The First Guardian
The path led the Soulbound through dusty rocks and seemingly endless, and similar, hills until after an unexpected turn, the pair found themselves facing a stand of skeletal trees. A desolate breeze whistled through the branches, creating the illusion that the trees were moving when Eleanor glimpsed them out of the corner of her eye.
Once through the falsely-animated foliage, the elves traversed a flat plain broken only by an occasional brown reed that jutted up from the blasted earth. On the far side of the space, Peridur could see another stand of dead trees. The path went straight through this area.
After only a few steps on the path through the reeds, a disquiet began to build in Eleanor's chest. The drums were leading her unerringly onward, but another melody was beginning to push the beat aside. It was a high-pitched shriek, so high that it would have most likely been missed by any but the elvish bard. As it was, the whistle was building in pitch and she found herself shaking her head in an effort to clear it.
Peridur noticed immediately that something was wrong. He put his hand to the small of Eleanor's back in concern and she looked at him with pain in her eyes.
"There is something in this place that feels entirely unnatural," she said and put a hand over both ears in an effort to block the sound out. "Beyond the obvious."
Peridur couldn't hear the sound, but he could easily perceive the waves of pain pouring off his Soulbound. "Perhaps if we travel faster?" he queried.
The whistle changed to a scream and increased so both elves could now hear it. "It's coming closer," Eleanor said and pointed to the left of the path where something was rapidly moving beneath the ground, sending puffs of the dry dust of the plain in its wake.
Peridur pulled an arrow from the quiver at his back and with a practiced motion, released it towards the shrieking thing. When the arrow struck, the screaming abruptly ceased, but the ground began to tremble in a sudden quake. The creature rose from the dust, a whiplike monstrosity with neither appendages nor eyes, and headed straight for the Soulbound.
The broken reeds retracted within the ground as the plain itself started to split in twain. Eleanor grabbed Peridur's hand and the pair began to run with the sure-footed speed of their kind towards the far stand of trees.
The spindley creature followed along the fissure opening up in the ground and, in a flash of insight, Peridur realized they were standing in the open maw of a giant. The creature following them, he reasoned, was the thing's tongue.
Eleanor was singing quietly in an effort to increase their speed as the Soulbound raced the crushing jaws of the monster.
"Jump," Peridur cried as they cleared the final stand of trees. He made the leap with no difficulty but the creature's tongue snagged Eleanor's foot as she soared beside him. It yanked her back into the swiftly closing landscape as something enormous with two curved horns atop its skinless skull began to unearth itself from beneath the plain.
Eleanor's face was pale but determined as she drew a short dagger from the belt at her waist and stabbed at the thing that encircled her ankle. Where the dagger struck, green ichor poured from the tongue. It released the elf's foot as the whistling shriek began again.
Meanwhile, Peridur had fit another arrow to his bow, this one with a length of light gray rope attached to it. "Eleanor," he said quietly, speaking directly into her mind through the psychic connection the Soulbound shared. "Catch." He released the arrow and it flew in a graceful arc to end less than a handbreadth from Eleanor's grasping hand.
Eleanor had been clawing the dust in an effort to stay out of the ever-widening fissure behind her, but she turned her attention to the rope and looped it around her waist. Peridur braced himself and heaved on the line, pulling the bard out a moment before the giant's mouth snapped shut.
Eleanor found herself in her Soulbound's dirt-streaked arms. Together, they watched the undead horned skeleton sink beneath the dust of the plain once more, leaving a gaping pit in its wake.
"You never told me you could fish," she said, and unceremoniously fainted.
Nym the Healer
When Eleanor opened her eyes, she was back in their bedroom with Peridur's arms wrapped around her. The pillow beneath her head was damp from the blood dripping from her ears and nose.
Her Soulbound picked her up and carried her some distance across the elvish city of Luthien to the modest but functional home of Nym Triscyne, one of the few master healers left on this side of the sea. Though the sun was barely clearing the horizon, Nym was awake and puttering around her fireplace, stirring a small cauldron filled with a brew that bubbled and smoked, emitting a pleasant, earthy aroma.
