The company he knew he kept prevented him from opening his mouth and smile with happiness glazed.
A secret wish: if a workshop could ever be clean, therefore new, then Ešl would claim it as his- impossibly impractical in Doriath. And Sauron knew from the way the elf was trailing one finger over everything with a dreaming expression on his face instead of being stoic and bearing himself haughtily in front of his captor.
"I will teach you metal craft, and you will learn it.
In the flush of excitement and familiarity with the shape of the chisel in his hand, the boy busied himself in choosing a small block of burl wood. Ešl tilted his head, and a small braid wondered down his neck.
"Why?" He asked nonchalantly, biting his lips as he tried to find a stylus while he mentally gauged the depth needed.
"Why will you learn it, or why I will teach it to you," Annatar paused, and hand it him one, "Or why metal craft?" Ešl caressed a soft cloth of velvet lying upon a stack of its identical twins and froze suddenly as if a dream turned cold.
Sauron opened a door, and the rush lights within blazed, setting an inner room alight.
There was furnace, though unused, with stores of coke and coal standing within silver inlaid scuttles beside the anvil. Cakes of wax stood high on a table.
"I will not make weapons for you, nor instruments of my destruction." He said, looking at the rake and the peen hammers that hung on the wall.
"Very well, make instruments of your pleasures then.
"They say too much pleasure corrupts." Stupid, he thought to himself and noticed the slithers of a warm orange light had organized itself into perfect circles on the floor.
Sauron bowed slightly, and stepped closer, obscuring one of them.
"Whatever you wish, Ešl. This place is yours when I am not here.
In another brief and mad, moment, Ešl considered taking a poker, or perhaps a hammer, and escape. This time, at least, he was dressed. He could even take Annatar hostage, he would tell the orc to let him and every elf leave, and then what would he do with Annatar? He could leave him here, and Annatar would be punished, as he deserved. Yet knowing this, Ešl was indignant if he fell as low as the orc he would become
"Not today though, I have matters to attend to. Stay or leave here as you like.
Annatar's voice startled him from the temporary reverie. Ešl's fine face had clouds chased shadows and blushes across the almost transparent skin, a very beautiful study- vaguely sentimental, just enough to be romantic, and prone to the maudlin madness that took Feanor.
Pleased to observe him under a more indifferent illumination that cared not for the moods of Angband's lords, Annatar marveled at the play of light on Ešl's brow, his eyes, and his young lips: as old as Anor, as were all the Sindarin who desired the silver fires of starlight more than anything else. They did not count years, or the stars, preferring to stay beneath their light asleep in their waking dreams if only circumstances allow. Like him, Sauron thought, almost too much. What wouldn't he give to have thoughts into physicality without the stinging pain of toil. He looked at Ešl again, whose attention had wondered, with his very young artist eyes, confusion, wonder and curiosity still entangled. Everything.
Shuffling lightly as he walked toward the door, he smiled at Ešl with a singular sweetness that startled the elf, and left.
Then Ešl realized that Annatar never answered the question. And in his heart he knew all would be all right if he only knew why. And yet, one would consist another, and then another..an infinite series of questionsÉinfinite twisting bodies outside this tower where he slept a night and half the day away in a bed as good as his own.
He did not want to think.
A piece of wood, barely as large as his hand took shape beneath the tapping of the chisel, and Ešl painted it: yellow beak, body of blue and silver hued wings. A slant of sunlight fell across the one natural eye and made the wooden grains appear as gold.
With one hand holding the small bird, the elf walked toward the windows. These were larger here though he would still not be able to climb out, and standing behind them, he could feel the cool air, akin to the feel standing in a tall tree. Outside, the clouds bled purple and red; he could not see the ground.
Once again, a sense of helplessness assailed him, along with all the apprehensions of the inevitable. He knew, or he could imagine, what would happen to him. Despite all the promises Annatar could make, all the comforts he offered him(and denied to others), they were nonsense- merely play on words. Fair forms and manners could still serve as vassals to lies.
