Chapter 36

And In The End, Forgiven

June 10

Kopairan

Eression was aware of muffled sounds around him. He was aware of pain, even though it was slowly fading. He was aware of death like a lingering taste in his mouth. Where was he?

Opening his eyes carefully he found himself looking at a white marble ceiling. For a long time he stared blankly — his limbs felt frozen stiff and very few of his muscles would cooperate. He couldn't remember anything right now, but he had the feeling he didn't want to.

At last he made up his mind to turn and look at his other surroundings. The noises had stopped and he was not sure if that should bother him or not, but ignoring this he turned gingerly onto his side.

It was like trading one dream for another. The moment he had turned he could see a figure sitting in a chair beside him. Blinking quickly he focused on the face and recognized it as…Elladan. Surely that must be a dream.

He could have believed it if Elladan had not suddenly moved forward… somehow the motion caused Eression's mind to focus sharply, he suddenly saw a series of painful visions past and present flash and pound through his mind. He shut his eyes and flinched back as the horror of Vardnauth's lair returned to him.

"It's alright Eression, you are safe here." The words came from behind the man and he shifted quickly to face the speaker. He managed to identify him as Elrohir before his vision blurred and he had to shut his eyes to keep the room from spinning.

His heart was burning with overwhelming emotion all of a sudden and he was not sure how to handle it. His entire encounter with the twin sons of Elrond had been brutally refreshed in his mind by Vardnauth. Now he was not even sure if he could look at them. Now that they sat on either side of him, he felt death comfortably close.

"Captain."

Eression didn't turn to face Elladan, his heart was pounding in his ears and he breathed heavily in an attempt to hold the maelstrom of emotion at bay. He didn't blame Elladan for his hatred towards him, he never had, but right now he couldn't bear it, he couldn't bear the words the elder twin would say. His heart was frail and his soul unprepared.

"My lord, please…" Eression's words cut into whatever Elladan had to say. "I ask that you will hear me out. Just once." Elladan didn't speak so the Black Numenorean pressed on. "My regret cannot be expressed in words, the evil I inflicted on you and your brother, the things I allowed to happen…cannot…" Eression swallowed and tried to still the tremor in his voice, "cannot be forgiven. Trust me that I would beg your forgiveness, if I did not know it to be impossible to grant. I only…I— " The man broke off at last, his head was reeling and his heart was still beating furiously, and he had no words.

"Eression."

Startled by the sound of his own name spoken by Elladan, the human turned at last to face the elf and was surprised by what he saw. Compassion, pity and…

"Eression," Elladan repeated, "I know that I have been cruel. I have, in some ways, inflicted the same brutality on you as was visited upon us." Elladan looked over Eression at his brother for a moment and Elrohir dropped his gaze and let out a soft sigh. "I— I didn't want to forgive you Eression; it was so much easier to hate you, to ignore you, to shun you from my mind. I isolated you in the memories of Angmar and there I had let you stay. But you— are not the man you were then." The words fell broken as Elladan leaned forward, until he was face to face with the human. "I forgive you, Eression. I only want you to forgive me, for my actions, for not seeing what others saw, for being blinded by fears long gone. You defended my adoptive brother with your life and though I wouldn't see it, you saved Elrohir as well. I resented that I must take such incredible debts from your hands."

"I— " Eression began but was immediately cut off once more.

"But I was wrong, Eression…I was wrong." Elladan almost smiled before leaning back in his chair once more. "Can you forgive me?"

Eression was overwhelmed, no longer by the thundering emotions brought to the surface by Vardnauth but the unbelievable grace of forgiveness and promise of change. Eression looked Elladan in the eyes, searching the elf's face and finding only truth behind the words.

"Of course, my lord."

Elladan let out a breath and looked down at his hands which lay in his lap. Whatever release the elf felt, Eression knew it could never compare to the freedom that was even now welling up inside his own heart.

Elrohir moved to stand behind Elladan he was smiling as well as he laid a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"You can call him ‘Elladan‘," the elf joked, causing his brother to laugh. Eression realized that he was smiling as well.

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June 17

Somewhere between Minas Tirith and Gondor's southern border

Legolas wandered in thoughtful silence between the tents and past the fires. He hadn't realized Gondor had this many fighting men left, though looking at them showed many to be newly trained young men on their first campaign. Occasionally one of them would meet his gaze and start with surprise at finding him there, so unexpected a creature in the twilight of an army camp. He too was dressed for war, wearing tooled leather in place of armor, but the pale glow and encouraging smile he offered seemed out of place.

At last he reached a fire with only two men beside it and he lowered himself gracefully across from them.

"Oh no," he said, sounding horrified, "you're letting Erynbenn cook?"

"Legolas," Aragorn said patiently, "until you have tasted Lady Eowyn's cooking, you have no right to complain. Besides, I am not letting Erynbenn cook; he won't let me cook."

Erynbenn glanced at his liege with a smirk. "I only said it might lower your authority in the eyes of the new recruits if they saw you cooking your own meals."

