless Elf, likely called by the Necromancer, and gone only Eru knew where now. He hoped it wasn’t east. Maglor leaned forward. “How did you escape?”

“We ran, after the spirit started leaking out of his body. We never buried him.”

“I’m sorry,” the woodsman, a man named Nollarr, said. “Fire would have driven it away from that spot, though too late to save your friend.”

“Did anything like that happen to you?”

Nollarr shook his head. “We were raised to avoid what felt like good spots. They usually weren’t. But even with the Necromancer gone, there have been problems. A new creature wandering the wood likes to drink blood. It’s killed animals, young ones. And it’s crawled into our homes to do the same to two babes in cradles. We’ve tried hunting it, and the Elves picked up a trail that led here. So consider this your warning. Something evil is out there.”

Several men nodded, and the man from Gondor looked at Maglor. “No stories from anyone else?”

Maglor said, “I think we’ve heard enough, don’t you?”

“I’m sure a wandering bard like you knows some good ones,” he shot back.

Nightmares of the Darkness of Ungoliant still haunted him nearly seven thousand years later. That was the one time he could have been called a coward, and he wouldn’t have contested it. He shuddered at the memory. And the sight of the Doomsman standing above them on the shore… The Curse and Doom that followed… “I do not wish to relive them.”

“And I don’t wish to hear any more, either,” Kolgrím said. “This isn’t a game or a contest.” He glanced into his mug. “I’ll buy everyone another round.”

A few mutters of agreement, and the conversation switched to lighter matters. The man from Gondor eventually wandered away to another table, and Maglor could occasionally hear snatches of conversation where they were trying to outdo one another with tales of horror.

After another hour or so, Maglor begged off when Kolgrím did and they left the tavern together. The stars shone steadily above them, and their breaths misted in front of their faces. Kolgrím tried to hide it, but he jumped when shadows twitched in the torchlight. Maglor bit his lip and said, “You couldn’t have done anything. It was a Houseless--”

“I know exactly what it is. The Elves told me years ago.” He glanced at Maglor. “I’m not surprised you know. You look like you’ve seen a lot.”

Given how long he’d been alive, that was an understatement. “Some of the tales I can tell would ensure you would never sleep again.”

Kolgrím snorted and started walking again, turning into a more crowded thoroughfare. Maglor dodged around an amorous mortal couple unaware of anything around them, and caught up to the man he’d met on the barge from Laketown. Kolgrím said, “Not all of them you lived through.”

“Hardly all.” Maglor would be a poor bard if he didn’t collect stories and songs. “But enough.”

Eventually, they separated and Maglor continued onward to the boarding house where he had a room for the duration of the festival. The streets were no less crowded near it, and the only reason he had his own room was because he was a hired musician and not merely a visitor. But the festival officially began in the morning, and it meant people were celebrating early. So he had to dodge quite a few drunken revelers, nearly running into a pair of Elves as he did so. He ducked his head, muttered an apology in the local language, and hurried onward, not daring to look back in case one of them did. It was one thing to be a slightly clumsy man on a crowded street. It was another to be recognized as a Noldo.