Post by Admin on Mar 2, 2021 4:31:30 GMT
Author: Morcondil
Challenge: Renewal
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Former slaves of Nurn, Bergil, Faramir, Shelob
Content Warnings: death, mild sexual content
Summary: An eight-legged monster is terrorizing the former slaves of Nurn. Oppressed, forgotten—they are powerless against this Shadow. One desperate boy travels into the West to petition the High King for aid. Yet even the greatest heroes are fallible. (Or: the final tale of Shelob the spider.)
If you would like to leave a review for the author, they have published this story on FanFiction.net and Archive Of Our Own (AO3)
“Shelob was gone; and whether she lay long in her lair, nursing her malice and her misery, and in slow years of darkness healed herself from within, rebuilding her clustered eyes, until with hunger like death she spun once more her dreadful snares in the glens of the Mountains of Shadow, this take does not tell.” — The Lord of the Rings, “The Choices of Master Samwise”
#
The monster comes in the night. The villagers sleep fitfully, fearful of the clack-clack-clack of creeping claws. It has been a decade since the Dark Tower was cast down, but still the land of Nurn is not cleansed. Bands of rogue Orcs raid fields and loot houses; still darker things lurk in the mists.
Izri remembers only dimly the days when his people bowed under the yoke of the Red Eye. He had seen seven harvests when the tall white men came on their horses. Their leader was named King-elessar, and he wore a winged crown. He told the slaves of Nurn they were slaves no longer, that the ashy fields they cultivated were their own. King-elessar spoke in a loud voice, and the people rejoiced. But then he rode away and did not return. The slave-drivers did not return either, and this at least gladdened his people’s hearts.
But it takes more than a tall white man declaring freedom in a loud voice for a slave to truly be free. There are cages of the mind that words cannot unlatch. Izri watches his parents, bent and broken, aged beyond their years. He has never seen his mother smile.
At night Izri still dreams of the slave-drivers’ fiery-hot whips.
The monster comes more often now. On moonless nights it creeps close on eight hooked legs, into the very heart of Izri’s village. The monster snatches goats from their pens until there are no animals left to take. But still its hunger is unsatisfied. Some nights, the door-latches of their huts rattle. Izri travels to all the settlements around the Sea of Núrnen, and they report the same. An ancient woman of nearly sixty harvest tells Izri a tale of a bloated spider with cruel eyes that wove webs in the high mountains. “Rumors,” she says, “often bear truth on their wings.”
Izri returns to his village. When the sun sets his parents bar the door and sleep with sharp knives clutched to their chests.
The attacks stop.
“You see, my son,” says Izri’s father, “it was but a passing shadow. All will be well again.”
The villagers soften and return to their business. The harvest that year is good; some of the young people host a celebration by the quiet seashore. They drink home-brewed ale and dance without music. For once, the elders do not try to stop them.
This is when Hina is taken.
Hina is Izri’s youngest sister, born after the Dark Tower fell. She laughed often, and loudly; no fears of whips or tortured haunted her days. She dreamed of bright stars and strange lands. When she fetched water from the well, Hina sang about King-elessar and his speedy horse. She was a single flame, shining through the fog of remembered misery.
The villagers find Hina’s body many leagues to the north, where the mountains pierce the sky. Her slight form is wrapped in cobwebs and smells of rot. The monster’s claw-marks are all around.
Izri weeps for Hina. She was the only good thing in a desolate land.
“That’s why the monster took her,” says Izri’s mother. “Darkness detests that which is unlike itself.”
Izri’s father says nothing, but his eyes are red with weeping.
Izri sits with them on the dirt floor of their hut. Outside the mourners are wailing. “It comes from the mountains in the north-west,” he tells his parents. “I have seen its many-footed tracks leading back to the ensorcelled vales. We should take a party and drive out the monster before it returns for more of our children.”
Izri’s father shakes his head. “That would be worse than useless, my son. We are farmers, not warriors. What could our clumsy knives and scythes do against so fearsome a Shadow?”
“My daughter is dead,” says his mother, “and I would that the monster took me next.” She cups her thin hands over her eyes and weeps.
Whatever his parents may say, Izri is unwilling to allow the specter of death haunt them without challenge. He is nineteen and bold; fear plagues him, but it is not bred in the bone as it is with the elders. “We must do something,” he says.
“What would you have us do?” Izri’s father sweeps his hand across the bare room. “We are nothing to this monster. Like flies, it plucks us from its webs.”
Izri’s mind races, but his thoughts find no foothold. Then: “King-elessar! King-elessar will help us.”
His mother continues to weep; his father shakes his head. “The white man will not come,” he says, “and even if he would hunt this monster, how shall we seek his aid? We do not know where his house stands.”
The words are prudent, but Izri’s young spirit is undaunted. Now the idea has been spoken aloud, he is resolute. “I will go,” he tells them. “I will go to King-elessar and tell him of the monster. He will ride his swift horse to Nurn and slay the monster with his sword.
“King-elessar will save us,” says Izri to his parents, although the promise is not his to make.
#
Izri sets out the next morning as the sun begins to shine weakly upon the sad sea. His parents do not leave their beds to see him off, for they call his mission a foolish one. His father vows that he will surely perish long before he ever finds King-elessar in his distant city. One child already has been lost to the monster; his mother says she cannot lose another.
Izri shoulders his pack, which holds a bedroll and all the provisions his family can spare. The pre-dawn air is watchful and still. It has been five days since Hina was taken—the Shadow will soon claim its next meal. The village huddles on the Núrnen’s north shore, so he walks northwest, toward the long line of mountains that separates fertile fields from the ruined plateau of Gorgoroth. Somewhere beyond the ridgeline is the realm of King-elessar, where men stand strong and unafraid.
The journey will be long, but Izri’s feet are eager. He has not seen enough years to be weary and stingy when doling out compassion. Toiling in the fields does not yet dull his thought or close his mind to the allure of distant lands. His tongue still thirsts for new waters. It is not until the end of the third day, when he stands on the edge of Gorgoroth, that his optimism falters.
The ruin of Orodruin dominates the skyline. The mount has crumbled, but its foundations remain. No vegetation clings to the desolate plain; a fell wind from the north stirs the dust and ash. Izri stares across the vast remnant of a mighty evil, and the evidence leaves him shaken. It is to serve this Power that his grandparents were stolen from their homelands to plant and harvest and sweat. The Lidless Eye is dimmed forever, but the land of Mordor does not forget.
Now the path becomes difficult. Izri walks with care, for the writhen rocks are jagged and unpredictable. Noisome vapors swirl up from the blackened lava flows. Not a creature moves across the dark expanse of land. He is an unwelcome witness to Gorgoroth’s destruction.
Izri does not know the way through the encircling mountains, but surely there must be a pass. To the west lies King-elessar’s country; so to the west Izri turns his steps. The white men call these mountains Ephel Dúath, but Izri’s people name them The Cage. Beyond their peaks, the freed slaves dare not tread. The land of Nurn was only ever meant to be a prison, and so it remains.