Picking up an iron nail, his hand scraped against the frame as he dropped it into the pool of clouds and must below. When he heard nothing in return, he sang.
Every Sinda possessed the ability, they have been in here a long time after all, and within the Girdle, where life and joy reigned, every child had played under the twilight with everything in the shadows as playmates. Ešl sang of Doriath of the sweet smelling night-flowers, of the majesty revealed of Menegroth for the first time in the morning, the leafy forests, and the soft touch of rain, the dews upon the leaves that were as rainbow pearlsÉ..Anyone, anyone for help. If he had a rope, he could climb out. Angband ends where he was: the stench at the gates was not here- the slight darkening of the sky was not here.
And out of the distance, something flew closer.
Ešl kept singing, his breast rose and fell a little faster, watching the bird flying toward him. He could see it, and knew that the bird was not a creature from the shadows, for its eyes were bright, and it flew with an unusual grace.
Each feather on the wing became visible before it disappeared.
The shock left Ešl speechless. He squeezed half of his shoulder out of the round window and looked left to right, then up. He thought it might have dropped, so looked down, and saw the clouds as before, though darkening with twilight.
Nothing.
And it simply could not be an illusion, right? Not that
Ignoring the pain on his shoulder, he leaned against a shelf and slid down, full with weariness and grief. Almost weeping, yet not quite, for he had cried all his tears away on the bed.
With a cry of rage, he stabbed the chisel into the wall. It made a small dent.
The air thinned, and Ešl opened his mouth to breathe. He stood up and took a hammer, striking it full force against the wall. There was little sound, but the wall broke slightly under it. He swung it again, and the concavity widened. By the fourth time, it was the size of a hand. At the eighth, it remained the same as it were the seventh.
He picked up the small effigy of the bird and stuck in his pocket before walking out.
Ešl rang the hammer against the outer edge of the entire floor: one bedroom, one workroom, and some impenetrable locked doors, which he tried just in case.
The stalwart partitions refused to give way, and seemed to mock him. Plaster and paint fell as his hope went up, then all would just come to a stop no matter what he tried.
With the lighting of the first crystal and the last sign of Anor disappearing from within the tower, Annatar was back, and stood with a smirk on his face in front of his elf, who was panting slightly with exertion, holding his knees in front of himself.
"You cannot expect me to stay here." Ešl said, glancing up.
---
"No," Sauron said, "I do not expect it, because you will go to the bathroom and clean yourself up," He walked closer, and bent down to that defiant face till their noses were almost touching, "I trust that you have exercised enough for one day.
The elf was livid, and yet the two faint blooms of anger were clear visible. With Sauron so close to him, he could neither stand nor shift his gaze. There was something strangely, horribly, tangible in Annatar's presence, as if all the air around him suddenly disappeared and pressed thick like a shroud near his body so he felt its weight.
"You have no authority over me," Ešl said, and his eyes would have twisted metal if he had seen the lights, "And I must make an attempt, let me go.
"But you ARE mine, and thereforeÉ" with a sudden movement, he grasped both of Ešl's wrists, lifted, and locked them against the wall, wrenching a cry out of the elf, "My hospitality is here for you to accept," Sauron continued amiably, ignoring the distorting expression, "Did you think, even once, that you would leave those gates once you entered? But you wanted to live, did you not? And I gave you thatÉI am not your enemy, Ešl." One hand on the wrists, the other stroked the boy's head, from hair to cheekbone, lingering a bit to touch the fringe of the dark lashes. Noldor dark, Sauron noted with a certain satisfaction.
Ešl turned his face away at the touch though it did nothing to still it. He spoke in a whisper to the far end of the room.
"Because you spared my life when it is you who are taking it in the first place?"
To his surprise, he felt himself freed; at least, his hands. Annatar still stood too close for him to move properly so that his hands remained above his head even with nothing holding onto them.
"No, because you have nowhere else to go." Sauron answered, and stepped back, watching blood smearing as Ešl rubbed his wrists: blood from the elf's palm, not his wrists.