As she stirred, Nym began to experience phantom pains in her ears which she first ignored, but then couldn't as they increased in intensity. So, she put down her spoon and made her way to the front door of her cottage, where Nym was still standing when the Soulbound arrived moments later.
"What and where?" she asked, brusquely.
Peridur took no offense, it was simply the healer's unique manner of communicating. "An undead's piercing shriek within the realm of shadows," he said, settling Eleanor on the low couch in the entryway.
"Realm of shadows," Nym repeated, turning abruptly to a cabinet full of medicinals that she kept next to the couch. "Why?"
"I was given a prophecy by a fish," Eleanor said weakly, dabbing at the blood that continued to drip down her ears.
Nym snorted but gathered a few items together without further comment. Returning to Eleanor's side, she handed the elf a silver candle with mystical runes etched onto its surface. "Sing to awaken its flame," she instructed. "Then listen to it burn."
Eleanor sang a few notes and the candle caught fire, burning with a strange black flame. She tilted her head towards the flame, first one side and then the other, bathing her ears in a healing song that could only be perceived by the bard. Nym washed the blood off of Eleanor's neck and earlobes as she did so, using water from the sacred river that flowed through Luthien to the sea.
"The goddess must have been keeping you safe," Nym said, once the candle had burned for a few minutes. "There are far worse fates that could have befallen you two in the realm of shadows at the hands of the restless undead beasts that dwell there." She blew out the flame on Eleanor's candle and gestured for the elf to put it in her pocket.
"Take it with you," she said. "And this." Nym handed over another unburnt candle from her bag. "You may meet more of the spirits haunting that forsaken place."
"I don't expect we'll have much trouble entering the realm again," Eleanor said. "The path ahead was clearly marked by drums." As Eleanor thanked the healer for her time and attention, Nym handed Peridur a small bottle of salve. He looked at Nym with a question in his eyes.
"For your shoulder," the healer said. "I can feel there's something wrong with it. Smear it with that and it should trouble you no more."
Peridur did as she instructed, and he felt a blessed relief from the nagging pain that had taken hold the moment he had pulled Eleanor from the mouth of the creature. "My thanks," he said. "Before we go, have you ever heard tales of a huge horned beast within the shadow realm?"
Nym put the few remaining medicines back into her cabinet. "Not tales, but I have treated many wounds in my centuries of life upon Arda." The healer's eyes slowly shut as she struggled to retrieve a memory from deep within her past.
"When I was young, I bound the injuries of a young warrior who was strong, even among the mightiest of our kind. And he triumphed against an aurochs, a live one then of course, as large as you described." Nym's eyes snapped open once more and the vault of her memory abruptly closed. "But my efforts were all in vain on that long ago day. Not even I can stand against the will of the gods."
"The gods?" Eleanor asked. "What do the gods care about the affairs of the mortals of Arda?"
Nym looked troubled. "They care more than you or I or any of our greatest star-gazers know, young Soulbound. Watch your step lest you inadvertently cross one of them in this quest of yours." She closed the wooden medicine cabinet door with a satisfying click.
"A final word of warning," Nym said, straightening her back as she stood. "Spiritual wounds are as deadly as the physical kind, possibly more dangerous, because their mark isn't as easy to perceive in the flesh."
She clasped hands with both Soulbound, more relaxed now that the healing crisis had passed. "And, I don't need to say it, but take care of each other." Nym clasped her palms before her chest in benediction. "For this is the twilight era, and long is the lament of the elves."
Echoing her words, Peridur and Eleanor made their way back home in the early morning light. As they walked through the largely empty streets of Luthien, the Soulbound could be seen leaning together, not because they needed the support, but because the greatest source of healing for the two that shared one soul, was each other.
Into Shadows Once More
For one night and day they rested until the healer's magic could work its way through Eleanor. The elder race is hardy and recover quickly in their own lands.
The second evening, Peridur prepared to enter the shadow realm again. Anticipating they may be there a while this time, he wrote a letter to the Etharch to explain where the Soulbound were heading and why. Sealing the letter and leaving it on his desk for collection, he went to the bedroom.
