My sister,
Forgive me my shaking hand and lack of eloquence. I am crossing the Bay of Belfalas on board the Black Swan, Sir Imrakhor's ship. It is storming outside. There is green flame running down our black masts and rigging. The Draugrim call it Osse's Wrath. Last we made this journey, we sailed to Caldur, and many a soul regrets the winds that bore us thither. This time we shall go beyond that damnation.
I believe you are alive, and I will search for you unrelenting. But if it should be that my attempts are stopped, I leave this letter in the care of the Draugrim. They will speak to Father and Mother of what may happen. I must confess that I am afraid - of failure, of savage Umbar, of knowing that you might be forever lost, Farielle, and this venture fruitless - so afraid that I would jump into the Sea and swim back home, if I could. But I cling, as no one else has clung, to the hope that you may still be found.
By the grace of the One, none but you shall recognize me as a son of Gondor, for the Draugrim have taught me how to dress and proceed as a Southron, and my skin was dyed dark. Nor shall my tongue give me away, for until I find you I will be mute. I will say only this:
We are going home, Farielle.
...
Even the faintest light now seemed bright, stabbing at her eyes. People talked to her but weren't there. Voices came from nowhere. Things she touched vanished or changed beneath her fingers. Even her food - bread crawled in her mouth, water tasted of ashes, of dirt, of blood. Farielle had no idea what was real any longer, or what was not. Nor was there any way to tell. She felt like people were watching her all the time, but she couldn't see them.
She grew thinner. Men came and went. Sometimes, she thought she was sitting on a chair. Arthadin was there, and then he was not. Home. She fixed that thought in her mind. Home. He had said he would take her home.
Lord Alphros' veiled face loomed above her, someone moved her hand, stabbed and he was gone. The first time she did it of her own accord, she wept.
One night - day? She didn't know. - she felt a little more lucid. As if her thoughts were more her own. "They must be putting drugs in my food," she thought. A long while, a few moments, an eternity later: don't eat.
When next the men came, black shadows hulking in the darkness of the room, and held the bread out to her, Farielle shook her head and pinched her mouth shut. No. She was vaguely surprised when they did nothing, only looked at each other and shrugged.
"Won't eat? /He'll/ have something to say about that..." said one, with soft menace.
But the success of her small defiance heartened her, and she ignored him. If she stopped eating, she would know what was real again. And then she would go home.
...
High above Umbar, the sun has begun its slow descent from the noon vigil, but there are yet seedy corners that evade its gaze. Carefully out of the eye of the bustling markets and streets of the city is an alley like many others, pressed between two ramshackle buildings, neither of which appears able to stand without the other. It is here that rats pass among the rubble without much fear of notice.
A rat of far larger make forms a hulking shadow beneath the broken eaves, his stoney brow furrowed darkly beneath a black headwrap as his boots scuff the dirt in apparent impatience.
Another thug, shorter and wiry, saunters along the alley as if he has nothing to hide, no one to fear... a blink and he isn't there, squirreling into the shadows beside his comrade. "Hey," he says in a low voice. "How's... " He looks around, but sees no one. "... the whiteskin?"
Frozen, silent, not even daring to look at the two men, a small ragged boy presses himself into a hole, partly covered by a fallen board from the burnt-out building. He is hidden, as long as no one takes a step over and looks directly down at him.
"Alive and well," his larger counterpart murmurs darkly in a way that suggests a certain frustration with the fact, perhaps. "Fajzed was supposed to bring by more supplies last night, but the weasel didn't show."
Quieter still, though as gravelly as the dirt beneath boots bigger than the head of the boy who watches unknown to the men. "You got anything with you, or am I going to have to go out again?"
"Ain't right," complains the smaller man. "Nice little prize like that an' th'boss won't let us touch 'er." He kicks moodily at the rubble, sending a stone bouncing into the boy's hiding hole. "Yeah.. here." He pulls out a small packet; hot by the odor - meat wrapped in a pastry.
"She oughta be dead," the first spits with no uncertain degree of disgust, the parcel's paper wrapping protesting as he takes it in an angry fist. "Don't see why we're risking our necks for this. Girl oughta die," he repeats, shifting his back against the wall with the rasp of studded leather on stone.
After a moody pause, the stone-shouldered man continues in a more casual, but no less angered timbre. "This all you brought? Fajzed promised ale, too. The weasel."