By slow steps and careful thought, Izri crosses the shadowed mountains. Sometimes he chooses the wrong way and so becomes lost in a ravine with no way out; then he turns back and begins anew. The mazes of sharp stone are cunning, and they do not give up their secrets willingly. A fog of confusion lingers in the dales.
Still Izri presses onward into the light of the setting sun.
Following a clear cold stream, he comes at last to the western slopes of the Ephel Dúath. The water flows easily here, and the evil stench of Gorgoroth fades. Izri sleeps soundly by the trickling rill. For once, his dreams are not troubled by the sting of whips or the clack-clack-clack of the monster’s many feet. He wakes refreshed. The sun rises ripe and yellow, and the ferns on the streambank smell sweet.
Now to find King-elessar. Now to save his village.
Izri hikes down into the gray-green foothills. As he descends, the land becomes gentler and more forgiving. The stream widens—the waters sparkle in the new-risen sun. There are trees here, and white flowers crown their branches. A strange, chirrupy sound stops Izri in his tracks. He reaches for the knife at his belt. Leaves rustle in a squat bush on the sandy bank.
A small, winged creature flies out of the shrubbery. It alights near the edge of the stream and begins to wash its brown-and-black plumage. While it bathes, the creature chirrups again.
Izri sinks to his knees, overcome. A bird.
There are birds in Nurn. Great black predators wheel in the pale-gray sky and plague the farmers as they till the earth. Their cries are raucous and cruel. If they bathe themselves, it does not lessen their stink. In the time before the Fall, great beasts flew above Mordor, ridden by ghosts and foul spirits.
Yet here is a small, friendly bird, no bigger than Izri’s closed fist. Its feathers are delicate and its song sweet. The memory of Gorgoroth’s desolation weakens as the bird sings. Izri kneels in the sun-dappled valley and feels something he thought had abandoned him long before: hope. A single tear slides down his dirty cheek.
This is when the sharp point of a knife is pressed against his back and a stern voice says “Halt—do not move! In the name of the king, declare yourself, or suffer the consequences.”
#
Izri’s captors are tall men dressed in green and brown. They wield long knives and longer bows. Their pale faces and gray eyes are unreadable; neither acceptance nor disbelief crosses their features when Izri explained his errand. They give him no answer, but bid him to come with them to consult their chief.
Now they walk through broad dales as the land curls away from the Ephel Dúath. Izri’s hands are unbound, but he knows better than to flee. Four bowmen surround him; perhaps yet more linger in the tall reeds and bushes. He begins to wish he had never left Nurn.
“Please,” Izri says to the back of the leader, “please, I am no threat to you. I mean no harm.”
There is no response.
For all the rest of that day, Izri walks. His captors are grave and unflagging. The sun rises to its zenith, then begins to sink again. They wend their way through a thickening forest and close-hung moss. The air is still fragrant with sweet herbs, but Izri takes no comfort. Even a beautiful land can be dangerous. Some of the women in his village say that white men are cannibals; he wonders if he is walking towards a bloody end.
Purple shadows creep across the green valley when the bowmen call a halt. They have come to a broad clearing at the foot of a grassy upland. Lilies and asphodel dot the turf, and sleepy bees tumble from the blooms. A white pavilion with gold pennants stands in the center of the meadow. A fair-skinned man with raven hair sits at the mouth of the tent; before him is a table with meat and wine. Izri’s stomach clenches, and he realizes he is famished.
“My lord,” says one of Izri’s captors, “we found this boy just south of the Morgulduin. He was alone and claims to be on an errand of great importance.”
The pale lord studies Izri with clear eyes. His gaze is keen and penetrating. Izri quakes in his thin shoes. This is not King-elessar, but Izri thinks perhaps this man is worse: at his feet lies a bright sword, and the hooded men crowded into the clearing carry spears. After some moments, the white man speaks.
“I am Faramir, prince of these lands,” he says to Izri. “Speak your errand now, for my time is precious.”
“I am come to beg his excellency, King-elessar, for help,” Izri says in stumbling tones. “My people are hunted by an old Shadow from the time before.”
“A Shadow, you say?”
“Yes, lord.” Izri clasps his hands before him to stop their trembling. “The old women of Nurn tell of a great monster that lived in the mountains during the time of the Great Eye. We thought it was no more than a wives’ tale, but then the monster began to take our goats from their pens. But when the animals had all been eaten, the Shadow still came. Not a sennight before I set out for these lands, it took—” Izri chokes, unable to say Hina’s name aloud. “The monster took a little girl,” he whispers.
There is no change in the lord Faramir’s face, but Izri thinks perhaps the firm set of his mouth relaxes. “I am grieved to hear of this,” he says. “Many were the devices of the Enemy, and long must we fight before they are no more.”
Izri bows his head.
“Tell me more of this monster,” says Faramir. “I cannot offer counsel against a foe I do not know.”
“I have not seen it, lord—none of us have. It comes only on starless nights when the dark is deepest. But,” he hesitates, then plunges ahead: “the old women say it is a bloated spider with eyes like knives. Truly, the monster leaves many-footed tracks upon the earth, and I have seen one of its victims wrapped in silken threads.”
A strained silence pervades the clearing. The white men’s faces grow grim, and they finger their weapons. The lord Faramir is frozen in his seat, and his gray eyes turn inward. Finally, he touches his forehead as if in remembrance. “Shelob,” he says.
Izri knows not what this portends, but he shivers all the same.
#
The prince dwells on a high hill overlooking the Anduin. His stone house is surrounded by carefully-tended gardens and green lawns. It is here that Izri is brought, for the lord Faramir tells him it will be some days before council can be taken and advice sought. King-elessar, Izri learns, does not dwell in this land (called Ithilien), and messages must be sent to him and a reply awaited.
The lord Faramir explains he is but a vassal of King-elessar and that he guards the moonlit valleys against any remnants of evil that attempt to cross the river. From his home in Emyn Arnen he keeps watch over the eastern shore of the Great River. “And while I am gone on patrol, the Lady of Ithilien heals the land with gracious fingers,” says Faramir.
Faramir takes him through a wide wooden door into a great stone room with a hearth that rises taller than Izri himself. The prince bids him wait until someone comes to attend to his needs. Izri takes in the wonders of the Prince’s house in stricken silence.
The room is empty, but various tools are laid out as if only recently abandoned by their owners. A long trestle table dominates the space. Upon it rests a half-dressed goose as well as a brace of unskinned rabbits. The air is fragrant with herbs and spices, niceties unknown to the former slaves of Nurn. Beyond the table are stacked barrels; strange symbols are etched onto their sides but Izri knows not their significance. He wonders if they are the reading-signs devised by white men. A huge copper pot simmers over the hearthstone.
It is clear that a great feast is being prepared in the lord Faramir’s house. Izri wonders at the occasion. The time of harvest is not yet nigh; the spring nights are long and chill.
