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With the door of the study locked, Curufin can begin the troublesome business of moving aside the heavy desk. It has been full a year since they came to Mithrim, and he should have grown stronger, yet his arms and shoulder ache no less for the hours spent in the mine, in the forge.
(Though he will not say so to anyone, he does not know much about mining.)
He has, on occasion, taken a pickax down with him—of his own make, since he did not trust Mithrim’s rusty stock—and chipped at a few promising stalactites. This has given him nothing. There have been no earthly stars shining from the great darkness above or below. He might as well be a ghost himself, rattling about in the one place nobody can hear him.
Nobody but—
“Athair,” he breathes, speaking the name around the pain in his chest and the hitch in his throat. “Athair, I had to come as quickly as I can.”
Some hours of this day shattered Curufin’s peace more than others. He does not particularly care whether Maglor knew that Maedhros was alive; what could they have done about it? It would have been futile—nay, worse than futile, deadly—to attempt a rescue.
Fingon’s success did not make him any less a fool.
Of course, one had to be careful in how one spoke of this to Celegorm.
That is the safety of Athair, the unreachable diamonds, the dark.
“I do not know what it is like to be tortured.” Curufin can concede that. “But I swear on my honor, if it had been me…if I had been taken for what I knew of you and your work…I would have died before a syllable passed my lips.”
Athair, seen from the corner of his eyes and the throw of the lantern-light, is grave.
What did they do to him?
“I already told you,” Curufin says, exasperated. He recoils from his own tone; the mood is unsound. He would never have spoken like that to Athair, before. “I mean…I mean he was tortured. But he is getting better now. Even Maedhros cannot pretend that scarred skin is something to cry over f-forever.” He clears his throat. “It’s his hand I worry for, Athair. Truly I do. And it was his hand that betrayed you, while he still had it.”
Silence from Athair.
“It was betrayal,” Curufin insists. He paces, and the chips of shale grind beneath his boots. “We swore to bring back what that monster stole from you, Athair. No matter what—no matter what was at stake, to give him more…”
You would not have done it, Athair agrees at last, which is what Curufin wanted to hear. It warms him, here in the subterranean cool. He swipes his sleeve across his eyes.
“I would not have done it. And he need not have. We killed the traitor and defended ourselves.” Curufin is proud of that. Celegorm is haunted to his very bones, and Maglor is going mad, but Curufin can see the past and present clearly, and he is proud of that. “We did not need Maedhros, Athair. Not like we needed you.”
(The sight of his brothers tangled together, weeping and tearing at each other—Athair does not need to know anything about that.)
Do you need me still?
(Maedhros was dead, when Fingon went to find him. What Fingon brought back was not wholly their brother. Not wholly worth…)
Do you need me still?
It is difficult to know what Athair means by that question. Curufin…if Curufin is posing questions to himself, as some might say, he does not understand what he meant by it. He shifts uncomfortably.
“Always,” he says, so that his voice echoes in the earth above.
What lives in the mine is not wholly—