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Elrond wandered around, trying to find his way to more richly decorated and better maintained halls and corridors. Slowly he started feeling the evil around him stronger, weighing on him, crushing him, suffocating him. He wondered whether it had been a good idea to do this in the first place, but it was too late to turn back.
Then he stumbled into a great hall. It was dark despite the many torches on the walls, and at the other end of it was a great throne. On the throne sat Sauron. Though his face was scarred and disfigured, and his hair ash-grey rather than golden, his whole form a mockery of fair Annatar, Elrond still knew him. Sauron was clad in black silk robes and golden chains, and on his head was an iron crown with many jewels set under claws of steel. On the forefinger of his right hand, he wore a golden ring decorated with glowing writing. Though Elrond had never seen it before, he knew it to be Sauron's Ring of Power.
Before Sauron could react, Elrond sang. His bright voice rang through the halls, weaving magic of light and of hope against Sauron's evil. It blinded orcs and made black creatures and evil men shudder with fear, and filled the hearts of prisoners in dark dungeons with new strength and joy and hope. Though Elrond knew it not, Elendil and his men walked with new certainty, hastening towards the tunnels leading to the cave system North of Barad-dûr. Even further away, out in the barren plains surrounding the tower, another bitter battle between Sauron's forces and the Alliance turned into victory of the Alliance that no one had foreseen, as the dark armies' determination swayed while the allied forces of elves and men found new and fresh hope in their hearts.
Then Sauron sang, and it was as if darkness had surrounded Elrond. The pain from his injuries struck him with a new force, ten times worse than before. He fell to his knees, crying and screaming, and knew only fear and darkness and despair. With strength like what Sauron had, what point was in his struggle, and what point in fighting the war at all? But still he sang again, though he lacked the strength to rise to his feet, sang of all-enduring resistance and of the heroes of old whose kin he was, and as he sang, the magic of Sauron's song wavered and stopped advancing, never reaching further from the throne room.
Elrond was still surrounded by darkness and black flames of pain, but he himself was as a bright white flame that dark could never extinguish. He stood up again, slowly, painfully, but defiantly. He sang on, clear and loud, and formed a web of magic to protect and heal those Sauron wished to crush. To the magic he added a more secret thought, to guide Elendil and his men and hide them from evil, though he did not sing it aloud.
But while he was still singing, Sauron raised his voice again, and now he sang only of darkness and pain to the one before him. He sang of long suffering before a lonely and painful death. He sang of will breaking under torment, of betrayal of friends. The threads of evil slithered out of the hall and suffocated the bright thoughts of Elrond's song. He sang of weariness and everlasting pain and of futile resistance leading elf-lords of the past to their graves. And as he sang, the bright flame that was Elrond's strength and soul dwindled and faded until it seemed to disappear. Elrond fell on his knees, and then collapsed to the ground, his face against the smooth black stones of the floor. He did not rise or sing again.
Sauron stood up and walked to where Elrond lay. He kicked him harshly on the ribs. Elrond whimpered weakly, but didn't move. Sauron's lips curved in cruel and fearsome smile.
"You are a fool. Worse fool than I thought, to come challenge me openly. You stand no chance against me, for I am Sauron the Great! I crushed the elven lords of old with ease, and you" – he laughed mockingly – "you are no match for them. What you and your equally foolish friend Elendil have suffered before is nothing compared to what I still have in store for you. You will scream and you will cry, you poor excuse of an elf-lordling, and no matter how strong you try to be, sooner or later you will tell me all I wish to know from you and more. Sooner or later you will break, and you will crawl before me and kiss my feet if it amuses me."
The following days were full of agony for Elrond. The only time he was spoken to was when he was being questioned, and he never heard a kind word. When he was left alone in his cold, dark cell, he wished for death until it became his only coherent thought. He should have died a hundred times from the torture and another hundred times from starvation, but he did not. It might have given him some comfort to know that Elendil and his men had escaped and were safe, but that he would not learn until later.
Days and nights passed, and Elrond soon lost count of them. Everything was pure agony, and he would have welcomed any release from it, but whether by his own strength or by some sorcery of the enemy, the spark of his life, though diminished, refused to go out.
Yet what secrets Sauron had hoped to extract from him he never got. Through all the torture Elrond stubbornly refused to give out anything. He would not beg for mercy from Sauron, either, for he knew it would only amuse Sauron and gain nothing for him.
What finally saved Elrond was nothing short of a miracle. One day - it might have been weeks or even months after being captured, Sauron came to him. He asked the same questions as always, and as always, Elrond didn't respond.
Sauron kicked him. "Beg", he said. "Beg for mercy, you filthy little creature, and I may grant it."
Elrond glared at him with all the anger he could gather from his broken and tired soul. "No."
Sauron struck him, leaving yet another bruise on his face. Elrond kept glaring at him, and he responded with a steady and disinterested stare.
"I've had enough. He's no use to me. Throw him out and let him perish alone in the dry, cold sands of this land", he said to someone Elrond couldn't see. Then he turned back to Elrond and said: "Any last words? You should say them now, for once I release my hold of you, you will die before the hour has passed, before you can speak them to anyone else."
