CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Taras' Bad Move

TARAS

Iron-shod feet pounded across the barren earth. Poisonous smokes curled from gaping, red-lit pits and wreathed the tower of Orthanc in a noxious black cloud. The forges' dull metallic rhythm heralded Saruman's preparations for war.

As Eicys put it, staggering out of the barracks cold, stiff, sore, and sticky with paint from her new disguise: "Another beautiful day in Isengard."

Taras slept through it soundly: there was no day or night in Saruman's dungeons. He slept with an arm curled around his head to keep the rats from his face, and dreamed about blue seas, bright sun, white stone – and, inevitably, about Maenadan.

So he didn't mind a bit when he woke up, though the darkness was always disorienting after the vivid colors of his dreams. Taras pushed away the image of Maenadan's smiling, blood-spattered face and concentrated on what had woken him.

Footsteps. Far off, but definitely more than one set. Too light for Uruk-hai or those experimental monstrosities – ungrathik? -- that Taras had heard the guards discussing. He sat up and moved as close to his bars as the chain would allow, careful not to let it clink: Dilly was sleeping.

Taras' mouth curled up a little in an unfamiliar expression – a smile. There had never been a reason for him to keep silent before now, any more than there had been a reason for speech. He spoke aloud sometimes, just to break the silence, but he'd always had the unnerving sensation that the darkness was… well, listening; greedily swallowing any mark of life.

It didn't work that way on Dilly. She wasn't like Taras, who bled emotions, ideas -- presence – into his surroundings the way a bonfire bleeds light. She was the most self-contained person he'd ever met.

Which was yet another reason not to trust her. He'd always been good at reading people: it was a gift from his Numenorean heritage. There had only ever been two people who had given him trouble. Dilly was one.

The other one was the reason Taras was stuck in this pit.

The problem was, even if he didn't trust her an inch, Taras liked Dilly. She was clever, forthright, stubbborn, and extremely difficult to impress. For Taras, this was a definite novelty. It was also a challenge, and Taras hadn't had one of those in far too long. The smile curved a little higher.

You liked me, too, said Maenadan.

Shut up, Taras thought viciously. He strained to see through his bars, but the angle was awkward and the raw wounds on his wrist protested the manacle's pull. He fell back and waited as torchlight and voices approached his cell.

"There's two in this hallway," one orc told another as they tromped along. Taras could see a little better as they approached: the orc carrying the torch was squat, short, and stumpy, with a broad, flat nose that covered half of his face. The orc scurrying in his wake was smaller, almost lost beneath a heavy helmet.

"The girl gets the usual," said the first orc, "but this un" – he pointed at Taras' cell – "this un's special. 'e's a tark. A tark prince, 'smatter o' fact. 'e's also crazy as a cave troll in the sunshine an' about five times as dangerous. Yew go too close ter those bars an' 'e'll reach out an' kill yew wiv 'is bare hands. 'e's done it afore."

"How do I feed him then?" asked the little orc nervously. It had an odd voice for an orc: smooth and high as a girl's, though it was obviously trying for something harsher.

Stumpy-orc pointed to a long-handled pitchfork contraption leaning against one wall. "Yew put 'is plate on the floor an' push it over wiv this, see, an' then yew flip up the liddle door like this an' shove it in. Got it?"

Skinny-orc nodded. "Oh," said Stumpy, "an' the tark gets extra food, an' a chunk o' bread. We're not allowed ter let 'im die. Sharkey wants 'im fer sommat."

Taras' fist tightened convulsively, and his chains clinked. Skinny jumped a little, but not nearly so much as Stumpy, who had gone the pasty greyish color of congealed gravy. "C'mon, c'mon, what're yew waitin' fer?" he muttered, already halfway down the hall. "Let's go – we still got half this section ter do."

"Right," said Skinny, who kept looking back over its shoulder -- not at Taras' cell, but at Dilly's. Suspicion ground a little deeper into Taras' soul.

There was a slight cough from across the hall once the orcs were finally out of earshot. "Taras?" Dilly asked carefully. He didn't answer. He wondered how much of the orcs' conversation she'd been awake for.

"What were they talking about?" asked Dilly.

Taras grunted noncommittally. At last he said, sounding very nearly casual, "I killed a lot of orcs when they were putting me in here."

"I didn't mean that," said Dilly. "Why does Saruman …?"

"Maybe you recall a conversation about blackmail?" asked Taras. He winced a little at the bitterness in his own voice.

Somewhat to his surprise, Dilly didn't appear fazed by it. "You never told me you were a prince," she said.

"It's not important," said Taras.

Dilly gave a little growl of annoyance but didn't say anything. After a long while, Taras said, miserably, "I didn't know they were giving me more food than the others. I didn't know anyone could survive on less than what I get."

