Lusseriel was sitting on the ground near Radanir, in the grove of trees. She was looking thoughtful as she used the bit of time she had on her hands to open her journal.
"Today with met with Candaith in that same grove I'm in now, in front of Lhanuch.
When I say we I mean Candath, Threnduil, Tindollion, Ilthirian, Ardirien, Arcangar, and Andrahir.
It appears as we were talking that Threnduil managed to "borrow" a book of the dwarves, as he wanted a souvenir, in his words. Is there anything he'll spare us, I wonder.
I hope the dwarves won't need it until we can go back and hopefully give the book back. It's apparently a book on cave-fishing. Honestly, I think that if we had the time to lose, just for that, I'd suggest making him translate it from start to finish. Just so he'd have a chance to learn a bit of manners.
But alas, we have no such time.
As we sat there, Candaith started to tell us the story of the Way of the Deads.
It was as cheerful as I remember that piece of history to be. That is to say not at all. A tale of oath, of betrayal and of a curse. I'll summarize it here, though there's plenty of information on the matter if you know how to look for it:
Around the time of the war against Sauron, Isildur approached the men of the mountain and entered an alliance with them. They gave an oath to come and ally themselves to Isildur's people should Sauron come back and move against Gondor.
Alas, the men of the mountain have been worshipping Sauron in secrets for years upon years. And they thought they'd be rewarded for that. As they refused to fulfill their oath, risking the people of Isildur and even threatening them by those words : "You do not frighten us. Sauron will crush your kingdoms as he has before!", Isildur cursed them :
"This curse I lay upon you and all your folk: never to rest until your oath be fulfilled. You will not know the restful sleep of death. 'You will not know a day without the regret of your broken oath! This war will last for uncounted years, and you will be summoned again before its end. Now GO! Leave this place! My words will follow you for your restless eternity!"
And the men fled back to their home, unable to escape the curse.
I had heard of it already, but it's interesting to hear the tale from the mouth of one of the dunedain.
The reactions to the tale were varied.
But it appeared that Arcangar and I have definite diverging opinion. I do wonder if we'll ever have the same opinion on any subject we come across during our journey.
That makes for interesting discussions at least I suppose.
Arcangar was judgmental and opposed to that curse; he deemed that no man or elf deserves such a fate.
I think they deserved it.
I don't know if he's too kind or if I'm just too harsh on people, which is entirely possible, or both. Besides I don't like men when there's words such as treason and treachery attached to them, but I'm biased...
Arcangar said : "For that is what it is. Think yourself in their position, especially the people the King speaks for but who themselves may be of no ill wishes to Gondor. If the story is true then I shudder to think at the pain and suffering Isuldur was willing to place upon so many who knew nothing of the pact ever being in place."
Hm, first if they've been worshipping Sauron as a rule they all wished ill to Gondor, as Gondor opposed Sauron. It's nice and all to be compassionate toward the "innocents", but what about the innocents from Gondor who suffered or would have suffered as a result of their treachery?
Isildur had his own people to protect.
Which I pointed out, but Arcangar told me that "When you have walked in their shoes, then you may judge them."
Nice of him, thanks. I think he forgot or perhaps just doesn't know that I've lived through the first age, through a curse that saw everyone I loved die or fall to fates worse than death around me. That I saw our strongholds built, attacked and destroyed and rebuilt and then destroyed again over and over until there were not enough of us left and the Host of the West came to rescue... well, not much since our strength had dwindled during too long years fighting, and the land was drawn by them so...
Sure, it's not the same curse, it didn't have the same effect and it came to an end eventually, but so will the curse on those treacherous men.
And why was I, why were all the noldor under such a curse? Because we followed our leader. The children and innocents were cursed alongside those who actually committed the crime we were accused of. I was one of those children born later under a curse not of my making.
So if nothing else, I think I can very well say what I think, and I think that Isildur was right to take steps to protect his people, decency be damned.
Should he have opened his borders to them instead? Risk his people; yes his soldiers but also the civilians, men and women and children of all age unable to fight? Should he have said "ok, you've betrayed me, it's fine, go in peace", and wait for them to join Sauron's armies to kill, torture and steal their ways through his country?
