Fire glowed in Annatar's hands. Snowflakes drifted mournfully down from the skies, they clustered like frigid little stars upon the balcony railing before him, and out into the shadowed gardens of Celebrimbor's house he looked. Countless paper lanterns glowed like gledes of mellow light in the hands of the courtiers dotted through the garden's terraces; one burned alike in his palm, and with the rustle of paper and the hiss of a flare beside him, Celebrimbor returned to his side and set a lit lantern in kind upon the balustrade.

The elf lord's eyes glittered as he stared into the flame, snowflakes frosted the dark braids of his hair, and borne upon the winter breeze the scent of dampened soil caught upon his tongue. Earthy it was, but where once it was fresh, where once it delighted him, now it brought only the sickly tang of decay. Its sweetness clung to the back of his throat, saccharine and nauseating, as sweet almost as Annatar's smile as the Maia leaned a little further over the balcony, Celebrimbor's fur-trimmed cloak clasped about his shoulders and a candle in his hand.

With the wearing of the months, the blight in the soil had seemed only to grow more voracious. An assembly of thaumaturges potent in spells of earth and leaf Celebrimbor had called from all the reaches of Eregion, yet their combined efforts had been fruitless. Their incantations and weed-lore yielded nothing but the sorrows of the earth; the dying gasps of worms and beetles, the paralysis of roots and the withering of leaves, there was nothing but sickness and death left in the lands, but from what foul source the illness took root none could divine.

Celebrimbor's unions were failing. With the Edain lords scattered beyond the Hithaeglir there was little contact, as messengers sent galloping never returned, save in a smear of blood upon the scum of some ailing stream in the haunted gullies of Dunland. Promises and allegiances grew strained; the Hadhodrim of Moria sent what supplies they could lend, but they too were stretched thin in resources. Armed guards escorted barges of fleshy mushrooms and cured meats down the Sirannon, but it was said that Tor Broadbeam wept openly when his prized boars were put to the knife at the command of King Durin, and he cursed the Elves their greed that had sent his beasts to the slaughterhouse, and he would treat with them no more.

Rumours flew throughout the lands, to Gil-galad in his cowering city amid the fens, to Halador in Lond Daer and Alcarin in Fornost, to Oropher in the Greenwood and Galadriel in Lothlórien; monstrous beasts stalked the mountains, black wings hovered upon the horizon, and strange fires danced in the eastern skies with the coming of night.

From Angmar there was silence; a fell reek blew often from the North and Carn Dûm it was said conjured it, a fog that rolled over Rhudaur and the Ettenmoors, and beneath that ghastly blanket walked things that shunned the light of the sun. The ravens grew thick upon the roofs of Ost-in-Edhil, fat and glutted upon the carcasses of men and beasts they cawed upon the spires of Celebrimbor's house, and their patrol of the skies was ceaseless. Messenger hawks were torn from the winds; the ravens plucked from Ost-in-Edhil its eyes and left them to stumble on blind in the midst of an oncoming cataclysm. Ghâsh, ghâsh, they cawed to Annatar by the veiled light of the moon, fire; rumbles in the earth, in the East, blood and bone; and to them Annatar hearkened.

His enchantments grew strong, his cunning yet blacker; he set his pestilence into the hallowed soils of Celebrimbor's garden and he revelled in their withering. The evergreen pines sickened, and the city despaired as they shed their dying needles in great shivers, leaving their branches scraped bare like ghastly bones stripped of flesh.

Amid the naked pines now Celebrimbor's courtiers stood, and as their lanterns grew hot they tugged against the ribbons that bound them fast to their bearers. Niquilissëa, the month of snow, was come, and as the heavens were marred with gloomy, ice-laden clouds, so the people of Ost-in-Edhil had taken to the streets with paper lanterns in hand, to place the stars back into the sky and to send prayers and supplications of goodwill to Elentári and Súlimo upon their white thrones in the West.

Upon the balustrade Celebrimbor's lantern strained at its tethers, and Annatar's too, and patiently the Maia awaited Celebrimbor to ready himself. It was tradition, the elf had told him weeks before, to offer prayer written upon the lantern's paper, and tersely Annatar had nodded. A quaint gesture, he judged it, impotent; there was only one being in Ëa's bounds whom he should ever seek to deify, and he was no merciful kindler of the stars. Yet a prayer still Annatar had written, childish as it had seemed, in scratched glyphs almost as tengwar made corrupt they curled about his lantern's surface, and as Celebrimbor's gaze wandered over them now he found that he could not read them, and a discomforting shiver flickered up his spine.

But quickly that shiver was banished as Annatar looked to him, it was replaced with a thrill of a far more visceral nature. For so lovely and golden Annatar stood, a mellifluous smile upon his lips and Celebrimbor's own cloak framed so handsomely across his shoulders that it near stole the breath from the elf's lungs. The fall of Annatar's golden hair across its cobalt blue quilt was so exquisite, he thought, yet better it should be curled into his fist, it should be twined through his fingers as Annatar kissed him, it should be spilled across his thighs as Annatar's lips closed about his aching, yearning length –

"You are quite readied, my lord?"

Abruptly Celebrimbor was jerked from such pleasurable thoughts, and at the mischievous glimmer in Annatar's eyes he cleared his throat hurriedly. "I am, thank you."

Gathering himself to his full height then he raised a hand to his assembled courtiers for silence, and in a loud, clear voice said: "In these uncertain times, my friends, let us give prayer to the Lady Elentári, and to the Lord Súlimo atop Oiolossë in the West. May they keep watch over us as the shadows grow long, and the cold nights of Niquilissëa draw in."

With that he unclasped his lantern from its tethers, gently he pushed it skywards, and Annatar did also, and the courtiers, and the city beyond the high walls of his garden, until upon a sudden it seemed as if he and Annatar were caught adrift upon a bobbing, swirling sea of light, and how his heart ached to see it. For so beautiful Annatar was illumined in their radiance, resplendent in their glow and so ardently Celebrimbor wished to just reach forward and hold him, to kiss him, to blur away his troubles into Annatar's golden aura and to simply fall apart in him. But swiftly he severed such temptations: the dark ripples of his past improprieties sounded still in his mind, and ever they tormented him. Annatar's flirtations were as claws dragged through a glistening wound, and with the turn of the weeks and the fraying of other tempers, it was so hard to keep himself from coming unravelled.

A heartsick sigh he breathed into the night, upon his elbows he leant forward upon the balcony, and he let the chilled stone help to cool the unwise hotness in his blood. At the lanterns he gazed; they blurred and flickered and smudged like fiery little stars across the clouded skies, and though his own was long since lost in the aerial mêlée, Annatar's he tracked through the swirl.

It burned a little brighter than all the rest, a little more greedily: stronger, and redder.

At last Celebrimbor's gaze slipped away, his mind turned to darker things, yet his cheeks slowly began to colour as he felt Annatar's auric gaze turn to rest upon him. Coyly the Maia regarded him, almost softly, and in a rare act of intimacy he slunk a little closer to Celebrimbor's side. Slowly, teasingly, he danced his fingers across the frosty balustrade upon which they leaned; he drew a spider-like waltz across the back of Celebrimbor's hand, and so deliciously the elf lord flinched as Annatar's fingers first grazed over his knuckles.

"You are troubled, my lord?" Thick and honeyed the words poured forth, and Celebrimbor near whimpered with sudden desire as he felt Annatar's warm fingers tease his fist open, as they wove between his own chilled ones and playfully squeezed.

