Disclaimer: Not mine.
In the Shadows
Chapter Eight – Shatter
Galadriel
Sauron's smile has become my most feared look. What can he be thinking as he smirks, his eyes glittering with hidden information. Can this terrible realisation be true? Could he have pretended to be my husband from the time that my beautiful land was defiled by the filth of Mordor?
Questions run through my head; longing for a time when I had the gift of knowing fills my hungry soul. Sauron gives me nothing; a dog left without a bone.
Lost in thought, I remember a time when knowing came easily. If asked if the next day would prove to be a good day for traveling, I would know. I could see into a heart and know it's inner secrets and hurts.
Within the confinements of my cell, the cell that captures the very essence of me, I cannot see more than is in front of me, nor can I see what has passed and now lies in the past. I doubt that the mirror, which showed me a possibility of what was to come, would show me much more than I have guessed.
Sauron eludes me, laughing as I question him about what he has done to deceive me. How did a city so secretive to all who would do it harm fall to become nothing?
Galadriel's finger traced an intricate pattern on her translucent skin, uncontrolled by a mind occupied by memories of before. Never had she been so immobile, never had time flowed so slowly in her memory. Every day was another grating of nails on a window plane, unbearable and painful.
In all her long years of life, time and present and past had always been something she could see; she had always been in control of her destiny, yet here she was in a room of bars left without nothing but memories and thoughts.
Galadriel had thought, for some length of time, about ending the pain of living life as a ghost; a ghost of a people who had since been murdered until the last few where naught but prisoners in their own lands. Yet suicide had never been embraced as a suitable way for an elf to die, being neither honourable nor easy for those left behind.
The attitude of the elves was to die fighting, and die honourably. But where had the fighting spirit of the White Lady gone? Why did she sit there, as a doom foretold became a harsh reality?
The waning light of the weary sun fell across Galadriel's aging face, her tears highlighted by the thin rays.
Sauron's head pounded as he anxiously penned his final thoughts towards his master plan onto parchment, a rarity anywhere now that his men had conquered the entire known world. The candlelight by which Sauron wrote flickered, and darkness pressing close to him, making him shiver.
"Light!" He called out, frustrated that the flickering made his head pound more furiously. He had nearly finalised his plans. It was nearly flawless, but nearly was not enough.
"I called for light!" Sauron bellowed, his voice reverberating in the secret room made of magic that was his study. A gangly creature hobbled into the room, his left leg dragging painfully behind him.
"My apologies, great Master." The creature said, his voice a mere gurgle in his wasted throat. "Candles, those damned elves cannot make them fast enough."
Sauron sneered at the mention of elves. He was tempted to spit, but ugly as the creature was, Sauron pitied him and did not want him to endure any unnecessary labour. The creature had served him loyally since he was cruelly twisted and mutated by an ancient power even Sauron feared.
"Careful, Aylid." Sauron warned. He had presented the creature with his name once he had truly proven his loyalty to Sauron and killed one of his kin at Sauron's will. "You were an elf once."
Disgust burned deep in Aylid's eyes, and he turned from his master so he would not see. It was true that he had once been a fair elf, yet the magic that had cursed him had mutated his body more that those now called orcs. His skin was a hideous shade of green brown that looked like the waste of wildmen. His skin was too saggy in parts and stretched tight in others. His eyeballs protruded from his sour face, lined with red veins and with a nasty yellow tinge.
"Remember, Aylid, when my plan is complete and I have convinced the Lady, you will be fair again." Sauron said, a slightly bored tone in his voice. He had constantly reminded his friend, perhaps his only friend, of this fact, yet Aylid always found something else to become unhappy about.
Aylid frowned and turned to meet Sauron's gaze. Doing so always gave the twisted creature a blazing headache, but he always looked his master in the eyes. Sauron admired this.
"But there will be none of those nasty elf-men where we go, when we go?" He asked hopefully, trying to mask his hopefulness with doubtfulness. Sauron's eye twitched.
"No, Aylid-friend." His master replied, and that was all Aylid needed.
Galadriel studied Sauron carefully, trying to mask her shock.
"This, this plan.....it's preposterous!" She burst, the boldest she had been in a long time. Her shock was barely masked, and beneath the initial shock was a deep fear of what Sauron could achieve if all he said could be done.
"The Valar will not stand for it!" She whispered desperately, searching for a reason to dissuade him.
"They have been taken care of." Sauron countered, his expression unchanging. He sensed something was not quite true about his statement, but being the only surviving wizard besides the pesky Saruman, Sauron would soon find out who the Valar spirits had embodied in order to stop him from his destructiveness.
It was largely unknown for the Valar to take such drastic action, but Sauron's plans had threatened the very existence of all Middle Earth.
Galadriel could not see beyond the being of Sauron, since her magical ability to do so had been robbed from her, yet she could tell that Sauron was deadly serious.
