The Shadow over Rhudaur Part II. Intrigues and Sorcery.

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Cameth Brin Palace, night of October 23 - morning of October 24, 1347
Written by Gordis, Elfhild, Serenoli, Earniel and Rian
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Gimilbeth slept little this night. At first the cold dread she kept feeling after her vision at the funeral feast banished sleep away. She lay on her sweat-soaked pillows, musing on her predicament. It was evident that she had managed to attract the unwanted attention of some powerful magician. Gimilbeth started shaking when she fathomed what dreadful power was needed to send her the nightly dreams and even the horrible waking vision she experienced recently. And the knife spell that went wrong and rebounded on her... She had no doubt that she faced a Black Numenorean, who appealed to the same Powers of Darkness she just started to use. A Black Numenorean on Broggha's side? There was none in Broggha's train when the Hillman passed through Tanoth Brin or at the feast, of that she was certain. Was the Sorcerer away, acting from a distance? Could he be in Angmar? It was unlikely, this land was too far away... She remembered again the Black horseman on a forest path. Perhaps he still camped near, a day's ride from Cameth Brin, to give magical help to the Hillman puppet. If so, he should be driven away. Gimilbeth decided to send Rangers to search the woods to the north of Cameth Brin on some pretext. Recently when reading Star Charts she was warned about a possible orc attack. It was a good excuse to send troops out. Nobody was bound to question her word - wasn't she named "the Star-Sayer?"

At last, after drinking a big cup of mead laced with poppy, Gimilbeth slept. But her dreams were wild. She was again shut in a coffin in her family crypt. She heard the faint echoes of the funeral service, but couldn't move or make a sound. The coffin was tight and suffocating. the little air there was strangely smelled of sulfur. She felt grave worms crawling over her body... No wonder, she herself had foolishly prevented Sarador to embalm her properly... Now the disgusting white larvae were feeding on her cold flesh...

She awoke with a cry, sending her cats flying from her bed with offended hisses. But the worms were still there... She felt them crawling over her arms and bosom, along her legs...All her body itched.
Frantically, Gimilbeth ran to the chimney, stirred the fire and added some fresh wood to have more light. She tore away her lace nightdress and flung it into a corner. The flickering glow revealed the rush of angry red pustules on her arms and legs as well as on her breasts and stomach. Thoroughly frightened now, Gimilbeth scratched the boils with her long nails, but only made matters worse, drawing fresh blood. Striving not to wail in dismay, but to think clearly, Gimilbeth dipped her finger in the blood and hastily drew on her left thigh the Five Runes of Protection, common on many a Dunedain shield. This simple ancient spell against Evil she knew all her life as most of the other Dunedain did, so it came to her mind first.

She doubted that so simple a spell could counter so powerful magick, but surprisingly it did. Even as she watched, the angry red boils paled and vanished altogether, without a trace, not only from her thigh, but from other places as well. Only the scratches of her long nails remained on her arm.

Gimilbeth sank to the floor thinking. Perhaps she over-estimated the powers of her adversary. Maybe it was a simple shaman's magick used by Hillmen, not Dark Sorcery she had been facing. If so, she knew what to do. She fetched an old golden charm from her trunk - a gift from Serinde - and clasped the thin chain around her neck, berating herself for not wearing it always, as she had been told.

The rest of the night passed in frantic activity. Gimilbeth donned an old gown and fetched paintbrushes and silver and golden paint from her still room in the Palace basement. By dawn her room was re-decorated, elaborate runes of protection adorning the walls, the floor and even the ceiling. This time she used not the Five runes of the Faithful, but the Nine Runes of Downfallen Numenor, able to counter the most powerful Black Magick as well as most Elven spells. Finally satisfied, Gimilbeth smiled. Now her adversary would have a hard time getting to her. She doubted she would ever have to bother about the hapless sorcerer again.

Feeling new confidence, Gimilbeth called Nimraen and ordered a bath. She had to repeat her orders twice, as the bewildered maid stood gaping at the golden and silver runes that appeared magically on the walls in one night. Her mistress had no illusions about the gossip this happening would entail, but she knew from bitter experience that no threats could prevent maids from talking.

Gimilbeth took her time bathing and making herself beautiful again. Finally, dressed in elaborate morning gown, she went to visit the King, to tell him about her astrological revelations and to ask him to send Rangers to search the woods to the North.

***

A loud, resounding shriek broke the quiet peace of the morning, causing everyone in that wing of the palace to start and look around in alarm. The dreadful scream had come from Tarniel's room! Brandishing their weapons, the guards rushed into the chamber, expecting to see a host of hillmen attempting to kidnap the princess. Instead, they saw that Tarniel was alone and unharmed, and not an enemy was in sight. The girl was on her knees before a mirror, her hands clasping her face. Wailing sobs shook her shoulders.

