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Deep darkness filled the silent cell, hiding inside of it the broken and feverish figure of a once great elf, trembling on the freezing volcanic rock and curled as best he was able against one corner, hugging his torso in an effort to preserve some body heat.
In Angamando’s dungeons few things could be heard or seen for the scarce inhabitants of that secluded place weren't allowed much light to traverse its endless chambers nor were they too predisposed to make polite conversation. Only the occasional orc guard clearing his throat in the distance or the echo of a painful scream, the begging and cries of other prisoners, broke the monotony of the loud and constant throbs of one's own heart. That is, until the echo of footsteps over the too hard floor, sometimes light, other times heavy, came to announce the beginning of a new, endless day: a form of torture on its own right, one that destroyed the mind as quickly as any of Moriñgotto’s abominations destroyed the body.
His cell had no doors. None did. No doubt a mockery towards his prisoners by the Enemy, an attack on their pride as it festered with helplessness. For there was no need for such a thing in this forsaken place when it was clear to everyone trapped inside that there could be no escape. Not when try after failed try often ended up carrying those who dared defy their imprisonment to fates worse than death, as he had seen. As he had felt.
Not all the Ñoldor that were captured would ever reach Mandos. Not after what had been done to them.
No, in the shadows of the cell there was nothing more to do than to wait for the next day, or for whatever passed as one in such a place of bleak sadness where time itself seemed to stand still, infinite and draining in the soul-crushing wait between isolation and the next entertainment for the Dark Lord. Nothing to do but wait and wait and wait for a miracle, a change of the tide, a glimpse of light. All in a never-ending loop.
The elf knew this. The marks on his skin were proof of the lessons learnt during his stay there: scars, bites, bruises, open wounds and more left by the torture of the Vala and his pets, his instruments of pain, until he got it. The price for such knowledge had been his face, his teeth, his fingernails, fingers and whatever small illusion of freedom he had left but one day, he finally got it and stopped trying.
And so it was that he came to know that true filth came from the soul when corruption made a home in it in its loneliness and pain, and that being filth attracts more filth like bloated, sick rats to rotting corpses. And as a consequence, he discovered that even in a place like Angamando there were good days, bad days and very, very bad days.
For in good days, the elf convinced himself that he was fine with the idea of never gazing upon the stars and open sky again. He dreamt of his little brothers' mourning cries echoing over his empty grave and the lives they would lead without him when they got tired of crying. Being strong, brave and cunning, winning and never finding his disfigured corpse among their enemies.
On bad days, the elf wished to burn in death just like his father before him just so he could destroy the rot clinging to his soul alongside his weak, marred body until it was all ashes. He dreamt of dull eyes and golden hair upon crashing, crimson waves; burning ships and warmth gazes betrayed. On bad days, tortures blended flawlessly with his nightmares as Sauron laughed and laughed and the Silmarils shone with cruel love upon his skin, mounted on the iron crown of him with eyes as black and corrupting as the Void itself…
But in truly bad days, of the many that stacked one over the other endlessly, the elf had the unpleasant revelation that there were still things to learn about the true nature of darkness and all the things hidden in it.
On these days with no Treelight or stars to mark them, he learnt, it was better not to fall asleep. Not to even try.
For on days like these, in the midst of the absolute silence of his cell, he would hear a distant song, a lullaby. A sudden murmur like a deep and long exhale that broke into words, followed by the strong stagnant smell of petrichor and the sweetness of rotten meat. An omen.
The elf’s father had been too quick to place names on their enemies. Foul tyrants they were and abhorred too by all who caught glimpse of their emptiness.
The otherworldly melody reeked of death and desperation, but above all, of ravenous hunger and fury, of power and the desire for it. He ignored if the Lord of Angamando commanded them or had forgotten about their existence, casting them aside when they proved they couldn't satisfy his wishes like a child with a broken toy. If they weren’t just another torment created to tempt him with the ever sweet, ever painful promise of hope.
But just as with hope, he couldn’t stop listening no matter how much he wished they weren’t there any longer, although for entirely different reasons.