Smaller Thug shrugs. "Take it up with Him," he says. "I ain't gonna. I just don' think it's right, him not even letting us have a little fun. D'you think she's white like that all over?" A pause. "Get yer own ale. I drunk mine." He glances up at the sun. "Reckon we oughter be going?"
The large man cackles in spite of his seriousness. "Maybe," is his only musing on the subject, however, before duty returns to mind. "Yeah, let's go," he answers. "I'll go this way." A broad-palmed hammer of a hand roughly indicates the direction that leads off into a brighter alley way just past the boy's vantage.
"Right. I'm off." The wiry man drops a wrapper and steps out of the shadows, going the opposite direction as indicated by the other.
The first guard pushes off from the wall after a moment, then crunching through the rubble as he passes the boy's vantage, not a moment's hesitation to suggest any awareness of his audience.
Not until both men have left, and been gone for a good 10 minutes, does the boy wriggle out of his hidey-hole. He picks up the wrapper, licking it to get any crumbs or meat-juice, then folds it carefully into a pocket. Then he takes off up the road, running for the docks.
...
Citizens of Umbar:
Farside strongly condemns the recent actions taken by this so-called 'Vain' against her ally, Seaward Tower. His attack on a Tower and subsequent murder of its loyal citizens is intolerable even in itself, but to abduct a valuable guest of Seaward goes beyond the pale. This theft insults the customs of Umbarean commerce and ownership which are the foundations of our Great Trade City.
In addition, this particular guest, Lady Farielle of Gondor, is of interest to House anAzulada. Her kidnapping, and especially her ill-treatment, is a personal insult to the House's most prominent scions, Lord Alphros and Lady Azradi.
Farside has pledged a number of her soldiers to assist Lady Eruphel's search for the missing woman. Farside is also offering a reward of gold for any information leading to Vain or his band of men, impudently named 'The Blood'. Whether it involves the abduction or not, all information should be presented to Corsair Captain YILDIRIM of Farside Tower.
-Azradi anAzulada, Lady Farside.
...
Things still moved in the dark, still hissed and whispered at her, but not so many. Farielle felt pleased. It would work. Soon, she would see only what was there. She wondered where Arthadin was. He had said she would go home. She pictured the ship, the waves splashing against its prow in the sunlight. The green curve of the hill above her home. Her mother and father running out to greet her. She would count the kittens, and ride Barahun's latest son - but Barahun was dead, wasn't he? That had been a long time ago, when she was small.
The door opened, and she started, her eyes flying to the faint light. Four men came in, in silence. One carried a shuttered lantern that he set on the table. The few glimmers of light that showed through the cracks brightened the room and Farielle saw the man who stood in the middle, his arms crossed, staring at her. He wore a white mask with red markings on it, like blood. Her breath came faster, her eyes fixed on the mask.
The guard sounded obsequious as he gave a kind of half-bow to his leader. "She won't eat," he said. "We ain't done nothin'. Just come, like you said."
The masked man nodded, watching Farielle. His eyes glittered in the mask holes. Abruptly, he turned his head towards one of the other men. "Strip her."
The words didn't sink in until Farielle was dragged off the bed, and felt a rough hand at the neck of her dress. Then she blanched. No! Not...! She looked around frantically, seeing only the vicious, hungry grins of the men around. Already, her shoulders were bare. She struggled, trying to reach up to stop him, but another man forced her hands down.
"Please!" she blurted out, looking back at Vain. "Please don't... please. I - I'll eat."
Vain said nothing. "Please," she begged again. She could feel the air, cold against her skin. Odd it should be cold, she had always been so hot here.
"Guess she is white all over," someone said coarsely, fiddling with the lantern so that a beam of light shot out. Someone else laughed. Farielle shut her eyes, shaking and feeling tears force themselves out from under her eyelids.
"Enough." It was Vain's voice, unnatural, inhuman. The men holding her stopped, waiting. "If you refuse to obey me again," Vain went on, "I won't stop them. Do you understand me?"
Hopelessly, Farielle nodded.
He must have made some signal, for her arms were dropped and she heard them leaving. Heard the door shut. Against her eyelids, it was dark again. Cautiously, she opened her eyes. One man was still there, watching her, grinning. Farielle clutched her dress to herself and scuttled back to the bed, where she huddled in the corner, wrapping the blanket about her. Her fingers were shaking so she could barely do the buttons up again.
When the guard brought her bread, she shrank away from him, but took it. Still trembling, she forced herself to swallow, then buried her head in her arms and wept.