I. Boys in the Wood

“And then,” Gaergath intoned in a hushed voice, “she creeps out of the woods in the middle of the night, and you turn around and there she is, looking right at you. You stand still as a stone. She’s all in a long black cloak, with a hood over her head, so you cannot see her face save for her eyes, which burn like two coals of red fire. You want to run, but she fixes you with her eyes, and then she starts to move toward you. Her long bony hands come from out of the cloak like two big white spiders. Long fingernails filed razor sharp, just like claws…”

He paused for dramatic effect, looking to the four other boys sitting about the campfire, who were motionless, the smallest one with his mouth and eyes wide open. The largest one, Norui, had been turning a spit with a wild turkey impaled upon it over the fire, but now he just sat there, gawking, waiting for the next part of the story.

“The Woman of the Secret Shadow,” the smallest one, Túruan, whispered. “Thuringwethil—“

“Shhh!!” the bigger boy sitting beside him, his brother Herdir, shushed him. “You’re not supposed to say her name!”

“Aye,” Gaergath said in mock mournfulness. “Now you’ve done it, young ‘un. She’ll come for you now. She’ll drink all your blood. She’ll drain you white, and toss you to the wolves.” He leaned over closer to the lad, making slurping noises. “You’d better run, she’s likely on her way right now….”

Túruan, who was but thirteen and looked closer to eleven, two or three years younger than the others, moved closer to his brother, who shoved him away.

“Herdir, you shouldn’t have brought me out here,” he whimpered.

“Brought you out here!” Herdir scoffed. “You sneaked out, remember? You wanted to come hunting. But Mum said you were too young. You wanted to come out, so you sneaked out—”

“You should have made me go back,” Túruan said, getting sniffly.

“Not to worry, runt,” Norui said. “You’ve not enough blood in you anyway. She’ll likely come for me instead, since I’m the biggest. And I’ll wager my blood tastes better anyway.”

“Hey Gaergath,” Herdir said, “someone told me the Bat Lady is your mum. What say you to that?”

“Hah!” Gaergath said with outward bravado, flipping a scornful hand, but it seemed his cheeks darkened a trifle in the firelight. “You’ve seen my mum. Does she look like a Bat Lady to you?”

The others laughed all but Túruan, who sat huddled with his arms tight about his drawn-up knees, trying to lose himself in his cloak. Herdir slapped him on the back.

“They say,” Thorodon said, “that the Bat Lady is Sauron’s fancy woman. That ‘twas he that gave her the black cloak, and her powers. They say he’s a blood drinker himself. Some say as you are the very image of him, Gaergath.”

“And what if I be?” Gaergath said cheekily. “Mayhap I’ll overthrow him, and be the Dark Lord myself. Then I’d get to tell you all what to do, and if you didn’t obey my every command--ffffft! you die!”

More laughter. Norui remembered the spit, and began turning it again.

“Is that turkey nearly done?” Herdir asked. “I’m starved.”

“’Twill be a while yet,” Norui said reaching into his cloak pocket. “Here, have a seedcake.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Herdir said catching it with both hands. “Here, Túruan, want to share this with me?”

Túruan shook his head vigorously, retreating further under the hood of his cloak.

“I heard she was the mistress of Draugluin,” Gaergath said after a moment. “The Blue Wolf. Mayhap he’s my dad, instead of Sauron.”

“What say you turn this for a bit,” Norui said to Thorodon. “I need a piss.”

Thorodon laughed as he moved toward the spit. “Watch for the Bat Lady,” he said. “She might be out there…and hungry.”

“Or Draugluin,” Gaergath said uneasily. “Or a troll…or a whole host of goblins.”

“I'll squirt her in the eye,” Norui said making a gesture of doing so.

Túruan shivered. “I want to go home,” he said from beneath his cloak.

“What’s the matter with you,” his brother said giving him a little shake. “You’re usually so tough. Big talker, always bragging and swaggering about. Just yesterday you said you could lick a whole pack of orcs with one hand tied behind you.”

“Aye,” Thorodon said. “You’d better run along home, squirt. Better a thrashing from your dad than the Bat Lady drinking you dry. If she shows herself, I'll take my bow to her.”

“I’m not going by myself,” Túruan said.

“What’s that?” Norui called, from behind a nearby tree. “I hear something.”

All the boys pricked up their ears, listening. Gaergath, having better hearing than the others, felt his blood turn to ice. It sounded like a shriek, coming from a great distance. It seemed to go on endlessly, and when finally it stopped, it seemed every sound in the forest fell silent also.

It was a near eternity before anyone spoke.

“Good thing I had it out already,” Norui said at last, just above a whisper, fumbling with the front of his leggings, “or I’d have pissed myself for certain. What was that?”

“Was it……her?” Túruan said. His face looked stark white against his hood, and he had a death grip on his brother’s arm, which Herdir did not seem to notice. Herdir shook his head, speechless, his face just as white as his brother’s.

Gaergath and Thorodon just looked at each other, then at the others, not knowing what to make of what they had just heard.

“Mayhap someone had a nightmare,” Gaergath said after a moment. He could remember his mother screaming like that a time or two when a horrifying dream visited her. “Aye…that’s probably all it was.”

He breathed a little easier.

Thorodon nodded. “You’re probably right. I hope.”

“There’s a crescent moon out,” Norui noted. “That’s when nightmares happen. I hope I don’t have aught tonight. Here, Thoro, let me turn the spit now. My hands need something to do.”

“Or Mum noticed Túruan wasn’t in his bed,” Herdir said with a sidelong glance to his brother. “That’s probably what it was. Likely she thinks the Bat Lady got him. You’re going to catch it tomorrow, Squirt, without a doubt.”

His teeth were chattering.

“That’s not how it sounded,” Thorodon said. Gaergath nodded, almost involuntarily.

“Why is it so still now?” Norui said after a moment, his hand pausing at the spit. “No crickets, no owls…nothing stirring at all. It’s…strange.”

“My mum has nightmares sometimes,” Gaergath said. “She said sometimes she dreams she’s trapped inside a box. She can’t see the sides…and she can’t get out. And then it goes all dark…and then….”

Túruan began to shiver uncontrollably.

“Goblins,” Norui said. “My grandmum used to tell of them. She said they peek in your window at night…and give you nightmares. She says they’re all black and furry with yellow eyes and pointy ears and long noses.”

“Orcs,” Herdir said. “My cousin told of them. He said he saw one once. Said it scared him out of ten years' growth. Ugliest thing he ever saw...and the stinkiest.”

“I can’t hear anything now,” Norui said. “It’s…strange. Just…damned queer. There's something...evil...out there.”

Gaergath felt a growing terror inside of him…. 

II. Silent Night

“We can’t stay here all night,” Gaergath said.  “I have an idea:  let’s go out to the cave.  It’s across the stream, which is fast moving, so if we wade it, perhaps she’ll lose our scent.”

“What about the turkey?” Norui asked.  “It’s not done yet.  And I’m still hungry.”

“We’ll take it with us,” Gaergath said.  “Douse the fire, then you take one end of the spit, and Herdir, you take the other.  I’ll lead, and Thorodon, you bring up the rear.  We’ll carry torches, you and I.  Túruan, you can walk behind your brother, or behind me if you’d rather.  Just keep up, all right?”

“Why can’t I lead?” Thorodon said.  “I’m the oldest.”

“Because I know the way,” Gaergath said a trifle impatiently.

“We all know the way,” Thorodon pointed out.

“I know it best,” Gaergath said.  “I live closest to it.  I’ve gone out there a billion times, and could find it with my eyes closed.  And it was my idea.  Are we going to sit and argue all night over who gets to lead, or are we going to go?”

“What if she still finds us?” Herdir said with a shiver, as the five boys made their way single-file through the eerie silence of the forest, Gaergath and Thorodon carrying lighted sticks. 

“If she does,” Gaergath patted himself on the belly, “we’re protected.  See my belt buckle?  ‘Tis silver.  She doesn’t like silver, can’t even go near it.  It burns her when she touches it, my mum said.  She had the buckle made for me, and she makes me put it on every time I go out hunting.”

“How does she know so much about it?” Norui asked.

“She just does,” Gaergath shrugged without looking at any of the others.

“’Tis better we don’t talk so much,” Thorodon said just above a whisper.  Gaergath nodded. 

And on they went. 

A quarter of an hour later, they had reached the cave, which was not really a cave, but rather an overhang beneath a bluff that stood over the bank of a shallow stream.  Here the boys swam and fished in warm weather, and sometimes camped out if it happened to rain.  The echoing sound the running water made against its slick walls was comforting to the lads.  It was a sound, at least.  

Gaergath and Thorodon stuck their torches in the soft sand so they could see to spread out their bedrolls.  They talked very softly, eating the turkey which was not all the way cooked, but it was food nevertheless.  Some made attempts at jokes, which did not come off well.  The boys slept side by side, rather than spread out as usual, after agreeing to go home in the morning. Túruan was the first to fall asleep, strange to say, even though Gaergath threatened to bury the first one who fell asleep in the sand.

And he lay on his back, clutching his blanket to his chin, and looking up at the sky through the vines dangling from the bluff.  It seemed he could not close his eyes, and he wondered if his mother were awake now.

He remembered what she had told him about his “Aunt Celirwen”.   They would have to come up with a story for the others, she said.  Villagers would gossip; it was their nature, and the truth would only frighten them, and fear could make people do terrible things.  And so she came up with a story that she had a twin sister who was a trifle mad, and so was kept hidden during the daytime.  Sometimes she would escape and roam about at night, and yes, it was true she had dabbled in witchcraft, and likely that was what had driven her mad.  Still, the wild tales of her being a messenger of Sauron and a Blood Drinker were likely a lot of stuff and nonsense. 

Cúronel hated to have to lie to anyone, and she liked even less to encourage her son to do so, but sometimes it was necessary, she said, in order to protect oneself and others.  And it was the only justification for lying, she said. She'd told him he might tell people his father had died before he was born.  Any more information about him than that was no one else's business.

Gaergath thought of his “aunt” now, wondering if she were really out there, and what it was like to go about drinking blood, and what sort of powers it gave her.  Could she fly?  Had she really met Melkor?  Did she sleep in the daytime, and where?  Was Sauron truly Gaergath’s father?  

At last he felt his eyelids grow heavy as he pondered these things, and somewhere he heard the howl of a wolf, far off in the distance.  Then silence once more.

He had no idea it was to be the last night of his childhood.

III. Hoofprints

What a fool she had been.

Silver.  She could smell it, even out here.  It completely obliterated his scent, driving her back.  Well.  She might have known.  How could she have been stupid enough to suppose that he would not be protected, if that creature had been?

It looked as though she would have to go home without her son after all.

But she would find a way.  She had found a way to overpower that creature...and she would get her son somehow.  Perhaps Sauron could help her....

It was not over yet.

~*~*~

It was just after sunrise when the boys awoke. 

A bird sang in a nearby tree, and more could be heard chirping in the distance.  Gaergath had never been happier to hear birds, had never really taken notice of them except as potential game.  He grinned and patted his belt buckle, thanking it silently.

Yet he took his leave of his friends without eating, wishing to check on his mother, expressing his concern for his horse to the others, who grinned knowingly.

He hummed to himself as he took the path home, taking note of the way the autumn sun shone through the gold and crimson and scarlet and bronze-brown leaves above him, of the scent of the pine-needles on the forest floor, the feel of the chilly morning breeze against his face and hair.  He found himself grinning at the sun as it peeped over the hills on the eastern horizon, and he picked up a small stone and flung it at a squirrel without intent to kill it, only to startle it, laughing when the animal scuttled up the tree trunk onto a branch, scolding at him and whirling its tail. 

His cheery mood petered out a little, however, as he approached the cottage.  Something was amiss, something he could not quite name.  As he approached, he saw that the shutters were flung wide open, and he experienced a feeling of relief.  The door stood partially open as well, and he broke into a run, feeling hungry. 

Yet when he entered the house, his mother was nowhere in sight.  The house was cold.  No fire burned, either in the front stove nor the kitchen.  And all the shutters stood open.  Dead leaves littered the floor. 

He called for her, inspecting each room, and the back yard.  The mirror in her bedroom was broken on the floor, and he picked up the pieces and laid them on a table with intent to throw them away later.  Then he noticed a streak of dried blood on one of them.  Strange--surely she would have thrown the pieces away.  She was scrupulously neat. 

Then he stopped and pondered.  His mother was a healer.  Perhaps a neighbor with a desperately sick or injured child had rushed in begging her to come right away, and in her haste she had knocked the mirror off and cut herself trying to pick up the pieces, and let the fire go out in the stove.

But that did not explain the open shutters.

He ran out to the stable, and found the stable door standing open and both the horses gone.

 There were hoofprints going two ways, but neither way led into the village.

Then he saw the small fence around the garden had been partially knocked down, and obvious upheaval among the vegetables.  A large pumpkin lay squashed, and on closer inspection, he saw what was clearly a horse’s hoofprint in it. 

With growing panic, he followed the larger set of hoofprints, calling for his horse, Russandol.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the chestnut gelding grazing in a wide meadow.  But he could not see his mother’s pretty grey mare, Mollie, anywhere.

“Come back to the stable, Russi,” he said taking the chestnut by his mane and attempting to lead him along.  “We must go find Mother.  Something queer is going on, and I mean to get to the bottom of it.  I wish you could talk, so you could tell me what happened.”

The horse whickered, but was not forthcoming with any information.  And he did not seem to want to go back to the stable.

“All right then,” the boy said, “stay here.  I’ll go fetch the saddle and bring it out.   I just wonder where Mollie went.  She made a fair mess in the garden.  Something must have scared her in a…”

He broke into a run, back to the stable, where he found Russandol’s saddle and bridle, and then suddenly something caught his eye:  a dark splotch on the straw at his feet. 

Blood, it appeared to be.

~*~*~

It had been years since he had been to the house of his “aunt”, and he was not sure he knew the way, but he set out, after a hasty meal of bread and cheese, hoping he would not get lost.  He took his crossbow and a goodly supply of arrows, along with his silver dagger.

It would be a long ride.  He hoped there would be someone along the way who could tell him where the house was.

The crossbow had been a gift from Thorodon’s father, who had been a soldier, and had taught his son to use longbow, crossbow, spear, sword, and knife.  Gaergath had insinuated himself into Thorodon’s good graces in the hope that his father might teach him the use of these weapons as well, and so he had.  Gaergath hoped Thorodon would not suspect him of his motives in angling for his friendship, which Thorodon had, of course, but let him in nevertheless, since he would scarcely have had any friends otherwise.  Thorodon was different from other boys, more dark natured and brooding, sometimes surly, sometimes haughty, in marked contrast to the relentless sunny ordinariness of Norui and Herdir.  He was darkly handsome also, and braver than most, besides being skilled as hunter and athlete.  Gaergath regarded him with a mixture of awe and envy, worship and disapproval.  Although he considered Thorodon his best mate, there was something guarded about their relationship, a reluctance to open up completely, and it sometimes led to violent quarrels.  Even so, Thorodon’s father, who was widowed, took an interest in the younger lad, taking it upon himself to give him some of the fathering he would have had to do without otherwise.

“But at least you won’t get a thrashing from him, if you misbehave,” Thorodon had said to him in a rare moment of lightness.  “He’ll just send you home to your mum.  Does she ever thrash you?”

“Nay, never,” Gaergath answered a little too quickly.  When he was bad, his mother used to apply a small rattan cane to the open palms of his hands, and as much as it pained him, it seemed to hurt her more.  The look on her face was far worse to him than the physical pain.

She had taught him to read and write and figure, so that he was one of the few boys in the vicinity who had these skills.  This gave him an edge even over Thorodon at times.  Even though the older lad was undoubtedly intelligent and might have learned quickly, Gaergath never invited him to come study with him and his mother.  There needed to be something he could do that Thorodon could not.

As he rode down the narrow lane that he was certain led out to the road to Celirwen’s house, he feared more and more that he would never see his mother again, and by the time he was a mile or so away, he knew in his heart he had lost her.  And he wondered if she had been taken from him as punishment for something he had done.  Had he not been a good son to her?  He was far from perfect, he knew.  He had often been disobedient, sneaking out when she had forbidden him, or was punishing him for some misdemeanor; he sometimes lied to her, filched bits of food or even money from her, talked back to her, called her hard names behind her back to other boys.  Perhaps she had died because he was so bad….

And then there was that thing he often did when he was alone, particularly when thinking of a certain pretty village lass....His mother had caught him at it once, and he had been mortified, and expected a caning.  She just gave him that look, however, and said she hoped she wouldn't catch him at it again.  He made doubly sure she wouldn't, but that wasn't to say he left off doing it altogether.  Of course, his friends all did the same thing, but still....Perhaps he was being punished for his evil thoughts....

Or, what if she wasn’t dead, and had been turned into a Blood Drinker like her sister?  That would be even worse…or wouldn’t it?

And if she were dead, what would become of him now?

And where was his father? 

Perhaps Sauron was the one who had turned his aunt into a Blood Drinker.  And had caused her to kill his mother.  Or maybe he had killed her himself. 

At any rate he would pay, thought Gaergath, involuntarily touching the crossbow hanging at his side, tears springing into his eyes.  They both would pay.  He would destroy them both without mercy.  And laugh as he watched them die…. 

IV. Fog

At the end of his first day on the road, it occurred to him that he should have gone to Thorodon’s father, who had many maps.  He did remember studying the maps some time ago and finding Tol-in-Gaurhoth on one of them.  It was roughly sixty some-odd miles away, and Celirwen’s house was close by.  He remembered a white stone structure with marble columns and rather dark windows in a glade very near a dark forest.  And a high wall around the garden in back.  He could remember being forbidden to go into it, and of course his curiosity had been aroused.  And so he had slipped out of the house when Celirwen’s back was turned and done everything he could to try to get into that garden, since the doors into it were kept locked.  Climbed a tree to try to see over the wall, but it was so far back, all he had managed to see was the top of some dark trees and a few bushes that looked pretty unremarkable to him.  He wondered what all the fuss was about, and was about to climb down when a strange sound met his ears.  It was some sort of music or singing, as far as he could make out, yet he could see no one in the garden at all.  And a nameless dread stole over him and the first thing he knew, he had fallen from the tree, and was lying on his back looking up.  He was not hurt, merely winded, but he saw his nurse running toward him, and she did not look at all happy, and not long after that, they were moved to the house in which he now lived.  Celirwen came out from time to time, and she sometimes brought him a gift, but mostly she talked to the nurse.  And after a while, she stopped coming out altogether, and shortly thereafter, his mother showed up….

He had asked the nurse about the garden, but she was evasive, and later when he asked his mother, she said it was full of “witchy” plants, but exactly what sort these were, she did not care to say. 

“There are some things in this world ’tis better not to wonder too much over,” she told him, when he insisted on plying her with questions.  But he would wonder.  It was just how he was.  He wondered over the dark things of the night, the ancient secrets of the earth, the phantoms of his own mind.  Why it was that sometimes in the night, he would go over to his window and look out, and wonder what was on the other side of the sky, and why his father kept his face hidden, and what monstrous things came to pass in the furtive realms of his obsessions.  

And why it was he took no interest in his own son.

Gaergath gave little thought to his future.  Even though he often thought of the world outside and wondered about it, and contemplated going out and living a life of adventures, he did not think overmuch about how he would make his way in the world.  He enjoyed his life as it was, living with his mother, his lessons with her, working about the place, being with his friends, going into the village where a certain lass would sometimes give him a friendly smile in passing…not that she was the only one, but she was by far the fairest, with yellow wavy hair--she was the only lass he had ever seen with yellow hair.  And saucy blue eyes, and a figure abounding in sweet curves and a graceful hitching sway in all its motions.  He had yet to speak to her; from what he had heard, her father and brother were most protective, and a formidable obstacle indeed.  He was not sure what he was supposed to do if he did meet her, anyway.  Marry her?  He was too young for that, did not feel ready.  He could think of many things he would have liked to do with her, but was not sure how one went about such, and if he were caught, it would be all up with him, surely.  Still, if he did not speak to her soon, someone else would beat him to it, without a doubt.  Likely Thorodon had eyes for her as well….

Now, as he rode along on his second day, he supposed he would not see her again.  

The life of adventure he had dreamt of was about to begin.  And now he would give anything to go back to the previous one.

~*~*~

By the end of the second day he had no doubt he was lost.

Then he spied a little farmhouse in the distance, and decided he had no choice but to go ask someone where he was. 

The occupants were an elderly man and his largely deaf wife, who provided him with a hot meal and let him sit before the fireplace.  Gaergath told them he had set out in search of his mother, whom he believed to have been abducted by her sister, an evil witch who coveted her secrets.  He wondered if the tale would be too far fetched for the couple, but as he spoke he saw a look of fear flicker over the old farmer’s kindly face.

“I’ve heard tell,” he said, “of a place where a sorceress dwells…not seen it myself, but I’ve heard tell.  They say the place has a blasted appearance, no trees near, no grass, no flowers…naught but a high wall all around the back, about an acre or so, and trees can be seen within…but not without.  Once there was trees, they say.  But some years ago, they all withered and died.  No birds sing, no creature goes near, save for bats.  There’s a silence about the place, as though no one lives therein.  Yet, some say they’ve heard sounds from it in the night, and those that have gone near the wall, say they’ve heard voices, not like any ever heard of man, woman or child.  A music that’s like no other, a music not to be withstood nor listened to at any length, lest it cause madness.  Some say…” The old farmer leaned closer to the boy’s ear, although there was no need for it, his wife being scarcely able to hear a normal tone of voice, and she was in the next room at the moment.  “Some say, ‘tis the dwelling of She of the Black Cloak.  Her name might not be spoken, lest it bring her out of the Shadow, and into your own space and heart, never to leave again.  Ye’d do best to stay as clear as possible from that place, my lad.”

“But what if she has my mother?” Gaergath said, despite the terrified leap his heart made in his breast.  “My mother had a magic of her own.  It was a good sort, which healed and brought forth beautiful and wholesome things.  A neighbor’s cow wouldn’t give milk, and my mother visited her.  I don’t know what she did, but afterward those neighbors never went without milk again.  And someone’s hen wouldn’t lay, and after my mother visited her, well, they had all the eggs they could use.  The vegetables in our garden are the best all around, and folks who buy them say they are far healthier and stronger for having eaten them.  I think this…woman…wanted her secrets, and came and took her away while I was out hunting with my friends.  She might be tormenting her this minute.  I must go out and save her if I can.”

As he spoke, a breath of hope stirred within him, that what he said might be the truth after all.

“You’re a brave lad,” the old farmer said.  “But if you were to go there…Had you no one else to take you there?  Someone older, stronger?”

“Nay, no one,” Gaergath said.  “Just my mother and I, that’s all there are.  If I’ve lost her, I have no one else.”

The couple let him stay overnight, in the room where their son used to sleep before he married and moved out.  In the morning they fed him and his horse once more, then the old man once more tried to dissuade him from his task.

But Gaergath was not the dissuadable sort.

As he was taking his leave, the farmer said, “If you should wish to turn back, then you might come here and stay with us.  Old folks like the wife and me could use a strong, brave lad like you to help out on the farm.  Our son has his own family, and we can’t depend so much on him.  And our hired man had an accident and left us a month ago, and he hasn't been replaced.”

“I may,” Gaergath said more brusquely than he meant to.  And went on his fearful way into a morning fog.

It grew thicker as he rode along, and he grew more and more afraid, and more tempted to turn back.  There seemed something malevolent about it, obscuring the path before him and behind, and Russandol seemed uneasy also.

“We must be getting closer,” Gaergath said to the horse.  “I wish we could see where we’re going.  Maybe this dratted fog will lift by noontime, and we can go on.  Would that I had a cloak like hers, and could fly above it!”

And then he remembered what the old farmer had said.  What if he were to speak her name?  Not her given name, which he’d spoken before, but the name she was called in her legend.

He sat motionless for he knew not how long, just looking out at the grey-white, cold drifting fog.  No, if he were to speak her name in the daytime, she would not come out, for she slept then…according to her legend.  It was only at night that it would fetch her…or was it?

And if he did bring her…then what?  Her name might not be spoken, lest it bring her out of the Shadow, and into your own space and heart, never to leave again. 

He shuddered.  Dared he risk it?  What if she took up residence in the vicinity of his being?  Would he become like her?

The fog, instead of lifting, seemed to grow heavier with each passing moment.

It felt as if it would never clear again.  And he was sure he had lost the road, and would never find her house on his own. 

Would she drink his blood?  Would she turn him into one of her kind?

There are some things in this world ’tis better not to wonder too much over…

He drew his cloak about him, shivering uncontrollably.  There was no going back, he realized.  Now or ever.

Thuringwethil, he whispered into the impenetrable milky web all around him.

V. Ownership

For a long moment, all he could hear was the pounding of his own pulse in his ears, and the stillness all about.  In the distance he heard the plaintive bleat of a sheep, then the stillness again.  No difference in the fog.  He closed his eyes, waiting for something to happen. 

And then after a moment that seemed to go on for an age, he heard a voice—or not so much a voice, as a prompting that came from without, telling him to go forward.  He opened his eyes, half expecting to see someone, but all he saw was that the fog appeared thinner.  But it was a moment before he urged the horse on.  He was not a timid lad, by any means.  He would do almost anything on a dare, particularly if Thorodon was about.  Still, a feeling of dread had seized his very bones.  He knew he had crossed a point of no return, and that the boy who sat on this horse was a very different Gaergath from the one who had set forth three days previous.

Then he felt the prompting once more, and this time he went on, telling himself that if the voice were evil, Russandol would know it.  Perhaps it was his mother’s, guiding him, asking him to save or avenge her.  He felt momentarily comforted.  She was looking out for him still.  He would reach his destination, one way or another….

He scarcely noticed when the fog did lift, and he found himself on a narrow road in a forest that appeared to be quite old, judging from the size of the trees.  He talked aloud to Russandol in order to stave off the dread and the loneliness.  The sky was cloudy, but he could see the sun trying to shine through.  By and by he came to a fork in it, and dismay seized him.  Which to take?  Remembering the prompting, he was still and silent, waiting for it again.

The road on your left.  And he took that road.

There was an open stretch, where there were not so many trees, and he could see a dwelling or two.  There were mountains in the distance, with haze hanging over them still, over which tall dark trees rose, and he could hear the moo of a cow from a remote valley, and the barking of a dog.  He judged that he must still be far from his destination, and wondered if he would have to stop again tonight.  He wondered if Túruan had been responsible for bringing Celirwen to his mother’s, by saying her name, and a blinding anger seized him…until he remembered that he himself had been the one telling tales about her.  Trying to scare the others, show them what he was made of…Perhaps he was the one who had caused her death or abduction….

He felt a little sick. 

But he did not stop.

What would he do, once he reached her house?  If he did, that is.

He touched his silver dagger.  Yes, he could overpower her…. But his mother’s silver pendant had not saved her.  What made him think he was any match for a witch-vampire who had been a favorite of both Sauron and Melkor? 

But he could not turn back now.  He had spoken her name, and if he turned back, she would have him.  She would never leave him in peace.  Only by destroying her could he ever hope to escape her.  No going back, no going back….

What if she destroyed him instead?

What would happen after death?  He had asked his mother once.  She had explained that the dead passed into the Halls of Mandos, where they waited until their time to go into the Presence.  However, not all of them stayed.  The wicked were confined to the lower reaches, the nether-world where they could not plague the denizens of the Halls, and were tormented by the memory of their own evil deeds.  What became of them there, she knew not.  And there were others who did not reach the halls because of their attachment to the circles of Arda.  These spirits wandered about unhoused, forlorn, searching, restless, sleepless, unable to connect with any living, at least in any positive way. 

“How were you able to get out of…her?” he’d asked her once, not long after she appeared to him.  “How did you take on a body?”

“I am half Maia,” she explained.  “The Maiar have powers that mortals and Elves have not.  These enabled me to take on a solid hröa so I could reach you and claim you, and protect you from her evil.  I am not sure how I did so--it is not given me to know all.  I am thinking that when she first drank blood, an unhoused spirit claimed her body, and pushed me out…perhaps thinking there was not room enough for both of us.” 

She chuckled a little.  He frowned.

“Could I do that?” he asked her.  “Split off from this body into another, and be two people?”

She sobered.  “I do not know, my son.  You are more Maia than I, and there is no telling what powers may be slumbering within you.  I warn you to be most careful of awaking them, for powers can easily go astray.  I would wish you to use them only at sorest need, if at all.  And I do not wish you to even think of trying to use them now, for you are but a lad, and not strong enough yet to grasp what may be too great for you to handle.  It is as if you would try to ride a horse that is too big for you.  You would not have proper control over it yet, and it could only do you harm.  It will be many years before you will be able to master what powers you may have.  I wish you to promise me that you will not try to harness your powers until you are ready.”

He promised, secretly wondering just what powers he did possess.  It had never occurred to him that he had any at all. Surely if he did, he would know it.

Perhaps someday he would save the world….

Or rule it.

It made him dizzy just thinking of it.

He was not even sure he wanted to rule the world.  Still, it would be fun going about telling people what to do, and seeing them do it.  Seeing them quake in fear before him.  Having armies at his command.  Building cities, traveling the world, seeing what was out there.  Flying high, looking at everything below him, seeing people look up at him and wondering what he was, a bird, or…

He shook his head.  Well, he could not fly, he knew that much.  He had tried it, and gotten a broken wrist for his trouble.  He could fight, but not so well as Thorodon, who was all mortal, as far as he knew.  He could not shoot so well as his friend either, although he was a good hunter, and he could run fast, but Thorodon could run faster.  Just what could he do, that the others could not?  He could read and write, but his mother had taught him, so that didn’t count.  It was not a special power, although it did inspire awe and respect in some of the other boys. 

Perhaps it was his promise to his mother that had been holding him back.  Preventing him from what he was truly capable of doing.

Perhaps now his time had come....

Strange how lonely this road was.  No wheel-ruts, no hoofprints, no human footprints, nothing.  Just a rocky stretch of road, with weeds springing up here and there, and low-hanging branches he had to avoid, and at one point he had to jump over a large tree that had fallen down in it.

But by and by he found himself on a high slope, looking down into a place where the fog still hung low.  And he noticed the clouds had largely cleared from the sky and the sun had come out…and yet that fog remained. 

“We’re here, I think,” he whispered to Russandol, who seemed quite uneasy now.

He thought his heart would escape his breast as he rode ever nearer the grey-white mist that shrouded the hollow ahead.  Russandol whickered and balked, and Gaergath kicked his sides to urge him on, half hoping that the horse would turn and bolt, taking him with him, and sorely tempted to let him do so.  But She would follow him, he knew.  He had spoken her name, and now he belonged to her, as he had known he would. 

But perhaps, if he belonged to her…he could destroy her.  As he would not be able to otherwise.

Vainly he tried to urge his horse forward, but Russandol continued to fight him, and reared up at one point, nearly throwing his rider.

“Castrated old plug!” Gaergath exclaimed in rage and frustration, kicking him once more with his heels and hanging on with all his might.  He slapped the reins down on the horse, with the result that Russandol turned and bolted, headed back for the forest.  When they came to the fallen tree, Gaergath managed to hold on as the horse cleared it once more, but soon afterward, they came to a low-hanging branch, which he had managed to avoid on the way out, but had forgotten, and before he could gather his wits about him, the branch brushed him off his steed.  He gave a yelp and soon found himself on his backside in the road. 

And the horse ran on.

“RUSSI!” Gaergath screamed, springing up, then giving an exclamation of pain.  His ankle was hurt, he found, but not broken, since he was able to stand.  He could not run on it, however, and even if he had been able to, he could still have not run fast enough to catch up with the horse….

Or could he?  Would those powers enable him to run that fast?

He could but try.

But his ankle pained him too badly.  He could but stand and cry out vainly for his horse.  But he could not even hear the hoofbeats any more.

He sat down in the road, finally, and bawled like a small child, not caring who heard him.

After a while he crumpled up on his side, sobbing, then lay face down in his despair, moaning. 

He truly belonged to Her now.  She was his true mother, and he had given himself to her, surrendering full ownership, and now he truly knew it.

At last, he rose, sniffling, wiping his nose on the back of his wrist, and began hobbling along in the direction of the mist.

VI. The Garden

He stood looking down for a long moment, then in the direction from which he had come.

He cannot have gone so far, he thought, remembering how he had found Russandol in the meadow the following morning.  Likely he will run for a while, then tire himself out and stop to graze somewhere, and wait there until I return….

Why had he come on this mission?  What would he accomplish?

He would do well to turn back now, and look for his horse.  Whom did he have now, save for Russandol?

Yet his mother may well be imprisoned there.  Once more he began limping toward the mist.