Footsteps echo from beyond the arched door. Izri remembers again the tales of white men’s cannibalism. Mayhap he is to be the main dish on the prince’s table this night. He touches his knife, but knows the weapon would be nothing against the bright swords of Faramir’s men.
“Hail and well met!” A lone man enters the chamber where Izri waits in readiness to flee. His cheeks are smooth and rosy. “I am Bergil son of Beregond.”
“I am called Izri,” says Izri. He parrots back the words addressed to him: “Hail and well met.”
Bergil smiles, and Izri sees he is younger than he looked on first sight. They are of an age, both no more than two decades old. Yet the other boy is tall and slim in the way of white men; Izri is short and muscled from heavy toil. His skin, brown at birth, has been burnt nearly black from years cultivating his parents’ fields.
“There is talk you come from the land near the Sea of Núrnen.”
Izri gestures assent. He is conscious of his rough tunic and threadbare sandals; he wishes desperately for this stranger to think well of him, though he cannot articulate the reason.
“That is a far journey from a distant land,” says Bergil. “I myself hail from Minas Tirith, but the lord Faramir has taken my family into his service and so I now dwell here in Emyn Arnen, where the waters are sweet and pure.”
“Minas Tirith?” Izri’s tongue is clumsy over the strange name.
“The White City, nestled against the eastern flank of the Ered Nimrais. My father was once a soldier in the Third Company, but now he is the Captain of the White Company. You met him earlier, I think, though he has departed again to patrol the borders.”
Izri remembers only the sharp weapons of the white men. Perhaps he did meet this boy’s father. That is no matter. He gathers his purpose and asks the question of greatest importance: “Do you know King-elessar, the chief of these lands?”
Bergil’s slim eyebrows raise. He crosses his arms before his chest and leans against the hewn-stone wall. “The king? I know him in the way a devoted citizen knows his monarch, but I do not think that is the answer you seek.”
It is not. Izri begins to feel a frantic sickness rise, somewhere below his heart. He must speak with King-elessar so that he might comprehend the frightful Shadow that stalks Izri’s people. The lord Faramir has promised only to send messengers to seek counsel of King-elessar. This is not enough; the messengers cannot speak of his people’s despair. They did not see Hina’s tiny body, wrapped in the monster’s web.
“I must speak with him,” says Izri aloud. “I have come to petition his aid.”
Bergil nods but makes no answer. There is a look of discernment in his pale eyes that Izri mislikes. At length, the other boy says: “Come, and I shall take you to the sleeping place prepared by the Lady of Ithilien’s hand.”
“I...what?” Izri falters. “Am I not permitted to sleep here in the lord Faramir’s house?”
Bergil looks at him keenly. “Of course you are, Izri. This room is merely one of the kitchens—better apartments have been prepared for you abovestairs. Follow me, and I will take you to them.”
Better apartments! Izri flushes hot with shame and dismay. He imagines what his parents would say to an entire chamber dedicated only to cooking. He trails after the other boy in silence.
#
Izri tarries in the house of the Prince of Ithilien for long, uncounted days. The lord Faramir promises that the Shadow will be slain, that safety will return to the fields of Nurn. He does not say when that day will be, nor does he explain why King-elessar does not come.
Perhaps, Izri thinks, King-elessar is naught but a myth: a being invented by lesser minds. He himself has dim memories of a grim man on a tall horse, but perhaps his thoughts play false. If there is no King-elessar, there can be no savior.
Some times before sleep he thinks of his parents, who now cultivate their fields alone. Do they think him dead? Do they mourn for their only son? Perhaps they sit by the sad waters of the sea and feed it with their tears. He knows not.
Young Bergil is Izri’s constant companion during these days. From him, Izri learns the ways of the white man. He visits the well-ordered garden of the White Lady of Rohan and learns the names of the herbs she grows there. Bergil shows him the prince’s library, full of scrolls covered in strange markings and shadowy maps. At night he tells Izri tales of the great war that raged across Middle-earth and of how all was saved by a half-man casting a ring into the Mountain of Fire.
Izri misbelieves this last story, but he is too overawed of Bergil’s knowledge to challenge him.
One day, Bergil takes him to a quiet pool surrounded by reeds that rustle in a sweet breeze. The boys strip off their clothes and dive beneath the surface, holding their breath until their lungs are afire. The water is cold and crisp, but Bergil and Izri laugh and splash for some time. They are young and full of the vitality of men who still look forward to tomorrow’s rising sun.
When he has exhausted himself, Izri pulls his chilled body onto a long, flat rock and basks facedown in the sunshine. Bergil sloshes out of the water behind him.
“Ai!” the other boy exclaims. “Izri, what has happened to you?”
Izri pushes up on his forearms to see Bergil’s face. The boy stares stricken at him, as if he has seen a wraith. Izri understands his friend’s dismay only when he realizes Bergil has seen the tree of scars that covers his back and buttocks. Long, ropelike weals crawl across his skin in the manner of vines twisting around a pillar. The marks are worst on Izri’s shoulders, where the slave-drivers’ whips cut deepest.
“It is nothing,” he assures his friend. “They are wounds from long ago. I am not pained by them today.”
Bergil still stares. Izri itches uncomfortably in his skin and wishes he had never disrobed. He feels humiliated, though he has done no wrong. He hastens to explain: “My grandparents once lived in the land you call Khand, but men in black cloaks came to their village and took them to the Sea of Núrnen where they were forced to labor in the fields. My parents were born there, as was I. These marks are naught but a reminder of the time before King-elessar came and released my people from bondage. Think not of it, Bergil,” he urged. “That time has passed.”
The other boy crouches to kneel closer to Izri. Slowly he stretches out a hand and touches the center of Izri’s back. His skin tingles at the contact. He feels bare and exposed—it is more than a mere nakedness of body. Izri feels as if his very soul is bared to the sun.
“You would have been so young,” murmurs Bergil. “So young to feel the bite of the lash.”
Izri shrugs. He will not dwell on such things, for that way lies madness and despair. “The overseers started the children in the fields after their fourth spring. I was nearly eight when King-elessar came. Truly, my suffering is nothing compared to that of my parents.”
A single tear slides down Bergil’s white cheek.
“When you return to Nurn,” he says, “I will go with you.”
Izri says nothing, but his silence is an acquiescence of its own. He wishes to kiss Bergil, and so he does. It is a bittersweet kiss, but the press of the boys’ naked bodies against each other brings a strange new warmth to their limbs.
The wind rustles curiously through the trees.
#
At last, the day comes when the lord Faramir tells Izri that all is in readiness to set out after the Shadow. A sortie has been chosen, a lieutenant appointed. Scouts have charted the paths taken by the eight-legged monster; her lair has been unearthed. They leave Ithilien on the morrow.
“And King-elessar?” asks Izri of the prince. “He will travel with us on his swift horse?”
“Nay,” replies Faramir in sober tones. “The king is much occupied with a famine in Lossarnach and Orc raids in Eriador. I have been granted the government of Gondor while he is absent. But fear not, for I and my advisers have taken all into account.”
