The Seven Seeing Stones

Author's Note:
Sorry again for the delay but I've been struggling a little bit with this story so hopefully this chapter works out alright.
Please read and review.

Seven
Alone

Moonlight glinted off the mask that obscured half of Avaanta's face as he watched the retreating form of Celeborn upon his steed disappearing off into the darkness. Once he lost sight of him Avaanta bent down to retrieve the fourth Palantir, wrapped in his black cloak, from the ground where he had left it before the fight with Celeborn had broken out.

Mounting his dark steed he held the Palantir tightly in the crook of one arm and tugged on the reins with the other. He set the horse at a slow walk along the bank of the river, soon they would come across a rocky hillside where a crevasse in its face would lead the Elf to a deep, hidden cave where he had been storing the Palantiri he had seized. He had been sure not to allow Celeborn to accompany him when he had deposited the other three stones so had no qualms over leaving them there while he was gone.

Emerging from the cut in the rock face, which was a tight fit even for the slim Elf, he cast his eyes about in the darkness to be sure that no one had seen him emerge. Taking up his horse's reins he lead the beast towards the water's edge. As he set a foot into the shallows the horse bucked its head, trying to tug the reins out of the Elf's hand.

"Quite your complaining. You like swimming, or you did the last time I led you into the water."

The horse snorted and allowed Avaanta to lead him into the river. It was quite shallow where he had chosen to cross but the water still came high up Avaanta's chest. His horse was able to walk easily through the water without having to swim and the pair had soon made it to the other side.

Avaanta noticed also, as he was climbing out of the swirling waters, that the first light of dawn was toughing the inky blackness of the horizon.

"We best find somewhere secluded to sleep the day away before heading for Mordor, or what remains of it anyway."

The horse seemed to know where he wanted to go so Avaanta allowed him to lead him off in the direction of a small forest. Its dense foliage would provide excellent cover for the both of them to hide beneath while they waited for night to fall again.

"Well done." He stroked the horse's neck fondly. "This will suit us well until nightfall."

Darkness cloaked the masked rider and his black steed as they galloped through the night across unsettled terrain. The normally surefooted horse found himself sliding and skidding occasionally on the loose slate that covered these desolate parts.

The area once called Mordor was never a pretty place but now unused and vacated it was a sole less expanse of rocky land that had little form and no beauty. Avaanta even felt cold in this place as he rode through it under the blanket of darkness the starless sky provided. Clouds hung low obscuring the moon and the tiny bright lights that normally shone above.

Finally, after much riding, he came across the ruins of the Tower of Barad-Dur. There he knew he would find the fifth Palantir, hidden in amongst all that crumbled masonry. For it was within the tower that Sauron has kept the Palantir, and there it had remained even as he had watched the tower collapse at the climax of the war as Fordo had destroyed the Ring in the fires of Mt. Doom.

Avaanta flicked his gaze to his right where the belching volcano had been when he had last set foot in this area. It had long since burnt itself out, destroying most of structure with it's own molten rock spewing forth from it. Now it was little more than a rocky hill, which Avaanta could barely make out through the darkness.

He glanced about, peering through the darkness in an attempt to make out anything of his surroundings. Eventually he had to accept that it was too dark to begin his search for the Palantir of Minas Ithil, hidden beneath the ruins of Barad-Dur. He would have to wait until dawn and the mere thought frustrated him so, he cried out in rage and fell to his knees upon the rocky ground.

His dark steed walked over to him and nudged his muzzle against Avaanta's head. The Elf wrapped his arms about the horse head and gently stroked his blaze.

"At least I can place my trust in you Talagor. Not like Celeborn. He wanted to destroy us, destroy what we were trying to do. He doesn't understand, can't see the greater picture. He'll never be able to understand what we're trying to achieve."

The horse flared its nostrils to indicate that it was indeed listening to the words of his master, even if he could not comprehend them.

"He won't last two days on his own Talagor. By nightfall tomorrow he'll have been caught and sold to the highest bidder. I could name many Men who would pay a very high price to own him."

