Legacy of Traitors RPG

[piosenniel]

~*~ Everdawn's post ~*~

I remember it as if it were yesterday: The sun was high in the sky, shining gloriously above Gondor. We were just collecting our lives again after the war of the ring under the reign of the King Elessar. My father Miradir Il Galoth had fought then, under the command of the Steward. My mother and I were evacuated along with the other women and children, my elder brothers stayed as they were a little older along with other boys to aid the soldiers and run errands, that type of thing.

Everyone thought I was too young to understand what was befalling us then, but I understood completely. We stayed in Dol Amroth, for my mother thought that was far enough away from the fighting. Heralds often sent news of happenings in the east, it was then only thing people questioned themselves with. One day news came of the battle of the Pelennor Fields, the big battle, we did not know whether father was fighting or not, or whether he was still in Gondor. The next time we heard any news was when Barad Dûr was taken and the war was over. I was relieved and the journey home was the longest one and I will remember it forever.

My father was alive when we returned home, but a changed man. He showed no sign of warmth to anyone but sat day upon day in his study in a remote wing of the house, alone and withdrawn. Perhaps it was my childish innocence, or a consequence of my curious and sometimes irrational nature which made my next actions possible.

One morning I was playing by myself when I stumbled into the dark corridor of my father’s wing. It was a formidable sight to my young eyes, rows of burning lanterns, and black drapes reflecting upon the polished marble floor. I was drawn to it like a moth is drawn to a flame. Slowly I checked for any sign of life before proceeding along it’s impedingly passageway to the end room which I knew was my father’s study. My small arms pushed open the heavy door and saw that the room was empty. A lamp burned brightly on his desk as well as the candelabras on the walls while the burning embers sat in his fireplace slowly dying. I walked over to his desk. I struggled to place myself upon the seat. Upon the desk sat a lone glass box which revealed to case a bloodstained knife. I lifted the lid of the box and extracted the weapon within and turned it over in my hands before placing it back where it had come from. I opened the top draw in my father’s desk and read over several letters which lay on top of various other pieces of paper, Still I sat I my father’s enormous leather chair as he would have done. Mostly the letters were unsent one which were addressed to my mother an others were to my father’s brother, though he had been killed in Ithilien, obviously my father thought it senseless to send them to him. Whilst raiding the other draws I came across one which hadn’t been opened As fast as I could I broke the seal and began to read, as fast as my young eyes could read then I ran my eyes across the letters, It was in my father’s handwriting and it did not have a receiver’s name on it. I read the letter more closely until one particular passage caught my eye.

“After months of not knowing, I have come to find that the traitor is none other than Guriel Il Galoth. I am in two minds whether we should pursuit him straight away or let him have his game until the right time that we can corner him. The course of action is up to you, whatever your decision; I will not let blood ties hinder your warrant for his arrest or execution.”

Eru only knows how long he had been watching me. I glanced over the letter to see my father standing in the doorway. I had never seen my father so angry before, so much so was his demeanour that he even looked like someone else. He yelled at me then, and I remember little of it but he kept saying this room was forbidden, and I should never have come there and that I wronged him by handling the knife, for he had pulled it from the chest of his best friend. He came in one swift move towards me and hit me on the back so hard that I stumbled and fell into the fire grate where my arm broke my fall, an accident. I screamed for what seemed like an eternity before my wrist was lifted. . I saw tears in my father’s eyes when he had realised what he had done. I knew there was something more to why my father felt the need to punish me, not jut his impending madness which had over come him since the war.

It was in that moment I first asked myself “Who is Guriel Il Galoth?” I was nine then and fourteen years later I am still no closer to the truth than I was then. Today is just like that day - the sun is shining gloriously on Gondor and I still bear a scar upon my wrist, a constant, ugly reminder of my question. Today I received a letter answering my message I sent to the king a while ago. I am hoping this will give some clue as to why my father went mad, and better still, where is this infamous relative of mine?

