Seventeen: A Blade from Far Away

Fëanor flew fast and far, and cleared the Black Gate by sundown. Ioreth thought that Talion hadn't been completely truthful when he said that riding a drake was similar to a horse, but the gear he'd given her made up for most of the difference. Her own harness attached to Fëanor's and prevented her from flying off the drake's back, and the headgear - a facemask and something called goggles made with special glass - let her see and breathe as the drake sped along, the world small and distant under them. And if any of the orc-specks on the ground far below recognized the drake matriarch, none of them signaled as much.

They also saw the army of wraiths called back by the other Nazgûl. It was even more horrific than Hûra had described; though many were whole - and also not orcs; the specters came from across thousands of years, and even Men from the War of the Last Alliance - the Ringwraiths had not even attempted to make the broken ones whole again so they could truly fight. The ghosts all looked exactly as they had when they died - no matter what state they had been in at the time. Ioreth saw more than a few wraiths that seemed to have been crushed and flattened by the collapse of the plateau, staggering along amongst others missing limbs or even heads, all of them surrounding a living force nearly twenty thousand strong. And the sheer size of the spectral army itself...

Ioreth had spurred Fëanor higher and faster, even though she herself grew lightheaded from difficulty breathing.

They landed in the Emyn Muil for the night. Though the spring was beginning to warm into summer, the stone maze was bitterly cold in the dark, and Ioreth pressed close to the drake's warm side, sleeping lightly under one great wing.

They were back in the air shortly after sunrise, and reached the edge of Lothlórien by midday. Ioreth felt eyes on them even before Fëanor landed at the edge of the Mallorn trees, which were already beginning to falter without the magic of the Elves to hold them fast.

Ioreth looked down to unhook her own harness from the metal loops in Fëanor's. When she looked back up, they were surrounded by Elven archers, and the drake was growling low in her throat, a heat haze between her teeth. "Please, don't shoot!" the woman cried, hurrying to tug off her goggles and hood, "I come from Gondor, with a letter of introduction from Her Majesty Queen Arwen! The Nazgûl have survived the destruction of the One, and we seek the Elf-Blade Eltariel and her Ring of Power to throw them down!"

The Elves didn't appear to communicate with one another, not aloud, but after a moment they all lowered their bows. Fëanor subsided and closed her mouth but still eyed the Elves warily. The one who must have been the leader stepped forward and held out a hand. "The letter?"

Ioreth pulled it out from where it had been folded inside a tightly-sealed pack and handed it over, then slid carefully down from the drake's back.

The Elf read it quickly, then nodded and folded it back up, tucking it into his sleeve. "Your… mount… will have to stay here, but we will ensure that they are fed and watered and take you to Lord Celeborn at all speed."

Ioreth nodded gratefully and touched the drake's neck. Her head swung around to listen, though she kept her golden eyes on the archers. "Stay here, Fëanor. I'll be back soon."

The drake huffed but pulled her tail up against her side and settled down in the grass. Then Ioreth turned and followed the lead archer into the trees. The Elf led her to a small group of Elven horses, and one of their number stepped forward and sank down to let them mount up. She warily sat in front of the Elf on the horse's bare back, but the Elven horse did not stumble or falter, bearing them swiftly through the thinning forest to what remained of Caras Galadhon. The whole realm was fading, but Ioreth could still see echoes of its once legendary beauty and power.

Once they were inside the wall, the Elf lifted her down from the back of the horse, then sprang down himself. "Wait here. I will return in a moment with Lord Celeborn."

He vanished into the trees, but the horse remained and nuzzled her, seeming interested in the scent of the fire drake clinging to her clothes. She obliged it and held out her hands, until the Elf returned with one who seemed even more high and remote and powerful. Ioreth curtseyed as best she could and waited.

"My granddaughter's letter says the Nine endure, and that you seek one of the Blades of the Forest, Eltariel," Celeborn said, "You are too late. She has gone West with my royal wife."

Ioreth let out a heavy breath. Talion had thought - but it didn't matter what anyone had thought. They could only work with what was.

"But the Ring is still here - along with the one who made it."

That made her stop.

The one who made it.

Celebrimbor the Ringmaker.

As if summoned by her thoughts, a ghostly blue-white figure appeared next to Celeborn, armed and armored for war, though no longer withered by long years chained to the corrupted soil of Mordor. Though they had never actually seen one another before, they both knew each other by sight - by the gift of blood and memory. "You are Ioreth," said the wraith, visibly stunned, "wife of Talion. How are you here, alive?"

"We were all of us deceived," she answered him, keeping a tight grasp on all the emotion that wanted to escape at the sight of him, "He thought me dead at the Black Gate, and I thought the same of him. But regardless of your history with him, my husband has need of you and the New Ring."