"These nights, they… they grow dark in my eyes, Annatar," he murmured; the soft, insistent stroke of Annatar's thumb up the side of his palm was so maddeningly exquisite, and unbidden he felt the first true flush of arousal tremble through his innards.

"There is light still, my lord," the Maia purred, his handsome chin tilted and the distant glow of the lanterns shone like pinpricks of effervescent fire against his irises. "In the vaults of Vaiya and the skeins of Ilmen, there is light, and there is power. Beyond them still, in Avakúma; there are those who sung themselves not into the tapestry of Arda in the Beginning, and there are those unjustly stricken from it…"

Annatar's voice was mesmerising, his words hardly seemed to matter save for the wonder of his tone. A lazy strand of hair wafted across his throat with the breeze, it lay so tantalisingly against a glimpse of bare skin there, and in that moment something cramped in Celebrimbor's stomach; repressed desires and simmering lusts tipped over only into impulsion. His hand slipped from Annatar's grasp, he turned and reached forwards, upwards, he cared no longer for consequence as he pushed back that errant strand of hair. Along Annatar's jaw his fingers traced; a quirk of some indeterminate emotion played upon the Maia's lips but to him it was haunting only in its beauty.

"Will you come to bed with me, Annatar?"

Duskily the words flowed from him; lust weaved its violent way through them, and heedless of the reply he pressed himself forward, he held Annatar to him and planted a deep, hot kiss upon his neck.

"Please, Annatar," he breathed, almost reverent in his sacrilege as he trailed a constellation of kisses up the Maia's throat, over the side of his jaw. "Please…"

Something about Annatar seemed to sharpen then, the Maia made to feint away but desperately Celebrimbor held him, clasped to him, and thoughts of lust curdled within his blood. For all too swiftly it seemed yet another refusal, another cruel spurn in the litany of hurt which Annatar inflicted upon him. All that he had done, he thought bitterly, all that he had ever done was for him, to please him, to make him laugh, to make him smile, and all he was ever left with was the sour taste of ingratitude upon his tongue. It was unjust, he thought; anger moiled in his stomach and his grip tightened upon Annatar's neck, his left hand crept to the Maia's waist and held him fast. It was unfair; he was Annatar's lord, he wanted him, he deserved him, and -

The quick, darting kiss that Annatar pressed to his lips sent the air whistling from his lungs.

"Let us go, my lord," the Maia whispered, his voice smooth as thickest cream, and all the more treacherous for it. Avarice burned in his eyes, tender and sly, and how that greed set Celebrimbor aflame to see it. Lust kindled from the dying embers of hurt and suffused him with its potency, victory sang through his veins as their lips met once more in a deep, longing kiss, as he took Annatar by the hand and near wrenched him through the doors of his house.

How pitifully the elf panted for him, Annatar sneered, as with the utmost of self-control he allowed himself to be pulled through the noble house. How base, how carnal his desires he thought kept repressed, and how painfully easy they were to manipulate. The leisure in it was almost unsporting, Annatar mused; a tilt of his hips, a flirtatious little grin and the elf would be on his knees simply begging for his touch. Still, he pondered, a scowl of displeasure flitted over his face as Celebrimbor yanked him around a corner; he was never much a partaker in sporting chance.

Far better to have his enemies eviscerated, and leave them drooling their entrails across the floor.

The slamming of the bedchamber door behind him interrupted such bracing thoughts, and Celebrimbor whirled to hold him once more, to place a deep kiss upon his lips. The elf's hands fumbled with the clasps of his cloak, with the buttons of his doublet, careless in his eagerness, and how Annatar grudged him his pleasure. A swell of puissance he sent crackling through the room, the elf moaned as it gripped him; Annatar's tongue swirled against his own and it tasted like metal, corrupt and rusted and sublime.

So tempting were Annatar's hands upon him, so teasing were the fingers that slid beneath his shirt, that toyed with the lacings upon his breeches as he grinded his hips forward, and with each pass of Annatar's hands upon him Celebrimbor's breath came more heavily. A gasp of pleasure he punched down the Maia's throat as finally Annatar's grip slid lower, as he palmed him through the soft leather of his breeches, and a lewd grin spread over his face as he felt his stiffened length so wondrously stroked.

"Strip for me, my lord," Annatar murmured, a swell of puissance he threw behind his words and blindly, urgently, Celebrimbor scrambled to comply. Stately robes were shrugged to the floor until naked and wanting he stood before the Maia; lust twisted in his stomach and he lunged forward to press a savage kiss upon Annatar's lips. Viciously he groped over the Maia's waist, over his arse, but with a seething pulse of power he was rebuffed; Annatar's eyes narrowed vindictively as the elf was forced back a pace, and then another.

An awful sneer curled over the Maia's lips as he flipped Celebrimbor about, as one hard push sent the elf lord toppling face-first upon the bedcovers, and before Celebrimbor had even the slightest chance to recover himself his hands were snatched out from beneath him. A sharp breath of surprise ripped out of his throat as Annatar bound his hands together at the small of his back with a short length of the lantern's ribbon, but only as the bonds cut tightly, too tightly, into his wrists did he begin to writhe.

"Such a naughty little lordling," Annatar crooned, his voice severed Celebrimbor's mounting protest as a flash of puissance stung its pleasurable, painful way over the elf's skin. Desperately Celebrimbor writhed, but a sharp slap to the back of his thigh brought him up short, it sent a squeal of pain into the bedclothes and miserably he stilled as the Maia's voice thickened. "Such boldness, my lord. You grasp for rewards that you do not deserve."

"No," Celebrimbor whimpered; he flinched and moaned as Annatar raked his nails over his arse, as pink abrasions blossomed over the sensitive skin of his thighs. "No, no, I didn't… I didn't mean it…"

"Hush now," the Maia cooed, he scratched three white furrows over the rising welt upon Celebrimbor's thigh and he thrilled in the elf's bleats of discomfort. "Hush, my lord, lest you spoil my indulgence. For you have been such a good little lordling of late, have you not? So brave in the face of adversity, so loyal in your friendships when they would only see you betrayed… How cruel of me to deny you what so ardently you crave."

A gasp shook over the elf's lips as Annatar pinched him; shameful, delicious heat flushed through his stomach as he felt his arse redden under Annatar's capricious fingers.

"Please, please, Annatar, I – "

Fingers knotted suddenly through Celebrimbor's hair, positioned fully upon the bed now Annatar hauled the elf up, and joy blazed in his heart as the elf's knees scrabbled for balance as he held him close. Celebrimbor's hands flexed helplessly within their bonds, the ribbon dug reddened grooves into his wrists as he sank back into Annatar's chest. He blushed as he felt his arse tighten, as Annatar's thigh pushed against the sore flesh there, as the Maia forced his legs to open so crudely and left him kneeling there so deliciously splayed.

Scarcely did he dare to look as Annatar's attention wandered for an instant, he caught only a glimpse of spiralling ribbon before it was drawn tightly across his eyes, and his sight was taken from him. He moaned as Annatar tightened the knots, he tugged fruitlessly against his bonds, but how pleasurably he shivered as the Maia's breath flushed over his neck.

"Much better, my lord," Annatar crooned. "On your knees, where you belong."

The beginnings of a protest welled up in his throat, but they melted away into a mewl of pleasure as Annatar's hand ghosted over his ribs, as cunning fingers brushed agonisingly over his nipples, and a hollow keen echoed out of his chest as such tender flesh was slowly coaxed to engorgement. With such predatory purpose Annatar toyed with him, the Maia turned upon the bed to kneel directly before him, and a half-swallowed cry of ecstasy shuddered through him as Annatar's tongue flicked over his left nipple. The Maia rolled it between his teeth, a livid blush mottled up Celebrimbor's neck as he moaned, as heat prickled over his skin, and desperately he arched his hips forward, he pressed his aching length towards any form of contact he could grasp.