"I can go home," Ešl said, "I have been planning to go home you know." He smiled, but it was a weak smile, one from habit, an abortive smile, as the elf remembered to whom he was speaking.
Yet, he followed Sauron to the bathroom, where the waiting lukewarm water and the scented oils brought up terrific memories. He looked at Annatar, almost pleadingly, every sense of helplessness betrayed in his face and trembling fingers as he disrobed. He knew what was terrible in that fair face now, it came to him as Annatar laid a fresh suit of clothes on the bench nearby; he had looked up at him with mirth, and a certain disturbing appreciation in the gray eyes. It was the awesome power radiated from the strange lord of orcs, a power far beyond what glimpses he had of the Light Elves. For the first time, he wondered at the "sort" of Annatar.
Sauron watched, almost contemplatively, as Ešl stepped up, and sank into the water. Running his hands along the floral carved sides of the bath, Sauron paused briefly, and noted teardrops falling into the water.
"Don't cry," He said softly, "There are no windows here." And did not understand why he spoke, though Ešl did, for he stiffened in waiting.
With a sigh, Sauron tore himself away from the view and left. He held Ešl's bird-figurine in his hand as he stood outside waiting, sentinel and goaler.
They all want. The nature of the artists: hold their own, guard their own, jealously. He would give it back to him.
Ešl's hands were bleeding again, when he came out still vaguely damp and smelling of autumn leaves, though he tried to conceal them behind his back in tightly clenched fists.
"Do you want it back?" Sauron asked, and held the painted bird, wings open, in his hand.
"Yes.
"Take it.
"You can keep it.
"And why would I want it?" He watched Ešl lower his head, and said more gently, "Let me look at your hands. The walls in the bathroom do not take kindly to climbing I take it.
"No." Those startling black eyes burned anew, and biting his lip, Ešl reached out and took it by the wing, so that blood would not harm the paint. He did not protest when Annatar's fingers wrapped around his hand, when the wounds closed with a stinging sensation, or when he led him to a small fountain in the entryway and had him there on one of the many soft benches that lay around it- rendering the his body and senses to useless ecstasy.
"I am very poor," Ešl said earnestly, sitting on the bed afterwards, nightshirt slipping off one white shoulder, "For I am dead though my fea cannot go do Mandos where happy memories dwell, imprisonment being as irrevocable as death.
"Is Mandos not a prison, is your memory not prison Ešl? Why then, do you fight soÉ" Then, without waiting for an answer, Annatar lightly pressed his lips to Ešl's forehead for a chaste kiss, "Goodnight, poor elf, I will teach you metal craft tomorrow."
Graceful in all his angles and curves arranged in natural art, Ešl was utterly relaxed even as thoughts become ponderously heavy when a soft scent invaded his mind, driving all else away.
He would lie in slumber, without dreams.
And yet..and yet..Sauron marveled, musing upon the selfishness and the generosity of the artist within him, tracing the point of an ear as Ešl slept, tender eyelids closed- just because, we can never let them go.
--
Even when Tilion's chariot traverses the skies, bringing faint memories with its silver edge, cruel perhaps, to some, the work in Melkor's corner of Beleriand continued.
We gave you everything. Everything was mad, everything a choice- fate torn asunder from the fea of the Elves from the notes of the music. As Gothmog remarked once, we gave them what they what otherwise would not be able to see.
Personally, however, as Sauron walked with the balrog, the image and feel of Ešl vivid within his mind still, he thought that beauty is a high price to pay for stupidity. Those renewed had trouble even learning to walk properly. But then, perhaps they die before they could walk without the craven slouched form, fast as they may be compared to other beasts, still too slow for the captains' liking.
Passing a chamber of murk, Gothmog stopped, and spoke.
"Why do you wear this form, why do you not wear the other one, the one you preferred?
Sauron shrugged thick velvet clad shoulders; "I do not wish to sully it by coming down here." It was true; his face was now grimy with oil and dust that clung to his skin like small parasites.
"Or perhaps you wish it to keep it for whatever you are having in the Quarters.