"You will never be victorious against us", Elrond said, a small smile on his lips, looking at Sauron as if daring him to try anything more, to see if he cared.
Sauron turned and strolled away, and a dark-cloaked creature of shadow that kindled fear in Elrond's heart came. He grabbed Elrond's wrists and ankles and bound them tightly with rough rope that dug painfully into Elrond's skin. Elrond was too weak to resist.
He was dragged through hallways and tunnels for an eternity, until finally a light breeze struck his face. He opened his eyes and saw that above him the sky covered with clouds and smoke was black, for it was night.
Underneath him was dust and sand. It felt cold against his skin, and stung when it found its way into the many open and half-healed wounds covering his body. He was left lying there, his hands and feet still bound, the ropes gnawing into his skin until he bled. For a long while he stayed where he was and wondered how long it would take to die.
Then at last the clouds parted a little and down from the heavens shone the piercing light of one solitary star. Elrond saw it, and he knew it, and he knew it was not yet time to give up. For the star was Eärendil, Elrond's own father who sailed the night skies bearing a Silmaril with him. Gil-Estel the star was also called, The Star of High Hope, and the sight of it gave Elrond too the hope he had long since lost.
He looked around, and saw a hilltop maybe three miles away glowing with campfires. From what he saw of the order of the camp, it had to be part of the Alliance's forces. But how could he ever get there?
His hands and feet were still bound, so he began to clumsily crawl towards the hill in the distance. It was more likely that his strength would fail and he'd die before ever reaching the camp, but trying gave him something to do.
It took him ages to cover even one mile. By then he was completely exhausted, too tired to continue on. His body screamed with pain, pain that he had no way to ease. Finally he stopped trying, and only laid in the sand, shivering and waiting for death.
Elrond opened his eyes. Above him was the dark blue canvas roof of a tent. Judging by the light coming through it, it was probably around midday, but the sky was cloudy.
He was in pain, but other than that, he felt quite comfortable. He was more or less clean, and warm, and he was lying in something soft. The sounds weren't those that belonged to Barad-dûr either, not screams or harsh laughter or Black Tongue. He heard, slightly muffled, as if a little distant, talking that had a preciseness of orders to it, but it was spoken with voices more like those of elves and dúnedain than orcs, and the language had the familiar ring of Sindarin to it.
He pushed himself up a bit with his left arm. (His right arm, he noticed, had been bandaged, the forearm splinted, and the whole arm tied against his body to keep it from moving much.) He looked around and saw that the tent was small, and near one wall of it were what little personal belongings he had brought to the battlefield. This was his tent in the Last Alliance’s camp.
But though propping himself up with one arm was a small action, Elrond was so badly injured that he couldn't hold the position more than a minute. Spent, he sunk back on the bed he was in.
Minutes passed, and nothing happened. Elrond laid as still as he could to avoid more pain. He drifted somewhere at the borders of sleep and wakefulness.
He didn't know how long had passed when he heard footsteps very close, just outside the tent. That woke him up immediately. Though he knew he was no longer in the dungeons of Barad-dûr, he still shrunk back instinctively, half-expecting whoever was coming intended to hurt him.
The tent flap was pushed open, and Círdan stepped in. Elrond recognized him and relaxed. Of all the people he had ever known, Círdan was the least likely to raise his hand against anyone that didn't directly serve Sauron, let alone another elf.
"Elrond? Are you awake?" Círdan asked.
Elrond nodded quietly. Círdan's face lit up with relief, though the concern in his eyes didn't fade away. He came further into the tent and sat down on the ground by Elrond's bed. Elrond turned a little to look at him, grimacing in pain as he did so.
“Círdan, tell me... is Elendil..?” he asked.
“He returned weeks ago. He is alright now, or as nearly so as anyone who has seen the Enemy’s dungeons can ever be” Círdan reassured him. “I think he will be here to see you as soon as he can find the time for it. He was not happy about leaving you behind, you know. It’s so hard for the mortals to accept the sacrifices others make for them; after all, they have not seen as much war as many of us, have not had the time to learn the realities of it like we do.”
Elrond nodded again. He was so weary he felt reluctant to reply in words unless he had something to say that would not be understood with less.
"I cannot describe with words how glad I am to see you awake", Círdan muttered softly. "It was a pair of soldiers from Lórien who found you, they brought you here two days ago, but none of us knew if you would survive... To tell you the truth, Elrond, I have seen many warriors of old with not a drop of mortal blood in their veins die from less."
"He... kept me alive", Elrond said. "I... I didn't... tell him anything."
Círdan nodded. "I thought so. Otherwise you would be dead; he would have killed you as soon as you had told him what he wanted to know."
They were silent for a while. Elrond kept his eyes half-open, watching Círdan. Círdan studied Elrond, and pity filled him as he found more and more signs of the pain and torture he had gone through. There was fear still lingering in those twilight-grey eyes, and pain had aged him in these few short months more than the past five hundred, more than even the past thousand years had.