As he descended the slope and approached the hollow, he could feel the air grow distinctly colder, and soon he found himself shivering, drawing his cloak more closely about him, wishing he had brought a warmer wrap.  He had no memory of this place, of any such fog enveloping the house, which he could not see anyway.  What was it the old farmer had said about a “blasted” appearance—no trees, no grass or flowers, he’d said, or something along those lines?  Yet Gaergath could see trees in the mist, very dark ones…most likely dead, but trees nevertheless.  Under his feet he could feel only coldness, as if he were walking on snow. 

He could hear something now.  A very faint, slightly mournful sound, a little like crying and a little like singing.  He stopped and stood still the better to hear it, and it went on like that for a time, then it sounded like talking, a very muted and indistinct murmur, then something almost like laughter, then it seemed to die out altogether.  Then gradually it started up again, moaning a little as if in pain, then the singing once more, or something like it, and Gaergath had never wanted anything more than to turn and flee back where he came from, and never come back here again, or remember he had been here. 

Yet as he stood riveted to the spot, trembling, he could not remember which direction he had come, and could see nothing beyond the fog and the dead trees.  No path, no sky; it was worse than darkness.  It was the absence of daylight, and the complete uncanniness, the total lack of sanity, reality, divinity, music, truth; all was separation, lies, nullity. 

Had he passed into the Shadow world?  How would he ever escape?

Thuringwethil, he found himself whispering once more, closing his eyes.  It was a long moment before he opened them again, and he drew his cloak tightly about him once more, shivering, wondering if he had died, and crossed into the Void.  That murmuring voice went on and on, until he thought he should go mad with hearing it, and half hoping he would, then perhaps this Place, if place it were, might be more tolerable.  

At last he opened his eyes, and found that the mist was less thick than before, and less cold, and that he could see something white in the distance…something like a house.

He had never been so glad to see any dwelling before.  He came close to falling on his knees and kissing the ground.

The house was in an open space, and as he drew closer, he could see it looked remotely familiar.  He remembered it as being quite beautiful; this house was a ghost of that memory, dingy, with black staring empty windows, as though it had been deserted long ago. 

And he could see that high wall behind it.

He could not see the tree he had climbed long ago, trying to see over it, however.  Not even a stump.  But he could see the tops of trees over the wall, dark-looking, and somehow foul, far more so than he remembered.  He had no desire to go into that garden now.  It was the last thing he wanted to do.

But how to get into the house?  Likely the door would be locked…or would it?  He saw it, very large, rounded at the top, made of some grey stone, with a knocker of some sort, a wolf’s head, he thought.  The idea of knocking at it seemed absurd.  And it did not appear as if anyone lived here.  What of the windows?  They all appeared to be barred, although they were so dark he could hardly tell.  Such black emptiness.  How could anyone abide here? 

It looked as though the wall might be the only way in, after all. He shuffled out back of the house to inspect.

The wall was made of grey stone, about ten feet high.  The stone was slimy to the touch, as if it were the inside of a well.  How could he possibly climb it?  He would need a ladder, and he could see none about the place.  If only Russandol were with him, he might have climbed up on his back…. Were there any branches lying about that might be long enough that he could climb one?  He saw none.  Stones he might stack up and build himself a staircase?  He would have to go far and wide to find enough. 

All he saw was a long dark iron pole, about two inches in diameter, lying next to the back of the wall.   Could he stick it into the ground and climb up, perhaps?  He took it and tried pounding it into the earth near the wall, but the ground was too hard.  Groaning in frustration, he came close to giving it a hearty kick…when an inspiration came to him, from where, he would never know.  And he took one end of it and dragged it a good distance away, then made a run for the wall, and when he was very close, jabbed the far end of the pole into the ground and tried to fling himself upward…nearly impaling himself in the process.

It took three more tries…and on the third, a strange thing happened.  The pole seemed to have decided to cooperate; it was as if it suddenly took root in the ground, and his body swung almost involuntarily over the garden wall.  He remembered to let go of the pole, so that at least he did not end up smacking himself against the wall. 

And hurt his ankle all over again.  But at least it was the same ankle. 

For a long moment, he saw stars, and was overcome with dizziness.  Then he blinked a few times, and dared to look around him. 

And saw those trees he had only managed to see over the top of the wall. 

He was inside the Forbidden Garden.

He found himself sitting in the middle of a circle of some sort, with stones placed all around it, and realized he had fallen right in the middle of the garden.  Hard to believe that had been accidental.

Someone or something meant for him to be here.

At first it seemed as any other garden.  Many of the plants were very like those in his mother’s herb-garden:  sage, rue, yarrow, foxglove, poppies, mugwort, henbane, belladonna, mandrake, hyssop, wormwood, bear’s-foot, and suchlike.  Yet there was a difference, which he began to perceive the longer he looked.  A certain subtle luridness, an aliveness that was neither of plants nor of animals, but of something beyond either, and entirely malevolent.  There were other plants he did not recognize, had never seen the like of before.  Some were vines, and he could see what the iron pole must have been used for, since there were several forming a trellis, connected with strong twine, and the vines grew over this.  It put out a strange blossom, scarlet in color, beautiful, yet somehow malignant, in a way he could not define.  The flowers seemed to glare and snarl at him somehow, and their fragrance had something at once cloying and corrupt about it.  There was another bush, with bizarrely shaped leaves, and a gaudy purple flower about eight inches in diameter, with a shape and scent that was somehow obscene. 

And the trees; their leaves were unnaturally long and of a strange greenish brown color, with an almost slimy sheen to them, and they bore fruit that was small and dark and shiny, a little like plums, and although he was hungry he did not care to try one.  There were other fruits and berries as well, some of which he knew better than to eat, and none of the others looked entirely wholesome despite their bright colors and glossy textures. 

And he could still hear that murmuring-singing-sobbing-laughing-babbling sound, just as muted as when he was outside the wall, but now he could hear a certain depth to it—a shrillness here, a rumble there, and in between, the steady murmur went on and on, without pause, sometimes mocking, sometimes pleading, relentless, idiotic, inhuman.  It was as though the soul of a lunatic had been infused with a quick-flowing underground streamlet, doomed to seek without finding, never to rest.

It occurred to him that the biggest favor he could do himself was to leave this garden here and now, and never look back.

But what of the fog?  It was oddly clear here in the garden, but he could see the fog outside, that it was gathering thicker than ever, and he would never find his way out, if he walked for weeks.

He was trapped. 

Somehow by invoking Thuringwethil, he had been transported into another plane, a parallel world, a secret realm that could not be accessed any other way.  And now the only way to get free of it, would be to destroy her.

But where was she?  Inside the house, no doubt.  Dare he try the door?  Most likely it was locked.  It was a heavy, plain dark wooden door, with some sort of symbol carved upon it, and when he tried the knob, found that it would not turn.  Then something caught his eye, down to his left.  A cellar window, it would seem, but there was no pane, no bars, nothing—just utter blackness.  It sent chillbumps all over him, for it seemed he had seen it before…but where, he knew not, unless in a dream.  There was not the slightest gleam of light in it, and inside, surely, lurked the worst possible thing he could imagine.

Yet it seemed the only way inside the house.

It was either that…or the fog.

Soon he realized he was sweating.  Even though it was not warm in the garden. 

Destroying her should be no object, he told himself.  He had come equipped.  He had his silver dagger, his crossbow, a quiver of arrows, a stake, a tinder-box, and lamp-oil (but no lamp).  All he would have to do now was to find her, where she lay in her box.  He wished he had thought to bring in a tree-limb to use as a torch.  There were none lying about here, and did he dare break off a branch from one of these trees? 

He would have to use the stake.  Hopefully it would not burn fast. 

He dipped it in the oil, then took out his tinder-box and struck the flint until it came a flame, and lit the end of the stake.  Then he stooped down to the cellar window and held the stake before him, poking it far down to try to see what was there.

It seemed to be a tunnel of sorts.  At last he screwed up his courage and let himself down through the window, hoping hard that his torch would not go out.  It threw little light in the tunnel, but at least he felt his feet on solid ground, however slippery it may have been, and how foul-smelling the air was.  With his heart in his throat, he stepped cautiously along, one foot in front of the other, his free hand groping for the wall of the tunnel, until it touched something slimy, and he jerked it away as though he had touched a decomposing body…which he had done once, on a dare…to be sure, it had been the body of a cow.

But there seemed to be no life down here at all.  No rats, no spiders, no insects, nothing. 

But at last his foot hit something…a step, it seemed.  Yes, a step, then another, and then by the faint torchlight he could see a slimy stone staircase going upward, and had never been more glad to see anything in his life.

He mounted the steps, hoping against all hope that the door at the top would not be locked.

It was a short flight, as it turned out, and soon he found himself on a narrow stoop, with a dark wooden door in front of him. 

Fearfully he pushed it open, scarcely noticing that he could no longer hear the garden “music”, and peered all around.  He was in a hallway, he found, yet it did not look at all familiar.  One sconce burned on a wall, evidently providing the only light, and he quickly doused the fire on the stake and stuck it into his belt.  He barely recognized one door as being that to the room where he had slept as a child.  Timidly he opened it and looked all about.  The room was as he remembered, with the two barred windows, which had been covered so they did not let in the daylight, and there was a narrow bed and a few other articles of furniture, dusty and webby as he might have expected.  He could remotely remember a woman coming to tuck him in and say goodnight…but he could not recall her features, and he knew it was not his mother.  He wondered where she was now. 

His throat tightened, and he quickly turned and exited the room, wishing never to look upon it again. 

And bumped into someone, who gave a sharp exclamation, as he gave a most undignified squeak.

It was a woman.  But it was not Her. This woman was taller than his mother, who was tall for a woman, but delicate and ethereal in her appearance.  The woman in front of him was big-boned, broad in the shoulders, square-faced, and could have been taken for a man but for her long braids and large breasts.  And the white apron she wore over her dark-colored dress.

“Who—who—who are you?” he stammered, backing up against the door with his hands behind him, as if to hide something stolen.

“I was going to ask you exactly the same,” the woman said.

VII. Hyldreth

“I…was looking for my mother,” he explained, thinking he might as well tell the truth.  “The other night I came home from hunting with some of my friends and found her gone, and I thought she might have come here.  Or been brought here.  Her sister lives here, and…”

The woman reached out and touched his shoulder with a large hand, turning him to look at his face in the dim light of the hall sconce.  She looked to be in her late  forties or early fifties, the long brown braids just touched with grey.

Then he saw wonder and recognition in her face.

“You are Gaergath?” she said.  He started.  Then nodded.

“I am,” he said.  “She…has spoken my name?”

“You are the very image of Annatar,” the woman said without answering the question.

“Annatar?” Gaergath said rather stupidly.

“That is her name for him,” the woman said.  “Or, it was once.  I have not heard her speak of him in a very long time.”

“Sauron?” he said.  The woman’s face seemed to darken a little.

“So his enemies name him.  His true name is Mairon...but she called him Annatar, for he used to give her so many gifts.  But they have drifted apart, it seems.  Aye, you are the very image of him, save for your eyes.  You both have green eyes, but his have a golden cast to them, like a lion’s, and can burn most redly…like to a dragon's.”

“Are you her housekeeper?” Gaergath asked, thinking she sounded more than a little admiring of Sauron.

She looked at him with sharp eyes that were brown or dark grey, it was hard to tell in this light, beneath thick dark eyebrows that nearly met over her rather large nose.   

“I am the keeper of her house, gardener and guardian,” she replied finally.  “Hyldreth is my name.  You have come a long way, I am sure.  Are you hungry?”

He hesitated.  Yes, he was hungry, but…

“I am,” he said, “but I would like to see her first.  Is she…”

“She sleeps,” Hyldreth said.  “She will not awaken until nightfall.  So you may as well sit down and take some sustenance, and we can become acquainted.  Your mother was Cúronel?”

“Aye.  Have you seen her?  Do you know what has become of her?”

“Come into the kitchen,” she said, once more without answering.  “This way.”

She turned began walking down to the end of the hallway, and he had little choice but to follow.

A fire was burning in the oven in the kitchen; otherwise it appeared anything but cozy.  There was a wooden table with but one bench, and another higher table for preparing food, and a couple of cupboards.  A tallow candle sat on the eating-table, since precious little light came in through the small window.

He sat uneasily on the bench, while Hyldreth opened one of the cupboards and took out a loaf of bread and a cheese, and he removed his cloak carefully concealing the stake beneath it while her back was turned, and laid it on the bench close beside him.  She cut thick slices of the bread and cheese, and handed them to Gaergath, who ate them greedily while she opened another door and went into what he presumed was a pantry, until he heard her footsteps descending a stairway.  Soon she returned with a small ham, closing the door behind her and locking it with a key hanging from a chain on her belt.  Then she took the meat to the high table and began slicing it.  She laid a thick slice on a piece of bread and gave it to him, then cut a piece for herself and sat on the other end of the bench from him.

“The fare is plain enough here, as you can see,” she said.

 “I do not mind plain food,” he said.  It occurred to him that his mother would have chided him for his lack of manners, but he could not quite bring himself to thank his hostess for the provisions.  Perhaps he should go off by himself and puke it all up--no telling what might be in it--but she would know, more than likely.

“So you have seen Sauron?” he asked after finishing the bread and meat, which was a bit stringy for his liking.  “Or…Annatar, or whatever he prefers to be called?”

“Aye, often,” she said with a bit of a smile.  “He saved my life, in truth.”

“Did he?” Gaergath lifted his eyebrows.

Hyldreth nodded.  “It was long ago.  I was living in a small village, and practicing sorcery.  Then I was accused of poisoning a stream, and was condemned to burn at the stake.  I had been practicing my craft in peace for years, and many came to me, maidens wishing me to make young men fall in love with them, farmers wanting me to make it rain on their crops, women asking me to heal their sick children, and so on.  One maiden in particular came to me complaining that a young man continued to ply her with his attentions, which she did not want.  He would follow her about, protesting his love, and making improper advances, and she could not make him stop.  She lived with her mother, and had no father or brother to protect her, so finally she came to me.  I put a spell on him, causing him to be covered over with warts.  In two weeks they began to disappear, for I did not wish him to be disfigured for life, only long enough to teach him a lesson.  It was very bad judgment on my part, but I was much younger then, and not so wise.  Well, of course he knew it was I who had afflicted him thus, and so he poisoned the mill-stream, causing several who drank from it to die most painfully--beasts, people and children alike.  And he went about saying he had seen me do it, and so the populace turned on me, and condemned me to be burnt…along with my little son.  He was but three years old, but he was condemned to burn along with me.”

“They would do that to a small child?” Gaergath exclaimed.

“Do not underestimate the common folk,” Hyldreth said softly.  “There is no evil they will not stoop to, if the circumstances be right.  Well, there I was tied to the stake, and my little son to a small one next to me, on a high platform, many in the crowd chanting and jeering and throwing stones while he cried for me, and several folk came and set fire to the wood heaped all around.  Then suddenly a figure all in black descended from the sky and scattered them all about in fright, snatched me and my child away, and caused the fire to spread quickly about, burning the entire village.”

Gaergath could only stare at her for a long speechless moment.  A softness flickered about her face in the lamplight.  Her features were rather handsome, he could see.   

“Were you lovers?” he asked.  The audacity of his question was startling even to himself, but he was certain she would not mind.

“We were,” she said.  “He was the father of my child.”

“Where is he now?” Gaergath asked.  He had a brother somewhere?  “The child, I mean.”

“I know not,” Hyldreth said in a low voice.  “He would be in his thirties now.  I took him to stay with my mother, to keep him safe.  After she died, he went on his way.  I have not been able to find him.”

“I have never seen Sauron,” Gaergath said after a moment, wondering that his father should have been so solicitous of his older son, but had shown no interest at all in his younger one.  “He has never seen fit to reveal himself to me.  I have often wondered why he hates me.  Perhaps he fears I may overthrow him.”

His throat tightened a little.

Hyldreth looked at him with sympathy.  “I misdoubt that he hates you.  And I do not think he fears you.  But he has devoted himself to Melkor, and his fealty grows ever stronger.  I dare say it has obliterated any emotional attachments he has ever had.  There is no telling how many children he has sired.  You could end up marrying your sister, for all you know.  You’ve a sweetheart somewhere?”

“I’ve my eye on a maiden,” he hedged, feeling himself blush.  “But I am absolutely certain she is not the daughter of Sauron.”

Hyldreth chuckled.  “I must tend the garden now. You have seen it already, have you not?”

He nodded:  “You go ahead.  I would stay here.”

“Nay, I think not,” she said with a knowing look.  “You shall help me carry water, my handsome lad.  The plants want much to drink.  Take yond buckets in the corner, and fill one at the pump.  I will take its brother.”

He saw he had little choice but to do as bidden.  He put on his cloak, still taking care to conceal the stake beneath it, sliding it back into his belt with his back to her.  Then he helped her fill the buckets, giving her a little innocently mischievous grin.  They went back down the hallway until they came to the back door, and she simply lifted the bolt and let herself out.  Perhaps he could sneak back in when her back was turned….

“How like you my lovely garden?” she said as they stepped out once again into the leafy malevolence.  “Does it not grow well?”

“Well enough,” he said.  Once more he could hear that eerie voice.  “What is that…sound? Do you hear it?”

She cocked an ear.  “What sound?”

“That,” he said, astonished.  “You cannot hear it?  It seems to be coming…from the plants themselves.”

“Oh,” she said, “you mean the Music?”

“If such it can be called,” he shrugged uneasily.

“Most certainly,” she said touching a scarlet flower with a fond finger.  “It is the Spirits of the Garden, which live within the plants.  You have not heard such in your mother’s garden?”

“Nay,” he said.  “What sort of spirits?  Like…fairies?”

“Mayhap,” she said.  “You heard them not, for you listened not.  Did your mother never tell you of them?”

He glanced up to the sky, which was yet cloudy, and he could still see the fog outside the wall over the top, and the tips of the dead trees raising black and ghostly arms above it.  Involuntarily he moved closer to Hyldreth.

“Not so much,” he said.  “I think she did not wish me to have the connection to the plants that she had.”

“Why so?” asked Hyldreth.

“Because she was afraid I would use my powers before I was ready,” he said, without even knowing why he said this.

“I see,” she said.  “Had you no curiosity of her workings at all?”

“I had some,” he said, at the same time remembering he had not much interest in healing, and precious little sympathy for his mother's patients, and he had often wondered how she put up with them.  She would often make him come with her when she visited them, ostensibly to help her carry things and administer her remedies.  He hated it all, feeling only fear and loathing when witnessing their pain, impatience with their moaning and groaning and recitals of all their aches and symptoms.  And thinking some of the men only got her over there so they could look at a woman far more beautiful than their wives, and the women were jealous and made nasty remarks and insinuations about her to each other.  And many took advantage, not paying her for her services save perhaps with a basket of eggs or a bucket of milk or a bag of vegetables far inferior to what she grew in her garden.  When he spoke of it to her, she said they were poor.  If she would not care for them, who would?

Yet he noted they were not too poor to visit the ale-house on a regular basis.

He now found himself wishing he had been a better son to her, recalling all the times he had whined and grumbled about having to go out into the cold night to sit up with someone who likely had naught more than a headache or a bad cold.  What did she get out of doing so, and why could he not feel it too?

But it was too late now.  And he still had no desire to be a paragon.  His mother had been a paragon, and look where it had gotten her.

He felt that the spirits of the plants were laughing at him.  Twitting him with having been a bad son, jeering at his pitiful desires to put things right and wreak revenge, singing his ineffectuality and his base imaginings for all to hear.  Telling him it was too late now, all was void.  He was trapped, damned, snared….

 “So tell me,” Hyldreth said as she sprinkled water on the blue mandrakes, “what is Celirwen to your mother?”  

“You don’t know?” he said with a patch of impatience.  “I supposed Celirwen to be my mother, but I saw little of her when I was a child.  One day a woman who looked exactly like her came to the cottage.  She claimed she was the good part of Celirwen and she had ‘escaped’ her, and she was my true mother.  She dismissed my nurse, after seeing to it that she had employment elsewhere, and had been living with me ever since.  It was very queer, I know, but it is what she told me, and I believed her.  She said Celirwen was of the Blood Drinkers, and I must take care.  But lately I have had the feeling that she has been watching me.  I have felt a strange and evil presence about the place betimes.  I think she has done away with my mother somehow, and wants me to come back to her.”

He paused, appalled at himself.  He had not meant to disclose so much to this woman he had just met, and was likely loyal to Celirwen.  But it had just come spilling out….

And now she was looking at him long and hard, and he suspected she knew already what he had told her.  And maybe she knew what had happened to his mother, and had known it all along.  Perhaps had something to do with it.

 “Where is she now?” he asked, his teeth beginning to chatter a bit.  “Do you know what she has done with my mother?”

His hand went to his dagger without his bidding.  And he wondered just how far he would go to make this woman tell him what he wished to know.

“Where is she?” he repeated, clenching his jaw, and looking Hyldreth straight in the eye.

“Come indoors with me,” Hyldreth said, “and I will show you.  You first.”  

He had to wonder if she knew what the spirit voices were urging him to do.

“Come,” she repeated, gesturing toward the door.   He climbed the steps and went in, looking back at her over his shoulder.  She followed, without closing the door behind her.  “It is down those stairs,” she said, indicating the dark staircase from whence he had first entered the house.  “I will go and fetch a candle so we can see our way down.  But first give me your dagger, and the belt.  Take it off, and give it me.”

He looked down at the silver buckle, then at her.  She was looking at him unsmiling, and he wondered if she knew of the stake also.

He could still hear the garden voices whispering their evil magic, and his hand began to itch for the silver handle of the dagger.  She looked straight at him for a long moment without speaking.  He tried to return the stare, but found himself looking away.  The stake now felt as an icicle freezing into his side.

Then suddenly her face softened, her dark eyes glistening a little, and they were rather beautiful.

“My lad,” she said, “I shall speak as a mother now, and tell you this:  turn away and leave this place at once.  The fog has lifted enough for you to see your way back to the road from whence you came.  Go now, and do not look back.  Forget you saw me, and this house and this garden.  This will be your only chance.  If you do not go now, the fog will descend once more, and you will be trapped here.  So.  Go now, and leave while you still can.  Take your dagger and your belt, your bag of seedcakes, your cloak and your green eyes, and go find your horse.  Return to your cottage and the sun and the sweet leaves and your yellow-haired lass.  Save yourself.  As a mother, I give you this chance, even at my own risk.  But I can give it but once.  So, my lad.  Do you save yourself and your soul, or do you remain in the Secret Shadow, to be forever lost?”

She opened the door once more inclining her head toward the garden. Yes, the fog had cleared.  He could see the blasted landscape, the dead trees…and the sky.  The blue midday sky.  Was this the last time he was ever to see it?

“What is it to be?” she asked him, barely above a whisper.

VIII. Force

Gaergath scarcely heard her question for looking at the sky.

He could see the road before him, free of rocks and fallen trees.  And Russandol running up, his mane and tail flying red-gold and plumy in the sunlight.  He saw his mother’s garden, alive with rue and rosemary and yarrow and foxglove and henbane, and she was stooping between the rows, inclining her head so her hair brushed the leaves, looking to catch the rain with her eyes.  My son, have you heard the carol of the mandrakes? she asked him as she wove scarlet blossoms into her dark locks.  And he cast aside his eyes, and saw a yellow-haired lass leaning over a well, her skirt rising to show her ankles and calves, which were bare, and she drew up a bucket of pearls, and tossed them to a flock of doves scuttling up the path.  He saw Thorodon watching her from a tree, while Túruan could be heard in a cave crying that he hadn’t gotten any turkey.  Then Gaergath’s mother began to dance wearing nothing but her shift, and the crescent moon fell from the sky into her hands and she hung it around her neck, while fireflies floated and flickered about her head, whistling like birds.  And Thorodon jumped from the tree and fell down the well, and the yellow-haired lass laughingly pulled him up, saying You silly, my father and brother are on a trip, will you come sing to me in my garden? 

And then he saw a black cloak descending from the trees, falling over his mother, obscuring her from his sight, and the garden went up in flames, which spread out and burnt the entire village….

Then Hyldreth’s face he could see in the light from the door.  Save himself?  He had supposed he had surrendered his soul back on the road, when he had evoked the name of Thuringwethil. 

“What is it to be, my lad?” she persisted.  And he looked out on the dark points of the trees piercing the blueness above.  Had she made the fog?  Or was it Celirwen’s doing?  Or Sauron’s? 

And he heard the music of the garden once more, softer than before, and oddly sweet and harmless, childish and melodious. 

“I must see her first,” he said at last.  And sealed his fate this time…or had he?  Nay.  He did not believe her.  At any rate, he could break the spell by destroying Celirwen.  Then the fog would lift and he might leave.

But for this one.  Hyldreth was not going to make it easy for him.

“Please show me where she is,” he pleaded.  “My mother would wish it.”

“You would miss your chance to go back to the light?” Hyldreth asked him, drawing back from him as if a foul odor had suddenly come from him.  “If you go to see her now, you will not have that chance again.”

“I only wish to see her before I go,” Gaergath persisted.  “I want to ask her where my mother is.  What she has done with her.  I want to ask her why she did it, and…”

His lip quivered a little.  He hated himself for it.

“You may not like the answer,” Hyldreth said.

“I know I won’t,” he said.  “But I must know.”

“You cannot awaken her,” she said.  “You would have to wait until nightfall.  It is not so long to wait.  But I do not recommend that you do so.  One last chance:  go back now.  The fog is still lifted.  Once it has fallen again, there will be no other chance.”

He looked at the doorway again, then at her.

“Why do you work for her?” he asked.  “You know she is evil?”

“Because he wishes it,” she answered, not even seeming surprised by his question.

“Sauron?”

“Aye.  He saved my life, and my son.  I owe it to him.  As for her being ‘evil’ as you say, the darkness dwells in each of us, crouching as a black shadow just waiting to swallow up the light, which it will do, if it feels safe in doing so.  Where all restraint is gone, the Shadow will spring.”

He looked toward the door once more, scarcely noticing that the Voices were hushed now, nearly silent.

“I must see her,” he said, his own voice barely louder.

~*~*~

The rest of the afternoon was mostly spent in the garden, where they finished fertilizing and watering the plants, pulling off dead blooms, gathering the fruit and berries into baskets.  She gave him the names of all those unfamiliar to him, explaining their uses and properties, while he barely listened, wondering how he would manage to get past her in order to do what he must.  Once he had done that, then what?  The fog would lift, he was sure, and he could turn back for home.  What then?  He could go live with the old farmer and his wife, who had offered him a place and work…but he was not at all sure he wanted to do that.  He could go stay with Thorodon and his father; surely they would let him.  Or he could run off to sea.  That might be fun.  He could be a pirate, or a wanderer, out to see the world and have adventures, and discover great treasures…he was free, he realized.  His mother was the only thing tying him down.  And she was gone.  He was free to go wherever he would, and do as he pleased.  No chores, no lessons, no more going out in the night to sit up with irritating patients who would say nasty things once his back was turned, no one to answer to…and perhaps now he could exercise his powers, whatever they might be.  Perhaps his time had come.  He could harness and control them, discover what lay beyond the tight restraining boundaries of the familiar….

And now he could hear the spirits of the garden laughing once more.  Laughing and weeping all at once. 

And he could see the fog.

He had a feeling that somewhere inside of him, leaves were falling.

“How long till nightfall?” he heard himself ask. 

What would it be like, never to see the sun again? 

“You truly wish to meet her,” Hyldreth said as she stood at last, picking up a basket of berries, looking far down at him where he stooped beside a strange growth of colorful spotted mushrooms…of the sort his mother had warned him of, red and yellow and white, in all sizes and stages of maturity. 

“Aye, I do,” he said softly.  “I wish to ask her of my mother.  I told you already.”

“My lad,” she said, kneeling down beside him, “she IS your mother.”

“Nay, she isn’t!” he exclaimed, rising a little and looking her in the eye.  “Cúronel was my mother.  Celirwen had naught to do with it.”

“She was named Cúronel at birth,” Hyldreth explained, rising also.  “For the crescent moon under which she was born.”

“I know of the crescent moon,” he said impatiently. 

“She was born of a mortal woman,” Hyldreth said.  “Her father was a Maia, of a lower sort than your father--Habadol.  Have you ever heard that name?”

“Nay, I have not.  She did not see fit to tell me of her parents.”

“Your father gave her the name Celirwen.  And he gave her the black cloak. He had it of Melkor, who gifted it to him in Angband, his fortress.  Countless spirits attached themselves to it, and these found their way into the garden, long before she became what she is now, and reproduced themselves, for such they can do.  These spirits gave the cloak its power, and they made a Blood Drinker of her…for that is what she is, as you know.  She--”

“I know all that,” Gaergath said clenching his fists, feeling sweat break out all over him.  “About her being a Blood Drinker, I mean.  But she is not my mother.  She was never my mother.”

“She it was gave birth to you,” Hyldreth said.

“Yet she was never my mother,” he insisted.  “Cúronel was my mother.  And I think Celirwen destroyed her.  I heard a scream that night.  I thought it to be a nightmare of hers…she had them sometimes.  But I know now.  It was…Her.  I think you know more than you are telling.  What did she do to her?”

“She does not see fit to tell me these things,” Hyldreth said quietly.

“I think you are lying,” the boy said.  “You are protecting her, and not telling me.  Three nights ago, it was.  How was she, when she returned the morning after?”

“She did not speak to me,” Hyldreth said.  “She went straight down without a word to me.  There was a terribleness about her, something obsessive.  I did not dare to ask.  But the night after that, she said she would have you.”

“And so?” Gaergath said, his teeth chattering once more.  “What did she do?”

“She went out into the night, as always,” Hyldreth said.  “She and I have not much in the way of conversation.  Do you think we sit and chat as old friends over cups of tea?  I do not ask her of her business.  I know little of her doings in the night, nor of her plans.  I prefer it that way.”

“She has you imprisoned,” Gaergath said.

“I am safe here,” Hyldreth said.

“But are you happy?” he asked.  “How can anyone be happy here?  With no one to talk to but evil garden fairies?”  He gave a sharp and mirthless laugh.  “And you must do her bidding.  You cannot escape her.  If I were to destroy her…we could both escape her.  You could be free, and perhaps find your son.”

He had to wonder why she had not destroyed Celirwen herself.  Surely she could easily have done so. 

“Is it because of your son you stay here?” he asked.  “Did Sauron threaten to kill him if you do not?  Would he kill his own son?  He saved him once, would he destroy him now?”

“My lad, you’ve no idea what he is capable of doing,” Hyldreth said at last.  “And you do not wish to try him.”

~*~*~

She said she would make soup, but he did not trust her, so he said he was not hungry.  On the pretext of answering nature’s call, he went and ate a seedcake.

Alone in the privy, which consisted of a small closet with a single hole that opened over a dark place he could not see into and had a cold and very foul breath, and a tiny window that let in almost no light, he wondered what he would do.  And what his meeting with Celirwen would be like.  He could not even remember the last time she had come to visit.  He wondered what he would say to her.  Where is my mother?  What have you done with her?  Why did you do it?  Then what? 

He nearly choked on the seedcake.  Was he, like Hyldreth, trapped here now?

Nay.  It would not be so.  He would destroy her, and then he would be free.  He did not even care what happened after that, he thought.  He would be free, that was all that mattered.

The rest of the cake tasted sweet.  It was the last thing his mother had made, that he would ever eat.

He would go home and set up a little memorial for her, and plant her favorite flowers all around it.  And then he would go…he knew not where.

Tears seeped out of his eyes as he contemplated his fate.

At last he returned to the kitchen, where he sat down morosely, scarcely noticing that it was starting to darken outside the window.  Hyldreth was stirring a pot on the stove.

“Do you feel better now?” she asked him.

“Not by much,” he muttered, truthfully enough.

“Would your mother want revenge?” Hyldreth asked him.  He turned to look at her in astonishment.  Want revenge? 

“Why would she not?” he asked sharply, at the same time asking himself the same question, and remembering a time when she had gone to see a woman who had been going about saying nasty things of her:  Where did she come from?  Does no one ever wonder about this creature who just shows up out of nowhere, saying as she’s the mother of that young lad, settles in big as you please and no one ever stops to wonder what she’s up to? Gaergath had heard her with his own ears, in the marketplace one day, and then when this woman got some nasty and painful sores on her leg, his mother went to her and apply a sweet balm that eased the sores and made them disappear in good time.  Why did you do that? he asked her.  You know the things she said.  It served her right to have sores.  Why did you heal them?

“’Tisn’t a question of why,” Hyldreth said.  “’Tis a question of would she.”

“Well, I want it,” Gaergath said rather testily.   

“Enough to stay here for all time?”

“What choice have I now?  You said I could not leave.”  At the same time, he did not believe it.  She had merely been trying to get him to go, frighten him into it.  “So…it looks like you are stuck with me.  Whether you like it or no.”

“She will be pleased to see you,” Hyldreth said.

Not for long, he thought.  “I’m sure she will.  Not that she ever was before.”

“It is nigh time,” she said after a moment.  “Give me your dagger and your belt.”

“I prefer to keep them with me,” he said after a startled moment.

“I shall have to take them by force, if you do not,” she said.