Annatar's thigh pressed between his legs and wantonly he spread them, finally Annatar's hand slipped to his groin and with an unflattering groan of relief Celebrimbor thrust his drooling length into his palm, he slicked Annatar's fingers in pre-come as flagrantly, urgently he rolled his hips forward.

Humiliation blistered through him at the Maia's soft, disdainful laugh, but he simply moaned out his arousal as Annatar's fingers closed about his length, as they began to coax him harder.

"Oh… Annatar, oh… ohhh…"

"Shh, my lord," the Maia crooned, he trailed his words through a series of hot, lapping kisses across Celebrimbor's clavicle. "It's all right, it's all right now…"

"P-please," the elf gasped, he rutted himself into Annatar's teasing fingers and in that debasement he found only delight. "Oh, oh fuck…"

"Shh, Tyelpë, shh. That's it. That's it, sweetling…"

A strangled cry Celebrimbor keened into Annatar's shoulder, his wrists strained within their bonds as every muscle in him clenched in pleasure.

"Am I not so generous to you, my lord?" The words came sweet and delicate over Annatar's lips, and caught so precariously upon the treacherous shores of lust Celebrimbor was helpless in his reply. "Am I not so kind?"

"Y-yes, Annatar, oh, oh fuck, f-fuck…"

"I should sew up your lips, sweetling, to stop such filth from slipping over them. But how then would you beg, I wonder?"

A grunt of delight punched up to the ceiling as Annatar's grip tightened by a fraction; Celebrimbor's back arched, and a grimace of such excruciating pleasure contorted his features as Annatar stroked him, coaxed him.

"Yet never would I abuse what is so precious to me. For I am so tender with you, am I not, my lord?"

"Yes…" Celebrimbor gasped, he slammed his length into Annatar's waiting fingers and in the throes of lust he was torn apart. "Yes, Annatar, oh, f- "

"I am so gentle…"

A wordless keen of affirmation tore out of the elf's throat, thin and desperate.

"For you love me, do you not, my lord?"

"Yes," Celebrimbor croaked; passion tumbled the words from his lips and how slickly, how victoriously Annatar smiled. "Y-yes…"

"Then come for me, my lord."

A groan erupted from Celebrimbor's throat as Annatar's fingers flexed, as a burst of puissance crackled over him and ripped from him his delight. Every muscle in him clenched as ecstasy slammed through him, shook him, drowned him, he spurted his seed into Annatar's fingers and he mewled with the sheer bliss of it. Because all through his climax Annatar was there, close and golden and wonderful he was holding him, helping him, coaxing from him the last ounce of burning pleasure until at last such vicious ardours slipped from him.

Low upon his knees Celebrimbor slumped, his thighs trembled as the last rills of climax fluttered through him, panting and blind he knelt as he sensed Annatar shift before him. For how Annatar grinned, though the elf's filth coated his fingers how swiftly that might be remedied, and capriciously he raised his seed-slickened fingers to Celebrimbor's lips.

The elf balked as he felt his cream daubed across his mouth, he clamped his jaw shut and shook his head in refusal, but with quick pinch of his nipple such feeble protests came undone. A cry of pain sprang from him, it melded into a whimper of degradation as once more Annatar raised his fingers, as he painted them over Celebrimbor's mouth, and though he shuddered with the humiliation of it, at last Celebrimbor parted his lips in earnest. Shame twisted in his innards as he licked his seed from Annatar's fingers like some well-trained little dog, as the Maia savoured every wince and quiver of humiliation in it; it was vile, Celebrimbor thought, it was debased, and he gagged as he tasted himself upon his tongue.

Quickly though it was over, Annatar wiped a disdainful hand down across his chest and began to move away when clarity finally began to pierce through the hazy muddle of his thoughts. As if he could dislodge the ribbon that blinded him he shook his head, his shoulders wriggled as he fought against the bonds that held his wrists, and with a demanding edge crept back into his voice he bleated, "Annatar… Annatar, my hands…"

"Quiet now, my lord," came the soft reply, and the first tremor of worry shivered through Celebrimbor's heart.

"But -"

He flinched as the Maia's hands caressed him, as gently Annatar turned him and forced him to lie down upon his side, and snugly Annatar pressed to him. His back and bound arms crushed uncomfortably into the Maia's chest, his fingers twitched weakly against Annatar's stomach as with such false tenderness the Maia cradled him.

"Annatar, wait – "

He yelped as Annatar pinched his nipple, hard; as best as he could he wriggled as he felt the Maia arise and lean over him.

"You do so struggle with the concept of obedience, don't you, Tyelpë?"

"No…"

An exasperated sigh was breathed above him, something trailed up over his naked body, ticklish in its lightness, and Celebrimbor shivered as it wandered over his skin.

"Perhaps a little reinforcement, then," the Maia crooned. "For disobedient little lords must learn their place."

More purposefully now Celebrimbor felt that thing slip over his chin, he felt Annatar grip it in earnest, and desperately he squirmed away from that increase in pressure.

"Wait! Wait, I didn't… I… I don't want this…"

The Maia's tone was airy, but all the more cutting in his response. "Have you ever considered, Tyelpë, that life is not always about what you want?"

Tightly that thing, the ribbon Celebrimbor realised to his dismay, was pulled against his lips, painfully tight, and though he grunted and twisted against it, his lips began to whiten with the force Annatar was exerting at last he opened his mouth to accept it.

"Very good, my lord," Annatar purred; Celebrimbor's protest was muted to a mortifying simper that sounded almost grateful as the gag was pulled cruelly tight against the corners of his mouth, and Annatar fastened the knot securely at the back of his head.

"You see," he whispered; scorn dripped from his teeth as lightly, possessively he kissed Celebrimbor upon the cheek. "Obedience is not so hard, in the end. It is not so terrible..."

A flash of power extinguished the candles that dotted about the bedchamber, and swathed in darkness they lay together. Annatar clasped the bound elf lord to him, and such black, gluttonous merriment thrummed through his heart as he felt Celebrimbor shiver and squirm through all the long hours of the night.


Three days later Annatar announced his intent to leave Ost-in-Edhil, and oh how the elf lord whinged about it. It was prudent, Annatar explained, with every ounce of his thinning patience reined tightly in check he expounded upon the fictitious reasons for his departure. He would be better able to assess the cause of this blight from outside of the city's walls, he said soothingly, better he would be able to apply his earth-lore to the sickening lands, in urgency redoubled than any industrial works that he had a part in. He could make safe the haunted passes of Hollin, he could scourge from them this unseen evil, for revealed in his power who in these lands had the power to stand against him, a Maia of Aulë's halls come in the youth of his might.

Stoically Corannon supported his claims, and Iskandar and Gilthariel also, though if any spoke with more oblique motives for his departure then they kept such yearnings private. Yet for the sense in his words and the pressings of his council Celebrimbor stalled, he protested, he whined; Annatar was needed here, he argued, at the council table, at his forge as loremaster in the Gwaith-i-Mírdain's halls, but as he was met with his council's increasingly disparaging glances, and Annatar's firm will to depart, the first coals of bitterness kindled in his heart.