The smith seemed to dim and shrink back. In the smallest voice, both grief-stricken and hopeful, he whispered, "Talion lives?"

"He does, but not for much longer if we don't hurry. And not just him, but all his people, and many more besides."

The wraith straightened and seemed to take a deep breath, then looked to Celeborn and nodded.

The Elf lord nodded back. Then he turned to Ioreth, held out his hand, and opened it.

The New Ring did not have quite the same weight to it that His Majesty King Elessar had attributed to the One Ring, but now that she was aware of its presence, there was no ignoring it. It seemed to reflect every flicker of light that made it down through the leaves overhead, and the script on its length glowed bright blue in the dimness.

Ioreth hesitated for a long moment, then finally took it from Celeborn and warily slipped it on her own finger.

Its power rolled into her at once, flooding her with knowledge and strength, overwhelming her defenses. Yet a moment later she felt Celebrimbor's cool presence slip into her and shield her from it, and the flow slowed to something more manageable. She let out a breath and felt the Elf-wraith breathe with her, felt his emotions rolling under her own. He was restless, ready to be off - and also terrified out of his mind to be seeing Talion again after how they had parted ways in the shadow of Barad-dûr.

Ioreth decided that they could talk on the way back to Mordor, where all their private matters wouldn't be aired out in front of nearly every Elf that remained in Middle-earth. She let Celebrimbor bow them properly to Celeborn, who returned the gesture slightly shallower as befitting his station of a higher lord, and then they turned and ran for Fëanor, completely passing the Elven stallion by.

She was not as strong or swift as an Elf, she knew, not as well-trained or naturally skilled, but even so they were as fleet as a deer between the trees, every step quick and steady and sure. Though he had to compensate for her smaller frame, Celebrimbor knew how to work with the flesh of Men, to lend it Elven might, and Ioreth could almost feel echoes of her husband's soul in the Elf's.

Fëanor perked up the moment they broke through the treeline, looking up from the gutted remains of the deer she was eating even as the archers stepped back to let them pass. The drake ripped off a hind leg and swallowed it down whole, then got to her feet even as woman and Elf jumped up into her saddle and strapped themselves in.

A few wingbeats and they were in the air again, winging back for Mordor, and through the wraith, Ioreth heard Talion's voice from decades past echo in her ear. "Celebrimbor, we're flying!"

A smile pulled her lips up at the almost childlike wonder - before this very Elf had nearly broken him.

To his credit, he did not shrink from the first touch of her wrath, only bowed his head in shame. You know.

Talion told us his side of what happened. He also implied to me that the both of you had trouble knowing where to stop.

That earned a bitter laugh. Yes, that certainly is one way to put it, and me much more than him. I come by it honestly, though; I'm sure you have heard the stories of my grandfather.

Some, though the truth of them I cannot guess.

If they say that he was prideful beyond reason, made a very unwise oath on the name of the One Above All, pursued one of the mightiest of the Ainur back into Middle-earth in defiance of the Valar, and fought against nearly two dozen Balrogs which sent him to his death, all of which ended up resulting in at least three kinslayings and other staggering losses of life for my people, then they are true enough. Such devastation my bloodline has wrought, and though I sought to break the cycle, in the end I only continued it.

Indeed. She could almost taste the Elf-wraith's pain and self-loathing. But you are more fortunate than your forebears, at least; my husband has expressed willingness to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Then he is a far better person than I. But I knew that already.

There was another flicker of memory from their early days in Mordor, soon after the fall of the Black Gate. There had been a band of Uruk tormenting what they had thought were human slaves, but it was only after they had slaughtered the captain and his followers that they saw the slaves were other orcs. They had been paralyzed by fear of the Man who was already making a name for himself among Sauron's servants, the Gravewalker, but rather than kill them for the very fact of their existence, he had instead cut their bonds and let them go.

Celebrimbor would have slain them without a second thought, but Talion's mercy worked in their favor some years later. They had been hunted across nearly the whole of Mordor by one captain known as Golm Ranger-Killer, and he had been about to put an end to them for a third time - when someone had run him through from behind with a wicked blade, and more orcs had swarmed out of the rocks around them all to put an end to his followers.

It had been the orcs Talion had freed years prior, each now a captain in their own right - Koth Hammerfist, Torz the Beheader, Norsko of the Blackguard, Ishmoz the Deep Seer, and Dharg the Infernal. They'd pledged their loyalty to him and served as far better commanders than many of the Uruks they'd taken with the New Ring.

