They had been walking through the overgrown paths and animal tracks in the dark forest for a long time. Laureanis had lost her sense of time and direction but she knew they had been on the move for several hours. She could not tell the direction they were going, but the familiar scents and sounds indicated that they had to be somewhere in the northwestern Tâl Bruinen, heading in the direction of Eryn Singor – that damp, foggy glade, where wood-trolls and bog-lurkers stalked their unlucky victims. The Eldar avoided Eryn Singor for the unsavory air and the foul reek of corruption that hung about the glade.
She had been blindfolded. The men in dark robes had been stern with their demand, and Laureanis had not resisted. Her fëa was still numb over Maglor’s death. Cugusaelon had found his body, and together they had buried Maglor near a waterfall by the river Bruinen with a simple, unadorned ceremony. Maglor would have wanted it that way. His return and eventual death in the Trollshaws would forever remain a secret to Elrond and the others in Imladris.
Laureanis had spent the whole summer in a state of numb sadness, incapable of action but still too shocked to really feel the impact of the loss yet. It was iavas already, the autumn season of the Eldar, before she rode out of Rivendell to see Choileach, the madman in the cave, for the first time after Maglor’s death.
Choileach had been furious. ”Why did you kill him?” he had yelled at her, his anger boiling over.
”I didn’t kill him”, Laureanis had replied simply. Her words had offered no explanation and no defense. It was simply the truth.
But Choileach had not listened to her. He had stomped around in the cave like a spoiled child who’s favorite toy had been taken away from him, coming up with fantastic explanations for why it had to be Laureanis who had killed Maglor, each scenario more nonsensical than the previous.
Maglor, she had thought as Choileach raged at her and then lashed out at the others in the cave. For this time the madman was not alone. There were others, silent and dark figures standing just outside the sphere of light of the fire. The figures had not said anything, but Laureanis had sensed their presence.
After what seemed like a long time the madman had stopped his raving. Laureanis was still standing and the dark figures in the shadows would still not speak to her. Had they come to kill her?
It did not matter to her. Her fëa was dead already. What was the purpose of living when Maglor did not share the world with her?
They had not killed her. The next time she rode out to meet Choileach in his cave a couple of weeks later the mad hillman acted in a much more restrained manner, but the dark figures were still there, just outside the sphere of light. Watching her. Assessing her.
”Perhaps I was wrong”, Choileach had told her then. ”Perhaps you had nothing to do with Maglor’s death after all.”
”It doesn’t matter”, Laureanis had replied sadly. ”I want to go home now. I want to end this. I’m tired of games. I want to be left alone.”
”Oh, but you cannot do that”, Choileach had replied. ”The time of games is over. Tonight your real work for the new Union of Maedhros will begin!”
And Laureanis had waited in the darkness alone as the hooded figures in dark robes had approached her. They had demanded that she be blindfolded before they had guided her out of the cave. Then she had simply walked where the hooded figures had wanted her to go. From the feel on her skin and the sounds of the forest she had sensed that the day had turned into night, but her vision remained just as dark behind the blindfold.
Maglor, she thought again and there were tears pressed against the blindfold. It was better that the hooded men would not see her tears. It would be better if she would not cry for him anymore.
Suddenly the blindfold was pulled away, and even though it was night, Laureanis had to blink her eyes against the light of the moon and the stars. They stood in a forested glade, and Laureanis found herself staring at a rock face. She was staring at a dark crack, a sinister opening into the depths of the rock. Her boots sank in the damp earth as the hooded men ushered her towards the mouth of the cave.
She stepped into the darkness and tried not to think of him, but Maglor had haunted her in life and would continue to haunt her in death. Laureanis endured his memory as if she was enduring an illness that must run its course.
”Good evening.”
The man in the cave was dressed in a similar fashion as the men who had escorted Laureanis there, but the adornments on his robes indicated a higher rank. He was a short man with an enormous belly. Laureanis thought he could have been maybe fifty years old.
”Evening”, she said, feeling weak after the long walk, but there was nothing to sit on.
”You may call me Aglarân”, the man said.
Laureanis waited.
”Who killed Maglor?” Aglarân asked.
”I don’t know.”
”Is that the truth?”
Laureanis did not reply. The man stepped closer to her and studied her face with his small, black eyes. His eyes were the eyes of a beast, and he had the air of a beast about him, in his savage eyes and his sharpened, yellow teeth. His soulless eyes studied her like a cat studies a mouse.