Maén placed her quill down on the top of the stone steps and closed the cover of her journal; straining her eyes against the setting sun she watched the birds flying in the sky on their way home to roost. In the fading light she rummaged through her robe pockets to find the note from the King’s court, she had waited to open it so she could write in her journal. Slowly and carefully she picked off the wax with her fingernails opened the envelope and unfolded the letter. Every word within was like a hot stabbing knife pricking her flesh. “Information Denied!” her face fell. “This is unbelievable” she remarked with an air of misery. The sun had now gone down and the cool air of the late evening had settled into the grounds of her home. Maén packed up her things and went inside, and headed straight for her chamber without dinner where she stayed till late night.

Now thoroughly annoyed with the monarchy of Gondor, Maén resolved that the only hope she had now of getting any answers or receiving any of the Legacy, was to go to her aunt who lived at the north of Minas Tirith, the one remaining relative who would help her. Now, any normal person would have accepted the truth that Guriel Il Galoth would now remain anonymous for the rest of time, until the day would come when the sun rose no more. But not Maén, her fiery personality and obsessive nature made impossible for her to determine when to leave things alone. After hours of storming around her bedroom she decided that tonight she would make a start to find out about her infamous relative.

Checking that all the lights were out in the house, she lit a lamp and in her nightgown she clambered as quietly as she could down the numerous halls of her families huge home, passing her brother’s old chambers, in which they had lived before they moved out and got married, everything that was expected by Gondorian society. “Fools and idiots, bamboozled brothers of mine… what fate shall befall them, those who seek nothing and in return gain nothing?” she smirked in passing, her shadow etching itself further in front of her.

Managing to come by the first floor unnoticed by the life that dwelled deep where dreams lie, in the rooms she climbed the marble stairs two more floors till she arrived at the same formidable wing she grew to hate as a child. Treading softly and swiftly she strode boldly through it to her fathers primary study. Slowly pushing open the door, and listening to it creak for a few seconds, she peered into the study. Her body froze for the slightest minute. The fire embers were still cooling in the fireplace. Maén pushed up the sleeve of her nightgown and peered at the underside of her left wrist. There still she wore a reminder of why she never came in here anymore. A four inch burn scar ran vertically down her arm. Shoving her hand away form her sight she placed the candelabra upon her father’s desk and began to raid the drawers for the letters she so vaguely remembered.

She had sat in her father’s chair for what seemed like an hour. Maén had moved to looking in the draws in her father’s library, throwing books across the room as well as the small statues which lay between the rows of books. Maén was on her hands and knees, she was about to give up until she stumbled across a new letters hidden within a box, concealed in the hollowed out middle of an eagle statue which stood at the base of the last bookshelf, adjacent to the wall. Feverishly she pulled them from their envelopes.

“Mr Il Galoth, we the shipmasters of Freverin & Sons Shipping Co. wish to inform you…”

“I don’t care what a shipmaster has to say!” she exclaimed with ill patience she moved onto the next.

“Miradir,

Give the guards a start towards the city, Osgiliath is waiting for you. I have run across some intelligence which would prove the enemy is weaker.

- Guriel.”

Maén almost dropped the letter with excitement. The next one read.


“Salome,

Pull the men out! Dwell not on the words of Guriel my cousin for he has betrayed us all! My brother is dead along with the other men, for Eru’s sake, do not come, or it will be the death of you all!

- Miradir”

“It’s true! He was betrayed.” She exclaimed. Before noticing one more letter, the seal was unbroken. Returning to her fathers chair she fiddled with it for some time before lifting the wax with her fingernail. Out fell a small piece of paper which in turn read.

“To my dear cousin,

I write to you this letter of gratitude. It was because of you and your noble men that Mordor has been able to get this far. I know now that I am wanted for treason again my country. And to this I tell you, try as you will, you can never find me. In fact the purpose of my letter to you is to warn the king, come not to me, or what will meet you will be even more hazardous than the day I took the lives of your men and your brother. You have seen what I am capable of, kinslaying, and I will never be found. I offer a grand legacy to those who may find me for their trouble and hence they will call themselves “Finder of the impossible” a title which grandly their heirs will remember.