Izri is bitter that night. In the ash-blown land of Nurn, his people speak with hope of the day when King-elssar shall return. Songs are sung of his fair face and long sword, bright as the noon-day sun. Izri remembers Hina, his sister—she has died in the jaws of a Shadow that King-elessar might have protected her from, had he only had a care for those he once liberated. He sees now that more important are the needs of white men who dwell in strange-sounding places like Lossarnach and Eriador.
Bergil attempts to console him, but Izri will not be comforted. It is a merciless pain, the hurt a boy feels when first he realizes his heroes are but mortal men.
He sleeps and dreams of the slave-drivers’ whips at his back.
#
Izri and Bergil and the prince’s sortie stand on the front porch. The morning is frosty but fair. Faramir himself sees them off, and a tall golden-haired woman stands by his side. This is the lady Éowyn, of whom all the White Company sing praises. Izri bows clumsily before her.
“Rise,” she says, “and see the gifts I have prepared for you.”
The lady presses into his hands a bouquet of dried sweetbriar; the pink roses are fragrant and delicate. Éowyn gives him also a box of dried herbs and linen bandages, so that he might tend the hurts of his people. Lastly, she gives him a helm of polished steel, which covers all of his curled dark hair.
“Though we are far from your land, remember your friends in Ithilien when you may,” she says. Then she disappears into the house, leaving a wholesome fragrance in her wake.
From the prince comes sage advice, spoken in quiet tones: “Be swift and unseen. Leave no footprints behind, and drink not from any of the waters flowing through the Black Land. When the fell creature, Shelob, is destroyed, then you must return swiftly by the road whence you came. Do all this and be glad in your hearts, for you are in the service of the Winged Crown, and none may stand against you for long.”
The sortie sets off, marching in two columns toward the east. Booted feet fall lightly on the graveled path. A chorus of lilting birdsong accompanies their steps. Izri flexes his arms inside the tunic and surcoat the prince’s servants gave him last night and feels like a young god. His new-made boots are supple and soft.
Bergil walks tall at Izri’s side. The livery of the White Company fit his frame well. He looks grim and solemn and deadly; vengeance shines from his pale brow. Izri wonders what the farmers of Nurn will make of this companion.
“Did you tell your father of your plans?” he whispers as they walk through an open vale. “Did he give his blessing?”
“Nay, for I did not ask,” Bergil whispers in return. “Oftimes with Captain Beregond, it is best to seek mercy for an act already done than beg consent for a deed only contemplated.”
Izri nods but makes no reply. The duties of fathers and sons among white men are far removed from his own experience. Filial obedience is neither demanded nor prized among his kin. When the whole energy of a people is focused on subsistence, the rearing of children occurs only in the slivers of time between work and sleep.
They march on, wending their way across streams and through dales. The high spires of the Ephel Dúath creep ever closer. A metallic scent floats on listless breezes. Birdsong has long ceased; now Izri hears only the anxious hammering of his own heart.
#
Slaying the monster proves to be anticlimactic. Izri finds he does not mind.
Based on intelligence received from the lord Faramir’s scouts, the sortie climbs into the Ephel Dúath. Shelob’s lair is no more than a gaping hole in the side of the mountain. A foul stench emanates from its maw, and muculent bones lie scattered about. Izri imagines the fearful end his sister must have faced. He stands tall, sword at the ready, awaiting the lieutenant's signal.
The fight is over in minutes. As if summoned, the monster emerges from her cave. Shelob is monstrous: black and massive. Fell mist clings to her form. Izri quakes with fright before her snapping jaws and gray-green eyes, but the men of the White Company are undaunted. Heavy arrows pierce the spider’s thick carapace; spears penetrate her many-eyed head. Blades make swift work of the Shadow that threatened to destroy the people of Nurn.
With a final shriek, Shelob collapses. She twitches—clack-clack-clack sing her legs for the last time. Then all is still.
They burn the carcass and stop up the cave with rocks. In time, other foul creatures may come to dwell in the Ephel Dúath, but now the specter of Shelob is banished for good. Izri feels numb. He is relieved and grateful to the white men, but his chest burns with shame that they should so easily defeat a foe that kept his people in constant terror. He is reminded of his own frailty and likes it not.
It is time for the White Company to return to Ithilien. Farewells are said by all; forearms are grasped in the customary way of brothers-at-arms after a worthy victory. Bergil announces his intent to travel to the land of Nurn with Izri. The soldiers’ keen glances betray their misgivings, but they say naught. Bergil is a man grown and free to make his own mistakes.
“To tell the truth, my friend,” says Bergil after the sortie has disappeared back down the western slope of the mountains, “I pity the one who must convey to my father what I have done.”
Izri clasps Bergil’s empty hand in his. “Let’s go home,” he says.
#
Almost four months after he set out, Izri returns to his parents’ village. Bergil strides hale and strong at his side. With the help of the White Company, they have vanquished Shelob the shadow-spider; now they come to renew the lands she once haunted.
The villagers are at work in the fields when they arrive, but they run quickly at the sight of two strangers on the horizon. In moments, the two boys are surrounded by a throng of astonished men, women, and children. Izri’s mother crushes him to her bosom.
“I thought you had gone into the Void, never to return,” she says. Her rough fingers touch his cheeks and nose. She traces the familiar planes of Izri’s face as if to ensure that her eyes are not deceived.
Beyond his mother’s arms, astonished children exclaim over Bergil’s pale skin and pale eyes. Their elders goggle at the other boy’s embroidered vest and finely crafted weapons. Izri’s mother turns also to take in Bergil’s appearance. When she brings her attention back to her son, an odd, fevered look consumes her expression.
Izri is uncomfortable with the deference he finds in his parent’s face.
“Did you then speak with King-elessar as he sat upon his high seat in the land of the white men?” asks Izri’s mother. His father attends to their conversation with interest.
Izri looks at his parents. Their sun-browned cheeks are sunken with heavy toil, but a flame of new hope shines from their dark eyes. He cannot bear to extinguish it with truth. “Yes, my mother,” he says, “I spoke with him, and it is King-elessar himself who slew the monster.”
“Ai-yi-yi-ee!” His mother ululates at the glad tidings. “May the gods of the white men bless his days!”
Izri says nothing, but his mother’s joy lightens his mood.
That night, the former slaves of Nurn celebrate along the seashore. They have little food for a feast, but laughter suffices to fill the empty hollows of their stomachs. For the second time in Izri’s life, the word freedom is spoken amongst his people. He watches them but cannot join in the revelry. King-elessar did not come; the victory is hollow.
From his place at his side, Bergil touches Izri’s shoulder.
“You have done them a great kindness, brother,” he says. Gray eyes whisper of love in a language beyond words.
Why then does Izri feel so somber?
He decides to celebrate after all. A woman plays an off-key tune on a clay pipe, and Izri joins the clumsy dance. Tonight, he will make merry and forget what he has seen. Tomorrow, he will begin the work of restoring that which the Shadow consumed.
