CHAPTER THIRTEEN

DILLY

It was quiet.

Very, very quiet.

The phrase "deathly quiet," would not go amiss. "Silent as the grave," would be similarly appropriate. The inside of a coffin would probably have been noisier.

Dilly was so bored she almost wished for a coffin of her own. Several hours had passed. In that time, she had heard the faint rustle of her own clothing whenever she shifted position, and the steady, almost inaudible sigh of two people breathing. And that was all.

She could feel cold, dank stone under her fingers. She could smell the tang of old rot from her straw-stuffed pallet. She could see precisely nothing.

Dilly wondered how long Taras had been down here. It couldn't have been that long – she could still remember the orcs' conversation on the way to Isengard: "There's only one pris'ner what's survived Sharkey's dungeons fer more'n a few months, an' everyone sez 'e's as crazy as a warg wiv 'is tail afire." Of course, Dilly had never seen a warg with its tail on fire – or any kind of warg, for that matter -- but Taras seemed pretty lucid to her.

…Barring the whole bit about him accusing her of being Saruman's minion, that is. Oh, and the part where he called her "Lothiriel" and tried to break his cell door down with his bare hands.

Okay, she thought. So I'm stuck in another world, in the dungeon of the second most evil villain available. I have no idea where my friends are. Eredolyn is concussed and deluded, Eicys is probably dead, and the man across from me is quite possibly insane.

And even if he isn't, he's a jerk and I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of speaking first.

Well, this is shaping up to be a barrel of laughs.

TARAS

Clink.

Taras cursed in the privacy of his head. It wasn't easy to move soundlessly when you were chained to a wall, but Taras had enough training and Elven ancestry to enable him to take a cat unawares. He was having trouble focusing, that was all – his head came up sharply every time he caught a whisper of breath or movement from the opposite cell, and his ears were ringing with the first real conversation he'd had in… too long. Much too long. He was a little surprised he still remembered how to form the words properly.

He ached to try again. His whole body was crammed with words; they filled his throat and pressed against his tightly clenched teeth; he was choking on them.

No, no, no. Don't trust her.

Maenadan's voice slunk through his head, a snide little whisper: Haven't you learned your lesson, Taras?

The silence was almost throttling him by now. It was a physical thing, that silence: cold, heavy, and vicious. It lurked in the darkness, fed off of it, glutted itself on the passive despair of the prisoners.

Four steps, stop, turn. Four steps, stop, turn. Careful steps, slow and soft: keep the chain from moving. Hold your arm just so. Don't think, don't speak, keep silent, silent…

…silent...

Taras stopped pacing, and stood in the middle of his cell, fighting for control. He concentrated on the pain in his wrist, glad for once of that nagging distraction.

The manacle had left bruises ringing the base of his hand. Recent exertions had torn open the eternally half-healed wounds, and now blood trickled across his palm and dripped off his fingers. But this wasn't new enough to be interesting: he'd spent so much time wrenching at that manacle that the scar tissue probably went all the way to the bone by now. The pain certainly did.

Taras turned impatiently back to his pacing.

Clink.

He stifled a growl.

"What is that?" asked Dilly suddenly.

The sound of a human voice broke over Taras' soul like a wave over a blistering desert. "Nothing," he said, savoring the rich round feel of the word in his mouth, and the fact that there was someone to hear it.

"Hmp," said Dilly, and silence returned like a blow. Taras sagged.

It wouldn't hurt to talk to her a little…

He squashed the thought, ruthlessly. The taste of his single word had turned dry and bitter in his mouth.

Maybe she really is just another prisoner, the same little voice begged him.

Taras rolled his eyes. Maenadan's voice answered for him: And maybe you're still as naïve as you were when I stole your life. I always knew you were an idealist, Taras, but I never took you for an idiot.

Unspoken words chapped his mouth. He went back to pacing.