Annatar was his, he thought acridly, the Maia's place was at his side, in his bed, on his knees with his pretty lips wrapped around his cock and adoration shining in his eyes, and jealousy gnawed at his heart when it was suggested otherwise. It was yet another failing, yet another spurn, and it twisted his thoughts where reason should have led. For even as his council muttered their assent to Annatar's wish, gently Corannon had drawn him aside, and in an alcove of the council chambers had spoken the warning of his heart.

"He is not good for you, Tyelpë," Corannon had murmured with nothing but sincerity in his dark eyes. "And you are not good for him. You should let him go, for a time."

"What business is it of yours?" Celebrimbor snapped, perhaps more venomously than he intended, and guilt washed through him as Corannon recoiled slightly.

"You are my sovereign, my lord," Corannon implored, "and ere this age had begun you have been counted among my dearest of friends. Annatar also has grown fond to me, for many has been the time where we have spoken in friendship amongst the forges, and many a time he has aided me where I have faltered. I speak then for the benefit of you both, and for the benefit of this realm also. Forgo your claim upon him, Tyelpë, for in it there is poison. Something festers there, in him or in you I know not, but it is there, and even if you cannot or will not see it, do not think me blind. Let him go, let him aid you in dissuading this blight as he is confident that he can, and upon his return we shall see what might come to pass."

An ugly grimace contorted Celebrimbor's face; though Corannon's words were spoken gently he sensed nothing but injury in them.

"He is needed here," the lord said forcefully, "not abandoned to the wilds of Eregion. There are works scarce begun that he must aid in: the Three I have but conceived of and their intendeds grow wanting. I would not so frivolously cast him aside upon a wild claim of healing this blight. I would not see him departed from this city, not now, not ever…"

"Then you would bind him here?" Corannon's voice grew sharp in turn; repugnance blossomed in his heart as he glimpsed the clamouring light behind Celebrimbor's eyes. "His intentions to leave seem adamant, and you would deny him this? I took you not for a slaver, my lord, though I should not envy your attempt to fetter him."

"Your envies are needless!" Celebrimbor snarled. "Annatar is mine to command as I see fit, as are you, Corannon. Remember that, lest your tongue run too hotly!"

A haughty smirk caught over Celebrimbor's lips, he made to leave, but in that moment frustration blazed brighter in Corannon's heart than deference, and as his lord turned to depart he seized him by the arm. He yanked Celebrimbor's sleeve upwards, he exposed to the grim light of day the circlet of purpled bruises that ringed Celebrimbor's wrist like a shackle, those bloodied marks like stains of sin pressed into his skin.

A cry of indignation forced itself from Celebrimbor's lips, he tried to wrench himself free of Corannon's impudent grip, but the smith was resolute, and at last Celebrimbor's gaze was forced to the injuries that Annatar had left upon him.

"It is my duty," Corannon began sorrowfully, "to protect you from harm, my lord. This is what my loyalty means, both as your bondsman and as your friend. And my ambivalence in this matter has reached its end. I will not stand passively by as you are abused, nor as you abuse him. I will not turn my face from this as the others do, no longer, and you may not command it of me."

Fury danced in Celebrimbor's eyes, he snatched his arm back and with a despairing sigh Corannon released him. Wreathed in brittle silence then they stood, Celebrimbor yanked his sleeve back down, but no longer would he look Corannon in the eye.

A curl of some black emotion played over his lips, but even as the silence began to sicken, ruefully Corannon said, "You should let him go, my lord. You should let him go, for I say that the evils of his passing will be lesser than those of his staying."


At dawn, Annatar rode. Upon a fiery bay stallion he was mounted, his bow slung across his back and a quiver of arrows at his knee, and a skinning knife hung from the belt buckled over his leather armour. Curtly Celebrimbor had dismissed him, had bidden him return swiftly when his task was done, and his hurt was plain as a razor slashed through his skin. Graciously though Annatar had smiled, he had bowed his head respectfully, and with every ounce of his willpower he stamped down the glee that bubbled in his heart as he turned his back upon the elf lord in his high chair, as he ripped free the veiled pretences of friendship and set swift spurs to his horse.

Down the cobbled road before Ost-in-Edhil's white walls it surged, and how Annatar laughed as its thundering hooves bore him away from the city; away from its claustrophobic halls and sycophantic niceties, away from those who would seek only to possess him, to use him, to tear him apart and string him through their vain ambitions. With every stride away from that accursed place his mood lightened, he gave the horse its head and bade it fly, and as he was enveloped into the gullies and crags of the hills his mood grew changed, lighter and yet fey.

Due south through Dunland he rode, he trusted to the surefootedness of his mount as they wound through the narrow vales of that land, and the horse served him well. By night he sheltered in what caves he could espy amid the rugged terrain, and his horse whickered and snorted fearfully at the howls that tore through the darkness with the rising of the moon. Joyously he listened to his creatures baying out their hatred, and about his campfires made luxurious use of the Elven provisions with which he was outfitted, and he slept to the lull of that macabre chorus. Upon the fifth day he joined the North-South Road, and along its track made good pace southwards, though none he encountered in all those long miles save for slain oxen and ruined carts left to spoil in ditches by the wayside. At the Fords of Isen he tarried a day; he replenished his dwindling supplies from the herds of fallow deer that roamed the marshes, and with filled waterskins and a rested horse then he turned east, and ventured across the trackless plains of Rohan.

The Ondló he forded only by the steel of his will; his horse shied at the rushing waters of the river that climbed near to its withers, and long he laboured to persuade it to dare the current. North then drew his path, in a wide semi-circle to skirt the morass of rock and forest that heralded the Anduin's eastern banks, for he would make that crossing over the sluggish meanders that lay leagues to the north of the Falls of Rauros. Southeast then he turned, across the desolate plains of those nameless lands until with the barren outcrops of the Emyn Muil upon his right he finally spied the bulk of the Ered Lithui, and how their black spires delighted him.

Across the lifeless, acrid lands that swept before Udûn's maw he spurred his weary horse, and as the shadows of the Ash Mountains to the east and the Ephel Duath in the south darkened the soil beneath his mount's hooves, gladly he looked upwards, and he bade it give what of its last strength it could. Its efforts rewarded him well, for across the narrow cleft of the two mountain ranges spanned his gate of burnished steel and riven iron; the Black Gate, the Morannon that bridged the gaping maw of his lands and barred them from idle entry. Slabs of metal jutted like grotesque teeth from its parapet some sixty feet high, flares burned beyond them and ballistae were winched taut in their hollows, and as he drew near a throaty trumpet blared its challenge.

His horse reared and shied at the tumult, but with a soothing hand upon its neck he clamed it, he bade it walk forward though with every step it quailed and threatened to bolt from beneath him. Finally its bold nerve failed, it squealed and sweated grievously before those terrible gates and would go no further, and though it fretted beneath him Annatar arose in his stirrups, and in a loud, clear voice he cried, "The lord of these lands is returned to you, servants mine! Throw open these gates and be merry! Burzum durbat, agh dûm skát."

Darkness rules, and doom has come, he called, for those were the watchwords laid down upon his departure, the words strained for by every hoary ear that guarded the borders of his realm. A moment's silence passed, but then a great ululation arose from the parapet, and from beyond Annatar heard the roar of trolls goaded into motion, and the turning of colossal cranks, and as torches and flares burst into new light behind metal guards, the gates were wrenched open before him.

Upon the straight, dusty road through the plain of Udûn he forced his horse to march, and though it shied and pranced at every fall of rock or trumpet call that blared behind him, without incident he reached the fortress at the Isenmouthe some hours later. A flock of squalling crebain swooped low overhead as he approached its ramparts, they whirled and splintered under the gloomy skies, bearing the joyous tidings of their lord's return from the Gate to all the shadowed realms of Mordor, and all rejoiced at the news as it reached them.