He had not thought of that, and laughed at the suggestion. Flames licked warm around his soft boots as Gothmog came to stand in front of him.
"Who is it?" He lowered his voice, "What is it?
"My amusement, not yours, dear balrog. Once is not forever.
The red eyes narrowed, and in the darkness, a dark tint of green glared through. Then, abruptly, shadows swung aside again without a sound, and they moved on in the depth.
At length Gothmog started, and halted again at the entrance of the cave, where the moon came through in a misty light.
"He is leaving Them here." He said, and the slight emphasis on the word sent a jolt through Sauron's arm to his fingers. His hands clenched spasmodically.
"For..,
"The Second Children of Iluvatar, awakened in Hildorien. He is going after them.
Others were coming behind him, and reluctantly, they moved to the outer border of the board so that the muffled screams would not disturb their whispers. The ragged hedges beside them filtered the broken view of a dark stream.
"You would be in charge, Gorthaur, of all of Angband. Milord." Gothmog nodded, almost imperceptible.
Sauron scoffed, wishing for the graceful defiance of his elf.
"And somehow I was not privy to this?
"Our Lord knew you were otherwise occupied with more important matters," Ventured Gothmog, "We conversed during the latest parlay with the Feanorions- they are desperate, and the Second Children would not be suspect even later on when our Lord succeeds in his stealth." There was no question of "if".
"Second Children?" Sauron asked, and suddenly heard a faint resonance in the air.
"So Thuringwethil tells," Gothmog added sotto voce, "They fear the night." He came closer until they walked abreast, shoulders touching slightly.
And for some strange reason, Sauron thought about Ešl, his young and strong body, helpless as a sleeping figure in the dark room, and worried.
Gothmog was Feanor again when his breath touched Gorthaur's neck, but Sauron did not see, and parted ways with him at a crossroad.
--
Days pass like years in Angband, and minutes longer, especially when the stomach grumbled for what nourishment it could procure from the irritatingly small morsels of fruit.
Annatar sat by the bed with an expression that could be taken for contrition if not for the subtle shade of excitement around the corners of his mouth. He held a plate in one hand, and the other was sticky with the juice of passionfruits. Ešl eyed both the sweet wrinkled purple rinds and the golden Annatar suspiciously though he ate without protest. Three days without food did not allow hunger to invade his flesh, but there were other things that made him uneasy, the persistent odd tingling, not yet pain, every time the other's skin touched his for example.
"There are marmosets in Doriath," He said between swallows, and as his host seemed to take no notice, continued, "My friend has one, it sleeps in her room and eats at her table," He glanced sidelong at Annatar, "Quite unaided.
"But you are not a marmoset are you?" Ešl's tongue slipped out and touched one of Sauron's fingertips, withdrawing quickly.
"No," The elf replied, "But the farmers also keep sheep and feed them flagons of wine before slaughtering them." He put a hand up to wipe away the liquid at his chin.
"Let me," Sauron interrupted and dabbed Ešl's lips, disregarding the thoughtful look on that young face and said: "I am not giving you wine however.
"Unfortunately.
Sauron arched an eyebrow and paused his motions.
"Wine and elves do not do so well together, and I would not give it to one so newly came of mere physical age, Sindarin or Telerin natural propensity or no.
"So you feed me like I'm a child," Ešl insisted, and his fingers clenched on the bed sheets, "An elven marmoset, a petÉ" He glared at the silver eyes that appeared too bright during the day fell silent, contemplating at the vivid luster within those orbs.
A treasure, Sauron added mentally, mine, and nonchalantly washed his hands in a basin nearby. Wiping them dry with a towel, he turned around and whispered in Ešl's ear, pressing himself close so the boy seemed to lie down again in his effort to avoid the contact.
"You need to keep your strengths up if you want to continue in your strange whickering. I do not wish you to faint while standing near the forge fire." Sauron said, and slightly licked the side of the face, right over a sharp cheekbone.
"I do not like fire, and I was not laughing.." Ešl said, and sighed: having a vague memory that he said it before. The touch was not enough to entice, but it was very very warm.