Tomorrow, he will help his people begin anew.
Challenge: Renewal
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Former slaves of Nurn, Bergil, Faramir, Shelob
Content Warnings: death, mild sexual content
Summary: An eight-legged monster is terrorizing the former slaves of Nurn. Oppressed, forgotten—they are powerless against this Shadow. One desperate boy travels into the West to petition the High King for aid. Yet even the greatest heroes are fallible. (Or: the final tale of Shelob the spider.)
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“Shelob was gone; and whether she lay long in her lair, nursing her malice and her misery, and in slow years of darkness healed herself from within, rebuilding her clustered eyes, until with hunger like death she spun once more her dreadful snares in the glens of the Mountains of Shadow, this take does not tell.” — The Lord of the Rings, “The Choices of Master Samwise”
#
The monster comes in the night. The villagers sleep fitfully, fearful of the clack-clack-clack of creeping claws. It has been a decade since the Dark Tower was cast down, but still the land of Nurn is not cleansed. Bands of rogue Orcs raid fields and loot houses; still darker things lurk in the mists.
Izri remembers only dimly the days when his people bowed under the yoke of the Red Eye. He had seen seven harvests when the tall white men came on their horses. Their leader was named King-elessar, and he wore a winged crown. He told the slaves of Nurn they were slaves no longer, that the ashy fields they cultivated were their own. King-elessar spoke in a loud voice, and the people rejoiced. But then he rode away and did not return. The slave-drivers did not return either, and this at least gladdened his people’s hearts.
But it takes more than a tall white man declaring freedom in a loud voice for a slave to truly be free. There are cages of the mind that words cannot unlatch. Izri watches his parents, bent and broken, aged beyond their years. He has never seen his mother smile.
At night Izri still dreams of the slave-drivers’ fiery-hot whips.
The monster comes more often now. On moonless nights it creeps close on eight hooked legs, into the very heart of Izri’s village. The monster snatches goats from their pens until there are no animals left to take. But still its hunger is unsatisfied. Some nights, the door-latches of their huts rattle. Izri travels to all the settlements around the Sea of Núrnen, and they report the same. An ancient woman of nearly sixty harvest tells Izri a tale of a bloated spider with cruel eyes that wove webs in the high mountains. “Rumors,” she says, “often bear truth on their wings.”
Izri returns to his village. When the sun sets his parents bar the door and sleep with sharp knives clutched to their chests.
The attacks stop.
“You see, my son,” says Izri’s father, “it was but a passing shadow. All will be well again.”
The villagers soften and return to their business. The harvest that year is good; some of the young people host a celebration by the quiet seashore. They drink home-brewed ale and dance without music. For once, the elders do not try to stop them.
This is when Hina is taken.
Hina is Izri’s youngest sister, born after the Dark Tower fell. She laughed often, and loudly; no fears of whips or tortured haunted her days. She dreamed of bright stars and strange lands. When she fetched water from the well, Hina sang about King-elessar and his speedy horse. She was a single flame, shining through the fog of remembered misery.
The villagers find Hina’s body many leagues to the north, where the mountains pierce the sky. Her slight form is wrapped in cobwebs and smells of rot. The monster’s claw-marks are all around.
Izri weeps for Hina. She was the only good thing in a desolate land.
“That’s why the monster took her,” says Izri’s mother. “Darkness detests that which is unlike itself.”
Izri’s father says nothing, but his eyes are red with weeping.
Izri sits with them on the dirt floor of their hut. Outside the mourners are wailing. “It comes from the mountains in the north-west,” he tells his parents. “I have seen its many-footed tracks leading back to the ensorcelled vales. We should take a party and drive out the monster before it returns for more of our children.”
Izri’s father shakes his head. “That would be worse than useless, my son. We are farmers, not warriors. What could our clumsy knives and scythes do against so fearsome a Shadow?”
“My daughter is dead,” says his mother, “and I would that the monster took me next.” She cups her thin hands over her eyes and weeps.
Whatever his parents may say, Izri is unwilling to allow the specter of death haunt them without challenge. He is nineteen and bold; fear plagues him, but it is not bred in the bone as it is with the elders. “We must do something,” he says.
“What would you have us do?” Izri’s father sweeps his hand across the bare room. “We are nothing to this monster. Like flies, it plucks us from its webs.”
Izri’s mind races, but his thoughts find no foothold. Then: “King-elessar! King-elessar will help us.”
His mother continues to weep; his father shakes his head. “The white man will not come,” he says, “and even if he would hunt this monster, how shall we seek his aid? We do not know where his house stands.”
The words are prudent, but Izri’s young spirit is undaunted. Now the idea has been spoken aloud, he is resolute. “I will go,” he tells them. “I will go to King-elessar and tell him of the monster. He will ride his swift horse to Nurn and slay the monster with his sword.
“King-elessar will save us,” says Izri to his parents, although the promise is not his to make.
#
Izri sets out the next morning as the sun begins to shine weakly upon the sad sea. His parents do not leave their beds to see him off, for they call his mission a foolish one. His father vows that he will surely perish long before he ever finds King-elessar in his distant city. One child already has been lost to the monster; his mother says she cannot lose another.
Izri shoulders his pack, which holds a bedroll and all the provisions his family can spare. The pre-dawn air is watchful and still. It has been five days since Hina was taken—the Shadow will soon claim its next meal. The village huddles on the Núrnen’s north shore, so he walks northwest, toward the long line of mountains that separates fertile fields from the ruined plateau of Gorgoroth. Somewhere beyond the ridgeline is the realm of King-elessar, where men stand strong and unafraid.
The journey will be long, but Izri’s feet are eager. He has not seen enough years to be weary and stingy when doling out compassion. Toiling in the fields does not yet dull his thought or close his mind to the allure of distant lands. His tongue still thirsts for new waters. It is not until the end of the third day, when he stands on the edge of Gorgoroth, that his optimism falters.
The ruin of Orodruin dominates the skyline. The mount has crumbled, but its foundations remain. No vegetation clings to the desolate plain; a fell wind from the north stirs the dust and ash. Izri stares across the vast remnant of a mighty evil, and the evidence leaves him shaken. It is to serve this Power that his grandparents were stolen from their homelands to plant and harvest and sweat. The Lidless Eye is dimmed forever, but the land of Mordor does not forget.
Now the path becomes difficult. Izri walks with care, for the writhen rocks are jagged and unpredictable. Noisome vapors swirl up from the blackened lava flows. Not a creature moves across the dark expanse of land. He is an unwelcome witness to Gorgoroth’s destruction.
Izri does not know the way through the encircling mountains, but surely there must be a pass. To the west lies King-elessar’s country; so to the west Izri turns his steps. The white men call these mountains Ephel Dúath, but Izri’s people name them The Cage. Beyond their peaks, the freed slaves dare not tread. The land of Nurn was only ever meant to be a prison, and so it remains.