He gave her a long from narrowed eyes.  “I am stronger than I look,” he said.  “I bested a grown man in a fight once.”

This was almost a lie, the “man” having been all of seventeen.  Gaergath had been fifteen.  It had been nearly a year ago.

“Did you now?” she said in some amusement.  

“Aye, I did,” he said arrogantly.  “I’m sorry you’ve taken such a fancy to my buckle, my lady, but as I’m rather fond of it myself, I would keep it on.  And since my dagger goes so nicely with it, and provides me a feeling of security, I would keep that with me as well.  I shall keep it sheathed, if it’s any comfort to you, and use it only as is needful.”

She laughed a little, then sobered.  “You may not see her if you do not give them up.  You shall have them back when she goes out once more.”

“You cannot prevent her,” he shot back.  “I am her ‘son’, to her way of thinking, this is her home, and she will see me whether you wish it or not.  And I will reckon with her.”

“You leave me no choice then,” Hyldreth said calmly, and she walked up to him as he stood with his arms folded in defiance of her.  She reached down for his belt buckle, and he caught her wrists.  She might well best him, but he would not give up without a struggle. 

Thorodon’s father had taught him better than that.

She did not move then, but she looked straight into his eyes, fixing him.  He told himself to look away, she was a powerful witch and would mesmerize him easily enough, and silver had no effect upon her.  But if he did she would trick and disarm him just as easily.  Which would be worse?

First thing he knew he was sitting on his backside on the floor, minus his belt and dagger.  She laid them in the pantry, then locked the door with the key at her belt. 

Well, but his cloak yet lay on the bench, with the stake beneath it….

And now he could hear a door opening on creaky hinges….

IX. Blood Kin

He never would know what he would have done with the stake just then, had he not heard the creaking of that door.

“’Tis her,” he said, almost to himself.  And found he could not move a muscle. 

He knew that was not Hyldreth’s doing this time.

He expected to hear footsteps, but no sound issued from the hallway.

At last Hyldreth went to the door and softly opened it.  Gaergath stayed where he was, ignominiously sprawled on the floor, watching her.  Then she came back to him and silently offered him her hand to help him up.  He slapped it away, scowling, and got himself up clumsily. 

And turned around toward the kitchen door.  There was no one there.

“Go, my lad,” Hyldreth said just above a whisper.  “She will not do you harm.  She has been awaiting you.”

He wondered if she could hear the beating of his heart.

Then Hyldreth stepped into the hallway, holding a lighted candle. 

Now was his chance.  He seized the cloak and flung it over his shoulders, carefully concealing the stake beneath and holding it in place under his left arm.  Then he came up behind Hyldreth, drops of sweat fairly popping out on his face and trickling into his eyebrows and down his cheekbones and neck.

Do it now, he told himself.  Do not hesitate, or you will lose your chance.

Yet his arms would not obey.

“Mistress Celirwen,” he heard her say, “he is here.”

Too late now.  Or was it?

“Send him in to me,” he heard the other voice say.  That voice, ruined, rusty, scarcely any breath behind it.

And Hyldreth turned to face him, smiling.

“Your mother will see you in the parlor.  But leave the cloak here,” she added with a knowing smile.  “She will do you no harm.”

This time he did not protest that she was not his mother.  He laid the cloak with the stake still concealed beneath it on the bench, then on trembling legs he brushed past her and went where she directed him, then she followed after.

He never got a chance to look at the parlor, even as Hyldreth went about it lighting candles in many holders and sconces.  For there She was standing in the middle of it, her head bowed.

She was wearing his mother’s dress.  He recognized it well, although he had never taken especial notice of it when his mother wore it.  Dark blue, he supposed, with a high neck, a high waist, and elbow-length sleeves.  Her night-black hair spilled down far past her waist, white bony hands raised halfway to her bosom, to show a gold ring on one of them, the long fingers loosely touching each other at the tips.  His mother’s dress! 

She raised her head to look at him with eyes rimmed with darkish rings, eyes tinged with red in the dim light, lips unnaturally dark against the greenish pallor of her face.  He gasped, feeling his heart would explode in another moment, as that apparition stood looking at him with his mother’s face in his mother’s dress, fixing him to the spot…and then she smiled.

“My son,” she said in that ruined voice.  “At last, you have returned to me.”

His mouth felt so dry that he was certain his voice would sound the same, if he were to speak.  Then she made a motion to move toward him, and he almost involuntarily took a step back. 

“Don’t dare touch me,” he whispered.  She paused, working her face into a mask of sorrow.

“My own beautiful boy,” she said, and this time the voice was different—it was his mother’s voice, without the rustiness, clear and pure as hers had been.  “I am your mother.  Did you think I was gone, gone?  I am she.  Do you not know me?”

“You sound like her,” he admitted, “but if you are she, why do you not look like her?  What have you done with my mother?”

“I am your mother,” she persisted.  “She took me back to herself.  We are one now.  I am trapped inside this body as I once was.  She took me by surprise, and drew me back into herself, destroying my outer form.  Now I am here before you, but I am your mother, as I ever have been.  Be not afraid.  For although I be imprisoned once more, I would never let her do you harm.”

“Sure you are,” he said, his teeth chattering once more.  “All right.  If you are truly my mother, tell me something about myself that only she could know.”

A little smile lifted the corners of her mouth just a bit.  “Such as when you broke your wrist jumping off the roof of the garden shed two years ago, to see if you could fly?”

His eyebrows jumped up at that, and she showed her teeth a little.

“It was three weeks after your fourteenth birthday,” she said. 

“Well…” he hedged.  “Well, but that is well known, and I have felt that presence about the place betimes.  You might have learned of it while stalking me about.  Tell me something else.”

“You fancy a fair-haired lass from the village, do you not?” she said.  His cheeks grew hot once more.

“You may have learned of that the same way,” he said.  “Or mayhap she told you, when you visited her.  Tell me something only she could know, something that happened inside the house, that is not known in the village or about the place...that she never would have told you, or anyone else.”

She smiled the smile of one who knows she has already won.  And said with his mother’s voice, in her exact intonation, “Such as when I made you promise not to use your powers until you were ready?  ‘It is as if you would try to ride a horse that is too big for you.  You would not have proper control over it yet, and it could only do you harm.’  Do you recall those words, my son?”

He stood looking at her, speechless.  

“Hyldreth,” she said, “please bring my son his belt and dagger.”

“Are you sure of this, my lady?” Hyldreth said with lifted eyebrows.  Gaergath had to wonder, once more, how much she knew, and if she had been in conspiracy with this woman to bring him out here.

“Of course I am sure,” his mother, if such she was, said.  Hyldreth then inclined her head, and went out the door.  “Do you believe me now, my dear lad?”

“Not entirely,” he said.  “Sauron could have told you those things.  Or, since the two of you truly were once one, it’s possible that what one of you knows, the other knows also.  I am not yet convinced.”

She smiled.  “You were ever obdurate, my son.  Or as a neighbor put it, hard-headed.  But ‘tis true, she came three nights ago, taking your very shape, and so I was foolish enough to let her in.  And that is when she took me back into herself.  You came to an empty house, did you not, with the shutters flung wide, and the horses out of the stable?”

“What did she do to you?” he asked, his teeth beginning to chatter again.

“She destroyed my outer form,” she said.  “And took my fëa into herself.  She was determined to have you back.  But I shall not let her, you see.  Even if I am imprisoned in her body, I am still not yet one with her.”

Hyldreth returned, bringing the belt and dagger. 

“Give those to him,” her mistress said.  Hyldreth did so.  Gaergath took them, numbly.  “Put on the belt I gave you, my lad.”

He did so, without taking his eyes from hers.

“Now take the dagger, and unsheathe it,” she said.  He complied, looking at it in puzzlement.  “Now.  If you still disbelieve that I am your mother, do what you must, here and now.  Kill me.  Drive the dagger right here--” She pointed to the middle of her bosom.  “--and end it.  Avenge your mother’s death.  Hyldreth will neither prevent you, nor take her revenge upon you.  She stands to gain from my death, which will free her as well as you.  Then you may go back home and take up your life once more.  Your horse awaits you in a meadow beyond the forest.  Kill me now, and free yourself.  But if you do so, you lose your mother once and for all time.”

His hand trembled as he held the dagger.  And knew he could not do the deed now, although he was still not convinced.  Perhaps his mother really was there, imprisoned within that body once more.  Then again, perhaps he had underestimated Celirwen’s power, and she was doing a masterful job of impersonating his mother.  And knew he would not kill her if there were even a possibility that his mother was inside of her. 

He would have to bide his time, he saw.  Stay close, and watch.  Perhaps his time had come, and he could begin using his powers, and she might even instruct him somehow.  Then if it really were his mother trapped within her, he could find a way to free her and destroy that other being.  And if he could not free her any other way...

He tucked the dagger back into his belt.

She smiled gently, with those obscenely dark lips.

“I need to feed,” she said.  “I must go out into the night, but I do not ask you to come with me.  You may stay here, not in your old room, but in another, up the stairs.  It is the one I once used, before I became what you see before you.  It is the room where I first freed myself from her.  But first…I must take a little blood now in order to give myself strength.” 

She looked to Hyldreth, who came near, holding out her wrist and drawing back the sleeve to the elbow.  The boy could see a few scars on the pale skin.

“Turn your eyes away, my lad, if it will distress you to watch,” his mother, if such she was, said.  “I would not have you to see the things she must do to keep this body animated.”

He turned his back, absurdly shutting his eyes tightly.  His stomach lurched a little as he heard sucking and slurping sounds, ludicrously thinking his mother would have reprimanded him severely if he had made such noises, telling him even beasts had better manners.  Did Hyldreth give her blood every night?  How had she managed to stay alive?

And how long would he have to bide here, in this fog-walled dungeon?  For all time?  Why had he not taken the chance to leave?  If only he had done so.  Had it been the garden-spirits that had prevented him, influencing him to stay?

Perhaps if he killed them both, and then destroyed the garden, he could leave...

“And now,” his unmother said to Hyldreth, “please bring me my cloak.”

X. Another Skin

It was a long moment before he turned to face her again. 

“Be not sad, my son,” she said, still in his mother’s voice, yet richer now, more alive and melodious.  “You have your home now, and things will get better.  You will come to love this place, I promise you.  We will be together for all time, and your powers will flourish and grow.  Your time has come.”

“Oh, of course,” he said without turning about.  “Just what did you do to her?  Bleed her dry, and then hide the body?  Or…” 

He suddenly remembered those open shutters.  And turned to face her.

“Or did you burn it to ash?” he spoke just above a whisper.  “And leave the shutters open to let out the smell so I wouldn’t suspect?  Is that what you did?”

What was keeping him from killing her?

Only the possibility that his mother really was trapped inside that body.

She looked entirely different now.  Her skin more fair and wholesome, more fleshy, her eyes without the tinge of red, full of diamond brilliance, her lips less unnaturally dark, and there was a faint starry glow about her, an indigo sheen on her hair.  She truly did look like his mother now….

Then Hyldreth returned, bearing the Cloak. 

He stared at it, as the servant woman placed it around her mistress’s slender shoulders.  Black as the void, hanging down in gruesomely graceful folds…and there were the claws, just as in the legend. 

His mother would never have tolerated such a thing in her presence.  Yet now its wearer was smiling radiantly at him.

“I must go out into the night,” she said.  “I do not expect you to come with me, my son.  But if you should wish to…” 

She looked to Hyldreth, who had laid something on a chair…something of unthinkable blackness.  He had not noticed she was carrying two cloaks.  She lifted it, and yes, it was such, only without the claws.

“Try it on, my son,” Celirwen said still smiling, as Hyldreth approached him with the obscene garment.

He felt his mouth go dry.  No, he would not touch the thing.  He would tell her to take it away from him….

Except that it seemed to be calling to him. 

It seemed to belong to him as another skin.

No, if he put it on, she would truly own him then.  Or would she?

Would he become of her kind?  A blood drinker?  A creature of the Night?

Or would he discover all his true powers? 

Would he be able to fly?  Change his shape?  Seduce, mesmerize, conquer?

Did he wish to do these things?  Have his way with the world?  How could he endure it, leave his old life behind, lose the sun, his very soul?

Why did he not shrink back, tell her to take that thing away?

Hyldreth, unsmiling, laid the cloak over his shoulders.  Then she withdrew a few steps, just watching.

Celirwen looked at him fairly beaming, for all the world like a proud mother whose child has just done something astonishing.  And he felt a warmth in the cloak itself, as though the light she emanated were filling it.  It was strangely comforting, caressing, gentle, as if she were bearing him up a small child in her arms, holding him to her bosom and protecting him, brimming over with love and pride and tenderness and delight. 

“Take off the belt now, my love,” she whispered.

And he did so, laying the dagger aside.  She smiled and held out a fair hand to him.

“Shall we go now?” she said.

~*~*~

 “Where are we going?” he asked as he walked beside her down the dimly lit hallway, Hyldreth following behind them with the candle.

“To the garden,” she replied.  “We must spend some time there before anything can happen, so that the garden spirits might attach themselves to your cloak.  They are what gives it its power.”

“Did you have it made for me?” he asked running a hand down one of its folds.  Then suddenly he thought of Sauron, with distaste and hatred.  If Sauron had gifted it to him…

“Nay, it belonged to a friend, who unfortunately is no longer,” she said softly, caressing his shoulder with her fingertips. 

Don’t you mean lover, he thought, as she opened the back door.

“Nay,” she said, and he started.  “She was my bosom friend, and we were as sisters.  Then a former lover of hers became jealous and resentful of her powers and her activities, and soon dispatched her.  I wish you to have her cloak now.”

They stepped out into the night, while he was filled with wonder that those who were mired in evil could still have bosom friends, and pets, and families, just as good folk.  Yet he felt no repulsion, only wonder.  He was in touch with an altered side of himself now, not unlike the part of himself that came into being when engaged in that certain secret activity, a side where shame dared not approach, where any sort of depravity was possible.  He did not know that such imaginings were common to all, and sometimes supposed he must surely be the worst creature on earth.  When his mother said he was a good boy, he wondered what she would think if she knew half the things that went through his mind betimes.  Would she still think of him as her son?  Would she be sorry she had ever come out and claimed him?

He felt something of that state now, and then some.  Inside the cloak, shame was a stranger, and anything was possible, and he did not think of revenge, nor duty, nor anything but the pleasures and powers that might be lurking in wait for him.  Not for anything would he remove the cloak now, unless he was certain Sauron had made it just for him.  He would take nothing of Sauron, now or ever, no matter what it imparted to him….

But he felt his pride receding and his excitement mounting as they entered the garden once more, for he was looking upon it with different eyes now.

And different ears.  For he could hear the “music” now, but it sounded far more distinct, less muted, less eerie, more layered and rich and harmonic, in a strange and twisted fashion, but captivating and mysterious, and it seemed to be calling to him, although he could not hear his name as such, or any words at all.  And he could see glimmering lights among the plants, not unlike fireflies, but not flickering, some flitting over the leaves, some beneath, some on the ground, others high above the trees.  The plants themselves seemed to be glowing with a pale phosphorescence.  And the fog was gone.  He could see the stars and the moon, a little more than a crescent now.

“How like you my garden now?” Celirwen said looking upon it all with fond pride.  They were standing inside the circle in the middle, the same place where he had landed.  Strange, he had forgotten all about his hurt ankle, which did not hurt at all now.  The pain had gradually abated when he was in the house, until he had simply not noticed any more.

He could not answer, for looking all about him.  And some of the tiny lights were coming near, and attaching themselves to their cloaks.  And an exhilaration began to fill him as they did so, so that for the time being he forgot about revenge, and hatred, and disgust, and pride, and all else that had brought him here.  There was no other place he would rather have been, just then.

And suddenly he heard another sound…a giggle, it was, like a young girl’s, coming from behind the trees, it seemed, and then another, and then a maiden appeared, in a skimpy pale-yellow garment that left her arms and legs bare, with pale hair floating down far past her waist.  Her figure was very slender and graceful as she approached, a little shyly at first, then she began to skip and leap over the plants, rather like a young fawn, and then more maidens appeared…not from behind the trees, but from the trees themselves—some dropping from the branches, others stepping out from the very boles, all clad in the same short gowns.  Giggling, they approached the circle, but did not come within; they hovered outside of it, looking in friendly curiosity at the youth in the cloak, who could see now that their ears were sharply pointed, their eyes very large, their features both sharp and dainty and very pretty, their skin glowing with an odd pale greenish hue. 

When he did not show repulsion, they came closer, no longer shy, but rather bold, delicate hands brushing their long hair back from their faces with a slow and sensuous gesture, tiny tongues moving over their lips, eyelids fluttering, and they approached Gaergath, one of them caressing his shoulder with her fingertips, another running a hand down his arm, another touching his back, another stroking his hair, several exclaiming in tiny tinkling voices over his beauty.  Still another touched his cheek, then ran a fingertip playfully down his nose and touched his lips.  Then she closed her eyes and poked her own lips out, awaiting his kiss.

“He is lovely, is he not?” Celirwen said with a wide smile, before he could bend his head down to caress the puckered lips.  “But he is not for you.  Not tonight.  Go back now, naughty ones.  Another time, but we must be gone for a while, into the night, into the cold air, into the curtains of the flesh.  Off with you now, my little beauties!”

The fairies, if such they were, made little moans of disappointment, and retreated back into the trees, with rustling noises, and occasional giggles, shaking the branches loudly.  Then Gaergath heard the music once more.

“They do not sleep, I suppose,” he said after a moment.  He might have been disappointed, himself, but for the delight of anticipation of what lay beyond the walls.

“Nay, they do not.  Are you ready?” Celirwen asked.

“Of course,” he said brazenly.  She laughed, a disturbingly musical sound, which caused a sympathetic echo in the garden all about.

“Then let us rise,” she said.

XI. Revelry

“Bend your knees,” she instructed him, “a little further down.  Look up at the stars…they seem very clear and low tonight, yes?  They are awaiting us.  You can be assured that this time, you will not break your wrist.  Spread your arms now.”

For some ludicrous reason, he thought of Herdir, who was afraid of heights however much he tried to deny it.  Gaergath and the others had often made fun of him about it.

And now he was feeling a trifle apprehensive.  He hoped it did not show.  He spread his arms as directed, bending his knees lower.

“Spring,” Celirwen said.  And he sprang.

For a moment he expected to fall back to the ground, to find she was playing a colossal joke on him.  Instead, he found himself rising, rather slowly at first, but then a mighty wind began filling the cloak, although strange to say he did not feel it on his face and hair.  But the cloak fluttered madly, and a moment later he found himself hurtling forward, as though a horse had taken fright and began galloping erratically with him frantically holding on.  He wondered with a feeling of terror what would happen if the cloak should come undone and fall off.  He could see the garden from up here, but it was all he could see; it was too dark for anything else, so he kept his eyes lifted upward, looking to the stars, wishing Celirwen had come up with him, however much he hated her. 

And then he heard a fluttering roar behind him, and there she was.  She reached out for his hand and took it.

“It’s cold up here,” he shouted to her.  She laughed.

“Think of warmth,” she said, “and the cloak will warm you.”

He concentrated on being warm, and soon was so.

“That is better,” he had to admit.

“How do you like flying?” she asked him.

“Now that it is warmer,” he said, “I think I like it very much.”

After a while, however, he began wishing there was more to see.  It was too dark.  And strange to say, the stars did not get any bigger the higher he flew.  They stayed the same.  He wondered how long it would take him to fly up high enough to pick himself one.  And if the Star-Kindler would even let him. 

Well, come daylight, he would fly to many different places, see all the lands there were to see, and perhaps fly across the seas.  Who needed a ship?  The world was his.  He did not even think of his yellow-haired lass.  He could not even remember her name at the moment.

“I must feed more,” Celirwen said after a while.  “You had better come with me, for you do not know the way back, and will be lost if allowed to go your own way.”

He suppressed the next thought, since she was rather close by, and it seemed she could read his thoughts at times. 

And he was truly curious now, to see her feed.  This cloak was indeed a thing of wonders, driving back his inhibitions, rather like the liquor Thorodon had gotten hold of once and passed around on one of their hunting expeditions.  Gaergath did not even want to think of the things he might have told of, under its influence.  Nor did he like to remember the way it had made him feel in the following morning.

He wondered what Thorodon was doing now.  And if he would ever see him again.

He followed Celirwen it seemed a great distance, until finally she said, “Now” and dove downward like a hawk toward the ground.  He plummeted immediately after, not wishing to lose sight of her, with a terrified feeling that he would crash, not knowing how he would make a landing, and absurdly hoping there was a tree he could grasp.  But they were heading toward an open space, as he could see by the light she gave off.  It looked to be a village, although not the one where he lived.  He could see rooftops and lighted windows, an outdoor fire or two, and a few people walking about, along with a few stray beasts.  Nay, it was more than a village…it was a small city, yes…such as he had never seen before.  Now he could see lighted torches, a river flowing, reflecting the torchlight, a large fire burning in an open space, and he could hear music of a merry sort, to which some folks were dancing.  Some stood about talking and laughing, and some held flasks or cups from which they drank.  He could see stacks of hay bales and pumpkins, sheaves of wheat, baskets full of vegetables, and concluded that the folk were celebrating the harvest, just as in his village.

“Not too close,” Celirwen warned him, as she noticed him looking down with acute interest.  “It will alarm them if they see you.  Keep out of their sight, and stay back in the shadows.  Follow me.  I will find us a landing place.”

He did as instructed, and was rather relieved to find himself with his feet on the ground once more, holding his cloak about him tightly.  She led him into an alley, unlighted and bad-smelling, and he could hear dogs growling somewhere.  Was she going to feed on dog’s blood?

“Wait,” she whispered.  “Sooner or later, someone will come by.  Someone who has had too much to drink, or is intent upon robbery, or trying to slip about with a wench he does not want his wife to find out about.  Then might I make my move.”

“What city is this?” he asked.  But she did not seem to hear him.  He saw she was looking paler.  If someone did not come along soon…

She might well be forced to make a meal off him.

“Come this way,” she said, and they turned onto a street that bypassed the merrymakers, then paused at a corner, where she put back her cloak and hood, and he gasped.  His mother’s dress?  He could have sworn she was wearing it when they left.  But the one she wore now bore no resemblance to it.  It was purplish-red and silky in the torchlight, with gold embroidery on the bodice and sleeves, and it displayed all her white shoulders and a glimpse of her bosom, and the sleeves were long in back but split in front to show all her arms, on which gold bracelets were visible. 

“Go you now,” said she, “to the revelers, find a man among them who appears to be alone, and ask him if he wants a woman.  Be sure he is not too drunken.  Point me out to him.  I will do the rest.”

He stared at her, stunned at her beauty and her brazenness.  Was he dreaming?

“Go,” she said a trifle impatiently.

He nodded, and went, although it occurred to him that had he not been wearing the cloak, he would have told her to go hang herself before he’d do such a thing.  Yet now his own blood tingled; he had embarked on an exciting adventure. 

As he mingled with the crowd, he wondered if he should just lose himself among the merry-makers and let her go hang, or find her own victim.  Maybe she would die then, and he would have his revenge.  And he would have his cloak, and could go where he would with it…

Then he saw a comely girl smiling at him.  She appeared about eighteen or nineteen, ample in the bosoms, with abundant brown hair that showed gold glints in the firelight.  He grinned back at her, then remembered Celirwen and glanced up in her direction…and saw two men moving toward her.  So she would have plenty now, she didn’t need him…

“Hullo.  Do you dance?” the buxom maiden was asking him.  “My name is—”

Suddenly a burly young man appeared behind her, grabbing her arm.  She gave a squeal of pain.

“What do you think you’re doing, Mavis?” he growled.  “I turn my back for one moment and you’re already flirting with youngsters?  You--” he looked to Gaergath-- “go your way, young pup.  This one’s mine, and needs a lesson or two.”

Gaergath stood speechless for a moment.  He had seen such altercations before, but they had never involved him as yet.  Mavis looked at him expectantly, and the young man squeezed her arm once more, and she slapped at his hand.

“Ow!” she exclaimed.  “Finion, that hurts!”

“’Tis meant to hurt, you trollop,” Finion said between clenched teeth as he dug his nails into her flesh.  “You want to make me look a fool, you won’t get off so easy.” 

Gaergath felt the warmth of the cloak once more, and it imparted more boldness than he knew he was capable of feeling, and he stepped forward.

“Let go of her, Finion,” he said, “and go jump in a pile of horse turds…or better yet, I know of one who’s far more willing.  And the two of you well deserve each other.”

Finion shoved Mavis aside, and stepped up to Gaergath, staggering a bit, but keeping his ground.

“What did you say to me, you fuzzy little wart on a pig’s arse?” he said, leaning forward until his nose nearly touched Gaergath’s.  His breath stank of what Gaergath vaguely recognized as dark ale.

“Are you sure you would have a match with the son of Sauron?” he said, fairly glowing all over.  Mavis’ pretty mouth dropped wide open.  Others were looking on now.  The musicians had stopped playing.

Finion snorted.  “You’ve obviously had too much to drink, maggot,” he said, then belched, himself.  Mavis giggled, then quickly stifled it as he turned to glare at her.  “You had better get your pimply little bum back home and let your mummy spank it for you, then pour you into bed before you get into more trouble than you can handle.  If you were my size, I’d ram your head so far in, you’d have to drop your drawers for to speak.”

“You would, would you?” Gaergath snickered, then took a deep breath, bent his knees, and sprang high up in the air.  There he stayed suspended with his feet on a level with Finion’s head, while the crowd gasped, and Mavis and some other girls screamed.  “There.  Am I big enough for you now, fat boy?”

And before Finion could react, Gaergath descended and gave him a powerful kick in both shoulders with both feet simultaneously.  The young man went tumbling backward…right into the fire.

More screams, some of them coming from Finion himself, and Gaergath swooped down and extricated him from the fire by the hair of his head, then flung him onto the ground while the crowd went nearly hysterical all around.  Some were running away, others standing about screaming, but none going to the aid of Finion, who lay whimpering on his side, so that Gaergath could see that his clothing was well scorched in back.  He looked about for Mavis, but she was nowhere in sight.

He looked in Celirwen’s direction, but did not see her either.  He hoped she had seen what had passed, but likely she had other concerns.

Then he saw a young girl on the ground, sobbing, and he went to pick her up, saying, “There, there, little one.  Are you hurt?”

She screamed and jerked her arm away.  She was not but about twelve, he could see.  Then a woman came running toward her and grabbed her, glaring at Gaergath as she hustled her daughter away from him.  He had to laugh then. 

But where was Celirwen?  He could not lose her just yet.  Without her, he would not be able to find his way back to the house.  And after what had just passed, it was highly unlikely he could bide in this town.

Grabbing the snuffling Finion by the back of his collar, he said, “Hurt, are you?  Come along with me.  I know of someone who can kiss it and make it all better.”

But Finion broke away and began to run.  Gaergath shrugged.  Well, it looked as though she had found sustenance already.  He went to her.  She was glowing like a star, no need for torchlight now.

“Well now, my lad,” she said, “you had yourself a bit of fun, did you?”

“The most I’ve had in a very long time,” he said with a cocky jerk of his head.  “So.  What now?” 

XII.  Shapes

“It is near midnight,” she said.  “If we wait much longer, you will be too tired to fly.  Are you not feeling sleepy at all, my lad?”

“Nay, I’m fine,” he said, although now that she had spoken of it, he realized he had not slept since very early the previous morning. 

“You will be soon enough,” she said.  “So let us be on our way while you yet have strength.  We cannot bide here.”

“What do you do the rest of the night after you have fed?” he asked as they rose into the night once more.

“I have friends,” she replied, “whom you will not meet just yet.  Someday, you will, but as of yet, I would have you sleep of nights.  Your powers will continue to develop, but if you are about too much in the night, they may be stunted.”

Upon their arrival at the house, he came to find Hyldreth had gone to bed, but she had left the hall light burning for him.  After Celirwen had departed once more, he lit a candle and poked about the house, particularly the kitchen, not knowing quite what he was seeking.  Perhaps he could find something with which to drug Hyldreth, so that he might be alone with Celirwen.  He was almost certain that his mother’s spirit was not in that body. 

After steeling up his courage, he went downstairs, only to find the door locked.  He slipped back upstairs looking for Hyldreth’s room, thinking to steal the key.  Yet her door was locked also.  Finally fatigue took him over and he trudged upstairs to the room that had been designated to him. 

It was a large room, nicely though sparingly furnished, with several windows, and a bed big enough for two, well curtained in white, and he wondered if Celirwen and Sauron had lain on it together, if he had been conceived upon it.  He removed the cloak and hung it on a hook near the door, then began removing his outer clothing, feeling glad he had brought a change of clothes, and wishing he had brought more.  Well, at least he would have clean ones to wear while Hyldreth washed the other...if indeed she did wash them.  He might well have to wash his own....

Well, she at least had lit the fireplace for him, so the room was not too cold.  The bed felt oddly comfortable as he sat on it; yet as he did so, he caught sight of the cloak hanging by the door, looking completely black and malevolent, as though insulted by having been removed and hung up.  For a moment he just sat looking at it, thinking of the night’s adventure.  He had to chuckle as he remembered Finion’s face when he rose in the air before him, and he could think of some things he wished he might have said…and yet at the same time, he could not help but think that his mother would not have liked his behavior, and wondered what she would have said.

He wondered if she could see him now. 

He felt certain she was not in Celirwen’s body now.  Yet he still did not know.

Perhaps the cloak would show him, eventually.  Then he might make his move.  When his full powers came into fruition.  For now he should get some sleep, just as his mother had told him.

And as he lay down, he thought he heard something laughing at him.  And it occurred to him that he had just thought of Celirwen as his mother.

He lay flat on his back, feeling unable to sleep, hearing things jangling about in his mind, thinking back on the ugliness he had encountered therein…not that he had never encountered them before, of course.  He had been in fights before.  He had harbored thoughts of malice and revenge against those who had crossed him.  None of which he had experienced in the town was truly new to him.  The difference was that tonight, he had scored his first real victory. 

But the thrill was wearing off, and now the nasty things were wrestling about, naked and bristling. 

Had he really claimed Sauron as his father?

Nay, he had done so only to further intimidate Finion...yet, it should not have been necessary.  Why had he done it?

It would not happen again, he sternly told himself.  He would let Finion beat him to a pulp before he would ever acknowledge Sauron as being even distantly related to him.

Perhaps he should not wear the cloak again.  Perhaps it was drawing him to Sauron, enticing him.  Did Celirwen really think she could lure him into her affections with presents and promises, make him forget his mother and all thoughts of vengeance?  Well, he was wise to her.  He knew of her plot.  He would simply have to play along, lull her into a sense of false security, until he had her where he wanted her...and then he would strike.  How he would do so, remained to be seen.  Yet do it he would.  He did not care what happened to him after that.  He owed it to his true mother.

He squirmed over to his right side, then to his left, then to his back again.  Then sat up, groaning, leaning his face into his hands.

At last he rose and took the cloak from the hook, then lay down again, spreading the garment over him. 

And fell asleep almost instantly.

~*~*~

It was nearly noon when he awoke the following day. 

He found the black cloak still lying over him, looking strangely harmless in the morning light.  There was a pitcher of water on the chest of drawers, sitting in the bowl, along with a sponge and towel.  It was cold by now, but he managed to warm it by holding the pitcher to the fire. 

As he washed and combed his hair, he realized that there was no mirror in the room. 

There were comforts aplenty:  a thick fur rug by the bed, a stuffed chair, a small round table, a pleasant-smelling wooden chest containing several blankets, a wardrobe attractively carved, several sconces on the walls, beautifully wrought of bronze, a desk, and some rather gorgeous vases, one of which was half as high as himself.

And yet there was no mirror.

He was rather glad he was not shaving yet.  Thorodon was the only one of his friends who shaved.  Gaergath and the others had some body hair, but as of yet, they had only a light soft down on their cheeks.  They were outwardly scornful of the fact that Thorodon had to remove the hair from his face with a razor, making weak jokes behind his back, and secretly envious.

But:  Thorodon had no black cloak.

After Gaergath had dressed, he ventured out into the hallway, and went to inspect the other rooms.  There were several salons, starkly furnished, a trifle dusty—apparently Hyldreth had not considered them worth the trouble of keeping up much, or else she just hadn’t much time to fuss with them. 

And none of them had a mirror. 

None in the hallway either, nor downstairs.  Not even in the room he used to occupy as a small child.

It was creepy.  With no reflection, it was almost as though he were missing his soul.

“Good morning, my lad,” Hyldreth’s voice startled him.  She was dressed much the same as the previous day, her braids pinned up at the nape of her neck.  “Did you pass an interesting night?”

He realized he was alone with her once more.  And that likely, she had an eye on him, and he would not get around her so easily as all that. He did not see the key hanging from her belt this time, and had a sinking feeling.

“Most interesting,” he answered, wishing he could have come up with something wittier, but she had caught him off guard.  “I don’t suppose I could get a bite to eat?”