EICYS

They took the route above ground. Ungrath explained to her, in his short, stop-asking-me-questions way, that the path through the caverns was shorter, but more crowded. Eicys understood the implication: outcasts like us avoid crowds.

The sun was setting, turning the poisonous fogs of Isengard a brilliant ruby red. Ungrath trudged through the reek with his head down and his eyes screwed up against the light, but Eicys stood up straight for the first time in what felt like hours. She didn't like being underground.

But Ungrath kept glancing at her, little sideways looks with an unnervingly appraising edge to them, until a self-conscious Eicys hunched her shoulders and back in imitation of the uruk's posture. She couldn't afford to relax; she'd already let her guard down too far. He may be on my side right now, but he's still just an orc, she reminded herself.

"Y' never told me y'r name," he said, as they skirted a hole left by an uprooted tree. Splintered roots stuck up like ribs out of an old corpse.

"Oh? Oh. It's…" What had that uruk in Fangorn called the dead orc? Marduk? Gharshuk? Murshag? "…Marlush…uk…ag," Eicys invented wildly.

"Righ'," drawled Ungrath. "Y' wan' t' throw a few more syllables in for good measure, or jus' tell me th' truth?"

"That's my name!" said Eicys.

"Yeah," said Ungrath. "Sure it is. Well, I guess y' could come up wi' worse."

Eicys wilted. And after all, she reasoned, Ungrath had told her his name. Eventually. "Eicys," she muttered.

"Yeah," he said nodding. "Tha's def'nitely worse."

"Oh. – Hey!"

Ungrath just kept walking, but there was something like a grin on his face. He said nothing further until they pulled up in front of a structure that was half cave, half ramshackle hut. It was full of smoke and torchlight, and smelled abominable. "Here we are – this is where th' West quadrant bunks."

Eicys stared at the narrow, filthy chaos of the bunkhouse, edging away as a scarlet-eyed goblin passed them. "Oh," she said. "Um. Where should I sleep?" An orc with slit pupils and about two dozen eyebrow rings sneered at her as he brushed past.

"…Eicys?" Ungrath muttered suddenly. "C'mere a minute." And he grabbed her elbow and hauled her bodily around a corner of the barracks, out of sight. Eicys' feet left grooves in the dirt as she fought to pull free; Ungrath didn't even appear to notice her struggles. And there was, Eicys reflected, no real reason why he should: his arms were about as thick around as her waist. He came to an abrupt halt and released her. Eicys sullenly adjusted a greave and said, "Well? What?"

"Y' gotta stop doin' tha'," he pled.

"What?" she asked.

"Meetin' people's eyes."

Eicys stared at him in alarm.

"There," said Ungrath immediately. "Tha'. Don' do tha'. Y' never know when y' migh' run into someone wi' half a workin' brain who'll see through tha' disguise. Not likely in this place, but still. Mos' trouble I c'n handle, but I really, really don' need any more attention from…" He jerked his head toward Saruman's looming tower. "Got it?"

"What disguise?" Eicys demanded numbly. "I'm an orc!"

"Yeah, an' I'm an Elf," snorted Ungrath. "Think I'm stupid as well as ugly? Your pretty human hair's still stickin' ou' of your helmet."

Eicys' hand flew to the rim of her helmet, and found only iron. "Ha," said Ungrath, and rocked back a little, folding his arms in satisfaction. Eicys realized in a flash that he hadn't known she was human: he'd had to test her first. And she'd just failed.

"Oh help," she mumbled, the words drowned by the roaring in her ears. "Ungrath – you... you wouldn't…?"

"Oh, stop lookin' at me like tha', will you? I've known almos' since I met you. If I was goin' t' tell someone I'd ha' done it a'ready."

Eicys was not particularly reassured. She fought to keep her breathing steady. "Okay," she said. "That's… that's good."

He considered her a moment – that same confused, appraising stare she kept catching him at, as though he were expecting something and wasn't entirely sure what it was. She stared back at him, dimly aware that she was shaking, and unable to do anything about it.