By slow steps and careful thought, Izri crosses the shadowed mountains. Sometimes he chooses the wrong way and so becomes lost in a ravine with no way out; then he turns back and begins anew. The mazes of sharp stone are cunning, and they do not give up their secrets willingly. A fog of confusion lingers in the dales.
Still Izri presses onward into the light of the setting sun.
Following a clear cold stream, he comes at last to the western slopes of the Ephel Dúath. The water flows easily here, and the evil stench of Gorgoroth fades. Izri sleeps soundly by the trickling rill. For once, his dreams are not troubled by the sting of whips or the clack-clack-clack of the monster’s many feet. He wakes refreshed. The sun rises ripe and yellow, and the ferns on the streambank smell sweet.
Now to find King-elessar. Now to save his village.
Izri hikes down into the gray-green foothills. As he descends, the land becomes gentler and more forgiving. The stream widens—the waters sparkle in the new-risen sun. There are trees here, and white flowers crown their branches. A strange, chirrupy sound stops Izri in his tracks. He reaches for the knife at his belt. Leaves rustle in a squat bush on the sandy bank.
A small, winged creature flies out of the shrubbery. It alights near the edge of the stream and begins to wash its brown-and-black plumage. While it bathes, the creature chirrups again.
Izri sinks to his knees, overcome. A bird.
There are birds in Nurn. Great black predators wheel in the pale-gray sky and plague the farmers as they till the earth. Their cries are raucous and cruel. If they bathe themselves, it does not lessen their stink. In the time before the Fall, great beasts flew above Mordor, ridden by ghosts and foul spirits.
Yet here is a small, friendly bird, no bigger than Izri’s closed fist. Its feathers are delicate and its song sweet. The memory of Gorgoroth’s desolation weakens as the bird sings. Izri kneels in the sun-dappled valley and feels something he thought had abandoned him long before: hope. A single tear slides down his dirty cheek.
This is when the sharp point of a knife is pressed against his back and a stern voice says “Halt—do not move! In the name of the king, declare yourself, or suffer the consequences.”
#
Izri’s captors are tall men dressed in green and brown. They wield long knives and longer bows. Their pale faces and gray eyes are unreadable; neither acceptance nor disbelief crosses their features when Izri explained his errand. They give him no answer, but bid him to come with them to consult their chief.
Now they walk through broad dales as the land curls away from the Ephel Dúath. Izri’s hands are unbound, but he knows better than to flee. Four bowmen surround him; perhaps yet more linger in the tall reeds and bushes. He begins to wish he had never left Nurn.
“Please,” Izri says to the back of the leader, “please, I am no threat to you. I mean no harm.”
There is no response.
For all the rest of that day, Izri walks. His captors are grave and unflagging. The sun rises to its zenith, then begins to sink again. They wend their way through a thickening forest and close-hung moss. The air is still fragrant with sweet herbs, but Izri takes no comfort. Even a beautiful land can be dangerous. Some of the women in his village say that white men are cannibals; he wonders if he is walking towards a bloody end.
Purple shadows creep across the green valley when the bowmen call a halt. They have come to a broad clearing at the foot of a grassy upland. Lilies and asphodel dot the turf, and sleepy bees tumble from the blooms. A white pavilion with gold pennants stands in the center of the meadow. A fair-skinned man with raven hair sits at the mouth of the tent; before him is a table with meat and wine. Izri’s stomach clenches, and he realizes he is famished.
“My lord,” says one of Izri’s captors, “we found this boy just south of the Morgulduin. He was alone and claims to be on an errand of great importance.”
The pale lord studies Izri with clear eyes. His gaze is keen and penetrating. Izri quakes in his thin shoes. This is not King-elessar, but Izri thinks perhaps this man is worse: at his feet lies a bright sword, and the hooded men crowded into the clearing carry spears. After some moments, the white man speaks.
“I am Faramir, prince of these lands,” he says to Izri. “Speak your errand now, for my time is precious.”
“I am come to beg his excellency, King-elessar, for help,” Izri says in stumbling tones. “My people are hunted by an old Shadow from the time before.”
“A Shadow, you say?”
“Yes, lord.” Izri clasps his hands before him to stop their trembling. “The old women of Nurn tell of a great monster that lived in the mountains during the time of the Great Eye. We thought it was no more than a wives’ tale, but then the monster began to take our goats from their pens. But when the animals had all been eaten, the Shadow still came. Not a sennight before I set out for these lands, it took—” Izri chokes, unable to say Hina’s name aloud. “The monster took a little girl,” he whispers.
There is no change in the lord Faramir’s face, but Izri thinks perhaps the firm set of his mouth relaxes. “I am grieved to hear of this,” he says. “Many were the devices of the Enemy, and long must we fight before they are no more.”
Izri bows his head.
“Tell me more of this monster,” says Faramir. “I cannot offer counsel against a foe I do not know.”
“I have not seen it, lord—none of us have. It comes only on starless nights when the dark is deepest. But,” he hesitates, then plunges ahead: “the old women say it is a bloated spider with eyes like knives. Truly, the monster leaves many-footed tracks upon the earth, and I have seen one of its victims wrapped in silken threads.”
A strained silence pervades the clearing. The white men’s faces grow grim, and they finger their weapons. The lord Faramir is frozen in his seat, and his gray eyes turn inward. Finally, he touches his forehead as if in remembrance. “Shelob,” he says.
Izri knows not what this portends, but he shivers all the same.
#
The prince dwells on a high hill overlooking the Anduin. His stone house is surrounded by carefully-tended gardens and green lawns. It is here that Izri is brought, for the lord Faramir tells him it will be some days before council can be taken and advice sought. King-elessar, Izri learns, does not dwell in this land (called Ithilien), and messages must be sent to him and a reply awaited.
The lord Faramir explains he is but a vassal of King-elessar and that he guards the moonlit valleys against any remnants of evil that attempt to cross the river. From his home in Emyn Arnen he keeps watch over the eastern shore of the Great River. “And while I am gone on patrol, the Lady of Ithilien heals the land with gracious fingers,” says Faramir.
Faramir takes him through a wide wooden door into a great stone room with a hearth that rises taller than Izri himself. The prince bids him wait until someone comes to attend to his needs. Izri takes in the wonders of the Prince’s house in stricken silence.
The room is empty, but various tools are laid out as if only recently abandoned by their owners. A long trestle table dominates the space. Upon it rests a half-dressed goose as well as a brace of unskinned rabbits. The air is fragrant with herbs and spices, niceties unknown to the former slaves of Nurn. Beyond the table are stacked barrels; strange symbols are etched onto their sides but Izri knows not their significance. He wonders if they are the reading-signs devised by white men. A huge copper pot simmers over the hearthstone.
It is clear that a great feast is being prepared in the lord Faramir’s house. Izri wonders at the occasion. The time of harvest is not yet nigh; the spring nights are long and chill.
Footsteps echo from beyond the arched door. Izri remembers again the tales of white men’s cannibalism. Mayhap he is to be the main dish on the prince’s table this night. He touches his knife, but knows the weapon would be nothing against the bright swords of Faramir’s men.