“I suppose you could,” she replied.  “You were sleeping soundly when I fixed breakfast, so I did not see fit to awaken you.  There is aught on the kitchen table, which you will have to warm yourself, if you wish it so.  I have things to do.”

I’ll just bet you have, he thought.  “There are no mirrors in the house,” he said.   

“She had them all taken down years ago,” Hyldreth replied quietly.

“Why so?” he asked when no explanation seemed forthcoming.

“You will have to ask her,” Hyldreth said.  “I am sure she would have a better explanation than I would.”

“Does she tell you naught?” he asked a bit haughtily.

“Only as much as I need know.  Are you going to eat, or shall I toss it all out?”

“You have dogs you can toss it to?”  

“Not dogs.  But it will be eaten,” she said enigmatically.  He narrowed his eyes.

And he ate the food.  It stopped the pangs of hunger, at least.  Which was about as much as he could say for it.

He did not suppose there was any chance of getting it out of Hyldreth where Celirwen slept.  Next time, he would watch, and see for himself.

In the meantime, he would play with his new toy.   

He found Hyldreth out in the garden.  Her back was turned toward him as he paused at the back doorway, the cloak under his arm, watching her.  He could hear her voice, singing or murmuring to the plants as she mulched them, and he was about to startle her with some bright remark, then thought better of it.  He could see fog outside the walls once more, and it occurred to him that if he were nice enough to her, she might lift the fog so he could see where he was going.  He did not fancy the thought of staying at the house with no one else about, and he was not sure the cloak would work in the fog.  But how to go about it?  Should he strike up a nice chat with her, get her to tell him about her background?  Yet he had a feeling she had already told him as much as she cared to.  Maybe he could get her to tell him of Sauron…save that he did not truly wish to hear it.  Dark thoughts congregated beneath his skull, and at last he simply shrugged and walked out, and stood beside Hyldreth, who looked up at him.

“Is this what you do all day?” he asked her.  “Do you not get bored here?  What did you do to deserve to be stuck in this place?  Why are you not of her kind?”

She looked up at him for a long moment.  “Do you ask so many questions of others?” she asked.

“When I wish to know something, I do,” he said.  “I’ve found it’s the quickest way of finding out things.  Where does she sleep?  Beneath the house?”

“Once more, you will have to ask her,” Hyldreth said turning back to her plants.  “I am not authorized to tell you such.”

“Oh, you are excellent company,” he snapped.  “I can see we are going to get on famously.  Have you ever used a cloak such as this?”

“I prefer to keep my feet on the ground,” she replied without looking at him.

He stood silent, watching her, observing the dark gown, the white apron tied over it, the coiled graying braids.  He remembered the previous day when he stood behind her with the stake in his hand….  Would he have truly done such a thing?   

“Is there aught you can do about the fog?” he asked a little more softly.  “I want to look for my horse.”

She looked up at him.  “You’ve your cloak, have you not?  What need you with a horse?”

“He is my horse,” Gaergath said simply.  “I am fond of him.”

It occurred to him that he could not bring Russandol here, simply because the horse would not come near the place.  Not even while She was sleeping.  But perhaps the old farmer would take and keep him.

Provided that he could find the farmer to begin with.

Hyldreth got to her feet. 

“Have you tried shifting your shape?” she asked, looking him straight in the eye.

“What?” He looked blankly at her.

“With your cloak,” she said.  “Did she not tell you that you could shift your shape?”

“Nay, she did not.  Can I truly?”

“Try it and see,” she said with lifted eyebrows.  “Perhaps you can be a falcon, or an eagle, and fly high above the fog, until you find your horse.  You could not find him within the fog anyway.”

He quickly put the cloak over his shoulders and tied it into place.  “How do I do it?” he asked, feeling a flutter of excitement.

“Close your eyes,” she said, “and concentrate.  Think of the creature you would be, and meditate upon it.  Then…just be.” 

A rat, he thought, so I can get under the house and find where She sleeps. 

“Wait,” Hyldreth said, “you are wearing your silver buckle.  The cloak will not work with it on.”

Wonderful.  Then I’ll have no protection when I find her.  Then again, she will not awaken, I suppose….

He grinned sheepishly, and he hoped engagingly, at her.  She did not grin back. 

He hoped he would not have to take drastic measures after all.  Although he did not like her, he did not wish any more blood on his hands than necessary. 

“Very well then, I shall just have to go and fetch my everyday belt,” he said.  He certainly did not trust her with this one.

He went indoors, removed the belt, then went upstairs to his room, fuming and muttering to himself.  He opened the wardrobe, which he had not done previously…and gasped, stepping backward.

The wardrobe was full of clothes…in his size.

How long had they been there, and where did they come from? 

Quite well made they appeared to be.  One had a black velvet doublet with gold trim and white fur.  There was even a pair of boots….

Then on a hunch he sniffed at one of the suits.  It smelled of a previous owner.  Just as he had suspected.

He slammed the wardrobe door shut, then looked about for a good place to hide the belt.  Trust her to come up looking for it.  He went downstairs once more, and then into his old room, where he hid the belt beneath the chair cushion.  Likely she wouldn’t think to look there.  Then he went out the back door.

“Falcon,” he said grinning once more.

~*~*~

Gaergath breathed a sigh from up in the branches of the tree where he watched the old farmer’s son take Russandol to his home, where he spoke to a young boy who looked to be about thirteen or so.  The lad ran to the horse and touched his nose, neck and flank in wonderment.  The garden looked well tended, and soon a woman who was presumably the boy’s mother emerged from a pretty cottage and caressed the animal’s muzzle and mane admiringly.

“I’ll come back for you, Russi,” Gaergath whispered although he knew the horse could not hear him, “now that I know where you’ll be.  I’m so glad I managed to find you, and I’m sure they will be good to you.  I would never have taken you to his pasture if I thought they would not.  I will come by from time to time to check on you, and after I have done what I must, I’ll come take you away with me.  I don’t know how long it will take.  But I will come back, I swear it.”

For a long moment he was tempted to do just that there and then, and let revenge go hang, and leave the cloak behind.  He wanted nothing She or Sauron had touched.  He would simply take his horse, go home and live his life….

If he could manage to do so now that he had seen what was on the other side….

And what if there were a chance he could set his mother’s spirit free?

When he returned to the House, he found Hyldreth had gone from the garden.  He grinned to himself as he reassumed his human form. 

“Rat,” he whispered.

XIII. Darkness Visible

On second thought, perhaps a bat would be better, he told himself, seeing as how there was absolutely no light in the tunnel and he did not have time to go inside and fetch himself a candle.

The tunnel, once he was within, seemed endless, as well as lightless.  Not to mention foul smelling.  He reckoned it must go far beneath the ground, beyond the house.  She was taking no chances, it seemed.

He dearly hoped he would be able to find his way out again.

At last he came upon something that rose out of the ground.  Perching upon it, he discerned that it was made of wood.  He dared not reassume human shape here, however, for fear the cloak would not allow him to shift his shape so far under the ground.  The thought of being stuck here in human form was slightly terrifying.

Well, at least he knew where to find her now.  It was just as he had suspected.

You will be avenged, Mother, he thought soberly.  But I hope you are in no hurry.

~*~*~

So how shall I do it, he thought as he found himself above ground once more.  Burn her?  It would be fitting enough…but perhaps too quick.  He knew he could not keep a fire going down in the tunnel, not long enough to consume her completely.  He’d had to wait until she was above ground and awake. 

But he liked the idea of imprisoning her even better.  Letting her die slowly underground.  He would have to find a way to seal up the cellar window without Hyldreth noticing.… If he could strew the tunnel with silver objects, then She could not pass through it.  He had made sure to explore the entire passage to see where it ended, just in case there were another outlet.  But where to get the silver?  The cloak would not work if he had silver on his person, according to Hyldreth.  He poked about the kitchen, only to find that the utensils were of pewter.  He had brought some silver coins with him, but not nearly enough.  Surely Hyldreth had some.  She had to have money to buy food.  Perhaps he could offer to go to market for her some time.  Or accompany her there. 

And he would have to go down without the cloak.  The thought of it made him shudder, but he would do it if he must.

And then he remembered the garden-spirits.

Those tree-maidens, who had appeared the previous evening.  Could he enlist their aid?  Would they be willing to align themselves on his side?  Or would they betray him to Celirwen and Hyldreth?

Dare he take the chance?

Perhaps if he went and made serious love to them, then maybe they would be his slaves, and would do all his bidding...However, the problem with that was that he'd had no experience whatsoever in that field, save in his own imagination.  He had never so much as kissed a girl in reality.

Nay, perhaps he had better do the job himself.  And killing Hyldreth was out of the question.  Even if he’d had no qualms about doing so, he was certain the garden-spirits would not take it kindly, and would turn on him. 

That would not do.

In the meantime, he looked forward to going out again in the night.  This place was making him restless, even with the cloak.  Or perhaps because of the cloak.

Perhaps he could just do the job tonight, and have done with it.

Late in the afternoon, after eating a bit of dinner, he thought of going down into the garden, and seeing if he could coax out a tree-fairy or two.  They might prove better company than Hyldreth, at any rate.

Perhaps he should wear one of the suits in his wardrobe; the clothes he was wearing were rather old, not so well fitting as they had once been, and wanted washing.  Even if he had sworn that morning not to touch any of the ones in the wardrobe.  Who had died so that he might be suited out?

But he was wearing the cloak now, and the idea no longer repulsed him as it had done.

Back upstairs he went, and opened the wardrobe to examine the new clothing.

There were some handsome articles among them, to be sure.  He could not charge Celirwen with having bad taste, whatever her other faults might be.  Examining a white shirt, he did detect a few tiny spots of what were most likely dried blood.  Nevertheless, he thought perhaps it would appeal to the garden-fairies, and he laid it over a chair and selected a tunic of an attractive dark grey woolen material with a bit of white embroidery on the breast, a pair of black leggings, a beautiful belt of bronze links with a steel buckle made like a lion’s head, and the nice black leather boots.  It was maddening that there were no mirrors, so he would not be able to see how he looked, but he would just have to do without, he supposed.  He had to remove the cloak in order to dress, and as he laid it over the chair he immediately felt the distaste he had experienced that morning. 

And he felt naked without the cloak. 

In utter dismay he sat upon the bed, clutching the cloak to him.  What to do now?  Perhaps he had better just leave.  Put on the cloak, fly over the wall, then leave it behind, fetch his horse and go home.  Then destroy the cloak.  He was beginning to feel its power, to understand how it was his mother had come to him.  The cloak must have worked its evil in Celirwen, splitting her in two, until the better part of her was pushed out entirely, and somehow took on a solid form.  Would this cloak do so to him?  He could feel its power now, attempting to cleave him, suck out the good in him, such as it was.  Would it be pushed out entirely, and take on a life of its own?  He did not wish it.  Very likely his bad part would destroy the good part, just as Celirwen had destroyed Curonel, taking her back into herself, and overwhelming her completely. 

It terrified him to think the same might happen to him.   

Perhaps he should go downstairs now, enter the tunnel without the cloak, and do what he had come here to do, dispatch her with the silver dagger.  Then go.  And if Hyldreth tried to prevent him…well, he would do what he must.  He would just have to live with it.  It would be her fault for getting in his way.

He began to shiver.  And now the cloak was calling to him, more and more insistently. 

He put it on, and felt relieved almost to the point of ecstasy.  That was so much better.  He could scarcely believe he had agonized so over the thought of what it had been doing to him.  He undressed himself beneath it, and put on the new clothes. 

There.  If only he could see how he looked.

Then he noticed it was growing darker outside.  Wonderful.  She would be coming up soon. 

The days were most definitely growing shorter. 

Perhaps if he could burn the box in which she slept…then she could not return to it.  Or he could drag it out the window, take on the shape of something strong, a horse or mule, and haul her out.  He chuckled to himself at the idea.  Then she might be trapped out in the sunlight.... 

His thoughts grew ever more fiendish, as the afternoon wore on, and Hyldreth came to make up the fire.

She looked startled to see him, in his fine clothes, and the black cloak pushed back from his shoulders.

Indeed, she looked a bit frightened.  The thought was not at all displeasing to him.

“How do I look?” he asked her with an attempt at gallantry.

“Very dashing…and rather wicked,” she said. 

“It would be nice if there were a mirror about the place,” he said, “so I could see for myself.  I don’t suppose you’d allow me to accompany you when next you go to market, and see if there are any mirrors to be had anywhere?”

“Oh, I am sure your mother would see fit to acquire one for you,” she said, “if you are that keen to have aught.  But you can take my word that you look fine.  I do not deal out useless flattery.”

“Well, I thank you,” he said.  “But I would still like to see for myself.”

“By the way, your mother is bringing some of her friends over tonight,” Hyldreth said as she began making up the fire.  “A sort of garden party, as it were.”

“Thanks for the warning,” he said.  “I regret to say I shan’t be able to attend, as I have other plans for the night.”

“She wished them to meet you.  You need not fear; they will have fed already.”

“Well, I do not wish to meet them.  I’ve other places to go.”

“Such as?” She lifted her eyebrows.

“Now who’s asking questions?” he said.  “I’m going courting, if you really must know.”

“Looking for that lass you met last night?”

“So She told you what happened, did she?  Nay, not that one.  There’s someone else.”

“Are you going to do tricks for her?  Turn yourself into a dog and follow her about?  She would love that, I am sure.”

“If you’re so keen to know, I’ll tell you when I get back,” he said.  “But don’t count upon it.” 

“Are you sure you wish to leave tonight?” she said standing up and picking up the metal kindling basket.  “Your father may well be coming.”

“All the more reason to go,” he said.  “Give him my regrets, will you.”

“Are you not at all curious to meet him?”

“Not in the slightest.  He never had the least bit of interest in me, why should I be interested in him?  He can go chase himself down a rat hole for aught I care, and you may tell him I said so.”

He felt a knot rising into his throat, and hated himself for it, and for the way his lower lip quivered as he spoke.

She looked at him with something akin to sympathy, which was all the harder to bear.

“You look so like him,” she said a little wistfully.

“Then forget the mirrors,” he said.  “I don’t wish ever to look at myself again.  I would sooner look like a troll.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.  Have fun at the garden party.”

He turned and flounced out of the room, down the stairs, and into the hallway that led out the back door.  It was growing dim outdoors, and he told himself he had better be gone before the guests started arriving.

And then he saw that one of them was already there, standing before the door in the wall.  A figure with a peculiar glow about him, clad in gorgeous array--black with gold and scarlet embroidery, and a medallion showing a large ruby, hanging from a chunky gold chain.  His hair hung long and pitch black behind him, his face pale and majestic...the features disconcertingly similar to Gaergath’s own. 

Beside him sat a big dog with silvery-grey fur--or was it a wolf?

The boy could only stand and stare, rendered entirely speechless.

“Greetings, my son,” Sauron said solemnly.

XIV. Temptation

Gaergath continued to stand there, stunned, while his father looked him in the eye, his cruelly handsome features arranged into the semblance of love and happiness at being finally reunited with his estranged offspring.

“Have you naught to say to me, my lad?” he asked, with a veneer of sadness and remorse.  “When I received word that you were here, I lost no time in coming, for all that your mother and I have not been close recently.  She had even hidden you from me so that I could not get in touch with you.  But now, at last…we meet.  I admit to having been negligent.  I can offer no excuses for that.  But perhaps we can see a way to become friends eventually, and put the past be--”

“I think not,” the boy said at last, a trifle astonished at himself for finding his voice at last.  “She ‘hid’ me from you, did she?  I doubt it.  Somehow I do not believe that is even possible.”

“No doubt she thought she was protecting you,” Sauron said, in that voice that had become velvety, melodious, melancholy, as if weary of a burden he had borne for a lifetime.  “I commend her on that, but there was no need.  I would never have done you harm, and would not have allowed any other to do so.”

“Oh, of course,” Gaergath snapped.  Did Sauron really think he was such an idiot?  “And I suppose you had naught to do with what she did to my mother?  My true mother?”

“Your true mother?” Sauron puckered his forehead.

“So you are going to pretend you know naught of it?” the boy exclaimed.  “I can scarce believe such audacity, even from you.”

“There is no pretense, I assure you,” Sauron said smiling.  “Pray tell me what has transpired.”

“Well, if you really must know--which most likely, you know already,” Gaergath said, glancing at the wolf once more, who had not moved from his master’s side, “one day--”

“Oh, and this is my friend Drauglir,” Sauron said, as he noticed the boy looking at the animal, reaching down a hand to stroke the silvery fur.  “Splendid fellow, is he not?  Actually I think he should be called Draugluin--his coat has a bluish cast to it, which you might see if the light were better.  He--”

“Draugluin?” Gaergath stared at the wolf.  Its eyes were red-gold, rimmed with black, with something both human and bestial in them, and those eyes were fixed on Gaergath. “The…”

“You have heard tell of him already, I see,” Sauron smiled.  “If you stay about long enough, he will make a most astonishing transformation.”

Gaergath continued to gaze at the beast in silence.

“No need to fear him,” Sauron said stroking the creature with a fondness that had something slightly obscene in it.  “He has fed already.  A rather splendid antelope crossed his path and met its end.  Perhaps some of its swiftness and grace will be incorporated into Drauglir’s being, for a time at least.”

I’ll just bet it was an antelope, thought Gaergath repressing a shudder.  Then he wondered if Sauron could read his thoughts, and told himself to be more careful.

“I need be going,” he said as blandly as possible.  “The transformation sounds most interesting, but unfortunately I have other plans for the night.  So if you will excuse me, I must be on my way.  Nice to have met you at least.”

“If you must,” Sauron said with a little sigh of feigned regret.  “I doubt I will stay long, at that.  Your mother’s friends and I are not all on the best of terms.”

“What a shame,” Gaergath said making a move to the door in the wall.  “Now, if you will excuse me?”

“You need not use the door,” Sauron reminded him.  “Your cloak will take you over the wall, remember?”

“I don’t like to use it when others are about,” Gaergath said.  “’Tis like having someone watch when one is trying to take a piss.”

Sauron laughed aloud.  Drauglir growled.  Gaergath looked at the wolf, then glanced away quickly, lest the creature’s eyes mesmerize him.

“Very well then,” Sauron said, still laughing, and moving away from the door…so that the boy could see it was chained closed.  He had not noticed the chain before. “But how will you break the chain?  It looks rather strong and heavy.”

Gaergath raised his eyebrows and looked innocently at his father.  “Perhaps…you might break it for me?”

“If I had a hammer or axe,” Sauron said with a sad face, “I might do so.  Perhaps you’ve one in the house or the shed?”

“Never mind,” Gaergath said.  “I shall just have to leap over, I suppose, whether I’m watched or not.  Well, here goes…”

He bent his knees rather dramatically, glancing once more at Drauglir, and sprang…with the result of landing a couple of feet forward, nearly stumbling to his knees.

He looked back at his father, who was watching with uplifted eyebrows, then turned his eyes ahead once more, bent his knees and sprang again.

He narrowly missed landing in a thorny bush.  Sauron put a hand to his lips.

Drauglir yawned.

Gaergath tried a third time.

“’Tis not cooperating,” Sauron noted folding his arms and pursing up his lips.

“That is your doing, I am sure,” Gaergath said coolly.  “You are trying to keep me here.”

Sauron shook his dark head.  “You do not seem to be one with the cloak tonight, my lad.  ‘Twill not function unless one is fully attuned to it.  Rather like certain body parts on mortal men…and women.  Well, that is too bad for whomever you were going to visit, my son.  I hope she was not expecting you.  Or he, as the case may be.  But there will be another time, surely.  So.  It looks as if you will get to witness Drauglir’s transformation after all?”

“Seems I have no other choice,” Gaergath said sullenly pulling the cloak closer to him as if it had grown colder, which it had.  

He noticed the wolf was of uncommon size for one of its kind, and felt profoundly uneasy.

“Or if you do not wish to attend this gathering,” Sauron said, “I have another idea.  Why not come with me to my dwelling?  It is most impressive, far more than this dreary place.  In very truth, you might come there to live, if you like.  Why come back here anyway?  Come with me, and we will see and conquer the world.  You and I together.  What say you?”

“What of her?” Gaergath said with an unnecessary jerk of his head toward the house.  He found, somewhat to his dismay, that his father’s voice was most persuasive.    

“What of her?” Sauron said with a shrug.  “We simply leave her here with her ever so charming blood-drinking friends.  We owe her naught.  She will not be happy at having lost you once again, and will become rather nasty, I imagine.  She does not take kindly to not getting her own way.  But what of it?  She cannot harm me.  Nor you, if you are in my custody.”

“I want her dead,” Gaergath said, then was appalled at himself for giving away his intentions.  “Or, at least, I think I do.  If only I can be sure that my mother’s spirit is not trapped inside of her.”

There, it was out.  Sauron looked thoughtfully at the boy.

“If you wish her dead,” he said, “then perhaps I can destroy her for you.”

“You would just do that, without a thought?” Gaergath looked at him through narrowed eyes.  “But…”

“She is no use to me any more,” Sauron said, “and she has betrayed and plotted against me.  That's what I get for enabling her and teaching her to use her powers.  She tried to keep me from you, and she is using you in order to try to bring me down.  As for your ‘mother’s spirit’ being trapped within her, that is but one of her tricks.  She is full of evil wiles and she knows how to use them.  But she is vulnerable also, and it will be no huge matter for us to bring her down.  You might even take her place as messenger to Melkor, if you like.”

Gaergath stared at his father.  Might he prove an ally after all?  Then again, was not Sauron just as full of evil wiles as She, and might he not be lying?  Just what did he want with Gaergath, anyway?

Perhaps, if he were to go with Sauron, it would be the best revenge.  Celirwen would be furious, and impotent against the power of her former lover.  And there would be naught she could do, and he might well catch her off her guard and strike her down without mercy, when he had her just where he wanted her.

He could deal with Sauron much later.

“Let's go,” he said.
 

XV.  Spite

Gaergath wondered how Drauglir was going to fly, seeing as how he had neither wings nor cloak.  

And even as he wondered, a very large owl suddenly appeared where the wolf had been.

Was that the transformation Sauron had told of?  Impressive, but Gaergath had expected much more.

Then he grinned to himself, and took the form of a black swan.  Sauron laughed.

"That's my lad," he said.

And he began to transform also.

Gaergath nearly lost his bearings as he watched.  For Sauron had begun to grow a long, long scaly green-black neck with a hideous horned head full of long teeth, the wings of a giant bat with enormous curved claws, and a long tail like a huge lizard, with spikes along the back.  Gaergath stared in mingled terror and fascination, then found he was losing his own swan-form, and the cloak was no longer bearing him up.  He began to plummet, shrieking, frantically and absurdly flapping his arms in an attempt to stay airborne.  The dragon-like creature glanced down toward him, then swooped downward with incredible speed and caught Gaergath on his back.  And as he did so, he no longer looked the horrible beast he had been, but like a great eagle, its back thick with downy feathers.  

Gaergath clung to the "eagle"'s back, quivering all over, then glanced aside at Drauglir to see how he was taking his master's metamorphosis.  He merely continued to fly as if giant dragon-like creatures who turned into eagles were an everyday occurrence to him.  He even seemed to be laughing a little, inasmuch as an owl could laugh.

"How far have we to go?" Gaergath finally asked, when he could find his voice.

"Not so far.  We should be there in less than one hour," Sauron's voice seemed to come from the eagle's back.  Gaergath wondered if he were dreaming.  "Perhaps you would like to take a nap," Sauron added as if he had heard his son's thought.

And much to his dismay, Gaergath suddenly felt himself growing sleepy.  He burrowed into the feathers of the eagle's back, where it was most pleasantly warm.  It really was growing cold, particularly at such a great height.

And he fell asleep almost immediately.

~*~*~

He woke to find himself lying on a great couch in a softly lighted room, his father standing nearby, looking down at him with an enigmatic expression.  

"Where am I?" Gaergath asked, then yawned.

"You are here," Sauron chuckled.  "Here in my home, on Tol-in-Gaurhoth. Are you hungry?"

Gaergath blinked up at his father, then sat up slowly, glancing all around.  The room was large yet narrow, with high ceilings, the walls of a dark grey stone with high narrow windows, through which he could see it was dark outside.  Yet he could see stars--no fog.  There were luxuriant furnishings all about--deep chairs with elaborate carving, tall and intricate candle holders and sconces of iron, bronze, silver, brass, wood, and ivory, as well as various types of stone.  And some strange carvings with a truly sinister and twisted aspect.  A fire blazed in a fireplace that took up one whole end of the room, and a gorgeously worked rug near it formed the one burst of rich color to be seen, save for a couple of crimson velvet pillows lying on the couch near Gaergath's feet.

He glanced about for his cloak, and saw it lying on the back of a nearby chair, and took a deep breath of relief.

He did not see Drauglir anywhere about.  

"I am a bit hungry," he finally spoke.  Sauron laughed.

"I thought as much," he said.  "I think you will find the fare here far more appealing than in your previous surroundings."

"That is not even saying much," Gaergath said.  "So.  You have a cook?  Or is food here eaten raw?"

"There is food cooking even as we speak," Sauron said.  "In the meantime, come over to the table here in this adjoining room...if you feel up to it.  How do you feel now?"

"All right, I suppose," Gaergath said rising a little shakily to his feet.  "How...how long have I been asleep?"

"Not so long.  This way."  

Gaergath followed his father through an arching doorway, and soon found himself before a long oval table of elaborately carven oak, set about with matching chairs.  There were fewer candles, but at the opposite end of the room, there was a large torch set up before what appeared to be a wide platform, expanding from one wall to the other.  A huge mirror hung behind it.  

Well, at least there are mirrors here, thought Gaergath.  Yet he did not look into it.  A bowl of fruit and bread distracted his attention from it as it was set down before him.  He turned to see who had brought it, and gasped as he looked up into a woman's pale face.  It was a sharp and lovely face, with black eyes burning inscrutably down at him, and black hair streaming all around it, smooth and long, and she wore a black gown embroidered with scarlet and gold designs flaming all about the neck and sleeves.  Her lips were scarlet also, and he just waited for them to part to show fanged teeth, but they remained clamped and unsmiling as she set down a glass of wine before him.

Then she turned slowly and walked away.

Gaergath looked around for Sauron, and saw him grinning from the other end of the table.

"So you have servants too," the boy remarked.

"Aye, that I do," Sauron said.  "She is somewhat fairer than that Hyldreth woman, yes?"

"Considerably," Gaergath said, then turned his attention to the fruit.  He wondered if he should be eating the food here.  No telling what was in it.  Yet he had no other choice; he was ravenously hungry.  He picked up a plum and looked at it for a moment, thinking it had a slightly evil aspect about it, as though it had come from one of the trees in Celirwen's garden.  He looked at the other fruits, which seemed a little too colorful and gleaming and fragrant also.  Then he saw the bread, and bowls of butter and honey beside the plate, and he picked up a knife and cut a slice, and slathered it with the butter and honey, barely refraining from drooling, and bit deeply into it, without looking at his father.  It was so delicious it fairly brought tears to his eyes, and he devoured it, then cut another slice.

"Nice, is it not?" Sauron said smiling almost beatifically.

"It's very good," Gaergath said inanely.  And he tried the plum, wonderfully sweet and juicy and cold it was.  The grapes were even better, and kumquats and pomegranates.  Then he tried the wine.  It was sweet and tart at the same time, the fragrance maddening.   He barely noticed when music began to play.

"Look, my lad," Sauron said nodding in the direction of the platform.  Another woman had come in and stepped up onto it.  Her hair was a dark flaming red, hanging down to her hips, and she wore a filmy waist of a pale gold color, that left her arms and shoulders bare, and there were gold and bronze bracelets on them, upper and lower, and rings on her fingers--many rings.  A scarf of dark purple girdled her waist, and Gaergath could see the outline of her lower legs through her gold-embroidered green silk skirt, which came to just above her ankles which also had bracelets on them.  Her feet were bare, and very pretty. 

And the nails of her fingers and toes were painted dark red.

Gaergath forgot the food staring at her.  He had never seen a woman so scantily attired.  As the music played, she began to dance, with a rolling motion of her hips, waving her arms about gracefully, her feet barely moving at all.  She fixed her eyes upon Gaergath, and he could see they were painted with black stuff all around them, and glittery gold stuff at the corners, and her lips were crimson and quite full.  And clamped together also.

Soon two more women, similarly clad, one with dark hair and the other with gold, joined her on the platform, and they all danced, their bracelets jingling, their hair swirling out like flames as they spun about on the balls of their feet.  Their motions were sometimes smooth, occasionally jerky, and at one time they took hands and moved in a sensuous circle, at times caressing each other's hair and faces, looking as though they might kiss each other, and Gaergath held his breath, until they broke apart once more and the music grew faster.  The dancers whirled about, their skirts flaring to show their legs nearly up as far as they would go.  Gaergath wondered if they were wearing anything at all beneath the skirts, and he could smell them all the way to the t able.  He knew there were women who wore scent, but had never been around any such before.  

He scarcely noticed when his father moved closer to him.  

"Which one do you like best?" he whispered.

Gaergath looked at him blankly.  

"The dancers," Sauron said.  "Which do you like best?"

Gaergath was rendered speechless.

"Perhaps you prefer lads?" his father said.  Gaergath started then.

"Lads?" he said suddenly finding his tongue.  Then stared at the dancers again.  Sauron chuckled.

"Obviously not," he said.  "Well.  Just keep watching, my son.  You can decide later on."

When the dance ended, another door opened and a man came in, bearing a covered dish.  He set it down on the table, and the dark-haired woman in black came in again, bearing a tray of dishes and utensils.  These she set down near the covered dish, and handed some to Gaergath.  Then she lifted the cover of the dish to reveal a large hunk of meat, steaming and impossibly aromatic, floating in a pool of brown gravy.  Gaergath had to swallow saliva, looking at it.  The woman cut a generous slice of it, which he could see was beef of some sort, and laid it on his plate, then ladled a spoonful of the gravy onto it.  He barely remembered to nod his thanks as she re-covered the dish, and he pounced on it as the music started up again and the dancers returned.  The woman poured more wine into his glass, then turned abruptly and left.

Gaergath ate the meat with another slice of bread, and this time it was Sauron who cut more meat for him.  They watched the dancers together.

"I most sincerely hope," Sauron said, "that you are not regretting coming out here, instead of going wherever it was you were going on this night."

"Not thus far," Gaergath said, although he had an idea what his father was about.  Plying him with delicious food and wine and beautiful dancers, and all manner of creature comforts, in order to persuade him to stay, all for the purpose of spiting Celirwen.  Yet just now, he did not care.  He merely wanted to enjoy himself.  The wine was starting to go to his head, he noticed.  He took the bottle and poured more.  Never had he tasted such delightful wine before.  He would sit up and drink until he could drink no more, and stuff himself.  How long had it been since he had eaten such food?  

He could stay here forever.  

He had scarcely given a thought to his mother.  Yet it had been less than a week since her disappearance.  

The woman brought in another dish, which was a small cake with some sort of white stuff poured all over it, and nuts sprinkled on top of that.  Gaergath sampled it, and found it very agreeable indeed, and ended up eating it all, then finishing off the wine.  His father watched him with a smile of almost dreamy pleasure.

Drauglir did not show himself.  Gaergath thought to ask where he was, but another performance by the dancers distracted him.  They were clad even more lightly this time, in what appeared to be little more than gold and silver ribbons wrapped around themselves.  The ends of the ribbons streamed out as they whirled about so quickly they were almost a blur.  In a wine-induced haze he watched with his mouth half open, wondering if the ribbons would come off, and then he saw one of them grasp an end of another's ribbon and playfully pull at it, then give it quite a yank, so that its wearer spun around and around, the ribbon coming off in the other's hand, leaving her naked between the breast and hips.  

Gaergath had never seen a grown woman's navel before.

And this one seemed to have a tiny jewel in it.

It was the copper-haired maiden.

He could see she was little older than himself.

Sauron smiled.  

"You like her?" he asked.  Gaergath nodded, watching the golden-haired dancer de-ribbon the dark-haired damsel.  He thought he would fall off his chair in another moment.

"You shall have her then," Sauron said.  And he called for more wine.

Later he asked Gaergath, "You may have any room you like.  There are many on this floor.  You shall have the entire run of it."

"Where do you sleep then?" Gaergath asked.  

Then he wondered if Sauron slept at all.

And if he would have one of the dancers.  And if the red-haired dancer had slept with him.

"Come, my lad," Sauron said without answering the question, "let's find you a room.  How about one facing the east, so you might see the sun rise in the morning."

"Fine," Gaergath said, not caring one way or the other.  He glanced toward the dancer, who was now standing still, speaking with the others.  He could not hear what she was saying, but one of them was looking his way, then the other.  He smiled at them.  They smiled back.

"Come," Sauron laughed, hauling his son out of his chair.  And Gaergath went with him into the hallway, which had a great many doors in the dim light of the numerous sconces.  The red-haired dancer followed at an interested distance, smiling as Gaergath looked back at her over his shoulder.  