"Hey," said Ungrath, frowning. "Calm down, a'righ'? I'm not goin' t' tell anyone."

She bit her lip. "You won't?"

Ungrath hesitated, then shook his head.

"You promise?" Eicys demanded.

"An' wha' do y' think tha's worth?" he asked, bitterly. "An oath from an orc? -- Don' look at me like tha'! I promise, a'righ'? I won' tell."

Eicys took a deep, shuddering breath, and covered her eyes. She nodded.

"Jus' – " He paused, and swallowed. "Jus' don' get caught, a'righ'?"

"No," said Eicys. "All right. I – Thank you." She opened her eyes. If Ungrath had been anyone – or more appropriately, anything – else, she probably would have thrown her arms around him. As it was, she put out both hands in a kind of halfway gesture and repeated, "thank you," fervently.

Ungrath glanced at her hands, then quickly back up at her. "Yeah," he said. "Well." His face had gone a strange charcoal color. It took Eicys a moment to realize he was embarrassed: apparently orcs blushed black. Abruptly, she smiled. For some reason, the sight of this huge ugly monster flushed clear to the tips of his ears was the most reassuring one Eicys could have asked for. She just couldn't see anyone else in this place reacting that way to a thank-you. She'd made the right choice, trusting him.

"Stop smilin' like tha'," said Ungrath, who was by now as black as new tar. "Y' don' have th' right sort of teeth."

"Well, there's no toothpaste in this place," Eicys said gaily. "It shouldn't take long."

Ungrath shook his head. "Y' need a lot of lookin' after, don' you?"

"I do not!"

The uruk just looked at her. Eicys shifted, scuffed one foot in the dirt, and looked away. Ungrath nodded. "Now c'mon," he said, "or someone'll take th' spot we're after."

Eicys kept close behind as he shouldered his way through the bunkhouse to the back. High in one shadowy corner was a shelf nearly three times the size of the others. "Up there," said Ungrath. He allowed Eicys to scramble up the ladder first, then swung himself up after her.

"Oy, Experiment!" someone said from down below. "That's not yer spot!"

"It is now," snarled Ungrath. "Back off."

The orc did so, looking astonished and not a little frightened. Eicys didn't blame him at all. Facing down an irritated Ungrath was like tickling a beartrap: okay if you didn't mind losing a limb.

The uruk turned back to her with a groan. "Soon as word gets ou' tha' I'm gettin' uppity, things'll get ugly," he said. He looked her over, and said, "Uh – better if you don' watch when tha' happens, yeah?" Eicys nodded. Ungrath groaned again. "Morgoth, Eicys – eyes. Tha' wide-eyed rabbit thing isn' goin' t' do y' any good here. Apart from anythin' else, this lot'll eat y' alive if they think y're scared."

"I am not scared!"

He grinned. Eicys felt something clench in the pit of her stomach. Too many teeth...! "Good," he said. "Now get rid of tha' armor an' go t' sleep."

"I can't."

"Huh?"

"I'm not wearing the right sort of clothes underneath."

"Sleep in th' mail, then; I don' care."

"Oh." Eicys tried to get comfortable on the wooden bunk, and failed. Eventually she gave up; she was too tired to care, anyway. "Good night, Ungrath."

Ungrath twisted around to look at her. "What?"

"G'night…" she mumbled, half asleep already. It had been a long day.

"What kinda thing is tha' t' say?" the uruk asked. "Y' can't make it good jus' by sayin'."

But Eicys was fast asleep.

Ungrath gave her another curious look, and lay down again. He couldn't help a small pang of panic. She really didn't look anything like an orc, especially now, with her face all soft with sleep. How in Morgoth's name was he going to pull this off? Sharkey would kill him on a whim, and for an infraction like this…

Ungrath's fingers found his scimitar hilt in the darkness. Hand an' Eye, I'm gonna be in so much trouble…