“Hail and well met!” A lone man enters the chamber where Izri waits in readiness to flee. His cheeks are smooth and rosy. “I am Bergil son of Beregond.”
“I am called Izri,” says Izri. He parrots back the words addressed to him: “Hail and well met.”
Bergil smiles, and Izri sees he is younger than he looked on first sight. They are of an age, both no more than two decades old. Yet the other boy is tall and slim in the way of white men; Izri is short and muscled from heavy toil. His skin, brown at birth, has been burnt nearly black from years cultivating his parents’ fields.
“There is talk you come from the land near the Sea of Núrnen.”
Izri gestures assent. He is conscious of his rough tunic and threadbare sandals; he wishes desperately for this stranger to think well of him, though he cannot articulate the reason.
“That is a far journey from a distant land,” says Bergil. “I myself hail from Minas Tirith, but the lord Faramir has taken my family into his service and so I now dwell here in Emyn Arnen, where the waters are sweet and pure.”
“Minas Tirith?” Izri’s tongue is clumsy over the strange name.
“The White City, nestled against the eastern flank of the Ered Nimrais. My father was once a soldier in the Third Company, but now he is the Captain of the White Company. You met him earlier, I think, though he has departed again to patrol the borders.”
Izri remembers only the sharp weapons of the white men. Perhaps he did meet this boy’s father. That is no matter. He gathers his purpose and asks the question of greatest importance: “Do you know King-elessar, the chief of these lands?”
Bergil’s slim eyebrows raise. He crosses his arms before his chest and leans against the hewn-stone wall. “The king? I know him in the way a devoted citizen knows his monarch, but I do not think that is the answer you seek.”
It is not. Izri begins to feel a frantic sickness rise, somewhere below his heart. He must speak with King-elessar so that he might comprehend the frightful Shadow that stalks Izri’s people. The lord Faramir has promised only to send messengers to seek counsel of King-elessar. This is not enough; the messengers cannot speak of his people’s despair. They did not see Hina’s tiny body, wrapped in the monster’s web.
“I must speak with him,” says Izri aloud. “I have come to petition his aid.”
Bergil nods but makes no answer. There is a look of discernment in his pale eyes that Izri mislikes. At length, the other boy says: “Come, and I shall take you to the sleeping place prepared by the Lady of Ithilien’s hand.”
“I...what?” Izri falters. “Am I not permitted to sleep here in the lord Faramir’s house?”
Bergil looks at him keenly. “Of course you are, Izri. This room is merely one of the kitchens—better apartments have been prepared for you abovestairs. Follow me, and I will take you to them.”
Better apartments! Izri flushes hot with shame and dismay. He imagines what his parents would say to an entire chamber dedicated only to cooking. He trails after the other boy in silence.
#
Izri tarries in the house of the Prince of Ithilien for long, uncounted days. The lord Faramir promises that the Shadow will be slain, that safety will return to the fields of Nurn. He does not say when that day will be, nor does he explain why King-elessar does not come.
Perhaps, Izri thinks, King-elessar is naught but a myth: a being invented by lesser minds. He himself has dim memories of a grim man on a tall horse, but perhaps his thoughts play false. If there is no King-elessar, there can be no savior.
Some times before sleep he thinks of his parents, who now cultivate their fields alone. Do they think him dead? Do they mourn for their only son? Perhaps they sit by the sad waters of the sea and feed it with their tears. He knows not.
Young Bergil is Izri’s constant companion during these days. From him, Izri learns the ways of the white man. He visits the well-ordered garden of the White Lady of Rohan and learns the names of the herbs she grows there. Bergil shows him the prince’s library, full of scrolls covered in strange markings and shadowy maps. At night he tells Izri tales of the great war that raged across Middle-earth and of how all was saved by a half-man casting a ring into the Mountain of Fire.
Izri misbelieves this last story, but he is too overawed of Bergil’s knowledge to challenge him.
One day, Bergil takes him to a quiet pool surrounded by reeds that rustle in a sweet breeze. The boys strip off their clothes and dive beneath the surface, holding their breath until their lungs are afire. The water is cold and crisp, but Bergil and Izri laugh and splash for some time. They are young and full of the vitality of men who still look forward to tomorrow’s rising sun.
When he has exhausted himself, Izri pulls his chilled body onto a long, flat rock and basks facedown in the sunshine. Bergil sloshes out of the water behind him.
“Ai!” the other boy exclaims. “Izri, what has happened to you?”
Izri pushes up on his forearms to see Bergil’s face. The boy stares stricken at him, as if he has seen a wraith. Izri understands his friend’s dismay only when he realizes Bergil has seen the tree of scars that covers his back and buttocks. Long, ropelike weals crawl across his skin in the manner of vines twisting around a pillar. The marks are worst on Izri’s shoulders, where the slave-drivers’ whips cut deepest.
“It is nothing,” he assures his friend. “They are wounds from long ago. I am not pained by them today.”
Bergil still stares. Izri itches uncomfortably in his skin and wishes he had never disrobed. He feels humiliated, though he has done no wrong. He hastens to explain: “My grandparents once lived in the land you call Khand, but men in black cloaks came to their village and took them to the Sea of Núrnen where they were forced to labor in the fields. My parents were born there, as was I. These marks are naught but a reminder of the time before King-elessar came and released my people from bondage. Think not of it, Bergil,” he urged. “That time has passed.”
The other boy crouches to kneel closer to Izri. Slowly he stretches out a hand and touches the center of Izri’s back. His skin tingles at the contact. He feels bare and exposed—it is more than a mere nakedness of body. Izri feels as if his very soul is bared to the sun.
“You would have been so young,” murmurs Bergil. “So young to feel the bite of the lash.”
Izri shrugs. He will not dwell on such things, for that way lies madness and despair. “The overseers started the children in the fields after their fourth spring. I was nearly eight when King-elessar came. Truly, my suffering is nothing compared to that of my parents.”
A single tear slides down Bergil’s white cheek.
“When you return to Nurn,” he says, “I will go with you.”
Izri says nothing, but his silence is an acquiescence of its own. He wishes to kiss Bergil, and so he does. It is a bittersweet kiss, but the press of the boys’ naked bodies against each other brings a strange new warmth to their limbs.
The wind rustles curiously through the trees.
#
At last, the day comes when the lord Faramir tells Izri that all is in readiness to set out after the Shadow. A sortie has been chosen, a lieutenant appointed. Scouts have charted the paths taken by the eight-legged monster; her lair has been unearthed. They leave Ithilien on the morrow.
“And King-elessar?” asks Izri of the prince. “He will travel with us on his swift horse?”
“Nay,” replies Faramir in sober tones. “The king is much occupied with a famine in Lossarnach and Orc raids in Eriador. I have been granted the government of Gondor while he is absent. But fear not, for I and my advisers have taken all into account.”