XVI.Gaurhoth

Where am I?

Gaergath blinked and groaned, sitting up slowly in bed.  There was light coming in through the two windows, and he could see he was not in his room at Celirwen's.  How came he here?

The room was plainly furnished, the bed narrow, but very comfortable.  The windows were narrow also, but he could see blue sky and white clouds through them, no fog.  The walls were made of grey stone, granite probably, smooth, no pictures hanging on them, only one iron sconce.

His outer clothing lay over a chair nearby; he had on his underdrawers, naught else.  Nature's call was urgent, so he groped beneath the bed for a chamber pot, found and used it.  Then he sat on the edge of the bed, trying to remember the previous night.  But he could recall only bits and pieces, and that was frightening.  

And where was his cloak?

He sprang to his feet, looking all around.  Then he spied the cupboard in a corner, and fairly wrenched the door open, although it was unnecessary...and found the garment within.  Gasping with relief, he clutched it to him.  And put it over his shoulders.  

Yet even when thus calmed, he still could recall little of the previous night.  Sauron had brought him here, no doubt about that.  Yet Gaergath could not remember how.  Drugged him?  Tricked him?  Abducted him?

He went to the window and looked out.  No fog, yes, he could see clearly enough.  He could even open the window, and did so.  He could see far and wide now, mountains in the distance, and below, he could see forest, a bit of mist in the treetops which were below him.  Farther out, he could see a bit of flowing water.  Sticking his head out the window, he could see the wall below, some windows and a walkway.  He tried to see upward but the eaves of the roof above obstructed his view.  

Where was his father now?

Gaergath felt a constriction in his stomach, and it was not hunger...although he was hungry.  He dressed himself quickly, looking about for a mirror and seeing none.  He finger-combed his hair, since he had not brought his own comb with him, then hesitated at the door, listening.  Then opened it.

He found himself in a long and narrow hallway, and saw that his room was at the end of it, there being another window, larger than the ones in his room.  He stood at it looking out, and saw the same forest below, and more running water farther off.  Then on a thought he opened the window and leaned out, and found himself on a railed balcony.  He stepped out upon it, barely noticing how cool and fresh the air felt, and looked up...to see a very high tower above him, so high he could not see the top, it being obscured in mist.

He could only wonder what was up there, who had built it, and how long it would take him to climb to the top....

He felt a chill all over.  He was not sure he wanted to know what was up there.

He stepped back inside, and walked along slowly and softly, as though fearing to disturb any other occupants...whoever and whatever they might be.  There were many doors, and he opened some of them, only to see rooms very like his own.  The hallway was bisected by another, and in the intersection, where he supposed the entry to the stairway leading to the tower would be, he saw no door, nothing in the ceiling to indicate where the tower would be.  He frowned in puzzlement and dread.  He was no architect, but he knew a tower of that height would have to have a foundation deep and strong in order to stay up.  Yet apparently it was atop this building like a cupola, and had no other foundation other than what lay on top of this story.

And there seemed no access from here.  How did Sauron get up into it?

Flight, of course.

He shivered.

Where was Sauron now?

He was starting to remember things now.  You have the entire run of this floor, or something to that effect.  This floor.  How did one get to the others, and how many were there?  He had seen the treetops from his room.  How high did this building rise, and what was below?  

He wished he could remember more.  

Then he came to another door, which opened into a narrow room that seemed remotely familiar.  There was a fire burning in the fireplace, many sconces and candle-holders, some of which were burning, and some ornamentation that looked a trifle sinister, with dragon's heads and poisonous snakes and forms of ugly birds, and the chairs had feet that resembled those of beasts with long claws.  A stone beast the like of which he had never seen before, stood beside the fireplace on a marble block.  Its body was like to that of a bull, its head like a strange and very shaggy sort of wolf, its tail long and pointed, its hooves deeply cloven.  Its eyes, which were of a red-gold gemstone, seemed to be fixed right upon him.  Then there was a high table, with a huge book upon it.  He approached it and looked at the cover, which was of dark brown leather and had bronze-gold lettering in a language unfamiliar to him, and a picture that appeared to be the eye of some particularly malevolent beast, wreathed in flame.  

He opened the cover, noticing the slight tremor of his fingers as he did so, and looked at the flyleaf, which was also inscribed in the unfamiliar letters, with a drawing below of a hideous monster.  Turning the leaf quickly, he saw more writing, that seemed to flame upon the page, in a strange color--not black and not red, but somewhere in between the two.

Dried blood.

He heard a strange whispering sound, and realized it was coming from the book.  There came a horrid hiss, followed by remote and completely insane laughter, then by agonized moaning.

He shut it abruptly, and the sounds stopped.

His stomach lurched, and once more he wondered where Sauron was.

Very cautiously he opened the book once more.  He heard nothing, so he began thumbing through the pages.  There were more drawings, some of monsters or snakes or ugly birds, others of what appeared to be people.  There were obscene sketches, depicting couples in different positions, some doing such in groups of three or more, some with children and animals.  And he heard the whispering again, sounds of moans somewhere between pain and ecstasy, and faint screams of anguish.  He shut the book again.

He had to get out of here.  But he did not know the way back home.

That was Sauron's doing too, without a doubt.  He had put him into a sleep so that he could not see the way here.  

He was a prisoner.

Or was he?  There was the cloak...and yet he knew that his father had removed some of its power, so that Gaergath would not be able to change form and fly away.

He was a prisoner.

He was trapped here forever, or for as long as Sauron wished him to stay here.

"Good morning, my son," he heard Sauron say from the doorway.  And there was Drauglir beside him, looking bored.  "You slept rather late.  It is near noonday.  Are you hungry?"

"Not so very," Gaergath heard himself say.  And his stomach growled in contradiction.  Sauron smiled.

"Binya was disappointed last night," he said.  

"Binya?"

"Aye, Binya...the dancer," Sauron chuckled laying a hand on Drauglir's neck.  "Do you remember naught of last night?  A lovely and sinuous maiden, with hair of flame, dancing her way into your affections?  You wished to have her last night, and she went to your room with high expectations...and as she was undressing herself for your pleasure, you fell back onto the bed and began to snore, and she could not awaken you, so she removed your outer clothing and let you lie.  She was in a bit of a temper when she came back.  It was not pretty to see.  I would not care to be the mortal who fell from her good graces.  Perhaps you had a little too much wine?"

Binya...Gaergath suddenly did remember the dancers.  So one of them had come to him?

And he had fallen asleep before...?

He remembered the pictures in the book....

Sauron laughed aloud.  

"Well, perhaps some other time," he said.  "Come, my lad.  Let us have a bit of luncheon, and become better acquainted."

XVII. Jewels

They took their meal outdoors, on a small railed porch overlooking the river.  Gaergath could see they were, indeed, on an island, heavily wooded.  He could scarcely help but notice there were no birds in the trees, which had shed their leaves and stood about naked, looking somehow abject, although there was still much autumn foliage to be seen across the river.  No squirrels zipping up and down the tree trunks.  No insect life either, that he could see.

"So where is...Binya...now?" Gaergath asked.  Sauron sat across the table, Drauglir at his feet.  The wolf looked up at the boy with knowing eyes, or so it seemed.  Gaergath avoided its gaze.  The creature seemed an extension of its master, somehow.

"Oh, she's somewhere about," Sauron said with a shrug.  "Pouting, I dare say.  Not to worry, however.  I'm sure she'll come around, when I explain to her that last night was my fault for giving you too much wine."

Gaergath wanted to say, No need for that, but somehow the words would not come.  

"What of the book?" he said, deciding that changing the subject might be a wiser move. 

"The book?" Sauron raised his eyebrows.  "Oh, that book.  A tedious volume of ancient lore, merely.  Someday we will get to it, but for now, we've far more interesting pursuits."

"Did you write it?" Gaergath persisted.

"I?" Sauron laughed.  "Nay, my lad.  It was left in my keeping many, many years ago.  I've not even glanced at it in a very long time.  It's not for you yet, dear boy.  So I ask of you not to go prying into it yet.  You've peeked already, I know that.  But we must not move too quickly..."

"Who did write it, then?" Gaergath asked.  His curiosity was overwhelming, although he suddenly found that he was already beginning to forget what he had seen in it.  It was as a dream that is very vivid while it is going on, but begins to dissipate once the sleeper awakes.

And he had a feeling he knew.

"Never you mind that," Sauron said a little sternly, and it seemed a flame leaped up into his eyes.  Gaergath drew back, startled, a chill running all over his body.  Then the flame died down just as suddenly as it had appeared, and Sauron smiled again, and it was as if the flame had never happened.  "You shall consider this your home, my son, and have the entire run of this floor--I told you that already, I'm sure.  I will show you my forge, and teach you to use sword and spear and such, and--"

"I've had lessons in that already," Gaergath said, his heart bounding a little just the same.  "My friend Thorodon's father taught me.  He was a soldier once."

"Was he now?  Good.  We won't have to start from the beginning, then.  I will show you how to develop your powers and make full use of them.  Then when you have come of age, you will have command of your very own army.  What think you of that, my son?"

Gaergath looked at his father with wide eyes.  It was as if all his not-so-secret dreams were all beginning to come true.  Then again...what was the catch?  It all seemed too good to believe.  What would he have to give in return?

His soul.  That was all.

"I see you have misgivings," Sauron said with a gentle smile.  "Think it over, my lad.  I will give you a tour of my home.  Spend a few days here, a week, a month...then you may decide whether you would stay or leave.  But if you decide to leave...you shall not come back."

Gaergath bit thoughtfully into the leg of some fowl that tasted unfamiliar to him, but very pleasant.  He would have it all here.  Food, shelter, carnal pleasures, the opportunity to learn to be great and powerful, to lead, to conquer, to avenge his mother...who could pass up such a chance?  

Yet he knew, deep down, that once he had committed himself, there would be no turning back, none whatsoever....

"I will stay for a while," he said at last.  And to his utter amazement, he found that he could not remember one single thing that was in the book.

And when he went back to the room where the book had been, it was not there.  The table on which it had lain was gone also.

~*~*~

"Come down with me to my forge," Sauron said after the meal was over.  "This way."

Gaergath followed his father and Drauglir down the long hallway, wondering.  He had opened every door along the way that morning, yet had seen no forge, or stairway.  Then as they came to the middle where one hallway bisected the other, Sauron casually opened the first door they came to in the intersection.  Gaergath gasped.  He was absolutely certain he had opened that door, finding only a closet lined with shelves on which stood many jars and boxes.  Yet the shelves were not there, and there was, indeed, a stairwell leading downward from it.  Sauron nodded to his son to go ahead of him.  Gaergath walked hesitantly into it, clutching at the iron rail that circled downward.  It was cold and damp, so he presumed from that the forge was not burning at the moment.  

On the way down, he started for a moment, thinking he heard a cry from somewhere.  A cry of utter anguish, however faint and remote, but it fairly froze his blood.  He looked upward at Sauron to see if he had heard it also, but he gave no indication that he had done so, and so Gaergath decided it must be his imagination playing tricks, and he continued downward.  And soon forgot the cry as he had forgotten the contents of the abominable book.

And he felt a strange excitement as he reached the floor at the end of the stairway.  It was not so cold now.

He soon found himself in a low-ceilinged room in which a forge burned faintly and a smell of hot iron pervaded the air.  There was but one window, with fancy wrought-iron bars criss-crossing it, and a lantern hung near the forge.  Gaergath could see many tools hung all over two walls, and swords and daggers and knives hung over another.  A tub stood near a pump close by, and a very large coal-hod in one corner.  

In another corner stood many more iron-works: tall candlesticks, spears, ornamental racks, kitchen utensils, and some other objects whose nature was unknown to Gaergath, and looked rather sinister.  

But the thing that caught and held his attention was what stood off near the window.  It was a metal pole standing upright, with what appeared to be an iron crown resting upon it.  There were points that stood up high on the crown, and in front were three gleaming white gemstones.  Gaergath felt himself at once repelled and attracted, and almost involuntarily he moved in its direction.

"How like you that crown?" Sauron startled him just as he was reaching out a finger to touch one of the jewels.  

"It is...rather splendid," the boy murmured without turning to look at his father.  "It is yours?"

"It is," Sauron said.  "'Tis the Crown of Melkor.  Well, it is only a replica, of course.  But I keep it here...to remind myself that one day, the Crown will be mine, if all goes accordingly.  It was prophesied to me long ago that one day I would take his place, and rule in his stead.  And you, my lad, shall rule with me."

"Who prophesied this?" Gaergath asked suspiciously.  

"A great prophetess," Sauron said guardedly.  "She is dead now, however.  And all else she prophesied came to pass.  Well, she told me a capital piece of nonsense, about how I would eventually be overthrown by little folk, but I dare say she was only trying to discourage me, and I laughed at her.  I think she meant Dwarves, who are the creation of my former master Aule.  Her way of chiding me for turning away from him and allying myself with Melkor, I am sure. Here..."

He lifted the crown and placed it on his own head.  

"How do I look?" he asked half jokingly.  Gaergath was rendered speechless.  Sauron seemed to glow with a lurid light that nearly filled the forge, and his eyes gleamed almost redly.  The boy drew back in consternation until Sauron reached up and removed the crown.  "Would you like to hold it?" he asked.

Gaergath stood motionless, looking at the crown.  His father looked as he had previously, yet there was a faint humming sound coming from the crown.  

"Take it in your hands," Sauron commanded.  Finally Gaergath reached out and took the crown.

"It's very heavy," he said.  "Does it not make your head ache?  And it is cold.  Why is it so cold?"

Yet he did not hear Sauron's answer, if he made any at all.  He could scarcely tear his eyes from the crown.  The three gemstones seemed full of light akin to that of the stars.  

"You like those jewels," Sauron said.  "They are fashioned after the Silmarils, which grace the Crown of Melkor.  Pretty, are they not?"

"They are beautiful," Gaergath murmured. "So bright and lustrous.  I have never seen gemstones like this, up so close."

"Wait until you see the real Silmarils," Sauron said.  "I shall take you to Angband someday, my lad, how would you like that?"

Gaergath could only nod, gazing down at the jewels without noticing how heavy the crown had become in his hands.

XVIII. Curiosity

"If you can wrench your mind from the false crown," Sauron said, startling the boy, "come and have a lesson or two in blacksmithing."

Gaergath thought he saw a glint of displeasure in his father's eyes.  Perhaps a bit of fear, strange to tell.

He set the crown up on the pole.  It really was very heavy.

Then, turning his head quickly for one more look at the jewels, he went to stand beside Sauron at the furnace.  And found himself genuinely curious as his father explained the uses of the tools, the bellows, the tub of water, and showed him how to fire up the furnace.  Gaergath soon found that he enjoyed beating on the iron and anvil, how malleable the metal was when heated, and all the amazing things he was able to do with it.  And Sauron said he had quite a knack for smithing.

About an hour later, Gaergath had made a simple hook for his wall.  It had a sharp point and a pretty twist to it.

By sundown, he had fashioned a beautiful iron sconce.

And he saw Sauron looking at him with pride and affection that seemed genuine.

He had scarcely noticed how hot it was in the forge.

"I wonder if Binya would like to have the sconce," he caught himself saying as they went up to get supper.  Sauron looked sharply at him, and the boy laughed to show it was a joke.

He felt less embarrassed about her, and a trifle cocky, wondering how she would react when she saw the sconce.  

"So you have aught to offer her now," Sauron said.  

"Aye, so I do," Gaergath said awkwardly.  He raised his eyes to his father.  "So...what am I to call you?"

"I beg your pardon?" Sauron lifted his eyebrows.  

"What am I to call you?" the boy repeated.  "I can scarcely call you 'Father', can I?  And I do not know what name you prefer."

"I do not see why you could not call me Father," Sauron said quietly.  "It is what I am."

"Well, but for the fact that I have known you less than two days," Gaergath looked down at his plate.  "Have you another name you prefer?"

"My given name is Mairon," Sauron said.  "'Sauron' is what my enemies name me."

"I know," Gaergath said.  "Hyldreth said my...mother...named you Annatar, or some such."

He was not sure why he disclosed that, or why it even occurred to him.  He glanced aside at the sconce, which hung on a wall.  Sauron had brought a tallow candle for it.

"You might call me 'Ada'," Sauron suggest with twinkling eyes.  "It is an Elvish word.  Have you ever met any Elves, my lad?"

"Not to my knowledge," Gaergath said.  "I have heard tell of them.  My mother told me many stories of them.  But I've yet to meet one."

"You will, I dare say," Sauron said.  "Sometimes they come here to visit.  If you stay around long enough, you will likely meet an Elf or two."

"I would like that," Gaergath said.  "What are they like...Ada?"

"We are Maiar, as you know," Sauron said after a thoughtful moment.  "Elves are somewhere between the Maiar and the Secondborn.  Far wiser than mortals, and fairer and stronger, but less powerful than the Maiar.  They have their uses, certainly.  We must be careful in our dealings with them, for there is a certain wariness one does not see so much with Men.  They are skillful in many things, and passionate, and mysterious in their way.  They have an affinity with the earth and all growing things, and are fond of music and crafts and suchlike.  But they are not of our sort."

There was a darkness in Sauron's face as he spoke, which was somewhat frightening to the lad.  Although he had no longer any memory of the book, he sensed a certain evil presence about the place, like the stench of a dead animal, and he unconsciously put down the leg of pheasant he had been picking.

And then Binya appeared in the doorway, with a decanter of wine.  

He dropped the bone, feeling like diving under the table all of a sudden.

But as her amber eyes bored into him, he found himself looking back at her, even with a mouthful of pheasant.  He swallowed quickly.  

"No more wine, please," he said with a wink.  She gave him a languid stare, reaching up to brush back a lock of flaming hair.  Then he belched before he could stop himself.

He did not see that Drauglir had left the room, or that Sauron's back was turned.

And later he found himself out on the porch, alone with Binya.

"How did you come to be here?" he asked her.  It was a bit cold, but there was a full moon.  He saw her looking at it rather intently.  He was glad of it, since he felt nervous, and hoping hard that she would not notice.  A little lamp burned on the small table between them.

"He rescued me," she said.  "I was an Easterling's love-slave, and Mairon's forces slaughtered him and took me away with them."

She had a strange voice, rather flat and unemotional in tone, slightly nasal. He had imagined she would have had a low-pitched, sultry voice. Like Celirwen's.

"What is a love-slave?" Gaergath asked before he could stop himself.  He did not want to admit that he didn't know what an Easterling was either.

She stared at him through lowered lids, and he felt strangely excited.  The flame leaping in the lamp-chimney danced on her face, making her look mysterious and dangerous and beautiful.  She wore a simple gown of gold with no sleeves, belted with a colorful embroidered sash.  Her hair was bound with a gold silk cord and gold rings hung in her ears.  Her feet and ankles were bare.

When she did not answer his question, he said, "You are beautiful," and found that he meant it.  She raised a languid finger and twirled a lock of auburn hair around it.  "I have never seen hair the color of yours before," he added, wishing she would talk to him.  "At least, not on a lady.  I have a horse with a mane similar.  Very beautiful."

"You have never had a lass before, have you?" she said.  The words seemed barely to escape her lips, like mice slipping through a crack in the bottom of a door.  He had to lean forward a little in order to hear her.

"Not so many," he said, then laughed as he saw by the twinkle in her eyes that he was not fooling her one whit.  "There is one back home, with yellow locks and a saucy manner.  And there was a fair wench in a town I visited recently.  Her fellow was slapping her about like a beast, and I pushed him into the fire.  He didn't give us any more trouble after that."

She laughed also.  Then reached out a finger and touched his face.

"You look very like Mairon," she said.  "But you are young and charming.  An innocent with perilous ideas.  And dreams of vengeance and power."

Gaergath wondered how much Sauron had told her about him.  

"I would avenge my mother, yes," he said, noting that Binya seemed intrigued and impressed with this idea.  "She was destroyed by a wicked woman.  But soon she will pay for her evil deeds, if I have aught to do with it."

"This is why you have come to Mairon?  To persuade him to help you avenge your mother?"

"Nay, I can avenge her without his help.  I came here because..."  He paused.  Perhaps it was not a good idea to tell her too much.  "Because I was curious," he finished.  

She pursed her lips.

"It is not a good idea...to be curious about Mairon," she said in a very low voice.

"Why so?" he asked, also dropping his voice.

"Because some of those who have been so, have disappeared," she said, even lower.  His heart jumped.

"I have heard some stories," he said, "about...orcs.  And monsters, were-wolves, trolls and such.  Some say...that Sauron breeds them for Melkor.  But I have seen none about the place."

Again he experienced that sensation of evil, and it was most unnerving.  Perhaps I should leave now, he thought.  Or in the morning...  

"Have you seen any orcs?" he asked her.  "How do they look?"

She shrugged. "I would not know one if I saw aught," she said cryptically.

"Do you know how orcs are bred?" he asked.  

"I have never asked," she said.  "It is not a good idea to ask too many questions."

That reminded him of something his mother had said. Something about how it were better not to ask about certain things.

Yet those were the very things he wanted most to ask about.

"It is growing very dark," he noted rather inanely.  "There are a great many stars in the sky."

"So there are," she said without looking up.

"Where I was staying," he said, "I could not even see the sky.  There was naught but fog all about the place.  That's why I came here, I think.  I could not abide the fog any longer."

She smiled then, and reached out and laid a hand over his.  Her skin felt cold and soft, and a fragrance he could not name seemed to emanate from her.  It was neither flowery nor fruity, and had something of the grave about it. 

He laid his other hand over hers.  

"You tremble," she noted.  

"It is rather cold out," he said.  "Perhaps we should go in now."

"Perhaps we should," she agreed.

XIX. Seduction

When he awoke next morning, she was gone. 

Not too much wine this time.  But where was she now?

He sat up groggily, noticing that he wore nothing at all beneath the covers. 

He would have to go back to Celirwen's hall and retrieve his clothes.  He had but the one suit he had arrived in.  But he did not know the way.  Perhaps Sauron had a map somewhere about the place.  Maybe he could even find his horse. 

Nay, Russandol would never come here. Deep down, Gaergath knew his horse was forever lost to him.

But Binya....

He stood up and used the chamber pot, setting it far from him just to see if he could hit it from here, and make a noise loud enough to be heard in the next room.  Then he looked around for his clothing, remembering the previous night.  And knowing his life had changed forever. Again.

So this was what it was all about.

He was not sure what to feel.  In truth, he had rather hoped his first time would be sweeter.  Instead, it had been more like his own fevered imaginings.  Binya knew things he had never supposed girls knew.  Things he had not even supposed people actually did, save in their minds perhaps.  It was as if she had read his mind.  Perhaps she had, at that.  Oh, she was good...and bad...and he never wanted to see her again...and he wanted more and more of her...

He wondered if he were in love, touching the sconce he had made the previous day, and had forgotten to give her.  He would make more, and better things for her.  And someday....

He could not even remember the name of the yellow-haired lass now.  She was as far away as his childhood.

"Binya," he whispered looking into the mirror, and he discovered some objects lying on the table next to it.  A comb, a pumice-stone, a small bowl, a tin of powder for washing his teeth, a little brush for the powder, a pitcher of water.  And a leather pouch to hold the smaller articles. 

While he was making himself presentable, he heard a tap at the door, and his heart jumped.

"Come in," he said.  The door opened, and a male figure stood there, with an armful of towels.

"Your bath is ready," he said looking a little askance at the boy's nakedness.  Gaergath resisted an urge to glare at him for not being Binya. 

"I suppose I could do with a bath, at that," he said after a moment, snatching a towel and wrapping it carelessly about his hips.  "I can scarcely even remember the last time I had one."

A smirk flickered over the servant's face. Gaergath grinned roguishly at him.

The bathing-room was directly across the hall from the bedroom, and Gaergath entered, the servant following.

"I need no assistance," he told the fellow.  "Sorry to disappoint you, for I know you would have a great deal of fun washing me down.  However, I much prefer members of the opposite gender for such purposes, so kindly pry your eyes away from my hindside and leave me to my privacy, if you please sir."

The man looked slightly uncomprehending at the boy, then turned to go.  After a moment, Gaergath snapped the towel at his backside, and laughed at the expression on his face as he quickly backed out the door.

The room was made of black and white veined marble without windows, several iron sconces on the walls with candles burning in them, the tub sunken into the floor, with a pipe attached to a pump beside it.  Several flasks and bottles stood about on the edge.  After ascertaining that the door was locked, Gaergath lowered himself into the steaming water.  After sampling each flask, he chose one and poured some of the fragrant contents into the bath, then lay back, savoring the water and remembering the previous night once more. 

And wondered where Binya was.  She might be attending him right now.  He wondered what time it was.  Perhaps she was at breakfast.  He closed his eyes and dipped far down in the water, wetting his head, then rising once more.  He found another flask and poured some of the stuff within into his hand, then rubbed it into his hair.  It felt wonderful, all tingly and sensual, and he laughed to himself as he rubbed and rubbed, luxuriating in the delightful fragrance that excited his senses almost as much as Binya had done.  Ah...what could be better than this place?  He rubbed the stuff onto his body, and it felt heavenly, like a thousand tiny fingers massaging him all over.  He imagined the fairies of his mother's garden all coming together and swarming all over him, tickling and caressing him, he could even hear their murmurs and giggles and exclamations, and sometimes they bit into his flesh, like insects, yet the pain was pleasurable, at that, and he touched himself, not even caring if anyone saw him; indeed the thought of anyone watching aroused him all the more.  And a cry of pure joy broke from him and he nearly lost consciousness in the water, which seemed to be full of light all around him....

It was nearly an hour before he finally emerged from the bath and went to dry himself.  There was a thick robe lying beneath all the towels, but he did not put it on, did not even wrap a towel around himself, but merely walked naked from the bath chamber to his bedroom, scarcely checking to see if anyone else was about.  And there he found a suit of clothes, all laid out for him on the bed, which was made.  It was a perfect fit.

And now he was hungry.  He wished that his breakfast might have been brought in to him, for he did not wish to see any others about, but it had not been done.  After rubbing his hair dry and combing it into some sort of order, he went down toward the dining-room, hoping to see Binya there, and at the same time, hoping not to.

"Ah, my son," Sauron said startling him by coming through a door from an adjoining room.  He was simply dressed in dark brown sparingly trimmed with gold, but still wearing the pendant, and he looked genuinely happy to see Gaergath.  His face was glowing and his smile was full of pride and affection, and at the same time, his eyes twinkled with amusement and knowledge.  "You look much refreshed.  I am guessing that last night was far more successful than the previous one?"

"I would say it went rather well," Gaergath said, surprised at his own cocky demeanor.  "Very well indeed.  The service here is..."

And he paused as Drauglir entered the door and went to stand beside his master.  The beast's golden eyes looked at the boy with a knowing malevolence that quite unnerved him, and he involuntarily took a step backward. 

"Something wrong?" Sauron asked with lifted brows.

"Nay," Gaergath said after a  moment.  "I feel...as though I could get a bite to eat.  I'm hungry.  What time is it?"

"It is mid-morning, not too late for breakfast, I should say," Sauron said.  And he had food brought in.

Gaergath did not see Binya anywhere about. 

"Is it possible that I could take my meal in my room?" he asked. 

"If you like," Sauron said.  "But is there something wrong with taking it on the porch?"

"Well...I could...if..."

"If?"

"If I could take it alone," the boy finished, keeping his eyes from Drauglir with an effort.  "It is hard for me to choke down my food with that...creature watching me," he added, before he could stop himself.

Sauron looked startled, glancing down at the wolf, then he chuckled. 

"There is no need to fear him," he said a little too smoothly.  "But suit yourself."

Soon a tray was brought in, and Gaergath took it out on the porch.  He rather hoped Binya would appear, but she did not.  The food was excellent.  There were hot rolls and butter, and some sort of meat, and some delicious fruits, and soon he had eaten his fill, and found himself wanting more.  A cup of hot sweet tea was brought to him. 

He was wanting less and less to leave.  Even though he was aware that that was exactly Sauron's plan.  

"So," Sauron said as the boy came back inside, "are you ready for more lessons at the forge?"

"Of course," Gaergath said.  Drauglir was nowhere in sight.  "Thank you for the clothes, by the way.  They are well fitting and comfortable.  And I think they become me."

He wanted to ask where Sauron had come by them, but then stopped himself.  Not a good idea to ask too many questions, he remembered.  Even when they were about clothing.

The lesson went well, and Drauglir did not follow them into the forge.  He did not like the heat, Sauron said.  He instructed the lad in making an object consisting of two curved pieces to be hinged together and connected in the front.  When Gaergath asked him what it was, Sauron looked rather darkly at his son, then brightened and said it was "an armband."

Indeed, thought Gaergath, and he looked darkly at it also.

After a couple of hours, Sauron said they might take a break.  Gaergath remembered the crown, and went to have another look at it. 

"If you like it so much," Sauron said, "it is yours.  You may have it."

"Truly?" Gaergath took it in his hands once more.  It was as heavy as he remembered, yet the gems gleamed even more brilliantly.

A servant brought down a refreshing drink to them.  Sauron and Gaergath sat at a small table opposite the furnace to take it. 

"So," Sauron said, "how do you feel about her?"

"Binya?"  Gaergath started.  "I...I don't know.  I know so little about her.  Was she really a slave that you rescued from...an Easterling?"

"Is that what she told you?" Sauron chuckled. 

"Is it not true?" Gaergath raised his brows.

"You don't want to believe too much of what you hear," Sauron said.  "In very truth...the girl is a trifle mad.  I doubt she truly knows who she is."

"I would not have guessed," Gaergath said in dismay.

"You will see it, if you involve yourself with her overmuch.  I would say take what she is willing to give you, but keep your heart safe, my lad.  Guard it with your life.  It is where your strength truly lies.  Once it is given or taken, you become vulnerable, and you lose a part of yourself you had done better to keep.  You become unmanned and impotent, like a gelded horse.  It is best to retain all the parts you came with, for then you remain pure and untouched, in charge of your being.  Give your heart, and you are maimed for life."

"My heart is my own," Gaergath declared a little pompously, then burped.  Sauron did not smile.

"Do not be so sure of yourself," he said.  "It is then that you are most open.  Be on your guard always.  If you even suspect it could happen, turn away and repulse it.  No one must own any part of you but yourself.  You must forge your own stronghold, in order to become invincible.  Now shall we get back to work?"

"I would like to make swords, and spears, and perhaps shields and helmets also," Gaergath said.  "Will you show me how?"

"I will show you how to make anything you wish," Sauron smiled.  "You have a knack for this sort of work.  In time you will be a master swordsmith, if you work hard at it." 

"Might I make one today?" Gaergath asked, elation rising like steam inside him.

"Nay, we would need to make steel, for I have no raw steel left," Sauron said, "and that takes time.  We will have to gather carbon, unless we can buy some, and I always gather my own."

"Where does it come from?"

"From charcoal, for one, and we can also get it from river sediment, but that takes much doing.  We can get a great deal of it from Angband, but we will have to return on foot.  We cannot fly with it.  Are you up for a cross-country hike?"

"I would love it," Gaergath said, before he remembered just who lived in Angband.  "I have scarcely been anywhere, in my life, save for here.  It would be a great adventure, I should think!"

"Then we shall go out soon," Sauron said.  "There is someone I would love for you to meet...and you will get to see the real Crown."

Before Gaergath could say more, a rap came at the door. 

"Master, we have a visitor," a female voice said.

 XX. Rimbrion

Sauron sighed. "One of those Elves, I suppose."

"Perhaps it is...Her," Gaergath suggested, with an inward quiver. "Maybe she suspected I came here, and has come for me."

"She would not announce herself," Sauron laughed. "She would just--poof!--appear before us, and frighten the servants out of countenance." He called to the servant, "Is it male or female?"

"Male, I believe."

"We'll be right up. Come, my lad. Let us get the tediousness over and done with."

As they were leaving the forge, Gaergath saw a door that had escaped his notice before. It was directly across from the forge door, which was very heavy; this door was less so, made of wood, with a simple handle. Yet plain as it appeared, it seemed to have a personality of sorts. It seemed to brood, to contain secrets that were incomprehensible and thoroughly evil.

"What does that go to?" he asked, nodding.

"Supply room," Sauron said rather curtly it seemed, without looking directly at it. "Come along, son."

Gaergath followed his father, glancing over his shoulder at the door. In truth, he was absolutely certain that door had not been there when they had come in, or he would have noticed it. And he had a feeling it was no supply room....

And as he glanced, he was absolutely certain he could see the face of a hideous monster vaguely outlined on the grain of the wood. He turned away, shuddering.

And when they reached the top of the stairs, Gaergath had to glance downward once more, and the door was not there.

His hair stood on end. It is the door that leads downward, he thought. Down to the floor forbidden to me.

He shivered as he trailed behind his father down the hallway, wondering how the visitor had gotten in. Well, he could ask that, at the very least.