"Knowing this place," said Dilly, "they probably can't."

Taras put a hand over his eyes. He heard Dilly sigh, and a moment later she changed the subject. "I thought the Prince of Dol Amroth was named Im – Inor…"

"Imrahil," said Taras. "He's my father. So I'm not technically a prince – I'm not even the eldest."

"You have brothers?"

"Two. And a little sister."

"Lothiriel?"

Taras was silent a moment, a flood of memories washing across his vision. He leaned the back of his head against the hatefully familiar wall, and stared into the darkness. "Yes."

The silence that followed was clearly a waiting one, but Taras didn't feel like elaborating. After a while Dilly sighed again, and changed the subject.

DILLY

one hour later

Taras broke off mid-syllable, halfway through a story that had sounded like something straight out of Pirates of the Carribbean – if all the pirates had been despicable scum instead of likeable scum, and the hero of the movie had been dedicated (very dedicated) to wiping them off the face of the waters. Taras obviously had a low opinion of pirates. It was almost as low as his opinion of orcs – that is, an all-consuming, implacable hatred, manifested via swordpoint.

"What's wrong?" asked Dilly.

"That little orc is coming back," said Taras. "Time for dinner." She could hear the grin coloring his words as he added, "It seemed awfully nervous, don't you think?"

"What are you planning, Taras?"

"Sshhh."

A flicker of torchlight appeared at the end of the hall and drew slowly closer. Dilly could see a short dark outline, rather smaller than most of the orcs she'd seen so far, and decidedly more jumpy. When Taras spoke, the creature leapt about three feet in the air. Dilly couldn't laugh too hard, though: she'd jumped as well. Taras' voice had gone from its usual pleasant tenor to something made of ice and steel. It was the kind of voice someone would use while holding a blade to the throat of their worst enemy. It said: I would very much like to kill you.

It said: I am restraining myself with difficulty in the slim hope that you may prove useful.

It said: Now, you are going to be useful, aren't you…

But what it actually said was: "I want double rations today."

The goblin gulped audibly. "Wha—oh – but – Um. ...okay."

A pause. "It used your word, Dilly," said Taras, coldly.

"What?"

"That word. 'Okay'. I'd never heard it before until I met you, and now --"

"Hang on a sec," said the goblin. "Dilly? I thought it was Cebu down this hall!"

Dilly squinted. "Holy Hannah. Eicys? Is that you?"

The torch flared and wavered as the goblin threw its arms in the air. "Dilly!"

"You know each other?" asked Taras, suspicion streaking his voice like rust stains on armor.

Dilly didn't bother answering such a stupid question. "Eicys!" she exclaimed instead. "We thought you were dead!"

"You're friends with an orc?" The rust stains were spreading, eating holes in the metal.

"I ought to be," said Eicys. "I ought be dead about twenty times over. This place is insane."

"I think I'm going insane," said Taras. No one paid him any attention.

"No kidding," said Dilly. "I'm half convinced those Sonic burgers were doped, and this whole world is some kind of druggie result of too much fanfic. It would be weird enough being in a canonical Middle-earth, but to be stuck in some sort of unfinished AU…"

"It appears I am insane," said Taras conversationally. "I only understood half of that. -- Oh, and I'm mute, too, apparently," he added as the girls talked over him.

"Seriously!" Eicys said. "I've got bruises from pinching myself! … I've got bruises from everything."

"How did you escape?"

"Hello?" said Taras. "What's going on here?"

"The tree… when they chased me… The tree freakin' ate the orc I killed! It was horrible!"

"You killed an orc?" asked Dilly.

"Sheer dumb luck, really. I… It was… We don't belong here, Dilly."

"That's sort of how I'm feeling about this conversation," said Taras.

"Well, how do you propose we get home? You don't just stroll out of Isengard!"

Taras lost his patience. "Excuse me," he said.

It was a funny thing about Taras. He was just a normal guy – bitter and suspicious and lonely, true, but still pretty normal… right up until, well, until he wasn't. He pulled out a certain aura and wrapped it around his shoulders and the whole universe bent itself to the sheer force of his personality.

The girls' conversation shattered and rained to the floor in useless shards. Both of them stared in the direction of his voice – Eicys in terror, Dilly with grudging admiration in her eyes. "Yes, Taras?" she asked coolly. Not technically a prince, my foot, she thought. Taras was Royalty written in caps, italics, and size seventy-two font.

"Would you care to introduce me to your orcish friend?" he asked, even more coolly.

"I resent that," said Eicys – a little shakily. Taras was a lot to take in when he had his Personality on.

"She's not an orc," said Dilly.

"Really," said Taras.

Eicys sighed. "Apparently Ungrath was wrong about the 'anyone with half a brain can see through that disguise' thing."

"Ungrath?" Taras asked narrowly.