Izri is bitter that night. In the ash-blown land of Nurn, his people speak with hope of the day when King-elssar shall return. Songs are sung of his fair face and long sword, bright as the noon-day sun. Izri remembers Hina, his sister—she has died in the jaws of a Shadow that King-elessar might have protected her from, had he only had a care for those he once liberated. He sees now that more important are the needs of white men who dwell in strange-sounding places like Lossarnach and Eriador.
Bergil attempts to console him, but Izri will not be comforted. It is a merciless pain, the hurt a boy feels when first he realizes his heroes are but mortal men.
He sleeps and dreams of the slave-drivers’ whips at his back.
#
Izri and Bergil and the prince’s sortie stand on the front porch. The morning is frosty but fair. Faramir himself sees them off, and a tall golden-haired woman stands by his side. This is the lady Éowyn, of whom all the White Company sing praises. Izri bows clumsily before her.
“Rise,” she says, “and see the gifts I have prepared for you.”
The lady presses into his hands a bouquet of dried sweetbriar; the pink roses are fragrant and delicate. Éowyn gives him also a box of dried herbs and linen bandages, so that he might tend the hurts of his people. Lastly, she gives him a helm of polished steel, which covers all of his curled dark hair.
“Though we are far from your land, remember your friends in Ithilien when you may,” she says. Then she disappears into the house, leaving a wholesome fragrance in her wake.
From the prince comes sage advice, spoken in quiet tones: “Be swift and unseen. Leave no footprints behind, and drink not from any of the waters flowing through the Black Land. When the fell creature, Shelob, is destroyed, then you must return swiftly by the road whence you came. Do all this and be glad in your hearts, for you are in the service of the Winged Crown, and none may stand against you for long.”
The sortie sets off, marching in two columns toward the east. Booted feet fall lightly on the graveled path. A chorus of lilting birdsong accompanies their steps. Izri flexes his arms inside the tunic and surcoat the prince’s servants gave him last night and feels like a young god. His new-made boots are supple and soft.
Bergil walks tall at Izri’s side. The livery of the White Company fit his frame well. He looks grim and solemn and deadly; vengeance shines from his pale brow. Izri wonders what the farmers of Nurn will make of this companion.
“Did you tell your father of your plans?” he whispers as they walk through an open vale. “Did he give his blessing?”
“Nay, for I did not ask,” Bergil whispers in return. “Oftimes with Captain Beregond, it is best to seek mercy for an act already done than beg consent for a deed only contemplated.”
Izri nods but makes no reply. The duties of fathers and sons among white men are far removed from his own experience. Filial obedience is neither demanded nor prized among his kin. When the whole energy of a people is focused on subsistence, the rearing of children occurs only in the slivers of time between work and sleep.
They march on, wending their way across streams and through dales. The high spires of the Ephel Dúath creep ever closer. A metallic scent floats on listless breezes. Birdsong has long ceased; now Izri hears only the anxious hammering of his own heart.
#
Slaying the monster proves to be anticlimactic. Izri finds he does not mind.
Based on intelligence received from the lord Faramir’s scouts, the sortie climbs into the Ephel Dúath. Shelob’s lair is no more than a gaping hole in the side of the mountain. A foul stench emanates from its maw, and muculent bones lie scattered about. Izri imagines the fearful end his sister must have faced. He stands tall, sword at the ready, awaiting the lieutenant's signal.
The fight is over in minutes. As if summoned, the monster emerges from her cave. Shelob is monstrous: black and massive. Fell mist clings to her form. Izri quakes with fright before her snapping jaws and gray-green eyes, but the men of the White Company are undaunted. Heavy arrows pierce the spider’s thick carapace; spears penetrate her many-eyed head. Blades make swift work of the Shadow that threatened to destroy the people of Nurn.
With a final shriek, Shelob collapses. She twitches—clack-clack-clack sing her legs for the last time. Then all is still.
They burn the carcass and stop up the cave with rocks. In time, other foul creatures may come to dwell in the Ephel Dúath, but now the specter of Shelob is banished for good. Izri feels numb. He is relieved and grateful to the white men, but his chest burns with shame that they should so easily defeat a foe that kept his people in constant terror. He is reminded of his own frailty and likes it not.
It is time for the White Company to return to Ithilien. Farewells are said by all; forearms are grasped in the customary way of brothers-at-arms after a worthy victory. Bergil announces his intent to travel to the land of Nurn with Izri. The soldiers’ keen glances betray their misgivings, but they say naught. Bergil is a man grown and free to make his own mistakes.
“To tell the truth, my friend,” says Bergil after the sortie has disappeared back down the western slope of the mountains, “I pity the one who must convey to my father what I have done.”
Izri clasps Bergil’s empty hand in his. “Let’s go home,” he says.
#
Almost four months after he set out, Izri returns to his parents’ village. Bergil strides hale and strong at his side. With the help of the White Company, they have vanquished Shelob the shadow-spider; now they come to renew the lands she once haunted.
The villagers are at work in the fields when they arrive, but they run quickly at the sight of two strangers on the horizon. In moments, the two boys are surrounded by a throng of astonished men, women, and children. Izri’s mother crushes him to her bosom.
“I thought you had gone into the Void, never to return,” she says. Her rough fingers touch his cheeks and nose. She traces the familiar planes of Izri’s face as if to ensure that her eyes are not deceived.
Beyond his mother’s arms, astonished children exclaim over Bergil’s pale skin and pale eyes. Their elders goggle at the other boy’s embroidered vest and finely crafted weapons. Izri’s mother turns also to take in Bergil’s appearance. When she brings her attention back to her son, an odd, fevered look consumes her expression.
Izri is uncomfortable with the deference he finds in his parent’s face.
“Did you then speak with King-elessar as he sat upon his high seat in the land of the white men?” asks Izri’s mother. His father attends to their conversation with interest.
Izri looks at his parents. Their sun-browned cheeks are sunken with heavy toil, but a flame of new hope shines from their dark eyes. He cannot bear to extinguish it with truth. “Yes, my mother,” he says, “I spoke with him, and it is King-elessar himself who slew the monster.”
“Ai-yi-yi-ee!” His mother ululates at the glad tidings. “May the gods of the white men bless his days!”
Izri says nothing, but his mother’s joy lightens his mood.
That night, the former slaves of Nurn celebrate along the seashore. They have little food for a feast, but laughter suffices to fill the empty hollows of their stomachs. For the second time in Izri’s life, the word freedom is spoken amongst his people. He watches them but cannot join in the revelry. King-elessar did not come; the victory is hollow.
From his place at his side, Bergil touches Izri’s shoulder.
“You have done them a great kindness, brother,” he says. Gray eyes whisper of love in a language beyond words.
Why then does Izri feel so somber?
He decides to celebrate after all. A woman plays an off-key tune on a clay pipe, and Izri joins the clumsy dance. Tonight, he will make merry and forget what he has seen. Tomorrow, he will begin the work of restoring that which the Shadow consumed.
Tomorrow, he will help his people begin anew.