ROHAN RPG

[Rimbaud]

Thoughts of a glowing white star haunted Guthrin. The image scorched itself into his mind and on his breast he could feel a white-cold heat, burning his flesh. He could feel his skin crisping and curling away, blackening, smoking. A voice rose above the din of thought, moaning and crying. He was immersed in fog, an immalleable, gruesome force that pressed down on him, his limbs leaden. He did not recognise the voice. He did not know the words, although they seemed bright and yet terrible at the same time.

The voice rose in pitch, quavering, hanging between hearing and a silence that ballooned, thick and unyielding, as the voice quailed and tremulated against its encroachment. The voice quivered, beating against the descending wall of soundlessness like a futile butterfly of song.

The voice grew hoarse and rasping, and the piercing note dwindled and then died. The fear grew sudden in him that the voice would not come again, that it had broken itself against the dark.

Suddenly, the voice returned, redoubled in power, words discernable, screeched as though from a shattered larynx, "A Elbereth Gilthoniel!"

The words seemed unfamiliar to him, but the black and soundless force recoiled from the power they seemed to hold. The voice came again, and this time it was accompanied, by a second voice, a tuneful quaver. The two voices stood strong together, the broken syllables of the first complemented by the toned beauty of the second, "A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-diriel, le nallon! The voice of the first broke at the last but the second continued, swelling in power as the darkness fell away. The voice came closer and closer, as if the speaker was right there.

"A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-diriel, le nallon sí di-nguruthos! A tiro nin, Fanuilos!"

Guthrin woke, gasping for breath. His eyes sprang open, yet saw nothing, a darkness was upon the party, unforgiving and as cold as obsidian. Elwood crouched beside him, panting, he knew him by his scent. The Elf's breathing was ragged and suddenly Guthrin was aware of a rasping pain in the back of his throat, red, raw and bleeding, as if swords had been dragged from his windpipe. He realised with a numbing shock that the first voice had been his own. The tender star-shaped scar on his breast was burning cold, and he rubbed it through his tunic. The scar did not seem to have changed from before, the skin was not burnt.

Still, nothing could they see, yet malice was all around them. Guthrin heard Elwood chanting under his breath, the whispered words emitted in shallow gasps; he recognised the words as those spoken in his fever-dream, although he knew them not.

"Thou savest us," spake the Elf then softly, and sprang from his side. Guthrin lurched to his feet, and looked around wildly. He swept his hair from his eyes and face with his hand, realising that he was covered in mulch and soft, wet leaves. He felt the moist earth, smeared on his face. The only sound he could discern was his own irregular breathing. The pain in his throat was choking him. He tasted bile and blood on his tongue.

A dark shape pushed him from the back, and he span around, his hand slapping at the low form. He met thick, wet fur and seconds later, smelt the warm, pungent breath of the great wolf Khelek. He stayed his hand and staggered backwards, a step away from the beast. He felt branches at his back and wondered at it, for his memory told him that this clearing had been larger than this...

The Elf was back at his side, moving soft as moonlight, his cloaks a faint rustle in the clammy, thick air and the impermeable black.

"Enchantment," whispered Elwood. "The Forest surrounds us, these trees act under some malignant power." He stopped, although he sounded as if he would say more.

The nature of the silence led Guthrin to thought that the Elf and the Warg were communicating and he said nothing. The presence of the Warg disappeared abruptly, and he knew not where it went. It fell quiet again. Guthrin splayed his hands and fingers out in front of him, feeling outwards, navigating blind. His left hand caught the sleeve of the Elf, who did not stir. The Elf stood upright, Guthrin ascertained, with his palms pressed against the bark of the tree, a tree the touch of which sent a shiver down Guthrin's spine. Stranger though, the rider of Rohan had the sense that the tree recoiled from his touch, and as they made contact, a sibilant hiss cut through the air. The Elf shifted at that, but made no sound. Elwood seemed fiercely concentrated and Guthrin let him be. He crouched and reached with his fingers and sniffed like a hound for touch or smell of the other Companions.

The air was thick and clammy around him, the silence was gelatinous.

His seaching finger-tips found the matted hair and beard of a man, whose height, ascertained roughly, revealed him to be Thenamir. Guthrin, still dizzied by the darkness and the fell atmosphere that swallowed them, shook him frantically but to no seeming avail.

Panic threatened to overwhelm him.

"Ai! This is evil work!" he muttered, the sound of his voice distant and lost in the darkness. "Anything for my horse and a path from this gloomy dell!" To his surprise he found himself wondering if he would take such an opportunity, if it would mean abandoning the others. The decision would have been clear to him, scant days before.

He heard Elwood's voice again, now recognising it for the second singing voice in the song against the darkness that had awoken him, although he understood little of what had transpired. The Elf was singing to the tree! The malevolent atmosphere did seem to be receding. The pain in his chest grew stronger, however. In the darkness, he fumbled to take his stone out from under his tunic. It seemed to him as though he could perceive it, although all else was indistinguishable. Even in the gloom, he saw the star-shaped whiteness and he wondered at it. As the stone came out into the fuggy blackness, the rasping hiss, like that of an old man, was heard again, floating down from the over-arching blackness.

*********************

Without warning, light flared in the darkness. Guthrin was blinded all of a sudden, and with a cry took a step backwards, tripping on a form on the ground and fell, striking his head on a root, He held on to his consciousness, yet the knock improved his mood little. When his vision cleared, he stood, and espied Elwood beside him, still facing the tree - a knarled almost human figure - with his hands against him. The Elf was sweating, which Guthrin did not think he had ever seen before. Yet he seemed motionless. The source of the light was Ulfwine, he strode towards them, a flaming brand held aloft in his right hand. The shadows streamed into the fire, seeming to quench it, yet it remained burning. Its light did not seem to to reveal much of their surroundings, the darkness seemed unimpressed.

Guthrin remembered. Ulfwine had been sitting someway from the rest of the party, wrapped in his own thoughts. Perhaps the Dunedling had escaped the enchantments.

"What happens?" whispered the dishevelled man, as he approached.

"The forest assaults us," said Guthrin, wondering at his own words. "The Elf believes it is guided."

Ulfwine bowed his head, his hair hanging down across his face in the dim, flickering light of his torch.

"'Tis Isengard," he said in his accented Westron, almost too quiet to hear, but elaborated not at all.

*********************

A voice startled them all, coming from behind them all, as they faced Elwood, who faced the tree. Light flooded the clearing, blinding them. Thick strands of darkness unravelled around them, and the deadening silence lifted.

"Hroom! I am no Elbereth!"

The deep voice seemed wry with some vast amusement. The darkness seemed to melt away, and Guthrin could swear that the clearing expanded in reality, as much as light entered also.

Elwood span, astonishment in his eyes, mirrored in those of Guthrin and Ulfwine. The noise of their comapnions stirring, and the sight of the trees seemingly marching back from them could not break their gaze from the character who had entered the glade.

Sunlight came upon them then and they realised it was full day without, and they cast their eyes upwards with joy, seeing blue skies and clouds, as if they had feared never to do so again.

"Hro! Hrrroom. You called for a Starkindler, yet you find a Shepherd," said their saviour, his voice as deep and strange as his appearance. "I trust you are not disappointed?"

Around him, Guthrin sensed the others rising, to stand and stare at the strangest thing any of them had ever seen.

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: Rimbaud ]