Sauron, Melkor Morgoth, Middle Earth, and Valinor are all creations of Tolkien as are the broad situations shown here. The other characters and specific location are mine, so don't go looking for them in the books or movies. I'm just adding a little more detail to Tolkien's world.

I don't plan on making any money from this story, so please just read it an enjoy.

The air did get heavier. The farther they descended, the more he felt it, the weight, the blackness. Down, down, down ...

He had long wandered through mountains, in Valinor, and here in these eastern lands a well, searching for the perfect ore for his forge, but he had never felt such weight, nor such blackness, as this. And the heat …

He had seen blue flames leap high in Valinor. Even here, he had gotten blue centers to appear in the white and yellow flames of his forge. But now ... Drops wrung from his skin slipped down his neck and between his shoulder blades. His head bent and shoulders sagged. His steps slowed as he was made to march at the side of this Sauron … favored servant of his enemy within that same enemy's very halls.

"We are here …"

He looked up. Deep, blue light from its center barely illuminated the outline of a forge in front of him. A gangly creature with a bent spine like a row of teeth lumbered toward him. Its real, sharpened teeth to match grinned up at him. Its clawed hands held out an iron collar. He stared at it.

Sauron's cold voice whispered over his head. "Bend down …"

He shook his head and backed away from the creature.

"Bend down!"

The already hunch-backed servant gibbered at the sound of Sauron's command. It jumped up, grabbing him by his hair, wrapped one arm around his neck and pulled his head down. The creature was heavier than he had expected. He was used to his light kindred. He had thought these poor wretches were only them warped and tarnished over a period of time too long and terrible to contemplate … a thought now making him very nervous.

The creature snapped the collar around his neck while holding him in place by his shoulder. Its sharp nails stabbed into his flesh. He was then pulled down by the iron ring's own weight even before the creature threaded a chain through a loop melted into it. The other end of the chain was attached to the forge itself. It's links not only took a long time to melt, but put off a particular scent when they did and also gave off a particular ring when struck. Both scent and sound were known to Sauron and these orcs. At the thought of another being free, the orcs would scream and gibber alerting their overlords to another's escape attempt. All this he would learn later, but first, he learned what his enemy wanted from him in return for trapping him in this place.

"You will fashion the metal ore given you into weapons and armor to equip my lord's armies with ..."

He straightened his back and shoulders almost shaking with the effort the iron collar made that movement for him. "You must be mad to think I will betray my brothers or even more distant kin that way."

"You will soon know what will happen if you fail."

So, he was given his first beating as a warning. He learned soon after that even when fed enormously the fires of his new forge gave forth little light. Melkor Morgoth seemed to have found a way to make flames produce great heat while keeping most of his darkness too. The rings, bangs, and howls around the Noldo told him he was not alone in this darkness. There were many forges like his surrounding him.

Sometimes, far off, he thought he heard the scream, and even less often, the sobs, of a fellow elf. More often, though, he listened instead to the bellowing, cries, and shouts of orcs as they complained of their misery to each other only to get competing complaints and demands to "shut up" in return. He himself tried to work in silence. He listened to the echoes in the room he shared with so many others to see if there was any chance of escape from it if he broke free of his chain. He learned from the echoes the cavern was large and there were indeed many tunnels off it, but they only seemed to lead down in a curly, twisting fashion to mines from which the ore was brought up. Then he and the other smiths purified, smelt, and fashioned it into things to be worn or wielded: weapons, armor, and chains, many chains.

Thankfully, he was not asked to make much of the latter creation, but a great deal of the former two instead. He found a grim fun in doing so. He knew they would first be tried in the arena, a sunken hole in the middle of the room. They punished orcs by throwing them into that large pit. Two or more were put into it together, and only half of them, if that, were expected to emerge alive.

The forge keepers were very excited by these events if they were not the ones put in themselves. By surrounding the arena, and looking down into it, they got to see how their new creations stood up against a battle-test. The elf also enjoyed thinking of these foul creatures, ready to mob and eat him for even thinking about freedom, being damaged by what he made. He piled up maces, swords, and armor around himself for them to thus use against each other, or so it seemed ...

. . .

He laughed. He was insane, incredibly so, but it felt so good right then. Then he watched his plan unfold in silence, grinning only, after becoming breathless from his laughter.

Sauran stared in silence over the crowd wearing and carrying his prisoner's creations. As the ellon viewed the face of Melkor's servant and listened to his stillness, all he could think about was how his keeper had grinned to himself earlier upon seeing the ever growing piles around his forge. He'd turned out breast-plate after breast-plate, sword after sword, mace after mace. But now, now overseer saw for himself his creations worn and carried, he had finally realized the truth.

The weapons were unbalanced, the breast plates did not cover the entirety of an orc's broad chest, leaving dangerous gaps over vital organs. Elves would not be able to resist taking advantage of such gaps. Indeed, he doubted they would ever get the opportunity. Still, he had wasted a great deal of time and resources and fooled his favored servant for a while. It was worth it.

Some moments after his laughs had finally died down to become a satisfied silence, he heard the favorite servant of Melkor whisper ... "You think this funny?"

He nodded from where he lay sprawled in the dirt some paces from his overseer's feet. "Yes, yes I do."

Sauron strode over and plucked him up by his hair, still long, though now tied back. No one had bothered to remove it down here. Perhaps this was why. The servant of Melkor pulled him off his feet and then up even higher to look him in the face. He looked into eyes like the void as a voice seemed to speak out of it to him. "You think you have won?"

He shrugged and ground out a reply through clenched teeth. (It hurt to hang by one's hair.) "Tis no fault of mine you failed to more closely examine my work after I turned it out, but before equipping your lord's army with it."

A smile actually spread over Sauron's face before he replied. The elf felt his form freezing even in that hot place.

"Yes, but you shall face 'my' punishment for this before I face mine."

Then, Morgoth's servant put him back down on his feet, spun him around by his shoulders, grasped both his hands, and slammed them palms down upon the surface of his forge ...

A scream was ripped from him that reverberated through the darkness.

. . .

"Celuant ..?"

He turned. He realized he was breathing hard and sweating while standing still, in the cool of the morning, within a shadowed canyon, by the side of a chill river. He met grey eyes ... like a mist clinging to the canopies of trees. The Sindar ellon staring at him continued to him in a soft, cool voice. It was not like the hiss of a snake though, but like cool droplets hanging suspended in air. "We don't defile a river with what we must wash off our skin to be clean after battle."

"Oh …" The Noldo wondered if the relief he felt was evident in his voice. He tried to avoid the gaze of the ancient elf, although he realized his sweat would reveal him even as he wiped it off. "What do you do then, Green Elf?"

"We rub-off with sand first, then rinse in a river."

The Noldo nodded and turned away from the water without looking into it.

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God Bless

ScribeofHeroes