"There is a bridge," Sauron said before the boy could speak a word, "that leads to the front of the tower, and a stair going up to the entrance way. It is hidden in mist always, and only those who know it is there can find it. One day I foolishly told one of the Elves of the bridge, and since then I frequently get visits from them. They do not stay long, however."

Gaergath had a feeling his father was not telling the whole truth, but he supposed he would have to get used to that, if he were to stay here.

Then he remembered that he was not going to stay.

And was shocked at himself. Just this morning he had been intending to stay for all time. Why would he not? He had all he could want here, who would wish to leave?

But then, there was that forbidden place down below. Who knew what unthinkable horrors were hidden there? And what would it take for him to be consigned there?

Perhaps he should escape now, while he still could. He knew the passageway now, he would not need the cloak. Somehow he could find his way home, retrieve his horse, and go back to the village and take up the wholesome way of life he had known before, forget he had ever come here, leave all behind. Perhaps while his father was entertaining the visitor, he could make some excuse and slip away....

Perhaps Binya would follow.

"You do not wish to go that way," Sauron said, suddenly turning to the boy. "There are wolves about. These are not common wolves. They would pounce on you and devour you in a heartbeat. If you wish to leave, you will have to use the cloak."

His eyes burned into Gaergath's. Another thing to get used to, he supposed, if he were to stay here--his father reading his thoughts.

"How did the visitor get past the wolves?" he found himself asking.

"Elves have a certain power over such," Sauron explained. "I suppose they have some sort of talisman that protects them. They have an affinity with growing things, and with creatures, to some extent. I think only certain Elves have such a power. It gives them an edge, yet at the same time, puts them at a disadvantage as well."

"How so?" the boy asked.

"Shh," Sauron said as they entered the sitting-room, "there he is."

The Elf, if such he was, stood as they entered the room. He was tall, taller than Sauron, in fact, with long golden hair tied back from his beardless face, and from a distance Gaergath might have taken him for a woman. He was dressed in simple traveling clothes of a soft green trimmed in black, and a grey cloak over his shoulders, and shoes of dark leather on his feet, and he held a walking-stick in one hand.

"Greetings, fair lord," he said with a cheery smile. "Rimbrion is my name. I hope the day finds you well. You are Mairon, yes?"

"I am," Sauron said coolly, "and this is a young relation of mine, Gaergath."

Rimbrion looked at the boy with raised brows. He was very fair, indeed, with a sort of glow about him, as though a candle had been placed inside him and lighted. It was especially noticeable in the dimness of the room. Gaergath found himself strangely drawn to him. He had a sudden urge to tell him to leave and never return. He wondered if he could relay this thought to the fellow.

"I did not know you had a son," Rimbrion said. "He much resembles you."

Sauron smiled ever so slightly. "He is a charming lad, is he not?"

Gaergath felt himself blush. Yet something was amiss. Sauron did not sound proud of him, somehow. He seemed chagrined that Rimbrion had guessed their relation correctly.

He wondered if the Elf would ask about Gaergath's mother.

"He is very comely," Rimbrion said. "Where have you been keeping him?" This was stated half jokingly, it seemed. Yet curiosity was plainly there.

"He has abode with his mother," Sauron said, truthfully enough. "But never mind that. You have come a long way, have you not? You would like some refreshment, I suppose."

"Nay, thank you. I have brought food with me on my journey, and it has sustained me well. And I dare say I should partake only of it for the time being, although I do appreciate your offer."

Rimbrion set a burlap sack on the floor at his feet as he spoke, then took the chair in which he had been sitting and smiled at Gaergath once more.

Sauron indicated to his son that he should sit also. Gaergath did so, looking at the bag and wondering what sort of food this fellow ate, to achieve that peculiar radiance. Rimbrion noticed, and reached down to pick up the sack.

"Perhaps you would like to see," he said genially as he unknotted the cord that held it closed. Then he reached down and took out something that was wrapped in a green leaf, then handed it to Gaergath, who noticed Sauron looking at it rather dourly. "It is a lembas-cake, Elvish waybread, which will supply an entire meal if kept wrapped in these leaves. Would you like to sample one, my lad?"

"You surely did not come here to advertise your cakes?" Sauron said. Gaergath, who had reached out for it, stayed his hand.

"Nay, of course not," Rimbrion said with a laugh. "However, your son seemed curious, and I thought to satisfy his curiosity. Will you try one, my lad?"

"He will not," Sauron said. "Please state your business, if I may be so bold as to ask. Why have you come here, and how did you find me?"

Rimbrion laid the cake in his bag. Gaergath sat back, disappointed.

"Long have I wished to visit this place," the Elf explained. "I have traveled throughout the land, having a longing to see all and know many things. I will be frank with you. I have heard tell of your crafts, and desired knowledge of them. I am young, and have a curiosity beyond that of most Elves, who seem rather wary, on the whole. I have grown weary of my home, and wished to discover, to know, things that others would not disclose, nor even discuss with me. I grow tired of the music, the crafts, the arts, the stories, the earth, things my people embrace so closely, never seeming to wish to find out what lies beyond. I thought I might discover such, with you. I have heard tell of other Elves visiting this place..."

"I see," Sauron said laying his fingertips to his chin. "What makes you think I would share my secrets with you?"

"I do not ask such," Rimbrion said, taken aback.

"Then why have you come?" Sauron said.

"I have heard you are a great craftsman," Rimbrion said leaning forward, and his light seemed to diminish, to be replaced by a certain sickly glow, and Gaergath suddenly was reminded of the monster's face in the door. "And I wondered if perhaps I might, well, become apprenticed to you. I cannot pay you at the moment, but I could, perhaps, later. I learn things quickly. And I take the utmost pride in my work."

And so speaking, he drew a dagger from his belt. It had a handle of silver, beautifully wrought, and set with pearls and opals. The blade had an exquisite curve to it, ending in a lethal point. Gaergath coveted it immediately.

"I made this," he said. "My father is a smith. But he is vain and selfish and strict, and will not impart all of his knowledge to me. He is afraid I will outshine him, you see, and he favors my elder brother. And I mean to. Outshine him, that is. I shall become the greatest Elven-smith in all the land. And I thought perhaps you could help me. I would give you credit, of course. He has spoken ill of you, you know."

"Has he, now," Sauron said drily.

"He says you are no more than a petty servant of Melkor," Rimbrion said, "and that you will be overthrown sooner or later, when he has his way. I think I can help you prove him wrong."

"I see," Sauron said. Gaergath wondered if the Elf were stupid, or if he were playing on Sauron's fear and pride in order to get his wish.

Just then Drauglir entered the room, and Gaergath repressed a laugh at the look on Rimbrion's face.

Sauron stood and motioned the wolf closer.

"Is...that a pet of yours?" Rimbrion asked nervously.

"You might say so," Sauron said with a chuckle. "This is Drauglir, my good friend. There are many of his kind on this island, you know. I was wondering how you managed to get past them."

"I saw one coming at me," Rimbrion said. "And showed him the point of my dagger, and he drew back and disappeared into the mist. It is mithril, you know."

"Mithril?" Sauron looked interested now. "You work in mithril?"

"I do," Rimbrion said with simple pride. "And I know where to find it. My father would not tell me, but I heard him speak of it with my brother one day when they thought I was not about. I did not find the place myself, but I know where it is, at least."

Sauron sat in thoughtful silence for a moment. Gaergath was seized with a sudden dislike for this Elf. A feeling he soon recognized as jealousy.

"Let me show you to your quarters," Sauron said with a sudden glow about him.

  XXI. The Supply Room

The more he saw and heard of Rimbrion, the more Gaergath's dislike of him grew.  The Elf was insufferable, talking incessantly of his adventures and the people he had met in his travels, the things he had seen, the deeds he had (supposedly) done.  Gaergath could barely get a word in edgewise, although the fellow was friendly enough to him.  It seemed he was leading the sort of life Gaergath had dreamed of living himself--going about seeing the world, doing things the lad had only imagined.  Apparently Sauron knew of the personages of whom the Elf spoke; Gaergath only remotely recognized the names, if at all.  His mother had spoken of them while teaching him, but he had found history dull and had not retained much.  Now he wished he had paid more attention. 

Sauron listened to him soberly, thoughtfully.  Gaergath could not imagine what he was thinking.

He wondered where Binya was.

He was of a mind to go and look for her, since he did not want to speak of her in front of this young upstart.  It was late in the afternoon now, and would be time for dinner soon, he knew, but he did not know how much more he could take of their visitor. 

Finally he stood up, clearing his throat.

"If you two will excuse me," he said, "I wish to go down and finish that project we were working on in the forge.  That chain, you know."

"Why, you can work on the chain any time," Sauron said.  "There is no real hurry."

"Well, the sooner it's finished, the better, I would say," Gaergath hedged, glancing aside at Rimbrion, who looked interested.

"May I go with you?" he asked.  "I would like to see the forge."

Gaergath looked to Sauron, who shrugged. 

"Why not?" he said.  "Come along then.  You can tell me if it compares to your father's."

Rimbrion sprang up with a glowing smile.  Gaergath barely repressed a growl. 

As they went down the stairs to the forge, Gaergath glanced aside and saw the mysterious door, which supposedly went to the supply room, yet Rimbrion seemed not to notice it.  Well, what with the way the fellow went on talking, it was a wonder he noticed anything at all.  A dragon could fly right under his nose and he would just go right on and on as if it were a mere insect buzzing past him.  And this was the fellow who was going to be the greatest smith in all the land?

You won't be greater than I, thought Gaergath as he watched Sauron show him all the tools hanging on the wall, and the smelting-furnace, the various anvils, the molds, and the room full of things he had made.  And he found himself thinking about that supply room once more.

No one was paying much attention to him, their backs to him.  Why not just slip out and have a peek...just a quick one.  They wouldn't even notice his absence.  He would come back before they were aware he had gone out.

He slipped out through the doorway, which was partly open anyway, so no creaking of hinges would betray him.  Yes, the supply room door was still there, and there was no lock on it....

It opened easily, with barely a sound.  Hmm.  Maybe it really was a supply room....

And so it was, he came to find.  Yet there was nothing in it that seemed to pertain to smithing.  It was lined with shelves on which sat jars and bottles and flasks, boxes and bags, bowls and beakers and small pots. 

A foul smell lingered in the air, that he could not identify.  It was tinged with death.

Feeling a mixture of relief and disappointment, he thought perhaps he should get back to the forge before he was missed. 

And then he heard voices.   Whispered voices, speaking words that were foreign to him, yet they seemed to be speaking to him.  Calling to him in unutterably mournful tones. They seemed to be coming from behind a tall cupboard. 

His heart fluttered and he stood rooted to the floor.  

He was certain he heard his mother's voice among them. 

"Gaergath?" Sauron called to him.  "Where are you?"

Gaergath turned abruptly and shot out the door to see his father standing in the doorway of the forge.

"What were you doing in there?" he demanded.

"I...I thought I heard something in there," Gaergath stammered.  "There were voices, whispering.  I thought someone was in there."

"Did you now?" Sauron said.  Rimbrion appeared behind him.

"They seemed to be calling me," Gaergath said.  "I know it's incredible...but one of them sounded like my mother."

He raised questioning eyes to Sauron.  Was it possible...?

"I knew I should have put a lock on that door," Sauron said.  

"Is she in there?" Gaergath asked, involuntarily putting a hand to one hip.

"Son," Sauron said, "I can tell you what it was.  Did you see what was in the room?"

"Aye.  Just a lot of...jars and things.  Nothing very interesting.  But there were voices.  They seemed to call to me."

Rimbrion was looking a trifle alarmed.  Sauron's face was grim.

"The contents are from the gardens," he said, "and the voices you heard are those of the garden spirits.  I suppose you heard aught from your mother's garden?"

"Garden spirits," Rimbrion repeated.  "I have heard something of them."

"I heard my mother's voice," Gaergath insisted.

"They can play tricks," Sauron said.  "They are trying to lure you to where you should not go, my son.  Stay away from that room.  She is not there, I promise you that.  Now come along, and do not go in there again, no matter what you may hear."

Gaergath found that he was shivering.  And that Rimbrion looked troubled and frightened.

Yet he said nothing of leaving.

"Let us go back upstairs," Sauron said.  "It is nearly time for our evening meal."

And when they did so, Binya was there...smiling at Gaergath.

Drauglir was nowhere in sight.

~*~*~

"You have seen Elves before?" Gaergath asked as he and Binya closed the bedroom door behind them, and latched it, just in case.

"Aye, they come here sometimes," she said as she sat on his bed and lowered the lamp.  "But..."

"But what?"

"'Tis said that they do not leave," she said dropping her voice to a whisper.  Her face was pale and lovely, and just slightly savage in the dim light. 

"Why?  What happens to them?" Gaergath's heart thudded inside his breast.  He remembered some rumors he had heard.

"I am not sure," she said.  "They disappear, and are never heard from again."

He looked straight at her.  He had a feeling she knew more than she was telling.

"What do you think happens to them?" he asked.  "Does Sauron...kill them?  To keep them from betraying his secrets to the world?"

"I do not know," she insisted.  She wore a gown of a dark red, that left her arms and her ankles bare.  And many bracelets on her arms, upper and lower.  "Perhaps there is nothing in it.  There was one Elf...he did leave.  I saw him.  I was looking down and saw him cross the bridge.  I remember him well.  His hair was red...like mine.  He was the only red-haired Elf I ever saw.  All the others are either fair or dark."

Gaergath shrugged.  He was not interested in the Elf's hair-color.  He was shivering now, thinking of those voices.  And the rooms down below the forge. 

"Do you suppose he throws them to the wolves?" he asked softly.  "They must eat something, yes?  What do they eat?"

"Must we speak of them?" Binya asked with a yawn.  "Surely we can find something more interesting to do, yes?"

"Binya," he said suddenly, "perhaps we could leave here.  Let's escape.  I have my cloak, and you...have you a cloak also?"

"Nay, I haven't...not of the sort you have."

"Mine is a shape-shifting cloak.  I could carry you.  I could take the shape of a large bird, and you could ride on my back."

"And where would we go?"

"I don't know.  Anywhere.  Anywhere but here.  This place...it is evil.  If we stay here, we will become...like him.  Let's go, Binya.  Have I told you of my mother?"

"I do not wish to leave," she said.  "And no, you've told me naught of her.  Who is she?"

"You will likely not believe me," he said sitting on the bed beside her.  "Have you heard tell of Thuringwethil...the Woman of the Secret Shadow?"

"I have heard something, though not all," she said, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.  "The Blood Drinker?  So she...is your mother?"

"Not exactly," he said.  "I told you that you would not believe me.  She had another self...that escaped her one day, and came to me.  She it was, who was my true mother.  We lived happily together for several years, and she tried to teach me, and took care of the house.  Then one night, I came home to find her gone.  I sensed an evil presence about the place, and I just knew that...Thuringwethil...had come to claim her.  I do not know if she killed her and hid the body, or drained her of her blood, or simply took her soul back into herself.  That is what I have been trying to do.  If she is still alive and trapped inside that creature's body, I must find a way to free her.  It was not so long ago--about a week.  I thought perhaps if I came here, perhaps Sauron could help me find a way.  But I do not think he will."

He sighed, despair seizing him once more. 

"Likely I will just have to kill her," he said, "and let my mother's spirit depart to the Halls.  Perhaps that is all I can do.  But if there is any other way..."

"I see you are in no mood tonight," Binya said after a moment.  "Therefore, I will go, and leave you to your thoughts.  Perhaps Rimbrion desires a bit of female companionship."

"Nay--do not go," he said catching her arm as she rose to leave.  "You are mine.  You belong to me...not him."

"What did you say?" she said staring at him in disbelief, and he could scarcely believe himself, what he had just said.

And before he could say more, she was gone.

By the time he finally sprang up from the bed and went to beg her not to go, she was gone, of course.  In that mysterious way she had of coming and going, and just disappearing.  He did not know where she stayed.  He had wanted to ask her, the previous night, but there were other things of more pressing interest going on, and so the subject did not come up.  He had not wanted to frighten her off by asking too many questions, anyway.

As he went down the hall, opening first one door and then another, in a burst of self-pity he asked himself why he should want her back anyway.  She was cold, indifferent, she had no interest in him or his doings or desires.  She had no heart.  She was uncaring, little more than a beast really.... She was only good for one thing.  Besides dancing.

Likely she was hunting down Rimbrion now.  Aye, she was little more than an alley cat.  She'd do it with any male who looked her way.  Slut.  Such creatures were to be avoided, he thought self-righteously.  She was a mere tool of Sauron's, a ploy to try and keep him here....

Where was Rimbrion, he wondered.  He must be on the opposite end of the building.  Curious, Gaergath stole down the hallway, until he had reached the very end...and there was a partially opened door with some light shining inside it.  That must be the one, he thought.  But she could not be there, or the door would be closed, surely.  Gaergath crept closer to take a peek, and saw the Elf sitting on the bed, shirtless, his back to Gaergath.  A candle burned on the little table beside the bed.  Binya was not there.

He started to withdraw when something caught his eye:  the mithril dagger.  It lay on the little table beside the candle-holder.

He found himself longing to pick it up and hold it, to see how it felt in his hand.  But then suddenly Rimbrion stood up, and Gaergath ducked out of his sight before the Elf could turn and see him watching. 

He went back down the hallway, back to his room.  But just as he reached the door, he heard something. 

The hinges of Rimbrion's door, creaking. 

Instead of going into his room, Gaergath quickly ducked behind the curtain that hid the window next to his door.  The cloth was just transparent enough to enable him to see a light shape moving down the hallway.  He was carrying the candle--why?  There were sconces on the walls that were kept lighted at night.  Gaergath saw the light shape pause at the intersection of one hall with the other...where the door to the stairway was.

Of course.  He was going downstairs.  To the forge.

Or was he?  The forge door was kept locked at night, Gaergath knew that much. 

The supply room.  That was where he was going. 

Gaergath waited until Rimbrion had disappeared through the door, then padded noiselessly down the hall to the doorway, and watched him go down the stairs, making no sound at all.  After a few minutes, Gaergath started down the stairs as well, taking care not to make a sound.  He heard a very familiar creak, and smiled a little to himself.  And went down and stood outside the doorway. 

He could hear Rimbrion moving about--examining things, no doubt.  Opening drawers, cupboards, removing corks, lifting lids of jars.... Gaergath fought off the temptation to suddenly open the door and give him the fright of his life.  He repressed a snicker at the thought of Rimbrion's face, but decided to wait until he came out.  Perhaps the Elf might tell him what he saw. 

Yet he was taking his time in there.  What did he find that was so interesting? 

After a while Gaergath began to get sleepy.  He sat on the lowest stairstep, leaning his arms on his knees, then his head on his arms.  He could no longer hear Rimbrion moving in the closet.  Had he taken some poison in there and fallen down dead?  Or had he found some secret passageway leading into another room...perhaps the stairway leading downward? 

He could hear nothing, no voices, only silence.  It was unnerving, and he contemplated going back to his room.  Finally he rose and turned to go...but then he went to the door and opened it just a crack.  Then wider. 

It was all dark.  Rimbrion was not there. Gaergath flurried back out the door, and ran up the stairs as fast as he could go.

  XXII. Shame

Gaergath could not sleep.  Finally he rose and went to Rimbrion's room once more, only to find it the way the Elf had left it, save for the candle.  On a thought, he went to the little nightstand, and saw the dagger lying on it.  Foolishly glancing about to see if anyone was looking, he picked it up and slipped it in the pocket of his robe.  Then with one more look around, he went back to his own room, hiding the dagger beneath his mattress. 

He had to leave here.  But tonight?  He could not use the cloak with the silver dagger, and could not hope to get past the wolves on the bridge--could not even see it, here in the night.  He could hear the wolves now, howling in the night, sounding particularly mournful.  He wondered if they had found their prize and were tearing it to pieces this minute, worrying the bones. 

Have to wait until morning, he thought.  Or else leave without the dagger.  Which was more important, the cloak or the dagger?  Perhaps he could throw it off the porch, and hope it landed on the bank, and find it in the morning....It was too cold to go without the cloak, at any rate. He was stuck here, until morning. 

What to do until then?  For he could not sleep.  He would never sleep again, of that he was certain.

Where was Binya now?

He rose, dressed, and poked restlessly about the place.  By and by he found himself in the sitting-room, where a bit of fire still flickered in the fireplace, although no one was about. 

And there, in the same place he had seen it before, was the Book.

And he remembered it.

It was as if it had been waiting for him. 

Although he remembered it being there once now, he could remember nothing of what had been inside, or how it had made him feel.  There was too little light for reading, yet as he hesitantly opened the cover, on which the golden eye blazed as living fire, he found the pages were luminous, and he could well read the writing...which somehow miraculously translated itself into his own language even as he looked.

A tedious volume of ancient lore, he could now remember Sauron calling it, with an offhand shrug.

Gaergath began to read, forgetting where he was, forgetting there was anyone else about.  Forgetting the voices of the night, the closed doors, the horrors that lay beneath the forge, the fate of Rimbrion which he now knew to be far worse than death....

And he now knew who and what Binya was....

~*~*~

It was near dawn when he finally went to bed.  On a thought, he first returned to Rimbrion's room, and found the sack of lembas cakes.  Then he found a change of clothes and a tinder-box, and a few other odds and ends which he put into the bag with the clothes.  Then he straightened up the room and took the things to his own.  The clothes were too big for him to wear, so he put them into the fireplace, save for the boots, which would make a bad smell if they were burnt.  The sack with the cakes and other objects he stowed away in his own cupboard.  Then he finally lay down.

And was startled by a whimper at his door.  It sounded like a wounded dog.  He arose, and went to open it...and there she was, Binya, with blood trickling from her eyes, nose and mouth, her hands bloody also, her hair wildly disarranged as though she had been standing in a powerful wind.  He drew back in terror as she came at him, her claw-like hands clutching at him, and even as he looked, a number of horrible things shot out of her mouth, snakes or worms they appeared to be, large, long and slimy and bloody, and they sprang at him, landing all over him, shuddering and wriggling, making hideous sucking noises as Binya laughed a high-pitched, shrieky laugh that seemed to go on and on, and he shrieked also, as the creatures pulled him down and down, until he was falling through a chute or tunnel lined with slime and blood, into a flaming pit of...

Then suddenly he found himself in his own bed, all the creatures gone, Binya gone, and outside was pure, lovely daylight.  He lay shivering and sweating on the bed, not daring to move from it, lest his nightmare start up all over again.  And then came a tap at his door.

"Son, are you all right?" Sauron's voice, sounding genuinely concerned.  The door opened, and there he was, in all his dark magnificence.

"Aye," the boy said after a long pause.  "I had a bad dream, is all."

"I thought as much," his father said.  "It is mid-morning, you know.  Are you ready for something to eat?"

"I could eat something," Gaergath said, rising slowly and rubbing his head.  He wore but his underdrawers. 

"Get dressed and come down then," Sauron said.  "We shall go on a trip soon.  We need to make plans."

"A trip?  What about..."

"Rimbrion?  He has gone.  He left early this morning."

"Did he?" Gaergath blinked and rubbed his eyes, stretching his legs.  "I thought he would stay a while."

"Obviously he changed his mind," Sauron chuckled.  "Something must have frightened him badly.  He did not even let me know he was going.  I went to his room, and all his things were gone.  No one saw him leave."

"Ah.  Well."  Gaergath avoided his father's eyes.  "Well, we don't need him, do we?"

"He made things interesting for a while," Sauron said with a shrug.  "However, I dare say that he said all he had to say yesterday.  Nay, we don't need him.  Now come along.  Incidently, I saw Binya a while ago, and she said the two of you had a falling-out last night."

"Aye, we did," Gaergath said.  "Where...where is she now?"

And then he saw Drauglir standing behind his master.

"I'm guessing she went off to bed," Sauron said coolly.  "She sleeps in the daytime, you know.  So.  Are you coming, or do I have to ask Drauglir to drag you?"

"Of course she does," Gaergath said just as coolly.  And he rose and began to dress, as Sauron closed the door and went back into the hallway.

When he glanced toward the sitting-room, he saw the Book was nowhere in sight.

"She said you tried to 'claim' her," Sauron said as they went to the porch.  It was a beautiful, cold day.  The river was loud, yet there was still no birdsong.  "She was very upset, you know.  Said she was 'free' and no one would make her his own while she had any say in the matter."

"Ha!" Gaergath said.  She's about as free as a rat in a cage, he thought.  "She said she was going to Rimbrion's room.  I wonder if she found him to her liking.  Maybe she ate him up."

He laughed, a little insanely.  After a startled look, Sauron laughed too.

"Perhaps she was a bit much for him, at that," Sauron said.  "It's my guess the fellow was a virgin until she came to him."

"She has no shame, does she?" Gaergath mused leaning over the iron railing of the porch. 

"None whatsoever," Sauron said.  He glanced down at Drauglir, who looked as gloomy and surly as always.  Gaergath looked straight at the wolf, although he had always tried to avoid its eyes before.  Your days are numbered, he thought.  "That is the difference between the depraved and the innocent.  The innocent have shame.  The depraved have none."

I should say so, thought Gaergath.  "None whatsoever," he agreed.

"And so," Sauron said casually pushing back a lock of hair darker than doom, "are you ready to pay Melkor a visit?"

"Most certainly," Gaergath said, though quivering inwardly at the sound of the name.

XXIII. Binya

That night he heard a tap on his door.

"Who is it?" he asked although he knew already.

"'Tis I, Binya," she called.  He reached under his mattress, then slowly withdrew his hand.

"Come in," he said suavely.  The door flew open.  Nothing hesitant about that girl.  Shameless.

She wore black, the usual bracelets dripping from her arms, her hair taking fire in the candlelight.

"I missed you at dinner," he said with elaborate charm.  She came and sat on the edge of his bed.

"What happened to Rimbrion?" she demanded.

"How would I know?" he said still in soft and smooth tones.  "You said you were going to him.  Did you make a nice meal of him?"

He shuddered inwardly even as he spoke.

"I did not see him last night," she said.  "I said what I did, to provoke you."

"Did you?" he said even more softly.  "So why do you care what became of him?"

"Because I think you had something to do with it," she said. 

"Then why are you here?"   

"To ask you." 

"I had naught to do with anything that happened to him.  He left, that's all I know.  I know not where he is, and what's more, I care not.  Now if you will excuse me, I'd like to get some sleep.  I've a journey to begin tomorrow.  Why don't you go follow Sauron around for a while."

She glared at him.  "You said I belonged to you."

"And you said you were free," he retorted, looking her straight in the eye.  "So.  You are free to go anywhere you please and do what you like.  So go and do it."

"Why do you hate me?" she asked looking a little sad.  Sad puppy eyes.  Shameless.

"Do not flatter yourself," he said.  "You are not worth the trouble.  I thought of killing you tonight.  But I changed my mind.  I have no feelings at all for you, neither love nor hate.  Only indifference.  Now go, before I change my mind again."

Then he noticed that she had let one strap of her gown fall down over her shoulder, and her left breast was almost all exposed.

"So you truly do not want me now?" she asked, low and seductive.

"Nay, I do not," he said.  "Now or ever.  And I know who and what you are, so your enticements will not work with me, if you were to let your gown fall and stand all naked before me.  I am not such a fool as you think.  Not now."

"Who and what I am?"  She stood up now, and the other strap fell away also.  She laughed a little.

"Aye," he said.  "I know now why it is you and Drauglir are never in the room at the same time.  Why it is he studies me so closely.  Why your eyes seem so predatory sometimes.  I thought he was a male...well, perhaps he is, but he can shift his shape into whatever he pleases, as I can with the cloak.  You had me fooled, but I am not fooled any more.  You are he.  I suppose Sauron commanded you to seduce me in order to keep me here so he could turn me into a lesser version of himself.  So.  If you want to kill me, you may try, but I have something you cannot approach."

And he reached under the mattress for the dagger.  Much to his chagrin, it was either not there or it was out of his reach.  She stood staring at him, stunned, while he groped, looking most foolish, very likely. 

"You think me Drauglir?" she said after a moment.  Then, greatly to his relief, his hand touched the silver hilt.

"I know you are," he said brandishing the dagger dramatically.  She drew back, baring her teeth a little, like a cat confronted with a dog.  "I read the Book, you see.  The wolves of this isle cannot shift their shapes...save for Drauglir.  He was bred by Melkor, you see, who gave him the ability to shift.  I see how you shrink from this dagger, which is mithril.  You cannot tolerate it.  That alone gives you away."

She laughed.  "That is Rimbrion's dagger.  That gives YOU away.  You stole it from him."

"Aye, I stole it," he admitted.  "But I did not send him to his fate.  He left it here."

She laughed more, shrilly, almost as she had done in his nightmare.  "Oh my Gaergath," she gasped, "you little fool.  I am not Drauglir.  Although yes, I can shift my shape."

And before his eyes, she began to change, her face growing hairy and silvery, her eyes long and pointed, her arms covered with silvery fur.  Her gown disappeared, and she had a long tail, and soon before him, on all fours, stood a magnificent she-wolf. 

But she was not so big as Drauglir. 

"Shall I call him in now?" she asked him, in a bestial version of her true voice.  "Will you make love to me in this shape?  While he watches?"

He gripped the dagger, saying half-hysterically, "Get out of here!  Before I slice you to bits!"

He lunged at the wolf, brandishing the weapon, and the beast backed off, snarling. 

And then suddenly, Binya stood before him once more...stark naked save for the bracelets on her arms, the black gown lying at her feet. The pale beauty of her body was an obscene white flame before him.

"Drauglir is my father," she said between clenched teeth.

And picking up the gown, she exited the room, slamming the door behind her, leaving him standing there with the dagger still in his uplifted hand.

~*~*~

"So, are you ready for your journey?" Sauron asked him in the morning.  Drauglir was nowhere in sight.

"As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose," Gaergath said sullenly.  He noticed Sauron holding a cloak on his arm.

There was something familiar about it.  Something in the scent.

"You will need this," Sauron said.  "Your cloak will not get you to Angband, if you do not know the way."

"But...you know the way," Gaergath stammered, and he knew why the cloak seemed familiar.

"I do," Sauron said smiling a little, "but I shall not be going with you.  You will make the journey alone."

"Alone!"

"Aye.  If you wear this, it will take you right to Angband.  However, you will have to find your way back on foot.  It does not get you back here automatically."  Sauron took something from his doublet, a folded piece of parchment.  "You will need this.  It is a map that will lead you back here.  I made it myself, so it will not be difficult to follow.  I am having some viands packed for you for the trip back."

Gaergath was scarcely listening for looking at the cloak.  Which was identical to Sauron's...with the claws hanging on the hem.

"This is hers," he said.

"It WAS hers," Sauron said with twinkling eyes.  "It is yours now.  See that you take care of it."

Drauglir came into the room.

"How did you get it?" Gaergath asked rather stupidly.

"I have ways," Sauron said loftily.  "I went out there last night.  I made love to Celirwen quite nicely, and then changed your cloak for hers.  She did not notice, and likely will not until tonight, and she will be very angry and throw some nasty fits, of course, but you needn't worry on that score.  You will be long gone by then."

The depraved have no shame, Gaergath thought, looking first at his father and then at Drauglir.  Perhaps Drauglir was a she-wolf after all.  Perhaps Sauron was Binya's father.  Which meant she was Gaergath's sister.  And Sauron knew it.

Gaergath took the cloak.  It seemed almost alive in his arms.  He caressed it as though it were an animal with soft fur.

"Is the food ready?" he asked.

"It is," Binya said as she entered the room smiling...the bag of Rimbrion's lembas cakes dangling in her hands, as Drauglir looked at her with fond pride in his red-gold eyes.

  XXIV. Making Plans

He killed her.  He must have.  That about changing the cloaks was just another of his lies.

"Rimbrion ran off without them," Binya said cheerily as she put the bag into Gaergath's reluctant hands.  Sauron looked dourly at it.

"You cannot get into Angband with that," he said.  "I've a bag of jerked venison for you.  And also a bow.  You know how to shoot?"

"I do," Gaergath said numbly. 

"And how to gut and clean an animal for cooking?  You did say you used to go hunting with your friends."

"I flatter myself that I am a capable hunter," Gaergath said, trying hard not to look at Binya who stood smirking at him, next to Drauglir.  "But how am I supposed to fly while carrying all those supplies?  And am I supposed to come back dragging a bag of carbon?"

"It will not be so large a bag, and it is not so heavy," Sauron grinned.  "And it is a very special sort.  The sword you make from the steel will be virtually unbreakable."

"I still do not understand why you are not coming with me," Gaergath said. 

"Someone has to look after things here," Sauron said cheerfully.  "And it will be a good experience for you.  You do wish to learn how to look after yourself in the wild, and see some of the world?  This is your chance."

I got quite a chance already, Gaergath thought. 

"You are not afraid, are you?" Sauron said.

"Of course not," Gaergath said repressing a shudder.  "I am going to pay a visit to the most evil being in Arda, and perhaps meet all his pet monsters and twisted henchmen and such.  What's to fear about that?"