"My lady, what is the matter?" asked one of the guards, concern in his voice.

"Go away!" she sobbed, not taking her hands from her face. "Please just go away!"

At that moment, Odaragariel came rushing in the room, just as the bewildered guards were shuffling out.

"Tarniel, what is wrong?" she asked as she knelt beside the other girl.

"Oh, it is just horrible!" Tarniel wailed. "When I looked in the mirror, I almost fainted! Never before has anything like this happened to me!"

"What happened?" asked Odaragariel. "Are you hurt?"

"No," Tarniel shook her head. "At least not... physically." Slowly, she lowered her hands from her face, which was a shade of angry red from crying, and also from the swarm of livid pimples which dotted her once-smooth skin like a hideous rash. "I... I do not know what is wrong! Never have I been so afflicted with these malignant blemishes in all my life!"

"I know who is behind all this," Odaragariel stated grimly. "All of the servants are talking about it. Gimilbeth the witch has turned her chamber into a sorceress' lair, with arcane runes covering the walls, ceiling and floor! She probably cursed you with this malady!"

"Oh, no!" Tarniel wailed, feeling utterly despondent. And just the day before, she had actually had a good thought about her evil half-sister!

"Come on!" said Odaragariel, shaking her head imperiuosly, "we'll get that witch and force-" and she stopped suddenly.

For as she shook her head, a whole clump of hair had fallen out - just like that! - and lay in a yellow mass at her feet. She lifted her hand, felt around on her scalp, her face dangerously still, and when she removed it, clinging to her hand were pathetic tendrils of her own hair.

She felt the anger rise until it was a foul taste in her mouth - so it wasn't the best hair in the world, so she had envied Gimilbeth's lovely mass of shiny black hair - but it was her hair! And no one messed with her hair, she messed it enough on her own!

She tried to frame some words, and failed. Tarniel was saying, "uh-oh" under her breath. They exchanged looks, and as one, they rushed to Gimilbeth's room.

They crashed her door open, and began screaming at once, their voices mingling into each other, both taking the worst words their little princess vocabularies had (Tarniel in particular, highly skilled at taking innocent words and making them sound foul) and hurling them at Gimilbeth, and both ending with twin threats of "Fix it, or else!" Although, Odare was thinking, "Fix it AND else!!"

The effect of all this eloquence fell rather flat when they realized they had been shouting at an empty room, completely devoid of the evil half-witch Gimilbeth in all respects.

***

Before Wilwarin had decided what she was supposed to do, both princesses had rushed out, determined to face the perceived perpetrator of their curious maladies. The guards, also unsure and baffled into silence, let the girls pass unhindered as well.

The guards looked at Wilwarin. Wilwarin looked back, equally bewildered.

“Shouldn’t we, er, follow them?” one of the guards asked Wilwarin after a moment of silence.

“No,” Wilwarin said slowly, “I don’t think we should … unless you want to get between them and Lady Gimilbeth at the moment.”

The guards looked indecisive.

“It would not be a good idea,” Wilwarin stressed knowingly.

By now, angry screams could be heard from the opposite end of the floor. The guards looked at one another. Job security finally won and an unanimous decision was reached.

“We’ll.. em.. return to our post then.”

With a nod to Wilwarin the guards left the princesses’ wing and went back to their stations.

Wilwarin let her breath escape with a hiss. She scratched her head and surveyed the now empty room. Well, that had been an unexpected ‘attack’. She realized she still had her blade drawn and put it back in the sheath. She decided this seemed like the best time to consider her guarding duty for the night as fullfilled.

She walked over to the door and removed the remainder of the silk thread with bells that had been torn by the hasty entrance of the guards. At least this had proven the guards would arrive quickly in case of a real emergency.

Tarniel’s and Odaragariel’s maids came in to clean up their mistresses’ rooms as Wilwarin habitually withdrew to her own small room. While she unbuckled her belt and prepared to go to sleep, she couldn’t help but shake her head. The way things were looking right now, an assault by Hill Men seemed to be the least of the royal troubles. With a sigh, she briefly wondered whether she – or anyone else for that matter - had the required capacity for this bodyguard duty. The king had definitely failed to mention bears, boils, spontaneous hair loss and witch-sisters as daily dangers in a princess’s life…

Wilwarin lay down on the small bed, but she doubted she’d get much sleep that day.


***

Gimilbeth's sitting room was empty and silent, dimly lit by the weak morning light filtering through the high arched windows with diamond panes and a softer glow from the chimney in the corner. The air smelt of alien, exotic flowers and fruit. Shadows dwelt in dark corners and everywhere - on the walls, floor and ceiling - there were large ominous runes in silver and gold. The girls, now subdued and silent, stood looking around in awe and wonder.