The fires of Orodruin grew turbulent and impatient as he switched horses at the Isenmouthe, as gladly he was feasted and outfitted by the uruk captains stationed there. Yet within the day he pressed onwards, and as a brooding night fell in Mordor he galloped down the smooth orc-road to his tower, the Dark Tower, Barad-dûr resplendent in its dark majesty, and his eyes lit up with wonder as it reared up from the low plains of Gorgoroth. As a mighty pillar of malice it stood, black and impenetrable upon a jagged prominence of rock, unparalleled in terror and fierce in its malice, and as he crossed the great bridge before its main gates a banner was unfurled in triumph from a high window, a cloth bearing his red eye upon a sable field, the Eye of Sauron come again to rule these ashen lands. A great cry took up as he cantered into the entrance hall, drums pounded and all bowed low to their lord, for hot and wicked was their joy as he was enveloped once more into their number, and raised above them all.

All had gone smoothly in the years of his absence, he later learned, having explored his newly constructed chambers at the very pinnacle of the fortress and finding them more than satisfactory. Decadently they were outfitted, he thought, and fondly he appraised them as he languished within the sulphuric waters of a bath that some cowering tower-slave had drawn for him, and with no matter so pressing that it could not wait for the pallid morning, gratefully he retired to his bed.

With the filth of the road washed away, and the breaking of a dust-smeared dawn beneath the broil of Orodruin's fume, he called his ruling council to conclave. The coalition that he had left in command during his absence had performed their duties with efficiency beyond expectation, he was most pleased to learn, and under his appointed triumvirate Mordor had flourished.

Completion of Barad-dûr, and many other minor fortifications across Mordor's countless strongholds were completed months ahead of schedule, snarled Thargal, and his piggish eyes lit up with pride as Annatar praised him his efforts. Lame in one leg from an unwise skirmish, the orc would be naught but a burden upon the field of battle, but sharp was his mind, and ingenious his designs, and his skill among Udûn's engineers had grown to eclipse all others, and it had spared him from the cull. The mines wormed into the Ephel Duath voraciously, he growled, the pendulous bird-bones that hung from his ears clacked and chattered with each twitch of his head; the lands were made rich in iron, copper, and coal. The watchtowers upon the Morgai were strengthened, and many more under construction, and the fortresses upon the Sea of Nurnen's black sands were grown mighty indeed.

Zîmir spoke next; an ashen-skinned Edain sold to Mordor by the Witchocracy of Khand in tribute, yet openly Zîmir had renounced his slavery, and pledged his true allegiance to the Black Lands long ago. In his soft, lecherous voice he told of black thaumaturgy that had forced Nurn's fields of wheat, barley, and rice to opulent fruition, that the slaves hauled great nets of thrashing fish from the Sea's deathly waves, and scrabbled in the dirt for the tuberous vegetables that were cultivated in those lands. Massive surplus their stores possessed in meats and grains, and along the Thorned Road that wound through secret tunnels in the far south of the Ephel Duath they were augmented moreover by trade with Khand and the warring tribes of Harad. Spices and mining craft were bandied along those shadowed passages, and emissaries had been sent forth even to Rhûn in the East bearing messages of goodwill, and gifts of artifices forged in the fires of Orodruin that were beyond count of coin. Favourably Annatar looked upon such endeavours, and he resolved to meet again with Zîmir and review the accounts in far more detail, when lastly he turned to Korakh.

Grey hairs tufted from the elderly uruk's head, who despite his age was more adept in military command than any upon Arda's shores, and none now were more trusted and loved in Annatar's regard. Centuries had turned since that ugly day when dragons roared and mountains toppled, when what was most precious to him was torn away, when Korakh had clamped his clawed hand about his wrist and dragged him from the ravening. None were more faithful in those uncertain years after, and with the struggling turn of the decades friendship had grown fast between them. The orcs were legion, Korakh reported; in the breeding grounds blistered into the slimy bellies of the mountains rank upon rank of uruk and orc were dug from their artificial chrysalides, in gouts of alchemical embryonic fluid they were birthed bellowing their bloodlust to the world. Trolls spawned in those caverns also, ranks of the Edain marched upwards from the South herding mûmak and horned buffalo, and creatures yet fouler were bred and nursed with reeking meats in shadowed pits beneath the mountains. All were loyal to Mordor's banner, all would follow the Red Eye and ceaseless was their lust for war, and mightily Annatar praised Korakh for his leadership in these matters.

To battle the conversation turned, and before the week was out the war-council was summoned, and Mordor's dread captains were summoned to Barad-dûr. From the gates of the Morannon came Múgog Stenchbringer, Udûn's champion, and met with the hulking orc was Lommur of the Knives, commander of the fortifications at the Isenmouthe. From the Morgai came Snagbur Sharathroq, who split the bones of his victims and supped from their skulls, and Ratask the Crafty, and from the furthest watchtowers of the East came Takra and Burzna, twinned blood-mages puissant in witchcraft and sorcery. From the lands of Nurn marched the Boneweaver with a gleaming ring upon his finger, and from the southern-most plains of that land came Tzaran Mûmak-shakh borne in a lavish palanquin atop one of his tusked beasts.

Together they sat in council, and with Annatar they planned their war. Troop mobility and siege capabilities were discussed and discarded, legions of men and uruks were set marching up the great orc roads to marshal upon the empty plateaus of Gorgoroth, and as the machinations of war turned to momentous progress, Annatar at last took leave from the councils.

His heart was set on a prize far greater.

With the turning of the month at last he came to his great foundries within the hidden chambers of Orodruin, and the mountain smoked and churned in gladness at his return. The crash of iron hammers and the sizzle of quenched metal rang in his ears; fell voices cried and stones were split asunder over dread artifices of engineering beyond the ken of mortal minds. Fondly he beheld their clamour, their passion and their fury as blades were smelted, and shields beaten, and engines fuelled; he looked upon the turgid flows of molten rock that writhed like tortured serpents through the veins of the earth and he felt the promise of their power elate him. The roar of the magma prickled in his blood, its incandescent glow bathed him in a ruddy light and he yearned for it, and it for him. For here in centuries past he had poured forth his power, he had bled the mingled powers of his own spirit and of that far more fey into the bones of the earth, into the volcano's molten heart, and the power that then he had wielded had scarred the stones in its wrath. Ash-blasted was his furnace carved out of living rock, scorched and pitted was his forge, and everywhere fragments of his power crawled, throbbed, burned, and to himself now he drew back that power.

Cinders flurried, naked magma seethed and bubbled, the shadows warped and blurred into mutant ghosts of pain and horror as he called forth the blackest essence of his spirit; from his body he drew it, from the heats of the lava he summoned it, from ash and stone and fire he ripped it and the earth groaned in its agony as it surged forth at his will. His cruelty he saw played before him, his malice, his power, everything that had ever bound him or bloodied him and everything that he hated; black words scorched over his tongue as he said them but still they poured; slaughters, revelries, crunching bones and the wet lave of tongues, every hurt, every fuck, every betrayal, every hot, hurting thrust of flesh into flesh he took and he crushed and he tore and he set alight in the oils of his treachery, and Orodruin vomited out its hatred as he stole its heats and with them he forged.