"So, this world you are planning to create. It would lie on top of the existing world?" She asked warily, trying to buy time to think everything through.
Sauron sighed. He wished that he had not allowed himself to fall for this petulant elf, yet she had encouraged him to finalise his dreams more than she realised or wished. He had expected her to ask a lot of questions, but he explained everything in detail. Wasn't that enough?
"Yes, the power drawn from the magical artifacts I have uncovered would power the spell required to create another world, or create an opening to another one."
"But you are not a God!" Galadriel protested, wishing she had her gift of sight to make sense of what Sauron was saying.
"Yes," Sauron snapped. "But I have the power to make my dreams into reality. I could create a rift in the fabric between this world and another, but wouldn't it be more fun to start one from scratch?"
His question was meant to be rhetorical, but Galadriel answered anyway. "No, it wouldn't."
"We could have control over all the creatures to walk on the earth in our world. All creatures would be our children."
The words 'we' and 'our' made Galadriel feel physically sick. Her hands were shaking in her lap as the words sunk in.
"You are serious, then." She stated grimly, her face set in stone.
"Yes." Sauron replied, his smile one of a cat enjoying the warm rays of the sun.
Aylid paced Sauron's secret study impatiently. Years ago, Sauron had whispered to him rumours of a Valar spirit hiding in a mortal, planning to upset Sauron's plans. He had searched and searched for the essence of the spirit, which should have been on every item the mortal it inhabited touched; yet the essence was nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
It infuriated Aylid so. He was not born of a magical gift, yet he had acquired it after years of serving Sauron. He had been given the gift of sight, one that Aylid did not believe could be given until Sauron had presented it to him, and it had worked.
He had scried with everything he knew how to: glass, fire, water and crystal. But nothing had been revealed to him except a presence. It was always a presence.
He sometimes wished that Sauron would forget the Valar and move onward with his plans. The spell did not require a set time in a millennium; it could be done any time. Many things could go wrong, but the spell could easily be altered to account for any distractions. Aylid knew the spell required to cut a large section of the fabric between worlds and craft it into a world in which Sauron and a select few would inhabit.
The spell was long and not simple; it would take two whole days of moonlight to complete. Aylid muttered parts of the incantation to himself as he paced the study. There was no ritual necessary to perform the spell. Sauron had told Aylid long ago that rituals were only for show, to glorify the products of some of the simplest spells.
There was to be no ritual for the creation of this new world, Sauron detested he very idea of them. Aylid thought they were fine; he enjoyed the build up of tension and excitement in the crowds that would gather to witness a ritual.
Aylid sometimes wondered where he fitted into Sauron's great plans. Would he be given dominion over a certain part of the world? No, Sauron liked the idea of complete domination. He had that now, but had destroyed Middle Earth in the process. There was not a forest of trees anywhere that had survived the onslaught and enslavement of the free peoples.
The sound of Sauron whispering the spell to his secret study drew Aylid slowly from his thoughts.
"Master—"He began, wishing to tell him about the Valar spirit and how he thought they should ignore him. Sauron would anger at Aylid's boldness, but he did not wish to wait until they located it.
"Aylid, tomorrow morning I require you to round up all the elvish prisoners held here in our dungeons. I believe the Valar spirit has chosen one of them in which to reside."
Aylid bowed his head respectfully, but questions buzzed in his thoughts.
"Aylid?" Sauron asked, his eyes concerned. Aylid had not seen such a look in his master before and knew that his thoughts had been revealed to him.
"Speak your fears." Sauron commanded the warped creature.
"How do you know?" Aylid choked out, his gurgling voice making his words barely intelligible.
"The White Lady was confirmed my suspicions. Whilst I talked with her a few moments ago, I subtly read her thoughts, the once on the surface of her subconscious. She was concerned about elves carrying the gift of magic. Since this gift was very strong in her, she may have seen a glimpse of who the Valar spirit resides in."
Aylid reluctantly held his hand up to stop his master. He was not slow witted, but needed to think this new information through, as Sauron usually demanded an opinion of him as soon as he had finished talking. Aylid then lowered his hand and Sauron continued on.
"I suspect it may be the new elven girl, or one of her kin. I could not part the magic woven about her when I question her. She knows, or she is. Either that, or she is a decoy."
Aylid was confused.
"Master, forgive me for asking, but how do you wish to find out if the Valar spirit resides in her? How can we be sure?"
Sauron shook his head. "There are many spells of revelation. There are spells to trick the spirit within the body into reveling itself. Failing that, I feel we should kill the girl."
Aylid wrung his hands and nodded. He knew his task, to choose how he should test the girl and the spirit within.
He sat at a stool in the corner of the study and began to think.
waves hello! Remember me? Sorry, I've been away, then I got injured so I haven't really been near a computer for a while. You can kill me now.....please be gentle!