Sauron laughed.  "That's my lad," he said in the most silvery tones.  "You will make me proud."

Of course I will.  "I am ready to go," Gaergath said.  "I will be sure to give him your regards."

"Please do," Sauron said.

Gaergath laid the cloak over his shoulders.  Then hesitated.  "I have forgotten something.  It's in my room.  Just a moment."

And before anyone could say more, he flurried from the room and down the hallway, breaking into a run.  In his room, he retrieved the dagger from its new hiding-place behind a loose stone in the wall.  With a cheeky grin, he stuck it into the back of his belt.  Wouldn't matter about the cloak, since he was not going to Angband anyway. 

Then he noticed the iron crown, and on a thought he took it down from the shelf where he had proudly displayed it, held it in his hands for a moment, and then took it over to the window.  There, he held it over the ledge, then hurled it as far as he could.  He listened to hear it land, but heard nothing.  Shrugging, he went to his mirror, picked up a comb and ran it through his locks, then put it in the bag with the cakes.  Might come in handy sometime.

"I am ready to go," he said as he returned to the three figures in the hallway.  "Where is the doorway to the bridge?"

"The doorway?" Sauron raised his eyebrows.  Binya stooped down low, and caressed Drauglir's fur.  Gaergath fully expected him to purr.  "You have your cloak.  You can leap from the porch, you know.  That is the direction of Angband."

"I prefer to go over the bridge," Gaergath said.  "I do not fancy leaping from the railing."

"You are afraid?" Sauron repressed a chuckle.

"I am, a bit," Gaergath said cheekily.  "I would much prefer to make the leap from the ground."

"Very well then," Sauron said.  "This way.  I hope you can find your way through the mist."

"I'm used to mist," Gaergath said.  "There was plenty of that at her home."

Wonder if it's still there, now that she is....

"You do not fear the wolves?" Binya spoke up, sweet and bland as any maiden.

"Nay, why would I?" Gaergath said looking straight at her.  "I even had one in my bed once."

She blinked and looked away.  Gaergath could have sworn Drauglir looked amused.

"The cloak will keep them at bay," Sauron said. 

The mist certainly was thick outside.  Gaergath quailed inwardly as he looked down.  There was a stairway leading downward, but he could not see a single step.  There was no rail.

"Take care," Sauron said.  "The stairs are steep, and long.  You may wish to change your mind about taking the bridge."

"I shall make you a handrail when I return," Gaergath said, marveling at his own audacity.  "A lovely one, such as might grace an Elf-king's palace."

"Are you not going to kiss Binya goodbye?" Sauron said glancing aside at the girl, who made a mock pout.

"You kiss her for me," Gaergath said looking away from her.  And felt carefully for the first step. 

"Farewell, dear son," Sauron said.  "I will be eagerly awaiting your return.  I know you will do well."

Gaergath felt for the next step.  And the next.

And the door closed softly behind him.  He did not look back.

You will pay for this, you rotten bastard, he thought.

~*~*~

He found himself getting dizzy on the way down, and got the big idea to sit on the steps and move down each one on his behind.  Feeling a bit silly, he did this until he was in the thickest of the fog, and his foot finally touched wood.  Then he stood up and took his dagger from his belt, and held it out in front of him as he stepped carefully over the bridge.  He could hear the water below, rushing so close to his feet he could feel its coldness, and then he took Rimbrion's water bottle and filled it, his hand nearly freezing as he held it tightly so as not to have the river snatch it away from him.  It was a long bridge, and he fairly held his breath until he was on the other side. 

And only then did he look back. You will pay.

Now he had no chance of saving his mother at all.  She was gone forever.   Likely he would never even see his home again....

Where to go now?  He walked until he came to a well-forested area, and there he sat down, and took out the map and unfolded it. 

It was a cool sunny day, and the air felt fresh and wholesome.  It was mountainous on either side of the river, and the foliage was in a flaming splendor of scarlet and gold and bright yellow and rust color and bronze.  He was free now, he told himself.  He might go anywhere he liked.  Perhaps he could just leave this loathsome garment behind...Then again, he would get cold without it.  Best to keep it until he could find another.  Perhaps after he found his horse...yes, he would go back and get Russandol, if he could ever find the farm....

He sat down and studied the map.  He had seen such before--Thorodon's father had many, and he had looked at them closely, discussing with Thorodon which places they would like most to visit.  Thorodon said he would like to go to the sea, whereas Gaergath would like to find the hidden city of Gondolin.  His mother had spoken of it, but had never been, she said, and Thorodon's father described it in much detail, considering that he had never been either.  He said it was hidden deep in the mountains in order to protect it from invaders.  He also said he did not know whether it truly existed or not, or if it were just a myth.  It was an Elven city, he said, of gleaming white stone, guarded by seven gates, and it had seven names, and twelve houses, and the weapons made there were of the finest, they never broke.  And there were mountain springs that made constant music all year....

Rimbrion was from Gondolin.

He had not said he was.  Been dodgy about giving his origins.  But he was, surely.

Perhaps I can find the city.  After I find Russi.  Apprentice myself to a smith, then find work.  And then....

But first to avenge his mother. 

He found himself actually drawn northward.  The cloak seemed to be anxiously urging him forth, as if it were a horse he were riding.

He buried the dagger next to a white birch tree--the only one of its kind nearby, so he could remember where it was.  Then tucking the map back into his shirt-front and tying the bag to his belt, he stood with the cloak dramatically spread, and said softly, "Eagle!"

  XXV. Wandering

He stood there with outstretched arms, waiting to sprout feathers and a beak...and yet, it did not happen.  He looked down at himself, and saw only clothing. 

Perhaps I am thinking too big, he thought.  Something smaller.

Crow.

He checked himself for anything silver.  There was none; his belt-buckle was of steel. His buttons of bone. 

Well that I did not jump off the railing after all, he thought.

"Sparrow," he said and laughed a little.  Still nothing.  

He felt a mixture of frustration and relief.  And a spark of fury. She really is dead.  That is why the cloak does not work.

Or perhaps she saw Sauron take the cloak, and rendered it ineffective?  And yet it seemed to urge him northward.

Perhaps it only works when she is wearing it.

Most likely, the problem was himself.  He was afraid to go.  His fear was keeping him from shifting. 

What to tell Sauron now?

Not that he was going back.  He'd had a notion of telling Melkor that Sauron was conspiring against him, with plans to usurp him.  A pity he had chucked the crown out the window; he might have taken it along as proof.  But what if he could not get there?

Well.  So now what? 

Once more he took out the map, sitting down to look at it more closely.

All he knew was that he lived south of the river Teiglin, near where the Malduin forked from it.  His village, he surmised, was a few miles from the river, but it did not show on the map.  He would have to cross the Teiglin, and as far as he could tell, it was nearly two hundred miles from where he was now.  Unless he could make the cloak work, he had a very long trip on foot ahead of him. 

He never knew how long he sat studying the map, turning it this way and that way, then trying once more to make the cloak work, then persuading himself that Celirwen really was dead, and that Sauron, being the wonderful father he was, had taken it upon himself to avenge her and save his son the trouble.  Then again, what if he had been telling the truth?

At any rate, Gaergath wanted his horse back, if nothing else. 

He found the spot where he had buried the dagger and dug it up, pausing to look at the blade, which had a pure and dazzling shine to it in the morning sunlight.  He ran a finger over it, and as he did so, the cloak felt very heavy all of a sudden, and he untied it and let it fall to the ground.  Yet the beauty of the dagger afforded him no comfort; in fact it smote him, reminding him that he had allowed Rimbrion to go to his fate without warning him back.  That perhaps he had even wanted something horrible to befall the Elf, whom he saw as trying usurp him in Sauron's affections.  What was being done to him now?  Sauron was likely torturing him in order to make him tell where Gondolin was.  

Gaergath began to shiver, and he put the knife back into his belt and picked up the cloak once more, and put it over his shoulders, and felt wonderfully comforted once more...it was even more effective than his own had been, in that respect.  In fact, he thought this one much better, and perhaps soon it would work, once it got accustomed to someone else wearing it.  Perhaps it was like a horse that would bear none other than its master, and Gaergath chuckled at the idea.  You will come to love me also, he told it silently.  We will conquer, you and I.  We'll drive Sauron out of there and rule ourselves.  And then....  

He rose, picked up the bags and turned off down the river, and had not walked a quarter of a mile when he heard something.  Shouts in the distance, the clanking of chains.  He turned in some alarm and saw something far up the river.  A small army it appeared to be, darkly clad, and he could see that some carried spears.  There was a very tall tree close by, and Gaergath climbed up into it, going up as high as he might, the better to see who was coming without encountering.

They were going to Sauron's tower.  No doubt about that. 

As he continued to watch, he could see their armor was dark and rather ugly.  Spiked helmets and shields, and the spears were very long, and one of them appeared to have a human head on its point.  Gaergath shuddered, then noted that there was a small band of men or Elves, or both, with them...wearing chains.  And more armed ones behind them, with whips. 

He began to shiver once more.  He wanted to climb down and flee, but feared to be seen.  So he waited until they disappeared behind the trees that rose above the river mist enshrouding the bridge, and even then he waited until he could hear no more.  Only then did he climb down, feeling as though he had aged ten years up in that tree.

~*~*~

He began walking in the opposite direction, after studying the map once more, gnawing on one of the pieces of jerked venison.  It had a pleasant taste, and was peculiarly refreshing...until he wondered if it really were venison.  It tasted like no deer meat he had ever eaten before, and then, shuddering, he tossed the rest of it out.  

For days he wandered, sleeping beneath the trees where the cloak provided him much warmth and comfort.  He tried one of the cakes, and found the only way he could choke it down was to toss off the cloak.  Its sweetness was cloying, like too much honey on bread, and it lay heavy in his stomach, and yet it did satisfy his hunger for the rest of the day.  

The days turned into weeks, and he lost his road, for it turned to the east, and there was no other.  He had to tramp through the wilderness, and soon he no longer knew where he was.  He ran out of the cakes, and was filled with a strange restlessness; he found he could not sleep.  He had to rely on his skill with the bow to satisfy his hunger, and on the nuts and berries he found on his way.  He stole vegetables from gardens he encountered along the way, but these were far and few between. 

When finally he came to a village, he encountered hostile stares from a few people, and that was when he realized it must have been because of the cloak.  He took it off and stuffed it into the bag he still carried, and then he found that the villagers were friendlier.  At the edge of the village he saw an elderly woman leading a fine gelding toward a stable, talking gently to the beast.  Her small house stood close by, with a good garden growing out front.

"Pardon me, good mother," he found himself saying, "but...I have been wandering a good deal, having lost my way, and I was wondering if I might sleep in your stable tonight?  I will do what work I might around your place, in order to pay for food and lodgings."

After he had mucked out the stable, she called him in for supper.  It was getting dark already.

"Rimbrion is my name," he said.  "I was abducted by spies for Sauron and taken away in the direction of his stronghold, but managed to escape and now I am trying to find my home.  It is on the south bank of the Teiglin.  Would you have any idea where that might be?"

"Nay, lad, I would not," she said as she placed a bowl of thick bean soup on the table and dipped out a generous ladlefull into his dish.  Then she cut two slices of brown bread and set those beside his bowl.  The cottage was sparely furnished, shabby, but neat.  She lived alone here, save for her cat and her chickens, some of which pecked about the table now, for she had no chicken-house.  The cat merely watched them unblinking, but made no move to attack any.  "I have lived in this village since I was borned, and know naught of the world outside.  From some of the tales I've heared, I would not wish to know."

"You are right not to wish it," he said.  "It is a cruel and evil world out there.  It may look beautiful on the surface of it, but there are dark and hidden things that lurk behind it all.  Oh, which reminds me, do you know where I might find me a cloak?  I was robbed of mine, and it grows cold outside."

"I've one that belonged to my late husband," she said.  "'Tis no more use to him, so you might have it.  'Tis in this trunk at the foot of my bed."

It was brown and woolen, with a trimming of brown fur.  Very old and shabby, with moth-holes here and there.  Gaergath restrained a curl of distaste.

"'Tis a mite short for you," she said, "you bein' taller than he were.  But not so much."

"'Twill do nicely," he said.  "I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  This soup is delicious, also."

He secretly thought it could do with some spices.  But it was food, far better than anything he had eaten since leaving Sauron's tower.

She said he might sleep beside the fireplace, but he shook his head.

"The stable would suit me much better," he said.  "Do you suppose I could find employment in this village?  I've some skill as a blacksmith."

"I will put in a good word for you at the smithy," she promised.  "And I will make you a bath in the morning, and wash your clothing.  Have you a change of clothes?"

"None," he said, remembering how he had hidden the bag in the stable loft.  "But do not trouble yourself, good mother.  Perhaps it were better if I went on my way.  I can find someone who can tell me which way the Teiglin lies."

And late that night, he lay in the stable loft, waiting until the light that burned in her one small window went out.  And long after it did so, he saddled her handsome brown gelding, and rode out into the night, her husband's worn brown cloak on his shoulders and the black one in the burlap sack behind.
 

XXVI. Outlaw

I'll send him back as soon as I find my own horse, Gaergath thought, when once more his conscience pricked more keenly than the blade of the stolen dagger. 

And when he stuffed the brown cloak into the bag and put on the black, it did not prick at all.

But the horse was virtually unmanageable then. 

The brown cloak would have to do.  Once they had crossed the river, he would let the beast go.  He could find Russi and his village on foot, surely.  Perhaps. 

For the first time in two weeks, he thought of the small army he had seen.  He wondered how the captives were enjoying Sauron's hospitality.  Probably as much as Rimbrion was. 

He would not think of them.

And he could scarcely wait to let this brute of a horse go.  And where was this blasted river's crossing?  There seemed to be none.

And then suddenly there it was.  The Ford of Brithiach.  He had never been so glad to see anything.

Yet once he had crossed it, the horse seemed more docile.  Perhaps just a while longer.  He was almost to the Forest of Brethil now.  And there was a road.  As long as he did not put on the black cloak, perhaps he would be all right. 

"Patience, lad," he told it as they rode into the deep wood, which still retained much of its autumn foliage.  There was an aura of peace about this forest.  He had heard tell of it, but had never ventured in its direction before.  The air was cool and sweet, birdsong echoing throughout, ferns growing all along the pathway, and he could hear woodland creatures here and there, a deer leaping through the brush, squirrels zipping in and out of the trees, rabbits and badgers and other small beasts scuttling about. 

He felt as calm as he ever would feel in his life.  He felt he could make his home here. 

And as he camped out in a small clearing, he felt a tremendous sadness.  He would never truly see his home again, nor his horse.  They were gone, his childhood was gone, his mother was gone.  What was there for him now?

Even She was dead. 

Nothing to do but find his horse and move along.  Perhaps see his friends again.  Maybe Thorodon would go with him.  Ride out and see the world with him. 

Sauron, you never should have let me see that book.  Were it not for that vile thing, I might have been to Angband and back again by now.

He hated the thought that he was now wanting to go back and read the rest of it.  He had not finished it that night.  Too late now. 

It was another week before he finally reached the Cross of Teiglin.  At last.

He was on his way home. 

However, he could not let the horse go just yet.  He had to find Russi first.  It would take him too long if he were to go on foot.  And he was not even sure where the horse was.

If only he had his own black cloak.  He could have been there and back already.  It was gone forever, he supposed.  Why did he still have this one? 

~*~*~

There were many roads here.  None of which looked familiar. 

He rode on, until he found himself confronting a vast plain.  He could not remember ever seeing it.  It was all of yellow grass and wheat and rye, with but a few farmhouses and barns and outbuildings, and he stopped at some and begged for a meal, offering once more to work, and he stole a few things, but nothing of great value.  Mostly things that would not likely be missed. 

And in one, there was a young wife who cast her eye upon him, while her husband was out feeding the pigs.

"Meet me by the well," she told Gaergath, "after he is asleep tonight.  You'll be able to tell by his snoring.  One can hear it from miles away."

She was rather comely, in her plain and suntanned way, much younger than her husband, a red-faced lout with a belly out to there, who scratched himself a good bit, and walked as though he had a barrel between his legs.  And smelled of rum.

Gaergath met her as she had indicated, and they went up to the barn loft, she carrying a lantern in a lazy swaying manner, talking all the while of how much she hated her life.

"Every time we do it," she said, "he has his way, then rolls over on his back and snores.  The beasts in the fields could do it better, I am sure.  And then he rails at me because I do not give him a son.  What I would like to give him is the gate.  Look at this."  She rolled up one sleeve, and showed him a bruise on her upper arm.  "He did that, just the other day.  Because I did not cook the stew to his liking.  It is no unusual thing, with him."

"Why don't you leave him?" Gaergath asked, a bit numbly. 

"Whither would I go?" she said, tears starting in her eyes.  "My mother is dead.  My father would merely send me back to him.  My sisters are married, with children of their own.  Come up this way."

"You do it well," she said after the first time.  "I thought you had not been with a lass before.  But I think you have."

"I have indeed," he said.  He caressed her hair, which was brown and long, finer than Binya's.  She was rather thin, and he could see more bruises on her in the lantern-light, and a couple of scars the nature of which he did not care to guess. 

"Where are you going?" she asked him. 

"To find my mother," he said.  "I have been stolen from her, and have been trying to get back to her for a long time now."

"Take me with you," she said letting her fingers trail along his chest.  "Perhaps I can help you.  I only wish to get away from him.  Please let me go with you."

He looked up at her.  She was close to thirty, he thought.  

"It would be dangerous," he said.  "Have you any idea who I am?"

"Nay, and I care not," she said sitting up and looking him in the eyes.  "I know only that I wish to leave."

"I am Gaergath, son of Sauron," he said raising himself up and looking back at her.  "My...mother is Thuringwethil, woman of the Secret Shadow.  She is a Blood Drinker.  Long ago, she split into two women, and one of them was my true mother.  Then the bad half tracked her down and killed her.  That was...I know not how long ago, but not so very long.  I mean to avenge her...my true mother, that is.  Trust me, you do not want to come along."

She drew back, looking at him with wide frightened eyes.

"Are you telling me the truth?" she gasped.

"I could not make up something like this," he said. 

She picked up her clothes and began putting them back on, her hands shaking. 

"You had better go," she said.  "You may stay here in the barn tonight...but in the morning, I would have you gone."

"As you wish," he said blandly.  She got her skirt hung on the loft ladder as she climbed down, and he casually reached down and unhooked the fabric for her.  "Thank you for a nice time," he said.

She looked back up at him over her shoulder, then took the lantern he handed down to her and ran out into the night.

For the first time in weeks, he laughed aloud.  But not for long.

In the morning, as he came from the house, he was confronted with a red-faced farmer wielding a long knife--a pig-sticker, as some folks would have called it.

"You!" he said.  "Don't think I don't know what you and my wife been up to, you sweating young pig-of-a-skunk!  Come here and let me hack your cullions off and fry 'em for breakfast!"

Gaergath spied a large barrel and he upended it and rolled it right at the farmer, who fell over it and narrowly missed flopping right over onto the pig-sticker.  He did manage to cut himself, and the wound distracted him enough to enable Gaergath to run back to the barn and fetch and saddle the horse. 

He did not see the wife anywhere. 

He did manage to snatch the bag with the black cloak and his bow and arrows just before the farmer got his bearings and ran back at him.  Gaergath kicked the sides of the horse and was on his way once more, the farmer in hot pursuit. 

Then he looked back just in time to see the wife come from the farmhouse. 

Gaergath stopped the horse, then carefully fitted an arrow into his bow.  He waited until the farmer stopped running, then took aim...and fired. 

He did not really expect to hit the man.  His object was to shake him up...or so he told himself.  When the arrow struck the farmer in the stomach, Gaergath drew in his breath sharply.  Then he tucked the bow back over his shoulder, slapped the reins down on the horse once more...and fled.

~*~*~

He had no idea where he was now.

He wondered if the farmer were dead.  Perhaps he was only wounded, and the wife would nurse him back to health. 

Gaergath imagined her now, dragging the body into a clearing, piling wood all around it, tossing oil onto it, and flinging a burning stick onto it all, then watching until it was all burnt to ashes.... Would she bury the bones so none should ever know, and tell anyone who wanted to know that he had been killed by a wild boar or some such, and run the farm by herself?

Gaergath told himself he had saved her.  The farmer surely would have killed her.

I've done murder.  Add that to my other crimes.  I am an outlaw now.

Perhaps I should try once more to go to Angband.  Perhaps now I've blood on my hands, it will work.

The next day, near nightfall, he found himself in a wooded area once more, this one not so nice as the Forest of Brethil.  He could imagine that ghosts walked abroad in it.  He wondered if it were the one where his mother lived...but no, not likely.

Seriously unnerved, he contemplated putting on the black cloak. 

And then he saw something.  Its eyes were looking at him through the brush.  It was black, apparently, and looked to be the size of a small horse.  But it was not.  Horses do not growl.

And a feminine and very lovely voice spoke just above a whisper, "What is it, Huan?"

  XXVII. The Impossible

Gaergath halted in his tracks.

He had told himself the previous day that he was done with women.  All they brought him was trouble.  First She, then Binya, then the farmer's wife... And if this one had an entrancing voice, all the more reason to turn and flee....

Save that he could not.  He was as trapped as a moth in a web, waiting for the voice to speak again. 

Yet the speaker was not showing herself.  The beast, whatever it was, growled once more.  Gaergath could see its eyes, which were on a level with his own, although as far as he could tell, it was not standing on its hinder legs.  They were not wolf eyes.  Why...they were large and brown, like...like a dog's. 

It was a dog.   

Still, he was no more anxious to meet a dog the size of a small horse than he was to meet a wolf. 

"Huan," the voice spoke again.  "What see you?"

He saw leaves on the bush move above the dog's eyes, and a fair hand appeared briefly, and the branches moved briefly and he glimpsed a face beneath a dark hood...whoever it was, obviously did not wish to be seen. 

Then the dog, or whatever it was, made a strange rumbling growl in its throat, like no other dog sound Gaergath had ever heard. 

It seemed to be talking.

Then the sweet voice spoke once more.  "Come, Huan.  I do not think he means us harm, or he would have done so by now.  Who is it?"

This last was meant for Gaergath, and he made as if to speak, then found his throat was dry. 

He coughed a little, and then the branches moved once more, and a tall figure stepped forward.  It wore a black cloak also...but as unlike the one he carried, as singing was to choking. 

This cloak was apparently of silk, with a soft sheen like starlight on water--indeed, it seemed made of black water, with a flow to it like such, and a rustle like that of a stream flowing over mossy rock in a forest. 

And the fair hand reach up and pushed the hood back just a bit.  The face within was yet in shadow, but no more so than a white rose beneath the protective shade of a brake of dark ferns.

Gaergath drew in his breath sharply.  He had been expecting a lovely face, to be sure, to go with that voice.  Yet he was not prepared for what he did see.  His heart was thumping like a snared rabbit. 

The hood fell away completely, and the dog stepped out from the brush as well, but Gaergath did not see it. 

Her hair seemed made of exactly the same stuff as the cloak.  It was as though some faery-being had decided that nothing less than what resembled that hair was fit for her to wear, and so had woven the garment from threads spun of nightsky and water and dreams for her.  And her eyes...well, he could not even come up with a color to name them, whether blue, or grey, or black, or a mingling of all such, it seemed nonsensical even to try.  It was as though gems and stars and flowers and dark water and dewdrops had all come together in a conspiracy to bewitch and entangle and envelope.  She was as tall as he, so he did not have to look either up or down to see into the eyes, making it all the harder to look away from them.

The rest of her face might have been as plain as dirt, and those eyes would have held him as ruthlessly captive as they were doing now.  Yet it was as perfect a setting for them as the most skillfully crafted jewelry for the most flawless gems imaginable.  And there was a soft glow about it all, that even shone through the cloak.  It could only have come from the face of a woman in love, and he did not even know how he knew this.  It was a face acquainted with joy and pain in equal measure, and both had worked together to refine that beauty to its incomparable zenith.

"Do not be afraid," she said once more, in that voice that could only have come from such a source.  "He will not attack you, if you do not mean us harm.  He has the most beautiful of possible hearts, and a fëa of shining perfection, beneath the darkness of his coat.  I rather think him the son of Ilúvatar himself."

"What?" Gaergath said stupidly, then realized she was referring to the dog.  Which was standing before him now, black and brown mostly, with a spot of white at its throat, and ears that pointed sharply upward, and it was no longer growling, since her hand rested upon the back of its neck. Its eyes now were as any other dog's, brown and sweet and trusting.

Gaergath wished with all his might that he were that dog.

He could think of nothing to say that did not sound entirely idiotic.

"I mean no harm," he said at last.  "I have lost my way, and my horse got frightened and so we ended up here somehow.  I have been trying to get home.  I was abducted, and I escaped and have been wandering for some time now...and...well, here I am."

She stepped forward once more, enough for him to see her gown beneath the cloak.  It was blue, as far as he could tell...and that was as much as he noticed about it.

"Also," he heard himself saying, "I...I think I killed someone."

He could not imagine what possessed him to tell her this.  It seemed he was in the presence of the Impossible, and so it called forth things he could not possibly have said. He had changed utterly in the space of a few moments.  The Gaergath he had been previous to this was a complete impossibility.  That Gaergath, who considered magical cloaks and evil books and silver daggers as matters of importance, was as a befouled garment that had been stripped off him, to be flung into a bonfire and forgotten forever.  

And he scarcely knew what to do with the new Gaergath.  It was as a butterfly newly emerged, exposed and vulnerable to all about it, yet would not have gone back into the cocoon even if it were possible.

It could only blink in unstifled wonder at the flower of divinity that stood before it.  

For she was most certainly a goddess.  Yes.  One of the Valar she must be.  The Star-kindler perhaps?  But what was she doing here?  Was this her abode, and had she come forth to light the stars?  He could see her lighting a star in her hand as one might light a little lamp or candle, then flinging it upward to bedizen the heavens....

Yet she was not doing so.  He had interrupted her at her task before she could even begin.  

Perhaps he should step away and leave her to her work.  She might let him watch....

"I am deeply sorry," he found himself saying, "to have disrupted you, my Lady.  Please go ahead with what you were about to do before I so rudely intruded upon your task.  I did not know I was so close to your home."

At the same time he was puzzled not to see any such home.  He would have expected her to live in a luminous faery-palace on high, with lights glimmering in every window, and harp-music issuing forth.  All he saw were trees.  And mountains.  Perhaps she lived in a mountain?  Perhaps that was where she kept the stars.  All lined up in shelves inside of a mountain, where none could come in and steal them, the brightest one at the very top. 

Perhaps she would give him one.  Perhaps she would allow him to dwell close by, where he might come and watch her light the stars each night....

"I beg your pardon?" she said with a little smile.  He had not thought it possible for her to be more beautiful, but he had not seen her smile yet.  

"Are you not the Star-kindler?" he asked with lifted eyebrows. 

She laughed, just a little, and that was far better than harp-music.  "Nay, I am not, any more than I am the mistress of trees, or the healer of all ills and wounds, or the weeper of uncounted tears, although I have imagined so of late," she said.  "I also was abducted, or say rather I was lured away on false pretenses and imprisoned, and I have escaped with the help of my Huan..."  She patted the dog, which looked at her in such a manner...of course.  He was her lover, and some wicked being had put an evil spell on him causing him to take the form of a dog.  "And now I would find my home and my lover, but I am not sure of the way.  And I fear my beloved has been taken as well.  I must find him...if I only knew where to begin."

Gaergath suddenly remembered the small army he had seen approaching Sauron's tower.

"Do you think he was taken by Sauron's forces?" he asked her. 

She paled a little.  "Aye, it is exactly as I supposed," she said.  "I must find a way to his home, and see if my beloved has been imprisoned there.  Two wicked brothers brought me here with promises of succor, and I foolishly believed them.  One of them meant to force me to be his bride, and yet his hound, of whom he was never worthy, took pity upon me, and came to my chamber to comfort me, and brought me back my cloak, without which I am as helpless as any other maid.  And he showed me the secret passages leading outward, and here I have met with you, my friend.  You are not a messenger from Beren?"

"I do not know any Beren," he said.  "I...I am lost merely, as I said, and my horse brought me here.  It is not even my horse, I--I borrowed him, and have been trying to find my own.  And...I happened to see some men being taken to Sauron's tower.  I know where it is, for I have been there..."

She suddenly reached out and gripped his wrist, with a grasp that might have twisted his arm out of the socket, yet he was scarcely aware of any pain.

"He is in Sauron's tower?  You truly have seen him?"

Gaergath numbly had to wonder if he himself would ever be loved as this Beren was loved. 

"I do not know, my lady," he stammered.  "I saw some men, at a distance, being led to the tower by some armed...creatures.  They carried spears and whips, and...oh, I am sorry, I did not mean to alarm you thus..."

"Can you lead me the way?" she gasped.  At the same time she released his arm.  He was certain she had no idea she had been gripping it as hard as she was, and he marveled at her strength.  If she had left bruises, he hoped they would never fade.

"I have here," he fumbled in his doublet until his fingers touched the parchment, "a map, but...my lady, you do not wish to go there.  I have been, and it is...well, you do not wish to go.  You see, there was an Elf...I suppose you do not know Rimbrion?"

Instead of answering, she reached for the map, and he let her take it even so. 

"I do not think it is any good," he said.  "There are few names, save for...just rivers mostly, and...but then...he gave it to me for...."

"How do you know Sauron?" she asked him suddenly, and he was confronted with terrible beauty, and fearful urgency, and impossible striving, all contained in those eyes that were windows to the priceless wonderland that was her soul.

"He is my father," Gaergath said without hesitating one instant.  Lying was simply out of the question, before this being.  "And yet I hate him, for I know he killed my mother, and mean to avenge her.  It is exactly like him to do such, without a thought, simply to get what he wants.  He has no shame.  Yet I do not remember how long ago it was...three weeks, or maybe more.  Most likely..."

But he could not say it.  She was looking at the map once more.

"We are here," she pointed to it.  He looked, but the region she was indicating was not named.  "At Nargothrond.  That is where I was taken.  I am from here..." She pointed to another larger spot.  "Where my father is King and my mother is Queen.  And Sauron bides I know not where, can you show me?"

"Here," Gaergath pointed to the largest of the rivers, "in Tol-en-Gaurhoth, in the River Sirion.  Come ride with me, and I will take you there.  Now that I know where I am, we can find the way together."

The thought of having this peerless creature sitting on the same horse with him, her body touching him, made him feel like swooning utterly.  He was certain her lover was dead by now.  It mattered not, one way or the other.  If he could only have her sitting with him, vulnerable, dependent on him for a matter of days...well, the memory of it would last him the rest of his lifetime, of that he was certain.

Perhaps if he could get her cloak from her... Yet he knew he would not even try it.  He was disgusted that the idea had even occurred to him. 

The dog made the murmuring in his throat once more, and a chill ran over Gaergath.  It seemed the beast could understand every word he said, and read his thoughts as well. It was as if he were a twin to Drauglir, and yet as unlike that beast as this lady's cloak was to Celirwen's.

"Thank you, dear friend," she said with a more radiant smile, and he truly had to look away this time, less he be blinded, "but Huan will take me on his back just as your handsome steed, who is now cropping the grass and clover in yon field.  You shall lead the way, and perhaps you can distract Sauron for me while I try to find my beloved, and..."

He did not want to tell her of the wolves, although she must surely know of them already.  Likely they had made short work of Beren already.  And he would have to witness her grief if they had. 

Then again, perhaps he had been taken to Angband, along with...

He heard her asking his name, then jerked up his head as she asked him once more.

"Gaergath," he said after the slightest hesitation.  She gave no indication that she recognized the name.

"Lúthien," she said.  "I am Lúthien, Princess of Doriath."

"Of course you are," he said softly as an impossible haze descended before him, and the first stars began to peep unnoticed in the pinnacle of the sky.

  XXVIII. Fatal Beauty

It was nearly midnight.  They had stopped at a farmhouse, she saying that they must not exhaust the horse.  Gaergath asked the elderly couple if he and his "sister" might sleep in their barn for the night, and they might do some work to earn it, and could they spare a bit of food also?  Huan had kept himself hidden, less he frighten the couple.

In the barn, Gaergath felt shy and strange, alone with this wondrous being he had met just a few hours before, and half of him wanted to flee, and the other half wanted never to let her out of his sight.

"So you have heard of me before," Lúthien said as they sat down on bales of hay to eat their small meal, which consisted of bread and butter and cheese, and a few strips of dried meat.  She fed her portion of the meat to Huan.  Her eyes twinkled a little in the dim lantern-light.

It scarcely needed a lantern to provide any light, Gaergath thought.

"A bard sang of you at a fair last year," he said after swallowing a rather big bite.  Small bites, he told himself.  "He sang of your...your beauty.  In, erm, quite a bit of detail."