He dared a feat of smithcraft that would have Fëanáro himself drooling his envy into the blackest realms of the Void, and set the Valar themselves trembling on their gilded thrones. A ring he forged, into a stock of purest gold he bound his black spell, he smelted them together in the livid magma that spat and broiled in its anger, magic and metal he sealed together until cherry red and smoking he pulled it from the volcano's fires. Throbbing with energy he set it upon his anvil, a solid punch he placed atop the glowing stock and with a mighty spell clove it through the gold, he rived from the hissing metal a hollow band, and the rest he sheared away. Evil crawled across the walls of his forge as he rolled it, dissonant shreds of malevolence clamoured and clawed for the terror of the thing that he held within his palm, for the horror of the spell that poured still from his cracked, bleeding lips, yet still he spoke, and those stray malices were tethered screaming and squalling into that band of metal, until at last his spell was done.

Seamless and potent the burnished band of gold lay upon his palm, through red-rimmed eyes he beheld it, he watched as a fiery script blazed across its inner surface, and blood and charred flesh sloughed from his lips as he grinned. Aloft he held it, the Ring, his Ring, the One Ring to rule them all, and as he placed it victorious upon his forefinger, the words clove through him.

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,

Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

The foundations of the mountains quailed; tremors shuddered through the earth as Orodruin heaved, as a gout of flame and rock and smoke spewed from its mouth, as it blasted its malevolence and its power into the fouled skies. And such power flowed through Annatar then; raw and burning his own spirit crashed back into him renewed, redoubled in its ferocity, its tenacity, yowling, hammering, devouring, it seemed to scourge through his veins, it gripped him and it rent him and it changed him, it cradled him within his own evil and it forged him anew. It stripped something away from him, and into that void it poured only flames, and hatred.

For such was the glory and power of his spirit as he strode back through Barad-dûr's gates that captains and thralls alike fell upon their faces before them, they grovelled and made their fawning obeisance until he bade them rise, and like marionettes jerked upon their strings they obeyed. Annatar was come among them once more in might renewed and unchallengeable, and yet they saw that he was changed. No longer was he proud Mairon of old in Arda's youth, Gorthaur was burned away; Sauron now he was to them and so would ever be, Lord of the Dark Tower and Lord of the Ring, and so they proclaimed him, and the drums pounded to a terrible crescendo as once more he sat upon his dread throne and filled the lands with shadow.

The thin veneer of Annatar still he clasped across himself, and he repaired what fraying edges of it were left reeling by his spellcraft. Gold and handsome still he seemed, fair as a dream of summer and fickle to match, pure save for the redness that now ringed his eyes, for the auric striae of his irises were looped by a writhing, burning band of crimson that no sorcery could fully erase. And let it be so, he decreed, for no longer would he bow, no longer need he assume the guise of some simpering Maia of Aulë's host, never again would he veil himself in smiles and flatteries for the sport of some filthy elf lord, never again would he suffer such debasement, and to Celebrimbor now his mind at last turned.

He wondered if the lord had fretted for him, feared him lost in the vales of Hollin or met a grisly end in a gully of Dunland. Had he stood at his window and watched for him, pined for like some lovesick puppy, had he taken to his bed all cold and lonely, and stroked himself in the darkness, and dreamed of soft hands upon him. Had he come to the thought of golden eyes and a traitor's smile, Annatar wondered, and his heart thickened with glee at the sweet sting of his betrayal. Idly he pondered what had become of the Three, the Elven rings that Celebrimbor had devised, for with the Ruling Ring he could feel their presence from afar, though their locations were uncertain. No matter, he thought; such secrets would be revealed soon enough.

Before his dark throne Grimmalk, master of Barad-dûr's dungeons, hauled a shivering slave: an elf taken in battle long ago and broken so utterly in fëa to servitude that he required fetters no longer. Yet still a thick collar adorned the slave's neck, his leash was clutched in Grimmalk's meaty fist, and on bony knees before the throne the slave dared not raise his eyes until a sharp tug upon his collar forced his chin upwards. Passively the slave knelt as Annatar appraised him, through a fringe of messily cropped hair he stared dully at the throne, and he did not so much as twitch as fresh blood drooled down his cheek. For in a wide oval encircling his left eye an ugly emblem had been carved into his skin, the Red Eye was etched in sore, weeping flesh over his forehead and cheek, and though it sluiced blood anew with every miniscule movement, the slave bore his new markings without complaint.

"Do you know the way to Ost-in-Edhil, slave?" Annatar's voice was absolute, imperious and terrible; the force of it was as a tangible pressure through the static air of the throne room.

"Yes, my lord," the elf replied tonelessly, and though blood dripped over his lip he made no motion to wipe it away.

"Very good," Annatar said, and a swell of compulsion played behind his commands as he gave them. "You will go to Ost-in-Edhil, slave, and you will bear for me a message. You will be given a horse, and you will ride to that city, and when your horse fails you then you will walk, and when your feet are ripped to shreds amongst the stones then you will crawl. You will crawl to Celebrimbor's gates and you will show him my brand upon your face, and you will tell him that a new power is arisen in these lands, one far mightier than his own. You will tell him that he is betrayed." A decadent tone curled in Annatar's voice, and with an awful leer he continued, "You will tell him to open his legs, and to fuck himself bloody upon the war that I will bring him."

At the vehemence in Annatar's tone the slave's cheeks blanched, but obediently, fervently, he nodded as Annatar stood from his throne. Grimmalk stepped aside as his lord sauntered forwards, as Annatar pressed his thumb into the raw wound across the slave's face, and he smiled as the elf jerked in pain beneath him.

"No creature of mine will harm you with that pretty mark upon you," Annatar said softly, "and neither shall you allow any folk or beast to hinder you. Do this deed for me, slave, and slink back to your masters if you are allowed to, for well I should see you rewarded if you serve me truly."

A gasp of adoration caught in the slave's throat, though blood smeared over his cheek as Annatar unhanded him, a new light shone in the slave's eyes as he looked upon his kindly master. "Yes, my lord," he said reverently. "As you command, my lord."

With a flick of his fingers Annatar bade the slave rise, and demurely the elf clambered to his feet as Annatar looked upon him. "Ride swiftly," he bade. "Go now with your master; Grimmalk will see you outfitted and horsed, and set upon the road."


Three months later, black banners unfurled before the gleaming walls of Ost-in-Edhil, and the Red Eye glared from them over the beleaguered city. Battalions of orcs swarmed like nightmarish clusters of beetles upon the gently sloping grounds that bordered the city; chitinous and clanking in their motley array of chainmail and leathers they had marched up from the south in numbers unseen in millennia, and they bristled now before Ost-in-Edhil's walls. Trolls grunted as they hauled great stores of arms and light ballistae to their stations and war-tents, wolves and bears and monsters stirred from the haunted hills stalked the army's fringes, and as his battalions fanned out in preparation for the initial assault, coldly Annatar surveyed the city.

Upon a high spar of rock to Ost-in-Edhil's south his hair poured like honey over studded pauldrons of darkened plate steel, black mail glimmered beneath it, and its tinkle was eerily cheerful as his horse shifted and champed beneath him. An oiled hunting bow he wore strung and strapped over a great quiver of crow-fletched arrows at his back, twinned knives were sheathed at his belt, and eagerly he toyed with the bone-hilt of the left as he squinted into the breeze, and spied the frantic whorls of motion atop the city's distant parapets.

A gust of bitter wind howled over the city and its plains, Annatar's uruk guard hunkered behind their shields, but with it the Maia looked to the turbulent skies above. For beneath the roiling clouds a black pestilence seemed to hover above Ost-in-Edhil's grim spires, ravens and crows and countless birds of carrion croaked above the city upon sable wings, and despite the chill of inactivity, their presence warmed Annatar's heart. Faithful they had been since the beginning; stalwart messengers of his cause, and well their faith had been rewarded as the orcs tramped to their final positions far below him.