No. All action have consequences, and Arcangar, for all his compassion, cannot tell me, cannot tell anyone that those men just followed their leader and didn't know about the alliance with Gondor, or the worshipping of Sauron. He can't prove it, simply enough.
Besides, and yes, I'm terribly biased here, Morgoth and Sauron and their people have haunted our lives for far too long already so anything that stops a group of their spineless worshippers is good in my book.
Arcangar did have a point though when he said that "sympathy is what differentiates us from our enemy" and "airing on the side of mercy where possible is the safest bet".
He’s not wrong there. Alas, I'm so far past the point of being able to feel any kind of sympathy of the sympathizers of Sauron or Morgoth it's not even funny. In this, I'm advocating that the end justifies the means, and to the void with the rest.
I didn't like Isildur or most of his decisions, but in that at least, I can safely say, had I been there, I'd have cheered him on.
As we planned to go to Lhanuch, Candath asked Candaith to keep an eye on Threnduil. That at least took care of keeping him away and from having us thrown out...
Apparently the guards didn't forget us, though we were allowed to pass. I think I can honestly say that the only one who felt at ease entering Lhanuch again after last time was Arcangar.
Nona told us what she did of her brother's sword but also of her wish to take that sword back to put it to good use to honor her brother's memory... And of course, she had to ask us to go get it for her. What are we, a delivery service? I'm a messenger, but I do believe we have more pressing concern than fetching this or that for her.
But alas, her request was accepted, so we went to retrieve said sword.
I have the bad feeling it just set up a bad precedent there.
And alas we found half-orcs roaming around the village, and even worse, Suvulch standing there...
Blessed be Arcangar though, as he spoke to him and avoided one of us the duty to do it instead. Arcangar picked up the sword, apparently with Suvulch's agreement, and we went back to Nona.
Nona sent us to Halbarad who was apparently in the village, to inform him of her desire to join the company.
I have the vague feeling it's mere courtesy and that should he refuse her the right to come, she'd just follow us whether or not we want it, but...
He had with him a letter, telling him that an informant from Gondor was in the area, had useful information for us and wanted to meet.
I find it a bit suspect, but nevertheless we went, to the south, in Lahid Ogo. We weren't sure if it was a trap or not, so we tried to be careful as we entered the barrow.
There were Kergrims in there. And we found corpses. Human, rats... more Kergrims... pools of dirty, smelly, tepid water... If any of the men catch anything from it...
We crossed path with some unearthy lights, more kergrims, and finally we found a living, breathing dunlending man. We went with him to speak to the leader of Lanuch, and apparently we have good news as apparently other dunlendings are distrustful of Saruman. And the council of his advisors were also distrustful of him, which is very good news for us indeed.
We had to tell Halbarad what happened, so we left the Brennin there, with Arcangar.
Halbarad decided that Nona shouldn't go with us.
Well, I wonder if anyone would be willing to bet with me on whether or not she will actually follow us...
Because I'm quite convinced she will...
Predictably, Nona wasn't happy with the news. And she asked us to speak with her father. Candath told Ilthirian he could speak to Suvulch and said what she thought exactly.
I'm pretty sure she lost her temper here but it was absolutely fantastic to witness.
And Suvulch challenged us to go and kill more of his enemies among the dunlendings than him, in honor of his son's memory.
Honestly, I think that in honor of Wadu's memory, we should just get Middle-earth rid of that man, but that's just my opinion...
And so we went, Candath, Ilthirian and me.
The others all went on their own way. I suppose we'll make a serious dent in the local population, but who knows...
We went back to the fort, near the place we found Wadu's corpse, and killed the dunlending we crossed path with and who attacked us.
When we came back to Wadu's father, he told us he killed more than we did, but it was a close thing and good enough for him.
I'm glad to know a bloodbath is sufficiently honoring his son's passing...
Men...
We went back to the grove after that. I can't wait to leave this place... The dwarves annoyed me to no end, the dunlendings we interacted with either tried to kill us or have an horrendous culture, and Nona is going to be a pain of epic proportion, I can just feel it..."
Lusseriel snorted and then looked at her companions disseminated in the grove.
The whole mission was going to be a pain.