He wondered if he should tell her the bard had sung her praises from the top of her head to the tip of her toes, enumerating all her charms such as propriety would permit, going on about how her hair was spun of skeins of the deepest twilight, her skin of cream drawn from the dairies of blessedness, her eyes stars stolen from the crown of Varda herself, her lips the ripest cherries from the groves of Yavanna, her teeth dived for in the most glorious depths of Ulmo's realm, and so on and on, until Gaergath and his friends stole away before he was even half finished and mercilessly lampooned him over a stolen jug of blackberry wine.

Yet he did not find the song so amusing now.  Actually, it had not come even close to doing her justice.

"My beauty!" she laughed.  "What a bore!  Why would one sing of someone's beauty?  A bard should sing of one's deeds...and I have done none to sing of yet.  That bard probably never even saw me."

Gaergath laughed a little also, yet thinking he could have sung of her beauty all day and all night long.  

"As long as I have lived," she said folding her lovely hands over her knees and looking pensively at the lantern, "and as many things as have passed in my lifetime, it seems as if I should have done some deeds and had some adventures worth the singing.  Yet this is the first of any consequence I have done.  My life only began when I fell in love.  And it will end when his does...for he is mortal man.  Perhaps I told you already."

"Why did you fall in love with a mortal?" Gaergath blurted.  "When you could have had anyone--anyone at all?"

"'Twas not my choice," she said looking at him in startlement.  "He came along, and we met, and I heard of his deeds, and did pity him for the dangers he had passed.  And could not help but love him.  I am not mistress of my own heart; it owns me, not I it.  Yet I cannot convince my father of this.  He called me his treasure, and yet he wishes Beren's death, and therefore my own."

A chill went over Gaergath.  He was certain Beren was dead already.  And what then?  He dreaded her grief.  He did not once doubt that it would slay her.  She was like that.  As strong as she seemed, it would take no more than a great sorrow to crush her utterly.

And what would happen to him then? 

Of course, he was done for, either way, whether her lover lived or not.  For all he had fantasized about comforting her grief, and making her come to love him...but she would never do so.  She was wholly bound to one man, and would never even consider another. 

And so his heart was pierced, and was already slowly dying.  He wished it might just die then and there, and bring him relief.  Yet he would lead her to Sauron's tower, even as he had promised.  And after that...well, likely Sauron would kill him for his betrayal.  Let him.  What life was there for him without Luthien always beside him?

Small wonder Sauron had told him never to give his heart.  He was not master of it, even as she was owned by hers.

Give your heart, and you are maimed for life, he had said.

Before Gaergath was a ruin waiting to happen.  Yet he almost envied her; he was already ruined himself.

"Are you so sure he lives?" he found himself asking her.

"My heart tells me so," she said simply.  "I must go and see, at least."

"And if he does not?"

"Then I die."

"Just like that," he said, in wonder.

"There is no life for me without him," she said softly, almost as if she had read his thought.  He wondered if she could.

"Perhaps he is not there, after all," Gaergath said. 

"You did say there were ttwelve men and Elves, in chains?" she said with eyes of anguish.

"So it looked," he said averting his own eyes, unable to look at her pain.

"He was with twelve--himself being the twelfth," she said.  "We must go first thing in the morning.  When we cross the Teiglin, you must let your horse go free to find his way home.  I do not ask you to go to the tower with me.  After the horse is gone, you may ride on Huan.  He has strength to carry us both."

He suddenly took heart at the thought of her exquisite body held close to his for...how many miles?  Perhaps the memory would do him for the rest of his life....

"I wouldn't mind," was what he said.

Talk about understatement, he thought.

"You will have my undying gratitude," she said looking at him once more.  "I will even make a song about it.  For I am a bard also, and have made a great many songs...mostly about people I never saw either.  But at least this one will be about someone I have met, and I shall sing of your deeds, and not of your locks of midnight darkness, nor your eyes green as the pools of the forest.  Not that you are at all hard to look upon."

"You make songs?" he said with uplifted brows, his heart thumping in his chest at the thought that she would sing of him.

"Aye, hundreds," she said.  "I do not even remember how some of them go now.  They were rather bad, I suppose.  Perhaps I am not a bard in the truest sense, since I have not traveled about much, and never alone.  But I dearly enjoy making songs.  I have made one about my first meeting with Beren...but I shall not sing it for you, since it contains a lie.  I would change it, but I think it would not make such a good song."

"What lie?"

"Well...it says when first he saw me, I was dancing and singing in a glade, to a pipe unseen," she said with a little giggle.  "Well, I WAS singing a little, but I was most certainly not dancing, and there was no pipe.  I was milking a goat.  I have danced for him, to be sure.  I love to dance.  I left it in for my friend Laeneth, who wished it so.  She is very young, not much past one hundred, but as a little sister is she to me, and I liked to please her.  I was singing a goat-milking song.  I will sing a bit of that for you, since we are in a barn."

She sat up straight, folded her hands with mock primness, and began to sing:

Little goat, little goat, let down your milk
Let down your milk today
And I will make you a gown of silk
So that you may dance and be gay.

Little goat, little goat, let down your milk
Let down your milk if you please
And I will make you a bonnet of silk
With ribbons the color of cheese.

"I did not make that song," she said laughing to Gaergath's astonished face, "although I did put new verses to it.  I sang it to amuse the children, and that was when my Beren first saw me.  I did not dance for him until many days later.  He says I should put the bit about milking the goat in my song.  But it would be most un-bardlike, I fear, and would not do him justice, when he is so valiant a hero."

"You are a princess and you milk goats?" he said.  It sounded incredibly stupid to him even as he spoke, and he wondered if he could find a spell to make her forget he ever had said it.

"Of course," she said.  "Nana and I have always done our milking.  Why should we not?  The goats and cows will not milk themselves."

"Well...I just thought perhaps you had...milkmaids," he stammered, feeling his face grow boiling hot.  "I thought...being royalty and all."

"My mother has long looked after all living things," she said.  "As do I.  She is the Lady Melian, a Maia from Valinor and a priestess of Yavanna.  She it was who placed a girdle of protection around our land to keep out the forces of Morgoth."

"Morgoth?"

"The one you call Melkor.  We name him Morgoth, the Dark Enemy.  And...will you promise to tell no one, if I tell you this next?"

"I promise," he said.  His heart began to flutter once more.

"My father has told Beren he may marry me only if he can steal a jewel from the crown of Morgoth," she said barely above a whisper. "Fancy that!"

Gaergath gasped.  To think he had missed his chance! 

"He considers it an impossible task, I suppose," Lúthien said, the animation dying from her face.  "And I dare say it is so.  Yet he means to.  But let us speak no more of it tonight.  We should sleep, for we must set out as early as possible in the morning."

He was about to confess that he was not very sleepy, then stopped as she began taking off her cloak.  This she spread over herself, then lay down with her head against Huan's enormous shaggy flank.

"It is warmer than it looks," she said smiling a little as she noticed Gaergath looking at it.  "What have you in your bag?"

"It's...a blanket," he said, looking down at the burlap sack that lay between his feet.

"I thought as much," she smiled.  "Well.  You had best cover yourself, my friend.  You may lie on Huan's other side.  He will not mind, and will keep you warmer."

"I do not know if I can sleep," he said as he settled down on the opposite side of the great dog.  "I am too...wound up, somehow."

"Here," she said sitting up and holding out her cloak to him, "touch this."

It felt much as he imagined her hair might feel, or her skin for that matter, and he could swear he heard music of such airy and haunting beauty as he might have imagined amongst the stars, floating above swirling green and blue and silver streaks above rolling waves.  

"Better now?" he heard her ask, as he sank down into a warm and bottomless cradle of beckoning dreams, forgetting that his life had ended the very night it had begun.
 

  XXIX. Star of the Morning

In the morning he found himself alone, covered by the black cloak with the iron claws tucked carefully out of sight, and he wondered if he had dreamed the previous night. Yet he felt strangely refreshed, and as he sat up and looked about, yawning, he noticed the barn looked wonderfully clean and neat.

And then he saw Lúthien coming in smiling with a bucket of milk in one hand and a basket in the other. A delightful smell of fresh rolls issued from it. She wore her cloak loosely on her shoulders so he could see the blue gown she wore beneath. Húan came up behind her, gnawing a large ham-bone.

"Did you sleep well, my friend?" she asked Gaergath as she set down the bucket and the basket. "Here is breakfast. Let us eat quickly, and be on our way. How do you feel now?"

"Better than I have in a long time," he said. He saw her take two plates from out of the basket. Each was heaped with buttered rolls, boiled eggs, and jam. There were two wooden cups for the milk. "How did the barn get so clean? You didn't do it while I was asleep, did you? You should have awakened me; I would have helped."

"Likely you did not hear my cow-milking song either," she said jokingly. He noticed there was no sign of barn-cleaning on her--no bits of hay clinging to her gown, no dung-smell, no bits of dirt on her fingers. Her hair was bound into a long braid that hung well past her hips. The blue color of her gown suited her to perfection.

The Star of the morning, he thought. A universe of butterflies fluttered in his belly.

"You don't suppose they will follow us?" Gaergath said as they made ready to leave.

"I erased Húan's tracks, and scent," she said. "My cloak can do that. It has special properties."

"Can you fly with it?" he asked. The bag seemed awfully heavy now. Why could he not simply leave it behind?

"Nay," she said, "but that is a good thing. Flying is too far beyond what the human form is intended. And yet I can but wish I might, just this once. It disturbs me to think I would do it, even for him."

"Why should it be disturbing?" he asked.

"To embrace evil even a little," she said, "is to embrace it much. Yet I would do so in order to free him, if it were necessary, and suffer the consequences myself...and yet, I would not be the only one to suffer thus."

"What of good?" he asked. "If one were to embrace good a little?"

"To embrace good 'a little' is to embrace it not at all," she said softly.

He was silent as he mounted the horse once more, thinking of what she had said.

Perhaps he should burn the cloak next time they stopped, while her back was turned. He could build a fire, and put it in....

And yet even then, he knew he could not do it. Gloom and sadness overtook him once more, and somehow he thought of the farmer he had shot. If he could not embrace goodness for her, for whom could he? It seemed evil was to be his final destiny, after all....

~*~*~

When they reached the river crossing, after days of tireless riding and stopping to inquire direction and take a bit of refreshment and rest, Gaergath let the horse go, and asked that he might sit in front upon the dog's back, fearing that his body would betray his true feelings. She agreed to this arrangement.

He was astonished at the speed of which the dog was capable--far faster than any horse he had ever ridden. It was both frightening and exhilarating. And the touch of her body at his back as she clung to him...he wondered if the bliss of the Undying Lands could ever match this. Surely it could not even come close.

And yet there was pain in it also. He gladly endured it, savoring what he had, even knowing it would be brief.

"This is the River Sirion," he said after they had reached a place that looked remotely familiar to him. "I know it. It is darker than other waters I have passed. The Island is here...although I am not sure how far."

"We are almost there!" she exclaimed and quickly dismounted from the dog's back.

"Aye, but I cannot see the tower," he said. "I fear it is a long way yet, my lady. And it is near nightfall."

She did not seem to hear him. Her eyes were dreamy, then pain-stricken as if something hurt her deep inside, then joyous, then sad once more. And then suddenly she began to sing.

Love oh love, lift, lift up your head,
from your hard dark pillow, fear no more
I am here, drenched with longing
keen as the seagull's cry
wild as the call of the mating elk
sweet as the breath of summer rain
burning as the fire of holiness
deep as the music of the seas
to hear your voice and touch your hand.
I am coming, swift as the river,
soon as your next breath,
a blossom of readiness
to ripen in your noontime
to die inside you,
to dream in your waking
to gather and flow,
to plant and to flourish.
Love oh love, lift, lift up your voice
from your nest of horror
from your cage of pain
remember our joy
and answer my song
and know that I come on driving wing
without delay as the wind of storm,
as the lightning on the waves!

"I heard his voice," she said, and he had not thought it possible for her to look more beautiful, and yet she did so. "Let us go now! He awaits me!"

And they were off once more.

~*~*~

It was nearly nightfall when Gaergath said he thought these surroundings looked familiar.

"I do not think we should go," he said. "Elves who visit the tower are never seen again, 'tis said."

"You may remain behind," she said, "if you wish. If aught happens to me, will you see to Húan? Let him go back to his master if he wishes, then perhaps Celegorm will be shamed into goodness once more."

"Of course I will," he said, "but I shall go with you. I have my dagger."

"You do not think we passed it?" she said anxiously.

"Nay, I would know place, if I saw it in my sleep."

"Perhaps his wicked magic keeps it hidden?"

"Your cloak will know it," he said turning to smile a little.

She kissed his cheek.

He wished he had died there and then.

The last hour of their trip was the happiest he had ever known, or ever would know.

"We are here," he said as they came to a tangle of dark wood, where a foul mist brooded, and no strain of birdsong could be heard.

"I know," she said and he could actually hear her shiver. Yet he himself was not afraid.

  XXX. Werewolves

"Allow me to go ahead, my lady," Gaergath said.  "But first...there is something I must put on."

He picked up the bag and opened it, and  drew out the cloak...looking as black and obscene as the crown of Morgoth.

Lúthien gasped.

"It is Her cloak," he said, "and no blanket.  Sauron got it from her and brought it to me, that it might take me to Angband.  But I did not go.  Here, take this..."  He took the mithril dagger from his belt.  "They will flee from it.  It is Elvish work.  It will protect you if you shed no blood with it...no human blood."

"I need it not," she said handing it back to him.  "My cloak will protect me."

"You are sure of this?" he said.  She nodded, smiling ever so slightly.  And they went on through the darkness that would have seemed absolute, but for her light. 

And then they were on the bridge.   There were torches on it that burned with a lurid pale light, not like any fire Gaergath had ever seen before, save in nightmare. 

Huan came up close behind them.

Lúthien began singing softly once more, the same song she had sung before.  Gaergath had thought they should be silent, and yet there was such a power and beauty about her voice, it would keep off any evil influence surely. 

And then he heard a soft growl from Huan.

And looked ahead.  Something was coming out of the mist.

Lúthien went on singing.  Gaergath looked at the dark shape and trembled.  Huan growled once more, then bounded forward.  Gaergath froze.

Lúthien stood silent then.  A hideous snarling issued from the mist as the shape of Huan met with the shape of the thing ahead of them. 

"A wolf," Gaergath whispered.  Then he remembered his dagger, yet could not seem to bring himself to reach for it.

She nodded.  "Stay here.  Do not move," she said.  Her hand reached over and took his arm.

"What if..." Gaergath had not thought it possible to feel such fear.  Did she feel none at all?

Then the snarling turned to a high-pitched shriek, then a whimper.  Then silence.

Gaergath saw Huan once more, dragging something toward them. 

"My wonderful lad," Lúthien said softly caressing his fur.  Gaergath drew back in horror at the sight of the dead wolf in the torchlight.  Its blood looked black, and a stench rose from it that fairly nauseated him.

"Let us put it over the bridge," she said.  "I will take the tail, and you take its front legs."

The last thing he wanted to do was to touch the thing, but he decided he had played the coward before her long enough, the least thing he could do was dispose of the body.  They tossed the corpse over the railing, and Gaergath noticed that the pole which held one of the torches had been placed inside an iron flange on the side of the bridge.  He had made just such a one in the forge once. 

He removed the iron pole, which was about five feet long, and held it before him.  He could see the torch consisted of a container of rather foul-smelling oil with a wick rising from it, a chimney that could be removed easily, and the fire was a pale green like that of foxfire.  Lúthien looked at it thoughtfully. 

And then they heard another growl. 

Once more Huan bounded toward it. 

This wolf was swifter than his sibling, and they were able to see it in its struggle with the great dog, who bested it rather quickly while Lúthien and Gaergath withdrew into the shadows.  But before they could throw the corpse over, yet another came at them.  Then three more, and then Gaergath recalled his dagger and took it out.  And found himself confronted with a wolf that seemed strangely familiar.  Its eyes had a red-yellow gleam in the light of Gaergath's torch as it snarled at them with a hatred that defied description. 

"Hullo, Binya," he said holding out his dagger.  "Remember this?"

Yet she did not draw back.  He had forgotten he was wearing the cloak, which cancelled the power of the dagger rendering it just another blade.  Before he could cast the garment off, she sprang, sinking her fangs into his wrist so that the dagger fell at his feet.  He yelled in pain, almost dropping the torch, then he remembered it and took a jab at her, which she managed to dodge, but she released him also, then he saw a wolf spring at Lúthien.  She took a fold of her cloak and waved it at the beast, which scuttled backward, then seemed to grow dizzy, and sank upon the stone beneath it. 

Binya crept back once more, as more wolves came along, and then Gaergath moved toward her as she growled, bent to pick up the dagger barely noticing the blood dripping from his arm, and she sprang at him once more. 

And he drove the dagger into her throat. 

The most horrible scream he had ever heard rose from her, and she flailed before him, writhing in agony, and then she seemed to shift into human shape, though not fully.  Gaergath looked at her in horror, as she bled and clawed at herself in her mortal torment.  Then Lúthien stepped forth and waved her cloak over her, and she gradually grew calmer, then finally lay still. 

Gaergath looked gratefully at her. 

Then another wolf, larger than all the others, stood before them.  This one was recognizable also.

Drauglir. 

Even Lúthien looked a bit frightened then. 

Huan was fighting another creature, but he left off as Drauglir appeared, and the dog left off his adversary and took after the great wolf in a single lunge.  Gaergath heard a soft moan from Lúthien then. 

And he looked for his dagger once more, but could not see it.  

Huan and Drauglir went rolling over the bridge, trying to get at each other's throats. 

"Give me," Luthien whispered, taking the pole with the torch from Gaergath.  Quickly she removed the chimney, although it burnt her fingers to do so, and made as if to pour the oil upon Drauglir, while Gaergath wished he had thought to do so.  He did manage to find his dagger, however.

But then Drauglir shifted his shape until it was identical to the dog's, and so it seemed there were two Huans fighting, and so Lúthien stayed her hand, less she drench the wrong beast. 

Then the two creatures broke apart, both of them bloody and torn, snarling at each other, and then they sprang once more.  Then one of them made a terrible outcry, and broke away...reassuming its wolf-form.  Drauglir ran back away over the bridge, while Huan came staggering toward Lúthien, who ran and knelt to embrace the dog, weeping a little.  

"I see no more," she said after a while.  "Let us proceed, but with caution."

"He has gone back to Sauron," Gaergath said.  "That was Drauglir, the sire and grandsire of them all.  He saw me kill Binya...she was his favorite, I think, of all his spawn.  There is no telling what he will do now."

"I must go and free Beren," she said.  "You go back, if you wish. I think you should.  I can do by myself now, with Huan by my side."

"Nay, I am coming with you," he said although he wished more than anything else to do just as she suggested.

And then yet another beast emerged from the mist.

It was larger even than Drauglir.

There were other wolves far behind it, but they did not come close.

Its eyes gleamed redly, its fur iron black and giving off a faint coppery light, its claws at least two inches long and sharper than nails..  Lúthien gasped. 

Gaergath dropped his dagger.

The monster approached Huan, then sprang suddenly, and this time the dog moved quickly aside, and the huge wolf went rolling over and over, then made for Huan once more.  The dog dodged him into the shadows, and this time as the  enormous creature uprighted itself, it saw Lúthien, and seemed to smile.

And it sprang at her.

Gaergath leaped forward then, catching the torch as she released it to wave the folds of her cloak at the thing.  She barely eluded it then, as it fell once more on the stones, and seemed a bit drunk, staggering and falling to its knees.  Gaergath saw his chance then, and raised the torch....

And stopped as he saw Lúthien fall.  A horrid stench, even worse than that of the other wolves, pervaded the air, nearly choking the boy.  He gasped and coughed, nearly dropping the pole, clutching at it with both hands.

The great wolf was down on all fours now, swaying and making whimpering noises in its throat...and Huan went after it then.

Gaergath went to Lúthien, who seemed to have fainted.  He shook her shoulder, and then she raised her head.

"What...what is it?" she whispered.  Then sat up, with his help, as she saw the struggle of Huan with the huge wolf.

They barely noticed the howls and bays from the creatures all around.

"It's Sauron, I think," Gaergath whispered.  "It must be."  Lúthien nodded.

"I fear Huan will not win this one," she said.  

It was then that he took the pole, moved closer and flung the oil at the enormous wolf, then cast the torch at it, so that it went up in flames, and yet Huan did not loose his hold on it.  And Sauron squirmed hideously, and then suddenly he seemed to diminish, then the flames revealed a huge serpent, with fangs fully six inches long, which it raised to strike at the dog, which maintained his grip on its throat. 

With a cry, Lúthien moved forward once more, raising her cloak, whereupon it turned into something more, with two heads, and eight legs--a giant spider or scorpion it appeared to be, with horns and a large sucking mouth and a long pointed tail, and Gaergath thought he might swoon then.  

Yet Huan did not release his hold.

 The tail, which was at least six feet long, raised itself to sting the dog, lifting above its head and moving down.  

Lúthien snatched the pole from Gaergath then, and jabbed it at the monster.  The tail waved and the thing writhed horribly, shrieking, and tore itself from Huan's mighty jaws, leaving a portion of itself in them, and sprang at Lúthien once more.

And Gaergath came to himself.

And raised the clawed wings of his own cloak, saying, "Wolf!"

  XXXI. Departure

Sauron found himself clutched by the throat by an enormous beast. 

He was naked, with nothing but his long hair to grip, his body sweating and partially burnt from the oil, yet he fought off the creature with all his might, trying to shift once more, but he had spent too much of his strength already, and the pain weakened him further. 

Over and over they rolled, while Lúthien ran to see about Huan, who was whimpering from a deep wound, then she glanced about for Gaergath, whom she had not seen shift.

"Gaergath?" she said.  He had not run away, had he?

Then she saw his dagger. 

But as she bent to pick it up, a bloody hand snatched at her wrist, and as she jerked away, the hand grasped the weapon.

"Not yet, my lovely," Sauron said chuckling a little, and barely eluded her as she lifted the folds of her cloak once more.  He lunged at the wolf again, and then she understood.

"Nay, you shall not!" she cried picking up the pole and bringing it down on his head with all her might...

...but not before he had managed to stab the wolf.

Huan made one last spring at Sauron, who stood in horror as the wolf began taking on human form once more. 

"Gaergath," he whispered, looking at the boy who rocked on his knees, clutching at his side which was bleeding profusely.  Then the dog brought him down once more, but Sauron did not fight him off this time.

"Gaergath," Luthien cried, running to him.  He blinked up at her as she bent over him, reeling in pain, then he raised a hand to look at it.  It was all bloody.

She looked back at Sauron, whose face was covered in blood, then seized the dagger from him, and he did not even resist.

"Kill him," Gaergath managed to whisper. 

Whether or not she heard him, he never knew.  She held the dagger to Sauron's breast, and spoke to him words Gaergath could barely hear, as he groaned and clamped his hand to his wound.  The only ones he understood were "the mastery of thy tower." 

Gaergath grew dizzy then, and through his pain-haze he saw something rise up hugely and blackly, and take wing, and it flew upward, and he felt something wet drip upon him as it vanished screaming in the night.  Then he heard Lúthien's voice once more, singing, and felt himself being raised, and helped onto Huan's back as she removed the cloak from his shoulders and let it fall on the bridge.  And he felt a trembling beneath him and a brightness grew all about, a sweet and fresh smell not unlike the air after a long rainstorm arose as her song issued forth. 

And still singing, she held him with one arm around his waist and Huan began to move up the bridge, past the stinking carcasses which began to dissolve in the light.

Gaergath became aware of a coldness and an evil presence as they passed the form of Drauglir, which lay yet upon the stones, but so concerned was Lúthien with getting him inside and finding Beren that she did not notice the spirit of the great wolf leaving its bloody pelt and following behind.

~*~*~

As Gaergath awoke he wondered if he were in a dream.  Yet it felt no dream. 

He was alone in a room, yet he seemed to be looking down from the ceiling, and saw a form that strongly resembled his own lying on a table, partly covered with a blanket, blood seeping from one corner of the mouth.  It was dark but he had no trouble seeing at all.  There was another form lying all covered up nearby, and the covering was blood-stained.  He heard voices, one of which he recognized as hers, and another he did not know.  It sounded like a man's.  They were speaking of him, he realized, and she was weeping. 

We will bury him beside Finrod tomorrow, after we have quit this place, the man was saying.  You are certain he is Sauron's son, my love?

Finrod?  The name sounded remotely familiar, but Gaergath could not think where he had heard it before.

Then he heard another voice that sounded familiar, but he could not recall it precisely.

He is. I met him some time ago.  Before I was taken captive.

Rimbrion!

You should have killed him, my lady, he said.

Then I could not have freed Beren, or you, Lúthien said through tears.  His spirit would have remained, and I could not have banished it.

Then she entered the room with a tall candlestick in her hand.  The cloak was gone and she stood in her blue gown.  She came and covered the face of the form that resembled Gaergath, just before kissing its forehead, on which two of her tears fell.  Then she set the candle beside it, and seemed about to speak, and two other male figures came into the room.  One was Rimbrion, without a doubt...although somewhat altered from the last time Gaergath had seen him.  His hair was nearly white, and some of it was gone, and his clothes were in rags and his face was scarred horribly, and he walked with a limp.  A man followed close behind, with matted and bloodied brown hair and his clothing was ragged also, and he too carried a candle.  He could not have been much past thirty, yet he looked considerably older, and walked with a limp also.  Still, Gaergath could see he was yet handsome with a noble aspect, an aura of kingliness in the soft candlelight which none of the memories of darkness could diminish.  He set his candle beside the other covered body, then came to Lúthien and put an arm around her, kissed her cheek and led her gently from the room, Rimbrion following, looking over his shoulder at the form on the table, then closing the door behind him.

And Gaergath felt himself rising, rising, until the form on the table dwindled, and he became swallowed up in brightness, and did not see a sickly greenish light coming up from under the door and floating through the room, to envelop the body lying beneath the unstained sheet in coldness, and to enter it, and he did not see the form stir and rise, and push back the sheet and drift toward the open window, smiling through the fangs that were slowly appearing through bloodied lips....

He saw only before him a great hall, and another female form who stood smiling all in white, opening her arms to him against the dark marble of the hall, which seemed dim although it had many tall windows.

At last, my son, she said.

~*~*~

Am I dreaming? he asked as they walked slowly down the hall, where many others stood conversing or strolling about, some looking out the windows, some seeming not to know where they were. 

Nay, my son, she said.  We are here, together at last.

What of Her? he asked.  Where is she?  Is she dead also?

She was dead long ago.  But she is not here.

Did Sauron kill her?

Nay, he did not.  It was as he said; he gave her your cloak, and took hers.  But without her cloak, she grew weaker, and I was able to escape her once more.  But I could not take physical form this time.

So she is still out there?

Nay, she is not.  I entered the body of Hyldreth, and caused her to lock her in her coffin as she slept in the day, and lay it with silver coins.  She will be there until she dies, or for all time...or unless someone comes to rescue her.

What of Hyldreth?

She has gone, I know not where.  Perhaps she will find her son.  As I found mine.

What of...Lúthien? Will Sauron come back and kill her?  I would go back and protect her.

I do not think she needs it, my son.  I dare say the bards will have something besides her beauty to sing of now.

She smiled in the dimness.

I wonder if she could have dealt with Sauron if I had not used the cloak, he said.  Perhaps I should not have done so.  Perhaps things would have been...better. 

You did well, my son.  I am very proud of you.  I knew someday, despite your faults, you would do something that would make me proud.  I would have had you grow to manhood, and take a wife, and have a family, not to have died before you came of age.  But so it must be.  Many a soldier has died thus, with honor, before his life truly began.

So Finrod was a king, then?  We will meet him here?  And I shall be buried beside him as a hero? 

Curonel stood silent.

Mother?  I will be buried as a hero, yes?

She stood silent yet.

Mother, why is it so dim here?  Why are we not in the Gardens?

Mother?

We will not reach the Gardens for a while yet, my son.  We must pass the Shadow first.

Why is that?

Because I did not forgive her. I locked her up, and cursed her. In so doing, I cursed myself.

Why should you have forgiven her?

Because it is necessary in order to achieve blessedness and purification.  But we will get there, you and I.  Together.

Why am I here also?  Because I did not forgive him?  Because I killed the farmer?  I did much that was wrong, I know.  But I embraced goodness at the end, did I not?  Just a little?

To embrace goodness but a little is to embrace it not at all. Lúthien 's words, he recalled. A chill of despair rippled over him.

More than a little, my son.  Which is why you will pass the Shadow.  We will get there...in time.

How long?

In time.  That is all I can tell you.

I am ready then, he said. 

And so they moved through the Halls arm in arm, amongst the shades of those who had gone before them, and were coming behind them, and must move through the Shadow before they could enter the Outer Circles, an endless cavalcade flowing like a slow river through timelessness and unformed hope.

  ~*~Epilogue~*~

Serilinn knelt beside her father's grave to lay a bunch of flowers upon it, and she remained there for a while, half listening to the happy sounds that floated through the air of the Palace grounds--her little son Edenost shooting at targets with his father Elladan and uncle Elrohir and grandfather Elrond in the courtyard, her six-month-old niece cooing in the little swing her daddy had fixed for her in a tree in the garden, her sister's chatter with their mother Meleth, the strains of harp music played by Galadriel, the twittering of birds....

"Thank you so much, Ada Greenjade," she whispered, "for all you did for me.  And Nana and sister Bryseluthea, and the rest of us.  Please greet brother Iorhael for me, and all the others...and Frodo also, and..."

She remained there for several more moments until she heard a step behind her, and turned to see her mother-in-law standing there.

"It was a year ago yesterday that he left us," Serilinn said as she rose to take Lady Celebrian's arm.  "And it seems more like a few weeks ago."

"That is how time goes here," Celebrian said.  "And yet, grief and sorrow are healed."

Serilinn nodded.  "For some strange reason, I was thinking of my other father.  For the first time in a great long while.  Gaergath, you know.  Has Nana Meleth spoken of him to you?"

"She did so recently," Celebrian said.  "She asked me not to mention to you that she had, unless you brought up the subject first."

"I just wondered how he came to be as he was," Serilinn said.  "If he were bad all his life, or if there were a spark of goodness in him at one time, and how it came to be poisoned.  Well, I am certain Sauron was his father.  But even so, I do remember that he did not abuse me as my mother Duathris did when I was a child.  I must wonder how good can be mixed in with so much evil."

"Do you know," Celebrian said slipping an arm about her daughter-in-law's waist, "that my mother told me that Lúthien spoke of him to her once?  She said she met him as she was escaping Nargothrond, and that he helped her find Sauron's tower.  Nana mentioned this to me just recently.  I have wondered if I should speak of it to you."

"Did she?" Serilinn halted in her path.  "I never knew of this."

"Lúthien said he was stabbed by Sauron as they struggled, and she and Beren laid his body in a room beside King Finrod's to be buried alongside of him the next day.  But upon the morning he was gone!  She thought perhaps some evil spirit hiding within the Cloak overtook his body."

"Then my father was never Gaergath!" Serilinn exclaimed.  "But if not Gaergath, then who was he?"

Celebrian shook her fair head, glancing back at the graves.  "Who can say?  Lúthien did not see him again after that.  He had gone away, and did not return to the tower.  Lost to legend.  I wonder what became of his mother.  No one seems to know that, either."

"And so Gaergath was not as I thought he was," Serilinn said, turning also.  "And he was never given the honorable burial he deserved for his part in banishing Sauron from the Tower.  He has achieved naught but notoriety--when he deserved fame!  Such a wonder!  I am so glad you have told me of this, dear one.  I shall have a stone made for him to give him that honor he did not receive.  What think you of this?"

"I was going to suggest that very thing," Celebrian smiled.

And so the commission of the stone was given to Greenjade's brother-in-law Amonost, a gifted sculptor, and the finished work was set alongside of Greenjade's and Gimli's, being similar in design to both.  There was a small quiet celebration, as flowers were laid on all three graves.  Serilinn's tiny niece was walking by then, and her mother set her on her little feet to look at the stones as she clutched her mother's forefingers.  And Galadriel said she looked much as Lúthien must have looked as a babe.

"I wonder if they are together in the Halls," Serilinn said.  "For Gaergath must surely have reached the Gardens eventually, after all this time.  What think you?"

"Even I could not say," Galadriel said.  "If so, he is in some most interesting company."

"I should think so," Serilinn said.  "Yet for now, I think I prefer the company here." 

She smiled, looking aside at her husband, her son, her sister and her family, her mother Meleth, and all the many friends she had made in the West.  And the forested mountains in the distance, and the bright-blue waves of the sea beyond those.  She could scarcely remember any home but this now.

Then she supposed she would think exactly the same thing, once she had crossed over to the Other Side....

Whenever that would be.

She looked once more at the graves, as the others began to turn back toward the Palace.

"Be blessed, all of you," she murmured before going to join the rest.

                                                       ~*~Finis~*~