For what I have said, heed my warning; death will come on swift wings to those of Gondor who come for my life.

- Guriel Il Galoth.”

“Dear Eru!” she exclaimed reading over the letter several times. “Kinslaying! My uncle was killed by him then! This is a lot deeper than I originally thought.” She sat and pondered, picturing the scene in her mind. “…Legacy..?” she started at once. “Wait a second, legacy, it has to be gold, like the people in the village said it was.” She dwelled on this thought for some time. “All the more reason for haste, I feel I have an advantage now.” She glanced toward the mantle and on it were the blood covered knife in its glass case, deciding whether or not to leave it in its place. Her fingers extended but she thought the better of it. Gathering up the letters and her father’s journal, a map and the candelabra she hurried from her father’s wing and back to her room.

A nervous excitement filled her body as she swiftly changed from her nightgown into another dress, (she would be riding, it was true, but still she wanted to look like a lady) and packed a bag full of her clothes, quills, and paper. Maén fleetingly looked at her room as she threw open the doors to her balcony. Her mirror stared back at her. She smiled at her reflection before throwing a paperweight at it from its place on her desk. An almighty crash rang out form it as the shards of glass covered the floorboards. She left the balcony for a minute and overturned her desk, cupboards and tea tables. Maén ripped her curtains from their rods and cast them from her terrace on the second floor so they dangled feet from the ground floor. She threw her bags over the edge and looked once more at the disaster she had created in her chamber and noticed her journal on the floor under several other clusters of paper. She recovered it and after making sure the sheets were secure, made for the ground and then away to the stables.

The stables echoed the neighs of horses unsettled from their slumber as Maén hastily searched their stalls for her horse. It was in the last one, a smaller red mare by the name of Hittai.

Maén now growing more optimistic by the minute rode from her home for her Aunt’s manor, slightly north of Minas Tirith, not the safest route for a young woman to be riding on in the middle of the night, or so was the opinion of her Aunt Lysia. Aunt Lysia was well dressed, even in the middle of the night as she stood with her servants to receive her. Lysia thought strange that her niece should visit her at such a time, but as always, she was pleased all the same.

“Why exactly have you come?” she asked Maén who sat fidgeting across from her at her table. Lysia had always been the confidant of her rogue niece, the only relative who did not shun her radical behaviour in the past.

Her niece’s eyes were dull in the light of the chandelier which hung above them, “Guriel” she said. At once Lysia sat up straighter than she already was (not once in her life could Maén remember her Aunt’s back hitting the rear of any chair she ever sat in)

“I thought this day would come, though I rather expected it sooner than this.” Lysia frowned and glanced at a clock on the wall.

Maén was glad that her aunt knew something about this man. “Well?” she asked impatiently.

“Calm child.” Lysia snapped and made her way out of the room to appear minutes later with a leather folder, rather empty but containing several sheets of parchment. “I recovered these from my bureau, Listen hard because I will only discuss this with you once.” Maén need no warning of this, her heat was already still with anticipation. “You know your father has never been the same since the war, and he has good reason. You know as well that my husband was killed along with him.” Maén nodded. “Your father is still suffering from the memories of that war, heavens knows it has changed the best of men, even after all these years. You must understand it makes him do things he wouldn’t usually do-”

“Like hit his little daughter hard enough for her to get trapped in the fire as her little arm began to burn in the embers in his fireplace until the skin had all but melted away?”

Even Maén was surprised by her sudden outburst. Lysia’s head snapped up, she was quiet for a second, and still, and old, so old that you could see all the years of grief and loneliness creep suddenly onto her face.