Them. Nameless Things, The Hunter in the Dark, One made of Many, they who called themselves Legion. Legendary beings of his grandparents' nightmares, the ones they didn’t like talking about while sober and only did so in whispers. Always there, waiting. Hungry yet patiently waiting for when, in his solitude, his weakness, he summoned them. For when he desired their presence if even for a moment as his wounds stung in his chain-bound wrists and ankles, as his chest inflamed with impotent fury, as his blood-filled mouth craved for vengeance more than it did water while the laughing, mocking voice of the Dark Lord echoed painfully inside his skull until it filled his body and soul with dark, burning and all-encompassing hatred; for when he remembered them and all that their forked tongues promised him.
And then in the darkness, sooner or later, they would come to him.
“Give it to us” sang the abominations softly, sweetly, while he squeezed his eyes and covered his ears with unclean and broken hands in an exhausting effort to keep them out “Give it to us High King, and all that we are shall be yours."
“The fire inside your heart” they whispered to him sometimes in the back of his mind when he was being raped with his father’s face, his mother’s, his brothers', cousins’ and finally Sauron himself when he got tired of pretending and wanted an escape from this prison of his own making; while the elf forced cries of pleasure from his raw, bloodied throat for he had seen the alternative: the empty gaze and needles behind eyes, open skulls and scrambled brains that convinced him to engage on Sauron’s fantasies not wholly unwilling rather than be a victim of their sting.
“The strength in your stride” hummed invisible and impossibly soft lips like a feather’s caress over the burnt tips of his ears as Sauron tore his insides out and stitched him whole together again like a broken doll, his voice raising up in such beautiful chants of healing that the elf wanted to break down in despair before the memory of light, softness and love, now forever out of reach.
“The light in your eyes” they would growl after he was forced to eat his own fried hide in exchange for a quick death to an innocent child, a captured friend or a loyal soldier of his instead of watching as the smiling Enemy, cold and indolent, slowly ripped both their body and soul apart with terrible joy, forcing the sobbing elf to feel it all as his own. The light of the Silmarils, so close yet as distant as his freedom, never failed to bring back the memory of his father’s warmth embrace and stayed shining behind his closed eyelids hours and hours after even as he lay in the dark, allowing himself silent, lonely tears at the memory and wishing for the day he too would be granted death.
“Share with us some of that imperishable flame of yours, oh Son of Fire” murmured a chorus of a million voices against the scarred skin of his neck, planting kisses softer than the flutter of a butterfly’s wing over his thundering pulse just as an almost imperceptible weight settled over his body like a blanket. The overwhelmed elf tried to flee from their touch by pressing himself further against the wall but as always was in Angamando, the effort was little more than a waste of energy.
Tightly closed eyes. Keep quiet. Don’t pay attention. Don’t look. Don't trust the shadows. Beware their song. Do not listen to the Hunter.
Don’t make the same mistake twice.
“Oh Great Elvenking of Bright Burning Flame, pride of its people, Well-formed One, beautiful above all” they whispered, a dozen hands caressing his body with cold fingers and hungry mouths that gave playful bites here and there where there was more than just dead, unfeeling skin, bone and open wounds to receive them.
“We are a miserable people, forsaken by their creator and King. You are a lonely King, forsaken by its Creator and kin. Is there a more perfect match than ours?” they said in adoration “Nobody is coming for you. Your people hate you, oh fallen King, traitor, kinslayer. They curse your name as they die and rot under the soil, under the waves of the sea, at the hands of He Who Rises in Might, not stopping when they reach their Halls, if they reach them… And your brothers?” they laughed, a wet snort against his twisted face “Your brothers know that you are not worth the rescue, they won’t come for you, no, they won’t…”
“Oh, but great Elvenking!” They cried out in ecstasy, kissing his chin, his cheeks, his forehead, his closed eyelids, soothing the wounds of his flayed back with an endless barrage of words and promises “With us you will no longer need to fear the dark, the hunger or the silence. You will be safe, oh lovely creature! You will be strong, oh great warrior! With us you shall make fire rain from the sky, the earth tremble at your command, the sea freeze in obedience and the lightning bend to your will. We know how, yes, yes, we can teach you how to do all this, teach you the Songs… The blood of your enemies shall boil in their veins until it consumes them. With our aid, the mind of your torturers shall break in so many fragments that only the One will be able to make it whole again. You shall mold their flesh like clay and they will be your slaves, yes, we know how it’s done, we’ve seen it happen, we can do it too…”
Loving hands, scarred hands, burningly cold hands moved lightly over the worst of his wounds, his scarce hair, his legs and between them, making him hiss and flinch in fright of the monsters in the dark.