Tarniel jumped and cried out when she felt something brush her hand. It was a big black furry cat now sitting atop an armchair and looking at her with sly green eyes. The girls noticed that a number of other cats filed silently into the room. Holding each other's hands, Tarniel and Odare turned to face the door, knowing already what to expect. And indeed Gimilbeth was standing in the doorframe, a warm smile on her face and ice in her eyes.

"What a pleasant surprise to see you here, dearest sister! And you, Odaragariel," said Gimilbeth in her rich musical voice, with just a trace of mockery in it. "I heard you shouting... What is amiss?"

Tarniel was too frightened to reply, while Odare was seething with rage which rendered her equally mute. So she made an eloquent gesture with her hand indicating Tarniel's face. In shame, Tarniel covered her cheeks with her hands again.

"Let me see..." Gimilbeth took Tarniel's arm in a iron grip and half-led, half-dragged her sister to one of the windows.

"Why, pimples!" she exclaimed. "Pimples! My dear child, there is nothing unusual about it. You have grown up, dear child, you are becoming a woman, so it is natural that your skin suffers. You have to watch what you eat, avoid sweets and Khandian coffee and try to eat more oats and raw yeast. You can also apply some yeast to your face, it might help. Anyway, in a decade or so it will pass..."

"But it is awful!" cried Tarniel, finding her voice. "No one of my friends had this illness! Why me?"

"It is an affliction quite common for young maidens," replied Gimilbeth with false kindness. "Those of pure Numenorean blood do not suffer from it, but, unfortunately, your mother's blood is not as pure as that of our father. Everybody knows that your great-grandfather, Lord of Nothwa Rhaglaw, had married a half-Hillmen maid. Now you have to face the consequences."

It was more than Odare could stand. "You... you... you evil witch!" she screamed. "It is all your doing! Look at my hair! It is falling out! And it has happened to us on the very same night when you painted your accursed runes on all the walls!"

Gimilbeth dropped her hand from Tarniel's arm and glided to a low Khandian divan. Adjusting the skirts of her magnificent yellow gown, she reclined gracefully amidst embroidered feather cushions.

"Don't make hasty judgements, Odaragariel," she replied at last, the mockery in her voice now unmistakable. "And don't get so upset, darling. Your hair is so poor anyway that you will do better with a wig."

"A wig!" squeaked Odare, stomping her foot, her eyes ablaze.

Gimilbeth was thoroughly enjoying herself and the situation. Her smile became even sweeter. "You must have caught some contagious disease, child. Cats sometimes suffer from it. I can give you a fine remedy made of bear's grease mixed with boiled urine. You will have to rub it onto the skin of your skull thrice a day and in about a month..."

Odare went wild. Breathing heavily, she snatched a delicate porcelain pot from the table and smashed it against the wall to emphasize her point. But nobody had the opportunity to learn what her point was to be, as at this moment someone banged on the door and rushed into the room without waiting for Gimilbeth's permission. It was one of Sarador's apprentices, a somberly dressed scholarly young man, visibly distressed. He addressed Gimilbeth even before he had time to bow to the assembled highborn ladies.

"My Lady, Master Sarador bids you to come down into the vault at your earliest convenience. A most unusual thing has happened overnight! The dead body of Master Nauremir got covered with boils!"

Gimilbeth fell back onto the pillows and laughed.

They all regarded her in silence, the assistant much too bewildered at her reaction to what he considered a not-very-funny situation, while the two girls were pondering the depths of evil to which Gimilbeth had sunk to. Actually defacing a helpless invalid (whom she made invalid with her little poisons in the first place) and then laughing... that settled it, Odare told herself, if Gimilbeth was laughing, that proved she had played this mean trick on all of them, and as was quite evident, was enjoying it immensely.

She turned to the stunned assisstant and ordered, "Leave now, right now!" As soon as he was gone, she turned to Gimilbeth, who was still chuckling to herself, and said, "Shut up! Shut up right this moment, or I shall-"

"Do what? Shout at me? Break more of my possessions?" She had gone from laughing to dangerous in less than a second, although her lips gave a small twitch every now and then, as if the laughter was fighting to escape. She got up like a lazy cat, and came closer, to say to her in almost a whisper, "If I had chosen to use my magic on you, darling, you wouldn't just be losing your hair."

"You're right. It wasn't you. You wouldn't dare! Because if it was once proven against you, if your witchcraft could just once be proved against you, you'd have to answer for it. The king has tolerated you for this long, but if he decided not to anymore, where would you go then, Gimilbeth? All your little herbs," she picked up another pot from the table and sniffed it delicately, and went on recklessly, even as Tarniel's face grew white underneath the reddish pimples, "and all your magic have never yet suceeded in catching you a husband in all this time ... it's been what, a hundred years? I may not have your beautiful hair, but I have my own land to go to and -"

Her voice was drowned out by a shrill cacophony of meaows and hisses. All the cats in the room were slowly backing away, creating a nice empty circle around Gimilbeth and Odaragariel, as if they could sense their mistress' anger and wanted to be far, far away from it, and indeed, it took no genius to read Gimilbeth's face right then. If she were a cat, her hair would have been on end, and her claws would have been out, and she would have been hissing and spitting like a snake. As it was, perhaps the timely entrance of Arinya, sent this way by Sarador's frightened assisstant, was... fortunate. For Odare, at least.