“Like that.” she murmured. “The government gave me no other reason as to why your uncle died than ‘he died as a hero on the battlefields of Ithilien fighting the enemy.’ Of course with your father back in his present state the only explanation I could get from him was ‘he was killed by the traitor.’ "

Maén was almost jumping out of her seat. “Guriel” Lysia nodded. “Not to be quick, I know that your uncle was in a regiment where a large number of the Il Galoth men were stationed. This is most unusual for a military family but not remote. Out of all the Il Galoth’s who went, only two lived, your father and Guriel. Your father was the only one to return to Gondor. Rumour came to me by the marketplace that they were stationed in an emissary- spy position if you will. And that Guriel, their own blood in fact, had betrayed the whole regiment to Mordor.”

Maén was stunned, “How . . . why . . . ? My father was in the intelligence sector?”

Lysia nodded again and drained the last of her port from her glass. “He was, appointed by the Steward, Few people know of this, I wrote to the Military to ask them and this is the reply I got.” Lysia’s frail fingers pulled one of the few pieces of parchment from the folder and handed it across the table for Maén to read.


Dear Widow Il Galoth,

The Gondorian Army has never heard of any corps such as you wrote to us in your letter. Your husband Miradan died as a hero defending Osgiliath during the War of the Ring, and I revile the people who have spread these untrue rumours, preventing you to grieve as you should. To add to that, we have never retained in our service, one, Guriel Il Galoth, or had him in the service of the city.

Eru be with you in these hard times,

The Gondorian Army

“Never heard of him?” Maén asked still dumbfounded staring at the paper.

“That’s what I found interesting.” Lysia smiled.

“He does too exist, and he was in the same sector as my father. It says so in a letter I found.” Maén tapped her fingers on the table.

“You are quite right, Guriel Il Galoth does live, or I think he does, his fate is unknown to me, but I happened to meet him on one occasion, at your grandfather’s funeral.” Lysia lit another of the fading candles in the chandelier. “So I did some research, which was very limited as your father was uncooperative, well he was sick…

From various sources I gained reports that a man had brought a horse with the same number branded onto its skin as the number given to Guriel during the war.” Lysia handed a stock report to Maén who read as she continued talking. “I also confirmed that a man had sold a large house in the very east of Ithilien to a man called Galoth who paid in a lump sum of gold, now I’m sure that it was a fair way off, but it was too close a match for me not to ignore.”

“A legacy,” Maén interrupted passing the letter which she had come across in her father’s study to Lysia.

“I see,” she said in her cultured voice after reading it. “This may well in fact mean what I think it does, Gold, I am suspect to think it would be gold, this ‘legacy’ Guriel speaks of, though it could well be property. Which brings me to my next point, you don’t even know if he is alive, or dead, you don’t know what happened and that there probably is a good reason your father and Gondor don’t want us to know what happened.”

Lysia paused which gave Maén time to speak. “You said earlier that you had expected me to come, why?”

Lysia breathed deeply. “Because I am too old to go looking, and I know that is why you have come, have you not? To look for him?”

Maén now reminded herself why she liked her aunt; it was because they knew each other so well. “It is.” she said as Lysia handed her the folder to replace the documents.

“I will warrant your search and serve as benefactor; all finance can be done through me. Collect who you will and bring them to me before going on your journey, if I pass them they may go and they will be paid handsomely upon their return.”

Maén was in awe. “Surely it will be too much, the cost!”

To which Lysia waved her hand aside, “I am wealthy enough, you forget, I too came from a well off family, Go now, rest. I will send a messenger to your home and tell them you are staying with me for some time. We will talk more in the morning when you will begin your search.”

Lysia would hear no more that night, and Maén was slightly glad, this night had brought many surprises to her, and now she would be able to seek the answer to her question which had not only plagued her but her aunt as far as she could tell, she now drifted off to a dreamless sleep and she would need it, for in the morning she would search Minas Tirith high and low for the people who would be willing to accompany her on her quest.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 3:37 AM January 28, 2004: Message edited by: piosenniel ]