"My orcish friend," said Eicys.

"All right," said Taras. "What in the Void is going on here?"

Dilly and Eicys exchanged glances. "Um," said Eicys. "Do you want the truth or the version that sounds sort of sane?"

"You'd better tell him the truth," Dilly murmured. "He gets really annoyed when you don't."

Eicys scooted a little further from Taras' cell. "Right," she said. "Well, I guess it all began with Coralie not finishing her fanfiction…"

That conversation took a long time: explaining to Taras that his entire world was the product of someone's imagination did not go over easily.

To be honest, it didn't go anywhere, at all. And it didn't go there in a thoroughly awkward fashion.

The conversation flowed a little better once they'd turned to plotting their escape. Taras was enthusiastically in favor of poisoning Saruman, though there were hints that he thought hemlock was too kind a death.

"But it wouldn't work anyway, would it?" asked Dilly. "I mean, it would throw off the story in a major way if we killed him before Helm's Deep. – We are here before Helm's Deep, right?"

"Considering Isengard hasn't been flooded by a bunch of angry Ents," said Eicys, "Yes."

Dilly grinned her approval of the snark before continuing: "Not that I don't think it would be better to bump him off before he can unleash an army of uruk-hai, but I'm just not sure it would work. It's like in Night Watch – that Terry Pratchett book, where no matter what the guy does, history still ends up happening the same way."

"What do you suggest, then?" asked Taras, striving to keep the conversation sane.

"Well, obviously we've got to get him out of the way. I suppose we could try the poison – even if it doesn't kill him, it ought to cause him enough trouble that we could escape in the meantime."

"One problem," said Eicys. "—Well, actually, about a billion, but one really big pertinent problem."

"What's that?"

"Eredolyn. She's the only one who would have a chance at slipping Saruman anything, and she's practically eating out of his hand at this point."

Taras groaned. "His voice?" he asked.

"And his library," said Dilly, grimacing. "Is it that bad, Eicys?"

"Worse," said Eicys glumly. "She barely remembered me. Half of what I said just seemed to bounce off her. The only time I thought I was getting through was when…" She paused. "Hey. Dilly. Maybe you could write her a letter or something? I bet she'd listen to you."

"Write on what?" asked Dilly. "And with what?

"Blood," said Taras, in an isn't-it-obvious? voice. "And any fabric you can spare from– "

"I'll find a pen and paper!" said Eicys. Apparently orcs and Rohirric girls weren't the only brutally practical people in this world. Finger broken? Set it back yourself. Food looks like someone else already ate it? Eat it or go hungry. Need ink? Open a vein.

"All of this is beside the point," said Taras. "It won't matter if Saruman's out of the way or not, if we don't even have a way out of our cells."

Which they did, actually, Taras thought guiltily. Or at least, one of them did.

TARAS

No one in Isengard was certain of how Taras had gotten loose a year ago; all they knew was that they did not want it to happen again. But despite there being nothing visibly wrong with his old cell, the orcs hadn't been stupid enough to put him back into it. He had a new cell now, and chains, and an extra lock.

His old cell, in which he had spent two years working the bars free of their sockets, now lay directly across the hall. He had screwed the bars firmly back into place after worming free: they certainly seemed solid enough. He had, after all, heard Dilly rattling them on numerous occasions.

But all it would take was a few good twists.

Taras hesitated. Of course he should tell her. He liked Dilly. And no one deserved Saruman's dungeon.

A lazy, blood-spattered smile presented itself for his consideration.

…All right, he amended, maybe one person. But that was beside the point. Whether he liked Dilly or not, he simply couldn't trust her. The moment Saruman found out about Taras' old bars, the guards would be swarming all over the new door to make sure Taras wasn't trying the same trick a second time.

Which he was.

More than a year of work had gone into those bars already; and that wasn't something Taras would willingly bet on a girl he barely knew. Especially since each additional day -- each hour and minute -- that he had to spend in this place was like a sawblade rubbing on his soul and sanity.

I can't stay here, he thought fiercely. I won't.

He realized, suddenly, that the girls' conversation was nearly over. Eicys, they had agreed, would keep exploring the dungeon and looking for keys, supplies, and weapons. Dilly would compose her letter.

Taras would continue to be useless, exactly as he had been for the last three years.

Tell her!

But a sudden image flashed into his mind: Dilly, wandering Isengard – alone, unarmed, inexperienced, with a wizard and an army of orcs ranged against her.

And himself, Taras, alone once more in the black, strangling silence, never knowing what had happened to her…

He settled on a decision as the light from Eicys' torch dwindled into the distance.

Later, he told himself. I'll tell her later, once I'm sure she's trustworthy.

Which meant more waiting. Taras twisted the manacle on his wrist, and went back to pacing.