”I have asked Choileach if we can trust you and he says we have no choice”, Aglarân said after a while. ”I don’t trust you but unfortunately Choileach is right. If we are to proceed with the plan that has already been set in motion, there is no-one else who can do what must be done. It’s too late for anything else now. How did you feel about Maglor's death?”
”That is not a question for you to ask”, Laureanis said in a calm, measured tone. Her voice was soft but it masked a steely blade beneath the soft veneer.
”You have been useful to us for a long time. You have done us many favors, for reasons only you know or understand. I gave Choileach permission to tell you about Maglor – that he was sent here from Gondor to spy on you.” Aglarân smiled, flashing his sharpened teeth. The interior of the cave was acrid with the stale smell of some smoky, pungent incense.
”What happened to Maglor surprised us”, he continued. ”We didn’t expect it any more than you did. But perhaps it is our signal to proceed in what must be done.”
”Have I been brought in this dark, foul-smelling cave, blindfolded, just to listen to more riddles?” She spoke like the Eldar often do, offering cutting remarks wrapped up in elegant, thoughtful sentences.
”What I don’t understand is why you want to betray your kin”, Aglarân said. ”I know everything about your history. Choileach has told it to me. I know that you were a prisoner in Angband once, and it is known that Morgoth… did things to his prisoners. But all that happened a long time ago. Morgoth was cast into the Void a long time ago. If he did indeed bind your will into his own, how can it still work? Am I to believe that your will has been bound upon Sauron’s as well? Like a tool conveniently lying around, dormantly waiting to be used, for thousands and thousands of years?”
Laureanis said nothing. Her gaze never wavered from Aglarân’s dark, beastly eyes. Aglarân shook his head.
”What I want from you is quite simple”, he said. ”But I have been afraid of you – of revealing it to you.”
”Why?”
”Because I can’t be sure of you. Because I can’t understand you.”
Laureanis waited.
Aglarân pulled a small, black vial from a pocket of his black robes and held it up on his large, hairy hand.
”What I want is for you to take this vial with you. Hide it carefully, and when the time comes, I want you to mix it’s contents in Elrond’s wine. Make sure that he drinks it. Can you do that for me, Laureanis? A simple task. You are close with Elrond, are you not? Choileach has told me that you are in a position to do that.”
”But… what will happen to him?”
”What do you think? Elrond will die, so don’t drink the wine yourself unless you intend to die with him. There is no antidote. It will not be a particularly pleasant death, but it could be worse. We don’t intend to cause him needless suffering, we just want him dead.”
”But… why?”
”Because it is necessary for Elrond to die for our plans to succeed”, Aglarân said with contempt. ”Do you understand my hesitation now? Can you appreciate why I was afraid of asking you to do this, when I can’t understand your motives? When I have never heard of an elf who would betray their own kin and serve Sauron before?”
”What reason have I given you not to trust me?”
”None. And that is precisely what frightens me. You are willing to betray your kin, you are willing to kill Elrond and serve Sauron, and yet you seem reluctant. You ask no reward for yourself, you give me no explanation. Your motives seem impenetrable and incomprehensible. Choileach tells me it’s because Morgoth’s will compels you still, but how can I know this to be the truth? Yet there is no other way now. I have been informed that the plan is already in motion and it’s too late to stop the wheels of war from turning now. Elrond’s death is imperative for the plan to work, and there is no-one else that can get close enough to give him the poison.”
”I will do it”, Laureanis said. ”I will kill Elrond.”
”But why?”
”Maybe it is as Choileach says. Maybe I don’t have a choice in the matter. Maybe I must do it just because you ask me. Perhaps I don’t understand it anymore than you do.”
”Who killed Maglor?” Aglarân asked again.
”You asked me that already, and I still don’t have the answer for you.”
”But the question is more important than the answer. He was sent here from Gondor to spy upon you. But why was he sent? Who in Gondor would suspect you of being in league with Sauron, when nobody in Rivendell does – not even Elrond? Who in Gondor would even know of your existence? And suddenly Maglor is killed by an unknown actor in the Trollshaws. Who killed him, and why?”
”I don’t know”, Laureanis said. But suddenly she understood with complete clarity that she was responsible for Maglor’s death. If she had not existed, Maglor would still be alive.