At least one of them Ioreth recognized, though only from glimpses during the Ringwraiths' assault on Eagle Bay. Ishmoz was one of the leaders of the Mystic Tribe and still with Talion to this day, though he was much older and more stooped than in Celebrimbor's memory, but he still stood strong. He had been flinging spells at the enemy with the best of them, stomping and swearing and attacking like a much younger orc.

She felt a ripple of subdued contentment from the Elf. I'm glad he had someone with him after… after I betrayed him, he said quietly, I'm glad I didn't break his faith in everyone else at the same time.

As I told you, he's willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. If your repentance is true-

There is nothing in me that is truer.

-then though it will take time to fully regain his trust, I do not doubt that he will forgive you.

...But you are a different story.

Her hands went tight on Fëanor's saddle. This time she did not smother her wrath. You left him.

Yes.

You left him, and you were what sustained his life, Celebrimbor. Did you even wait for him to die, or did you leave him there to bleed out alone?!

The Elf did not reply, but she could see the answer in his fëa. She could see the memory and the thoughts and emotions, the strange dual vision of the Seen and Unseen Worlds together that the Elves perceived - and Talion's flesh looked ordinary, but his soul was so strong and bright after the long dark of Mordor. Celebrimbor had forged the New Ring, yes, poured the greater part of his power and knowledge and skill into it, but he had made it to be used by Talion, and so its power touched him differently, deeper than anyone else, even the one who made it.

His spirit was more than willing to keep going, but his flesh was weak, still wounded though it had been years since it had known the Black Hand's blade. When Celebrimbor left him, Talion collapsed, blood spilling down his front, gasping for breath… but the Elf had turned away before his spirit had departed his body and slipped away.

And then he himself had failed, and spent seventy years fighting Sauron fëa to fëa, only to be set free at last when the One was destroyed. He had been barely more than a wisp of thought at that point, weaker even than when he'd first been dragged out of the dark by the Black Hand. But Eltariel had found him, or he had found her, and the New Ring had given him strength again.

And then, in her memories, he had seen what he had done.

Talion had not let go, and Celebrimbor saw him as Eltariel had, Seen and Unseen: a Wraith, twisted and tormented, as dark as he had once been bright, more powerful and terrible than any of the others save the Witch-King himself through the touch of both of the Rings he had worn.

Sauron had taunted him with after the Man's Fall, paraded his prize before the Eye, but the Elf had thought it just another trick the Maia tried to play, and so hadn't let himself believe.

He did now.

I have no excuses, he said, voice rich with pain and grief, only reasons, and poor ones at that. I know that by all rights what I have done should be beyond unforgivable, and I won't blame you if you never do for the things he endured because of me. I would give him my life if he but thought he wanted it - I would die willingly and forever at his hands the same way I had at Sauron's, if that was his desire -

Another flicker of memory and ancient pain, an hammer already stained with the blood of their kin swinging down to break their own skull-

-but dying is easy, and poor repayment.

Then give me your reasons, and I will judge.

He sighed in her mind. Once, many thousands of years ago, Sauron sought my skill for the completion of the One Ring. I know not how it could be so, given he was the one who taught me and the other Gwaith-i-Mírdain the art in the guise of Annatar, but his skill was less than mine, and to force my hand he destroyed Eregion and bound me in his thrall. Yet his arrogance, his belief that with even the unfinished Ring none could defy him, let me slip his noose. I stole the One Ring from him and escaped - but I could not bring myself to destroy it. I did not think it could be destroyed, even when I held it in my hand over Orodruin; I feared that if I let it slip and it did not return to the fire, there were be no way of retrieving it if ever there was a way to truly end it.

As I understand it, that was the Ring itself preying on your fears.

Indeed it was, and I know that now, but the Rings of Power I had made had never behaved in such a way, never acted with the will of their own, and so at the time I did not know. I let myself be swayed, and instead sought to use it to throw Sauron down with an army of his own orcs.

I failed, and my mother and my sister and I paid the price. And then Sauron bound my fëa to Mordor's soil, and I wandered the dark for countless years - even now that we are all free of his shadow, I know not exactly how long. I saw Sauron raise his numberless hordes against the West, and I saw him defeated at the foot of Barad-dûr by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men - but again, the Ring was not destroyed, and his spirit endured. Once I could have passed off as coincidence - my own failure, my own weakness - but twice… That was the beginning of a pattern.

So I thought, if Sauron cannot be destroyed, if he cannot be stopped from dominating, then he must be dominated in his turn, his will crushed and broken as he would crush and break ours. And that thought grew into a monster inside of me, until I knew nothing else. And then when perceived betrayal came from one who seemed to share my goal…

You repaid it in kind.

He nodded, then whispered, Talion may forgive me, but I will never forgive myself.

And then they flew the rest of the way to Mordor in silence.