CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DILLY
"Okay," said Dilly suddenly, on the morning of her second day in the dungeon. "This is getting ridiculous."
An intake of breath from the opposite cell informed her that she had Taras' attention. She forged ahead: "You don't trust me; well, fine. I don't like you. Shall we just call it even and start over?"
Silence.
Dilly rolled her eyes. "Hi," she said, in a parrot-like voice. "I'm Dilly. I'm lost and annoyed and royally freaked out."
Silence.
"Why, hello, Dilly," she parroted back, her impatience clearly audible. "I'm Taras. I'm suspicious and sarcastic and I really like silence."
Yet more silence.
"Well, I can see we're going to get along like a house on fire," muttered Dilly, and shut her mouth with a snap.
The empty darkness seeped into her bones. Minutes ticked past.
"…Hello, Dilly," said a measured, slightly mocking voice from across the hall. "I'm Taras. I am in fact suspicious; I think you might win as far as sarcasm goes… and I really, really hate silence."
"Wow. Could've fooled me."
"I've had practice," said Taras, in a voice bled dry of emotion.
"It gets… really quiet down here," Dilly ventured.
"Yes," said Taras, his voice so low and would-be casual that it send shivers skittering up Dilly's spine. "It does."
"It's like this all the time?" asked Dilly.
"An orc comes by once a day with food. And the guard changes three times." His voice dropped; he sounded like he was talking to himself. "Twenty-eight seconds of light. There's not much you can do with twenty-eight seconds."
"Um. I guess not," said Dilly, throwing an odd glance into the void beyond her cell door. Taras was intriguing, in an uncomfortable sort of way: he was so intense. His voice throbbed with suppressed emotion -- fury, bitterness, longing.
Silence stepped eagerly into the gap.
"Well," said Dilly. "Now that we've used up that conversation piece…"
At home, she would have proceeded down the list of standard questions: where do you go to school, what are you studying, oh really, that sounds interesting, well it was nice meeting you. But here…
"Where are you from?" asked Taras.
"Oh, good garbage," said Dilly. "Are we back to that again?"
"It's a simple question," he said, in a voice you could bend steel around.
"No, actually, it isn't."
"Why not?" he asked, courtesy crusted along every word.
"Because I figure if we don't get along things will get really unpleasant down here," said Dilly.
"So, your country of origin will cause us to dislike one another?"
"Not exactly," said Dilly. "You see, if I tell you the truth, you'll think I'm insane. On the other hand, if you actually believe me, I'll know you're insane. Either way, this can only end badly."
Taras gave an amused snort. "How much worse can it get?" he asked.
"Well… there could be spiders," said Dilly, thinking of Cebu's captivity in her bedroom closet.
Silence.
Dilly cradled her injured hand against her chest. "Is that a 'in fact there are spiders, you poor idiot' silence, or a 'I'm blown away by your optimism, courage, and snappy wit' silence?"
"Frankly," said Taras, "both."
Dilly grinned.
"So," said Taras. "Where are you from?"
"You don't give up, do you?"
"One of my numerous social failings."
"The other of which is trying to break down a cell door with your bare hands?"
Taras said nothing for a moment. "I thought you were… someone else."
"Lothiriel," Dilly offered.
"Yes. You look quite similar, and if she had been down here it would've been…" He took a deep breath. "Well. I got mad."
"I could tell," said Dilly, recalling the frantic barrage of threats and curses he'd leveled at her guards. For some reason, she had the impression that not only had he meant every one of them whole-heartedly, he was perfectly capable of carrying them out himself. Something about this guy was… dangerous. She wished she'd been able to see his face.
Taras coughed, bringing her back to earth. "So. Where were we?"
"Your social failings," said Dilly.
"Before that," he said, and there was steel as well as a smile in his voice.
"In the same place we've been all along. Sheesh – talk about your stagnant conversation."
"Are you being coy," asked Taras, "or do you honestly refuse to tell me where you're from?"
"Okay, first off: I don't do coy. It's pointless and… gooey. Secondly, I'm from a place you've never heard of called America. Thirdly, why does it matter?"
"Because you wouldn't tell me."
"That's because you wouldn't believe me," said Dilly.
"Why shouldn't I?" asked Taras, in that polite voice. Dilly was beginning to recognize it as his irritated tone.
"Because you don't trust me," she said.
Taras thought for a moment. "Fair enough," he said simply. "Where is America?" He pronounced it AHmerrica, in a smooth, liquid accent that was too musical to be precisely British.
Dilly sighed and tugged at her braid. Or tried to. She must have lost the elastic at some point; loose dark hair swept around her like a cloak. Her head would be an absolute rats' nest by morning.
Wouldn't that be fun.
"Well, we came out near Fangorn," she said slowly, "so I guess it must be near there."
She could hear the raised eyebrows in Taras' voice. "You don't know?"
"Look, I never even believed Middle-earth existed until yesterday, okay? Where I come from, the whole thing is a figment of someone's imagination. In fact, I'm hoping it still is, and this is just a really really horrible dream. I'll wake up at Cebu's and find that someone left The Two Towers running and I fell asleep watching it."
