Dark Judgement 30

Dark Judgement

Part 30 - Erestor the Ballet Dancer

Posted: October 3, 2008

*****

According to the elves who constantly watch Erestor, he was not at all happy about the mess he had caused in his room. He refuses to believe that he made the mess himself, probably because I took the memories away, and has demanded that I do something about it.

“There will be no replacement of furniture until you decide to stop smashing it up,” I replied as I walked out of the room. I turned swiftly and grabbed his foot, which was an inch width away from my head. He fell to the floor as he overbalanced.

“You bastard,” he yelled at me, as I crushed his foot in my hand. I felt the bones snap and then let go of his mangled foot. He held onto it as if it were precious, moaning with the pain.

“You give me the nicest compliments,” I sneered. “That will teach you not to kick me from behind.”

“Take the trolley in there and strap him on the bed,” I said to the elf by the door. “His foot is hurting, but do not be gentle with him just because he is in a little bit of pain. He can take it.”

I listened to Erestor’s shriek of agony as the elves lifted him onto the bed and strapped his broken foot down. How nostalgic the sound was for me. I remember happy days and nights spent in Barad-hûr listening to the screams and moans of my victims whilst I sat on my throne, or when I lay in my bed, usually with the terrified but compliant Maglor who dared say nothing. Damn! That last thought has spoilt the whole of the deliciousness of Erestor’s screaming. He continued yelling, even though I demanded that he be quiet. I smacked his face so hard that he was knocked out. That will teach him to evoke unpleasant memories.

Because I cannot abide mess or untidiness, I had Erestor removed to the mind reading room so I could sit comfortably behind him and not have my shoes touch bits of broken furniture. My fingers touched both sides of his head and I looked deep into his mind. Eradicating the Japanese fighting arts had not stopped Erestor trying to kick my head; I had hoped it would. Still, the source would be revealed in the end, and I thought that removing all ability in Korean martial arts might be productive. It seems that Erestor spent several years there and had become quite proficient. All the training and practises that he indulged in were removed and by using his other memories of the landscape, people, dwellings and culture, I built a new life in memories for him.

When Erestor remembers his stay in Korea, martial arts will not come to mind. Instead he would have fond memories of his time spent as a humble, peace loving Buddhist monk who developed a passionate interest in grass weaving, but was not very good at it. How amusing all this is and it took only four hours to achieve. One of the servants brought a tray of tea and sandwiches in from my only one, who worries that I do not eat enough when I am tending Erestor.

I ate my crab and lemon thyme sandwiches and Erestor slowly woke up. He moaned a lot as he came to. I expect that his foot is very painful and that his face feels quite sore also. There is always a reason to smile and a silver lining in any cloud. For the most part I ignored his moans of pain, although I must say they sounded like a sweet background musical accompaniment to my rather delicious repast and I am sure the ground vanilla custard and fresh raspberries were even more scrumptious because of his distress. I sighed happily and thought how fortuitous it was that I removed the events of the morning when he went to kick me and I knocked him out. Now I could tell him anything.

“What happened?” he asked, somewhat groggily. “My face hurts and my foot is in agony.”

“Do you think that perhaps you could enunciate more clearly?” I asked as I took a sip of my tea.

“My jaw feels broken,” he said and I could hardly contain my laughter.

Now what outrageous lie could I tell him? It was all too easy. “Your foot hurts because you kicked the furniture in your room to pieces in temper and the swan you had secreted in your rooms as a rather dubious pet, flew at your face and I fear it has broken your jaw.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Erestor said as best he could. “I bet you broke my jaw and I don’t remember a swan in my rooms or kicking my furniture to pieces.”

I was invigorated. Touching the sides of his head, and making him wince because I pressed where the jaw had dislocated, I fed images of an attacking swan into his mind and transposed it into his room.

“It was the swan that smashed my room up, not me,” Erestor said angrily. “I broke my foot trying to kick it away and it hit the side of my bed instead. Don’t try and blame me for it, you fucking shite.”