***

Arinya walked quickly down the corridor towards Gimilbeth's room, where she had been directed by the agitated assistant. Her sensitive ears picked up a bewildering variety of noises: loud, racous laughing, voices high and strained with anger, the sharp crash of something breaking, and oddest of all - hissing cats?

Coming up to the door, which had been left slightly ajar by the departure of the flustered servant, she paused and tried to listened briefly to assess the situation, but all she could hear were the cats, until ...

"Why don't you come in, Arinya? I imagine you could hear better from in here!" Gimilbeth's voice was colored with its usual cold, superior politeness, and her words held their usual veiled sting.

Ignoring the insult, she walked through the door. Her eyes opened wide as she beheld the disarray, and she blinked her eyes to make sure she was seeing straight as her gaze fell upon her charges and their afflicted faces. The girls, seeing her expression, self-consciously looked down for a moment, then looked back up defiantly.

Arinya looked over to Gimilbeth, who was gazing at her with a curious expression, not unlike the hissing cats that surrounded her. She said quietly, "I was looking for the young ladies, as it is time for their lessons. Sarador's assistant directed me this way. Hearing unusual noises as I came, I naturally paused to assess the situation in case of danger - you know that we have all been enjoined to be cautious these days..."

"Oh, naturally you would do that - I imagine you do it all the time," responded Gimilbeth. "For safety's sake, of course, I mean," she added, enjoying exploring the tutor's reactions. She had not bothered with her much before.

"Well, since all is well," continued Arinya with a raised eyebrow, "I will ask the young ladies to join me." She held out a hand to each of the girls. They hesitated, conflicting emotions fleeting across their faces, and then took her hand. Arinya could feel Odare trembling, and Tarniel was biting her lip nervously.

Holding their hands firmly, Arinya nodded graciously to Gimilbeth, who was now reclining on a sofa stroking one of her cats, and left the room with the two girls.


***

Odare, always the more vocal person, glared up at the tall Arinya, and demanded, "And how exactly were you planning on curing us without forcing that WITCH to undo her spells?" At this point, her anger became a bit too much for her, and she burst into tears.

Tarniel, still hiding her face, gaped in astonishment, as Odare, angry at herself now for the tears, sobbed even harder, and in little gasps, said things like, "My hair... and Tanriel's face... oooooooh, she's so so eviiiil....." She was breathing in heavy gasps, and stopped talking, deciding that that was the best way to stop the tears.

Arinya, bewildered and non-plussed, turned to Tarniel, who began to explain, interrupted every now and then by angry sobs from Odare about just how she would enjoy roasting Gimilbeth alive, or rending her to pieces, or even cutting off that fantastically thick hair of hers.

"But, if I remember correctly, the runes you saw drawn around her room... some of them looked like the Five Runes of Protection to me... are you girls sure Gimilbeth is the one who did this to you?"

"Who else could be so MEAN?" screamed Odare.

"Odare, control yourself! You are no longer a child, and there is no need to wail like one!" snapped Arinya, her patience sorely tried.

Odare subsided into sullen mutterings, and apart from an agonized, "I'm NOT crying, I was... coughing!" she remained silent.

"Maybe Gimilbeth was simply protecting herself from the same spell that has afflicted you two. At any rate, it can not hurt to try them on you."

Tarniel looked up, blinking. "Who would cast a spell upon the witch of Cameth Brin?"

"I do not know," Arinya shook her head, "but obviously whoever it was also cast spells upon others, including you."

"Well, give it a try then," demanded a very upset Odaragariel. "I do not want to be bald!"

"And I do not want to be pock-marked for the rest of my life!" wailed Tarniel.

Intoning a low chant in Elvish, Arinya drew the runes with her fingertip upon the top of Odaragariel's head and upon Tarniel's face. Rushing to the closest mirror, the three waited breathlessly to see what would happen next. After a few moments, the red blotches on Tarniel's face began to fade and the loosening hairs on Odaragariel's head rooted themselves into her scalp once again.

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" the girls cried joyfully, weeping tears of relief as they embraced the elf woman.

Smiling, Arinya laughed and said, "See, you worried for naught and, in your panic, blamed the wrong person for your maladies." A troubled look then crossed her face. "But now I must wonder who DID cast this spell."

"Perhaps Gimilbeth has found an enemy," Tarniel spoke up, her eyes widening in alarm. "Only evil comes to those who dabble in sorcery!"