"You fell asleep watching two towers running, in a place where the world is a figment of someone's imagination," Taras said flatly.
Dilly considered that sentence for a moment. "Unfortunately," she said, "that's all pretty much accurate."
"Maybe you aren't working for Saruman," said Taras.
"Well done," said Dilly.
A pause.
"…Um. How did you finally figure that out?"
Taras snorted faintly. "I can't help thinking that if you were in the employ of someone who can twist minds and words as efficiently as the wizard, you would be a little better at this."
Dilly blinked. She felt an irrational grin spread across her face. Then she tipped back her head and laughed.
There was a clank of startled movement in the cell across from her, and Taras breathed something like a curse. It sounded shocked to the point of reverence. Taras obviously never felt emotions by halves – although Dilly couldn't figure out what had sent him down this new path.
"What?" she asked.
"Oh -- Nothing," he said hurriedly. "Nothing. It's just – it's been a long time since I've heard anyone laugh." He paused, and added wryly: "It's been a long time since I've heard anyone, period."
Dilly tried to tug on her braid again and had to settle for a fistful of hair. "How long have you been here?" she asked quietly.
Taras tried for the casual voice again, and didn't manage it any better the second time around. Taras was obviously not someone to whom casual came easily.
"About three years," he said.
Dilly rocked backwards.
"Holy Hannah," she said at last. "By yourself?"
"Do the guards count?" he asked, with that wry twist back in his voice.
Dilly didn't answer. She was busy imagining three years of solitary confinement in this pit. No light, no sound, no – anything.
Her imagination rebelled, shying nervously away from the idea. There was just something… malicious about this place; a thin, foul, chilly evil that lurked in the corners like rot. It took Dilly about three seconds to decide that if she had to spend even one year alone down here, she would go stark raving mad.
That was not exactly encouraging, as far as her confidence in Taras went.
"Oh," she said, and sought lamely for something new to say. The only thing she could come up with was: "So… What are you in for?"
Taras drew a long, long breath. "Blackmail, mainly," he said.
Dilly blinked. She barely knew the guy, of course, but still – he didn't seem the type. "Who did you blackmail?" she asked.
Taras gave a hoarse bark that was not quite a laugh. "You misunderstand me," he said, his voice raw with bitterness. "I am the blackmail."
EREDOLYN
Eredolyn stretched luxuriously, a small moan of pleasure sounding in the back of her throat. The smoke and steam of Isengard's forges gave the morning sunlight falling onto her pillow a dull, rosy glow, like sunset. It was quite lovely, actually. But Eredolyn turned her back on it and snuggled defiantly into her pillow.
It was a fantastic pillow. Technology and fancy ergonomic gels could take comfort a long way, but when all was said and done, there was nothing like a fat, silky sack of down. Especially after all that bashing about in the woods yesterday. Eredolyn was all for adventures, but she was most definitely a city girl. It had taken a very long, very hot, very scented-soapy bath to make her feel herself again. She still smelled of lavender and… something else. A strange, sharp, green sort of smell. Tuima's pack had smelled like that, Eredolyn remembered.
Eredolyn hugged her pillow gleefully, thinking back. A real live Elf! Granted, Tuima hadn't exactly been what Eredolyn had expected from reading The Lord of the Rings – but then Saruman wasn't what she'd expected, either. He wasn't nearly as horrible as Tolkien had made him sound.
Not, Eredolyn amended piously, that Tolkien hadn't been right. Ultimately. Overall. It was just that… well, if Middle-earth was a real place, full of people and towns and stories that Tolkien had never written… who was to say he'd gotten everything right? Didn't it make sense that there was more to Saruman – an immortal demigod appointed as a steward of Middle-earth – than some old professor could capture in a few pages of prose?
Eredolyn wrinkled her nose, uncomfortable with the direction her thoughts were heading. Evil wizard! she reminded herself once again. She needed to plan her escape. The bedclothes-out-the-window approach was definitely not an option. So that left her no choice, really, but to set out to explore Orthanc.
And if she just so happened to pass Saruman's library in the course of her explorations… well, escaping could always wait a day. Or two.
Three at the outside.
EICYS
Ungrath had disappeared by the time Eicys woke up. She wasn't terribly upset about that: she'd had two different dreams in which he turned her in to Saruman and three more in which he simply killed her himself. In the other four dreams she'd been killed and/or eaten by an angry tree, a baggie of gruel, a giant pit that went on forever, and her own helmet.
The last dream was the one that had woken her up, to find that her helmet had twisted around while she slept so that the nose guard dug into her ear and the stink of the previous owner filled her nose. It smelled as though something had died in there.
Come to think of it, something probably had.
Eicys gagged, struggled for a few minutes, and finally managed to get her helmet turned around properly without showing any telltale blonde hair.
Then she lay back on the bunk – if a wooden slab could be called a "bunk" – and stared miserably at the ceiling.