Already Annatar had proved himself shrewd; the elves trebuchets had fallen limp and silent as they exhausted their supplies of ammunition in a postured display of defence, yet how worthless it was in the end. For how many tedious hours had he spoken of the optimum trajectories of those catapults, with Celebrimbor and Taranië, Captain of the Guard, he had analysed in meticulous detail their ranges and area capabilities, and painfully easy now it was to outwit them.

A horn-call sounded from far below, and at Annatar's gesture a nearby uruk blasted upon a trumpet in reply. With a rumble the orc battalions advanced with impudence towards Ost-in-Edhil's walls, and the shiver of fear that bled through the city was almost palpable. How they must be racking their empty little brains, Annatar mused, for no siege engines had he brought, no battering rams nor catapults of his own save a few score ballistae, and those yet remained silent. Implacably his orcs strode forward towards those impenetrable walls, their thick shields raised as bowshot hailed down upon them in their furious press forward towards those blank ramparts. Fruitless surely it seemed, but no longer, for as the front lines came to around five score metres from the outer palisades, Annatar withdrew from a chain about his neck the Ring, and with the promise of victory already stirring in his heart, he placed it upon his finger.

Power surged through his veins, it crackled at his fingertips, but swiftly he mastered it, he sent it arching beyond himself and out into the earth, into the very walls of the city. Through the stones he slipped, he spread his black will, and ruin flowed in his wake. For he scratched through mortar and concrete and he bade them come undone, from the grinding stones he ripped out those pockets of his puissance he had laid hidden and dormant within them all those years ago, and now he bade them splinter, fragment, explode.

Granite cracked, mortar puffed into choking, grey dust, and a great wail arose from the defenders as their very walls betrayed them, as stones were shaken loose and fell, and crashed into others, and brought them down in their tumult. Piece by piece Annatar ripped those walls down; black spellcraft arced and sizzled through the air until the stones slumped into bruised piles of rubble, littered with splintered wood and broken bodies. Finally he withdrew his power, and when the dust cleared over those once-proud walls now left rent and gasping, his vanguard of uruks advanced, and the trolls and orcs and howling beasts behind them, and they put the city to the slaughter.

A half hour later, with his troops' initial flood through the city assured, Annatar entered Ost-in-Edhil, on foot and with one wicked knife grasped in hand he scaled the rubble of the walls, and onwards into the dying city he walked.

Atrocities flanked him in grotesque procession; he grinned as he saw his beasts slaked in gore, as trolls pounded bodies dead and dying into the ground with their maces, as the gutters ran red with charnel and fingers twitched beneath cairns of broken masonry. Flames licked at the sky in the eastern quarters of the city; the docks were set alight, and before him companies of orcs poured at will through the collapsed gates of the courtesan's circle, their greedy eyes alight with glee and swords wetted in viscera. A bell tolled wildly from a tower overlooking the gate, and as Annatar passed it by he glimpsed its insides gutted in red, and the bell-ringers swaying like limp, bloodied pendulums from their charge's ropes knotted about their throats.

Along the main road through the upper circle Annatar strolled; bodies darted and screeched through the hollows of buildings, the ring of combat and the howls of beasts slipped in between the bell's wild tolls, ravens tokked and cawed atop piles of rubble as he passed them by, but none could sway him from his purpose. If the Three were still in the city then there was only one place they would be stored, Annatar had long since divined, and to those halls he sauntered his idle way.

With precision honed from millennia of combat training he whirled to jab his knife through the chinstrap of some elf soldier fool enough to challenge him, and even as he flicked the gore from his knife's tip he walked onwards. A child screamed over the corpse of its mother in the centre of the road and Annatar felt only hatred for it, for its lowly squalling and the nis below it with her skirts bloody and torn; the child howled out its anguish until suddenly it fell silent. It slumped forward with a gurgle and the hilt of Annatar's knife jutting from its eye socket. Upon his way he retrieved his blade, with a snarl of disgust he snatched it free of the child's body, and scarcely bothering to wipe it clean he strode onwards.

Voices called from the wayside, they pleaded, they begged for clemency, for death even, and hatefully Annatar ignored them. He kicked aside the blackened, flayed arm of a man who clawed for his ankle, with a vicious snarl upon his face he drove his knife through the belly of a ner who leapt at him, and left entrails slopping to the ground in his wake.

Finally he came to it, the domed hall of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, and though a great company of orcs milled about its forecourt and defiled the buildings that stood at the edge of the square, none had dared venture over the threshold of the hall's lowest stair. A cheer took up as Annatar strode through the orcs' ranks, they parted before him like butter before a searing knife, and at the head of their company he met with their captain Múgog and exchanged a brief word of counsel.

The upper circle of the city was overthrown, the orc growled, and the lower levels overrun. The noble house atop the hill was ransacked, and prisoners taken where his troops were able, but none had challenged neither the Gwaith-i-Mírdain's hall nor its guardian, as Annatar had commanded. Crisply the Maia nodded, he sheathed his knife at his side and loosened the straps holding his bow, but he bade the company of orcs have patience as alone and empty handed he stepped forward to the base of the marble stairs.

Haughtily he looked upon the stones that for a time he had called his home and his workplace, his war-stained eyes flicked upwards to the lone elf lord that stood valiantly before the hall's barred and bolted doors, and a disdainful smirk curled over his face.

"May I pass?"

Annatar's entreaty was almost gentle; the breeze wafted his hair into a golden corona about his head, yet wryly he awaited the inevitable reply.

"No," Celebrimbor said; his eyes wandered the snarling mass of orcs that lay siege to him, to the traitorous cur that stood so arrogantly below him, and black anger kindled in his stomach. "You may not."

Clad in magnificent silver armour he stood before the door, he raised his sword and jewel-studded shield in defiance, and the look upon his face was thunderous as loss and rage and such vicious, gutting betrayal stabbed through him anew, as it ignited within him and wreathed him in its furore. Yet casually Annatar sauntered up the stairs, and cautiously Celebrimbor let him come, for the Maia had drawn no weapon, and a gallant smile wove across his lips. But as Annatar first set foot atop the dais how quickly Celebrimbor raised his sword, his eyes narrowed with hate as the very sight of the Maia only slammed home anew his blindness, his foolishness, and Annatar drew to a clipped halt some ten paces short of where the elf lord stood.

Smooth still was his smile, and near nonchalant his air, but a lie curdled upon his breath. "Stand aside, Tyelpë," he said softly, almost genuinely. "I would yet spare you an evil fate."

"Your right to that name is forfeit," the elf hissed, and such loathing burned in his eyes that Annatar revelled to see it. "You are no friend of mine."

"It could yet be otherwise," the Maia replied levelly, "if you would but yield to me what I desire."

"No!" Celebrimbor spat, he hefted his shield and his sword point gleamed thirstily in the light. A livid scowl contorted his face, and for a moment fey in kind he seemed, like some scion of Fëanáro's wrath come again to Arda's shores, crowned in madness and in desperation as he cried, "No thing of mine will I surrender to you, Maia! Deceiver I name you, faithless and accursed. I will not prostitute myself or mine to you like some common whore bartering for trade. I do not parley with thralls of Morgoth come skulking from their exile. Whine your way back to your master's ghostly heel and simper to him for mercy, for you shall receive none from me!"

Hatred blazed in his dark eyes, he near trembled with the force of his abhorrence, yet Annatar stood unmoved by such feeble attempts at intimidation.