Believe what you want Erestor; you have just shown that you are very susceptible to my mind control. He was always able to resist me before and I am wondering if removing the Japanese and Korean fighting abilities has made his mind more amenable. Perhaps it has also removed his self control also; Erestor would never have shown that he was in pain before or reveal any weakness. His self discipline was controlled with a will of iron but slowly it was crumbling and I knew that I would win.

“I will get the healer to look at it later on,” I said in a bored voice.

“You will get the healer now!” Erestor yelled and started to struggle.

“One of the servants is collecting the flowers you requested yesterday,” I said, ignoring his little outburst.

“What flowers?” he screeched.

“The ones for the ikebana display you were going to make,” I lied. “You said that it would make your rooms more homely.”

“I did not say anything of the sort.” Erestor was outraged. “Stop bloody lying to me. It is years ago since I was a Master in Ikebana so why would I want to start doing it again?” Ah, so, Erestor! The mind implantation worked well. How amused I am that you have never arranged flowers in your life and yet you now think that you have experience of it.

“Isn’t flower arranging a bit of an elleth occupation?” I teased.

“Fuck off, gimp,” he said. I laughed.

“There is nothing you can do,” I said and howled with maniacal laughter to scare him.

It did not work. “How clichéd you are,” he said as if bored. “I am going to sleep now. If you can think of anything interesting then say it now or else hold your tongue.” He shut his eyes and I let him.

When I was convinced that he was asleep I decided to sort through his memories for fun, not because I intended changing them, although in view of his disrespect I was sorely tempted to give him a new past as an accountant with a secret double life as an adult baby. I placed my hands on either side of his head and probed back through time. In the early nineteen-hundreds, Erestor had lived in Russia and had run a fishery business whilst leading a double life as a gangster controlling the import and export of goods through the docks, along the whole of the Baltic shoreline. Out of fun and no inconsiderable amount of malice, I removed the memories of his nefarious past in Russia and gave him ones of being a ballet dancer. Sorting through the rest of his mind made it easy to cobble a past of sorts together for him. He had been to see the ballet in St. Petersburg and the woman with him had waxed lyrical about the genius of Nijinsky. She had been a countess and it amused me to see the circles a common little criminal could aspire to and move within. Erestor now had memories of being a good, but not gifted, dancer in the Diaghilev ballet company and getting out of Russia just before the revolution. I would have to deal with the memories of what happened when he escaped another time. He did escape from the Baltic at around the same period so it should not be too much of a conflict of memories.

I was tired. I needed to see Maglor and listen to him sing. I called for the elf outside and told him that Erestor was ready to go back to his rooms. He was still asleep; strange how he could sleep in so much pain.

I walked off to the house and saw Maglor doing a jigsaw puzzle. The rain poured outside, hitting the French paned doors with considerable force. “Hello, Meleth,” I said and smiled. He looked up and grinned.

“I have missed you,” he said. “Jigsaw puzzles are not terribly exciting.”

Lightening hit the ground near the windows and we looked at it. “That was close,” I said.

“Let us go up to our bedroom and sit on the balcony,” Maglor said. “We can watch the storm.”

“You could be hit by lightening,” I replied.

“We could open the balcony doors and watch from inside the room,” Maglor suggested. “I love thunder storms.”

“Come on then,” I said and took his hand.

We went into our bedroom and opened the doors to the balcony. The rain hit the glass roof and we could see the lightening strike the metalwork. Out at sea, angry waves were lit by sudden flashes as the forks hit them. The sweet smell of rain-washed earth wafted into our room and the air became fresh and cool. I sat behind Maglor on our two-elf chair, holding him in my arms and occasionally kissing his warm neck, his face smiling every time the sky lit up.

“It is awesome,” he said in wonder. “To have power like that must be breathtaking.”

I said nothing, but now that I know he loves thunderstorms they will be a more frequent event. I did not create the storm today but it is well within my capabilities to do so.

I will do this for Maglor because I love him; nothing is too much when ensuring my only one’s happiness. Perhaps Erestor should have learnt that with Glorfindel, as that would have been his saving grace. Still, it is too late now and only I can save him from himself, not that I want to, of course!

*****

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