Two arms went under his and held him in a tight embrace and he was hauled upwards into a sitting position.
"Reason?" Annatar asked, and divested Ešl of his nightshirt before commencing to dress him with the elf sitting partly in his lap.
"They burn.
"That would be the point I suspect. But hopefully not you, so I'll be teaching you how to stoke one, to manage one so that its sough listens to your will.
"Must you? I do not wish to learn." Ešl's eyes widened, and his fair face was screwed to such an expression of utter misery that Sauron laughed. A sudden glimpse of the elf doing the same many times before and succeeding in the face of grim elven lords came to his mind.
He bent down and kissed Ešl's down turned mouth, bringing one hand to stroke the dark hair.
"You must, this is an art of forging metals.
Sauron lowered his voice, tying a golden belt around the middle of the tunic, "Do you not claim to be an artist?
It was unfair, he knew, but when had anything been fair when it came to him. One thing he had learned in his long sojourn since the first bar resounded in the world, fairness is the limiting ideal of the perfection of thought; therefore, it does not exist. After all, why did Morgoth aim to stray from Iluvatar's tunes which called to existence everything- Ea!- it was unfair
Look to the origin for the purpose.
A faint demurring from the remarkable living treasure caught his corporeal eyes and Sauron's thoughts were lost as they turned from the irrevocably gloomy pondering of his choice to one who is almost wholly innocent of it all -so lost and focused at the same time- like Feanor Feanaro Curufinwe Finwion Mirielion artist warrior living fire
And it was so very foolish to see fire in one and not all the others. The Moriquendi's eyes were filled with that divine fire, indeed, he did not even to peer closely to see it even in this brilliantly Valinor colored room. They were fools, to know nothing of potential, to recognize nothing that slight tempering and refining could accomplish.
"Ešl, come with me.
The elf stood and though his face was set in grim lines, the slight excitement in his step and the tremulous curiosity of his eyes he was too young and of the wrong kind to conceal.
Of the same stamp certainly, to survive all this.
"Perhaps you are a memento left to the darkness, an evolutionary equivalent in a sense, though younger, so much younger." Sauron mused, hands placed quite firmly upon the other's shoulders, very aware of the sudden tensing of muscles.
"And why should you be tense?
"Because you should know that I am going because I have nowhere else to go." The amused tone made him release his hold, and he was far more contented watching the form moving freely, darting surreptitious looks at their surrounding.
The walls seemed healed and bore no trace of the battering they had before. Ešl noted as they walked past and entered the gleaming forge. Its immaculate appearance was still faintly disturbing, more so because he wish to be the one to render it into a different state, and in his opinion, a far more suitable one.
At length, amidst the flare of heat and orange shadows, it was his turn. Oil and water hissed in a barrel beside him.
There was no choice, Ešl reminded himself.
"Imitate you?
"Imitate," Annatar narrowed his eyes, and a confusion nestled itself into his features before quickly chased away by the more familiar strange idleness, "Yes, of course, imitate.
Something was clearly troubling the other, Ešl paid it no heed. The leather apron was thick and seemed to weigh him down, as much as the gloves though with an effort, he managed to insert the iron into that mess of light, and uncovered a triumph there as the heat seemed so very close, almost consuming him in its embrace.
The heart of the fire is not empty, though it is the hottest there: ash and coke, ambers aglow.
A damp layer of sweat clung to his body, and his muscles ached with joy as he brought the hammer down the softened metal. A pain wrought his sinews aflame as he found a sympathetic friend in his loneliness. Entirely shot with lingering shadows, he and fire both, turning to each other, all-exploring.
Curiously, Sauron felt no more than a spectator as Ešl worked, the grand aesthetic of the scene charmed him to such that he melted into spirit, forsaking his tissues as Ešl forgot about him.
Annatar did not touch Ešl again that night, or any of the nights that Ešl labored in the forge.
He let him sleep, and watched his slumber, finding respite in the gentle rise and fall of the pale chest and the gradual shaping of flesh beneath the covers.
--