"This is needless," he said calmly, imploringly; the lies flowed like silver over his tongue. "Yield to me the Three and we will find our peace, you have my word."

So fervently Annatar hoped the elf would hearken to him, though it would be to no avail. He would have shot an arrow through his throat the moment he set down his shield. How he would have savoured the delectable expression caught across the elf lord's arrogant face as the life was bled from him, as he spluttered, as he drowned in his own blood and Annatar left him twitching upon the floor.

"Crawl back into the vile hole from whence you came, slave!"

An aggrieved look came over Annatar's face then, almost disappointed he seemed, and with a weary sigh he began to turn aside. Celebrimbor watched him in confusion, for the slightest of instants his shield wavered, it drifted from the press of his guarded stance, and in that instant Annatar whirled.

Faster than mortal eyes could follow his bow was grappled into hand, and a vicious arrow he sent scudding through the air towards the elf lord. It clove a bloodied furrow across the side of Celebrimbor's exposed neck, a scant inch from his jugular, for in that flurried second it was the brutal instinct to move that had spared Celebrimbor from that fate. For a moment he gasped, air flooded into his lungs and with it came anger, came outrage, came fury, and with a snarl of utter revulsion torn across his face he launched at Annatar, his sword keen and deadly. And with a rueful click of his tongue Annatar flung his bow aside, he shrugged his two knives from their sheathes and the clatter of his parry sent a thrill of arousal down his spine.

To the left Annatar darted, he flicked one knife out towards the elf's side but with agilely Celebrimbor dodged the blade, and sent a cleaving blow arching towards Annatar's head in return. Fiercely the Maia swept both knives up to meet it, with his right he knocked the blow aside and through that quick torsion he thrust forward with his left, a sweeping reach that sent Celebrimbor skidding one hasty step backwards as the knife near sheared across his breastplate. Swiftly Annatar turned, one sharp jab he sent towards Celebrimbor's stomach, but the elf's shield smashed it aside, and he rode the momentum of that force to gather himself quickly into a more guarded stance.

And none too soon, for the elf rained a flurry of sword strikes upon him, his dark eyes glittering with wrath as he stabbed towards Annatar's side. Yet smoothly the Maia parried him, dodged him, out-stepped him, a perverse waltz before the Gwaith-i-Mírdain's doors Celebrimbor set to the tempo of steel, but somehow it seemed like Annatar was still leading the dance, was goading him, mocking him in his passive defences. A daring blow curving towards Celebrimbor's wrist severed such contemplations, Annatar's knife skidded awkwardly from the elf's plated gauntlet, yet the force of that strike was inhuman, infected by blackest sorcery from the Ring blazing upon Annatar's forefinger, and it sent Celebrimbor staggering backwards in shock.

No reprieve was he granted; with a flick of his left knife the Maia sent his sword skittering aside, whilst viciously he kicked forward, he landed a jarring blow upon the very epicentre of Celebrimbor's shield. And how the elf yelped as that ensorcelled kick dented the metal, it near shattered Celebrimbor's arm beneath it, and frantically he ripped the mangled shield from him and flung it aside. Pain flared up his arm from that awful blow, through a grimace he re-gripped his sword within his right hand, he fought desperately to quell the exhaustion that suddenly trembled through his fingers as they closed anew about the hilt. He would not let Annatar win, he would not let the Gwaith-i-Mírdain fall and their treasures be plundered, he would not, and fiercely then he swung a wide blow towards the Maia's side.

With sickening ease it was deflected, slower now came his thrusts as his left arm ached, as fatigue and shock began to take their toll, and all too late he came to parry Annatar's whirling strike that ripped his sword from his hand and sent it crashing to the stones. Agony tore through his arm, his fingers clutched upon air, and an instant later a dirty kick to the base of his stomach sent him toppling, sent his knees crumpling to the floor. Desperately he gagged, instinct left him helpless as he doubled over and retched, as he tried to force the air back into his lungs paralysed by that awful blow. He simply clutched at his stomach and he keened with the hurt of it, and the shrill warning of defeat screeched in his ears but powerless he was to heed it. Finally air whooped back into his chest, he spluttered and coughed as it came, and only then did he look up, only then did he notice Annatar standing over him.

His dented shield was in the Maia's hand, a horrific light glittered in Annatar's corrupted eyes, and seized with foreboding then words from years before floated tauntingly through his head.

Your uncle was a talented wordsmith… He had a strong shield-arm, so I have heard tell…

"N-no," he spluttered, he saw the shield in Annatar's hand and the unearthly look upon the Maia's face; memory crashed into the present and dragged up only his blindness, his stupidity, and with true terror in his eyes he blinked up at Annatar then. "Please, Annatar… Annatar wait - "

"How the fates adore their little ironies."

And with that lilting remark left stinging in the air Annatar twisted, and he clouted the shield across Celebrimbor's blanching face. Bloodied lines ripped open over the elf's cheek, over the bridge of his nose, and like a puppet severed from its strings Celebrimbor dropped hard to the cold stones below; his shoulder and back crunched into the marble and lifelessly he lay sprawled.

A great roar of approval sounded from below, at Múgog's command the assembled ranks of orcs pressed forward up the stairs, and as parted about him and the fallen lord he sent the doors of the halls squealing open with no more than a thought, and the Ring pulsed out its power from his finger. Unmoved Annatar stood as the orcs rushed past him, and calmly he sheathed his knives, before nudging at the elf's body. As for all its ferocity that shield-blow was calculated, angled; it would not break vital bone nor sever nerves, and as he moved the elf's chin with the point of his boot smugly he glimpsed the frantic flicker of a pulse through a turgid vein in the elf's neck.

Celebrimbor's cheek was purpling from the trauma as Múgog ascended the stairs at the rear of his company, and as he approached he spat a thick gobbet of saliva down upon the stricken lord.

"Kill him now, m'lord," the orc snarled to Annatar. "Filthy snaga…"

"Nay," the Maia replied gently, he flicked the sweaty sweep of his hair back from his face as he continued, "He is of use to us yet. If the Three may not be found nor yielded freely, then we will rip them from him."

At their feet Celebrimbor stirred suddenly, a moan crawled over his lips, and two pairs of eyes flicked sharply to the twitch in the elf's mailed fingers.

"M'lord," Múgog frowned, "Is this wisdom? Those of his kind, his bloodline… They have slipped loose before…"

"The lessons of history bear no need for repetition," Annatar said blandly, and venom laced his every word as over Celebrimbor's pain-racked body he sneered, "There is nobody coming to save him."

The tread of Annatar's boot crunched steadily down upon Celebrimbor's exposed throat; the elf lord convulsed weekly beneath that choking pressure before falling limp once more.

"Bind him," Annatar commanded, "and put him somewhere out of sight."

Raw, seething waves of victory smashed through his heart as he beheld the elf lord crippled below him, and his precious halls violated. Vicious then was his smile as Múgog nodded, as Annatar turned once more to the torn-open aperture of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain's once mighty doors, and the gluttonous thoughts of what treasures lay within, ripe for the reaping.

"I shall deal with him later."


Thanks to everyone for your patience with the admitted slowness of this update, and I sincerely hope that it was worth it in the end. And alas, we have reached the end of the Seven Deadly Sins, but did you know that in the olden days there used to be more? Poor Celebrimbor has one sin left to divulge, and if you know your canon then you'll know how well this is about to end. Therefore: once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, and we shall return for the final chapter just as quickly as I can write it! Much love, theeventualwinner xx