The world before his eyelids then glowed with sickly golden light and he felt something press to his mind's eye as they tried to ooze inside using the frayed strips of the always-bleeding parody of marriage bond forced upon him by Moriñgotto and reach him.
“We can heal you, all of you. We possess the knowledge of how, good Elvenking. We shall move heaven and earth for you, we shall take down the stars from the sky and give them to you in a crown; we shall repair your body and make it beautiful and whole again, free you of the taint, yes, yes, if you command it from us. We will bring you the jewels, your rightful inheritance, back to you. You shall fulfill your Oath. Beleriand shall be yours. Arda shall be yours. Your father himself will bow before you. The King of all elves: bright, wise and free, yes, free and all that come after will know your name and serve you like we will because we are strong, yes, so strong Elvenking, we are strong and old and many and we don’t rest or stop or die and will do whatever you command from us, be whatever you want us to be, make even the Lesser Ones in their Realm of Light across the sea fear your name, yes, oh how much they will fear, if you share your light with us oh Elvenking, just as sip, please…”
A soft caress went over his sides as they pulled his squirming, terrified form closer to their rotting, freezing cold.
“Give us what we want, Elvenking.” Their breath against his lips a puff of humid, putrid air “Share it with us so we can share it between ourselves, warm our bodies with it, bask in its glow, oh make the cold go away, Elvenking! Please feed us, feed us, feed us, oh feed us, how hungry we grow! He Who Rises In Might only gives us but a few scraps now, cannot give more, not enough for all, and He doesn’t share Them with us, and They hate our touch and burn us and we forget-… we-…we forget…"
"But you. Oh, you, Worthy One, hero of the Firstborn, you can satisfy us too. You shine like Them with that fire of yours. Yes, how you shine! Just a sip, a small spark…” they begged, supplicant mouths over his hands trying to coerce them away from the sensible ears “We won’t take much this time, we won’t, we swear we won’t. We understand you now, brave warrior, we felt the pain upon our skin, the tears in our eyes, the blood upon our tongue, the thirst for life. We will show you we too are worthy of it all, oh Elvenking, so worthy and we could show you if only you shared it, let us feel alive, feed us, feed us, oh good Elvenking, please…”
“Silence!” begged the elf, curling further into himself, trying to focus his thoughts and fight against the growing buzzing around his ears, the pressure upon his mind and the increasing pain “Get away from me!”
“The Light, good Elvenking!” exclaimed a frantic voice, a very particular voice, a painfully familiar voice, that made the elf’s heart skip a beat, freezing his insides as it teared a horrified cry from him “The realness. Promise us the glowing fire in your eyes, the scalding breath of your lungs, the pulse in your heart oh Worthy One, let us bask in its light and we shall see your will done. Our loyalty shall be yours and we shall not betray you, we will not, we cannot, no, no, no… We will adore you, worship you, be your shadow, your shield, your terrible hunters in the night, we’ll make you Mighty Arising! You will be powerful Well-Formed One, our Beautiful One, savior of Ñoldor, redeemer of kin, Valar’s Bane! No more fear, no more monsters in the dark, no more loved ones away, Elvenking, only peace if you make us real, be ours and we shall be yours, give it to us-“
“No more!” cried the elf, the golden light blinding and burning against his eyes and heart “No more! Leave me alone!”
“Open your eyes” they sang in a discordant chorus of furious voices, drowning the elf’s terrified scream as their mouths opened over his eyes and tried to suck them out of their sockets, to claw their way into his heart with the desperation of the starved.
“Give us your light, the warm surge of blood that tethers you into this world, the burning fire of life reflected in your shining eyes, give it to us, feed us, open them, open them, open them! OPEN-“
“-YOUR EYES, you pathetic excuse of warg’s shit!” roared Sauron in anger, shining eyes like hot magma and voice like thunder as he forced the fleeing spirit back into his body, forcing the elf’s heart to restart as he poured life into the failing flesh.