The elf chuckled, knowing it was a jest and recognizing the camaraderie he had frequently witnessed between Aragorn and the Dúnedain when they still lived in Arnor. "What will it do to their respect when the pot explodes?" Legolas teased.

"Tell them I called down lightening from the stars. That should impress them sufficiently," Aragorn quipped in return. "In fact, it would increase their awe of me tremendously! Perhaps you should destroy the pot on purpose."

"For the last time," Erynbenn protested ("Probably not," Legolas murmured, eliciting a snort from the king), "it was Mithrandir who was to blame, not I! When one is trying to brew a spicy soup for a cold evening, one doesn't expect to find unlabelled containers of strange black powder sitting next to one's pepper shaker."

"I never said it didn't warm us up, Erynbenn," Legolas soothed.

For a moment Erynbenn spluttered, and then he caught sight of Aragorn carefully stifling his laughter behind his hand. "Oh, Valar above!" he groaned. "And I thought I'd passed on to Eression the role of 'universally entertaining target'!"

It took Aragorn several minutes to stop laughing, but contrary to Erynbenn's earlier warnings, it did not seem that the men were the least bit demoralized by the noise.

"Do you have a plan yet, or are we concocting this scheme as we go?" the elf asked as they each settled back with their food.

"Most plans will have to wait until I speak with Faramir; he will know best what is needed." Aragorn cast a glance around to make sure the immediate area was clear and lifted his saddle bag. Inside one half were several rolls of parchment wrapped in calfskin. "Until then, I'm afraid all we have are these."

Legolas unrolled the first roll and read in silence for a few minutes before he looked up quickly. "'All', Strider? If she plans to win this battle through trapping you, and if this information tells you the locations of the traps —"

"These could win us the war!" Erynbenn breathed.

"Or at least ensure that when your army reach hers, your numbers are not already depleted. Why so grim?"

"They're coordinates." Aragorn said heavily. "What's more, they are unlike any coordinates I have ever seen, among elves, dwarves or men." He met his companions' eyes briefly, and it was clear he was still struggling with his conclusion. "Such numbers are of no use without a map, and a map of the gorges we do not have — even if we could find a way to interpret the coordinates."

Legolas frowned. "How did it happen that Gondor has no maps of a crucial place in their own border?"

"Those gorges are no mere maze — there are unexpected drop-offs and hidden bogs and countless other dangers. It's a deathtrap to the unwary. Since we always assumed that would prove just as true for our enemies as for ourselves, there were never any complete attempts made to scout the area and draw up proper maps. We can only travel about halfway into them before we pass our knowledge of the terrain."

"Well, I can certainly attest to that. Where did these numbers come from?" Erynbenn asked.

Aragorn lowered his voice cautiously. "From Eomer, delivered a few days before we left Minas Tirith. I told you, Legolas, that he had become a far-seeing man. His spies in Harad somehow managed to obtain these from the records of the queen herself — though who they found willing to copy them is more than I can imagine. Probably the original plans were drawn upon the map itself, and whoever accessed them only had time to take down coordinates and the basic conception of the traps to be laid. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have realized we can't read what they've sent us. It was a tremendous gift." He sighed, looking tired. "If only I could make better use of it."

Erynbenn looked down at his empty plate, his eyes distant — apparently not seeing what was in front of him.

Legolas' shoulders slumped a little. His friend's distress was palpable; it was all too easy to see him blaming himself for deaths that hadn't even occurred yet — all because of his inability to use the tools given him.

"We've already beaten incredible odds, mellon-nin," he said softly. "Compared to the Black Gate…" he half-smiled.

"Compared to the Black Gate, everything else is merely a stroll through Imladris in midsummer; yes, my friend, I know." Aragorn returned the smile and put the rolls of parchment away. "In this case, with you, Erynbenn, Faramir, and Bartho at my side, I would say we are already leagues ahead of Her Highness the Demented."

A note of intrigued question was in Erynbenn's eyes. "Mavranor really is insane, then?"

Legolas nodded wryly. "More than a little, as I remember it."

"It is amazing she became such a threat."

"We didn't say she was stupid," Aragorn corrected him, "we only said she was unhinged."

"I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am."

"The euphoria never lasts long," Legolas said. "Thank you for the dinner, by the way; it was — as always — delicious."

The man's eyebrows rose straight up at the about-face concerning his cooking. "Right. Thank you, Legolas."

"I think now he's beginning to worry about our sanity," Aragorn murmured, then to Eression: "It's not too late to find a more conventional lord, you know. I have it on good authority that Imrahil of Dol Amroth—"

"No," Erynbenn cut him off. His smile was older than his face, and the fresh scars there showed up clearly in the fire light. "Not when following you is just beginning to get interesting."

"Interesting? Meaning things have not been interesting up until now. What did you call the winter the wolves settled in Fornost, or the battle against the Nwelmai, or the troll raid on the Greenway, or the War of the Ring, for that matter?"

"'Only to be expected.'"

"That does it, I'm going to bed."