She hurt.
To be precise: she hurt everywhere.
Her ribs felt splintered. Her head throbbed. Her jaw ached from her constantly chattering teeth. Her neck felt as though the bones had been welded together by a poorly trained contractor. She was covered in bruises, every muscle had gone stiff, and she was so hungry that even the mess hall fare sounded appealing.
…Okay, not appealing. Edible, maybe. Survivable, at any rate.
Eicys gritted her teeth and hauled herself upright, stifling a groan. As she slithered down from the bunk, she decided that she and the others had to escape as soon as possible, if only for the sake of getting a decent meal.
And a decent mattress. And a shower. And then another shower. And perhaps a few years in a padded cell.
Eicys collected the spear that marked her out as a dungeon guard, checked again that her disguise covered anything suspicious, and ducked out of the barracks into the smoggy sunlight beyond.
It was a lovely day in Isengard. It was always a lovely day in Isengard, if by lovely you meant an atmosphere like a chemist's outhouse and the sort of inhabitants that belong in the lower class of zombie movies.
"I hate this place," muttered Eicys.
TUIMA
"I hate this place," Tuima growled into her hands. She was huddled up into an astonishingly tiny ball, her spine wedged into one corner of her cell, her face pinched up tight and harsh. "Oh, Elbereth, I hate this place…"
A distant footfall jerked her upright. She groped frantically in the darkness, and produced a pair of sewing scissors from her pack. The orcs had taken her knives, but apparently the smell of lembas and potent medicinal herbs had prevented them from searching her pack too thoroughly.
Gripping the scissors in one hand and a small glass vial in the other, she positioned herself in front of the cell door, and waited.
A curiously un-orc-like voice reached her ears. "Second staircase, third right. Okay. Got that. Second left, eight cells down from the, um, fifth passage. …Right? No, it was five cells from the… eighth staircase after the… Darn it, why don't they have signposts or something in this freaking maze?"
Tuima blinked. Impossible. But…
"Eicys?"
A dull flare of torchlight appeared at the end of the corridor.
"Eicys!" Tuima called.
"Holy crap. Tuima? Is that you?"
"Eicys, what are you – " Tuima trailed off, and instead of finishing with "—doing here?" the way she had intended, blurted out: "—dressed as?"
"An orc!" said the human girl, flashing an incongruous white grin from under her helmet. "Pretty good idea, huh?"
"You don't look anything like an orc," Tuima pointed out. "Nor do you sound like one, smell like one, walk like one, or otherwise give any impression that you could possibly be one."
"Wow," said Eicys. "Pathetically enough, I think that's the nicest thing I've ever heard you say."
"This is not a game," Tuima snarled. "We thought you were dead. If humans could Fade, your sister would be halfway to Valinor by now. And now it turns out that you've simply been playing dress-up."
"Tuima," said Eicys, with a fair amount of Ungrath in her voice, "today is really not a good day for you to be a jerk to me."
"It is even less of a good day for you to be mucking around with a plan that would only ever work in some kind of ridiculous adventure story," Tuima shot back.
"Oh, so you have a better plan?"
"Naturally," said Tuima.
Eicys resisted the urge to bang a head against the wall – her own or Tuima's: she wasn't picky.
"…Though I will concede that your disguise may facilitate a more feasible method of accomplishing it," Tuima finished grudgingly.
"Tuima? How about you regurgitate that dictionary you swallowed, and get to the point?"
"Do you think your disguise is sufficient to get you upstairs?"
Eicys shrugged. "If I can sleep in the orc barracks and land a job as a dungeon guard, I figure walking to the top of Orthanc shouldn't be a problem."
For the briefest flicker of an instant, Tuima wore an expression that looked almost impressed. It disappeared immediately, of course.
"All right, then. You have to find Eredolyn."
"Okay," said Eicys. "Why?"
"We don't need a plan," said Tuima. "What we need is a guarantee that none of us will tell Saruman something he ought never to hear."
"Er. Don't we need a plan for that?"
"No," said Tuima. "We just need this." She held up the little glass vial.
"I don't follow," said Eicys. "What's in the bottle?"
"Hemlock," said Tuima.
"Oh," said Eicys. "Um. For what?"
"For whom, I think you mean."
"Tuima? This is so the wrong time to be correcting my grammar."
Tuima did not look as though she agreed, but she carried on regardless. "It's for Eredolyn," she said.
Eicys took a step backwards. "Hold it a second. You want me to give Eredolyn a bottle of poison? Why?"
"I should think it obvious."
"Pretend I'm not a cynical morbid pessimist for a minute, okay?"
"There is no resisting Saruman's voice," said Tuima. "At least, not for long. And certainly not when one's mental state is as… fragile… as Eredolyn's.
Eicys' jaw dropped. "You want me to kill her?!"
Tuima actually rolled her eyes at that. "Don't be ridiculous," she said. "--Insofar as that is possible for you, anyway. Of course I don't want you to kill Eredolyn.
"I want Eredolyn to kill Saruman."