CHAP 1: A MATTER OF TRUST

Legolas found himself hovering in the air above everyone at the Council.

Aragorn, dark, dour Ranger of the North; heir of Isildur; future King of Gondor. Legolas’ eyes rested on the serious face that hid a thousand emotions, and he felt only a sense of love and loyalty for this Man.

His eyes moved again and finally alighted on… himself, sent here by his father Thranduil, King of Mirkwood, with a message for Lord Elrond. He was sitting next to elves in green and brown who had accompanied him from the Realm.

 “Alas! Alas!” Legolas heard his seated self cry, turning every face in the Council to where he was seated. In his face there was great distress. “The tidings that I was sent to bring must now be told. They are not good, but only here have I learnt how evil they may seem to this company.” Everyone’s attention was riveted on him now. It seemed like embarrassment was written all over his face as he declared to the whole group, “Smeagol, who is now called Gollum, has escaped.”

There were loud gasps from almost everyone. But Legolas focused on the look of dismay painted on the face of Aragorn, the Man for whom Legolas held only the highest regard, even hovering at a distance above him.

“Escaped?” cried the Ranger, looking incredulously at the seated Legolas. “That is ill news, indeed. We shall all rue it bitterly, I fear.” Then came the line Legolas hated: “How came the folk of Thranduil to fail in their trust?”

There it was again, the accusing tone of the future King of Gondor thrown in the direction of the Mirkwood prince. Legolas, floating above, felt his seated self both wince with pain at the harsh words and bristle at the bluntness of the question, nay – it was not a question, it was a blatant pronouncement of utter disappointment in the elves of Mirkwood. He saw himself try to explain that they had not foreseen the cunning of Sauron, who had orchestrated Gollum’s escape through an orc attack that left the creature’s guards slain or taken.

Can you not understand? Legolas found himself empathizing with his seated self at the Council. We did not ask for the care of Gollum. You brought him to us and asked us to keep him, and we did even though we wearied of the task. You did not tell us why it was so important to lock him up, we did not even know he was called Gollum – you told us his name was Smeagol. We did not know his part in the tale of the One Ring. We merely took pity on him, having shut him up in dark dungeons. Yes, dwarf Gloin, we locked you up too, but only for a few weeks, and we would not have kept you in the dark for long either. Smeagol had been in the dungeon for almost a year! The orcs must have watched our movements as we took him out each day. They planned the attack.

And have you forgotten? My friends – elves I knew and liked and was close to – were killed or brought away, no doubt to the South, to be tortured by the Necromancer in Dol Guldur. They died because Smeagol, Gollum, was there, at your bidding. My friends, my kin, died doing their duty.

Floating above everyone, Legolas tried to lend a voice, but could not. Aragorn did not look placated. No one heard him as he hovered above them. No one paid attention to him. Except for Aragorn, heir of Isildur. Slowly, almost eerily, the Man slowly turned his face up to fix steely grey eyes on him, and his face was at once dark with rage and bitter with disappointment. The future King of Gondor sent a message to him, with his mind rather than his voice: “But you failed. No matter the outcome, you failed to keep Gollum though I entrusted him to you. I entrusted him to you.”

Then – without understanding why, it seemed like this had happened a hundred times before – Legolas felt his frustration turn to shame. Deep shame and disgrace. Aye, I concede. Aye, I have let you down. My respect and loyalty for you knows no bounds, but I have let you down. I wish I could turn back Time and make things different. We would not have brought Gollum out into the sunshine, we would not have let him climb the trees, we would not have let him be snatched from our hands.

But there was no turning back.

The Man now used his voice, enunciating the words over and over again, and the words turned into a spear of fire which he hurled at Legolas:

How came the folk of Thranduil to fail in their trust? The folk of Thranduil… fail in their trust, fail in their trust, fail, fail, fail…

The burning spear, moving slowly and in a blur, came closer and closer toward him, and Legolas, with a cry of anguish, fled, pulling away higher and higher. All of a sudden, he stopped in mid-air and started to fall. Faster and faster he fell, and he tried to grasp at something, but there was nothing… nothing. Faster and faster and faster…