The horse nuzzled him and Avaanta rested his forehead against the horses. He felt like the beast was the only thing in the whole of Middle Earth he could trust.

Sighing heavily in frustration at having to delay his search Avaanta curled up in as comfortable a position as he could manage on the hard, uneven ground and settled down to get some sleep. He heard a loud rustling beside him as the mighty horse lowered himself to the stony ground beside him and curled his large body about him, sheltering the Elf from the cold feeling that had settled in his bones since setting foot in this place. The two slept like this for the rest of the night, only when the first rays of sunlight kissed Avaanta's pale face did he wake and begin to plan out the most efficient approach to the search that lay ahead of him.

Avaanta had been searching since dawn for the Palantir but so far was no closer to locating it. He cried out in frustration and kicked at a nearby rock, doubling over and gripping his foot in pain as the rock turned out to be significantly heavier than it looked. Cursing he hopped about the uneven land until, loosing his footing, he stumbled to the ground, cracking his head against a flat rock. He hollered in pain and brought a hand to the back of his head to see if the wound was bleeding. As he brought his hand to his eyes he could see no blood but upon returning it to the back of his head he could already feel a slight bump. He cursed loudly and threw a rock close at hand clear across the rubble.

It smacked into a part of the structure that had appeared relatively sound until struck by the rock, bringing it tumbling to the ground. Chunks of stone clattered across the hard ground and a puff of dust blew up into the air.

As he approached the crumbled rubble Avaanta coughed and waved an arm about in front of him to clear the dust about him. He raised a hand to his mouth to stifle another coughing fit before the dust about him finally settled and he was able to see clearly as he dug through the pile of rubble.

After half an hour of digging about in the rubble he had turned up nothing. Not to his surprise though, why should he have expected the Palantir to be there just because he'd caused the stone structure to collapse. He heaved a defeated sigh and sat down on a flat rock. At this rate it would take months to search through the ruins of Barad-Dur. He hung his head between his hands in the hope that a brilliant thought would come to him.

He sat like that until the sun set, brilliant blood red in the west at his back and night began to ascend. His horse nudged his shoulder and he suddenly became aware that the rest of the day had passed without his knowledge.

He growled in frustration at having to spend yet another night in the desolate expanse of land. He would not admit it out loud but a lingering thought at the back of his mind reminded him that he would not be so lonely had he still had the company of Celeborn. He snorted to himself, Celeborn had betrayed him, had wanted to steal the Palantiri off him, why should he consider the other Elf a friend after all that. Those were his Palantiri; he had suffered to find them, to claim them, to hide them….

The masked Elf's eyes suddenly lit up as the thought he had been striving for all afternoon suddenly came to him. Saruman had communicated with Sauron during the war of the ring using the Orthanc Palantir. Which meant that that stone communicated directly with the stone he was trying to find, or if not directly at least he knew it had done so once before. If he went back the retrieved the Orthanc Palantir he could use it to locate the Palantir of Minas Ithil, he might run a slight risk of being seen through the remaining other two Palantiri but it was one he was willing to take. It would end this fruitless search in only a few hours.

A satisfied smirk graced his lips as he called his horse over to him. He leapt gracefully to the creature's back, his seared black cloak swirling about his elegant form as he adjusted his seat upon the beast's broad back. Starlight flickered across his silver half mask with every movement of his head before he pulled the dark hood up, throwing his face into shadows.

A light kick to his mount's side and the horse took off at a flying gallop in the direction they had come just the night before. Avaanta wished there was some way to speed up the journey but he could not do any magic of that sort. He would just have to ride his horse ragged for the night and the following day and hope the stallion would be able to recover his strength in time to carry them back out of that dismal place.