The elf finally obeyed the command with a start and a gulp of fetid air, fighting against the Maia’s grip on his chest with the strength born of panic for but a brief second before his thin and weak arms fell tiredly against it, hands still clutching the Maia’s clenched fist as they pressed against his ribs, barely able to feel the heat of the other’s skin against his own or the tingling of electricity as his worn out spirit struggled to connect back fully with its ill-fitted container.
Little more than their labored breaths was heard in the cell as both Maia and elf calmed down from their emotional highs. But then, suddenly and with a speed faster than any of the Firstborn, Sauron grabbed the elf by the throat, hissing in fury.
“You dare try to escape again, my dear guest?” he said darkly “You know full well the consequences of such disrespectful actions.”
“No, n-no, I wasn't- I didn´t-” answered the elf in a frantic voice, too breathless yet to form a full phrase. But it was too late.
Sauron got up from where he was kneeling by the elf’s side, dragging the other one by what was left of his hair. Desperately and driven by pure instinct, the elf tried to fight back and free himself from the grip, but his diminished form could barely lift his arms let alone fight back.
“You die when the Master orders it” spit Sauron with anger “and only then, snaga. If you are so desperate to do so in dreams well… then we just have to make sure you won’t fall asleep any time soon, don’t we?”
“No, plea-sss, no…”
“Now, now, little elfling. You are the one who broke the rules and interrupted my work” the Maia explained with mock kindness in his melodious voice, passing the still burning corpses of two orc guards on the floor without a second glance “it’s only fair I get compensated. Or would you rather I let Gothmog and his minions have a little fun with you first?”
“No, no please…” continued the elf, still fighting, still begging, trying to just make sense of his surroundings and do something as he was dragged from the cell to a far darker place.
But for a moment, something shone yellow and green in the darkness. Something that the Maia’s eyes, shining like beacons on their own and looking in the other direction, missed entirely.
But the elf had been looking. And look he did.
A beautiful, flawless face with flowing red hair and an unmarred, half-formed body with skin as fair as polished marble sprang from the wall like a weed, barely visible; the blood-stained rock now made not from any mineral but a moving mass of twisted and dull-eyed faces, a spiral of broken bodies that reached out to him with twitching hands and deformed fingers, wordlessly offering a promise for a longing satisfied.
The eldest son of Fëanáro choked on his dread.
“What is this? No more screams?” exclaimed Sauron with a laugh, the remaining guards avoiding his gaze as they cowered in fear of him, heads bowed “By all means continue, dearest Nelyafinwë. Your voice is music to my ears”
Centuries later the elf now known as Maedhros, the stoic Lord of Himring, will listen silently as the story of a skin-changer doppelganger comes from the trembling whispers of Amlach’s own mouth as he kneels at his feet.
The Lord of Himring will nod and, with a face scarred and gaze colder than the Ice endured by his kin, will ask the Man to rise, will order his integration into his army and will give him both food and shelter in exchange of sworn, unfaltering loyalty.
The cold fortress will be Amlach's home for the rest of his days.
Maedhros will then later leave his throne room and head towards his chambers with calm steps, where the fire barely manages to illuminate the place, let alone warm it.
He will write a letter to all the lords and ladies of his family, explaining the situation to them.
From them on, all additions to their armies and kingdoms that come from outside will be scrutinized in detail by their lords, all minds probed by spies, all escaped thralls from the North rejected from major settlements until loyalty and mental stability can be proven, and in most cases, not even then. The Lord of Himring will not allow himself to ponder on the irony.
For the Enemy is crafty, silent and resourceful when he wants and to underestimate him could mean disaster.
But for that night, after he finishes his letters, Maedhros will sit next to the fire on his chair, facing the darkest corner with a sword in firm hand, shining grey eyes wide open, unwilling to fall asleep or look away. His scarred ears will catch the echoes of a softly murmured lullaby, a sugar-coated ballad of decay.
And the shadows, ever patient and hungry, will stare back at him and wait.