Avaanta shuddered at the thought of having to going back there. He considered himself fairly hardened after his first hand experience with torture but there was still something terribly unsettling about the place that was once called Mordor. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that nothing lived there, in his night and day there he had seen not a single creature, no bird, mouse or cricket to fill the night with his song. No flora grew there either; it was a desolate place devoid of any life. Avaanta decided that was what was most unsettling about it, that and the evil presence that could still be felt there, long after the destruction of Sauron.

Avaanta left his steed on the far side of the bank along with his boots, cloak, weapons and leather tunic. He dove into the hurrying water of the Great River and long even strokes pulled him swiftly to the other side.

Pulling himself from the water he shook his long blond hair, sending a shower of tiny water droplets about him and freeing his hair of the extra weight. Rivulets of water trickled down the smooth surface of the metallic mask the Elf wore upon his face, it glistened in the sun and soon the water no longer clung to its surface.

Uneasy blue eyes darted about the deserted area but Avaanta knew all too well that just because an area looks deserted doesn't necessarily mean it is. Ducking behind a large boulder he waited patiently to see if anyone would emerge from hiding who may have been watching him. As the minutes slowly slipped by and no movement was detected by the dull blue eyes and not a sound picked up by the sharp ears Avaanta moved back out from behind the boulder and felt his way along the cliff face until he felt his fingers slip into the hidden crevice.

For anyone who did not know it was what it was would think it were only a tiny crack in the rocks surface but if one were to in fact slip down past a fallen boulder they would see that in fact the half of the cliff to the left of the crack was set back from the right, effectively making the opening much larger than it had once appeared.

This Avaanta did now, slipping in behind the boulder and then twisting his body to squeeze into the crack in the cliff face. It was a tight fit and the Elf had to expel all the air form his lungs in order to shrink the size of his chest cavity and allow him to slip inside.

A slow, faint dripping greeted the Elf's ears as he finally squeezed into the dark cavern. Brushing some moss that had clung to his silvery tunic off he stepped carefully into the dark. He counted each pace and as the seventeenth one rang off the walls of the cave he stretched a hand out to brush against the wall. He smiled to himself as he crouched down in the darkness and his hand smoothed over the surface of one of his hidden Palantiri. His eyes fluttered shut as the cool surface flowed beneath his trembling fingers; the power that radiated from the stones was becoming more intense with every stone he collected.

With a finger he counted off each of the stones until his finger lighted upon the stone of Orthanc. He wrapped both hands around it and lifted it from the floor, cradling the stone in one arm he paced his way back to the cave's entrance and squeezed back out into the fading daylight.

There he swam back to his horse and belongings he had left behind. He pulled his leather tunic on over his wet silken tunic, tugged his boots on, slung he weapons over his back and used his black cloak to wrap up the Palantir. He mounted his horse and soon the two were off, speeding towards the lands of Mordor.

As day broke on the following morning Avaanta galloped his horse into the vastness of Mordor. The ruins lay before him, just as he had left them and now here he was again. Only this time he would not leave empty handed.

He whipped the black cloak off the Palantir and held it in his hands before him. Focusing his attention to the reflective black surface he stared hard into its black depth.

He must have sat in such a pose for several hours, trying in vain to draw an image to the stones surface. Frustration finally set in and with a furious cry Avaanta raised the large stone above his head and was about to hurl it from his grasped when he stopped himself.

Wide eyes starred out over the bleak terrain as he followed the path the stone might have taken had he released it. He had no idea of knowing how far it would have gone but he hated to think of it. He brought the stone down from over his head and cradled it in his arms up against his chest, lying his head on it's surface as if it were his own child.

His horse shifted impatiently beneath him.

"Alright, alright I know I'm getting no where but I just don't know how to work it ok."

The horse tossed his head.

"Celeborn."

Avaanta fumed and vented his frustration with a loud yell that echoed off the mountains.

"Damn him! Damn him, damn him, damn him!"

He wasted no more time, kicking his horse into action they took off again for the crack in the cliff. Avaanta needed to hide his Palantir before he went off in search of Celeborn, the only soul in Middle Earth he could trust to show him how to use the stones seeing power.